Paradox of the beginning of creation

[SilverShadow22]

Character: But when did our world begin?

Author: The moment I created it.

C: But when was that?

A: The moment I decided to write it.

C: But when was that, exactly?

A: The very beginning of your world.

C: But what moment was that for you?

A: You wouldn’t understand.

C: Tell me anyway. I demand to know, or you can’t possibly be my creator.

A: I warn you, you won’t be able to understand it.

C: TELL ME NOW!!!

A: Sighs All right. I first began to write on the twelfth of April, in the year of two thousand and ten, counted from the advent of our Lord.

C: But what is that? What lord? What is April? How do you count your years? Are they lunar or solar and how long are they, and was it Spring or Summer or some other season altogether? I do not understand, how could you have made me if you had to choose a moment to start the book, and how did you decide what moment was the beginning for us? You cannot be all-powerful if I cannot understand the way you see time!!! Why and how could you do this?!

A: Because I made you and that’s how it is. Now live in your world and keep to what you can understand.

C: But… But…

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

 

[Bahman]

You are missing the crucial part:

*No reference point existed until creation began. *

That’s what you don’t seem to understand. Time itself is created. There is no ‘reference point’ without Time. Prior to creation, there was no past or future, there was no this moment or that moment.

This I understand.

So the ‘paradox’ is irrelevant to the actual situation.

Even when He created Time, he remained outside its influence and limits. Nothing changed for Him, only for the storybook characters.

First, time is an illusion so God cannot be outside of it. Secondly you missed to answer the necessity of reference point after creation. A timeless and changeless God cannot sustain the creation because the creation has dynamic.

 

[SilverShadow22]

This I understand.

Actually, I’m not at all sure that you do.

First, time is an illusion so God cannot be outside of it. Secondly you missed to answer the necessity of reference point after creation. A timeless and changeless God cannot sustain the creation because the creation has dynamic.

Time is an illusion ONLY TO GOD. If you can even admit this much, your paradox disappears.

If I were a perfect author and never had to learn things and write another draft, I would churn out books one after the other and they would not affect me, nor my view of this world at all. The books are outside me and do not change me, no matter when they start, how long they last, or when they end.

 

[Bahman]

Actually, I’m not at all sure that you do.

You could be sure about that.

Time is illusion ONLY TO GOD. If you can even admit this much, your paradox disappears.

Time is illusion to us because we just experience form and motion. I found a solution for my paradox: The God existence and creation of the universe lay at the same point.

If I were a perfect author and never had to learn things and write another draft, I would churn out books one after the other and they would not affect me, nor my view of this world at all. The books are outside me and do not change me, no matter when they start, how long they last, or when they end.

That doesn’t answer my question: How a timeless God can sustain creation if creation has motion? He needs a reference point in his mind which should match with state of current universe. That reference point of course has a motion.

 

[SilverShadow22]

You could be sure about that.

Time is illusion to us because we just experience form and motion. I found a solution for my paradox: The God existence and creation of the universe lay at the same point.

That doesn’t answer my question: How a timeless God can sustain creation if creation has motion? He needs a reference point in his mind which should match with state of current universe. That reference point of course has a motion.

Uh, no. He neither has nor needs a reference point. Only we do.

 

[davidv]

You could be sure about that.

Time is illusion to us because we just experience form and motion. I found a solution for my paradox: The God existence and creation of the universe lay at the same point.

That doesn’t answer my question: How a timeless God can sustain creation if creation has motion? He needs a reference point in his mind which should match with state of current universe. That reference point of course has a motion.

Please demonstrate why God needs a reference point.
Seems to me this one more of your many unproven assumptions.

 

[Wesrock]

Sure then can it be possible time and space always existed without a beginning. Only thing that changed was our perception of such things?

Science suggests that hasn’t been the case. The expansion theory of the universe says that it’s not just a matter of objects moving apart from each other through space, but that the “fabric” of spacetime is itself expanding, and that at one time all of spacetime was “on top of itself” in a singularity.

But assuming that wasn’t our best theory, Thomas Aquinas took no philosophical issue with an eternal universe, and his arguments to demonstrate the necessity of God could be applied to both a finite or eternal and infinite universe. Other early bishops spoke about how the universe could be eternal and that Genesis just shows that God is stil it’s eternal creator (though an eternal universe is now dogmatically incorrect, I believe).

 

[Bahman]

Please demonstrate why God needs a reference point.
Seems to me this one more of your many unproven assumptions.

Let think of all states of universe as a frames of moive including its starting (creation point). God knows all the frames at once because He is omniscient. The problem is that all these states are not actual and one of them should be actual at a time. God is the creator and sustainer of universe so to give the right dynamic to universe he need a reference point which point to the current state of universe. This point however changes by time and God is timeless/changeless meaning that he cannot have the reference point hence timeless God cannot sustain universe.

 

[davidv]

Let think of all states of universe as a frames of moive including its starting (creation point). God knows all the frames at once because He is omniscient. The problem is that all these states are not actual and one of them should be actual at a time. God is the creator and sustainer of universe so to give the right dynamic to universe he need a reference point which point to the current state of universe. This point however changes by time and God is timeless/changeless meaning that he cannot have the reference point hence timeless God cannot sustain universe.

I think you have to prove that God “sees” as you have described here. Why does God have to see as if He was viewing frames of a movie?

 

[SilverShadow22]

I think you have to prove that God “sees” as you have described here. Why does God have to see as if He was viewing frames of a movie?

