The Timelessness of God

[Crucible]

The Trinity is supported by the timelessness of God.

There's a mighty paradox in which God couldn't realize His own existence without something to indicate His existence. The Roman and Greek churches conceived the notion that God must be more than one being, and that life itself is a direct reflection of the Godhead rather than a stark contrast according to His design.

'Infinite' is something a lot of people have a hard time grasping, because it is something that doesn't actually exist in reality.

 

[Right Divider]

No one that I'm aware of.

It's a theory.

No, it is not a theory. It is a law. I has been completely proven beyond any doubt through vast amounts of experimental confirmation. If they were not true, your GPS system would not work (as an example).

The physics formulas for these things include time as a component. They are NOT theory at all.

Please take a little time to learn about it.

There is no proof of timelessness anywhere in scripture.
Scripture shows GOD doing things in sequence.
Does not sequence automatically imply time?

Once again Tambora, we who live in the time-space continuum have no words or language to describe it.

How would you even say "before the beginning"?

 

[Right Divider]

The same way He could predict a man named Cyrus would come along and do something neat.
Didn't have to have timelessness to do that.

God does NOT predict. God knows. God foretells.

 

[Clete]

Okay... revving up for the challenge of justifying "God Inside time".

First question... With the assertion that time is a must and God cannot "exist" outside of time...

Is God infinite?

God has always existed.

If you intend to bring up infinite regress, it won't work.

You are interpreting reality in terms of mathematics, which isn't against the rules in all cases but will get you into trouble if you take it beyond what is reasonable.

Just as you want to suggest that there hasn't been enough time pass for an eternity to have elapsed, Zeno suggested that motion itself was impossible for the exact same reason.

The inescapable facts are that we both move in refutation of Zeno's paradoxes and that we do so in the present in refutation of the infinite regress paradox.


The key thing to grasp here is the difference between a paradox and a contradiction. And there is a difference. If there weren't, knowledge itself would be impossible and you'd not be able to read this sentence. In other words, if the logic and all the included assumptions in the infinite regress argument are correct, we don't exist (yet). The fact that the argument is made is proof that we do exist, therefore there is something about the argument and/or the assumptions made in it that is in error. Whether we are able to figure out the error is not relevant. This is the essence of all paradoxes.

Contradictions, on the other hand, are somewhat different. A contradiction is a single statement that contradicts itself, whether explicitly or implicitly. In the case of timeless existence it is implicit. The self-contradiction is found in the concepts upon which the terms used are predicated. Timeless existence uses one concept while denying a concept upon which the used concept is logically based. It's akin to saying something like, "Martin Luther King Jr's father never existed." It can't work. Likewise, discussing existence outside of duration is a self-stullifying thing to do. And make no mistake, that is precisely what you are doing by bringing timeless existence because as it is not possible to discuss existence without duration and impossible to discuss duration without time. Your every comment on the subject will be a contradiction. You've lost any debate on the topic by having brought it up!

Here's the punch line...

To accept that God exists outside of time in order to resolve the infinite regress problem is to accept a contradiction as the solution to a paradox.

You might want to rethink that.

Resting in Him,
Clete


Stolen Concept Fallacy

 

[nikolai_42]

I can not understand that since nothing which I said even hints that the the subject is in regard to the impossibility of undoing events after they have already happened.

Could you please explain the connection which you see in that regard to what I said?

Thanks!

Time is a convenient measure we use (usually with some kind of chronometer - a watch or clock or iPhone etc...) but change is really what we are "measuring". God's timelessness is that He doesn't change, but He permeates ALL time in that He is the alpha, the beginning and the end, the first and last - that which WAS, which IS and which IS TO COME. So it is precisely because He exists in ALL time that I see His purported "timelessness" to actually be the unfolding revelation in (what we call time) of what God IS, WAS and ALWAYS WILL BE. The echoes of His command "Let there be light" still reverberate across the universe because what we see as having been done at the beginning of "time" was actually only the beginning of God revealing Himself to mankind. It was all done before we were on the scene because God had accomplished it. Thus Christ slain from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8). God is not reacting to His creation - reaction implies imperfect knowledge.

Basically, because God existed, exists and will exist, His foreknowledge is complete and perfect already - from time immemorial. Not mere taking in of what He sees, but knowing intimately ALL He does.

Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.
Acts 15:18

 

[Clete]

God does NOT predict. God knows. God foretells.

Says who?

 

[Tambora]

How would you even say "before the beginning"?

Before the beginning of the movie I'm gonna buy some popcorn.

 

[Clete]

Why?



Wrong. God did not ordain Adam to take of the forbidden fruit (knowledge), but commanded against it. God ordained and warned Adam of the punishment (death Genesis 2:16), if he disobeyed the command to not partake.



God only gave Adam the choice to obey and not partake of that tree. The holy Law and commands of God surmount any supposed

freedom to eat freely of what has been forbidden.

Morality exists in the Word of God and what He has declared good. What simply looks good and enticing to the eyes of man, is not always so, and the soul who does not listen, believe, and obey God's warnings of what constitutes life and death, dies.

Get it?

Translation: "Right and wrong are arbitrary."

 

[Tambora]

it is not possible to discuss existence without duration and impossible to discuss duration without time.

 

[Jerry Shugart]

Again, this is an unsubstantiated claim that you have no means to substantiate whatsoever. Even if you could prove that man cannot know some specific thing about the future, you have no means whatsoever to establish that this lack of ability has anything to do with being constrained by time nor that such a lack of ability would also be true of God.

