Two Revolutions, Two Views of Man

A-G wrote: There is not a "before" to God. Time is part of the creation, not a property of, or restriction on, the Creator of it.

And 1010RD replied: Agreed, but then you immediately step off the reservation into eisegesis. You have only the Bible to base your beliefs on. Cutting and pasting it into convenient bits doesn't make your case. You lose the context and thus the idea. Eventually, you lose your way.... The use of the word "created" is arbitrary. You could just as accurately use the word "formed", perhaps even more accurately as to the eastern mind creating order out of chaos is the greatest act of God.

What "chaos?" Your view presupposes that there existed something before the creation event out of which God "formed" the world. But Alamo-Girl has never said this, and I have very strong doubts that she believes this. There was literally nothing for God to "form" until He created it: No matter, no space, no time. Nothing.

Some Eastern-minded physical cosmologists like to say that the physical universe arose out of a false vacuum. Yet a hypothetical vacuum field is not "nothing." It would already exist in space and time — a space and time that had not yet emerged, and could not emerge, prior to the Big Bang.

Genesis 1:1 says that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Evidently on your theory, God used pre-existing materials to do this. What pre-existing materials? A hypothetical chaos?

Prior to the Big Bang, there was nothing — the Ayn Sof; God was alone. Space and time did not exist. Matter did not exist.

As Georges LeMaître, the father of Big Bang/expanding universe theory, put it, the Big Bang (analogue of Genesis 1:1) was in fact "a day without yesterday." That is, there was no time before the singularity exploded the universe into existence. Time began only at the moment of this unique event, or slightly thereafter — and also space and matter. There was nothing for God to "form" prior to His creating these "materials" (e.g., space, time, matter). Which is why Christians believe God created ex nihilo — out of "nothing."

Something — heaven and earth — came into being out of nothing, solely by means of the Creator's creative Word, His Logos of the Beginning Whom the beloved apostle tells us "was God, and was with God." To me, the Big Bang is analogue of God's SPEAKING His Word into creation, whereby He created the universe, heavenly and physically (i.e., "the earth" of Genesis 1:1).

1010RD, you wrote: "The Rabbis recognize that surmising as to what occurred prior to Gen. 1:1 is unwise. Not knowing God you then aspire to describe his attributes."

Well, such surmising is not only "unwise," it pertains to a matter impossible for the human mind to know or directly validate. To that extent, the Rabbis are entirely correct. On the other hand, it is not needful to conjecture about the attributes of God beyond the revealed fact that He is creative. The Creation itself is proof of that.

There can be no "before" a "beginning." There is no time "before" time began.

LeMaître was one of the greatest mathematical minds of the Twentieth Century. (He was also a Roman Catholic priest.) It was he who conceived of the singularity — which he called the "Primeval Atom"; this is what "blew up" in the initial explosion that got the universe started, the initial point from which the Universe expanded. He also described the singularity as "the Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation." Later on, Sir Fred Hoyle coined a disparaging/derisive term for this unique cosmic event: the "Big Bang."

As LaMaître noted,

If the world has begun with a single quantum, the notions of space and time would altogether fail to have any meaning at the beginning; they would only begin to have a sensible meaning when the original quantum had been divided into a sufficient number of quanta. If this suggestion is correct, the beginning of the world happened a little before the beginning of space and time. [See "'A Day Without Yesterday': Georges Lemaitre & the Big Bang" by Mark Midborn, in Commonweal, March 24, 2000:, pp. 18-19.]

From this I surmise the Beginning of the world was the Logos; then it "blew up" in a "Big Bang." And then space and time and matter came into existence.

Funny thing about that Logos: It seems to have specified the creation without overdetermining it. That is, although it seems to account for some 200+ "finely-tuned" universal constants (specifying initial conditions), and to have specified universal physical laws ("guides to the system"), it leaves plenty of room for variety, diversity, innovation, development and change (within limits).

To me, "singularity" is effectively the scientific term for the Logos of the Beginning....

1010RD, you said that Alamo-Girl has only the Bible as a basis for belief. I don't believe this is an accurate statement. The Holy Scriptures articulate the infallible Word of God as He Himself reveals it to us. But He also gave us the revelation of "the Book of Nature," too: the Creation itself.

I see no "dispute" between Genesis 1:1 and the Big Bang/expanding/inflationary universe model. Both are revelations of God's Truth that, if anything, mutually support each other.

Well, them be my thoughts, FWIW.

Thank you so much for writing, 1010RD!

God's will is done, regardless, which is what Jesus is saying. Read a better translation...

"Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done."

