How does Bob view time?
- Thread starter wwww
- Start date
- Status
Mr. 5020
New member
Yes.
The "Time: Intrinsic or extrinsic to the nature of God" section is the most convoluted nonsense in the article. It pathetically tries to get around God's nature not being in time but its not outside of time either. The measurement of time has nothing to do with it.
We cannot know directly of actual infinity and this idea of endless time tries just to do just that.
Let's not forget Kalam's argument that if the past was actually infinite, how could you arrive at the present moment?
I have no problem with God's nature being transcendent to time but his power being infinite. Just as the sun is separate from the earth, but its rays warm the earth and give it life.
"Endless time and immutability" is the most blatantly obviously wrong part of the article. Time by its vey definition is mutable. It obviously tries to get around accepting that in fact God is immutable by saying in some ways he is mutable.
My conclusion on the article will be next.
We cannot know directly of actual infinity and this idea of endless time tries just to do just that.
Let's not forget Kalam's argument that if the past was actually infinite, how could you arrive at the present moment?
I have no problem with God's nature being transcendent to time but his power being infinite. Just as the sun is separate from the earth, but its rays warm the earth and give it life.
"Endless time and immutability" is the most blatantly obviously wrong part of the article. Time by its vey definition is mutable. It obviously tries to get around accepting that in fact God is immutable by saying in some ways he is mutable.
My conclusion on the article will be next.
Kalam Mekhar??!? :shocked:
So let's go back to the second paragraph of the article. It agrees that a good starting point is "if anything does now exist, then something is self-existent because from nothing nothing comes.
The article goes on and then completely ignores what the starting point means. Anything that has potential of change must be realized through something that is already in actuality.
If God's nature is in any way in time which is succession, then God has potential to change and must be realized by something previous to God.
Now by saying God is immutable, we are saying he has no potentiality. This does not mean he is "static." He has no potentiality because He is pure act. he is causing through the conservation of form. Creation and conservation of form are really no different so creation in this sense is continual.
Creation is not taking nothing and making something of it. It means that if the created thing were left to itself, then it would cease to exist. God's power or pure act is what creates and creation just means that nothing prexisted before the pure act of God to create. It is not a temporal dependance but metaphysical.
The article goes on and then completely ignores what the starting point means. Anything that has potential of change must be realized through something that is already in actuality.
If God's nature is in any way in time which is succession, then God has potential to change and must be realized by something previous to God.
Now by saying God is immutable, we are saying he has no potentiality. This does not mean he is "static." He has no potentiality because He is pure act. he is causing through the conservation of form. Creation and conservation of form are really no different so creation in this sense is continual.
Creation is not taking nothing and making something of it. It means that if the created thing were left to itself, then it would cease to exist. God's power or pure act is what creates and creation just means that nothing prexisted before the pure act of God to create. It is not a temporal dependance but metaphysical.
Strong Platonic immutability is not biblical. In fact, God changes in some ways, but not in other ways. If God is personal, and He is, then change and time are aspects of will, intellect, and emotions (all require duration, even for God). Weak immutability is a more biblical position. God is unchanging in His character and essential attributes, but He can change in knowledge, relations, thinking, acting, feeling, etc.
I take it you would not like Open Theism.
I think you have too many philosophical 'tree' hang ups and are missing the 'forest' of truth.
That's all right, Godrulz.(shakes hand) We will always disagree because you believe that Revelation is the starting point. I say reason is the starting point.
Funny thing is (and I think this is a flaw with many Evangelists) the article skips completely a strong argument because of its obsession with other writings than Gospels and looking at the writings out of context of the Gospels
Supernatural revelation in the incarnation needs examining. The "closed philosophy" has their good reasoning but why the article didn't bring up Jesus being born, growing and experienceg time is beyond me.
The article is not exhaustive, but food for thought. Jesus (God) is an e.g. of how Deity can experience temporality. Clearly, the man Christ Jesus is not eternal in His humanity, so there was sequence (time) in the Godhead (likewise, creation is not co-eternal with God...simultaneity makes no sense/eternal now).
It is both revelation and reason, not either/or.
It is both revelation and reason, not either/or.
I know Bob used to state the following about time:
"When a drunk eskimo squeezes the bladder, time speeds up!"
That was always a good one.
Revelation supliments human reason and we can only partially understand it through human reason that is what both the open and closed theism is doing, trying to understand Scripture for example through human reason.
Not to mention Scripture was mediated through humans and you have to take into account what the author is trying to explain and his influence and temperment and not to read your own interpretation over the author.
An example is Paul was a Jew with a Greek cultural background which he had probably begun to acquire when boy in Tarsus and which was certainly reinforced by repeated contact with the Graeco-Roman world; this influence is obvious not only in his logical method but also in his language and style.
He sometimes quotes Greek writers, 1 Co 15:33; Tt 1:12, Ac 17:28, and was familiar with popular stoic based philosophy from which he borrows concepts (eg. the soul being separated from the body and bound for another world 2Co 5:6-8; the cosmic pleroma in Col and Ep) and cliches (1 Co 8:6, Rm 11:36; Ep 4:6).
From the Cynics and Stoics he borrowed the rapid response method (the diatribe) Rm 3:1-9, 27-31, and rhetorical device of heaping words on words 2 Co 6:4-10. Even his use of long packed phrases in wave after wave, Ep 1:3-14; Col 1:9-20, has a precedent in hellenistic religious literature.
I think her username is the "whore of Babylon."
Mr. 5020
New member
hippiechyck
New member
you are all certainly productive while i'm not around :chuckle:
:wave2:
- Status