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Newcomb
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 116
| Posted 6/11/2002 11:19 AM (GMT -6) |   | 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.
Time is a dimension requisite of sequencing of any type in any domain. Without sequencing there is no series, no succession, no progression or regression, no process, no change of any type, no change in position, i.e. motion or velocity, no advance or decline, no future or past, no actions such as responding or learning or thought or emotion, no gain or loss, no creation, no action of any type, therefore no verbs can be used to describe a being that is outside of time.
Since there can be no change in a being without time, the second person of the trinity could not have added something to his nature, that is, physical form, without time because it requires a sequence or change. More than that, there can be no creation because it would imply there was a sequence of events prior to it, such as a decision to create, and there can be no sequence without time.
In support of 7 above: It is obvious that only terms whose dimensions are the same in some respect can be equated or measured in any respect. To attempt to equate dimensions that are unrelated and equate a value to them produces absurdity. Let’s take a number and an equation with variables you can calculate, 4 and 2 and write an equation that reads 4/2=2. You can also replace a numeral 2 with one, or two variables: 4/x=x (replaces 2 with one variable), or 4/x=y (replaces 2 with two different variables). You can also write it completely with variables like so: w/x=x or x/r=y, however, there must be a dimension that is similar or the equation is absurd, there must be a way to relate them to each other. Take the statement x/r=y and let x=2, r=4 and y=New York City. This identification made the equation nonsense because it now it means: 2/4=New York City, which is absurd.
God speaks to man in meaningful ways, therefore, there are dimensions and domains that are shared otherwise the communications would not make sense. One of those shared dimensions is time because without that dimension the communications would not make sense. For instance, the word “eternity” makes no sense if time does not exist because the word means the continuation of time itself, therefore, the phrase “eternity past” requires that the regression of time be endless since that is what the word means. The word “everlasting” is similar, and requires time to man anything at all. This is not an apparent similarity, or one made so we can understand (such as an anthropomorphism), it requires the real sharing of the dimension or the communications is absurd.
If God did not share time as a domain he could not sequence in and out of time nor could he sequence events such as creating or taking on something new to his nature (physicality, i.e. the incarnation) because this requires a sequencing, which, of course, requires time.
Your comments please.
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/11/2002 12:46 PM (GMT -6) | | Oh, I hate going first.......
A.
Western theology (of which I am part) has largely been a failure with respect to distinguishing between the Energies and Essence of God. That is a fact. The Western tradition might disagree with the Eastern Christian tradition on this; but it does not deny it.
Your post above fails along with the tradition in which it is thought.
B.
You wrote:
quote:
Since there can be no change in a being without time, the second person of the trinity could not have added something to his nature, that is, physical form, without time because it requires a sequence or change. More than that, there can be no creation because it would imply there was a sequence of events prior to it, such as a decision to create, and there can be no sequence without time.
It startled me when someone who has posted a lot on this thread actually was saying on the Mid-Acts site that the Son's nature "changed." That is heretical.
A good thing about doctrine is that its very design is intended to keep us on the road and from flying off the cliff. Christ has TWO NATURES, and not one "changed" nature as your post implies. I bet you will want to rethink that. (Go read the creeds first.)
C.
And where you say, "there can be no creation because it would imply there was a sequence of events prior to it, such as a decision to create, and there can be no sequence without time... you might want to look at Origin. From what little I know, Origin thought that it was the creation itself that 'had' to be coeternal with God. Perhaps you are paralleling his thought? But that thought is wrong. 
A BIG problem, as I see it while reading it with my own eyes, is that in what you wrote Creation can be apart from God. ALL creation, time included, is the ACT of God. The continuing ACT of God. God does not act in/on creation apart from in/through time.
As to what you wrote, "a decision to create" all I can remember that we have to go on is the phrase "God's eternal purposes." And things like, "from before the foundation..."
I'll grant a kind of sequence. But not necessarily the kind that you and I can think about right now.
Further, time itself is currently straining with the damage of sin and death. Everything is rushing toward corruption and death. Healing and life have entered the cosmos with the ressurrected Lord. But death will still be the "last" thing destroyed before all will be new.
I don't think that we should presume that everything can fit on a lab table and be measured.
"Fulness" is a word used.
"Pleroma" is the Greek word that the Church Fathers used in this regard.
D.
quote:
If God did not share time as a domain he could not sequence in and out of time nor could he sequence events such as creating or taking on something new to his nature (physicality, i.e. the incarnation) because this requires a sequencing, which, of course, requires time.
My planned organization for this post fell apart. (Sorry) I don't think that god "sequences in and out of time." As above, Time is an ACT of God.
As to "sequencing" the Son is "eternally begotten of the Father." But one does VERY POORLY if one attempts to apply "sequence" to this.
Here are two pieces.
BOTH are: very technical AND very important topics.
And BOTH can easily be summoned
by trapping God in Time
(or by leaving Him out).
quote:
Ethos of trinitarian communion
(CHRISTOS YANNARAS)
from "The Freedom of Morality", SVS Press, NY
In the life of the Church, God reveals Himself as the hypostasis of being, the personal hypostasis of eternal life, exhaustive expression of the truth of being. It is not the essence of the energy of God which constitutes being, But His personal mode of existence: God as person is the hypostasis and life: God is not a vague supreme being, and impersonal essence which may be approached only through the intellect or the emotions. Nor is He a "prime mover," a blind energy which sets in motion the mechanism of the world; not yet an image of man exalted into an absolute, and infinite magnification of the individual characteristics and psychological demands of the human being. The God of whom the Church has experience is the God who reveals Himself in history as personal existence, as distinctiveness and freedom. God is person, and He speaks with man "face to grace, as a man speaketh unto his friend" (Ex 33:11).
It is precisely as personal existence, as distinctiveness and freedom from any predetermination by essence or nature, that God constitutes being and is the hypostasis of being. When Moses asks the identity of the God whose will he is to proclaim to the Israelites, the answer is "I am He who is" (Ex 3:14. God identifies the truth of existence, the reality of being, with His personal hypostasis. This means that the divine essence or nature is not an ontological reality prior to God's personal existence and determining it: God's being is not an ontological datum, anterior to the distinctiveness and freedom of the divine person. Rather, it is the personal expression of His being. :And when speaking to Moses, God did not say, 'I am essence; but, 'I am He who is': for He who is,, is not from the essence, but the essence is from Him who is. He who is has comprehended within Himself all being."(1)
(1--Gregory Palamas, In Defense of the Holy Hesychasts; 3, 2-12)
The identification of being with the personal existence of God -- as identification with vital consequences for the truth of man and human morality -- explains the revelation of the God of the Church, who is one and at the same time trinitarian. The one God is not one divine nature of essence, but primarily one person: the one person of God the Father. The personal existence of God (the Father) constitutes His essence or being, making it into "hypsostasis": freely and from love He begets the Son and causes the Holy Spirit to proceed.(2) Consequently, being stems not from the essence, which would make it an ontological necessity, but from the person and the freedom of its love which "hypostasizes" being into a personal and trinitarian communion, God the Father's mode of being constitutes existence and life as a fact of love and personal communion.
The identification of being with the freedom of love -- of that love which forms being into hypostases -- reveals that the truth of the ethos or morality is equivalent to the truth of being. When we speak of the unity and communion of the three divine persons, we are referring to God's mode of being, which is the ethos of divine life. And the ethos of God is identical with this being. When the Christian revelation declares that "God is love" (1 Jn 4:16), it is not referring to one among many properties of God's "behavior," but to what God is as the fullness of trinitarian and personal communion.
(2--"God the Father, moved outside time and in love, proceeded to a distinction in hypsostasis, remaining without division or diminution) in the wholeness proper to Him, supremely unifies and supremely simple": Maxiums the Confessor, Scholia on the Divine Names, PG 4, 221A.)
Thus love is singled out as the ontological category par excellence, the only possibility for existence, since it is through love that God gives substance to His essence, and constitutes His being. Any other definition of God's ethos with evaluative content is ontologically unfounded: it applies a priori conventional predicates, taken from philosophical thought or social experience, to the mode of divine existence, which is nothing other than personal distinctiveness and the freedom of love. If we accept evaluative definitions of the Godhead, we make the personal distinctives of divine love subordinate to them, and consequently do away with it. Evaluative categories could refer only to nature or essence, but then personal distinctiveness would be subordinated to the necessity imposed by natural definitions, and consequently, once again, it would be non-existant or substantially curtailed.. In that case, the person of God would "undergo" whatever happened to the nature. The "accidents" of the nature would be "passions" of the person -- things undergone passively. This is why St. Maximus the Confessor affirms of the Godhead: "It is neither beautiful nor good: for these are as it were passions, and conditions and accidents." (3)
(3--Scholia on the Divine Names, PG 4, 412BC. Cf also Dionysius the Areopagite, On Mystical Theology 5, PG 3, 1045D-1048AB.)
