A thought experiment about what it means "to be" GOD
by Terry 143 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Apognophos
If there was no time before god created it, when did he find the time to do any creating?
Ah, I understand your question now. You're assuming that God had *no* time within which to act, because time had not been invented yet. I refer you back to "time is what stops everything from happening at once". It is not necessarily a dimension -- in the sense of a space within which to act -- but rather a restraint on the presence of objects. To a god who exists outside of time, all events would probably be visible at once. Likewise, one would expect that such a God would be unchanging from our persepctive. Do I actually comprehend this, on the level of common sense? Absolutely not. Why should I?
This is not to say that I believe in God. My original point, a few pages back, was that an atheist has to explain how the universe came into existence from nothing if he does not rely on God. E.g., "How did the universe find the time to spring into being?" Either way, the idea of something from nothing is unimaginable to us. Therefore, I don't agree with assertions that one is more likely than the other. It's like an ant ruminating on the nature and scope of the entire planet when he's only seen an acre of it.
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Terry
Ah, I understand your question now. You're assuming that God had *no* time within which to act, because time had not been invented yet. I refer you back to "time is what stops everything from happening at once". It is not necessarily a dimension -- in the sense of a space within which to act -- but rather a restraint on the presence of objects. To a god who exists outside of time, all events would probably be visible at once. Likewise, one would expect that such a God would be unchanging from our persepctive.
I like very much how you've laid this out.
It tickles my brain and makes me smile. Thanks.
It is a useful way of bringing concepts before the mind and sorting them.
My original point, a few pages back, was that an atheist has to explain how the universe came into existence from nothing if he does not rely on God.
I think we can probably blame St.Augustine for the troublesome idea that it was "out of nothing" that God began creating. Ex nihilo.
But, why should it be necessary to posit nothing?
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Apognophos
Good question. It seems that our minds (well, I can only speak for myself) tend to insist on a beginning for everything. And of course "beginning" implies that the object didn't exist up until a certain point -- and then it did. Maybe it's foolish to assume that God had nothing to work with when forming the universe. It boggles my mind to try to imagine anything existing forever back in time, but one way or another, it seems that something must have. Whether it was just atoms, or it was God.... Even if we're in a simulated universe, where did the simulators' universe come from? It hurts my brain to ponder it for too long :)
Scientists have suggested that if one keeps traveling in a certain direction, he may loop back around after a while (the spherical space model). Perhaps, likewise, the end of time is the beginning of time. Perhaps in the distant future, we'll become God and create ourselves! Who can say.
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EntirelyPossible
To a god who exists outside of time, all events would probably be visible at once.
So then creation would have always existed from his perspective and thus, he would have created it.
Do I actually comprehend this, on the level of common sense? Absolutely not. Why should I?
Because you are pontificating on, in self-admitted ignorance. Time and space are properties of the same thing in this universe. If there is NO time, WHEN did God do all this creating? With no time to separate events, what cause his thoughts to proceed from one moment of no creation to deciding to do something?
You want to talk about how god is outside of time and them frame what he does in time.
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EntirelyPossible
Scientists have suggested that if one keeps traveling in a certain direction, he may loop back around after a while (the spherical space model). Perhaps, likewise, the end of time is the beginning of time. Perhaps in the distant future, we'll become God and create ourselves! Who can say.
Scientists. We now know it is highly unlikely that model (it's called a closed universe, BTW) doesn't match observation.
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Apognophos
So then creation would have always existed from his perspective
That wasn't quite what I meant. I simply meant that God could potentially see the universe as something like a transparent block in front of him. He could see its dimensions, but also see through it from beginning to end in time. The universe's time thus applies to us, but God, being unbound by it, would be able to see the entire flow of time at once.
If there is NO time, WHEN did God do all this creating?
Who knows? Perhaps God has his own time, or perhaps he exists in a single moment of creation, knowing nothing else but the universe he created (as you suggested). Kind of depends on where God came from. I can only answer your questions speculatively. Of course, you can only do the same with an atheist model. Where did the universe come from if it was not created intentionally? The answer is outside the grasp of science, so far.
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prologos
This is the best discusiion I ever "witnessed". (cant get rid of the term) thank you all. Science has removed us from the illusion to be the important center of the universe to being just a speck on a speck--- inside an immense universe. but it also has shown us how immense and old "in time" what we observe is, greatly enhancing the CAPACITY (energy) with which we would have to credit any creator. We are not talking about somebody walking in the garden or a smiling pot-bellied jolly fellow here. many ideas I could not have said better than by your texts above. . ------- to help me get a better picture of this, react to the following thoughts please.:
Agnophos: "time does not exist" do any of the other dimension exist before something is put into them? in the folded paper experiment, do the lines bring the xyz axi? into existence? does the computer clock bring the time dimension into existence? --------some time ago I put on beabeorean.com (sic) James 1:17 which seem to indicate that with god, time does not move or he does not move in time. With the folded paper, "to be" God I imagine time to be a PROPERTY of the creator rather than a creation. If you were free of the 3 dimensions and traveled back or forward in time past the limit of our material horizon, you would be travelling solely in time, time that must have existed before the BB the Big Beginning. The creator is eternal watching Achilles and the turtoise. thats my picture. space woven into time at the BB
Entirelypossible: "Energy and Matter the same THING"? yes, it is said that matter is just another form of energy and the two are declared equal by the = sign in the most famous equation. but there is a huge distinction between the two. Pontential energy can be the distance from a gravity well. it can be the tension in a coils spring, it can be the mass -less photon reaching us now from 13 billion years in the past. can you think of energy without matter, before matter? after matter? ----- your good comment on the "closed universe" was a double negative, and oriental minds dont follow it easily.
