Beginning Of The Universe Evidence Of God's Existence

[Ouroboros]

...

That is debatable among philosophers and is actually unsolved as a question. That is why I am still pondering both sides of the argument. I have read good arguments on both sides. William Lane Craig would argue as you do, that God entered time at the creation of the universe. Others say that God remains outside of time. BTW, you say that I have not provided one iota of support for my position, which seems to equal the amount that you provided for your final assertion. So we are equal on this point.

Sorry to bug in into your discussion with Asimov, but your last point only leads to one valid conclusion: agnosticism.

 

The Kalam argument is not automatically proven true, just because the Kalam argument is not proven false. The only thing we're debating here is if the Kalam argument really holds as a valid proof, and we say it doesn't. You say it does, so you're the one who has to prove it solid. For instance, if Bob say he went to the store and bought milk, but in reality he didn't. I don't have to prove that he went to the pub, it's enough to check with the clerk, the fridge, the receipt etc, to verify if he went to the store or not. So don't fall into the trap that we have to prove the non-existence of God, or give some Anti-Kalam argument to prove the Kalam to be false. It's enough to pick it apart and see that it doesn't hold water.

[Asimov]

The problem is that the concept actual infinites produce a number of logical paradoxes.

 

Set theory makes no differentiation between actual and potential infinities, I don't know where you get that from.

 

Included would be the problem of spanning an infinite amount of time.

 

Why would that be a problem?

 

Second, would be that you cannot arrive at an infinite by adding one unit at a time.

 

In an infinite set, there is no beginning or arrival. Finite sets have beginnings and endings.

 

There are a number of other paradoxes that have not been solved which, I believe, make the concept of actual infinites philosophically problematic at best, and logically untenable at worst.

 

So present them.

 

That is debatable among philosophers and is actually unsolved as a question. That is why I am still pondering both sides of the argument. I have read good arguments on both sides. William Lane Craig would argue as you do, that God entered time at the creation of the universe. Others say that God remains outside of time. BTW, you say that I have not provided one iota of support for my position, which seems to equal the amount that you provided for your final assertion. So we are equal on this point.

 

Well, you are certainly at liberty to point out which assertions I have not backed up, however we are not equal by far since you were the person to initiate a post in which you made a number of claims and in which I challenged you on. I'm just pointing out where you have provided no support, and I whole-heartedly expect you to reciprocate.

 

Any action requires a concept of temporality. In order for God to create the Universe, in order for God to change, he would have to exist in time.

 

I do not agree with Craig on the concept of God going from atemporal to temporal at the creation of the universe, since a changeless being cannot change. That would be a contradiction.

[R. S. Martin]

Apparently Internet Infidels has an article or more about Craig's Kalam Cosmological Argument. One of the atheists on Craig's forums posted one (or part of one) on his forums. I'm still waiting for her to also post the link. I did a search and here are some I found:

• Eternity and Time in William Lane Craig's Kalam Cosmological Argument, by James Still.
  
• Inverse Operations with Transfinite Numbers and the Kalam Cosmological Argument (1995), by Graham Oppy
  
• Professor William Craig's Criticisms of Critiques of Kalam Cosmological Arguments by Paul Davies, Stephen Hawking, and Adolf Grunbaum (1995), by Graham Oppy
  

There were more than seventy hits and I did not find the one I was looking for.

[LNC]

You're missing the point.

 

Keyword: "IF". Meaning, conditional statement based on something like "lets say this was the case, what would it mean to our little discussion." You do know what it means when someone talks "hypothetical?"

 

If God created a proxy who in turn created the Universe, the Cosmological Argument would fall, since it assume that God was the direct actor. There's nothing in nature or causal relationships that demands that assumption.

 

I am not sure why I would argue a case whose main premise I wouldn’t agree with. Why, what is the point you are trying to make with the scenario?

 

You're being nonsensical here. God, from all eternity time, being without time, always would do exactly what he already knew he would do. He can't change his mind, because if he did, he would have been WRONG!

 

After 1 comes 2, after 2 comes 3, and never will -1 come after 3. It doesn't change. It's a fixed sequence.

 

Being "Free" means that he can change his mind. How can he change his mind if he knew that he wouldn't? If you knew that in 5 minutes you would type the letter A on the keyboard, and then you decided to not type the letter A, it means your foreknowledge was wrong!

 

That would be to argue that God did not freely choose the end result that he foresaw happening. There are many different models within theism to explain how this works and not all of them require fatalism. Why would being free necessarily mean that he could change his mind if he freely chose what would happen? I don’t see this as being a necessary condition for freedom.

 

Wow. You really don't see it. I don't know how to explain it to you, but to me it's clear as crystal. I think we'll stick to the formal language we'll developing above instead.

 

And it's not non-sequitor at all. You like to throw fallacy buzzwords around, don't you? A being who already have set his decisions in stone from eternity past, he can't make a new choice or different choice tomorrow. He must abide to his set path (like a robot), or he is breaking his foreknowledge. But I'm not going to dive into this discussion too here, it's going to be too much.

 

But if the free being made a free choice and then is required by his character to follow through on that choice, then why is that being not free? You are assuming that the future is somehow predetermined independent of God and that God is bound to follow that course, which is not the case. God would be less than perfect if he didn’t have foreknowledge and omniscience, wouldn’t you agree? God would be less than perfect if He changed on a whim, wouldn’t you agree? God would be less than perfect if he said the way things were going to be and then changed his mind, wouldn’t you agree?

 

To say that God is a robot because he acts in accordance to his nature would put you and me into the same category, for we cannot do but act according to our natures. God’s nature includes omniscience and foreknowledge, and to act differently than he foreknows to happen would mean that he didn’t have foreknowledge and therefore wasn’t God. It is logically fallacious (sorry to point that out again, but I have to call it what it is) to say that God could act other than his nature and still be God. That in no way makes him a robot.

