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Ronald A. Newcomb
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| Posted 9/30/2010 10:49 AM (GMT -6) |   | We need to be careful not to become mystics, redefining basic concepts to mystify parts of the universe (=everything that is), in this case making up new definitions for things that are well defined and falling into those same Platonic traps the classic theologies fall into, redefining aspects of reality to fit reality into their theology.
Tom is right above, a point cannot be defined without two dimensions. you cannot simply decide it is something without location under the pain of idiocy, as Lewis often said.
My son writes some science fiction and the quality is very good. His research is outstanding and everything he invests has some analog in the real world, nonetheless they remain made up ideas about something that isn't real. Claiming that there are different points but that they are spatially distinct without having dimensions is irrational, not just wrong. Neither God nor reality are irrational. Ergo, we ought to expect that we can reason to a correct conclusion about them without making up stories that escape that rationality, thus becoming mystic.
This starts to sound very much like the very thing we OV people complain about with Calvinism. They make claims about reality that are simply ridiculous.
On that line, personally, watching large churches loose their denominational monikers, I believe we are in another reformation, and perhaps this time we can get the theology right.
Professor Newcomb
San Diego State University
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/1/2010 6:21 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Newcomb: Tom is right above, a point cannot be defined without two dimensions. you cannot simply decide it is something without location under the pain of idiocy, as Lewis often said.
Jeff: I would go further. I would say a point is not conceivable without being cognizant of 3 dimensions--at least for humans. Moreover, a point in space doesn't have a location. A point in space IS a location.
Newcomb: Claiming that there are different points but that they are spatially distinct without having dimensions is irrational, not just wrong.
Jeff: I have no idea what you are referring to. I totally agree with you here. All I'm arguing is that space and time are not beings, but frames of reference in terms of which we conceive of each and every actual being we conceive of. As such, they are not created beings.
As for Lewis, he was no open theist. In that sense, we could conceive of him as a mystic in some respects. But that just makes the point, doesn't it? When it comes to perceived category mistakes, one man's rationality is another man's mysticism. All we can do is try to articulate our views and see which one is the most parsimonious, etc.
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Tom
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| Posted 10/1/2010 6:25 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Ronald A. Newcomb
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Date Joined Mar 2002
Total Posts : 45
| Posted 10/1/2010 9:11 AM (GMT -6) | | From the first post in 2002, I quote myself:
"Premise:
1. Dimensions are fundamental things, and therefore, not created, and necessary for any quantity of any thing to exist. It is individuality, or the ability to describe something that is alone and that requires nothing else that is intrinsic to a primary dimension.
2. Common dimensions are length, width, height, time, magnitude, orientation, motion, and conscience (there are likely others).
3. Where two dimensions interact to produce characteristics not intrinsic to the dimensions themselves, a domain may exists. For instance, velocity is length traveled divided by the time taken to do so. Two dimensions interacting may also produce a secondary dimension, such as rationality, the interaction of conscience and ?, or personality, or direction which requires motion and length. Tertiary and quaternary dimensions also exist where, respectively, three or four dimensions interact to form another. Mass, for instance, is considered a dimension but requires length, width, and height, it is, therefore a tertiary dimension.
4. A domain is necessary for something to exist. For instance, if you have two dimensions, then you can create on it a plane. A plane has no height, and therefore cannot be a mass which requires three dimensions.
5. Measurement requires a domain in which something exists to be measured, such as the measure of mass, and mass requires a minimum of three dimensions.
6. A minimum of four dimensions are necessarily combined for a living thing to exist.
7. For something in one domain to interact with something in another domain, there must be (an unknown number of) shared dimensions and corresponding domains.
8. Spiritual beings are “things” (not physical things) and therefore require dimensions and domains in which to exist.
9. Time is one of the dimensions that the spiritual domain (realm) shares with the physical universe. "
(end)
So, for precise definition: By "space" we mean that four (or more) dimensional reality which exists necessarily, and preexisted the creation by God of our physical universe.
Jeff: I would go further. I would say a point is not conceivable without being cognizant of 3 dimensions--at least for humans. Moreover, a point in space doesn't have a location. A point in space IS a location.
