Dilemma of time and the act of creation

[STT]

I think the responders understand that, but disagree.

Why they disagree?

 

[Aloysium]

Why they disagree?

You have not supported your claim. They explain the reasoning behind their claims.

 

[STT]

You have not supported your claim. They explain the reasoning behind their claims.

How could you have motion (creation for example) if fabric universe isn’t stretched and separated? You cannot put two states of existence at the same point. In case of creation you have “no thing” and universe at the same instant which is problematic. Therefore cause and effect are separated no matter how much small.

 

[STT]

You are misunderstanding cause and effect.

a direct cause does not occur before an effect. It occurs during the causing of the effect.

When a rock is thrown through a window and breaks it, the throwing of the rock is NOT the direct cause of the window breaking. It is an indirect cause.

The window breaks because the rock occupies the same space as the window at the same time as the window. As the rock moves through that space, the window moves out of that space at the same time.

The direct cause of any effect happens simultaneously as the effect. Indirect causes, or necessary initiating precursor causes may occur before the direct cause, but they are not the true direct cause of the effect.

God’s willing of creation happened simultaneously to creation happening. Creation happening and time existed because of creation beginning.

Please read post # 104.

 

[Aloysium]

How could you have motion (creation for example) if fabric universe isn’t stretched and separated? You cannot put two states of existence at the same point. In case of creation you have “no thing” and universe at the same instant which is problematic. Therefore cause and effect are separated no matter how much small.

The point you are trying to make in the first two sentences, escapes me.
With respect to creation, we have a transcendent eternal being who is its Source. Both “are” simultaneously, God being Existence itself and creation being through His act of Divine will.
In the case of God, the supreme Cause, creation, the effect, is other to Him. In and through Christ, we, as its crown, have the capacity to love and thereby to enter into communion with our Creator.
I’m not sure what you mean by cause and effect. I guess I and others here did not convey that the term, as you use it, to be two separate but link events in time, is illusory.

 

[STT]

The point you are trying to make in the first two sentences, escapes me.
With respect to creation, we have a transcendent eternal being who is its Source. Both “are” simultaneously, God being Existence itself and creation being through His act of Divine will.
In the case of God, the supreme Cause, creation, the effect, is other to Him. In and through Christ, we, as its crown, have the capacity to love and thereby to enter into communion with our Creator.
I’m not sure what you mean by cause and effect. I guess I and others here did not convey that the term, as you use it, to be two separate but link events in time, is illusory.

Creation is defined as: God acts on “no thing” and then creation. Putting two states of existence at the same point is problematic. How could we have the act of creation on point zero if the creation exists at the same point?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’m no theologian or metaphysician, but it has been my understanding that God is a Unity. Our wills and our acts are not, and might differ. I might decide to mow the lawn, but then not do it. God’s will is his act. So in that sense, the universe always existed in reality because it always existed in the Mind of God. The exact manner of its existence may vary as God has willed it from all eternity. As to that manner thoughout eternity, or even before the Big Bang, I don’t think we’ll ever know in this life.

We all have very small ideas of God, no matter how expansive we try to make them.

 

[Aloysium]

Creation is defined as: God acts on “no thing” and then creation. Putting two states of existence at the same point is problematic. How could we have the act of creation on point zero if the creation exists at the same point?

It’s simple. “Let there be light?” And there was light. One event - creation.
God always is, was and will be because He creates time.
And, while participating through His Holy Spirit and the Son, the Alpha-and-omega, who became one of us, He remains the unchanging eternal Fount from which all creation springs forth.
The act of creation at point zero varies only in the degree of complexity from that of the maintenance of the universe throughout its existence from beginning to end.

I think we may be talking past each other.

 

[STT]

It’s simple. “Let there be light?” And there was light. One event - creation.
God always is, was and will be because He creates time.
And, while participating through His Holy Spirit and the Son, the Alpha-and-omega, who became one of us, He remains the unchanging eternal Fount from which all creation springs forth.
The act of creation at point zero varies only in the degree of complexity from that of the maintenance of the universe throughout its existence from beginning to end.

I think we may be talking past each other.

“No thing” to the creation is a motion. Isn’t it? How could you define motion if the changes happen at the same point?

 

[Aloysium]

“No thing” to the creation is a motion. Isn’t it? How could you define motion if the changes happen at the same point?

God creates all moments, all time.
He is other to His creation, an other towards whom we, His creatures, journey.
This journey is the purpose of time, the final cause is to be found in communion with God.
Everything “moves” or changes within the present moment of its existence.
I eat “now”, sleep “now”, write this on my phone “now”, remember “now”.
All change always happens at one point - in its present moment of existence.
It all comes into being from the One Source, ever present, encompassing all “nows”, eternal.

