Quentin Smith - Did God Create Time?

God and time are two huge mysteries. Relating them probes the nature of God, and perhaps even the existence of God. God, in order to be Creator, must create everything other than God's own self, which includes time.

[MojoPin]

Another possibility is that God was timeless, but subsequent to the creation of the universe, He entered into time.

[itsjustameme]

Not only is the "god-time" concept full of contradictions as Smith here showed, but Inventing a "god-time" to help account for the existence of time is about as helpful as inventing a god to account for the existence of the universe. You end up exactly where you started with an unexplained entity, and to rub slat in the wound this new entity is one that you cannot verify the existence of in any meaningful way.

[fiazmultani]

I think intellectual humility is a good idea when we don't know.

[Aerex]

So given a scenario that we do live in some sort of simulation doesn't that presupposes some sort of creator? Why would god or whatever need to be part of time?

[fearitselfpinball]

I really admire Robert Lawrence Kuhn. Here are 3 things I admire:

1. His ability, even in conversations that seem potentially frustrating, to remain collected, balanced and conversational.
2. His natural commitment to first summarize and understand the viewpoints of those he interviews (and then to extend or offer their further implications for discussions).
3. His commitment to what is in his own ‘heart’ knows (and his mind’s capacity to come to its defence). He believes that questions like, “Why is there anything at all?” are not trivial or meaningless—the opposite and demonstrates that they are relevant, if admittedly debatable—and sometimes derided, still relevant and important.

[bubayou]

Modern cosmology theory believes that if there is no matter, there is no time.  If god is spirit then he does not require time to exist.  Only things that are made of stuff require time to exist and a spirit by definition is not made of stuff. Amazing how those clever ancient Jews knew how to cover all their bases !  I wonder where they got that idea of god not being made of stuff ?

[aradais]

This Guy was very intelligent❤ I love how many times he says "this is a contradiction"

[bridgestoparadise]

I'm an atheist, but I must say this guy is assuming a prescientific conception of time which no contemporary physicists hold. Sure, God isn't "in" time or "outside of" time, but you can also say (consistent with contemporary physics) that the universe isn't "in" time or "outside of" time.

[pjtube]

His thesis on God and time contradiction is narrow-minded. God can exist outside of time. God's creative act in creating the time does not make God exist in time. "First moment in time" is a temporal concept which can only be applied to temporal and created beings. God created the entirety of time and God's creative acts in all time instances would seem temporal from the PoV of all temporal beings who lives in the time. From this PoV, temporal beings are not in a position to deduce that God is in time. This is antropomorphized notion that assumes divine as an entity or presence whose creative act being in time necessitates that the divine is also in time.

[Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time]

Could ‘time’ be formed by a universal process of energy exchange with the future unfolding photon by photon with the wave particle duality of light and matter in the form of electrons forming a blank canvas that we can interact with forming the possible into the actual?

[jzblue]

The problem is that we still don't fully understand time so making assumptions about whether god exists or not is getting ahead of ourselves.

[alirezaakbari]

Who said the God should be limited to time since he created it, all the computers we make have their own clock but we are not limited by it

[holgerjrgensen]

God is the name of the Eternal Life,
time is the Effect of the Eternal Motion.

[tonyskater]

Your answer straight from God.
You either believe or don't.

Revelation 1:8 is that God is the beginning and the end of all things. In other words, he always was God and he always will be God.

[David.C.Velasquez]

Good one, with an unintentional spotlight shone on human inability to think in terms of multiple levels of embedded time frames. I suspect Mr. Smith was having difficulty following the level of 4D abstraction Dr. Kuhn was trying to bring into the conversation, with the concept of god being outside the 4D block spacetime. Actually, wouldn't that require god to move in a 5th degree of freedom? Obviously it would, but there are also other conceivable configurations of the "block universe". *words

[PetreCA]

The question seems ill informed from the get go. From what I remember from physics, Time is not a primary aspect of reality. Energy and matter (its structured form) are. Space time is a derivative aspect of the Universe . Time came into being only after the Big Bang. On the other hand, God creates reality such that it exists without a direct relationship with time

[robertcurtis]

God can exist outside, and inside time simultaneously.

[douglynch]

One thing we can say about all of these "theories" about God, they are pure speculation. We can sit around and BS all day about what God did or didn't do, whether she is sustaining the universe, yada yada. "I don't know if any of this is right". That was your best point.

[charlesbrightman]

Utilizing our English language:
Imagine in your mind that everything in existence, even things that only exist in your mind, are all "concepts". Those concepts are given "names". Those names get a "meaning" of which might just be the named concept in and of itself and/or it could have other meanings, maybe even multiple meanings depending upon context. Even the word "concept" is just a name for what our mind perceives a concept to be in this context. "God", space, time, logic and reason are all just concepts with names and attached meanings in a context. BUT, what if our basic knowledge and understanding of what a "concept" actually is, is flawed? How could our mind even perceive what that would be? How would we ever truly know and understand if our meanings to those named concepts are even truly 100% accurate? Things just might actually exist that are truly beyond our human comprehension. That at least seems like a possibility to me that just can't be arbitrarily ruled out. "The Greatest Unknown": those things that truly exist in some state of existence that are truly beyond our human comprehension. (If they even actually exist, but we would never ever know). A good place to start a new religion. Possibly a pink unicorn did it all, prove me wrong. :-D

[allgodsmyth]

Robert's argument is defeated with one question: "Given that God was required to create World Time, who created God Time?"