Re: [asa] (bubble generators outside of time?) Meyer on C-SPAN2

Jim,
First, I addressed the possibility of time before the Big Bang if our
universe is a late bubble. Then there would have been stuff of some sort
(10^500 possibilities ?) with change and time. But this does not apply to
the Creator who brought our universe or a precursor series into being
unless you espouse Manicheism or some such similar nonChristian view. As
to the Jewish view, creation was not origination, but rather forming, so
that the entities would function. Chaos is totally disordered stuff, so
that it can be formed. It must then involve existence before the
universe, which was formed from it. It thus escapes from the difficulty
of a true beginning. There was a parallel notion in Aristotle, who
posited the eternal coexistence of Prime Matter and Pure Form, unreason
and reason respectively, chaos and God (Prime Mover).

II Peter 3:8, with the two way thousand years and day, seems to indicate
that time is not a constraint on God. This fits also Psalm 90:4, which
ties the millennium to two brief periods. The changelessness of God is
explicit in Malachi 3:6. A stronger declaration comes from Romans 8:29f
with Ephesians 1:4. Foreknown, predestinated, called, justified,
glorified--are all in the same Greek tense, and the choice was before the
world was founded. As an absolute minimum, God has no problems with time,
though I know that I haven't yet experienced glorification. Yet Paul says
that it's already done.

There is a scientific approach that bears on divine timelessness. One
interpretation of Einstein's relativity has all of space-time existing,
so that creatures are some place and some when. An outside observer could
see all of space-time at once. We, in contrast, can only see the cone of
the past from the point where we are, and can only reach such points as
are in the forward or future cone. But we must not restrict what is
outside of space-time to our limitations. This parallel the fact that we
do not dispose of the multiverse by saying that we do not detect other
universes.

Our inability to create without recognizing an essence reminds me of the
story of the scientists who declared that they could create life. They
would take matter ... At that moment they heard, "Get your own matter."

Of course, one cannot demonstrate a deity outside of the universe by
reason. That's why I go to scripture. There are others who claim to go to
scripture and come up with open theology and a God limited in time and
perhaps space. I recall one argument by a Jewish physicist whose name I
do not recall, who had the deity moving at light speed. It would be more
than a little difficult for such a deity to become incarnate in a person
who moved like other human beings of his time.
Dave (ASA)

On Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:46:08 -0700 Jim Armstrong <jarmstro99@q.com>
writes:
I don't often take issue with you, Dave. But it seems to me that we
simply don't/can't know that time was NOT before the Big Bang (at least
in some form). It's one popular hypothesis to be sure, but as I've
indicated before, at least in our admittedly limited experience, we
humans cannot create something that in its very essence was NOT before we
created it. We could not create "xyzzy" without knowing something about
or experiencing in some way the essentials of "xyzzy". [Anybody recognize
xyzzy?]

Now I grant you that our human knowledge of the divine is severely
limited, and perhaps God's domain just doesn't operate that way. But even
in our limited perspective, we can alternatively hypothesize that God
does in fact know or experience something essential about time, and that
knowledge/experience provides the basis for creating something in a new
configuratoin with time as a central component. That would not violate
anything that I can think of other than a more or less traditional posit
that God is "outside time" (pretty undefined at best, in any case).

In fact, in the Jewish notion, the chaos (whatever that is!) that existed
before the Big Bang was not "nothing". The act of Creation comprised the
imposition of new form, function, and names to the collected and
reconfigured chaos (not knowing what better adjectives - if any - would
apply to chaos).

Methinks there's equal defensible validity to hypotheses (for examples)
that time might be it's own fundamental thing, resident in both domains,
or that perhaps time is a particular (dimensional?) manifestation of
something more complex (or simpler) in God's reality.

