Posted on 04/13/2015 2:37:54 PM PDT by NYer
“What would that be?”
Exactly. Anything outside this universe is entirely outside the limits of science to describe, so we can’t scientifically say what it may or may not be, or what properties such things might possess, etc. Thus you cannot apply principles observed in this universe to anything that might theoretically exist outside of it.
Well, you see ... the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob set up a day to be how long it is, since he’s the creator.
I actually don’t understand what the problem would be, or is, in relation to what a day is.
We know what it is now from our own measurements, but we weren’t there at that time. God was and he set it up to be an evening and a morning ... that is ... that length of time.
Is that some kind of problem?
“LIKE”
I prefer to use words like “everlasting” for things which are subject to time yet have no beginning nor end, and “eternal” for the timeless.
It seems Aquinas anticipated or laid the ground work for the understanding of the Immaculate Conception. God’s saving act need not pre-date it’s effects any more than the creator-creature relationship implies a creative across bound by time.
IMHO.
I was thinking the same thing...great minds and all
yep..
No. I am not attacking your belief, nor trying to change it. You are a FRiend, and I have very high respect for you and appreciate your responses.
I have been taught the same religious principles you have, but I don't necessarily understand them. Especially when they seem contradictory or impossible. That limitation in understanding is all mine.
The more I discuss it with others, the more I learn. That is what prompts me to query you.
I actually don’t understand what the problem would be, or is, in relation to what a day is.
Then, would it matter if a day were 23.59 earth 'hours', or if it were a billion years, back before the beginning of the Universe, the Solar System, and Earth ?
Does an eternal God experience the passing of 'time' ?
Wouldn't it make more sense to believe that the authors in Genesis were just trying to convey the general idea of the creation in terms that the simplest of minds could comprehend, rather than that God experienced DAY and NIGHT ?
BTW, I looked over my questions on the last post, and they are argumentative. You don’t have to answer them.
I think what I want to say is never had a problem with the Bible description of ‘six days’ for creation. But I never limited myself to thinking that it meant the exact same as what we experience as six days.
In other words, there are things in the Bible that I don’t take ‘literal’, and I don’t believe they were intended to be taken that way.
Maybe that’s just me.
“The Universe is so large, one might as well consider it infinite. I doubt we will ever find the ‘extent’ of it.”
Well, scientists actually don’t think that they will be ever be able to detect the full extent of the universe. There is a concept called the “Hubble limit”. Basically, take the speed of light, multiply it by the age of the universe, and you get a radius, beyond which we can’t detect anything. If the universe is expanding, as scientists believe, then there will be some portion of the universe outside that limit that remains forever undetectable (barring some radical change in our understanding of physics).
That is the argument I use when scientists claim to know the size of the Universe.
If it matters or if it don`t` matter makes no matter to me.
God is eternal.
"Matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed"
Then where did it come from in the first place? There had to be someone to create it from nothing and put it into order.
It may not convince them, but it sure is a stumper. And when the they do the 6 day number, I say that God created light, which puts the situation into the realm of relativity... Again, gives them something to think about. For me, of you believe that God could create the universe at all, why is it a stretch to believe He could do it in 6 days?
Of there's a dearth of knowledge between science and religion, it's on our part, because we're finite beings. Our souls are immortal, but only God is eternal. "Father Knows Best!"
I’m so glad that the “forever” part of our existence is not this life! I hope I make it, because I can’t wait until this part’s over!
Um, no. You don't seem to quite grasp the concept of infinite, or the degree to which finiteness constrains things. There are a lot of arguments on the boundary between science and metaphysics that would be sound with a genuinely infinite or genuinely eternal physical universe, but collapse when the volume of the universe, or the number of elementary particles, or the amount of time the universe has existed are limited to any finite size.
Thanks for explaining ... :-) ...
There is a “given” or two that I’m operating from. Yes, not all that we are given in the Bible is understandable or makes sense in a conventional way. But when thinking about it further, and in the context of who God is, it’s “sensible”. One given, and that’s from the revelation of the Bible itself ... is that all those attributes of God are really true. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, righteous, and then loving.
Then, the Word of God is, in its entirety, a revelation to the world, given by God, using specially chosen men to write what he wanted. This, in other words, is a one-of-a-kind writing, from God, to us ... so that we can know what he wanted us to know.
