God creating the universe would mean he is not eternal?

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I came across an argument from an Eastern Buddhist philosopher, Xuanzang’:

According to one doctrine, there is a great, self-existent deity whose substance is real and who is all-pervading, eternal, and the producer of all phenomena. This doctrine is unreasonable. If something produces something, it is not eternal, the non-eternal is not all-pervading, and what is not all-pervading is not real. If the deity’s substance is all-pervading and eternal, it must contain all powers and be able to produce all dharmas everywhere, at all times, and simultaneously. If he produces dharma when a desire arises, or according to conditions, this contradicts the doctrine of a single cause. Or else, desires and conditions would arise spontaneously since the cause is eternal.

I was wondering if there was a good refutation for this?
 
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BenSinner said:
If something produces something, it is not eternal,
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There is absolutely no foundation for this assertion. There’s no reason that an eternal being could not create.

As for the assertion that desires and conditions arise spontaneously, this is also an unfounded assertion. God’s knowledge contains all potentials and eventualities. Hence, from eternity He has accounted for every possible and actualized occurrence.
 
I’m not really grasping why they’re putting a limit on an eternal, all-pervading being.

We believe that God is eternal, and lives outside of time and space. But he created time and space. He continues to exist outside of time and space, and does not become entrapped by time or space. He is not surprised by things as they occur inside of time or space-- because all time and space is perceived by him simultaneously, rather than as a sequence of events.

So, with that as my mentality, I’m looking at the argument, and I’m tripping up on how the philosopher is defining the term “dharma”. Google sez that dharma is “the principle of cosmic order” according to Hindus, and that for Buddhists, dharma is “the teaching or religion of the Buddha.” Which doesn’t really help me grasp the argument.

So, pretending that the Buddhist philosopher is using the Hindu meaning of “dharma” to mean cosmic order, I’m reading, “If the deity’s substance is all-pervading and eternal” (yes), “it must contain all powers” (yes) “and be able to produce all cosmic orders everywhere, at all times, simultaneously.” (OK, yes, he can, even if he’s outside time, so I’m not too sure on if the author’s idea of “simultaneous” is the same as God’s idea of “simultaneous”.) “If he produces cosmic order when a desire arises, or according to conditions, this contradicts the doctrine of a single cause.” (Um? Why? If I decide to create the universe at this point, and then the earth and the sun are created at that point, and then the moon is created at a different point— why does that mean all of those things can’t be created by the same entity?) “Or else, desires and conditions would arise spontaneously since the cause is eternal.” (So is the philosopher saying that a being who exists outside of time and space is incapable of working inside of time and space? Why, if he perceives all of time and space simultaneously, even though it unfolds “normally” from our perspective?)
 
Thomas Aquinas used Plato’s image of a boot eternally planted in the sand. The footprint may be co-eternal with the boot but it’s still the boot that created it.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
There is absolutely no foundation for this assertion. There’s no reason that an eternal being could not create.
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I’m guessing that the implication is that, if a being ‘produces’, it changes. Having changed, it’s not eternally what it was. (And, if not eternal, then it’s not ‘real’ according to the Buddhist understanding of what reality is.)

If, on the other hand, there is an eternal being that us immutable, then an argument can be made that it really is eternal.

The problem here is that he’s picking up the definition of God as Creator, but ignoring (or being unaware of) the assertion that God is unchanged and unchanging.
 
Being Buddhist, I am not going to try to refute the argument, instead I will try to explain it. The argument itself goes back before Xuanzang, at least to Nagarjuna.

Since the universe is not 200 billion years old, then any proposed creator of the universe was either non-existent or inactive 200 billion years ago. An eternal creator must have existed back then, so he/she/it/they was inactive at that point.

Since the universe exists today, and arguendo had an eternal creator, then that creator must have changed from inactive to active. From “I will not create now” to “I will create now.”

Therefore for a non-eternal universe with an eternal creator to exist, the creator must have changed at around the time of creation. There is a necessary change from non-acting to acting and (presumably) back again.

