God, the "eternal" agent?

Originally posted by Agerg
When any theist says God exists outside of time, the question always occurs to me: how then does God "get things done" if there is no temporal separation between any events?
Assuming for this entity, things do get done (from it's perspective), and not all at once then I imagine perhaps one can suppose that time can be considered a line for us (ie: one- ...[text shortened]... be found by traversing some other axis or axes

I may be barking up the wrong tree though.

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm not sure I understand this scenario though. I will have to give it more thought.

Originally posted by vistesd
Just an aside, LJ: rejecting non-dualist (pantheistic) expressions that use god language as “not interesting” (since they might as well, for example, use the word “nature” ) is to declare a whole lot of such expressions, from Stoics to (at least some) Advaita Vedantists to Kashmiri Shaivites to... as somehow deficient, at least in terms of their language.
...[text shortened]... So I will not derail your thread further.

Besides, I know that you are a lover of Hafiz… 🙂

I would say that it would be best if I just clarified what I meant by "not interesting" in the context of this thread. But I think that would probably be superfluous, since you already agree that this is an aside. Second, I would hope you can forgive me for being in that moment a bit irritated at what I took to be the poster's presuming to take some artistic license regarding what I find coherent (and then probably not expressing myself so well about it). Third, I still profess to find the notion of 'god' as all things completely uninteresting. But as far as I can tell, even taken outside the current context, that does not commit me to finding uninteresting or deficient the expressions of Hafiz or any of those you mentioned. To be sure, I love the expressions of Hafiz (and love what they can elicit). But I have never taken it to be the case that Hafiz's writings ever provided me with any discernable notion of 'god' or of the Beloved or actually much of anything that I would consider cognitive (as opposed to affective or conative) or much of anything I would consider propositional in nature. So hopefully, you do not consider it contradictory of me to say I find a certain notion that may be attached to a term uninteresting while at the same time being committed to finding interesting certain expressions that may employ that same term but under conditions where I ascribe basically no cognitive content to it. Or something like that (again, probably did not represent myself so well there). 😕

Originally posted by vistesd
It seems that theists (those who embrace what Plantinga rejects, anyway) have difficulty themselves, since they continually use temporal language--e.g., the universe began at the moment when God created it: “In the beginning…”.

What can it mean to say that the beginning of the creation was not also a beginning for God: when God ...[text shortened]... o add that I don’t believe there is such a God-being as theists assert; I remain a non-dualist.[/b]

These are good comments. Also, I think it can be difficult (speaking for myself) to discuss such things because I think I tend to be pretty entrenched in a certain view of what time is or what talk of time reduces to. If someone else comes to the discussion with some radically different view of time, then odds are we are rather talking past each other. For instance, the site below gives a short bit on so-called reductionism vs Platonism with respect to time. That is one example of substantive difference in view that can arise.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/

Originally posted by vishvahetu
to lemon jello

god is certainly active in time, out of time, before time, after time, and

god is all things means, god,s energy is all things and gods energy supports all things, not god personally but gods eternal spiitual energy.

you see god is multi dimensional, and if you want to understand that, you better reach for the panadol forte,

cheers vishvahetu

you see god is multi dimensional, and if you want to understand that

Mostly, what I wanted to understand in the context of the current thread is how one may reconcile a view of some entity's being eternal and that entity's also being causally active (actually, further, I am interested how it may be reconciled within some traditional views of theism). You already stated that in your view, "eternal means simply no beginning or end." So, again, I would see no problem with that in the current context: as far as I can tell, some being could be without beginning or end and yet causally active in time.

Originally posted by KellyJay
God gives everything His full attention at all times everywhere, He is not
distracted anywhere, nor is He limited anywhere at any time either by
what He is doing else where. He give each speck His all everywhere at
once as He does the largest things or systems too.
Kelly

It sounds to me like you are saying that God is more or less maximally involved, in that He is doing different things all at full attention at different places (or even all places) at all times.

What I am not understanding is how you think this relates to eternality. Do you think that God is "eternal"? If so, is what you describe here what you think His eternality consists of? Or do you think His eternality consists of the separate point you described earlier (that "God always was, is, and will be" )? By the way, I am not trying to be difficult or dense; just trying to make sure I understand you.

Originally posted by LemonJello
It sounds to me like you are saying that God is more or less maximally involved, in that He is doing different things all at full attention at different places (or even all places) at all times.

Does Kelly mean that we don't have any free will? That his god interferes everywhere, not letting any of us decide what we want?

That wouldn't be a god I willingly would worship, not even respect.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Does Kelly mean that we don't have any free will? That his god interferes everywhere, not letting any of us decide what we want?

That wouldn't be a god I willingly would worship, not even respect.

Does Kelly mean that we don't have any free will? That his god interferes everywhere, not letting any of us decide what we want?

No, I do not think that is what he means. If it is, KJ can correct me on that.

Originally posted by LemonJello
Thanks for your thoughts. I'm not sure I understand this scenario though. I will have to give it more thought.

