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Infinite regress.

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  • Infinite regress.

    Did God have a first thought?

  • #2
    The Logos
    Don't call it a comeback. It's a riposte.

    Comment


    • #3
      Infinite Regress is a human construct to describe a type of infinity that would be within a greater reference of time.

      Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_regress

      An infinite regress in a series of propositions arises if the truth of proposition P1 requires the support of proposition P2, the truth of proposition P2 requires the support of proposition P3, ... , and the truth of proposition Pn-1 requires the support of proposition Pn and n approaches infinity.

      © Copyright Original Source



      Logos may be described as 'God's thought,' it would be awkward to describe it as God's first thought.
      Last edited by shunyadragon; 05-16-2014, 06:13 AM.
      Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
      Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
      But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

      go with the flow the river knows . . .

      Frank

      I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

      Comment


      • #4
        No. God is eternal - no beginning and no end - hence no 'firsts'.
        "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

        "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

        My Personal Blog

        My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

        Quill Sword

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
          No. God is eternal - no beginning and no end - hence no 'firsts'.
          So no first creation?
          I'm not here anymore.

          Comment


          • #6
            Of God, no? God is eternal - creation is not.
            "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

            "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

            My Personal Blog

            My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

            Quill Sword

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
              No. God is eternal - no beginning and no end - hence no 'firsts'.
              So an infinite regress -turtles all the way down- is possible?

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by crepuscule View Post
                So an infinite regress -turtles all the way down- is possible?
                No...
                Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by JimL View Post
                  Did God have a first thought?
                  Short: He is his essence; His essence is existence; He is pure act; He has all perfections; God is timeless; A first thought implies a change in God going from 'first thought' to something else; A change in God implies an imperfection in the sense that there's some 'thought' His mind doesn't encompass. However since He has all perfections, His mind spans all thoughts.

                  Reducto ad absurdum: there were no first thought.

                  We can get further into what it mean for God to have thoughts, since this has to be distinguished from the way we humans have thoughts.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                    Short: He is his essence; His essence is existence; He is pure act; He has all perfections; God is timeless; A first thought implies a change in God going from 'first thought' to something else; A change in God implies an imperfection in the sense that there's some 'thought' His mind doesn't encompass. However since He has all perfections, His mind spans all thoughts.

                    Reducto ad absurdum: there were no first thought.

                    We can get further into what it mean for God to have thoughts, since this has to be distinguished from the way we humans have thoughts.
                    So would you define the nature of God, i.e the nature of his mind as fixed and determined. Was Gods idea to create the universe 14 billion years ago eternally fixed in the mind of God? It would seem by your description that God has no thoughts, that he is thoughtless and determined by his own nature which I think would be just as an apt description of the natural world, no? Pure act, perfect in itself, timeless in itself, and determined in itself.
                    Last edited by JimL; 05-17-2014, 07:58 AM.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by JimL View Post
                      So would you define the nature of God, i.e the nature of his mind as fixed and determined. Was Gods idea to create the universe 14 billion years ago eternally fixed in the mind of God? It would seem by your description that God has no thoughts, that he is thoughtless and determined by his own nature which I think would be just as an apt description of the natural world, no? Pure act, perfect in itself, timeless in itself, and determined in itself.

                      Your problem is that you are trying to understand eternity by shoving into a time paradigm. "Fixed" is a temporal concept. "first" is also a temporal concept. You are imagining timelessness as "frozen in time" and it isn't. It's like trying to claim infinity is just a really big number.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by JimL View Post
                        Did God have a first thought?
                        Did JimL ever have an original thought?
                        The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                          Did JimL ever have an original thought?
                          Jim is ok...
                          Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                            Your problem is that you are trying to understand eternity by shoving into a time paradigm. "Fixed" is a temporal concept. "first" is also a temporal concept. You are imagining timelessness as "frozen in time" and it isn't. It's like trying to claim infinity is just a really big number.
                            First off, we don't even know how to define "time" accurately, or if there is even such a thing as time, therefore, for all we know, however "time" is defined, it could be that it fits just as easily into an eternal paradigm as it does a temporal one. Second, If you have an alternative view with regards to the eternal, being both active, eventful, as well as timeless, which it seems you have, I would certainly be interested in the explanation.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by JimL View Post
                              First off, we don't even know how to define "time" accurately, or if there is even such a thing as time, therefore, for all we know, however "time" is defined, it could be that it fits just as easily into an eternal paradigm as it does a temporal one. Second, If you have an alternative view with regards to the eternal, being both active, eventful, as well as timeless, which it seems you have, I would certainly be interested in the explanation.

                              What I am saying is that we, as temporal beings, really don't have the capacity of understanding what an eternal being is like. It would be like you trying to imagine a 6-dimensional object and all you know is 3 dimensions (4 if you include time)

                              Trying to ask questions like "what was God's first thought" is basically the same thing. You are asking in terms of time (first, last, etc) when there is no time without God having created it in our universe. You are thinking of eternity as some Meta-time that is still time that contains our time. Like a nested Russian doll.

                              Comment

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