A timeless being cannot create

[BryanS]

I think there's a logical argument to be made against God's existence here on the basis of incompatible properties. God is outside time, we're told. He's not only eternal (existing forever) but also unaffected by temporal changes. He is after all the creator too, and that includes time. Yet when something is created, it comes into being. That entails a previous instance where it didn't exist of course. Yet if time itself was created, that makes no sense. To speak of a time "before" time is meaningless. Moreover, how does a timeless being create while outside time (and space as well)? A creation involves a change in space and time. It's enough to see how this could be done by a lesser being. How though could it be with a timeless being? I suggest it's incoherent, and the very fact that things do exist shows that such a being (i.e. God) doesn't. What do you think?

Yeah, but the property of time in our universe appears to originate with the big bang. One view of Physicists is that the big bang event was the very beginning of real time, and speaking of time "before" that is meaningless. This was Stephen Hawking's view of time. Your time criticism sounds reminiscent of the theists' criticism of the big bang, but they just give god the property of being "outside time" because, well, they can define their god any way that suits them.


see Hawking's lecture on this topic here for further reading
http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html

[edit to add link]