 

[STT]

God creates all moments, all time…

Lets define all possible states of the universe and moments as creation. Is “no thing” to the creation a motion? Lets focus on this question.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

Creation is defined as: God acts on “no thing” and then creation. Putting two states of existence at the same point is problematic. How could we have the act of creation on point zero if the creation exists at the same point?

You are trying to put a timeline on an eternal event. There is no sequence like what you are proposing:

1.) God was, but willed for there to be nothing
2.) God then changed his will and willed for there to be all of creation
3.) After God willed creation, it then happened

This idea violates the nature of God. He is unchanging. God is. His will is. Creation is because He wills it to be.

We are existing in a reality and state of awareness where the sum of our observations lead to what our minds perceive as sequences of motion. This ability to experience the “present” while referencing and remembering something that we perceive to be prior to the “present” is what we call “past”.

By quantifying the perceived number of changes between the two experiences, our minds understand this to be motion, change, and time. We only can perceive motion or time because we observe something in the “present” as being different than what we have an existing knowledge of it being. Therefore, we conceptualize this as motion, change, and time.

Again, we cannot understand how this can be. We can assent to it and acknowledge it, but we can not comprehend the mechanism behind it because it is outside of what we can experience.

There is a mystery involved here, and we will NEVER understand it in this life. I can not explain myself any other way than what I have already said in this thread so far. If you are unable to shift your perspective and look at things from how I and others on here are looking at it, then our explainations are futile.

We also can never offer you a definitive proof or an all encompassing explaination because one does not exist within this created reality.

My only other suggestion for you is this: Rather than seeking to define and explain God, go and experience Him. Spend time in the marvelous and awe inspiring natural world he has created for us to come to know Him in. Spend time in Adoration of the blessed sacrament. Experience the wonder of the fact that individual self aware creatures made in His image are all around us.

If you truly wish to seek Truth, then try to take more time to experience it Instead of trying to rationalize it.

I’m bowing out of this particular discussion for now. I have exhausted what I have to offer you in the form of explanations, for I am but a finite being with a dreadfully limited intellect. I truly hope that you can find peace as I have with the fact that we cannot fully know because He has not willed it so

 

[Aloysium]

Lets define all possible states of the universe and moments as creation. Is “no thing” to the creation a motion? Lets focus on this question.

Motion is temporal.
“Creation” is an act - an ontological “motion” perhaps, that happens in the first, the last and all moments.

 

[STT]

You are trying to put a timeline on an eternal event.

The act of creation becomes meaningless if you don’t have “no thing”. The universe would exist if there was no thing without God’s intervention.

There is no sequence like what you are proposing:

1.) God was, but willed for there to be nothing
2.) God then changed his will and willed for there to be all of creation
3.) After God willed creation, it then happened

I didn’t say so. You always keep bringing God in the discussion. My sequence is different from yours:

1. “No thing” + act of creation
2. The universe

You only have (2) if you don’t have (1). “No thing” and the universe are not eternal.

This idea violates the nature of God. He is unchanging. God is. His will is. Creation is because He wills it to be.

I am not talking about God.

We are existing in a reality and state of awareness where the sum of our observations lead to what our minds perceive as sequences of motion. This ability to experience the “present” while referencing and remembering something that we perceive to be prior to the “present” is what we call “past”.

Could you have past and present at the same point?

By quantifying the perceived number of changes between the two experiences, our minds understand this to be motion, change, and time. We only can perceive motion or time because we observe something in the “present” as being different than what we have an existing knowledge of it being. Therefore, we conceptualize this as motion, change, and time.

Again, we cannot understand how this can be. We can assent to it and acknowledge it, but we can not comprehend the mechanism behind it because it is outside of what we can experience.

There is a mystery involved here, and we will NEVER understand it in this life. I can not explain myself any other way than what I have already said in this thread so far. If you are unable to shift your perspective and look at things from how I and others on here are looking at it, then our explainations are futile.

We also can never offer you a definitive proof or an all encompassing explaination because one does not exist within this created reality.

My only other suggestion for you is this: Rather than seeking to define and explain God, go and experience Him. Spend time in the marvelous and awe inspiring natural world he has created for us to come to know Him in. Spend time in Adoration of the blessed sacrament. Experience the wonder of the fact that individual self aware creatures made in His image are all around us.

If you truly wish to seek Truth, then try to take more time to experience it Instead of trying to rationalize it.

I’m bowing out of this particular discussion for now. I have exhausted what I have to offer you in the form of explanations, for I am but a finite being with a dreadfully limited intellect. I truly hope that you can find peace as I have with the fact that we cannot fully know because He has not willed it so

Thanks for your contribution.

 

[STT]

Motion is temporal.

Yes.

“Creation” is an act - an ontological “motion” perhaps, that happens in the first, the last and all moments.

Yes, creation is a motion otherwise there is nothing.