 

Just a side note:

 

On the other hand if God is a being, he must be able to act upon will, which inherently means he has to exist in some form of time line. But if he's timeless, maybe you see God as the collection of all fundamental laws, and a preset destination of being a non-thinking existence that were "forced" (in the sense of: he had no choice) to create the world. He was destined to be the creator, and he couldn't do squat about it. In other words, he's nothing but a slave to his own existence. He must create the world, because it was his destiny. He must act according to the set plan, because it is his nature. Or we could say, he's just a machine that follows the order of creating a universe. It reminds me of the story how Brahman opened his eyes, and the world came to be, then he closed his eyes and the world ended, then he opened his eyes and a new world came into existence, and so on... Nothing but a switch button that goes on and off. Why would anyone ever consider to pray to this monotonous automaton?

 

There are some philosophers who believe that God acts within time after he brings time into existence. I would say that I would lean in that direction; however, again, I haven’t had time yet to study that topic in depth.

 

To say that “He was destined to be the creator, and he couldn’t do squat about it” begs the question, by whom? Did God destine himself to do it? Then he made a free choice. Was God destined by someone else? Then, by whom? You see, it is not as easy as you think to draw the conclusion that you do logically. If my nature was never to go back on my word and I freely gave my word to you to do something and then followed through to do that which I promised, how does that make me a slave?

[LNC]

Set theory makes no differentiation between actual and potential infinities, I don't know where you get that from.

 

Set theory has some paradoxes built into it when dealing with infinities. For example when dealing with infinities, it is possible for a part of the collection to equal the whole collection. Or, if you subtracted all the odd numbers of an infinite set you still end up with an infinite set. These are just some of the logical paradoxes in dealing with set theory. Now, the next problem for an empiricist is that we have never seen a physical infinite in reality.

 

Why would that be a problem?

 

There is the time problem of crossing an infinite number of moments, hours, days, etc., we never reach today.

 

In an infinite set, there is no beginning or arrival. Finite sets have beginnings and endings.

 

Exactly, that is the problem with crossing an infinite; we have arrived at this day which provides the conundrum for spanning infinite time. Why do we have today?

 

So present them.

 

Let’s deal with what is on the table before loading it up with any more.

 

Well, you are certainly at liberty to point out which assertions I have not backed up, however we are not equal by far since you were the person to initiate a post in which you made a number of claims and in which I challenged you on. I'm just pointing out where you have provided no support, and I whole-heartedly expect you to reciprocate.

 

Any action requires a concept of temporality. In order for God to create the Universe, in order for God to change, he would have to exist in time.

 

I do not agree with Craig on the concept of God going from atemporal to temporal at the creation of the universe, since a changeless being cannot change. That would be a contradiction.

 

Actually, it was RS Martin who initiated the post, both here and at William Lane Craig’s website. I merely responded by pointing out some problems with his argument. Also, any claims that I have made were arguments against arguments that were already posted on this site. Why would God having created the universe necessarily require him to change? You would need to back that statement up. Many believe and argue effectively that God created, yet still exists outside of time. Although this is not Craig’s position, he doesn’t argue that it is not possible, just not what he believes is the best argument. You also need to explain what you mean by temporal, as I suspect that you may be using it in a way that Craig would not in his argument. I suspect that as you are arguing that God changed by entering space and time, and that is not an orthodox view of God for which Craig would argue.

 

Anyway, I enjoy the exchange and look forward to your response.

[Ouroboros]

I am not sure why I would argue a case whose main premise I wouldn’t agree with. Why, what is the point you are trying to make with the scenario?

The point is that it's a fully possible scenario. There's nothing in the idea of supernatural/spiritual ideas that would contradict the possibility that a sub-god created the Universe, and not the super-God. Hence, to make the assumption that the Universe must have been created by the super-God, is just that, an assumption.

 

That would be to argue that God did not freely choose the end result that he foresaw happening. There are many different models within theism to explain how this works and not all of them require fatalism. Why would being free necessarily mean that he could change his mind if he freely chose what would happen? I don’t see this as being a necessary condition for freedom.

He can't "choose". With the event of choosing, it follows that you have to have point in a time line where the being makes the choosing. God, supposedly in your definition earlier, is timeless. No time line, means no point in time where he makes a "choosing." Unless you try to make an argument that choosing is timeless? Is our choices also not done at a time, but done beforehand from eternity? The only kind of "choosing" we know of is bound to time, it can't be done outside of time. Can you explain that to me? How can God make a choice at a certain time, if he doesn't exist within a framework of time?

[LNC]

The point is that it's a fully possible scenario. There's nothing in the idea of supernatural/spiritual ideas that would contradict the possibility that a sub-god created the Universe, and not the super-God. Hence, to make the assumption that the Universe must have been created by the super-God, is just that, an assumption.

 

You would have to tell me how you come to that conclusion, because I see no apparent reason to believe that it is true. Secondly, I don't know how multiplying gods is a better explanation than just one God. That is a less parsimonious explanation

 

He can't "choose". With the event of choosing, it follows that you have to have point in a time line where the being makes the choosing. God, supposedly in your definition earlier, is timeless. No time line, means no point in time where he makes a "choosing." Unless you try to make an argument that choosing is timeless? Is our choices also not done at a time, but done beforehand from eternity? The only kind of "choosing" we know of is bound to time, it can't be done outside of time. Can you explain that to me? How can God make a choice at a certain time, if he doesn't exist within a framework of time?

