Dilemma of time and the act of creation

[AveOTheotokos]

That is not correct.

You are applying time, which is a property of a created and changing universe, to an unchanging, immutable, non-sequential, transcendent, eternal existence that is not subject to that which He created. You are saying:

1.Creating(A) causes a change in state and a change in state takes time(B).
2.God (C) caused creation (A)
3.Therefore, God (C) is subject to time (B).

Whether you agree with us or not, argument is indeed, by definition, a non sequitur.

Your proposed arguments are problematic because you are taking two concepts, associating them, then making an assumption about a non related concept based on your conclusion about your original two concepts.

God is not bound by the boundaries within the creation that exists solely due to His single and eternal act of will.

That I understand. So God was able to do not create (or you want to say that He has to because of His Goodness and the fact that creation is good). Do you want that I repeat my argument?

From Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book One, Ch 81:9
“[9] Nor, furthermore, is it necessary because of the foregoing to posit something unnatural in God. For His will wills itself and other things by one and the same act. But its relation to itself is necessary and natural, whereas its relation to other things is according to a certain befittingness, not indeed necessary and natural, nor violent and unnatural, but voluntary; for the voluntary need be neither natural nor violent.”

It is not about God changing. It is about the fact that God cannot decide since there is no potentiality in Him and cannot act because of the argument which is made.

Because there is no potentiality in Him, He cannot act outside of His initial act of will. Since He wills Himself, and He wills creation, we can then conclude that there is not a series or sequence of separate acts, but only one single eternal act of will that sustains both Himself and the existence of creation.

Therefore, there is no change in state from one act to another and in turn, there is no time outside of that which is experienced within creation.

 

[STT]

You are applying time, which is a property of a created and changing universe, to an unchanging, immutable, non-sequential, transcendent, eternal existence that is not subject to that which He created.

No. That is you who constantly bring God into the discussion. I am merely talking about an act and the fact that there exist two states (two states of creation) separated by the act cannot coincides at the same point (eternal).

You are saying:

1.Creating(A) causes a change in state and a change in state takes time(B).
2.God (C) caused creation (A)
3.Therefore, God (C) is subject to time (B).

Whether you agree with us or not, argument is indeed, by definition, a non sequitur.

No.

Your proposed arguments are problematic because you are taking two concepts, associating them, then making an assumption about a non related concept based on your conclusion about your original two concepts.

God is not bound by the boundaries within the creation that exists solely due to His single and eternal act of will.

I didn’t say anything like that.

From Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book One, Ch 81:9

“[9] Nor, furthermore, is it necessary because of the foregoing to posit something unnatural in God. For His will wills itself and other things by one and the same act. But its relation to itself is necessary and natural, whereas its relation to other things is according to a certain befittingness, not indeed necessary and natural, nor violent and unnatural, but voluntary; for the voluntary need be neither natural nor violent.”

You didn’t eventually answer the question?

Because there is no potentiality in Him, He cannot act outside of His initial act of will. Since He wills Himself, and He wills creation, we can then conclude that there is not a series or sequence of separate acts, but only one single eternal act of will that sustains both Himself and the existence of creation.

Therefore, there is no change in state from one act to another and in turn, there is no time outside of that which is experienced within creation.

That I agree.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

No. That is you who constantly bring God into the discussion. I am merely talking about an act and the fact that there exist two states (two states of creation) separated by the act cannot coincides at the same point (eternal).

Saying it is me “who constantly bring God into the discussion” implies that this isn’t a discussion about God, yet your OP starts off right from the bat mentioning God:

Any act has a before and after therefore you need time in order perform it, otherwise the act is ambiguous. How could God perform the act of creation knowing that any act is subjected to time and time is an element of universe?

How is it me bringing God into the discussion if he was there from the start?

God is continually brought up because He is the one carrying out the act of creation that is being discussed. You yourself brought up the fact that there are two states to God: God alone, and then God and creation.

I didn’t say anything like that.

Again, your OP clearly implies that God performed the act of creation that is subject to time. YOU are indeed putting forth the argument that God, by his act of creation, is subject to time and “time is an element of universe”.

