a timeless god???

[Grega]

Perhaps a simple question: It is said that your god is timeless, ie; from your gods perspective all things he sees, all things he does are done simultaneously...so how does he ahem, 'find the time' to get things done?

 

[drich0150]

It is said that your god is timeless, ie; from your gods perspective all things he sees, all things he does are done simultaneously...so how does he ahem, 'find the time' to get things done?

As this is only one of many perspectives or understandings on the eternal nature of God it will be at best difficult to explain using this model of understanding.
The reason being there are many restrictions and barriers we may encounter if we were bombarded with all things all at once. There is an element of sovereignty and control that your model lacks that God obviously has. To try and insert this into your model will be difficult.

If we change views and look at all of Man's Time here on earth as a 2 hour DVD then we would be able to grasp the control God has in the events of man to FF, RW or to be at any point in the movie he wishes, and can spend as "Much time" as he needs with any one scene.. If The movie plays at normal speed it has a run time of about 2 hours, and even if we FF or Slow mo certain scenes it can be said the movie is still 2 hours, even though with the Power of our DVD players we can spend extra time looking at one scene or another..

This explanation has many holes in it when you compare the infinite ability of God to a simple DVD player, but it does serve as a model of how we can experience an entire time line of events at our own pace.

Your example and mine can serve as a reminder of how awesome God can be, and the fact that there are many many different ways to understand just one aspect of God shows us that trying to understand some thing infinite with a finite mind is like trying to understand the complete vastness of all the worlds oceans and all that they contain by standing on the beach, and only examining one shot glass worth of sea water at a time.

 

[Timuchin]

Perhaps a simple question: It is said that your god is timeless, ie; from your gods perspective all things he sees, all things he does are done simultaneously...so how does he ahem, 'find the time' to get things done?

God is the creator of the fourth dimension, "time." He therefore can go anywhere and anywhen in His little universe. Therefore He can go to different places at the same spot on the timeline. This is called, "omnipresent."

We are being helplessly dragged through the timeline with no other option. That's all we know.We have little freedom in the third dimension, "height." We have little freedom in the fifth dimension, some of which is called the spiritual realm. When we die our spirit bodies travel either up or down in the fifth dimension.

Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Have you seen gravity, magnetism or bacteria? How about metallic hydrogen, black holes or the white-hot center of the Earth? How about Christian prayer changing things?

 

[ebia]

Perhaps a simple question: It is said that your god is timeless, ie; from your gods perspective all things he sees, all things he does are done simultaneously...so how does he ahem, 'find the time' to get things done?

The language doesn't exist to do justice to exploring that, let alone exploring what it means to be the creator of time yet acting and involved within time.

 

[Grega]

The language doesn't exist to do justice to exploring that, let alone exploring what it means to be the creator of time yet acting and involved within time.

Some people hold that it is true that their god can defy logic (can yours?) and produce square triangles etc...I suppose we don't have the language to do justice to an exploration of that proposition either

 

[Grega]

As this is only one of many perspectives or understandings on the eternal nature of God it will be at best difficult to explain using this model of understanding.
The reason being there are many restrictions and barriers we may encounter if we were bombarded with all things all at once. There is an element of sovereignty and control that your model lacks that God obviously has. To try and insert this into your model will be difficult.

If we change views and look at all of Man's Time here on earth as a 2 hour DVD then we would be able to grasp the control God has in the events of man to FF, RW or to be at any point in the movie he wishes, and can spend as "Much time" as he needs with any one scene.. If The movie plays at normal speed it has a run time of about 2 hours, and even if we FF or Slow mo certain scenes it can be said the movie is still 2 hours, even though with the Power of our DVD players we can spend extra time looking at one scene or another..

This explanation has many holes in it when you compare the infinite ability of God to a simple DVD player, but it does serve as a model of how we can experience an entire time line of events at our own pace.

Your example and mine can serve as a reminder of how awesome God can be, and the fact that there are many many different ways to understand just one aspect of God shows us that trying to understand some thing infinite with a finite mind is like trying to understand the complete vastness of all the worlds oceans and all that they contain by standing on the beach, and only examining one shot glass worth of sea water at a time.

