I'm building a bridge to the point - If we can't lay the foundations we'll never get to the other side.

What God are you talking about, anyway?

Krumple,

I'm failing to understand why an omnipotent, omniscient God could not choose to have an infinite amount of thoughts (or just one thought) at any given point in "time" (or, to phrase it differently, "his existence"). Would you elaborate on your reasoning here?

You're making lots of assumptions about what God can and cannot do. If you begin to disprove God's creation of the universe by allowing that he could *potentially* create the universe, then you are allowing that he is omnipotent and omniscient, meaning that he has no limits. For example, q5 pops out at me. You're assuming that God needs a cause to think anything. How can you make that assumption?

p3,4, and 5 are problematic at best. You have refuted nothing. You assume that any thought of God must have a cause to trigger the thought. You are limiting god with properties of matter and time.

You are actually trying to force God into a determinist framework--ie. if God does something to decides to do something then something must have caused him to do or decide this thing. Your logic is flawed.

Oh, by the way shouldn't P1 and P2 be incorporated into one if then statement:

P1a. God is the creator of the universe -> the universe has not always existed.

The way it is now only P2 makes a statement, P1 says nothing.

Sorry Krumple, I tried to reinterpret your argument to make heads or tails out of it, but it is too convoluted and without sensible flow or structure. To be honest, I got tired of trying to figure out how you went from your premises to your conclusions with all the flaws and fallacies it contains. Perhaps if I get time to look at it later on I'll put more effort into it.

Sorry, I really like to respond to posts and be constructive, but I find no way to do so with my current schedule and the current way your argument is put together.

Both premises are potentially fallacies. The universe could have always existed but to prevent a derailed argument from arising I just stated it as a premise without question.

Well for the most part the problem is infinite. Are you suggesting that god could have an infinite amount of thoughts without taking an infinite amount of time? If so it contradicts the infinity of the situation. You can't just cancel it. If you are not suggesting that then we can move on.

There must have been some point when this god would have decided or enacted or chose, which ever word you want to use. Made up his mind, it does not matter, but the point is, when did this happen? How long was god solo? Or was god never solo? My point is there must have been a moment when the decision to make the universe arose. This is a key point. Regardless if you believe that god exists within a timeless realm and all time is exactly the same time. I simply do not buy that you can do something within a timeless realm. It's a contradiction in terms.

So there must have been a reason or a motivation for doing so. If there was no motivation or reason, then why do it? Just because? Had nothing better to do?

Well lets examine what I have to go off of. If we use any of the bible stories it is clear that god is a reactionary. At least that is how it is written anyways. So if god is a reactionary that means he reacts to new information. One example. He sees the world as evil and decides he wants to destroy man because man is nothing but wicked. However; just before he does this, he notices a single man, free of wickedness. He decides to spare this one man. Blah blah blah. You can take just about any story and show that according to the story god is a reactionary. Now if you want to say the bible is not an accurate assessment of god's attributes then I won't argue. However; if you are saying that my personal assessment is incorrect than so is the bibles.

I am suggesting that, yes. One reason for this is that if he created time, then time (as we know it) must not have existed before. It could not, therefore, have taken any amount of time (as we know it) to have any thoughts.

Yes, it seems God must have decided at some point to create the universe. But I refuse to limit God to the very finite time that he created. THAT is a contradiction in terms. If God created time, then he must have full power over time (in order to create it). If he has full power over time, why would he be constrained by its limitations?

If you concede that the universe and time itself are both finite, and that they both had a beginning, then why don't you buy that God can do something in a timeless realm?

I've heard this argument before, and I've never bought it. You can speculate as to why God would ever want to create the universe (I have thought of a few answers, though none of them are probably relevant), but you can't argue that God didn't create the universe BECAUSE he had no reason to do so. How can anyone, as a finite being, hope to understand the intentions of God, an infinite being? You've probably heard THAT a million times, but I insist that it is logically sound. A dog cannot understand why his owner would, say, give money to the poor or visit someone in a nursing home. Such things constitute the owner going out of his/her way to do something that doesn't really benefit him/her at all. The dog: "Neither me nor my owner would gain anything by helping others. I wouldn't do it; I'd have no reason to. So why would my owner?"

Concluding that God is reactionary is entirely a matter of interpretation, and another example of trying to figure out an infinite being's intentions.

Well lets examine what I have to go off of. If we use any of the bible stories it is clear that god is a reactionary. At least that is how it is written anyways. So if god is a reactionary that means he reacts to new information.