Newcomb: Some of the verbiage makes it sound as if there is a different kind or type of reality for the spiritual world (i.e. God, Angels in the broad use of the term). By that I don't mean in the same way that a fish has a different life than humans, rather that the fundamentals of reality are different. I say this because the phrase "at least to humans" infers this. There isn't a different type of reality to spiritual beings. They use the same dimensions we use, ergo, those dimensions are everywhere, including heaven. Heaven is a location, Satan came into God's presence and then left from his presence to return to earth in Job. Daniel prayed and the angel took 21 days to get to Daniel (chapter 10) (he transverses distance) and Daniel saw him and the angel touched Daniel (some kind of physicality that can interact with our physical universe).
These are not conceptions, but actualities, as are the distance traveled, the time taken and the location arrived to.
You are right about a point requiring 3D or 4D, but in theory, you need only 2 for it to occur. "Space" can be empty of physical matter. We do not know what the difference between our physical matter is and whatever it is that composes the spiritual world. Perhaps the axiom here, "nature abhors a vacuum" is actually true and there is some equivalent to dark energy (comprises 70% of the mass of the physical universe) which occupies it as well, we can't say. But the physical universe takes up some of the formerly empty space. It is bounded. It extends to a given location and that is its extent. It seems to be expanding and taking up more of that area, that space, those locations.
My objection is using terms that make it sound as if the empty location is not a real location, rather only a conception of a location out beyond the bounded edge of the physical universe. If so, then heaven is only a conceived spot, not a real spot. Then Satan didn't really come into God's presence in Job and the angel didn't really take time to traverse some distance, and we return to the Kantian divided knowledge, that reality is found in science, and religion is only a conception that gives purpose but is not true in the same sense. No one here believes that.
So, yes, Tom, space is uncreated. God, in Genesis 1 created what we see, smell, hear, touch, taste, the physics of our physical universe (something new to what already existed) and he did so in a certain location within the space empty of physical matter, and that with boundaries. He then expanded the size when he "stretched forth the heavens" which is what modern cosmology sees in the "Big Bang" theory, what Dr. Hubble sees in the red shift. (I am not claiming here that the expansion has stopped, or that the red shift from God's expanding the universe is the actual cause of the red shifted light we see when we look up today, but that is possible.)
The point here is that space (empty of physical matter) is not only uncreated but necessarily contains dimensions which define it. It is not that we only conceive of them, or that spiritual beings conceive of them rather that they are actually there.
I can conceive of a Chinese dragon, but it doesn't actually exist. A Komodo dragon actually exists. One is a conception, the other an actuality. To exist in the mind the Chinese Dragon needs to have some relationship to reality. We describe it as having a certain size, length, spines, scales, colors, and so forth, but these are ideas, not realities. We can create s physical representation of the imagined dragon, but that is not the dragon itself but a artifact, or artificial representation of that dragon idea.
Jeff is correct on both points on Lewis, and Chesterton for that matter, they often jump into a mystic Christian view, necessary because of their classic theism. My point there was that if we claim that we can define a point in space but that point has only dimensions that exist in our mind, not in reality, then we are, or become irrational. That point in space is a real location as are the dimensions which define it. Unlike the Chinese Dragon, it is not only a thought, and idea, or a conception.
If the dimensions were not actualities, then God could not have placed the physical universe into it and more than I can jump on the back of the Chinese dragon. Both would actually lack a location to act in. If we speak of a location beyond the boundaries of the physical universe, say, one light year past that boundary on the X axis, that point is really there. An angel could go to that point and wait (assuming the universe is actually still expanding) and be there when the physical universe arrived. The angel would enter the physical universe because the universe caught up to him, but that would not change the angel, nor the point in space any more than my car changes a location it drives past. The location, the point in space is real, as are the dimensions that I can use now to describe that location which is currently beyond the boundary of the physical universe.
