Mortensen said:
I have allready discuss this in the "Why is there evil in the world" thread, but I feel I have to place this issue with the right lable on it. In the former thread we didn't come to an agreement about how God can be all mighty and humans still have a free will (please read that post and argue it here). I really want a conclution to this.
Another reason why God cannot be all mighty. God has known the future since he created the universe. If he now, 13.7 billion years later dessides to change something, the knowledge he had at the beginning of the universe about the future (which God changed) would be wrong, right? So if he dessided at the beginning of the universe how the future will be, he does not have to power to change it. So either his knowledge will be wrong (he not beeing all mighty) or he does not have the power to change anything (he not beeing allmighty).
So, you are saying that the natural laws we abide by mean that God cannot be all mighty. Well, I will have to agree. Natural laws, even those we do not understand (like interactions of time space) state that a natural being of with supernatural powers cannot be. The problem is that God is not natural. Of course, you could write this off as BS, and you may. That is the line where reason meats faith. If you don't have that faith, then you don't. I don't consider it a bad thing (using natural thinking that is), in the same way I don't consider not being able to play Basketball like M. Jordan (or whoever is considered the best right now it), for I in no way find myself benefitted from such skill.
Now, to the root of you question. I will explain this from my viewpoint, but it will require the use of both my reason and my faith. You can only dispute my reason with your reason, and my faith with your faith. If you claim not to have faith to dispute mine, you may make the claim your reasoning doesn't allow you to accept my faith, and that is fine, just please don't say my faith is wrong becuase of your reasoning. Now, to the main point. God, being He created all things and natural laws (let us agree that this does not mean a 6 day creation, a 6 billion year creation, or inbetween, but only that God created, using what ever form He did). Time is part of these natural laws, so for God to have created, unless He created Himself at the time of the creation (or the very beginning thereof), He must have been before. This is the end of reasoning, for something to exist before something, there must exist a cronological order, and the existance of a cronological order means the existance of time. So we would have to state the before before there was a before. This sounds like nonsense, yet is one problem of the bigbang, since time was at the creation. What was the singlularity before there was a before. We (scientist) can only understand what happened the instant before the big bang, for before that, it was the creation of before. This problem also applies to God.
Now, you have here one of three choices to choose from. The first is already stated, God created God as He created everything else (or the beggining thereof). The second and third deal with God existing before (for lack of a better word) creation. Did God, at the time of creation, apply natural laws to Himself. Was what He was before creation what He was afterwards, or did He alter Himself to conform to the natural laws, be it some or all of them, the only one we are worrying about is time.
In this lies another problem, what is time. I have read (or moreso tried to read) the indepth books of theories and laws which apply to time. The fact that time can change, that it can stop, that it can go at a rate of both imaginary and a rate which is the product of a divide by zero (this is all possibilties dealing with light speed travel), show time is more complicated that what we understand it to be. Only once we fully understand time, can we make questions in certainty, so for now, we will just take the high school (which is before any theories, say relativity, kick in) understanding of time. Using this, and natural reasoning, as I have said, we go back to the three choices.
Given choice one, we find the fault of something creating itself, which reasons says no to. The second choice, we find God not existing by natural laws, and so reasoning is invalid. By the third choice, we find God limiting Himself, which is what you are saying. So your question, I bring two. First, by what right (for lack of a better word) do you decide to pick the third choice as true? Secondly (and this is not a question to be answered), what will happen to your qestion when we gain a complete understanding of time?