The Creator is not Eternal

[rossum]

My argument is intended to show that the two statements "God is eternal," and "God is the creator of all else that exists," are inconsistent and cannot both be true.

I shall use "Eternal" to mean the God in the statement "God is eternal," and "Creator" to mean the God in the statement "God is the creator of all else that exists." In this sense, "Creator" is synonymous with "Causer", and "created" is synonymous with "effect". We cannot assume that these two are the same God, since the basis of my argument is to show that they cannot be the same.

In essence the argument runs:

1 The Eternal exists at all times. There is no time when the Eternal does not exist.

2 There was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist.

3 Therefore there was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist and the Eternal did exist.

4 Something cannot both exist and not exist at the same time.

5 Therefore the Eternal and the Creator cannot be the same thing. In other words God cannot both be eternal and be the creator of all else that exists.


Detailed arguments for these points follow.

1 The Eternal exists at all times. There is no time when the Eternal does not exist.

1.1 This is basically a tautology. Anything eternal exists for all past time, the present and all future time. That is what eternal means.


2 There was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist.

2.1 There is no cause without an effect. A cause cannot be a cause unless it has an effect. To be a cause without an effect is like being a parent while not having had any children. If a cause does not have an effect then it is not a cause, since it has caused nothing. At most it may be a potential cause.

2.2 By 2.1 above, for the Creator to exist it is necessary for at least one effect to exist, since without an effect the Creator cannot be a cause, which is a contradiction. This would be like a childless parent, or a sibling with no brothers or sisters, and so not exist.

2.3 From 2.2 we have at least one effect needed for the Creator. We will look at the first such effect to happen; if multiple first effects occur at the same time then we can select any one of them. No other effect happened before it. This first effect can be either eternal or not.

2.3.1 If the first effect specified in 2.3 is eternal then it was not caused by the Creator since the effect has no start, and therefore no cause. The cause must come before the effect, and there is no "before" for something eternal. Therefore the Creator did not cause this particular effect and so this eternal effect does not establish the Creator's existence. We can eliminate this "effect" as not an effect, we made a mistake, and return to 2.3 to pick another first effect. We know that some effects are not eternal, a mayfly say, so we do not have an infinite loop here.

2.3.2 If the first effect in 2.3 is not eternal then that effect was caused by the Creator at some point in time. Before that point in time the first effect did not exist. Neither did any other relevant effect, since in 2.3 we have defined the effect we are looking at as the first effect.

2.4 By 2.3.1 and 2.3.2 the first effect can only establish the Creator if it is not eternal. Therefore by 2.1 there was a time, before the first effect, when the Creator did not exist. In the absence of any effect there cannot be a cause and we have established that there was indeed a time when there were no effects.

2.5 This meakes sense. If the Creator was eternal we would get something like "On the -2th day God said 'Fiat lux', and on the -1th day God said 'Fiat lux', and on the 0th day God said 'Fiat lux', and on the first day God said 'Fiat lux', and on the second day God said 'Fiat lux'" and so on. Eternal causes have this machine-gun-like property, continually producing their effects.


3 Therefore there was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist and the Eternal did exist.

3.1 This follows from 1 and 2.


4 Something cannot both exist and not exist at the same time.

4.1 This is a basic law of logic, the law of the excluded middle.


5 Therefore the Eternal and the Creator cannot be the same thing. In other words God cannot both be eternal and be the creator of all else that exists.

5.1 By 3 and 4 the Eternal and the Creator are not the same thing. We can say that the two statements "God is eternal" and "God is the creator of all else that exists" are not consistent with each other.

5.2 This is not a new observation. The Gnostics were aware of the problem and solved it by having more than one God; their version ran "God1 is eternal," and "God2 is the creator of all else that exists." Nagarjuna also uses the same argument against any eternal cause.


rossum

[prgmrdave]

Today @ 02:28 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=120548#post120548)
rossum:

2.1 There is no cause without an effect. A cause cannot be a cause unless it has an effect. To be a cause without an effect is like being a parent while not having had any children. If a cause does not have an effect then it is not a cause, since it has caused nothing. At most it may be a potential cause.

2.2 By 2.1 above, for the Creator to exist it is necessary for at least one effect to exist, since without an effect the Creator cannot be a cause, which is a contradiction. This would be like a childless parent, or a sibling with no brothers or sisters, and so not exist.

rossum

It seems to me that I existed before I was a parent. "Parent" was a role I took on at some point in my existence. I existed, though I had not "caused" any children.

Similarly, your argument (as presented thus far) does not address God having existed though not having yet created.

Thanks for a great post!

[Peek-a-boo-baby]

From your argument, I am understanding that your problem is with calling God both Eternal and Creator. But I don't really understand how this is a conflict. You have a very linear (limited) view of how events happen: cause and effect. But there can be cause with multiple effects, or there can be multiple causes for one effect. To call God "Creator" does not limit him in time. The "cause" you are looking for in your line of cause-effect reasoning is not God himself, but God's command. Nothing created comes into being until "God said..."

If I am misunderstanding your reasoning please correct me.

[wwatts]

2.3.1 If the first effect specified in 2.3 is eternal then it was not caused by the Creator since the effect has no start, and therefore no cause. The cause must come before the effect, and there is no "before" for something eternal. Therefore the Creator did not cause this particular effect and so this eternal effect does not establish the Creator's existence. We can eliminate this "effect" as not an effect, we made a mistake, and return to 2.3 to pick another first effect. We know that some effects are not eternal, a mayfly say, so we do not have an infinite loop here.


Some people believe in simultaneous causation. That is to say that a cause and a effect can occur at the same time.

[rossum]

prgmrdave,

Something did exist before you became a parent, but that something was not a parent. That parent-to-be had to undergo a change in order to become a parent. Something that changes is not eternal so neither the parent-to-be nor the parent is eternal. Similarly, the Creator-to-be may have existed before the first act of creation, but the Creator-to-be had to change into the Creator. Inevitably there was a change of state from "I will create in the future," to "I am creating now," to "I have created." If something changes then is is different from what it was before. Is it legitimate still to use the same designation to describe it? Certainly we cannot use a designation like "Creator" to describe something that has not created yet. An eternal God cannot change, so it cannot make the move from Creator-to-be to Creator. If this entity changed then this entity was not eternal. Being eternal can be a very restrictive property.


Peek-a-boo-baby,

I do indeed reject the notion of an eternal creator. You are right that a single cause can have multiple effects, but the cause still has effects and the effects all have a cause. Multiple causes is a different question, since causation is then possibly contingent depending on which of the "causes" are neccessary or not. However, I am arguing against a single eternal creator; multiple causes would involve an argument against multiple eternal creators.

To call god "Creator" must limit her in time, since "Creator" is a contingent property, dependent on the existence of something created which itself will be limited in time. As my argument showed there was a time when nothing created existed so the designation of "Creator" could not have been truthfully applied.

God's command "Let there be light." has the same problem. God has to change from "I am about to speak," to "I am speaking," to "I have spoken." This is a change. As I said to prgmrdave anything that changes cannot be eternal. A God who speaks is not eternal, since speech inevitably involves change over time. Again the Creator, who is the one speaking, cannot be eternal. The Eternal, who does not speak, cannot create.

The notion of Creator implies some sort of change. The Eternal cannot change. These two cannot be the same.


wwatts,

Some people may say that, I don't. If cause and effect are simultaneous then how can we tell which is which? Does God cause light or does light cause God? We tell cause and effect apart by noting which one comes first and calling it the cause. The cause has to come first or else there is nothing in place before the effect, so the effect could pop up anywhere without prior cause.

In any case, my argument is not affected since if they arise simultaneuosly then the Creator arises at the same time as the first effect. There is still a time when the Creator does not exist and the rest follows as before.

I have to log off now, I will be interested to see what tomorrow brings.

rossum

[prgmrdave]

Today @ 03:53 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=120673#post120673)
rossum:

The notion of Creator implies some sort of change.

How come?

The Eternal cannot change.

How come?

[Captain Ochre]

prgmrdave has fingered the basic problem. "Cause" is merely a attribute of the eternal creator. Additionally, all causes are logically prior to their effects, thus it is seeminly difficult to justify the contention that causation is contingent on effect, as rossum's argument appears to do.

[wwatts]

Some people believe in simultaneous causation. That is to say that a cause and a effect can occur at the same time.

wwatts,

Some people may say that, I don't. If cause and effect are simultaneous then how can we tell which is which? Does God cause light or does light cause God? We tell cause and effect apart by noting which one comes first and calling it the cause. The cause has to come first or else there is nothing in place before the effect, so the effect could pop up anywhere without prior cause.


You seem to be saying that 'if event A occurs before another event B, then event A caused event B'. But that can't be what you are thinking. But if you are not saying that, then all you are saying is 'if event A comes before event B and event A causes event B then event A is in causal relations with event B'. But this is what we are discussing!

I'm saying all that is required for event A to cause event B is for event A to be in causal relations with event B!

Now I think it's true that we never observee 'backwards causation' where event B happens before event A, *and* event A still causes event B, but that doesn't mean that simultaneous causation doesn't occur or that we don't observe it.


In any case, my argument is not affected since if they arise simultaneuosly then the Creator arises at the same time as the first effect. There is still a time when the Creator does not exist and the rest follows as before.
rossum

I would say that saying the creator 'arises' at a first moment in time would be inaccurate. The worst you could say, given this simultaneous view, is that the creator exists at the first moment in time and the creator is in causal relations with the first moment in time!

Some other things I think need to be discussed here is the idea of physical time versus metaphysical time. Basically, if physical time is a property of matter there is no reason someone would need to associate a physical time to an immaterial thing. That immaterial thing could have a relationship with a metaphysical time and not a physical time until the beginning of the universe, and then a relationship with the physical time since the beginning of the universe.

[FirstSunday33ad]

1. Without time there is no such concept as "eternal" only "now"

2. Time has not always existed.

3. Therefore God is not "eternal" God is "now".

4. The creation is dependent on the creator.

5. The creator is not dependent on the creation.

6. Therefore, there can be a "time" when the creator hasn't yet created but not a "time" when the creation existed without the creator.

7. A creator who has not yet created anything - including time - is in the NOW not eternity.

8. Therefore, the creator and the eternal are the same.

[JCA]

Today @ 12:04 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=122032#post122032)
wwatts:

Now I think it's true that we never observee 'backwards causation' where event B happens before event A, *and* event A still causes event B, but that doesn't mean that simultaneous causation doesn't occur or that we don't observe it.

Actually, I thought we had observed this with some tests that have been done with Photons in the last few years..

I can't remember it all right now, but I beleive that running a photon through a specific chamber of certain gases, it was observed that the 'light' was actually leaving the 'gas' before it had even finished being entered..

In other words, the light left the box before it was all in.. the effect actually came before the cause..

So, I'm not sure how that all fits, but I thought I would bring it up :teeth:

IN Love and Peace

JCA

[wwatts]

2.1 There is no cause without an effect. A cause cannot be a cause unless it has an effect. To be a cause without an effect is like being a parent while not having had any children. If a cause does not have an effect then it is not a cause, since it has caused nothing. At most it may be a potential cause.



I think you have a defeater here against your defeater for simultaneous causation. Let me try to make an argument out of this

1) A cause must be in causal relations to it's effect in the moment immediately prior to the effect's existance
2) A cause may not exist in causal relations to an effect in the moment that the effect exists (simultaneous causation)
3) At least one cause and one effect exist in causal relations
4) Therefore a cause exists without an effect (existing)

I deny (1) but you hold (1) , (2), and (3) so it's necessarily the case that you believe in a cause that exists without an effect, which is against your view.

[rossum]

Sorry for the delay in replying. "To err is human, but for a real snarl-up try a computer." I will reply to the more recent posts later - I prefer not to reply on-line, but to compose replies off-line.

prgmrdave,

You had two questions:

1 Why does the notion of Creator imply some sort of change?

As I said in my first post, I am using "create" as a synonym of "cause". When a creator creates something, the creator is acting as the cause of the created thing. So does a cause have to change? I shall show this by looking at the effect an unchanging cause (UC) would have. The UC causes its effect. The next moment in time, the UC has not changed, so it causes its effect again. The next moment in time it causes its effect yet again. An unchanging cause can never stop producing its effect. We have a machine-gun-like stream of effects. Furthermore, given that the UC has always been the same, this particular machine-gun has always been firing; the stream of effects extends back into the past as far as we can see as well as into the future. Obviously one of those Hollywood guns with an infinite supply of ammunition.

An unchanging cause would be something like:
... and on the zeroth day God said "Let there be light," and on the first day God said "Let there be light," and on the second day God said "Let there be light," and on the third day God said "Let there be light," and on the fourth day ...
This conforms to neither science nor the Bible so I don't think anyone here would accept it.

All these paradoxes arise from an unchanging cause/creator. In order to avoid the paradoxes all that is necessary is to drop the "unchanging". A changing cause can easily cause something once, "Let there be light," and then itself change to avoid becoming a repeating cause.

2 How come the Eternal cannot change?

Something eternal exists at all times: past, present and future. Change involves a difference over time, there are two times T1 and T2 when the changing thing is different. What constitutes the difference? There are three possibilities, something has been added, something has been taken away or a mixture of both.

2.1 Something has been added: At time T1 we have entity (E). At a later time T2 we have entity (E + F), F has been added. F cannot be eternal since it did not exist at time T1. E might be eternal, but E has not changed. F has changed but it is certainly not eternal. The Eternal has not changed in this case.

2.2 Something has been removed: At time T1 we have (E + G). At a later time T2 we have (E). G has been removed. G has changed, but it is not eternal since it does not exist at time T2. E is possibly eternal, but it has not changed. The Eternal has not changed in this case.

2.3 A mixture of both: At time T1 we have (E + H). At a later time T2 we have (E + J). Neither H nor J are eternal, H does not exist at time T2 and J does not exist at time T1. E may be eternal but it has not changed in this case. The Eternal has not changed in this case.

In all three cases the Eternal has not changed. Whatever is eternal cannot change; something that is eternal is the same at all times. Whatever is changing cannot be eternal; something that changes is not the same at all times.

This is true in most philosophy, whatever is eternal is ipso facto unchanging given the definitions of "eternal" and "changing". God is seen as eternal and unchanging in most theologies - the "Rock of Ages".


Captain Ochre said:

"Cause" is merely a[n] attribute of the eternal creator.
My point is that an "eternal creator" involves a logical paradox and cannot exist. Can something without existence have an attribute like "cause"?

Dropping the problematic "eternal", the statement becomes:

"Cause" is merely a[n] attribute of the creator.
In this instance, the attribute "cause" is not "mere". The Creator cannot be the creator without also being a cause. Remember I am using "cause" and "create" as synonyms. This attribute is essential to the designation "Creator". Can someone truly claim to be an author without having written anything? A Creator must have created/caused something, or else their claim to be a creator is false. The entity in question cannot be the Creator until she has created something. Naturally, this implies a change in the entity, with consequent effects on attempts to describe her as eternal.

all causes are logically prior to their effects
Correct.

causation is contingent on effect
This is indeed what I am saying. Being a cause is a contingent property, dependent on the effect. Without an effect, cause-and-effect obviously cannot exist, and hence cause cannot exist. How could we show the existence of cause-and-effect if there are no effects? I do not see this as difficult to establish. Naturally, being an effect is also contingent on the existence of a cause. Both cause and effect are mutually contingent - neither can exist without the other. Creator and creation are exactly similar, both are contingent.

rossum

[prgmrdave]

rossum,

You've often mentioned time in your posts in reference to the eternality of a thing. Could you be more specific what time stream you refer to, whether it is the one my physical body inhabits, or some other?

Thanks!

[prgmrdave]

Is it correct to say that, according to your PoV, "causing" has an effect on the "causer"?

In other words, something, having caused, is thereafter not identical to (different from, changed from) what it was before the causing?

[rossum]

Thankyou all for some interesting responses.

wwatts,

I do not say that any prior event is a cause. Not all prior events are causes.

Simultaneous causation does not make sense as there is no cause in place to trigger the effect - the effect has no prior cause. Without a prior cause there is nothing to prevent the effect occurring at random.

Trying to redefine the problem as the existence of a "cause-and-effect" relation does not solve it as there can be no cause-and-effect relation without either a cause or an effect. Can there be a parent-and-child relation when neither parent nor child exists?

I would say that saying the creator 'arises' at a first moment in time would be inaccurate. The worst you could say, given this simultaneous view, is that the creator exists at the first moment in time and the creator is in causal relations with the first moment in time!
In the absence of time there can be no causal relationship. Cause and effect are differentiated by their respective positions in time. Hence whatever relation there is between time and the Creator-to-be (I do not yet grant her the status of creator) it is not a cause-and-effect relationship. Once we are inside time, then my argument about the first effect comes into play. You are right in that the existence of time is implicit in my argument, however I do not see this as a problem since the existence of time is implicit in any cause-and-effect relationship.

The relationship between cause and effect is not simple.

1 The cause cannot exist before the effect, because while there is no effect there cannot be a cause.

2 The cause cannot exist simultaneously with the effect because in that case there is no cause present in the prior moment to trigger the effect.

3 The cause cannot exist after the effect because then the effect is already in existence and requires no cause to trigger it.

As I said earlier the two are mutually contingent, neither can be established on their own. Any attempt to establish the independent existence of either cause or effect will collapse into absurdity. A similar relationship exists between Creator and created. Being a creator is a contingent property.

I would need a better definition of "metaphysical time" and how it differs from "material time" before I would be prepared to consider including it in the discussion. Even then I am not sure that it would add much.

1) A cause must be in causal relations to it's effect in the moment immediately prior to the effect's existence
2) A cause may not exist in causal relations to an effect in the moment that the effect exists (simultaneous causation)
3) At least one cause and one effect exist in causal relations
4) Therefore a cause exists without an effect (existing)
Your 1) is false because there can be no relation between an existing cause and a not-yet-existing effect. Relationships only apply between existing things. 2) is correct. 3) is only true if both "cause" and "effect" are taken as contingent. 4) is nonsense. No cause exists without an effect, that would make "cause" non-contingent and there are no non-contingent causes.


FirstSunday33ad said:

1. Without time there is no such concept as "eternal" only "now"
How can "now" be defined in the absence of time? I will suspend acceptance/rejection of this point until I see your definition of "now". You are correct in that "eternal" has no meaning in the absence of time - eternal is contingent on time.

2. Time has not always existed.
Agreed in the general sense, though we need to be very careful with the use of a word like "always" in this context. A lot of words implicitly assume the existence of time. A better way of saying it would be "Time has a beginning," which keeps all the time-dependent words within the bounds of time.

3. Therefore God is not "eternal" God is "now".
Does your "God" correspond to the "Eternal" in my initial post, to the "Creator" in my initial post or to a third entity? I will not accept any definition that assumes that the Eternal and the Creator are the same entity - the point of my argument is to show that they cannot be the same entity.

4. The creation is dependent on the creator.
Agreed.

5. The creator is not dependent on the creation.
Certainly not. How can there be a Creator who has not created anything? Are you saying that the Creator is making a false claim? At most I will allow the existence of a Creator-to-be prior to creation.

Until you have established points 1, 3 and 5 the rest of your argument does not convince me.


JCA,

Photons are often thought of as very small sub-atomic particles. However, when you look at the time taken for an electron to switch levels in say a Sodium atom and multiply by the speed of light you find that photons of visible light are about 3m long. That is around ten feet. Provided the gas container is smaller than 3m then it is perfectly possible for a photon to start leaving before it has finished entering.

You are generally right in that at the quantum level time does very strange things; it is often absurdly easy to run time backwards in quantum interactions.

[Feet Of Clay]

You are confusing the nature of the creator with the nature of the creation. God has always existed, and will always exist. He was always the creator of all things, and always will be the creator of all things. By your argument, an eternal god could not exist. He could never do anything, because to do something would mean that he was not eternal. There would be no effect, therefore no cause.
God created all things, even time. A creation cannot be larger than its creator, therefore God has to be outside of time, thus, eternal.

[Captain Ochre]

06-13-2003 @ 09:57 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=122384#post122384)
rossum:



prgmrdave,

You had two questions:

1 Why does the notion of Creator imply some sort of change?

As I said in my first post, I am using "create" as a synonym of "cause". When a creator creates something, the creator is acting as the cause of the created thing. So does a cause have to change? I shall show this by looking at the effect an unchanging cause (UC) would have. The UC causes its effect. The next moment in time, the UC has not changed, so it causes its effect again. The next moment in time it causes its effect yet again. An unchanging cause can never stop producing its effect.


You're committing a fallacy of equivocation, imo.
You're using "cause" both as a description of the creator and as the term denoting the act of creation.
The act of creation is not an unchanging cause. The acting party is unchanging in nature, not restricted from acting in time (which is the extrapolation you appear to make).


We have a machine-gun-like stream of effects. Furthermore, given that the UC has always been the same, this particular machine-gun has always been firing; the stream of effects extends back into the past as far as we can see as well as into the future. Obviously one of those Hollywood guns with an infinite supply of ammunition.


Still missing is the rationale as to why the UC cannot change.


An unchanging cause would be something like:
... and on the zeroth day God said "Let there be light," and on the first day God said "Let there be light," and on the second day God said "Let there be light," and on the third day God said "Let there be light," and on the fourth day ...

This conforms to neither science nor the Bible so I don't think anyone here would accept it.


No reason why they should, since it's off-track.


All these paradoxes arise from an unchanging cause/creator. In order to avoid the paradoxes all that is necessary is to drop the "unchanging". A changing cause can easily cause something once, "Let there be light," and then itself change to avoid becoming a repeating cause.


Thus, we need to look at your rationale as to why the eternal cannot change.:cir:




2 How come the Eternal cannot change?

Something eternal exists at all times: past, present and future. Change involves a difference over time, there are two times T1 and T2 when the changing thing is different. What constitutes the difference? There are three possibilities, something has been added, something has been taken away or a mixture of both.

2.1 Something has been added: At time T1 we have entity (E). At a later time T2 we have entity (E + F), F has been added. F cannot be eternal since it did not exist at time T1. E might be eternal, but E has not changed. F has changed but it is certainly not eternal. The Eternal has not changed in this case.

2.2 Something has been removed: At time T1 we have (E + G). At a later time T2 we have (E). G has been removed. G has changed, but it is not eternal since it does not exist at time T2. E is possibly eternal, but it has not changed. The Eternal has not changed in this case.