See, if an entity is timeless in the way many theists hold to be true...then the statement: "god does X, then does Y" is meaningless since it implies that Y was not done at the same instance as X, ie; there is a period of separation between these two events, call this separation mikhalliboshjumbanongwidj or whatever but I assert this phenomena is still reducable to a concept we call 'time'...this formulation of your god in that he is timeless implies that everything he does/sees/decides/etc.. occurs at a singularity, ie: all done simultaneously...and what does it then mean to say he decides to do something?...his decision to do something must also occur at precisely the point his formulation of the problem occured...and all circumstances that give rise to this problem must also have occured at the same time.

To put it simply...your god's existence with this current concensus of opinion forces your god's existence be confined to a singularity

I say the DVD analogy doesn't help me at all btw

 

[ephraimanesti]

Some people hold that it is true that their god can defy logic (can yours?) and produce square triangles etc...I suppose we don't have the language to do justice to an exploration of that proposition either

When minds cannot grasp the very existence of God--a primary first step in coming to understand Reality--what is the point of exploring other "propositions" pertaining to God?

Mind-games are a waste of time when there are meaningful and joyous lives waiting to be lived--Yes?

God's waiting patiently, y'all!

A BROTHER/FRIEND/BOND-SLAVE OF CHRIST,
ephraim

 

[Chesterton]

Some people hold that it is true that their god can defy logic (can yours?) and produce square triangles etc...I suppose we don't have the language to do justice to an exploration of that proposition either

I've personally never heard any Christian claim that God can defy logic, if by that you mean doing what is inherently contradictory. It is written: "God is not the author of confusion."

 

[Grega]

I've personally never heard any Christian claim that God can defy logic, if by that you mean doing what is inherently contradictory. It is written: "God is not the author of confusion."

I have heard a number of theists make statements tantamount to the same such as "god is not bound by your human logic" etc...they assume that for any statement which can be assigned a truth value of either 'true' or '¬true'...they can both hold if it applies to their god, and that any arguments we make to the contrary fail since their god is bigger and smarter than us!!!

The god that actually exists (if such a thing even does) may not be the author of confusion (nor the author of anything else!)...but it seems the gods described by humans so far certainly are.

 

[ephraimanesti]

The god that actually exists (if such a thing even does) may not be the author of confusion (nor the author of anything else!)...but it seems the gods described by humans so far certainly are.

Then would not your seeking for truth--(if such it be)--be better served by getting the information you seek directly from the Source rather than wasting time with these endless debates with other humans which are "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

God has primised: "CALL TO ME AND I WILL ANSWER YOU AND TELL YOU GREAT AND UNSEARCHABLE THINGS YOU DO NOT KNOW."(Jeremiah 33:3)

A BROTHER/FRIEND/BOND-SLAVE OF CHRIST,
ephraim

 

[Grega]

Then would not your seeking for truth--(if such it be)--be better served by getting the information you seek directly from the Source rather than wasting time with these endless debates with other humans which are "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

God has primised: "CALL TO ME AND I WILL ANSWER YOU AND TELL YOU GREAT AND UNSEARCHABLE THINGS YOU DO NOT KNOW."(Jeremiah 33:3)

A BROTHER/FRIEND/BOND-SLAVE OF CHRIST,
ephraim

I must first convince myself "a" feasible god exists...I must then convince myself that there is a method via which I can ask "that feasible" god for the solution.

If there is some truth to be gleaned from your Bible it will not be found so long as my questions return only nonsense as solutions

 

[drich0150]

To put it simply...your god's existence with this current concensus of opinion forces your god's existence be confined to a singularity

This is assuming that God is bound to the laws of the "Movie" and not in control of what is being played. I would agree for all who were in the movie it would seem as if time were a constant force that bound everything into it's time line of events.. But to the editor or someone who has the proper equipment they can have there influence or presents be known in any individual frame, at any point in the time line of events.. To someone bound by the laws of the movie, or watching the movie to wittiness every single frame at once it would not only be over whelming it wouldn't make any sense. But to the editor of that movie each frame has a point and purpose. Every frame has a place. It is the same movie the spectators see, but because the Editor has the equipment (power) and the knowledge to preside over the events, what may seem like a hopeless mess, and endless confusion to the movie goer, can be considered workable by the man in charge of arranging order out of the chaos. It is Through his work that we derive order from chaos, and can enjoy our part in this movie.