Just like in the sermon on mount --

"Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..."

Christ provides an example, a clear example as to his followers that faith is an act of will

Whose will? The natural man's will or the spiritual man's will? One is left in its fallen state, unable to choose righteousness, while the other has been reborn by the Holy Spirit to "know the things of God," in order to repent, obey and believe.

"But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me" -- John 10:26-27

So faith isn't "an act of will" independent of God. Faith is a gift from God to His own.

Not knowing the Bible or refusing to believe what it says because it doesn't say what we want it to say is idolatry and eisegesis.

I agree completely.

Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful insights, dearest sister in Christ!

In effect, the holders of such views are attempting to make their own preferences the measure of what the universe is. All such views seem motivated by a deep distaste for, and desire to avoid the "origin problem," i.e., a universal beginning of space and time in a unique cosmic event. In other words, a creation event. They cling to their preferred opinion, despite the piling up of evidence that refutes it.

What is the value of an opinion (or as you put it, a "belief") that can be falsified on the basis of evidence, logic, and reason?

So very true!

Steady state cosmology was widely accepted until the measurements of cosmic microwave background radiation in the 1960's. From that time forward, the measurements consistently agree that the universe is expanding - and accelerating, btw.

That means that space/time is created as the universe expands. It doesn't pre-exist. There was a beginning of real space and real time.

Those who cling to a steady state physical cosmology are laughed to scorn, i.e. like flat-earthers.

That there was a beginning was the most theological statement ever to come out of modern science, i.e. "In the beginning..."

None of the physical cosmologies proposed since the 1960's have been able to defeat the fact of a beginning - not multi-verse, multi-world, ekpyrotic, cyclic, imaginary time, etc. Many such theories merely posit prior beginnings but they can never explain the beginning.

The physicists are quite aware of that fatal flaw and worse that to even theorize prior beginnings they must presuppose with no basis in logic that the physics of this universe would apply to a prior universe.

Bottom line, every physical cosmology relies on space and time for physical causation:

In the absence of space, things cannot exist.

In the absence of time, events cannot occur.

Both space and time are required for physical causation. Period.

Here's a mental exercise to see why that is so:

Mathematically, the dimension of a space is the minimum number of coordinates (axes) necessary to identify a point within the space.

A space of zero dimensions is a point; one dimension, a line, two dimensions, a plane; three, a cube, etc.

That is the geometry of it. In zero dimensions, the mathematical point is indivisible.

It is not nothing. It is a spatial point. A singularity is not nothing.

In ex nihilo Creation, the dimensions are not merely zero, they are null, dimensions do not exist at all. There is no space and no time. Period.

There is no mathematical point, no volume, no content, no scalar quantities. Ex nihilo doesn’t exist in relationship to anything else; there is no thing.

In an existing physical space, each point (e.g. particle) can be parameterized by a quantity such as mass. The parameter (e.g. a specific quantity within the range of possible quantities) is in effect another descriptor or quasi-dimension that uniquely identifies the point within the space.

Moreover, if the quantity of the parameter changes for a point, then a time dimension is invoked. For example, at one moment the point value is “0” and the next it is “1”.

Wave propagation cannot occur in null dimensions nor can it occur in zero spatial dimensions, a mathematical point; a dimension of time is required for any fluctuation in a parameter value at a point.

Moreover, wave propagation must also have a spatial/temporal relation from cause point to effect point, i.e. physical causation.

For instance “0” at point nt causes “1” at point n+1^t+1 which causes "0" at point n+1^t+2 etc..

Obviously, physical wave propagation (e.g. big bang/inflationary model) cannot precede space/time and physical causality.

In the absence of space, things cannot exist.

In the absence of time, events cannot occur.

Both space and time are required for physical causation.

Only God the Creator can be the uncaused cause of the beginning.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. – John 1:1-4

All of God's revelations harmonize. God the Father has revealed Himself in four ways: 1) in the Person of The Lord Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, 2) in the Person of the indwelling Holy Spirit, 3) in Scripture and 4) in Creation both spiritual and physical.

For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. - John 6:38-40

For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. - I Corinthians 2:11-12

For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. - Hebrews 4:12

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. - John 6:63

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. - Psalms 33:6

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. [There is] no speech nor language, [where] their voice is not heard. – Psalms 19:1-3

Man is not the measure of God.

Dear kosta, your entire thesis seems to be that there is no such thing as truth; but even if there were, it would be unknowable in principle. Therefore, all there can be is opinion. And one man's opinion is just as good as any other man's.

Very well put, from my perspective, too.

