Could time be absolute in one sense, and relative in another sense. Relativity may have limited application and validity, but it is not THE unifying theory to explain the issue. Eccl. insists that we blindly accept his version of it while ignoring a myriad of other issues. If he will not tackle the philosophical issues, why should we get bogged down in trains moving at the speed of light?
Does God know the future?
- Thread starter intro2faith
- Start date
Johnny said:
There is no logical way that trillions of years ago is now present or that trillions of years from now is not present (July 2005) for any observer, including God. There must be a flaw in your application of special relativity. The past is fixed for all observers in the universe (certainly the remote vs proximal past). The present is what we and God are aware of. Time frames are not physical places that an observer inhabits. Time is not space nor is it a thing. The distant future is not yet. It is not reality for God or any other observer. Do you really think the year 2040 in its entirety is already in some observer's experience? The events have not happened in any time frame. How can anyone, including God, see something that will not come into objective reality for decades/centuries/eons? You make way too much of the limited applications of special relativity. The sooner you subordinate it to common sense and self-evident observation, the better. Speeds of light are theoretical, not our daily experience. Regardless, relativity still does not resolve the nature of God's existence before creation. How can He see trillions of years into the future when contingent choices have not played out in reality. If He sees them, then they are deterministic with no possibility of true freedom.
Last edited:
First of all everything that has been put up with relevance to the thread has been addressed. My M.O. is that once you have made an argument stick to it until someone addresses it and then defend your argument. Every point that has been brought up, as an example of not being addressed, by yourself I have been able to immediately give reference to where it has been addressed. An argument has been made that highlights a fatal flaw in OT. I have no need to argue other aspects of OT as I only need to find one failing to disprove it. If this M.O. looks familiar I should hope so. Its how everybody should debate.....who is it that I am copying so I can compliment them?
The argument is summarised on post #1455 by Johnny
Last edited:
In addition, with respect to Clete's positioneccl3_6 said:
the posts in response were:Clete said:
#1487
#1488
#1490
#1493
#1508
#1509
#1511
#1488
#1490
#1493
#1508
#1509
#1511
Godrulz#1561 said:
I am dealing with philosophical/theological issues, but just one at a time....this is Open Theist time. Its not a case of getting bogged down with trains moving at speed of light (Relativity is just as much an issue for a still housefly and an airborn on is just we don't actual discreminate easily between the two but it is still there...time is still relative). The problem is that Open Theism exists in absolute time which upto the start of the twentieth century would not have been seen as a problem. So when I look at Open Theism I see the contradiction.....if you can please resolve it. If you can resolve it then I have nothing against accepting it.....why shouldn't I. But the problem needs to be addressed. It cannot be ignored because it is potentially fatal. There is little point moving on to anything else until it is resolved or conceded but you should feel free to start another thread in conjunction to this just as JustChristian did.
Last edited:
"As I understand it, what Einstein proved is only that time is relative to finite observers. That is, no two finite observers share exactly the same reference point in space and since they depend upon the speed of light for the transfer of information cannot share exactly the same "now." But as Lorentz argued, this doesn't rule out there being an infinite observer, or to use Lorentz's words, a "universal mind" not limited to a single reference point in space or dependent upon the speed of light for the transfer of information. Given God's omnipresence (his unversal and immediate presence apprehending all points in space equally), God would not depend on the speed of light for the transfer of information. So time is absolute simultaneity, just not for finite observers".
This is someone's post from an open theism discussion board when I asked for comments on OT and relativity.
Does this have merit? It seems to me that from God's perspective, time is absolute due to His omnipresence. This does not mean He is in the future or the past since time is not a place and not identical to space. Relativity has some insight for us finite observers, but it cannot be extrapolated to explain simple foreknowledge of the future for an infinite Being. The OT view of settled vs unsettled is self-evident. I think you make too much of relativity in relation to God and too little of OT's insights for the problem.
http://www.alibris.com/search/searc...t=p&siteID=Pw2LQAj_zJk-wvP.WUD5NgrOGtguR6sbpA
Time is unidirectional moving from the potential future into the fixed past through the present. Relativity does not alter this.
