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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > Can we go deeper with Time? | Forum Quick Jump
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
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| Posted 12/3/2007 10:07 PM (GMT -6) |   |
feelinahole said...I am friendly like, but I have never, in all honesty, ever seen you simply post your own position. I could have missed it, of course, but even if there was one, it probably would have drowned in your many quotes. This post is a prime example.
Harold, I just wrote a few posts up: "But I don't like statements like "God exists outside of time" as it makes time something separate from God, as if it preceeds God, making God a creature. Such simple statements might make us feel like we are in control, but they influence us to make God into out own image." THAT was my own position.
Anyways, D. has gotten a lot from me, of considerable length.
You just haven't been around.
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Clete
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| Posted 12/4/2007 6:20 PM (GMT -6) | | feelinahole said...
I am friendly like, but I have never, in all honesty, ever seen you simply post your own position. I could have missed it, of course, but even if there was one, it probably would have drowned in your many quotes. This post is a prime example.
This is the only thread on this forum I have ever seen and already this observation comes as no surprise to me.
Let me just posit something for everyone's consideration on the subject of time.
First of all, time is not a thing and it most certainly is not an attribute of God. Time is merely an idea, not an ontological thing. Time is a concept that communicate the sequence of events - nothing more - nothing less.
The position that most theists and Classical theists in particular hold is that God somehow exists outside of time; that He is timeless. Some don't like to express it in those terms but that is the long and short of their position.
Such a position is irrational and therefore must be false.
It is irrational because the whole idea of God, or anything else for that matter, existing outside of time is inherently self-contradictory. You cannot exist without duration, duration is time, thus to exist outside of time is to exist outside of duration, a clear contradiction in terms. If one does not have duration, one does not exist at all. Thus God is not timeless but rather He is infinite. God does not experience a complete lack of time but rather an endless amount of it.
No other rational alternative exists.
Further, the idea of divine timelessness is not Biblical (no irrationality is) but finds its origins in the Classics. Augustine imported the idea of divine timelessness into Christianity in the 5th century from the Aristotelean philosophy he loved so much, as is true of most (nearly all) of what is now called Classical Theism, Calvinism, the Settled View, or whatever you want to call it. There is no hint of time having been created, no suggestion that God can travel backward through time, no example of God acting, or even being asked to act, in an atemporal context and there are several examples of God changing His mind as well as prophesies that did not come to pass, all of which would prove that God could not possibly exist outside of time. How would it make any sense for a God who sees the entirety of time all at once, as Augustine taught, to change His mind?
Resting in Him,
Clete | | Back to Top | | |
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Clete
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| Posted 12/4/2007 6:34 PM (GMT -6) | | PotOnWheel said...feelinahole said...
I am friendly like, but I have never, in all honesty, ever seen you simply post your own position. I could have missed it, of course, but even if there was one, it probably would have drowned in your many quotes. This post is a prime example.
Harold, I just wrote a few posts up: "But I don't like statements like "God exists outside of time" as it makes time something separate from God, as if it preceeds God, making God a creature. Such simple statements might make us feel like we are in control, but they influence us to make God into out own image." THAT was my own position. Anyways, D. has gotten a lot from me, of considerable length. You just haven't been around. 
I hope that this is actually the case and that you will be more forthcoming about what you believe on this subject because, frankly, I'm just not interested in how skilled you are at copy/paste jobs.
In response to your stated position, the accusation that one is "making God into our own image" is thrown around with such ease and frivolity these days. Have you ever considered the fact that you have no way of knowing whether that is actually being done? It's a completely unfalsifiable accusation. Basically anything you happen to disagree with could qualify as an example of someone making God in his own image. And if the accusation is made, there is nothing to keep the accused from making the exact same accusation in response with every bit as much substance as the other guy. How would you prove such an accusation? If you could prove it with some Scripturally based or rationally based argument then why not just make the argument in the first place? Not that such an argument could be made, it can't but the point is that its better to make an argument than it is an unfalsifiable clichéd accusation.
The fact is that it is we who have been made in the image of God, not the other way around. That being the case, we should expect for there to be some resemblance between ourselves and God. Indeed, we are enough similar to God so as to make it possible for Him to become a human being and still remain God and so there is no fundamental incompatibility between humanity and divinity or else the incarnation would not have been possible.
So let's leave such cliché ridden comments out of the discussion and stick to things that are substantive and meaningful, shall we?
Resting in Him,
Clete | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/4/2007 6:44 PM (GMT -6) | | | Clete, since you asked and then I explained that the long quotes were for the benefit of someone else active on this board, you should understand that I look dimly on your someone sarcastic remark above. It was un-invited.
I enjoyed what you wrote, however. That is also my own criticism of positing that God is "outside of time."
For me, I'm neither OpenTheist nor a Classical Theist. I'm not a decendent of either Augustine or Aristotle.
Something that I did write, however, on the subject of time and grace is this:
(emailed to a friend)
...time should be considered almost like something that is flexible to be stretched according to needs. Time has a meaning.
