A thought experiment...

[romepunk]

Bear with me.

A man is placed in a room. The walls are bare and the room is empty, save for two things. First there is a podium in the center of the room. On this podium, is a large red button. Next to this button is a card, with writing in the finest script:

Do NOT press. Thank you.
From under the podium, a cable pokes out, reaching out across to the far corner of the room. It connects to a cylyndrical steel booth. Little does this man know that the booth is in fact a time machine. In it, there is a man with a bucket of black paint.

If the man disobeys the warning, and presses the big red button, the time machine will launch. The room will be black, and will have, from the perspective of our hapless protagnist, always have been black.

Should he obey the warning, the time machine will not launch. The room will be white, and will have always been white.

The situation creates any number of problems. What color is the room when the man is placed in it? Does that negate his free will? Etc.

So what does this have to do with cosmogony? I'm glad you asked. God operates from outside of space and time, transcending onto space-time to affect his will. The most spectacular instance of this is the Incarnation. The Logos became man. The hypostatic union of God and Man in Christ means the body is never shed. The ressurection body of Christ is fully glorified, and transcends space and time. This makes it a kind of time machine.

The universe is created through the Logos, and the Logos has eternally assumed a human body. We should see traces of the nature of the Logos in creation.

This means that Adam, like our hapless hero in the thought experiment, could have made his decision in something akin to a temporal causality bubble. Had he obeyed, the logos never would have incarnated, thus never had to suffer for our sins. But because Adam disobeyed, the Logos did incarnate, and eternally assumed a nature of suffering, a nature, which given Christ's transcendent properties, would have effects backwards in time.

So the reason there is so much suffering in creation is the Fault of Adam, but because the Incarnation has an atemporal nature, we can see the effects of the Fall before the Fall actually happened.

Chew on that.
Personally, I think its crazy. I wish I hadn't thought of it. I have no theological problem with non-human death before the Fall. But if you do, perhaps thinking of it this way could help.

[NeilUnreal]

I once thought of something similar from a slightly different perspective. That is, if at any point we exist outside of time -- say after death -- then from a temporal perspective we have always existed outside of time.

-Neil

[geebob]

So what does this have to do with cosmogony? I'm glad you asked. God operates from outside of space and time, transcending onto space-time to affect his will.

This is actually contended on both biblical and philosophical grounds. A growing number of philosophers and theologians believe that God is in time and that there is only a present. And if this is the case, there is no ground for the problem you outline. But of course, assuming a B theory of time (assuming all of time, past present and future, exists) your problem is relevent.

Had he obeyed, the logos never would have incarnated, thus never had to suffer for our sins.

This assumes that the only reason for the Son to become incarnate was for the redemption of man from sin. and indeed scripturally, it is given heavy emphasis because in light of our sin, the incarnation does function in this very important way. But that it is essential for our relationship now doesn't mean that it was necessary prior to the fall.

Other reasons for the incarnation are along the lines of Jesus' priesthood in the order of Melchezedich. He serves as a bridge between man and God. Also, there is the metaphor that paul speaks of, Jesus as the bride-groom. There is no need for sin here. So here, incarnation functions for greater intamacy and shared context between creator and creature.

And I think a creator can enjoy his creation much more from the perspective of one of his creatures than only from a top down perspective.

[lucaspa]

A man is placed in a room. The walls are bare and the room is empty, save for two things. First there is a podium in the center of the room. On this podium, is a large red button. Next to this button is a card, with writing in the finest script:

Do NOT press. Thank you.
From under the podium, a cable pokes out, reaching out across to the far corner of the room. It connects to a cylyndrical steel booth. Little does this man know that the booth is in fact a time machine. In it, there is a man with a bucket of black paint.

If the man disobeys the warning, and presses the big red button, the time machine will launch. The room will be black, and will have, from the perspective of our hapless protagnist, always have been black.Excuse me, but in the interval between the man being placed in the room and pressing the button, the room will have been white. The timeline of the individual is such that he will have perceived the room as white before he presses the button.

So what does this have to do with cosmogony? I'm glad you asked. God operates from outside of space and time, transcending onto space-time to affect his will.Uh, this is a hypothesis, not the fact that you stated.

The most spectacular instance of this is the Incarnation. The Logos became man. The hypostatic union of God and Man in Christ means the body is never shed.You realized you just denied Trinity here, don't you?