Has anyone read this book on "The Arrow of Time."?
I notice Open Theist's reference a number of scientific books on the concept of time in support of our position. If we looked at all the relevant research, I think Eccl. would have to not put all his eggs in one basket. Alternate scientific views can and do support OT (quantum mechanics, chaos theory, other literature on time, etc.).
This is someone's post from an open theism discussion board when I asked for comments on OT and relativity.
Does this have merit? It seems to me that from God's perspective, time is absolute due to His omnipresence. This does not mean He is in the future or the past since time is not a place and not identical to space. Relativity has some insight for us finite observers, but it cannot be extrapolated to explain simple foreknowledge of the future for an infinite Being. The OT view of settled vs unsettled is self-evident. I think you make too much of relativity in relation to God and too little of OT's insights for the problem.
http://www.alibris.com/search/searc...t=p&siteID=Pw2LQAj_zJk-wvP.WUD5NgrOGtguR6sbpA
Time is unidirectional moving from the potential future into the fixed past through the present. Relativity does not alter this.
Has anyone read this book on "The Arrow of Time."?
I notice Open Theist's reference a number of scientific books on the concept of time in support of our position. If we looked at all the relevant research, I think Eccl. would have to not put all his eggs in one basket. Alternate scientific views can and do support OT (quantum mechanics, chaos theory, other literature on time, etc.).
Last edited:
Unfortunately one of the first things that Einstein ruled out in Special Relativity was Lorentz....his formulae can still used in certain calculations as a sound approximation but you need to know in what sense it can be used. Einstein did stipulate that there was no point which was to be considered at rest...and this is part of the theory of relativity.
With regards to God's absolute nature....within nature everything is relative because space and time is a product of nature....but as the creator He can be considered absolute outside time/creation but 'time' does not exist here.
I am more than happy to address other aspects of physics in the future. Its not a case of putting one's eggs in one basket. But Open Theism, like every other theology or paper, only has to be proved wrong once to be disproved. Regardless of how many defences it makes of itself....if it is proved wrong once then it is proved wrong catergorically...thats how things work. Its the same for GR and SR but they never have been found wanting. There is little point moving onto Quantum if Open Theism can not address this. Once more it must reason with relative time.
In summary He, being absolute in nature, He experiences everybody's 'nows'/relative times so would not experience time as Open Theism requests Him to.
With regards to the following quote
I know where you are coming from and you are definitely building on your understanding regarding relativity. If I can commend you, without patronising you, then I shall. Many people have been wrongly dismissive out of hand but you have stuck at it with a willingness to learn.
However to keep in accordance with Open Theism God must experience everything as relative if He is omnipresent/Absolute.
This is because if He experiences, say 10 minutes, as 10 mintues (i.e. absolute time), regardless of His position then He knows the future (sit on the event Horizon of black hole and the universe will only seem to exist for ten minutes!) because He would be there. For Him to not have foreknowledge as stipulated by Open Theism then He must experience relative time relatively, for Him to experience relative time is to oppose Open Theism. Its a catch 22.
I know you will probably be adverse to me taking the argument 'ad absurdium' (the blackhole thing) but if He isn't at the edge of the Blackhole where else isn't He? And very quickly God ceases to be omnipresent too and one has to place more and more assumption to keep OT alive. And of course if God isn't omnipresent then the intial counter argument of His being absolute negating relativity is contradicted and catch 22 strikes again!
The short answer is No. The slightly longer answer is 'Arrow of Time' is a concept of physics that may use an entropic state to recognise direction. It has not and does not contend with relativity. I would hazrard a warning that it may be along the lines that all time happened at once and it just spills out in one direction as our perception in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics.....much as was the case in Johnny's post regarding Clete's magazine clip.
This article sounds like it was linked to the 'arrow of time' concept and the '2nd law of thermodynamics' too. Ask Johnny he has the article.
The book looks interesting though.
With regards to God's absolute nature....within nature everything is relative because space and time is a product of nature....but as the creator He can be considered absolute outside time/creation but 'time' does not exist here.