You could stop right there then. As I have mentioned before, you can't do anything without time. I know people just like to say it but they neglect what it means to say, "do" and "without time". You can't. Because there has to be a previous moment before you have done something which would signify a before or after the action itself. The only other option is that everything happens all at once in the same moment, but that is also a contradiction. I don't buy the argument that there is the ability to do something within a timeless realm.

I like how you object to my premise and place one of your own without anything to back it. Funny how that is. How do you know that first of all, that a god made time? I would object to it because of my above argument. You can't do anything without time.

That is not the point of the question. When I asked that, it is not because I am looking for the answer to why a god would create the universe. I am simply aiming for the fact that there was a moment when a god was not interested in creating a universe, and then, decided. That is all I am concerned with. I honestly do not care what the reasoning, or purpose, or motivation was. All that is important is that you see, there was a moment when was not creating a universe and then another moment when a god created the universe and then another moment when a god had finished creating a universe.

Once again I don't care about intentions. What clues do I have to go off of? None reliable. I can easily say all we are doing is chasing our imagination. Because anything totally substantial is easily understood. But when something is totally made up, you can't make heads or tails of it because anything is plausible then.

How do you know that your interpretation of what your god is, is not just the opposite? I see how it is fine that you are allowed to come up with what ever traits and attributes you find suiting but as soon as I poke holes into your beloved attributes, you scold me as if I have made some full proof error and need correction.

Take just a moment and reason that out. If you accuse me of it and it is a mistake to place attributes, then you must also follow that same line of reasoning. If you abandon it, then why should I accept your correction?

Why do we reject that argument? Because we have only our own understanding of what "time" and "doing" are. If this is a philosophy forum where people question and discuss what REALITY itself is, then I think we can explore the idea of a "timeless" realm where things can be "done."

I do that because if I offered my reasoning behind everything I said, it would result in absurdly long posts and a good amount of tangents. Sorry if that led to any misunderstandings between posts.

I propose that God made time because of the evidence that the universe and time were created by God (evidenced by the universe and time being finite, needing a beginning--as conceded by Einstein--and the fine-tuning of the universe). I didn't mention my reasoning (yet) because I do believe there are other threads for arguing about the specific subtopics of evidence for God.

It's an interesting point, yes. Even to me it seems logical that there must have been some "moment" for when God decided to create the universe and when he actually did. But the evidence THAT he created the universe still remains. HOW he did it, or even WHY, are deeper questions that are likely even farther beyond our understanding.

This is because we're arguing about the way things were "before" the universe. I don't really want to argue about this, since I don't have a very good answer myself. But again, at that point, I choose to reiterate that there is nevertheless evidence THAT God created time and the universe.

The evidence supporting God's creation of time and the universe logically leads to the conclusion of a few attributes of God (omnipotence, omniscience, among others). And you've been scolding me about my supposed proof errors all along. That's just the nature of logical argument, I guess.

The attributes I am ascribing to God are the ones that are supported by the evidence. The attributes you are ascribing to him seem to contradict the evidence; a God restricted by time doesn't make much sense if God MADE time.

Why do we reject that argument? Because we have only our own understanding of what "time" and "doing" are.

Something material has not always existed. Nothing by definition can not exist (exist) or not-exist (~exist) since it is simply the naught or empty set (in other words the set "nothing" contains "nothing" and therefore does not itself exist or not exist). I can say there was a time when nothing existed, but this simply means there was at that time nothing in existence. This would be a very different statement from what you are trying to say, I believe.

Your question about 'something' always existing depends on what you include with that label.



Yes, but the foundations for the bridge must rest on solid ground or it will collapse.



I am limiting myself here to God defined as necessary being. Once we lay that foundation we can build from there.

I don't see any such god existing so for me asking those deeper questions are meaningless to me. If I am wrong, and that god does exist, that god would understand me and where I am coming from. With that knowledge that god would have known it created me knowing that I was already headed for the scrap heap before he even snapped his fingers to create me. So what is the point of making something knowing that it was already going to be going down a path in which you are against? It's like if you knew that your child would grow up to be the worst serial killer in history and no matter what lessons you taught your child, it's fate were not changeable. Would you still want this child to live? Or would you forgo having that child?

can say "there is evidence THAT God created time and the universe" all you want but I still have not seen even a smallest piece of evidence to support that theory.

I don't see how such a thing could have such attributes, omnipotence and omniscience are contradictory of each other. It is one thing to say it, but how is it that you can arrive at such knowing? Where is the reasoning, and where is the proofs to support it?

Now you are talking in circles. I am not subscribing to the idea that time was created. I say that is a paradox in terms. You need time to be able to make time. So then how do you come to the conclusion that god created time? Since I do not adhere to time being created where is the evidence that time had a beginning?