More Quora Questions 04-21-2019

[Gnomon]

https://www.quora.com/How-would-deists- ... ps-fallacy

Deist God of the Gaps

Reply to Finch, 04-21-2019
“No one. God is eternal and transcendent, just like time.” . . . “What they mean to say is, measurable time; a starting point.” . . . “Time exists eternally, in both directions…just like God.”

**Musings on Transcendent Time**

“Big Bang” is a sarcastic term for the anomalous Grand Entrance of our world into Time & Space . . . and maybe Being. Time is how we measure change in the physical world. Yet, if the BB was preceded by an eternally evolving Multiverse, then Change & Time would exist without beginning or end – and maybe without God. But Time could also be interpreted as a great cycle of being (Hinduism); or as dynamic linear time (common sense); or as static “Block Time” (Einstein's Relativity).

My guess about transcendent Time covers all three theories. What exists eternally is what I call BEING : the power to be; what some call “the ground of being”. So, when viewed by people from within our evolving physical world, with a definite beginning, and a foreseeable end, TIME seems linear – just as the Earth viewed from the ground seems flat, but viewed from space is spherical.

On the other hand, when conceived by religious sages as an aspect of eternal BEING (Brahman), TIME would be an endless cycle of creation & destruction. Or when imagined by philosophers as an explanation for evolutionary change (Chronos), TIME, as an eternal principle, could be all possible events existing (as potential only) simultaneously in the Mind of God (a transcendent omniscient Creator, or Coder). When actualized, possible events become NOW.

That last notion of static or “Block” TIME, as eternal Potential, is what I call “Chaos”, referring back to the Greek notion of unformed void or abyss (similar to an energy field), from which (infinite Pool of Possibility) the Cosmos emerged, or was created. The creation could be singular, as in the Biblical story; or manifold, as in some oriental cosmologies. But, as in Multiverse theories, we can only speculate about (imagine) the Time before time, and worlds beyond our world.

Ultimately though, TIME is not a physical thing to be dissected empirically, but a metaphysical concept to be experienced mentally. Likewise, G*D, as a transcendent being, is beyond the reach of scientific sensors. So that unknowable eternal principle (or deity) can best be imagined as an eternal MIND, with no physical properties to decay into dust due to the “ravages of time”.

Apart from its effects on temporary matter, TIME is imaginary -- a mental concept. Likewise, the "G*D of the Void" can be known by its effects on the temporal world, as we know Dark Matter. But G*D *per se* is imaginary. Or putting first things first, maybe we humans are ideas (images) in the Mind of G*D. Does that reflective recursion make your brain hurt?


*Recursion* : self-reflecting feedback loops