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

by David Turell , Friday, March 05, 2021, 15:06 (1145 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I have granted you only logical thought. Stop backpedaling.

DAVID: (Saturday 6 February) All we can be sure of is logic on his part. His thought patterns and emotions are possibly similar, but that possibility cannot be used to give him human desires.

dhw: Apart from your censorship of what sort of thought patterns and emotions you will allow him to have, you agreed that similar thought patterns etc. are possible. And I still don’t know what gives you the authority to state that your God is unchanging and cannot learn. Do please tell us the source of your inside information.

The general view of God is all-knowing. Again your concept is humanizing.

DAVID: God is timeless (eternal) but despite that, He can and does work in our time in our universe which is time as you define it. (dhw’s bold)

dhw: Thank you. Let’s summarize our findings: God, if he exists, is eternal. He created the universe and life in a sequence of causes and effects continuing through the sequence of past, present and future that we call time. We do not know what he might have done before he created the universe, but since there must have been a “before” if he is eternal, he exists in time (contrary to the heading of this thread), although his time has no beginning and no end. We appear to be in total agreement, though whether this leaves us any the wiser I leave you to judge.

DAVID: As usual, you slip into human thinking about God. We view His possible previous events as indicating 'time', but it is OUR view, not His. Spacetime is a property of this universe, not outside of it, where is where I view God as existing.

dhw: How on earth do you expect to know God’s view? Of course these are our views. We have no idea if there is an “outside” of our universe, but you have just stated that “He can and does work in our time in our universe which is time as you define it.” If he works inside our time and our universe” (the only universe we know of), it is patently absurd to tell us that he does not exist in our time and universe! And I still haven’t a clue what is the point of this discussion.

It is God's duality: He can work in our time/universe but He is timeless outside of it. In a weird way it is like the coven of witches around the boiling cauldron, creating.