The "thesis seems to be that there is no such thing as truth; but even if there were, it would be unknowable in principle. Therefore, all there can be is opinion. And one man's opinion is just as good as any other man's." . . . wherever I've ran onto it, in my 63 years--most of them around college campuses where lots of budding Bertrand Russels love to pretend they are erudite, novel, brilliant and progressive in spouting such pontifications . . . such a perspective has always shown itself, to me, that it

IS, imho, a pretty clunky and transparent rationalization for a somewhat haughty, smug, self-deceived rebellion. I hope that's not true in Kosta's case. I just know it seems to be pervasively true for those spouting such a perspective.

I think the motivation and certainly the result is that the one claiming to hold such a perspective is pseudo-intellectually deluded into construing reality such that they FEEL at least partially FREED to create their own reality to their own inclinations . . . which, apart from the Blood and Cross of Jesus--means that whatever the special on sin is at that moment tends to become a convenient if not prime focus . . . at least a good percentage of the time.

The pleasures of the moment tend to win out over eternal life whenever there's insufficient foundation in truth and in an intimate RELATIONSHIP WITH HE WHO IS TRUTH.

And, sin--particularly unconfessed, unrepented sin results in some degree or another of death, deadliness, isolation, loneliness, angst, adriftness.

However, there, too, the delusion comes rushing to the aid on the silver trays from hell . . . since there's purportedly no knowable truth, the truth of consequences can be conveniently denied and ignored, too.

Trouble is . . . it's virtually impossible to live life that way.

CONSEQUENCES ACCRUE CONSTANTLY

Whether one wants to admit them or not.

The TRUTH is that if one tries to go through life constantly running red lights, the life will tend to be short.

The TRUTH is that if a bloke thinks it's great fun to be receiver of another guy's fairly cheap bodily fluids, a sad, diseased course of death will likely accrue . . . and the life will be at least 20 years shorter than it might have been otherwise.

The TRUTH is that if a heterosexual likes to collect and spread jollies far and wide, disease will knock persistently on that abode, as well.

The TRUTH is that if one pretends in relationships that there is no truth, no standard of conduct . . . particularly apart from the pleasure of the moment . . . then the relationships will be shallow and usually rather short-lived . . . with plenty of pain in the parting or insufficient substance to result in pain to begin with.

The TRUTH is that if one picks food out of the gutter in a drunken stupor and eats it . . . routinely . . . complications to life and the pursuit of happiness will accrue with gathering interest payback.

The TRUTH is that if one tries to relate to one's boss, co-workers and customers as though one's own opinion were all that counted in life, one's employment will tend to be short.

The inexorable TRUTH is that GOD IS NOT TO BE MOCKED. WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWS, THAT SHALL HE ALSO REAP.

It doesn't really matter whether one believes that such a universal law applies, operates, results in consequences, or not. The law works quite effectively regardless of anyone or anything's opinions about said law.

Fantasies can be fun and entertaining in a number of realms to a number of degrees about a number of things.

Fantasies about God and His laws and priorities tend to be costly when they don't match up with God's perspectives on HIS CREATED AND ADMINISTERED REALITIES.

Beginning something is more than just a start. A plan has been formulated and the energy to undertake that plan propels it forward. Beginning is closing in on completion.

Oh so beautifully, beautifully said, Dr. Eckleburg!

You and I, your Dad, and Pythagoras all evidently "see eye to eye" on this — "The beginning is the half of the whole" — in just the sense you give in the above italics. :^)

The Logos is Alpha and Omega, the Beginning (first cause) and the End (final cause). And everything in between (i.e., immanent cause, a/k/a "guide to the system").

You wrote, "To perceive reality as accurately as possible is ultimately a gift given by the Holy Spirit. So maybe it's not so much a "refusal" as an "inability.""

Inability, perhaps. But increasingly nowadays, willful refusal cannot be ruled out. One can "close one's soul" to the Holy Spirit by means of an act of will. The ideologues of mechanistic, deterministic, materialistic universe theory have no "use" for the Holy Spirit. For God; or even for souls. They cannot even account for minds. So all of these things are simply denied. (E.g., mind is merely an epiphenomenon of the physical brain that of itself can cause nothing to happen in the phenomenal world. Anyone with eyes can see that this is fantastically untrue!)

Anything that can't be directly observed and measured doesn't exist for them.

Notwithstanding, I so agree with what you wrote here:

So in the long run our lives either prove the love of God, or they prove something else. Either men are happier, more secure, better grounded and fruitful believing we belong to the Triune Creator of heaven and earth and everything therein, or we're not. And experience shows me, we are.