Rather than events being fitted into and packed into, or omited from a cubbyhole of time... time itself is a gift that makes possibilities possible.
Rather than think of God as shutout of knowledge and events popping up within time, surprising God... realize that even time is forknown by God.
To someone not up to speed with you on this, recall for them that "goodness" comes from God -- preserving transcendence but fully immenent. Time should be thought of in this way too.
(o)Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 12/4/2007 6:56:09 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/4/2007 7:52 PM (GMT -6) | |
Clete said...
You cannot exist without duration, duration is time, thus to exist outside of time is to exist outside of duration, a clear contradiction in terms. If one does not have duration, one does not exist at all. Thus God is not timeless but rather He is infinite. God does not experience a complete lack of time but rather an endless amount of it.
Interesting. A good start.
There is more than one kind of duration.
Greek ideas have an endless monotony. That circularity is something to avoid -- breaking out of reincarnation was their percieved goal.
A spiral provides an image that illustrates both qualities of changing and of unchanging.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/4/2007 8:08 PM (GMT -6) | |
Clete said...
Do you believe that God exists outside of time?
Change that for a moment. (Also, go back to page one and read Dionysius) Ask these questions -- as they were central to the posts surrounding this one:
Does God exist outside the creation?
Does God exist within the creation?
What are your convictions or observations, Clete?
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Clete
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| Posted 12/5/2007 5:57 PM (GMT -6) | | PotOnWheel said...Clete said...
You cannot exist without duration, duration is time, thus to exist outside of time is to exist outside of duration, a clear contradiction in terms. If one does not have duration, one does not exist at all. Thus God is not timeless but rather He is infinite. God does not experience a complete lack of time but rather an endless amount of it. Interesting. A good start. There is more than one kind of duration. Greek ideas have an endless monotony. That circularity is something to avoid -- breaking out of reincarnation was their perceived goal. A spiral provides an image that illustrates both qualities of changing and of unchanging.
Very cryptic response.
I don't think there's anything here that can be responded too.
Clete asked, "Do you believe that God exists outside of time?"
PotOnWheel said...
Change that for a moment. (Also, go back to page one and read Dionysius) Ask these questions -- as they were central to the posts surrounding this one:
Does God exist outside the creation?
Does God exist within the creation?
What are your convictions or observations, Clete?
Yes to both questions.
Time is not created as it is not a thing, it is a concept. | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/5/2007 6:11 PM (GMT -6) | | I'm going to repost this from page one. What I find interesting is that a guy like Dionysius -- upon whose thoughts the Gothic movement of art and its famous cathedrals are sprouted, and upon whose writings so much divotional literature springs -- asks quesitons and yet is slow to give answers all-the-while not backing down on the questions!
(Dionysius) "Viewing time and eternity as divine processions is a striking innovation, but it also raises many questions. Most obviously, what becomes of the traditional view that time is a feature of the physical cosmos? How can this be, if it is also a divine procession, and thus one way of apprehending God himself?"
"A Christian Approach to the Philosophy of Time." http://www.uky.edu/~dbradsh/papers/Christian%20Approach%20to%20Phil%20of%20Time.pdf
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/6/2007 7:19 AM (GMT -6) | | Well, looking at the Dionysius quote, I think it also comes down to the matter of a one storey or two story universe.
(o) Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 12/6/2007 6:23:01 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/8/2007 9:49 AM (GMT -6) | |
PLANIS said...
It seems to me that what the GO wants to avoid attributing to God by saying denying him temporal experience can be easily avoided in a careful description of such experience.
I'll buy that.
Personally, I just don't want to say too much about time. But I'll accept the "wiggle room" in your phrase: "a necessary consequence of God's own existence, a characteristic of existence per se."
Sounds like we want to say enough, but also not too much. I'm comfortable with that.
(o) Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 12/8/2007 8:59:29 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/8/2007 10:02 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom, I just saw this. (I'm going to listen to it now.)
B.
Time in a One-Storey Universe
Posted Friday, December 07, 2007
Fr. Stephen continues his series on the modern world's division between things secular and things spiritual, showing that the Orthodox life should be lived not in a "two-storey" universe but in a "one-storey" universe. This talk looks at our modern understanding of time and how it runs counter to the Church's traditional understanding.
http://audio.ancientfaith.com/freeman/gtg8_pc.mp3
(o)Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 12/8/2007 9:07:24 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/9/2007 7:27 PM (GMT -6) | |
I'd always like to say less, than to say more.
PLANIS said...POW: I'll accept the "wiggle room" in your phrase: "a necessary consequence of God's own existence, a characteristic of existence per se." Tom: I'm speechless. You're just joking with me right? This is all a set up? D, are you in on this? T
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Clete
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| Posted 12/10/2007 5:15 PM (GMT -6) | | PLANIS said...
