Eternal Universe

[Linusthe2nd]

Well we’ve debate that on another thread. I don’t see why God could haven’t given the world the power to exist on its own after the first moment of creation.

Also, again, does anyone know where the Church has clearly taught the world had a beginning in time?

It’s in the Catechism. But it was taught by the Council of Trent. I have enclosed two Dogmatic paragraphs which you should read very carefully becuase they clarify errors you have been making.

1782 [The one, living, and true God and His distinction from all things.] * The holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church believes and confesses that there is one, true, living God, Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, omnipotent, eternal, immense, incomprehensible, infinite in intellect and will, and in every perfection; who, although He is one, singular, altogether simple and unchangeable spiritual substance, must be proclaimed distinct in reality and essence from the world; most blessed in Himself and of Himself, and ineffably most high above all things which are or can be conceived outside Himself [can. 1-4].

1783 The act of creation in itself, and in opposition to modern errors, and the effect of creation] . This sole true God by His goodness and “omnipotent power,” not to increase His own beatitude, and not to add to, but to manifest His perfection by the blessings which He bestows on creatures, with most free volition, “immediately from the beginning of time fashioned each creature out of nothing, spiritual and corporeal, namely angelic and mundane; and then the human creation, common as it were, composed of both spirit and body” [Lateran Council IV, see n. 428; can. 2 and 5]

I have referenced these teachings before, I guess you ignored them.

onetruecatholicfaith.com/Roman-Catholic-Dogma.php?id=39&title=Denzinger+1700±+1799&page=2

Linus2nd

 

[Bahman]

Well we’ve debate that on another thread. I don’t see why God could haven’t given the world the power to exist on its own after the first moment of creation.

Also, again, does anyone know where the Church has clearly taught the world had a beginning in time?

The very core question is to show that a sustain substance has the capacity to experience and act on its own otherwise the creation is a failure.

 

[thinkandmull]

Linus, what you quoted has nothing to do with what I said in that post. I said “why God could haven’t given the world the power to exist on its own after the first moment of creation”. Its just your opinion that that would be giving it divinity.

Also “does anyone know where the Church has clearly taught the world had a beginning in time?”

You are the one who believes that there can be a creation out of nothing that was from eternity. All I can see is that the Church teaches there was a beginning ontologically, thus in the beginning, from eternity. Although I believe it philosophically, I don’t see where the Church has said that time had a real beginning.

I don’t know where your reference to the CCC is to. But just remember, Cardinal Ratzinger made clear that the Catechism is not infallible and not intended to stop speculation on all the issues addressed in it

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Linus, what you quoted has nothing to do with what I said in that post. I said “why God could haven’t given the world the power to exist on its own after the first moment of creation”. Its just your opinion that that would be giving it divinity.

Thomas Aquinas gives this as the reason. God is pure existence. He creates the act of existence for all his creatures. And since he gave them existence, existence can only come from him. Creatures can cause other creatures to come into existence, but it is God who creates the act of existence. And that is also why he is present in all his creatures, to maintain their existence.

Also “does anyone know where the Church has clearly taught the world had a beginning in time?”

I gave you the Dogmatic teaching of the Church from the Council of Trent ( post 120 ). It is also found in the Catechism. Do you reject this teaching?

You are the one who believes that there can be a creation out of nothing that was from eternity. All I can see is that the Church teaches there was a beginning ontologically, thus in the beginning, from eternity. Although I believe it philosophically, I don’t see where the Church has said that time had a real beginning.

Apparently, you have trouble understanding what you read. I never said the world had an eternal creation, I said that Thomas Aquinas said there was no logical reason why it could not have happened. He said that we know the world had an actual beginning in time only through faith. What the Council of Trent taught about the beginning of the world in time is an article of Faith. Faithful catholics must accept it on faith.

I don’t know where your reference to the CCC is to. But just remember, Cardinal Ratzinger made clear that the Catechism is not infallible and not intended to stop speculation on all the issues addressed in it

Its in the section on creation. Look it up for your self. You interpreted Ratzinger incorrectlly. What is in the Catechism must be accepted by faithful catholics as part of the deposit of the faith. What is in the Catechism has been accpeted by all the bishops in union with the Pope. That means it is infallible. Show me one thing in the Catechism that catholics are not obliged to accept and believe.

When you post on a Catholic forum you have a moral obligation to represent Catholic teaching faithfully. Otherwise you risk scandalizing the faithful and misleading non-believers.

Linus2nd

 

[thinkandmull]

You quoted:

“immediately from the beginning of time fashioned each creature out of nothing, spiritual and corporeal, namely angelic and mundane; and then the human creation, common as it were, composed of both spirit and body” [Lateran Council IV, see n. 428; can. 2 and 5]

Beginning of time is used by those who believe in an eternal universe as well. It could be ontological and not historical.

I never said you believe “the world had an eternal creation”. I said “You are the one who believes that there **can be **a creation out of nothing that was from eternity”. Its you and ChainBreak who have been disrespectful, and thusly because you think you are the better Catholic.

