Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
This is why my goal is to get as fat as possible. If I get fat enough, time will slow down to the point that my lifetime will be extended.
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God and Time
- Thread starter Nois Forme
- Start date
This is why my goal is to get as fat as possible. If I get fat enough, time will slow down to the point that my lifetime will be extended.
PolyHedral
Superabacus Mystic
Good luck with that, since even with the entire Earth's gravitational field, you only gain about 0.7 nanoseconds.
Nois Forme
Member
By this logic, an atheist is someone that would believe in all gods, yes? A-temporal certainly doesn't mean experiencing multiple times simultaneously. It means without (a-) time. That is, experiencing no time.
The specific situation that I was thinking of when posting was that of the Christian god, 'before' he had created time. At that point, such an entity could be said to be timeless - whatever that may mean, if anything.
It is the supposed move (read:change) from that state, to one that is temporal that is at issue. That is simply not possibly without employing a 'well, god is mysterious' type get out of jail free card, because no rational answer can be given.
William Craig, Ernan McMullin and others attempt to answer this problem, and in my opinion all fail at that same point. Even these scholarly theologians admit that this entity must either be '...Temporal or Timeless?'. It's an either-or situation. To be both is to throw out the law of identity.
Craig himself admits that god would have to have been 'timeless' before the creation of time (did he really need to state that - isn't that obvious?), but fails to explain how this frozen, timeless, unchanging deity could have made the transition into a temporal reality. His arguments devolve as all of this nature do, into, 'well, gods pretty special'. In other words, 'I have no idea'...because it simply isn't an intelligible idea.
No, you're correct. They are not direct parallels, and I should have been clearer. The are related only in that they speak of the existence of something 'before' time. I was stating that I find them equally incoherent for that reason.
I do so because I question the very notion of existence (of anything) without time. This could only be if that 'timeless' thing experienced absolutely no change, and had no chance of experiencing change, as change can only occur within time. The same sort of logic applies to the 'before the big bang' statement some make, in that there is no before, as there was presumably no time 'then'.
Nois Forme
Member
Sorry, as I read this again, I'd like to revisit your first line and reiterate a bit. Hopefully I'm not being too redundant here.
The term that would be appropriate in that case would be multitemporal, not atemporal.
Perhaps not explicitly, but it does logically follow if the something in question is not 'in time' at any given point. That would render it frozen, static. In that state, it would never be able to interact with time.
Yes, and once something interacts with time (is no longer independent of it), it is no longer timeless (no I don't contend that this is actually possible). God is said to operated within time at will, therefore - not timeless. Anything timeless will necessarily stay that way for eternity, unable to leave its atemporal, frozen stasis.
The term that would be appropriate in that case would be multitemporal, not atemporal.
Perhaps not explicitly, but it does logically follow if the something in question is not 'in time' at any given point. That would render it frozen, static. In that state, it would never be able to interact with time.
Yes, and once something interacts with time (is no longer independent of it), it is no longer timeless (no I don't contend that this is actually possible). God is said to operated within time at will, therefore - not timeless. Anything timeless will necessarily stay that way for eternity, unable to leave its atemporal, frozen stasis.
Nois Forme
Member
Understood, but this is not the sense I am eluding to. When I say timeless, I mean atemporal - without time. In some way above, beyond, unaffected by, etc., time.
What you describe here is the opposite - an entity that experiences all of time. I'm not arguing against the Biblical support of an eternal or omnitemporal being. The Bible certainly supports those.
But as William Craig and others have argued, god was supposedly timeless 'before' he created time itself. This, I find no Biblical support for, and am very much questioning the logic of such a position. I don't believe it can be supported.
'Before' time, there could be no change, no succession of events, no consciousness (as consciousness itself is constant change), no thought, no action. No...anything. All of this, and I propose anything you can imagine, can only occur within time, by definition. Not in a timeless state.
(Deu 33:27 (NIV) The eternal God [is thy] refuge...
eternal from 'qedem';
1) east, antiquity, front, that which is before, aforetime
a) front, from the front or east, in front, mount of the East
b) ancient time, aforetime, ancient, from of old, earliest time
c) anciently, of old (adverb)
d) beginning
e) east)
'Come before', yes. 'Before time', no. 'Aforetime' is simply archaic for 'previously' or 'at a past time'. No where have I found any word used that means 'before time' or 'without time'. And no where have I found a verse that supports such an idea. It seems to be an entirely extra-biblical idea.
Again, I'm not arguing against Biblical support for an eternal or everlasting entity. Such a being is intimately connected to time. Take away time, and 'eternal' and 'everlasting' have no meaning whatsoever.
Nois Forme
Member
Most don't even get that far, and I appreciate you acknowledging as much! It's like pulling teeth sometimes just to get to the actual argument.
