God can do all possible things. Since contradictions, such as a rock so heavy God can’t lift it is a contradiction, nonsense. Thus it is relevant because being omnipotent only means being capable of doing all possible things.
what gave you that idea
In classic Christian theology, one of the attributes ascribed to God’s nature is that of eternality, that is, that God is by nature “eternal” in the sense of being timeless. In this understanding, God transcends time, since he himself is the originator of all temporal reality. Hence, for God, there is no “before and after,” though he knows the temporal relations all events have to one another.
God is unchanging. Time implies change … 3 states past,present,future … therefore God cannot be in time.
the bible says the gift of god is eternal life. that means good catholics would also be timeless? outside of time?
time merely implies the passage of events. doesnt mean something has to change with each passing nanosecond. god does things, right? that means he also has a past present & future.
The passage of an event is change. With each nanosecond passed at the very least you are 1 nanosecond older … not exactly the same creature as before … impossible for us to see but reason says you are not the same.
if that is true then everything should be inanimate. god would be like frozen in a picture. completely unchanging. eternally living in the present. a lifeless picture.
there are many kinds of changes. changes in quality, changes in thought, changes in physiology, changes in movement. the bible shows that God moves: change in movement. the bible shows that God thinks: change in thought. even had regrets sometimes. so you see time passes even for a god.
Yes, though not in the same sense as God, who is not a creature and had no beginning in time. Human beings are finite, temporal creatures who had a beginning, and thus experience time as a duration of events. So the term “eternal” carries a different meaning when applied to human creatures than it does as it pertains to God, an infinite, divine being.
how can something outside of time have a beginning? thats contradictory. even so, god could have started from somewhere the same way. a finite creature that was able to bend reality and achieve infinity, eternity. its like the paradox of time travel. its just that he’s been around for so long he cant remember where he came from anymore. thus no beginning and no end.
As I pointed out, finite human creatures are not “eternal” in the same sense as is God (an infinite divine being). Human creatures are not outside of time, while God, who is infinite and had no beginning in time, is “eternal” in a non-temporal sense.
Then it wouldn’t be “God” as properly understood, since a valid concept of God ascribes to him the qualities of eternality, self-existence, and transcendence. If the being we’re discussing had a beginning in time, then we’re no longer talking about God, but simply about another temporal creature.
Speculating is fun, but I wouldn’t give it much epistemological weight. In addition, the idea of a finite creature somehow becoming infinite involves an inherent category fallacy. The gap between the infinite and the finite is itself infinite. Therefore, the scenario you suggest, while fun to think about, is logically impossible, or, in philosophical terms, intrinsically absurd.
Historically people did believe that the Gods had a beginnning.
the modern idea of ‘outside of time’ is logically impossible and absurd. think about it. as long as there is an observer there would always be a passage of time.