 

[STT]

Yes.

Yes, creation is a motion otherwise there is nothing.

I should have said: “The act of creation causes a motion otherwise there is nothing.”

 

[lmelahn]

Examining the properties of some is the smallest “particles” in nature, such as photons and electrons, specifically how they can behave like the particles, which we conceive them to be, or as waves, when they pass through slits, would support your statement. What happens is that when we try to p(name removed by moderator)oint through which slit the little rascal passes, it behaves like a particle, the tiniest of balls. If we don’t, what we see is an interference pattern, like waves passing through each other. What makes this most remarkable is that it doesn’t matter whether we try to detect its path before or after it passes through the slit; it is the process of detection, the setup of the equipment by a rational mind that determines what occurs - before and after is of no consequence.

I agree, but the simultaneity cause and effect works across the board.

The problem that most people have in seeing this is that they are imagining that the previous “point” or “event”*(in time) is the cause of the next “event.” If we forget about quantum mechanics for the moment and indulge the illusion that time is on a perfect continuum, then we have the problem that there is no such thing as a pair of “adjacent”*events. (Quantum mechanics, as you point out, challenges that view.)

(If we make the analogy with a line in geometry, there is not such thing as two points on a line that are perfectly “adjacent”*to one another—between any two points, there is always at least one other point.)

The key thing here is to see that “points”*in time (or, for quantum mechanics, quantum “states”) are actually mental constructs: they do not exist in themselves. What exists are the things in the world (in technical terms, “substances”). These are constantly in flux, and our constant interaction with them produces in us what we commonly call “time.” But time is not a “thing”; the “things” are the interacting material substances.

For example, it is not my “20-minutes-ago” self (the way I was 20 minutes ago) that causes my present self to exist. Rather, I am the substance that exists, and I had certain characteristics 20 minutes ago, which are slightly different now.

Actual “cause” and “effect,” therefore, is to be found where things are somehow currently interacting.

A good example is the sun, which (for all intents and purposes) provides all of the heat on the surface of the earth. The sun is a true cause of that heat. (Strictly speaking, the effect of the sun is a continual (name removed by moderator)ut of energy that offsets the earth’s loss of energy through radiation.) Imagine for a moment what would happen if the sun could be turned off. The earth would instantly start to freeze. Yes, that process would take time (the earth radiates its heat gradually), but the point is, the effect of the sun—which is a continual (name removed by moderator)ut of radiant energy—would cease immediately once its cause (the sun) were removed.

(A possible objection is that it takes eight minutes for the radiation of the sun to reach us. That is true from our perspective. Even if we did not take into account relativity, we could simply answer that the sun is not a cause of the heating of the earth until the radiant energy actually reaches us. Taking relativity into account, it actually becomes easier: from the point of view of the light, there is no distance between sun and earth, and no time passes—at the speed of light, the speed at which the photons are traveling, length contracts to zero and time dilation is infinite.)

But, upon examination, we realize that every interaction works in this way. Food and water are the cause of my continued material life; the central heating is what keeps the house warm (or else, the central air conditioning keeps it cool); gravity maintains the orbit of the earth around the sun (if the sun were to disappear, the earth would immediately sail off tangentially to its orbit); and so on.

 

[lmelahn]

Creation is defined as: God acts on “no thing” and then creation. Putting two states of existence at the same point is problematic. How could we have the act of creation on point zero if the creation exists at the same point?

God cannot act on “no thing”—it is nothing.

Rather, God acts, and consequently things exist.

As for putting two states of existence at the same point, see my answer to Aloysium.

 

[lmelahn]

I should have said: “The act of creation causes a motion otherwise there is nothing.”

In order to have a true change or motion, there has to be a prior state and a posterior state.

For instance, when ice melts, there is a prior state (fully frozen ice) and a posterior state (liquid water). In the case of material things, there can also be intermediate states (part ice / part liquid water). However, having the intermediate states is not an essential part of having a true change. (For example, death does not have an intermediate state between the living organism and the cadaver.)

However, creation is not a true “change”*because there is no prior state. “Nothingness” is not a thing. Creatures do “pass” from nothingness to existence. Rather, thanks to creation, things simply are.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

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?

I haven’t read all the replies. But your premise is in error in that Time is a man made construct. Time is not a physical element. But it is a physical quality that can be incorporated into the measurement of other physical properties, ie flow rate, vectors, velocity ect. , It is rather a temporal measurement. Something we use like language, to understand each other.

Time requires what? To exist?

Time as a scale exists as a two way street.

If you were to travel x light years and land on a planet, look back at the Earth in a good Telescope, you could see for example , the Ark crashing into a Turkish Mth, that high tower, the destruction of the Temple, or even a dinosaur or two roaming around.

So your act has a before and after and during, depending on the direction and distance you travel to see it