Begotten before all ages

[paulespino]

It's analgous to space. God didn't have to create space. As soon as He created matter, space was there. For space is simply a measurement of the distance between two objects. No objects; no space.

I think it is very difficult to know the condition of the planet prior to Creation. I don't think there is a biblical record with respect to the condition of the planet prior to the creation. It is also possible that there was no space prior to the creation
which is a possiblity since God can exist no matter what.

Therefore your statement is an assumption.

Actually thisthread could be an assumption base on philosophical argument.

[darinhouston]

I would have loved to sit in on one of your classes and hear you extrapolate on this subject.

Do you mean "expound on this subject"? Rats! There's the teacher coming out in me again. Why do I have the need to correct people?

Forgive me in advance!

Let's see -- if you know X and X+1 but only shared X, then later sharing X+1 would be "expounding," but if you knew and had spoken of X and Y, knew nothing of an unknowable Z, to speak of Z on the basis of X and Y would then be an extrapolation, wouldn't it?

[darinhouston]

Hulse and Taylor's 1994 Nobel prize winning work confirmed general relativity to better than a trillionth-of-a-percent precision. This confirmation relates to the work of Hawking and Penrose, whose space-time theorem rested on two conditions: 1) that the universe contains mass (no question about this one), and 2) that general relativity is a reliable theory. Their space-time theorem shows that the Cause of the universe must exist beyond all the matter and energy of the universe and beyond the space-time dimensions along which the universe is distributed. From general relativity and more recent physics research we learn that the universe began with ten space-time dimensions. Almost immediately, at 10 -43 seconds after the creation event, the ten split into six static dimensions (dimensions that can never unfurl) and four expanding dimensions, the ones we experience. These discoveries contradict virtually all religious and cultural teachings about creation—except the biblical doctrine of creation. As the atheist astronomer Geoffrey Burbidge complained, his peers in physics and astronomy are rushing off to "join the First Church of Christ of the Big Bang." He saw the connection....

Unfortunately, I fear that the above interpretation may be too charitable, that Ross does, in fact, conceive of God as literally existing in extra spatio-temporal dimensions. Ross could not be more explicit in his rejection of divine timelessness:

My choice of the word timeful to describe God’s time-related capacities deliberately contradicts a notion that much of the church has held and taught for many centuries, the notion of a ‘timeless’ eternity as the realm where God lives and where we will live someday also (p. 65).2

Singling out Augustine and Aquinas as proponents of this doctrine, Ross exclaims, “... rare indeed is the student or professor who dares to challenge the doctrine of God’s dwelling in a timeless eternity” (p. 66), as Ross evidently means to do. In his view, God “must possess at least one more time dimension (or some attribute, capacity, super-dimension or supra-dimension that encompasses all the properties of time.... The Creator’s capacities include at least two, perhaps more, time dimensions” (pp. 23-24). God is thus a temporal being which exists in at least one additional dimension of time to the one we experience. Less explicit, but strongly implied is the view that God also exists spatially. Ross frequently speaks of God’s “operating” in ten dimensions of space, which a defender of divine spacelessness might reasonably construe to mean that God, though transcending space, produces effects in space. But this is evidently not Ross’s meaning. For he thinks of God accessing our four-dimensional realm from higher dimensions, just as a three-dimensional being can access a two-dimensional realm from the third dimension (pp. 74-79, 89-95). Thus, he says that God “exists and operates in several spatial dimensions beyond our three” (p. 24); “God.., lives and operates in the equivalent of at least eleven dimensions of space and time” (p. 33); “... His space or other dimensions give Him a complete view of us, inside and out” (p. 132); by contrast, “... we lack God’s extra-dimensional perspective to look directly upon ‘the thoughts and intents of the heart"' (p. 158). It is difficult to avoid the interpretation that God literally exists in higher spatial dimensions which afford Him access to our three-dimensional space.