Thank you so very much for your outstanding essay/post!

"Prophets are always sent to reset the people on the right path." In the sense of the Old Testament, yes, for the People of God, the Hebrews, a singular prophet was 'sent'. But in the New testament, those in Christ have the Holy Spirit within their human spirit and a word of prophecy was offered among the body of believers. In a sense, believing we receive when we pray, especially where He is 'in the midst of them', this action is a form pf prophecy and He is the Prophet and High Priest forever, with no other name given under heaven.

It is a very Momronesque concept to believe that Christ is not the current Prophet, that a mere man is needed to reset the people. Even Islam tries this perspective, calling Jesus a prophet but humankind needing another, more 'up-to-date' prophet. That is anathema to Christianity. We are no longer a tribal people needing to be reset collectively, for we are individually delivered by the Deliverer. Therefore our individual prophet and High Priest is Jesus, acting within us and upon us and through our lives in the presence of His Holy Spirit. He IS, not He has been.

The very notion of ascribing 'thought' to God The Creator is an anthropomorphism. We may ascribe to Jesus human traits to our liking, for He was God with us as a man, but to then reach back to the beginning with an anthropomorphic perspective is bound to be incomplete in scope. ONLY God IS before even the concept of universe comes to be. That is why John was given to write that in the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God, and in the beginning was not anything made that was not by Him. In Mormonism and other peculiar religions, the concept of eternal matter is posed as axiomatic, then things occur. But God gave to the Israelites the proper perspective ... and John was an Israelite, then a Christian Israelite when he authored the Gospel of John to be written.

Momronism teaches that god gained the attributes of godhood through exaltation. That is anathema to the teachings from God about Himself. His name is I AM, not I became.

So faith isn't "an act of will" independent of God. Faith is a gift from God to His own.

Yes; but the fact remains (or so it seems to me) that man is free to reject God's great gift of faith. This would be an act of will independent of God.

My dear brother in Christ Quix gives several examples of the forms this attitude can take, at Post #864.

But then again, I take your meaning WRT the qualification, "from God to His own".... God's sheep know their shepherd, and the Shepherd knows His own.

Omniscient God knows from timelessness how individual men (souls) will choose in time; but He does not compel or determine their choice. In this sense, there is free will in the world. A man is free to choose evil — even the evil that he knows (consciously or perhaps subconsciously) will hurt him.

God's answer for this was to send His only-begotten Son into the world, His Truth, Whose example redeems us from this sort of soul-destroying, fatal error.... At least among those who have the "ears to hear," and the "eyes to see."

But that amounts to persuading, not compelling, those with the ears and eyes.

What I don't know is whether there are human souls born into this world without ears and eyes. Would the God of justice and truth allow this to happen?

What if every man was born with the ears and eyes, but then some choose to shut them up against all the freely available evidence that God is Lord and Master of all creation from beginning to end? And humans are His natural-born children, made in His image?

The great philosopher Henri Bergson spoke of the situation of l'ame overt and l'ame close — of the condition of a soul open to God, or as closed to God. Bergson suggests this is a matter of human will. It seems to me God would not have created a soul to be inexorably, determinedly closed to Him in the first place.... Thus made for damnation from the very beginning?

Whatever the case, the Lord alone knows how it all turns out in the End....

Obviously dear sister in Christ, I have more questions than answers.

Thus I rest in God the Father, His Son, and the Holy Spirit: If I don't have the answers, I'm entirely confident that God does. And maybe someday He will share them with me. But probably not in "this" world....

Whatever the case, God's will WILL be done, in heaven and on earth. I'm entirely confident about that, too.

And with this understanding comes peace — and joy.

God's blessings be upon you, dear sister in Christ!

Dear kosta, your entire thesis seems to be that there is no such thing as truth...

If that were my thesis, that would be a foolish thesis indeed!

...but even if there were, it would be unknowable in principle.

That is correct simply because we (human beings) can never know the whole truth simply because we can never know all there is to know.

Therefore, all there can be is opinion. And one man's opinion is just as good as any other man's.

No, we also know some facts. Opinions come in where the facts are lacking.

But if there is structure and order in the universe (and we perceive that there is), then there must be something universally "true" at the foundation of the order we perceive.

Yes, that something is structure and order. We all agree on that.

Otherwise the world would be one way this instant, and something entirely different at the next instant.

Isn't that what happens when cataclysmic events take place?

In short, the universe would be fundamentally chaotic. But if so, then why are things persistently the way they are, and not some other way?

Perception of order does not say whence came the order. We simply don't know why.

Such a view requires denial of the universal order which we do perceive.

