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RE: A timeless being cannot create
July 20, 2019 at 9:28 pm
(July 20, 2019 at 9:01 pm)Bucky Ball Wrote: (July 20, 2019 at 5:50 pm)Belaqua Wrote: It's difficult to have a conversation with you, because you approach metaphysics as if it were pro wrestling. Everything is a fight with you.
The OP is asking how Christian theology explains God's creation. To understand that, we need to understand Thomas Aquinas. We are looking into how a large group of other people think.
I have not said that Christian theology is correct.
Actually he didn't ask that at all. It's how you mistranslated it, into your world-view.
Quote:OP :
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 gets the problem perfectly. Being "unaffected by temporal changes" is not the problem.
Using temporal concepts and ascribing then TO THE GOD, IS the problem. Creating and making time are temporal concepts and cannot be ascribed to a timeless being.
It's as simple as that. They are incompatible and incoherent, just like a round square is incoherent.
Aquinas didn't even get the problem.
I'm sorry that we can't have a conversation about these topics. I'm sure that if we were less combative I could learn something from you.
Please accept that you have defeated me in mortal combat and that after my terrible loss I won't be responding to you any more.
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RE: A timeless being cannot create
July 21, 2019 at 1:39 am
(This post was last modified: July 21, 2019 at 1:42 am by Bucky Ball.)
Quote:Currently I have a vase of lilies in my entry hall. The hall smells nice, thanks to the lilies. Is it appropriate to say that the lilies acted, or did something, to make the hall smell nice? Or is it better to say that the hall just smells nice because of the way the lilies are? If you want to say that the lilies acted (in some way) then I'd be more willing to accept that God acted.
Nether. The aromatic organic chemicals the lilies emit interact with your olfactory system and that interacts with your brain chemistry,
The lilies "did" nothing. The aromatic chemicals were emitted when the chemistry of the lilies arrived at a certain point of maturity, due to their genetic instructions, and they were ejected. It was not a decision. It just happens.
Quote:Please accept that you have defeated me in mortal combat and that after my terrible loss I won't be responding to you any more.
As is sometimes your habit, your interpretation of events bears no relationship to reality.
Pardon me ... I need to go get a box of tissues. Sob.
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell 
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RE: A timeless being cannot create
July 21, 2019 at 9:09 am
(This post was last modified: July 21, 2019 at 9:13 am by The Grand Nudger.)
In Toms defense, it wouldnt have mattered if he “got the problem”.
He was looking for a way to squeeze the Christian god into those pagan ideas, not a way to show or even check if the ideas were true.
He really had no interest whatsoever in the latter. He didn’t have much interest in the arguments that history has stuck him with at all. It’s just an accident if history and church that he’s remembered for that rather than what he spent the majority of his life trying to answer-
- how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Was it just one, or an infinite number? How could angels remain distinct and divisible in the absence of substance?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: A timeless being cannot create
July 23, 2019 at 11:15 am
(July 21, 2019 at 9:09 am)Gae Bolga Wrote: In Toms defense, it wouldnt have mattered if he “got the problem”.
He was looking for a way to squeeze the Christian god into those pagan ideas, not a way to show or even check if the ideas were true.
He really had no interest whatsoever in the latter. He didn’t have much interest in the arguments that history has stuck him with at all. It’s just an accident if history and church that he’s remembered for that rather than what he spent the majority of his life trying to answer-
- how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Was it just one, or an infinite number? How could angels remain distinct and divisible in the absence of substance?
I should look up what his definition of "substance" was. I can't remember. I'm sure he discussed it, at least in relation to the Eucharist.
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell
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RE: A timeless being cannot create
August 20, 2019 at 10:43 am
(This post was last modified: August 20, 2019 at 11:13 am by John 6IX Breezy.)
I think the incoherence depends on one's definition of time, as well as the relationship between said God and the qualities of time. Since I'm not a physicist, I'm unfamiliar with any of their research and theories for time. I view time as a primarily subjective experience of change; if change didn't occur out in the world we wouldn't perceive time out in the world. The best way I've seen it put is that events are perceived but time is not (Gibson, 1975). In short, events are the primary reality and time is an abstraction. So treating events as occurring "in" time, or treating time as a space needing to be filled, is backwards reasoning psychologically speaking.
When you say God is unaffected by temporal changes, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. I take it to mean that God does not experience sequential changes in himself the way a withering flower might, but can he still have the "psychological" experience of time as he observes the withering flower and the universe in motion.