AND
quote:
Vladimir Lossky’s “In the Image and Likeness of God” (Chapter 4: The Procession of the Holy Spirit , Section 4), pp. 80-83
If personal diversity in God presents itself as a primordial fact, not to be deduced from any other principle or based on any other idea, that does not mean that the essential identity of the Three is ontologically posterior to their hypostatic diversity. Orthodox triadology is not a counter-blast to Filioquism; it does not run to the other extreme. As we already have said, relations of origin signify the personal diversity of the Three, but they indicate no less their essential identity. In that the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinguished from the Father, we venerate three Persons; in that they are one with Him, we confess their consubstantiality16 Thus the monarchy of the Father maintains the perfect equilibrium between the nature and the persons, without coming down too heavily on either side.17 There is neither an impersonal substance nor non-consubstantial persons. The one nature and the three hypostases are presented simultaneously to our understanding, with neither prior to the other. The origin of the hypostases is not impersonal, since it is referred to the person of the Father; but it is unthinkable apart from their common possession of the same essence, the "divinity in division undivided”18 Otherwise we should have Three Divine Individuals, Three Gods bound together by an abstract idea of Godhead. On the other hand, since consubstantiality is the non-hypostatic identity of the Three, in that they have (or rather are) a common essence, the unity of the three hypostases is inconceivable apart from the monarchy of the Father, who is the principle of the common possession of the same one essence. Otherwise we should be concerned with a simple essence, differentiated by relationships. 19
It may be asked whether, in seeking to avoid the semi-Sabellianism of the Latins, their Greek adversaries did not fall into subordinationism because of their emphasis on the monarchy of the Father. This might perhaps seem all the more likely to happen, because in Greek patristic literature
16 "For us there is one God, for the Godhead is one, and the Three in whom we believe proceed from and are referred to the One... Thus when we look at the Godhead, the First Cause, and the Monarchy, the One appears to us; but when we look at the Persons in whom the Godhead is, who timelessly and with equal glory come forth from the First Cause, we adore the Three." St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 31, 14; P.G. 36, cols. 148D-149A.
17 ”St. Photius compares the Trinity to a pair of scales, in which the needle represents the Father, and the two platforms represent the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amphilochia qu. 181; P.G. 101, col. 896.
18 “St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 31, 14; P.G. 36, col. l48D.
19 “The one nature in the Three is God; but the union (^vcooiq) is the Father, from whom the others proceed and to whom they refer, not so as to be confounded but rather to have all in common with Him, without distinction of time, will, or power." St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 42; P.G. 36, col. 476B.
one often finds the idea of causality applied to the person of the Father. The Father is called the cause (cciTicc) of the hypostases of the Son and the Holy Spirit, or even the "God-head-source" (TTT^yaioc OsoTriq). Sometimes He is designated simply as "God," with the definite article 6 OEOC;, or even as auroO'soc;.
It is worthwhile to recall here what we have said before about the negative approach characteristic of Orthodox thought—an approach which radically changes the value of philosophical terms applied to God. Not only the image of "cause," but also such terms as "production," "procession," and "origin" ought to be seen as inadequate expressions of a reality which is foreign to all becoming, to all process, to all beginning. Just as relations of origin mean something different from relations of opposition, so causality is nothing but a somewhat defective image, which tries to express the personal unity which determines the origins of the Son and the Holy Spirit. This unique cause is not prior to his effects, for in the Trinity there is no priority and posteriority. He is not superior to his effects, for the perfect cause cannot produce inferior effects. He is thus the cause of their equality with himself.20 The causality ascribed to the person of the Father, who eternally begets the Son and eternally causes the Holy Spirit to proceed, expresses the same idea as the monarchy of the Father: that the Father is the personal principle of unity of the Three, the source of their common possession of the same content, of the same essence.
The expressions "Godhead-source" and "source of the Godhead" do not mean that the divine essence is subject to the person of the Father, but only that the person of the Father is the basis of common possession of the same essence, because the person of the Father, not being the sole person of the Godhead, is not to be identified with the essence. In a certain sense it can be said the Father is this possession of
20 "For He would be the origin (drpy^) of petty and unworthy things, or rather the term 'origin- would be used in a petty and unworthy sense, if He were not the origin of the Godhead (Tf)<; ©£6Tr(TO(; APX^) and of the goodness contemplated in the Son and in the Spirit: in the former as Son and Word, in the latter as Spirit which proceeds without separation." St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 2, 38; P.G. 35, col. 445.
\
the divine essence in common with the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that he would not be a divine Person if he were only a monad: he would then be identified with the divine Essence. Here it may be useful to recall that St. Cyril of Alexandria regarded the name "Father" as superior to the name "God," because the name "God" is given to God in respect of his relations with beings of a different nature.21
If the Father is sometimes called simply God—6 e£6<; or even ocuTo5£5(;—nevertheless we cannot find in orthodox writers expressions which treat consubstantiality as participation by the Son and the Holy Spirit in the essence of the Father.22 Each Person is God by nature, not by participation in the nature of another.
The Father is the cause of the other hypostases in that He is not His essence, i.e. in that He does not have His essence for Himself alone. What the image of causality wishes to express is the idea that the Father, being not merely an essence but a person, is by that very fact the cause of the other consubstantial Persons, who have the same essence as He has.
1 Thesaurus, assert. 5; P.G. 75, cols. 65, 68.
22 Such a concept may be found in the works of Ongen, e.g. Commentary on St. John 2, 2; P.G. 14, col. 109. On this subject the excellent work of Th. Lieske, Theologie der Logosmystik bet Off gen (Munster, 1938), may be usefully consulted.
(The scanning operator apologizes that his divice can’t read Greek. But aren’t all those substitutions creative on its part?)
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Edited by - PotOnWheel on 06/11/2002 6:06:55 PM
Edited by - PotOnWheel on 06/25/2002 10:22:07 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Newcomb
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 116
| Posted 6/14/2002 12:06 PM (GMT -6) | | PotOnWheel stated:
quote:
Your post above fails along with the tradition in which it is thought.
Most of your post had nothing to do with my arguments and reflected the Christian mysticisms that have existed for nearly 2000 years, and as Greek fallacy for 500 years before that.
First: This idea of time is not something I was taught. In fact, the teachings I have had are largely opposed to this, so the ad hominem (that is, "where you learned it is the problem," vis, east vs. west) is not applicable, as if such an argument ever was. I've never heard it from any theologian or pastor, priest, or other Bible teacher. In fact, I was reading it for the first time as I composed it.
Second, it really doesn't matter who believes something, it only matters if it is true or false. To say, "you have a western view and I have an eastern view" then restate it as if it were correct proves nothing. The fact that there is mysticism in the church is no surprise and the fact that Origin would be involved is not surprise, he was a neo-Platonist. If I had gotten into the philosophical source of the errors in Christian theology (east and west) I would have discussed Origin, Augustine and others and the influence the Greek philosophers had on the church through them. (Speaking of mystics, it was 100+ years ago a Hindu named Ramakrishna decided that "Eastern and Western thoughts are of equal value." This started the Eastern mystical incursion into America first with Transcendentalism, then the New Age movement, both are whitewashed Hindu mysticism.)
By "mysticism" in this context I mean something that claims to explain or hold a mystery, a secret that can only be explained through their system of thought and through indoctrination in that system of thought.
quote:
It startled me when someone who has posted a lot on this thread actually was saying on the Mid-Acts site that the Son's nature "changed." That is heretical.
I am never ashamed to call an error by its rightful name and never ashamed to be labeled a heretic when confronting an error regardless of who holds the opposing view. De ja vous anyway. Before the incarnation, the second member of the trinity (“second member”) had, according to you, one nature, then took on a second nature, that is a change. I'll accept your version for arguments sake, it matters little how you look at it, it is a change that cannot be denied, first the second member had no physical body, then he did. This is a change that you cannot deny without denying reality. I do not believe his underlying natural, i.e. his moral character changed.
quote:
And where you say, "there can be no creation because it would imply there was a sequence of events prior to it, such as a decision to create, and there can be no sequence without time... you might want to look at Origin. From what little I know, Origin thought that it was the creation itself that 'had' to be coeternal with God. Perhaps you are paralleling his thought? But that thought is wrong.
Based on what do you say it is wrong? This is an unsupported claim. The fact that others think or say it is does not make it so. I do not hold the universe is coeternal, rather that there are other necessary things that are coeternal, namely dimensions. God has to be somewhere, heaven is somewhere even if it is not in the physical and measurable universe.
quote:
As to "sequencing" the Son is "eternally begotten of the Father." But one does VERY POORLY if one attempts to apply "sequence" to this.
Several places you attempt to move acts (verbs) into "eternity" as if in so doing removed them from time. How far back in eternity were they? Let’s keep our temporal measurements even though the measure of time in years stops with regression when we go back beyond day 1 of creation, and tell me when it was in eternity, say 100 years before? 10,000 years before? 1,000,000 years before? Eternity is not a measure of something other than time, it is a description of time that does not stop. When you assign an arbitrary date to the verb, you realize that it is still an action and still requires a sequence. A sequence, by the way, is the same in eternity as it is here and now. I write something, then you write something in a series of events, a sequence. You can describe different types of sequences, but sequencing is a general term used to describe a series of successive events and this requires time. No time = no sequence.