(Side bar: The current naturalistic cosmological models of the naturalists deny that there are dimensions past the physical extent of the universe, and deny there is time outside the physical universe. That is a naturalistic view, shared, buy none less than both classic theisms. The point of this thread is to help OV people to realize that we have the correct world view, the Christian world view, and that classical theism shares its world view with the naturalists. It is an argument we can win.)
Professor Newcomb
San Diego State University
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/1/2010 5:23 PM (GMT -6) | | I would, if I tried, have to use language that sounds very much like yours, Dr. Newcomb. But my contention is that our language is deceptive. I.e., it tends to cause us to think of time, space, and even dimensions as beings. But I am claiming that they are not beings. Time is a 1-D frame of reference that is necessary to conceive of certain kinds of relations. Space is a 3-D frame of reference that is necessary to conceive of other kinds of relations.
But I'm agreeing with you that non-corporeal beings are conceived of in terms of these same relations. As far as I can tell, e. g., angels are not corporeal in any sense. And yet who speaks of them as not being anywhere or experiencing sequenced conscious states, etc? Likewise, to the extent that the Father and Son are non-corporeal, I think of them just like I do angels IN THAT RESPECT. The Son is spoken of as descending to earth to BECOME incarnated, e.g., in Ephesians. The difference is, the Father and Son, unlike angels, had no beginning.
That's how I conceive of it. As such, I see no reason to assume there are boundaries to space or time. The redshift is not fully understood. Unless we've learned something in the last 15 years I'm unaware of, there are redshifts in our own galaxy that are inexplicable by any consensus view of light. Thus, redshifts, per se, are not troublesome to me in any theoretical sense independent of the fact that Einsteinian relativity is admitted by most physicists to be COUNTER-intuitive (whereas Lorentzian relativity, which requires no bounds on space and time, is not).
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/2/2010 7:18 AM (GMT -6) | | | Tom,
Because there is a purely epistemological sense in which we use "frame of reference" it doesn't follow that this is analogous to imagining matter prior to its actual "becoming." IOW, I'm contending the 3-D void we call space has no beginning. God existed IN IT, sans creation. God still exists IN IT.
IOW, that God is known by me as a necessary being is not relevant to my conception of Him as being spatially-located or omnipresent. He isn't any more or less necessary because He is somewhere or everywhere. If God is not spatially located because He is immaterial, then neither are human souls/spirits or angels, and yet human souls/spirits and angels are not necessary beings.
This kind of analytic difficulty is what made Thomas Jefferson suppose that even God was material. Smart people fall on every point of the epistemological spectrum on this one.
If you'll remember, when I quoted to you out of that "Divine Attributes" book, it showed that the authors believe NO immaterial spirits are spacial in any sense. If that is correct, then that means that only spirits' experience is conceived of as located. Maybe this is what D is getting at with the "divine energies" remarks. But that just means that if all matter ceased to exist, I, as a spirit, would still conceive of my feelings as occurring SOMEWHERE as I do now (e.g., phantom pain) even though I, qua being, may exist NOWHERE.
Thus, I see no way of proving that, sans matter, there are no such relations as "here," "there," etc., precisely because the necessarily-existing godhead is sentient and conscious. And sentient and conscious states, alone, are conceived of as occurring SOMEWHERE, whether or not we can ever make total sense of an immaterial being existing somewhere. Thus, there is no way to eliminate the correlativity of the epistemological and non-epistemological senses of the frames of reference we call time and space.
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/2/2010 9:49 AM (GMT -6) | | | To me, feeling that is not felt in terms of place is just as inconceivable as personal interaction without temporal sequence. This is why I don't even understand what those who oppose me are even saying. Corey is the one person I've understood. He frankly concedes that if God was a-temporal and a-spatial in every sense we mean by those terms, sans creation, then "God," sans creation, is pretty much a mystery.
Obviously we can subtract elements from our cognitions; e.g., we can subtract causality from event sequence. We can also subtract attribute from substance and have the bare concept of being. But no such beings exist to our knowledge. Nor can we ever observe or demonstrate that events are not caused or even caused. So the ability to do the subtraction doesn't imply anything about what is metaphysically and ontologically true.
