If we were to look for the God of the Bible, and if we could actually meet up with him face to face, what might we expect to find? We might begin with our own five senses: sight, hearing, touch, scent, and taste. Did God simply imagine these senses and make them a part of human life, or does he also possess these senses, and, perhaps, to a much greater degree? I believe the latter is more likely the case, and he may even have other senses, which we couldn’t even imagine what they might be.
Such things simply boggle one’s imagination, and trying to figure out what they might look like is simply beyond our reach. How could anyone imagine what the unknown would be like? So, our God, most likely, possesses at least the five senses most of us possess, and he undoubtedly experiences them to a much greater degree than we do. However, this is just the tip of the mountain that stretches high above us into the heavens.
Consider that the God of the Bible possesses unimaginable super powers, like having unlimited foresight. He already knows the future, and he is able to tell us what will occur before it comes to pass. I’ve already discussed things similar to this in a previous study.[1] However, consider for a moment that God is taking care of the universe via the laws he put in place to govern everything that happens. For example, when the Bible tells us: “…he gives rain on the earth, and sends water on the fields” (Job 5:10), it’s poetry that points to God as the source of the laws that bring the rain. This doesn’t mean God never brings rain in answer to prayer, but even when answering prayer, he almost always uses the natural laws he put in place from the beginning to do that.
Considering prayer, how does that work? How could God hear millions and millions of prayers, distinguishing between each prayer and answer each one, either affirmatively or negatively? What kind of God could be governing the universe, and without skipping a beat, listen to and answer every prayer directed to him? This is the kind of thing that critics, like atheists, point to, and they refer to it as silly, lazy minds at work (or, perhaps, at rest). Humans find it difficult to even listen to two people speaking simultaneously, and, even if that were possible to a degree, it wouldn’t be possible to listen to both people very effectively. In other words, something is lost when one’s attention is divided. So, how does God do it, or does he? Moreover, if God exists outside of time and space, as most believing Biblical scholars claim,[2] how fast must he travel to answer even one prayer, when the observable universe is 93 billion light years in diameter, not to mention answering millions of prayers simultaneously? How can we make sense of this? Is God able to travel 93 billion light years instantly? How could we even describe such speed? Is belief in prayer, simply, a lazy mind at rest?
Think about how the Bible introduces God in Genesis 1:1. If, “in the beginning” (that’s time) God created the heavens (that’s space) and the earth (that’s matter),” we are introduced to God as someone who is not physical. Therefore, physical things cannot affect him, vis-à-vis he is Spirit, and spirit isn’t limited by the existence of the physical. Moreover, God doesn’t require space to exist in, so neither could space, or travel through space, limit him. He is able to be everywhere at the same time, because he doesn’t take up space. Such a thing may be difficult to conceive, but certainly an analysis of Genesis 1:1 shows that the God, who created space, was before space, and therefore does not need it, nor is he limited by its existence. Thus, traveling a distance of 93 billion light years in an instant couldn’t be a problem, because he doesn’t need to “travel” through space to be present with the prayer warrior and give his reply.
To give this idea some perspective, how long does it take for a supercomputer to reply to a request made by the keyboard or the mouse? Is the computer monitoring or responding to all its inputs, while at the same time keeping everything running properly? If man is able to build such a thing as a supercomputer, which is able to do more things than he could do simultaneously, and do those things much quicker and more accurately than he is normally able to do, is it too great a reach to believe that a Being, such as we find in Genesis 1:1, would necessarily be more complex and more powerful and more accurate than any supercomputer we might hope to build?
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[1] See my first study in this series: Who Created God?
[2] For example, where was God, and when was God, when: “In the beginning…” he created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1)?
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