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Source: (consider it) Thread: Purgatory: The Point of Time
Freddy
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Eternity is lots of time. Not timelessness. Which is an instant. Of time. Of no duration. An abstraction. Unreal. Meaningless unless you're doing calculus.

Wow. You really don't believe that God is apart from time? [Confused]

Do you also think that He is somewhere in outer space?

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Eternity is lots of time. Not timelessness. Which is an instant. Of time. Of no duration. An abstraction. Unreal. Meaningless unless you're doing calculus.

Wow. You really don't believe that God is apart from time? [Confused]

Do you also think that He is somewhere in outer space?

don't mock, dear, it's a viable theological position.

Open & Process theologians believe either that God is in time because time is an inherent & eternal reality, or that God voluntarily places himself within time in order to have a relationship with created beings.

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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

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Freddy
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
don't mock, dear, it's a viable theological position.

I don't mean to mock. I just didn't realize that this is where Martin was coming from.
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Open & Process theologians believe either that God is in time because time is an inherent & eternal reality, or that God voluntarily places himself within time in order to have a relationship with created beings.

I see. Doesn't that imply that God is also within space?

Certainly Jesus was within space, and I see Him as God. But I'm not thinking I could go out and physically find Him at this point, so He is no longer within space.

Don't time and space necessarily go together?

--------------------
"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Open & Process theologians believe either that God is in time because time is an inherent & eternal reality, or that God voluntarily places himself within time in order to have a relationship with created beings.

I see. Doesn't that imply that God is also within space?

Certainly Jesus was within space, and I see Him as God. But I'm not thinking I could go out and physically find Him at this point, so He is no longer within space.

Don't time and space necessarily go together?

We're getting "above my pay grade" here, but as I understand it, Einstein believed they did, and most modern physicists would agree. But I am given to understand there are alternate pardigms that de-couple the two.

But again, beyond my very rudimentary knowledge base to go much further. I am drawn to Open Theism for some of its theological implications, but can't really comment on it from a scientific basis.

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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

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Martin60
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Ay up cliffdweller.

Null is the only entity that is timeless. Everything-less.

Anything not-null times. Exists. Is. To be is to time.

Is God? Does God?

Just as time happens in God, so does space Freddy.

And 'A' is for Apple!

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Love wins

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Freddy
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Just as time happens in God, so does space Freddy.

I take that to mean that God is not apart from the physical world. That He exists in space and time. Does this mean that heaven and hell also exist in space and time? Do I read you right?

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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sharkshooter

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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
...that God voluntarily places himself within time in order to have a relationship with created beings.

Time is as much a created thing as space and matter.

It is God who was, not nothing. Granted, space, time and matter did not exist, but God is not any of those, nor is He defined nor constrained by any of them.

And, yes, God voluntarily placed Himself within time in order to have a relationship with created beings - that is what the incarnation of the second person of the trinity is all about. Old Testament revelations of God are all about Him interacting with humankind without placing Himself within time.

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Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]

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LeRoc

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I personally feel attracted to Panentheism: God exists outside of space-time, but is at the same time intrinsically present in every part of it (because She chose so).

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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Martin60
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No Freddy.

So, SS, if God is not constrained by time, whatever that means to you as He doesn't even have it as an attribute to you - it means nothing to me, does He know if it's going to rain tomorrow?

now is in God LeRoc. Then isn't. It's gone - past - or not happened, null, indeterminate - future. Your panentheism is Bender God if you mean all nows.

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cliffdweller
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Open Theists have done a lot of writing in the last few years on the relationship of space & time, and what it means to conceptualize a God who exists (whether inherently or voluntarily) within time. Like I said, it's far beyond my expertise so I'll defer to them. Just trying to make that point that the common assumption that God "must" be outside of time is not as "just so" as is being presented here.

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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

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LeRoc

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quote:
Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard: Your panentheism is Bender God if you mean all nows.
You mean this Bender? In that case you are right, of course.

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
Time is as much a created thing as space and matter.

IYHO.


quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:

Old Testament revelations of God are all about Him interacting with humankind without placing Himself within time.