The quote that followed next was an interesting example of mysticism. Let me extract just a few phrases:
(multiple snips)
quote:
Ethos of trinitarian communion (CHRISTOS YANNARAS) from "The Freedom of Morality", SVS Press, NY
When Moses asks the identity of the God whose will he is to proclaim to the Israelites, the answer is "I am He who is" (Ex 3:14. God identifies the truth of existence, the reality of being, with His personal hypostasis. This means that the divine essence or nature is not an ontological reality prior to God's personal existence and determining it: God's being is not an ontological datum, anterior to the distinctiveness and freedom of the divine person. Rather, it is the personal expression of His being. :And when speaking to Moses, God did not say, 'I am essence; but, 'I am He who is': for He who is,, is not from the essence, but the essence is from Him who is. He who is has comprehended within Himself all being."
Can you see the mysticism? He is purporting to explain to you what God’s name means, in fact he so states with the phrase “This means . . .” And what is the end of that? Let me quote it, place (equivalent words) in brackets to clear the intentional obfuscation of the mystic speaking, then replace with the bracketed words: “This means that the divine (God’s) essence (indispensable properties) or nature (essential characteristics) is not an ontological (the nature of being) reality prior to God's personal existence and determining it: God's being is not an ontological datum (fact), anterior (prior) to the distinctiveness (distinguishing ) and freedom of the divine person (God).”
Becomes:
“This means that the God’s indispensable properties, or essential characteristics, are not found in the reality of the nature of his being prior to God's personal existence and determining it: the essence of God's being is not a fact prior to the distinguishing and freedom of God to enact it as so.”
The sentence actually claims that God does not have characteristic because he had being, rather, he determined his characteristics freely. So his being has no characteristics until he determines that he is. This is double talk non-sense, reduction ad rediculum.
Next:
quote:
(2--"God the Father, moved outside time and in love, proceeded to a distinction in hypsostasis, remaining without division or diminution) in the wholeness proper to Him, supremely unifies and supremely simple": Maxiums the Confessor, Scholia on the Divine Names, PG 4, 221A.)
You claimed:
quote:
I don't think that god "sequences in and out of time." As above, Time is an ACT of God.
However, you quote someone who states he does. He states “God the Father, moved outside of time. . .” You state “I don’t think that god ‘sequences in and out of time.’”
It can’t be both ways. This is what is claimed, that God moves into and out of time. Yet time is requisite to doing so, this idea is, therefore, reductio ad absurdum.
I won’t deal with the rest; it was mostly different attempts to explain the trinity, which is not the subject. I am Trinitarian, and frankly, I am not concerned with Orthodoxy, only truth, and where the two diverge, I will stand with truth. My premise is that the Word of God is infallible, man is not. Where the Word tells me one thing and man another, I will take the word. Where reality contradicts extra biblical theological rationalizations, again, I will take reality.
For all of you who believe God is outside of time, start praying that God would simply change the decision of the judge to let Hitler out of jail after being convicted of high treason circa 1929. This would prevent the holocaust. I will wait for the results.
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/14/2002 3:27 PM (GMT -6) | | Thanks for the answer, Newcomb.
Glad you are trinitarian. Can you compare these two below?
quote:
"according to you, one nature, then took on a second nature, that is a change"
quote:
It is necessary for eternal salvation that one also faithfully believe that our Lord Jesus Christ became flesh.
For this is the true faith that we believe and confess: That our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, is both God and man.
He is God, begotten before all worlds from the being of the Father, and he is man, born in the world from the being of his mother -- existing fully as God, and fully as man with a rational soul and a human body; equal to the Father in divinity, subordinate to the Father in humanity.
Although he is God and man, he is not divided, but is one Christ.
He is united because God has taken humanity into himself; he does not transform deity into humanity.
He is completely one in the unity of his person, without confusing his natures.
For as the rational soul and body are one person, so the one Christ is God and man.
(from the Athanasian Creed)
One point is that the incarnation was NOT a change to Christ's divine nature.
The other point had to do with the difference between Energies and Essence.
+ + + + + + + + + + + +
BTW -You did not understand Yannaras' encapsulation of Byzantine Theology; your translation was OK--almost; but when it came to actually understanding what was being said, YOU WERE 180-degrees OFF.
quote:
“This means that the God’s indispensable properties, or essential characteristics, are not found in the reality of the nature of his being prior to God's personal existence and determining it: the essence of God's being is not a fact prior to the distinguishing and freedom of God to enact it as so.”
The sentence actually claims that God does not have characteristic because he had being, rather, he determined his characteristics freely. So his being has no characteristics until he determines that he is. This is double talk non-sense, reduction ad rediculum.
What the quote actually means (and SAYS) two things: "God's personal existence" IS NOT PRODUCED BY some preceding essence called 'divinity'; and NEITHER IS IT TRUE THAT God's "God's being" (essence) is produced by "the distinctiveness and freedom of the divine person."
quote:
Yannaras: This means that the divine essence or nature is not an ontological reality prior to God's personal existence and determining it: God's being is not an ontological datum, anterior to the distinctiveness and freedom of the divine person. Rather, it is the personal expression of His being.
Yanarras very carefully gives us a well balanced statement allowing neither the THREE nor the ONE to preceed the other. He makes absolutely no mystical statement. (Saying "this means" at that point in the paragraph merely indicated that what followed was a kind of summary. Further, YOU CROPPED OUT Yanarras' emphasis on "the God who reveals Himself in history." Hardly mystical)
quote:
The God of whom the Church has experience is the God who reveals Himself in history as personal existence, as distinctiveness and freedom. God is person, and He speaks with man "face to grace, as a man speaketh unto his friend" (Ex 33:11).
That "mystical" red herring was just one of a half dozen "straw men" that you set up in order for you to knock down. Several times you misrepresented my position and attacked what I would agree with as it was my own argument that you were bringing down.
But, back to Yanarras' meaning... the Lossky quote had the same balanced argument:
quote:
"If personal diversity in God presents itself as a primordial fact, not to be deduced from any other principle or based on any other idea, that does not mean that the essential identity of the Three is ontologically posterior to their hypostatic diversity." . . . "As we already have said, relations of origin signify the personal diversity of the Three, but they indicate no less their essential identity. In that the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinguished from the Father, we venerate three Persons; in that they are one with Him, we confess their consubstantiality." . . . "The one nature and the three hypostases are presented simultaneously to our understanding, with neither prior to the other."
Newcomb, I just believe that any discussion of time in which God is addressed has to be done carefully with regard to Christological and Trinitarian considerations. True, YOUR statement only opened up errors of Christology. But, as I mentioned, someone else who has been on this site took it further and began altaring Trinitarian doctrine; jsut to make it better fit his current formula of the Open View.
FRANKLY, IT IS SUCH DANGERS THAT SPAWNED THE "EDGREN FELLOWSHIP."
Open View proponents have to guard their own camp!
. . . .
Newcomb, thanks for giving me the honor of a response!
You DID HAVE OTHER POINTS (than just to suggest that Christ "added something to his nature.") I'm sure that you will look forward to seeing what some OTHER people have to say. I hope that they will reward you!
Edited by - PotOnWheel on 06/14/2002 8:33:56 PM
Edited by - PotOnWheel on 06/25/2002 11:00:01 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
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| Posted 6/14/2002 4:10 PM (GMT -6) | | It would seem that time exists if there is something by which to measure it. There are no "clocks" in eternity (where God dwells); there's nothing by which to measure sequence. Sequence exists in eternity, but not in a measurable manner; it is not slave to speed or measurement. God speaks, it's done. You wont' hear someone in heaven say "Great God! That only took 2.3 nano-seconds to create."
Cannot God, therefore, be outside of "time"...time in the universe? If He wishes, however, to communicate with us, then He enters our time element. Nothing confusing about that. (References to time in the Book of Revelation, of instance, are contexted with OUR time for the sake of making eschatological development. Nothing in Scripture can construe God as in some sort of time element to which He Himself is slave.
And God could, if He wished, cast the universe and its occupances back in time to 1929 to Hitler's trial. That He doesn't is for a whole host of reasons, none of which, as I see it, has anything to do with God being confined or unconfined to time.
For the moment,
Starkman
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Newcomb
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| Posted 6/18/2002 5:10 AM (GMT -6) | | PotOnWheel said:
quote:
Can you compare these two below?
(Read two above this entry for details)
The hypostatic union is only vaguely understood and more than a bit hard to understand, but I didn't see any conflict in the two quotes that followed, (because I don't believe his devine nature changed either) in fact there are some agreements: ". . .Christ became flesh" illustrates the change he went through in time, emphasized by the fact that he IS "both God and man" where he was not both God and man prior to (time) the incarnation, neither was he the Son, et al the titles he gained in the incarnation; Where it states "God has taken humanity into himself" again, requires a change that happens in time because you cannot change without time (does not necessitate change because of time); lastly, "without confusing his natures" illustrates the change since prir to incarnation, there was one nature, not two.