I say the DVD analogy doesn't help me at all btw

Of course not, You are here to teach and to challenge, not to learn or to humble yourself. I would hazard a guess that anything that can't be used to drive your point home to us, will be of little use to you..
a good example is your limited view of the eternal nature of God. even though it has been explained that this view although correct in some facets of understanding, is generally flawed in it's approach to understand what the eternal nature of what God is. You persist.
I believe Because it is a difficult position for any of us to defend or perhaps because you have a rehearsed or scripted arguments on the different positions that "Christians" can have on this spiritual world view...

I don't blame you for your work or efforts here. If I were in the minority or if my thoughts were considered to be "imaginative" by the majority of people around me, My initial reaction maybe to hold on and argue only the points I knew, and if someone were to try and take the discussion into a different direction I might be tempted to try and shut down any attempts to change the topic from what I knew and have rehearsed to something that may have me reexamine my position...

At some point though you will either have to concede or abandon this angle of attack because it doesn't describe God or the Eternal nature of God completely, and there is only so much that can be said to defend this position. Primarily because you are attempting to take a semi scientific principle to explain something by it's definition you, I or any of us collectively can comprehend.. At best we are left with analogies, and flawed ones at that. Yours being flawed in away that it will eventually lead you to believe that your logic will have prevailed, but in fact the subject matter will just have been abandoned.. It's kinda like arguing with a child that an object is blue, and all he see is red.. No matter what you tell this child if all he sees is red, then eventually you let him have his red object.

 

[ephraimanesti]

I must first convince myself "a" feasible god exists...I must then convince myself that there is a method via which I can ask "that feasible" god for the solution.

If there is some truth to be gleaned from your Bible it will not be found so long as my questions return only nonsense as solutions

Is if possible that given your questions seem to mostly be asked tongue-in-cheek, the Light remains hidden because It is not really being sought?

ephraim

 

[Grega]

This is assuming that God is bound to the laws of the "Movie" and not in control of what is being played. I would agree for all who were in the movie it would seem as if time were a constant force that bound everything into it's time line of events.. But to the editor or someone who has the proper equipment they can have there influence or presents be known in any individual frame, at any point in the time line of events.. To someone bound by the laws of the movie, or watching the movie to wittiness every single frame at once it would not only be over whelming it wouldn't make any sense. But to the editor of that movie each frame has a point and purpose. Every frame has a place. It is the same movie the spectators see, but because the Editor has the equipment (power) and the knowledge to preside over the events, what may seem like a hopeless mess, and endless confusion to the movie goer, can be considered workable by the man in charge of arranging order out of the chaos. It is Through his work that we derive order from chaos, and can enjoy our part in this movie.




Of course not, You are here to teach and to challenge, not to learn or to humble yourself. I would hazard a guess that anything that can't be used to drive your point home to us, will be of little use to you..
a good example is your limited view of the eternal nature of God. even though it has been explained that this view although correct in some facets of understanding, is generally flawed in it's approach to understand what the eternal nature of what God is. You persist.
I believe Because it is a difficult position for any of us to defend or perhaps because you have a rehearsed or scripted arguments on the different positions that "Christians" can have on this spiritual world view...

I don't blame you for your work or efforts here. If I were in the minority or if my thoughts were considered to be "imaginative" by the majority of people around me, My initial reaction maybe to hold on and argue only the points I knew, and if someone were to try and take the discussion into a different direction I might be tempted to try and shut down any attempts to change the topic from what I knew and have rehearsed to something that may have me reexamine my position...

