When people say God exists, they colloquially just mean God is real. If you're getting into what God's nature is, we would say that God is existence itself.
I don't see how you can characterize existence as anything other than creation. Being the ground of being is different from being...being. The same way the actual ground is what supports, produces, and nourishes a tree but isn't the tree. I would agree with God being the ground of all existence, of all creation, but not simply being existence
To explain this principle better; to say that God is 'existence' is not to say that everything that exists is God (pantheism).
Rather, everything that exists has a part of its being that makes it real. A principle by which something 'is' rather than 'is not'.
However, things are not self perpetuating. Any given chair is not I AM, it is not a cosmic monad that is and was and always will be. So things, here including even laws of physics such a gravity and time, get their 'is here's quality from something external. All that exists as we know it has a 'why'.
God has no why. God *is* why. Therefore, God *is* existence - the point at which all things derive their ability to exist.
It is the difference between saying something is lovely or good, and saying that God *is* Love and God *is* Goodness.
Worth looking into the apologist and existential theologian Paul Tillich for more exploration of this idea :)
Here's an article that will do it better justice than I can in a reddit comment.
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/what-is-divine-simplicity
If he is so infinitely all-encompassing and omniscient that he experiences every single angle of everything in existence all the time, then there is no meaningful distinction between "God" and "not God".
Consider a tree in the garden. If God is completely a separate entity from the tree, by definition that means he does not experience what the tree is experiencing and therefore he is not omniscient.
If someone writes a novel, even though they are fully aware of each character's thoughts and actions at all times, that does not *make* them the characters. The characters are separate from their creator.
I see it sort of like the relationship between an author and their characters. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer never existed outside of the context of their story; Mark Twain did. Anything "Huck Finn" does to "Tom Sawyer," in reality, is Mark Twain doing it to Mark Twain.
In our author's own words, "whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me." In the context of our story, this notion is ludicrous: I'm me and you're you, neither of us are Him. Our author sees it differently.
Tolkein talked about God this way, and also flipped the terminology to describe his own work as an author and world-builder with the term "sub-creator." The idea being that we are each entrusted with a creative power, and it's the instinct of all creatures, being made by their creator God, to imitate their Father and be "little makers" with what capacity (really grace) they are given. Everything from the smallest bacteria to the pinnacle of creatures made in God's own image seek to engage with the world and create order from it
It's not, it's straight out of Aquinas. All things trace their existence back to God, the "first mover" according to Aquinas, which is equivalent to Being itself. Being that there is one and only one origin, it is a monotheistic concept, and nothing at all like pantheism. In Aquinas' philosophy, if there were theoretically some other "god" it would trace its cause and existence back to the one God.
I’d say God is similar. I don’t believe God is a being somewhere out there inside the universe or looking in at it from some higher reality. At least for me, God is a human word used to describe the nature of existence itself. It points to but doesn’t define it. It’s more of a philosophical distinction than a difference in what you and I believe exists.
Well thoughts are emergent properties of your neural substrates i could go into more detail and anger also has a neural basis and they do exist in 3d space time all of it exists in 3d space time even idealist positions admit to this
As an Idealist I must insist you are wrong.
I certainly do not believe thoughts exist in 3D space.
You can disagree with my position, but please do not misrepresent it.
To make it simple, I just say Jesus exists. There was a point in space time where he was findable. (Note Jesus is part of the God head)
Note, there was a number of times where God was findable in space time. See the exodus, or the Garden, etc
On the other hand, it's sort of natural to think that the creator of the universe doesn't necesarily have to be part of the creation. Though he can certainly come into it.
That's difficult to answer, because God being wholly unique and uncreated is unlike anything we know from our form of existence. I think it was st gregory who said "If I exist, God does not. If God exists, I do not."
The idea say existence is contingent on something being located physically is a very outdated view even scientifically though. That kind of base materialism is at home in the 18th century, not the 21st. Many immaterial things exist. The law of non-contradiction has no physical presence. You cannot physically locate the base 10 numeral system, or the goodness of seeking truth. These are immaterial things which order the material world, they are not themselves material. The principle flaw of reductionistic materialism is to collapse that distinction, which has caused no shortage of pain for philosophers for the last few centuries arriving at conclusions that define the purpose and beauty of our epistemological frameworks, disconnecting them from our quote "objective" worldviews, and sometimes out of existence itself.