I am more than happy to address other aspects of physics in the future. Its not a case of putting one's eggs in one basket. But Open Theism, like every other theology or paper, only has to be proved wrong once to be disproved. Regardless of how many defences it makes of itself....if it is proved wrong once then it is proved wrong catergorically...thats how things work. Its the same for GR and SR but they never have been found wanting. There is little point moving onto Quantum if Open Theism can not address this. Once more it must reason with relative time.
In summary He, being absolute in nature, He experiences everybody's 'nows'/relative times so would not experience time as Open Theism requests Him to.
With regards to the following quote
Godrulz said:
I know where you are coming from and you are definitely building on your understanding regarding relativity. If I can commend you, without patronising you, then I shall. Many people have been wrongly dismissive out of hand but you have stuck at it with a willingness to learn.
Respect where respect is due.
However to keep in accordance with Open Theism God must experience everything as relative if He is omnipresent/Absolute.
This is because if He experiences, say 10 minutes, as 10 mintues (i.e. absolute time), regardless of His position then He knows the future (sit on the event Horizon of black hole and the universe will only seem to exist for ten minutes!) because He would be there. For Him to not have foreknowledge as stipulated by Open Theism then He must experience relative time relatively, for Him to experience relative time is to oppose Open Theism. Its a catch 22.
I know you will probably be adverse to me taking the argument 'ad absurdium' (the blackhole thing) but if He isn't at the edge of the Blackhole where else isn't He? And very quickly God ceases to be omnipresent too and one has to place more and more assumption to keep OT alive. And of course if God isn't omnipresent then the intial counter argument of His being absolute negating relativity is contradicted and catch 22 strikes again!
The short answer is No. The slightly longer answer is 'Arrow of Time' is a concept of physics that may use an entropic state to recognise direction. It has not and does not contend with relativity. I would hazrard a warning that it may be along the lines that all time happened at once and it just spills out in one direction as our perception in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics.....much as was the case in Johnny's post regarding Clete's magazine clip.
Johnny said:
This article sounds like it was linked to the 'arrow of time' concept and the '2nd law of thermodynamics' too. Ask Johnny he has the article.
The book looks interesting though.
Last edited:
eccl3_6 said:
I am not conversant with the technical aspects of 'time' discussions.
Let's start with God before the creation of the material universe. To be personal (will/actions, intellect/thoughts, emotions/feelings), God must experience succession/sequence/duration. If time is not a created thing (we are talking about the eternal, uncreated God), then it is simply an aspect of His being (cf. God is love, truth, light, uncreated, infinite, omni., faithful, holy, etc.). God experiences absolute time. There is no issues of relativity within the triune God's relations from everlasting to everlasting. Trillions of years ago, it simply was not a possible object of knowledge to know that I would be typing these exact letters in a contingent response to your creative, new-entity posts.
I cannot do justice to your relativity arguments. I know my limitations at this point. I trust Craig's article and books by Lucas, "The Arrow of Time", etc. would eventually frame your perspective in a more balanced way. I suspect the answer to your assumptions is out there. Some great thinker would be able to show the strengths and weaknesses of your argument.
If I could end again on a metaphysical note (I cannot deal with your line of thinking because it is over my head...could you have the courtesy to refute Lucas in "A Treatise on Time and Space" and Wolterstorff in "God and Time: 4 views IVP"...good luck...you will need more than science to do it)?
e.g. Lucas
"Time is more fundamental than space. Indeed, time is the most pervasive of all the categories. Some theologians say that God is outside time, but it cannot be true of any personal God that He is timeless, for a personal God is conscious, and time is a concomitant of consciousness. Time is not only the concomitant of consciousness, but the process of actualization and the dimension of change...time is connected with persons, both as sentient beings and as agents; it is connected with modality, and the passage from the open future to the unalterable past; it is connected with change, and therefore with the things that change and the space in which they change...we are rational agents who make plans for the future and choose between alternatives presented to us...without time no agent could act, for to act is to bring something that we want to come to pass, and time is the passage from possibility to actuality, from aspiration to achievement....without time their could be no activity."