Sometimes there is a correlative relationship that exists despite the fact that we can analytically do the subtraction. To say that events are intuitively known to be caused is to say that change is correlative with cause to the human mind. To say that attributes inhere in beings is to say attribute is correlative with being to the human mind. The minute these correlative relationships can be negated by mere analysis, human knowledge is impossible. SOME of these correlative relationships must be believed INTUITIVELY to rule out the epistemological free-fall that would result without such intuitions.
And by not denying the correlativity in doing the subtraction, we avoid the very problems that non-open-theists create for themselves. This is where I totally agree with Dr. Newcomb. All those subtractions were and are done to explain something that was explicable, intuitively, all along. It just contradicted tradition. But tradition doesn't trump intuition. That's not even logically possible.
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Ronald A. Newcomb
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| Posted 10/2/2010 10:04 AM (GMT -6) | | I am wondering if Tom isn't mixing the words "beings" and "being?" Beings are creatures. Being means to exist. Let me presume that for a moment. If you say that time, for instance is not being, then it does not exist for any of us at all and all is an illusion. But then, what are we observing when a clock ticks if not the passage of this thing that does not exist?
It certainly is not an creature. But I don't think that is how you are using the word.
If, on the other hand we only "conceive" of dimensions, then we are in a Hindi type world where everything is in your head, a dream, a thought or conception, but not real. I cannot measure a non-being, say, my Chinese dragon. I can make up a story about him being so long, so tall, so heavy, but I cannot measure it. I can measure the dimensions precisely because they exist independently of me.
The very idea Jeff is proposing (dimensions have a beginning) precludes God from time. Rationality suffers here. Try describing the "before creation" without using any tenses words such as "before" or "after" or any tense at all. It is impossible because it is logically inconceivable. Then we must ask, what does the word "eternity" mean? The eternity past that God has existed through demand there be time because the meaning of the word is "endless time" or "time in perpetuity" or "perpetual time." Look up the Hebrew words 'ad and 'owlam (say, Isa. 45:17). This is the very meaning of the words God uses that is being questioned.
Also, because God is immaterial as we sense material or mass, does not mean he is not composed of something nor that he is not in a location. Do you want to claim he is nowhere? or the he has never been? (i.e. not having location or time.) If dimensions do not apply to him then it is completely logical to say "God is no where" or "God never existed" because those conceptions would not apply to him. We cannot hide behind words and claim these are merely conceptions then escape logical implications by making God somehow irrelevant to our conceptions. He doesn't speak of himself this way.
If God created the dimensions and included himself inside of them we are getting close to pantheism unless the idea is that he is in the dimensions but outside of the zone where the physical universe existed but then we are back to the rational problems of "eternity."
I need to bow out for a week, I will be out of state.
Professor Newcomb
San Diego State University
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/2/2010 10:15 AM (GMT -6) | | Dr. Newcomb: The very idea Jeff is proposing (dimensions have a beginning) precludes God from time. Rationality suffers here.
Jeff: Well, I think you're getting confused as to what Tom and I are saying. I'm saying that:
1) Only beings exist.
2) Since "exist" entails tense, which entails temporal relationality, time can't "exist." That would involve circularity of definition, which is logically impossible.
3) Therefore, time and space are reference frames (not merely epistemological ones) which ground the possibility and conceivability of the temporal and spatial relations that beings hold with respect to one another.
As such, I have no reason to believe that the Father and the Son (or, at least, their "experiences"--sentient or otherwise), sans creation, did not hold precisely the kind of temporal and spatial relationships with respect to one another and themselves as do angels (or their experiences) to one another and themselves this very day.
So I am saying that time and space did not "begin" because they are kinds of reference frames rather than beings. Tom is saying that, to him, it is conceivable that both time and space truly began in a sense that I can only conceive to be possible for bona-fide beings.
I think it was Augustine that said something to the effect that he knew what time was, but couldn't articulate it. I think that's because we don't have language to do it properly. I think we are constantly denying an intuitive correlative relationship when we try to conceive of time and space as beings that can "begin" existence.
