Psychologists think about more subjects than why Johnny is moon dancing across the floor with his ADHD, cousin Jessie is depressed, or if there is an alternative to taking medications. Thus, during a conversation among psychotherapists, the subject of the beginning of all things came up, and I had asked, "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

One of my friends answered: Maybe the problem is the concept of nothing. Nothing is a concept made up by the human mind (an acculturated human mind I would propose) and quantum theory is conceived by that same human mind. But quantum describes particles that come into and out of existence (!) suggesting that there is no such thing as nothing. And so it is not that I don't know, it is that I cannot know. It is impossible to 'know'.

Someone else in the discussion said that because of quantum physics, the concept of a beginning didn't even make sense.

I said: "There's a big bang, the universe starts, and that is not a beginning?"

In my puzzlement, I asked God for clarification and decided to see if the Bible had any insight into the matter.

The first thing said in the Bible is: "In the beginning..." The concept is of being IN the beginning, and it smacks to me of a beginning going on, of a time period in which. Then, I went to the first three verses in John's gospel that read: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being."

In Greek grammar the timing in the sense of a verb is really of secondary importance; they were more interested in the nature of the experience in the kind of action or the state of being in question.

So, they could say something simply happened in a very common, the most common and matter of fact way, with no particular importance attached to it. Something just happened.

They would use the aorist tense for that. If they wanted to say that something was currently happening, they would use the present. If they wanted to say that something was going on, a continuity of action in the past, they would use the imperfect tense. If they wanted to say that something simply happened in the past but with ongoing effects and implications, they would use the perfect tense, and if they wanted to say that something had been going on in the past, but its effects were lingering in the present, they would use the pluperfect tense. Also, the prepositions are important; in those verses there are two that fascinate me: 'in' and 'with'. Prepositions indicate the relative position of the action or state; gestalt therapists might say the position in the field. The preposition en (in) means, in the particular case in which it appears here, 'while'; it introduces a temporal clause. The preposition pros (with) means in this context 'to, towards', 'beside', or 'with'.

Going back then, what those verses say is "the Word was existing during the beginning, and the Word was existing with (as in oriented toward) God and the Word was being God. In the beginning this one was existing with God. All things were coming into being through him, and apart from him not one thing was coming into being that came into existence and currently exists."

Now, the passage is making points about who Jesus is, but the relevance here for me is that IN the big bang there was already creative BEING going on. What we call that being, and what we posit about its implications for us is the stuff we argue about.

I maintain that Being is sensate and relational intelligence, while others seem to posit impersonal and random forces.

In the state before time, before everything like waves and particles that we associate with the universe, the Being of God was existing in a relationship. To exist, to be, in fact to have the capacity for un-derived, self-existence, which is called aseity, is of the essence of God, and that's why God answered Moses' question about who it was that spoke to him from the burning bush by saying: "I am that I am." Moses had encountered pure, indescribable Being.

Relationship is also of the essence of God, and that's why God said: "Let us make mankind in our image…male and female He made them." We are made for relationship, because we are made in many ways to reflect the nature of God. We are related to other people in various ways, but we are also related to the world in which we live. We are relational beings.

These are some of the things I think about when I meet with people who have somehow gotten off track with regard to who they are – their existential priorities – and how they relate to others. Most psychologists deal with these kinds of issues, but I don't think most of us consider them as the beginning of all things. I think most psychological troubles can be summarised, however, under these two categories: (1) who am I, what is the meaning of my life, am I a good/capable person, will I continue to exist/live a meaningful life? (2) do people find me attractive or desirable, do I belong to/with someone else, why or how do I keep losing my relationships, and will I ultimately be alone?

In the beginning, at the very base of life, these are the things that matter to us.