Does God exist out of time? No. He doesn't

[pmb]

I hear so many religious leaders claim that God exists out of time. Here is an example of their belief. No logical arguement has ever been given in m experience.

 

See Does God exist outside of time and sees all of time at once. at http://lavistachurchofchrist.org/LVanswers/2008/11-09.html

 

This particular author seems inteligent enough to know better. E.g. her quotes the following

Author - But it doesn't match what the Bible says. Consider Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. God stop the sacrifice and said - Genesis 22:12 12 And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”

 

Author - Or think about the grief God expressed over men's sins. In the days leading up to the flood, the Bible says - Genesis 6:6 6 And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

 

Author - Another event to consider is Jesus' discussion with the centurion. The man assured Jesus that all Jesus need to do was speak and it would happen. - Matthew 8:10 - 10 When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!

It warms the heart to hear someone in religion is intelligent. Others just can't get their mind on what it means to exist outsie of time. I'd betcha that none of them has ever spoken to a physicist or a philosopher of science. lol!

[immortal]

Such characters who can cognize the events happened in the past and also the events which are about to happen in future anywhere in the world have been depicted in many religions.

 

Author - But it doesn't match what the Bible says. Consider Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. God stop the sacrifice and said - Genesis 22:12 12 And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”

 

Yes, it would have been more intelligent if God had said "Yes, Abraham, I knew from the begining that you fear God and I also knew that you would give up your son for me". But in religions everything is seen as a play of gods and it seems god played his part in his play not that he didn't knew what was about to happen, this is my opinion though.

[HGrimston]

It seems to me that this argument against the timeless nature of God is only applicable to christian literalists. Further, if God doesn't exist outside of time, how is it possible for God to be omniscient? After all, if God is limited to a linear progression of time, God clearly cannot know all things. Further, you you understand the Lorentzian model of time, and also believe in the christian God, you must believe that God created the entirety of time from its beginning to its end. If God created time, and will exist after time, it can easily be said that God exists outside of time. To say otherwise is to also doubt that God is the creator, which breaks the entire premise of the Abrahamic religions.

 

Another way to think about it would be to say that the purpose of testing humans is to build faith in the human. To do so, the human must believe that he himself had a conscious choice in the matter and that God didn't know what would happen. Perhaps God explained the situation in that way for the benefit of Abraham and is son.

[John Cuthber]

"Further, if God doesn't exist outside of time, how is it possible for God to be omniscient?"

Omniscience is self contradictory anyway. If it's a required property of a God then God doesn't exist at all- never mind the issue of time.

[john5746]

Yes, it would have been more intelligent if God had said "Yes, Abraham, I knew from the begining that you fear God and I also knew that you would give up your son for me". But in religions everything is seen as a play of gods and it seems god played his part in his play not that he didn't knew what was about to happen, this is my opinion though.

 

Would have been even more intelligent to say "Abraham, wtf? Don't do something stupid like this, even if I tell you. If I had wanted a robot, I would have made one."

[immortal]

Would have been even more intelligent to say "Abraham, wtf? Don't do something stupid like this, even if I tell you. If I had wanted a robot, I would have made one."

 

Being in a completely deterministic world of God doesn't necessarily mean that he has created robots. Is a robot capable of strong AI? Does a robot feel pride, pleasure, pain, sorrow, humility etc etc? One can program a robot to act in such a way by simulating human outward expressions but how can we know what it is like to be a robot, its very much likely that it is just a zombie.

 

Religion says as long as you're subjected to the forces of space-time and the five elements(earth, water, fire, air and space) you don't have free will but religion doesn't stop here it goes on to say that man can free himself from this bondage and attain freedom. God has indeed created an intelligent cosmos, only if he exists though. Religion doesn't necessarily have to be incompatible with science most of the times it just adds an extra layer of accountability to science making science as a partial sub-case or an emergent property as a consequence of the numinous world of God, again only if religion is true though.

[HGrimston]

"Further, if God doesn't exist outside of time, how is it possible for God to be omniscient?"

Omniscience is self contradictory anyway. If it's a required property of a God then God doesn't exist at all- never mind the issue of time.

 

Well, I personally don't think the christian idealization of God is true anyway. But if we are going to discuss the christian God, we cannot just throw out his rules for himself. Further, the physics which describe how no information is ever lost in the universe could be described as the universe having a sort of omniscient quality.

 

"As a budded off universe evolves, whether a sterile formless void or teeming with intelligent life, no information is ever lost in its quantum evolution, not even down a black hole or across a cosmic horizon, and every quantum event splits the universe and preserves all possible outcomes. The ensemble of universes is thus omniscient of all its contents."

--From: http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/reading_list/indices/book_487.html