In my continuing series of honest questions to Christians, I give you question number 5.
Can God truly destroy something?
Let me preface this question with some logic. If God, the creator of all things who exists outside of time and space is capable of creating all things. Can God also destroy all things to the point where even he could not bring them back?
This question sort of popped in my head when I started thinking about nonexistence. Is there such a thing as nonexistence or void of all existence?
After all, for God to “create” he must put things together. But he must create substance in the beginning from which he can create those things. Before that substance is created does it exist? Is it nonexistent? If something can be pulled from nonexistence, can’t all things be pulled from nonexistence? If so are they truly nonexistence if they exist within nonexistence from whence they were pulled?
If God can bring it back it’s not really destroyed.
It seems to me that for God to truly destroy something, it would need to be completely absent of God. Something God is not even aware of.
Now the idea, can God to something that God can not undo? The first answer is no, if we really know that God is an all powerful being, Then an all powerful being can only limit himself. And since that is a choice, the all powerful being is not limited at all.
Now how do I know all the limits of God, and all of his nature? I don’t
What is in nonexistence (or been put there)? What would G-D pull out of nonexistence? I want to better understand the question.
“If God can bring it back it’s not truly destroyed.” If that’s your criteria, then no, God cannot destroy something to that extent, because He is always able to undo what He has done.
@TheGreatBout – If God creates something from nothing that nothing is nonexistence. If it did not exist before then it came from nonexistence. The only real logical explanation is that everything always exists, it simply changes form.
@roxics – G-D created the universe ex nihilo (out of nothing). In the Christian/Jewish tradition that means what it says. There was nothing and then G-D spoke and there was light and dark and from there the story continues. We don’t understand what it means to create something out of nothing because we have been unable to do so. But this is the creation story/myth of Christianity/Judaism. It’s similar to saying some different molecules showed up and there was an unexplainable boom that formed everything. It could even be the same thing (but that’s another talk). The universe is also made up of processes, so a lot of things do change form, but there was a point of origin for our universe and we explain that through the Genesis account. Some take it more literally than others.
As far as destruction goes, it’s hard to answer paradoxes. People ask if G-D could create a boulder so heavy he couldn’t lift it but the real answer to the question is “what’s the point of that?” In our attempts to understand G-D we often ask questions like this that test the validity of G-D’s power and nature but they always fall short because we have a view of a small G-D who can be cleverly exposed. I’m not saying you’re trying to cleverly expose G-D because I know you are sincere in your searching but this is what we end up doing. These sorts of questions send us in good directions but ultimately we won’t find a “yes” or “no” to this type of question. We’ll find a story.
Scriptures say that there will come a time when Hades and death itself shall be thrown into “the fire” and destroyed forever. It’s called “the second death.” So at some point G-D will destroy death and Hades. He has ended lives on Earth a few times. He even brought a flood to the earth. But I’m not sure there are any examples of him doing what you ask about. I could be wrong but outside of creation, nothing seems to come from nothing, especially after it has been destroyed. Nothing is said to come back from nothing after destruction at a later point in time either.
Did that help or did I miss the point?
true… hmm
these types of questions are always fun to think about