2.3 A mixture of both: At time T1 we have (E + H). At a later time T2 we have (E + J). Neither H nor J are eternal, H does not exist at time T2 and J does not exist at time T1. E may be eternal but it has not changed in this case. The Eternal has not changed in this case.

In all three cases the Eternal has not changed. Whatever is eternal cannot change; something that is eternal is the same at all times. Whatever is changing cannot be eternal; something that changes is not the same at all times.


So, explain why creating a universe isn't "adding something" akin to 2.1 apart from the fact that we may not have to postulate some form of temporality prior to the progression of this time/space continuum?


This is true in most philosophy, whatever is eternal is ipso facto unchanging given the definitions of "eternal" and "changing". God is seen as eternal and unchanging in most theologies - the "Rock of Ages".


Is the change from "potential creator of something" to "creator of something" a change necessarily alters the nature of that being? Your argument doesn't make this clear in the least bit, afaics.


My point is that an "eternal creator" involves a logical paradox and cannot exist. Can something without existence have an attribute like "cause"?


No, but you've gotten ahead of yourself by quite a bit. Just above, you provided a rationale which appears to explain the supposed paradox.
Here's an example for you to chew on. Imagine a self-aware Eternal tapeworm, eleven segments long. We'll suppose that the tapeworm is in temporal stasis but "suddenly" we find that the tapeworm has added a twelfth segment. Has the tapeworm lost its eternality at this point? Does it not fully exist in glorious tapewormness, still? Lo and behold, on day two we find another segment, another, and so on into the potentially infinite future. We've always had tapeworm, and we will always have tapeworm (:hrm:--dunno if I like my chosen illustration anymore). Explain why (specifically) the tapeworm is not eternal.


Dropping the problematic "eternal", the statement becomes:

"Cause" is merely a[n] attribute of the creator."


Poor choice of words on my part, since "attribute" carries significant theological baggage along with it. I'd refine it to: "Cause" is merely something that beings with the ability to cause might do.


In this instance, the attribute "cause" is not "mere". The Creator cannot be the creator without also being a cause.


Irrelevant so far. There is no need for the Creator to have created in order to be identified as the Creator, somewhat like a child pointing to a baby picture of his mother and saying "that's my mother." Suppose that there were three eternal beings, and two of them knew that the third would be creating something someday. Is it incorrect for them to call the third "creator"?


Remember I am using "cause" and "create" as synonyms. This attribute is essential to the designation "Creator". Can someone truly claim to be an author without having written anything?


If the author is himself timeless and/or of a transcendent temporal nature and has surely purposed to write something, then yes. Published author? Maybe not, but God self-publishes and suffers no lack of resources or time. The temporal analogy doesn't appear to fit particularly well.


A Creator must have created/caused something, or else their claim to be a creator is false.


Only if you assume that the term "creator" without doubt indicates the past completion of creation, afaics. Let's suppose that we have a man alone on a desert island. He just landed, and he has purposed in his mind to make the island habitable and moreover as comfortable as possible. Is it improper to refer to him as the architect or creator of the human-wrought changes-to-come?


The entity in question cannot be the Creator until she has created something.


Let's call the production of termite eggs "creation". Let's suppose that we have a termite queen who has yet to nest. Prior to her having produced eggs, is it improper to call her the creator? Is it not her role to create, thus earning her the title prior to her undertaking the corresponding duty?


Naturally, this implies a change in the entity, with consequent effects on attempts to describe her as eternal.


The change is from "potential creator" to "actual creator" with the addition of whatever is created (yet separate from the Creator himself, according to doctrine), which you explain as "no change" to an eternal being above (2.1, iirc).


This is indeed what I am saying. Being a cause is a contingent property, dependent on the effect.


Thus, termite queens are not the egg layers of the colony if they've never before laid eggs?


Without an effect, cause-and-effect obviously cannot exist, and hence cause cannot exist.


That's a good, clear example of the equivocation fallacy I referred to above. If there is no creation, then the Creator is not the creator of that creation, but having the potential for creation as part of His immutable nature does not change whether or not creation takes place.


How could we show the existence of cause-and-effect if there are no effects?


Imagine a bombardier beetle in stasis. What is a bombardier beetle? It is an insect which eats and walks, among other things. They are the cause of foods being consumed, and the self-cause of their locomotion (when they aren't being kicked by shoes or carried by teams of African sparrows). The beetle is a cause in the sense that it's nature allows it to cause various effects. Is the fact that the beetle is in stasis any real impediment to it's status as a cause? Only with regard to specific acts of causation. The nature of being a cause resides with the beetle even in stasis (so long as you refrain from asserting stasis as one of the inherent properties of beetlehood).


I do not see this as difficult to establish.


Probably because you're not intentionally equivocating.
I'll give you the last word. :wink:


Naturally, being an effect is also contingent on the existence of a cause. Both cause and effect are mutually contingent - neither can exist without the other. Creator and creation are exactly similar, both are contingent.

[markporter]

1 Why does the notion of Creator imply some sort of change?

As I said in my first post, I am using "create" as a synonym of "cause". When a creator creates something, the creator is acting as the cause of the created thing. So does a cause have to change? I shall show this by looking at the effect an unchanging cause (UC) would have. The UC causes its effect. The next moment in time, the UC has not changed, so it causes its effect again. The next moment in time it causes its effect yet again. An unchanging cause can never stop producing its effect. We have a machine-gun-like stream of effects. Furthermore, given that the UC has always been the same, this particular machine-gun has always been firing; the stream of effects extends back into the past as far as we can see as well as into the future. Obviously one of those Hollywood guns with an infinite supply of ammunition.

why can it not be God's unchanging will for something to happen once and then for it to stop?

[prgmrdave]

While reading Capt. Ochre's (:thumb:) exposition, another thought occurred to me (hey, that's two this year!!):

rossum, you are using the -or ending on Creator to mean "one who has acted to...". There is another meaning, namely, "one whose role (or position) is to...", which applies regardless of whether or not the specific action has taken place. Captain Ochre alluded to this with the baby picture of a mother; with the bombardier beetle in stasis; and most specifically with the termite queen.

Let me give one more example.

If I decide to make a movie, I will hire someone to make sure the scenes are acted out properly. That person, the moment I hire him, is the Director. Even before he has directed Act I, Scene I. He is the one whose position it is to direct.

Once he directs a scene, he has actualized his potential, to be sure. Hope this helps!

[Bill Hogue]

Yes he is. This is a metaphysical question. By necessity, the Creator is eternal, infinite, uncreated being. He always was, he always will be...he is not bound by time because he created time, too. If the Creator is not eternal, the who created him/her? So a Non-eternal Creator would not be the Creator.

St. Thomas Aquinas had the argument for this by stating that one has to keep going back through creation until he finds the entity who is the Necessary Being, the Being who made all things come into being....that entity we call God.

There are two types of being (being defined as "that which is"); Uncreated Being and Created Being. By definition, Uncreated Being is infinite and eternal...with no beginning, not made. Although we have immortal souls we are Created beings, there was a time when we were not. Since there can be only one Infinity, that being must be eternal and also the Creator.

The Greeks had the metaphysical notion that the Creator was a Demiurge. Created by an eternal entity who was not concerned with creation or the human condition.

If one considers the Creator as not Eternal, he/she is getting very close to Arianism, which was condemned at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Later, Arian "Barbarians" (goths, visigoths, etc.) Overran Rome.

So if the Creator is not eternal, who created the creator. Creation presupposes a Creator...a necessary being who brings all things into being.

I once did an Exegesis of the quote in Exodus 3:13 where God said he was "I AM THAT I AM". It was interesting to me that one of the Rabbinical interpretations was "I bring all things into being".

Only an Eternal Uncreated Infinite Being (which we call God) could bring all things into being...therefore the Ccreator necessarily is eternal

[wwatts]

1) A cause must be in causal relations to it's effect in the moment immediately prior to the effect's existence
2) A cause may not exist in causal relations to an effect in the moment that the effect exists (simultaneous causation)
3) At least one cause and one effect exist in causal relations
4) Therefore a cause exists without an effect (existing) ”


Your 1) is false because there can be no relation between an existing cause and a not-yet-existing effect. Relationships only apply between existing things. 2) is correct. 3) is only true if both "cause" and "effect" are taken as contingent. 4) is nonsense. No cause exists without an effect, that would make "cause" non-contingent and there are no non-contingent causes.



But I think (4) must be your view!

I think that

2) A cause may not exist in causal relations to an effect in the moment that the effect exists (simultaneous causation)

and

there can be no relation between an existing cause and a not-yet-existing effect

are mutually exclusive!

You are saying that a cause and effect may not exist at the same time but they may not exist at different times either! But then that means that you don't believe that cause and effects exist at any time? Please explain! Do you hold this view?

1) An object A may only have direct relations with another object B if object A and object B exist at the same time T1
2) A cause and an effect do not exist at the same time T1
3) Cause/effects are objects
4) Therefore a cause and effect do not have any direct relation!

But then if you hold that view, your other view


2.1 There is no cause without an effect. A cause cannot be a cause unless it has an effect.


is false, don't you think?

I would rather accept that cause and effect do in fact have direct relations then hold that view.

[rossum]

My apologies for the delay in replying. Thankyou all for your responses.


prgmrdave,

I only refer to one time stream for each entity. Relativity comes into play as well of course with more than one entity. I refer only to time as understood by Physics.

You are right, I do say that any causation must have an effect on the causer. As a minimum the causer has changed from causer-to-be to actually-causing-now to caused-in-the-past. Also, given that cause-and-effect is inevitably a time based process, then the causer is older after causation than before. Causer-to-be cannot be identical with caused-in-the-past.


Feet Of Clay,

Does the "God" you refer to correspond to "Eternal", "Creator" or to some third entity? My point is that one entity cannot be both eternal and creator so I will reject any attempt to define God as both - you cannot assume what you have to prove.

You are right to say that by my argument an eternal creator cannot exist. You say that God is outside time, yet the God described in the Bible obviously acts inside time. How can what is eternal and outside time act inside time? A single entity cannot simultaneously be both inside and outside time. Much of my argument on the contradictions between eternity and change also applies if you try to have an eternal God active within time. Looked at closely eternity is a very restrictive property.


markporter,

I must ask you the same question as I did of Feet Of Clay, does the "God" you refer to correspond to "Eternal", "Creator" or to some third entity? Assuming for the sake of argument that the Creator has an unchanging will, then you will have to admit that the Creator does not have an unchanging action. Without action there will be no creation and inevitably we have the change from "I-will-act" to "I am-acting-now" to "I-have-acted". I see no substantial difference in my argument here. If you say that the Creator's will is enough on its own, without any action, then an unchanging will means an unchanging creation with the machine-gun effect I pointed out before. If the creator is continually creating an unchanged creation then there is no possibility of change within that creation. Since we can obviously see change within creation then the creator must be changing.


Billl Hogue,

You say:

By necessity, the Creator is eternal, infinite, uncreated being.
This is argument by assertion. How about "By necessity, the Invisible Pink Unicorn is eternal, infinite, uncreated being." You cannot merely assert your argument, you have to justify it.

There are two types of being (being defined as "that which is"); Uncreated Being and Created Being. By definition, Uncreated Being is infinite and eternal...with no beginning, not made.
I will allow this as long as you accept that any uncaused being is also immutable and unchanging. Also an uncaused being must be infinite in time, I do not see why it has to be infinite in space - "infinite" is ambiguous in this context.

The problem of "who created the creator" is not a real problem. "Creator" is a contingent property, which only has any meaning when linked to creation in a mutual dependency. Both child and parent are mutually dependent - in some sense they can be said to create each other just as they are dependent on each other. The child cannot exist without the parent, the parent cannot exist without the child.

You will notice that I do not use scriptural quotes in my argument. I avoid them because I know that the majority of you would not accept them. Just so, your Bible quotes, and charges of Arianism, are irrelevant as I do not accept them. I see this as a philosophical argument not a theological one.


Captain Ochre,

I will reply to your post separately.


rossum

[rossum]

Captain Ochre,

Thankyou for your thoughtful post.

Rather than go for a point by point response to your post - I think that would end up as a long confusing list of quotes within quotes - I will try to pull out the major themes where we seem to disagree and concentrate on them. I will deal with some of your specific points at the end.

1 The Nature of Things

In a number of places you talk about the nature of things:

The acting party is unchanging in nature

Is the change from "potential creator of something" to "creator of something" a change necessarily alters the nature of that being?

Does it not fully exist in glorious tapewormness, still?

If the author is himself timeless and/or of a transcendent temporal nature and has surely purposed to write something, then yes.

...having the potential for creation as part of His immutable nature...
I have a lot of difficulty with the concept of the "nature" of something - the "tapewormness" of the tapeworm. To me this is just reifying the human tendency to classify things. Just because we have a word for someting that does not mean that there is automatically a real "nature" to which that word refers: what "nature" does the phrase Invisible Pink Unicorn refer? If we disassemble the tapeworm atom by atom does the tapewormness adhere to any particular atom? When we have removed all the atoms do we have any tapewormness left? Does a little bit of the tapewormness stick to each of the atoms that once made up the tapeworm? How does the tapewormness of one tapeworm differ from the tapewormness of another tapeworm, or do they both share the same tapewormness? To me "tapeworm" is just a label we stick onto particular arrangements of atoms - there is no real "tapewormness" hidden inside the arrangement of atoms, it is just an arrangement of atoms.

Are these natures that you propose capable of changing or not? If they cannot change not then how does an acorn become an oak tree if its internal nature is unchanged? Is an acorn the same as an oak tree? If so then how can we differentiate between them? If their natures can change then what is the mechanism of change, how does "acornness" become "oak-treeness"?

Given that I do not accept this internal nature of things, and that you do, I suspect that this is part of our disagreement. I think that you see the Creator as an unchanging core of "Creatorness" with a changing periphery of "I-will-create" etc. around it. To you the only real change to the Creator would be a change to the essential core, change to the peripheral properties are not "real" changes.

I see the Creator as "I-will-create" etc. but with no core of "Creatorness" so to me any change in the properties are a change to the Creator. All changes are real changes - I do not accept that something can change and at the same time not "really" change. To me that is trying to say that a change is both a change and not a change at the same time, that is not acceptable by the law of the excluded middle.

I think that this difference in attitudes means that I see a lot more change in the world than you do, and that you see a lot more stasis than I do. Hence in your examples I see the two tapeworms as different. A tapeworm with eleven segments is different from a tapeworm with twelve segments. If I put two tapeworms with different numbers of segments next to each other then everyone would say that they were different. Just because the two tapeworms are separated in time rather than space does not mean that an eleven segment tapeworm is the same as a twelve segment tapeworm.

The termite queen changes, the egg layer is older. The baby photo of a mother is not a photo of a mother: "That's me when I was a baby." It is a photo of a baby which grew up to be a mother, it is not a photo of a mother. We are all changing from moment to moment, we are all different from moment to moment.

It is only the fact that we can change that allows even the possibility of salvation; we all have to change from the unsaved state in which we are born to a saved state. If we could not change then how could we be saved given that our initial state at birth is unsaved?

2 Is the Eternal Unchanging?

I am sorry if I did not explain this point well. You yourself talk about the Creator "having the potential for creation as part of His immutable nature". To me "immutable" is just a synonym for "unchanging" so it seems to me that you agree.

Remember that I do not see any "essence", "core" or "nature" in things so I cannot accept that the Eternal has a fixed unchanging core while there is not-really-real change in some of its properties. With no "nature", the properties are all that there is so any change in the properties must be a change in the entity itself.

3 Other points

Moving on to your specific points:

3.1 Equivocation

"Cause" does indeed act as both a noun and a verb, blame the English language. I do not see this as equivocation in the context of my argument since there is no permanent core to the cause - the cause is merely a bundle of properties. If one of the properties changes then the overall bundle has changed. Thus the verb forces a change in the noun.

3.2 Unchanging Causes

In my terms an unchanging cause is always causing - the machine-gun simile. An unchanging cause always has the property I-am-causing-now, hence whatever it is causing cannot change since it is always being caused anew. In the case of a creator this would result in an unchanging world as all effects would be constantly renewed from moment to moment.

3.3 Adding Something

I see the creation of the universe as a mixture of adding something and removing something. "I-have-created" is added since it was not there before and "I-will-create" has been removed since it is no longer present.

3.4 Timeless Author

How can a timeless author act within time? If the author reaches into time then that part of the author is no longer timeless. A single entity cannot be both within and outside time - there must be two entities. Remember I do not accept a "nature" that can sit outside while some inessential non-core part reaches in.

3.5 Bombadier Beetle

You said:

Is the fact that the beetle is in stasis any real impediment to it's status as a cause? Only with regard to specific acts of causation.
You are correct to say that stasis is an impediment to specific acts of causation. In the absence of any specific acts of caustion then there is no causation. I do not accept some free floating "essence of causation" that is somehow attached to the beetle, but does not have any real effect. To me this is just more reification; more multiplying of unneccessary philosophical entities.


Thankyou again for an interesting post. I hope the tapeworms get better soon, or should that be the tapeworms get worse while you get better?

rossum

[Bill Hogue]

It is not an assertion: I once had a professor who used the "A" word anytime he wanted....usually to defend his prejudged viewpoints. He also had a thing for Sandra Murphy who wrote "REasoning and Rhetoric i n Religion". Your statement is an assertion. The notion of a Creator being Eternal is an A Priori.

An assertiion would be: God is Eternal, without saying why, which I did.


Again, if the Creator is not Eternal, who Created him/her?
Existing outside of time makes the Creator not subject to time,. so now and eternity are the same thing.
What I am saying is basically Thomistic theology...and I don't think Aquinas made assertions.

Learn some metaphysics.

[rossum]

Billl,

Going back to your previous post in more detail:

By necessity, the Creator is eternal, infinite, uncreated being. He always was, he always will be...he is not bound by time because he created time, too. If the Creator is not eternal, the who created him/her? So a Non-eternal Creator would not be the Creator.
I see no necessity that the Creator is "eternal, infinite, uncreated." My first post showed that I do not accept an eternal Creator. Infinite in time is just a synonym for eternal, infinite in space may or may not be true, but is not inherent in the role of creator. J K Rowling created Harry Potter, and she is not infinite, either in time or in space. I can see no necessary connection between being a creator and being infinite. I am sure you do not mean to say that all creative human beings are "eternal, infinite, uncreated".

Anything infinite is indeed uncaused, we can agree on that.

"He always was, he always will be...he is not bound by time because he created time, too." The "not bound by time" part I do not accept. A creation can bind its creator; a jail can hold its own builders when they are arrested for embezzlement. When the Creator acts within time then at least part of her is subject to time.

"If the Creator is not eternal, the who created him/her?" As I said "Creator" is contingent it only has meaning in conjunction with something created. It is as relevant to say that the Creator created creation as it is to say that creation created the Creator. Neither Creator nor created has any meaning in the absence of the other.

There are two types of being (being defined as "that which is"); Uncreated Being and Created Being. By definition, Uncreated Being is infinite and eternal...with no beginning, not made. ... Since there can be only one Infinity, that being must be eternal and also the Creator.
As defined, Uncreated Being is indeed eternal and infinite in time. Infinite in space is undecided.

"Since there can be only one Infinity," Why can there only be one infinity? There is an infinity of counting numbers, there is an infinity of odd numbers, there is an infinity of prime numbers. There are an infinite number of infinities. I will not accept only a single infinity unless you can present reasons for it. Multiple creators are possible: J K Rowling created Harry Potter, Charles Dickens created Oliver Twist.

So if the Creator is not eternal, who created the creator. Creation presupposes a Creator...a necessary being who brings all things into being.
Creation does indeed presuppose a Creator; however a Creator equally presupposes creation. As I said above the two are mutually dependent and in a sense they can be said to create each other.

Only an Eternal Uncreated Infinite Being (which we call God) could bring all things into being...therefore the Ccreator necessarily is eternal
You have not shown that the Creator must be eternal. I agree that anything eternal must be uncreated. You have not shown that the Creator is singular. The question of infinity in space is unresolved.

Turning to your second post, I obviously do not accept that a Creator is a priori eternal.

Existing outside of time makes the Creator not subject to time.
So how then does the Creator act on things that are inside time? If the Creator is acting inside time than at least the part of the Creator that is doing the acting must be affected by time and my argument applies. If she remains entirely outside time then she is ineffective and cannot create the time-bound universe that we observe - she cannot be the Creator. Outside time we can have the Eternal, but not the Creator. Inside time we can have the Creator, but not the Eternal.

As I see it you have not bridged the gap between the a priori unchanging Eternal and the a priori changing Creator.


wwatts,

My view on cause and effect is that both are contingent, neither makes sense without the other. We cannot have a cause without an effect, we cannot have an effect without a cause. There is no such thing as an absolute cause or an absolute effect; hence my difficulties with things like an eternal creator.

In my response to Captain Ochre I say that I do not see a fixed "nature" in things. In line with this, nothing has "causeness" built into it, nor "effectness" nor "creatorness" not "createdness". In this world view, change is ubiquitous. As I said to Captain Ochre, I think that I see change where many others see stasis.

All this has no effect on how the world works in practice, the world carries on regardless of any philosophy: causes are causing effects all the time.


rossum

[Dilton]

just testing my new avatar. Sorry for the inconvenience. I know it´s not the place to do this.

[wwatts]

wwatts,

My view on cause and effect is that both are contingent, neither makes sense without the other. We cannot have a cause without an effect, we cannot have an effect without a cause. There is no such thing as an absolute cause or an absolute effect; hence my difficulties with things like an eternal creator.

In my response to Captain Ochre I say that I do not see a fixed "nature" in things. In line with this, nothing has "causeness" built into it, nor "effectness" nor "creatorness" not "createdness". In this world view, change is ubiquitous. As I said to Captain Ochre, I think that I see change where many others see stasis.

All this has no effect on how the world works in practice, the world carries on regardless of any philosophy: causes are causing effects all the time.


So which premise do you deny, so we can move forward?

1) An object A may only have direct relations with another object B if object A and object B exist at the same time T1
2) A cause and an effect do not exist at the same time T1
3) Cause/effects are objects
4) Therefore a cause and effect do not have any direct relation!

[rossum]

wwatts,

Looking in detail at your syllogism:

1) An object A may only have direct relations with another object B if object A and object B exist at the same time T1
2) A cause and an effect do not exist at the same time T1
3) Cause/effects are objects
4) Therefore a cause and effect do not have any direct relation!
I agree with 1) provided it is understood that "object" does not imply an underlying essence on nature to the object. 2) I also agree with. I disagree with 3) since cause and effect are not objects, they are properties. As I have said they are both contingent and dependent on each other. 4) fails since 3) fails.

rossum

[garthoverman]

06-17-2003 @ 01:40 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=124870#post124870)
Billl Hogue:

Learn some metaphysics.

