God is the absense of change, and thus is timeless?

[liquidpele]

Thinking this weekend, I thought about past and future. The future seems to be entirely based on the past. Without a past, would you expect a future? Would you see the future as you do now? What if the past was fabricated… would you still go by its example? How can you know your past memories are real or fabricated?

I came the the conclusion that a person’s acceptance of the future depends on their acceptance of the past. In short, the future depends on the past.

This in turn, got me thinking… according to Einstein, time depends on mass and energy. Basically… time is the change of either position or velocity of particles.

What if you were frozen? What if every atom in you were frozen for 10,000 years? Would you be 10,000 years old? Time would not have an effect in such a case.

This then got me thinking that a decent definition of God would be that which as no past or future… that which literally does not change that thus time has no effect on.

Thoughts?

 

[geometer]

God is not really definable, and certainly can not be limited to the simple definition that you have suggested.

best regards

Vincent

 

[1holycatholic]

God is not really definable, and certainly can not be limited to the simple definition that you have suggested.

best regards

Vincent

There are two types of knowledge about God, cataphatic and apophatic.

Time indicates change which indicates imperfection.

We know apophatically what God is not. God can not exist temporally.

The atemporality of God is a logical necessity.

 

[geometer]

There are two types of knowledge about God, cataphatic and apophatic.

Time indicates change which indicates imperfection.

We know apophatically what God is not. God can not exist temporally.

The atemporality of God is a logical necessity.

Time indicates change? Which change are you thinking of?

God can not exist temporally. This may please you, but if logic is to rule what you know about god then it follows that Jesus was never God.

On what grounds can you suggest limits on what God can do? Claiming that pure mental logic satisfies your mind does not make your mind the judge of god…

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Thinking this weekend, I thought about past and future. The future seems to be entirely based on the past. Without a past, would you expect a future? Would you see the future as you do now? What if the past was fabricated… would you still go by its example? How can you know your past memories are real or fabricated?

I came the the conclusion that a person’s acceptance of the future depends on their acceptance of the past. In short, the future depends on the past.

This in turn, got me thinking… according to Einstein, time depends on mass and energy. Basically… time is the change of either position or velocity of particles.

What if you were frozen? What if every atom in you were frozen for 10,000 years? Would you be 10,000 years old? Time would not have an effect in such a case.

This then got me thinking that a decent definition of God would be that which as no past or future… that which literally does not change that thus time has no effect on.

Thoughts?

The question is put in negative terms . Somehow, we have to avoid negations - if that is possible. Having said that: God is indefinable. It is easier to say what God is not, that what God is. But those who know, don’t need mere words. Words are for the use of men on earth, who don’t know Him. The only “definition” of God is God Himself - & only God has the capacity to know God as well as God is able to be known.​

As to Einstein, God is not a material reality. Science is a very powerful instrument for coming to know about certain aspects of the created order; but how can something that is incompetent to tell us about the angels (who are only creatures, after all) tell us anything about the God Who is unlike any creature whatever ? God is Immense - IOW, not able to be put into the mind. Except in broken & halting concepts, which are like the countless patterns of coloured glass one sees in a kaleidoscope. But no created category of being can accomodate the God Who is unimaginably “beyond” all categories - so God is not in a genus: as Aquinas points out.

Absence of change is an accidental modification of beings - but there are no accidents in God; for there is no capacity for change. He is Infinite Being, & Infinite Act; “God”, as C. S. Lewis says somewhere, “is a verb”. God is not related to things - it is the other way round: they, are related to God. So God’s Knowledge is not dependent on anything that is not God - yet this Knowledge is Infinite, One, Unique, & in short, is God - for He is His Attributes; they are not separable or separate; we perceive them in that way, because that is how our intellects work. The angels, unlike us, know by intuition, not by breaking down perception into concepts.

I don’t know whether it makes sense to distinguish past, present & future: I suspect these distinctions are imaginary, & that we see reality back-to-front; & therefore, treat these distinctions as having more reality than they do. It does not help that we live in space-time.

This is probably full of blunders - please shoot them down.

 

[4Horsemen]

God can not exist temporally. This may please you, but if logic is to rule what you know about god then it follows that Jesus was never God…

God’s existence is not contingent upon time as understood. Just because God the Son lived as a human on this earth does not lessen or remove the fact that He was, is and ever will be God in the Trinity, having no bounds either in Heaven or on earth. Since all 3 Persons of the Blessed Trinity exist within each other, eternally, outside of time (transcendence) and within time, on earth, (immanence), they are invariably one – one God, and cannot be separated - yet distinct.

God is all-encompassing. Thus, both Father and Spirit are in Christ as Christ is in Father and Spirit. God remains with us physically (as Jesus) in the Sacred Host. “I will not leave you orphan,” He tells His apostles. In that sense, God exists not only eternally outside of time, but temporally, in time–our time.

So God is immutable (unchangeable) and timeless (eternal). But the idea of the absence of change doesn’t really get across the idea of unchangeable because in describing God as “the absence” of something leaves a void, whereas He is not absent but omnipresent.

Consider that God lives and moves and has His being within us, within all of His creatures, within all of His creation, or it could no longer exist. It exists (and we exist) only because God wills it. Scripture tells us His eye is on the sparrow, He knows the number of hairs on our heads, He knitted us in our mother’s wombs.

 

[1holycatholic]

Time indicates change? Which change are you thinking of?

classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.html

God can not exist temporally. This may please you, but if logic is to rule what you know about god then it follows that Jesus was never God.

Hypostatic Union

On what grounds can you suggest limits on what God can do? Claiming that pure mental logic satisfies your mind does not make your mind the judge of god…