Really? Such as? I can't think of any. Can't even imagine what that would look like.

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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

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sharkshooter

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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
...
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:

Old Testament revelations of God are all about Him interacting with humankind without placing Himself within time.

Really? Such as? I can't think of any. Can't even imagine what that would look like.
I'll leave out the creation story, including the Garden of Eden, but we're still left with many, including...

Burning bush
Mount Sinai
Jacob's fight
Daniel's furnace
Multiple appearances described as dreams or voices.

--------------------
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]

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sharkshooter

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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
...does He know if it's going to rain tomorrow?
...

Of course He does. But then, we already had a thread on that.

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Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]

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Martin60
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How? There is a confluence here.

If there is no such thing as time for God, there isn't for us either. I'm experiencing every now of my life as fully as I'm experiencing this one. Now.

Meaningless isn't it.

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Love wins

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Martin60
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And I've just noticed your response to CD SS.

Uh?

We are obviously separated by a common language. Your time isn't mine and neither of us can possibly transfer our meaning of it to the other.

What interactions with us did God have IN time might be a shorter list for you.

What is it?

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Love wins

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sharkshooter

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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
...We are obviously separated by a common language. ...

Well, that's a given.

--------------------
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]

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sharkshooter

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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
...What interactions with us did God have IN time might be a shorter list for you.
...

Ever heard of Jesus?

--------------------
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]

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sharkshooter

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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
...If there is no such thing as time for God, there isn't for us either. ...

That does not follow. Gravity does not exist for God, why should time?

--------------------
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]

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Crœsos
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quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
...If there is no such thing as time for God, there isn't for us either. ...

That does not follow. Gravity does not exist for God, why should time?
Does gravity not exist for God, or is He simply unaffected by it?

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
...
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:

Old Testament revelations of God are all about Him interacting with humankind without placing Himself within time.

Really? Such as? I can't think of any. Can't even imagine what that would look like.
I'll leave out the creation story, including the Garden of Eden, but we're still left with many, including...

Burning bush
Mount Sinai
Jacob's fight
Daniel's furnace
Multiple appearances described as dreams or voices.

Can't think of anything in any of those stories that specifies that God is outside of time. In fact, they could all be used to argue the reverse-- they all have to do w/ God appearing in particular space & time. But nothing in any of those stories tells us one way or another whether or not God's "normal" is in our outside of time as we know it.

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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

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Martin60
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Ever heard of Melchizedek ? Ever heard of the Angel of the Lord ? El Shaddai ? Yahweh ? Adonai ? Theophanies that according to you, for you, not only didn't experience time, happen in time, despite our observing them, hearing them, interacting with them, feeding them, walking with them, talking with them face to face but have no attribute of time (despite being the One who WAS, IS and SHALL BE) unlike all else that exists, inextricably. Synonymously.

God does not exist in, although certainly partook of, created time, now. It exists in Him. God exists. Times. Is. Happens. And that defining aspect, synonym of existence is not in Him. It is OF Him. It defines Him as inextricably as love. There is no God apart from love or time. Separate from love. Or time.

Unless you believe His Sovereignty and Justice are.

He continues, as He declares above, unquantized, unlike created time (and therefore gravity), itself inextricably defined with space, themselves inextricably dependent on stuff, all of which He wills indeterminately from 13.75 Ga ago.

You say God does not experience time and furthemore has no attribute of time. He therefore does not experience. He therefore does not. Has no. Isn't.

Fine.

That works for you. It is absolutely meaningless to me. All our future indeterminate nows have all happened for you, have all been determined by having happened.

Fine. Whatever you have to believe. There is no freedom at all for God or creation in that. Fine.

Doesn't work for me and never will. Can't. It certainly solves the problem of how God knows that it will rain tomorrow without determining it, it's all happened. All future eternity.

Fine. As long as God didn't make any of it happen that caused someone to be damned.

Good luck with that.

I'm sure many here find that meaningful, real, necessary, mandatory. Freddy for one.

