Philosophical problems with God and Time

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DetectiveNiko

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Decided to play devils advocate here and as I have been recently listening to Matt Fradd who uses thomistic arguments to prove God. I found out he seems to agree with Trent Horn’s analogy that time could not have always exsisted (Because you would have an eternal past with no way to get to reach the future ) and I find that analogy kinda wrong cause it has some problems.
Like first I would like to say that this is not how counting works. In maths for example,just because the you go into -infinity, does not automatically mean there can’t be a positive number. Just because you can’t reach the end of the past, does not that there couldn’t be a present. Sure you can’t count from infinity back to 1, but you can count starting from 1, into the future. Other than this analogy I also don’t see any other analogies that time (and space) could not have always exsisted. [ANSWERED]
Another problem is a premise in one of the cosmological arguments, the one that has this premise : Everything that begins to exsist has a cause.
But, that seems to be the problem. Do we know that really everything in the physical world began to exsist ? Sure most things we observe are like this but how do we not know atoms didn’t exsist since the start or something more basic ?
The third problem would be this notion that God created time. If God created time, how could he have done that if action happens within time ? You can’t really make decisions outside of time, unless you mean to say that God is timeless. But if God is timeless you would have to demonstrate how does that philosophically work. If God made a decision to create time, wouldn’t that again put him in his own different version of time ? [ANSWERED]
It also seems that time only works in relation to something. Something like what we call spacetime. If time is bound to space, how can God know the future if time works in relation to space (its not an arrow type of thing like most people believe, that’s why we have things like lightyears ) It seems impossible to predict that future that way. Sorry I am bad at explaining things, but if you need clarification please ask. Happy to hear your thoughts

Bolded parts are unanswered questions.
 
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Yes. God is timeless and spaceless. He is a spiritual being, and spirit does not occupy space. (Our human souls are also spirit and the spirit is united with our body but it does not take up space.)

God is infinite spirit. He has no extension in time or in space. There is no part of him that is not the whole of him. There is no time in him that is not ‘now.’

God does not take time to make decisions, or to create. Time and space are rather associated with material beings.

In theory I think that the material universe could have an infinite extension in both space and in time, but it would still need a Creator, because its essence is not existence. And the concept of infinity cannot be applied to material beings and spiritual beings in the same manner. With material beings, it involves duration and spatial extension. But a purely spiritual being can have no extension in space or in time.
 
There are a number of “God and Time” discussions going on right now.

I don’t mean to derail your thread but in order to have a discussion of God and time I wonder if it would be useful to discuss God and those parts of creation which are NOT part of our physical universe. I am referring specifically to angels.

In our human minds, we tend to imagine God alone and then suddenly God with angels. To us that seems like an act in time. We know that some angels chose to to follow God and others rejected him. And we read in scripture about battles between good and bad angels. Those also seem (to us) like acts in time.

I guess what I am asking is how we can define an “act outside of time” or a “decision outside of time.”
 
SMHW said:
There are a number of “God and Time” discussions going on right now.
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Yeah sorry, it seemed like that one thread was concluded, but I felt like there was more to discuss.
SMHW said:
I guess what I am asking is how we can define an “act outside of time” or a “decision outside of time.”
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One of my questions is exactly that. Can an act outside of time even exsist, since act implies change which in turn requires time.
 
JimG said:
because its essence is not existence
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How do we determine, what has the essence of existence? It’s easy to say for God’s essence to be that, but couldn’t we say that time has the essence of existence too, since otherwise everything would be in a stasis type of form and never move, have an act so say.
 
Sorry, but I am not really in a financial state to buy a book, I am only 17 😦
But isn’t Stephen Hawking a self proclaimed atheist ? (If I am informed correctly that is)
Wouldn’t he argue against God ? (To be fair this is a scientific book so it can go either way)
 
Oh I got the pun but I just now got the point of the pun. I am dumb xD
 
DetectiveNiko said:
How do we determine, what has the essence of existence? It’s easy to say for God’s essence to be that, but couldn’t we say that time has the essence of existence too, since otherwise everything would be in a stasis type of form and never move, have an act so say.
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Philosophically speaking, it’s pretty straightforward. The essence of a thing is that which makes it what it is. The essence of a human being is humanity. The essence of a dog is its canine nature. But God is the only being whose essence is “to be.” We might or might not exist, but God—by his nature—cannot not exist, because his very essence is existence. His nature is existence. That is probably why he told Abram that his name is “I AM.”

As for time, consider the human experience. We never hold our own existence entirely in the now. We may live 100 years, but we experience our existence only moment by moment. We possess our existence piecemeal a bit at a time, and then that bit is gone and past. But in eternity God experiences every moment of time (which he does not occupy) as now. He possesses the totality of his being always and at once.
 
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God created the universe/cosmos as a work-space for human persons, made in His image and made for fellowship with Him. In this work-space, persons can grow toward knowledge of God in time: they can progress toward Him, and even begin to be in Him, in knowledge and love. God created this material work-space and He created “time” to allow movement and progression, so that human persons could grow toward their intended destiny in Him and with Him.

Before this creation, God had already created beings of pure spirit - angels - immaterial beings not at all like men. But these angelic persons had a totally different experience of their own designated “work-space”. They had no need of space, since they were/are pure spirit, not confined in a volume of space at all as we are. They had no need of time, since in His design they were not made to grow, to progress. They made a decision in the instant of their creation to be either obedient to God, or not. There was no more or other change in their being needed, hence no time - only an instant for their defining original decision for or not for God.

