Can Matter Be Eternal and Created at the Same Time?

Aleteia ^ | April 13, 2015 | WILLIAM E. CARROLL

[Grateful2God]

Job 37 [13] And didst thou hold the extremities of the earth shaking them, and hast thou shaken the ungodly out of it?"

The dinosaurs mostly fell off. The ones that were in God's hands were compressed into fossil fuel.

JUST KIDDING but, then again, not too shabby!

[PapaNew]

You’re welcome.

[UCANSEE2]

Thanks for taking the time to enter such a detailed and inspiring response.

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”.

Bingo.

[UCANSEE2]

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.

Although I have found that there are many patterns and 'layers' to stories in the Bible. I hadn't thought about that primary pattern in that way before.

Thank you for giving me something to ponder.

[UCANSEE2]

Um, no. You don't seem to quite grasp the concept of infinite

I grasp the concept. That's the easy part. I cannot grasp infinity itself. I dare say no one can. Grasping infinity is a contradiction in terms.

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.

These three things:

Volume of the Universe.

Number of Elementary Particles

Amount of time the Universe has existed

Are theories that we have no proof of, and never, ever will. In a recent articles, scientists have found that the practice of using a certain class of supernova's to judge the distance of objects in the Universe is not even correct. Adjusting to that fact will change our view of the 'size' of the Universe.

On the other end of the scale, we have , for hundreds of years, predicted the smallest size an 'object' can be. That keeps changing, and is in flux even today. We haven't found the bottom of the well yet. I don't know if we can. It, like the 'size' of the Universe may be something we can never confirm.

[annalex]

Thomas helps us to recognize that creation refers to an on-going causal dependence

Yes.

Another consideration is the "eternal" only makes sense if there is time. But God created time, as a part of the universe. We cannot make a non-contradictory statement about the age of the universe if time is understood to be created with it.

[RJS1950]

There are noted anomalies in deep space and in quantum physics that depart from the second law and are still not fully explained.

[Heart-Rest]

What "is", was not, and what "was not", is.

(And, no, Mrs. Nussbaum, I wasn't there!)

☺

[metmom]

But where it comes from and why it is so vehement, I have no idea.

You ought to have an idea.

There's an enemy of our souls working in this world.

[trebb]

Matter is as eternal as God decided it would be. Since we can only imagine the concept of eternity in a limited and imperfect way, we are bound to the timeline and universe that is just a tick of the second hand when compared to the great "I AM" who exists at all times, past/present/future because He also exists outside the parameters of the universe He spoke into existence.

[Tucker39]

Genesis Chapter 1 says, “God said” not God thought.

There have been lots of cockamamie ideas over the centuries. I once read where some brilliant individual suggested that the entire Universe is merely a jewel set in a ring God wears on His ring finger.

I’ll accept what The Word says.

[NYer]

What "is", was not, and what "was not", is.

Ecclesiastes 1:14-18

[Zionist Conspirator]

There's an enemy of our souls working in this world.

According to the "new testament." There is no "devil," "gxd of this world," or independent "kingdom of evil" in the TaNa"KH. And the very idea is profoundly at odds with the notion of One G-d.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Did you notice that the author of the article admits that the church fathers all thought the universe had a beginning? But Catholics/Orthodox don’t consider the church fathers authorities on any subject where they agree with today’s Fundamentalist Protestants. In those cases they were merely “men of their time” who assumed the “science of their day.” But whenever they disagree with Fundamentalist Protestants they suddenly and magically become infallible.