No it doesn't betty boop. It acknowledges the order without hypothesizing as to why or how. It accepts the fact that we are too limited to know everything. It is quite humbling.

Such a refusal to apperceive the obvious constitutes an "opinion" that rests on nothing but a refusal to recognize that truthful human knowledge is the product of engaging the real world by observation and experience.

A refusal to acknowledge order in the Universes would indeed constitute such a denial.

This is to acknowledge that there is a "givenness" to the universal system of which we are parts and participants. That givenness entails that the phenomenal universe (which we perceive to be ordered) and the human mind (which also possesses order by virtue of its capacity for logic and reasoning) can be brought into correspondence.

No argument there, betty boop.

This is the basis of all truthful knowledge. This is the basis of science.

This is the basis for all truthful knowledge within our capacities, which are limited in scope.

Case in point: There are many fans of "eternal universe," "steady-state" or "boom-and-bust" cosmological models. These opinions are increasingly being undercut by physical observations of, e.g., the cosmic microwave background radiation, and the cosmic expansion, which point to a real beginning of space and time. Despite the accumulating evidence, many still cling to their preferred opinion that the universe is eternal, and/or steady-state, and/or boom-and-bust.

Indeed, the Steady State die hards are no different than Flat Earth believers. Their models are not what the current evidence supports, although the Big Bag is approaching the periphery rather quickly as well.

In effect, the holders of such views are attempting to make their own preferences the measure of what the universe is.

True, but there is no guarantee that the holders of the Big bang are any closer to the truth either.

All such views seem motivated by a deep distaste for, and desire to avoid the "origin problem," i.e., a universal beginning of space and time in a unique cosmic event.

The problem with the "original problem" begins with the invocation of the "cause" which is not supported by any observed evidence and cannot be even defined.

In other words, a creation event. They cling to their preferred opinion, despite the piling up of evidence that refutes it.

Again, the creation event is in itself nothing to hand one's ego on. The creation event become problematic when one invokes "God" in it, and in particular one specific man-made god.

What is the value of an opinion (or as you put it, a "belief") that can be falsified on the basis of evidence, logic, and reason?

Beliefs tend to resist evidence to the contrary. They also accept as "fact" that which is by necessity imaginary. The "value" of such a belief has to do with the degree to which one's whole existence or life depends on it. If you invest all your hopes in one belief, if that belief is a sanctuary, discovering that it is false would be extremely threatening to one's psyche and the mind would tend to tenaciously hold on to it despite the evidence to the contrary. In other words, a denial.

What is faith, Kosta, in your calculus? And does faith require an object of faith? And can there exist a feedback from exercising faith?

Yes, that something is structure and order. We all agree on that.

Well thank you for your acknowledgement of that "fact," dear kosta!

The problem is you refuse to acknowledge a basis, a cause of the structure and order we both perceive.

Do you suppose that such can be a product of a random, purely "natural," "accidental" development? Or that some sort of purposeful mind has specified such?

In human observation and direct experience, all instances of design and order can be traced to a creative mind. All purpose-built "machines" (or more generically, systems) are the result of the creative mind of the person who built them. We have never seen an example of a machine (or natural system) that built itself....

You have to go with what you know....

Or do you insist on remaining "agnostic" on this point? If so, WHY???

Because you don't "know everything there is to know?" Who does? If we had to wait until we "know everything," there would never have been any human progress, in the arts or the sciences. Even Newton, say, or Einstein would have been mute, had they followed you prescription.

An observer can see only what he can see from where he stands. Some observers believe the only things that are "real" are things that can be directly observed and measured. Which leaves God out of the picture in principle.

I think you want to see as God, the Ultimate Observer, sees.

But as a mortal human, stuck in the four dimensional block of normal human awareness, you can't. Get used to it!

Meanwhile, you have to live your life according to your own best lights.

If you have no light from the Holy Spirit, I doubt you will ever see the most important things in the world of human experience.

Cataclysmic events do not change the underlying structure of the universe. They are temporary departures from it. And when they blow over, we get back to the status quo ante. Cataclysmic events, in short, in no way permanently change the essential order of things.

You wrote, "Perception of order does not say whence came the order. We simply don't know why." Jeepers, kosta, I think you don't want to know WHY; for in your heart of hearts you already know that the order comes from a Source you don't want to acknowledge. For whatever reason.

My sense is you know ever so much MORE than you are willing to acknowledge publicly. Privately you know it; but you don't like what you know.... Again, for whatever reason.