Because Bahman (or his demon advisors) said so.

 

[AndrewW94]

I’m not sure if I’m right, but after thinking for a while, I suspect Bahman might be saying something like this:

According to Catholics, God cannot change. You also believe that God created the universe out of nothing. But this creation of the universe is a change from the universe not existing to the universe existing. Now this change cannot be caused by God at any point in time because then God would change from being about to cause the Universe to not being about to cause the Universe. Therefore at least one of your beliefs is wrong.

This is a fair argument, similar to one Aristotle made. However, it fails because it conflates change caused by God with change in God.

Here’s my stab at an answer. It’s my own, so I’m not sure how good it is, but it seems reasonable to me:

God eternally wills to create the universe and to conserve it in existence exactly as this has happened, is happening, and will happen. He eternally willed to create the universe at point in time X, 13.7 billion years ago. When He did this, He did not change, as He ‘was’ eternally willing the same thing He always is. In this way a change can be caused by God without any change occurring within God.

 

[Bahman]

I think you have to prove that God “sees” as you have described here. Why does God have to see as if He was viewing frames of a movie?

This is very simple. Consider a state of universe as S0 in a given moment. This state simply represents the location of everything within universe. This state S0 is however is subject to change in the later point, lets call the new state as S1. This change is subjected to laws of nature or God’s intervention, lets call this “L”. This means that we have the following relation between S0 and S1, S1=L(S0). It should be obvious that we have the same relation at the next point, S2=L(S1) etc. This means that we have a series, C={S0, S1, S2, …}. It should be obvious that this series is equal to a movie which each frame is equal to an state of universe. So here we are to understand the conflict. God knows all state of creation, what we called C. God however has to know the state of universe at given time to cause another state. This means that there should exist a point of reference in God’s mind to allow him to cause the next state. This however means that state of mind of God is subject to change which this is not allowed if God is changeless.

 

[Bahman]

Because Bahman (or his demon advisors) said so.

I experience both evil and good spirit. They are not telling me anything about God and creation and all problems I have and I have to think about everything because that is something that I have to get through. It is my spiritual journey. I wish you have a happy journey too.

 

[Repoter]

God being outside time doesn’t make him LESS (for example: in a way that he could not make any decision because a decision requires “a moment”) but makes Him MORE.

How could he operate OUTSIDE time? It doesn’t make sense to ask that question considering that WE by being subject to time are INFERIOR

There,

Same with the dynamic. (God is not less by not being dymanic, He is MORE).

 

[Bahman]

God being outside time doesn’t make him LESS (for example: in a way that he could not make any decision because a decision requires “a moment”) but makes Him MORE.

How could he operate OUTSIDE time? It doesn’t make sense to ask that question considering that WE by being subject to time are INFERIOR

There,

Same with the dynamic. (God is not less by not being dymanic, He is MORE).

Time is an illusion so God cannot be outside of it and operate.

 

[SilverShadow22]

Time is an illusion so God cannot be outside of it and operate.

If it’s an illusion that we are trapped in… That’s EXACTLY how He can be outside it.

:banghead:

 

[Bahman]

I’m not sure if I’m right, but after thinking for a while, I suspect Bahman might be saying something like this:

This is a fair argument, similar to one Aristotle made. However, it fails because it conflates change caused by God with change in God.

Here’s my stab at an answer. It’s my own, so I’m not sure how good it is, but it seems reasonable to me:

We can think of the problem as following. Consider the state of nonexistence as N and state of S0 as state universe at creation point. This means that there should exist a cause for this to happen so called creation act, lets call this C. This means that there exist a relation between two states, N and S, which is S0=C(N). Afterward we have the following relation for states of universe, S1=L(S0), S2=L(S1), etc where L is laws of nature or God’s causation. There is however a problem here: How a timeless God could create and sustain universe when there is no time reference point in his mind to cause properly?

The problem is less severe when universe moves based on laws of nature but the problem related to age of universe is unresolved. So I am puzzled.

 

[Bahman]

If it’s an illusion that we are trapped in… That’s EXACTLY how He can be outside it.

:banghead:

Time is an illusion since what we experience are only form/shape and motion. In simple word there does not exist any objective time.

 

[Bahman]

God being outside time doesn’t make him LESS (for example: in a way that he could not make any decision because a decision requires “a moment”) but makes Him MORE.

How could he operate OUTSIDE time? It doesn’t make sense to ask that question considering that WE by being subject to time are INFERIOR

There,

Same with the dynamic. (God is not less by not being dymanic, He is MORE).

But time is an illusion hence God cannot be outside of it.

 

[Repoter]

But time is an illusion hence God cannot be outside of it.

Every judgment you make about the spiritual world goes like this:

“The spiritual world “lacks” this or that, so how could this or that happen…”

(example, if there is no space how could God fit the material world, if there is no time (shape and motion) how could God make an act of will and create, etc)

BUT again, saying there is not matter, no space, no time (shape and motion) is not saying that the spiritual world LACKS this things so it is less (in the sense that less things could be done), it transcends them, it is more, so everything that could be made in in the material world also could be made in the spiritual because (AGAIN) the spiritual world is MORE. (for example, the devil sinned, the angels did not)

It is only logical that we, by being subject to time/space, do not understand how could that work, but again, that is because our world is inferior.

Please excuse any writing/grammar mistake as I am not a native speaker.

Greetings