So when I said:

"Your proposed arguments are problematic because you are taking two concepts, associating them, then making an assumption about a non related concept based on your conclusion about your original two concepts.

God is not **bound by the boundaries within the creation **that exists solely due to His single and eternal act of will."

how is it that you “didn’t say anything like that” when your opening post says that His act is “subjected to time and time is an element of universe.”

That I agree.

If you agree, then how you can you say their are two states as you did in your posts #131 and 147?

Great. So you have God and then God plus Creation.

So do you agree that “God and creation” follows “Gods alone”?

There was not God alone, and then God and creation separated by an act. It is by one act of the will that God wills Himself, and by the same act of will, wills creation’s existence.

 

[setarcos]

I’ll give it a shot…

Jesus is the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through Him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
He came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.

Jesus has two natures, being both fully human and fully divine. The divinity of Jesus is not changed by His taking on of a human nature.

Thank you wonderful scholor for trying. I still see some difficulties though. God the “son” personhood in the trinity existed before creation within the godhead. However we cannot say the same of the “became fully man part” of Jesus. There is no becoming in the nature of God. God by his very nature has no potential. Becoming implies potential. Would you say that man existed before creation ,“fully”, in the son? If so then strictly speaking man would be Co eternal with the Father in the Godhead as well which is absurd. These esoteric and shadowy theological statements about God and Jesus sound poetic and powerful, which may satisfy the appetites of men looking to show profound knowledge, but are vague enough to nearly be impossible to glean any meaningful information from them.

 

[setarcos]

Your exchanges are facinating. Why do we speak of the ineffable as if by using the language of men we can make the incomprehensible comprehensible to each other. Nothing wrong in the effort if it weren’t for the fact that both sides of issues like this act according to their understanding of impossible to understand concepts. The human brain hasn’t the circuitry to make comprehensible the nature of God or its methods or even if there are methods. The sooner men realize this the sooner piece will flourish throughout the land!
That last was humor by the way.

 

[setarcos]

That (bold part) is another topic. I have a thread on this topic in here.

What I arguing is that you cannot have two different states of existence at a same eternal point.

Indeed you can. Not only can you but quantum mechanics demands it.

 

[setarcos]

THAT GOD WILLS HIMSELF AND OTHER THINGS BY ONE ACT OF WILL

More Aquinas on God’s will and the existence of other things:

Please, can you tell me, what does it mean to say one wills oneself? Is this just a title stating God has always existed? You’ve used the words, perhaps you can explain the process by which one wills oneself?

 

[setarcos]

What I am trying to say is that you need time for any act otherwise your are dealing with two states at the same point which makes the point ill-defined. Time is part of creation and it is needed for the act of creation which is problematic.

Your getting hung up on cause, effect, and their relation to time. There is no “directionality” of cause effect to time nor dependance. It is a construct of the mind applied to make comprehensible relationships in reality. From one moment to the next you simply are in that moment. However your moment may not be the same as another’s for the “same” reality. Einstein showed this. Shrodinger showed a cat can be alive and dead at the same time, physics and mathematics has showed on a subatomic level it’s just as acceptable that the egg was in the pan before it was out of the shell. Why then does memory seem to dictate a flow to time? We remember being young and now older. The chicken layed the egg first then we ate it. As I’ve said, this seems to be a construct of the mind which allows for being only in the moment your in. Interestingly it has been claimed that some can “remember” the future. But are they actually there? Brain scans have shown that to the mind there’s no difference in imagining eating a sandwich and actually eating one, the same areas of the brain light up. To the mind it seems there is no cause, effect in the traditional sense. We imagine we’re eating then become hungry or we become hungry then we eat. It’s the same. Theres enough unexplained phenomena in the world which may be a glimpse into the true artificial nature of the cause,effect,time relationships. God I suspect is not subject to this artificiality. Hense why we say he lives in the past, present, and future simultaniously. An event itself is not subject to time. Only it’s relational expression in reality is. For instance, molecules pop in and out of existence constantly. This has been proven. Their moment of creation, duration of existence, and moment of annihilation is able to be “recorded” in time merely due to, but not by itself being reliant on, an artificial relationship to another thing in the same existance. I say artificial because this relationship is not intrinsic to the things themselves and not between their selves and the existance they find themselves in. Let’s say the first atom popped into existance. By what method would this atom measure the duration of its existance? If it were aware it could only measure duration by its awareness and the passage of an arbitrary construction of duration the passage of which only started from the point of its own awareness. Was this atom the cause of time and time the effect of the atoms awareness? Or was the atom an effect of times existance? Does time itself create? Every other atom after would be subject to this same measure or method of measuring duration from this first awareness. It could not apply this measure to the existance in which it finds itself however. In essence time is an artificial construction of awareness which enforces the illusion of flow from cause to effect without cause and effect themselves being subject to it.