You wrote: "...there is no guarantee that the holders of the Big bang are any closer to the truth either." To believe that is to believe that scientific evidence for the Big Bang is nonexistent. But this would not be true. Indeed, quite the contrary increasingly is the case.

You wrote: "The problem with the 'original problem' begins with the invocation of the "cause" which is not supported by any observed evidence and cannot be even defined."

Often it's the case that we infer causes from their effects. Effects are actually observed. Thus they constitute some kind of evidence regarding their cause. Though it's true that causes are identified through a process of induction, not deduction. But this is how science goes about its business. Do you have a problem with that?

God is not "man-made." You've got that exactly backwards. :^)

And not only that, but you can offer zero evidence that your view is correct or true. Such evidence simply does not exist.

Thus I regard the following as a complete non sequitur:

Beliefs tend to resist evidence to the contrary. They also accept as "fact" that which is by necessity imaginary. The "value" of such a belief has to do with the degree to which one's whole existence or life depends on it. If you invest all your hopes in one belief, if that belief is a sanctuary, discovering that it is false would be extremely threatening to one's psyche and the mind would tend to tenaciously hold on to it despite the evidence to the contrary. In other words, a denial.

FWIW.

The "thesis seems to be that there is no such thing as truth; but even if there were, it would be unknowable in principle. Therefore, all there can be is opinion. And one man's opinion is just as good as any other man's." . . . wherever I've ran onto it, in my 63 years — most of them around college campuses where lots of budding Bertrand Russels love to pretend they are erudite, novel, brilliant and progressive in spouting such pontifications . . . such a perspective has always shown itself, to me, that it IS, imho, a pretty clunky and transparent rationalization for a somewhat haughty, smug, self-deceived rebellion.... I just know it seems to be pervasively true for those spouting such a perspective. I think the motivation and certainly the result is that the one claiming to hold such a perspective is pseudo-intellectually deluded into construing reality such that they FEEL at least partially FREED to create their own reality to their own inclinations

I have thought and prayed long and hard about this, dear brother in Christ; and it seems to me the only true freedom that human beings have is freedom in and under God.

Anything else is mere "license." It has no foundation in truth. That is, it is a delusional "freedom." Usually self-delusional.

Thank you ever so much, dear brother in Christ, for your outstanding observations!

What is faith, Kosta, in your calculus?

Predictable results.

And does faith require an object of faith?

Yes. Faith is trust. You have to trust in something.

And can there exist a feedback from exercising faith?

Just faith? No. Just because your prayers are 'answered" does not constitute a proof that your prayers are 'answered."

Thanks for the response to my questions. I have a better understanding of where you’re coming from. Again, thanks.

BTW, I don’t think I asked anything about prayer or praying or answers to prayers. For the sake of understanding, you could take my queries as regarding the use of a chair in a dining hall. To sit upon a chair requires the most basic sort of faith. Sitting without crashing to the floor is a reinforcer of faith applied. It would be a very different exercise if one entered a totally dark room, blindfolded, seeking a chair upon which to sit. Listening very acutely and feeling about would be advisable before just lowering one’s butt. A Christian ‘listens acutely with ‘spiritual ears, and feels about via applied interactions with the still small voice within. As my behavior amkes The Holy Spirit within uncomfortable, His whisper—at frist—reminds me and reinforces the reminders with instructional passages found int he Bible. If I ignore the whispers, He will take more severe action. The process is ‘faithing’, as in a verb form of faith, the noun. Sitting in enough chairs builds confidence in the reliability of chairs.

The problem is you refuse to acknowledge a basis, a cause of the structure and order we both perceive

No, the problem is that you seem to refuse to acknowledge that the cause is unknown.

Do you suppose that such can be a product of a random, purely "natural," "accidental" development? Or that some sort of purposeful mind has specified such?

If we knew all the facts we would know, wouldn't we? But guess what? We don't!

In human observation and direct experience, all instances of design and order can be traced to a creative mind.

Really? You mean God gave fireflies their lights?

We have never seen an example of a machine (or natural system) that built itself

DNA

Or do you insist on remaining "agnostic" on this point? If so, WHY???

Sheer honesty, admission of ignorance, acceptance of my limited human capacity to know everything, unwillingness to make a leap of faith into blind faith or blind atheism.

Even Newton, say, or Einstein would have been mute, had they followed you prescription.

I am not advocating lack of learning. Discovery should not involve seeking God trough science.

An observer can see only what he can see from where he stands. Some observers believe the only things that are "real" are things that can be directly observed and measured. Which leaves God out of the picture in principle.

That is correct. God cannot be observed or measured or, for that matter, defined.

I think you want to see as God, the Ultimate Observer, sees.

