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

by dhw, Tuesday, August 10, 2021, 09:15 (990 days ago) @ David Turell

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!

DAVID: 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.

Firstly, if time exists within an eternal sequence of BBs, it is absurd to support the view that time did not exist before our BB. Secondly, how can you possibly say that the period between BBs is not an AFTER one BB and BEFORE another?

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.

DAVID: In our human view in our spacetime, nothing more.

If you agree that time is a sequence of befores and afters, and there may have been sequences of befores and afters before our own human view of spacetime, how can you say “nothing more”? You don’t know. Nobody knows. But you believe that there may well have been such sequences because you believe in God as the maker of Big Bangs.

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).

DAVID: Those sequences are not in time.

Those sequences ARE time, if you define time as a sequence!