I can't and I don't feel the lack. Like I'm supposed to feel for not being Roman or Greek. Without realising it.

I'm sure I don't know what I'm missing.

--------------------
Love wins

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sharkshooter

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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
...In fact, they could all be used to argue the reverse-- they all have to do w/ God appearing in particular space & time. ...

Yes, God appeared in time, but He was not constrained by it until the incarnation. He just appeared when, where, how, in what form He choose to.

Only as Jesus was He subject to time, where He had to experience events chronologically. That is what I meant by not being constrained by time. He was not older, nor younger in any of those appearances, He just was.

[ 22. April 2011, 04:04: Message edited by: sharkshooter ]

--------------------
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]

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sharkshooter

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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
...
Fine.

...

That's the closest thing you came to an understandable sentence in that whole post. Mind writing English once in a while?

--------------------
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]

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Martin60
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So God can step in to tomorrow even though it hasn't happened?

Does He keep stepping in to the past too?

I suppose He must. He HAS to.

The inifinite nows are all now after all.

And in which nows does He not exist?

Do you mind thinking about the semantic implications of your beliefs once in a while?

--------------------
Love wins

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Freddy
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Do you mind thinking about the semantic implications of your beliefs once in a while?

Semantics. Good. It is true that there is nothing but now as far as time is concerned. The past and future are real but they aren't actual at any given moment.

There are other implications, though, and I think some of them are what is behind this thread.

If God is in a time/space world just as we are, then we must imagine that He was been around for a very long time before we arrived and will be around for a long time after we have gone. The amounts of time involved, as Yorick pointed out, are staggering.

If eternity is nothing but a very long time, you can't avoid running into the question of what God did before creation. You can't help but deal with it and be defeated by it.

If time and space only come into existence with Creation, however, then God exists apart from time. There is no such thing as "before creation."

This is more logical and satisfactory to my way of thinking.

--------------------
"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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Martin60
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Ah hah Freddy. And Happy Easter to us all. I LOVE eternity. It scares me to death. The reality of forever and ever. And we are just starting. Eternity is a mind blowing fact and God inhabits it. He has ALWAYS been up to something. Busy from eternity, for LOTS of time ... BEFORE He created.

You put another entity between God and eternity, it's still there.

It's ALL about disposition.

There is NOTHING after us. We go on FOREVER. We have eternal life.

In Jesus.

Yorick is a poor, shivering pagan, meaninglessly waiting for endless oblvion, yet to know he is eternal.

Christ will be risen in three days.

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Love wins

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
...In fact, they could all be used to argue the reverse-- they all have to do w/ God appearing in particular space & time. ...

Yes, God appeared in time, but He was not constrained by it until the incarnation. He just appeared when, where, how, in what form He choose to.
.

A good, orthodox opinion. But again, my point was that showing evidence of God showing up in space/time is certainly not evidence that God is ordinarily not "in" time.

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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

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Martin60
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So did He ever show up tomorrow before He showed up yesterday?

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Love wins

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Martin60
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And Freddy, how you make things real when they aren't actual is the Gostak Distimming the Doshes to me.

--------------------
Love wins

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Dave Marshall

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I think it's valid to say human experience is subjectively real. The past is an objective reality. It's just ultimately only an imprint on now.
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Freddy
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And Freddy, how you make things real when they aren't actual is the Gostak Distimming the Doshes to me.

"Actual" means present, as I'm using it. Maybe that's French. [Cool]

If only the present moment is real then it is true that we are going to have a hard time dealing with the point of time.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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Martin60
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Aye, actual, now, real. The past WAS. If we have hard a time dealing with time we will have a hard time dealing with God. Which we do. God exists. God is, becomes, times. They're all synonyms. And they deconstruct further. God. Is. Time. That's it. A sentence? Three synonyms. Statements. One. All other existence, endurance, time, phenomena (quantal AND supernatural) is thought by God.

There is no need for the future to have already happened. God will will it. Determinedly indeterminate AND determinate.

--------------------
Love wins

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Freddy
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
There is no need for the future to have already happened. God will will it. Determinedly indeterminate AND determinate.