jgnat: many folds of paper? a good follow up demonstration. some theorists think that many dimensions are folded into our measely 3-4. but you would have to fold the paper down, not up to have the lines show on the outside to be still in the 3 space dimension, with the rest invisibly ( and the 10 dimension if they exist are said to be invisible to us) folded in the center. mythbusters tried that folding and of course you cannot t fold below the Plank length. The point is the creator pictured by yourself in front of your computer-clock is older than the paper, the lines-- and is bigger, even if the paper expands.
Terry, thanks for starting this. Yes time is represented in equation 3 as a "construct for computing" but it appears at least 4 times as "rest time" or resting in time as "moving time" or movement in time and in the "c" squared, which as speed has time as a divisor. so its a valid construct in our math models, but that model has its counterpart in the real world. its tested. to my mind time is eternal, an inherent property of the eternal creator, my own movement through time, (courtesy of stored energy supplied by the creator), after nearly nine decades is nearly over, and its "MADE" with discusiions like this. peace to you (because I have seen war)
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EntirelyPossible
Who knows? Perhaps God has his own time, or perhaps he exists in a single moment of creation, knowing nothing else but the universe he created (as you suggested).
Apparently, you, since you are claiming God exists outside of time. Now he does exist inside of time or maybe only exists in the actual moment of creation? This is very interesting. Which is it? We need to know so we can explore the implications of whatever reality God exists in.
He could see its dimensions, but also see through it from beginning to end in time. The universe's time thus applies to us, but God, being unbound by it, would be able to see the entire flow of time at once.
I first read of that concept when I was 18 and reading the Watchmen for the first time.
So, in that concept, God still has to take time to look around things. He still needs time to do things.
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Terry
" to my mind time is eternal"
Our thoughts ought to be useful to us. They are, after all OUR thoughts. We live and we die. Somewhere in between those brackets there is a quality of life issue.
We are thinking creatures. Some measure of direction, understanding and comprehension will make our life better THAN IF we were mere dolts.
When I drive on the freeway I'm struck by the thought "Everybody is in such a damned hurry!"
The speed limit is 60 in Texas but everybody is going much, much faster than I am (cruise control 60 mph.)
Since it is more dangerous for everybody with this chaotic hurrying scenario I became part of the hazard trying to obey the law! I become an obstacle by trying to do the "right" thing.
Is there a way to tie this in with our discussion here?
Yes, I think there is!
We are thinking creatures who do not impose USEFUL priorities on our TIME. Leaving early is a better choice than going too fast, for example.
We don't demonstrate intelligent awareness of our own time. We don't manage it except grudgingly.
Is it possible we have made an enemy of Time? The more of it we experience the nearer to death we come!
What could be a more disorienting thought to wrap our mind around than how God laughs at time?
Eternity is an ironic and cruel laugh for we creatures who so soon are dead!
"Forever?" What a joke! Who of us comes close to living forever?
I say we are estranged from Time when it encompasses too much jurisdiction. We ought only to feel barely secure in our understanding of very tiny increments.
To speak of eternal things is to dive headlong off a cliff into a void. There be dragons there.
God is invisible. Every bit of description we have in our mind about God is something of a hand-me-down. We are entirely at the mercy of the second-hand nature of our opinion-as-fact vulnerability.
We are virtually innocent of experience WITH God except what comes about from emotional rituals laden with angst and hysteria.
Worse still, when the balance of the mind goes awry, some persons suddenly have God talking to them inside their own head like a Joan of Arc or an Ellen White. Those starved for a closer walk with "thee" huddle around such
folk and elevate them in stature and cling to their croonings. What keener portrait of desperation than those bright colors!?
I set up this topic to show how locked down we are by the simple word pictures we paint to demonstrate a falsely named knowledge of God.
We do NOT know God, we only describe what we've been told is God and the rest is our own imagination.
People who can't drive the speed limit or wake up without an alarm clock cannot begin to comprehend eternity or any being that exists inside or outside of forever.
Yet, we gush forth with fountains of "information" seemingly pulled out of a vast resevoir of fact-based sources.
We have no such fact-based sources. We have opinions. We have traditions and embellishments and we have a deep emotional bond to making it all be very real.
The bottom line for me vis a vis the Topic is: Be Aware that the God you hold inside your head is smaller than the dimensions of your hat size.
Is such a small, small thing really running our world?