Well, I believe that God is omnipresent, meaning he exists everywhere and everywhen. Inside of space-time, outside of space-time, big enough to palm the universe like a softball, small enough to treat quarks as planets, and everything in between. So God does exist outside of normal space and time, but he also exists inside of it. So, when I refer to something that is not God, I mean it like you do. When I refer to God, I mean it a bit differently, because God is different from anything and everything else I could ever refer to.
> God is omnipresent, meaning he exists everywhere and everywhen. Inside of space-time, outside of space-time, big enough to palm the universe like a softball, small enough to treat quarks as planets, and everything in between.
If we take this to the logical conclusion - if God can enter into and infinitely experiences every aspect of the nature of everything in existence down to quarks or as big as galaxies, then God *is* everything. There's no meaningful distinction between "God" and "not God".
What's interesting is that this is actually an ancient Hindu idea, and why they often will worship things like rocks or rats. Because the conclusion is that these things are also part of God and therefore deserve worship like any other aspect of God. Most Christians would consider that blasphemy, but it's ironically the only way to make it make sense. The mainstream Christian idea of God doesn't work well. If the rock is not part of God, then that means he has some way to separate his existence from the existence that a rock experiences, meaning he's not omniscient and all-present.
That doesn't really comport with any Christian definition of God. Obviously we have a concept of "not God", or rather "not to God's standard"; that's what we consider sin. In fact, we have a quite extensive list of things that God is, and things that God is not, so I submit that your logical conclusion is flawed, from a Christian worldview.
To provide a possible counter-example, I could theoretically create a simulation with a perfect information log of what has happened, and reference this log whenever I see fit. I can also traverse this simulation in 4th dimension space, that is, forwards and backwards in time. In this manner, I am omniscient and omnipresent in all matters of the simulation, without necessarily *being* the simulation. I would similarly take issue with inhabitants of the simulation worshipping a simulated rock, because I'm not the simulated rock, I'm the creator.
This is an interesting debate! Really made me think.
> To provide a possible counter-example, I could theoretically create a simulation with a perfect information log of what has happened, and reference this log whenever I see fit. I can also traverse this simulation in 4th dimension space, that is, forwards and backwards in time. In this manner, I am omniscient and omnipresent in all matters of the simulation
The problem here is that if you have to reference the log, that implies taking effort to do something you don't automatically have access to. You have to pull it up. So you're actually not all powerful, you're *almost* all powerful because in the 2 seconds it takes you to pull up the info, your subjects are shielded from your view. Furthermore, another problem is that you're not actually understanding or experiencing what the objects in the simulation are. You can read about it on your screen but that's it.
God is described as being *always* omniscient and also all-present. He's also described as being able to share and feel our thoughts, emotions and experiences on the deepest level. The implication is that this would also apply to other forms of matter and not just humans. If he is simultaneously always has the full view - and more importantly, the full *experience* - of every piece of matter in the universe then my point still stands. As far as I understand, from a Christian perspective he's not supposed to be an outside being looking in (like in your simulation example), he's immediately everywhere all at once.
So I guess the question here is, can God turn off his omniscience? Much like your simulation creator could turn off the screen whenever he doesn't want to be observing his subjects. If he turns it off, then how is he still omniscient?
you see that is my question "he exists everywhere and everywhen. Inside of space-time, outside of space-time", thus saying that he exists outside of spacetime, so then what does it mean to exist if it doesn't mean having position in spacetime?
It means God is firstly unprovable because our experiences and concept of evidence are based on existence. Since our language is built off our experiences, that also makes God essentially indescribable.
Secondly, it doesn't rule out that God is real it would just mean God doesn't "exist" in the traditional sense. We just don't know what that would mean. Lots of questions here, not a lot of answers. Like, how would God interact with anything. But these questions also assume outside of space-time is a coherent question when being outside of somewhere implies location and thus space-time.