I have to admit after years of considering what you (POW) have described regarding time and what you're posted of GO theologians, and what I've read myself on time in GO sources, that I still unable to understand the GO position. I don't know what they think time is or what they think God's relationship to time is. It's unintelligible to me till now. Personally I don't think time is grace, period. I think time is time and grace is grace. I think God exercises grace in giving us time to repent and grow. But that can't be the whole GO position. I'm inclined to view time as a necessary consequence of God's own existence, a characteristic of existence per se. But I don't know how to prove that. I don't think that whatever is temporal is necessarily a creature, as if time is only a creaturely characteristic. How could we know that? I like a lot of things Nesteruk says but disagreed with his comments regarding time, change, and emergence within the God-world relationship. It seems to me that what the GO wants to avoid attributing to God by saying denying him temporal experience can be easily avoided in a careful description of such experience.
Tom
The way you would prove it is by a very simple "by definition" argument.
Existence implies duration, by definition.
Time is duration, by definition.
Therefore existence implies time.
The idea that anything could exist outside of time commits what is called a stolen concept fallacy, which is just a fancy way of saying that one uses the definition of a word or concept while denying that definition.
Resting in Him,
Clete | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 12/10/2007 5:28 PM (GMT -6) | |
Clete said...
Existence implies duration, by definition.
Time is duration, by definition.
Therefore existence implies time. Ok.
Nice.
Further, there are different kinds of existence,
Therefore there are different kinds of time.
As per....
PotOnWheel said...
There is more than one kind of duration.
Greek ideas have an endless monotony. That circularity is something to avoid -- breaking out of reincarnation was their perceived goal.
A spiral provides an image that illustrates both qualities of changing and of unchanging.
And sin brought death, where there had been none before...
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feelinahole
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| Posted 12/10/2007 11:30 PM (GMT -6) | | Same ole POW. Answerrs questions with questions and quotes others while never stating his position clearly. Nice!  | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 12/11/2007 6:26 AM (GMT -6) | |
feelinahole said...Same ole POW. Answerrs questions with questions and quotes others while never stating his position clearly. Nice!
What?
Harold, WHY did you say that I "answerred questions with questions ... while never stating (my) position clearly?"
I just said (all my own words): "There are different kinds of existence, therefore there are different kinds of time... There is more than one kind of duration. Greek ideas have an endless monotony. That circularity is something to avoid -- breaking out of reincarnation was their perceived goal. A spiral provides an image that illustrates both qualities of changing and of unchanging."
Would you actually like to comment on my own-word's answers/statements?
Or do YOU have something that you'd like to say?
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PotOnWheel
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Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 12/11/2007 6:34 AM (GMT -6) | |
Clete said...Existence implies duration, by definition.
Time is duration, by definition.
Therefore existence implies time.
This basically says "Time passes."
Thats very good. Very valuable. Very important.
Buit, like the thread title poses, what DEEPER can be said of time?
To help move us along, let's ask questions about how the fall affects time. What does that mean? Well the fall brought corruption to being: death. That should draw us along to find some things to think about and some statements that can be made. And the Resurrection should do the same.
. . . . . .
Now, let none fret about my asking questions. Questions are good. I've made a few stattments too. But if we are to do this, let us discuss together.
B.
(o) Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 12/11/2007 2:40:21 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/11/2007 7:26 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 12/11/2007 2:32 PM (GMT -6) | | Harold, note the underlines.
RE : question
Originally Sent : 12/11/2007 5:40:34 PM GMT by feelinahole
question
Originally Sent : 12/11/2007 11:41:13 AM GMT by PotOnWheelWhat?
Harold, WHY did you say that I "answerred questions with questions ... while never stating (my) position clearly?"
I just said (all my own words): "There are different kinds of existence, therefore there are different kinds of time... There is more than one kind of duration. Greek ideas have an endless monotony. That circularity is something to avoid -- breaking out of reincarnation was their perceived goal. A spiral provides an image that illustrates both qualities of changing and of unchanging."
Would you actually like to comment on my own-word's answers/statements?
Harold replied: In your own words you made a statement that says nothing about what you personally believe, but rather simply states beliefs that others have actiulated before (in your own words). ..... In the above post you in no way stated YOUR OWN position, but rather (once again) avoided actually dialoging with another person.
PoW answers: Harold, note the bold part above.
Are you claiming that I don't believe in eternal life?
Eternal life: that is a different sort of duration than perishing is. Perishing is like a line-segment that has a beginning, a middle unit, and an end; while eternal life has a beginning, and the middle goes on and on like a ray in math class. That's a difference all right. And in life their is significant difference. Christians put up with evil without trying to get even *because* their view of life is eschatological. (Someone else's words, but something I've experienced in my life through fifty years of being a Christian.)
Now, that said, I want this discussion (You are welcome to join if you really will discuss.) to be about something more than just "Time passes." To that end I've asked some questions that I'd like Clete to answer (or you):
1. How does the fall affect time.
2. And what meaning does that have, that the fall brought corruption to being: death.
3. How does the Resurrection change time, either fallen time or creational time?
The ONLY critieria for discussing this is to be actually interested in the topic.
Be honest, Harold.
Tell me things that are important to you, Clete.
(o) Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 12/11/2007 2:42:45 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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