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

[Wesrock]

I’m sorry, but this is logical nonsense. There’s no such thing as “outside of space and time”, it’s a contradiction in terms. Nothing can actually exist “before” the beginning of time, or “outside” of space.

The Divine Nature has no physicality. This means the Divine Nature is neither bounded by space nor extended through space. There is, of course, no “physical” location that is outside space which is being referred to.

The Divine Nature is also immutable, which means it cannot be added to, which means it cannot decrease or increase in knowledge. It also means that it is non-temporal. It has no successive moments or before or after to it. Time isn’t some physical dimension but merely a measurement of change, and since the Divine Nature does not change, the Divine nature is not temporal.

It’s not one or the other, it’s both. Yes he exists outside of time; yes for a while he stepped into time and was as a man bound by it as we are.

So this atemporal God did something…“for a while”.

Not quite. God is always in act in creation, it’s just been one single eternal act. People often misrepresent the incarnation as if God’s Divine Nature is taking some instantiation in creation. It’s not. The Divine Nature remains immutable and non-physical, though it is united to the human nature of Jesus Christ. But this isn’t a change in the Divine Nature, so much as it is that the Divine Nature has eternally willed and been united to a human nature from 2,000-ish years ago and onwards. That action and union has been eternally present to God.The union only change things in temporal creation, not in the Divine Nature.

 

[Wesrock]

lelinator:

So this atemporal God did something… “for a while” .

It’s kind of even worse than that…this monotheist God sent one of His three personalities to live a human life on earth but this God is one and indivisible? Oh, and simple (not parts) except when on earth…in parts. Often, it looks like an explanation that’s meaningless except for those that already accept that it’s true…

The Trinity acted as one to unite a human nature to the whole essence of God and the relation of the Word/Son.

What parts are you referring to when on Earth? Body parts? That’s not parts of the Divine Nature, those are parts of a human nature.

 

[lelinator]

But along the lines of Pascal’s wager… If I’m wrong I lose nothing.

But this is true only if you don’t need to sacrifice something in the process…like being honest with yourself about what the evidence tells you is true. Now for some people this isn’t a problem, they can easily convince themselves that they’re right about something. In fact convincing ourselves that we’re right seems to be an integral part of what we humans do. But for a multitude of us it’s not that simple, we need evidence. We question things… many things. For us the truth isn’t something about which we can simply pick and choose, nor is it something that we’re willing to compromise on. So it isn’t as simple as Pascal’s Wager might suggest. Because we do indeed have something very important to lose, our personal integrity.

So my commitment isn’t mercenary either, it’s just as honest and heartfelt as yours is. So why is it that theists tend to think that my attitude is born out of pride, while theirs is somehow the more righteous path, because they “believe”.

To me, the righteous path is the one that recognizes and accepts my own human frailties. That there are things that I simply cannot know. To be honest…with me, and with you… that I think is the righteous path. Surely God wouldn’t ask me to do anything less.

 

[lelinator]

Does the number 2 exist outside of time and space? Why or why not?

Again, the phrase “outside of time and space” is contradictory. There is no outside.

 

[snarflemike]

Again, the phrase “ outside of time and space ” is contradictory. There is no outside.

What does it contradict?

 

[Freddy]

For us the truth isn’t something about which we can simply pick and choose, nor is it something that we’re willing to compromise on. So it isn’t as simple as Pascal’s Wager might suggest.

And Pascal actually said that we should ‘act as if we believed’. And that will lead to belief.

It do?

Oregon State University

 

[lelinator]

The Divine Nature has no physicality. This means the Divine Nature is neither bounded by space nor extended through space. There is, of course, no “physical” location that is outside space which is being referred to.

The Divine Nature is also immutable, which means it cannot be added to, which means it cannot decrease or increase in knowledge. It also means that it is non-temporal. It has no successive moments or before or after to it. Time isn’t some physical dimension but merely a measurement of change, and since the Divine Nature does not change, the Divine nature is not temporal.

But the question is, are there purported aspects of God that can only be explained within a spatial/temporal framework. Even if one grants them eternality they still require a framework in which to distinguish them. Take for example God changing His mind. Even if it’s an eternal act it still only makes rational sense within a temporal framework. I.E that one thing preceded another.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

The Divine Nature has no physicality. This means the Divine Nature is neither bounded by space nor extended through space. There is, of course, no “physical” location that is outside space which is being referred to.

