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B
balto
Guest
I would agree with all of those premises, except I don’t think that the conclusion follows from them. The reason being that I am not sure that the term “time” is being used consistently. Time is just a measure of change, so the question should be how can God, who is unchanging, give rise to a changeable creation. There seems to be some confusion over how God acts in creation. We all seem to agree that:
A → B → C → D → …
where A is the Big Bang or whatever physics ends up concluding about the start of the universe. But then we seem to think that the theist is simply sticking God at the front of the sequence:
God → A → B → C → D …
leading to your confusion about how the universe could begin to exist at a point in the fixed past if God is eternally causing A. But that’s not how God creates. It’s more like this:
-------God----------
| …|…|…|
v…v…v…v
A → B → C → D
(Sorry for the bad ASCII art
). I think that confusion over this difference is the “hidden premise” to which polytropos was referring about time being necessary to God’s causation (in the first erroneous view time is essential to His causation but not in the second). God sustains the whole causal order timelessly, which is why He is eternally present to all points in the temporal sequence. I’m not sure, but I think this is what primary causation refers to. But A can still contingently cause B as a form of secondary causation I believe. So creation considered as the whole timeline all at once can be co-eternal with God (although not in the same sense as He is because it is not uncaused obviously) but that doesn’t mean that you cannot have a temporally first entity in the order of secondary causation. God is still ontologically “first” in terms of primary causation.
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polytropos
Guest
There are a number of qualifications I would make*, but the argument is unsound because it equivocates on the last line.
God wills to create eternally. That means his willing to create has no beginning; that is true.
It seems like (9) is supposed to follow from (7) and (8) because (to spell out the logic more):
(7) God’s act to create time has no beginning.
(8) God’s act to create time is a necessary and sufficient condition for time to exist.
(9*) God is simultaneous with every instant of time t (from God’s eternity).
(10) God wills time to exist at every instant of time, and this is necessary and sufficient, so time does exist at every instant of time that does exist (from (8) and (9*)).
(11) If God has no absolute beginning and wills time necessarily and sufficiently to exist at every time at which he exists, then time has no absolute beginning.
(12) Therefore, time has no absolute beginning.
The main problem here is that (11) is false. belorg basically wants to prove that time exists through an infinite past. But (11) is only plausibly true if God is sempiternal rather than eternal. But God is eternal in the sense of being outside of time, not of existing changelessly through an infinite past. (God can only be simultaneous to an instant of time t if he creates the instant of time t.) So the argument requires something like (11), but (11) equivocates on “has no absolute beginning,” which does not have the same sense when applied to God as it does in belorg’s desired conclusion.
What can really be shown is this:
(11*) If God has no absolute beginning and wills time necessarily and sufficiently to exist at every time at which he exists, then God’s willing of time has no absolute beginning.
(12*) Therefore, God’s willing of time has no absolute beginning.
But (12*) is trivial, since God is eternal.
The confusion has arisen because something like (2) and (7) are true even if God does not exist through an infinite past.
Something like (11) also seems to assume sempiternality, in contradiction of (1), in another way, because it characterizes God’s causality as being strangely “temporally fixed.” (I can’t think of a good way to phrase this. I also want to say that he conceives of God’s causality as “timestamped.” But I’ll just try to explain.). In other words, “God exists at t” is analyzed as true for all t because God creates all times t and stands outside of all time. “God exists at t” is not true because God is in time at t. But belorg conceives God as having some fixed will like “God wills that time and all of these objects exist in the present” (this seems to be what he has in mind in (8)). Then as time moves on, God keeps willing that time exists! But that places God in time; God is himself outside of time and causes instants of time to exist. That there should be a first instant of time is consistent with that.
The oddness of the argument shows in the second clause of (10), “so time does exist at every instant of time that does exist.” The idea that God simply causes “that time exists” if God exists at t can only get you to an infinite past if God already exists through an infinite past. Hence the false assumption of sempiternity.
