My brain is about to explode! How can something always have existed?

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catholic1seeks

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Either the Universe or some physical reality or someTHING has always existed, or God has always existed.

Whether you are atheist or theist, at the end of the day, something (or some being, like God) must have always existed. Infinite in the past.

WHAT?!

THAT’s mind-boggling.
How are we to understand this reality?

I understand that theists say that God is outside of time (he is “eternal” in the technical sense). Yet, God cannot have failed to exist. So whatever one means by eternal, God has always existed.

This is so troubling for me! It’s not shaking my faith or anything like that. It’s a simple fact that anyone can reach: some aspect of existence, whether God or something else, must have always existed. How can we even think of that? You can never reach a beginning if this aspect is infinite past or enteral. It just IS and always has been.

But always has been means there is literally no beginning whatsoever. You keep reaching back. Say you add on another “year” into the past. No beginning. Add another year into the past - no beginning yet. Keep going backwards, and you never reach a beginning. How??

So whether you are atheist or theist, Christian or not… How does this even make sense?!? It must be true… But it’s so… Illogical!
 
We are so used to thinking in terms of time that we cannot fathom existence that is not governed by time. We really don’t have words to describe existence without time.
 
catholic1seeks said:
How does this even make sense?!?
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We like to think that the universe is completely intelligible, and that everything should make sense. Scientists and others can understand much in the universe. But it is possible, IMHO, that at least at this stage of human knowledge, that some things in the universe are not intelligible.
 
The phrase “always existed” or “exists eternally” with regards to philosophy isn’t supposed to be understood as time going forever in a line in either direction. It isn’t the same as mathematical infinity, though it’s a related concept. It refers to the ontological state of Being, which exists outside of time as a concept entirely, since time itself is a property of space and vice versa. Humans and the physical realm, by comparison, are understood to exist in a state of perpetual becoming, because, unlike God, we are always approaching an ideal limit that we will never actually fully realize. Being in this sense is the very essence of existence itself. In Platonic philosophy (someone correct me if I’m wrong), it is referred to as the nous, which is essentially the culmination of ideal concepts, particularly Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

God is an ontologically perfect entity, and is both the culmination and source of all qualities in the universe, as all Creation derives in some way from Him. God exists, because God is existence, and existence is able to be because He is. Hence “I AM that I AM,” “I AM who AM,” etc. Time exists as a derivative from God, as does space, life, minerals, physics, atomic structures, immune systems, beauty, the soul, and so on.

You said it yourself. “Some aspect of existence, whether God or something else, must have always existed.” It’s pretty conceptually impossible to actually wrap our heads around, but God simply Is. I’m guessing you took some kind of philosophy course recently, because we’ve been learning about the same concepts and how they’ve driven and affected architecture and architectural theory.

One thing that separates God from the Platonic nous is the fact that, instead of simply being the ideal and unreachable perfect transcendentals, God is a Person… Well three Persons… in whom all Goodness both resides and originates.

Perhaps my answer was more theologically driven than what you were looking for, but that’s how I understand it, if I can really be said to understand it at all. St. Augustine and St. Thomas do a very good job of reconciling the Greek philosophers and other Western philosophies with Catholic theology and philosophy.
 
Everything that is created is mortal, so it is difficult for us to grasp what is uncreated and immortal. There is nothing strange about it, and nothing to be troubled about.
 
Kurisu35712 said:
God is an ontologically perfect entity, and is both the culmination and source of all qualities in the universe, as all Creation derives in some way from Him. .
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What bothers me is that God is perfect, but the universe He created is such a mess.
 
Sort of like how a 2D being would never be able to understand 3D. We’ve probably got time all messed up in understanding what it is.
 
Tomdstone said:
What bothers me is that God is perfect, but the universe He created is such a mess.
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What bothers me is that God created a universe and called it Good, yet we have the audacity to mess it up and blame it on Him.
 
