Alright, don't let the title scare you. It was the most accurate title I could think of that still pertained to what I am going to write about. Or it could be the first title I came up with. Either way, keep reading:
I think one area that is never really explained is how God views our existence on Earth. Of course he values us and sees us as very important creations of his, but I mean quite literally, how he sees us. God is the creator of everything we live in. That means all our tools we use to discover God's nature is from a finite point of view. If you can recall, God is infinite and essentially indiscoverable through our finite methods. The only ground we gain in the discovery of God's nature is through starting with the one thing God gave us called Truth (better known as the Bible ;)). If we start with what we know as being absolutely true coming from the infinite God himself, we can build our knowledge from there. I am certain that if God did not directly tell us of his nature (e.g. if the universe was essentially Deist), we would never even come close to discovering his attributes.
Another interesting area that is important Christians understand is how God see's time. Being finite beings, we are locked into three forms of time: Past, Present and Future. And to be quite literal, we only ever experience the Present time. This is because we are bound by the finite laws of time. However, God is infinite and the creator of time and thus he is outside of time. Now I am going on speculation here, but I envision God seeing the Past, Present and Future happening at the same time. Sure that doesn't make sense, because we only understand time through a finite point of view. It is the only way a finite mind can explain and understand how an infinite mind might work. God sees all three forms of time happening all at once. This is just the nature of trying to understand infinite with finite means. However, I didn't think of this for no reason. I thought of this thought process to explain the mixing of Armenism and Calvinism--which is enough of a topic to cover on it's own another time.
Anyways, that was what was on my mind for a while now. I am glad I am able to get these thoughts out more often. Like I said, I have been slowly growing in interest of Apologetics and this only fuels me more. Another side note: I believe that Apologetics might actually be what God wants me to do with my life. In some way, some how, I believe I am going to be using Apologetics to glorify God in whatever profession I wind up being in.
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Seriously, it's pretty clear you barely understand the implications of infinity, never mind concepts involving time.
If God is actually infinite, as you claim, then he's actually IN everything around us. Therefore he's not actually outside of this universe. Infinity doesn't work that way. So you're providing two contradictory points of view on this.
We don't understand time from just a finite point of view (at least how you seem to be representing the word "finite"). We understand it on a pretty deep level and anyone that's studied things like Special Relativity would tell you that. Concepts like past, present, future can even blur from OUR own perspectives, because velocity is related to time.
And obviously the Bible isn't absolutely true because Noah's Flood never physically happened. Therefore there's an element of fantasy in the book (there's a whole slew of other examples) and the whole thing can pretty much be dismissed. (This is called proof by contradiction, so therefore everything you present is built on a faulty premise.)
The problem with you going into apologetics is you'll never get by someone who ever studied Analytical Philosophy or someone who studies Mathematics. The way you're developing your "truths" is making them up as you go along. You don't provide any data, you just make up something that might logically fit into something after "thinking" it over. You don't ever seek to prove it, you just throw it out there and say "see, it's consistent" regardless if it's true or not. An argument based on fantasy, regardless of how consistent, is still a fantasy.
I feel like there's vocab confusion here. For example, as a Christian, I'm pretty sure Air-Ek believes that God is VERY present here, not outside of the universe looking in. I think when he's talking about God being outside of time, he's saying that God is not constrained by time the way you and I inevitably are.
And we can get a pretty deep understanding of time and infinity. "He has set eternity in the hearts of men," that's Ecclisiastes 3:11. But honestly, ignoring this conversation, if you sit and think about eternity, doesn't your mind boggle a little bit? In a cool way, I mean. Because even our discussion of "past, present future" blurring together shows our sequential, beginning, middle, end type of view, even if you're talking about beginning stretching back into forever and end stretching out in the other direction. We have to put things that we can't experience into some sort of frame of reference that we can understand, even though the explanation we come up with is totally inadequate. That's how it has to be, talking about an infinite being who came up with the idea of space and time and physical bodies like we have. God is so Other, and yet he created us the way we are to know him and to experience the love that he is and therefore has for us. That's what the Bible is all about.
As a side note, how do you know that the flood never happened? That's a pretty bolds statement to make. What if science comes up with evidence of something like that having happened? I've heard archaeologists/geologists claim to have found that type of evidence (I'm sorry, I don't remember off the top of my head where I saw that). You say there are a whole slew of other examples. You might want to use another one, because a lot of cultures that are separated by a lot of geography share a similar flood story. Which would make sense, if it had happened.
Finally, I feel like this is a cool discussion even though I'm sure I'm not well educated enough to come up with an answer that satisfies you for everything. I hope, though, that you don't imply that it is a bad idea to start thinking about these things if you don't have a degree in Mathematics or Philosophy. Do you? I mean, how else would we learn about the counter-arguments that we have to consider?
Hi Adam,
I'm glad to see you have posted, at least it shows interest--negative or positive, it doesn't matter. I would also like to apologize for taking so long to respond. I have been busy lately because of school. One more note, I am not going to debate this a lot in comments for the simple reason that this is not the right forum to do so. It will get very confusing as to what we are both talking about and just makes it look messy. Also, there is a character limit, that gets fairly annoying. However, if you really want to, I'll give you my email, and we can do it that way. Anyways, I will still address the points your brought up in your post.
