Something out of nothing

  • Thread starter Thread starter STT
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
STT said:
You didn’t get my point so I repeat it again: There are two acts involved in creation of universe, act of decision and act of creation. God cannot possibly act without deciding. Could he?
Click to expand...
goout said:
I do get it.
I don’t think you understand the ramifications of God not being subject to time.
It renders the questions a little bit moot.
Click to expand...
goout is correct. They are moot. God decides and acts… I don’t see why the distinction makes any difference. There may be several hundred or million acts involved in the creation of the universe; it still doesn’t prove anything against God.
 
goout said:
I do get it.
I don’t think you understand the ramifications of God not being subject to time.
Click to expand...
I understand that well. I know that God can perform one eternal act and that eternal act can manifest itself in many acts that we observe.
goout said:
It renders the questions a little bit moot.
Click to expand...
You just need to tell me if God can decide about the act of creation?
 
Wesrock said:
God didn’t so much decide so much as He knew and willed and acted. All of that was one, for within God knowledge, will, and power all refer to the same thing, not separate faculties. He doesn’t think or process or even know in the way human’s do. There are no such functions within God. There was no time period over which a decision was made.
Click to expand...
Are you saying that God does not have free will or He cannot use His free will to decide because He is timeless?
 
dshix said:
goout is correct. They are moot. God decides and acts… I don’t see why the distinction makes any difference. There may be several hundred or million acts involved in the creation of the universe; it still doesn’t prove anything against God.
Click to expand...
The problem is that a decision is always prior to any act subjected to the decision. There is no prior, before, after, etc. in timeless state. So we are having a problem here.
 
STT said:
I understand that well. I know that God can perform one eternal act and that eternal act can manifest itself in many acts that we observe.

You just need to tell me if God can decide about the act of creation?
Click to expand...
You are imposing human attributes on an eternal being.
Eternal does not mean “time without end”.

To answer your question above,
In the way we understand “decision”, no, God did not make a decision in time like you or I would.

That’s why I am asking you to consider the context of a timeless being. Your question might not follow.
 
goout said:
You are imposing human attributes on to an eternal being.
Eternal does not mean “time without end”.

To answer your question above,
In the way we understand “decision”, no, God did not make a decision in time like you or I would.

That’s why I am asking you to consider the context of a timeless being. Your question might not follow.
Click to expand...
No, I am not imposing anything extra to God. Can we agree that God makes decisions?
 
STT said:
No, I am not imposing anything extra to God. Can we agree that God makes decisions?
Click to expand...
Not in the anthropomorphized way you are inferring. See above.

You are imposing on an timeless being a decision process that implies subjection to time.
 
goout said:
Not in the anthropomorphized way you are inferring. See above.
Click to expand...
I think that the decision should be prior to act. Don’t you think? What else do you have to suggest? You keep saying that God’s decision is not in the human way but you don’t offer any solution.
goout said:
You are imposing on an timeless being a decision process that implies subjection to time.
Click to expand...
I didn’t say that there is a process at which God decides and that is not my point. God is all knowing so there is no process there. He knows, decide and act.
 
STT said:
The problem is that a decision is always prior to any act subjected to the decision. There is no prior, before, after, etc. in timeless state. So we are having a problem here.
Click to expand...
Yes we are.

Please notice that you agree with Christian ideas of God’s timelessness yet still insist on subjecting him to time.
Which is called obstinacy where I come from.
 
STT said:
I think that the decision should be prior to act. Don’t you think? What else do you have to suggest? You keep saying that God’s decision is not in the human way but you don’t offer any solution.
Click to expand...
What kind of solution would you be expecting?
No one claimed to have a solution for a question that doesn’t really exist.
 
goout said:
What kind of solution would you be expecting?
No one claimed to have a solution for a question that doesn’t really exist.
Click to expand...
I would say that the timeless picture of God in which God has ability to decide is logically impossible. It is quite simple to understand what I am saying: Any Decision is prior to an act which this impossible in timeless state. Can we agree on this?
 
God does not have a human mind. He doesn’t even have a material mind. He has all knowledge at once, and wills according to this knowledge at once, and exerts his power at once. Divine simplicity, a basic tenet of classical Christian, Jewish, and Islamic thought, holds that God’s knowledge is the same as his will is the same as his power is the same as his goodness. This is not the human way of thinking, or willing, or acting. The immaterial does not rely on any type of process like the human mind does. It just is.
 
STT said:
I would say that the timeless picture of God in which God has ability to decide is logically impossible. It is quite simple to understand what I am saying: Any Decision is prior to an act which this impossible in timeless state. Can we agree on this?
Click to expand...
Human beings make decisions prior to acting.
God is not a human being, and there is no time in God. You use the word “prior to”🤷 There is no prior or after in God.
 
The need for processes and thinking and decision making over time in us is due to being material beings.
 
goout said:
Human beings make decisions prior to acting.
God is not a human being, and there is no time in God. You use the word “prior to”🤷 There is no prior or after in God.
Click to expand...
So we have two options here: (1) God does not decide and (2) Decision and act are simultaneous in timeless picture.

The second option doesn’t logically sounds so we are left with the first option. Could we agree on that?
 
Wesrock said:
The need for processes and thinking and decision making over time in us is due to being material beings.
Click to expand...
That I understand. I am not imposing that God thinks or His decision is a process. God knows, decide and act. The problem as I mentioned is that decision is logically should be prior to act. This is problematic for God since He is timeless because one cannot have any sequence in timeless picture.
 
STT said:
That I understand. I am not imposing that God thinks or His decision is a process. God knows, decide and act. The problem as I mentioned is that decision is logically should be prior to act. This is problematic for God since He is timeless because one cannot have any sequence in timeless picture.
Click to expand...
Why must it be prior? And, if so, why must it be temporally prior and not just prior in dependence?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top