God experiences an endless duration of time. He is not timeless or He would not be personal, nor could He have created our temporal world to interact with. We are in the image of God and experience time even as He did in the Godhead. Relativity may affect our perception of time on moving trains, but it does not change the fundamental nature of an open, unsettled future known and experienced as such.
e.g. Wolterstorff (unqualified divine temporality)
Is God timeless? no...talks about change in a personal being, including God...change in action, thoughts, feelings= change in knowledge (vs 'eternal now").
God has a His Story...take His representations in Scripture as literally true vs figurative.
"Ps. 90:14 What it says on the face of it is not that God is timeless but that God existed BEFORE creation, indeed from everlasting to everlasting. How could God exist before creation and yet be timeless?
...Evidently to God's experience there is a felt temporality (1000 years like a day is not timeless, but perception of time 2 Peter 3:8)...
Jn. 8:58 Jesus not affirming that God is outside of time, but the fact He existed before Abraham means "I am" is not timeless.
Is God ontologically immutable? no...another wrong assumption.
On the nature of time. God does have a history and is accordingly not timeless, but everlasting. A vs B series (overlap)...all events are ordered in terms of some happening now, some having happened in the more or less distant past, and some going to happen in the more or less distant future...preceding or simultaneous...
Present...the past would then be whatever precedes that, and the future whatever succeeds it. ..tenseless theory of time? vs tensed theory of time!
What's fundamental in time is the occurrence of events...when an event occurs, that's when it is present (to God and others...relativity notwithstanding...rulz)...very technical arguments after this...
Outside of time? Events are obviously within time. If something/someone has a history, they are in time (experience it). God has a history. Aquinas...Deism...God has a history, so He has tensed knowledge...change in God's knowledge...God intervenes/acts...thinks...feels...in time.
Time but no space? Deals with spatial/omnipresent issues...
Does God change? Yes, in some ways, but not in other ways...
"What one says about God's relation to time involves a very great deal of the rest of one's theology."
(this is why science arguments alone cannot resolve the biblical issue)
It was Alan that had posted the comment.....its just that there is no example of absolute time, Einstein mentioned this very early on when presenting SR.godrulz said:
Succession/sequence/duration is a product of how we interpret/witness time. If time is not created God need not experience it.
Which goes back to the catch 22 scenario from my recent post. If God expereicences time absolutely then in the presence of time frames there is a contradiction to OT.
To you and I no....to God? Why not? The argument OT presents against this is that foreknowledge excludes freewill and we need freewill. The other thread (free/closed contradiction) stipulates that it is just as acceptable for God to have foreknowledge and for us to have freewill. I am not limiting God in any respect. Science doesn't. We just explain how to read his handiwork.
I will be more than happy to address this but as a different thread. Set it up and I will comment and then stand back to allow the topic to develop. It is important that Open Theists present their defense to the argument as posted on #1452 otherwise it will be compromised. What you have posted here would not be a counter argument becuase it would not address the issues at hand.
Agreed....but science in this thread is not concerened with the bible. It is concerned with a theology that has assumed absolute, not relative, time.
Set up the alternative thread and I will be a happy to comment.
For anybody else that might be reading the argument that has been presented is summarised by Johnny on post 1455
novice
Who is the stooge now?
Eccl you told someone else that the post to check out that summarized your argument was #1455? Is that right?
The following is that post:
It seems to me to be a summary of the theory of relativity. So what? I am curious as to what makes you think this is relevant to Open Theism.
The following is that post:
In your own words what about this post is so special to you?Johnny said:
It seems to me to be a summary of the theory of relativity. So what? I am curious as to what makes you think this is relevant to Open Theism.
eccl3_6 said:
Why set up an alternate thread (they already exist) when these points are relevant to God, the future, and foreknowledge? It is not like I am arguing abortion or capital punishment on an OT thread. They are background material that is very relevant. If you can mix SR in all the related threads, then I will talk A vs B time theory on all the related threads.
I cannot follow your line of thinking, so I will leave it to Clete to try to break through the wall of prejudice.
novice said:
Read the last two paragraphs. All the other Open Theists think this is relevant because they believe God experiences time as we do. But we experience time relative to our position and state relative to others. Open Theism teahces absolute time but time is proven in reality to be relative.