And this is why there has been and always will be diversity of opinion about it even amongst the smartest people. Because many people think the abililty to analyze complex ideas into constituent elements is proof that no correlative relationship exists for those elements. But as I described with being and attribute, etc, I think that is false and ultimately creates HUGE epistemological problems.
And this is why many people find it difficult to even make sense of a coherent CONCEPTION of God. What they don't realize is there is no way to have a coherent conception of the universe either once you start denying the validity of those intuitive correlative relationships. That leads to radical skepticism once all the implications of that denial are worked out.
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One Love
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| Posted 10/2/2010 5:36 PM (GMT -6) | | | Oooh...good stuff.
Similtude:
IOW, I'm contending the 3-D void we call space has no beginning. God existed IN IT, sans creation. God still exists IN IT.
and...
If you'll remember, when I quoted to you out of that "Divine Attributes" book, it showed that the authors believe NO immaterial spirits are spacial in any sense. If that is correct, then that means that only spirits' experience is conceived of as located. Maybe this is what D is getting at with the "divine energies" remarks. But that just means that if all matter ceased to exist, I, as a spirit, would still conceive of my feelings as occurring SOMEWHERE as I do now (e.g., phantom pain) even though I, qua being, may exist NOWHERE.
1) I think that a created, non-material "spiritual" being is just a center of consciousness that mediates betweeen the finite, limiting aspects of said consciousness (ie. God's intentions for a created being's haecceity) and infinite, expansive aspects of said consciousness. (Holy Spirit's relationship to the being) With human being, that which limits our expression and experience of consciousness is our human mind/brains. So, spirits are not material or spatial, but they ARE relationships between infinite perspective and finite perspective.
2) We have to ask and answer the question: How are the Uncreated Energies related to the Void? It seems like Jeff would just say that God Himself (via the uncreated energies) just works IN the Void, but do not sustain the Void itself. Basically the Void is the eternal "background" that God works in to create Creation. I don't know about that. I think that God Himself (ie. the Uncreated Light seen by Hesychasts and seen in the Transfiguration) sustains the "Void". I think that Kabbalistic idea of "Tzimtzum" actually makes some sense here...
Tzimtzum (Hebrew צמצום ṣimṣūm "contraction" or "constriction") is a term used in the kabbalistic teaching of Isaac Luria, explaining his concept that God began the process of creation by "contracting" his infinite light in order to allow for a "conceptual space" in which a finite and seemingly independent world could exist. This contraction, forming an "empty space" (חלל הפנוי) in which creation could begin, is known as the Tzimtzum.
Because the Tzimtzum results in the conceptual "space" in which the physical universe and free will can exist, God is often referred to as "Ha-Makom" (המקום lit. "the place", "the omnipresent") in Rabbinic literature. Relatedly, olam—the Hebrew word for "world" or universe—is derived from the root word עלם meaning "concealment". This etymology is complementary with the concept of Tzimtzum, in that the physical universe conceals the spiritual nature of creation.
...
A commonly held understanding in Kabbalah is that the concept of Tzimtzum contains a built-in paradox, requiring that God be simultaneously transcendent and immanent. On the one hand, if the "Infinite" did not restrict itself, then nothing could exist—everything would be overwhelmed by God's totality. Thus existence requires God's transcendence, as above. On the other hand, God continuously maintains the existence of, and is thus not absent from, the created universe. "The Divine life-force which brings all creatures into existence must constantly be present within them... were this life-force to forsake any created being for even one brief moment, it would revert to a state of utter nothingness, as before the creation..." . This understanding is supported by various biblical teachings: "You have made the heaven... the earth and all that is on it... and You give life to them all" (Nehemiah 9:6); "All the earth is filled with God's Glory" (Numbers 14:21); "God's Glory fills the world" (Isaiah 6:3). Creation therefore requires God's immanence.
This is where I'm coming from with it: If the uncreated God truly can be experienced by humans as omnipresent, dazzling "light" that is ALWAYS SHINING, but generally imperceptible to those who don't have the "eyes to see"...then the Void is NOT what's "first." First there is the uncreated light...then there is the CONCEALING of that light, bringing forth the Void...within which the Big Bang occured.