Trident_H said:
Sort of like how a 2D being would never be able to understand 3D. We’ve probably got time all messed up in understanding what it is.
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You could say that we’re 3D beings trying to understand a 4th dimension. 😃
 
Kurisu35712 said:
What bothers me is that God created a universe and called it Good, yet we have the audacity to mess it up and blame it on Him.
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It seems to be a serious fallacy to blame every mess on humans. Take for example, a baby who is born with leukemia or some other paralyzing disease that cannot be cured, but will only result in a long and painful death. What did the baby or the parents do to deserve such a miserable fate. Other times, earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes strike, brutally killing innocent children who certainly did not deserve such a painful, miserable and horrible death.
 
Tomdstone said:
It seems to be a serious fallacy to blame every mess on humans. Take for example, a baby who is born with leukemia or some other paralyzing disease that cannot be cured, but will only result in a long and painful death. What did the baby or the parents do to deserve such a miserable fate. Other times, earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes strike, brutally killing innocent children who certainly did not deserve such a painful, miserable and horrible death.
Click to expand...
The mystery of suffering isn’t part of the topic, and since it’s discussed ad infinitum on these forums, I don’t want to bite today, but if you want to start a thread discussing it, I’ll try to post on it later.
 
catholic1seeks said:
Either the Universe or some physical reality or someTHING has always existed, or God has always existed.

Whether you are atheist or theist, at the end of the day, something (or some being, like God) must have always existed. Infinite in the past.

WHAT?!

THAT’s mind-boggling.
How are we to understand this reality?

I understand that theists say that God is outside of time (he is “eternal” in the technical sense). Yet, God cannot have failed to exist. So whatever one means by eternal, God has always existed.

This is so troubling for me! It’s not shaking my faith or anything like that. It’s a simple fact that anyone can reach: some aspect of existence, whether God or something else, must have always existed. How can we even think of that? You can never reach a beginning if this aspect is infinite past or enteral. It just IS and always has been.

But always has been means there is literally no beginning whatsoever. You keep reaching back. Say you add on another “year” into the past. No beginning. Add another year into the past - no beginning yet. Keep going backwards, and you never reach a beginning. How??

So whether you are atheist or theist, Christian or not… How does this even make sense?!? It must be true… But it’s so… Illogical!
Click to expand...
I don’t think that having no beginning is illogical. Take for example, the real line which stretches from minus infinity to plus infinity. The real line has no beginning, and yet is logical. Similarly, with the integers …-3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3,…
 
catholic1seeks said:
Either the Universe or some physical reality or someTHING has always existed, or God has always existed.

Whether you are atheist or theist, at the end of the day, something (or some being, like God) must have always existed. Infinite in the past.

WHAT?!

THAT’s mind-boggling.
How are we to understand this reality?

I understand that theists say that God is outside of time (he is “eternal” in the technical sense). Yet, God cannot have failed to exist. So whatever one means by eternal, God has always existed.

This is so troubling for me! It’s not shaking my faith or anything like that. It’s a simple fact that anyone can reach: some aspect of existence, whether God or something else, must have always existed. How can we even think of that? You can never reach a beginning if this aspect is infinite past or enteral. It just IS and always has been.

But always has been means there is literally no beginning whatsoever. You keep reaching back. Say you add on another “year” into the past. No beginning. Add another year into the past - no beginning yet. Keep going backwards, and you never reach a beginning. How??

So whether you are atheist or theist, Christian or not… How does this even make sense?!? It must be true… But it’s so… Illogical!
Click to expand...
All of the options mess with my head a bit when I think about them. Something always existing with no cause, some sort of eternal regress, or something coming from nothing…all of those things strike me as really, really weird. But at the end of the day I think that some sort of uncaused cause makes the most sense (or perhaps I should say makes the least nonsense).
 
Adding to Kurisu’s earlier reply:

(These ideas are from me with a small amount of help from Godel, whom I hadn’t heard of till I had already worked out the essentials.)

It’s not illogical.

Now if one handles “truly” infinite concepts it is paradoxical. Though I love them myself, most people strongly dislike paradoxes. If you out of perfectionism insist on handling the infinitely infinite, you are backing yourself into a “corner” where paradox is all the more concentrated.

I think there are such things as:
  • the more caused, the more causing, the more caused and the less caused
  • the more infinite and the less infinite
That way we dwell on what is obvious and don’t have to hyperfocus on so-called “controversial” areas. God has after all given us the obvious because he wants us to enjoy contemplating it!