Most sensible things yet.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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Martin60
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Steady Freddy!

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Love wins

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Aye, actual, now, real. The past WAS. If we have hard a time dealing with time we will have a hard time dealing with God. Which we do. God exists. God is, becomes, times. They're all synonyms. And they deconstruct further. God. Is. Time. That's it. A sentence? Three synonyms. Statements. One. All other existence, endurance, time, phenomena (quantal AND supernatural) is thought by God.

This reminds me of the 70s and my youthful Kahil Gibran days....

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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

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Martin60
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# 368

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Which half?

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
I see God, reality - eternal, relational, personaed-personned, gestalt, mutually interpenetrating, fractal love - as constantly changing, in process, flowing, concurrently, infinitely in every parallel state as alluded to by the imagery of the Holy Ghost. All of it. Now. No one clock ticks in God. Harmonics ensue.

Panta rei, then. Yet the crucial error occurred already in the second word, equating "reality" with "God". You are basically talking about the "prime matter" of Aristotelian(-inspired) philosophy here, the state of things "without form", as encountered also in Genesis. It is quite an interesting, and perhaps even true, assertion that we should consider the "void" of prime matter not as nothingness but as the absence of restraint on everything-at-once. Yet this state of matter is something to ponder, not to worship. Chaos is not a name of God, Logos is. Let there be light, according to his Word, and therefore also darkness. God is the knife's edge of eternal definiteness separating first something from nothing, then one thing from the other.

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
There is no basal, hypostatic ground of being from which God emerges against which God is measured. No pulse. But God surely pulses. The pulses pulse. There is no hierarchy of being. There is true irreducible complexity. God is self-emergent. Constantly. Eternally. God is. Becoming. Constantly. God is the measure. God IS Time.

This is mere pantheism, you truly are regressing back to the Greeks. An emergent god is no God, because it has no power to explain how there ever is something to emerge from. "Irreducible complexity" is a scientific eupheism for "I am incapable of analyzing this stuff", and "emergence" for "I know all the parts but still do not understand what is happening here". They tell us about the limitations of human mind and effort, perhaps, but are no basis for creation. If your god "pulses", then I can count these pulses, and I can compare this count to other "pulses" I see in nature. I can therefore time your god. To escape my empirical gaze there, you have to redefine your "divine pulses" into some unmeasurable sentiments, establishing a sloppy philosophy from which no understanding of creation emerges, but merely the irreducible complexity of the slack jaw.

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
God can change what He wills. Except the past of course. That would be ... immoral. Inconsistent. Absurd. That would create multiverses. The floor lurches for a moment, but no.

Actually, my favorite explanation of the fall is that God changed the past, now and future of all creation around the fulcrum of Adam's action - which is moral, consistent, understandable and does not create even a second universe (since what God does not keep in being simply is not). The world has lurched around the floor.

quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Consider General Relativity.

You'll be more familiar with this than me, but a process model of metaphysical creation requires only that there is no discontinuity of time between adjacent points in space. I wasn't aware General Relativity implies this.
This is not what I was thinking about. I was speculatively defining away time and space as independent entities in favor of a strictly relational picture between events, of which time and space are mere measures. However, in General Relativity spactime acts as a real entity. For example, the curvature of spacetime that the sun imposes on spacetime is what keeps earth running in its orbit. I'm not sure whether such a "physical" role of spacetime can be redefined in terms of relational operators...

quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I think God can only be One that simply creates - no complexity.

This is actually right, but I think not quite in the way you mean it. It is a proper answer to Dawkins, who apparently believes that God must be "more complex" than the universe He creates (though this answer probably goes over his head). It is however not a definition of what God is as such, only of what God is with regards to creation.

quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Mind doesn't fit God because the idea drags in a whole raft of time-bound, memory-requiring attributes unrelated to the rest of the model. As does incarnation. Both are imparsimonious. They confuse consistent model-building with explanatory story-telling. I want to be able to distinguish between the two.