I think many of the participants in this thread should learn some physics before they propound meaningless metaphysical postulations.

"Eternal" is a measure of time, and in fact it defines the entirety of time. Something is eternal if it exists for all real time values. The problem for theists is that the universe already exists for all time values and thus meets the criteria for being eternal. Postulating something existing "before the universe" is equally as meaningless as postulating the existence of something existing at "200 degrees North Lattitude" or "North of the North pole" -- the reference is invalid.

IOW, the space and time coordinates presuppose the existence of the universe the same way that lattitude and longitude presuppose the existence of the earth. You cannot have time where there is not the universe, just as you cannot have lattitude where there is not the earth.

Postulating an eternal entity existing apart from the universe is therefore meaningless unless you can demonstrate the existence of some "supertime" or "superclock" ticking away outside our universe.

Good luck with that.

Yours,
Garth

[markporter]

Today @ 12:09 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=128171#post128171)
garthoverman:



I think many of the participants in this thread should learn some physics before they propound meaningless metaphysical postulations.

"Eternal" is a measure of time, and in fact it defines the entirety of time. Something is eternal if it exists for all real time values. The problem for theists is that the universe already exists for all time values and thus meets the criteria for being eternal. Postulating something existing "before the universe" is equally as meaningless as postulating the existence of something existing at "200 degrees North Lattitude" or "North of the North pole" -- the reference is invalid.

IOW, the space and time coordinates presuppose the existence of the universe the same way that lattitude and longitude presuppose the existence of the earth. You cannot have time where there is not the universe, just as you cannot have lattitude where there is not the earth.

Postulating an eternal entity existing apart from the universe is therefore meaningless unless you can demonstrate the existence of some "supertime" or "superclock" ticking away outside our universe.

Good luck with that.

Yours,
Garth

Surely it is only meaningless in purely physical terms? If we are looking at something that utterly transcends physics then why is it meaningless?

It doesn't sound like you have the same idea of an eternal entity as most christians have, yes he exists for all time values, but he is essentially atemporal in nature, he exists independent of time....independent of any time.

[wwatts]

Yesterday @ 11:07 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=128116#post128116)
rossum:


1) An object A may only have direct relations with another object B if object A and object B exist at the same time T1
2) A cause and an effect do not exist at the same time T1
3) Cause/effects are objects
4) Therefore a cause and effect do not have any direct relation!



wwatts,

Looking in detail at your syllogism:


I agree with 1) provided it is understood that "object" does not imply an underlying essence on nature to the object. 2) I also agree with. I disagree with 3) since cause and effect are not objects, they are properties. As I have said they are both contingent and dependent on each other. 4) fails since 3) fails.

rossum

1) A property A may only have direct relations with another property B if property A and property B exist at the same time T1
2) A cause and an effect do not exist at the same time T1
3) Cause/effects are properties
4) Therefore a cause and effect do not have any direct relation!

Will you deny 1?

But if cause and effect exist as timeless properties then I think you have a problem with saying that a cause exists without an effect, because anything that is timeless, either exists, or doesn't. It definitely doesn't begin to exist. So now what?

[rossum]

wwatts,

1) A property A may only have direct relations with another property B if property A and property B exist at the same time T1
2) A cause and an effect do not exist at the same time T1
3) Cause/effects are properties
4) Therefore a cause and effect do not have any direct relation!
I disagree with your new 1). Properties do not have relations, only objects have relations. Without 1) then 4) fails.

rossum

[Morpheus]

just some comments.

rossum, your argument seems to rest on the idea that, if a thing undergoes some change, the-thing-before-the-change is not the same as the the-thing-after-the-change. as this relates to the argument at hand, you say that the creator cannot be eternal because creator-before-creation is not the same as creator-during-creation or creator-after-creation, since by creating and acting as a cause god has underwent a change of state. is this a correct representation of your view?

this just seems to be an unusual and unnecessary concept of identity. every time i do anything i am undergoing a change - i am acting as a cause, or i am being effected by some other cause. according to your line of reasoning, this means that i am perpetually changing from one being to another. "myself 5 minutes ago" is not the same, in the sense of identity, as "myself now," because i have acted as a cause and have underwent some change of state.

but i am the same person i was 5 minutes ago. "myself now" and "myself 5 minutes ago" have the same subjective experiences, save the 5 minutes "myself now" has just experienced. to say that any change constitutes a change in identity from being-before-change to being-after change is to render any concept of identity vacuous, because existents are perpetually changing. it would never be possible to pinpoint any thing's identity, because this would require that this thing be "frozen" in time so that it could not undergo any sort of change.

thus, i don't see the problem with god being eternal and the creator of the universe. god existed at all time values before he created. he existed when he created. he has existed at all time values since he created. god underwent a change from creator-to-be to creator to creator-in-the-past, but such a change of state does not change his very identity; iow, the creator-to-be, creator, and creator-in-the past are still all the same being, and therefore this being, who exists at all time values, is both eternal and the creator.

with regard to cause and effect:

all that is necessary in order to describe the relationship between a cause and effect is to say that the effect is contingent on the cause. if i cause x to occur, x is contingent on myself-as-cause, because without myself-as-cause x would not be (but i still would). to import temporal relations into a description of cause-effect and to say that a cause must be temporally prior to its effect is unncessary, and is an a priori denial of the possibility of simultaneous causation. though it may be difficult for us to comprehend a cause and its effect occuring simultaneously since we are inherently bound by our temporal context, it does not follow that simultaneous causation is therefore impossible. the objection that, in the case of simultaneous causation, it is not possible to distinguish between the cause and the effect does not, to my mind, hold water. rossum brought up the example of the creation of light: if simultaneous causation occured, was it god who caused the light or light that caused god? simply put, we can determine which of the two was the cause of the other (god), based on how each is defined and what we know with regard to the properties of god and light. based on our conceptualizations of god and light, it makes sense to posit god as the cause of light, and it does not make sense to posit light as the cause of god. so we can confidently conclude that it was god who caused the light in this case of simultaneous causation (hypothetically speaking).

garthoverman said:
"Eternal" is a measure of time, and in fact it defines the entirety of time. Something is eternal if it exists for all real time values. The problem for theists is that the universe already exists for all time values and thus meets the criteria for being eternal. Postulating something existing "before the universe" is equally as meaningless as postulating the existence of something existing at "200 degrees North Lattitude" or "North of the North pole" -- the reference is invalid.

based on interacting with you before, i assume here that you are referring to the real universe - all that exists. if so i do not disagree that it is meaningless to speak of "before the universe," or "existing apart from the universe." however, when theists or others make such comments, they usually are using "universe" to mean the space-time manifold that defines the physical universe of which we are a part. to say god existed "before the universe" in this sense is only incoherent if it is presupposed that there does not exist a god in some other time reference outside this physical universe - and such a presupposition is essentially question-begging if the issue at hand is whether some being (usually god) can exist "before the (physical) universe."

regards.

[Timaeus]

This issue has been dealt with for more than two centuries. If you are really interested perhaps you should read Yale's David Kelsey, ?The Doctrine of Creation from Nothing,? in Evolution and Creation, ed. E. McMullin, 176-96.

[wwatts]

1) A property A may only have direct relations with another property B if property A and property B exist at the same time T1
2) A cause and an effect do not exist at the same time T1
3) Cause/effects are properties
4) Therefore a cause and effect do not have any direct relation!

wwatts,


I disagree with your new 1). Properties do not have relations, only objects have relations. Without 1) then 4) fails.

rossum


1) Properties do not have relations
2) Cause and effect are both properties
3) Therefore cause and effect are not related

Again, I think (3) flys in the face of

p) you can't have a cause without an effect

I think you should put in your argument that in order for it to follow, you must hold a premise that cause and effect are not related.

[Spokoina]

Eternity comes from love alone.

Circles are eternal in motion. Someone loves, it evokes a response of love in return, which stimulates more giving and more response, ideally. That is if love is true and the reciepient isn't corrupted by self centeredness and sin.

Therefore, i say eternity exist because of God's love. If you truly love someone, does time change it? And if you love someone, and that person is absent in that circle, you long for that person, and time intensifies that longing, really...if it is true and pure, like God's love.

Love requires a relationship, and the linear and logical view of time and eternity in Western philosophy do not do justice to relational thinking.

[rossum]

Morpheus,

You said:
[B]ut i am the same person i was 5 minutes ago.
and then you proceeded to refute yourself:

"myself now" and "myself 5 minutes ago" have the same subjective experiences, save the 5 minutes "myself now" has just experienced.
So you are saying that you are the same as you were five minutes ago, except that you are different from what you were five minutes ago. A change is still a change, even if it is small. If you broke your life up into five minute segments then the change between each segment and the next segment may well be small. However I think that you will agree that the change between the first segment, five minutes after your conception and the current five minute segment is definitely not small.

I have already said that I do not accept an unchanging essence, to things, and I think that in your use of the word "person" you may be trying to import just such an unchanging essence. All people change, they do not have an unchanging essence.

[I]t would never be possible to pinpoint any thing's identity, because this would require that this thing be "frozen" in time so that it could not undergo any sort of change.
You are correct in that any unchanging essence/identity would indeed require freezing the entity so it could never change and hence never act as a cause to anything that changed. An unchanging cause can only cause an unchanging effect.

[G]od underwent a change from creator-to-be to creator to creator-in-the-past, but such a change of state does not change his very identity
You are not being consistent. Is there a change or not? I think that again you may be taking God's "identity" as a real unchanging core - something which I reject. Remember that in my initial post I was very careful to separate the Eternal from the Creator. I suspect that you are just assuming that the Eternal is a fixed core to the Eternal/Creator combination, with the Creator allowed to change. All I have to do to counter this is to show the impossibility of one entity being both fixed (Eternal) and changing (Creator), analyse the supposed entity into its two constituent parts and carry on with my analysis using the two parts.

[I]t may be difficult for us to comprehend a cause and its effect occurring simultaneously since we are inherently bound by our temporal context
It is not just us who are bound by a temporal context; the concept of cause and effect is also so bound. The cause must precede the effect. As soon as something is considered to be outside time then it can no longer be involved in cause and effect. It may be involved in something else, but not cause and effect.

In the case of simultaneous causation think about the immediately preceding moment - there is no cause and there is no effect. Nothing exists to trigger the effect. This means that the effect arises independently of any putative cause. At the same moment that the effect arises then the putative cause also arises. How is it possible to say which one caused the other? Neither existed in the prior moment and both exist in the current moment - which one came first? I do not mean that the light caused God, what I meant to say was that the light was necessary for the Creator to exist, so in that sense the Creator was caused by the light as much as the light was caused by the Creator. Without the light there would be no Creator since nothing would have been created. My apologies for not expressing myself more clearly.


Timaeus,

This argument has been going on for a lot more than two centuries, Nagarjuna was writing about it in the second century CE, and I am sure that the discussion did not start with him.


rossum

[Morpheus]

to rossum.

Morpheus,

You said:
"[B]ut i am the same person i was 5 minutes ago."

and then you proceeded to refute yourself:

""myself now" and "myself 5 minutes ago" have the same subjective experiences, save the 5 minutes "myself now" has just experienced."

So you are saying that you are the same as you were five minutes ago, except that you are different from what you were five minutes ago. A change is still a change, even if it is small. If you broke your life up into five minute segments then the change between each segment and the next segment may well be small. However I think that you will agree that the change between the first segment, five minutes after your conception and the current five minute segment is definitely not small.

I have already said that I do not accept an unchanging essence, to things, and I think that in your use of the word "person" you may be trying to import just such an unchanging essence. All people change, they do not have an unchanging essence.

basically then, your argument is not just that the creator cannot be eternal, it is also that nothing can be eternal if it ever acts a cause or is effected by some other cause, because by doing so even once it changes its identity from, say, cause-to-be to cause to cause-in-the past. and since i've never heard of anyone positing an existent that doesn't at least in some way at some point act as a cause or effect, your argument boils down to "nothing can be eternal."

the idea that things do not have some sort of unchanging essence leads to absurdity, to my mind. here's why:

1. it is only coherent to assert that a thing does not have an unchanging essence if one knows what the thing to which he refers is. (i.e., one can't say anything meaningful about something if the "something" is unknown.)

2. if any change whatsoever occurs to thing x, and thing x does not have an unchanging identity, then this change renders the latter thing not-thing-x. (this is your position, if i understand you correctly.)

3. all things are perpetually changing. as time flows, it can at least be said that thing x compared to thing-x-one-minute-ago, or thing-x-one-second-ago, or thing-x-one-millisecond-ago, ad infinitum, is different, in the sense that the thing-x-a amount of time future to thing x is a amount of time older. (if you would dispute this for some reason, i'd ask that you provide an example of an existent that, over some duration of time, did or does not undergo any change whatsoever.)

4. from 2 & 3, all "things" are perpetually changing from thing-that-will-be to thing-that-is to thing-that-was.

5. human understanding of things is bound by our inherent temporality; it is therefore impossible for us to think about or refer to a "thing," because this "thing" is perpetually changing to not-that-"thing."

6. it is therefore incoherent to assert that "things" do not have unchanging essences (from 1 & 5).

if you manage to get around this problem, the burden of proof is, regardless, solely on you to show that things do not have unchanging essences. if not, i can hold that they do, and your proof fails, because if god has an unchanging essence then he can be both creator and eternal.

and you must do this with the consideration that, from the christian point of view, what constitutes a being's unchanging essence is its spirituality. so you will need to disprove the existence of a spiritual unchanging essence. good luck with that. :smile:

You are not being consistent. Is there a change or not? I think that again you may be taking God's "identity" as a real unchanging core - something which I reject. Remember that in my initial post I was very careful to separate the Eternal from the Creator. I suspect that you are just assuming that the Eternal is a fixed core to the Eternal/Creator combination, with the Creator allowed to change.

i am positing that a being can undergo change without that being undergoing an identity change. you need to show that this is impossible, or i can hold that the eternal god underwent a change (creator-to-be to creator to creator-that-was) and still remained the eternal god. once again, the burden of proof is on you; you can't just reject an "unchanging core" for the purposes of your argument.

All I have to do to counter this is to show the impossibility of one entity being both fixed (Eternal) and changing (Creator), analyse the supposed entity into its two constituent parts and carry on with my analysis using the two parts.

eternal does not imply "fixed," but only "existing at all times." once again, you need to show that an entity cannot possibly have an unchanging core, because if it can then it can be both eternal (since it is defined by its unchanging essence) and undergoing changes peripheral to this unchanging core.

morpheus:
it may be difficult for us to comprehend a cause and its effect occurring simultaneously since we are inherently bound by our temporal context

rossum:
It is not just us who are bound by a temporal context; the concept of cause and effect is also so bound. The cause must precede the effect. As soon as something is considered to be outside time then it can no longer be involved in cause and effect. It may be involved in something else, but not cause and effect.

you're just begging the question here. the issue at hand is whether or not the cause must precede effect. i say that it must not necessarily do so.

you: cause must precede effect.

me: no, simultaneous causation is indeed possible (see my explanation in my previous post to which you didn't respond).

you: no, you're wrong, because cause must precede effect.

you need to actually rebut the arguments i gave in my previous post, or it still remains possible for simultaneous causation to exist, and it therefore still remains possible that god created the universe via simultaneous causation.

In the case of simultaneous causation think about the immediately preceding moment - there is no cause and there is no effect. Nothing exists to trigger the effect. This means that the effect arises independently of any putative cause.

non sequitur. here's what you just said, in more formal terms:

1. during the moment immediately preceding the moment of simultaneous causation, there is no cause and no effect.

2. therefore, during this moment immediately prior the event, there is nothing to trigger (cause) the effect.

3. therefore, at the moment when the effect occurs, it has no cause.

the conclusion simply doesn't follow. you analyze the moment before the event at which point there is no existing cause, and then conclude that at the moment when the event actually occurs there is no cause. this is only true if you presuppose that the cause cannot arise simultaneously with the effect - but that, once again, is the exact issue at hand, and so to do so would be question-begging.

How is it possible to say which one caused the other? Neither existed in the prior moment and both exist in the current moment - which one came first?

neither came first, of course, because they are simultaneous. see my previous post, however, in which i explain how one may go about determining which is the cause and which is the effect.

I do not mean that the light caused God, what I meant to say was that the light was necessary for the Creator to exist, so in that sense the Creator was caused by the light as much as the light was caused by the Creator. Without the light there would be no Creator since nothing would have been created.

the light was necessary for god to exist qua creator, but not simply for god to exist. on the other hand, god was necessary for the light to exist at all. therefore, we can conclude that god was the cause and the light was the effect - even if the event occured via simultaneous causation.

My apologies for not expressing myself more clearly.

no problem. regards.

[Aseity]

Cobber, you need to down several glasses of really fresh clean cool crisp spring water and clean out the clog and muck that is in your heart and brain, a? Urgently.

Aseity

[rossum]

TW - Philosophy

morpheus,

Everything Changes

(B)asically then, your argument is not just that the creator cnnot be eternal, it is also that nothing can be eternal
Correct, though I prefer to put it as "everything changes".

1. [I]t is only coherent to assert that a thing does not have an unchanging essence if one knows what the thing to which he refers is.
I use "thing", and its synonyms in the colloquial sense. I do not include any automatic implication of an unchanging essence in my use of the word. In the colloquial sense I can recognise all the things to which I refer.

2. [I]f any change whatsoever occurs to thing x, and thing x does not have an unchanging identity, then this change renders the latter thing not-thing-x.
No, it just shows the lack of an unchanging essence in thing x. The designation "thing x" is a colloquial label for the series x1, x2, x3, x4, x5... Everything changes, but often the changes are so small that we use the same colloquial name for it. Mount Everest changes all the time. We do not rename it whenever its height increases another millimetre or when a mountaineer dislodges a pebble. The name stays the same, though the object it refers to does not. Do not confuse an unchanging colloquial name with the changing object it refers to.

3. [A]ll things are perpetually changing.
Yes. As I said above, what we think of as thing x is better understood as a series x1, x2, x3, x4, x5... I dislike the word "perpetually"; it has implications of permanence.

4. ... all things are perpetually changing ...
this is just a repeat of your number three.

5. [H]uman understanding of things is bound by our inherent temporality; it is therefore impossible for us to think about or refer to a "thing," because this "thing" is perpetually changing to not-that-"thing."
I disagree. People think about all sorts of things all the time. I do it, you do it. Everyone does it. The mistake some people make is to think that the things they think about actually exist that way in the world. Our thoughts inevitably carry a lot of internal baggage, such as the temporally bound example you use. The world is not constrained to conform to our thoughts.

6. [I]t is therefore incoherent to assert that "things" do not have unchanging essences.
I do not see how this follows from your argument. It is perfectly possible that we may think of things as having an unchanging essence, but that does not mean that the things have to conform to our thoughts.

Unchanging Essence

You offer God as an example of something with an unchanging essence. In order to establish that you will need to prove both that God exists, and that if she exists then she is eternal. That is a whole other thread in itself.

You talk about the Christian point of view. I am not now Christian, but it seems to me that the presence of an unchanging essence, a soul, in a person either denies that person the possibility of salvation or else completely destroys morality. Please feel free to correct my theology where I am mistaken.

With an unchanging soul, everyone is born unsaved due to original sin. Since the soul is unchanging then it can never be changed from its unsaved state into a saved state. It remains unsaved no matter what the person does, believes or anything.

Alternatively if someone is born saved, then no matter what they do they remain saved. Mass murder, kissing babies and picking their nose in public have no effect on their unchanging soul and hence all morality is remdered useless.

Also Heaven has to change. Currently Heaven is in the state "Heaven-without-Morpheus". Unless this state changes to "Heaven-with-Morpheus" then you are in a similar predicament.

Similar arguments affect any other religion that proposes an unchanging soul or an unchanging Heaven.

[I] am positing that a being can undergo change without that being undergoing an identity change.
What do you mean by "identity"? Do you just mean the colloquial designation of that being? Do you mean "identity = unchanging essence"? If you mean the first then you are free to use any colloquial designation you find useful, however that designation does not neccessarily reflect reaity. If the second then you are just begging the question by assuming an unchanging essence under the guise of "identity".

Can the eternal change?

[E]ternal does not imply "fixed" but only "existing at all times."
If something is eternal then it does exist at all times. So let us compare this eternal thing E at times T1 and T2. Assume that E1 exists at T1. Now examine E2, the thing which exists at T2. Does E1 = E2? If it does then we have the same thing existing at both times. Repeat for a lot of times and we can say that E is indeed eternal as E1 = E2 = E3 = E4 etc.

Now let us look at something changing. Again E1 exists at time T1 and E2 exists at time T2. However if this thing is changing then E1 != E2, that is implicit in the definition of change. Hence the thing at T1 is different to the object at T2 - a pebble has been moved on Everest and we can say that the mountain is not eternal.

I repeat that one thing cannot both be eternal and change. Eternal implies constancy over time, change implies difference over time. By the law of the excluded middle one thing cannot be both. Existing at all times carries with it an implication of fixity.

Simultaneous Causation

I cannot agree with you here. If the cause does not exist, then it can have no effect in the subsequent moment. If two things arise simultaneously, with no prior cause, then it is not possible to say which is cause and which is effect. It is dangerous to allow anything to pop into existence without any prior cause as this will allow that thing to pop into existence anywhere and at any time as it requires no prior cause. This is not observed.

[T]he light was necessary for God to exist qua creator, but not simply for god to exist.
I am glad that you agree that the Creator cannot exist in the absence of the existence of light. You have yet to show that an eternal God is consistent with a non-eternal Creator; your God just becomes a synonym of the "Eternal" in my opening post. I do not allow an assumption that the Eternal and the Creator are the same as is sometimes implied by the use of "God".

The issue of simultaneous causation is not the main point of this discussin as I see it.

Thankyou for a thought provoking reply.


wwatts,

Cause and effect are properties of things. The relation between the things defines which is the cause and which is the effect. An acorn can cause an oak tree and an oak tree can cause an acorn. The relationship defines which one gets which property. A different relationship can result in a different allocation of properties. There is no such thing as a stand alone cause or a stand alone effect.