One caviot, I don't need confirmation from creeds, or other's ideas, I only need it from the Word. In this case there is no conflict.
quote:
You DID have other points than just to suggest that Christ "added something to his nature."
This is supported by the creed you quoted above.
At times we ignore the very thigs we are saving by denying the requisite concepts behind the thought or idea. If Christ had one nature, then had two, we cannot rationally deny there is a change. In a simile, this would be like me saying, ‘my wife and I had one child, now we have two, but there is no change in our family.’ Huh? The addition of a new human is a change even when there are three humans in the family the addition of a fourth is a change, but when there is a divine trinity and one of them takes on a human nature, we say there is no change??? Why? Because we have been indoctrinated in the Greek ideal of the ultimate being who cannot change. Then we proof text scripture to prove the Greeks were right? The Greeks describes a cement being that never moves, thinks, or alters anything in any way. This is not the God of the Bible, it is the god of the Athenians.
Blessings.
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Newcomb
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| Posted 6/18/2002 5:40 AM (GMT -6) | | Interesting idea Starkman, but there are several errors:
1) In acient times there were no clocks, does this mean time did not exist?
2) How do you know there are no time mechanisms in heaven? Obviously you don't, but again, things exist before they are measured. In front of me sit two different types of micrometers with which I measure things, but the things I measure necessarily exist before I measure them. Our Time & Frequency Standard sets the standard for military equipment and measures time to 10^-11 seconds, but the second exists first.
3) Your "therefore" was, therefore, a non-sequitur:
quote:
Cannot God, therefore, be outside of "time"...time in the universe? If He wishes, however, to communicate with us, then He enters our time element. Nothing confusing about that. (References to time in the Book of Revelation, of instance, are contexted with OUR time for the sake of making eschatological development. Nothing in Scripture can construe God as in some sort of time element to which He Himself is slave.
Actually, which enslaves God? I would suggest that taking time away from God enslaves him to non-action since every action demands time. That is kind of the point, we say God sequences, (above) "He enters" etc., but this is an action that requires time because it is a sequence. You cannot sequence without time, so when God "leaves time" he would have no ability to sequence back into time.
Again, we trake a Greek concept of the highest of the pantheon of gods and apply it to the God of the Bible and try as hard as we can to squeeeze him into the Greek concept. You (and others) write off the plane sense of scripture to do this when you state quote:
References to time in the Book of Revelation, of instance, are contexted with OUR time for the sake of making eschatological development
Why do you need to explain it? But then you claim quote:
Nothing in Scripture can construe God as in some sort of time element to which He Himself is slave
Everything in scripture implied God is in time. Every sequence he goes through, every action he takes, every decision he makes, every prayer he answers, every response the living God makes logically and rationally demands he be in time. To deny the basic facts, we flee, not to Jerusalem, but to Athens.
quote:
And God could, if He wished, cast the universe and its occupances back in time to 1929 to Hitler's trial. That He doesn't is for a whole host of reasons, none of which, as I see it, has anything to do with God being confined or unconfined to time.
Realy? How? What would be required to do this? Where is the evidence beyond the statement you make? Of course, you gave yourself an escape by saying there are a host of reasons he doesn't. Prove he can. Pray God would keep Hitler in prison and, therefore, stop the carnage.
An interesting aspect of this falacy is that Christ would be like a crucifix, eternally on the cross in God's timeless existence since he would eternally look at it, being outside of time. Well, since the father and son were separated, that is Jesus cries, "why have you forsaken me," this would also be eternally true if God is outide of time.
You would also be forced to say that either the divine nature of Christ was separated from his physical nature, or say that the second memebr of the trinity was separated from the trinity because the physical nature which Christ continues to have requires time go in a straight line forward. Which is it? It cannot be both ways. Is Christ in a physical form? Before you answer, please read I Jn 4:1-2.
Blessings
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/18/2002 3:38 PM (GMT -6) | | Newcomb, I had saved this page in a file called "Time" on my harddisk. It turned out to be short for a much longer named thread.
Here is something for you and Starkman.................
From a thread called: Relativity Theory and Sequencelessness - Page 6
quote:
GregBoyd
Posted - 11/10/2001 : 09:37:32 AM
........
If Lakloff and Anderson are right, the notion of a timeless perspective of all events is (as they themelves say) "silly." It results from taking metaphors literally. They explicitly address Einstein’s theory of relativity and argue that the conclusion that it implies the unreality of time is simply the result of taking the "time-is-like-space" metaphor literally.
I've wondered alot the last 20 years where we got the notion that the future is "already there" -- for we certainly don't experience it this way. Lakofff and Anderson have supplied the answer. It IS useful to think of the future this way, for a lot of reasons. (e.g. we plan, we visualize future events, etc.) But the all important thing is the realize that it is A METAPHOR. Events don't happen "in time." We create "time" to measure and navigate our lives in events.
What do you think?
In Christ's love
Doc
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Newcomb
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| Posted 6/20/2002 6:47 AM (GMT -6) | | Hmm, interesting. I'm taken of Einstein before and stated that he erred on time. Eistein said that time is what we get from a clock, but that is an error. He also said it was relative, but that too is an error, the way things act under unusual circumstances changed with the circumstance, but this can be from other physical factors.
quote:
I've wondered alot the last 20 years where we got the notion that the future is "already there" -- for we certainly don't experience it this way. Lakofff and Anderson have supplied the answer. It IS useful to think of the future this way, for a lot of reasons. (e.g. we plan, we visualize future events, etc.) But the all important thing is the realize that it is A METAPHOR. Events don't happen "in time." We create "time" to measure and navigate our lives in events.
Doc
Let me deal with this.
The issues that drove me to deal with time was because I was independently developing what I understand now is the OV. I had to deal with prophesy. Was prophesy God running a film forward and telling us what the end was? No, this leaves God as a mere observer. I can rent a video and view it before my kids and tell them the end, this is nothing at all and takes no skill if God is "outside of time" as the Greeks claim for the ultimate being of their pantheon. Prophesy is God proving he is powerful and faithful by telling you ahead of time how he will work things out the way he wants in spite of the interference of humans and spiritual being with free wills.
OK, then why else did we need God outside of time?
A twisted notion of omniscience states that God knows the future. Calvinism needs it because it is neo-Plutonic and everything is foreknown and/or planned and God is forced into the box by the platitude defense “if he is not this way, then he is not God.” But again, at the heart of the OV is free will which cannot be foreknown or else it would have to be determined one way or the other, therefore not free, so if it is free indeed, then foreknowledge is not about individuals.
Then there is the “God is in control” issue. How can God be in control if he does not have everything planned, or some other statement equivalent to it. There are two components to deal with here. 1) Is he in control of the minutia? That is, does he control everything? Then why evil? How can sin exist? It is a violation of his will by definition. Etc. etc. 2) I control my car on a moment to moment basis. I do not control my car by knowing where it will be in one hour. So the control issue is a Red Herring.
It seemed to me that the fallacy of time was only required by fallacies of Calvinism and Arminian views.
Doc stated: “Events don't happen "in time." We create "time" to measure and navigate our lives in events.” Close, I don’t think he smokes so he won’t mind missing the cigar :)
He has mistaken the measurement of time with time itself. Again, it must exist before it is measured. We created clocks and other time measuring devices to keep track of time just like we created rules et al to keep track of height, width, and length (3d), but the dimensions existed before the ruler. All dimensions do. All dimensions exist before they are needed.
One of the wrong things about modern cosmology is that it views dimensions as being created as the universe expands. The question is, if there were no 3d, where would the universe expand to? You cannot move into a house that does not exist, a star cannot move into a place that does not exist either. There would be no place for it. In fact, without the dimension there would be no ability to move because length is needed for a direction to exist. A ray, for example, is a one dimensional direction that travels across the dimension of length. Therefore we know that there are dimensions beyond the physical limits of the universe.
Evolutionary cosmology can be excused for the error, Bible believers, however, know there are things beyond our physical universe.
Dealing with whether the future exists right now or not (the past also) is a different thing. Ask what things would need to be true in the physical universe to have this happen? The earth would need to be everywhere it has been, every microsecond since the creation. For the future to be real, now, the earth would have to also be everywhere it is going to be. This is absurd. (It would also be true of every other molecule.) Physical laws tell us that matter cannot be in two places at the same time, but here it would be time that was changing, so all of physics is turned on it’s ear and we have a universe that is filled with solid matter and as time travels through it we perceive that a ball thrown into the air travels up then down when in reality it is merely a trick and time in shifting through the matter and somehow makes it appear to be so. We jump immediately to mysticism (that is, you must understand the ‘secret’ to understand reality).
An old high school Mormon friend recently asked me what I thought of his religion. I said: “If God created the universe, and I believe he did, and he communicated truth to us and I believe he did, then, there must be a 1:1 correlation between the two. With the Bible I find this to be true, with Mormonism, there is not a 1:1 correlation.” The same is true with any theology, there must be a 1:1 correlation to reality or we are worshiping the wrong god. With other theologies, there is not a 1:1 correlation to the real universe.