Firstly, the incarnation is utterly imparsimonious and indeed barely thinkable. (People who just accept it have little intellectual understanding of what is being asserted.) It also follows in no way or form logically from observing the universe. It is not entirely unpredictable, indeed it is eminently fitting, but only in terms of the Judeo-Christian salvation narrative. The incarnation has no "philosophical" motivation as such, and its truth value rests on faith in a story - the Christian story. So it simply makes no sense to use the incarnation in your argument here, since nobody is fundamentally disagreeing with you there.

Secondly, the Mind of God is of course neither time-bound nor does it involve memory. You are simply projecting human mind on God. Why would you be surprised that this does not work? It is really the other way around. By thinking about what features of the human mind could in some analogical way be predicated of God at all, you can gain some insight into what is actually crucial to mind as such (rather than to the human realization thereof). For example, God's thought cannot be discursive, so discursion is not fundamental to mind. If you are interested, you can of course go back to Aquinas, who has two entire sections devoted to questions about the mind of God...

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
God is anthropomorphic.

Bullshit. Man is theomorphic.

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
For eternity God did not create. Then He did.

You pride yourself in believing in square circles.

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
If there is no such thing as time for God, there isn't for us either.

A complete non sequitur completely accommodated by the incarnation.

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
God. Is. Time. That's it. A sentence? Three synonyms.

Two synonyms, one falsehood.

You realize that you are unintentionally giving an extended argument for the necessity of the incarnation, right? God incarnated so that Martin had a chance in hell to believe in Him...

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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
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# 368

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Er, what's the incarnation, good witless doctor (Who in Adam?) of taurine scatology? Man-shaped God. God come down. Man lifted up. God is NOW vicariously human.

He wasn't always (except in your Tardis).

I see that you are enjoying blessings of which I cannot possibly be aware that I'm missing.

I admire the way you just ignore that that you cannot possibly deal with. Despite being a Time Lord.

And twist words like any good rhetorician. Self-emergent, is, as you know, poetic, nonsense, the end of emergence, like the end of causality in self-causal. Analytically meaningless (as EVERYTHING is as Thom realised one good day a tad later than Gautama Siddhartha and Solomon and Wittgenstein did a tad later yet). Apart from being ripe with meaning out of reach. Ineffable.

Unlike those who pretend it isn't REAL.

Lots and lots and ... of time.

Eternity.

Will we carry on this debate while I clean your lavatory in heaven up the pipe from hell if I'm allowed?

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
IconiumBound
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# 754

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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
There is no basal, hypostatic ground of being from which God emerges against which God is measured. No pulse. But God surely pulses. The pulses pulse.

Being "a bear of little brain" I am hesitant to step into this deep, deep discusion but how about this thought.

If the first thing that filled the void was light, does not light have the wave property of frequency? Frequency is a pulse. Could light be God?

[ 25. April 2011, 12:32: Message edited by: IconiumBound ]

Posts: 1318 | From: Philadelphia, PA, USA | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
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# 238

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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I think God can only be One that simply creates - no complexity.

This is actually right, but I think not quite in the way you mean it. It is a proper answer to Dawkins, who apparently believes that God must be "more complex" than the universe He creates (though this answer probably goes over his head). It is however not a definition of what God is as such, only of what God is with regards to creation.
Dawkins' argument about complexity is actually an answer to a specific school of Creationist thought that claims God must exist because the Universe is too huge and complex to have arisen without a guiding intelligence behind it. Dawkins simply points out that the God postulated by these Creationist is even more huge and complex than the Universe and thus, by the same resoning, must have something even more complex to create Him (which in turn would be even more complex and need something to create It, which would . . . etc.)

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Secondly, the Mind of God is of course neither time-bound nor does it involve memory. You are simply projecting human mind on God. Why would you be surprised that this does not work? It is really the other way around. By thinking about what features of the human mind could in some analogical way be predicated of God at all, you can gain some insight into what is actually crucial to mind as such (rather than to the human realization thereof). For example, God's thought cannot be discursive, so discursion is not fundamental to mind. If you are interested, you can of course go back to Aquinas, who has two entire sections devoted to questions about the mind of God...

