Are God's acts of will necessarily eternal?

[JDaniel]

Then how can you claim that “there is a coherent understanding of creation that entails that God’s exercise of His causal power is not eternal?”

As it is, let me assure you: if God is truly Pure Act, there is NO coherent understanding of creation that entails that God’s exercise of His causal power is not eternal.
Saying that Pure Act changes is a contradictio in terminis.
William Lane Craig tries to work his way around this, but

1. He is not a Thomist and does not believe God is Pure Act
2. His ‘solution’ does not work even if we assume Thomism is wrong.

That’s rather arrogant. And you can “assure” this? How? By the exquisite supremacy of your intelligence, I suppose?

Perhaps a “coherent” explanation has eluded you (and others). Despite that you will no doubt have your problem with the following, I will print it anyway. This is from The Teachings of the Catholic Church, Vol I, Ch. God the Creator, p. 183, 1962 -

“Secondly, we may remark that creation cannot be a gradual process; there can be no measurement of time, no succession of movements or states in the creation of anything. Between simple not-being and being there can be no middle state of half-being, for this would already be something. Nothingness cannot grow and gradually change into something. And consequently, since it is growth, change, succession, movement that require time and there is none of these in the creative process, creation is, in the strictest sense, instantaneous, or even more exactly, timeless.”

As I have been saying, over and over, creation is a roll-out to us, but since it occurs in God’s Infinite/Eternal Now, it is without time. If you would read what I have been saying - for years herein, you would know this. And I promise you, Danserr concurs.

jd

 

[JDaniel]

Indeed, he remains seated until something changes and he gets up.

Danserr used a metaphor, a “man” in place of “God.” That’s all. Perhaps he should have said, “God,” but he didn’t. Nonetheless, he did not intend to portray a description of God as something that no matter what is not timeless. That’s my opinion. I am sure that he can more adequately than I speak for himself, but I have read almost all of his posts and I believe I have a pretty good idea of his meanings and motivations.

But, wait a minute, something changing? Isn’t God supposed to be unchanging?
Craig, the non-Thomist Craig, that is, claims that ‘sans’ creation, God is timeless, but becomes temporal with creation, and gets up.
But when exactly is ‘creation’?
Let’s suppose God eternally wills the universe, but he needs to push a red button in order for the universe to begin.
Now, pushing the red button is a change, because if He had been eternally pushing the red button, the universe should have been eternal too.
So, God’s willing to push the button and God actually doing it is not the same.
But, if God is timeless, there can be no change in God, so he cannot push the red button. He can only do so if there is time.
But remember: time is a result of pushing the red button. So, pushing the red button is only possible once the red button has been pushed.
Nw, I do not know about you, but to me, this sounds like a huge contradiction.

This does not illustrate the thinking of the Church on this matter. You have written a straw man.

jd

 

[JDaniel]

yes, the exercise of God’s CP’s bring about a change in God, but the probelem is: the exercise of God’s CP’s are also **the result **of a change in God, otherwise, God would have to be exercsising these powers forever.

Yes, “always.” Creation-maintaining. As has been said countless times by other posters, God’s act of creation is a sustaining act. If He did not sustain His creation, everything would instantaneously go out of existence.

Here where you are wrong: God being timeless does prevent the exrecise of His causal powers. if it didn’t, the exrcise of God’s CP’s would be eternal, just becasue it is an exercise (and not an eternal state, e.g.) it requires time.

Here again, you are reverting to your straw-man. God sustains eternally. You are wafting in and out of “time” in order to maintain your straw-man. You are thinking “temporal” and inserting “eternal,” and vice versa.

We have a genuine contradiction here., since we require time to be causally prior (I am not saying temporally prior) to the exercise of His CP’s, time cannot be a result of God’s CP’s.

Creation is not causal. I’ve been saying this over and over herein. “Causation” presumes that some “matter” (or, “principle”) already exists from which something is made, like a sculptor makes a statue out of clay, God makes the universe. That is simply not the case. There is nothing prior to the first Planck moment after time, and mobile being(s) began. Period!

jd

 

[JDaniel]

I amnot claiming we require time for something to be causally prior. I am claiming that we require time existeing causally prior to change. Change requires time and time requires change

Correct: You require time to exist prior to causation. Creation does not.

jd

 

[JDaniel]

Yes, that’s a nice solution: everything is eternally unchanging but we only experience it as changing.
It has already been predestined since eternity what I am going to eat tomorrow, and whether I’ll go to heaven or hell. Bye bye libertarian free will.
With Catholics like this, who needs calvinism?

Again, here, you are projecting time onto eternality. You presuppose with your quip, that God has a past time. But how can that be?

jd

 

[rom422]

What is all this talk about God’s Will and the exercise of His Causal Power, as if there is a distinction between the two? The truth is, that God’s Will and His Causal Power (or the exercise of His Causal Power) are one and the same thing. We are only making distinctions in our mind about something that is really one in reality.