Ultimate Observer?

But as a mortal human, stuck in the four dimensional block of normal human awareness, you can't. Get used to it!

You are preaching to the choir. I am the one who says man is limited and cannot know the truth because he cannot know everything. I am perfectly at home with that. Others, however, have to invent god so they can "create' their own version of truth.

If you have no light from the Holy Spirit, I doubt you will ever see the most important things in the world of human experience.

You just made an unsubstantiated presumptuous leap. Where does the Holy Spirit come from if not form man's own head? Man invented God so he could claim to know the truth.

Cataclysmic events do not change the underlying structure of the universe. They are temporary departures from it. And when they blow over, we get back to the status quo ante

Sweeping generalization. And exploded star does not go back to status quo ante. Cataclysmic events change the reality irreversibly. That includes death.

Jeepers, kosta, I think you don't want to know WHY; for in your heart of hearts you already know that the order comes from a Source you don't want to acknowledge. For whatever reason.

Want to know? How can I want to know everything? In 857 you wrote "In effect, the holders of such views are attempting to make their own preferences the measure of what the universe is." It seems to me that those who insist to know everything are guilty of it. In condemning the non-bbelievers, you have condemned the believers, and rightfully so!
We can only surmise that the universe was at some point in time a singularity. What existed prior to our existence is a postulate, a hypothesis, a blind belief, and not a fact that you can just "want" to know or freely invent. Certainly not even your God existed since only the created things exist. God, not being part of existence, cannot even be spoken of as existing because that which exists does so in terms of time and space. That's why the eastern Orthodox speak of God in apophatic terms as "beyond everything," ineffable.

My sense is you know ever so much MORE than you are willing to acknowledge publicly. Privately you know it; but you don't like what you know.... Again, for whatever reason.

That's very kind of you, betty boop, but I really don't. If God is, we cannot even speak of him. In the word of Archbishop Hilarion (Alfeyev) of the Russian Orthodox Church, spiritual ascent by necessity becomes "the Divine abyss where words fall silent, where reason fades, where all human knowledge and comprehension cease, where God is." He continues It is not by speculative knowledge but in the depths of prayerful silence that the soul can encounter God, Who is ‘beyond everything’" and who reveals himself "as in-comprehensible, in-accessible, in-visible, yet at the same time as living and close to her — as God the Person."
I have nothing to hide, betty boop, but you must understand that my agnosticism is not directed against God. I am not on a crusade against him.

To believe that is to believe that scientific evidence for the Big Bang is nonexistent. But this would not be true. Indeed, quite the contrary increasingly is the case.

Scientific evidence is a small part of the puzzle. It must never be believed absolutely. Big bang will be replaced in another generation or two with a new theory, each having a little of the truth but none all of it.

Often it's the case that we infer causes from their effects. Effects are actually observed. Thus they constitute some kind of evidence regarding their cause

True.

Thus they constitute some kind of evidence regarding their cause.

In the case of the Universe, the only evidence is that it was caused. It doesn't reveal how, why or how many times. It also says nothing of the nature or the attributes of the cause.

Though it's true that causes are identified through a process of induction, not deduction. But this is how science goes about its business. Do you have a problem with that?

The only problem is inferring the nature or character of the cause, because the effects seem to suggest none.

God is not "man-made." You've got that exactly backwards. :^) And not only that, but you can offer zero evidence that your view is correct or true. Such evidence simply does not exist.

The universe itself does not say anything about God, so God must come from us. Everything we 'know" about God is through man-made words.

Thus I regard the following as a complete non sequitur: Beliefs tend to resist evidence to the contrary

You are certainly entitled to that, bb. People believe in talking donkeys despite the fact that none has seen one, or that no such phenomenon occurs in the real world. :)

What is 'pre existence'? I ask that of you because your argument appears to be framing a void into which something will be conjectured to exist before God formed the heavens and the earth from a state of the chaotic.... When Alamo_Girl states that dimensions time and space were part of the creation, I take that implies God The Eternal Almighty pre-existed anything and everything we seek to comprehend, and certainly all the dimensions we may define.... We humans characterize the chaotic state and presume it is from such a chaos that The Creator fashions everything. We Christians would also presume that the 'thing', the state of chaos, was created by The Creator of all there is, has been, or ever shall be.... Frankly, I don't agree that there was an actual state of chaos, from The Creator's perspective.

It seems to me the only thing that could "pre-exist" the Creation is God the Creator Himself. There is absolutely no evidence to the contrary.