Greetings Clete,

Perhaps we have a different understanding of the meaning of the word "constraint." I am using that word in the sense of "the state of being restricted," or to confine within bounds.

As mere creatures we are restricted from traveling into the future so in that sense we are "constrained" by time. In fact, we cannot have a definite knowledge of very specific things which will happen in the future, such as knowing who will believe the gospel and who will not.

That is what I mean when I am talking about the fact that we are constrained by time. But the LORD is not so constrained (Acts 13:48) so we can know that the environment in which He exists, the eternal state, is one which can be described as being timeless.

What I think is entirely irrelevant to your argument. What is relevant is the fact that it's primary premise is unsubstantiated.

I have used the same method which Paul used (he reasoned out of the Scriptures) in coming to my conclusion. If you think that anything which I said is in error then I will be willing to listen to what you may have to say.

Thanks!

 

[Right Divider]

Before the beginning of the movie I'm gonna buy some popcorn.

I'm talking about before the creation of time.

No, timelessness is not required. It just is, just like God.

 

[Right Divider]

Says who?

Says God.

God declares what will come to pass with absolute certainly. He is not guessing.

F=ma

 

[Evil.Eye.<(I)>]

God has always existed.

If you intend to bring up infinite regress, it won't work.

You are interpreting reality in terms of mathematics, which isn't against the rules in all cases but will get you into trouble if you take it beyond what is reasonable.

Just as you want to suggest that there hasn't been enough time pass for an eternity to have elapsed, Zeno suggested that motion itself was impossible for the exact same reason.

The inescapable facts are that we both move in refutation of Zeno's paradoxes and that we do so in the present in refutation of the infinite regress paradox.


The key thing to grasp here is the difference between a paradox and a contradiction. And there is a difference. If there weren't, knowledge itself would be impossible and you'd not be able to read this sentence. In other words, if the logic and all the included assumptions in the infinite regress argument are correct, we don't exist (yet). The fact that the argument is made is proof that we do exist, therefore there is something about the argument and/or the assumptions made in it that is in error. Whether we are able to figure out the error is not relevant. This is the essence of all paradoxes.

Contradictions, on the other hand, are somewhat different. A contradiction is a single statement that contradicts itself, whether explicitly or implicitly. In the case of timeless existence it is implicit. The self-contradiction is found in the concepts upon which the terms used are predicated. Timeless existence uses one concept while denying a concept upon which the used concept is logically based. It's akin to saying something like, "Martin Luther King Jr's father never existed." It can't work. Likewise, discussing existence outside of duration is a self-stullifying thing to do. And make no mistake, that is precisely what you are doing by bringing timeless existence because as it is not possible to discuss existence without duration and impossible to discuss duration without time. Your every comment on the subject will be a contradiction. You've lost any debate on the topic by having brought it up!

Here's the punch line...

To accept that God exists outside of time in order to resolve the infinite regress problem is to accept a contradiction as the solution to a paradox.

You might want to rethink that.

Resting in Him,
Clete


Stolen Concept Fallacy

Forget math...

Common sense. Infinite denotes No beginning and no end. I submit that common sense dictates that time and infinite are the real contradictions.

No math required. Either God dwells outside time, though we exist inside God... or we start to go into a loop of impossible reasoning that implodes with questions a child could ask.

Colossians 1:15-17

#I hope and pray that debating [MENTION=4980]DFT_Dave[/MENTION] hasn't impaired certain aspects of your logic train.

 

[JudgeRightly]

God does NOT predict. God knows. God foretells.

Did God know that His people would sacrifice their children on the altar to Molech? Did He declare/foretell of it before He created the universe we live in?

Sent from my Pixel XL using TheologyOnline mobile app

 

[Right Divider]

Did God know that His people would sacrifice their children on the altar to Molech? Did He declare/foretell of it before He created the universe we live in?

Yes, I understand that you have a pet interpretation for that verse.

 

[JudgeRightly]

Yes, I understand that you have a pet interpretation for that verse.

Please don't avoid the question. It's a legitimate question, and the answer is fairly straightforward.

Sent from my Pixel XL using TheologyOnline mobile app

 

[Tambora]

Did God know that His people would sacrifice their children on the altar to Molech? Did He declare/foretell of it before He created the universe we live in?

Sent from my Pixel XL using TheologyOnline mobile app

I'm not aware of GOD declaring certain folks would do that particular thing.

But we certainly know that GOD saw it being done when it was done.

When GOD gave Israel the law, it had already been done by pagans, so GOD already knew about it..

Deuteronomy 12:31 KJV
(31) Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.

 

[Tambora]

Common sense. Infinite denotes No beginning and no end. I submit that common sense dictates that time and infinite are the real contradictions.

I don't see how 'infinite' can be a contradiction of 'time', because infinite is just another term describing time.
One second, or a million years, or infinity are just words to describe time.

 

[Right Divider]

I don't see how 'infinite' can be a contradiction of 'time', because infinite is just another term describing time.
One second, or a million years, or infinity are just words to describe time.

What about eternal and everlasting?

What does that mean with regard to time?

Ps 41:13 (AKJV/PCE)​

(41:13) Blessed [be] the LORD God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen.
​

God is.

 

[Right Divider]

Please don't avoid the question. It's a legitimate question, and the answer is fairly straightforward.

I'm not avoiding the question, I'm saying that you misinterpret that verse because you do not have an all knowing God.