The universe is created through the Logos, and the Logos has eternally assumed a human body. We should see traces of the nature of the Logos in creation.Perhaps. I would argue that we do, in looking at how God created. However, you are presupposing that we have the appropriate tools to detect the nature of the Logos. Do we?

This means that Adam, like our hapless hero in the thought experiment, could have made his decision in something akin to a temporal causality bubble. Had he obeyed, the logos never would have incarnated, thus never had to suffer for our sins.This presupposes that Adam is literal. However, let's suppose, for the moment, that Adam is not. Let's accept the evidence God left us in His Creation that He created by evolution and that the literal interpretation of Adam and Paul's theological insight are wrong.

So, let's have Adam be what his "name" -- Dirt -- suggests: he is an archetype for each and every human. What does the story tell us then? It tells us that each of us, you and me included, get cut off from God because we disobey Him. Not due to Adam's supposed actions, but because of our own actions/sins. Now we are up against Paul's major theological message: Jesus died for our sins.

This idea gets rid of all the presuppositions, unobserved time travel, and contradictions of time travel. God reached out -- within time -- became human in an attempt to communicate with us, and offered Himself as atonement for our sins.

So the reason there is so much suffering in creation is the Fault of Adam, but because the Incarnation has an atemporal nature, we can see the effects of the Fall before the Fall actually happened.Let me give you another alternative. God created a universe where our lives have meaning. Where our decisions have real consequences. Where we really have free will in the sense that we can shape and change the future. In this type of universe, humans have to be able to cause suffering by their decisions. What's more, their reactions to "natural" events must also be real in order for them to have meaning. Thus, God has a universe where gravity is real and has all the consequences of gravity: including landslides that hit school busses and kill all the kids in them. The tragedy has to be real so that our response to the tragedy is real and thus our response has meaning.

If God interferes such that only the good and nice things are allowed to happen, our lives don't have meaning. We are nothing more than puppets on a string or tin soldiers for a little boy God to play with.

[geebob]

You realized you just denied Trinity here, don't you?

I don't like what it seems to me that timelessness does to the trinity, but I don't see that what he said that you are reacting to results in a denial of the trinity.

[romepunk]

There really should be more responses to this. Why is no one taking my stupid, off the cuff theory seriously? :lol:

This assumes that the only reason for the Son to become incarnate was for the redemption of man from sin. and indeed scripturally, it is given heavy emphasis because in light of our sin, the incarnation does function in this very important way. But that it is essential for our relationship now doesn't mean that it was necessary prior to the fall.

Other reasons for the incarnation are along the lines of Jesus' priesthood in the order of Melchezedich. He serves as a bridge between man and God. Also, there is the metaphor that paul speaks of, Jesus as the bride-groom. There is no need for sin here. So here, incarnation functions for greater intamacy and shared context between creator and creature.

And I think a creator can enjoy his creation much more from the perspective of one of his creatures than only from a top down perspective.
I agree with much of this actually.

Excuse me, but in the interval between the man being placed in the room and pressing the button, the room will have been white. The timeline of the individual is such that he will have perceived the room as white before he presses the button.
No, it would have been black. The present is affected by the past. Think of the jailhouse escape scene in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Bone up on your science, man. Jeez.

You realized you just denied Trinity here, don't you?
By affirming the Incarnation? I don't understand what you're trying to say. Are you denying the physicality of the Ressurection?

This presupposes that Adam is literal. However, let's suppose, for the moment, that Adam is not. Let's accept the evidence God left us in His Creation that He created by evolution and that the literal interpretation of Adam and Paul's theological insight are wrong.
I accept evolution, but I still hold to a literal Adam.

Let me give you another alternative. God created a universe where our lives have meaning. Where our decisions have real consequences. Where we really have free will in the sense that we can shape and change the future. In this type of universe, humans have to be able to cause suffering by their decisions. What's more, their reactions to "natural" events must also be real in order for them to have meaning. Thus, God has a universe where gravity is real and has all the consequences of gravity: including landslides that hit school busses and kill all the kids in them. The tragedy has to be real so that our response to the tragedy is real and thus our response has meaning.

If God interferes such that only the good and nice things are allowed to happen, our lives don't have meaning. We are nothing more than puppets on a string or tin soldiers for a little boy God to play with.
I pretty much agree with this. But I still believe in the Fall as an explanation for out discordant relationship with God.

Like I said this is a thought experiment, not what I actually believe. I just threw it out there to see what people thought. I was hoping there would be more takers.