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ynotzap
Guest
He moved in His human nature, not in His Divine Nature, so He never changed, He was still a Divine Person, the Hypostatic Union, When God acts, He never changes, that is why He is called the Unmoved Mover, in His Divine Nature, not in His human nature, which was created
He became fully human, except for sin, but always remained a Divine Person, the Unmoved Mover, you must make this distinction. His human nature is encompassed in His Divinity, but remains human, not divine, He has two natures
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Tomdstone
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If God never changed, how did He change and become human? 2100 years ago He was not human.
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Tomdstone
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Scripture tells us that God did change: First He threatened punishment, then He changed His mind.
So the LORD relented in the punishment
he had threatened to inflict on his people.
-Ex 32:7-11, 13-14
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ynotzap
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God knew exactly what the people would do, He knew that He would not punish the people by His omniscience, He knew what effect His threats would have on them, His threats were made out of love for them as a good Father because He knew they would change their minds. God never changes His mind. the quotation is an apparent contradiction, not a real one, there are others in Holy scripture.
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ynotzap
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God knew that His Son would assume human nature, He was pre-destined to be man from eternity. Just because Jesus became or assumed human nature did not make any change in His Divine Nature. Just as God created the Universe, it didn’t make a change in Him, If God changed in the least it would mean that He wasn’t God, but created (potency and act, and not pure act) and this is a contradiction. If God changes, then He is created, not God, and this is a contradiction and that He is not the Unmoved Mover.
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Michael19682
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To say that change in God means God is created is not necessarily true.
Even by human standards, such an assertion as that above in reality seeks to trace an action back to a potential back to an action and then to a potential until the chain of causality reaches a first cause, which it called creation. Problem is as I see it, whether rightly or wrongly, is that “first cause” must imply and thus means an absolute beginning in time. If as we believe God has always existed, then no such beginning exists to delimit the series of actions attributable to God.
The material universe has a beginning and will have an end, but since it is not God’s nature, but his material creation, it is delimited by moments in time. Thus the beginning of the universe is not the beginning of time.
If we say that the birth of the universe is the birth of time, we equate these two and have universal pantheism.
Even by human standards, such an assertion as that above in reality seeks to trace an action back to a potential back to an action and then to a potential until the chain of causality reaches a first cause, which it called creation. Problem is as I see it, whether rightly or wrongly, is that “first cause” must imply and thus means an absolute beginning in time. If as we believe God has always existed, then no such beginning exists to delimit the series of actions attributable to God.
The material universe has a beginning and will have an end, but since it is not God’s nature, but his material creation, it is delimited by moments in time. Thus the beginning of the universe is not the beginning of time.
If we say that the birth of the universe is the birth of time, we equate these two and have universal pantheism.
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Tomdstone
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Did God come down from heaven or not?
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Tomdstone
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If God created the universe then He acted and moved. If He did not act and move and create, then there would be no universe.
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ynotzap
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What I meant by that is that change is to move from potency to act, in God there is no potency just pure act. Created things have potency and act in their nature.
Michael 19682:
If we trace a series of effect to causes and come to the first cause in the line of the series it necessitates an uncaused cause to start, or create the series, time exists with the initial creation, because creation has change as part of it’s nature, no change, no time, time is the measurement of change as we know it. God’s actions are not effected by time, His actions are eternal. His eternal plans are being manifested in time because human exist in time.
The beginning of the material universe entered in with time because the universe has potency and act in it’s nature. The universe is constantly fulfilling it’s potentials which necessitates constant change, this change conceptually through math can be measured (ideally) If it didn’t have potency and act it would never change, and not be subject to time We have our being, the universe has it’s being in God, we are not part of God, for God is pure spirt and is simple, has not parts We are not Pure Act, but Potency and act.
Please explain what you mean by "…creation is delimited by moments of time, how does this lead to the conclusion that "the beginning of the universe is not the beginning of time
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Tomdstone
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When you walk do you move from potency to act? When you move from one place to another, do you move from potency to act? What is the relation between potency and act and the question of potential energy and kinetic energy?
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ynotzap
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The fact that you have the potential, or capacity to walk, and then you walk, you are fulfilling that capacity to walk making it possible to cover distance. The fact that you can move from potency to act is in your nature. It is a sign of being created. We are born in this condition or state, that is why we advance in maturity, because we have the capacity to change our present state (by the way it is always changing, eg. cells are being replaced constantly, and there is always some kind of movement taking place in our bodies, if not, we are dead.) But we do not move ourselves, this ability to move from potency to act is produced by God, just as we can make choices by our will. If we choose to move, we can, but we are not our own power. It’s the way God created us. If we are moved, we are moved by another. If we could move on our own, that would mean that every capacity or potential we could experience we would experience because movement is always towards fulfilling our potentials. All our potentials would be fulfilled at once,and we would be God, who has no potentials but is Pure Act. This is why it’s said, God move others, but does not move Himself, because , in a manner of speaking, all His potentials are filled, so no need for movement, movement is always toward fulfilling potentials, There are material movement, locomotion, and there are spiritual movements, eg. moving from the state of ignorance to the state of knowing, or knowledge, it manifest the truth of potency and act in created things. the universe is created, so with it comes the state or condition of potency and act, the universe is always experiencing motion, and change.
Relationship between potential energy, and kinetic energy to my mind means eg. a battery has the potential to produce electrical flow, but until it is hook up to an electrical device, it remains a potential, in other words, it has the capacity to supply the electricity needed by the device, (but is not in act, until a demand is made on it to supply the electron flow)
Kinetic energy is movement passed on to another object by contact eg. a billiard ball on a pool table hits another ball and so on until resistance stops it from moving. Everything mentioned has a capacity to move (potency) to moving (act) and it is always for a purpose. God is the Prime mover and He passes this movement on to secondary causes, kinetic energy, and potential energy, for examples.