Your latest syllogism is correct as far as it goes, but is incomplete. How about:

1 Properties are not relations.
2 Cause and effect are both properties.
3 Cause and effect are defined by the relation between their respective objects.
4 Cause and effect have no direct relation but are mutually contingent.


rossum

[Morpheus]

to rossum.

morpheus:
(B)asically then, your argument is not just that the creator cnnot be eternal, it is also that nothing can be eternal ”

rossum:
Correct, though I prefer to put it as "everything changes".

fine.

morpheus:
1. it is only coherent to assert that a thing does not have an unchanging essence if one knows what the thing to which he refers is.

rossum:
I use "thing", and its synonyms in the colloquial sense. I do not include any automatic implication of an unchanging essence in my use of the word. In the colloquial sense I can recognise all the things to which I refer.

i don't think the problem is averted at all if you are speaking colloquially. even with colloquial speech, words must have referents in order to be coherent. let me see if i can illustrate via example:

"john walked the dog."

your position is that there are no unchanging essences to existents. also, in accordance with what you have qualified as a "change," it seems that things are perpetually changing (see below for elaboration). so, in this sentence, even if you are speaking informally, to what (or whom) does "john" refer? if your view is correct, what we call "john" is actually an infinite number of different people, because "john" is perpetually changing. but this makes the statement incoherent - you aren't identifying at all who or what walked the dog. the same analysis can be applied to "dog" - to what does it refer, if the dog is perpetually changing? with your view taken to its logical conclusion, the statement might as well read "florb walked the gable."

on the other hand, if there is some aspect that allows us to concretely and distinctly identify "john" or the "dog," then i don't see why the same principle can't be used in identifying the eternal god as also the creator, despite the fact that by creating be undergoes some change.

morpheus:
2. if any change whatsoever occurs to thing x, and thing x does not have an unchanging identity, then this change renders the latter thing not-thing-x.

rossum:
No, it just shows the lack of an unchanging essence in thing x. The designation "thing x" is a colloquial label for the series x1, x2, x3, x4, x5... Everything changes, but often the changes are so small that we use the same colloquial name for it. Mount Everest changes all the time. We do not rename it whenever its height increases another millimetre or when a mountaineer dislodges a pebble. The name stays the same, though the object it refers to does not. Do not confuse an unchanging colloquial name with the changing object it refers to.

you aren't going to get around this problem by just hand-waving the problem as one of "colloquial speech." we are rigorously considering the concept of identity, so we can't just brush off informalities as unimportant.

words only make sense in reference to objects. if, as you say, an object is perpetually changing, then (despite the fact that it is a common feature of our language) it is incorrect to refer to what is actually an infinite number of objects with just one word. unless, of course, there is something that allows us to relate x1 to x2 to x3, etc., so that we can rigorously and correctly refer to all of them as a whole as "x." in which case, however, this something can probably be applied to the apparent inconsistency for which you're arguing, and show that there is in fact no inconsistency between god as eternal and creator.

in other words, you need to show how words can actually refer to anything, if all things are perpetually changing and therefore do not exist as objects for any discrete duration of time. if you cannot do this, then your argument is self-defeating, because your statement "things do not have unchanging essences" is, like the statement "john walked the dog," rendered meaningless.

morpheus:
3. [A]ll things are perpetually changing.

rossum:
Yes. As I said above, what we think of as thing x is better understood as a series x1, x2, x3, x4, x5... I dislike the word "perpetually"; it has implications of permanence.

strictly speaking then, do you think it is incorrect to refer to the series x1, x2, x3, etc. as simply "x?" if not, then what is it that allows us to relate these items together so that it is correct to refer to the whole as just "x?"

i don't understand your objection to saying that, in accordance with your view, "all things are perpetually changing." all i mean is that, for some thing x that exists for any duration of time, it will undergo some kind of change (no matter how small). i explained in my last post how it can be said of any thing that exists for any duration of time that the thing at the end of that duration is different from the thing at the beginning of the duration in the sense that the former is older than the latter. furthermore, from what i have read it seems that science confirms the fact that nothing is ever "not changing whatsosever." there is always something going on, which implies cause and effect, which therefore implies change.

morpheus:5. [H]uman understanding of things is bound by our inherent temporality; it is therefore impossible for us to think about or refer to a "thing," because this "thing" is perpetually changing to not-that-"thing."

rossum:
I disagree. People think about all sorts of things all the time. I do it, you do it. Everyone does it. The mistake some people make is to think that the things they think about actually exist that way in the world. Our thoughts inevitably carry a lot of internal baggage, such as the temporally bound example you use. The world is not constrained to conform to our thoughts.

i am speaking rigorously here. that being said, under your position give me an example of a "thing" that people think of "all the time." under your view, it would seem correct to say that the things we think of are actually a possibly infinite series of things strung together and taken as a whole. the very fact that we are ostensibly able to do this and make sense of the world hints at some concrete concept of identity (i.e., some essence) that pervades throughout time - however, your position is directly opposed to that.

morpheus:
6. it is therefore incoherent to assert that "things" do not have unchanging essences.

rossum:
I do not see how this follows from your argument. It is perfectly possible that we may think of things as having an unchanging essence, but that does not mean that the things have to conform to our thoughts.

of course i agree that "it is perfectly possible that we may think of things as having an unchanging essence." that's my position. my conclusion from my argument, which i still think is valid, is that it is not perfectly possible to not think of things as having unchanging essences, because such a position is incoherent. i'm not sure if you recognize the implications of what you're saying, though i may be wrong.

You offer God as an example of something with an unchanging essence. In order to establish that you will need to prove both that God exists, and that if she exists then she is eternal. That is a whole other thread in itself.

of course, for the purposes of the argument it is assumed that god exists and that he is either eternal or the creator. the point of the debate is to determine if god can also posssess the other attribute that is not being assumed. your position is that he cannot, while mine is that he can.

i'm sorry, but you have the sole burden of proof here. you are making a claim of impossibility. insofar as it is possible that existents can have unchanging essences, then it is possible for god to have one, and it is therefore possible for him to be both eternal and the creator. don't let my posited argument against the coherency of your position allow you to forget that, in actuality, it is you who needs to show that unchanging essences cannot exist. (just for emphasis, this is the most important part of this post.)

You talk about the Christian point of view. I am not now Christian, but it seems to me that the presence of an unchanging essence, a soul, in a person either denies that person the possibility of salvation or else completely destroys morality. Please feel free to correct my theology where I am mistaken.

With an unchanging soul, everyone is born unsaved due to original sin. Since the soul is unchanging then it can never be changed from its unsaved state into a saved state. It remains unsaved no matter what the person does, believes or anything.

Alternatively if someone is born saved, then no matter what they do they remain saved. Mass murder, kissing babies and picking their nose in public have no effect on their unchanging soul and hence all morality is remdered useless.

the standard christian theology is that man has 3 parts - his physical body, his spirit, and his soul. you can refer to either the soul or the spirit as the part that is changed through salvation - for the sake of discussion, let's call it the soul. so, as you point out, a man's soul can change over time. however, it would be his spirit that is his unchanging essence, in the (biblical) sense that it is what makes him man, and separates him from all other creatures (he is made in the image of god). for example, then, i would envision man's spirit as the seat of something like free will, which differentiates human beings from other animals and is, in and of itself, unchanging.

Also Heaven has to change. Currently Heaven is in the state "Heaven-without-Morpheus". Unless this state changes to "Heaven-with-Morpheus" then you are in a similar predicament.

well yes, i would agree that heaven undergoes changes. but this does not mean that there is no essence to heaven, or that it is impossible for things to have essences despite the fact that they change. establishing this latter fact is really what you need to do, or your argument as a whole lacks much force.

If something is eternal then it does exist at all times. So let us compare this eternal thing E at times T1 and T2. Assume that E1 exists at T1. Now examine E2, the thing which exists at T2. Does E1 = E2? If it does then we have the same thing existing at both times. Repeat for a lot of times and we can say that E is indeed eternal as E1 = E2 = E3 = E4 etc.

Now let us look at something changing. Again E1 exists at time T1 and E2 exists at time T2. However if this thing is changing then E1 != E2, that is implicit in the definition of change. Hence the thing at T1 is different to the object at T2 - a pebble has been moved on Everest and we can say that the mountain is not eternal.

this whole discussion just reverts back to whether something can change over time and actually be the same thing (due to the posited possession of an essence), so unless there is something else integral in here that you think i'm missing, i don't think anything else needs to be added to what i've already said.

also, with regard to simultaneous causation, despite the fact that i still completely disagree on that issue, as you say it does seem to be tangential. so for now i will drop it, unless you indicate that you want to continue discussing it. however, i may bring it up again in the future depending on how we progress. fair enough? there is one quote from that section on which i'd like to comment:

You have yet to show that an eternal God is consistent with a non-eternal Creator

well of course these two are inconsistent if you assume a priori that the creator is "non-eternal." however, i think what you meant to say is that i have yet to show that an eternal god can at the same time be the creator. to which i reply, you have yet to show that an eternal god is inconsistent with him also being creator. i hope you do realize that you have the burden of proof here. insofar as you do not absolutely prove this inconsistency, i can hold to the possibility of god being both eternal and creator without any dissonance.

regards.

[wwatts]

Cause and effect are properties of things. The relation between the things defines which is the cause and which is the effect. An acorn can cause an oak tree and an oak tree can cause an acorn. The relationship defines which one gets which property. A different relationship can result in a different allocation of properties. There is no such thing as a stand alone cause or a stand alone effect.

Your latest syllogism is correct as far as it goes, but is incomplete. How about:

1 Properties are not relations.
2 Cause and effect are both properties.
3 Cause and effect are defined by the relation between their respective objects.
4 Cause and effect have no direct relation but are mutually contingent.


Well I'm glad that we are moving forward. An object A is a cause for another object B if A is in a causal relationship with B. If this is true, then one need not worry about confusing causes between A and B during simultaneous causation since if A is in a causal relationship with B then A causes B.

1) An object A may only have direct relations with another object B if object A and object B exist at the same time T1
2) An object may have the property of cause or effect
3) An object's properties only exist during the time T1 that the object exists
4) An object A with a property of cause and an object B with a property of effect do not exist at the same time T1
5) Therefore an object A with a property of cause and an object B with a property of effect do not have any direct relation!


Again, I think (5) flys in the face of

p) you can't have a cause without an effect

[rossum]

Morpheus,

These posts are getting rather long so I will only cover what I see as the high points; feel free to point out places where you think I have missed something important.

You said:

words must have referents in order to be coherent
Agreed, but the referent does not have to posess an unchanging essence. Two examples, first does the referent of the word "unicorn" have an unchanging essence? I find that unicorn is a perfectly coherent word, defined in the dictionary along with lots of other words, yet I can see no unchanging essence in that to which "unicorn" refers. Second, what about collective words such as horse or New Yorker, or "people in my bedroom". Does every collective also have an unchanging essence? This would multiply the number of unchanging essences hugely, and how can there be an unchanging essence of "people in my bedroom" when the referent is changing and may indeed be null?

A word can be coherent in the absence of an unchanging essence.

[J]ohn walked the dog.
A quote from "Funes the Memorious" by Borges:

Not only was it difficult for him to comprehend that the generic symbol dog embraces so many unlike individuals of diverse size and form; it bothered him that the dog at three fourteen (seen from the side) should have the same name as the dog at three fifteen (seen from the front).
"John" refers to a series just as "the dog" refers to a series. Many of the words we use refer to collections of things, John and dog are just two more. It is just that the collection is spread out over time as well as possibly space. The collection is a possibly (I am not sure if time is quantised or not) infinite number of different Johns, it is not different people since "person" refers to a series, not to an individual element within the series. "Once Upon a Time in the West" refers to a series of still photographs, not to a particular still photograph. There is no cunfusion between it and say "Citizen Kane", which is a different series of still photographs.

I do not see why you seem to assume that if a word does not change then the thing to which it refeers must also be unchanging. Two hundred years ago New York was called New York. I am sure you are not saying that New York has not changed in the last two hundred years yet it has not changed its name. The properties of one do not impact on the properties of the other. New York is obviously a series of different New Yorks changing through time. Rossum is a series of different rossums changing through time. I do not see a problem here.

Basically people's perception is often mistaken. They see permanence where really there is change. A story: As Pat walks to work she passes a tree. Near the tree is a rock on which a cat sits sunning itself. As she passes the cat on the rock near the tree she sneezes because she is mildly allergic to cats.

Now come the questions: is it the same rock every day? Is it the same tree every day? Is it the same cat every day? Is it the same Pat every day? Is it the same sneeze every day? My answer is no to all because all have changed, even the rock. The rock is eroding just a little every day, so even the rock is changing albeit very slowly. There is no permanence in this story.

Seeing this illusory permanence in all the wrong places people have a tendancy to reify this permanence into an "unchanging essence" which sits behind things. In my story such an essence will usually be assigned to the rock, the tree, the cat and to Pat, but not usually to the sneeze. Reifying further to the unchanging essence of all unchanging essences we get something like God.

[T]his whole discussion just reverts back to whether something can change over time and actually be the same thing (due to the posited posession of an essence)
Yes, I think that this is at the core of our discussion. The world as we see it contains things that stay the same: rocks, things that change: clouds and things that do both: the sea. Simplifying a lot, some people see this as a fundamentally static world with a veneer of apparent change. Other people, including myself, see this as a fundamentally changing world with a veneer of apparent stasis. For me, change is essential for salvation (however defined). Whatever beliefs we follow there is always a change required to get from where we are now to where we want to be. Without the possibility of change there is no possibility of salvation. To me change must be fundamental because the possibility of salvation is fundamental.


rossum

wwatts, I will reply later.

[Morpheus]

to rossum.

Morpheus,

These posts are getting rather long so I will only cover what I see as the high points; feel free to point out places where you think I have missed something important.

that's fine. i have a tendency to make my posts a little longer than they need to be anyway, so feel free to snip repeated or tangential material.

morpheus:
words must have referents in order to be coherent

rossum:
Agreed, but the referent does not have to posess an unchanging essence.

perhaps it would be a good idea if i concretely defined what i mean by "essence," so that we're on the same page.

essence - that part (or characteristic) of a thing that is possessed by that thing in all possible worlds in which that thing exists.

without acknowledging that essences as such actually exist, do you find this definition acceptable?

that being said, i would like to propose an example. i'll use "george bush," since that is one with which we'll both obviously be familiar. now, you have agreed that words must have referents. so, when i say the words "george bush," to what am i referring, if it is not some essence?

Two examples, first does the referent of the word "unicorn" have an unchanging essence? I find that unicorn is a perfectly coherent word, defined in the dictionary along with lots of other words, yet I can see no unchanging essence in that to which "unicorn" refers.

if you can provide me with an agreeable definition of unicorn (any commonplace definition will be acceptable), i will consider this example. i just want to make sure we're on the same page with respect to what the word "unicorn" refers to, before we proceed.

Second, what about collective words such as horse or New Yorker, or "people in my bedroom". Does every collective also have an unchanging essence? This would multiply the number of unchanging essences hugely, and how can there be an unchanging essence of "people in my bedroom" when the referent is changing and may indeed be null?

let's look at a definition of "horse," from http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=horse:

A large hoofed mammal (Equus caballus) having a short-haired coat, a long mane, and a long tail, domesticated since ancient times and used for riding and for drawing or carrying loads.

now, i suppose it could be said that some horses may not have a long mane, or a long tail, etc., so these characteristics would not be part of a horse's essence as i have defined the term.

so i would say that, speaking roughly on the basis of this definition, a horse's essence (or at least part of it) is that it is "a mammalian animal," because all horses in all possible worlds qualify as mammals.

now with regard to "people in my bedroom" - regardless of whether there are people in your bedroom or not, the essence referred to is that of "people," even if it is only a conceptualization of people and not actual people (in the same way that "unicorn" refers not to an objectively existing unicorn, but a conceptualization).

A quote from "Funes the Memorious" by Borges:

"Not only was it difficult for him to comprehend that the generic symbol dog embraces so many unlike individuals of diverse size and form; it bothered him that the dog at three fourteen (seen from the side) should have the same name as the dog at three fifteen (seen from the front)."

would you disagree, then, with the notion that there is some part or characteristic that is shared by all dogs in all possible worlds (e.g., "mammal that is related to foxes and wolves")?

"John" refers to a series just as "the dog" refers to a series. Many of the words we use refer to collections of things, John and dog are just two more. It is just that the collection is spread out over time as well as possibly space. The collection is a possibly (I am not sure if time is quantised or not) infinite number of different Johns, it is not different people since "person" refers to a series, not to an individual element within the series.

let's say that "john" refers to a specific person who was born in new york city, to parents named mike and mary. would you deny that part of john's essence (as i have defined the term) is that he "is the offspring of mike and mary, and was born in nyc," since this is an attribute that is true of him in all possible worlds in which this particular person we call "john" exists?

I do not see why you seem to assume that if a word does not change then the thing to which it refeers must also be unchanging.

that's not what i mean to say - only that an unchanging word must have a referent that has some unchanging part/attribute (in all possible worlds), despite the fact that other aspects of the referent may be changing.

i think this covers all of the main points, because most of the rest of your post just gives further examples of what you perceive as things that have no essence. so i'll just stick to the above examples, unless you object.

i want to conclude by making my argument relevant to the issue of god as creator. i define god as "an omnipotent being," where omnipotence means "able to do x, where x is any possible action." (see the "definition of god" thread, if you want more clarification on this definition of mine.) so i view god's essence as his omnipotence, because in all possible worlds in which god (the one i'm referring to as i've defined him) exists he is omnipotent. insofar as he has existed at all time values with this defining omnipotence (his essence), it can be said that he is eternal. and this is true even if at some point he used his omnipotence to create the universe. i really don't see the contradiction here at all.

and i still think you need to prove that essences cannot exist. you originally presented a deductive argument that posits that the creator cannot be eternal; however, if you don't snuff out the mere possibility of the existence of essences, then it is possible for god to have an essence, and it is possible for him to be both eternal and the creator - your argument, ultimately, remains unsatisfactory.

regards.

[rossum]

My apologies for not responding. I suddenly have a lot less spare time than before. I will get back to this thread when things have calmed down a bit.

rossum

[Morpheus]

don't worry about it, rossum. there is no hurry in continuing the discussion.

[ollie]

06-11-2003 @ 05:28 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=120548#post120548)
rossum:

My argument is intended to show that the two statements "God is eternal," and "God is the creator of all else that exists," are inconsistent and cannot both be true.

I shall use "Eternal" to mean the God in the statement "God is eternal," and "Creator" to mean the God in the statement "God is the creator of all else that exists." In this sense, "Creator" is synonymous with "Causer", and "created" is synonymous with "effect". We cannot assume that these two are the same God, since the basis of my argument is to show that they cannot be the same.

In essence the argument runs:

1 The Eternal exists at all times. There is no time when the Eternal does not exist.

2 There was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist.

3 Therefore there was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist and the Eternal did exist.

4 Something cannot both exist and not exist at the same time.

5 Therefore the Eternal and the Creator cannot be the same thing. In other words God cannot both be eternal and be the creator of all else that exists.


Detailed arguments for these points follow.

1 The Eternal exists at all times. There is no time when the Eternal does not exist.

1.1 This is basically a tautology. Anything eternal exists for all past time, the present and all future time. That is what eternal means.


2 There was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist.

2.1 There is no cause without an effect. A cause cannot be a cause unless it has an effect. To be a cause without an effect is like being a parent while not having had any children. If a cause does not have an effect then it is not a cause, since it has caused nothing. At most it may be a potential cause.

2.2 By 2.1 above, for the Creator to exist it is necessary for at least one effect to exist, since without an effect the Creator cannot be a cause, which is a contradiction. This would be like a childless parent, or a sibling with no brothers or sisters, and so not exist.

2.3 From 2.2 we have at least one effect needed for the Creator. We will look at the first such effect to happen; if multiple first effects occur at the same time then we can select any one of them. No other effect happened before it. This first effect can be either eternal or not.

2.3.1 If the first effect specified in 2.3 is eternal then it was not caused by the Creator since the effect has no start, and therefore no cause. The cause must come before the effect, and there is no "before" for something eternal. Therefore the Creator did not cause this particular effect and so this eternal effect does not establish the Creator's existence. We can eliminate this "effect" as not an effect, we made a mistake, and return to 2.3 to pick another first effect. We know that some effects are not eternal, a mayfly say, so we do not have an infinite loop here.

2.3.2 If the first effect in 2.3 is not eternal then that effect was caused by the Creator at some point in time. Before that point in time the first effect did not exist. Neither did any other relevant effect, since in 2.3 we have defined the effect we are looking at as the first effect.

2.4 By 2.3.1 and 2.3.2 the first effect can only establish the Creator if it is not eternal. Therefore by 2.1 there was a time, before the first effect, when the Creator did not exist. In the absence of any effect there cannot be a cause and we have established that there was indeed a time when there were no effects.

2.5 This meakes sense. If the Creator was eternal we would get something like "On the -2th day God said 'Fiat lux', and on the -1th day God said 'Fiat lux', and on the 0th day God said 'Fiat lux', and on the first day God said 'Fiat lux', and on the second day God said 'Fiat lux'" and so on. Eternal causes have this machine-gun-like property, continually producing their effects.


3 Therefore there was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist and the Eternal did exist.

3.1 This follows from 1 and 2.


4 Something cannot both exist and not exist at the same time.

4.1 This is a basic law of logic, the law of the excluded middle.


5 Therefore the Eternal and the Creator cannot be the same thing. In other words God cannot both be eternal and be the creator of all else that exists.

5.1 By 3 and 4 the Eternal and the Creator are not the same thing. We can say that the two statements "God is eternal" and "God is the creator of all else that exists" are not consistent with each other.

5.2 This is not a new observation. The Gnostics were aware of the problem and solved it by having more than one God; their version ran "God1 is eternal," and "God2 is the creator of all else that exists." Nagarjuna also uses the same argument against any eternal cause.


rossum

Time is a created thing by God the creator.

Genesis 1:14. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

It exists in the created physical world. It exists. It is coming when time will no longer exist and all will be eternal. God is eternal therefore God as the creator is eternal. God is not bound by time only is the creation bound by time and God works within it when dealing with His creation.


Time is not eternal but temporal.

Genesis 8:22. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.


Revelation10:6. And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:


Eternity is timeless and is outside the created physical realm of time. God dwells in eternity. He was, is, and will be I AM!


Isaiah 57:15. For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.


1 Timothy 1: 17. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.


Eternity is invisible.

2 Corinthians 4:18. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.


Things eternal are in the heavens.

2 Corinthians 5:1. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.


God's purpose is eternal, purposed in Jesus Christ.


Ephesians 3:11. According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord:


The time to come is the end of time; and all is eternal which includes life and rewards for the just and death and punishment for the unjust.


