Tag Archives: Eternity

Videos

William Lane Craig explains God’s relationship to time

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This is kind of an advanced topic that can make your head explode… so be careful.

Here’s the first video in the series on God and Time:

Summary:

Robert Lawrence Kuhn (host of PBS’ “Closer to Truth”) interviews William Lane Craig on time in relation to God. Questions explored: How do you deal with God and time? What is the tensed (aka A-Theory or dynamic theory) and tenseless (aka B-Theory or static) theory of time? How do they deal with past, present and future? Who is John Ellis McTaggart? How do scientists use the 4-dimension of time? How does special relativity deal with the A-theory and B-theory of time?

And the second:

Summary:

Robert Lawrence Kuhn (host of PBS’ “Closer to Truth”) asks William Lane Craig about God’s personal relationship with time. Questions explored: If God is timeless how can He be active in the temporal world? Who is Soren Kierkegaard? Does it makes sense to talk about a timeless person? Does time affect God? Or does God affect time? Does God have a future? How does Evil and time effect one another? How does God work in time if He were in time? How does God work in time if He were timeless? How would God be in a tensed theory of time? How would God be in a tenseless theory of time?

And the third:

Summary:

Robert Lawrence Kuhn (host of PBS’ “Closer to Truth”) interviews William Lane Craig about whether God is temporal or timeless. Questions explored: Why did it take God so long to create us? What did Leibniz argue against Newton? How did this entail that time had a beginning? How did a timeless God create a temporal universe? Does God change His characteristics in creating time? In what sense is God eternal with relation to time? Can God go back in time and undo what was done? If God works in time is he “locked” in time forever? When God works in time is He “limited”?

Many Christians disagree with Dr. Craig on his ideas about God and Time… but I think they are all wrong!

The least difficult book on this difficult topic is this one.

Commentary

Answering Richard Dawkins’ question: “Who made God?”

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UPDATE: Welcome visitors from Apologetics 315! Thanks for the link Brian!

Atheists are very uncomfortable with the progress of science in the areas of cosmic origins and cosmological constants. On my friend’s Rick Heller’s blog, he responded to my article on the 6 scientific discoveries that led to the theory that the universe, including all matter, time and space, was created out of nothing.

Here is an excerpt from Rick’s response:

The traditional rebuttal to the First Cause argument is, who created God? That makes a nice point, but I don’t find it entirely convincing, because it contains a complacent acceptance of an uncaused universe.

I think we humans find ourselves unable to resolve the logical paradox–things don’t come into existence without a cause, yet there is no explanation for the first cause. Neither the atheist nor theist views quite hang together.

Richard Dawkins asks a similar question in his book “The God Delusion”. My friend Canbuhay got there first and posted the correct answer. Here is what he said:

The First Cause argument is not simply about how the universe must have a cause because everything else we know about, does. Included in the argument is that whatever must have caused the universe must be unique. Why? Because if everything began at the Big Bang, including time, then whatever caused the Big Bang would have to be outside of time. It could literally have no beginning because there was no such thing as “before” or “beginning” when there was no time.

The atheistic response that there had to be something that caused the causer of the Big Bang cannot adequately account for the time factor.

Whereas, the theistic one can: the causer of the Big Bang is a Deity who lives outside of time.

I got there next and I posted this comment:

There is no physical universe, and no time, causally prior to the Big Bang. That means that whatever causes the universe to exist is not in time, it is outside of time. It is eternal and exists necessarily. It does not “come into being” because that is a time-bound notion. It exists timelessly, and brings the entire universe into being.

Now, you may well ask, “Wintery! What immaterial thing can bring an entire physical universe into being?”. Well the only two non-physical realities that we are aquainted with are abstract objects, such as numbers, or minds. And that is what caused the universe. A big M I N D. Dawkins’ objection of “who made God?” is thus defeated. The universe is contingent, the cause of the universe is not.

Yes, I stole “big M I N D” quote from J.P. Moreland. If you haven’t read his book “Love Your God With All Your Mind”, then you should. My friend Andrew affectionately calls JP’s book LYGWYM (“lig-wim”). JP seems to be going soft lately, just like Ravi Zacharias, who hasn’t written anything useful since “Can Man Live Without God?”. Look how tough JP used to be.

If you don’t like my answer to “Who made God?”, check out Perry Marshall’s answer. He recently debated on the origin of life. I like his ideas, because he is a software engineer, and not a squishyhead. Yes, I stole “squishyhead” from Henry F. Schaefer. Have you ever read his paper on the big bang and who made God? The video is here: part1, part2.