 

[ericc]

Or there is a beginning in time which coincides with existence. One can conclude that there exist not a theory in favor or against concept of God at this point.

Since we are able to sort out that time began with/coincide with creation, we can put that point behind us and move on as to the cause of existence. God doesn’t need time to create and that takes care of your “dilemma”. An Intelligent Mind and Omnipotence is required in either case. So God is still the best candidate as the First Cause in the absence of simpler or competing explanations.

 

[setarcos]

Since we are able to sort out that time began with/coincide with creation, we can put that point behind us and move on as to the cause of existence. God doesn’t need time to create and that takes care of your “dilemma”. An Intelligent Mind and Omnipotence is required in either case. So God is still the best candidate as the First Cause in the absence of simpler or competing explanations.

I missed the proof. Why doesn’t God need time to create? If creation needs a sense of time to serve it’s purpose and our nature then I would say God would indeed need time as an essential “ingredient” in order for creation to come into existence. You shouldn’t use intelligence or Omnipotence as defigning requirements since science contends the former, and this hasn’t been definitively settled yet, and we have no way of calculating the need for the latter other than an estimate, by science no less, of the amount of energy required for the creation of the current observable state of the universe by the so called big bang.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

Thank you wonderful scholor for trying. I still see some difficulties though. God the “son” personhood in the trinity existed before creation within the godhead. However we cannot say the same of the “became fully man part” of Jesus. There is no becoming in the nature of God. God by his very nature has no potential. Becoming implies potential. Would you say that man existed before creation ,“fully”, in the son? If so then strictly speaking man would be Co eternal with the Father in the Godhead as well which is absurd. These esoteric and shadowy theological statements about God and Jesus sound poetic and powerful, which may satisfy the appetites of men looking to show profound knowledge, but are vague enough to nearly be impossible to glean any meaningful information from them.

The verbiage I used in the first paragraph is taken directly from the Nicene Creed.

Jesus becoming man did not change His divine nature or the Godhead. A human nature was created and united to the Second Person of the Trinity, but the human nature did not change or “mix” with the divine nature.

A human nature was created in time and a man was born, lived, and died. Because Jesus is God, it is proper to say that “God died” for us. This sounds counter-intuitive to many people because there is a misunderstanding of death. There is often an assumption of this phrase to mean God ceased to exist, but this is not true.

When a human dies, they do not cease to exist; rather, their soul continues to exist and separates from their dead body.

Jesus is one person with both a divine nature and a human nature. Jesus died, and therefore God died, yet this did not cease His existence or change His divine nature in any way. Only the created human nature experiences change.

Imagine if you took a rock and lashed a stick to it to create a hammer. The rock is united with the wood of the stick, yet it still remains completely unchanged as a rock, even though it has now become a hammer. If you then cut, scratched, and broke the stick, the wood handle has now changed, and the function and abilities of the hammer have changed, but the rock itself remains unchanged.

Even if you disassemble the hammer and the hammer no longer exists and the handle is completely smashed to bits, the rock is still a rock and has never changed it’s existence as a rock.

This is not meant to be analogous to the life of Christ, but only to demonstrate that being united with something to become something new doesn’t necessarily change it’s nature in any way.

