Before Time Began

Most of us who believe in God believe that He is the Creator of all things and that he is the one thing that has existed forever, that there is no “Day 1” for God, that no one created God.  This begs the question “What was it like before He created all things?”  Was it just God and nothing else? 

One answer to this question is to say that time was created right along with the heavens and the earth.  If that is true, then words like “forever” and “before” are nonsensical words when trying to contemplate what was here before the beginning.  There is no answer in Scripture, as far as I know.  Chapter 1 of Genesis only says “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland and darkness covered the abyss, while wind swept over the waters.”  And it goes on from there, with God creating light on the first “day,” the sky on the second day, vegetation on the third day, the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day, etc., etc.  Obviously God existed before the beginning, but otherwise, no word about what it was like “before the beginning.”  No word about the creation of time.  It seems to me that it is one of those inexplicable mysteries that only God can answer, like the Blessed Trinity or Transubstantiation (the changing of bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood while retaining the appearances of bread and wine). 

But that doesn’t stop philosophers and scientists, both atheists and believers, from speculating.   And we also have the so-called “Big Bang” theory, in which everything we see, everything that exists, began with the massive explosion.   But what was here before the explosion?  Much of modern speculation seems to be about that, as well as about parallel universes and other seemingly nonsensical things.

Well, allow me to add my two-cents worth of speculation.  The Big Bang was not the beginning of everything, but only the beginning of the observable universe.  With this comes the idea that there is much more out there.  Perhaps the cosmos is infinite.  But I’m not the first to propose that.  Perhaps the cosmos has been here all along, right along with God.  But that contradicts Genesis, does it not?  Light and “the heavens” were created on the first day and the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day.  Okay, back the drawing board.  But Genesis does say that the earth was “a formless wasteland and darkness covered the abyss …").  What exactly is/was the “abyss” anyway?

I love to contemplate these things.  I’m not smart enough to be a philosopher in this modern day and age, but I do have an imagination, just like you, and I love to read about all the speculation.  And it is great fun, this imagining and speculating.  You know what?  We’ll all have the answers when time ends.  All we can do between now and then is believe in God and live our lives accordingly.  Amen