I'm always impressed by how many people seem to definitively know the mind of God. Of course, most of these people seem to disagree vehemently about exactly what's on God's mind. Maybe God's schizophrenic?

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Dave Marshall

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# 7533

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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
[God can only be One that simply creates - no complexity] is however not a definition of what God is as such, only of what God is with regards to creation.

Of course. As with anything we can usefully say about God.
quote:
the Mind of God is of course neither time-bound nor does it involve memory. You are simply projecting human mind on God. Why would you be surprised that this does not work?
Take away the time-bound aspects of human mind and I'm not sure what you have left to reasonably call Mind.
quote:
It is really the other way around. By thinking about what features of the human mind could in some analogical way be predicated of God at all, you can gain some insight into what is actually crucial to mind as such (rather than to the human realization thereof).
You're forgetting that I place no reliance whatsover on the truth about God's Mind that has been supernaturally revealed to the Roman Catholic Church. For me talk of mind cannot but be analogical, using aspects of human mind to say something about God.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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I imagine that I am an ant, on the limb of a tree, carrying back bits of leaf to the ant burrow 10 m away. If I could think, I'd be thinking of leaves and trees and ant burrows and the hazards of walking on the ground, what with rain, predators and scent trails getting scrambled. And I would ponder why leaves are where they are, and wonder about other trees and know that when I'm up on the end of the branch that I see trees farther than I can see. Are there ants on all of them? Are there forests of ants everywhere? Is every species haplo-diploid such that we are all girls and just make a boy to do it with the queen and then abandon him and go back to being girls together? And I would think God looks like an ant and is definitely a girl, probably looking a bit like our queen.

I think I would then marvel at the grandness and mystery of life, and even if we had ant scientists, I'm guessing they could get no where near things like intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines, playing the organ, and singing. Thus I suspect us humans are on some branch somewhere wondering about it, and just getting started after 8 or 10 thousand years of so-called civilization.

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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Self-emergent, is, as you know, poetic, nonsense, the end of emergence, like the end of causality in self-causal. Analytically meaningless (as EVERYTHING is as Thom realised one good day a tad later than Gautama Siddhartha and Solomon and Wittgenstein did a tad later yet). Apart from being ripe with meaning out of reach. Ineffable.

You are no Zen master, so stop fronting so hard. The problem with your appeal to the ineffable is twofold. Firstly, it is thoroughly hypocritical. Everything turns ineffable only when your position becomes indefensible, otherwise you happily hump Ockham's razor. Secondly, the effing ineffable cannot be expressed, at all. Thus it follows by definition that nothing we can talk about is ineffable. Therefore plenty is effable about God, because we can talk a lot about God (as Scripture does as well). If you disagree, feel free to shut up already. After all: Whereof one cannot speak, one must pass over in silence.

quote:
Originally posted by IconiumBound:
Could light be God?

No.

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Dawkins simply points out that the God postulated by these Creationist is even more huge and complex than the Universe

Really? Is Dawkins explicitly quoting the Creationists themselves declaring that God is "more complex" than the universe? Or is he merely arguing that their God must be so? I bet the latter is the case.

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm always impressed by how many people seem to definitively know the mind of God. Of course, most of these people seem to disagree vehemently about exactly what's on God's mind. Maybe God's schizophrenic?

Nobody has claimed to know the mind of God in the sense of knowing what's on God's mind. What we are discussing is rather what it could mean to say that God has a mind. One easy conclusion is for example that God can never have anything on His mind, because that sort of shifting focus of attention is clearly finite and time-bound, thus not Divine.

quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
[God can only be One that simply creates - no complexity] is however not a definition of what God is as such, only of what God is with regards to creation.

Of course. As with anything we can usefully say about God.
Not true. One can go further by having faith in human reason, yielding metaphysics, and/or faith in revelation, yielding theology. I have faith in both.

quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Take away the time-bound aspects of human mind and I'm not sure what you have left to reasonably call Mind.