Just as a rock, by uniting with a wooden stick can “become a hammer” without changing the nature of the rock, Jesus can unite with a human nature and “become man” without changing the divine nature.

Please, can you tell me, what does it mean to say one wills oneself? Is this just a title stating God has always existed? You’ve used the words, perhaps you can explain the process by which one wills oneself?

It is not just a title, but a link to a section of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles that further explains this. See the link below to read more:

http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles1.htm#76

 

[John_Martin]

Your exchanges are facinating. Why do we speak of the ineffable as if by using the language of men we can make the incomprehensible comprehensible to each other. Nothing wrong in the effort if it weren’t for the fact that both sides of issues like this act according to their understanding of impossible to understand concepts. The human brain hasn’t the circuitry to make comprehensible the nature of God or its methods or even if there are methods. The sooner men realize this the sooner piece will flourish throughout the land!
That last was humor by the way.

The sooner men believe that the brain is the place of knowing, the sooner…; oh, it has already happened: they become satisfied with scientists, actors, and protestors, pretending they are philosophers and theologians.

If the human brain hasn’t the circuitry, it is a good thing that my human intellect and will is in my soul and not part of the material of creation, but animating it to do what it cannot do of itself, making it alive and having thoughts as if ‘out of nowhere’, knowing what a brain cannot know, yet now intelligible apprehension in consciousness.

You, however, have believed your teachers and have become like them, thinking you cannot understand what is above; and the words of Jesus to Nicodemus have found place in you.
You have “understood the heavenly things” of your teachers, who tell you that the “heavenly things” cannot be understood.

But there is a teacher, who told heavenly things to his own and sent them to tell us, and our living apostles have told us both the earthly things and the heavenly things.

 

[ericc]

I missed the proof. Why doesn’t God need time to create? If creation needs a sense of time to serve it’s purpose and our nature then I would say God would indeed need time as an essential “ingredient” in order for creation to come into existence.

Since when did God need time to create? Before creation, there was nothing, no space-time, only -non-existence. If you contend God need time in order to create, you haven’t provided any evidence to support it. Your starting point would be from non-existence.

Time starts with the Big Bang where we start our time counting. We are actually counting backwards, extrapolating convergence to time zero. So if time is needed in your model, where exactly does your time starts and when creation starts. You’ll end up both at time zero. Time is not a pre-condition for God to create but as a result of it.

You shouldn’t use intelligence or Omnipotence as defigning requirements since science contends the former, and this hasn’t been definitively settled yet, and we have no way of calculating the need for the latter other than an estimate, by science no less, of the amount of energy required for the creation of the current observable state of the universe by the so called big bang.

God has several qualities. I mentioned 2 only. One to design and the other to create.

Science can contend nothing because science can not calculate how non-existence became existence. Science can guestimate how much energy resulted from the Big Bang, but it can not tell you how these energies came from non-existence or what caused them to Bang.

Science can not tell you why the laws of nature must be such, it can only report what has been created with what kind of properties. Having a “basket” of energies does not necessary lead to a world. It needs to be put together and “cooked” a certain way. Only the Designer knows how that is done because that requires information. The universe simply can not make itself. It possesses no information on how to do it. Even if it does, it only kicks the bucket further as to how it got there in the first place. Information does not self-arise from non-information.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

Honestly, anyone truly seeking to understand God, His nature, and how He does what He does as best as a human can should read through Summa Contra Gentiles. Reading snippets of it posted here can be very fruitful, but you get an even fuller idea when you read the full chapters and see how they build upon each other to paint a much more comprehensive picture.

Also remember that we as humans will never truly understand God. Our feeble minds cannot grasp nor contain a complete knowledge or understanding of something outside of creation.

 

[STT]

Saying it is me “who constantly bring God into the discussion” implies that this isn’t a discussion about God, yet your OP starts off right from the bat mentioning God:

Any act has a before and after therefore you need time in order perform it, otherwise the act is ambiguous. How could God perform the act of creation knowing that any act is subjected to time and time is an element of universe?

What I am trying to say here is that the act of creation is logically impossible therefore God cannot perform that. Why it is impossible? Because you need time for any act, time is element of creation therefore the act of creation is impossible.