Or so it seemeth to me. Jima [Friend of ASA]

dfsiemensjr wrote:
Bernie,
You insist on putting God in time. But time BEGAN with the Big Bang, or
by whatever preceded the Big Bang as a multiverse. But there seems to be
no reasonable answer to how long the universes were bubbling. In the
usual view, on the contrary, there was no before the Big Bang, though our
language does not accommodate this thought. But with God there is no
before, no after, no change. You cannot imagine this, so you try to deny
it. The fact is that there are many things we cannot imagine, but we can
think about them. You cannot imagine a point, but you posit that the dot
you make (it necessarily has all three dimensions) is dimensionless. You
also posit that there are an infinite number of points in a geometrical
line, but that it is only one point across anyplace on its course.
Dave (ASA)

On Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:44:12 -0700 "Dehler, Bernie"
<bernie.dehler@intel.com> writes:
Dave said:
“But God didn't decide.”

God didn’t decide to create the universe? Does that mean the universe is
eternal like God, or that God didn’t have a choice in the matter (beyond
his control)?

I can see someone saying ‘we don’t know’ but you seem to be saying that
you know- that God didn’t make a decision. So I’m curious as to what you
mean by that.

…Bernie

From: dfsiemensjr [mailto:dfsiemensjr@juno.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 11:45 AM
To: Dehler, Bernie
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] (bubble generators outside of time?) Meyer on C-SPAN2

But God didn't decide. You are making him in your image.
Dave (ASA)

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:28:17 -0700 "Dehler, Bernie"
<bernie.dehler@intel.com> writes:
“You're asserting change when there was none, Creation did not change the
deity, who is eternally (timelessly) outside of time.”

My point is that changing one’s mind is also a change, and you said all
change involves time. So how can God be outside of time if at one point
he decides something new- to make a creation? We know he made this
decision at a unique point, because creation is not eternal. So since
God decided to do something before the big-bang happened and before our
time zone was created, doesn’t that logically prove that God is alos
intime? In reality, there is more than we know of- how God operates, his
environment, and/or the universe generator.

…Bernie

From: dfsiemensjr [mailto:dfsiemensjr@juno.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 4:25 PM
To: Dehler, Bernie
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] (bubble generators outside of time?) Meyer on C-SPAN2

Bernie,
You're asserting change when there was none, Creation did not change the
deity, who is eternally (timelessly) outside of time. Unless you posit a
bubble before the Big Bang, that is, tne Big Bang was not the real or
absolute beginning, there was no before. Time began with the Big Bang.
However, I don't wonder that you don't grasp this for it runs totally
counter to all human experience.
Dave (ASA)

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:19:12 -0700 "Dehler, Bernie"
<bernie.dehler@intel.com> writes:
“…but anything that changes is in some kind of time.”

Then that means that God is in time before the big bang, with which you
would disagree.

This is because God changed before the big-bang. There was a ‘time’ when
the big-bang didn’t yet happen (since time began with the big bang). And
another time prior to the big-bang in which God set-off the big bang.
This is a change in God (doing something) outside the creation of our
time zone, yet he is supposed to be outside of time. If the multiverse
generator can be in a different time zone, then I guess likewise God
could also be. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander- goose
being multiverse and gander being God. If God is beyond time, then maybe
also the multiverse generator is likewise.

…Bernie

From: dfsiemensjr [mailto:dfsiemensjr@juno.com]
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2009 12:54 PM
To: Dehler, Bernie
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] (bubble generators outside of time?) Meyer on C-SPAN2

Bernie,
The bubble may not be in our universe's time, since they are not
connected so that one can move between them, but anything that changes is
in some kind of time. So every universe that makes up the multiverse is
in its own time.
Dave (ASA)

On Mon, 14 Sep 2009 08:30:17 -0700 "Dehler, Bernie"
<bernie.dehler@intel.com> writes:
Dave said:
“As I understand it, the "bubble maker" may be a different kind of stuff
than our universe is made of, but is changing and so must be temporal.”

In order for the bubble generator to be “temporal” it would have to be in
time, but we just said it is outside of time since time (at least “our
time” or “time as we know it”) is an emergent property of this universe…
of this universe’s big bang. The time (that we know of and experience)
did not exist prior to the big-bang. Correct?

…Bernie

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Received on Thu Sep 17 23:37:50 2009