The Divine Nature is also immutable, which means it cannot be added to, which means it cannot decrease or increase in knowledge. It also means that it is non-temporal. It has no successive moments or before or after to it. Time isn’t some physical dimension but merely a measurement of change, and since the Divine Nature does not change, the Divine nature is not temporal.

But the question is, are there purported aspects of God that can only be explained within a spatial/temporal framework. Even if one grants them eternality they still require a framework in which to distinguish them. Take for example God changing His mind. Even if it’s an eternal act it still only makes rational sense within a temporal framework. I.E that one thing preceded another.

God has never actually changed his mind. That’s just anthropomorphic explanation.

In order for there to be such an anthropomorphic explanation, though, there’d need to be a change somewhere. That would be within creation. But there’s been no change within the Divine Will.

 

[lelinator]

lelinator:

Again, the phrase “ outside of time and space ” is contradictory. There is no outside.

What does it contradict?

Itself

Outside is a spatial coordinate. If you designate something as being outside of something else, then you’ve given it a spatial coordinate. If it has a spatial coordinate, then it’s in space.

Therefore “outside of space and time” is contradictory.

 

[lelinator]

God has never actually changed his mind. That’s just anthropomorphic explanation.

But then we need to reconsider the popular concept of God to make Him something more akin to an abstract concept, rather than the personal, loving God that theists would like us to believe in.

If I have an abstract concept, say “Survival of the Fittest”, and this concept never changes, then it wouldn’t matter if one day “Survival of the Fittest” decides that dinosaurs are the fittest, and then the next day it decides that they’re not. This wouldn’t constitute a change in the concept itself, it would only constitute a change in that to which the concept applies.

But if this is true of God, that He never changes, then how is He different than any other abstract concept?

Have theists simply anthropomorphized an abstract concept?

 

[snarflemike]

Outside is a spatial coordinate.

So if somebody says they had sex outside of marriage, that implies a spatial relationship?

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

God has never actually changed his mind. That’s just anthropomorphic explanation.

But then we need to reconsider the popular concept of God to make Him something more akin to an abstract concept, rather than the personal, loving God that theists would like us to believe in.

I’ll say I get where you’re coming from. When I first approached Thomism through contemporary writers and even St. Thomas, the philosophical conception came off as very cold and distant. As my understanding deepened, though, this way of thinking about God felt less and less removed, and really I think becomes the example par excellence of love.

Not an abstract concept. But not a human person, either. Personal doesn’t have to mean “sky daddy,” as some atheists mockingly refer to him.

Viewed from the proper context, God is communicating his own goodness to all of creation, and calling into participation with his own goodness all of creation, and willing the order of all things towards the fulfillment of their own perfections.

If I have an abstract concept, say “Survival of the Fittest”, and this concept never changes, then it wouldn’t matter if one day “Survival of the Fittest” decides that dinosaurs are the fittest, and then the next day it decides that they’re not. This wouldn’t constitute a change in the concept itself, it would only constitute a change in that to which the concept applies.

But if this is true of God, that He never changes, then how is He different than any other abstract concept?

An abstract concept like that has no causal power and doesn’t do anything, for one, whereas God knowingly and intentionally causes the being and operation of everything else at all times. Just because he does not change does not make him inactive or passive or unknowing. From all eternity and without himself changing he has cultivated relationships with nations and individuals.

Consider the theophany of the burning bush to Moses. Some might say God was not speaking to Moses, then he was, then he wasn’t again. But God’s act from all eternity was speaking to Moses during that period of time. There was no change in God, his unchanging act was always bringing it about at that moment to Moses to draw Moses into a relationship with him. He knew Moses, reached out to Moses, built a relationship with Moses, and so on, by using one immutable act from all eternity which played out in creation in a temporal fashion.

 

[lelinator]

So if somebody says they had sex outside of marriage, that implies a spatial relationship?

In which case we define “outside” as pertaining to the cultural/legal boundaries of marriage. Thus being outside of those boundaries is a perfectly acceptable reference, and not at all self-contradictory. But in the case of existing “outside of space and time” the reference is specifically a spatial one.

Now if you would like to proffer an alternative, nonspatial definition for what’s meant by “outside of space and time”, then I’ll gladly consider it. So, what do you mean when you say that God exists “outside of space and time”?