At some point though you will either have to concede or abandon this angle of attack because it doesn't describe God or the Eternal nature of God completely, and there is only so much that can be said to defend this position. Primarily because you are attempting to take a semi scientific principle to explain something by it's definition you, I or any of us collectively can comprehend.. At best we are left with analogies, and flawed ones at that. Yours being flawed in away that it will eventually lead you to believe that your logic will have prevailed, but in fact the subject matter will just have been abandoned.. It's kinda like arguing with a child that an object is blue, and all he see is red.. No matter what you tell this child if all he sees is red, then eventually you let him have his red object.

This is assuming that God is bound to the laws of the "Movie" and not in control of what is being played. I would agree for all who were in the movie it would seem as if time were a constant force that bound everything into it's time line of events.. But to the editor or someone who has the proper equipment they can have there influence or presents be known in any individual frame, at any point in the time line of events.. To someone bound by the laws of the movie, or watching the movie to wittiness every single frame at once it would not only be over whelming it wouldn't make any sense. But to the editor of that movie each frame has a point and purpose. Every frame has a place. It is the same movie the spectators see, but because the Editor has the equipment (power) and the knowledge to preside over the events, what may seem like a hopeless mess, and endless confusion to the movie goer, can be considered workable by the man in charge of arranging order out of the chaos. It is Through his work that we derive order from chaos, and can enjoy our part in this movie.
I said the following to Solarwave and will say it again here: H.G. Wells and his time travelling conjectures have a lot to answer for...I am not so concerned about my timeline and how it relates to a movie...If you were to argue this is true with your god existing in time[sub]G[/sub] (god-time)...another dimension of time distinct from ours then I say fine, fair enough! (and I admit I will then see how this fits with other propositions)...But it is said that god exists outside time full stop (or period if you like!), and this statement has profound implications

Of course not, You are here to teach and to challenge, not to learn or to humble yourself. I would hazard a guess that anything that can't be used to drive your point home to us, will be of little use to you..
a good example is your limited view of the eternal nature of God. even though it has been explained that this view although correct in some facets of understanding, is generally flawed in it's approach to understand what the eternal nature of what God is. You persist.
I believe Because it is a difficult position for any of us to defend or perhaps because you have a rehearsed or scripted arguments on the different positions that "Christians" can have on this spiritual world view...
As I've said to others...I have been humbled a few times in the past by other people's arguments to the point where I have reevaluated my once strong atheistic position to what is now presently weak-atheism
As I said in my reply to Ephraim...I cannot see any truth in the current formulation of your god/Bible because of the contradictions I find

I don't blame you for your work or efforts here. If I were in the minority or if my thoughts were considered to be "imaginative" by the majority of people around me, My initial reaction maybe to hold on and argue only the points I knew, and if someone were to try and take the discussion into a different direction I might be tempted to try and shut down any attempts to change the topic from what I knew and have rehearsed to something that may have me reexamine my position...

At some point though you will either have to concede or abandon this angle of attack because it doesn't describe God or the Eternal nature of God completely, and there is only so much that can be said to defend this position. Primarily because you are attempting to take a semi scientific principle to explain something by it's definition you, I or any of us collectively can comprehend.. At best we are left with analogies, and flawed ones at that. Yours being flawed in away that it will eventually lead you to believe that your logic will have prevailed, but in fact the subject matter will just have been abandoned.. It's kinda like arguing with a child that an object is blue, and all he see is red.. No matter what you tell this child if all he sees is red, then eventually you let him have his red object.
I say that I'm having to assume true (for the sake of making my questions/arguments relevent) faulty premises because they are premises you currently hold to be true. To ask questions or find problems about a god you don't believe in would be fruitless.
I don't wish to prove God doesn't exist...far from it, I would just like it to be true that the important questions I may wish to ask about your Bible later are met with valid answers.

 

[Chesterton]

I have heard a number of theists make statements tantamount to the same such as "god is not bound by your human logic" etc...they assume that for any statement which can be assigned a truth value of either 'true' or '¬true'...they can both hold if it applies to their god, and that any arguments we make to the contrary fail since their god is bigger and smarter than us!!!

I must first convince myself "a" feasible god exists...I must then convince myself that there is a method via which I can ask "that feasible" god for the solution.