I worry that this is a bit uncharitable, to construe belorg as relying on something like (10). But the weirdness of “so time does exist at every instant of time that does exist” seems to be implicit already in his conflation of eternity and sempiternity, and his implicit interpretation of “God has no beginning” as “God exists through an infinite past”. This is the best I can do because though belorg’s argument was suggestive of certain points, it was not logically valid as given.
*God does not “make a decision” (or “choose”). God is identical with his will. God wills his own goodness necessarily, but since God is purely actual and therefore has no potencies and therefore has no ends/cannot be improved, whatever else (in terms of objects, ie. things to create) that he wills is not necessary. Therefore God’s willing of things other than his own goodness is contingent. (I actually think that “choice” and “decision” has no place in natural theology. God has free will, but God does not choose. God is Will Itself, but God is not Choice Itself.)
(6) & (7): These are true. God is eternal. Assuming we revise the “God’s decision” locution to “God’s will,” which is therefore identical with God (but: not identical to the extension of the objects of God’s will), God’s will to create is eternal as well.
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polytropos
Guest
To try rephrasing again, belorg seems to be thinking
(1’) If God exists at t and wills that time exist, then time exists at t.
(2’) God is eternal.
(3’) God does not have a beginning (from 2’)
(4’) God exists through an infinite past (from 3’).
(5’) So time does not have a beginning in the sense that it does not have an infinite past.
I take this to be the general thrust of the argument, as far as I can interpret it. Again, I don’t want to pin something on belorg that he is not arguing, but this is the best I can do to reconstruct his thoughts.
There are tons of problems with this sort of reasoning, though. (4’) does not follow from (3’), since it assumes that God is sempiternal rather than eternal. And (1’) does not do any philosophical work given God’s ET-simultaneity, because “God exists at t” is analyzed in terms of God’s being outside of time and causing things to exist at t. So it is essentially a circle: If God exists eternally and caused things to exist at t and wills that time exist at t, then time exists at t. It is a tautology because the antecedent really contains that existence of time at t. So with (4’) being false, the conclusion does not follow.
(1’) If God exists at t and wills that time exist, then time exists at t.
(2’) God is eternal.
(3’) God does not have a beginning (from 2’)
(4’) God exists through an infinite past (from 3’).
(5’) So time does not have a beginning in the sense that it does not have an infinite past.
I take this to be the general thrust of the argument, as far as I can interpret it. Again, I don’t want to pin something on belorg that he is not arguing, but this is the best I can do to reconstruct his thoughts.
There are tons of problems with this sort of reasoning, though. (4’) does not follow from (3’), since it assumes that God is sempiternal rather than eternal. And (1’) does not do any philosophical work given God’s ET-simultaneity, because “God exists at t” is analyzed in terms of God’s being outside of time and causing things to exist at t. So it is essentially a circle: If God exists eternally and caused things to exist at t and wills that time exist at t, then time exists at t. It is a tautology because the antecedent really contains that existence of time at t. So with (4’) being false, the conclusion does not follow.
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belorg
Guest
I don’t have time for an elaborate response right now, polytropos, but just one thing here:**(4’) has nothing to do with my argument.
**
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belorg
Guest
Just a few extras
we can rewrite the argument, avoiding all time references
1 It has never been true that God does not exit
(‘never’ here should be read as shorthand for "there is, was, has been no instant at which…, "
2 It has never been true that God did not will the existence of time
3 conclusion: It has never been true that time did not exist.
There are some hidden premises here, of course, but I don’t have time to spell them out right now.
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Bahman
Guest
So either the creation has a beginning or not. Could you please tell me which one do you believe to simplify the discussion. In second case creation is sempiternal. Lets stick to this to see what is the problem. Could we agree on this? An eternal changeless God and an sempiternal changeable creation is problematic as well. Lets call all Gods acts that what we observe as A={…,A1,A2,A3,…} which means that act A1 comes before A2 etc. Form God perspective however all act should be performed in a simple pure act namely eternal now. That is correct that God knows the orders of acts as they should appear in creation but Gods can only perform one single pure act since two separate acts confer with the idea of timeless God since it requires that one act comes before another one. The question then is how a simple pure act could manifest itself into what it contains?
I meant the whole creation has a beginning but I think we can stick with the idea of sempiternal creation and see where it goes.