1 Timothy 6:19. Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.


1 John 5:11. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
12. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
13. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.



So time is created and within the realm of things created physical and temporal.

Time exists. It has a beginning by God and will end when God decides to end it.

Eternity was, is, and will be. It is invisible, it has no beginning or ending as it is eternal. It is outside the physical realm of time and is where God dwells and is where all of mankind will end up at the end of time, both those of God and those not of God.

[wienerdog]

I've just skimmed through this thread, so please forgive me if my comments have already been made.

First, I would say that this is a confusion between God's intrinsic properties and his extrinsic properties. When God created the universe, he didn't change in his intrinsic properties, but he changed by nature of his relation to other things; that is, he became the Creator of that which was created. Without a creation, God isn't the Creator, but it's an equivocation to say that the Creator is not eternal. The one identified as Creator, God, exists eternally, even if he didn't fulfill the specific office of Creator eternally.

Second, I would challenge your definition of eternal. Many philosophers have claimed that by eternality means to exist outside of or independent of time, as opposed to being temporally omnipresent. I don't agree with this, but it gets us into another big issue, namely God's relationship to time.

[twohumble]

Rossum

I have only skimmed this thread, and read your initial post. Under your second assertion you make the mistake of defining Gods existence with the laws of the 4 space/time dimensions that binds you and me. God, if we assume a given, exists, and cannot be bound by this space/time dimension. He resides outside and transcendent.

Just as in 2 dimensions of space, you can pose a logical conclusion that a triangle is never a circle, and you would be correct. Yet, this same proposition made in 2 dimensions does NOT hold for 3 dimensions. The logic breaks down. The laws that govern 2 dimensions do not hold for the additional dimensions and hence, the logical argument is useless.

You propose that "no effect is without cause", or something along those lines. In this universe, you would be exactly correct. Unfortunately, that presupposition cannot hold for an extradimensional being such as God. You cannot make this argument with any sense of certainty beyond our space/time continuem. Therefore, your argument breaks down on this one point alone.

[Duder]

My argument is intended to show that the two statements "God is eternal," and "God is the creator of all else that exists," are inconsistent and cannot both be true.

I shall use "Eternal" to mean the God in the statement "God is eternal," and "Creator" to mean the God in the statement "God is the creator of all else that exists." In this sense, "Creator" is synonymous with "Causer", and "created" is synonymous with "effect". We cannot assume that these two are the same God, since the basis of my argument is to show that they cannot be the same.

In essence the argument runs:

1 The Eternal exists at all times. There is no time when the Eternal does not exist.

2 There was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist.

3 Therefore there was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist and the Eternal did exist.

4 Something cannot both exist and not exist at the same time.

5 Therefore the Eternal and the Creator cannot be the same thing. In other words God cannot both be eternal and be the creator of all else that exists.


Detailed arguments for these points follow.

1 The Eternal exists at all times. There is no time when the Eternal does not exist.

1.1 This is basically a tautology. Anything eternal exists for all past time, the present and all future time. That is what eternal means.


2 There was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist.

2.1 There is no cause without an effect. A cause cannot be a cause unless it has an effect. To be a cause without an effect is like being a parent while not having had any children. If a cause does not have an effect then it is not a cause, since it has caused nothing. At most it may be a potential cause.

2.2 By 2.1 above, for the Creator to exist it is necessary for at least one effect to exist, since without an effect the Creator cannot be a cause, which is a contradiction. This would be like a childless parent, or a sibling with no brothers or sisters, and so not exist.

Not so fast. Trouble arises between 2.1 and 2.2. You didn't show that "Creator" and "cause" are the same thing. You just assumed it and leapt from one to the other.

This assumed identity of cause and Creator is not clear. While the word "cause" is sometimes technically a noun for the sake of grammatic convenience, it is really always a verb. A cause is an event, but not an object. Cause is an action, but not an actor. Can you see how the actor and the action are conceptually seperate?

Moreover, with the clarification above, you can appreciate the possibility that the agency which will come to be known as "Creator" exists even when He is not producing any causes, and even before He ever begins His career as a Creator. You are right that if there are no effects, then there do not exist any causes. But the lack of causes (verbs) doesn't imply the lack of a Creator (noun).

If I'm right about this, there is no need to examine the remainder of the argument because it ends right here.

I didn't read the whole lengthy thread - and if this objection has already been raised and answered, my apologies.

[rossum]

twohumble,

Thanks for resurrecting an old thread.

I have only skimmed this thread
That puts us about equal, I only have a hazy memory of what is in it.

you make the mistake of defining Gods (sic) existence with the laws of the 4 space/time dimensions
Fine. Let us work on the basis of your assertion that God exists in some meta-universe outside the four dimensions of space-time. You say that "logic breaks down" and "logic is useless". If we do not use logic then how are we to arrive at the truth? In this non-logical meta-universe what are the valid sources of knowledge and how can we know that they are valid?

You [rossum] propose that "no effect is without cause"
Agreed.

In this universe you [rossum] would be exactly correct.
Agreed.

that presupposition cannot hold for an extradimensional being such as God. You [rossum] cannot make this argument with any sense of certainty beyond our space/time continuem. (sic)
If the logical connection between cause and effect is not allowed in God's meta-universe then we have great difficulty defining cause and effect since they are defined in terms of each other. Likewise the logical connection between creator and created is also broken. In the a-logical meta-universe you propose we can have a creation without a creator, a creator whithout a creation or both or neither or any other scenario you care to imagine. How do you propose to show firstly the existence of a creator and secondly that the creator is God if the usual logical links between cause and effect, creator and creation, no longer apply? Yes, in this situation my argument would break down, but all the alternative arguments would break down as well. There would be no logical arguments for the existence of God and all proposed arguments for the existence of God would have exactly the same validity as arguments for the existence of the IPU. Again I ask, how are we to determine what is true in the absence of logic? Or are you advancing an argument for agnosticism, that we have no way of knowing what is true?

rossum

[rossum]

Duder,

You didn't show that "Creator" and "cause" are the same thing.
You are right, I could have explained this more clearly. Cause and creator have the same logical properties so they can effectively be treated as the same thing. There can be no effect without a cause; there can be no creation without a creator. The cause preceeds the effect; the creator preceeds the creation. How would you propose that a cause and a creator logically differ? As I see it creators are a subset of causes, creator being a short way of saying "intelligent cause". If you prefer you can replace "creator" with "intelligent cause" and "creation" with "intelligently caused effect" throughout my argument and it will still work. If you disagree then I will be happy to discuss your arguments.

While the word "cause" is sometimes technically a noun for the sake of grammatic convenience, it is really always a verb.
Here we disagree. A cause can be an action, but it can also be an object. Among the causes of fire is the fuel: no fuel, no fire. Fuel is not an action, a wooden log is an object not an action. Similarly a seed is the cause of a shoot. A seed is an object, not an action.

the agency which will come to be known as "Creator" exists even when He is not producing any causes, and even before He has ever begins his career as a Creator.
You say "the agency which will come to be known as 'Creator'" (my emphasis). We are in agreement that the agency "will come to be known as". Whatever the agency currently is, it is cannot currently be called "creator". The agency has to change from the state of "creator-to-be" to the state of "creator". This is a change in the entity. If an "entity" changes from one time to another then it is not a single eternal entity. A single eternal entity cannot have two opposed properties; "creator-to-be" and "creator" are opposed properties so a single eternal entity cannot have both these properties. Change is defined as difference over time, eternal is defined as no change over time. That which changes cannot be eternal; that which is eternal cannot change.

Some philosophies emphasise stasis over change, others do the reverse. For me change is more fundamental than stasis. What some people see as a world of stasis with a veneer of apparent change, I see as a world of change with a veneer of apparent stasis.

rossum

[Duder]

Duder,


You are right, I could have explained this more clearly. Cause and creator have the same logical properties so they can effectively be treated as the same thing. There can be no effect without a cause; there can be no creation without a creator. The cause preceeds the effect; the creator preceeds the creation. How would you propose that a cause and a creator logically differ? As I see it creators are a subset of causes, creator being a short way of saying "intelligent cause". If you prefer you can replace "creator" with "intelligent cause" and "creation" with "intelligently caused effect" throughout my argument and it will still work. If you disagree then I will be happy to discuss your arguments.

No, that's fine - my uncertainty about equating creators and causes is in the issue you address next - the question of whether causes are objects or events.

Here we disagree. A cause can be an action, but it can also be an object. Among the causes of fire is the fuel: no fuel, no fire. Fuel is not an action, a wooden log is an object not an action. Similarly a seed is the cause of a shoot. A seed is an object, not an action.

I am still not convinced that things like seeds are causes. I agree that there are no shoots without seeds. But is a seed, just sitting there being a seed, effective to produce a shoot? There also needs to be warmth, light and moisture in just the right proportion. In fact, a very specialized combination of conditions must conspire with the seed to cause a shoot. The cause of the shoot is a very complex process involving comets depositing water on earth, evaporation, rain, nuclear fission in the sun . . . so much activity that it leads me to say that "cause" is primarily a verb.

Take away the activity of water and sun and the whole dynamics of the shoot-producing environment, isolate the seed so that it interacts with nothing, and there will be no shoot (effect). But there is no absurdity in saying the seed still exists - even when conditions are not right for it to become a shoot.

Now, you might argue that if you isolate a seed and remove it from the whole process whereby it can become a shoot, then you no longer have the right to call it a seed. What a "seed" really is, is the entire environment that conspires to produce shoots. That would be a very interesting discussion! Is God "God" prior to doing any Godding? I take your discussion below in the nagative:

You say "the agency which will come to be known as 'Creator'" (my emphasis). We are in agreement that the agency "will come to be known as". Whatever the agency currently is, it is cannot currently be called "creator". The agency has to change from the state of "creator-to-be" to the state of "creator". This is a change in the entity. If an "entity" changes from one time to another then it is not a single eternal entity. A single eternal entity cannot have two opposed properties; "creator-to-be" and "creator" are opposed properties so a single eternal entity cannot have both these properties. Change is defined as difference over time, eternal is defined as no change over time. That which changes cannot be eternal; that which is eternal cannot change.

Some philosophies emphasise stasis over change, others do the reverse. For me change is more fundamental than stasis. What some people see as a world of stasis with a veneer of apparent change, I see as a world of change with a veneer of apparent stasis.

rossum

[twohumble]

twohumble,

Fine. Let us work on the basis of your assertion that God exists in some meta-universe outside the four dimensions of space-time. You say that "logic breaks down" and "logic is useless". If we do not use logic then how are we to arrive at the truth? In this non-logical meta-universe what are the valid sources of knowledge and how can we know that they are valid?
I did not say "logic is useless" in that context. What I said was your logic, based on our space/time dimension, is useless. Just as logic in 2 dimensions, cannot explain 3 dimensions, our limited view cannot explain Gods dimensions. Now, a 2 dimensional being can hypothesis, and empherically test the ideas of a 3 dimensional object, even if a 2 dimensional being cannot experience it.

For instance, we can show with higher math, from sophisticated computer simulations, how its possible to invert an orange with the pulp on the outside and the peel on the inside, without breaking the peel, if its done if 4 physical dimensions. This can be demonstrated digitally. Yet the human mind only thinks 3 dimensionally, hence, we cannot "picture or conceive" of it. We can theoretically show its possible. I am not saying that 'truth' cannot be known, only that truth, as you may know it, may be very different in Gods dimensions. So different, in fact, that its inconceivable, if not unintelligable, by the human mind.

An easy way to explain it is: God is bigger than our heads or minds, and not all of His facts are comprehensible in human terms. Of course, if He were totally comprehensible, He would not really be God at all.








If the logical connection between cause and effect is not allowed in God's meta-universe then we have great difficulty defining cause and effect since they are defined in terms of each other.
Just as the laws of physics break down at inception of the Big Bang, so too are the laws of existence different for God. You again, assume that you can describe Gods existence by the Laws of Nature He designed for our universe. That is a contradiction in logic in and of itself. God exists beyond and outside of His creation, hence He is not bound by any of its "laws", He created those laws specifically for our existence and they do not logically need to apply to him. The law of cause and effect is included in this. Although there may be such a relationship, it will be impossible to describe in our terms.

In the a-logical meta-universe you propose we can have a creation without a creator, a creator whithout a creation or both or neither or any other scenario you care to imagine.
I never proposed an "a-logical meta-universe". I am sure logic exists, I am just not at all sure how to apply it based on the fact that we have no concept of the 'laws' of Gods dimensions. I am not sure how you have leapt from my points to your conclusion that this leaves us with a 'creation without a creator et.'

How do you propose to show firstly the existence of a creator and secondly that the creator is God if the usual logical links between cause and effect, creator and creation, no longer apply?
The evidence of God is found in many disciplines. First, the Big Bang itself requires a cause. It is an effect, that is rooted in our universe and bound by our laws. The fact of its existence (which is only disputed by the fringe in science and religion), is proof that some prime Cause started it all.

Like all "proof" that is not repeatable in a labratory, preponderance of evidence is the key. I think the arguments from science are the strongest...but then again, I am a science guy, so that makes sense to me. I am not sure this thread, or my fingers are big enough for me to type all of the evidences in science for God, but there are great links to some who have done that. I will be glad to get them for you if you wish.

In this universe, the Law of Cause and Effect do work, and hence if we see an event in this universe, we can logically deduce a cause for it. I did not say that this law did not work for creation.

Yes, in this situation my argument would break down, but all the alternative arguments would break down as well. There would be no logical arguments for the existence of God and all proposed arguments for the existence of God would have exactly the same validity as arguments for the existence of the IPU.
I am not sure what you mean by "IPU"? Your argument only breaks down when you apply 3 dimensional logic to a multidimensional God. The logic still works in relation to this universe.

There certainly are logical arguments for the existence of God...Augustine did a great job. Aquinas did well too.


Again I ask, how are we to determine what is true in the absence of logic? Or are you advancing an argument for agnosticism, that we have no way of knowing what is true?

rossum
Let me clerify: I in no way propose an absence of logic. I do think that some knowledge is beyond our ability to grasp. The existence of God is not one of them. He has provided ample proof of His existence (see Psalm 19 for details)

[rossum]

Duder,

I am still not convinced that things like seeds are causes.

a very specialised combination of conditions must conspire with the seed to cause a shoot.
Fine, for the purposes of argument let us agree to treat causation as a process involving a combination of condition. In this case there are no causes as such, there are only conditions which are combined to give rise to an effect. It is only a combination of conditions that can give rise to the effect. As you say: "The cause of the shoot is very complex...".

In this system of conditions we need to look at God as a condition. You will I presume assert that God is a necessary condition for the existence of creation, but is God a sufficient condition?

If God is a sufficient condition then no other conditions are required for the existence of the created universe. How does God as a necessary and sufficient condition differ from God as a cause? Would replacing "cause" with "necessary and sufficient condition" change my argument in the OP? If God is a necessary and sufficient condition then why is the universe not eternal? If the necessary and sufficient condition is present then the resulting effect must also be present. How can a non-eternal universe exist in this scenario? If god exists them the universe must also exist; the two cannot be separated. The assumption that God is both a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of the created universe has resulted in a paradox.

If God is not a sufficient condition then at least one other condition is required for the existence of the created universe. In this case then God is not the creator since the creator is some combination of God and the other condition(s). In this scenario the creator is different from God since God alone is not sufficient to create the universe without the presence of at least one other condition.

Is God "God" prior to doing any Godding?
As you suspected I would answer no to this question. Someone is not a parent until they have done some parenting. Being a parent is something depending on conditions, such as the existence of children. If the children do not exist there can be no parent. "Parent" is not an inherent property, it is dependent on external conditions. My argument around "Creator" is the same, "Creator" is not an inherent property, it is dependent on external conditions.

I am on holiday until 6 July so I won't be reading TWeb much until then.


rossum

[rossum]

twohumble,

I did not say "logic is useless" in that context. What I said was your logic, based on our space/time dimension, is useless.
If our standard logic is useless then what do you propose to replace it? How are we to differentiate truth from untruth? Is there an alternative logic that we can use? How can we determine what the valid sources of knowledge are? If you reject standard logic then there is a very large hole to fill.

I am not saying that 'truth' cannot be known, only that truth, as you may know it, may be very different in Gods dimensions. So different, in fact, that its inconceivable, if not unintelligable, by the human mind.
If truth is "inconceivable, if not unintelligible" then how can we know it? If truth is beyond the human mind then there is no possibility of us knowing the truth. All we are left with is the different versions of not-quite-truth that we come up with individually. Are you aware of the story of the blind men and the elephant? Are you trying to propose something like that?

God exists beyond and outside of His creation, hence He is not bound by any of its "laws", He created those laws specifically for our existence and they do not logically need to apply to him. The law of cause and effect is included in this.
If the law of cause and effect does not apply to God then the argument for the existence of God as the first cause fails, since this argument relies on that law. God cannot be a creator since the concept of creator involves the law of cause and effect.

First, the Big Bang itself requires a cause.
I disagree with you here. The Big Bang was the origin of the four dimensions of space-time. Talking about "before" the Big Bang is as useless as talking about "North" of the North Pole. Since the notion of cause and effect relies on the cause being "before" the effect then there can be no cause of the Big Bang. Remember that the Big Bang started very small, on quantum scales. At quantum scales it is quite possible for events to be uncaused in the formal sense; radioactive decay is the classic example. Once time had got going, and inflation had increased the size of the universe beyond where quantum effects dominated then cause and effect became relevant.

It is worth noting that in terms of the formal definition of "eternal" space-time is itself eternal and so does not require a formal cause. We can say "X is eternal if and only if for all possible values of time, X exists at that time". Since time is part of the space-time manifold that started at the Big Bang then there is no time when the universe does not exist. If time exists then space also exists since they are bound together in the same four dimensional space-time manifold. For all possible values of time the universe exists and hence it satisfies the formal definition of being eternal given above.

There certainly are logical arguments for the existence of God...Augustine did a great job. Aquinas did well too.
And philosophers have been having fun with their arguments, both for and against, ever since.

Let me clerify: I in no way propose an absence of logic. I do think that some knowledge is beyond our ability to grasp. The existence of God is not one of them. He has provided ample proof of His existence (see Psalm 19 for details)
I am not discussing the existence or not of God, I am discussing whether or not the Creator is eternal. Something can exist and not be eternal.

For the IPU see Invisible Pink Unicorn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPU).

As I said to Duder I am on holiday until 6 July so I won't be reading TWeb much until then.


rossum

[wwatts]

Found a nice quote from Immanuel Kant that pertains to this thread:

"If I view as a cause a ball which impresses a hollow as it lies on a stuffed cushion, the cause is simultaneous with the effect."

If simultaneous causation doesn't exist, what is the relationship between a ball when it is on a cushion at T2 over a period of time T1,T2,T3.

[rossum]

wwatts,
If I view as a cause a ball which impresses a hollow as it lies on a stuffed cushion, the cause is simultaneous with the effect.
There are four possible temporal relations between cause and effect:


Cause before effect
Cause and effect are simultaneous
Effect before cause
None of the above


Taking these in order:

1 Cause before effect

This is the basis of my argument in the OP. How can a cause be a cause if it has not yet generated an effect? In this case the cause cannot initially be a cause due to the absence of any effect. Since cause and effect are defined in terms of each other one cannot exist without the other so we cannot have a cause without an effect, just as one cannot be a parent without having children.

2 Cause and effect are simultaneous

What if the cause and effect come into existence simultaneously? Consider the moment before they come into exixtence. In this prior moment there is no cause and no effect. Since neither cause nor effect exist then neither can have any influence on the subsequent moment - something that does not exist cannot exert any influence. Thus when we reach the moment when both cause and effect appear neither is influenced by the other. There was no cause in the prior moment so the cause did not influence the appearance of the effect. How then can it be called a cause? The effect has appeared without any prior influence from the cause so how can it be called an effect? In this case also we cannot have a cause. If parent and child appear simultaneously then both are the same age. How can we determine which is the parent and which is the child?

3 Effect before cause

If the effect already exists then what is the purpose of the cause? It cannot cause something that already exists. The cause has not caused the effect since the effect was already in existence. Again we cannot speak of a cause. If the child exists before the parent than how can we speak of the parent actually being a parent?

4 None of the above

It is certainly possible to devise a logical system without the axiom of cause and effect, where things are uncaused. I am not sure how practical this system would be, it certainly would not correspond to reality. In this case it is also not possible to speak of a cause.


This is not a new way of seeing things, Nagarjuna made the same points in his Mulamadhyamikakarika:

5 When something arises dependent on these, these are indeed causes.
Before something arises, how then are these not non-causes?

6 Neither an existing object, nor a non-existing object can have a cause.
For the existing, what has been caused? For the not-existing, what point in a cause?

For a slightly different view:

What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropic Zones, and Meridian Lines?
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply,
"They are merely conventional signs"

"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we've got our brave Captain to thank"
(So the crew would protest) "that he's brought us the best -
A perfect and absolute blank!"

(Lewic Carroll The Hunting of the Snark)

Much of what we see as real is treated in Buddhism as "merely conventional signs." Cause and effect are just one case in point.


rossum

[wwatts]

You should have just said that

1) If God exists, he is a cause
2) There is no such thing as cause (and/or effect)
3) Therefore God does not exist

It would have saved a lot of our time. Just about everyone denies (2)

[rossum]

wwatts,

My argument is more complex than your summary.

1) Cause (=the Creator) depends on effect (=the created)
2) Similarly effect depends on cause
3) Thus neither cause (=the Creator) nor effect (=the created) are absolutes, they are both contingent on each other. Each is dependent on the other and so cannot be absolute.
4) Creation (=effect) has a beginning
5) Thus the Creator (=cause) has a beginning also, since it cannot exist in the absence of the effect.
6) Since the Creator has a beginning, the Creator is not eternal. QED.

In my OP I talked about the Eternal and the Creator; I did not deal with God. I showed that the Creator was not the Eternal. Whether or not God exists is up to you, all I have said is that the Creator is not eternal.

Just about everyone denies (2)
I take it that you do not know many Madhyamika Buddhists then.

Not from itself, not from another, not from both,
and not uncaused has anything whatsoever been known to arise.


rossum

[wwatts]

wwatts,

My argument is more complex than your summary.

1) Cause (=the Creator) depends on effect (=the created)
2) Similarly effect depends on cause
3) Thus neither cause (=the Creator) nor effect (=the created) are absolutes, they are both contingent on each other. Each is dependent on the other and so cannot be absolute.
4) Creation (=effect) has a beginning
5) Thus the Creator (=cause) has a beginning also, since it cannot exist in the absence of the effect.
6) Since the Creator has a beginning, the Creator is not eternal. QED.



