Why is there something rather than nothing?

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Linusthe2nd said:
All we have of both men is translations. On top of that you have to account for the evolution of the meaning of the terms in English over the span of perhaps a hundred or more years which can be considerable. The meaning of both men is the same; that is that time,arose or began with creation.
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I don’t think you appreciate the paradox that is involved with the play of words on this subject matter.
 
hangnail said:
I don’t think you appreciate the paradox that is involved with the play of words on this subject matter.
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God has not Revealed paradoxes, he has revealed Truth, Holy Mother Church does not teach paradoxes, she teaches truth. The paradox is that men who have been given intellects created to know Truth, manage to make mountains out of mole hills.

Pax
Linus2nd
 
tonyrey said:
Then you need to explain why God just is. 🙂
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Only God can answer that. But from our point of view we can say the he must exist ( the why for us ), because if he did not exist we would not exist.

Pax
Linus2nd
 
tonyrey said:
Then you need to explain why God just is. 🙂
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Because God is changeless; every other being is undergoeng change and therefore ultimately requires a changeless being to account for its ongoing change…
 
Linusthe2nd said:
God has not Revealed paradoxes, he has revealed Truth, Holy Mother Church does not teach paradoxes, she teaches truth. The paradox is that men who have been given intellects created to know Truth, manage to make mountains out of mole hills.
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A paradox is not necessarily something that is contradictory.

Merriam-Webster defines “paradox” as “something (such as a situation) that is made up of two opposite things and that seems impossible but is actually true or possible”

The universe must be co-eternal with God because there was no time when it did not exist.
 
hangnail said:
A paradox is not necessarily something that is contradictory.

Merriam-Webster defines “paradox” as “something (such as a situation) that is made up of two opposite things and that seems impossible but is actually true or possible”

The universe must be co-eternal with God because there was no time when it did not exist.
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Even that is not a paradox. For if it were true it would still be an act of God, and God does not do paradoxes. I guess if Webster is correct then a paradox would be so only in the eyes of the beholder.

Pax
Linus2nd
 
Linusthe2nd said:
Even that is not a paradox. For if it were true it would still be an act of God, and God does not do paradoxes. I guess if Webster is correct then a paradox would be so only in the eyes of the beholder.
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It is true, because that’s the only way to resolve the apparent contradiction.
 
hangnail said:
The statement I made in a previous post: “The universe must be co-eternal with God because there was no time when it did not exist.”
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It can be argued that at the beginning of the BB, there was no universe at least as we know it to be, since all matter was compressed into the size of the head of a pin, but according to the cyclic theory, there were cycles of BB and Big Crunch, so time still existed.
 
Tomdstone said:
It can be argued that at the beginning of the BB, there was no universe at least as we know it to be, since all matter was compressed into the size of the head of a pin, but according to the cyclic theory, there were cycles of BB and Big Crunch, so time still existed.
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There is no evidence that the universe has always existed. It seems far more likely that the BB(s) was(were) caused by an intangible, timeless Source of truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love. How else could they have originated?
 
Tomdstone said:
It can be argued that at the beginning of the BB, there was no universe at least as we know it to be, since all matter was compressed into the size of the head of a pin, but according to the cyclic theory, there were cycles of BB and Big Crunch, so time still existed.
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The theory of an oscillating universe doesn’t qualify as a satisfactory explanation because it implies an infinite regress.
 
hangnail said:
The statement I made in a previous post: “The universe must be co-eternal with God because there was no time when it did not exist.”
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And you would be wrong. God was free to either eternally create the world, in which case there would have been no " in time; " that is there would have been no absolute beginning. Or he could create a universe " in time; " that is one which had an absolute beginning. And this is what he did. And there is nothing contrdictory in that. Since God is the source of all being he can do as he pleases.

Linus2nd
 
hangnail said:
The theory of an oscillating universe doesn’t qualify as a satisfactory explanation because it implies an infinite regress.
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The mathematical real line has an infinite regress and it has been proven to be both satisfactory and useful for any number of applications.
 
Tomdstone said:
The mathematical real line has an infinite regress and it has been proven to be both satisfactory and useful for any number of applications.
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The infinite set of real numbers is both infinite and ordered, true, but it is also abstract – it is not a concrete thing. One can just as easily imagine a mouse carrying an elephant, but that doesn’t make it possible in any concrete way.
 
ivebeenshown said:
The infinite set of real numbers is both infinite and ordered, true, but it is also abstract – it is not a concrete thing. One can just as easily imagine a mouse carrying an elephant, but that doesn’t make it possible in any concrete way.
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Mathematics has more depth to it than the curiosity of a mouse carrying an elephant. Although it does have a certain amount of abstractness, nevertheless, mathematics has been proven and is well known to be effective in having solved a multitude of real life problems.
 
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