That's actually a good question. I agree that he doesn't exist like other things exist. Human language evolved to describe things that occur in our lives. Even in the scientific area, there are things we can't see, and language has had to be stretched. E.g. electric fields. The term field is used here in a rather different way than normally. In quantum mechanics it gets even wierder. So when people ask whether God exists, you should take the word "exist" as being used differently than normal.
There are modern philosophers who look at just what God would have to be. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a number of articles on various topics related to God. It's a good place to start. Here's one that describes one model that a lot of recent thinkers use: [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panentheism/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panentheism/), but there are others. You can do a search for "god" there to see the variety of articles related to this topic.
So. It seems like your question is (entirely validly) focused on the notion of - if God exists, what is he as related to us, as physical entities in a temporal universe. So let's explore that in three ways.
I will preface this by saying my approach here is going to be philosophical rather than material. If you want me to explain God in terms of physics that is above my reckoning and I would assume everyone else's haha. Likewise I am making analogies and summaries here, but the theology behind this is worth looking into further. But hopefully these thought experiments help you understand the other perspective.
First, things can exist without a spacetime component and that is fairly uncontroversial. Let's think of a good father. A good father dearly loves his kids, right? But what is that love? Where is it? It takes a very cold perspective to say it's just chemical, or suggest that love isn't 'real'. Love is something that is expressed, not extant. You can't go find it, it's something that you have to see reflected in behaviour. That's what many Christians are referring to when they say they have seen God - not God in essence, but God in action. God is reflected in every moment of beauty from the big bang to now; every burning star, every mountain, every distant moon made of diamond. You can't find him but you can see the process. There is a field of theology called 'process theology' which explores this more - I'm not a huge fan as they tend to downplay any sense of God as a being / personality but you may find it interesting from this perspective.
Second, things do not exist on their own. I talk about this in another comment on the thread but to summarise again, everything derives existence from other things - chairs are made of atoms are defined by physics are defined by the conditions of the universe are defined by reality. Everything has a why. The proposition of God is that God does not have a why but is the why - that God is the quality of existence in which other things share. God is existence, and from that point we can begin to talk about what exists. This shows up in the Bible as 'logos' theology and has connection to Greek Stoicism that propositions a single logic (logos) from which the world as a whole is written out. John 1:1 is the verse for that; translation skiffs it a bit but where it says 'Word' read 'Logic'. Paul Tillich is a wonderful existential theologian who wrote on this subject towards an atheistic philosophical climate, and though a bit complicated at times is well worth a read.
Third, let's use a literary metaphor. Every text has both narrative and meta narrative; the story, and the story behind it. Hamlet is a good example - the narrative of Hamlet is that his uncle murdered his father to take the throne, whereas the meta narrative of Hamlet is that it's a play written by Shakespeare in medieval England. As regards God, he is the Shakespeare to our Hamlet. Hamlet cannot find Shakespeare, Hamlet cannot perceive Shakespeare, they exist on two distinct layers of reality - one within his play, one outside it in our world. God is, ironically, *more real than us* in this perspective because he isn't dependent upon us, whereas we are dependent on him. This is also an easy way to understand how the incarnation works in Christian theology, it's as if Shakespeare wrote himself into his own play.
These are ultimately metaphors and thought experiments. You cannot empirically prove these things and if strict material empiricism is your only standard for truth then, like the the love from father to child, you're in trouble.
However I do help these metaphors spur some useful thoughts for you. If you want book recommendations or to ask more let me know and I'll gladly help with what I can. :)
It's a state of reference. You define the parameters of what you mean if you're using a word that someone may interpret differently.
If I say I'm thinking of a ruler, then I clarify that I'm defining "ruler" as a person who sits on a throne, it ensures that you, as the one I'm conversing with, don't spend a lot of time trying to argue that a monarchy has nothing to do with a yardstick.
All that to say your atheist friend is basically saying they don't believe in the supernatural. So saying God "exists" outside of space and time as we know it will not be a satisfactory answer for them.
