Time as we know it

[FelixSteiner]

I have been intensively reading the book ‘A brief history of time’ which explains some scientific knowledge explicitly. But I would love to know according to our faith, what occurred before time? I know this is a big question. My philosophical theory is the following, and I have decided to entangle it with religion a bit.

Steiner’s theory

Space as we know it was a bear hub of blackness before the formation of the Universe. Judging by Scientific knowledge, more than 80% of our known universe is literally nothingness; so as to say can it be denoted that time is really occurring in these obscure parts. Let me unleash this remedy once more; since in some parts there is nothingness, can it be that nothing is happening, and thus time is absent. One must say as to why this doesn’t occur outside our Earth’s atmosphere. Well, because we still have elements close enough to us that are able to affect us. How so? Gravitational pull is still in a massive effect as to when were in Nothingness it is barely credible. Also visibility of stars and of other things near us give us the perception that theres something. But it is still in these dark corners between Galaxies that time, in my opinion, comes to a halt because theres nothing there.

Continuing my theory I could acclaim that there was indeed nothing before God created the Universe. If true then why was there God? In my opinion God was created with time itself. Through the relevance of Science and theology which granted enough power to the creation of this universe. God was made with our universe, not only because we believe, but because before there was nothing…

Please discuss.

 

[JSSebastianoP]

Continuing my theory I could acclaim that there was indeed nothing before God created the Universe. If true then why was there God? In my opinion God was created with time itself. Through the relevance of Science and theology which granted enough power to the creation of this universe. God was made with our universe, not only because we believe, but because before there was nothing…

You have to get out of 4 dimensions. GOD was not created. He is ever-existant.

Pax,

Sebastiano

 

[FelixSteiner]

You have to get out of 4 dimensions. GOD was not created. He is ever-existant.

Pax,

Sebastiano

Yes I see but can it be that in order to create something, you must be created. I’m trying to prove of God’s existence but scientifically…

 

[JSSebastianoP]

Yes I see but can it be that in order to create something, you must be created. I’m trying to prove of God’s existence but scientifically…

Remember the name of GOD, “I AM WHO AM” GOD exists eternally.
GOD was not created; He created himself existing not having been created.

Pax,

Sebastiano

 

[danserr]

“Before time” God existed timelessly.

more than 80% of our known universe is literally nothingness

I think you are mistakenly equating space with nothingness. Space is not nothing. The Big Bang led to the creation of time, matter, and space. Don’t picture the Big bang as taking place in space, since the big bang included the creation of space itself.

God being created with the universe is very implausible.
1). the big bang included the creation of time, space, and matter. God is not made up of any of these.
2). Did God and the universe pop into existence out of nothing? This seems metaphysically absurd, and if you say God had a cause, then that cause would be God. (note the cause cannot be physical, since the physical world did not exist.)
3). If you say God created himself, this is metaphysically impossible, since then he would have to exist prior to himself.

I admit I find your view a little hard to follow, but the idea of God beginning to exist is a pretty big problem. “Before” the universe, he just existed outside time.

 

[danserr]

Actually, if you want a scientific argument for the existence of God that deals with current cosmology, consider the kalam cosmological argument of the philosopher William Lane Craig

 

[FelixSteiner]

“Before time” God existed timelessly.

I think you are mistakenly equating space with nothingness. Space is not nothing. The Big Bang led to the creation of time, matter, and space. Don’t picture the Big bang as taking place in space, since the big bang included the creation of space itself.

God being created with the universe is very implausible.
1). the big bang included the creation of time, space, and matter. God is not made up of any of these.
2). Did God and the universe pop into existence out of nothing? This seems metaphysically absurd, and if you say God had a cause, then that cause would be God. (note the cause cannot be physical, since the physical world did not exist.)
3). If you say God created himself, this is metaphysically impossible, since then he would have to exist prior to himself.

I admit I find your view a little hard to follow, but the idea of God beginning to exist is a pretty big problem. “Before” the universe, he just existed outside time.

well Space is actually nothing. I meant God being created like the big bang. Everything needs a spark to ignite the trigger…

 

[danserr]

My understanding is that current cosmology does not see space as nothing. At the Big Bang, time, matter and space were all created. “Before” the Big Bang there was literally nothing, including no space. (hard to understand, I know, but it is the consensus among cosmologists). The Standard, big bang model of the expansion of the universe describes the creation and expansion of space itself. (which is actually pretty fascinating).