Seriously, it's pretty clear you barely understand the implications of infinity...
Just because we have differing views? I think that might be a bit more of an emotional response than a qualitative response.
If God is actually infinite, as you claim...
Yes...
Therefore he's not actually outside of this universe. Infinity doesn't work that way...
Infinity is defined as unbounded by space time or quantity. God, being the creator of the universe, is definitely outside the limits of finiteness. Thus, He would be outside of the universe in a sense (Like how Romans5girl said it). Since we know God's attributes from the Bible, we know He is omnipotent, and if He was within our finite universe, He would be bound by the very laws He created.
We don't understand time from just a finite point of view...
I define finite as having bounds, being limited. The exact opposite of infinite.
We understand it on a pretty deep level and anyone that's studied things like Special Relativity would tell you that.
Really? I am assuming we both accept the same definition of infinity, then how can you say we understand it on a deep level. Infinity is infinitely complex. It is infinitely encrypted. It is infinitely deep. So to say you have a deep understanding of infinity shows that you really don't understand infinity because it is boundless.
Concepts like past, present, future can even blur from OUR own perspectives, because velocity is related to time.
Possibly, but only on a very close-minded scale. For example: I don't believe you exist. I did not see you being birthed, thus, according to my own frame of reference, you are non-existent. However, that is obviously wrong, because I reconcile differing frames of references to come up with the best possible overall reference. You exist. (I know, I would be relieved too lol). Therefore, not a single person can possibly see past, present and future at once because they only experience each at one time and are finite-not infinite and thus outside of time.
And obviously the Bible isn't absolutely true because Noah's Flood never physically happened. Therefore there's an element of fantasy in the book (there's a whole slew of other examples) and the whole thing can pretty much be dismissed. (This is called proof by contradiction, so therefore everything you present is built on a faulty premise.)
I am not one to believe anything without reason and the Flood happened to be the first place I looked for faults. Of course, it is a solid argument. I am not going to talk about that because that will greatly deviate from what my original post is. I will just say that I am confident I have an equally good answer to everything we know about the earth's geology in a Biblical worldview as an atheistic worldview.
The problem with you going into apologetics is you'll never get by someone who ever studied Analytical Philosophy or someone who studies Mathematics
Even if I told you I had PhD.'s in both subject, wrote multiple books on both, you would still tell me I am wrong even though I am more learned than you in the subject. It then becomes a matter of personal volition. If God exists, then you will have to bow down to him eventually, and that is something not in your agenda.
The way you're developing your "truths" is making them up as you go along.
No, I am not using my wisdom, but the wisdom of God, found in the inerrant word of truth: The Bible as my starting ground for these truths.
You don't ever seek to prove it,
This is quite a bit of an extrapolation. How can I demonstrate to you better that I want to prove these notions than writing about it. I would be a fool to write about this, yet not care to even see if it is true.
Romans5Girl,
I don't think it's a vocab confusion, it's al ogic confusion. From what I read he meant what he said about God.
I disagree about your eternity argument. Since Erik uses the terms infinity, I'll consider this somewhat interchangeable. The things I work with everyday stretch on into infinity. I quantify them, I manipulate them and I build from them. These aren't things that I find mind boggling, lots of people in my classes do though for some reason. I do not know why, but the concept of things going on forever doesn't bother me. So, no, it doesn't boggle my mind at all.
Actually the comment on the flood is not a bold statement, because science has already shown that it didn't happen. Stories from ancient cultures is not a proof that it happened. Plus you would need to tell me which cultures you're referring to. If you're talking about cultures that were in direct contact with the Arabian Peninsula then it does make sense that such a story would be told to everyone. Legends and stories travel, a flood may have happened in a specific location (and we have a pretty good idea where that is today, I will go look it up at some point, because I don't remember offhand.) Anyway, the people affected by such a flood would travel to other outlying regions and tell those people, then those people would tell people etc. However, that doesn't change the fact that a world wide flood didn't happen in terms of geological evidence. If that happened the rock layers would leave very specific details ALL over the place, we don't see this. Is there evidence of flooding in various regions around the world at various times in history? Of course there is, but just because, say Iraq had a flood in 1,000BCE doesn't have anything to do with a flood in Louisiana in 200CE.
Another example, Woman being made from a man's rib. This is utter nonsense. It would take WAY more of an explanation of this happening with God than it does with Evolution. Evolution is the simplest example of how homosapiens came into existence.
And no, I don't think it's a bad idea to think about these things if you don't have a Math degree or studied Analytical Philosophy. However, my point is that if you are well educated in those two things they would give you incredible tools to explore the world around you. They are far more powerful than the Bible and they would help you in reading such documents and judging their validity.
I would challenge Erik to attempt getting a PhD in Applied Mathematics then apply everything he learned to the Bible and see if he still believes. I actually tried looking it up, I can't find a single PhD mathematician that publishes work on "how God exists" or even believes. I haven't even met a single one (albeit I haven't met a ton yet).
Erik my e-mail is ethereallightning (at) gmail (dot) com
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