If you just think about it, it makes sense. Just imagine if the Uncreated Light could not be "restricted" from human perception such that absolutely EVERYTHING and EVERYWHERE would be just the "white light" energy. There would be no possible way that any earthly creature could even BEGIN to have a "life." It would be completely overwhelmed by the God's manifest Presence with no chance of any type of rational development at all. It's the IGNORANCE of God that allows us to believe ourselves to be actually SEPARATE from God enough to do the things we do. If the Uncreated Light were to obliterate ALL power to self-reference as distinct from the Light, then there would be no created personal beings at all. God would HAVE to "conceal" himself to some degree.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/2/2010 6:26:28 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/2/2010 7:52 PM (GMT -6) | | D: 1) I think that a created, non-material "spiritual" being is just a center of consciousness that mediates betweeen the finite, limiting aspects of said consciousness (ie. God's intentions for a created being's haecceity) and infinite, expansive aspects of said consciousness. (Holy Spirit's relationship to the being) With human being, that which limits our expression and experience of consciousness is our human mind/brains. So, spirits are not material or spatial, but they ARE relationships between infinite perspective and finite perspective.
Tom: But D, you’re an idealist. You think all created realities are just divine mental states, right? So for you, ‘matter’ is an attribute of ‘spirit’, and that attribute is, like you say, just a particular perspective on particular sorts of relations, and those relations reduce to data transfers, right? Space, likewise, for an idealist, is to relations and beings what ‘syntax’ is to ‘language’, since for an idealist, all entities are linguistic entities (in the sense that all entities are mental states—speaking, interpreting, choosing, etc.).
D: 2) We have to ask and answer the question: How are the Uncreated Energies related to the Void? It seems like Jeff would just say that God Himself (via the uncreated energies) just works IN the Void, but do not sustain the Void itself. Basically the Void is the eternal "background" that God works in to create Creation. I don't know about that.
Tom: Jeff doesn’t think time and space are ‘objects’ or ‘entities’ (or ‘beings’) per se. They’re ‘frames of reference’ which, I think, makes them WAYS that objects are objects they are. And THAT, I think, makes them ‘natural attributes’. I don’t know what other category to use. So I think that ‘time’ and ‘space’ are, for Jeff, divine attributes. God IS the void.
D: This is where I'm coming from with it: If the uncreated God truly can be experienced by humans as omnipresent, dazzling "light" that is ALWAYS SHINING, but generally imperceptible to those who don't have the "eyes to see"...then the Void is NOT what's "first." First there is the uncreated light...then there is the CONCEALING of that light, bringing forth the Void...within which the Big Bang occurred.
Tom: THIS is what I can’t conceive of in idealistic terms. HOW does a ‘divine thought’ self-determine? Thoughts by definition are ‘determined products’. They belong to some thinker. But if these centers of consciousness that self-determine within their limited perspectives, how are they reducible to being just ‘thoughts that God is having’?
Sorry to pull the discussion sidewise. I’m just trying to make sense of what D’s saying giving what I know about his idealism.
D: If you just think about it, it makes sense. Just imagine if the Uncreated Light could not be "restricted" from human perception such that absolutely EVERYTHING and EVERYWHERE would be just the "white light" energy. There would be no possible way that any earthly creature could even BEGIN to have a "life." It would be completely overwhelmed by the God's manifest Presence with no chance of any type of rational development at all. It's the IGNORANCE of God that allows us to believe ourselves to be actually SEPARATE from God enough to do the things we do. If the Uncreated Light were to obliterate ALL power to self-reference as distinct from the Light, then there would be no created personal beings at all. God would HAVE to "conceal" himself to some degree.
Tom: This is important and I wanna comment…
…but my kids are calling!!!!
Hugs,
Tom
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Daniel M
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| Posted 10/2/2010 8:18 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom: God IS the void.