But you deny that cause and effect exist. So if it doesn't, then all of your premises that reference cause and effect are denied.

To those of us that believe that cause and effect exist we may accept simultaneous causation. You haven't given a formal argument against simultaneous causation, only a metaphysical hunch (which you don't believe).

[twohumble]

twohumble,


If our standard logic is useless then what do you propose to replace it? How are we to differentiate truth from untruth? Is there an alternative logic that we can use? How can we determine what the valid sources of knowledge are? If you reject standard logic then there is a very large hole to fill.

Hello, I was also on vacation until yesterday, so sorry for the delay in response.

Let me rephrase my comment on "logic". Logic is not useless, and I am sorry I put it that way. I did explain in my post that the logic you use is incomplete and therefore in that context it is useless.
I gave the following example:

"A triangle is never a circle, and, a triangle is sometimes a circle"
If we use 2 dimensional 'logic' or data, this then, is a contradictory statement, and untrue. If, however, we use both 2 and 3 dimensional logic, we see that both statements can be true without contradiction.

This applies directly to your assertion regarding the Creator and eternality. You discribe Him in the 4 dimensional logic you are privy to, yet you have variables that are unknown to you, and this makes your entire logical equation incomplete, and thus from that standpoint, useless.

If truth is "inconceivable, if not unintelligible" then how can we know it? If truth is beyond the human mind then there is no possibility of us knowing the truth. All we are left with is the different versions of not-quite-truth that we come up with individually. Are you aware of the story of the blind men and the elephant? Are you trying to propose something like that?

No, I have not said anything like this. My statement about truth and "inconceivable" relates to those aspects of truth that are beyond human mind comprehension. This does not mean that many aspects of truth are unknowable, since it seems the Creator has clearly left us 'evidences' of truth and an ability to understand and grasp all of the necessary components of truth that will give enlighten us to the Creator Himself. The 'personal' aspects of creation give overwhelming evidence of a personal creator.


If the law of cause and effect does not apply to God then the argument for the existence of God as the first cause fails, since this argument relies on that law. God cannot be a creator since the concept of creator involves the law of cause and effect.
No sir, I don't beleive you are correct. Just as the architect or builder is not part of their contruction, they are represented and evidenced in it.
The fact that 'cause and effect' does not apply to the 'uncaused One', does not at all follow that the Creator cannot be a causer. You once again have supposed that God is bound by the laws He created. He is not. He can be 'unaffected', yet cause effects, since He is unbound.

I disagree with you here. The Big Bang was the origin of the four dimensions of space-time. Talking about "before" the Big Bang is as useless as talking about "North" of the North Pole. Since the notion of cause and effect relies on the cause being "before" the effect then there can be no cause of the Big Bang.
Well, actually at .00000043 seconds, it appears there were as many as 11 dimensions that collapsed to 3 phyisical and 1 time. The mistake you still make is refusing to acknowledge that God is multidimensional, and "before" as you term it can exist in other time dimensions, 'before' our time dimension came to be. In other words, our time dimension had a beginning, but other time dimensions could well have predated our dimension.

Remember that the Big Bang started very small, on quantum scales. At quantum scales it is quite possible for events to be uncaused in the formal sense; radioactive decay is the classic example. Once time had got going, and inflation had increased the size of the universe beyond where quantum effects dominated then cause and effect became relevant.

A thorough discussion of quantum physics is beyond this thread, but please understand that any quantum particle exists in time inversely to its size. The universe as we know it is not a quantum phenom at all. A particle large enough to see, that originates from a quantum event, would not exist in a long enough space of time to see or measure. If you are assuming that quantum physics eliminates the need for a cause, that would be inaccurate.

It is worth noting that in terms of the formal definition of "eternal" space-time is itself eternal and so does not require a formal cause. We can say "X is eternal if and only if for all possible values of time, X exists at that time". Since time is part of the space-time manifold that started at the Big Bang then there is no time when the universe does not exist. If time exists then space also exists since they are bound together in the same four dimensional space-time manifold. For all possible values of time the universe exists and hence it satisfies the formal definition of being eternal given above.
Again, the problem of assuming only one dimension of time is inherent in your discussion. I think a better definition of eternal is "something existing outside of and unbound by any dimension of time"...in this definition, the Creator would not need to be caused, since He is in every sense, "eternal".

Rossum, the problem in assuming the "non-eternality" of the Creator revolves around a thorough understanding of His true multidimensional nature.

[rossum]

wwatts,

I do not deny cause and effect. I do deny that either cause or effect has absolute existence. Since each depends on the other, neither can have absolute existence. Something that exists absolutely has no dependencies on anything else.

Both cause and effect are relative; each is defined in terms of the other. Both are relative and not absolute. They can only have a contingent and not an absolute existence.

Think of a mirage; it is not as real as it appears to be, however this does not mean that a mirage is nothing at all. Neither cause nor effect are as real as they appear to be, but neither are they nothing at all.

You haven't given a formal argument against simultaneous causation
I thought I had done so in my post, #58. Anyway, here is another version of my treatment of simultaneous cause and effect.

1 The cause did not give rise to the effect because the cause was not in existence prior to the effect. How can a non-existent cause give rise to an effect? Can a non-existent seed grow into a tree?

2 The effect was not the result of the cause because the cause was not in existence prior to the effect. If the real effect arises from a non-existent cause then what is to stop the real effect appearing at any time from a non-existent cause. Do chickens appear randomly from non-existent eggs?

3 Therefore in the case of simultaneous appearance there is no real cause and no real effect.

Time is a problem for simultaneous causation. The nature of cause and effect require that cause comes before effect yet with simultaneous causation they both appear together, one cannot be before the other. Hence the paradox; in a situation of simultaneity, where "before" cannot exist, the cause has to be "before" the effect. This is a simple application of the law of the excluded middle.

My argument against an eternal Creator is that since the Creator depends on creation in the same way as the cause depends on the effect, the Creator only has a relative and not an absolute existence. Since creation is not eternal therefore the Creator, which depends on creation, cannot be eternal either.

rossum

[twohumble]

Rossum said:
My argument against an eternal Creator is that since the Creator depends on creation in the same way as the cause depends on the effect, the Creator only has a relative and not an absolute existence. Since creation is not eternal therefore the Creator, which depends on creation, cannot be eternal either.
Rossum, the above quote seems to be your summary on this topic. I see that you continue to place the creator "in and of" His creation. The fact that time in this universe started, is good proof that the Creator is NOT of this creation. He is not "of" this creation any more than a builder is part of his house, or an artist is part of his painting. Gods existence is in no way dependant on His creation.

[wwatts]

wwatts,

1 The cause did not give rise to the effect because the cause was not in existence prior to the effect. How can a non-existent cause give rise to an effect? Can a non-existent seed grow into a tree?

2 The effect was not the result of the cause because the cause was not in existence prior to the effect. If the real effect arises from a non-existent cause then what is to stop the real effect appearing at any time from a non-existent cause. Do chickens appear randomly from non-existent eggs?
rossum

I dare you to make this into a syllogism, with the conclusion being simultaneous causation does not exist.

Btw you didnt comment on my Immanuel Kant quote. He seems to disagree with you.

[rossum]

twohumble,

To avoid making my response too long I have not responded to all the points in your latest two posts {#62 and #64). If you feel that I have missed something important then please raise it again.

You describe Him [the Creator] in the 4 dimensional logic you are privy to, yet you have variables that are unknown to you, and this makes your entire logical equation incomplete, and thus from that standpoint, useless.
Please provide details of these hidden variables, evidence for their existence and justification for any changes to the rules of logic that you are proposing. I am afraid that I am not willing to accept mere assertion as a basis. It is difficult to have a meaningful discussion without agreement on such things.

The 'personal' aspects of creation give overwhelming evidence of a personal creator.
That is a separate discussion. I do not say anything about the existence of the Creator, nor do I say anything about whether the Creator is personal or not. All I am saying in this thread is that the Creator is not eternal.

Just as the architect or builder is not part of their contruction, they are represented and evidenced in it.
The builder cannot be a builder unless he has built something. The Creator cannot be a creator unless he has created something. To be a Creator there must be a creation. Being a Creator is not an absolute, it is dependent. If you are proposing that God is absolute and not dependent on anything else then such a God cannot be the Creator. By definition any absolute is detached from the non-absolute world that we percieve around us. This detachment is so great that it prevents any absolute reacting with the world. Any absolute is absolutelely separated from the non-absolute.

For example, an absolute is not dependent on time; it is the same at all times. An absolute Creator would have to say "Let there be light" on the first, second, third etc. day of creation. Such a Creator would be incapable of saying anything else.

The mistake you still make is refusing to acknowledge that God is multidimensional, and "before" as you term it can exist in other time dimensions, 'before' our time dimension came to be. In other words, our time dimension had a beginning, but other time dimensions could well have predated our dimension.
We disagree here. The first three dimensions are called "space", the fourth dimension is called "time". The next seven dimensions of our (probably) eleven dimensional manifold are wrapped up very small and do not have common names. If you propose that God exists in a yet higher dimension then you will need to use a name other than "time" to refer to that higher dimension. For the sake of argument let us call this higher twelfth dimension "faarn". We use "time" to refer to dimension #4 and we will use "faarn" to refer to dimension #12. Words like "before" that imply a relation to time do not apply to faarn, instead we could use "pre-faarn" (as in "A is pre-faarn B") to mean "the value of faarn at 12-event A is less than the value of faarn at 12-event B" where "12-event" refers to a point in the twelve dimensional manifold we are discussing.

I am willing to grant for the sake of argument that the Creator may well be pre-faarn creation, but this is talking about the dimension of faarn (#12), and not the dimension of time (#4). Cause and effect are linked to time, they are not linked to faarn. We would need different names to refer to potentially analogous concepts in faarn.

When we add extra dimensions to the universe we need to be very careful with language and concepts so we do not use results only applicable to one of our familiar dimensions in other dimensions where those results do not necessarily apply. The easiest example is to contrast time with the three spatial dimensions. It is not possible to move backwards in time for any large distance (quantum mechanics as usual provides the exception for small distances) yet moving backwards in any of the three spatial dimensions is trivially easy. It is not always possible to automatically transfer results from one dimension to another. If you wish to transfer any concept from time to faarn then you will have to show that such a transfer is valid.

My argument is that the Creator is not eternal, i.e. that the Creator does not extend through all of time. I say nothing about whether or not the Creator extends through all of faarn; perhaps the Creator is pan-faarnal but I cannot see how that is relevant to my argument in this thread.


From your latest post (#64):
God's existence is in no way dependent on His creation.
In the initial post my logic involves the Creator and the Eternal, but not God. I show that the statement "the Creator is eternal" involves a paradox since it breaks the law of the excluded middle.

If you wish to involve God then this gives you four choices:

God is the Creator, but is not the Eternal.
God is the Eternal, but is not the Creator
God is the Creator and the Eternal but is paradoxical
None of the above

If you choose the third option then you need to be aware that this definition of God is in breach of the laws of logic and hence paradoxical.


rossum

[twohumble]

twohumble,

Please provide details of these hidden variables, evidence for their existence and justification for any changes to the rules of logic that you are proposing. I am afraid that I am not willing to accept mere assertion as a basis. It is difficult to have a meaningful discussion without agreement on such things.

Here are the established facts that lead to strong philosophical and theological conclusions:
1. The universe is only billions of years old, not infinite, or near infinite. This eliminates all philosophical and religious systems that depend on infinite age. They plainly can have no basis in reality.
2. The universe had a single beginning, where all space/time originated. This clearly shows that the Creator who brought it into existence is outside of and independent of the matter, energy, space and time dimensions of this universe.
3. The universe, our galaxy, solar system, and ecosystem exhibit over 120 characteristics requiring fine tuning for their existence. The significance of this is demonstrated in the power, intelligence, creativity, and planning of a Being that must have a very personal nature.

Now, I understand this extends outside of the bounds of the point of this thread, but, you continue to place the contraints of our 4 dimensions onto what is obviously a God who transcends this physical existence. Therefore, you have asked me to elaborate on the 'variables' of your equation in logic that are missing, and I must respond by saying, these variable specifics are unknown , and that is why a complete logical equation is impossible. This does, in fact, raise a paradox in many ways. As you know, a paradox is not a contradiction, just an "apparent contradiction" that is explainable once more facts are known. I suggest that these variables will be made known and then your logical equation can be complete, and the paradox will be answered. Just as a 2 dimensional man cannot conceive of a triangle equalling a circle until he can see in 3 dimensions, we cannot 'see' Gods multidimensionality until we have access to it. This does not mean that we cannot 'know' of its existence, we can. Let me give this example:
We can show through math and computer digitization, that its possible to invert an orange with the pulp outside, and the peel inside, without breaking the peel if we use 4 dimensions in a computer simulation. We KNOW that it can be done in 4 dimensions, even though our human mind cannot picture how it can be done, since it operates in only 3 dimensions [go ahead and try to picture it...u cannot).

Just because you cannot picture it does not mean you cannot academically know it. This is an example of how we can 'know' that God is multidimensinal, and independent of His creation, without fully comprehending 'how' He is.

By the way, to wyatt you offered that the Cause did not exist prior to the effect. How do you support this claim?




The builder cannot be a builder unless he has built something. The Creator cannot be a creator unless he has created something. To be a Creator there must be a creation. Being a Creator is not an absolute, it is dependent. If you are proposing that God is absolute and not dependent on anything else then such a God cannot be the Creator. By definition any absolute is detached from the non-absolute world that we percieve around us. This detachment is so great that it prevents any absolute reacting with the world. Any absolute is absolutelely separated from the non-absolute.

For example, an absolute is not dependent on time; it is the same at all times. An absolute Creator would have to say "Let there be light" on the first, second, third etc. day of creation. Such a Creator would be incapable of saying anything else.
You lost me here, I don't quite get why something absolutely 'not' a concrete block, could not interact with concrete block, to build a house. Nor do I understand your last paragraph or the justification you use for it. Could you clerify this line of thought further?


We disagree here. The first three dimensions are called "space", the fourth dimension is called "time". The next seven dimensions of our (probably) eleven dimensional manifold are wrapped up very small and do not have common names. If you propose that God exists in a yet higher dimension then you will need to use a name other than "time" to refer to that higher dimension. For the sake of argument let us call this higher twelfth dimension "faarn". We use "time" to refer to dimension #4 and we will use "faarn" to refer to dimension #12. Words like "before" that imply a relation to time do not apply to faarn, instead we could use "pre-faarn" (as in "A is pre-faarn B") to mean "the value of faarn at 12-event A is less than the value of faarn at 12-event B" where "12-event" refers to a point in the twelve dimensional manifold we are discussing.

I am willing to grant for the sake of argument that the Creator may well be pre-faarn creation, but this is talking about the dimension of faarn (#12), and not the dimension of time (#4). Cause and effect are linked to time, they are not linked to faarn. We would need different names to refer to potentially analogous concepts in faarn.

When we add extra dimensions to the universe we need to be very careful with language and concepts so we do not use results only applicable to one of our familiar dimensions in other dimensions where those results do not necessarily apply. The easiest example is to contrast time with the three spatial dimensions. It is not possible to move backwards in time for any large distance (quantum mechanics as usual provides the exception for small distances) yet moving backwards in any of the three spatial dimensions is trivially easy. It is not always possible to automatically transfer results from one dimension to another. If you wish to transfer any concept from time to faarn then you will have to show that such a transfer is valid.

My argument is that the Creator is not eternal, i.e. that the Creator does not extend through all of time. I say nothing about whether or not the Creator extends through all of faarn; perhaps the Creator is pan-faarnal but I cannot see how that is relevant to my argument in this thread.
The problem with how you have set your argument up is you ignore certain possible solutions, such as : what if, as scripture says, time does not flow in one direction for God, but in fact, His access to different time dimensions actually gives him access to time before and time forward, as if it were now? A multidirectional flow of time, so to speak. If so, as scripture claims, God is in fact eternal, unless you define eternal to be other than "always was and always will be".


From your latest post (#64):

In the initial post my logic involves the Creator and the Eternal, but not God. I show that the statement "the Creator is eternal" involves a paradox since it breaks the law of the excluded middle.

If you wish to involve God then this gives you four choices:

God is the Creator, but is not the Eternal.
God is the Eternal, but is not the Creator
God is the Creator and the Eternal but is paradoxical
None of the above

If you choose the third option then you need to be aware that this definition of God is in breach of the laws of logic and hence paradoxical.


rossum
Not being a philosophy buff, I draw on limited memory of the terminology of logic. I think I remember the law of the excluded middle being equivelent to the law of non-contradiction. Is this correct? If so, I don't see how an Eternal God, as the Creator, breaks this law. If we operate under the assumption that to "always exist, without beginning and without end" is eternal, and that is true of God, why would He be kept from creating? What contradiction is inherent in this? The only possible thought of contradiction would be if you insist on placing God within His creation and not independent of it. I think I have clerified that this is completely incorrect, and illogical in and of itself.

If you say this is a paradox, I really cannot argue with that on one level, since to fully comprehend this, we must have academic and intellectual access to all of the knowledge that makes it understandable. I believe that we do not have that access at this time, but, I do believe we have been given the ability to know it exists, just as we can prove through higher math that its possible to invert an orange without breaking the peel.

[rossum]

wwatts,
I dare you to make this into a syllogism, with the conclusion being simultaneous causation does not exist.
Define terms:
C = the proposed simultaneous cause
T1 = the time at which both C and E come into existence.
P# = premise
C# = conclusion
A# = assumption
D# = definition

Not quite a syllogism. I will assume that cause and effect are simultaneous and show that this gives rise to a paradox, specifically to an infinite regress. Hence the assumption is false.

P1) Prior to T1 C did not exist.
C2) C has a beginning. (1)
P3) Everything that has a beginning has a cause.
C4) C has a cause. (2, 3)
A5) By assumption cause and effect are simultaneous.
D6) Define C' = the cause of C.
C7) C' is simultaneous with C. (5, 6)
C8) Repeat 1 - 7 with C' -> C and C'' -> C' to show that C'' is simultaneous with C' (5', 6')
C9) This gives an infinite regress since it can easily be repeated for C''', C'''' etc.
P10) An infinite regress is a paradox.
C11) The assumption A5 is not true. (10)
C12) Simultaneous causation does not exist. (11)


I have not read much Kant. If he is indeed saying that cause and effect are simultaneous then I disagree with him. Do you have a reference for your quote?


rossum

[wwatts]

P1) Prior to T1 C did not exist.


I deny this concerning the cause of space-time as there is no temporal prior concerning space time.


C2) C has a beginning. (1)


Note that this doesn't say All C's begin to exist. Begin (by itself) can be rephrased as anything with a first moment in space time or anything that can be concieved as having an edge. In order for begin to exist to mean the same thing as begin you would have to say that everything that has being, has being in and only in space-time, which I don't agree with. For now, I won't deny this premise concerning the cause of space-time although I could deny it . If you want to, you can say that God has a relationship to the first moment at the edge of space-time but as soon as you change this to C begins to exist I will deny it as I don't believe the cause of space-time begins to exist. Rememeber when you hold this premise you believe the number seven has a first moment that it is exemplified, therefore the number seven begins.



P3) Everything that has a beginning has a cause.



I deny this. I believe that everything that begins to exist has a cause. You can say the sky begins where the ground ends (the horizon) but that doesn't mean the ground causes the sky or vice versa.




I have not read much Kant. If he is indeed saying that cause and effect are simultaneous then I disagree with him. Do you have a reference for your quote?

rossum

Critique of Pure Reason

Heres a translation of the section where I got the quote:

http://www.phil.pku.edu.cn/resguide/Kant/CPR/10.html

[rossum]

twohumble,
1. The universe is only billions of years old, not infinite, or near infinite. This eliminates all philosophical and religious systems that depend on infinite age. They plainly can have no basis in reality.
The observable universe is indeed about 14.5 billion years old. There remain other philosophical possibilities such as a multiverse of multiple universes or an oscillating universe, cyclical universe of which we are only able to observe only the expansion half of one cycle. You are being overly restrictive here.

2. The universe had a single beginning, where all space/time originated. This clearly shows that the Creator who brought it into existence is outside of and independent of the matter, energy, space and time dimensions of this universe.
How do you derive a creator? With an oscillating universe model the immediate precursor on the big bang is the big crunch at the end of the previous contraction cycle of the universe. With the multiverse model the cause of the big bang could be a collision between two other multiverses releasing the neccessary energy. Neither of these models are "independent of the matter, energy, space and time dimensions of this universe". Neither is one of the more common models used for such a proposed creator: "Let there be light" is not independent of the energy of this universe, or are you denying that light is a form of energy?

3. The universe, our galaxy, solar system, and ecosystem exhibit over 120 characteristics requiring fine tuning for their existence. The significance of this is demonstrated in the power, intelligence, creativity, and planning of a Being that must have a very personal nature.
Are you aware of the Anthropic Principle in its various forms? If the characteristics of this universe were such as not to support life, then we would not be here to observe that universe. Every universe that contains intelligent life must have the characteristics required to support intelligent life. This is ultimately observer bias - we can only observe a universe which is capable of supporting us. As to the separate question of how likely such a universe is, then one of the important terms in the calculation is the total number of universes that exist. Given some of the current multiverse theories then this number could be very large indeed. With a large enough number of different universes then it is not unlikley that ours can exist purely by chance.

I suggest that these variables will be made known and then your logical equation can be complete, and the paradox will be answered.
Until then I will continue to say that there is a paradox.

By the way, to wyatt you offered that the Cause did not exist prior to the effect. How do you support this claim?
Have a look at point 2.1 in my initial post #1 in this thread:
2.1 There is no cause without an effect. A cause cannot be a cause unless it has caused an effect. To be a cause without an effect is like being a parent while not having had any children. If a cause does not have any effect then it is not a cause since it has caused nothing. At most it may be a potential cause.

I don't quite get why something absolutely 'not' a concrete block, could not interact with concrete block, to build a house.
Of course someone can shift concrete blocks around to build a house. Once they have built the house they can call themselves a builder, but before they start building their first house they cannot be called a builder. The name of "builder" is dependent on having built something.