Blessings.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/20/2002 7:47 AM (GMT -6) | | Great seeing you posting, Newcomb!
I'll read your post to "Einstein" this after noon.
Sorry that I have yet to tye up the notes I've prepared to your earlier posts. I plan to begin by all the points where we AGREE!
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Starkman
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| Posted 6/22/2002 11:29 AM (GMT -6) | | Hey Newcomb,
First, let me say that I have neither a science nor a philosphy background, so I write strictly from the Biblical perspective I have.
You said:
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In acient times there were no clocks, does this mean time did not exist?"
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There has always been time in ancient times, for there has always been the universe for them--something set up to function in and incorporate a measurement of time. All one had to do was follow the sun throught the day.
You said:
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How do you know there are no time mechanisms in heaven? Obviously you don't, but again, things exist before they are measured. In front of me sit two different types of micrometers with which I measure things, but the things I measure necessarily exist before I measure them. Our Time & Frequency Standard sets the standard for military equipment and measures time to 10^-11 seconds, but the second exists first."
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God has a clock then? You mean, He HAS to have a clock? I don't believe so, Newcomb. Again, John's reference in Revelation to the space of about a half hour is simply his estimation of the time that passed, not by reading a clock on one of heaven's walls. And I say it again: the events John was recording were in regard to earth (time-framed), not heaven's ways of existance. God has not reavealed anything about that to us.
Your "second" only exists in view of creation; you know about seconds because you measure within a time-framed creation, time of which can be segmented within this system into the concept of seconds. The instrument does not prove there's a "second" to measure, as if a second is an isolated thing having always existed. That there is a solar system is evidence of something giving time meaning to the ancients and to you. Not the other way around.
You said:
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"Your "therefore" was, therefore, a non-sequitur:"
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No, I don't think so. An argument from silence--no clocks in heaven--perhaps, but I'd like, then, to see Scripture's support for clocks (or other measuring devices) in heaven. Or, for that matter, that Scripture shows God absolutely has to have such in existance. Time comes into place because God create it. It isn't eternal.
Sequence? It exists too, but according to who's concept of sequence? Ours? Impossible: We know of nothing to support the idea that God exists within a universal, solar-system time constuct by which sequence can be measured in His existance. I support the concept of sequence which does not, as I see it, have to be constrained in some sort of created-creation construct of time. However sequence exists in God's sphere of existance is not, in my opinion, the same as it does in our sphere.
You said:
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"Actually, which enslaves God? I would suggest that taking time away from God enslaves him to non-action since every action demands time. That is kind of the point, we say God sequences, (above) "He enters" etc., but this is an action that requires time because it is a sequence. You cannot sequence without time, so when God "leaves time" he would have no ability to sequence back into time.
Again, we trake a Greek concept of the highest of the pantheon of gods and apply it to the God of the Bible and try as hard as we can to squeeeze him into the Greek concept.
You (and others) write off the plane sense of scripture to do this when you state
quote: References to time in the Book of Revelation, of instance, are contexted with OUR time for the sake of making eschatological development"
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I've not taken time away from God--not OUR time at least. He couldn't possibly have gone by our time before He created the universe? To what time, then, can you be refering that I'm taking away? I've simply stated that He enters into our time frame when He deals with us? He has to; as I said, time wasn't here before He created that which makes possible it's existance. He's not slave to it, and He doesn't exist within it. From what concept of sequence He exists within, I haven't a clue, but it's certainly not creation's concept.
You said:
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"Everything in scripture implied God is in time. Every sequence he goes through, every action he takes, every decision he makes, every prayer he answers, every response the living God makes logically and rationally demands he be in time. To deny the basic facts, we flee, not to Jerusalem, but to Athens."
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Perhaps I should make this much allowance: Sequence incorporates the "concept" of time, but not ours here on earth. Still, I would add, it doesn't have to measurable in the same sense as our time is. God thinks and it is may not call for any duration or segmented sequence; it simply is done. The thought is the action--no "time" or measuring devices can come into play. But was there sequence? Yes; the events follow. But what concept of time is used to measure the interim when there's no "known" system of measurement in heaven according to Scripture? There's no concept of speed, duration or time given us. That's not Athens, Newcomb, that's simply lack of information in God's Word. But that gives us no right to attribute universe time to God's sequence.
You said:
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"Realy? How? What would be required to do this? Where is the evidence beyond the statement you make? Of course, you gave yourself an escape by saying there are a host of reasons he doesn't. Prove he can. Pray God would keep Hitler in prison and, therefore, stop the carnage.
An interesting aspect of this falacy is that Christ would be like a crucifix, eternally on the cross in God's timeless existence since he would eternally look at it, being outside of time. Well, since the father and son were separated, that is Jesus cries, "why have you forsaken me," this would also be eternally true if God is outide of time.
You would also be forced to say that either the divine nature of Christ was separated from his physical nature, or say that the second memebr of the trinity was separated from the trinity because the physical nature which Christ continues to have requires time go in a straight line forward. Which is it? It cannot be both ways. Is Christ in a physical form? Before you answer, please read I Jn 4:1-2."
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Wait a minute! What in the world does I John 4:1-2 have anything to do with this discussion? Please, let's not insinuate that I am a false spirit, an antichrist or anything of the like because I disagree with you. That's not very nice, number 1, and it's not the way brothers in Christ should treat each other.
Now then!
How would God take us back in time? That I can't explain His ability to do so doesn't logically follow that it can't be done. And, if He can take us back in time, it doesn't logically follow that He has to. I will say that I'm quite possibly in error here--as I stated, I have no science background, and I'll have to re-think this through.
My thinking at the moment, however, is that God can "recast" the universe to a specific period of time. Doing so would call for His controlling the revamping of the earth to it's exact likeness--in essence, rewinding everything from the now to the now. I think it's possible that God can rewind, so to speak. Why couldn't He? Why couldn't He just stop time--something not outside of His control--and reverse it. I mean, He'd have to make it happen, but the world won't fall apart because He's done so? Kind of like, gee would everyone fall off the face of the earth if God stopped it's rotation? If they did, God isn't all that capable of holding things together in general. I think He could handle it.
If we were conscience of the event happening, it might feel real weird! My point, though, is that I think it's possible for God to control time--sequence--the universe, and everything in it. It may mean making some adjustments to go back in the past--erasure of certain memories in people's minds of what would be understood to be the future, but that's no big deal for God to do.
But, can God go fast foward? That's where I'd say no; because the future hasn't happened. It's open (well, some of it is, anyway). You can't go into something that hasn't yet been decided. But it would seem that God could take you back into the past, if He wanted. I don't think He does, nor do I think He will. But again, neither of those statements negates the statement I make about His ability to do so as fallacy. You'll have to prove that it can't happen from a scientific, and perhaps philosophical perspective. (And I may very well be wrong about this.)
In regard to this, you said "An interesting aspect of this falacy is that Christ would be like a crucifix, eternally on the cross in God's timeless existence since he would eternally look at it, being outside of time."
"Christ crucified from the foundation of the world": did God see Christ literally on the cross (as if it really happened) before the event? No. God isn't looking at anything in our time frame as if it's always happening; it's not happening until it does. As I said, He's outside of OUR time. What happens in our time happens in our time. Not the same as what goes on in God's sphere.
God is Spirit. That there's personality and plurality of this one God does not, in my mind, slave Him to any concept of time as you and I understand it.
Well, I'm not much of a brainer in this stuff, but that's my thoughts.
For the time being,
Starkman
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 6/22/2002 7:19 PM (GMT -6) | | Isn't time simply a measure of change? Don't we first have change? Newcomb, I hear you arguing that change requires a dimension, time, for it to be possible. But, couldn't it be more fundamentally true that change creates the dimension that we think of as time? In a similar way, I believe the current scientific understanding of space is that energy/matter creates space. Space is nothing except the relationship of one chunk of matter to another. The big bang did not happen within a space. The big bang created space. We currently perceive there to be 3 dimension of space but that is clearly a local phenomenon - an illusion. It is quite clear now that if one travels in a straight line for long enough, one ends up exactly where they started - space is curved.
My basic argument here is that Being is more fundamental than dimension. Being creates dimension. God as the "ground of all being" by his very existence creates dimension. Or rather, dimension arises out of Being. Which in no way refutes any of your arguments posted above (which I think are sound and insightful). In fact, I think it gives your arguments more force.
Here is an excerpt from some recent work by the folks trying to unify Relativity Theory and Quantum Mechanics. It is from the book: "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity" by Lee Smolin.
>>>>
So, there is no meaning to space that is independent of the relationships among real things in the world. Space is not a stage, which might be either empty or full, onto which things come and go. Space is nothing apart from the things that exist; it is only an aspect of the relationships that hold between things. Space, then, is something like a sentence, it is absurd to talk of a sentence with no words in it. Each sentence has a grammatical structure that is defined by relationships that hold between the words in it, relationships like subject-object or adjective-noun. If we take out all the words we are not left with an empty sentence, we are left with nothing. Moreover, there are many different grammatical structures, catering for different arrangements of words and the various relationships between them. There is no such thing as an absolute sentence structure that holds for all sentences independent of their particular words and meanings.
