Was the universe really created in time?

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Bahman said:
You are contradiction yourself. Time must exist at the point of creation if we are dealing with a change in existence. .
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Perhaps you missed my post earlier (number 56).

But where was your claim established a priori?

WHY is time required for a change in existence?
 
Bahman said:
You are contradiction yourself. Time must exist at the point of creation if we are dealing with a change in existence. All you are saying is that time exist after the point yet accepting that time is needed for any change and we are dealing with a change at the point of creation hence time is needed at the very point of creation.
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No, not really contradicting myself - a single ended line has a point on one end and stretches out from that point to somewhere we have not found yet, as a loose parallel to creation.

With creation, there is nothing, no space, no time, nothing material, no space for what is material, and no changes, therefore no before or now or after of nothing changing into nothing else.
then suddenly creation appears, the point at the end of the line appears, and moves in change from yesterday toward today and toward tomorrow. You like points; Point A is creation. Point B is the next linear position, size, shape, of all moving creation that has its being while point A is no longer :“now”. Therefore time is introduced as a means of understanding how and where A is no longer A but is now B, and for estimating what point C will be like. Change introduces the intelligible concept of time, which can only be intelligible if the change of creation is intelligible.

The point of creation is not a change, but there is only “now”, because all could have been created fully actual without any need of change, just sitting there without movement, fully at rest. It is only in the movement to a target that there is time.
 
Bahman said:
Do you agree that there was nothing before act creation? Sure yeah. There you are with creation after act. Hence we have two states, there was nothing and then there was something mediated by act. Hence we need time at the very moment creation. You can argue that time and creation go hand by hand after the act of creation but I am arguing that you need time at the point of creation since you are dealing with a change. That is the difference that I see and you don’t.
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I can see that that is the way our thinking works. However the is no separation between God’s act and creation. They are not two events, God’s act of will and the result ( creation ) are one to him, there is no " time lag " for him. He wills and does in the same instant, the will and the effect are one in him.

Why not go to Church this Easter?
Taking a break for a few weeks, by 😃

Peace
Linus2nd
 
Bahman said:
There was nothing before act creation hence we are dealing with a change.
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Already answered.

We keep answering you and you keep trying to make God act like a “creature” and “in time”…
 
Bahman said:
T
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So long as you keep trying think of God as if God were not God but a creature in time - or keep trying to make God conform to your personal ideas - rather than approaching God as God - you will keep running into the same difficulties.
 
Bahman said:
A change in existence. Nothing exists before act creation and something exists after. This is very definition of creation act.
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I think your problem is not just as Bookcat says that you keep treating God as creature but that you also
  1. make a presumption as Brendan says (that God needs time in order to act) which you simply assert without showing why. That human actions require time in your experience does not mean that acts of any other entity beyond our world similarly require time. You simply presume it.
  2. misunderstanding what “nothing” is. “Nothing” did not exist before creation
Nothing exists before act creation and something exists after.

Nothing is not a void or absence or emptiness of some sort. Nothing cannot have “existed” before creation. You are treating it as if it is a “something”, not nothing. Nothing is non-existence.

A change in existence.

There can only be a change in existence when you have existence. 🤷 Nothingness has no place in “a change in existence” as it is non-existence. That’s the point. Nothing!🤷
 
John_Martin said:
No, not really contradicting myself - a single ended line has a point on one end and stretches out from that point to somewhere we have not found yet, as a loose parallel to creation.

With creation, there is nothing, no space, no time, nothing material, no space for what is material, and no changes, therefore no before or now or after of nothing changing into nothing else.
then suddenly creation appears, the point at the end of the line appears, and moves in change from yesterday toward today and toward tomorrow. You like points; Point A is creation. Point B is the next linear position, size, shape, of all moving creation that has its being while point A is no longer :“now”. Therefore time is introduced as a means of understanding how and where A is no longer A but is now B, and for estimating what point C will be like. Change introduces the intelligible concept of time, which can only be intelligible if the change of creation is intelligible.

The point of creation is not a change, but there is only “now”, because all could have been created fully actual without any need of change, just sitting there without movement, fully at rest. It is only in the movement to a target that there is time.
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You need time at point creation, A. Otherwise how you could go from A to B?
 
Linusthe2nd said:
I can see that that is the way our thinking works. However the is no separation between God’s act and creation. They are not two events, God’s act of will and the result ( creation ) are one to him, there is no " time lag " for him. He wills and does in the same instant, the will and the effect are one in him.

Why not go to Church this Easter?
Taking a break for a few weeks, by 😃

Peace
Linus2nd
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I didn’t say that there is a lag between act creation and God. I said that God needs time to perform any act.
 
Bookcat said:
Already answered.

We keep answering you and you keep trying to make God act like a “creature” and “in time”…
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You keep evading me instead of answering me. Act means change. Isn’t it?
 
