Coming from nothing

[Skybringr]

But if God is omniscient, then why does he need to look into the hearts of men? Wouldn't he already know what's going to happen to them?

That's irrelevant, really. Protestants may be split on the notions of free will vs predestination, but the Church believes they are in fact a duality.

I would expect that an atheist should even agree with this, because it is upheld by sheer reason itself. I can reveal the logic if you want

Well, not in all situations... While I'd accept that most people who identify as agnostic are atheists as well, it is also quite possible to be an agnostic theist.

Agnosticism is a position about knowledge, Atheism is a position about beliefs.

Atheism is simply one who holds to no deity. That's all it means.

 

[Dave Ellis]

That's irrelevant, really. Protestants may be split on the notions of free will vs predestination, but the Church believes they are in fact a duality.

I would expect that an atheist should even agree with this, because it is upheld by sheer reason itself. I can reveal the logic if you want

I'd love to see that logic, because free will and predestination are mutually exclusive concepts....

Atheism is simply one who holds to no deity. That's all it means.

Atheism is the lack of belief that a deity exists.

 

[Skybringr]

I'd love to see that logic, because free will and predestination are mutually exclusive concepts....

The fact that one cannot even objectively deduce a difference between the two as far as experience speaks for itself.

Logically, if God exists outside of time, He is in all stages of time simultaneously.

This includes even Creation itself... and it's maintenance.. and it's reckoning.
That means that free will and predestination are one in the same: our free choices are enacting predestination.

It's a bit difficult to deduce, but it's nonetheless there.

 

[Dave Ellis]

The fact that one cannot even objectively deduce a difference between the two as far as experience speaks for itself.

Of course you can, for example, if you are predestined to do something then you don't have the free will to change your mind about what you're going to do.

Logically, if God exists outside of time, He is in all stages of time simultaneously.

No.... not at all. If god is outside of time, then he's outside of time.

Your statement is self contradictory, you can't be in all stages of time if you are outside of time. That's like saying if you're in every room of your house if you're outside of your house. It doesn't make sense.

This includes even Creation itself... and it's maintenance.. and it's reckoning.
That means that free will and predestination are one in the same: our free choices are enacting predestination.

It's a bit difficult to deduce, but it's nonetheless there.

Again, based off my first reply that makes no sense.

How do you define free will?

 

[Skybringr]

Of course you can, for example, if you are predestined to do something then you don't have the free will to change your mind about what you're going to do.



No.... not at all. If god is outside of time, then he's outside of time.

Your statement is self contradictory, you can't be in all stages of time if you are outside of time. That's like saying if you're in every room of your house if you're outside of your house. It doesn't make sense.




Again, based off my first reply that makes no sense.

How do you define free will?

It is obvious that you have never critically thought upon this.

If God is outside of time, then it is inevitable that He exists at stages of it.

Creation from it's beginning to it's reckoning is not only preconceived, it is literally enacted all at the same time.
That's the unavoidable reality of being outside of time. One is timeless, and cannot simply exist at a single point of time.

It's a duality of free will and predestination, as God and Creation are enacting each other. It's no different then Einstein's relativity, except it deals in will rather then the physical universe.

 

[Skybringr]

That's certainly not the best explanation, it's a purely invented one that begs for yet more explanations for itself. It also conveniently places itself completely outside of any scientific investigation.

Well how would you know?
The biblical events happened according to it's testimony. What basis do you prescribe it as 'made up'? Do you have any evidence of this?

One can accept the unsolved paradoxes of the universe, but be so willing to neglect the miracles of the Bible. How ironic.

 

[Dave Ellis]

It is obvious that you have never critically thought upon this.

If God is outside of time, then it is inevitable that He exists at stages of it.

Creation from it's beginning to it's reckoning is not only preconceived, it is literally enacted all at the same time.
That's the unavoidable reality of being outside of time. One is timeless, and cannot simply exist at a single point of time.

It's a duality of free will and predestination, as God and Creation are enacting each other. It's no different then Einstein's relativity, except it deals in will rather then the physical universe.

I've thought very critically about this, however you are missing my point.

Your argument is that since god is outside of time, then he is in all points of time. That doesn't follow.... if he is outside of time, then he his outside of time.

If you are outside of time, then you are not in time.... that's what outside means.