Yes, and I find that...unfortunate. That fact is, a god that exists entirely within time - as the god of the Bible is portrayed - runs into some rather sticky problems when considering some philosophical issues (whether or not he created 'everything' - inc. time, whether or not he is subject to time, etc.).
It seems suspiciously ad hoc to propose some sort of indefensible 'timeless' state, which is incoherent on its face, in an attempt to rescue god as he is actually portrayed in the Bible from these problems. It's apologetics gone mad I say!
I'm afraid I see no logic at all attached to the idea that a being moves from a timeless to a temporal state. Perhaps you could elaborate.
Of course I would agree (big if), but it leads to a rather slippery slope. In particular, it gets difficult (even more so than with time I think), when we get to the concept of logic.
On your statement, I would have to conclude that god is not subject to logic. Followed to its conclusion, its perfectly acceptable to say that god could both exist and not exist simultaneously, for example. That he has always been, and that he has never been. All bets are off if we toss out logic, and it falls with everything else if he 'subject to nothing'. Oh, and apparently, he really can make square-circle! Heh.
It is not logic, but definition.
I don't believe I said it did. Saying all X are Y does not necessitate that all Y are X.
That is not what atemporal means though, it means "Independent of time" atemporal - definition of atemporal by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.
Saying there is an existence outside of time does not posit a "before" time.
As an analogy, I'll draw, a little(and I don't know if he'd like it
), upon Hawking. He once compared the question of "what is before time?" to "what is further south than the south pole?" Both questions are meaningless, there is no "before" time, there is nothing further south than the south pole. If you keep walking in south, eventually you begin to move north. The same for the other three directions, North, East, and West.Positing a thing that exists outside of our directional understanding, that cannot be understood in terms of North, South, East, or West of us, does not posit a further south than south, etc.
I think you have a misunderstanding of what temporal means. Temporal is not just time, it is the limitations and restrictions of time. A being that exists outside of the limitations of time is atemporal.
This is not the definition of atemporal. So the implication does not exist.
Interaction does not equal dependency.
That is what timeless means. Timeless and atemporal are synonyms, they both mean independent of time(and if you can interact with something as you will, you are independent of it).
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Beaudreaux
Well-Known Member
Thief said:
Beaudreaux said:
Dude, seriously. When did you first come to the conclusion that time doesn't exist?
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Dude seriously............................
Just last night I watched a physicist confess that time is not well understood.
Could it be that you don't either?
PolyHedral
Superabacus Mystic
"Not understood" implies existence.
I specifically said "each moment," addressing only the moment.
For $10,000 and a new car, 'What is "eternal"?' Timeless is before each moment of time.
Probably not, as "time" isn't a line with a before "way back when."
Just so. Before time is before creation.
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Abulafia
What?
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
So how many hours ago did you watch that?
Blackdog22
Well-Known Member
He watched it 0 hours ago and he is still an infant incapable of typing.
I still wanna know why God was so ****** off in the OT if Jesus' sacrifice was timeless and thus he would have no reason for wrath. This makes no sense!!
Nois Forme
Member
I'll just stop you there. You may want to grab a coffee...
How far afield we have gotten! I take partial blame for following you down that semantic rabbit hole. That's almost always a losing game, as the actual argument rarely gets addressed - and as yet, it hasn't been here.
While I don't pretend to know your intentions, you've managed either innocently or deliberately to construct a subtle but derailing straw man. This has prevented us from discussing the argument presented in my OP. Let's see if we can't burn it to the ground and get on to the business at hand. It will take some doing.
First, how you would choose to define timeless or atemporal is not relevant to this argument, and I'll explain why shortly. I'll look for a moment at those terms just for kicks...
Regarding 'atemporal'; the use of the 'a-' prefix indicates negation, from both the Latin and Greek roots. It means either 'not', 'lacking' or 'without'. A few examples for illustration -
a-symmetry - lack of - symmetry
a-naemia - lack of - blood
a-sexual - lacking - sex or functional sex organs, or not - sexual
a-sylum - without - syle ('right of seizure')
a-systole - no - systole (cardiac electrical activity)
a-theist - without / lack of - theism (or, belief in, god(s))
If you find temporal to be a special case where the use of the 'a-' prefix has some other effect on its meaning, so be it. I contend that you are simply wrong, but we can discard the term, as in that case, it doesn't refer to that which I was arguing against anyway. It's therefore a straw man.
Regarding 'timeless'; Much of the same applies. Consider other applications of the suffix '-less' (an adjective meaning: without, missing) and the resulting definitions -
bound-less - without - boundaries or limits
guilt-less - having no - guilt
end-less - without - end
point-less - not having - a point
Again, if when dealing with 'temporal', adding '-less' has some effect I didn't anticipate, then we can discard it as well to avoid confusion.