The geometry of a universe is very like the grammatical structure of a sentence. Just as a sentence has no structure and no existence apart from the relationships between the words, space has no existence apart from the relationships that hold between the things in the universe. If you change a sentence by taking some words out, or changing their order, its grammatical structure changes. Similarly, the geometry of space changes when the things in the universe change their relationships to one another.
As we understand it now, it is simply absurd to speak of a universe with nothing in it. That is as absurd as a sentence with no words. It is even absurd to speak of a space with only one thing in it, for then there would be no relationships to define where that one thing is. (Here the analogy breaks down because there do exist sentences of one word only. However, they usually get their meaning from their relationships with adjacent sentences.)
The view of space as something that exists independent of any relationships is called the absolute view. It was Newton’s view, but it has been definitively repudiated by the experiments that have verified Einstein’s theory of general relativity. This has radical implications, which take a lot of thinking to get used to. There are unfortunately not a few good professional physicists who still think about the world as if space and time had an absolute meaning.
Of course, it does seem as though the geometry of space is not affected by things moving around. When I walk from one side of the room to the other, the geometry of the room does not seem to change. After I have crossed the room, the space within it still seems to satisfy the rules of Euclidean geometry that we learned in school, as it did before I started to move. Were Euclidean geometry not a good approximation to what we see around us, Newton would not have had a chance. But the apparent Euclidean geometry of space turns out to be as much an illusion as the apparent flatness of the Earth. The Earth seems flat only when we can’t see the horizon. Whenever we can see far enough, from an aircraft or when we gaze out to sea, we can easily see that this is mistaken. Similarly, the geometry of the room you are in seems to satisfy the rules of Euclidean geometry only because the departures from those rules are very small. But if you could make very precise measurements you would find that the angles of triangles in your room do not sum to exactly 180 degrees. Moreover, the sum actually depends on the relation of the triangle to the stuff in the room. If you could measure precisely enough you would see that the geometries of all the triangles in the room do change when you move from one side of it to the other.
…
I believe that the main lesson of relativity and quantum theory is that the world is nothing but an evolving network of relationships.
<<<<<
I highly recommend this book.
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Edited by - Iconoclast on 06/23/2002 12:49:58 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
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| Posted 6/23/2002 9:33 AM (GMT -6) | | Say, Iconoclast,
Is the book--Three Roads to Quantum Gravity" by Lee Smolin--something a lay-person, as myself, could understand; one without a scientific background? Or is it more along the lines of one who's written to his peers? It sure sounds interesting!
Thanks,
Starkman
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 6/23/2002 4:47 PM (GMT -6) | | Starkman, it is written for a lay-audience. The author is one of the top physicists working on Quantum Gravity theory but he does a great job translating into our language. Again, I highly recommend it. I think you would really enjoy it.
There are two primary approaches currently to resolving Quantum theory and Relativity theory. Loop Quantum Gravity is one approach and String theory is another approach. Lee Smolin is a Loop Quantum Gravity guy and his book focuses on that approach although he does discuss String theory and a combined approach as well. The best book I have found for a lay-audience on String theory is called "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene. It is a bit more technical than Lee Smolin's book (String theory is wickedly complex) but contains some really powerful concepts that make it worth wading through.
enjoy,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Edited by - Iconoclast on 06/23/2002 9:52:26 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
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| Posted 6/23/2002 5:20 PM (GMT -6) | | Oy Vay!
Guess I gotta break into the science field sooner or later!
Thanks mucho,
Starkman
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 6/23/2002 6:25 PM (GMT -6) | | Starkman, if you haven't read much on relativity theory or quantum mechanics I am not sure I would recommend starting with "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity."
Semeia's recommended book course:
1. "Relativity Visualized" (basics of relativity theory)
2. "Schroedinger's Kittens" (basics of quantum mechanics)
3. "The Elegant Universe" (String theory)
4. "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity" (Loop Quantum Gravity)
thanks,
Iconoclast
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Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?
Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635
| Posted 6/24/2002 1:36 AM (GMT -6) | | The measurement of things that move; I call time. Did anything or rather God move, before the creation of anything else by God, that is, can or did God move, without or before having created? I believe God knows all things, ask Him! Strictly for the rhetorically minded person, all others prohibited from replying…
Hysterically historically yours,
Tim
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Newcomb
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Total Posts : 116
| Posted 6/24/2002 12:17 PM (GMT -6) | | I'll try to respond as time allows to the posts above:
Starkman said (snips)
quote:
There has always been time in ancient times, for there has always been the universe for them--something set up to function in and incorporate a measurement of time. All one had to do was follow the sun throught the day.
So we have a way to measure time even if we don't call them "seconds" or other conventions. We agree here. In this case, the ancients used the sun, we know this from texts and places like Stonehenge. How do they know time was passing? They abserved changes or sequences and used a reliable source to measure it. Even though the length of the day changed, at least the sun came up and moved across the sky. So a sequence of events can be used as a measurement of change indicating time is passing.
You first quote me:
quote:
How do you know there are no time mechanisms in heaven? Obviously you don't, but again, things exist before they are measured.
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God has a clock then? You mean, He HAS to have a clock? I don't believe so, Newcomb. Again, John's reference in Revelation to the space of about a half hour is simply his estimation of the time that passed, not by reading a clock on one of heaven's walls. And I say it again: the events John was recording were in regard to earth (time-framed), not heaven's ways of existance. God has not reavealed anything about that to us.
I didn't affirm that God has clocks. This is your error. I was pointing out an assumption you made, and you made another here: How do you know John was using terms familiar to earth, which implies they are not the same in heaven? What I mean here is to say that the implication you make is that the time wasn't really a half hour ad John wrote, but to clarify for us, he used terms we are familiar with to express what? If this were an analogy (earth terms vs heavenly term), then what is it analogous to? When John waited in heaven (Rev 8:1) what was passing of not time? Complete the analogy without invoking time or words that require time.
quote:
An argument from silence--no clocks in heaven--perhaps, but I'd like, then, to see Scripture's support for clocks (or other measuring devices) in heaven. Or, for that matter, that Scripture shows God absolutely has to have such in existance. Time comes into place because God create it. It isn't eternal.
See Rev 8:1. Again, I don't believe there are clocks per se in heaven, but I didn't make that claim. You made the opposite claim. If I said to you that the sun was passing over head, would that require time? Of course, it is common sense to say time is passing. But when john clearly states that a half hour passed in heaven, you claim time is not passing?
{quote]
Sequence? It exists too, but according to who's concept of sequence? Ours? Impossible: We know of nothing to support the idea that God exists within a universal, solar-system time constuct by which sequence can be measured in His existance. I support the concept of sequence which does not, as I see it, have to be constrained in some sort of created-creation construct of time. However sequence exists in God's sphere of existance is not, in my opinion, the same as it does in our sphere.
Daughter concepts are fully dependent on parent concepts. Without the parent, the daughter is excluded. Sequence has a requisite concept of time. Without time, there is no sequencing.
You are so convinced that time is created that you frame all explanations of God sequencing on a notion of sequencing that excapes its parent, time. This is like saying my natural daughter could have been born if I didn't exist. (I am presuming you are not Mormon here.)
I don't need to requote the thousands of verses indicating that God sequences because you accept that, but you cannot explain sequencing without time. You can make a truth claim (affirmative statement) but you cannot back it up or explain it rationally any more than you can explain how my daughter could exist without my existence.
quote:
Perhaps I should make this much allowance: Sequence incorporates the "concept" of time, but not ours here on earth. Still, I would add, it doesn't have to measurable in the same sense as our time is. God thinks and it is may not call for any duration or segmented sequence; it simply is done. The thought is the action--no "time" or measuring devices can come into play. But was there sequence? Yes; the events follow. But what concept of time is used to measure the interim when there's no "known" system of measurement in heaven according to Scripture? There's no concept of speed, duration or time given us. That's not Athens, Newcomb, that's simply lack of information in God's Word. But that gives us no right to attribute universe time to God's sequence.
You just did. Thank you.
What "right" is involved? What moral rule are you trying to invoke that defines a "right?" You are right about it not being Athens, but the entire idea of an ultimate being who is outside of time is from Athens, we can trak it back. The idea that God sequences comes from the first chapter of the Bible.
quote:
My thinking at the moment, however, is that God can "recast" the universe to a specific period of time. Doing so would call for His controlling the revamping of the earth to it's exact likeness--in essence, rewinding everything from the now to the now. I think it's possible that God can rewind, so to speak. Why couldn't He?
My point about Jesus being physical forever indicated time cannot end. This can't be avoided either with basic physics knowledge.
Why couldn't God take us back in time? If time is a demension, then he cannot go backwards because this dimension is what sequences in one direction only.