Everything needs a spark to ignite the trigger.

Why do you think this?
It makes sense for everything physical of course, but God is immaterial, not physical. He never began to exist. He existed eternally and timelessly.

 

[FelixSteiner]

My understanding is that current cosmology does not see space as nothing. At the Big Bang, time, matter and space were all created. “Before” the Big Bang there was literally nothing, including no space. (hard to understand, I know, but it is the consensus among cosmologists). The Standard, big bang model of the expansion of the universe describes the creation and expansion of space itself. (which is actually pretty fascinating).

Why do you think this?
It makes sense for everything physical of course, but God is immaterial, not physical. He never began to exist. He existed eternally and timelessly.

can you prove this. Because everything has a start… Its basic logic. If so what the heck was he up to before the creation of the universe and why didn’t you create the universe then?

 

[danserr]

can you prove this. Because everything has a start… Its basic logic. If so what the heck was he up to before the creation of the universe and why didn’t you create the universe then?

Everything having a start is not basic logic. It is not self-evidently true, so you would have to give a reason for it. For instance, atheists typically deny that the universe had a beginning. We can show that is does have a beginning, through the Kalam Cosmological argument. This argument says (among other things), that the number of past events cannot be infinite because an actual infinite is not constructable (the same way that counting to infinity is impossible), but to establish this, you have to do the work and argue it.
Similarly, if you want to say that everything has a beginning, you need an argument for this. You can’t just assume it.

Everything physical has a start, this makes perfect sense. But God is not physical. You need to take seriously the idea that “time” was also created at the beginning of the universe. So it’s not like God was hanging out waiting around for a long or infinite amount of time. He existed timelessly.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

can you prove this. Because everything has a start… Its basic logic.

In terms of existence, everything that begins to “exist” or potentially proceeds in to being has a beginning. It leads to a contradiction to say that everything has a beginning or has an existential potentiality, because that would mean that everything came out of nothing; and that is impossible, since true nothingness is the antithesis of existence.

If so what the heck was he up to before the creation of the universe and why didn’t you create the universe then?

Your difficulty stems in your inability to imagine knowledge, being, and functionality, without time. It is much harder still to coherently explain “timeless functionality”, since our language is necessarily permeated with expressions that our bound by the law and experience of change.

From our perspective in time, relatively speaking, the universe had a beginning; time had a beginning; and for us there is such a thing as potentiality. However, from Gods perspective, our Universe - in its entirety - has eternally existed as a timeless expression of Gods perfect will and intellect, and will always and forever exist with God without change. From Gods perspective, judgement day has already happend, and you are already in heaven or hell, and in that same instant God is creating the universe. This is mind boggling to be sure, but we must understand that nothing takes place in time for God; time is meaningless to God, since change is not something that God can experience.

But then how does God create if there is no change?

God, in having a perfect intellect and a perfect being, does not require the procession of time in order to express his will, since his will is a perfect expression of his perfect intellect and thus conforms perfectly to the timeless instant of his eternal existence. It is impossible for God to not know what to do, and this is becuase his intelect is perfect, and thus God simply does that which reflects his perfect nature. Since God’s nature is perfect, God’s will has forver been serving his perfection. In other words, Gods will is identical to his perfect eternal nature and being, and therefore his will - like his nature - has never had a beginning, has never changed and never will. It is therefore meaningless to ascribe to God a duration of time in which God decides to do something.

An imperfect being with an imperfect intellect requires change in-order to think about things before they can act upon knowledge. A perfect intellect, on the other hand, timelessly knows what it will do and what it has done in the same timeless instant.

 

[Viki63]

I. But I would love to know according to our faith, what occurred before time?. . . .Continuing my theory I could acclaim that there was indeed nothing before God created the Universe… . In my opinion God was created with time itself.

Check out a better book: New Proofs for the Existence of God.

