What was God doing?

[JimL]

He was creating. Everyday is an infinitesimal piece of the continued act of creation.

Subsequent creations, continuous actions, are actions that require time.

[JimL]

As I've already noted, there is no answer which would be more than rank speculation. Try asking a more fruitful question.

There is an answer to every question whether the answer is known or not. What we are doing here is speculating as to whether or not the idea of creation and a timeless creator makes logical sense.

[guacamole]

Subsequent creations, continuous actions, are actions that require time.

Yes. If God was extant, then there was time.

[JimL]

Precisely my point.

Anything at all, including God. Your argument is that god existed prior to time, which contradicts the notion that it is illogical to argue that anything at all existed prior to time.

Is this your refutation of Hawking and Vilenkin? Seriously?

First off I don't know if that is actually what Hawking and Vilenkin believe. I think you may be reading them wrongly. Time, with respect to the universe, began to exist with the universe, yes, and that is what they know, its common sense, but whether it also existed prior to the universe is a completely different question and probably not one that they have an answer to.

[robrecht]

Anything at all, including God.

First off I don't know if that is actually what Hawking and Vilenkin believe. I think you may be reading them wrongly. Time, with respect to the universe, began to exist with the universe, yes, and that is what they know, its common sense, but whether it also existed prior to the universe is a completely different question and probably not one that they have an answer to.

Sounds like you have some reading to do.

[JimL]

Sounds like you have some reading to do.

I edited the above which you probably missed robrecht. "Your argument, if i've understood you correctly, is that if time came into existence with the universe, then it makes no sense to argue that anything existed before the universe, and yet you argue that god existed before the universe." That seems to be a contradiction to me, yes?

[Leonhard]

If time itself came into existence with the universe, then it makes no sense to argue that anything at all existed before the universe. ... if god did not exist temporally before creation, then he didn't really exist before creation.

You're begging the question that for something to exist, it has to exist within time.

In classical theology God's act of creation relates to the world in an immediate fashion. In our terminology the beginning of the universe is simultaneous with God's act of creation. There's nothing inconsistent or incoherent about this, unless you can argue that for something to exist, it must be in time. And you haven't said what it means to be in time. Be part of the spacetime continuum? God is outside of it. Undergo motion and change? God in his essence is utterly impassible and changeless, in what way could we talk of time passing for Him?

Whenever we're talking about time we're talking about matter in collective motion all of which happens in some synchronized fashion. Which is why clocks are handy. All motion is constrained by the clock. Time flies. We can only do so much with a certain portion of time continuously changing second by second, and our positions are likewise limited to where we are what volume we occupy. God being changeless is without any notion of time, and as he's omnipresent you can't talk about him being in any particular point. Conceived of as a being without these constraints, there's no problem with asking what He was doing before the beginning of time: The answer is that 'before time' is like 'south of the South Pole'

God is timeless, deal with it.

Splitting it up into logical before, or temporal before, is fine terminology, since we can describe God as being the cause of the universe, even as he is simultaneous with its beginning.

[Carrikature]

We're as threatening as a cute baby bear cub. It's our Patron that may be concerning. Except that atheists don't believe He exists, so why feel threatened? And did I just compare God to a mother bear?

You can make a threat without the person you're threatening taking it seriously. Who says we feel threatened? Regardless, it's pretty dumb to tell non-believers that they'd be better off spending their time worrying about the actions of a being they don't believe exists.

[JimL]

You're begging the question that for something to exist, it has to exist within time.

In classical theology God's act of creation relates to the world in an immediate fashion. In our terminology the beginning of the universe is simultaneous with God's act of creation. There's nothing inconsistent or incoherent about this, unless you can argue that for something to exist, it must be in time. And you haven't said what it means to be in time. Be part of the spacetime continuum? God is outside of it. Undergo motion and change? God in his essence is utterly impassible and changeless, in what way could we talk of time passing for Him?

To say that god acts, is to acknowledge that he changes, and to act, or change, requires time. If you don't think so, perhaps you could explain how actions occur in the absense of time?