Intellect ("understanding") and will ("seeking of the good"), basically - not analogous in operation, but in effect.

quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
It is really the other way around. By thinking about what features of the human mind could in some analogical way be predicated of God at all, you can gain some insight into what is actually crucial to mind as such (rather than to the human realization thereof).

You're forgetting that I place no reliance whatsover on the truth about God's Mind that has been supernaturally revealed to the Roman Catholic Church. For me talk of mind cannot but be analogical, using aspects of human mind to say something about God.
I'm sorry, but you response has nothing to do with what I said. If you believe nothing revealed to the RCC, even if you believe that God does not have a mind, you can still reasonably do what I said as a mental exercise in order to arrive at a better idea about mind.

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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
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# 238

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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Dawkins simply points out that the God postulated by these Creationist is even more huge and complex than the Universe

Really? Is Dawkins explicitly quoting the Creationists themselves declaring that God is "more complex" than the universe? Or is he merely arguing that their God must be so? I bet the latter is the case.
Dawkins attributes the argument to Fred Hoyle, although it's a second hand attribution through Hoyle's colleague Chandra Wickramasinghe. The specifics can be found in Chapter 4 of The God Delusion. The argument as presented certainly doesn't seem at odds with Hoyle's known positions on the matter.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm always impressed by how many people seem to definitively know the mind of God. Of course, most of these people seem to disagree vehemently about exactly what's on God's mind. Maybe God's schizophrenic?

Nobody has claimed to know the mind of God in the sense of knowing what's on God's mind. What we are discussing is rather what it could mean to say that God has a mind. One easy conclusion is for example that God can never have anything on His mind . . .
You know, I think I can agree with that assertion, though for a very different reason than yours. [Big Grin]

Seriously though, I find it hard to accept an argument that the theological equivalent of psychology is beyond our comprehension but the theological equivalent of neurology has "easy conclusion[s]".

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The argument as presented certainly doesn't seem at odds with Hoyle's known positions on the matter.

Fred Hoyle? Some excellent scientific work, some cool SF, but whatever has he got to do with Christian positions on creation?

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Seriously though, I find it hard to accept an argument that the theological equivalent of psychology is beyond our comprehension but the theological equivalent of neurology has "easy conclusion[s]".

Of course we are attempting neither psychology nor neurology of God (as God) here, since He has neither a psyche nor a brain. We are doing specific metaphysics, though the answers are easy because we are really just looking at conceptual consistency - thus we are using logic.

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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
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# 238

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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The argument as presented certainly doesn't seem at odds with Hoyle's known positions on the matter.

Fred Hoyle? Some excellent scientific work, some cool SF, but whatever has he got to do with Christian positions on creation?
First, I find it interesting that you automatically equate "Creationis[m]" with "Christian positions on creation". On a more serious note, are you disagreeing with Dawkins' actual argument, or are you simply disagreeing with your idea of what Dawkins must be saying? You seem awfully unfamiliar with his actual writing to be making such definitive statements about it.

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
On a more serious note, are you disagreeing with Dawkins' actual argument, or are you simply disagreeing with your idea of what Dawkins must be saying? You seem awfully unfamiliar with his actual writing to be making such definitive statements about it.

Quite so, I have not read any material from Dawkins that is not freely available, including the book in question. If I had read it, then I would not be asking questions about what precisely Dawkins says - I would likely remember or simply look it up myself.

Anyway, the following in your words "God must exist because the Universe is too huge and complex to have arisen without a guiding intelligence behind it ... the God postulated ... is even more huge and complex than the Universe" is a non sequitur. I was asking who made that non sequitur. Apparently Fred Hoyle then, originally?

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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

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Martin60
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# 368

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Good Doctor. Thomistry mate. Straw on the wind. A distraction from that which you cannot address. Care to give a reason why God does not

1 a : move from topic to topic without order : rambling yet
b : proceeds coherently from topic to topic
2: is marked by analytical reasoning
3: uses discourse

apart from your ipse dixit?

And is mindless?

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged



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