Personally, I'm with Alamo-Girl: Nothing preceded the Creation but God and the Ayn Sof. The Ayn Sof is certainly not "chaos." Rightly or wrongly, I interpret that term as meaning the "nothing," which describes the "state" (for lack of a better word) of the living God alone, utterly outside of time and space which did not then exist. That is, not alone in the universe; for He hadn't created it yet. One can barely imagine/think about such a situation, so totally removed as it is from ordinary human experience.

Chaos implies and evokes its opposite number, order. But neither order nor its opposite existed before God made the world, the universe.

Perhaps my friend kosta50 would say there is no direct evidence for my view. But it seems to me there is a lot of indirect evidence.

For one thing, things don't create themselves. There is nothing in nature that we can perceive as sui generis. Everything we observe as existing has a cause outside of itself.

MHGinTN, you point to the source of the confusion: our insufficient idea of the nature of time. Humans are "condemned" to do their observing of the natural world in terms of four-dimensional space-time — three dimensions of space, one of time. The really hardcore materialists/determinists out there imagine time is merely the "result" of natural processes occurring in three-dimensional space. Thus time is imagined as an irreversible linear process inexorably moving from past, present, to future, that is "created" by the sequence of spatial events. It has no other reality than to be the cumulative product of the sequence of spatial cause-effect relations in nature.

It took Einstein to inform us that time is an independent dimension in itself, not just the result of natural cause-effect events. On the Einsteinian view, time is itself a bona-fide, non-spatial dimension which, when married to the spatial dimensions, produces the construct of spacetime. Yet on this view, time is still essentially linear, irreversibly moving along the line of past, to present, to future.

And yet some physicists now say that the natural world reifies or reflects events taking place in another, "higher" (non-linear) temporal dimension inaccessible to direct observation altogether. Your name for this is "volumetric time." That is, non-linear time. That is, an idea of spacetime as involving additional temporal dimension(s) not readily visible to or easily conceivable by human observers.

To me, it's like our 4D spatiotemporal block is enfolded in an additional temporal dimension or dimensions. We don't "see" it (them) directly. But we need them, if we want to understand the way the world that God made actually is.

You said, "I don't agree that there was an actual state of chaos, from The Creator's perspective," and I think that is true. The reason being God is not ensnared in the 4D block of normal human experience, while chaos has no meaning outside of it. Not only is He outside of time altogether, but His Creation involves more than the 4D block. Momenta at higher temporal dimensions "distill" and find expression in that 4D block.

That is to say, neither divine reality, nor the natural world most importantly including the Creation, can be entirely reduced to three dimensions of space and one of time. To me, that is an incredible expectation.

I thank you so very much for your work in this area, dear MHGinTN. (And I hope I'm understanding you correctly!)

And thank you ever so much for your outstanding, thought-provocative essay/post!

No, the problem is that you seem to refuse to acknowledge that the cause is unknown.

Dear man, the cause is not unknown to me.

That's all I can say for now. I have to go make dinner; but I'll be back later.

Sitting without crashing to the floor is a reinforcer of faith applied

Yes, but this "faith" is based on something solid, not on voices in your head (and I don't mean ti disparagingly).

It would be a very different exercise if one entered a totally dark room, blindfolded, seeking a chair upon which to sit. Listening very acutely and feeling about would be advisable before just lowering one’s butt. A Christian ‘listens acutely with ‘spiritual ears, and feels about via applied interactions with the still small voice within

It's an interesting analogy which, I am sure, makes a lot of people accept it easier, but it's not analogous. Religious faith is something completely different.

As my behavior amkes The Holy Spirit within uncomfortable, His whisper—at frist—reminds me and reinforces the reminders with instructional passages found int he Bible. If I ignore the whispers, He will take more severe action. The process is ‘faithing’,

How do you know it's the Holy Spirit? Does the whisper lead you to the passage that says that even Satan can appear as the Angel of Light?

Sitting in enough chairs builds confidence in the reliability of chairs.

Not with me,. I test each and every one. :)

Dear man, the cause is not unknown to me. That's all I can say for now. I have to go make dinner; but I'll be back later.

I will look for your expansion on this fascinating statement in the morning. I am still on Spanish time having been in Seville for the past 10 days and just about ready to drop. Buenas noches. Luego.

You are so kind to acknowledge my ramblings. May I additionally point out/repeat that all expressions of spatio-temporal reality are created by the Creator, and we have some very interesting hints on other where/when realms not directly accessible to our sensing, like the enigmatic scene in Daniel Chapter Five, and the astonishing exit from the burial wrappings without unwrapping them and the rock tomb without rolling away the stone blocking the 4D entrance/exit.