 

You are confusing God’s omniscience with his free choice to create. God’s omniscience is just that, the ability to see what will happen in the future; however, omniscience is not causal in nature. IOW, God does not have to act a certain way because he sees the future, he simply sees what will happen. He then creates which begins time, and the debate from there is whether he exists within time or outside of time. God’s choice happens when he creates, not prior (although saying prior is nonsensical since that implies time which does not exist until creation). However, the bottom line is that you are putting too much weight into omniscience by somehow making it causal, when it is not. God could choose to do differently; however, he would then have different foreknowledge. So, there really is not conflict between omniscience and free will. I hope that clarifies it for you.

[Asimov]

Set theory has some paradoxes built into it when dealing with infinities. For example when dealing with infinities, it is possible for a part of the collection to equal the whole collection. Or, if you subtracted all the odd numbers of an infinite set you still end up with an infinite set. These are just some of the logical paradoxes in dealing with set theory. Now, the next problem for an empiricist is that we have never seen a physical infinite in reality.

 

We haven't seen a physical equation in reality either. All mathematics are abstract entities, the point is absurd.

 

There is the time problem of crossing an infinite number of moments, hours, days, etc., we never reach today.

 

Why not? You're not really getting into much detail with your alleged problems, merely asserting things. When I challenge you on those, you merely make more assertions. It really sounds more like your regurgitating Craig in favor of applying.

 

Exactly, that is the problem with crossing an infinite; we have arrived at this day which provides the conundrum for spanning infinite time. Why do we have today?

 

Because we had yesterday and we'll have tomorrow. Between each event in time, we traverse an infinity of events. Each moment in time is infinitely divisible, yet time is continuous and we seem to traverse it with no problem.

 

Same thing with counting. There are an infinite amount of natural numbers, yet we appear to be able to traverse each individual integer with no trouble there either.

 

 

Why would God having created the universe necessarily require him to change? You would need to back that statement up.

 

He would have to go from state A (not creating the Universe) to state B (creating of the universe) to state C (Universe has been created). The very concept of "causation" is a temporal expression.

 

Many believe and argue effectively that God created, yet still exists outside of time.

 

Effectively? Based on what?

 

Although this is not Craig’s position, he doesn’t argue that it is not possible, just not what he believes is the best argument. You also need to explain what you mean by temporal, as I suspect that you may be using it in a way that Craig would not in his argument. I suspect that as you are arguing that God changed by entering space and time, and that is not an orthodox view of God for which Craig would argue.

 

Temporal, having to do with time.

 

I am arguing that God was never atemporal. You can argue all you want that God is outside of "this" space/time continuum, but then it would still stand to reason that God exists within a temporal atmosphere, so to speak.

[LNC]

You are confusing God’s omniscience with his free choice to create. God’s omniscience is just that, the ability to see what will happen in the future; however, omniscience is not causal in nature. IOW, God does not have to act a certain way because he sees the future, he simply sees what will happen. He then creates which begins time, and the debate from there is whether he exists within time or outside of time. God’s choice happens when he creates, not prior (although saying prior is nonsensical since that implies time which does not exist until creation). However, the bottom line is that you are putting too much weight into omniscience by somehow making it causal, when it is not. God could choose to do differently; however, he would then have different foreknowledge. So, there really is not conflict between omniscience and free will. I hope that clarifies it for you.

 

I thought about this after I had posted it and realized that I wasn't very precise with my language. God doesn't have foreknowledge until the creation, he has omniscience in a timeless existence.

[LNC]

We haven't seen a physical equation in reality either. All mathematics are abstract entities, the point is absurd.

 

Exactly the point. Just because something exists as an abstract concept doesn’t mean that we can apply that to real things. Because the concept of infinity exists as an abstract concept doesn’t mean that it necessarily exists in the material world. There are certain paradoxes that are created when applying it to the material existence.

 

Why not? You're not really getting into much detail with your alleged problems, merely asserting things. When I challenge you on those, you merely make more assertions. It really sounds more like your regurgitating Craig in favor of applying.

 

OK, here is the problem. You have to explain how one crosses an infinite span of time but then arrives at today. If I count backwards I never get to the other end, because there is no end. But why should there be an end on this side of time to which I arrive? In an infinite series there are no ends, but I am apparently at one end now. It would take an infinite amount of moments to cross an infinite amount of moments, yet time continues meaning that we have not crossed an infinite amount of moments, therefore, the other end of the time spectrum must be finite.

 

Because we had yesterday and we'll have tomorrow. Between each event in time, we traverse an infinity of events. Each moment in time is infinitely divisible, yet time is continuous and we seem to traverse it with no problem.

 

Same thing with counting. There are an infinite amount of natural numbers, yet we appear to be able to traverse each individual integer with no trouble there either.

 

You are speaking in two different concepts, that of theoretically dividing something finite into infinite parts and the concept of and infinite span of time with no beginning and no end. If time has no beginning and no end, then we should not be experiencing today, because that means that we have crossed infinite time, unless you are considering future time equally realizable at this moment, which is also illogical. You get into non-tensed time which is highly problematic. Non-tensed time means that all time is equally real at this moment, which becomes problematic for our experiences and intuitions. We experience time as tensed and our intuitions tell us that this makes sense; however, if that is not reality then it means that we are living in illusion and then we would have to question all of reality, we could not trust our intuitions for any of our perceptions.

 

He would have to go from state A (not creating the Universe) to state B (creating of the universe) to state C (Universe has been created). The very concept of "causation" is a temporal expression.

 

OK, some philosophers, including WL Craig see God as entering into temporal reality at that point, but how does that cause a problem in your mind? God is a personal being which means that there is going to be some aspects of him that will change, i.e. he will make decisions. Yet, his character and basic nature do not change. So, whether or not God enters time does not change the nature of who he is.

 

Effectively? Based on what?

 

Well, obviously the reasons would be both philosophical and theological. The reasoning would involve how God’s transcendent and immanent reality interact with space and time. Probably too much to get into here.