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One Love
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| Posted 10/2/2010 9:08 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
But D, you’re an idealist. You think all created realities are just divine mental states, right? So for you, ‘matter’ is an attribute of ‘spirit’, and that attribute is, like you say, just a particular perspective on particular sorts of relations, and those relations reduce to data transfers, right? Space, likewise, for an idealist, is to relations and beings what ‘syntax’ is to ‘language’, since for an idealist, all entities are linguistic entities (in the sense that all entities are mental states—speaking, interpreting, choosing, etc.).
I'm just trying to go by the EO view of Grace here. Basically, all created realities (immaterial or otherwise) are composed of nothing more or less than God himself working for Creation (Uncreated Energies). In other words, Creation is the continual outworking of Divine Consciousness, such that there is nothing in creation that doesn't have God's CHOSEN ACTIVITY (via the Holy Spirit) to sustain Creation as it's ground. It's basically like what Alexei Nesteruk said in "Light from the Christian East": matter is the manifestation of God's Uncreated Energies. Here's the quote: "Matter is the energies of God, made palpable to our senses and to our intellectual grasp."
All that exists are Divine Consciousness, the activity of Divine Consciousness (Grace towards Creation), and any emergent realities from those activities (creaturely self-consciousness).
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/2/2010 9:13:15 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/3/2010 9:40 AM (GMT -6) | | Just to clarify...
I've not said that time is created, or is a created being. I actually agree that God's being essentially personal and loving requires us to suppose a temporal flow to divine consciousness and experience, a movement of loving relationality. I don't know how to locate myself inside of God's expeirence of Godsef and describe it from the inside out. I don't think that's possible. But having agreed to this, I also DO think the counter-argument from the impossibility of actual infinites (the kind of infinite that God's having a temporally eternal past constitutes) has teeth to it. Jeff and Ron feel they have successfully dismissed this argument. I'm not as confident as they are. As far as I can tell, a temporally eternal past is logically problematic. On the other hand, an atemporal God who is personal and loving is at least equally and perhaps more problematic. So I go with the least problematic solution...God is necessarily temporal. But I don't suppose I have a satisfactory answer to the objections to this. I haven't seen any such answers, though my tending toward God's essential temporality assumes that some day we'll understand how no REAL problem exists. So I make time an attribute of God.
But I can't do this with "space." I can't think anything about God's experience of Godself that would require "space." I don't mean this in Jeff's objectionable sense as "space" being a "being." I mean it in the sense that there is some being or entity whose existence is spatially extended. That's the only way I know of to say "space" is uncreated. Like time, space would have to be an attribute of God's essence if it were uncreated. SO--I separate space and time.
Tom
KIXYTΘEMTA Post Edited (Tom) : 10/3/2010 4:47:28 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 10/3/2010 4:36 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 10/5/2010 8:14 AM (GMT -6) | | Out of town, and have gotten behind, I see...
Tom: And THAT, I think, makes them ‘natural attributes’. I don’t know what other category to use. So I think that ‘time’ and ‘space’ are, for Jeff, divine attributes. God IS the void.
Jeff: What I'm saying is that we naturally tend to think of dimensionality, e.g., as an attribute of space and time. What I'm arguing is that we don't have language that makes it easy for us to distinguish between a descriptor of a reference frame (like, e.g., dimensionality) which all beings are conceived in terms of AND a bona-fide attribute of a being. We will naturally tend to think of dimensionality as an attribute because our language compels us to talk about it that way.
But if no one ever thinks of God without some kind of spatial relationality (and best I can tell, they don't--whether "omnipresent," "'outside' of space," etc), then that is the key to seeing how time and space need not be beings--because beings are conceived of in terms of time and space. And if that is correct, it would not be accurate to say that dimensionality of space, e.g., is an attribute. It would be something analogous to what we call an attribute, but it wouldn't actually be an attribute. And we don't have a word for what it actually is. Similarly, "reference frame" is the closest thing I can come to define what is common about time and space, yet "reference frame" almost makes us think of a substance, even though substances are conceived of in TERMS of time and space.
In short, it seems that the conception of being is always correlative with a cognition of some relation to time and space, and, therefore, we can never seem to coherently conceive of time and space as beings without a kind of incoherent circularity.