Please read the first comment.
So there is a misunderstanding here. Could God perform two acts in which both happen in eternal now and each perform very specific action in time? How that could happen?
It is not. God live in eternal now so he has to either perform all acts simultaneously otherwise we lose the concept of eternal now or he has to zip all act in a simple pure act and then perform it. The question is then how a simple pure act could manifest itself to many acts at the proper time? I don’t see any difference with simultaneous acts and one simple zipped pure act.
The problem as I mentioned is that how a simple pure act could manifest itself into many acts, each acts in a very specific instant. One cannot resolve this problem unless s/he assumes that God create an agent together with creation which is responsible for this manifestation which I suspect that it leads into infinite regression since the agent has to receive this knowledge from timeless state while living in time.
That is what I meant. I meant that if creation had a beginning then there must exist two different existences, lets call it states of existence, in which one of them is {God} and another is {God, creation}.
You at least need two beings one being observer and reference point and another being play the role of objective so any changes in the second being can be observed/experienced by the first being as subjective reality.
This has already illustrated but it only applies to a creation which is not sempiternal.
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Bahman
Guest
Does any change require a cause? How this change {God}->{God,creation} is possible then which implements a before and an after? Doesn’t accepting a beginning for creation entails that God itself is subject to time?
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polytropos
Guest
Thank you for clarifying. There is still a problem, namely that you have not proven that time did not have a beginning. “It has never been true that God does not exist” is true if for every time, God exists. If time is finite in the past, then that is satisfied. (This is why I have seen you as relying on something like (4’). The argument seems to require that God already exists through an infinite past so that he could will the existence of time throughout that infinite past. If he doesn’t exist through an infinite past, then his existing through a finite past satisfies the argument.)
The issue is reflected in the conclusion, since “It has never been true that time did not exist” is a tautology, if we substitute in your own locution: “there is, was, has been no instant [of time] at which time did not exist.”
The other thing that could be stressed is that there is a bizarre conception of God’s causality going on here. As far as I can tell, you are reasoning like this: If God exists at t and God (wills p) at t, then (p at t). (Therefore, since God exists for all t, and God wills that time exist for all t, time exists for all t.–Note that even this conclusion is trivial.) But this is a scope fallacy. It also assumes that in “God (wills p),” p is not tensed, so “p at t” is coherent. But if God’s dominion is over tensed states of affairs, then “p’ at t’ at t”, which is not coherent.
But there’s not really any reason we should accept that on an eternality, rather than sempiternality, conception of God. It actually seems to assume that God changes with time, so it can’t be what the classical theist means…
Again, I do not want to misrepresent you, so please correct anything I’ve gotten wrong.
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belorg
Guest
The argument requires no such thing.
I use “instant”, not “moment”, precisely because I want to avoid time references.
But, we can rewrite the argument in a diffrent way, if you wish.
1 There is no state of affairs at which it is true that God does not exist.
2 There is no state of affairs at which God doesn’t will the existence of time.
(since, if there wer such a state, that would denote a change in God.)
3 conclusion: There is no state of affairs at which it is true that time does not exist.
(since God’s will is a necessary and sufficient condition for every object of His will)
Note that I do not claim here, as you erroneously seem to think, that God’s will is necessary. Although I have other arguments for that claim, for this particular argument, it doesn’t matter whether His will is necessary or contingent.
That’s not what I am doing
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polytropos
Guest
Would you mind spelling out the distinction? I would accept that instants and moments are not the same thing, but it isn’t clear to me that “instant” eliminates time references. (Or point me to some resource that explains what you mean.)
(1): One issue we might run into is that states of affairs are generally taken to be perspectival. To take an example from the Stanford Encyclopedia page, “Socrates is wise” describes the state of affairs of Socrates’ being wise. God is not a constituent of Socrates’ being wise. So what does it mean to say that “at” the state of affairs of Socrates’ being wise, God exists? Socrates exists and is wise by virtue of God’s action, to be sure. But I suspect you have something less standard in mind when you use “state of affairs”. (Maybe by a “state of affairs” you mean a complete description of everything that exists? A timeslice? I want to say “of everything that exists at a given time,” but you want to/need to eliminate time references from your argument. I don’t know.)