Why are you saying I misread Ratzinger. Did you even read it? jimmyakin.com/2005/02/ratzinger_on_th.html

 

[thinkandmull]

Just because God is a necessary being doesn’t mean He can’t create something that doesn’t constantly need sustaining.

Fallible things in the Catechism? Religious liberty as a right for non-Catholics? Baptism of Desire (Trent did not explicitly teach each). I have read a lot on traditionalism, and those people are not bound to accept the whole Catechism

 

[ChainBreaker]

Just because God is a necessary being doesn’t mean He can’t create something that doesn’t constantly need sustaining.

Fallible things in the Catechism? Religious liberty as a right for non-Catholics? Baptism of Desire (Trent did not explicitly teach each). I have read a lot on traditionalism, and those people are not bound to accept the whole Catechism

That which begins to exist, does not exist by its own essence and therefore requires a being that does exist by its own essence to actualize it and keep it actual at the same time. God on the other-hand exists by his own essence because his essence is existence; that is why God does not begin to exist and cannot cease to exist because his nature is to exist. God is the fullness of existence, you are not.

 

[thinkandmull]

God is the fullness of Good, but we have some good and a right to be treated as humans by him. So even though He has the fullness of existence (which really just means uncreated, come on) that doesn’t mean he can’t give a stable existence to something to which He can observe and not have to sustain

 

[ChainBreaker]

God is the fullness of Good, but we have some good and a right to be treated as humans by him. So even though He has the fullness of existence (which really just means uncreated, come on) that doesn’t mean he can’t give a stable existence to something to which He can observe and not have to sustain

That which begins to exist, does not exist by its own essence

You can ignore this all you like, but it follows logically and necessarily.

That which is not the source of its own being cannot actual by it’s own power.

 

[thinkandmull]

God is God, and yet Jesus (God) said “ye are all gods”. I am not ignoring your argument, i am just trying really hard to find a flaw, because if I can’t than its true. You haven’t shown that God cannot share some of His existence by nature with creation, just a grain of it so that it would exist on its own.

And, in fact, you are the one who haven’t conceded how I clearly demonstrated that God was not His ideas

 

[balto]

God is God, and yet Jesus (God) said “ye are all gods”. I am not ignoring your argument, i am just trying really hard to find a flaw, because if I can’t than its true. You haven’t shown that God cannot share some of His existence by nature with creation, just a grain of it so that it would exist on its own.

And, in fact, you are the one who haven’t conceded how I clearly demonstrated that God was not His ideas

You are not listening to anything that people are trying to tell you. If God is sharing His nature with creatures, then He is sustaining them.

A necessary being is one that cannot fail to exist and hence does not need to be created. You are essentially asking if God can create something that is uncreatable, which is nonsense.

 

[Tomdstone]

That which begins to exist, does not exist by its own essence

You can ignore this all you like, but it follows logically and necessarily.

The argument we hear is that the Big Bang was not the beginning, but one of an infinite number of cyclical events implying that there was no beginning to the universe.

 

[GaryTaylor]

The argument we hear

later experiments revealed that time slows at higher speeds of the reference frame relative to another reference frame. Such slowing, called time dilation, is explained in special relativity theory. Many experiments have confirmed time dilation, such as the relativistic decay of muons from cosmic ray showers and the slowing of atomic clocks aboard a Space Shuttle relative to synchronized Earth-bound inertial clocks. The duration of time can therefore vary according to events and reference frames.

When dimensions are understood as mere components of the grid system, rather than physical attributes of space, it is easier to understand the alternate dimensional views as being simply the result of coordinate transformations.

The term spacetime has taken on a generalized meaning beyond treating spacetime events with the normal 3+1 dimensions. It is really the combination of space and time. Other proposed spacetime theories include additional dimensions—normally spatial but there exist some speculative theories that include additional temporal dimensions and even some that include dimensions that are neither temporal nor spatial (e.g., superspace). How many dimensions are needed to describe the universe is still an open question. Speculative theories such as string theory predict 10 or 26 dimensions (with M-theory predicting 11 dimensions: Wiki-Pedia

but one of an infinite number of cyclical events

Speculative

 

[Bahman]

That which begins to exist, does not exist by its own essence and therefore requires a being that does exist by its own essence to actualize it and keep it actual at the same time. God on the other-hand exists by his own essence because his essence is existence; that is why God does not begin to exist and cannot cease to exist because his nature is to exist. God is the fullness of existence, you are not.

The very core question is to show that a sustain essence has the capacity to experience and act on its own otherwise the creation is a failure. Do you have a proof for this?

 

[Rubia]

You didn’t misunderstand. The universe IS eternal in that it existed always in the Mind of God. As such, its existence was always inevitable. Now, the WAY it existed is something we don’t know and will never know because we can’t know the eternal Mind of God.

Please explain inevitable? I’m sorry but this seems somewhat pantheistic like Hinduism. I thought that unlike God the son who was uncreated and thus proceeds from God as his very own nature (Divine mind or word to be precise), creatures are not “inevitable”, God didn’t and doesn’t have to create anything at all. Creation is product of God’s arbitrary will or absolute freedom, unlike God the Son and Holy Spirit who proceed as necessary from the father.

