God is eternal
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t3210-god-is-eternal
1. The universe had either a beginning, or it exists without a beginning, eternally.
2. Applying abductive reasoning to the best explanation, and bayesian considerations, we can conclude that the universe most likely had a beginning. Three are the main points to conclude that.
a) The theory of the Big bang is a scientific consensus today: According to Hawking, Einstein, Rees, Vilenkin, Penzius, Jastrow, Krauss and 100’s of other physicists, finite nature (time/space/matter) had a beginning. While we cannot go back further than Planck time, what we do know, permits to posit a beginning.
b) The Second Law points to a beginning when, for the first time, the Universe was in a state where all energy was available for use; and an end in the future when no more energy will be available (referred to by scientists as a “heat death”, thus causing the Universe to “die.”
c) Philosophical considerations: If we start counting from now, we can count infinitely. We can always add one discrete section of time to another. If we count backward from now, the same. But in both cases, there is a starting point. That is what we try to avoid when we talk about an infinite past without a beginning. So how can you even count without an end, forwards, or backward, if there is no starting point? A reference point to start counting is necessary to get somewhere, or you never get "there".
There is motion. Things move when potential motion becomes actual motion. Only when potential motion exists ( the possibility to instantiate actual motion ), actual motion can be instantiated.
Each thing beginning to move is moved by a cause. The sequence of motion cannot extend infinitely. Therefore, there must be a first mover, that puts motion in motion which is God.
Why can't the past be infinite? If the past is infinitely old, then getting from the past to the present would be like trying to arrive at the surface from a hole infinitely deep—from a bottomless pit. In other words, if the hole is infinitely deep, someone would never, ever make any progress at all in getting closer to the surface of the hole. There would always be an infinite distance to go before arriving at the surface of the hole.
3. Since the universe had a beginning, it had a cause. That cause cannot be no thing or no being. Nothing has no causal powers. Nothing is the contrary of something. It is the absence of anything. So the first ontological state of affairs cannot be, that there was nothing, which created the universe, or a multiverse. There is also nothing proposed by physicists, which is actually not nothing. That is the claim that virtual particles ignited the Big bang. But those virtual particles also require a quantum vacuum, and then one has to ask where that came from.
The cause of the universe can be personal or impersonal.
In event/event causation, one event causes another. Nature would have to create more nature. In that case, another contingent physical cause would have had to trigger the Big Bang or further back, a cosmos, multiverses, etc, leading to an infinite regress. If it were impersonal, it would have to be of physical substance, space, time, and matter, or abstract numbers and math, but those do not exist in a causal relationship. There could be no physical being beyond our universe or a greater Cosmos.
In a state/state causation one state of affairs causes another state of affairs to exist. It faces the same problem. Imagine a static physical being, that exists eternally, which would cause our universe to exist without a cause, eternally as well. This state of affairs could be compared to the following: causation would be like a frozen pond where there would be a tree trunk resting on the top of that pond, and the frozen pond is causing the rest of the tree trunk, but that could not trigger a change from one state into another but would remain static, from eternity. And state-state causation would also have to be physical.
In state-event causation, the cause is a timeless state but an effect is an event that occurred at a specific moment in the finite past. The cause of the universe’s beginning would be a personal agent, a disembodied mind who freely chose to create a universe, without depending on any precondition. That is state-event causation, or agent causation, which has to go from a state of timeless mental being to will an event of a transition, from a non-physical to a physical state of being, therefore the explanation of what triggered the universe or cosmos is intelligent agent causation based on non-physical, mental will and power. Since that cause created matter, space, and time, it had to be immaterial and exist in a timeless dimension. The only immaterial things we know of being able to cause something into being are conscient minds who are able to make decisions. Therefore, the cause must be personal. So there must have been a decision to cause the beginning of the universe's beginning. We know by experience that the mind can cause action solely based on will.
The cause of the universe must be : Supernatural in nature, Uncaused, beginningless and eternal,Omnipresent & all-knowing, Changeless, Timeless, Immaterial, Spaceless, Personal, Enormously Powerful, Necessary, Absolutely independent and self-existent, Infinite, supremely intelligent, and is the best explanation of our existence.
Deuteronomy 32:40. I lift my hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever
Psalm 48:14 For such is God, Our God forever and ever;
1 Timothy 1:17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen
Revelation 10:6 And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, "There will be no more delay!"
Genesis 21:33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God
Revelation 1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty
Deuteronomy 33:27 The eternal God is a dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms
The Bible teaches the eternity of God - He has always existed. There was never a time when He came into existence, there will never be a time when He goes out of existence. Because created time, He is not limited by it. Everything to Him is the present. Therefore He can tell us what will happen in our future because it is not future to Him.