If this approach is correct, it doesn't follow that we conceive of God as "depending upon" time and space, since time and space are not beings in that case. I would argue that time and space are two "kinds" of absoultes, but they are not absolute beings. I don't see how God is diminished in any meaningful way if this is the case. All philosophy is about, to my mind, is the coherent and parsimonious systematization of beliefs in terms of what we suspect are our categories of thought. And even per my approach, the godhead is the only rationally apprehendable absolute/necessary BEING.
Also, if I am correct, it explains why the debates about time and space are never ending. Because they are easy to make category mistakes about. Porter argued that time and space are truly infinite and correlative conditions for all finite being. But he assumed that since God is "infinite," time and space are not conditions for God. But how can time be infinite and still have a beginning? Most people naturally think of a "before" to any point in time they can conceive of. That's what I never got about Porter's aproach. But the correlativity aspect of his thought was what made sense to me because of the seeming impossibility of conceiving of time, e.g., as "existing," because of teh seeming circularity involved in that thought. The correlativity is the clue, for me, that time and space just aren't beings at all.
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Ronald A. Newcomb
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Date Joined Mar 2002
Total Posts : 45
| Posted 12/12/2011 12:29 PM (GMT -6) | | I see no need to reference 13th century Jewish mysticisms to explain time, and especially to conclude any truth from that mysticism. Logic and reasoning will do just fine, thank you.
Similitude (10/2/10) was correct in stating “The very idea Jeff is proposing (dimensions have a beginning) precludes God from time. Rationality suffers here.” And “3) Therefore, time and space are reference frames (not merely epistemological ones) which ground the possibility and conceivability of the temporal and spatial relations that beings hold with respect to one another.”
Dimensions are intangibles in the truest sense, that is they are non-material, you cannot put your hands on them, but, again, fundamental for other things to exist on and in and during their existence for temporary things. Without time you cannot have action, not even an atom because 1) they vibrate, and 2) they have an electron cloud that surrounds them and the electrons are moving. Without the linear or special dimensions you cannot have anything at all because you would have no place to exist in. The “void” referenced repeatedly below is simply a manner of escaping the word “space” but both require location to mean anything as empty space, or a void, describe a dimensional area devoid of things. The void or emptiness of space can be relative, if you talk about the area between, say, the Milky Way Galaxy (A repetitious phrase) and the next galaxy, Andromeda, it is only relatively devoid since it is filled with dark matter and dark energy and the light traveling through that dark energy (dark matter and energy are Lorentz’ ether theory restated).
Dimensions being necessary are, therefore, everywhere that is real. They are not in Narnia because Narnia is not a real location, but you must use them in order to make any sense out of the fairytale because they are intangible ontologically necessary intuitive epistemological correlative entities.
We do not know if this dark energy/dark matter is a created thing or not, and I would argue we really don’t need to know at this point, but certainly beings must exist somewhere and at some time or else we end up with Krishna’s non-existence, that is, he never (tensed) existed anywhere (no-place). If God has no time or location, logically, the same thing is true of him as well. However, those words have specific meaning and they specifically mean he does not now nor never has existed.
“Beginning” and “end” are markers we use in a dimension. On the time dimension it indicates a temporary existence. On a linear dimension it is the starting location and stoping location of some physical entity. My arm has a starting and ending point along the dimension of length.
If I tell you to go outside and measure the red line on the pavement, you understand what I want, but then on going outside you find no red line, then you cannot find the beginning or the end to measure, there is no red line to measure. Without the dimension of length, you cannot even understand what the beginning and end of a line is, because there is no correlative faculty or utility to give the term value.
However, simply nullifying or denying the atheistic limit on dimensions restricted by them to the limits of the physical universe delimits the value making it unlimited, and that is all that is needed to have not only empty space beyond the physical universe, or even multiverse, and allows for God to exist “now”, and heaven to be a “place,” and both to relate correctly to time, Daniel and the angel to make simple sense, and a location for the physical body of Jesus to be right now.
Professor Newcomb
San Diego State University
College of Sciences
Adjunct Faculty Member
P.I. ICATS
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