I love time travel stories. They play with the mind. Think back to "The Final Countdown" at the beginning where Marti Sheen is getting on the ship and his boss, who he has yet to meet comes to see him off. Where is James Farentino (the pilot) at that moment? Why he is in the car at, say 65, and on the boat at, say 23. Why do we need either two actors or camera tricks if we were going to see both? Because matter cannot be in two places at the same time. God cannot do it either unless (I would hold he could) he creates a parallel universe, but that isn't the task at hand, time travel is.
If you hold he can' then go back to my earlier post and pray that he would change the mind of the judge and keep Adolph Hitler in prison preventing the Holocaust.
quote:
Why couldn't He just stop time--something not outside of His control--and reverse it. I mean, He'd have to make it happen, but the world won't fall apart because He's done so? Kind of like, gee would everyone fall off the face of the earth if God stopped it's rotation? If they did, God isn't all that capable of holding things together in general. I think He could handle it.
This is the same as saying God can put a round peg in a square hole. (This statement always presumes the same surface area.) God can do everything that is possible to do. God cannot do what is not possible to do. That would make him irrational.
quote:
But, can God go fast foward? That's where I'd say no; because the future hasn't happened. It's open (well, some of it is, anyway). You can't go into something that hasn't yet been decided. But it would seem that God could take you back into the past, if He wanted.
OK, you are half way there. But you hold the past still exists? (Which would be necessary to travel back to it.)
I'll quite here, you are half way there.
"Neuk'em"
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Newcomb
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| Posted 6/24/2002 12:39 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey Iconoclast, I like your handle.
quote:
Isn't time simply a measure of change? Don't we first have change? Newcomb, I hear you arguing that change requires a dimension, time, for it to be possible. But, couldn't it be more fundamentally true that change creates the dimension that we think of as time?
Actually, no. It's a matter of the parent/daughter concept. Something dependent on another cannot exist idependently by definition.
quote:
In a similar way, I believe the current scientific understanding of space is that energy/matter creates space. Space is nothing except the relationship of one chunk of matter to another. The big bang did not happen within a space. The big bang created space. We currently perceive there to be 3 dimension of space but that is clearly a local phenomenon - an illusion. It is quite clear now that if one travels in a straight line for long enough, one ends up exactly where they started - space is curved.
[quote]
First, evolution is based on naturalism. Naturalism is the believ that only those things we can see and measure exist. Let's do a though experiment: Will you move to the house that floats just above the point of the Washington monument? "No?" Why not? Wouldn't it be a great view? Certainly it would! And such a location! Opps! You can't move there because it doesn't exist. You cannot move matter into a location that isn't there. To be there there must pre-exist dimensions. For a reference point, I hold Russel Humphrey's creation cosmology what belives God uses the equivalent of a white hole on the first day then stretched it out as scripture says to create the physical universe in the required 6 days with light naturally streeming back to earth, but let's use the 'big bang' idea of a primordal mass: -1 second before the bang (or God creating) If there are no dimensions, there can't be a second later, Hmm, so we need a time dimension to have the bang. Second, where is it going to expand to? It has to go somewhere, but somewhere doesn't exist. It can't create itself because it would have to exist to create itself and you can't both exist and not exist at the same time (there's that pesky word again). You need length as a dimension to indicate it is going "thataway" because you usually use a ray (like a pointed finger) to indicate which direction something is moving. A ray needs to travel along the dimension of length. Likewise we must have the other two, height and width, so we have three dimenstion to expand into or else it would be 2d, or a flat plane. Realise that without all three, you can'e have 3d, only 2d, and this doesn't mean flat like a piece of paper (I justed use a micrometer to measure a sheet of paper and it is .0023" thick) We are talking not even an angstrom thick. You need al four at a minimum.
[quote]
My basic argument here is that Being is more fundamental than dimension. Being creates dimension. God as the "ground of all being" by his very existence creates dimension. Or rather, dimension arises out of Being. Which in no way refutes any of your arguments posted above (which I think are sound and insightful). In fact, I think it gives your arguments more force.
Hmm, possibly unprovable but you are right, I think it supports it.
In the quote you used from a book, the guy redefined space to fit his description.
Newcomb
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/25/2002 5:06 AM (GMT -6) | | Tim : "...did God move, without or before having created?)
Answer: NO.
..........or, maybe. (If God did 'other' creations...then the answer becomes "yes." )
"Movement" would have to be EXTERIOR to God. No movement within the Trinity--**and NO, that's not "Athens."** Biblical theophanies all involve the economic activity of God. (The speculation of the medieval schoolmen, perhaps, deserve the title of "mysticism" for their presumption of "going there.")
And since any "'movement' exterior to God" but without being part of the creation is beyond the stretches of my imagination; I'll just assume "no" on that part.
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Newcomb
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| Posted 6/25/2002 6:00 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
2. "Schroedinger's Kittens" (basics of quantum mechanics)
Iconoclast
Most people don't understand that Schroedinger's cat was created to show the absurdity of certain aspects of quantum mechanics. Something is either one state or another or else, the theory is wrong. Schroedinger's cat was mocking the theory, but it was picked up and used to defend it as an analogy as opposed to being a criticism. Obviuously cats cannot simultaneously be alive and dead and which determined by a future event, vis, looking in the box. He wrote:
"One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.
It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks."
This was a sardonic view of the quantum theory proposed by Eistein, Podolski and Rosen (proposers of the aptly named EPR paradox). His point was that the cat is either dead or alive, it cannot be both and the determination of which it is does not make it so.
This would be like saying a person killed by a machine out in the desert is only dead once someone views the dead body.
Schroedinger was saying, reductio ad absurdum.
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Newcomb
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| Posted 6/25/2002 6:15 AM (GMT -6) | | This is the origin and path that the Greek time idea took to get us to where we are today. It could be expanded vastly, but, no need:
THALES (c 625-546 BC), the first philosopher, promotes the idea that the basic element that makes up everything is water.
XENOPHANES (c 570-465 BC) thought that the universe was immutable and incapable of change, an idea that was later applied to God. By immutable, he meant exactly that, nothing at all could change.
HERACLITUS (c 537-c 475 BC) creates the idea that the eternal energy (word/fire) was Logos, the concept John uses in his gospel.
PARMENIDES (b. 510 BC) held again the concept of an unchanging universe beyond human comprehension, thus starting mystic traditions in Greek philosophy which later entered the church. It is he who started and idea that crept into the church, that God is without time, he is timeless in the sense of not having time. (He did not use God per se; he used the term “Being” meaning the ultimate True Being that Greek theorized.) The True Being could not move, or learn, or respond, or change in any way whatsoever, or else it would not be perfect. This concept did not start in Judaism nor Christianity, it started here, in Greece 500 years before Christ.
PLATO (app. 427-347 BC) had a particular bent toward mysticism after Pythagorus and Parmenides, that the ultimate Being must be fixed, permanent, and unchanging, he identified the real with the ideal realm, ethereal realm of being as opposed to the physical world of becoming, everything here changes, nothing there changed at all.
Origen (c 182-c 251) Born to a Christian family, raised in a neo-platonic environment he used this teaching to interpret the Bible in Platonic terms and constructs nearly to the point of being accused of Gnosticism.
AUGUSTINE (354-420) had teachers and learning that led him through Origen to Platonism, the influence of that philosophy is found in the idea of God which he developed systematically and handed down to generations of Christians permanently infusing the church with Plato’s teachings. He conceives God as the unity of ideas (after Plonticus and Prophyry as well as Origen), of abstract perfections which included absolute immutability and timelessness directly from Plato. His training as a Roman Rhetoritician before he was saved infused the neo-Platonic doctrines which he brought to the church.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564) was heavily influenced by the Greeks and Roman Rhetorics, because he basically followed Augustine. Calvin is credited with the view of predestination that Augustine changed from Ignatius' error, that God predestines one to heaven based on God's own choice (election), however, this was actually Beza’s doctrine called “Calvinism” by the Synod of Dort. Calvin could not accept the moral implications of the doctrine and rejected it.
BEZA 1519-1605 was heavily influenced by Calvin but more so by Augustine and Plato and taught that predestination was a result of God's Providence, whereas Calvin related it to the person and work of Christ. Predestination directly involves concepts of time. The T.U.L.I.P. doctrine of “Calvinism” is actually from Beza.
IMMANUEL KANT (1724-1804), attempting to defend Christianity against the current theories of knowledge, made a crucial mistake in thinking that there was a moral code grounded in rational thought as opposed to being grounded in theological absolutes. To Kant, things like the existence of God, concepts like freedom, morality, and conscience cannot be dealt with scientifically or rationally but only irrationally, a “leap of faith.” We are right back to Platonic mysticism again where you take any meaning you want to take and simply state that it is “deeper” that others can understand, and like magic, you’re the king of the hill! You are Hermes delivering the secret messages from the gods, that is, you set the hermeneutic, you determine what words mean, you control the thinking process.
SOREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD (1813-1855) was both a philosopher and theologian who was the founder of Existentialist philosophy. As a philosopher he was a relativist, when the fideists (people who believe you must start with a basic acceptance of God and the Bible as His Word, or some set of beliefs accepted by faith alone without proof) were found to have certain paradox’ in faith, he simply determined to believe irrationally in the Bible instead of seeing if there were a rational alternative. He dealt with the Word of God as if it had little to do with our daily walk in life, with reality. He proposed that if we are to find meaning in life, we must take a (blind) leap of faith.
KARL BARTH (May 10, 1886-December 10, 1968) was a neo-orthodoxy who emphasized our utter inability to know God except through revealed knowledge. He regarded the Bible not as the actual revelation of God but as only the record of that revelation. For Barth, God's sole revelation of himself is in Jesus Christ. God is the "wholly other," totally unlike humankind, and we are utterly dependent on an encounter with the divine for any understanding of ultimate reality. You have to be an “insider” to really know. This is true in any mystic belief system. It is an easy way to exclude others who disagree without having to prove a point or argue with them. If a theologian makes an assertion about God taken from the Bible, the Barthian theologian can merely state, “your simplistic formulas cannot contain God” regardless of the reliability of the text. There is no absolute. This simple little error has major consequences to the way we think.
This shows that the concept we have of time is helenistic in origin. This does not prove it is wrong, it merely points to the origin.
"Neuk'em"
Edited by - Newcomb on 06/25/2002 11:16:54 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Newcomb
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Total Posts : 116
| Posted 6/25/2002 8:03 AM (GMT -6) | | Scriptures to look at:
(Jer 31:1 NIV) "At that time," declares the LORD, "I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they will be my people. "
(Jer 31:31 NIV) "The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
(Jer 31:33 NIV) "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
(Jer 33:20 NIV) "This is what the LORD says: 'If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night no longer come at their appointed time,
(Jer 36:2 NIV) "Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah and all the other nations from the time I began speaking to you in the reign of Josiah till now.
(Jer 39:16 NIV) "Go and tell Ebed-Melech the Cushite, 'This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I am about to fulfill my words against this city through disaster, not prosperity. At that time they will be fulfilled before your eyes.
(Jer 50:4 NIV) "In those days, at that time," declares the LORD, "the people of Israel and the people of Judah together will go in tears to seek the LORD their God.
(Jer 50:20 NIV) In those days, at that time," declares the LORD, "search will be made for Israel's guilt, but there will be none, and for the sins of Judah, but none will be found, for I will forgive the remnant I spare.
(Jer 50:31 NIV) "See, I am against you, O arrogant one," declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty, "for your day has come, the time for you to be punished.
(Jer 51:6 NIV) "Flee from Babylon! Run for your lives! Do not be destroyed because of her sins. It is time for the Lord's vengeance; he will pay her what she deserves.
(Jer 51:47 NIV) For the time will surely come when I will punish the idols of Babylon; her whole land will be disgraced and her slain will all lie fallen within her.
(Ezek 4:6 NIV) "After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the house of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year.
(Ezek 24:14 NIV) "'I the LORD have spoken. The time has come for me to act. I will not hold back; I will not have pity, nor will I relent. You will be judged according to your conduct and your actions, declares the Sovereign LORD. '" (Ezek 30:3 NIV) For the day is near, the day of the LORD is near-- a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations.
(Ezek 48:35 NIV) "The distance all around will be 18,000 cubits. "And the name of the city from that time on will be: THE LORD IS THERE. "
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Newcomb
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| Posted 6/25/2002 8:06 AM (GMT -6) | | OK, so much for time, how about the word "forever" which, again time is a requisite to because "forever" means time without end. If time ends, the word is meaningless. Let's look at Psalms:
(Psa 19:9 NIV) The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous.
(Psa 23:6 NIV) Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
(Psa 29:10 NIV) The LORD sits enthroned over the flood; the LORD is enthroned as King forever.
(Psa 30:12 NIV) that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.
(Psa 45:2 NIV) You are the most excellent of men and your lips have been anointed with grace, since God has blessed you forever.
(Psa 48:8 NIV) As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the LORD Almighty, in the city of our God: God makes her secure forever. Selah (Psa 52:9 NIV) I will praise you forever for what you have done; in your name I will hope, for your name is good. I will praise you in the presence of your saints.
(Psa 55:19 NIV) God, who is enthroned forever, will hear them and afflict them-- Selah men who never change their ways and have no fear of God.
(Psa 66:7 NIV) He rules forever by his power, his eyes watch the nations-- let not the rebellious rise up against him. Selah (Psa 68:16 NIV) Why gaze in envy, O rugged mountains, at the mountain where God chooses to reign, where the LORD himself will dwell forever? (Psa 72:17 NIV) May his name endure forever; may it continue as long as the sun. All nations will be blessed through him, and they will call him blessed.
(Psa 79:13 NIV) Then we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will praise you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise.
(Psa 81:15 NIV) Those who hate the LORD would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever.
(Psa 86:12 NIV) I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever.
(Psa 89:52 NIV) Praise be to the LORD forever! Amen and Amen.
(Psa 100:5 NIV) For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
(Psa 102:12 NIV) But you, O LORD, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations.
(Psa 106:1 NIV) Praise the LORD. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.
(Psa 107:1 NIV) Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.
(Psa 110:4 NIV) The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind: "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek. " (Psa 112:3 NIV) Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.
(Psa 118:1-4 NIV) Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. {2} Let Israel say: "His love endures forever. " {3} Let the house of Aaron say: "His love endures forever. " {4} Let those who fear the LORD say: "His love endures forever. " (Psa 136 NIV) Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever. {2} Give thanks to the God of gods. His love endures forever. {3} Give thanks to the Lord of lords: His love endures forever. {4} to him who alone does great wonders, His love endures forever. {5} who by his understanding made the heavens, His love endures forever. {6} who spread out the earth upon the waters, His love endures forever. {7} who made the great lights-- His love endures forever. {8} the sun to govern the day, His love endures forever.
{9} the moon and stars to govern the night; His love endures forever. {10} to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt His love endures forever. {11} and brought Israel out from among them His love endures forever. {12} with a mighty hand and outstretched arm; His love endures forever. {13} to him who divided the Red Sea asunder His love endures forever. {14} and brought Israel through the midst of it, His love endures forever. {15} but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea; His love endures forever. {16} to him who led his people through the desert, His love endures forever. {17} who struck down great kings, His love endures forever. {18} and killed mighty kings-- His love endures forever.
{19} Sihon king of the Amorites His love endures forever. {20} and Og king of Bashan-- His love endures forever. {21} and gave their land as an inheritance, His love endures forever. {22} an inheritance to his servant Israel; His love endures forever. {23} to the One who remembered us in our low estate His love endures forever. {24} and freed us from our enemies, His love endures forever. {25} and who gives food to every creature. His love endures forever. {26} Give thanks to the God of heaven. His love endures forever.
If time ends, then all this is false.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/25/2002 9:01 AM (GMT -6) | | Newcomb said: "...how about the word "forever" which, again time is a requisite to because "forever" means time without end. If time ends, the word is meaningless."
That is odd.
I can be comfortable with "time without end" for "forever"; it is a negative way of saying it--what it is not. A possitive way is to say "time that is perpetual--keeps going." A nuance of difference.
Neolithic societies consider the "time" for something to begin when that thing begins. For them not all times are co-terminus and co-beginning. For me "forever" is apt to be an overlaying of present reality onto the not-yet-known future of the eschata. And the "forever" of the present world is apt to be considered more unmovable (the mountians) than they are. "Forever" has its soft-science dimension too.
Does "forever" have a meaning. "Meaning" is something else. For me "forever" has a meaning. Its meaning is overshadowed by death and resurrection. Christ's body was glorified--changed. And we chall be changed. Someone with Christ is in some ways more "forever" than the mountains that may continue on for millenia after they die.
But just because we have a word called "forever" does not force on reality or the future whatever concepts we like to assign to it.
Kenneth Pike, a linguist (16 consecutive times was nominated for the Nobel Peace prize) and Wycliff translator had these two terms: 'emics' and 'etics' (akin to the relationsip between phonem and phonetic) within a structure he called "tagmemics." A paper on the internet had this highlight: Tagmemic discourse theory, as developed from the work of linguist, Kenneth L. Pike, is a theory of discourse founded upon certain axioms about human behavior and language use that foreground the situatedness of all communication and the necessity of viewing every act of discourse as a form-meaning composite inseparable from communicators, their audiences, and the varied worlds they may construct and inhabit through the use of language.
quote:
Pike and other tagmemic rhetoricians concluded, contra Noam Chomsky, that no theory of syntax and no rhetoric that ignored the situational context of utterances--and thereby programmatically dismissing inquiry into the cultural bases of thought and communication--could yield insights into the nature of language acquisition or use. More importantly, such theories could not produce ultimately useful tools or strategies with which to investigate and solve actual communication problems.
Words can't be treated the way Fundamentalist Christians often do the Bible. One use of "forever" does not forever set in stone how it must be used. Use does not prescribe reality. Certain realities do not proscribe use.
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