God exists outside of time?

[Ken-1122]

What does that mean? I’ve heard many theists make that claim as if time has parameters or something, and it’s never made sense to me. Time is simply a system humans came up with to measure one moment to the next. To exist outside of time sounds as ridicules as claiming something exists outside of miles, gallons, or numbers; if something exists, the concept of time can be applied to it; and it doesn’t matter if you are talking about the physical world, the spiritual world, the imaginary world, or whatever; it seems to me nothing can exist outside of time because there are no parameters to time. Am I wrong? If so please explain.

Ken

 

[quatona]

I have never understood that, either.
And even worse: I have no idea what "acting" (like "creating") might possibly mean in the absence of time.

 

[Tinker Grey]

When I was a Christian, I posited that God had his own time reference. This, of course, can be only pure speculation in the absense of physics. Positing also that God created ex Deo rather than ex nihilo, I allowed that we inherited some properties from God.

As such, God has time even if it is different and perhaps mutated from him to the universe. This would allow God to act mostly independently of our time if not completely.

Well, in any case, I recognized that it was problem. A god without time is a static and certainly not a person.

 

[bricklayer]

Matter is that with mass. Space is position relative to matter.
Time is the progressive sequential incrementation of the matter-space continuum.
(Note matter's special relativity.)

Time is as much a construct as are space and matter.

God is necessary, everything else is contingent.

 

[wpage]

God is the master of time and space.

 

[AlexBP]

Any statement about time is really a statement about causation or the possibility thereof. In other words, we have put all moments in time into what we mathematicians call a "totally ordered set", which means that for every two distinct moments in time, one must come before the other, and one must come after the other. If a cause and its effect exist, the cause must occur at a moment in time before the effect. For example, if I choose to type the letter 'X', my decision to do so must occur before my finger actually pushes the key.

If a being existed that was not limited by such rules, then that being would not exist within time, and so by logical necessity would exist outside of time.

It's worth noting that mathematicians can devise as many different types of ordered sets as you want, besides totally ordered sets. Hence many different arrangements of causes and effects are imaginable, besides a linear stream of time. It's also worth nothing that physicists theorize about the existence of things not affected by time all the, um, time. They believe that time in our universe began at the Big Bang and did not exist prior to the Big Bang, while some of them believe in other universes or multiverses or whatnot that wouldn't have any relationship to our timestream.

 

[Ken-1122]

Any statement about time is really a statement about causation or the possibility thereof. In other words, we have put all moments in time into what we mathematicians call a "totally ordered set", which means that for every two distinct moments in time, one must come before the other, and one must come after the other. If a cause and its effect exist, the cause must occur at a moment in time before the effect. For example, if I choose to type the letter 'X', my decision to do so must occur before my finger actually pushes the key.

If a being existed that was not limited by such rules, then that being would not exist within time, and so by logical necessity would exist outside of time.

So if I understand you correctly, you would say it is possible for God to create something before he even decided to create anything?

Ken

 

[Aconba]

...

 

[Ken-1122]

God is both eternal and omniscient. So then, He always knew that He would create.

But the moment he did create, the concept of time can be applied to that moment; correct?

K

 

[Aconba]

....

 

[Ken-1122]

Space-time began when God created the cosmos.

Please explaine how it is possible for neither space nor time to exist before God created the cosmos.

Ken

 

[elopez]

What does that mean? I’ve heard many theists make that claim as if time has parameters or something, and it’s never made sense to me. Time is simply a system humans came up with to measure one moment to the next. To exist outside of time sounds as ridicules as claiming something exists outside of miles, gallons, or numbers; if something exists, the concept of time can be applied to it; and it doesn’t matter if you are talking about the physical world, the spiritual world, the imaginary world, or whatever; it seems to me nothing can exist outside of time because there are no parameters to time. Am I wrong? If so please explain.