Because God’s will and His causal power are one, therefore God’s will is efficacious. For God to will is to accomplish. And for God to cause something to be, is for God to will it to be. And if God did not will it, then it simply will not be.

Of course, God can also will something conditionally. For example, God can will your salvation, on condition that you freely accept His love. But let us not talk about this here. Let us focus on God’s will to create the material world (which is not a free creature). When God wills to create the world, then He exercises His Causal Power to bring the world into existence. And this Act of His Will occurs in his NOW duration. That means, this creative act is in eternity (or eternal), just as His Being itself is.

God is not like a seated man who intends or wills to stand up, but unless he exercises his causal power to stand, will remain seated. This is a very poor image of God. In God there is no such thing as a state when He merely intends to stand up, and another distinct state when he actually exercises his causal power to stand. This way of thinking assumes that there was a time when God was only intending but not causing, and another time when he actually causes an act, as if God is living in time. The truth is, God’s act of intending and causing are one and the same act, and are one with His very Being - an existence that is not in a time duration, but in the NOW duration (or eternity).

Belorg’s fundamental error lies in his assumption that for an atemporal (or eternal) cause to exercise its causal power, then it has to undergo change. I disagree with that. There is no change required in God when He wills something, or when He causes it to be. Causality does not presuppose that the cause move from potency to act in the act of causing; it merely presupposes that the cause itself be in act. It is the effect, not the cause, that will have to move from potency to act In an earlier post I gave the example of fire. Fire heats cold water and makes it hot because it itself is hot. If fire is hot by nature (as God is Pure Act by nature), then there is no change required in the fire for it to communicate heat. It is the water that changes from cold to hot, but fire itself does not suffer any change. In the same manner, God who is Existence itself, does not need to undergo change to bring anything into existence. Change only happens to creatures when they begin to exist. God remains as the unchanged and unchanging cause of the universe.

Since creatures only share in God’s existential actuality, and they do so by a successive or continuous acquisition of existence, therefore creatures exist in time. God Himself does not live in time. He exists in his ever-present NOW. Therefore,** there is nothing incoherent about an eternal God being the cause of a temporal world.** This world may be everlasting, but it would still be a temporal world.

Before I leave this post, let me remark that my “fire” example is just that, an example designed to illustrate a metaphysical principle. It is by no means represented here as a perfect example. For one thing, fire heats by giving off energy, and energy is being transferred. But in the act of creation, God communicates existence without losing or diminishing His existential act. Creatures share in God’s existence and are called “beings by participation.” Secondly, if anything is not hot by nature, and is actually cold, then it would have to be moved first from cold to hot before it can itself heat something else. In that case, a change is required in the cause before it can produce an effect. But if the cause already possesses the required actuality, no such change is required. In God’s case, who is Pure Act, no change and no time are required for Him to exercise His Causal Power. He is the Unchanged and Unchanging Cause of our changeable universe. God’s Will-Act of creation is eternal, unchanging, and indivisible, but the created world itself is temporal, mutable, and is extended in space and time.

 

[JDaniel]

Let me clarify this a bit: time must already exist in order for God to go from an eternal state to a specific event.

Time has nothing to do with the “instantaneous.” The (temporal) Now has, likewise, nothing to do with Time. It is the outermost surface, so to speak, of each aggregation. The past is the before aggregation, and the future is the after aggregation, i.e., the aggregation to come.

If we presuppose a temporal infinity(that is an infinity of past time) that nevertheless is caused by God (in some sort of simultaneous causation, which I’ll accept FTSOTA) then there is no problem.

What you are desiring here is that we accept this as a pure postulation, i.e., an infinite aggregation of finite distensions. If that were so, what, then, is its number? There is NO number that actualizes infinity. Period!

The problem arises once we suppose that God eternally willed to create time and then for some reason or other his will remained unfullfilled until at one instant, time began. this means time already exists causally prior to the creation of time.

There’s the problem with your straw-man. On one side (of creation) only God exists, on the other, whatever he wills. If he wills “mobile beings,” then time must be contemporaneous with their initial production.

Oh yes, i support it. Because an unchanging state (as god is in in His atemporal mode) cannot change if there is no time, and time cannot begin if there is no change to the unchanging state.

Not in your wildest imagination. Time is dependent upon motion, not the other way 'round. Since there can be no motion in an eternal, infinite being, he can not be measured by “time.”

The point is that either He has always been exercising His power, which means time has no beginning, or He begins to exercise it, which means there must be a time for Him to beging to exercise it.

Not so. Although we believe that angels have their own duration (perhaps another kind of ‘time’), until there was a first material, mobile being, time would have been completely irrelevant.

