From GB:
Date: 11-29-03 20:35

Carmen Chimento wrote:

Jumping into the middle of a discussion, although I
have read the above postings, I think the first thing
necessary in this discussion is not to lose our powers of
reason.


GB: Thanks for joining the conversation. Our first poster has disappeared---always a great disappointment when provocative ideas are presented. One wishes to ask questions and probe ideas further.


Carmen: If nothing existed before the creation of space and time,
then nothing existed, not atoms, not energy. Before the
creation of space and time, only God existed, and only God,
because of God's attribute of innascency. If we all agree on
that, then what remains to be solved is the question of WHEN
and HOW God created space and time.


GB: Scientifically we now know that as far as this universe is concerned, space and time had a beginning. This is something earlier generations had to take on faith as the rational and scientific evidence was at best ambiguous.

However, we are still in a situation as far as matter and energy (which are mutually convertible and so in a sense the "same" stuff) that is similarly ambiguous. Did matter and energy come into existence simultaneously with space and time or did their existence precede that of space and time. In the latter case, by how much "time/eternity"?

One philosophical answer is that matter/energy is itself eternal and did not need to be created. Another is that it was created out of nothing by God. If we agree on the latter statement, the question still remains as to whether God created matter before space and time or simultaneously with space and time.

Some physicists are toying with the ideas of an oscillating universe or a multi-universe to cope with the concept that our universe is limited in space and time, yet matter/energy appears to be eternal and indestructible. I have misgivings about these ideas, especially as they appear to be untestable. But I would suggest that God must have created matter/energy at least a few seconds before the big bang. Otherwise there would not have been the material energy present for the big bang to occur.


Carmen: When did God create space and time? One thing we know for
sure is that since God is eternal and time is temporal, God
cannot exist in time, else God is not God, because by
definition, God and time, as well as God and space are
incompatible attributes. Why is that? Because time and
space are created things, but God always existed, and
consequently, cannot exist within what God created.

GB: Agreed. Except for the very last clause. As a Christian I am committed to the belief that God has entered what God created at least once in the Incarnation. Philosophically I am inclined to panentheism: the belief that God is separate from creation but exists within as well as outside of creation.

            
Carmen: In my book Beyond the Universe, I mention how the most
revered Christian theologian, Thomas Aquinas, made several
errors in his theology by trying to invent the nature of God
so that it would fit into the early church's teachings
regarding the godhead. He blindly accepted those teachings
as being infallible.

GB: This interests me very much. Can you say more about these errors?


Carmen: So it is important for anyone who wants to have a serious
discussion regarding God and God's creation from a scientific
standpoint, that we do not err (as Aquinas erred) by blindly
accepting these so called theories, including the Big Bang
theory.


GB: I do not understand how anything you have said is incompatible with the event of the big bang. Can you explain further?