Concepts of God: God does not exist in time (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Sunday, February 28, 2021, 09:03 (1363 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I must remind that Feser was an atheist and now a highly regarded Catholic philosopher. Time is our concept, not God's. God does not create in anticipation of watching with interest that creation in the future. As stated, 1776 is the same as 2021 to God. If this seems disjointed, it is. Read the entire long entry for completeness.

dhw: No, thank you. I would not even have commented on this if it were not for your claim that your God does not create in anticipation of watching with interest...How do you or Feser know that past, present and future are “all the same” to God. […]

DAVID: It is obvious you do not understand Feder's point in any way. It shows why you have no clue why I tell you you are humanizing God. We live in time, God does not. You are using what happens to us to apply the use of time to God as if He lives in our time. Feser is a Thomist, whose philosophy I have accepted in large part, but not the trinitarianism. Have you forgotten that when the universe appeared, time started? That alone makes God timeless. So don't do some reading for yourself, especially when you assume the imagined role of theist.

What is your definition of time? Mine is the sequence of before, now, and after - of past, present and future. It is not one o’clock, two o’ clock, three o‘clock rock. The division of time into units is a human invention based upon natural cycles. But you have agreed that there must have been a “before” the Big Bang (since your God is eternal and created the universe), and you insist that your God created a sequence of befores and afters, fine-tuning the universe for life, then creating life, and then continuing to fiddle with it through a sequence of life forms until – according to you – after 3.X billion years he achieved his one and only purpose of designing H. sapiens, having operated on pre-sapiens brains IN ANTICIPATION of future usages. The figure of 3.X billion years is our invention, but the history of the universe is a sequence of befores, nows, and afters. And so if you think your God did absolutely nothing before the Big Bang but simply existed as a totally inert blob of pure energy (but remember, nobody knows what sequences he might have created before the Big Bang ), then you can certainly argue that he created time when he created the universe (i.e. “when the universe appeared, time started”). But unless he is now dead, he lives in and uses – or used - the time he created. Please begin your reply with your definition of time.