You can’t ask what occured before time, there was no “before” time. Time started at the moment of creation.
God is uncreated, because there has to be an Uncaused Cause. He exists in eternity, outside time. There has to be one uncaused cause in order for anything to exist, and since I’m pretty sure that I exist, I know I was created by something else: I call Him God.
Dr Spitzer goes into great detail in his proofs. It’s a pretty interesting book, though tough going at times.

 

[inocente]

Space as we know it was a bear hub of blackness before the formation of the Universe.

Einstein says there can’t be space without time (it’s then called space-time). It’s also possible that the dark energy of space = the energy of visible matter + dark matter, implying that space-time and matter are inextricably bound together – you can’t have one without the other.

The standard model says there was no space-time or matter until the big bang, but a number of cosmologists don’t like the idea since it requires unwanted infinities in the math. One alternative idea is that the universe has gone through a succession of big bangs, and a preliminary paper published just yesterday suggests there is evidence for this in the cosmic background radiation (the evidence may not stand up to scrutiny, and doesn’t prove or disprove the existence of God). See news item and the study paper (pdf).

All of which is to say don’t hang your hat on the science in this area because it’s a work in progress.

But it is still in these dark corners between Galaxies that time, in my opinion, comes to a halt because theres nothing there.

Time can’t be standing still in the space between galaxies because it’s constantly washed with light from the galaxies. Time could only stand still in some place so far away from anything that no light has ever reached it.

In my opinion God was created with time itself.

But what or who created God and time?

 

[danserr]

One alternative idea is that the universe has gone through a succession of big bangs, and a preliminary paper published just yesterday suggests there is evidence for this in the cosmic background radiation

This is the oscillating model of the origin of the universe and is implausible for a number of reasons:
1). The universe can only have gone through a limited number of oscillations, since radius would have to get larger with each new oscillation. The astronomer Joseph Silk estimates the universe could have gone through a maximum of 100 oscillations. So before these it would have had to have a beginning.
2). In 1998 research teams from Princeton, Berkeley, and the Harvard Smithsonian astrophysics institute reported that their tests showed that the universe would expand forever.

 

[inocente]

This is the oscillating model of the origin of the universe and is implausible for a number of reasons:

Yup, and a whole bunch more that Penrose will need to explain.

It’s an entertaining relief from a constant diet of multiverses though.

 

[FelixSteiner]

I see this revolves more around the Quantum Gravity theory. Oh well:shrug:…

But literally right now space is physically nothing… as stated by Stephen Hawking.

 

[Ghosty]

I see this revolves more around the Quantum Gravity theory. Oh well:shrug:…

But literally right now space is physically nothing… as stated by Stephen Hawking.

Lacking anything physical is not the same as true “nothingness”, however. This is one of the fundamental flaws in Hawking’s thinking when he said recently, for example, that gravity created the universe from nothing. Hawking is a brilliant mathematician, but not an exceptionally bright thinker.

True “nothingness” can’t have dimension, can’t have laws, can’t have energy, can’t have anything. Space, by definition, has at least two of these things. If space can be filled, it is obviously not “nothing”, because if it were “nothing” it wouldn’t be there to be filled. What you are calling “nothing” is actually just real space lacking (perceptable) matter. It can still be measured, and light travels through it, and therefore it is something and not really “nothing”.

Peace and God bless!

 

[FelixSteiner]

Lacking anything physical is not the same as true “nothingness”, however. This is one of the fundamental flaws in Hawking’s thinking when he said recently, for example, that gravity created the universe from nothing. Hawking is a brilliant mathematician, but not an exceptionally bright thinker.

True “nothingness” can’t have dimension, can’t have laws, can’t have energy, can’t have anything. Space, by definition, has at least two of these things. If space can be filled, it is obviously not “nothing”, because if it were “nothing” it wouldn’t be there to be filled. What you are calling “nothing” is actually just real space lacking (perceptable) matter. It can still be measured, and light travels through it, and therefore it is something and not really “nothing”.

Peace and God bless!

