Something out of nothing

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STT said:
I don’t understand what you are trying to say with the bold part.
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A train engine car and a train passenger car both move at the same time. However, the passenger car is dependent on the engine car for its motion.

A lamp is suspended from a ceiling on a chain. Link number five from the ceiling is dependent on link number four in order to hold the chain up, but they act simultaneously.

A group of twelve has one leader who is considered first among them, but there’s no temporal sequence involved.

Not all orders are temporal sequences.

Furthermore, you have not illustrated why God’s will and his act must be separate moments in time. Please break down for me exactly why this must be so. In a person, I’d point out the need for change in any process. Neuron A activates neuron B which activates neuron C. These occur over time, require changing of states.

Okay, now please illustrate why there must be different moments in God to account for his Will and his Action (which are the same thing, anyway).
 
davidv said:
In fact, this has not been agreed upon.
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So which part you don’t agree with: (1) God can decide, (2) God can act and (3) Decision allows act.
davidv said:
The alternative is that God is pure act. He has no potentiality. Any terms of before or after, or those implying a sequence in time are nonsense when applied to God.
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Lack of potentiality means the lack of options. Hence God cannot decide.
 
God is eternally “in decision on everything”. There was never a moment when he made a decision. His will is also not separate from his act.

Decision typically precedes act, but not in God, as they both refer to the same thing. They are not different actions or faculties or operations.
 
Wesrock said:
Furthermore, you have not illustrated why God’s will and his act must be separate moments in time. Please break down for me exactly why this must be so.
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Because of simple reason: Decision allows act. We just need to discuss this. Could you please tell me whether you agree with the statement or not? If no, why?
 
It’s been addressed a hundred times by this point. God’s will and his act are one. There is no difference.

Neither is act required to follow decision in time. That’s only a limitation of material. So, does decision follow act in time for all things? No. It does not.
 
Further: Is all act dependent on a change from indecision to decision? No.
 
STT said:
Because of simple reason: Decision allows act. We just need to discuss this. Could you please tell me whether you agree with the statement or not? If no, why?
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I disagree.
God’s deciding and acting are one and the same.
For example, in time, responding to our needs and reflecting God’s infinite love, at the central point of all time, giving meaning to all creation, Jesus is born, establishes His church, dies and is resurrected. This eternal decision is manifested within the passage of time through the act that is the incarnation, occurring in its specific moment and arising from the one Source, Existence itself, the Triune Godhead. The decision and the act are one. God knows everything, there is no weighing of possibilities. He is omniscient and omnipotent.
 
Aloysium said:
I disagree.
God’s deciding and acting are one and the same.
For example, in time, responding to our needs and reflecting God’s infinite love, at the central point of all time, giving meaning to all creation, Jesus is born, establishes His church, dies and is resurrected. This eternal decision is manifested within the passage of time through the act that is the incarnation, occurring in its specific moment and arising from the one Source, Existence itself, the Triune Godhead. The decision and the act are one. God knows everything, **there is no weighing of possibilities. **He is omniscient and omnipotent.
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Just wanted to affirm that there is no weighing of possibilities within God. That is a good way of putting it.
 
STT said:
Yes. That is true. This means that God cannot decide and act in timeless picture.
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God cannot make a married bachelor.
God cannot make a square circle.
God cannot make a rock so big he can’t lift it.

All of that is nonsense, right?

Putting “Can God” before nonsense does not cease to make it nonsense, as CS Lewis said so trenchantly years ago.
 
PRmerger said:
God cannot make a married bachelor.
God cannot make a square circle.
God cannot make a rock so big he can’t lift it.

All of that is nonsense, right?

Putting “Can God” before nonsense does not cease to make it nonsense, as CS Lewis said so trenchantly years ago.
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I am sorry but I don’t understand what you are trying to say.
 
STT said:
I am sorry but I don’t understand what you are trying to say.
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I am sorry, too. But there really is no other way to explicate this.

You are hindered by
  1. language
  2. concrete thinking
  3. an impoverished understanding of the God of the Philosophers
and, I dare say, a rather contumacious and recusant spirit.
 
PRmerger said:
I am sorry, too. But there really is no other way to explicate this.

You are hindered by
  1. language
  2. concrete thinking
  3. an impoverished understanding of the God of the Philosophers
and, I dare say, a rather contumacious and recusant spirit.
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I think we should let it go.
 
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