(May 11, 2016 at 7:01 am)SteveII Wrote:(May 11, 2016 at 6:36 am)ApeNotKillApe Wrote:
Okay, those are fair questions.
Let's start with why I said personal. God created the universe instead of not creating the universe (which seems to be the only two choices). The creation act seems to be a free act of the will rather than something determined by some prior condition.
The quote I posted a page or two ago might help with the timeless question:
Quote:One must maintain that "prior " to creation there literally are no intervals of time at all. There would be no earlier and later, no enduring through successive intervals and, hence, no waiting, no temporal becoming. This state would pass away, not successively, but as a whole, at the moment of creation, when time begins.
But such a changeless, undifferentiated state looks suspiciously like a state of timelessness! It seems to me, therefore, that it is not only coherent but also plausible that God existing changelessly alone without creation is timeless and that He enters time at the moment of creation in virtue of His real relation to the temporal universe. The image of God existing idly before creation is just that: a figment of the imagination. Given that time began to exist, the most plausible view of God's relationship to time is that He is timeless without creation and temporal subsequent to creation.
If God is omniscient, he would know all truths simultaneously in his timeless state. An entity who knows all truths does not have to think about things, reason things out, etc. (and therefore mark time with mental events). As the quote above says, that timeless state ended when the universe was created. Time started at that point. God was extrinsically changed by his creation. The creative act was simultaneous with its effect.
Address the questions.
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