Not quite.
Only things limited by time require a beginning. If God exists in a timeless state, then at no point did he “come in to existence”. He would exist eternally.
Then how did God ever create the universe? If God is has existed for all eternity then an infinite amount of time would have to elapse before he got around to bringing the Universe into existence. So either the Universe doesn’t exist, or God is not eternal. If God is not eternal then there must have been a moment when God was created. Is it really plausible to believe that a being as complicated as God could spring into existence spontaneously? No! It would be like a whirlwind sweeping through a warehouse of airplane parts and spontaneously assembling a 747. So the only logical conclusion is that God must have a creator!
See … that’s how the typical argument goes.
Sorry… can’t make sense of this…
You keep referring to God “coming in to existence”. The argument I have been referring to since my OP assumes an eternal God.
Also, the argument suggests God exists in a timeless state, so your reference to God existing for an infinite amount of time is also irrelevant (in this scenario).
How do you know the universe has never existed in a timeless state? We certainly experience time now. But we have no evidence that time existed before the Big Bang.
Because it’s illogical.
How can matter exist in a timeless state? It would have to completely stop moving. What would then cause it to start moving again?
I’m with you. I don’t believe time existed before the big bang. Time as we know it certainly didn’t exist before the universe itself existed.
How can God exist in a timeless state? He would be incapable of action. Creating the universe is a big action. Any entity capable of doing that clearly can’t exist in an eternal timeless state.
Motion is the change of position over time, and thus requires time. If the universe existed in a timeless state, it would not be moving, by definition. But as soon as time starts, then motion becomes possible. Since you have argued, with me, that time did indeed start, I don’t see the problem.
Well, if we are forced to conclude that God exists, a decision has to be made about the state he exists in. If God exists in a state of time, then he requires a beginning, which is illogical.
But as far as any sort of laws or practical observations go, space is just the matrix through which forces propigate through time. So if there was no information transfer because there was no time, any empirical observations could not tell the difference between space existing and not existing, so from an epistemological perspective, we might as well assume that space doesn’t exist either if time doesn’t!
Consider a theoretical universe where time is indexed by integers, with the present moment being indexed by 0, and the ordering of integers corresponding to the chronological ordering. [Indeed, I would venture that most people start off assuming that time does in fact follow this very model (well, where each integer denotes a particular second in time).]
Is it true that “Time stretches on infinitely into the past, with no first point”? Yes, as there are infinitely many integers below 0, with no least integer.
Is it true that “There is a moment in the past after which an infinite amount of time has currently elapsed”? No, as there is no integer below 0 whose difference from 0 is infinite.
Thus, there is a distinction between the two. Do you see? The problem with your argument is that it takes the answer to the second question being “No” as grounds for concluding that the answer to the first question must also be “No”, but as we see above, this is a flawed inference.
But your scenario of placing an infinite number line across the universe to represent time assumes the universe to be infinite.
If the universe had a beginning, then the answer to question 1 is ‘No’.
But if God exists in a timeless state, then he never could have taken the action required to create the universe.
The universe exists. Therefore God, if he exists, must exist in a state of time. But if (as you state) it’s logically impossible for him to exist in a state of time then we’re forced to conclude that he must not exist at all.
Your “proof of God’s existence” is actually a very handy “proof of God’s non-existence”!
Note that it doesn’t disprove the existence of all possible gods. Only timeless, eternal ones. The standard Christian God is obviously an impossibility, but we can’t rule out Zeus or Odin.
Yes, but your argument purports to be one which establishes that time has a beginning point. You can’t use that assumption as part of your argument; that would be circular reasoning.
To put it another way: suppose I don’t already believe that time has a beginning point. Can your argument convince me? Not if it starts off by saying “Well, because we already know that time has a beginning point, we can rule out scenario so-and-so…”. If you begin by assuming the very conclusion you set out to prove, you don’t even need to bother making an argument.
And the concept of something existing in a “timeless state” is meaningless. Nothing exists outside of time. So logically, God does not exist inside or outside of time. Being as these are the only two possibilities, then we’ve proven that God does not exist.
Was this the direction you planned on going?
The problem with this whole line of argument is that you want to use certain rules to prove various points. But once those rules cause a conclusion you don’t like, you assert (without evidence) that something lies outside of the rules.
What’s your proof on that?
Hmmm… but as far as I can tell, my scenario is not making any assumptions.
It begins by asking a question. “If I promise to give you this dollar after an infinite amount of time, when will you get it?”.
What assumptions have I made about the universe? None that I can see. The next point then goes…
“Hence, is it possible that an infinite amount of time has passed up until right now?”.
Again… what assumptions have I made here?
Like I said, you make an unsupportable leap from “There is no point in the past such that an infinite amount of time has currently elapsed since it” (which is what your reflection upon the dollar-offer would establish) to “Time does not extend infinitely into the past, and in fact has a beginning point” (which you purport to be able to conclude via this argument). I demonstrated that the two are not equivalent, and that in fact this inference is not valid, by pointing out that it is possible for the former to be true without the latter being true (via the number-line model).
If you use the assumption “Well, that alleged counterexample has no beginning point” to rule out the number-line model, then you are incorporating the assumption of a beginning point and thus arguing circularly. If you do not do so, then you are left to explain the unsupported inference above.
I still think you’re over complicating it.
Can something happen after an infinite amount of time? No.
Are things happening right now? Yes.
Then time had a beginning.
Also, I am not “incorporating the assumption of a beginning point” in your number line model -> the point is to make no assumptions either way. Your model forces an assumption of an infinite number line, which forces an assumption of infinite time.