How is it me bringing God into the discussion if he was there from the start?

God is continually brought up because He is the one carrying out the act of creation that is being discussed. You yourself brought up the fact that there are two states to God: God alone, and then God and creation.

You could always exclude God from the equation and have: “no thing” and “creation” as different state. Moreover God does not change in two states.

Again, your OP clearly implies that God performed the act of creation that is subject to time. YOU are indeed putting forth the argument that God, by his act of creation, is subject to time and “time is an element of universe”.

No, that is not correct. I hope thing is clear by now.

So when I said:

how is it that you “didn’t say anything like that” when your opening post says that His act is “subjected to time and time is an element of universe.”

I hope thing is clear by now.

If you agree, then how you can you say their are two states as you did in your posts #131 and 147?

There is of course two states of “no thing” and “creation” separated from each other. I can add changeless God to these two states. That is what we know from a temporal point of view (our view): God is changeless. What changeless could ever mean something if you don’t have time?

There was not God alone, and then God and creation separated by an act. It is by one act of the will that God wills Himself, and by the same act of will, wills creation’s existence.

Any act separate two states of existence from each other. Putting two states at the same point is makes the state at point ill-defined.

 

[STT]

Indeed you can. Not only can you but quantum mechanics demands it.

The state of universe is not a quantum state, it was long time ago at Big Bang. Moreover we are talking about two state of existence (“no thing” and “something”) rather than two state of being (dead or alive).

 

[STT]

Since we are able to sort out that time began with/coincide with creation, we can put that point behind us and move on as to the cause of existence. God doesn’t need time to create and that takes care of your “dilemma”. An Intelligent Mind and Omnipotence is required in either case. So God is still the best candidate as the First Cause in the absence of simpler or competing explanations.

First things are not sorted yet. You can see that if you are following the discussion. Moreover, what I am trying to say is that there are two theory for existence the first God created the universe and the second the universe has existed as a singularity at starting. There is no way to approve one of these scenario given what we have in our disposal.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

No, that is not correct. I hope thing is clear by now.

I fear that the only things clear to me now are that you are not truly interested in the answers you are being given, you deny what you have said in your own posts, and that unfortunately, my further participating in this thread would be futile.

I hope you find the Truth my friend, and the deep peace that it brings.

 

[ericc]

First things are not sorted yet. You can see that if you are following the discussion. Moreover, what I am trying to say is that there are two theory for existence the first God created the universe and the second the universe has existed as a singularity at starting. There is no way to approve one of these scenario given what we have in our disposal.

You first post states "How could God perform the act of creation knowing that any act is subjected to time and time is an element of universe? ". You made the assumption that God’s action is subject to time which is an element within the universe. I said no, because God does not need time to create, his creation started time (do you agree with this assertion? No creation means no time.) and not as a pre-condition because before creation, there was no universe and therefore no time element was involved. God doesn’t know that he need time to create, you presupposes he need to. For your system to work, you require existence of time before creation. However, you will never succeed in proving that as a possibility. Cosmologists agree that time counting start with the Big Bang i.e. creation. They have been counting backwards ever since.

When did you made the case for the second theory for existence for the universe? It wasn’t in the beginning post. Unless you are claiming that the universe has existed forever which you know is as good as siding with the flat earth theory. But if you accept that the universe didn’t exist forever in the past, you will have to accept that there was a time that the universe did not exist, and hence time did not exist. So do you agree there was a time when the universe and time did not exist? Specifically, if t=0 at the Big Bang, no universe/time exist at t= -1. If the universe came into being 15 billion years ago, 16 billion years ago it didn’t exist and neither did time.

So which part is not sorted out? I didn’t see you refuting my points. You have to come out and say which part you disagree and why.

 

[STT]

I fear that the only things clear to me now are that you are not truly interested in the answers you are being given, you deny what you have said in your own posts, and that unfortunately, my further participating in this thread would be futile.

I am really open to find the answer.

I hope you find the Truth my friend, and the deep peace that it brings.

Same to you.