Also because the approximate is not limited it makes it easy to actually get nearer and nearer to “infinite”. If you get to know the space between Paris and London the context tells you all the more about both Paris and London. “Fundamentalists” claim to want to know about our example of Paris and London but their behaviour proves that they abhor knowing about anything.

A few months ago I read that in a new hypothesis based on observations, outside the “present” universe is a dimension where there are 4 dimensions of space alone (without counting time).

(Space can both pass through substances and hold them separate; time holds the same thing at different “stages” in its development.)

I recently read that Godel predicted that two parallel lines or planes will always either diverge or grow nearer, as one proceeds further along them. This would appear to fulfil “What God joins let no man keep apart”. He also formulated that any observational rule will have areas of particularly strong predictive accuracy merging into areas of lesser predictive accuracy.

I think there is a lot of benefit in realising that we can tend to be sure-ish that we can tend to be sure-ish of more and more things. We should all go there more often!

I love this Subtle Doctoring lark! 😉
 
Trident_H said:
Yeah. Like that exactly. 😉

And nice to see you around buddy.

Peace.

-Trident
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I’ve been lurking all over the forums, to be honest. I just haven’t found quite as many threads to post on lately. I’ll get a post typed out and then realize it doesn’t contribute enough to bother posting it. 😃
 
Yes, God always existed. St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of this.
There are mysteries that are way above the human mind to comprehend. I accept them on faith. If I try to figure them out myself, it would drive me crazy.

As far as sickness, pain, suffering, natural disasters and death go, they are the result of original sin. God only creates perfect things. Mankind is responsible. Unfortunately, bad things happen to good, innocent people.

We are called to accept our suffering in such a way that is can be used for the good of our souls and others. This is redemptive suffering.

I haven’t explained these thoughts in the deepest way possible but I hope this helped.
God bless you for caring about your faith and asking questions.
 
Tomdstone said:
I don’t think that having no beginning is illogical. Take for example, the real line which stretches from minus infinity to plus infinity. The real line has no beginning, and yet is logical. Similarly, with the integers …-3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3,…
Click to expand...
This is a pretty good analogy imho.
God might be thought of as the the reality of mind that produces the idea of numbers, from which each individual number or finite collection is derived. It can can spin out as many as it wants forever because it is not in the set.

If that doesn’t work, how about:
You exist “now”; you always have and will since you cannot exist then. About your existence then, it can only be imagined or remembered from where you are now.
Consider that all existence does so in its now.
God’s eternal nature includes all nows. He is everywhere and in everything, smaller than anything and larger than the whole thing.
We make choices and as a result exist as a past, present and future, the past being what we have done and therefore closed to change.
Creation as it is known to God exists whole.

Something like that.

It actually makes it more mind boggling and amazing.
 
catholic1seeks said:
Either the Universe or some physical reality or someTHING has always existed, or God has always existed.

Whether you are atheist or theist, at the end of the day, something (or some being, like God) must have always existed. Infinite in the past.

WHAT?!

THAT’s mind-boggling.
How are we to understand this reality?

I understand that theists say that God is outside of time (he is “eternal” in the technical sense). Yet, God cannot have failed to exist. So whatever one means by eternal, God has always existed.

This is so troubling for me! It’s not shaking my faith or anything like that. It’s a simple fact that anyone can reach: some aspect of existence, whether God or something else, must have always existed. How can we even think of that? You can never reach a beginning if this aspect is infinite past or enteral. It just IS and always has been.

But always has been means there is literally no beginning whatsoever. You keep reaching back. Say you add on another “year” into the past. No beginning. Add another year into the past - no beginning yet. Keep going backwards, and you never reach a beginning. How??

So whether you are atheist or theist, Christian or not… How does this even make sense?!? It must be true… But it’s so… Illogical!
Click to expand...
Too me this is the easiest to understand. God exist outside of the physical universe, outside of time, he has always been and will always be.
 
Our minds have limitations, and this is one of them. We cannot imagine eternity any more than we can draw the four-dimensional cube.

Get used to it. 🙂

ICXC NIKA
 
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