You can't be outside of time while simultaneously being inside all points of time, that's self-contradictory. If you are in all points of time, then you are inside of time, not outside of it.

 

[Skybringr]

Your argument is that since god is outside of time, then he is in all points of time. That doesn't follow.... if he is outside of time, then he his outside of time.

If you are outside of time, then you are not in time.... that's what outside means.

You can't be outside of time while simultaneously being inside all points of time, that's self-contradictory. If you are in all points of time, then you are inside of time, not outside of it.

If you are outside of time, you do not simply see cause and effect, you see the past, present, and end all at the same time. What else does a timeless being recognize?

See how far that atheism gets you? Nowhere_
I suppose one doesn't expect a conservative Catholic to break out both an atheist theory of the universe and proper metaphysics. I've done my homework, I guess all that grandstanding is just mere grandstanding after all.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Material and efficient causes are two different things altogether. We put the word "cause" in there, but that doesn't really mean that they are differences of degree... they are stark differences of kind. It means something entirely different to be an efficient cause.

Saying God created ex nihilo really means that God created matter out of nothing but his own divine will and power. This is not hard to understand, it means that matter is being upheld by something immaterial. In some ways, it's comparable to the Hindu concepts of maya. Maya in Hindu religion is literally "illusion", but it is also understood as God's divine power manifesting the universe through that illusion. Christians essentially believe the same thing, material reality is not autonomous and self-existing, it's contingent on an immaterial reality we do not see, hence the "illusion".

The way you are using the term "cause" is unlike anything that we have ever experienced. This seems to be the point at which apologists attempt a sleight of hand. On the one hand, they point to our experience of the world as an indication that the universe must have a cause. But when in comes to elucidating why God is the cause they are happy to ignore experience and to bend our intuitions of causality to accommodate a theistic proposition.

 

[JGG]

If you are outside of time, you do not simply see cause and effect, you see the past, present, and end all at the same time. What else does a timeless being recognize?

So how does a being outside of time manage to interact with us?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

P1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause

• As demonstrated by normal experience

Expand on this point further. What do we know about 'causes' from normal experience?

P2: The universe began to exist

• The Standard Model

Define 'began to exist'. I'm not sure I know precisely what you mean in this context.

Science says it's nothing. You can reject science if you wish, but it is not rational to do so.

I'm not seeing the point you're trying to make here.

My basic point is that there's still something there, a supernatural something. Ergo, not nothing. Whether it abides by known physical principles is immaterial to the point.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Because the science established over the last 100 years indicates that there was no material cause. Do you know what cosmology is?

Recently Guth has worked with Alex Vilenkin (Tufts) and Arvind Borde (Southampton College) to show that the inflating region of spacetime must have a past boundary, and that some new physics, perhaps a quantum theory of creation, would be needed to understand it.
MIT Department of Physics

Your claim isn't backed up by that quote.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

There is no evidence for the 'non-existence of God'.
If anyone is proving that more then anybody, it is atheists and their repeated failures at trying to explain the origins of the universe.

Also, it's funny how Einstein receives veneration, as well as even those with lesser discoveries, but since the founder of the Big Bang theory was a priest, he is not given the same.

It just goes to show the bias of atheists for what it really is; and the conceited nature of secularized science.

What conceit? I knew that he was a priest. But why should that fact predominate our awareness of the man? When talking about his scientific discoveries we are talking about him as a scientist.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Ergo, God is the best explanation, as the cause has to be timeless, spaceless and sentient. The cause must be sentient in order to explain our being at our current point in time in our universe. If the cause were not the result of a choice by a sentient mind it would have to be out of necessity, which means there would be no rational reason for the universe to be 13.7 byrs old as opposed to having already died a heat death or 50 byrs old, or, etc ...

That doesn't make much sense. Sentience is typically defined as the ability to experience subjectively. What is this being experiencing in the absence of space, time and everything else? How does a timeless sentient being even make a choice? How can it decide to create? Making a decision seems to imply a change of state, which would imply temporal progression.

Obviously it has to be immaterial as there was no matter prior to creation.