Rubia said:
I think your problem is not just as Bookcat says that you keep treating God as creature but that you also
  1. make a presumption as Brendan says (that God needs time in order to act) which you simply assert without showing why. That human actions require time in your experience does not mean that acts of any other entity beyond our world similarly require time. You simply presume it.
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Act deals with change and time is a measure of change. That is you how should show that act is possible in absence of time or change.
Rubia said:
  1. misunderstanding what “nothing” is. “Nothing” did not exist before creation
Nothing exists before act creation and something exists after.

Nothing is not a void or absence or emptiness of some sort. Nothing cannot have “existed” before creation. You are treating it as if it is a “something”, not nothing. Nothing is non-existence.

A change in existence.

There can only be a change in existence when you have existence. 🤷 Nothingness has no place in “a change in existence” as it is non-existence. That’s the point. Nothing!🤷
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You misread what I meant with “nothing exists”. I didn’t consider nothing as a thing which exist. What I meant is the absence of existence.
 
Bahman said:
You need time at point creation, A. Otherwise how you could go from A to B?
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Time is not the cause of movement from A to B.
Time is simply our noticing when we are at B that we are at B and not at A
And we have memory of being at A, so we have a word, a symbolic understanding, of the place in our memory of being at A - we call that word “before”.
And we are currently experiencing A, and have a symbolic term for being at A, a word - we call that word “now”
And in our thinking, we reason that based upon our memory of A and our experience of B we expect a being of ourselves at C. And we have a word, a symbolic understanding of that, a word, and that word we call “not yet”.

Movement is happening because of movers, the principle mover is God and the direct mover is next to us, itself having been moved into relationship to us. Movement is not happening independently just because there is “time”. You go from A to B by the power of the mover. Time begins at the first movement of the creation, not at the point of creation, which is a static point, without dimension of “duration”. Once “duration” happens then time happens. But creation did not have any element of “duration”.
 
John_Martin said:
Time is not the cause of movement from A to B.
Time is simply our noticing when we are at B that we are at B and not at A
And we have memory of being at A, so we have a word, a symbolic understanding, of the place in our memory of being at A - we call that word “before”.
And we are currently experiencing A, and have a symbolic term for being at A, a word - we call that word “now”
And in our thinking, we reason that based upon our memory of A and our experience of B we expect a being of ourselves at C. And we have a word, a symbolic understanding of that, a word, and that word we call “not yet”.

Movement is happening because of movers, the principle mover is God and the direct mover is next to us, itself having been moved into relationship to us. Movement is not happening independently just because there is “time”. You go from A to B by the power of the mover. Time begins at the first movement of the creation, not at the point of creation, which is a static point, without dimension of “duration”. Once “duration” happens then time happens. But creation did not have any element of “duration”.
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I didn’t say that time is the cause. I just mentioned that you need time in order to go from A to B since time is the measure of change and it is objective since God is outside the time. Hence you need time as soon as you have any time-bound thing including creation.
 
Bahman said:
I.
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If I went into a Math class and started discussing questions as if numbers were colors and as it was an art course - the instructor would tell me that this is Math and not Art. And if I kept just asking again and again the same questions - treating numbers as if they were colors and Math as if where painting - he would say again that I need to approach the subject that is up for discussion not treating numbers as if they where colors. And that until I did I would not start to see the subject of Math…

Your trying to think of God as if God were a creature in time. And creation as if it were a work of art of human persons.

Your not approaching God as God.
 
Bookcat said:
If I went into a Math class and started discussing questions as if numbers were colors and as it was an art course - the instructor would tell me that this is Math and not Art. And if I kept just asking again and again the same questions - treating numbers as if they were colors and Math as if where painting - he would say again that I need to approach the subject that is up for discussion not treating numbers as if they where colors. And that until I did I would not start to see the subject of Math…

Your trying to think of God as if God were a creature in time. And creation as if it were a work of art of human persons.

Your not approaching God as God.
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All I am asking is whether action involve change and change require time? Yes or no. Forget about God for a moment.
 
Bahman said:
All I am asking is whether action involve change and change require time? Yes or no. Forget about God for a moment.
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I can not forget about God.

Man and God are quite different…more different than alike.

You cannot talk about how things happen with us here in time and then simply apply such to God.

God is not a creature in time.
and

Hummm-- what if I asked: Have you stopped beating your wife?

And then insisted: Yes or no?
See the various posts above.
 
rstrats said:
Is the supreme being something? Or is He nothing?
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We are not discussing something called “the supreme being”…

But God.

God is God.

Not a creature.

Not a created “something”.

Nor “nothing”
 
Catechism:

God is infinitely greater than all his works: “You have set your glory above the heavens.” Indeed, God’s “greatness is unsearchable”. But because he is the free and sovereign Creator, the first cause of all that exists, God is present to his creatures’ inmost being: “In him we live and move and have our being.” In the words of St. Augustine, God is “higher than my highest and more inward than my innermost self”. (300)

scborromeo.org/ccc/ccc_toc.htm
 
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