 

Temporal, having to do with time.

 

I am arguing that God was never atemporal. You can argue all you want that God is outside of "this" space/time continuum, but then it would still stand to reason that God exists within a temporal atmosphere, so to speak.

 

Again, I am still studying this one so I have no definitive view on this topic as of yet.

[Neon Genesis]

OK, here is the problem. You have to explain how one crosses an infinite span of time but then arrives at today. If I count backwards I never get to the other end, because there is no end. But why should there be an end on this side of time to which I arrive? In an infinite series there are no ends, but I am apparently at one end now. It would take an infinite amount of moments to cross an infinite amount of moments, yet time continues meaning that we have not crossed an infinite amount of moments, therefore, the other end of the time spectrum must be finite.

I'd still like to see some evidence that god exists outside the universe at all. Remember, Occam's Razor is your friend. And who created god, by the way?

 

 

 

OK, some philosophers, including WL Craig see God as entering into temporal reality at that point, but how does that cause a problem in your mind? God is a personal being which means that there is going to be some aspects of him that will change, i.e. he will make decisions. Yet, his character and basic nature do not change. So, whether or not God enters time does not change the nature of who he is.

This is illogical. It is impossible for god to be able to to change its mind and still be all-knowing. If god is all-knowing, then god knows everything before it ever happened. If god knows everything before it happened, then it knows what decisions it'll make before it makes them. When someone changes their mind, it's because they didn't know things would turn out a certain way and made a mistake. If god changes its mind, then it implicates god didn't know something would turn out the way it did, thus god is not all-knowing. Another way of looking at it is that it's like a physic who makes a prediction, but then decides to change their mind about what the prediction is. If they change their mind, then it was never a prediction and we would consider that physic to be shady. A god who knows the future but can change its mind when it wants to is nothing more than a shady physic. We wouldn't consider a physic who claims to predict the future but changes their mind about what they predict all the time to be an accurate fortune teller, so why do the rules suddenly change when it comes to god?

 

The point is that it's a fully possible scenario. There's nothing in the idea of supernatural/spiritual ideas that would contradict the possibility that a sub-god created the Universe, and not the super-God. Hence, to make the assumption that the Universe must have been created by the super-God, is just that, an assumption.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the gnostic Christians believe that the evil false god of the Old Testament created the universe but the true god is a different being?

[Ouroboros]

The point is that it's a fully possible scenario. There's nothing in the idea of supernatural/spiritual ideas that would contradict the possibility that a sub-god created the Universe, and not the super-God. Hence, to make the assumption that the Universe must have been created by the super-God, is just that, an assumption.

 

You would have to tell me how you come to that conclusion, because I see no apparent reason to believe that it is true. Secondly, I don't know how multiplying gods is a better explanation than just one God. That is a less parsimonious explanation

How did God create the Universe? Did he use a proxy? How do you know he didn't? There is already an assumption in the Kalam argument that he didn't. The Kalam assume a direct first cause to the existence of the Universe, and it assumes that it's not based on a separate chain of events before the existence of the Universe. There's no evidence, or proof that this is the case. The argument itself doesn't give any rational explanation or premise to why: it must be so. Hence, the argument does fail to cover all the holes. So this conclusion of mine is not about the beginning of the universe, but my conclusion is that with the probability that other explanation exists, the Kalam argument lacks the completeness it needs to be convincing.

 

The best parsimonious explanation for the Universe is actually that a Quantum Event started the Big Bang, not that a Non-Temporal Spiritual Super-being somehow stepped in and created it. You're inconsistent.

 

He can't "choose". With the event of choosing, it follows that you have to have point in a time line where the being makes the choosing. God, supposedly in your definition earlier, is timeless. No time line, means no point in time where he makes a "choosing." Unless you try to make an argument that choosing is timeless? Is our choices also not done at a time, but done beforehand from eternity? The only kind of "choosing" we know of is bound to time, it can't be done outside of time. Can you explain that to me? How can God make a choice at a certain time, if he doesn't exist within a framework of time?

 

You are confusing God’s omniscience with his free choice to create. God’s omniscience is just that, the ability to see what will happen in the future; however, omniscience is not causal in nature. IOW, God does not have to act a certain way because he sees the future, he simply sees what will happen. He then creates which begins time, and the debate from there is whether he exists within time or outside of time. God’s choice happens when he creates, not prior (although saying prior is nonsensical since that implies time which does not exist until creation). However, the bottom line is that you are putting too much weight into omniscience by somehow making it causal, when it is not. God could choose to do differently; however, he would then have different foreknowledge. So, there really is not conflict between omniscience and free will. I hope that clarifies it for you.

Here's an extract of the choice of words in you sentence above:

"Choice to" - temporal verb

"See what will happen in the future" - means he is a point in time looking forward

"to act a certain way" - temporal

"He then creates" - temporal, an action within a framework of time, you can't create in a timeless environment

"God's choice happens" - choice and happens are temporal words, they "happen" in what? Happen like blue color on number 5 in nebula oxnarz? Happen is a word that means it happens on a "time line"

 

And so on.

 

Almost every 5th word is a temporal word, which you use to describe God's nature, and he is non-temporal. Conflict of words. Start explaining God's non-temporal actions without temporal words.

 

I see you're stuck in other discussions and not following my thought at all. And I've noticed that from get-go. Listen, I'm not arguing against God's omniscience here. I'm arguing against God's non-temporality. He can't "know" things without the process of "knowing." Process is a flow of events, thoughts, etc, a flow is a matter of "First this, then this". And a "first this, then this" scenario is by its pure definition a time system. God might not be in the same time line as us, but he must be in his own time line. Do you understand what I'm talking about? He can't be without his own time line and yet think: "first I will do this, then I will do that."