For example, an absolute is not dependent on time; it is the same at all times. An absolute Creator would have to say "Let there be light" on the first, second, third etc. day of creation. Such a Creator would be incapable of saying anything else.
You asked for clarification. Something that is absolute does not depend on anything else. Something that is "absolutely good" is good in all times and in all circumstances. We only have to look at the thing itself, we do not have to look at anything else to determine if it is good or not. Something absolute is independent of anything else. My first sentence says that any absolute is independent of time. Taking God as an example, God is "the rock of ages", God does not change with time but remains constant. This is the same for all absolutes, since they do not depend on anything else they do not depend on time in particular.

Something that does not depend on time is independent of time and so we do not need to know what time it is in order to determine the properties of the absolute. I am not absolute so in order to know what I am like you also need to know what time it is - I was different one day after being born from myself fifty years after being born. With an absolute God we do not need to know what the time is, God is the same at all times so the time is not relavant.

This is what gives the paradox between the Eternal (independent of time) and the Creator (not independent of time). On day one the Cteator says "Let there be light" on day two the Creator says "Let there be a firmament...". If we want to know what the Creator is saying then we need to know what day it is. The Creator is not independent of time.

If the Creator was absolute, and hence independent of time, then the Creator would say the same thing at all times:

On the first day the Creator said "Let there be light."
On the second day the Creator said "Let there be light."
On the third day the Creator said "Let there be light."
On the fourth day the Creator said "Let there be light."
On the fifth day the Creator said "Let there be light."
etc.

An unchanging Creator, like any unchanging cause, has this machine-gun property of continuously causing its effects.

what if, as scripture says
Scripture says no such thing, or do you have a relevant quote from the Vajrachhedika Prajnaparamita sutra? Have a look at the wheel symbol at the top of my post. To me scripture is the Majjhima Nikaya, the Saddharma Pundarika, the Vimalakirti Nirdesa etc. A discussion the relative value of various scriptures would take this thread too far off topic. For the moment we are going to have to work within philosophical logic.

If we operate under the assumption that to "always exist, without beginning and without end" is eterna
I tend to define it as "X is eternal if and only if there is no time at which X does not exist."

why would He[God] be kept from creating? What contradiction is inherent in this?
For my argument have a look at my opening post #1 in this thread:
1 The Eternal exists at all times. There is no time when the Eternal does not exist.
2 There was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist.
3 Therefore there was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist and the Eternal did exist.
4 Something cannot both exist and not exist at the same time.
5 Therefore the Eternal and the Creator cannot be the same thing. In other words God cannot both be eternal and the creator of all else that exists.


rossum

[twohumble]

twohumble,

The observable universe is indeed about 14.5 billion years old. There remain other philosophical possibilities such as a multiverse of multiple universes or an oscillating universe, cyclical universe of which we are only able to observe only the expansion half of one cycle. You are being overly restrictive here.
No, I don't think I am. The oscillating universe is outdated and no serious astrophysicist gives it any credence since all scientific evidence points against any ability to 'rebound'. The multiverse is pure philosophy, with NO science attached to it. Its the classic gamblers fallicy. If there is any other universe, we shall never know, since is dimensions could never cross ours. No serious scientist gives more than passing philisophical time to the idea of a multiverse (makes great stories for the movie screen though). In essence, you are right, there is only "philosophical possibilities" that exist, and no data supports any of them except the singularity known as the Big Bang. In fact, with each year, the evidence for this gets stronger and stronger. The COBE satallites have done wonders to rule out your other "possiblities". One must remember that almost anything is possible. Being PROBABLE is a whole other matter.

How do you derive a creator? With an oscillating universe model the immediate precursor on the big bang is the big crunch at the end of the previous contraction cycle of the universe. With the multiverse model the cause of the big bang could be a collision between two other multiverses releasing the neccessary energy. Neither of these models are "independent of the matter, energy, space and time dimensions of this universe". Neither is one of the more common models used for such a proposed creator: "Let there be light" is not independent of the energy of this universe, or are you denying that light is a form of energy?
See above. The oscillating universe is hogwash, and has no basis in reality what so ever. In any event, when you slice this pie, matter and energy began, and thus had a cause, and the cause is independent. If you chose to rely on philsophical or theoretical improbability to argue, then there is not much I can say. The various universe models you have offered are not seriously considered by any rational scientist. For the Creator to bring something new, as scripture says (OT scripture clearly uses a term for the creation event that means to bring something entirely new, never before created), for this to be so, God must be independent of His creation. All scientific evidence supports this.


Are you aware of the Anthropic Principle in its various forms? If the characteristics of this universe were such as not to support life, then we would not be here to observe that universe. Every universe that contains intelligent life must have the characteristics required to support intelligent life. This is ultimately observer bias - we can only observe a universe which is capable of supporting us. As to the separate question of how likely such a universe is, then one of the important terms in the calculation is the total number of universes that exist. Given some of the current multiverse theories then this number could be very large indeed. With a large enough number of different universes then it is not unlikley that ours can exist purely by chance.
Oh boy Rossum am I ever familiar with the various forms of the Anth Principle. Especially the last one. Are you familiar with "C.R.A.P."? It stands for 'Completely Ridiculous Anthropic Principle'. You still cling to the multiple universe thought, which is a classic gamblers fallicy. Just plainly absurd.


Until then I will continue to say that there is a paradox.
We can agree here. It is a paradox, and not a contradiction. The term itself tells us of a logical solution awaiting more data.

More on the rest of your post as time permits.

[rossum]

wwatts,

rossum: P1) Prior to T1 C did not exist.

wwatts: I deny this concerning the cause of space-time as there is no temporal prior concerning space time.
If there is no temporal prior to space-time then space time is eternal. There is no time at which space-time does not exist, which is the definition of eternal. Something eternal exists whatever the value of time and with this assumption space-time meets this criterion.

Whatever is eternal does not require a cause, if something exists for all time then it does not need a cause since it is already in existence. So if you want to assert this then space-time is excluded from our discussion of simultaneous cause and effect. If there is no cause and effect then simultaneous cause and effect is moot.

God
How do you define God? In terms of my post #1 in this thread is God "the Eternal" or "the Creator"?
I shall use "Eternal" to mean god in the statement "God is eternal" and "Creator" to mean God in the statement "God is the creator of all else that exists." ... We cannot assume that these two are the same God since the basis of my argument is to show that they cannot be the same.

rossum: P3) Everything that has a beginning has a cause.

wwatts: I deny this. I believe that everything that begins to exist has a cause. You can say the sky begins where the ground ends (the horizon) but that doesn't mean the ground causes the sky or vice versa.
In this context I meant the word "begin" to imply time so any edge has to be an edge in the time dimension. It would have been better to phrase it as "P3) Everything that has a beginning in time has a cause." Thanks for the correction.

Thanks also for the Kant link. Now I just have to find time to read it.


rossum

[twohumble]

Quote:
Originally Posted by twohumble




what if, as scripture says

Posted by Rossum
Scripture says no such thing, or do you have a relevant quote from the Vajrachhedika Prajnaparamita sutra? Have a look at the wheel symbol at the top of my post. To me scripture is the Majjhima Nikaya, the Saddharma Pundarika, the Vimalakirti Nirdesa etc. A discussion the relative value of various scriptures would take this thread too far off topic. For the moment we are going to have to work within philosophical logic.
I apologize for not being specific. The scripture I refer is the Bible. I assume, that all debates and discussions on Tweb lead to one goal, and thats to find the 'One Truth'. In the end, what is knowable is based in where the evidence leads us. Belief or philosophical discussions must ultimately have an end goal, and it seems that discussion whether the Creator is eternal directly relates to a Buddhist vs. Judeo/Christian view, and hence it does seem relevent.

In addition, my quote in context is as follows:
what if, as scripture says, time does not flow in one direction for God, but in fact, His access to different time dimensions actually gives him access to time before and time forward, as if it were now? A multidirectional flow of time, so to speak.
Scripture (the Bible) does in fact clearly say this in many ways. The end is as the beginning for God, and many other such paraphrases are examples of how the Bible makes this claim. God knows the beginning from the end, and Christs dies even now for the sins of those not even born. There is clearly a multidimensional aspect to these kind of statements that give evidence for God existing simultaneously in the past, present and future. Only by a bidirectional flow of time can we explain this, hence the reason for my claim that "scripture says"....and so on.

Buddhist philosophy depends on an oscillating or eternal universe from the standpoint of its "reincarnation" and other beliefs. The operative definition of eternal being "always was and always will be". For this philosophy, your original claim is understandable, since no 'cause' is independent of this universe, but intricately tied to it. I think this is where some of our differences lie. Does this make sense?

[rossum]

twohumble,

If there is any other universe, we shall never know, since is dimensions could never cross ours.I would suggest "The Fabric of Reality" by David Deutsch. He explains the problem of how a stream of single photons fired in sequence through a slit can produce a diffraction pattern in terms of parallel universes. Where there are observable effects there can be scientific knowledge. I agree with you that the oscillating universe is not looking good at the moment, we would need to find a great deal more mass in the universe for that theory to be viable.

matter and energy began, and thus had a cause
Since space, time and energy all began in the Big Bang there is no time when space and energy do not exist. Both exist for all of time. They are therefore, in strict terms of the deinition, eternal. There is no "before" so they all have no beginning. Something that exists for all time and has no beginning does not require a cause. Matter did not begin in the Big Bang but condensed out later when things had cooled down somewhat. Since matter and energy are interconvertible this is not particularly significant.

I assume, that all debates and discussions on Tweb lead to one goal, and thats to find the 'One Truth'.
Have a look at my sig below.

His access to different time dimensions
Access to different dimensionns, possibly. How do you intend to show that these dimensions can be described as "time". As earlier in this thread, I prefer to use a name like "faarn" for these different dimensions. That way we are less likely to make false assumptions about them. "Time" carries a great deal of baggage with it and there is no evidence to show that any proposed extra dimensions are necessarily time-like.

Buddhist philosophy depends on an oscillating or eternal universe
Not quite right.
The religious life, Malunkyaputta, does not depend on the dogma that the universe is eternal, nor does it depend on the dogma that the universe is not eternal
Buddhist reincarnation includes reincarnation in the various heavens and hells so it is not tied to the eternality or not of the material universe. If the material universe does not exist then all living things will be in one of the immaterial heavens or hells.


rossum

[rossum]

wwatts,

Thankyou again for the reference to Kant, a very interesting read.

But in the moment in which the effect first comes to be, it is invariably simultaneous with the causality of its cause.
Here is where I disagree with Kant. Rather than two things: cause and effect, we now have three things: cause, causality of the cause and effect. If the cause is really a cause, then why do we need the extra element of causality? If the cause is actually not a cause then how can it have causality? If the causality works on its own then we do not need to have the supposed cause. This is a needless proliferation of elements.

Also I disagree with his calling the initial thing a "cause" when the effect has not yet arisen. It might be a "potential cause" or a "cause-in-waiting" but until it has actually caused something then it cannot be called a cause. This introduces a subsiduary problem as to what else triggered the change from "cause-in-waiting" to "cause". without some sort of trigger there is nothing to stop the cause being effective earlier.


rossum

[mattbballman19]

rossum,

This is in response to the opening post.

Are you aware of A and B theories of time? It seems your first premise begs the question of the B theory of time being true. When ‘eternal’ is understood under a dynamic (A theory) rubric, your concerns in premise 3 disappear. Maybe not, so I’ll just wait for what’ll be said. Moreover, God not being Creator at a particular time might not count against His eternality at all. It could be said that God’s eternality applies only to those attributes essentially had by Him. Since ‘creator’ is an attribute had contingently – he could have chosen not to create – being ‘creator’ doesn’t affect God’s eternality. I’m speculating out loud, so to speak, so I’m prepared for criticism.

1 The Eternal exists at all times. There is no time when the Eternal does not exist.

These 'times' - particular segments being temporally indexed - are finite and inexorably progressing under an A theory of time.

1.1 This is basically a tautology. Anything eternal exists for all past time, the present and all future time. That is what eternal means.

In the Bible, 'eternal', when applied to God, ought to be understood as God exists without a beginning or an end (Craig). If God is temporal - He is in time - then God's eternality should be understood within an A theory of time; this doesn't sit well with 'anything eternal exists for all past time, the present and all future time.' However, if independent argument is given to establish a B theory of time and/or God's timelessness - He is outside of time - then the definition will have some warrant. Until then, things are still up for grabs.

2 There was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist.

This is kind of tricky. The Being soon to be the Creator and thus acquire the contingent property of 'creator' didn't exist. It may be preferable to say the property, rather than the being, didn't exist.

mattd

[twohumble]

Mattb
Interesting points, but I think God has the intrinsic properties of Creator, before the event of the Big Bang. The bible talks about the simultaneous aspect of time to God, and the term Craig (william lane) uses to describe God is 'omnitemporal', as a reflection of His presence in multiple dimensions of time, and being in control of all of them.

I would like to set some definitions up for background of an analogy.

a. Line- infinite, no beginning no end
b. Line segment- has a beginning and end.
c. Ray- Has a beginning and no end

Now back to my analogy. Picture a horizontal segment that is intersected by a perpendicular line. Now picture an indefinite number of perpendicular lines intersecting with the horizontal segment. The horizontal segment represents our segment of time. We had a beginning, and we will have an end. Now if God can transverse the perpendiculars at will (omnitemporal) and even control time dimensions outside of and beyond our segment, then His property of Creator is also eternal, considering that His control of time dimensions is infinite. In other words, our time segment is not the end or beginning of the other dimensions of time, and is quite independent of them.

Physicists refer as this time as "imaginary" time, and in this senario, God is omnitemporal. This is Craigs definition of God as he relates to time. I personally prefer atemporal, for various reasons.

I was priveledged to hear Craig speak on this at Cambridge in England 2 summers ago, along with Peter Kreft and Sir John Polkinghorn, amoung others. Most interesting of the group were Dr David Block and astrophysicist, and Dr. Hugh Ross astrophysicist. I will try to look up their papers on this and post relevant quotes.

[mattbballman19]

twohumble,

Interesting points, but I think God has the intrinsic properties of Creator, before the event of the Big Bang.

Have you read Thomas Morris' book 'Anselmian Explorations'? Generally, it explains God's attributes in terms of God being the greatest possible being. In doing this, it ends up getting into explanations of necessary and contingent properties of God - properties that apply to God during, before, or after creation in particular or enduring through any change in general. It's very interesting. Philosopher Shandon L. Guthrie quotes Morris in saying the following: "Immutability is defined by Notre Dame Professor of Philosophy Thomas V. Morris as "a property which is both enduring and immemorial" (Morris, Anselmian Explorations, p. 77)" From this, Guthrie infers that a being is immutable if and only if it is impossible that that being 'ceases' to have a property or that that being 'gains' or 'begins to have' a property at a time. Thus, against the idea that being a Creator is an essential or necessary or intrinsic property, Guthrie would retort (in light of the inference made above) that, "if creating is a necessary property then, necessarily, whatever exists eternally with the potential to create must, necessarily, be co-eternal with its creation. And this is just simply false if not incomprehensible."

The bible talks about the simultaneous aspect of time to God, and the term Craig (william lane) uses to describe God is 'omnitemporal', as a reflection of His presence in multiple dimensions of time, and being in control of all of them.

Craigs defines omnitemporality thusly: "Given His permanent, beginningless and endless existence, God must be omnitemporal; that is to say, He exists at every moment of time there ever is." Craig stresses that he doesn't mean God exists at every moment of time at the same time, which he admits doesn't make sense. But, "I mean that if God is omnitemporal, He existed at every past moment, he exists at the present moment, and He will exist at every future moment." This is compatible with an A theory of time, which describes time as progressing into an, as yet, non-existent (metaphysically speaking) future. I could, if needed, delve into an argument favoring this interpretation. My aim was merely to point out to you that you presuppose a B theory of time to be correct. For this is what it relies on, it seems.

The question is, does the Bible support God being timeless or omnitemporal? One can note that Biblical passages of God acting in time and when speaking of God's eternity it is spoken in terms of "beginingless and endlesss temporal duration" (Craig) - Ps. 90:2; Rev. 4:8. In the end, however, Craig concedes that just using the Bible is insufficient for fully discovering or formulating or discussing the nuances of God's eternity, and that philosophical theology would be a better route.

Can you give a verse that agrees with this idea of a 'simultaneous aspect of time to God'? Hebrews 1: 10-12 is a good summary of God's eternity; but all this implies is that God exists 'with no beginning or end' (Craig). However, "the question is the nature of divine eternity" (Criag). This question hinges on whether God is timeless or temporal.

I would like to set some definitions up for background of an analogy.

a. Line- infinite, no beginning no end
b. Line segment- has a beginning and end.
c. Ray- Has a beginning and no end

Now back to my analogy. Picture a horizontal segment that is intersected by a perpendicular line. Now picture an indefinite number of perpendicular lines intersecting with the horizontal segment. The horizontal segment represents our segment of time. We had a beginning, and we will have an end. Now if God can transverse the perpendiculars at will (omnitemporal) and even control time dimensions outside of and beyond our segment, then His property of Creator is also eternal, considering that His control of time dimensions is infinite.

First, I have problems with this model. First, it is Newtonian, and, thus, invites the same criticisms that were made against the Newtonian model. The Newtonian model, as you probably know, made a distinction between absolute and relative time. God exists in absolute time from eternity past. When God creates our world, relative time is born, which is time constitued by "physical measures" (Craig). It seems your model implies God's pre-existence before creation for an infinite amount of time in a sort of 'hypertime' or transcendent dimension of some sort. And so here's the famous objection, which you're probably familiar with: Why would God delay for an infinite amount of time before deciding to create the universe? The very concept of an infinite amount of time doesn't make conceptual or metaphysical sense to me. This gets muddy quickly, so I'll wait for specific questions.

I was priveledged to hear Craig speak on this at Cambridge in England 2 summers ago, along with Peter Kreft and Sir John Polkinghorn, amoung others. Most interesting of the group were Dr David Block and astrophysicist, and Dr. Hugh Ross astrophysicist. I will try to look up their papers on this and post relevant quotes.

Most interesting. I envy you're experiences! I anticipate reading those quotes, so good luck finding them.

mattd

[twohumble]

twohumble,

Interesting points, but I think God has the intrinsic properties of Creator, before the event of the Big Bang.

I do not disagree in principle, however this assumes time flows for God as it does for us. In otherwords, there is no "before" what I read from scripture is a sense of the atemperal, that to God the beginning is the same as the end, and there is no 'passage of time' as we know it, therefore there is really no 'before' to God. All things are simultaneous in 'hypertime'.
In this line of thought, God does not have a 'waiting period' so to speak.


[quote]
Craigs defines omnitemporality thusly: "Given His permanent, beginningless and endless existence, God must be omnitemporal; that is to say, He exists at every moment of time there ever is." Craig stresses that he doesn't mean God exists at every moment of time at the same time, which he admits doesn't make sense. But, "I mean that if God is omnitemporal, He existed at every past moment, he exists at the present moment, and He will exist at every future moment." This is compatible with an A theory of time, which describes time as progressing into an, as yet, non-existent (metaphysically speaking) future. I could, if needed, delve into an argument favoring this interpretation. My aim was merely to point out to you that you presuppose a B theory of time to be correct. For this is what it relies on, it seems.
I agree this is exactly how Craig states it. I really don't agree that God is 'omnitemporal' from the point that God exists 'in time' at all. I define Him as atemporal, from the standpoint of His immutability. To suggest, as Craig does, that God is mutable in regard to His relationships, but not His nature, begs too many other questions. I find it more likely that God is atemporal. I could expound further, but its a bit afield from this thread, and too cumbersome for my fingers.


The question is, does the Bible support God being timeless or omnitemporal? One can note that Biblical passages of God acting in time and when speaking of God's eternity it is spoken in terms of "beginingless and endlesss temporal duration" (Craig) - Ps. 90:2; Rev. 4:8. In the end, however, Craig concedes that just using the Bible is insufficient for fully discovering or formulating or discussing the nuances of God's eternity, and that philosophical theology would be a better route.
I fully agree with him on this.


Can you give a verse that agrees with this idea of a 'simultaneous aspect of time to God'? Hebrews 1: 10-12 is a good summary of God's eternity; but all this implies is that God exists 'with no beginning or end' (Craig). However, "the question is the nature of divine eternity" (Criag). This question hinges on whether God is timeless or temporal.
Not off the top of my head I cannot, but I agree with the prior premise that scripture needs to be augmented by philsophical theology in this area.



First, I have problems with this model. First, it is Newtonian, and, thus, invites the same criticisms that were made against the Newtonian model. The Newtonian model, as you probably know, made a distinction between absolute and relative time. God exists in absolute time from eternity past. When God creates our world, relative time is born, which is time constitued by "physical measures" (Craig). It seems your model implies God's pre-existence before creation for an infinite amount of time in a sort of 'hypertime' or transcendent dimension of some sort. And so here's the famous objection, which you're probably familiar with: Why would God delay for an infinite amount of time before deciding to create the universe? The very concept of an infinite amount of time doesn't make conceptual or metaphysical sense to me. This gets muddy quickly, so I'll wait for specific questions.

Craig's theory of God as omnitemporal, is self-admittedly, dependent on a Lorentzian view of physics being correct. Dr's Block and Ross both discussed this with Craig at the conference on time in Oxford and Cambridge and both emphatically disagreed with Craig on whether Lorentzian physics would prove Craigs theories to be correct. In fact, Ross pointed out to him that the latest studies of Quasars refuted much of Lorentzian theory, and put a big hole in Craigs ideas as well. I respect Craig immensely, and find him brilliant, but he stated that he has worked 5 years developing his philosophical theory of God as 'omnitemporal', and much of it hinges on the lorentz physics.


Most interesting. I envy you're experiences! I anticipate reading those quotes, so good luck finding them.
Yes, I really enjoyed it. I loaned my book with the papers and outlines to a friend, and need to retrieve it to have all the stuff on hand. I do have audio tapes of the plenary sessions. and individual sessions. It was great. Where do you go to school?

[mattbballman19]

I think you confused my bold quote of your thought to be my thought.

I agree this is exactly how Craig states it. I really don't agree that God is 'omnitemporal' from the point that God exists 'in time' at all. I define Him as atemporal, from the standpoint of His immutability. To suggest, as Craig does, that God is mutable in regard to His relationships, but not His nature, begs too many other questions. I find it more likely that God is atemporal. I could expound further, but its a bit afield from this thread, and too cumbersome for my fingers.

What is your understanding of immutability? My understanding allows God to be immutable and yet remain in time. Briefly, I see God's immutability as a lack of any intrinsic change in God's nature, which allows extrinsic change occuring as God experiences time. It's more nuanced than this, so if you want me to go deeper, I will. I see you're somewhat familiar with this; what questions do you think are begged? You're right that this could get long and complicated quickly, so I'll just let you take it as far as you want.

