Nang
TOL Subscriber
Nope. That was a trick question, Delmar, and you answered wrong! :ha:
You boys are kinda cute, though, how you go about things . . .entertaining . . . except for the neg reps.
Have a nice evening.
Nang
ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 2
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Nope. That was a trick question, Delmar, and you answered wrong! :ha:
You boys are kinda cute, though, how you go about things . . .entertaining . . . except for the neg reps.
Have a nice evening.
Nang
Ask Mr. Religion
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I am going to have to seriously consider not answering you until you either quote my words as a reference or you properly interpret them. Where have I asserted "we cannot comprehend God"? You appear to only read what you want from anything that you see that might disagree with your own assumptions. You make it worse by attributing such things to me when they are actually misrepresentations of my actual words.
What I have written and asserted is that "we cannot comprehend God fully". After all, I have also noted, God is transcendent. Moreover, I have also stated that this does not imply that we cannot know some things about God, especially from His two revelations to mankind.
I have explained that God cannot create "new" things, that is "new things" to Himself. They may be new to us, but there is nothing "new"" to God. I have described these matters in many posts in this thread along with the appropriate verses.
As a helpful suggestion, and to clear up any assumptions and incorrect understandings you may possess about my beliefs, which are decidedly Calvinistic, I recommend you follow the sequence of links below for a very solid introduction to the topic (these are a very informative dialog between Evoken and myself--the very model of what civil discourse about sacred topics should resemble):
1. Original post
2. Reply to #1
3. 1st Response to #2
4. Reply to #3
5. 2nd Response to #2
6. Reply to #5
7. 3rd Response to #2
with more to come.
Trick question or not, if God exists in eternal now, I got the answer right and you owe me an A+ !
Lon
Well-known member
I didn't say He couldn't create something 'new' but that 'new' only has meaning in our temporal context. Our perception is 'new' BECAUSE we are temporal. There is nothing 'new' to an atemporal omniscience. If you know everything, there is nothing outside of 'everything' to know, learn, or experience. If I am the maker of 'all things' nothing 'new' exists. I've made it all. "I am doing a 'new' thing..." New to 'your' perception. It is 'new' to you. It wasn't a new thing to God, He had 'already' (temporal word for our understanding) planned this.
Gen 1:5 "first"
God can create, and move, that wasn't the point. The point is our word 'new.'
For God, 'new' isn't the same. It proceeds out of Him. He is complete, we are not. We have 'new', but even by OV definition, God knows all that is knowable. If this is true, there is nothing 'new' to Him for all proceeds from what is known.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
Num 23:19 1Sa 15:29 Heb 7:21 (our definition of impassibility may need address)
I ask.... "Can you point me to the place in the Bible where it says God created time?"
And Lonster answers....
Uh.... if time was created in Gen 1:5 why was there a sequence of events prior to that in Genesis 1:1-4? :idunno:
Sorry, Lonster that ain't gonna cut it.
And Lonster answers....
:jawdrop:
Uh.... if time was created in Gen 1:5 why was there a sequence of events prior to that in Genesis 1:1-4? :idunno:
Sorry, Lonster that ain't gonna cut it.
Evoken
New member
Knight, Scripture does not intends to give a highly detailed scientific account of creation. I believe that assuming as such can lead one into error. For that we can rely on science and general revelation. We know from science that time began at the big bang (source). Now, the question is, since no thing is it's own cause and so it is caused by something prior to it, then what caused the big bang when time had not begun and all space-time was contained in the singularity?
Evo
Evo
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Lon
Well-known member
'FIRST' day has no meaning to you? How about first hour? First increment. First anything. Note with me, it wasn't the 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001st day for God. It was the 'first' day for us. Every concept we pull is based on our inabilty to comprehend an infinite past, no number can be applied to it. If you start counting now, just for fun and because you love math, and continue counting through eternity, 1) you'll never stop 2) you'll never ever hit a number that adds up to 'eternity past' because God never had a beginning. There are no # sequences or mathematical logic that can be applied. Our logic flat out fails. It is a done deal, game over. It cannot be done. If God didn't create the concept of time, then there is no such thing as time. It is an illusion we all live by which is false. One or the other. It cannot be harmonious.
Genesis 1:1-4 could have all been done on the 'first' day, or before. It doesn't matter. Before God create the 'first' day, there was no 'day' to record. This doesn't mean that there wasn't existence of any kind, it is just saying that our specific incremental measurement of time, progressing from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same was created. If there is nothing to measure, you can't measure it. There are no firsts, seconds, or 4gazillion 543billion.....anything.
Lon
Well-known member
If you take a tape measure and start measuring something so large that it cannot be measured, like time for God, you wouldn't even know where to begin. Let's take numbers. At any point, you can start counting, and can continue forever. Increments are measurements, time or otherwise. First of all, if it is eternal both in past and present, you have no reference for starting and you have no reference for ending. If God is immeasurable as His Word says, then there is no accurate measurement that can define Him. He is too large for a tape measure, He is too large for a satelite laser. He cannot be measured by a watch, or the sun, or anything else. We are are finite (time constrained beings) God is not. There is no measurement that we have that can measure God, including time.