"simply sees

 

So again, I am not in the argument about God's omniscience against free will here, because it's a different topic, and I do have my opinion against that one too, but I also have an answer that solves that, but it's beside the point in this discussion. However, God is all knowing about his future acts... but he can't have future acts because he there is no "future" in a non-temporal framework. All must happen at once, or at negative-infinity. If you would make the y-axis to be the all possible actions, and the x-axis the timeline, God doesn't have a sequence of time-points on the x-axis, but it all happens at one time, and at all times. It's either: y is an element of all Rational numbers, while x is undefined or negative-infinity. There isn't any x-value that corresponds to God's y-axis. Do you understand this at all?

[Ouroboros]

The point is that it's a fully possible scenario. There's nothing in the idea of supernatural/spiritual ideas that would contradict the possibility that a sub-god created the Universe, and not the super-God. Hence, to make the assumption that the Universe must have been created by the super-God, is just that, an assumption.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the gnostic Christians believe that the evil false god of the Old Testament created the universe but the true god is a different being?

Correct.

[R. S. Martin]

You are confusing God’s omniscience with his free choice to create. God’s omniscience is just that, the ability to see what will happen in the future; however, omniscience is not causal in nature. IOW, God does not have to act a certain way because he sees the future, he simply sees what will happen. He then creates which begins time, and the debate from there is whether he exists within time or outside of time. God’s choice happens when he creates, not prior (although saying prior is nonsensical since that implies time which does not exist until creation). However, the bottom line is that you are putting too much weight into omniscience by somehow making it causal, when it is not. God could choose to do differently; however, he would then have different foreknowledge. So, there really is not conflict between omniscience and free will. I hope that clarifies it for you.

 

I thought about this after I had posted it and realized that I wasn't very precise with my language. God doesn't have foreknowledge until the creation, he has omniscience in a timeless existence.

 

I always get extremely uncomfortable when people get this precise and technical in describing God. I get uncomfortable as in "you can't possibly know this stuff about another entity outside your own self, and therefore your description is highly unlikely to be true." I was taught to revere God as the most powerful, most benevolent, and most knowing being in existence. When Christians then undertake to describe every aspect and attribute of God as though writing a computer science course, I feel like this wonderful God whom Paul Tillich called the Ground of Being is reduced to a philosophical concept made to serve the purpose of some human philosophical or theological battle. To me, this comes across as sacrilege of the most vile sort possible, especially since it is done by Christians in the name of God.

 

I would just like to see some evidence that this God exists.

[Ouroboros]

...

I would just like to see some evidence that this God exists.

I think the problem is rather that there is two different kinds of God definitions. One is the philosophical kind, the entity which encompass all abstract truths. In other words, the God which is identified as the laws of logic and math. This God is a nontemporal God, without will, without acting. This God does have all knowledge, but it's not knowledge in the sense that It "knows". It is just the collection of the abstract concepts of truths (truths in the sense of 1+1=2 etc.) The other God definition is the one Christians and religious people want to prove to exist. That God has a will, can act, can decide etc. And they keep on confusing these two views of God. The real "First Cause" God is not a God in the sense tradition has it. It's a God which is not a being, but just an IT IS. And science and math etc, is just our way of learning that "God's" language. In other words, science, math, logic, is the way to communicate with the big concept of things that just are. And again, I see a serious problem making the two Gods to be the same. One is timeless, abstract, conceptual collection of logical truths, non sentient, and nothing more, while the other is a creature who can have experiences, who thinks, decides, and can change, and hence the latter one is a temporal being. Or in Aristotle's words, the first one is a "Being", while the other one is a "Becoming."

[LNC]

I'd still like to see some evidence that god exists outside the universe at all. Remember, Occam's Razor is your friend. And who created god, by the way?

 

You seem to have jumped topics now. We were discussing whether there could be a physically existing infinite, which is the lynch pin of your argument for a past-eternal universe. If a past-eternal universe cannot exist it requires an explanation that is supernatural (beyond nature). That is not a violation of Occam's razor, it is rather the simplest explanation given what we know (i.e., that it is logically untenable that a past-eternal universe exists). We also rule out self causation and the idea that the universe is uncaused as logically untenable as well.

 

This is illogical. It is impossible for god to be able to to change its mind and still be all-knowing. If god is all-knowing, then god knows everything before it ever happened. If god knows everything before it happened, then it knows what decisions it'll make before it makes them. When someone changes their mind, it's because they didn't know things would turn out a certain way and made a mistake. If god changes its mind, then it implicates god didn't know something would turn out the way it did, thus god is not all-knowing. Another way of looking at it is that it's like a physic who makes a prediction, but then decides to change their mind about what the prediction is. If they change their mind, then it was never a prediction and we would consider that physic to be shady. A god who knows the future but can change its mind when it wants to is nothing more than a shady physic. We wouldn't consider a physic who claims to predict the future but changes their mind about what they predict all the time to be an accurate fortune teller, so why do the rules suddenly change when it comes to god?

 

Where did I say that God changed his mind? I don't think that was what I said, nor would I say that as it is not Biblical, nor is it in keeping with God's nature. I simply said that it is not out of the realm of possibility that God could exercise free will, and in that way change. That is not equivalent to changing his mind.

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the gnostic Christians believe that the evil false god of the Old Testament created the universe but the true god is a different being?

 

Sorry, I won't argue the Gnostics' case as I think it was a wrongheaded concept. Besides, Gnosticism was considered heretics and not Christians. This idea is a Platonic belief and not either an OT or a NT belief or teaching. So, they fit within neither tradition.

[Guest end3]

An interesting blurb that is in some line with the discussion...please excuse the interruption. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/t.../dark_flow.html

[Ouroboros]

Where did I say that God changed his mind? I don't think that was what I said, nor would I say that as it is not Biblical, nor is it in keeping with God's nature. I simply said that it is not out of the realm of possibility that God could exercise free will, and in that way change. That is not equivalent to changing his mind.

