Cosmologic philosophy: Egnor on Big Bang, etc. (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, August 09, 2021, 15:09 (985 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: If eternal God has eternally been creating universes in a sequence of befores and afters, and if we define time as a sequence of before and afters, with “now” as each moment in between, then time has always existed. What do you mean by “timeless” if you don’t mean eternal?

DAVID: I do mean eternal:
https://godtv.com/timeless-eternity-living-beyond-time/

QUOTE" […] Eternity is where God resides and He has no beginning and no end. He, therefore, operates beyond time. Timeless eternity is therefore a dimension that is beyond time."

dhw: Of course eternity has no beginning and no end. But you have accepted my definition of time as a sequence of before-now-after, and you have agreed that the possible making of universes constitutes a sequence of before-nows-afters. You therefore disagree with the latest research which claims that there was no time before the BB, and a God without a beginning and end does not mean that through eternity there has been no sequence of before-now-after. And I must repeat that any period between universes will constitute a before (the next universe) and an after (the previous universe). Eternity is not a negation of time!

You cannot apply our sequential view of time in our time to a series of BB's where time only exists within the BB's.

DAVID: I also accept this religious version from Aquinas:

QUOTE: "For Aquinas, God's timeless eternity is unending, lacking both beginning and end….

dhw: We agree.

DAVID:…. and an instantaneous whole lacking succession.

dhw: You and I disagree. Any event in eternity entails a succession or sequence, as above.

In our human view in our spacetime, nothing more.

QUOTE: It is a correlate of divine simplicity (see the SEP entry on divine simplicity), and it is incapable of being defined or fully grasped by a creature."
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/eternity/

dhw: Timeless eternity is a tautology if by timeless you mean eternal! But eternal (without beginning or end) does not mean devoid of any sequences, and so whether you believe in an eternal God or an eternal and impersonal universe makes not the slightest difference: nobody can possibly know that there were no sequences prior to our BB (if it happened).

Those sequences are not in time.