Is God outside of time?

5 on each hand

And yet, somehow... "10" is TWO DIGITS !



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It works out well for Lucy on Peanuts. She is happy to give Linus 5 good reasons.

The term 'eternal' infers by implication a nature that has no beginning of existence. It was not created nor would it have came into existence by a process of evolving; thus it would be defined, at least in part, as having always existed.

The principle of the first cause argument requires the last effectual cause to have a cause, if not the effectual cause fails to establish it as the valid cause. So when you work the cause and effect back to the beginning, or the last known effect you will end with the expanse of celestial space in which all mass within this universe exists within.

You could say that space is the foundation upon which the world was built. However, you can't say that space and mass were brought into existence at the same time since space has to proceed mass since mass did not exist prior to the beginning and it requires space to in order to exist. I will use water as an example, before water could exist there would have to be two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen.

So we can reason that everything that exists within this universe had a beginning and the last known effect ends up as being the expanse of celestial space in the first cause argument. Now the question is what is effectual cause of space. Since everything known and observed to exist has an cause, then what is the cause produced the expanse? But remember, to be a valid effectual cause it must have a cause.

Now back to the term 'eternal', since nothing within this universe has always existed, which we conclude by the nature of the things in this world which reflects that living things within this world have a beginning and end of its life cycle. Hence, we conclude that any living entity that existed before this spherical expanse of celestial space was brought into existence would be outside of the time which is relative to the universe and that within.

unless you have 6 fingers on each hand...

But if you have 5 fingers on each hand (counting the thumb as a finger) then you would have 1,2,3,4,5 on your left hand and 1,2,3,4,5 on your right hand, then you would 10 digits but not 10 numbers.

Digits aren't numbers, just the space occupied by numbers.

How many finite numbers are there?

You do not seem to understand the word 'finite'.

Numbers are always finite numbers.

Here is a dictionary definition of "finite" and read it carefully, Collins Dictionary.

1. having bounds or limits; not infinite; measurable.

Notice please those two words, not infinite, measurable.

Infinity is not measurable.

You definitely cannot measure infinity using finite numbers.

Numbers are finite and can be bounded in sets, defined with limits in calculus.

You need to concentrate on the meaning of the words.

And yet you used the word 6 times in your post. Maybe you should stick to writing about things you can comprehend.

There are only 10 numbers, so yes numbers are finite.

Each number and combination of numbers represent a value. The values that can be expressed by numbers is infinite, meaning that it could go on without end.

So what does infinity have anything to do with whether the eternal God is outside of time?

From what I have studied, it seems like words translated 'eternal' or 'forever and ever' mean 'forever and ever' not this abstract meaning of 'eternal' which probably comes from theological/philosophical speculation more recent than the writing of the Bible. Reading that idea into verses would seem to me to be circular reasoning.

You loss me in the last sentence...celestial space.... all mass? That doesn't seem like a logically coherent argument, or at least you are leaving out the steps of the argument that might make it coherent.

I do not see the connection to this and the teaching of the Bible.

That sounds sort of self-contradictory... 'that existed before'.... outside of time. 'Before' implies time.

I wouldn't rule out the possibility of scientific and philosophical arguments, but I do not see where the scriptures teach that God is 'outside of time' or the concept of existence 'outside of time.'

I am not seeing the logical connection here between that last sentence and the arguments that came before it.

Of course, I can comprehend finite numbers in Mathematics.

I used the word 'infinite' to describe that which is beyond human reason.

Infinite is an idea and that is all the word really means.

The values cannot be infinite because that is a contradiction.

Numbers are finite entities not infinite.

Let's count together.

1,2,3,4,...,1123, 1124.

Wow that took some time.

Did we reach an infinite number yet?

Can we count forever?

We cant count forever because we are temporal creatures.

The world is temporal.

The universe is temporal.

Forever, eternal, and infinity, are mere ideas.

In math it's numbers that keep going up and up forever, or down and down forever.

When we've been there 10,000 years bright shining as the sun, we've no less DAYS to sing God's praise than when we first begun. Everyone - saved, unsaved, children, etc. - can comprehend/understand 'infinite number of days'; infinity.

'Infinity' was in the math books a zillion years ago when I was in school. I can set my guitar's stompbox delay to an "infinite" number of repeats. It gets used in technology. Some car stereo volume knobs are incremental, some are infinite. If I remember right, rheostats & potentiometers have infinite variation (as opposed to incremental) in resistance.