Why was the Universe created when it was?

[stevejohnson]

It was just creation by the GOD and we cannot say exactly when it was created but the reason to be creation is give new life.

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Phase One
Car Transport

 

[CatsAndDogs]

It was just creation by the GOD and we cannot say exactly when it was created but the reason to be creation is give new life.

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Phase One
Car Transport

Are you a “Days” fan?

…meanwhile, back to our topic!

 

[Contarini]

Sure. I’m of the view though that religion is religion.

A rather inane remark. In the literal sense–it is empty and has no content whatever. Why did you make it?

The names change because culture evolves, but the main themes remain fairly intact.

Very convenient for you. It absolves you from actually studying the details of this thing called “religion.” Of course, the price you pay is that nothing you say is going to be at all convincing to anyone who actually knows anything about religion. But it’s your call.

Time is time, which is space, which is spacetime. From a standpoint of physics it is not divisible, at least not with our present understanding.

Perhaps you could explain to my ignorance how this is relevant to the current discussion?

I only wanted to point out the provincial method we use on our planet to measure spacetime.

And the relevance is? No one was talking about this “provincial method.”

Because these alleged spirits

There aren’t “alleged spirits” in question here. We are not speaking of spirits in general but of God.

can be anything and everything to whomever and whenever,

There may be tricksy spirits in the universe, but God is not one of them.

I’d add that one cannot be unscientific and rational at the same time,

Talk about provincial!

Rationality is much broader than science. Science concerns itself with a very narrow kind of rationality–the study of repeatable (at least in principle) and empirically observable phenomena.

Edwin

 

[Nickkname]

That is a good explanation from a Platonic perspective. And many early Church thinkers on the topic would have approached it from such a perspective. Which is fine.

I keep coming back to “why it would be created at a certain time” … but it looks like we have ruled out a “when” before creation of the universe.

If there is time in eternity, then why can’t there be time in pre-Creation?

No, no, there is no time in eternity. Eternity is timelessness. Time is actually a motion that God created. You see, the Universe is a space-time continuum. A continuum is a reality, and space-time means this reality is made up of both space and time. In other words, the Universe is a reality that is bound by the laws of physics and by the forward motion of time (past to present to future).

The only thing that existed before creation was God. Nothing existed except Him. When we say God created the Universe from nothing, we don’t mean He reached His hand into nothingness and brought out a Universe, like someone reaching into a jar and taking out a cookie, nor do we mean He transformed nothingness into the Universe, like someone transforming a brick into gold. Nothingness is not a something: it is simply nothing at all. God only existed before time and than He created the Universe, which He had held in His Mind for all eternity.

You could say, “How can God hold the Unvierse in His Mind from all eternity? He had to, at some point, think of creating it, and so, He couldn’t have held it in His Mind for eternity! Wouldn’t that imply that He and the Universe have always existed?” You could also use this argument against the Eternal Begetting of the Son and the Eternal Procession of the Holy Spirit. The best answer is this: We don’t know. We only know so much, and what we know is what God has revealed in His Word.

 

[Dan86]

He created the Universe at in a single instant from our perspective, not His.