Thanks but problem is scientifically these things are nothing! spirit is not really physical its mental right? So therefore it needs human conscious to be exercised thus showing that it was nothingness. Im not disproving the Catholic faith, I just find it hard to believe that God existed timelessly, when according to you guys there was never nothing… so in order for time you need space or something… Just doesn’t make sense.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Thanks but problem is scientifically these things are nothing! spirit is not really physical its mental right? So therefore it needs human conscious to be exercised thus showing that it was nothingness. Im not disproving the Catholic faith, I just find it hard to believe that God existed timelessly, when according to you guys there was never nothing… so in order for time you need space or something… Just doesn’t make sense.

Why do you find it difficult? Did you read my post?

When the universe began to exist so did time. This is a scientific fact. Time isn’t some separate thing, but rather it is apart of the fabric of the evolving universe. The universe couldn’t have come from absolutely nothing, therefore there has to be a timeless being. I know that it is impossible to imagine, but existence is required before there can be any change, thus logically speaking a supreme existence must precede (hierarchically) the fact of change, and is therefore timeless by definition.

 

[JDaniel]

I have been intensively reading the book ‘A brief history of time’ which explains some scientific knowledge explicitly. But I would love to know according to our faith, what occurred before time? I know this is a big question. My philosophical theory is the following, and I have decided to entangle it with religion a bit.

Welcome to CAF, Felix:

I should begin by stating that it appears you are quite confused.

Space as we know it was a bear hub of blackness before the formation of the Universe. Judging by Scientific knowledge, more than 80% of our known universe is literally nothingness; so as to say can it be denoted that time is really occurring in these obscure parts.

The first item on the road to clarity: Time is the measure of motion. Before the big bang, there was no motion, hence, no time. God is the only exigency that existed. But, He is Simple and One. He is not a composite; He has no parts. Without parts, He cannot have motion, per se.

But, in deep space, there is motion. There is no space that is without quanta moving about. Areas that appear dark to us, still have photons criss-crossing through it, if nothing else. They may have space dust (particles) moving about in attraction or repulsion of each other. So, it’s impossible to say that there is no motion in darker regions of space.

Nevertheless, galaxies and lone stars are in motion throughout the universe. The sheer proximity of such realities extrapolates time to nether regions.

Let me unleash this remedy once more; since in some parts there is nothingness, can it be that nothing is happening, and thus time is absent.

I don’t think so, for the aforementioned reasons.

One must say as to why this doesn’t occur outside our Earth’s atmosphere. Well, because we still have elements close enough to us that are able to affect us. How so? Gravitational pull is still in a massive effect as to when were in Nothingness it is barely credible. Also visibility of stars and of other things near us give us the perception that theres something. But it is still in these dark corners between Galaxies that time, in my opinion, comes to a halt because theres nothing there.

As you can see, these things have nothing necessarily to do with time. Even if there is no motion in a particular spot, there is motion in relative proximity to that spot. There is matter moving towards it, or matter moving away from it, of matter synchronously, or, asynchronously, parallel to it. Thus, it is involved in time.

Continuing my theory I could acclaim that there was indeed nothing before God created the Universe. If true then why was there God?

Yes, you could. But, is that claim logical, or rational? Think: if a thing comes to be, it is finite. A finite thing has never been known to create. Finite things have been known to procreate, or cause, but, not create. Create means to bring something into being where there wasn’t anything before. It is the only cause that does not presuppose the existence of exigencies so as to compose the effect.

In my opinion God was created with time itself. Through the relevance of Science and theology which granted enough power to the creation of this universe.

How on earth could two study-subjects have causal power? That would be the same as saying, “Geology and paleontology created the dinosaurs, or, their fossils.” Or, “Animal husbandry and farm science created horses, chickens, and cows.”

God was made with our universe, not only because we believe, but because before there was nothing.

Again, logic and clarity tell us that in order for God to be simultaneously created with His creation, by His own creation of the universe, He would have had to exist prior to the simultaneous creation and, what is more, He would have to have created Himself. But, that is impossible.

Science can’t possibly know what existed prior to the big bang. In fact, science can only hypothesize what the primordial atom was like. As to how it came about, science suggests a fortuitous quantum fluctuation. The odds of that event are non-existent. If the pre-big bang Infinity was a homogeneous randomness, the odds might be slightly higher than ‘non-existent.’

God bless,
jd