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t3210-god-is-eternal
1. The universe had either a beginning, or it exists without a beginning, eternally.
2. Applying abductive reasoning to the best explanation, and bayesian considerations, we can conclude that the universe most likely had a beginning. Three are the main points to conclude that.
a) The theory of the Big bang is a scientific consensus today: According to Hawking, Einstein, Rees, Vilenkin, Penzius, Jastrow, Krauss and 100’s of other physicists, finite nature (time/space/matter) had a beginning. While we cannot go back further than Planck time, what we do know, permits to posit a beginning.
b) The Second Law points to a beginning when, for the first time, the Universe was in a state where all energy was available for use; and an end in the future when no more energy will be available (referred to by scientists as a “heat death”, thus causing the Universe to “die.”
c) Philosophical considerations: If we start counting from now, we can count infinitely. We can always add one discrete section of time to another. If we count backward from now, the same. But in both cases, there is a starting point. That is what we try to avoid when we talk about an infinite past without a beginning. So how can you even count without an end, forwards, or backward, if there is no starting point? A reference point to start counting is necessary to get somewhere, or you never get "there".
There is motion. Things move when potential motion becomes actual motion. Only when potential motion exists ( the possibility to instantiate actual motion ), actual motion can be instantiated.
Each thing beginning to move is moved by a cause. The sequence of motion cannot extend infinitely. Therefore, there must be a first mover, that puts motion in motion which is God.
Why can't the past be infinite? If the past is infinitely old, then getting from the past to the present would be like trying to arrive at the surface from a hole infinitely deep—from a bottomless pit. In other words, if the hole is infinitely deep, someone would never, ever make any progress at all in getting closer to the surface of the hole. There would always be an infinite distance to go before arriving at the surface of the hole.
3. Since the universe had a beginning, it had a cause. That cause cannot be no thing or no being. Nothing has no causal powers. Nothing is the contrary of something. It is the absence of anything. So the first ontological state of affairs cannot be, that there was nothing, which created the universe, or a multiverse. There is also nothing proposed by physicists, which is actually not nothing. That is the claim that virtual particles ignited the Big bang. But those virtual particles also require a quantum vacuum, and then one has to ask where that came from.
The cause of the universe can be personal or impersonal.
In event/event causation, one event causes another. Nature would have to create more nature. In that case, another contingent physical cause would have had to trigger the Big Bang or further back, a cosmos, multiverses, etc, leading to an infinite regress. If it were impersonal, it would have to be of physical substance, space, time, and matter, or abstract numbers and math, but those do not exist in a causal relationship. There could be no physical being beyond our universe or a greater Cosmos.
In a state/state causation one state of affairs causes another state of affairs to exist. It faces the same problem. Imagine a static physical being, that exists eternally, which would cause our universe to exist without a cause, eternally as well. This state of affairs could be compared to the following: causation would be like a frozen pond where there would be a tree trunk resting on the top of that pond, and the frozen pond is causing the rest of the tree trunk, but that could not trigger a change from one state into another but would remain static, from eternity. And state-state causation would also have to be physical.
In state-event causation, the cause is a timeless state but an effect is an event that occurred at a specific moment in the finite past. The cause of the universe’s beginning would be a personal agent, a disembodied mind who freely chose to create a universe, without depending on any precondition. That is state-event causation, or agent causation, which has to go from a state of timeless mental being to will an event of a transition, from a non-physical to a physical state of being, therefore the explanation of what triggered the universe or cosmos is intelligent agent causation based on non-physical, mental will and power. Since that cause created matter, space, and time, it had to be immaterial and exist in a timeless dimension. The only immaterial things we know of being able to cause something into being are conscient minds who are able to make decisions. Therefore, the cause must be personal. So there must have been a decision to cause the beginning of the universe's beginning. We know by experience that the mind can cause action solely based on will.
The cause of the universe must be : Supernatural in nature, Uncaused, beginningless and eternal,Omnipresent & all-knowing, Changeless, Timeless, Immaterial, Spaceless, Personal, Enormously Powerful, Necessary, Absolutely independent and self-existent, Infinite, supremely intelligent, and is the best explanation of our existence.
Deuteronomy 32:40. I lift my hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever
Psalm 48:14 For such is God, Our God forever and ever;
1 Timothy 1:17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen
Revelation 10:6 And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, "There will be no more delay!"
Genesis 21:33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God
Revelation 1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty
Deuteronomy 33:27 The eternal God is a dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms
The Bible teaches the eternity of God - He has always existed. There was never a time when He came into existence, there will never be a time when He goes out of existence. Because created time, He is not limited by it. Everything to Him is the present. Therefore He can tell us what will happen in our future because it is not future to Him.