References: Gibson, J. J. (1975). Events are perceivable but time is not. In J. T. Fraser, & N. Lawrence, The study of time II (pp. 295-301). New York: Springer-Verlag.
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RE: A timeless being cannot create
August 20, 2019 at 1:11 pm
(August 20, 2019 at 10:43 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: I think the incoherence depends on one's definition of time, as well as the relationship between said God and the qualities of time.
Congratulations for trying to define your god into existence again. What a novel idea.  If thats the best argument you have, well 
Cetero censeo religionem delendam esse
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RE: A timeless being cannot create
August 20, 2019 at 1:36 pm
(This post was last modified: August 20, 2019 at 1:37 pm by John 6IX Breezy.)
(August 20, 2019 at 1:11 pm)Deesse23 Wrote: Congratulations for trying to define your god into existence again. What a novel idea. If thats the best argument you have, well
I addressed the definition of time, not God, in my comment; but I suppose its all the same if you take issue with definitions across the board.
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RE: A timeless being cannot create
August 20, 2019 at 1:38 pm
(August 20, 2019 at 10:43 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: I think the incoherence depends on one's definition of time, as well as the relationship between said God and the qualities of time. Since I'm not a physicist, I'm unfamiliar with any of their research and theories for time. I view time as a primarily subjective experience of change; if change didn't occur out in the world we wouldn't perceive time out in the world. The best way I've seen it put is that events are perceived but time is not (Gibson, 1975). In short, events are the primary reality and time is an abstraction. So treating events as occurring "in" time, or treating time as a space needing to be filled, is backwards reasoning psychologically speaking.
When you say God is unaffected by temporal changes, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. I take it to mean that God does not experience sequential changes in himself the way a withering flower might, but can he still have the "psychological" experience of time as he observes the withering flower and the universe in motion.
References: Gibson, J. J. (1975). Events are perceivable but time is not. In J. T. Fraser, & N. Lawrence, The study of time II (pp. 295-301). New York: Springer-Verlag.
How could god observe anything if he is not directly experiencing time? It takes to time to experience or in fact DO anything at all.
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
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RE: A timeless being cannot create
August 20, 2019 at 1:59 pm
(August 20, 2019 at 1:38 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: (August 20, 2019 at 10:43 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: I think the incoherence depends on one's definition of time, as well as the relationship between said God and the qualities of time. Since I'm not a physicist, I'm unfamiliar with any of their research and theories for time. I view time as a primarily subjective experience of change; if change didn't occur out in the world we wouldn't perceive time out in the world. The best way I've seen it put is that events are perceived but time is not (Gibson, 1975). In short, events are the primary reality and time is an abstraction. So treating events as occurring "in" time, or treating time as a space needing to be filled, is backwards reasoning psychologically speaking.
When you say God is unaffected by temporal changes, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. I take it to mean that God does not experience sequential changes in himself the way a withering flower might, but can he still have the "psychological" experience of time as he observes the withering flower and the universe in motion.
References: Gibson, J. J. (1975). Events are perceivable but time is not. In J. T. Fraser, & N. Lawrence, The study of time II (pp. 295-301). New York: Springer-Verlag.
How could god observe anything if he is not directly experiencing time? It takes to time to experience or in fact DO anything at all.
If I were a theologian, I would probably put it like this:
God isn't actively or mindfully experiencing anything. It's just events happen "around" him, and God passively realizes them.
But then how is God experiencing or realizing this, if not mindfully?
Ughh, fuck this. It makes no sense, but believers in God have to make sense out of this somehow ...
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RE: A timeless being cannot create
August 20, 2019 at 3:03 pm
(This post was last modified: August 20, 2019 at 3:03 pm by John 6IX Breezy.)
(August 20, 2019 at 1:38 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: How could god observe anything if he is not directly experiencing time? It takes to time to experience or in fact DO anything at all.
I would rephrase your point as "doing anything takes time" as opposed to it "takes time to do anything." Because again, I view time as a secondary quality of change. When we perceive the continuous ticking of a clock; we perceive the ticking as occurring in succession (not simultaneously) and further perceive them as having a duration (not instantaneous) and call this perception of succession and duration, time.
So for me, to observe anything change is to experience time. If God can observe anything, which I have no reason to suspect he can't, then he is experiencing time.
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