If God is outside of time, how could he do anything?

Question

If a being is outside of time, it must be stagnant since all action and change can only happen within time. So this being could not "create" anything, right?

((I'm just now developing this though...Feed back?))

"though" = thought

C Garnder: I can create two dimensional drawings but I live within those same dimensions (length and width).

Friendshipband: All you said was "God is great." How does this answer the question?

AK: God cannot defy logic. If God defies logic we must reject him logically.

Goldminer: The statement "before time" makes no sense.

Answer 1

It requires you to deny that there is such a thing as the present.It requires the view that there is no difference between the past, present, and future. It means that the passage of time that we all experience is in fact false.In short it requires us to abandon a properly basic belief with no good reason. Consequently I have to agree with the dynamic theory of time, and consequence that God is inside of time.

Answer 2

A man is sitting in front of a table. On one edge an ant is slowly moving towards the other end of the table. At the other end is a single grain of rice. The ant does not know where it is headed and what lies ahead. The man however sees both the beginning of the ant's journey and its end. He knows what will happen even before it begins.

God is beyond time and space. Our concept of time arises due to the changes we see happening around us and movements. We say a day has passed since the sun is no longer in the horizon and there is darkness. This is a condition of movement. The earth rotates in its axis thus facing the sun for 12 hours and not facing the sun for the next 12 hours. We say that our children have grown by a certain number of years. This is a factor of change that happens to the physical body. The body changes in size, strenghth and appearance.

If we can understand that the there is a common, unchanging force that holds the universe together we will understand that God id truly beyond time and space.

Answer 3

You are outside a one dimensional or two dimensional space, yet you can draw things in a one or two dimensional way, can't you? We have hundreds of illustrations of ways that someone who is not in something or is not at a place can affect what goes on there, perhaps through computers, satellites, radio waves, etc. Since God is outside of time, His ability to affect what goes on within time is actually limitless, as He can be before, during, and after an event all at the same time.

Answer 4

The question is why would a being which is bound by nothing, take interest in, or bother with, our pathetic little lives?

Think about it... you are an omnipotent, omniscient, being. With such power you can do ANYTHING, so your crowning achievement is making a bunch of smelly shaved apes on a little, out of the way planet who spend most of their time competing for natural resources, so they can live long enough to profess their everlasting love and loyalty to you, and then ultimately die to be with you, assuming they obey your rules. And, it's all by choice, so a great many of them will never even do this.

Personally, if I were such a being, I would create an adversary just as powerful as myself, and then play universe wars. Now that would be a worthy pursuit for an all-powerful being.

Answer 5

I myself have fought with that same thing for a while. The closest thing I can think of is that time (as well as the other 3 spatial dimensions that we're aware of) existed as long as God did. Note that this does not mean the universe did, it just means that those four dimensions (possibly more of String Theory is correct) existed. (yes, something can exist in x-dimensions without being part of a certain x-dimensional unverse)

Answer 6

First, how do you know that God is outside of time? Wouldn't He have had to create time, linear time, so that there could be a chain of creation?

In the Book of Genesis in the Holy Bible, we read in verse 1, "In the beginning...God...created the heaven and the earth". (emphasis mine) "In the beginning",...so God was before time. There had to be God before there was time. right? If that is true, then how could God have been outside of time, since he is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. ( Revelation 22:13)

Answer 7

God is not time bound. Everything is an emanation of God, not a creation. The holy books are flawed they have been written by men. Read the letter that was written upon your heart[centre] before you arrived here, all is eternal, time is part of the world dream that keeps mankind in slumber.

Answer 8

Not necessarily.

No one knows what happens outside of Time.

If the view of Big Bang is correct the Universe was only anywhere from 1 micron to 100,000,000 miles big at the time of Big Bang

So, what was BEYOND THAT

Now, if course, it's 100,000,000 or so Light YEars.


BUT what is beyond that

WHAT is on the OTHER SIDE of the expanding universe.

Answer 9

God does not conform to our rules. Remember.... God! He can and does do anything He wants at any time He chooses. We cannot box Him up according to the finite parameters our minds are constrained by. God is all knowing, all seeing, all encompassing if you believe in Him. If you don't believe you can formulate any theory you wish. He doesn't respond very well to our attempt to dismiss Him. And we shouldn't presume we know all He knows.

Answer 10

God, is what exists outside of time and requires no cause. Guess what? It is equally possible that logic, not God, is what exists outside of time and requires no cause.