Just_An_Atheist

I think that there is a definite contradiction between these two terms, at least in the sense that they are usually understood. The incoherence argument can go like this:

1.If God exists', then he is timeless.

2.If God exists', then he is a person.

3.If God is a person, then he must be able to think, act, and have the usual emotions that a person has.

This premise seems justified because of our first hand experience of ourselves. If we say that God is still a person, but the term is different, then we devoid the word of meaning.

4.If God has a thought, then there must be time for him to think.

This is our experience of what a thought is. If we say that God is the exeption, then we are special pleading, or at least render it completly unintelligable.

5.If God is timeless, then he cannot think.

6.Therefore, there cannot exist a timeless person.

7.Therefore, God cannot exist.

SignOfTheCross

First of all, God is immutable, you seem to be under the assumption that God is a changing being, of which He is not. Secondly, time is dependent on matter, therefore incorporeal consciousness is independent of time. Since God Himself is eternity, His thoughts do not change, neither does He change, therefore He is unchangable, and not bound by time.

Peace,
SOTC

Diadectes

Therefore those tales of God changing his mind in the OT (i.e. the flood) are blatantly false.


If eterity is timelessness and God is eternal then it is meaningless to say that God acts in time. As there is no before or after for an eternal being, there can be no point at which he intervenes. The notion of a personal God who acts on our behalf is therefore absurd.

EGGO

If his thoughts do not change, then he has no freewill, because his omnipotence keeps him from freely choosing an option. He can't choose an option and fork off from it since his thoughts doesn't change.

A perfect being wouldn't have something if he didn't use it (so why give him a gender if there's no point to having genitals?).

Maybe someone can answer this, but how did he come in contact with Adam and Eve if he is outside of time/our universe?

luvluv

Just an Atheist:

Providentially enough () I just read a book on this very subject by William Lane Craig entitled Time and Eternity: Exploring God's Relationship to Time . It covers this very argument, and I'm basically going to parrot his case. The crucial premise is premise 3:

Notice that this premise, correctly, specifies that God must be able to think, act, and have the usual emotions. It does not say that God must be engaged in thinking, acting, and emoting.

Thus, God can be an eternal, unchanging person insofar as He has the capacity of personhood, even if that personhood has no opportunity for expression.

Craig makes this concession that God could be eternal before the creation of the world, but in creating God would have to enter time in order to have relations with the people in the world, in order to give opportunity for expressing His personal characteristics.

So Craig argues that God is timeless before the creation of the world, and temporal thereafter. Before creation, God exists timelessly with no space, matter, or succesive events to mark any change, or any flow of time. But at creation, time itself is created, and thereafter God becomes temporal, acting in time. Craig's main point seems to be that God's eternality is CONTINGENT upon there being entities in time with which God can interract. Absent creation, God would be timeless and unchanging. But upon creation, God becomes temporal.

Thus, God remains a person PREVIOUS to creation simply inasmuch as he has the capacity to do all the things you listed, even though he has no opportunity to do them. It is even a possibility that God could think, but the fact is that it is logically impossible that God could be given an opportunity to think. There is a logical impossibility to the notion that God could be presented with a new piece of information over which He must take consideration. Thus it is extrinsically impossible for God to think, not intrinsically. We cannot say that because God can never be presented with an OPPORTUNITY to think, that he is INCAPABLE of thought.

Therefore, I would disagree with premise 4:

There is, firstly, no reason to think that God does think. In fact, it would seem that omniscience would rule it out. What does God need to think about? If all truths are eternally present before Him, what would possible problem or scenario could require God applying mental effort?

A better premise for you to substitute here, if I may be so bold, is that if God is going to experience an emotion, there must be time for Him to experience an emotion. But even that would fail against Craig's view, as there would be no problem with God experiencing emotions in time if He became temporal subesequent to creation.

Diadectes:

I would think so; possibly due to the misinterpretation of God's motives or statements by the Biblical writers.

I think Craig's interpretation can withstand this objection, though admitedly I am only about 45 minutes removed from finishing the major arguments in his book, and haven't had a whole lot of time to consider objections.

EGGO:

I don't quite get this. He certainly could change His mind but He could never have an opportunity to do so. One generally can only change one's mind as a result of new information, and God cannot receive new information, nor can He fail to have a perfect evaluation of all information present to Him (thus He could not change His mind due to a superior re-evaluation of information he had previously evaluated. The initial [probably timeless] evaluation would be perfect).

So it would seem to me that we are dealing again with an extrinsic limitation on God's actions, not an intrinsic one. It is because He has all knowledge, and a perfect evaluation thereof, that it is impossible for God to change His mind. The deficiency is not in Himself, it is within creation. Creation is incapable of providing God an opportunity to change His mind.

(And please read that book...! It's pretty good.)

jfryejr

Emotions are caused by chemicals in the brain (i.e. serotonin, dopamine). How could a non-biological entity feel emotion?


If god is timeless, there would be no means to create a universe, as it requires a temporal logic to conceive of now, I'll create a universe.

As a timeless entity, he would either have no thoughts or all thoughts at once. If he had all thoughts at once, it would mean that at the moment of god's inception, the universe would have been created (per his thought), which would rule out god being timeless. With no thoughts, well, no universe. Arguing that a timeless entity created the universe is ultimately the same as arguing for the spontaneous generation of the universe and god concurrently. Still need a chicken or an egg.

beastmaster

Luvluv, here's what I don't get: how does this static, changeless god go about deciding to "enter time"? Doesn't he need time as a condition precedent to making the decisive change to enter time?

Does distinguishing among the Trinity solve this conceptual problem -- i.e., god/the Father as fully outside space-time and static, the Logos/Christ as fully within space-time and mutable, and the Holy Spirit/Sophia as perhaps straddling the two and serving as an intermediary?

Spenser

If God's thoughts do not change then What is the point of praying??? :banghead:

Hawkingfan

Assumption? It shows right in the bible he is a changing being. The bible also shows that god's thoughts DO change. Consider:

Genesis 6
6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.

Exodus 32
14 Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

Numbers 14
30 Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

Numbers 14
20 The LORD replied, "I have forgiven them, as you asked.

1 Samuel 15
35 Until the day Samuel died, he did not go to see Saul again, though Samuel mourned for him. And the LORD was grieved that he had made Saul king over Israel.

2 Samuel 24
16 When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the LORD was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, "Enough! Withdraw your hand." The angel of the LORD was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

Magus55

No, God never changes His mind. When the OT mentions God changing, its to show that God's plan is working in unison with humans. Its more for our benefit in understanding God. God does not change. When Abraham kept asking God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if just 50, 40, 30, etc. people were righteous, it was just God allowing Abraham to be part of His plan. God knew Abraham would ask those questions, but God knew the final question before creation. God knew Abraham would ask Him to spare the people if just 10 were righteous, and God had already planned to do that long before Abraham ever asked. But God allowed Abraham to be part of the process.