No, His exercise is not causally prior to it, because it cannot begin without time existing, and since time cannot begin without His exercise, we are still stuck with a huge contradiction.

Since this depends upon a straw-man, no response is needed.

jd

 

[LayingHands]

If God’s will is necessarily eternal, then his willing of creation must be eternal as well. However, as long as the cause is present the effect must also be. Therefore, it seems that the universe should be eternal under this view. But, we know from experience that the universe is not eternal, but temporal. Therefore, God’s act of creation must be a temporal act of will.

Other examples can be given. God willed the Red Sea to part for the Israelites to cross. But if he eternally wills everything he wills, then the Red Sea must still be parted, as God is still willing it. But it’s not parted now.

It doesn’t make sense for there to be eternal causes to temporal effects.

Thoughts?

GOD Created Living Entities to live Eternally, evolving and cycling through material birth, disease, old age and death…as ALL Cosmic Universes are continuously being created and annihalated, at the end of their perspective cosmic cycle.

All Living Entities being Eternal, evolving through all living species…and human life specifically, due to GOD/human consciencness, continues to either ascend higher in spirituality because of willful goodness and godliness…or to descend to punishments for their willful, sinful, atheist lives…the Eternal lives will live on, even after our Earth ends this cosmic cycle.

GOD promises, should you worship, glorify and pray to Him, thinking of Him always, using your body to do His Good works, you will reach his Home, return back to GODHEAD…and NEVER have to live another material existence.

This is the salvation, through redemption in GOD and is known as the Absolute Truth.

 

[ivebeenshown]

That’s a perfectly logical position. It probably has some unwanted theological consequences for the average Catholic, but that’s another discussion.

I can’t think of any unwanted consequences and I’d say I’m an average Catholic.

God could know the order of a sequence of temporal events eternally rather than procedurally – he just wouldn’t know it from a temporal standpoint, like “Derek woke up, and then Derek ate breakfast, and now he is typing.” It would be more like “Derek wakes up before Derek eats breakfast before Derek types before…”

 

[JDaniel]

Well, if that is the case, God existed for an infinity of time before the universe, which, according to most theists would be imossible, because God would never arrive at the moment art which he created the universe.
And that ‘he will exist long after the universe’ is far fropm sure, because the first law of thermodynamics means the universe in some form will exist forever.

Again, you wander in and out of the conflation of time with infinity.

And if God exists outside of time, he does not exist ‘before’ or ‘afetr anything’, since those are time-indicators.

As Infinite Being, mobile being must exist within that infinity. So, God surrounds time. Fore, aft, port, starboard, above, and below. Like the ocean surrounds a submarine, and He compenetrates all that exists.

Yes, it does. Unchanging beings cannot make temporal actions because a temporal action entails temporality, which entails change.

Bad thinking. That is not logical. That is an exquisite preference.

jd

 

[Whadyamean]

Again, you wander in and out of the conflation of time with infinity.

As Infinite Being, mobile being must exist within that infinity. So, God surrounds time. Fore, aft, port, starboard, above, and below. Like the ocean surrounds a submarine, and He compenetrates all that exists.
So you are saying that our delusion of space/time is a bubble inside of God? And OmniPresent God is not within that bubble?

Bad thinking. That is not logical. That is an exquisite preference.

What, pray is an "exquisite preference? and why in your view is that bad thinking?

Thanks

 

[belorg]

Again, you wander in and out of the conflation of time with infinity.

As Infinite Being, mobile being must exist within that infinity. So, God surrounds time. Fore, aft, port, starboard, above, and below. Like the ocean surrounds a submarine, and He compenetrates all that exists.

Bad thinking. That is not logical. That is an exquisite preference.

jd

JD, what do you expect to accomplish by taking all my words out of context?
I suggest we continu this discussion once you actually understand my position. It’s really not so difficult.

 

[tonyrey]

There is simply no way to answer this question, because it is meaningless to talk about an unchanging being changing.

It is not meaningless to talk about change occurring **within **an unchanging being…

 

[ivebeenshown]

It is not meaningless to talk about change occurring **within **an unchanging being…

Right, and it is hard to understand. God’s eternal thought encompasses all change, from the moment the universe began into the everlasting. He knows it all. The thought itself, however, does not change.

 

[belorg]

It is not meaningless to talk about change occurring **within **an unchanging being…

Maybe not, but that is not what we are talking about.

 

[tonyrey]

Right, and it is hard to understand. God’s eternal thought encompasses all change, from the moment the universe began into the everlasting. He knows it all. The thought itself, however, does not change.

“God’s eternal thought” is a human description which does not do justice to divine reality because God’s thought is creative and dynamic…

 

[JDaniel]

God’s will is not fullfilled? How can God’s will not be fullfilled? What prevents God’s will from being fullfilled?
Answer: nothing at all, since there is nothing to prevent it. Once the will exists (which is ‘always’) it is fullfilled. If it’s not, then there is some ‘time’ in between his will and the fullfilment of it. But, that is what is ansent in this scenario.

