RE: Bible contradictions?
March 9, 2012 at 3:38 pm
(This post was last modified: March 9, 2012 at 3:43 pm by Valdyr.)
(March 9, 2012 at 3:15 pm)Undeceived Wrote: Anything unchanging is eternal and therefore outside of time (All the philosophy classes I ever took came to that conclusion without ever mentioning God).
No, anything unchanging is atemporal. We cannot conclude that there is an "outside" of time. Furthermore, God being atemporal makes the notion even more incoherent. How can there be an atemporal agency? How could god have "created" the world, if creation is an event and is therefore temporal?
Quote:Time has an elusive definition. People measure it in many ways, from progress to the vibration of molecules.
Distance has an elusive definition. People measure it in many ways, from meters to inches.
See the problem here? A metric is not the same thing as a definition. You can't just say that God is atemporal and then when challenged backpedal and do a bunch of hand-waving to obscure the meaning of "time." If you push any word hard enough it will break, but you're being disingenuous if you try to honestly claim that those in this discussion don't have some rough, shared idea of what "time" is.
Quote:Since God is not made of physical material, he can't change.
Now I don't accept your premise here (that something needs to be made of physical material to change), but let's assume it. If God can't change, how can God "do" anything? For example, suppose I claim that God decided to create the world. Well, "decision" implies that there was one state (which we can call t1) in which God had not made the decision (putting issues aside about how he could be omniscient and yet freely decide to create the world), and that then there was another state (t2) in which God had made the decision. If God is atemporal, and that which is not made out of physical substance cannot change, how do you propose God transitions between these two states?
Quote:Most scientists say time and space did not exist before our universe. That means its cause transcends time and space.
No it doesn't. Suppose we accept a metaphysical interpretation of those scientific theories, as you seem to be doing. If time has an absolute beginning (the claim), i.e. it extends finitely in one direction, then there can't be a "cause" outside of it, because causation is bound up with time. Causation is a temporal relation, even if the cause is simultaneous with its effect, or is retrocausal (which would be a possibility if there was something wrong with general relativity).
Quote:Outside our universe, eternity exists. Or are you saying our universe is all there is, and it was caused by nothing?
If the universe is "all there is" in the strong, metaphysical sense, then it doesn't need a cause.