There is an analogy with moments of time here. One could take God’s eternal existence to be a state of affairs. God exists eternally, so “at that state of affairs,” we might say, God exists. Why do we say that God exists at any particular moment of time? Not because God exists in time but because he is outside of time and causes things to exist at that time. Likewise with states of affairs (I suppose–I still don’t quite understand your usage of the term in this context): God “exists at” a state of affairs (besides that of his own eternal existence) because he causes it to obtain.
Now, you dispute that states of affairs are like moments of time, but are rather like “instants,” so perhaps in your view this analogy doesn’t hold.
Besides that–what do you take this conclusion to imply? It is not obvious to me how “There is no state of affairs at which it is true that time does not exist” would imply that there is no absolute beginning to time, ie. the purported conclusion to your original argument. If time is finite in the past, then it is true that for every state of affairs, time exists.
Suppose God just creates a single sphere, which exists for a year and then goes out of existence. That is the entirety of his act of creation; other than that, he does nothing but will his own goodness. I don’t see what is incoherent with that, or why “There is no state of affairs at which it is true that time does not exist” should be false.
I must be missing something here…
I don’t think I said you did. Toward the end of post #23, I clarify the distinction between God’s free will (which is unproblematic) and God’s free choice/decision (which I think is problematic), and I give a few brief reasons why creation can be contingent even if God is identical with his will necessarily. Otherwise, in evaluating your argument, I use “necessary” only in the sense you do (ie. “necessary and sufficient” conditions). Or at least that is what I’ve tried to do. (Disputing that God’s will is necessary has in any case not been essential to any of my response.)
OK. I’m not really sure how to interpret (2) then. For each state of affairs, what God wills is the same. That doesn’t mean each state of affairs is the same, because God is outside of the state of affairs (assuming it is a created state of affairs and not the one exception, ie. the state of affairs of God’s existence), which is only one object of his will, which (though singular and indeed simple) has multiple objects. Likewise, for each time. Maybe all of this is irrelevant. I honestly can’t tell.
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belorg
Guest
Actually, It doesn’t matter waht we call it, as long as it doesn’t entail temporality
A state of affairs is a complete descrition of everything that exists. There is no state of affairs at which God doesn’t exist means that There is no state of affairs that has the property that God doesn’t exist in it. It is not a timeslice, because God is eternal.
Yes
States of affairs are complete descriptions of everything that exists.
No, because in that case, there is also a state of affairs at which (or for which) God exists and time doesn’t.
So time does not exist at or for every state of affairs.
It is irrelevant.
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polytropos
Guest
Alright, we can try to work with this. (I have my doubts about this conception, but I don’t think the argument works anyway, and I need to think about it.)
Please identify the state of affairs at which God exists but time does not. If God has created a past-finite universe, then every state of affairs is still of God + creation at some time after the universe came into existence. There is no state of affairs before creation came into existence. It is consistent for that possible world to contain no state of affairs where just God exists. (I understand I am using time-implicating terms here. I don’t know how to avoid that. Perhaps you have something in mind, but due to your characteristic terseness you haven’t shared it.
)You and I have different pictures before us.
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polytropos
Guest
Here is another potential criticism, based on what I wrote above but modifying it to account for “states of affairs.”
I don’t think you will be able to produce a state of affairs where God exists but time doesn’t (or rather: show that there is necessarily such a state of affairs if time is past-finite), if a state of affairs is a complete description of everything that exists.
But it seems to me like what you are relying on is something like this:
If God exists at a state of affairs s and God wills that [time exist] at s, then [time exists at s]. God exists in every state of affairs, God’s will does not change from state of affairs to state of affairs, and God wills that time exists, so God wills that [time exists at every state of affairs].
The shift to “states of affairs” does not eliminate the scope fallacy. If there is some state of affairs s1 where God exists but time does not (which I do not concede), then though God might will that [time exist at some other state of affairs s2] at s1, it is not necessarily the case that God wills that [time exist at s1].