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Michael19682
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ynotzap
Strictly speaking, I would say that according to my presumptive logic as above, if the universe 'fully occupies" the moment, then its infinitude actually should be said to “exhaust” time momentarily. Hence, its evolution/constant changing actually represents a pause in time. In other words, when the universe finally ends, time can resume again not devoid of material as in the beginning, not exhausted with material preoccupation as now, but as transformed into Heavenly realms, fulfilled and at rest.
This sounds like phenomenology. I believe that the French existentialist Sartre resolved the question very eloquently. They are the same thing: There is no difference between potency and act. One is a more subtle form of the other?
The Universe, though delimited by moments of time, is nevertheless infinite in the moment. Therefore there is no way to measure change by time, or certainly not theoretically in the ideal. For example, if you say that you travelled 100 miles due East in so many hours, can you prove that the entire universe didn’t act like a treadmill beneath your feet that resulted in a wasteful expenditure of physical calories, yet rendered you in the same spot? Or for that matter, that the universe doesn’t jump like a Queen on a chessboard while you sleep flat in bed. You wake up thinking you are in the same spot, maybe with a stiff neck, but you have actually travelled light years in your dreams on the magic carpet of the universe. We just can’t measure a vector with “potentially” infinite dimensions.
The universe is material, moved and created by God. Even if it “infuses” or “enmeshes” fully with time, we know it will end whereas time will continue. Scriptural accounts vary across cultures of the creation of the Universe. Ours specify a time when it began. It began in the beginning. Time was going on before it, like a void. You might say, using language, that time was devoid of material.
Strictly speaking, I would say that according to my presumptive logic as above, if the universe 'fully occupies" the moment, then its infinitude actually should be said to “exhaust” time momentarily. Hence, its evolution/constant changing actually represents a pause in time. In other words, when the universe finally ends, time can resume again not devoid of material as in the beginning, not exhausted with material preoccupation as now, but as transformed into Heavenly realms, fulfilled and at rest.
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Tomdstone
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IMHO, real facts (not speculation) show that it is not true that God does not move.
God responds to our prayers by lessening the time of a soul spent in Purgatory.
God responds to the prayers of the priest during Mass and becomes present in the Host, where once He was not present.
God comes down from Heaven and becomes man.
Thousands of years before Christ, God was walking around on earth in a garden.
God changes His mind.
So your argument fails, because reality and Scripture tells us that God does move.
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ynotzap
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According to Scholastic Philosophy it is impossible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect only in different respects. Potency and Act is covered in Ontology
Michael 19682:
The moment is a moving part of time not eternity, and it will continue to move in an ever changing world. The Prime Mover is infinite, not that which is moved which is finite, there is not instant in time, there is a condition of constant change in the Universe Only in the conceptual world is time divided into segments, seconds, minutes, and hours, not in the objective world around us. Time in a Metaphysical sense is change, time in a conceptual world of ideas is measurable as stated, on a quantitative level, not a qualitative level So I agree with part of your statement. We do apply the principles of math and are able to give some practical measurement to change, but it will never approach perfection because in the objective world things are always changing, in the world of math, the principles do not change, there is a relationship between the unchanging principles, and the unchanging God from whom they proceed. These principles are spiritual in nature, of the intellect, just like the One they proceed from. In order that things even though they have relationships, there must be something stable and permanent in these relationships, otherwise truth becomes relative, and relationships have no stability or permanence
Michael 19682:
Time in the sense that it is change will continue, because it’s part of our nature even in Heaven, God will sustain the change, we will spend an eternity being filled by God . Change was not going on until something was created, because change is part of the creation. God alone is unchanging because He is Pure Being, Existence, and Pure Act, we are finite, dependent, matter and form, essence and existence, and potency and act, all put together, created. We were given all of these things, we came from nothing. This is the way I understand it.
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ynotzap
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Fisherman carl answered your question by quoting you scripture that says God never changes, therefore He doesn’t move, He is the Unmoved Mover. Refer to post #14, in thread “Can we know who God is with our reason” I tried to explain to you in detail how God in Jesus moved in His human nature, not in His Divine Nature, and Person. Since Jesus is God he moved in his human nature, not in His Divine, they are separate natures, so there is no contradiction, His human nature is contained in His Divine nature. It is complicated and needs careful study, Metaphysics is not an easy study. Movement belongs to creation which is moved by the Unmoved Mover, God The argument from motion is one that is used to prove that God exists.
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Tomdstone
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God was seen moving and walking around on earth thousands of years before Jesus according to Holy Scripture. Your theories are based on philosophical speculations which are not even universally accepted. Many scholars reject the metaphysical concepts which you have taken for granted.
The Catholic religion teaches us that we can reduce the amount of time that a soul spends in Purgatory by gaining indulgences which can then be applied to that soul. God responds to our prayers and in many cases He will then move and change the sentence of that soul, lessening his time of suffering.
To say that God does not move or that He does not change because His Divine Nature does not change is no argument because the nature of a man does not change into the nature of a frog. Even though the nature of a man will not change into the nature of a frog, nevertheless, a man can move and change.
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Tomdstone
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The Aristotelian concepts your are invoking are out dated. When was the last time you observed a potentially existing contingent being? How would you know it was potentially existing before it became actually existing? It seems to me that everything around me is actually existing.
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ynotzap
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Everyone is entitled to their own ideas, and we will have to agree to disagree on this subject
But I do know actually existing beings with potential not yet fulfilled, and I do know that beings not yet existing with potential will exist in the future with potential Truth is never outdated
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Tomdstone
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Holy Scripture tells us that God was moving and walking around in a garden on earth thousands of years before Christ.
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