Did I misunderstand your intent of “inevitable”? God didn’t have a choice? Creation is total gift of God’s free will? Saints say God didn’t have to make us but CHOSE to. Our faith says also thatGod knows not only what exists (creation) but all the infinite possibilities that can exist. This means the mere fact that God knows something in his mind does not make it inveitable. Nothing outside God himself is inevitable. It all is chosen. Therefore we cannot have been inevitable but exist from moment to moment from God’s complete choice that we should keep existing.

 

[thinkandmull]

You are not listening to anything that people are trying to tell you. If God is sharing His nature with creatures, then He is sustaining them.

A necessary being is one that cannot fail to exist and hence does not need to be created. You are essentially asking if God can create something that is uncreatable, which is nonsense.

I carefully weighted his argument and found it faulty. I see no reason that God’s immense power could not create a world and sit back as it sustains on its own

 

[balto]

I carefully weighted his argument and found it faulty. I see no reason that God’s immense power could not create a world and sit back as it sustains on its own

Well what you haven’t done is given anybody any reason to think what you are saying is true.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You quoted:

“immediately from the beginning of time fashioned each creature out of nothing, spiritual and corporeal, namely angelic and mundane; and then the human creation, common as it were, composed of both spirit and body” [Lateran Council IV, see n. 428; can. 2 and 5]

Beginning of time is used by those who believe in an eternal universe as well. It could be ontological and not historical.

That is not true. Dr. William A. Carroll has pointed out that in the case of an eternal universe, creation would be from nothing but not in time. I don’t recall whether or not Aquinas mentioned that.

I never said you believe “the world had an eternal creation”. I said “You are the one who believes that there **can be **a creation out of nothing that was from eternity”. Its you and ChainBreak who have been disrespectful, and thusly because you think you are the better Catholic.

No, it was Aquinas himself who said that an eternal creation was not opposed to reason.

Why are you saying I misread Ratzinger. Did you even read it? jimmyakin.com/2005/02/ratzinger_on_th.html

I don’t know what your particular source was, you have not given us a specific reference and I’m not going to buy a book just to see what he said. I don’t have to read a book to know that you either misrepresented what he said or that he meant something other than what you said. Besides, if one equates matter with physicality, the only conclusion one can reach is that there is no physicality in the species after the Consecration, because the matter is gone. Or rather, it has been changed into the Whole Christ.

Linus2nd

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Just because God is a necessary being doesn’t mean He can’t create something that doesn’t constantly need sustaining.

Fallible things in the Catechism? Religious liberty as a right for non-Catholics? Baptism of Desire (Trent did not explicitly teach each). I have read a lot on traditionalism, and those people are not bound to accept the whole Catechism

No, God cannot give another being the power to create. That is what Aquinas teaches. It the Scriptures, God teaches the absolute dependance of his creation on himself. Does Scripture cite even one instance where one creature created another. Remember that creation means to bring forth a creature from non-being. Only God can do that.

Yes, Catholics must believe those things. Trent is not the only source of Catholic truth. Rather the whole Tradition of the Church is the source of Catholic truth.

Linus2nd

 

[balto]

That is not true. Dr. William A. Carroll has pointed out that in the case of an eternal universe, creation would be from nothing but not in time. I don’t recall whether or not Aquinas mentioned that.

The closest thing I can find is Aquinas’ discussion of whether it is an article of faith that the world began:

Objection 1. It would seem that it is not an article of faith but a demonstrable conclusion that the world began. For everything that is made has a beginning of its duration. But it can be proved demonstratively that God is the effective cause of the world; indeed this is asserted by the more approved philosophers. Therefore it can be demonstratively proved that the world began.

…

Reply to Objection 1. As Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xi, 4), the opinion of philosophers who asserted the eternity of the world was twofold. For some said that the substance of the world was not from God, which is an intolerable error; and therefore it is refuted by proofs that are cogent. Some, however, said that the world was eternal, although made by God. For they hold that the world has a beginning, not of time, but of creation, so that in a certain hardly intelligible way it was always made. “And they try to explain their meaning thus (De Civ. Dei x, 31): for as, if the foot were always in the dust from eternity, there would always be a footprint which without doubt was caused by him who trod on it, so also the world always was, because its Maker always existed.” To understand this we must consider that the efficient cause, which acts by motion, of necessity precedes its effect in time; because the effect is only in the end of the action, and every agent must be the principle of action. But if the action is instantaneous and not successive, it is not necessary for the maker to be prior to the thing made in duration as appears in the case of illumination. Hence they say that it does not follow necessarily if God is the active cause of the world, that He should be prior to the world in duration; because creation, by which He produced the world, is not a successive change, as was said above (Question 45, Article 2).

Emphasis mine. Source: newadvent.org/summa/1046.htm

The difficulty thinkandmull is having is in assuming that creation is some kind of temporal act that is necessarily prior to the effect. So he assumes that first reality = [God] and then reality = [God, universe] and concludes that if the universe is past infinite then there would be no need for God to create it. In reality, it has always been the case that reality = [God, universe] even if the universe is past-finite since there is no identifiable time at which God existed and the universe didn’t, since there is no time before time. Creation is instantaneous and not successive, as Aquinas argues.