Again, I don’t know if this is what you’re arguing, I am just trying to coax out the hidden logical structure.
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MacQ
Guest
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polytropos
Guest
I have decided what strikes me as untenable about your conception of states of affairs.
Suppose there are two states of affairs which both obtain in the actual world. How do they avoid “entailing temporality”? If they differ in any way, then they must occur at different times.* And if they do not refer to specific moments of time, ie. they span over a course of time, then they it’s doubtful that “a complete description of everything that exists” could be well-defined, if anything changes over the course of the state of affairs; that is, unless you implicate time to disambiguate.
*Maybe you would deny this. That would go back to the task of identifying a state of affairs that occurs at no time. But in a world in which time exists, every state of affairs occurs at some time. There is no “before” or “after” time (if time began or will end). There is eternity, outside time, of course, but if time has been created, then any complete description of everything that exists will also involve tensed things.
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belorg
Guest
I don’t have to identify the state of affairs at which God exists but time does not, because there is no such state of affairs. That’s the point of my argument.Please identify the state of affairs at which God exists but time does not. If God has created a past-finite universe, then every state of affairs is still of God + creation at some time after the universe came into existence. There is no state of affairs before creation came into existence. It is consistent for that possible world to contain no state of affairs where just God exists. (I understand I am using time-implicating terms here. I don’t know how to avoid that. Perhaps you have something in mind, but due to your characteristic terseness you haven’t shared it.
You and I have different pictures before us.
“3 conclusion: There is no state of affairs at which it is true that time does not exist.”
As a matter of fact, in order to counter my argument, ***you ***have to indentify such state of affairs.
The argument has nothing to do with possible worlds, by the way.
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belorg
Guest
I don’t have to produce such a state of affairs, polytropos.
I am glad you don’t concede that, because in order to counter my argument, you have to concede it. as long as you don’t, my argument stands.
That is irrelevant, polytropos. This has nothing to do with necessary facts.
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belorg
Guest
Temporal states of affairs can occur at different times. Eternal states of affairs can’t. That’s the whole point. Becasue my argument shows that, given a timeless being “creates” time, time is eternal.
Is there a time before or after eternity, polytropos? Provided God is eternal, a complete description includes God ansd since, as you say, in a world in which time exists, every state of affairs occurs at some time. you actually concede that time is eternal.
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Pancras
Guest
It’s not necessary to demean the value of the OP. While it is true to say that “God is timeless,” perhaps that doesn’t provide enough for the reader to understand. After all, we have heard that so-and-so had “timeless beauty” or that “diamonds are forever.” So if a beautiful diamond is timeless and God is timeless, then is God a beautiful diamond? Or, is a beautiful diamond God?
Other members in this thread have already drawn out the principle that “God exists outside of time,” and it seems to me that is what you could say to help answer these questions better. Also, God is not a contingent being, but is an essential being – but even more than that, for God is being, in itself. That is, God is being AS being.
Therefore, the first argument fails as follows:
"The first one is, that if time began to exist, then so did God, because when God created time, God existed, and God didn’t exist at any time before that (because it’s the beginning of time)." This fails because “God existed” is a fallacy, because in fact, God IS existence, per se. So this means God is not subject to the rules to which the rest of creation is subject.
Furthermore, the second argument fails as follows:
"The second one is that if God is timeless, He can’t create time, because doing something, like creating the universe, presupposes a succession of events in order to create the universe." This fails because once again, the same rules to which all of us must abide are rules to which God is not subject, and consequently we are given to know that for Him to create, there is no need of successive events, for everything God does is from the singularity of His oneness of act. God created the heavens and the earth, God died on the Cross, God is with us all days even unto the consummation of the world, and God will come to judge the living and the dead on the last day, and it’s all the same NOW for God, WHO IS, outside of time.
But beyond that, God is more than a single act, for God is ACT itself. God is pure act. There is no division in the act of God, nor is there any division in the parts of God, for God has no parts. We say there are three persons, but that is not a division but a distinction. God is one in substance AND three in persons, all in the same essence, the same act of being.
We distinguish but we do not separate.
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