Belorg:

God as Spiritual Being, has two activities: Thought and Will. That means that He can think and choose. A thought need not be converted to will. But, “will” always entails “thought.”

However, since God is Omniscient, whatever he wills he wills eternally. When we will, our acts proceed accordingly and are finite. We will to go to the store and we operate on that. Then, it’s over. If you attribute that scenario to God, you are anthropomorphizing Infinite God. When God wills creation, it is a sustaining will. He brings it into being then continues to will its being from there on. So, it can be, in that sense, “eternal.” But, God can, as we are told in Scripture, “create and annihilate.” Thus, he can stop sustaining as an act of will, too.

Change cannot occur in a changeless state, and God’s a-temporality is a changeless state. The exercise of God’s causal power is a change that can never take place because nothing can change.

God’s Infinity and Simplicity is “changeless.” God’s thoughts and will are not. If they were, He could only have one thought and will one thing forever. We are made in his image. Our thoughts and wills hold different beings of reason and decisions all the time. His is not different in that respect. As he who is supremely creative and fecund, he continues to hold thoughts and to sustain what he wills. Your immediately above statement is non-sequitur.

Now, of course I do not believe that God has an unbeginning, changeless will, and I do not believe God is a-temporally eternal, but if He is, then the consequences are that He cannot begin to create anything at all.

I’m sure you’ve thought this through, so I shouldn’t have to remind you: “temporality” has everything to do with motion (change), and therefore, mobile (changeable) being, and nothing to do with the motionless (unchangeable-ness). There is no Time, as we know it, in the utter absence of mobile being and motion. But, there is no logical proscription, nor have you shown one, that the Infinite cannot impart that which is less perfect to his creation.

The universe, or at least, the ‘very first thing God created’ must be eternal, which contradicts the KCA.

Not so,: even though the first thing(s) he created were eternal beings (the Angels), that does not resolve down to a logical prohibition. That which “creates” by thought and (sustaining) will, is not thereby prohibited from creating and/or causing.

Thomists come up with another ‘solution’. For a Thomist, the universe might be eternal.

This is not a “solution” the Thomist uses today, for obvious reasons.

Unfortunately for Catholic Thomiusts, the Aristotelean-Thomist God is a deist God, a ‘first mover’.This God is a first mover because, to put it simply: he cannot be a second mover in any sense, because any ‘second move’ entails a change.

Not so. Your conclusion is non-sequitur. That God is the Prime Mover does not entail that in those first moves, secondary movers are not made and sustained. So, Aristotle’s deism is not a problem for the later Thomism. As in anything humans do, we are always a part of a learning curve. As out time goes on, we learn and improve.

I’ll leave the theological implications to you.

Not a bad idea!

jd

 

[ivebeenshown]

“God’s eternal thought” is a human description which does not do justice to divine reality because God’s thought is creative and dynamic…

That’s why I said it encompasses all change. The thought itself, however, does not change. In this way it is dynamic in regards to what it encompasses, but static in regards to what it is.

Just as long as we agree that God’s thought is immutable/eternal.

 

[JDaniel]

That is not what I am claiming here, what I am claiming here is that an eternal, unchanging God cannot begin to create.

By what force of logic?

Although I do think that something causing anythinh without itself changing is completely incoherent, that is NOT what I am climing in this thread.

Good. You’re slowly coming around.

First of all, the act of causing change, just like the act of creation, is not a change (on God’s part). No change occurs in God in the act of causing change. The act of causing is predicated on the cause being in act; it is not predicated on the cause having to move from potency to act. For example, fire causes something to be hot because it is actually hot, not because it is moving

from not heating something to heating it.

You are completely wrong here, but it’s irrelevnat to the current discussion, so, I’ll concede this FTSOTA

Actually, he is very correct. Please, let’s clear up once and for all what we are talking about. “Causing” requires a matter (secondary), or a principle (Primary matter), which lacks the Form that it will ultimately possess. “Creation” does not require a pre-existing matter or principle. That is why it requires many trillions of times the effort, if we insist on putting it into anthropomorphic terms.

jd

 

[JDaniel]

That does not follow at all. If He is outside time, then He is outside time and if He actively exists in all time, then He is in time. You just want to have it both ways…

Because you fail to understand what time is, you fail to understand that the Now is not time, nor is it part of it. Simply, there is the “past” and there is the “future.” The Now, like a “point” on a line, is an infinitesimal, a dimensionless exigency that is the outermost boundary of the past and the outermost boundary of the future. It is moved along by the aggregating of distensions that comprise the past, and encroaches onto the beginning of the future. But, it is not “time.”

jd