Craig's theory of God as omnitemporal, is self-admittedly, dependent on a Lorentzian view of physics being correct. Dr's Block and Ross both discussed this with Craig at the conference on time in Oxford and Cambridge and both emphatically disagreed with Craig on whether Lorentzian physics would prove Craigs theories to be correct. In fact, Ross pointed out to him that the latest studies of Quasars refuted much of Lorentzian theory, and put a big hole in Craigs ideas as well. I respect Craig immensely, and find him brilliant, but he stated that he has worked 5 years developing his philosophical theory of God as 'omnitemporal', and much of it hinges on the lorentz physics.

Interesting. If you could get those specific objections, I'd like that. Was Craig actually speechless?

Yes, I really enjoyed it. I loaned my book with the papers and outlines to a friend, and need to retrieve it to have all the stuff on hand. I do have audio tapes of the plenary sessions. and individual sessions. It was great. Where do you go to school?

Right now I go to a technical college. I went to a Bible college a year and a half ago and it ended up being too much money; also, the college didn't have a major I liked. Conveniently, the local university (Coastal Carolina University) has a philosophy major! But all my classes from Bible college transfered over to the University as electives. It was exasperating. I am, however, trudging through the semesters, finishing my core classes, this next semester being my last. The semester after next is when I finally get to work on my philosophy major. So, I should be graduating a year and half after my senior year. Where do you go?

mattd

[twohumble]

What is your understanding of immutability? My understanding allows God to be immutable and yet remain in time. Briefly, I see God's immutability as a lack of any intrinsic change in God's nature, which allows extrinsic change occuring as God experiences time.
Extrinsic changes really get touchy, and in fact, the incarnation of Christ presents a huge challenge, regarding the immutable 'intrinsic' nature. If God is atemporal, and transcendent over time, then he is simultaneously in the past, present and future. This allows Him to be in the incarnate state before the foundation of the world, and hence no intrinsic, or extrinsic change. The relationship issue is another 'extrinsic' change that can and must seem to create some intrinsic changes. Again, God as atemporal avoids this issue. I believe this is where Rossums argument fails. These are just 2 examples of the questions I think the 'omnitemporal' theory must answer.






Was Craig actually speechless?
No, of course not....very prolific speaker and never at a lose for words.

Right now I go to a technical college. I went to a Bible college a year and a half ago and it ended up being too much money; also, the college didn't have a major I liked. Conveniently, the local university (Coastal Carolina University) has a philosophy major! But all my classes from Bible college transfered over to the University as electives. It was exasperating. I am, however, trudging through the semesters, finishing my core classes, this next semester being my last. The semester after next is when I finally get to work on my philosophy major. So, I should be graduating a year and half after my senior year. Where do you go?

mattd
Thank you Matt, wish I were still that young. I am a physician in florida, and been out of school for quite awhile now.

The conference was held at Oxford and moved to Cambridge for the second half. It was entitled "Time and Eternity", and all the big wigs were there at one point or another. The panel discussion between all the plenary speakers ended the confernece, and Craigs 'omnitemporal' theory was the most discussed. No one really 'sided' with him on it, including Peter Kreft from Boston College, Polkinghorn, Block, Ross, and the others. This did not detour Craig, and it was very fun to watch. They were all very cordial and are all very good friends, so there was some light-hearted ribbing going on.

[mattbballman19]

If God is atemporal, and transcendent over time, then he is simultaneously in the past, present and future.

Yes, this would be the B theory here: a view I have difficulties with.

This allows Him to be in the incarnate state before the foundation of the world, and hence no intrinsic, or extrinsic change.

I don't get this. The incarnation occurred at a certain time in a certain place within our material universe, yet, somehow, this state of affairs subsists or happened already - or in some nebulous sense of having happened. This is wierd, because the view seems to be speaking out of both sides of its metaphysical mouth. Either an event occurs at a time or it doesn't. If it did, then it doesn't seem to make sense to say that it occured before or after it's actual occurance; otherwise, we have the conundrum of explaining how an even can occur at two different times, which doesn't seem feasible.

No, of course not....very prolific speaker and never at a lose for words.

Do you remember, however vaugue or misty your recollections happen to be, what he said?


Thank you Matt, wish I were still that young. I am a physician in florida, and been out of school for quite awhile now.

Ok. Do you think about going back?

The conference was held at Oxford and moved to Cambridge for the second half. It was entitled "Time and Eternity", and all the big wigs were there at one point or another. The panel discussion between all the plenary speakers ended the confernece, and Craigs 'omnitemporal' theory was the most discussed. No one really 'sided' with him on it, including Peter Kreft from Boston College, Polkinghorn, Block, Ross, and the others. This did not detour Craig, and it was very fun to watch. They were all very cordial and are all very good friends, so there was some light-hearted ribbing going on.

Interesting. Do you know of any future conferences taking place in the US?

mattd

[twohumble]

If God is atemporal, and transcendent over time, then he is simultaneously in the past, present and future.

Yes, this would be the B theory here: a view I have difficulties with.

This allows Him to be in the incarnate state before the foundation of the world, and hence no intrinsic, or extrinsic change.

I don't get this. The incarnation occurred at a certain time in a certain place within our material universe, yet, somehow, this state of affairs subsists or happened already - or in some nebulous sense of having happened. This is wierd, because the view seems to be speaking out of both sides of its metaphysical mouth. Either an event occurs at a time or it doesn't. If it did, then it doesn't seem to make sense to say that it occured before or after it's actual occurance; otherwise, we have the conundrum of explaining how an even can occur at two different times, which doesn't seem feasible.
The paradox is found in passages which state, Christ is dies, even now, for our sins, and for our future sins. The issue of Christs continual sacrafice is the evidence of the simultanaity of past, present and future. Again, it is only our dimension of time that flows only forward. God traverses past and present as if it were the same. The preincarnate Christ wrestled with Abram in the OT remember.


Do you remember, however vaugue or misty your recollections happen to be, what he said?
You laid out his idea of God as "omnitemporal" very well. He didn't say much more than this. The other speakers just voiced issue with the 'relationalship' change, as it relates to Gods immutability and how the temporal incarnation would be a much greater change in nature than could be explained. This was from Kreft primarily. The physicists disagreed with the Lorenztian physics aspects of his model. Craig offered no real rebuttal, he politely disagreed, but each plenary speaker got to give their 'view', it was not really a debate, so to speak.


Thank you Matt, wish I were still that young. I am a physician in florida, and been out of school for quite awhile now.

Ok. Do you think about going back?

The conference was held at Oxford and moved to Cambridge for the second half. It was entitled "Time and Eternity", and all the big wigs were there at one point or another. The panel discussion between all the plenary speakers ended the confernece, and Craigs 'omnitemporal' theory was the most discussed. No one really 'sided' with him on it, including Peter Kreft from Boston College, Polkinghorn, Block, Ross, and the others. This did not detour Craig, and it was very fun to watch. They were all very cordial and are all very good friends, so there was some light-hearted ribbing going on.

Interesting. Do you know of any future conferences taking place in the US?

mattd
I am doing an apologitics certification now for ministry purposes. Mainly in science and the Bible.

The CS Lewis Institute puts conferences on regularly. There was one in North Carolina this summer. Look up the CS Lewis Institute, and they should have a schedule of conferences. They always get great speakers.

[mattbballman19]

The paradox is found in passages which state, Christ is dies, even now, for our sins, and for our future sins. The issue of Christs continual sacrafice is the evidence of the simultanaity of past, present and future.

I don't see this as necessary. An A-theorist could hold that Christ's sacrafice covers the sins that gradually unfold as time progresses. Here, simultanaity is bypassed and an unfolding or gradually growing path of time is in it's place. Let me pause now and see if I understand your view. Are you saying that the event of Christ dying on the cross lies on sort of a boundry between our time and, say, meta or hypertime? This location allows the event to be applicable to the past, present, and future. Is that right? I don't think I see it like this. I see it like the following: the proposition 'Christ will die at 33 AD (roughly)' is true before 33 AD; the proposition 'Christ dies at 33 AD' as always true; the proposition 'Christ died at 33 AD' as true after 33 AD; the proposition 'Christ died today' as true only on that day. The proposition that's always true allows the possibility of universal application of Christ's sacrafice, which isn't time-bound, since truth isn't bound by time. Since this proposition is true, it's truth and the truth's necessary ramifications (the sins of all being able to be forgiven given the free choice of an agent) become activated. This being the case, simultanaity disappears, since universal truths are timeless. This universal truth is compatible with an A theory of time where the universal truth constantly acts on sins in agreement with the gradual progression of time's unfolding. I guess, then, it's not enough to say there are timeless truths, whatever form they may take, but, again, whether an A or B theory of time is correct.


Again, it is only our dimension of time that flows only forward. God traverses past and present as if it were the same. The preincarnate Christ wrestled with Abram in the OT remember.

I don't know what is meant by 'our' dimension; I don't see how there can be two. Does this go back to your illustration involving the vertical and horizontal lines and the representations therein? Also, where is the passage that describes Abram wrestling with God?

The CS Lewis Institute puts conferences on regularly. There was one in North Carolina this summer. Look up the CS Lewis Institute, and they should have a schedule of conferences. They always get great speakers.

I'll look into it.

mattd

[braden]

My argument is intended to show that the two statements "God is eternal," and "God is the creator of all else that exists," are inconsistent and cannot both be true.

I shall use "Eternal" to mean the God in the statement "God is eternal," and "Creator" to mean the God in the statement "God is the creator of all else that exists." In this sense, "Creator" is synonymous with "Causer", and "created" is synonymous with "effect". We cannot assume that these two are the same God, since the basis of my argument is to show that they cannot be the same.

In essence the argument runs:

1 The Eternal exists at all times. There is no time when the Eternal does not exist.

2 There was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist.

3 Therefore there was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist and the Eternal did exist.

4 Something cannot both exist and not exist at the same time.

5 Therefore the Eternal and the Creator cannot be the same thing. In other words God cannot both be eternal and be the creator of all else that exists.


Detailed arguments for these points follow.

1 The Eternal exists at all times. There is no time when the Eternal does not exist.

1.1 This is basically a tautology. Anything eternal exists for all past time, the present and all future time. That is what eternal means.


2 There was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist.

2.1 There is no cause without an effect. A cause cannot be a cause unless it has an effect. To be a cause without an effect is like being a parent while not having had any children. If a cause does not have an effect then it is not a cause, since it has caused nothing. At most it may be a potential cause.

2.2 By 2.1 above, for the Creator to exist it is necessary for at least one effect to exist, since without an effect the Creator cannot be a cause, which is a contradiction. This would be like a childless parent, or a sibling with no brothers or sisters, and so not exist.

2.3 From 2.2 we have at least one effect needed for the Creator. We will look at the first such effect to happen; if multiple first effects occur at the same time then we can select any one of them. No other effect happened before it. This first effect can be either eternal or not.

2.3.1 If the first effect specified in 2.3 is eternal then it was not caused by the Creator since the effect has no start, and therefore no cause. The cause must come before the effect, and there is no "before" for something eternal. Therefore the Creator did not cause this particular effect and so this eternal effect does not establish the Creator's existence. We can eliminate this "effect" as not an effect, we made a mistake, and return to 2.3 to pick another first effect. We know that some effects are not eternal, a mayfly say, so we do not have an infinite loop here.

2.3.2 If the first effect in 2.3 is not eternal then that effect was caused by the Creator at some point in time. Before that point in time the first effect did not exist. Neither did any other relevant effect, since in 2.3 we have defined the effect we are looking at as the first effect.

2.4 By 2.3.1 and 2.3.2 the first effect can only establish the Creator if it is not eternal. Therefore by 2.1 there was a time, before the first effect, when the Creator did not exist. In the absence of any effect there cannot be a cause and we have established that there was indeed a time when there were no effects.

2.5 This meakes sense. If the Creator was eternal we would get something like "On the -2th day God said 'Fiat lux', and on the -1th day God said 'Fiat lux', and on the 0th day God said 'Fiat lux', and on the first day God said 'Fiat lux', and on the second day God said 'Fiat lux'" and so on. Eternal causes have this machine-gun-like property, continually producing their effects.


3 Therefore there was a time in the past when the Creator did not exist and the Eternal did exist.

3.1 This follows from 1 and 2.


4 Something cannot both exist and not exist at the same time.

4.1 This is a basic law of logic, the law of the excluded middle.


5 Therefore the Eternal and the Creator cannot be the same thing. In other words God cannot both be eternal and be the creator of all else that exists.

5.1 By 3 and 4 the Eternal and the Creator are not the same thing. We can say that the two statements "God is eternal" and "God is the creator of all else that exists" are not consistent with each other.

5.2 This is not a new observation. The Gnostics were aware of the problem and solved it by having more than one God; their version ran "God1 is eternal," and "God2 is the creator of all else that exists." Nagarjuna also uses the same argument against any eternal cause.


rossumAlthough I find myself very intrigued by your hypothisis... is it not possible for an eternal... all powerful God to make himself Creator as well?

[braden]

If there were no atheists... there would be a God... but there are atheists... therefore... it is possible that there is no God.

[braden]

The issue goes way beyond whether God is eternal... The REAL issue is whether He exists. It is quite convenient to say that if He exists... He must be eternal... otherwise He would not be worthy of our honor and praise.
If God exists... he has to be eternal or his existance is useless. This is because there would be something greater than God. Something greater than him... the bible says a student is not greater than the master.
But back to your point... it doesn't hold because it is possible for God to be both God and Creator. The contrast has nothing to do with time but with the two roles. Time is the secondary factor.
However the burden is whether he exists as the bible points him out.
If God is All knowing... all powerful... and everywhere... then why did he see his initial creation as good and a few hundred years later... see it as bad and destroy all of it except a drunk and his family.
If God offers us free will... then why does he destroy them when they turn away from him. Is this free will?
Is it really FREE WILL to say follow me or I will destroy you! It's your choice!
This makes the God of the bible contradictory to his own laws.

[twohumble]

If there were no atheists... there would be a God... but there are atheists... therefore... it is possible that there is no God.
Not quite sure I follow your logic here: If there was no body saying "they didn't believe in Africa"...there would be an Africa....but, there are people saying they don't believe in Africa (its a myth),....therefore....its possible there is no Africa? Is this how it goes?
Now, I am not a logic major, but am I missing something here?

[braden]

What I was trying to do was follow the logic of the BRILLIANT quote that states,
"if there were no God ... there would be no athiests..."
That is just as insane as my statement.
Trying to prove God exists by proving he has an enemy trying to prove he doesn't exist?
That's an ignorant statement.
The atheist saying there is no God does not justify that there is any more than God's existence makes the atheist.
As for your statement... you're assuming God is as real and tangible as Africa.
Obviously you are not a logic major or your comparison between GOD and AFRICA would be obviously flawed to you as well.

[twohumble]

What I was trying to do was follow the logic of the BRILLIANT quote that states,
"if there were no God ... there would be no athiests..."
That is just as insane as my statement.
Trying to prove God exists by proving he has an enemy trying to prove he doesn't exist?
That's an ignorant statement.
The atheist saying there is no God does not justify that there is any more than God's existence makes the atheist.
As for your statement... you're assuming God is as real and tangible as Africa.
Obviously you are not a logic major or your comparison between GOD and AFRICA would be obviously flawed to you as well.
Braden, as Seinfeld says, lets keep "tone" out of it.
The quote to which you refer does make perfect sense, once you consider the fact that if there was no God, there would be no meaning, all life would be senseless, hence the term "atheist" would also have no meaning.

I think this is where the poster was going with that statement.

Another way to look at it is: if there were no Africa, then, there would be no Africa unbelievers. The term is meaninless if Africa does not exist. Everyone would be an "africa unbeliever" hence no term is needed.

[braden]

Braden, as Seinfeld says, lets keep "tone" out of it.
The quote to which you refer does make perfect sense, once you consider the fact that if there was no God, there would be no meaning, all life would be senseless, hence the term "atheist" would also have no meaning.

I think this is where the poster was going with that statement.

Another way to look at it is: if there were no Africa, then, there would be no Africa unbelievers. The term is meaninless if Africa does not exist. Everyone would be an "africa unbeliever" hence no term is needed.

Please excuse my previous sarcasms.
Actually, I still believe my point stands to reason. Again, an assumption is made. Without God... life is meaningless and senseless. This may be true to the believer. But if one does not believe in God, then there is an assumption that that person goes through life with no hope for anything.
I know... my father was a preacher and I was preacher for 12 years.
This is what we were taught to believe.
I have found it isn't true.
Not everyone who doesn't believe is "lost" or "frustrated" or "hopeless" or a plethra of other adjectives.
Many live normal lives and their hope is to make this world a better life!
For them and their fellow man.

"Every one would be an Africa unbeliever."
This... in a way... still validates my point!
If there was no God... everyone would be athiest. They may not be called that... the term may be changed but the world would be full of them.

[Benster]

This is such 19th century thinking. Not everything has to have a cause, whether it be the universe or God.

[twohumble]

Please excuse my previous sarcasms.
Actually, I still believe my point stands to reason. Again, an assumption is made. Without God... life is meaningless and senseless. This may be true to the believer. But if one does not believe in God, then there is an assumption that that person goes through life with no hope for anything.
I know... my father was a preacher and I was preacher for 12 years.
This is what we were taught to believe.
I have found it isn't true.
Not everyone who doesn't believe is "lost" or "frustrated" or "hopeless" or a plethra of other adjectives.
Many live normal lives and their hope is to make this world a better life!
For them and their fellow man.

"Every one would be an Africa unbeliever."
This... in a way... still validates my point!
If there was no God... everyone would be athiest. They may not be called that... the term may be changed but the world would be full of them.
braden
The point that an existence devoid of a God or Creator being meaningless, is NOT just from the perspective of a believer. This is a well accepted idea in all philisophical circles, including atheism. The only meaning is temporary and transient, with NO eternal or long term significance. In the end, all is without meaning and random. There is no escaping the fact that if no Creator crafted our existence and gives us purpose, we are floating in a sea of random foam, with no ultimate purpose or no meaning. I don't disagree that there are atheists who have temporal contentment, and even happiness, but this does not negate the fact that in the end, they are dust, and meaningless random events on the screen of existence.
No God = no ultimate meaning, hence no real eternal hope for anything.

Benstar said:
This is such 19th century thinking. Not everything has to have a cause, whether it be the universe or God.

1. Please quote or refer to what you are referencing so we may all follow your line of reasoning.

2. By what 20th, or 21st century logic do you conclude that there are things that happen without a cause? Can you give an example?

[danielhilliard]

When we finite beings approach an infinite being with the concept of "time" (past, present and future), yes, there is always confusion among us all. Our minds cannot conceive of God having no beginning or end, especially when we see the many faces of death and its many miseries on a daily basis.

We cannot apply concept of "time" to God the same limited way we understand "time" to be.

God gives us a small window of insight into the truth that He sees the end of a thing before He ever creates or calls forth anything in the beginning that we can see.


[God said to the prophet Jeremiah] “Before I formed you in the womb [belly], I knew (H3045) [to ascertain by seeing, recognized] you” (Jeremiah 1:5).
[Jesus describing judgment] “Then the king will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundationG2602 [a deposition, that is, founding; figuratively conception:] of the world (Matthew 25:34).
[Jesus praying to God] “Father, I desire that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, in order that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me; for Thou didst love Me before the foundationG2602 of the world (John 17:24).
[Paul, to the church at Ephesus] …Just as [God] chose us in [Christ] before the foundationG2602 of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love (Ephesians 1:4).
…But with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For He was foreknown before the foundationG2602 of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you… (1 Peter 1:19-20).
And the most telling of all: As the Lamb of God, Jesus slain [for our Sins] before the foundationG2602 of the world (Revelations 13:8). (That’s before Sin ever entered the world.)
God is Spirit. A spirit is not natural to this physical world, that’s why we call spiritual things “super-natural”. Although we are spirits, too, we are not supernatural (until we are free from our bodies of flesh).

Therefore, our thoughtsH4284 [a contrivance, that is, (concretely) a texture, machine, or (abstractly) intention, plan (whether bad, a plot; or good, advice):] are not as supernatural as His thought and our waysH1870 [a road (as trodden); figuratively a course of life or mode of action, often adverbially:] are not as supernatural as His ways (Isaiah 55:8).

What is important to consider is that God knew or knows the ending to things before He creates or manifests them in this physical world.


God is Eternal, when eternal is compared to a physical world that had a beginning and will have an end.
God is Creator, since He created all things that are seen [with our natural eyes] and things we cannot see (spiritual things).
Face it. Apart from this physical world or the physical realm, we know and understand very little. Actually, we know and understand very little about most things in this physical world, too.

[Philosopher8659]

You have made so many errors in reason here it would exceed the limit of this box to explain them all. So I will be concise and prove the overall fallacy of your statement.

The fallacy of your entire argument derives from the fact that you don't know the first thing about predication. The principles of language not only proves that God is eternal but also the creator of all things, and is thus all powerful. And it is all provable from the very foundation of the language you speek. Please see if you can keep up.

Disregarding the anthropomorphism of what people say God is or is not, God is defined in the Text as Truth.

Truth is the state of being true.
Two or more things are said to be true when by some coordinate system of measure, no difference is found between them.

Thing is defined as any difference what so ever in any form or boundary what so ever. Plato noted, and it is in the very first definition of the Elements by Euclid, that Form is not difference and difference is not form.
One can never assert difference to form. Difference is always between boundaries, it is never the boundary. One cannot predicate any difference of form--only in forms. Therefore it is eternal. It cannot change in time. One will note that non-difference means True.

Since the assertion of a boundary to any difference creates a thing, Truth is the cause of all that exists.

It is a simple play on grammatical facts. God is Eturnal, and God is the creator of everything.

Hello! What no Platonist here?

And a note to those who study physics: Since Time is measured as a standard of mass in motion over distance--can the whole of mass (the universe) be said to age as age is relative and not absolute? DUH.

[nahaz]

Rossum,

When you said, "I am using "create" as a synonym of "cause".", you forgot that being able to create something doesn't cause it to happen. I could be able to create an idea for something in my head and not act upon it. I would have to physically create something to create it. God could have created the image of our existance long before "causing" it to happen.

You also mentioned that time didn't exist before the universe was "caused" or created and therefore the creator couldnt have existed. You forgot that God created angels before creating the Universe as it exists.