Thus angels exist in timelessness and spacelessness - until and unless God sends the obedient ones for some mission among men. Then they can enter time and space, for their mission as “messengers” - “angels” - created by God for men, to be helpers and messengers for the good of men.

The angel’s existence, and their nature, are instructive for us, to help us understand the possibilities for the future of men. In the new heavens and the new earth, the need for movement and for progress will be radically changed - and so will we. Paul writes that the bodies we will have in the resurrection will be not material bodies, but spiritual bodies. He writes:
1Cor 15:42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.
1Cor 15:43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.
1Cor 15:44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.
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Is a “spiritual body” similar in some ways to angels’ pure-spiritual natures - “needing” space and time only now and then, but not always? Maybe in the resurrection, in the new heavens and the new earth, in our “spiritual bodies”, we can move from “place” to “place” in an instant - timelessly - and can be with other persons, in “moments” that are timeless as well. In other words, maybe both time and space will become entirely subjective, taken up when needed, abandoned when eternity is better, when boxes of space are unneeded limitations.
 
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Sorry, but it seems to me that the premise of your whole question(s) is predicated on the assumption that God, in His creative action, has to sort of “play by the rules” of the Universe that He creates.

You’re basically saying: “It doesn’t make sense that God created time, because He would need a certain amount of time to do so”?

Flip it around, it makes more sense to say: “It doesn’t make sense to say that God needs time to create time because time first needs God to… be!”

Why can’t it just be enough for you to say that by God’s infinite causal power, everything simply is? He is after all, Ipsum Esse Subsistens (Subsistent Being Itself).

We say things like “God made…” or “God created the universe…” or “In the beginning…”
But we’re really just using temporal phraseology to help make us sense of God and His work or Creation. We’re temporal creatures, so we simply can’t understand this stuff unless it’s put in terms we can relate to.
 
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fide said:
Before this creation, God had already created beings of pure spirit - angels - immaterial beings not at all like men.
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Our language is so time dependent, as are our thoughts. The word “before” has time and/or location built into it. Of course it can also imply rank and order.
 
First a clarification very quickly, a light year is a measure of distance. 9,460,730,472,580,800 meters to be exact. It does not have a time component and is the distance travelled by light in a vacuum in 365.25 days. The duration chosen is arbitrary.

Everything from dimensionality to time and everything that exists in the physical universe is an effect of the big bang. Matter time and energy are effects. We know space itself is expanding, and in reality accelerating at present. At the t = 1e-35 time point the universe was only 1 cm across. TV programs which aired in the 70 and 80 were already dated when they aired when they speculated the Big Crunch - which is never going to happen.
 
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SMHW said:
Our language is so time dependent, as are our thoughts. The word “before” has time and/or location built into it. Of course it can also imply rank and order.
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Exactly! We simply don’t have the capacity to speak or make sense of things without using the progression of time as our guide.
 
That sounds super interesting :o If I ever get the money I might buy the book, now I want to read more about that. Thanks ! I am still not sure how can the future be predicted, if it is just a physical reality and not this “arrow” type system
 
I am constantly blown away by the knowledge I get from Catholic Answers forum members. Thanks everyone !
 
omgriley:
Exactly! We simply don’t have the capacity to speak or make sense of things without using the progression of time as our guide.

There is a kind of prayer, in Catholic spirituality, “infused contemplation”, in which I would say (as I understand it) there is no time, nor space.
 
fide said:
There is a kind of prayer, in Catholic spirituality, “infused contemplation”, in which I would say (as I understand it) there is no time, nor space.
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Yes I’ve heard of it too. It occurs once a person attains the Mystical Marriage. God essentially swoops in and takes over. It’s funny because the saints who’ve experienced it note that they would be in contemplation for hours without noticing that any time had passed at all.

St. Theresa of Avila once commented that she once began meditating on the words “Our Father…” and by the time she came to, what she thought had been only 45 minutes was actually 4 hours.
 
omgriley5m
Yes I’ve heard of it too. It occurs once a person attains the Mystical Marriage. God essentially swoops in and takes over. It’s funny because the saints who’ve experienced it note that they would be in contemplation for hours without noticing that any time had passed at all.

St. Theresa of Avila once commented that she once began meditating on the words “Our Father…” and by the time she came to, what she thought had been only 45 minutes was actually 4 hours.
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Yes, exactly. Such prayer has been called, “the prelude to the Beatific Vision”. Such insights of the saints, in their mystical union with God the Holy Trinity, can give us insights into the “new heavens and the new earth” that await mankind after the battle and constraints of this earthly life are completed.
 
fide said:
Yes, exactly. Such prayer has been called, “the prelude to the Beatific Vision”. Such insights of the saints, in their mystical union with God the Holy Trinity, can give us insights into the “new heavens and the new earth” that await mankind after the battle and constraints of this earthly life are completed.
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It certainly is a prelude! I’ve heard (from Fr. Chad Ripperger) that St. Thomas taught that once in Heaven, God impresses himself totally upon your intellect so that you’re able to contemplate Him and “see Him as He is.”

The mystical marriage definitely sounds like that to me. God is impressing Himself upon that soul to the degree that’s possible this side of the veil.

When you take a look at all the lives of the saints, you start to realize all of them experienced the mystical marriage before their death. It’s incredible.

All Saints, Pray for us!
 
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