(There is of course a colloquial use of timeless as applied to, for example, music. Said music 'transcends' the typical trappings of its era, etc. If you were using it in this way to describe god, that seems at least coherent - but it isn't how I was using it in the argument (as, that isn't how those arguing for a 'timeless god' were using it), so again it isn't relevant and becomes a straw man)
I thought all of this might have been avoided had you simply read and understood the OP. I specifically said;
"For the moment, I'll put aside that this term has no meaning for me. Suffice to say that those who use the term seem to mean outside of, unaffected by or beyond time."
I made it clear what I was arguing against - a definition that theists came up with - and you decided to overlook this and argue semantics instead. What term you choose to apply to the meaning involved doesn't concern me. You may call it zing-tolly for all that it will matter. It does not effect the argument one way or the other.
One last thing before I move on - the definition you supplied;
"Independent of time"
This neither implies 'eternal' or 'simultaneously existing in multiple times' as you suggest, nor does it negate 'cannot interact with time'. It wasn't terribly helpful in other words.
The point - if it helps to clarify things for you, we can eliminate this terminology altogether, and simply refer to the state I am arguing against as state 'x', which I will attempt to outline (again).
state 'x' - a state completely devoid of time
Simple enough, yes? But to further clarify and expound on that a bit -
state 'x' - a state where;
1) there are no succession of events, as this can only occur within time
2) no change occurs, as change requires a movement/transition from one state to another - i.e., a succession of events, as in 1)
3) from 1) and 2) we can extrapolate that in state 'x' there could be no movement, action, thought, consciousness, as all of these things require something of 1) or 2) to come to fruition, or even to begin to come to fruition
4) Essentially, such a state 'x' would be a form of stasis from which nothing could escape. Anything within such a state would necessarily remain static, frozen and unable to emerge into any sort of temporal state. To do so would require the very conditions available only within time, which of course are not available in the static state 'x'.
If you could describe how something might exist in and then leave such a state ('x') without the use of temporal agents, I'd certainly be interested in hearing it. That, my friend, would be arguing against my position.
If you disagree with any of my conclusions about such a state 'x' as described, please explain your objections.
At this point, if you contend that such a state is not possible or incoherent, or that the Christian deity was never in such a state, then we have no argument, as these are my contentions as well.
******deeeeep breath******
Now, unshackled from inane semantics (I hope!), we have state 'x' as described above - as a state completely disconnected from and devoid of, time and all its trappings and benefits.
It is in this state that some theists/theologians (perhaps most notably, William Craig), argue that their deity once existed, but has ceased to do so since 'creation'.
I believe they do so out of necessity, as they believe that god created time along with everything else (else he would be 'subject' to it - a philosophical problem they wish to avoid). This necessitates some state of being for god 'prior to' (if you will) the existence of time - my state 'x'.
They further claim that god somehow moved from that state 'x' to one that included time, presumably the moment he created it (?). This is circular and nonsensical.
It is my contention that;
1) No such state 'x' is named, discussed or eluded to in the Christian Bible. I am somewhat less concerned with this first point, as the idea of an entity moving from state 'x' to a temporal state is logically indefensible, regardless of Biblical support. That said, I find no such support.
2) It is logically impossible for any thing to move from state 'x' to a temporal state for all the reasons I have mentioned, and I have heard no arguments to defend such a position outside of an appeal to magic ('god is mysterious'). That is, of course, no argument at all.
So there you have it.
This says you're not interested in hearing a theist's position (at least, not that theist).
The image of "states" is perhaps not the best one, as states would be part of the same "creation" that everything in time is a part of, and therefore cannot represent something indepedent of time.
state: existing condition or position of a person or thing.
Nois Forme
Member
I believe I get you, but understand, I'm not arguing against a god that experiences 'each moment' or one that can experience all points in time at once, or anything of the sort. I'm not arguing against a god that has any connection to time whatsoever.
The argument presented to me was of a god that experienced no time at all - because it hadn't been created yet. My argument was that such a being would have no means to escape that 'timeless' state.
See my last post to 'Mister Emu' if you want all of the gruesome details, as I had to write a flippin' novel to explain my position.
'Having infinite duration'. I have simple tastes - I'll take an Audi.
I'm not certain I understood that, but it almost sounded as if we agreed.
PolyHedral
Superabacus Mystic
Course it isn't. When considered from a non-linear semi-objective viewpoint, it's a big ball of wibly-wobly timey-wimey stuff...
Nois Forme
Member
This says you're not interested in hearing a theist's position (at least, not that theist).
I respectfully disagree. It says, rather, that whatever term you'd like to apply to this 'state' is fine with me. I used timeless and atemporal because those are the terms the theist used that posed the initial argument.
But this specific state that was proposed (by the theist), was to represent how god existed 'before' he created anything at all, including time. Surely if he existed prior to this, he could be said to have been in some 'state'?
Yes, that works just fine. The argument speaks of god's 'existing condition' before creation.