Was there a point that only God existed?

[Gorgias]

The universe is somewhere, even at the Big Bang. That does not mean physical extension, because when at the moment of the Big Bang, the universe is at a single point. It is not at one of many points, but at the only point which exists.

Picture a four-dimensional space (x, y, z, t). Picture “a single point” (let’s call it (x, y, z, 0). Is that single point within the framework of the 4-D space? Why yes… yes it is. QED.

It is there because it was created out of nothing. The Bang creates the structures of the physical universe.

It was energy. We can’t get to what it was prior to that, if anything. The universe expands at the point of the Big Bang (and has continued to expand). That doesn’t mean that it didn’t exist at the time of the energy->matter transformation. At that point, we have physical extension (if only at a point).

 

[STT]

The fault is that you are trying to dictate limitations on God, it cannot be done. God is unlimited by time, space or anything imaginable by us.

No, I am not putting any limitation on God. I am just explaining the state of affair.

God existed before time which is an attribute of the physical universe.
I can’t prove this and you can’t prove I’m wrong, so I don’t see how we can discuss it.

You see. You use before and yet insist that God created time.

 

[Lee1]

Apparently there is a big debate among scientists at the moment about the nature of time. I don’t think you and I are going to solve it.

I don’t think it makes sense to speak in terms of God existing in time, time isn’t a thing in it’s own right.

It sounds as though you have you’re own idea about this, so what do you think?

 

[Wesrock]

Lee1:

God existed before time which is an attribute of the physical universe.
I can’t prove this and you can’t prove I’m wrong, so I don’t see how we can discuss it.

You see. You use before and yet insist that God created time.

God’s being is independent of any temporal state of affairs. God is before time in a way similar to the way a locomotive car is before the caboose, or where a stick pushing a rock is before the rock in order of dependency, insofar as the continued movement of the rock is dependent upon the stick and not vice versa. In such a way, “before” isn’t always a temporal description.

 

[Lee1]

I agree but the OP doesn’t seem to be satisfied with that logic.

 

[Dovekin]

Picture a four-dimensional space (x, y, z, t). Picture “a single point” (let’s call it (x, y, z, 0). Is that single point within the framework of the 4-D space? Why yes… yes it is. QED

Picture a single point. Is that single point within the framework of 4-D space? Two points are required to draw a line, so there are no lines that can be drawn to make axes for 4-D space. We cannot picture a 4-D space within a universe of a single point. QED.

When the point expands (the bang in big bang) it extends in multiple dimensions including time. This sets the framework which we can label with (x,y,z,t). But there is no reason to think that framework existed before the Big Bang. If you work within a theological assumption of creation ex nihilo, there is every reason to think there was nothing before creation.

Same for 11-D space, as well.

 

[Vonsalza]

It was probably JUST before Genesis 1.1, if I had to guess.

To your point, time is hardly an objective thing, thus your assumption in the question might be unreasonable.

 

[Gorgias]

Picture a single point. Is that single point within the framework of 4-D space? Two points are required to draw a line, so there are no lines that can be drawn to make axes for 4-D space. We cannot picture a 4-D space within a universe of a single point.

Can a have an n-dimensional space in a single point? I think the answer is ‘yes’. It’s an interesting boundary condition for the math!

I’m not picturing anything existing prior to the existence of the energy which gave rise to the Big Bang. However, at the point (in time, as it were, wouldn’t you say? that would be t=0) at which the energy existed and the Bang occurred, we would already be in a ‘framework’, even if that framework was infinitesimally small. (And, to tell the truth, that’s the real issue here: it’s not really a ‘point’, but an infinitesimally small ‘space’.)

 

[Dovekin]

In Big Bang cosmology, the Planck epoch or Planck era is the earliest stage of the Big Bang, before the time passed was equal to the Planck time , t P, or approximately 10−43 seconds. There is no currently available physical theory to describe such short times, and it is not clear in what sense the concept of time is meaningful for values smaller than the Planck time. Wikipedia sv Planck Epoch

The Planck Epoch is the period we are discussing, which is effectively so small that it is equivalent to a single point. When we speak of a singularity, we mean a point of an infinitely dense universe. (Infinitely dense implies the reciprocal of zero volume = single point) The planck constants allow for the gap between the limit of a sequence and the actual sequence, but not by giving enough spacetime to measure.

Once the Planck Epoch has passed (10^-43 sec) it is possible to project axes onto the universe. Before that time the “framework” is imaginary, wholly outside the universe.

 

[Gorgias]

Once the Planck Epoch has passed (10^-43 sec) it is possible to project axes onto the universe.

Philosophically speaking, however, if you’ve already started the clock, then you’ve already got a t-axis.

 

[AlNg]

Would you say it’s false that “God has been outside the physical universe always”

The statement is misleading and does not give the complete truth.

 

[Dovekin]

Philosophically speaking, however, if you’ve already started the clock, then you’ve already got a t-axis

And if you have not started the clock, you do not have a t axis.

What is so hard about this? The Big Bang is the moment spacetime starts, the moment the universe is created from nothing. It is a singularity, where things change. Time comes into existence with the Big Bang, not before it. The clock starts, but there is no time axis until 10^-43 seconds have passed.

If you do not believe in the Big Bang, say so. If you don’t think it was a singularity, what do you think. Just do not keep asserting that time was around before, because that defies the definition of the Big Bang.

 

[AlNg]

Time comes into existence with the Big Bang,

No. Time was in existence when the angels were created. They had their free will and some disobeyed committing sin. Mortal sin requires sufficient reflection for there to be full consent of the will. And sufficient reflection presupposes at least a short duration of time.

 

[Wesrock]

Dovekin:

Time comes into existence with the Big Bang,

No. Time was in existence when the angels were created. They had their free will and some disobeyed committing sin. Mortal sin requires sufficient reflection for there to be full consent of the will. And sufficient reflection presupposes at least a short duration of time.

You’re supposing angels think and need to process and reflect on knowledge like we do. If Thomas Aquinas is correct about the angelic intellect. They don’t.

 

[AlNg]

You’re supposing angels think and need to process and reflect on knowledge like we do. If Thomas Aquinas is correct about the angelic intellect. They don’t.

Please explain how an angel would commit a sin of disobedience.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

You’re supposing angels think and need to process and reflect on knowledge like we do. If Thomas Aquinas is correct about the angelic intellect. They don’t.

Please explain how an angel would commit a sin of disobedience.

Do they choose, at the moment of gaining new knowledge with no need for reflection or processing, to order their will towards God or against? They do not have brains or material-based consciousness like we do which is what requires us to process, think, and makes us all “wishy washy,” going back and forth. They don’t even have passible emotions like we do for that reason.

 

[Damian]

Thought is necessarily linear, so yes, your deity is subjected to time.

 

[Dovekin]

Completely and spectacularly wrong!

Why would thought need to be linear?
Why would the linearity of thought make God subject to time?
What does a deity subject to time mean? How do you define deity?

 

[Wesrock]

Thought is necessarily linear, so yes, your deity is subjected to time.

We’re talking about the foundational principle of reality here, that which makes reality real, that which can’t properly be said “He is a thing” but only simply “He Is,” Subsistent Existence in itself. What makes you think that this “thinks” at all?

 

[Wesrock]

You’re thinking about some type of mega powerful patron of a people.