However, an eternal entity cannot change. An eternal entity exists at all times. The active-creator entity does not exist at all times, it only exists at the time of creation. The inactive-creator entity does not exist for all times either, since it does not exist at the time of creation, before and after the act of creation, but not during.

One single entity cannot have opposed properties; it cannot be both active and inactive. Therefore we have two different non-eternal entities with different properties.

We have established that no eternal unchanging creator can exist. Indeed, the Book of Genesis would look very different if God were unchanging:
On the first day God said, “Let there be light,” and on the second day God said, “Let there be light,” and on the third day God said, “Let there be light,” and on the fourth day …
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Anything which changes cannot be eternal because change necessitates difference over time. Anything eternal cannot change because it is the same for all time. Eternality disallows change, so the two must be separate.

The creator of a universe with a beginning must change, and hence cannot be eternal.

rossum
 
Eternal means He existed even before creation, even though there wasn’t time before creation because time is a measure of change.
 
Actually I think that God needs to first decide about the act of creation. The act of creation and decision could be simultaneous too.
 
midori said:
So, with that as my mentality, I’m looking at the argument, and I’m tripping up on how the philosopher is defining the term “dharma”. Google sez that dharma is “the principle of cosmic order” according to Hindus, and that for Buddhists, dharma is “the teaching or religion of the Buddha.” Which doesn’t really help me grasp the argument.
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Dharma has many meanings. In this context is is “an element of reality”. Hence Xuanzang’s
it must contain all powers and be able to produce all dharmas everywhere, at all times, and simultaneously.
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means that any unchanging creator must produce anything and everything simultaneously. T. rex, mammoths, dodos and all extinct and living species simultaneously. This is obviously something we do not observe.

An unchanging eternal creator cannot stop making T. rex, wait for a bit and then start making mammoths. That stop and start is a change, which is impossible for an eternal entity.

Later we have:
If he produces dharma when a desire arises, or according to conditions, this contradicts the doctrine of a single cause.
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This talks about God’s will/desire. In this scenario God does not create alone, but God and God’s will together create: two separate causes. God is eternal and unchanging while God’s will changes and so cannot be eternal. At one point God’s will said, “make mammoths”. Now God’s will is different. God cannot create alone, but requires God’s will as a changing co-creator.

HTH

rossum
 
I think you are puzzled with the fact that how a timeless act could turn into temporal acts.
 
That is the problem of describing time and God, as in St. Augustine’s confessions.

Prior, not in time, but in order. God was prior to creation as a cause is prior to an effect.
 
anon65111186 said:
That is the problem of describing time and God, as in St. Augustine’s confessions.

Prior, not in time, but in order. God was prior to creation as a cause is prior to an effect.
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That means that you are dealing with two state of affairs, cause and effect. The question is what fill the space between these two state of affairs. It means that these state of affairs lie at the same point if you say that there is no space between these state of affairs. This makes that situation ill-defined.
 
STT said:
That means that you are dealing with two state of affairs, cause and effect.
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Yes, but they are well defined.

State 1. God exists without anything else, just God.
State 2. Then God creates, (causes creation) and everything is made. (the effect is immediate)
 
anon65111186 said:
Yes, but they are well defined.

State 1. God exists without anything else, just God.

State 2. Then God creates, (causes creation) and everything is made. (the effect is immediate)
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No, the sum is ill-defined if there is no space between two states. You have cause and effect at the same point. You also cannot define order if there is no space between cause and affect.
 
STT said:
No, the sum is ill-defined if there is no space between two states.
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There was no “space” before God created it. Space is part of the created world.

There is no same point on the cause step, because points come into being as space is created.
 
STT said:
You also cannot define order if there is no space between cause and affect.
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Agreed. If order cannot be defined, then it is impossible to say which is cause and which is effect. Did creation cause the creator? After all, a creator who has not created anything is not a creator. Any creator of X is dependent on the existence of at least one X, which she/he/it/they have created.

rossum
 
It depends on what one means by change and create. Rather than infinite potential, think of pure act.

If a being is timeless then there is no “time” perse in which there was no creation, since there is creation.
Our perception of time doesn’t affect this.

I also find that meditating on the Trinity can also shed some light on this.
 
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