Then, in light of our present topic, the Word of God is not in any way contradictory of true science ... it’s just that true science has limitations and can’t “tell it all”. Then there is the kind of science that is “politicized” in the same way we see it happening with Anthropogenic Global Warming. We can see what is happening there, and it happens that way in other areas of science, too, especially when dealing with issues having to do with God (building bridges, planes, buildings and other such things usually doesn’t impinge on God, so we don’t typically run into problems there).
You talk about limitations in understanding. We all have that. No one understands fully what God has said in intricate detail. We just don’t “get it” and that’s the bottom line ... BUT ... there are some things that we “have been given”. And what we have been given is not exhaustive, but only “what is necessary” to know from the standpoint of what God decided to reveal.
Some people think that God only has revealed inerrant and authoritative information and facts strictly dealing with “salvation issues”. But I would say that God has tied salvation issues directly and inseparably into the “real world” in such a way that “salvation” cannot be separated from “six days of creation”.
Some say that whatever happened in the “real world” bears no significance on God’s love and righteousness and salvation of mankind through Jesus, as the Messiah. I see it (and the Bible speaks to the issue this way) that the “physical world” was patterned after the spiritual and it was “made that way” (the way God says) in order to PROVE that God is exactly who he says he is.
It’s one thing to “make up a religion” ... as anyone can do that ... but it’s quite another thing to make the real world and all its processes conform to what that religion says because “God made it that way” to prove who he is and what he is.
Okay ... someone could say that’s only my own perspective, but from the way I read it, it’s the perspective of God and His Word! It’s usually “people” who can’t accept that, who try to separate what God has done in “salvation” from his creation and how he made all things. I think that the Buble makes creation inseparable from salvation.
AND ... all I’m doing here is explaining where I’m coming from, because none of this is going to convince anyone beyond what they personally want to be convinced ... so there are no “proofs” here to “convince.” And for “the other side” ... there are no proofs there, either, to “convince.”
That doesn’t mean that anyone can believe anything they want and it’s just their choice ... rather ... it’s that you (anyone) has the choice to believe whatever they want for now, but at some time in the future their choice is going to be proven right or wrong. And if wrong (according to the Bible) then it’s going to be a tremendously terrible “wrong” (in salvation).
BACK TO what you were asking. Does it matter whether a day is so many hours or longer like “years” ... well, it only matters in terms of what God said, and nothing more. I mean ... “Why six days?” ... God, being who he is, could have done it all in a fraction of a second. He didn’t need six days. I can’t tell you the reason for six days, except that God chose it that way and tells us that it’s that way. And then God uses that pattern for mankind, in that they work six days and rest on the seventh. There’s really nothing in the natural universe to cause us to use a seven-day week and pattern our repititions after that cycle of seven days. It’s solely from that pattern that God gave us.
And then as to whether God experiences “time” ... one can’t know what God experiences, outside of what he tells you. God says he knows the end from the beginning, indicating that “time” is not a factor for him. Does he understand time? I would say that if God created it, then he understands it, even though he is “outside” the parameter of time.
What is difficult for me to understand, and this comes from some scientists today, that “time” is a parameter of the existence of the universe (i.e., it existing or not existing) and that if ,after and space doesn’t exist, “time” does not exist. What God has told us, by the fact that he created everything, is that he is not subject to or bound by time. But, it is clearly indicated that he “defines” time as a created parameter that he made.
And then, your last paragraph ... if the Bible was simply a historical writing, by ordinary men, then what you say would be reasonable. However, the Word of God is presented to us as being his word and that it is inerrant, down to the smallest detail (in writing) as indicated by Jesus. If, as some say, that the details about the physical world are not important, but just the salvation message is ... I would say it’s pretty darned “physical” what is supposed to happen in being raised from the dead and living in a “kingdom” under the rule of the Messiah if Israel. I say, if the physical is not reliable, the salvation message is not either.
Well, I hope I didn’t make some major typos here, because I’m not proofing it beforehand ... and so I hope this helps a little bit.
No, you’re created and exist in the aeon. The Greek Fathers made a distinction between that which has a beginning, but is made to exist without end — the soul, the bodiless powers, even, thanks to the general resurrection, the body — and that which is eternal, without beginning or end — God. The former they referred to as existing in the aeon, the latter as eternal.
I wrote anyway ... so we’ll see how it goes ... :-) ...
If Jesus is in your heart, you’ve got eternity with you all the time.
If not, just ask Him in. He’ll be your Best Friend forever. :)
Well, Jesus is eternal and he exists in my heart through the Holy Spirit because I simply asked Him to come into my heart.
Try it, you’ll like it.
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