OUR WONDROUS GOD (2)
Having reached an understanding that an eternal sentient being is a necessary requirement for our own conscious existence and that that being has left clues in the nature of human consciousness as to His interest in us and his proximity to us, we are left to ponder on what the minimum capacities of such a being to create the universe in which we live would be.
To try to get to a rough minimum, one would have to start by looking at the capabilities of a regular human being and then extrapolating them to a level where creating the universe is minimally possible.
First, consider the energy factor. A human being's energy output is very limited and is contingent on the materials available around that human being. He can expend energy on a particular project or enterprise. Of course this energy is derived from existing sources of energy made available by mechanisms on which the human is dependent but not responsible for.
If a man were to build a wall, he could lift the bricks one upon another using energy which he could have extracted from his lunch of potatoes. He could have farmed these potatoes himself but in truth, the man has no part in engineering the potato's life and certainly no part in the chemical process of ingesting carbohydrates and converting them to sugar that then gets used in the process of providing energy to cells. It is in this way that a human being is a contingent cog in a process that runs entirely without his guidance and often without his awareness.
To extrapolate the equivalent capacity of the God of this universe, one would have to first understand that His energy cannot be sourced from a source outside of Himself. The energy needed to create a universe (which is stupendously vast) is contained and has been owned by God for the entirety of His eternal existence.
Second, He would have to have the ability to control and channel this energy in any fashion He desired. The ability is the equivalent in a human of deliberate using His energy to place bricks to create a wall design of his choosing. The human being's conscious mind provides him with intentions, purposes, preferences and then the impetuous to move his arms and fingers to cause a desired result in the corporeal world. In God's case, the energy He owns is fully controlled by His faculties of harnessing His energy for His intentions, purposes, preferences and the impetus to act.
God's enterprise of creating the universe represents His expenditure of an amount of this energy. The amount of energy would be the totaling of all the zero point energy in the universe, the energy contained in all the stars in all the galaxies in the universe, all the energy burnt off by all the stars in all the universe and all the other energies that hold the fabric of the material universe together and hold the structure of the universe in place.
Further to that, whatever the number is, one must include the additional energies used for building supporting platforms, fabrications, transfers, storage costs, constraints, formation, routing, calibration and cleanup.
The final number in terms of kilo joules is beyond conceptualization by the human being. With our limited capabilities, we are able to deliberately expend a certain amount of joules to bring a project to completion. As well, humans are able to mitigate our physical and mental limitations by devising tools and machines to amplify our efforts so that we can accelerate and increase the scope of our pursuits. As big as we are able to build, we remain derivative and contingent beings because humans are derived from sources we have no control over. Each human is derived from a pair of preexisting humans and further to that, the material that represents the physical existence of a human is derived from plant and animal life and other materials from the world around them. We are contingent in the sense that our ability to live depends on the continuation of biological functions that are supplied with a unceasing flow of air, water, food and warmth.
Without these, we cease to be able to participate in the experience of life. On the other hand, God is not derivative nor is He contingent. His output is purely from His own resources and His own facilities.
He, compared to us, is colossal. He looks at us in our limited state and loves us. After all, we are made in His "image" which means we look like Him and we are also made in His "likeness" which means we are made to operate like Him. We are similes of God writ very small. To understand the relationship better, one would have to understand that we are desperately dependent on him to live in the barest physical sense.
Our limited state has us in a perpetually dependent state. Ultimately, our dependence is on the provision made by a limitless being who has concerned Himself with us enough to provide what we are derived from and what we are contingent on.
I conclude this segment with this point: Whether we know it or not, our greatest dependency is salvation. We are complete unable to save ourselves from the consequences of our own rebellion against the God who made us. Our own fallen condition has routed us away from the God who is our ultimate source and supply in the universe we dwell in. If this drift away from God were not mitigated, our end would be destruction for each person. We were designed to be dependent on God but we chose to live in the universe apart from Him.
The God who is our ultimate provider, is also the provider of the only means of salvation for us. We can call upon to the name of our God to be saved through the Lord Jesus of Nazareth who suffered a blood soaked death on a cross to pay for our rebellious state of sinfulness.
In the end, a human apart from God would drift in eternal darkness having rebelled and then refused the redemption offered by His creator. Do not refuse the offer.