The nontemporal God you are talking about can not "exercise" anything. Exercise of any kind requires time. You're again making the time-less God be equal to a time-bound God. He/it can't be both.

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the gnostic Christians believe that the evil false god of the Old Testament created the universe but the true god is a different being?

 

Sorry, I won't argue the Gnostics' case as I think it was a wrongheaded concept. Besides, Gnosticism was considered heretics and not Christians. This idea is a Platonic belief and not either an OT or a NT belief or teaching. So, they fit within neither tradition.

The school of Kalam got their ideas from Plato and Aristotle. So your point is that Kalam is also heretic?

 

The OT and NT teaching is far from Kalam. There's no cosmological or Kalam argument in the Bible, so you're extremely far off to claim that Craig's Cosmological Argument somehow is based on the Bible!

 

The Kalam is pure and simple a borrowed idea, transferred and translated into religious context, by religious people who thought they could use Philosophy to argue Gods existence.

[Ouroboros]

An interesting blurb that is in some line with the discussion...please excuse the interruption. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/t.../dark_flow.html

End3, that's very coooool. Thanks.

 

Maybe it's God? Maybe it's the First Cause coming back? Maybe the First Cause now suddenly is the n-th Cause? Or maybe this means that the deterministic, contingent, causal string to a first beginning is a false assumption? Imagine if there's an infinite amount of energy outside our universe, inside a membrane between us and another universe. Imagine if there is a hole and some of the energy is pouring into ours. New matter, new energy, totally throwing off the 2nd law of thermodynamics... Suddenly, there is not single string backwards in time to one single event.

[Asimov]

Exactly the point. Just because something exists as an abstract concept doesn’t mean that we can apply that to real things. Because the concept of infinity exists as an abstract concept doesn’t mean that it necessarily exists in the material world. There are certain paradoxes that are created when applying it to the material existence.

 

Actually, the point is that there is no problem in applying set theory to the real world, just like there is no problem in applying other mathematics to the real world. If you're claiming that there ARE problems, then you'll have to expound on those.

 

You have to explain how one crosses an infinite span of time but then arrives at today.

 

What do you mean by crosses?

 

If I count backwards I never get to the other end, because there is no end. But why should there be an end on this side of time to which I arrive?

 

There isn't, you're not arriving at anything.

 

In an infinite series there are no ends, but I am apparently at one end now. It would take an infinite amount of moments to cross an infinite amount of moments, yet time continues meaning that we have not crossed an infinite amount of moments, therefore, the other end of the time spectrum must be finite.

 

Any any point of time in t, there are an infinite amount of moments going forward and going backward, there is no end to an infinite set. There is an infinite amount of tomorrows and there is an infinite amount of yesterdays.

 

You are speaking in two different concepts, that of theoretically dividing something finite into infinite parts and the concept of and infinite span of time with no beginning and no end.

 

No, there is an infinite span of moments between each arbitrarily set events. Say between 1 hour. We can divide that hour infinitely into smaller and smaller events and keep on dividing those moments.

 

If time has no beginning and no end, then we should not be experiencing today, because that means that we have crossed infinite time, unless you are considering future time equally realizable at this moment, which is also illogical. You get into non-tensed time which is highly problematic. Non-tensed time means that all time is equally real at this moment, which becomes problematic for our experiences and intuitions. We experience time as tensed and our intuitions tell us that this makes sense; however, if that is not reality then it means that we are living in illusion and then we would have to question all of reality, we could not trust our intuitions for any of our perceptions.

 

Jumping to conclusions. We haven't crossed infinite time, we haven't existed for an infinite amount of time. You're not making any sense. What is traversing infinite time?

 

OK, some philosophers, including WL Craig see God as entering into temporal reality at that point, but how does that cause a problem in your mind? God is a personal being which means that there is going to be some aspects of him that will change, i.e. he will make decisions. Yet, his character and basic nature do not change. So, whether or not God enters time does not change the nature of who he is.

 

Craig states that God is changeless until time is created. Time is created by him. Creating requires a time concept. If there is a prior set of events to the beginning of the universe, there is time existent prior to the universe. Of course it changes the nature of who he is. He transitions from one state to another; notime ---> time. A transition requires time, so it is contradictory to state that God transitioned from notime to time.

Effectively? Based on what?

[LNC]

How did God create the Universe? Did he use a proxy? How do you know he didn't? There is already an assumption in the Kalam argument that he didn't. The Kalam assume a direct first cause to the existence of the Universe, and it assumes that it's not based on a separate chain of events before the existence of the Universe. There's no evidence, or proof that this is the case. The argument itself doesn't give any rational explanation or premise to why: it must be so. Hence, the argument does fail to cover all the holes. So this conclusion of mine is not about the beginning of the universe, but my conclusion is that with the probability that other explanation exists, the Kalam argument lacks the completeness it needs to be convincing.

 

The best parsimonious explanation for the Universe is actually that a Quantum Event started the Big Bang, not that a Non-Temporal Spiritual Super-being somehow stepped in and created it. You're inconsistent.

 

I don’t argue that God used a proxy, I believe that he did it directly. In fact, I don’t believe anything existed other than God until the creation of the universe. To argue that God used proxies is again is not the most parsimonious explanation, nor is it necessary that God used a proxy. For what reason and by what evidence would you argue that God used a proxy? How does that help your argument or hurt mine? I am not sure what your reasoning is for going down this road. Tell me why your other explanations would have higher or even equal probability to the explanation that God created the universe. What are your explanations? Multiplying gods does not equate to a better explanation, but in fact, a more difficult explanation as it fails Occam’s razor.