 

[snarflemike]

Now if you would like to proffer an alternative, nonspatial definition for what’s meant by “ outside of space and time ”, then I’ll gladly consider it. So, what do you mean when you say that God exists “ outside of space and time ”?

OK, let’s work on this together. One alternative: God is not constrained by space and time.

 

[lelinator]

God is not constrained by space and time.

Better. But there’s still something not quite right about it, because in some sense He’s still constrained by space and time…He can’t get outside of them, because “outside” is self-contradictory. So where does He exist?

Sorry, but jumping ahead, God can’t be said to exist anywhere, and yet He exists everywhere. Think of it like I explained to Wesrock, that God is like the abstract concept of “Survival of the Fittest”. It doesn’t exist in any specific location, and yet it’s edicts hold true everywhere. It’s nowhere and it’s everywhere at the same time.

So why should I believe that your God is anything more than an abstract concept. It’s the ultimate arbiter of what survives, and what doesn’t. But it doesn’t have to think, and it doesn’t have to be smart, and it doesn’t have to care.

How is your concept of God any more likely to be true than mine?

 

[Wesrock]

snarflemike:

God is not constrained by space and time.

Better. But there’s still something not quite right about it, because in some sense He’s still constrained by space and time…He can’t get outside of them, because “outside” is self-contradictory. So where does He exist?

God exists independent of space and time.

Or if we need to be more technical. God’s Divine Nature is independent of space and time, and his existence (full stop) is independent of it. The assumed, creates human nature is physical and subject to space and time, but the assumption of a human nature is not something that the existence of God is dependent on.

 

[lelinator]

God exists independent of space and time.

Or if we need to be more technical. God’s Divine Nature is independent of space and time, and his existence (full stop) is independent of it. The assumed, creates human nature is physical and subject to space and time, but the assumption of a human nature is not something that the existence of God is dependent on.

Sorry, consider my previous post to be a work in progress. So you may want to refer back to it. In fact I would appreciate it if you did.

 

[Wesrock]

Sorry, but jumping ahead, God can’t be said to exist anywhere, and yet He exists everywhere. Think of it like I explained to Wesrock, that God is like the abstract concept of “Survival of the Fittest”. It doesn’t exist in any specific location, and yet it’s edicts hold true everywhere. It’s nowhere and it’s everywhere at the same time.

So why should I believe that your God is anything more than an abstract concept. It’s the ultimate arbiter of what survives, and what doesn’t. But it doesn’t have to think, and it doesn’t have to be smart, and it doesn’t have to care.

I previously pointed out that an abstract concept like “survival of the fittest” is causally inert. I won’t re-iterate that point.

But for other points, I think you mistake immaterial for abstract. To abstract is to divide. You remove conditions of a thing’s natural and particular existence. What remains is a more universalized concept that doesn’t exist in the real world. Physics modeling actually provides a good example of this, where real physical things are stripped down to just mathematical equations and variables. Or rather, we abstract the math from the real things. It tells us something real about the structure, but the physical modeling is an abstraction and not how things really exist in themselves.

By that same token, a proposition like “survival of the fittest” as an abstract concept is not something that subsists in itself. It exists only as a cognitional being, something in an intellect, and so is contingent on real subsisting beings knowing it for its existence. And as an abstract concept it has been abstracted from (what we’ve observed of) real, physical beings and states of being. What truth “survival of the fittest” has is not grounded in its own subsisting reality, because it’s not a subsisting existent in itself, but in the real beings and states that it has been abstracted from.

God, as I’ve presented him, is certainly not an abstract concept. God subsists as his own reality, he is existent. He is not contingent in any respect on others. He is not a cognitional reality that is an abstraction from real things. He is also very much not inert, but more active, necessary, and independent than anything else. He is not taken from reality, all reality has its origin and source in him.

The “why you should believe” is a whole other can of worms. My only point here is that there isn’t a comparison between God and an abstract concept or proposition.

 

[JerryZ]

Uh, you and me do exist within Time since we are traveling along IT and are also bound to IT.
Existence in the Universe understood as when we are alive, taking the Dictionary definition for it:

Existence: (noun) The fact or state of living or having objective reality.

GOD on the other hand is NOT a merely a being like you and I are beings HE is instead “ipsum esse subsistens” which is not a noun but a verb as Bishop Barron puts it as “the shear act of ‘to be’ itself.”

Peace!

 

[Pattylt]

And the story of Xenu is somewhat mysterious, No?

Mysterious is an understatement of the year comment!