Olorin

I am currently formulating arguments related to the incompatibilites of the biblical God's attributes. However, it seems that the majority of these arguments cannot work if the assumption is made that God exists outside of time, or is unconstrained by it.

Time and again people bring up the Flatland analogies - these seem to be part and parcel of the refutation that the construct of time does not apply to God.

Does anyone here know of a way to refute the Flatland ideas? Can it be shown that these ideas and analogies do not apply to the biblical God? Or can anyone formulate an argument that necessitates the fact that God isconstrained by time, or exhibits his own time-line or linear sequence of events? Or does anyone know of any links that are of similar nature?

Blu

I have never heard of the flatland ideas. Can you explain a little more? What exactly is your argument?

From what I got, you want to refute the attributes of the Biblical God. Those attributes are...? In the Bible, God is described as being angry at times...judgmental. God is also supposed to be a "Father," among other attributes.

Time and space is a very interesting subject to discuss. I have a book entitled "Time and Space." Humanity is confined to time and space. They are limited to time and space. Theoretically, God is beyond time and space because God is not human and an energy that encompasses the Universe. Some even call God, Universe.

Thoughts?

Automaton

Being outside of time itself, means that you are not within time, and thus you lack time. Time can be defined as the measure of change, it is the dimension in which spatial change occurs. There is no change without time. A causal relationship requires both a cause and an effect, in which the "cause" is a change which triggers change in the "effect". There is no causation without time. Therefore, if a timeless God exists, he cannot cause, or do, anything.

This is not an original argument, but I did think of it myself before I knew there were others like it, and I did formulate this version, so mits off it!

Clutch

Olorin, my suspicion is that a strictly logical objection is not to be had here. I always think of Descartes in Meditation I (and early II): plausibly, he showed that if you assume the existence of a being with literally limitless powers, then *any* apparent finding can be dismissed as delusive. God can be in time and out of time; he can be here, there and everywhere; yadda yadda yadda. If you can't understand how, well, that just shows you're not God!

Still, there are plausibility issues that you can raise. For example, The tensed nature of the epistemic conditionals here squares very poorly with both atemporality and omniscience. Grant that timeless God has a temporal mode of presentation to enable poor finite Abraham to understand Him. Grant also that God is trying to draw Abraham into advocating for the few righteous people who might live there. Nevertheless, the natural and obvious thing to have said was that he, God, already knew the city to be mostly "sinful" -- thus inviting the Abe-ster to point out the wrongfulness of killing the innocent with the guilty. So this is pretty obviously what it appears to be: an imputation of temporal embeddedness to God,.

To my mind, the whole atemporal conception is the result of reading Platonism back into the OT theology, treating God as a form.

Amen-Moses

What's to refute? To the flatlander a 3d creature would appear as a two dimensional object, but the 3d'er would be completely oblivious of the flatlanders, iow a controlled interaction between the higher dimensional being and the lower ones is impossible, in the same way a being "outside of time" or, as the analogies really indicate, a being for whom all of time is compressed into a point could not interact with beings in a particular time frame.

Amen-Moses

Draygomb

If god is in time then god must have a beginningand so can't be the beginner.
If god is without Time then god can't be aware of us because god can't be changed by learning a changeable future. An Unchangeable god can only know an unchangeable future.

Automaton

If God exists in time then he exists in space as well, in the same way a 1d line can't exist without some width, and this 2d object can't exist without depth, and this 3d object can't exist without time. It's necessity, man.

Olorin

Blu: From the explanations of various Christians, these ideas revolve around a being that exists in more than our four dimensions. So, in a place called Flatland, where only two dimensions exist, a being with three dimensions (God), will be incoherent to the perception of the two- dimensional beings inhabiting Flatland.

Another idea would be the one revolving around the frame analogy. Existence in our universe, with its four dimenions, can be seen as a movie, made up of frames. All of these frames in sequence equal the "movie" of our universe. However, God, as the creator, can manipulate each and every frame simultaneuosly, so that it would seem that, from the perception of those in the movie, the one controlling the movie and editing the frames, is not constrained by time.

This explanation is not very good - I have not read any books which advocate such a stance or treat this subject in its entirety, and I am only taking these explanations from memory. If there is anyone else around here with a better understanding of Flatland and the other issues, would he/she be willing to put forth their wisdom? I am trying to formulate a number of various arguments, such as omniscience-vs-freewill, but it seems that if God is taken as existing outside of time, in such a way that he has no linear sequence of events, then my arguments fall apart. I will post one or some of my arguments shortly. Well, I have taken a few to begin with, which are commonly agreed upon by Christians: Omnipotence, Omniscience, Creator, Omnibenevolence, etc (I think there is a current thread involving all of these) But if we can conceieve of more than one possible universes, why is it logically impossible or improbable that God exists in his own universe, the universe he supposedly created us from, and in that sense he is constrained to the "time" of his universe?

Automaton: That is where the attribute of transcendance comes in. God exists more than our four dimensions, and he exists in ours and his, but he is somehow magically able to operate differently in ours than to his (the ones we are not capable of perceiving (i.e Heaven)).

Clutch This is where Christians would advocate a differing interpretation. From that verse, I can't see any possible refutation from Christians, but be sure that you will find the normal nonsensical rebuttals, ie out of context, metaphorical, and "God works in mysterious way" and "I don't know - God's wisdom is infintely better than mine"

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Olorin,
A quick heads up: Your heading down the wrong path with this. You are attempting to assert the
negative statment 'God can not be hyper-dimensional relative to man'.

Asserting such a negative statement is dubious. You must show that there is NO possible way that God could hold such properties.


Interestingly enough, it may be the case that God exhibits omnipotence and omniscience BECAUSE of his extra-dimensional relationship with man.

Thoughts and comments welcomed,


Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

WJ

Olorin!

Please when you get a chance, post your arguments... . I think part of where you are going is the [logical] concept of a necessary timeless Being, along with the current view of free-will and contingency as it exists in the universe.

Walrus