Here's hoping you never find this "feasible" god, who is bound by our logic, and is smaller and stupider than we. Can you honestly say you would expect the creator God to be less than the Christians claim?

 

[Grega]

Here's hoping you never find this "feasible" god, who is bound by our logic, and is smaller and stupider than we. Can you honestly say you would expect the creator God to be less than the Christians claim?

Hypothetically speaking, if you were to hold, and assert that (P^¬P) is true, then I can make any statement I like about your god and it would be valid...I could say your omnipresent god that exists sometimes makes itself not exist, and you should have no problems.
You relegate logic to that which only applies to creatures that are not God. I disagree with this

Here's hoping you never find this "feasible" god, who is bound by our logic, and is smaller and stupider than we.
My response never implied that a feasible god should be smaller and stupider than us

Can you honestly say you would expect the creator God to be less than the Christians claim?
Indeed I can...at the very least I can say 'the creator' god is different to the god Christians are so far claiming

 

[Grega]

Is if possible that given your questions seem to mostly be asked tongue-in-cheek, the Light remains hidden because It is not really being sought?

ephraim

You charge me with being a fraud...I say you have found 'your truth' and you are absolutely sure it is not in the Chronicles of Harry the Unicycling Hobgoblin...I don't blame you for not believing in such...its ludicrous!; but if a great population of the world did hold it to be true then I say that you would either be one of them or you would want to be damned sure it was a feasible god before you fell on one foot and prayed to her Brother.

Currently I am faced with a large population of the world believing in a formulation of god that cannot be true. It might be that the general interpretation of scripture is false...it might be something else

 

[salida]

God finds time to get things done because He isn't on a time limit. He has all the time in the world (infinite amount of time) because He is an eternal God. Thus, God isn't under the bondage of time. In fact, things are done on His perfect timing not ours. He is infinite as men are finite.

 

[ephraimanesti]

You charge me with being a fraud...

i pray i have not!

Currently I am faced with a large population of the world believing in a formulation of god that cannot be true. It might be that the general interpretation of scripture is false...it might be something else

Therefore you must--with open mind, soul, and spirit--seek out the Truth for yourself--from He who is all Truth. There is, however, one large string attached:

"BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS, FOR THEY WILL BE FILLED."(Matthew 5:6)

How hungry and thirsty are you?

A BROTHER/FRIEND/BOND-SLAVE OF CHRIST,
ephraim

 

[drich0150]

I would just like it to be true that the important questions I may wish to ask about your Bible later are met with valid answers.

I know I said this at least once (Because this isn't a biblically addressed question) "We only have speculation and analogies." Personal philosophy and tradition basically fill the Idea of how Someone can be infinite. The mere fact that God is without beginning or end suggests an element or condition that we can not explain.. That situation alone places him outside the boundaries of time as we can identify it. So if we in these modern times are without explanation, then how could the people who first received the revelation of God's or timeless nature fathom it? The bible was never meant to be a tell all book about all the secrets of the universe. It is a tool used to establish God's dominion, His will, His people and his plan to save those who seek him.. That's it.. It does go into some detail, but not as a history lesson, but to establish who God is. If the bible is looked at in any other fashion it quickly becomes irrelevant to the person scrutinizing it.. Primarily because it is written to support a faith not an academic exercise.

This maybe a perceived weakness to the academic, but it in fact has become a code revealed to the humble, and hidden from the learn-ed. Humility being the corner stone of the true Christian faith.. Without it all of what the bible contains is trivial foolishness.. Or so says scripture. If you are looking for "biblical" answers there are some to be found on the surface where you are looking. But if you are truly interested at knowing and understanding what scripture says wouldn't it make sense to study it from a perspective in which it was written for?

There is a limit to how much the written words of the bible can contain, but if you successfully establish and maintain a relationship with God then the one who inspired these words will live with you interpreting the meanings and giving clarity to what he has written..

"Proof" is not preceded by "faith." First we must exercise faith and "proof" will follow. Even if you were given "proof" without a measure of faith it has been mans self serving history to explain it away as something else..