Consider then Ross's account of divine eternity and its relationship to time. While I agree that God ought to be thought of as temporal since the moment of creation, Ross's account of God's temporality strikes me as multiply flawed and inadequately motivated. To deal with the second point first, Ross rejects divine timelessness because such a doctrine would imply that God "exists where causes and effects do not happen, and this idea contradicts biblical teachings" (p. 66). In what has to be the most whopping understatement in the whole book, Ross muses, "To be fair, Augustine and Aquinas probably did not see the connection between time and cause and effect to the degree that people in contemporary society do" (p. 66)! That no doubt has something to do with the fact that Augustine and Aquinas were not positivistic reductionists, as twentieth century physicists and philosophers of space and time have tended to be. Ross himself subscribes to some sort of causal theory of time: "Time is defined by the operation of cause-and-effect phenomena" (p. 66). He gives no justification for this controversial view.3 Indeed, I think that such a definition is obviously incorrect. We can imagine a world in which occasionalism is true: God recreates the world anew at each successive instant so that there are no cause-effect relations between phenomena in the world. Such a world seems obviously possible; in fact some Christians (like Malebranche) believed occasionalism is true. So causation is not a necessary condition of time. Neither is it obviously a sufficient condition. On Ross's conception of time, why could God not timelessly cause the whole space-time manifold with all the events in it to exist? Ross gives no answer. Moreover, even if God is temporal subsequent to His creation of the world, what about God existing sans the world? Could He not be timeless in such a state?

As for the first point, Ross's account of God's temporality is problematic.4 His answer to the problem of God and the beginning of time is to postulate a second time dimension, a sort of hypertime, in which God exists and created the world. Now we need to be very clear as to what a hyper-time would be. It would be a succession of hypermoments at each of which our entire time dimension exists.
...

Just before our heads explode, here's a snippet from a panel discussion of Hugh Ross' views of creation, time and space. There's much more there and I understand almost none of it.

[SteveF]

Let's see -- if you know X and X+1 but only shared X, then later sharing X+1 would be "expounding," but if you knew and had spoken of X and Y, knew nothing of an unknowable Z, to speak of Z on the basis of X and Y would then be an extrapolation, wouldn't it?

Darin, you read my mind.

[darinhouston]

Let's see -- if you know X and X+1 but only shared X, then later sharing X+1 would be "expounding," but if you knew and had spoken of X and Y, knew nothing of an unknowable Z, to speak of Z on the basis of X and Y would then be an extrapolation, wouldn't it?

Darin, you read my mind.

Sorry, Paidion -- my own teachers never cared much for my sense of humor.

[Paidion]

Let's see -- if you know X and X+1 but only shared X, then later sharing X+1 would be "expounding," but if you knew and had spoken of X and Y, knew nothing of an unknowable Z, to speak of Z on the basis of X and Y would then be an extrapolation, wouldn't it?

I guessed that some one would come up with a justification of the use of "extrapolation". If that was the mind of SteveF also, then I apologize Steve.

As for the general theory of relativity being "reliable", I think this means its predictive nature causes it to be generally accepted. However, I believe it is not descriptive of time and space, but is rather a theory about the behaviour of light.

The idea that time slows down and objects shorten for anyone on a space ship travelling at a speed which approaches light is, in my opinion false. In my opinion, this conclusion has been reached from the observation of the curvature of light over huge distances.

[mikew]

It has been understood (and I'll hopefully mention the right physics terms) that alpha particles entering the earth's atmosphere, hit the earth's surface. The only way these particles would be able to hit the surface and not have decomposed (as alpha particles do in a predictable amount of time) is that the particles were in a different time zone relative to the observation platform of the earthlings. That is to say that the particles were traveling near the speed of light and hence had a slower time clock than those seeing the particle hit the earth's surface.

But I do tend to think that higher Physics (God's view of Physics) has an absolute time frame that would be found to exist.

[Paidion]

That is to say that the particles were traveling near the speed of light and hence had a slower time clock than those seeing the particle hit the earth's surface.

Instead of having a slower time clock, could the stream of particles have travelled in a curved or bent path in such a way that "slower time clock" could be an explanation, if the curved or bent path were not taken into account.

[SteveF]

I guessed that some one would come up with a justification of the use of "extrapolation". If that was the mind of SteveF also, then I apologize Steve.

No Problem Paidion . I guess I consider the subject ultimately unknowable, yet we seem to be able to take the best of what we do know and create some reasonable hypotheses.

[TK]

I came across Rev 1:8 today- if this verse has been discussed before in the context of this topic, I apologize. Here are several versions:

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." (NKJV)

I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." (NASB)

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." (NIV)

“I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end,” says the Lord God. “I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One.” (NLT)

Note that the NLT is the only version that uses the phrase "who always was." Is this an appropriate greek translation, or is it better translated as simply "was?"

I think this is important-- if Paidion is right then God's first act was begetting the Son. If the phrase "who always was" is an accurate translation, then it would seem that there never was a time when Jesus "wasn't." But if Paidion's view is correct, there had to be at least the most fleeting moment when Jesus wasn't, if at some point God begat Him.

I know, clear as mud.

TK