It's something I've being playing around with for a while (and surely needs work or shown to be untenable) to reconcile the theist notion of "timeless" god whose entire existence is not reduced to a singular temporal point.
My motivation for this being nothing other than a test of feasibility - I don't believe in God!.

The basic idea (and I can only talk about it in an abstract sense) is that God has it's own timeline(s) (loosely speaking), and setting aside paradoxes for now may be able to traverse them both forwards and backwards. Suppose that these 'timelines' are orthogonal to our own (for simplicity think of the familiar Euclidean coordinate system and consider each axis a 'timeline-axis'😉.
Then in just the same way you can construct a 2-D plane by attaching to each point on a line, another line perpendicular to it; one may suppose that for each point on some god timeline (I'm not assuming only one) there corresponds an entire timeline that could potentially have been played out by us. Furthermore, God may be able to traverse some other timeline axis with a particular timeline of our own fixed (ie: the one we exist in) such that it can "do stuff to us". Since this timeline (of ours) as we play it out would be attached to a point on these 'God-timelines' then the timeless property of God makes sense.

I add that this doesn't give a free pass to champions of omniscience + libertarian free-will howver as in this model are entire existence is instantiated on precisely one timeline and the usual arguments apply.

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]Does Kelly mean that we don't have any free will? That his god interferes everywhere, not letting any of us decide what we want?

No, I do not think that is what he means. If it is, KJ can correct me on that.[/b]

Actually I don't understands the arguments of Kelly.
If you compile every posting he has written at the various Forums, then we can find that he has a lot of opinions that isn't quite so coherent...
Never mind. Without Kelly, this Forum would be far less interesting.

Originally posted by LemonJello
It sounds to me like you are saying that God is more or less maximally involved, in that He is doing different things all at full attention at different places (or even all places) at all times.

What I am not understanding is how you think this relates to eternality. Do you think that God is "eternal"? If so, is what you describe here what you thin ...[text shortened]... he way, I am not trying to be difficult or dense; just trying to make sure I understand you.

Eternal, the was, is, and will be relates to when and as I described what
I think about Him it is how He is too, eternal in scope as well.
Kelly

Originally posted by LemonJello
These are good comments. Also, I think it can be difficult (speaking for myself) to discuss such things because I think I tend to be pretty entrenched in a certain view of what time is or what talk of time reduces to. If someone else comes to the discussion with some radically different view of time, then odds are we are rather talking past each other. ...[text shortened]... ple of substantive difference in view that can arise.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/

Thanks for the link; I'll look at it as soon as I get a chance. On the other question, I was probably over-reacting to something that is just a pet-peeve of mine (and you and I have long shared some thoughts on that).

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]you see god is multi dimensional, and if you want to understand that

Mostly, what I wanted to understand in the context of the current thread is how one may reconcile a view of some entity's being eternal and that entity's also being causally active (actually, further, I am interested how it may be reconciled within some traditional views of the ...[text shortened]... as I can tell, some being could be without beginning or end and yet causally active in time.[/b]

to lemon jello

god being causily active and eternal doesnt present a problem to me, you see god is outside of time, but his/her spiritual energies are acting constantly, all of the time to infinity, within time.

you see god being all powerfull, can and does exspand himself into every atom that exists, and at the same time remains in one place, but this is a paradox.

yes it is a paradox, and if you want to appreciate god, get used to them.

cheers vishvahetu

Originally posted by vishvahetu
to lemon jello

god being causily active and eternal doesnt present a problem to me, you see god is outside of time, but his/her spiritual energies are acting constantly, all of the time to infinity, within time.

you see god being all powerfull, can and does exspand himself into every atom that exists, and at the same time remains in one place, but t ...[text shortened]...
yes it is a paradox, and if you want to appreciate god, get used to them.

cheers vishvahetu

You seem awfully sure of your data there Vishvahetu. Any doubts in there at all?

Originally posted by avalanchethecat
You seem awfully sure of your data there Vishvahetu. Any doubts in there at all?

I think vishva put it pretty crudley there, but I ,for one, would agree with one part-ie, the universe is a paradox.

Originally posted by vistesd
It seems that theists (those who embrace what Plantinga rejects, anyway) have difficulty themselves, since they continually use temporal language--e.g., the universe began at the moment when God created it: “In the beginning…”.

What can it mean to say that the beginning of the creation was not also a beginning for God: when God ...[text shortened]... o add that I don’t believe there is such a God-being as theists assert; I remain a non-dualist.[/b]

Even the words “seeing” and “doing” seem to imply temporality. Even present tense does not seem “atemporal” to me (what would an “untensed” language be like?).

Well, vistesd, I think it is important to distinguish tense and time. Tense is purely grammatical, a verbal inflection which may convey some temporal meaning. Many languages do not have tenses, for example, Bahasa Indonesia. Time is signified by temporal adverbs. Many languages also assign multiple temporal significances to tense inflections. English, for example, uses the present tense to indicate present -- "I am writing" -- atemporal -- "two and two is four" -- and even future ideas -- "I am in New York tomorrow". There is no one-to-one correspondence between tense and time and the two should not be conflated. One is fixed in the realm of syntax, the other in semantics.