Ken

The belief that God exists outside of time means means a few things. I think such a being is conceivable to only an extent, so I share your confusion. Though for starters it means that time does not restrict God in any respect. For example, the future, which we could could say is simplistically the time period after the present, does not need to happen or exist first in order for God to know of it. It also means that God created time as time had a beginning, that of which was with the first creative act authored by God.

To exist outside of time essentially means to exist in the absence of any events or moments. So as long as one exists in the absence of events and moments, a being can exist outside of time. In the absence of moments the concept of cause/effect cannot be applied as this is what Christians take to mean as God being the "Uncaused Cause." So another implication of God existing outside of time, or to be more concise about it, atemporal, is that God is eternal. That is, having no beginning or end to His existence.

Also, I'm a little confused as to how you are using the term "parameters" in relation to time? What do you mean there?

 

[Aconba]

....

 

[Btodd]

Too many posts to parse and respond to, but this explanation has always made me cringe, as well.

It creates more problems than it solves.

For instance, was there a time when the universe did not exist, but God did exist? Then how did a new occurrence emerge, without the passing of time between the first event and the second?

If time is to have any meaningful distinction, then this is a problem for me. Otherwise, is the universe simultaneous with God's existence? The universe has a finite past. Does God have a finite past, then?

Did God decide to create the universe? If so, 'when'? Simultaneously with his existence?

Aaaaaarrgh.



Btodd

 

[Aconba]

...

 

[quatona]

I always end up in the same position when discussing God with people who profess to be atheists. I would like to suggest that the problem that atheists have is not theological, but epistemological.

The strange thing, though, is that you have the very same problem, but use words that derive their meaning from our "space-time" context as though they´d still be somewhat meaningful when applied to a realm that you yourself admit you don´t comprehend, in the first place.

 

[Eudaimonist]

What does that mean?

It's as meaningless as any of the other definitions-by-negations that Christians use.

Time is a measure of change. To claim that God exists outside of time is to claim that God exists "outside of change". If God is unchanging, he can never do anything, including think. God would be like a fly frozen in amber.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Ken-1122]

Elopez (quote) “the future, which we could could say is simplistically the time period after the present, does not need to happen or exist first in order for God to know of it. It also means that God created time as time had a beginning, that of which was with the first creative act authored by God.”

(reply) As I said before, putting those type of perimeters on time doesn’t make sense to me. If God has always existed, then time can be applied to anything he has ever done thus as long as anything (God included) exists, so does time.

(quote) “To exist outside of time essentially means to exist in the absence of any events or moments. So as long as one exists in the absence of events and moments, a being can exist outside of time”

(reply) so how is it possible for God to exist without the concept of time being applied to his existence?

(quote) “I'm a little confused as to how you are using the term "parameters" in relation to time? What do you mean there?”

(reply) My bad; I meant “Perimeters” not parameters. Thanks for pointing that out to me

Aconba
(quote) “Space-time is contingent on the cosmos and can not exist without it.”

(reply) Says who? Wherever something exists, the concept of time can be applied to it. Where there is nothing, there is space. What does that have to do with the cosmos?

Ken

 

[drich0150]

What does that mean? I’ve heard many theists make that claim as if time has parameters or something, and it’s never made sense to me. Time is simply a system humans came up with to measure one moment to the next. To exist outside of time sounds as ridicules as claiming something exists outside of miles, gallons, or numbers; if something exists, the concept of time can be applied to it; and it doesn’t matter if you are talking about the physical world, the spiritual world, the imaginary world, or whatever; it seems to me nothing can exist outside of time because there are no parameters to time. Am I wrong? If so please explain.

Ken

To exist outside of time is the what it means to be eternal. God is not bound to our understanding of the present, past or future.

 

[sandwiches]

To exist outside of time is the what it means to be eternal. God is not bound to our understanding of the present, past or future.

You can't be eternal if there is no frame of reference, aka time.

That idea is as meaningless as saying that color exists without light.