Timeless creation ?

[pancreasman]

An eternally existing Cosmos has to have an eternal existence in which to exist.

You keep using this sentence as if it were meaningful. I don't think it is.

[JimL]

True, as I stated before. This would not be the reason for believing and the why? of believing or why? the nature of existence is as it is. Methodological Naturalism is just descriptive of the nature of existence as it is, and does not answer the question beyond that.

You mean that methodological naturalism doesn't answer to the universes origin. So why assume because of that, that it was created? This thread is about the assertion of timeless creation and its logic or lack thereof. If you believe that time is infinite and co-eternal with its creator then I have no dispute with you on the topic. The only dispute I would have with you is whether or not a God has anything to do with creation, which is not really the topic of the thread. If on the other hand you believe that creation takes place in a timeless realm, so to speak, then that is what we can discuss. If a time does not exist prior to the existence of any-thing, then that thing, whatever it be, is eternal. So my contention is that either the universe is eternal or time existed prior to its existence.

[Adrift]

The question is could God, if he so desired, have created a universe previously to the origin of our own universe 14 billion years ago if creation takes place in timelessness? Previously or before denotes time, so either an eternally existing creator had no choice but to create time 14 billion years ago or time itself is eternal and creation can take place at any time. If you say that God, if he wanted to, could have created a universe of time previously to the creation of our own, then that denotes the existence of time previous to our universe and that asserts that creation takes place in time, not in timelessness. At any rate I don't believe that your assertion is correct in that there is a consensus among physicists that time itself came into being when our universe came into being. The consensus is probably more like time became manifest for our universe when our universe came into being. Afterall, time only has meaning for existing things. Time didn't begin for you until you came into being either and so if our universe began 14 billion years ago, then time didn't exist for it either until it came into being, but just because time didn't exist for the non existent you, or the non-existent universe doesn't mean that time didn't exist at all.

JimL, I have read the words that you've written, and the point is the same one I replied to in your original post, so its not like I didn't see what you wrote before. What I'm telling you though is that you can eliminate words "God" from the equation right now, and still ask pretty much the same question, "can time exist before the universe began?" And again, the current widely held consensus (despite your protestations) seems to be that, no, time began to exist at the beginning of the universe. Coming straight from Stephen Hawkings' speech synthesizer,

Source: http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html

the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down. Nevertheless, the way the universe began would have been determined by the laws of physics, if the universe satisfied the no boundary condition. This says that in the imaginary time direction, space-time is finite in extent, but doesn't have any boundary or edge. The predictions of the no boundary proposal seem to agree with observation. The no boundary hypothesis also predicts that the universe will eventually collapse again. However, the contracting phase, will not have the opposite arrow of time, to the expanding phase. So we will keep on getting older, and we won't return to our youth. Because time is not going to go backwards

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By the way, I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but how you're wording your question, it almost sounds as though you think that God was sitting in some sort of black empty space...waiting for eons...and then bam! he created the universe. If so, that's not at all what most Christians mean by the word "timeless". Also, it isn't the case that the word "previously", or rather "prior" necassarily denotes time. Defenders of certain cosmological models make a distinction between something that is temporal prior and causally or ontologically prior. One has to do with time, the other (so they argue) has to do with causal directionality. Craig defines the difference like this,

Source: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-god-the-father-causally-prior-to-the-son

1. Causal priority has to do with what’s called causal directionality. That is to say, if A and B are causally related as cause and effect, is A the cause of B, or is B the cause of A? Temporal priority has to do with whether A is earlier than B. Notice that even if A and B exist or occur at the same time, so that there is no temporal priority of one to the other, the question of causal priority still makes sense. To borrow an illustration from Kant, a heavy ball’s resting on a cushion is the cause of a depression in the cushion, even if the ball has been resting on the cushion from eternity past. Some philosophers who believe that the future is as real as the past or present think that there can be cases where causal priority can actually run in the opposite direction of temporal priority: first the effect occurs and then later comes the cause, so that although A is causally prior to B, B is temporally prior to A! As for ontological priority, that would indicate that some being’s existence presupposes the existence of another being. I think that in this context it basically comes to the same thing as causal priority. (In another context, one might say, for example, that a substance or thing is ontologically prior to the thing’s properties.)

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But anyways, like I said, you don't really have to bring God into this yet. First of all you have to establish whether or not time existed prior to the Big Bang. The widely accepted Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems suggest it did not.

[37818]

Thats just an assertion, nor does it make sense. If that were true then God, by that definition, would need an eternal existence in which to live.

A God which is in need of an eternal existence to live is no God.

[37818]

You keep using this sentence as if it were meaningful. I don't think it is.

What do you see is the problem? I understand existence and a thing which exists are two different things.

[pancreasman]

What do you see is the problem? I understand existence and a thing which exists are two different things.

Yes you do and I have no idea why. For you 'existence' becomes another thing to exist.

[shunyadragon]

You mean that methodological naturalism doesn't answer to the universes origin.

No, that is not what I said. In fact this is a bit confusing. Our sciences are basically descriptive of the nature of our physical existence, and does not answer the questions of why? In my view science is simply descriptive of the how of Creation, which is a natural process.

So why assume because of that, that it was created?

I do not assume it is Created, I believe it is.

This thread is about the assertion of timeless creation and its logic or lack thereof. If you believe that time is infinite and co-eternal with its creator then I have no dispute with you on the topic. [/quote]

OK. My issue was the anthropomorphic language, necessary?, in understanding whether God Created our physical existence, and why?

The only dispute I would have with you is whether or not a God has anything to do with creation, which is not really the topic of the thread. If on the other hand you believe that creation takes place in a timeless realm, so to speak, then that is what we can discuss. If a time does not exist prior to the existence of any-thing, then that thing, whatever it be, is eternal. So my contention is that either the universe is eternal or time existed prior to its existence.

