Wouldn't this string of logic then infer that God did not exist until Mary gave birth to him? So then the God that Mary gave birth to travels back in time, creates the universe, then inspires Old Testament prophets to write regarding the birth that God knows he will have...
Then he travels to the future so he can see if he returns, and what leads up to it, so he can then tell New Testament apostles what to write regarding the future....
Sorry.... Sounds like a bad scifi story. Chicken/egg question: which came first, God, who created the universe, or the mother of God, who was born roughly 4000 years after the creation of the universe that God created?
Mary gave birth to the physical body of Jesus. Jesus, the word, has always been. The first few verses of the Book of John confirm this.
Wouldn't this string of logic then infer that God did not exist until Mary gave birth to him?
No, not at all, not to us today; but you are experiencing the same thing that faced Christian theologians in the first century.
We have the Most Holy Trinity. The Trinity and Monotheism existing together. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, yet one God.
This question is what the early Christological heresies were all about. How could this be? God incarnate, coming into the finite world, yet still the infinite God?
How can this be? Yet it is. God became incarnate, the Word became flesh, born of a woman. This we know.
Now, how do we Christians deal with this - and the One True God.
We cannot deal with it by denying the reality of the Incarnation. We cannot say it didn't happen, that the Word did not become flesh born of a woman and dwelled among is. He had a mother and her name was Mary. The incarnation really happened. We cannot say it did not and remain Christian.
We must start from here.
This is to revisit the early Church and the heresies of who Christ is. We revisit this again on this thread.
I appreciate your reply and hope you do see the point here and why it is important.