Cosmologic philosophy: what is time (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, January 22, 2017, 13:00 (2862 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: So you have an anthropomorphic God who watches his wristwatch? Did He make a series of universes and count time that way? What if He did nothing in eternity? Does time pass for Him? Only an evolutionary process has before and after as in our universe.

dhw: I have already agreed that the divisions of time are man-made. You don’t have to “count” time! You have agreed that time is a sequence of before and after. You can sit and do nothing for an hour, but before still changes into after. God can sit and do nothing for a billion chunks of eternity, but before still changes into after, and every time your God does or even thinks anything at all, there is a before and an after the deed or the thought. Unless you come up with a different definition, the only way your God can be “outside time” is if he is non-existent.

DAVID: Let me put it another way. God exists outside human concepts of time, which you are still applying to him.

What does that mean? I do not believe that your God wears a wristwatch. However, I can’t see any possible way in which he can create something or even think a thought without a before and an after. If you can’t either, then how can you say he does not exist within that concept of time, to which you have already agreed?