 

How is a quantum event a better explanation? Doe you have evidence that a quantum event can survive more than a fraction of a second? Do you have evidence that a quantum event can occur sans matter and energy? I have not seen any evidence of either, so I don’t see that as being a better explanation, but rather, it still fails the test of 2LOT and the weak energy condition problem previously discussed. From where do you believe the energy and matter came for this quantum event? Another problem with your theory is the orderly progression that we see in the early universe. Physicist Paul Davies says of this, "If new organizational levels just pop into existence for no reason, why do we see such an orderly progression in the universe from featureless origin to rich diversity?" He goes on to say it shows "powerful evidence that there is 'something going on' behind it all." (from The Cosmic Blueprint New Discoveries in Nature's Creative Ability to Order the Universe)

 

Here's an extract of the choice of words in you sentence above:

"Choice to" - temporal verb

"See what will happen in the future" - means he is a point in time looking forward

"to act a certain way" - temporal

"He then creates" - temporal, an action within a framework of time, you can't create in a timeless environment

"God's choice happens" - choice and happens are temporal words, they "happen" in what? Happen like blue color on number 5 in nebula oxnarz? Happen is a word that means it happens on a "time line"

 

And so on.

 

Almost every 5th word is a temporal word, which you use to describe God's nature, and he is non-temporal. Conflict of words. Start explaining God's non-temporal actions without temporal words.

 

I see you're stuck in other discussions and not following my thought at all. And I've noticed that from get-go. Listen, I'm not arguing against God's omniscience here. I'm arguing against God's non-temporality. He can't "know" things without the process of "knowing." Process is a flow of events, thoughts, etc, a flow is a matter of "First this, then this". And a "first this, then this" scenario is by its pure definition a time system. God might not be in the same time line as us, but he must be in his own time line. Do you understand what I'm talking about? He can't be without his own time line and yet think: "first I will do this, then I will do that."

"simply sees

 

So again, I am not in the argument about God's omniscience against free will here, because it's a different topic, and I do have my opinion against that one too, but I also have an answer that solves that, but it's beside the point in this discussion. However, God is all knowing about his future acts... but he can't have future acts because he there is no "future" in a non-temporal framework. All must happen at once, or at negative-infinity. If you would make the y-axis to be the all possible actions, and the x-axis the timeline, God doesn't have a sequence of time-points on the x-axis, but it all happens at one time, and at all times. It's either: y is an element of all Rational numbers, while x is undefined or negative-infinity. There isn't any x-value that corresponds to God's y-axis. Do you understand this at all?

 

Right, I already posted that my terminology was not very precise. Thanks for pointing that out again. Actually, what really is happening is that wills the universe into existence coinciding with his act of creating space and time. God’s omniscience does not know the limits of space and time, so he knows all unbounded by space and time. I would argue that God knows everything that happens in space and time even when space and time are not existent. To say that God will create the universe in the future when it and time do not exist is an illogical and false statement, since time does not exist. So, my language and my thinking later last evening were not an accurate reflection of what I believe reality to be. If God exists outside of space and time as many believe, there are no future and past events. If God exists within space and time when the universe is created, then at that point, on only then are there future and past events.

[LNC]

I always get extremely uncomfortable when people get this precise and technical in describing God. I get uncomfortable as in "you can't possibly know this stuff about another entity outside your own self, and therefore your description is highly unlikely to be true." I was taught to revere God as the most powerful, most benevolent, and most knowing being in existence. When Christians then undertake to describe every aspect and attribute of God as though writing a computer science course, I feel like this wonderful God whom Paul Tillich called the Ground of Being is reduced to a philosophical concept made to serve the purpose of some human philosophical or theological battle. To me, this comes across as sacrilege of the most vile sort possible, especially since it is done by Christians in the name of God.

 

I would just like to see some evidence that this God exists.

 

I don’t believe that finite beings will ever be able to fully describe an infinite being, it seems impossible to me. However, God has described and revealed aspects of Himself in the Bible, so I believe that we can know meaning aspects about God. I don’t know that I have ever said, or hopefully even insinuated that I could explain God exhaustively. Tillich was a gifted preacher and survived many difficult times in coming from Nazi Germany; however, where I would differ with him is in his perspective. He took a very existential perspective of man somehow trying to work his way to God. Man is not sinful and separated from God as the Bible would describe, but inherently good, but merely flawed and off course. God, to Tillich was not a personal being, as the Bible describes, but being itself.

 

Regarding your last sentence, that is what we are here to discuss. One evidence that is being debated is the Kalam Cosmological argument. A second argument would be the argument from design. A third would be the moral argument. There are others, but consider these first.

[LNC]

The nontemporal God you are talking about can not "exercise" anything. Exercise of any kind requires time. You're again making the time-less God be equal to a time-bound God. He/it can't be both.

 

I have not defined God as non-temporal. I have also said that when God wills the universe into existence, that time also come into existence simultaneously. Also, you have to show me your reasoning as to why has to be time-bound in order to act. Some philosophers even discuss a separate type of metaphysical time that exists prior to cosmic time. Again, I have not come to any conclusions on that topic; however, tell me your reasoning as to why God could not act without actually becoming time-bound. You have said it but never told me why that is the case; and I know of plenty of philosophers who would beg to differ with you. So, please tell me your reasoning.

 

The school of Kalam got their ideas from Plato and Aristotle. So your point is that Kalam is also heretic?

 

The OT and NT teaching is far from Kalam. There's no cosmological or Kalam argument in the Bible, so you're extremely far off to claim that Craig's Cosmological Argument somehow is based on the Bible!

 

The Kalam is pure and simple a borrowed idea, transferred and translated into religious context, by religious people who thought they could use Philosophy to argue Gods existence.