Or there was matter, but it hadn't entered into time yet? I don't think your comment is as "obvious" as you take it to be. But even so, it raises other questions: for example, how does the immaterial causally integrate with the material to produce material effects? Can the material produce immaterial effects?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

"Cosmic inflation, the process the BICEP2 results appear to have vindicated, occurred before the big bang by this definition. "

This is talking about the period of hyperinflation as predicted by Guth. Guth and Vilenkin have proven mathematically that there is a past boundary which means the universe is not past eternal. (I've shown the quote multiple times in this thread.) The unavoidable logical conclusion is that there was a beginning.

What do you mean by 'beginning'? Do you mean that the current state of the universe between 13-14 billion years ago?

We cannot demonstrate with the laws of physics that there was a beginning because the laws of physics break down at that point, which is consistent with the idea of creation.

Why would that be consistent with the idea of creation? If the language of physics breaks down at those scales that doesn't necessarily mean the language of theology will take us further.

 

[KCfromNC]

There is no evidence for the 'non-existence of God'.

Sure there is. The complete lack of evidence for an allegedly omnipotent god who cares about us, logical impossibilities and contradictions in descriptions of the being, and so on.

 

[KCfromNC]

How do you disagree with something in which you have no basis to do so or otherwise?

Who did what to the who now?

I know a very compelling theory that attempts to explain the origins of the universe.

A mysterious something did it through magic we can't understand is hardly compelling. Come to think of it, neither is it a theory nor an explanation.

If I had come on here and told you that, you wouldn't go about it the same way as the notion of God. You'd find it 'interesting', where with a theory on God, which I also know of, you'd say 'nope' in just the blip of a thought.

You seem very confident in your mind-reading talents.

If there's one thing that aggravates me, it's when people try to reap the benefits of neutrality while attacking an end they don't like.

Oh well, come up with some evidence for your claims and you wouldn't have to worry about it.

 

[KCfromNC]

Then you agree P1 holds, good.

No, not at all. I said your justification for it undermines your conclusion.

Yet, we see the Universe as it is, and science extrapolates back to
a point infinitesimally close to a true nothing.

A super hot and dense point containing all the mass and energy of the universe is close to nothing in exactly what way?

P1 applies to the universal behavior as governed by the laws of Physics. It says nothing about the metaphysical question prior to creation.

So you're saying that P1 doesn't apply to things outside the universe. For example, the creation of a universe itself. OK, fair enough, but then you'll have to rewrite P1 to be "Sometimes things which begin to exist have a cause, other times they don't".

When I claim God created the universe I'm not making a scientific claim. I'm making a meta-physical claim.

Yeah, that's plainly obvious.

The intuition applies only to the physical world.

So tell us again where you have gained enough experience with nothingness and the creation of universes to have an intuitive understanding of them. How many have you observed?

 

[Dave Ellis]

If you are outside of time, you do not simply see cause and effect, you see the past, present, and end all at the same time. What else does a timeless being recognize?

Well, seeing as we have absolutely no examples of a timeless being / entity, that's a mighty big unjustified assertion you've come up with. Can you prove your claim?

See how far that atheism gets you? Nowhere_
I suppose one doesn't expect a conservative Catholic to break out both an atheist theory of the universe and proper metaphysics. I've done my homework, I guess all that grandstanding is just mere grandstanding after all.

The irony is, your homework involves making stuff up in your head and asserting it as truth. You have no evidence for your claims, nor a justifiable reason to hold them.

Even funnier, your claim about a being that lives outside of time rules out the idea that god is the creator of the universe. Your St Thomas Aquinas has called god "the first cause". However, cause and effect is a temporal phenomenon.

If you are immune to the flow of time, or somehow separated from it, then you can not cause anything. You need to be within time for cause and effect to happen.

Next time you do homework, try actually reading a couple books about logical thought. That'll quickly discredit your views on Catholicism and Christianity in general.

 

[Skybringr]

Sure there is. The complete lack of evidence for an allegedly omnipotent god who cares about us, logical impossibilities and contradictions in descriptions of the being, and so on.

The fact that the universe exists at all and with scientists being at a complete lost is pretty evidential by that logic.
The fact that scientists have figured out all that they've figured out, and yet any explanation of the universe's origin have been utter failures.

And the whole time, there has been an explicit testimony of God.

There are no such contradictions, only your vain skepticism which 'incidentally' has a bias for a vain reality. Go figure; they aren't unrelated things.