How can an atemporal God create?

April 8, 2014 by  
Filed under Dialogues

 

alpha-and-omega

Jay Kruzuski
 

 

If God is an atemporal act and there is no “will do” in God, how does he create? Apologists like William Lane Craig will say that God enters into time upon creation, but this doesn’t make sense to me. If He is an atemporal act, he shouldn’t be able “to do” anything. How would you respond to this? (I don’t think New Apologetics has answered this yet. If I am wrong, don’t take the time to make a special answer for me just redirect me to an answer that you approve of.) Thanks

 

New Apologetics
Though much work has gone into his thought on the matter, Craig is mistaken to say either of the following:

1) God is atemporal sans creation, but must become temporal upon creation.
2) God must depart from atemporality in order to have two-way interactions with creatures.

The advocate of either of these ideas must assert that it is conceptually impossible for God to will the creation to occur a finite time ago without a concomitant transition from one intention to the next. Such an assertion, however, is manifestly false given that states of affairs can be willed to obtain *conditionally*. 

For example, in order to bring about the creation without changing His mind, God could immutably will something like “If there is no light, then let there be light”, or “If there is no light at t5, then let light begin to exist at t6 .” There is simply no reason to believe that God’s act of willing is restricted to direct commands, like “Let there be light”, which is illegitimately presumed to be temporally preceded by God willing the opposite state. 

The same kind of “atemporal conditional willing” can account for two-way interactions with creatures without requiring that God change his mind. For example, God could changelessly will something like “If Jay prays for NewApologetics, then they will be able to teach the truth, but if Jay does not pray, then they will not be able to teach the truth”. The outcome depends on what God wills and what Jay *chooses*, and this interaction does not involve God changing his mind in any way.

Consider that the exact nature of God’s atemporal action cannot fit into categories corresponding to our spatiotemporal experience. It is something foreign to us and inconceivable in its essence from our perspective. However, even though that is true, we have (in the above demonstration) easy ways of showing from what *is* in our experience that there is no conceptual necessity that God must be temporal in order to account for creation or for establishing the possibility of two-way interaction with creatures.
 
Kevin Bruce its not really will then is it?
i am a man with many skills. i play minecraft for fun(tekkit)
they have these mining turtles(in game robot) they run on a computer launguage called lua.
after learning about lua. i wrote a program for the turtle it digs a tunnel at a 45degree down with a spot for steps and a waterslide

conditional statements like “If there is no light at t5, then let light begin to exist at t6 “
require several steps
gather data, evaluate data via conditional statement, return a true or false condition the true or false condition then initiates the action. that is quite a few temporal steps for a yet atemporal being, just the act of waiting from t-infinity to t5 is temporal.

as soon as a conditional is created and is running(applied(a temporal event itself)) the data gatheing begins.seaching for t5 retuning false till t5 reached returning true executing a data gather of light conditions a true condition would end tyhe program a false condition would cause the creation of light at t6.
 
New Apologetics
Kevin Bruce The conditionals written into the program are an external expression of your will. If your intellect were infinite, it could account for all conditionals, not just the limited set within a particular program.
 
Jay Kruzuski New Apologetics, Thanks. Perfect answer. Now, quick partially-related question about The Holy Rosary. Does God have programmed into himself: “If you do not pray 500,000 (or more) Hail Mary’s in a lifetime, you do not get to have dinner with the Immaculate Conception in Heaven. However, if you *do* pray 500,000 (or more) Hail Mary’s in a lifetime, you *do* get to have dinner with the Immaculate Conception in Heaven”???
 
New Apologetics
Jay Kruzuski Note, we don’t say that the “if-thens” are how it really is. We use it only as a conceptual tool to show that there is no impossibility in an atemporal God doing what seems prima facie impossible to do without change. We don’t think it’s literal truth about the nature of God.

*If* the above is a reference to the possibility of slipping into hell for “missing the mark” (despite one’s desire to be with God), *then* we say that a good use of the Rosary would be to pray to become an atheist with reference to all false gods.
 
Jay Kruzuski No, it was half-joke, half-question about why we would say the same prayers again and again, especially when Jesus says (Mt 21:22) that “Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.” It’s as if He didn’t hear us the first, fifth, or thousandth time. Is it to keep us in line on a daily – even hourly – basis? (:
 
Kevin Bruce //The conditionals written into the program are an external expression of your will.//
did god at some point create these conditions?
the execution of the conditional statement is not an act of will. it is simply a computer folowing the rules that govern it
so either the conditional statement always existed and as such was not willed to be and as result creation was not of gods will,
or a atemporal being prior to creating time created a condition that before that did not exist… which is a paradox 

//The conditionals written into the program are an external expression of your will.//
to assume it is the expression of my will is to assume i have free will. there is no reason to think this to be true.
given the knowledge we have of how the brain works it is clear we are biological computers following the evolved conditional rules that govern us.

// If your intellect were infinite, it could account for all conditionals, not just the limited set within a particular program.//
well yes but at the same time if that was true i wouldnt need to run a soul sorting program called Earth either….
 
Kevin Bruce … i really dont know why this god being must be atemporal….
 
Jun Famorcan if… then why Christ in the garden of gethsemane prayed twice, thrice.. to the Father using the same words…
 
Jay Kruzuski Question: Why would we say the same prayers again and again, especially when Jesus says (Mt 21:22) that “Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.” It’s as if He didn’t hear us the first, fifth, or thousandth time. Why is it not just vain and useless repetition?
 
New Apologetics
Jay Kruzuski You wrote: Why would we say the same prayers again and again, especially when Jesus says (Mt 21:22) that “Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.” It’s as if He didn’t hear us the first, fifth, or thousandth time. Why is it not just vain and useless repetition?

We reply: It is because we are temporal. We may know fully that that we have been heard, but we nonetheless tend to talk about what is important to us in the moment. Words are limited, and we therefore repeat ourselves when a long enough span of time goes by without our request being fulfilled.

Further, the petitioning is done through us by the Holy Spirit. We don’t know how to pray, but the Spirit does. If we petition much about something, and we do so neither because we are anxious about being heard, nor because we are hoping to convince God with our many words, then God is the one doing the praying through us and we should let him. 

It may be that this repetition is necessary for the ordering of the world in such a way that the prayer can be answered. Consider that if there were someone who had prayed slightly differently 200 years ago, none of us would be here. 

The identity of the whole population of the world depends on the prayers and actions of any one person from the past. We say this not to emphasize a novel fact, but to recollect that any individual has sweeping power over the whole human race.
Jay Kruzuski
Firstly, you’re saying that it is beneficial for us to talk/pray about what is currently going on, even if it means being repetitive, so that is what God tells us to do? Secondly, if we pray a prayer once, but the world is not currently ordered in such a way that the prayer can be answered immediately, then why wouldn’t God put the prayer in his heavenly filing cabinet and then retrieve it when the world is ready?
 
New Apologetics
Jay Kruzuski He could do that, and indeed he does. The crucial factor is that we persevere in our intention. If it is a manifestation of confidence that we do not repeat ourselves, then so be it; we are persevering in full hope. If our non-repetition is a manifestation of our departure from the fullness of hope, then it is disordered.
 
Kevin Bruce // Consider that if there were someone who had prayed slightly differently 200 years ago, none of us would be here. //
wow…* slow golf clap that conveys a slightly mocking tone*
is that the best you got?
suggesting we are here because some unknown unknamed person prayed a certian way?

//He could do that, and indeed he does.// and how would this being you insit is atemporal do this?
 
Jay Kruzuski Thank you.
 
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