If God is unchangeable, then how could there be a beginning in time?

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What I mean by this is there was a time when we didn’t exist. Then there was a time when we did. So at some point, God made a change. (not creating-creating).

How would this be possible is he is not changeable?
 
God freely willed from eternity to create the world and freely decided from eternity when to create the world. Consequently, there was no change in God in creating the world.
 
WannabeSaint said:
What I mean by this is there was a time when we didn’t exist. Then there was a time when we did. So at some point, God made a change. (not creating-creating).

How would this be possible is he is not changeable?
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The Holy Trinity created the world ex nihilo. Vatican I defined:
1. If anyone denies the one true God, creator and lord of things visible and invisible: let him be anathema.

2. If anyone is so bold as to assert that there exists nothing besides matter: let him be anathema.

3. If anyone says that the substance or essence of God and that of all things are one and the same: let him be anathema.

4. If anyone says that finite things, both corporal and spiritual, or at any rate, spiritual, emanated from the divine substance; or that the divine essence, by the manifestation and evolution of itself becomes all things or, finally, that God is a universal or indefinite being which by self determination establishes the totality of things distinct in genera, species and individuals: let him be anathema.

5. If anyone does not confess that the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, were produced, according to their whole substance, out of nothing by God; or holds that God did not create by his will free from all necessity, but as necessarily as he necessarily loves himself; or denies that the world was created for the glory of God: let him be anathema.
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Why is it so hard to understand that the Universe was created from nothing and that TIME the 4th dimension of the Universe was created along with it.
So unfortunately our language cannot easily describe that when the Universe did not exist neither did TIME.
So when we say “before” the creation it is actually making the impression that the TIME was already running but that is NOT the case.
There is no “before”, TIME started at the precise moment the Universe was created.
GOD is not a PART of the Universe since HE created it out of NOTHING.

Peace!
 
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Excerpt from Nativity of Our Lord, Great Vespers with Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great:

At Psalm 140

In Tone 2
  1. Out of the depths I cry to You, O Lord; O Lord, hear my voice!*
Come, let us rejoice in the Lord* as we tell of the present mystery.* Destroyed is the middle wall of partition;* the flaming sword turns back, the cherubim withdraw from the tree of life,* and I partake of the delight of Paradise from which I was cast out through disobedience. For the Father’s express Image, the Imprint of His eternity, takes the form of a servant,and without undergoing change He comes forth from a Mother who knew not wedlock. For what He was, He has remained, true God: and what He was not, He has taken upon Himself, becoming man through love for mankind. To Him let us cry aloud:* God born of a Virgin, have mercy on us.

Divine Liturgy, Hymn of the Incarnation

Only-Begotten Son and Word of God, You are immortal, and deigned for our salvation to become incarnate of the holy Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary, and without change You became man. You were crucified, O Christ our God, and trampled death by death; You are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us!
 
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From God’s viewpoint, the beginning and the end and the middle are all simultaneous. To Him, outside of time, they are all “now.” He didn’t change.
 
JerryZ said:
Why is it so hard to understand that the Universe was created from nothing and that TIME the 4th dimension of the Universe was created along with it.
So unfortunately our language cannot easily describe that when the Universe did not exist neither did TIME.
So when we say “before” the creation it is actually making the impression that the TIME was already running but that is NOT the case.
There is no “before”, TIME started at the precise moment the Universe was created.
GOD is not a PART of the Universe since HE created it out of NOTHING.

Peace!
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Just to be picky here…

The time which we experience started when this universe started. I won’t suggest that we don’t know what happened before the start as that statement makes no sense. So I’ll suggest that we don’t know what happened on the other side of that point.
 
One thing we do know, is that there is no “before” the instant that the Universe was created. After its creation then the sequence of events start to happen and now we can express it in terms of before, now, tomorrow.
In the Universe there is no T - 10, 9, 8, etc. T initiated its count at T = 0 which corresponds with its creation.
And again T = Time = (A Dimension) which we together with everything that was created travel along the same way we travel along the X, Y, Z Dimensions When the Galaxy moves in the Universe and our Solar System moves within the Galaxy “Milky Way” and our planet moves around our mother star “Sol”.

Peace!
 
JerryZ said:
One thing we do know, is that there is no “before” the instant that the Universe was created.
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No, we don’t know that. It’s effectively unknowable. Time as we know it started at the big bang. But we don’t know what was on the other side of that event.

It’s like asking someone what they experienced before they were born. Obviously a nonsensical question. But something obviously happened before that point even if there was no way to experience it.
 
Christianity is not a pantheistic religion (where in everything is God and God is everything). In Christian belief, God exists apart from his creation. As such, he can make changes outside himself, but that does not mean his essence, his character, who he is, is changing.
 
The conversation so far reminded me of this passage from St Augustines “Confessions “.

Behold, I answer to him who asks, “What was God doing before He made heaven and earth?” I answer not, as a certain person is reported to have done facetiously (avoiding the pressure of the question), “He was preparing hell,” says he, “for those who pry into mysteries.”
 
VeryBlessed said:
“What was God doing before He made heaven and earth?” … “He was preparing hell,” says he, “for those who pry into mysteries.”
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But why then did God give us our ability to reason and reflect on our universe and our existence? It is not right to send someone to hell for using his reasoning abilities.
 
No no. The “hell for those who pry into mysteries” comment is 3rd century humor… At least that’s how I read it…
 
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Key word in the Augustine quote is “facetiously”. That’s Augustine saying that this is NOT a good or valid answer. So you and Augustine (and I) are all in agreement.
 
The triune GOD is outside of Time. Jesus the Son GOD when the Time was right was incarnate (became man) from the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. So yes GOD can act within Time because Time is HIS creation. But that does NOT mean that HE “exists” within it.

That is an illogical assertion how can HE exist within His creation?

Jesus from the instant HE was incarnate until His ascension was existing within Time, because HE became one of us.
Now however HE does not, since HE is now seated at the right hand of the Father.

Peace!
 
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