 

There is no person by the name of Kalam. I never said that everything that Plato and Aristotle taught or believed was heresy, just that the concept of multiple gods is heresy.

 

Why do you say that the OT and NT teaching is far from Kalam? The Bible clearly teaches that the universe came into existence in the finite past and that God created the universe out of nothing. However, I never said that Craig bases Kalam from the Bible; I am not sure from where you came up with that claim.

 

Does it matter from where the Kalam argument comes? Actually, it is rooted in philosophy and Aquinas first popularized the argument. The Kalam version also comes from Islamic thinkers, so it is not even a Christian version of the argument. However, I don’t know why its origin somehow invalidates the use of the argument. That is what is known as the genetic fallacy.

[LNC]

Actually, the point is that there is no problem in applying set theory to the real world, just like there is no problem in applying other mathematics to the real world. If you're claiming that there ARE problems, then you'll have to expound on those.

 

Yet, you still have to show that it is possible in the actual physical world and that is your problem in two aspects. First, it presents a logical problem which you have not even attempted to answer; and second, you have no empirical evidence that any such infinite actually exists in the real world. I would assume that you are an empiricist and would require such evidence before latching onto such a problematic explanation.

 

What do you mean by crosses?

 

I mean to Get from point A to point B. One cannot cross, bridge, or span an infinite amount of moments, minutes, hours, etc. Yet, here we are at today...

 

There isn't, you're not arriving at anything.

 

What is today? I have arrived here even though there is supposedly and infinite amount of time prior to today.

 

Any any point of time in t, there are an infinite amount of moments going forward and going backward, there is no end to an infinite set. There is an infinite amount of tomorrows and there is an infinite amount of yesterdays.

 

But to be an infinite set you would have to assume that the future part of the set is real now, otherwise it is not an infinite set. It is like having a one ended stick, it is not possible. IOW, we are at a finite terminus now, but supposedly there is no terminus at the other end. That is like a one ended stick.

 

No, there is an infinite span of moments between each arbitrarily set events. Say between 1 hour. We can divide that hour infinitely into smaller and smaller events and keep on dividing those moments.

 

OK, but can you actually divide up one hour into infinite parts? I am not talking theoretically, but actually. That is the rub. It is all fine on paper, it is when you try to actually apply the concept to the real world that you run into trouble.

 

Jumping to conclusions. We haven't crossed infinite time, we haven't existed for an infinite amount of time. You're not making any sense. What is traversing infinite time?

 

Right, we now you are getting the argument. We haven’t crossed an infinite time, but we should have it time in past infinite. Get it? The only way that time could be infinite is if all future time was real at this moment, which defies logic and intuition. We are at a finite point now, which indicates that the other end is finite also. I am making sense, and now you are apparently seeing the implications. You cannot just pretend that time goes to infinity in the future, to time to truly be infinite, it must be infinite now. You start getting into the problem of non-tensed time.

 

Craig states that God is changeless until time is created. Time is created by him. Creating requires a time concept. If there is a prior set of events to the beginning of the universe, there is time existent prior to the universe. Of course it changes the nature of who he is. He transitions from one state to another; notime ---> time. A transition requires time, so it is contradictory to state that God transitioned from notime to time.

 

Why do you assume that there are a prior set of events to the beginning of the universe? I don’t see that as being necessary. God creates the universe and time simultaneously, it is all wrapped up together, so the transition is happening within time.

[Asimov]

Yet, you still have to show that it is possible in the actual physical world and that is your problem in two aspects. First, it presents a logical problem which you have not even attempted to answer; and second, you have no empirical evidence that any such infinite actually exists in the real world. I would assume that you are an empiricist and would require such evidence before latching onto such a problematic explanation.

 

Showing you that there are no issues with an infinity as it relates to reality is showing you that infinities exist. If time is infinite, then infinities exist. Your point is moot, anyways, since I don't have to show that an infinity exists in order to refute your claims that they can't.

 

I mean to Get from point A to point B. One cannot cross, bridge, or span an infinite amount of moments, minutes, hours, etc. Yet, here we are at today...

 

K, set your watch. It's 2:24pm right now where I am. Three minutes later it will be 2:27. That's point A to point B. How did I get there?

 

 

What is today? I have arrived here even though there is supposedly and infinite amount of time prior to today.

 

You've been here for an infinity prior to this?

 

But to be an infinite set you would have to assume that the future part of the set is real now, otherwise it is not an infinite set. It is like having a one ended stick, it is not possible. IOW, we are at a finite terminus now, but supposedly there is no terminus at the other end. That is like a one ended stick.

 

We aren't at a finite terminus now, the stick hasn't ended.

 

OK, but can you actually divide up one hour into infinite parts? I am not talking theoretically, but actually. That is the rub. It is all fine on paper, it is when you try to actually apply the concept to the real world that you run into trouble.

 

I can't actually build a telescope that is so powerful it can see 78 trillion light years from here, that doesn't mean that 78 trillion light years from here doesn't actually exist.

 

J

We haven’t crossed an infinite time, but we should have it time in past infinite.

 

Why should we? We don't exist for that long.

 

We are at a finite point now, which indicates that the other end is finite also. I am making sense, and now you are apparently seeing the implications. You cannot just pretend that time goes to infinity in the future, to time to truly be infinite, it must be infinite now. You start getting into the problem of non-tensed time.

 

Just because we are at 3 in a counting sequence doesn't mean that there must be a finite amount of numbers before it, though, so your problem is irrelevant. There are no implications. We don't traverse infinite sets because we don't exist for that long.

 

We aren't at a finite point now because we haven't finished.

 

 

Why do you assume that there are a prior set of events to the beginning of the universe? I don’t see that as being necessary. God creates the universe and time simultaneously, it is all wrapped up together, so the transition is happening within time.

 

What happened before God created? He didn't exist?