The world needs scientific proof in order to believe in anything. As such, to consider if God is alive or not, especially for those atheists or agnostics in the crowd, we need to look at what science identifies as being “alive”.
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For the purposes of this discussion, let’s work with what Google Ai describes as being alive:
“In science, being alive isn’t defined by one single trait but by a collection of characteristics, including being cellular, organized, metabolizing energy, maintaining homeostasis (stable internal state), growing, responding to stimuli, reproducing, and evolving over time, essentially a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution. While non-living things might show one or two of these, only living organisms display all of them as an integrated system. “
First off, let’s ignore the non-biblical element that Google states as part of being alive, specifically the reference to “Darwinian evolution”, and just redefine that as being able to evolve.
For the world to believe something is alive, it must meet all the above requirements. So, nu? Does God meet those requirements for life?
God never changes so he certainly meets the requirement for maintaining homeostasis, and he also is very organized (I mean, he created everything to work in harmony: that represents an A-level of organization), and he definitely responds to stimuli, such as prayers and sin.
But he isn’t growing; in fact, he can’t grow because he is omnipresent, and as such is already everywhere at once, so growth is impossible because he is already as large as everything that exists.
He is not cellular because he is spirit, and as such also does not qualify under the idea that he metabolizes energy because he IS energy!
And he is the one and only God; as such, he does not reproduce because… he is the one and only (sound familiar), and since he never changes, he cannot evolve.
So, there you have it- according to science, God is not alive.
Back in the 1960’s, there was actually a Christian movement stating that God is dead (yes, this was radical but still and all, Christian), proposing that traditional belief in a transcendent God was obsolete in a secular world, urging Christians to find meaning through human action and secular life. This was inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s phrase “God is dead,” and championed by theologians like Thomas J. J. Altizer and William Hamilton.
But if God is dead, then he must of, at one point, been alive and being God, since we know that God is omnipotent, he can’t die. So to be dead, he had to be alive, and if God was alive, being God, he couldn’t die.
So what is it: is he alive or is he dead, or was he ever really anything?
The answer to all this is simple: God is not alive or dead because he is not flesh, he is an eternal spirit.
One of the conditions for life was metabolizing energy, but God is energy. His existence is beyond the confines of physics or science, which are the only way mortal beings (that’s you and me) can understand their surroundings.
God is not alive or dead, he just IS!
In Exodus 3:14, God tells Moses exactly what I just said when he describes himself:
“God said to Moshe, “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” (I am what I am) and added, “Here is what to say to the people of Isra’el: ‘Ehyeh [I Am] has sent me to you…’
God is not alive and he is not dead: as he states, he IS.
In Hebrew we say: הָיָה (hayah), הוֹוֶה (hoveh) ויִהְיֶה (v’yihyeh) (he is, he was, and he always will be).
This is why it is so difficult for human beings to understand him, or to believe in him because he does not fit into anything we can understand. That is also why we continually try to reduce him to something we can understand, reducing his omnipotence, his authority, and even interpreting from the Bible what we want him to be saying, instead of taking what he says for what it is.
That is why there are so many different religions all professing to worship the one, unchanging God- we have continually tried to pigeon-hole him into what we want him to be instead of accepting him for who and what he is- beyond human understanding and above our rules for existence.
Only those who faithfully accept that we cannot understand God will be able to believe in his existence, and thereby find joy in obedience to his Torah.
Now, that doesn’t mean people who are zealous for their own religion can’t ever find joy, but what they think is joy in obedience to God is really a joy in obedience to their religion (which more often than not is in opposition to God). They are misled by their devotion to a religion instead of devotion to God because they don’t really know what God says to do (in the Torah), and as such their ignorantly joyful rejection of God will turn to sorrow when they meet him at Judgement Day.
And that is truly sad, and a disaster for everyone who thinks they are saved, but can’t really be saved because they follow a religion and not God.
But that is for another discussion.
So, if anyone asks if God exists, you can say he does but not on the same plane of existence we humans are on. He can interact with us, and we can interact with him, but only at his discretion.
God is not alive or dead, he just IS. That is hard to wrap our mortal heads around, that is what it is: accept that fact and you will be on the right track.
Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and “like’ these messages. Also, please share them with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.
That’s it for today, so L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!