I actually think I agree with this, and while God's existence is, in fact, immeasurable for us, such measurement would not be beyond God's ability.
Philetus
New member
Except that God says 'start measuring here ... now … (first)'. Just because something is immeasurable by our little tapes, doesn't mean it doesn't have dimension. Just because God has no beginning and no end doesn't mean God doesn't experience duration of time. I really don't care what God did or didn't do before creation. I don't even pretend to have a clue as to how far or how long His past is or His future is ... everlasting to everlasting does it for me. I'm just going on the evidence God has provided from the instant He said "Let there be ..." right up to the present, and living in hope of the future. THAT IS MEASURABLE!
One thing this thread has made clear … Calvinism renders God as impotent as it renders mankind unable. In Calvinism there can be no actual ‘other’ because for their god to create ‘other’ god would have to give up some of ‘himself’ to allow the other to even exist. Must be hard for them to reconcile the concept of God ‘giving’ anything … I mean if God ‘gave’ wouldn’t that mean that God lacks something that he previously had? He can’t even create something ‘new’ that he didn’t previously have just to give it away so that after he gave it he could be back where he started … but then, who would he give it to? There is really no concept of the ‘other’ in Calvinism. Creation (if it even exists in the Calvinistic view) is all a melodrama in the mind of god.
Uh, even if I agreed with you on that point, (and I partially do) it's clear you MISSED the point.
The point is.... if time were created in Gen 1:5 there wouldn't be a sequence of events in Gen 1:1-4.
I have an incredibly simply question for you, please answer it directly.....
IF, later this afternoon for some unknown reason the earth exploded into a cloud of dust and it was no more..... would time cease to exist?
Please spare me the "post wasting" answer.... "well it would cease to exist for us because we wouldn't exist". I want to know if the earth didn't exist and there were no days to measure would time still march on for everything else that remained in existence.
Ask Mr. Religion
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AMR's answer: Time would exist if the earth did not exist.
From physics we know that the property, time, is a function of space and matter. For time to cease to exist, all space and matter, not just the earth, would have to not exist. In other words, God's created universe would have to cease to exist. The obvious corollary is that upon God's decree to create, decreed from within His eternal existence, time began to exist, because matter and space began to exist.
Very good! Therefore Gen 1:5 is not a proof text for God creating time.
You are making the typical mistake of confusing the measurement of time (i.e., measuring time can be effected by physics), with the concept of time (i.e., events happen sequentially).
Until you get your mind around the distinction you will always struggle with this topic.
drbrumley
Well-known member
Outstanding explanation! Rep points awarded.
Ask Mr. Religion
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I have no idea what you are talking about. Your frequent, "Aha! Gotchas!" are juvenile. You think these topics are a game that schoolyard children are playing? Let's approach such matters with reverence.
Gen 1:5 might be useful for the notion of the 24-hr solar days set up for earthly representations of time. Gen 1:1 seems best for the creation of time since the verse appears to indicate the creation of the universe. Some may argue that Gen 1:1 is specific to planet earth, but in any case, time existed once matter and space of the universe existed.
And, no, there is no "typical mistake", in confusing the concepts of time. Please feel free to steer me towards the many proponents, other than open theists, of the atypical consensus your words imply. It is seen as "typical" only by those who would assume God is a temporal being. For to make the assumption that you and others make, you fall headlong onto horns of the infinite regression dilemma.
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Try spreading the goodness around once in awhile instead of just to your circle of open theists.
I gave Knight the pos rep you so desperately wanted to give him.:sigh:
It is true that God is beyond a temporal being. If the earth blew up time would still exist, as to more complex questions about the relationship between God and the universe, my belief is God created the universe and is beyond the universe, but whether or not time would no longer exist is difficult to ascertain beyond explanations involving physics. God is surly beyond all physics, Divine time would exist if God has willed it to exist and if time existed it would seem it would be sequential to me, but I do not pretend to know anything beyond human explications of time.
These topics need not be diffilcult.
We don't need to "theologize" everything we discuss. We don't need big words, we don't need dry scholars and white papers. All we need is God's word and and humble attitude toward it.
Yes, I believe this is simple enough for school children to understand. So sue me! :idunno:
With all due respect I have been dealing with this argument almost non-stop for the last 10 years and one of the most common mistakes that settled viewers make is to confuse the measurement of time (that can be effected by physics) with the concept of time (which cannot be effected by physics).
In fact the common-ness (is that a word??) of this error can be proved by your own mistake just a couple posts ago.
I have yet to run into a settled viewer who hasn't made the same mistake. Therefore, I conclude this error is very common.
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