Yes, our difference is you believe in Philosophical Naturalism, and I believe in a Theistic Naturalism, both share and accept Methodological Naturalism. Part of what is the foundation of my belief is the evolving spiritual nature of humanity as described in the Baha'i Faith. I tend to avoid the flawed outdated logical arguments for God common in Christian apologetics.

[37818]

Yes you do and I have no idea why. For you 'existence' becomes another thing to exist.

Ah, so existence does not exist?

[pancreasman]

Ah, so existence does not exist?

I don't see how. It's like saying 'loud' exists as a thing itself instead of as a quality of sound.

[shunyadragon]

Ah, so existence does not exist?

How are you defining existence?

[JimL]

JimL, I have read the words that you've written, and the point is the same one I replied to in your original post, so its not like I didn't see what you wrote before. What I'm telling you though is that you can eliminate words "God" from the equation right now, and still ask pretty much the same question, "can time exist before the universe began?" And again, the current widely held consensus (despite your protestations) seems to be that, no, time began to exist at the beginning of the universe. Coming straight from Stephen Hawkings' speech synthesizer,

Source: http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html

the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down. Nevertheless, the way the universe began would have been determined by the laws of physics, if the universe satisfied the no boundary condition. This says that in the imaginary time direction, space-time is finite in extent, but doesn't have any boundary or edge. The predictions of the no boundary proposal seem to agree with observation. The no boundary hypothesis also predicts that the universe will eventually collapse again. However, the contracting phase, will not have the opposite arrow of time, to the expanding phase. So we will keep on getting older, and we won't return to our youth. Because time is not going to go backwards

© Copyright Original Source

By the way, I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but how you're wording your question, it almost sounds as though you think that God was sitting in some sort of black empty space...waiting for eons...and then bam! he created the universe. If so, that's not at all what most Christians mean by the word "timeless". Also, it isn't the case that the word "previously", or rather "prior" necassarily denotes time. Defenders of certain cosmological models make a distinction between something that is temporal prior and causally or ontologically prior. One has to do with time, the other (so they argue) has to do with causal directionality. Craig defines the difference like this,

Source: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-god-the-father-causally-prior-to-the-son

1. Causal priority has to do with what’s called causal directionality. That is to say, if A and B are causally related as cause and effect, is A the cause of B, or is B the cause of A? Temporal priority has to do with whether A is earlier than B. Notice that even if A and B exist or occur at the same time, so that there is no temporal priority of one to the other, the question of causal priority still makes sense. To borrow an illustration from Kant, a heavy ball’s resting on a cushion is the cause of a depression in the cushion, even if the ball has been resting on the cushion from eternity past. Some philosophers who believe that the future is as real as the past or present think that there can be cases where causal priority can actually run in the opposite direction of temporal priority: first the effect occurs and then later comes the cause, so that although A is causally prior to B, B is temporally prior to A! As for ontological priority, that would indicate that some being’s existence presupposes the existence of another being. I think that in this context it basically comes to the same thing as causal priority. (In another context, one might say, for example, that a substance or thing is ontologically prior to the thing’s properties.)

© Copyright Original Source

But anyways, like I said, you don't really have to bring God into this yet. First of all you have to establish whether or not time existed prior to the Big Bang. The widely accepted Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems suggest it did not.

Hawking may believe that time began in the Big Bang, I don't know, but my guess is that he is speaking about time in relation to the Big Bang and the beginning of this universe. Everyone believes that time began for this universe when the universe began, i.e. at the Big Bang, just like for anything that begins to exist, time for it does't begin until it begins, but Hawking, brilliant physicist that he is, doesn't know, anymore than anyone else knows, what, if anything, lies outside of this universe. This is basically a philosophical question, not a scientific one. What does eternal even mean in the abscence of time? If eternal means that there was no time that a thing did not exist, then the universe itself would be defined as eternal since there was no time that it didn't exist. If it means always existed or existed forever, then those terms as well denote time, as in infinite time. Even to say that the eternal is that which existed before time, the before in that statement denotes time. The ontological, causal priority argument, to me, seems no more than a meaningless rationalization. The bowling ball in Kants argument was no more the cause of the dent in the cushion than the dent in the cushion was the cause of the bowling ball resting on the cushion, unless the ball was placed there.

[JimL]

No, that is not what I said. In fact this is a bit confusing. Our sciences are basically descriptive of the nature of our physical existence, and does not answer the questions of why? In my view science is simply descriptive of the how of Creation, which is a natural process.

Okay shunya, but this thread isn't about why the universe was created, it is about whether or not the origin of the universe was also the origin of time.

I do not assume it is Created, I believe it is.

Okay, thats fine, I believe it wasn't. But the question is not whether it was created or not, the question is, no matter how it came to be, did time exist prior to its coming to be or did time make its first appearance, so to speak, with the birth of the universe?

OK. My issue was the anthropomorphic language, necessary?, in understanding whether God Created our physical existence, and why?

Well anthropormorphic language is probably used because the only God we know of is the one in our human imaginations. But again, the main point of the thread, whether he exists or not, is not about the nature of God, its about the nature of time.

Yes, our difference is you believe in Philosophical Naturalism, and I believe in a Theistic Naturalism, both share and accept Methodological Naturalism. Part of what is the foundation of my belief is the evolving spiritual nature of humanity as described in the Baha'i Faith. I tend to avoid the flawed outdated logical arguments for God common in Christian apologetics.

I believe the the universe is a reality unto itself, you believe it is a created reality. As I told you once before, from what I understand of your religion, though i don't believe in a diety, I appreciate it. But though the nature of time, whether or not it is infinite, naturally brings up the topic of God, the nature of God is not the main point of the thread.