Whenever we're talking about time we're talking about matter in collective motion all of which happens in some synchronized fashion. Which is why clocks are handy. All motion is constrained by the clock. Time flies. We can only do so much with a certain portion of time continuously changing second by second, and our positions are likewise limited to where we are what volume we occupy. God being changeless is without any notion of time, and as he's omnipresent you can't talk about him being in any particular point. Conceived of as a being without these constraints, there's no problem with asking what He was doing before the beginning of time: The answer is that 'before time' is like 'south of the South Pole'

If god was doing anything at all, then that doing requires time. You say no, but you don't explain what you mean by doing in the absense of time.

God is timeless, deal with it.

How do you know that?

Splitting it up into logical before, or temporal before, is fine terminology, since we can describe God as being the cause of the universe, even as he is simultaneous with its beginning.

The beginning of the universe might be, as some have argued, simultaneous with gods act of creating of it, but not simultaneous with god himself.

[Carrikature]

You're begging the question that for something to exist, it has to exist within time.

No, he's not. He's pointing out that 'before' is a time-dependent term that can't apply outside of time.

Not that you have much room to talk with all the other stuff you assume.

[Leonhard]

No, he's not. He's pointing out that 'before' is a time-dependent term that can't apply outside of time.

No, he's clearly saying that you can apply the term, and implying that some sort of nebulous contradiction exists, and that anyway Christians are somehow obligated to provide an account of what happened before, or God does not exist or something.

Not that you have much room to talk with all the other stuff you assume.

Its hard to defend a generic term for God. We could start from the beginning with The Five Ways, and once we've gone through Prima Partis, we could start here. I concede I'm starting from that position, the traditional conception of God.

[Leonhard]

To say that god acts, is to acknowledge that he changes, and to act, or change, requires time.

No, to act is to cause a change either in something else, yourself or both. A metal sphere resting on a bed is acted on by the earth's gravity to make an indentation in the soft bed, but neither it nor the Earth is changed by that act. Even if you count the nearly unmeasurable degree to which the earth accelerates up to towards the sphere, you could easily conceive of an immovable, impervious object attracting another. God acts on the world in the first sense, not in the other two.

This follows necessarily from Him being both timeless and the cause of the universe.

If you don't think so, perhaps you could explain how actions occur in the absense of time?

Well I gave an analogy. I won't describe what these are acts are like in and of themselves. In traditional theology, whether Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic, God's essence, His being, is unknowable. We can only study what He isn't; such as undergoing motion, or being a complex substance, etc... Its up to you to argue that He must be in a particular way, and show a contradiction. I'm not obligated beyond that to give a full account of God's what it means for God to timelessly cause something. I'm humble content with knowing that this is what He did.

[robrecht]

I edited the above which you probably missed robrecht. "Your argument, if i've understood you correctly, is that if time came into existence with the universe, then it makes no sense to argue that anything existed before the universe, and yet you argue that god existed before the universe." That seems to be a contradiction to me, yes?

No, you have not understood me correctly. I have not argued that God existed before the [temporal] universe. It makes no sense to speak of before temporality.

[JimL]

No, to act is to cause a change either in something else, yourself or both. A metal sphere resting on a bed is acted on by the earth's gravity to make an indentation in the soft bed, but neither it nor the Earth is changed by that act. Even if you count the nearly unmeasurable degree to which the earth accelerates up to towards the sphere, you could easily conceive of an immovable, impervious object attracting another. God acts on the world in the first sense, not in the other two.

This follows necessarily from Him being both timeless and the cause of the universe.



Well I gave an analogy. I won't describe what these are acts are like in and of themselves. In traditional theology, whether Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic, God's essence, His being, is unknowable. We can only study what He isn't; such as undergoing motion, or being a complex substance, etc... Its up to you to argue that He must be in a particular way, and show a contradiction. I'm not obligated beyond that to give a full account of God's what it means for God to timelessly cause something. I'm humble content with knowing that this is what He did.

But your analogy of forces acting upon existing objects is not timeless, it requires time.

[Leonhard]

But your analogy of forces acting upon existing objects is not timeless, it requires time.

Yes, to illustrate one of the three ways something can be a cause.

You said explicitly: "To say that god acts, is to acknowledge that he changes"

So if we are already aware of entities that cause a change in something else, then unless you can argue why passibility is important, then merely pointing out that my analogy exists in time amounts to special pleading. God is impassible, He is the Prime Mover, and His acting on the world did not change Him.