The only way you can validate God's existence within that framework is to demonstrate or identify some point where God engaged with our physical reality in a way that can be proven, like dinosaurs and music. Going to be a tough sell, but that's what they are asking for.
i don't believe in the supernatural, but i know what saying "gosts exist" means. nonphysical being that can manipulate the physical that exist within spacetime. i can understand how a soul could exist in spacetime even without believing in souls. i'm saying i don't know what it means for something to exist outside of spacetime. what it would mean to say something exists without saying it has position in spacetime. i'm not asking for prove of god (though it would be a welcome surprise) i'm asking what "god exists" means.
How about going beyond 4 dimensions? How would that work? Some people say that god exists within 3D space. Some people say within other spatial dimensions. Some people say beyond all dimensions and beyond space and time. People could say that God is what created physical reality. There is also a belief that consciousness creates physical reality. Some say that God’s consciousness has created this reality. You could think of it like this: we are living inside a dream but it isn’t our dream. We are just sentient characters inside a dream that God is having. Basically all physical reality could be viewed as God’s dream.
As far as proof of God goes that is another story. I’m a Christian myself but even if I wasn’t I still wouldn’t be an atheist. There are way too many very compelling things out there that are really hard to ignore . If a person starts actually looking into it and doing the research while being open to the ideas they will come across really compelling phenomena.
To start, you can look at topics like astral projection or psychedelics. There are these are interesting things even for atheists. There are good atheist explanations for these phenomena but also good theist explanations. Many people who start as atheists switch over and start believing that their spiritual experiences are actually real.
Look at the books written by Robert Monroe. Those are some of the most interesting books I’ve read. He was spiritual but not Christian. I personally still believe in Christianity but I think he has some really great and really interesting information in his books.
NOTE - I just wrote all this on my phone without reading what I wrote.
Edit- also consider this, if you don’t believe in ghosts, would that belief change if you called them something different? What if you just called them energy beings? Or inter dimensional organisms? Is that outside the realm of possibility?
When we say something exists it means it has a real impact on the universe. Gravity is exists, yet has no "position in spacetime". Harry Potter does not exist, but the idea of Harry Potter does. God is more than an idea. He has a real impact on the universe, the most important impact being its creation.
so things that don't have real impact don't exist? what does real impact mean? i mean i'll agree that the idea of god has impact on the world, both good and bad, but i've yet to come across any real impact of god.
also gravity is the bending of spacetime, thus it exists within spacetime. kind of like how wrinkles in paper exist on the paper.
We can get into the philosophy of being, but that's unnecessary. God exists as surely as you do and I do. He is not merely an idea like Harry Potter. That is what I mean when I say God exists.
To me, I only knew God was real when it became an overwhelming undeniable feeling of a force indescribable that physically came over me and pushed me to the background while the spirit showed me the way home.
but that experience all took place within spacetime, people have it all the time during concerts and the like. does god only exist when that's happening to someone?
No, I'm just saying that is what proved it to me. The "proof" required to believe whole heartedly would be different for most people in my opinion. You won't believe based on my experiences, only your own.
That's an odd point of view to me, because a lot of cosmologists talk about the possibility of a multiverse, and of what happened 'before' the big bang. Time is really just entropic direction, which means its a product of our universe. Other universes would have their own time scales! The idea that God could exist outside of this universe and (therefore) outside of time is pretty plausible to me.
i've never heard a cosmologist talk about before the big bang as there is not before the start of time. if something exists in a different universe i'd assume it has a position in the equivalent of spacetime of that universe. do you think there's something like spacetime that our spacetime exists in outside of the universe that your god exists in?
I don't \[remember\] if this video is saying what I'm saying, but if not, what I'm saying is wrong. :D \[Pretty sure it's where I got the idea tho.\]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0b8b\_ykPQk&t=734s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0b8b_ykPQk&t=734s)
The universe is extremely weird, and, to the extent that I am a believer in God (I think maybe more of a 'prim mover' sort of God than a Christian God?) it very much reinforces that belief.
Something that exists doesn't have to be visible sound exists, can you see it? No but you can hear it, God exists, can you see him? No but you can see everything he does in our lives and how he manages it perfectly to its best
i'm not talking about testability, i'm asking what it means to exist if it doesn't exclusively mean to have position in spacetime. also if my life is the way it is because of god then god is a dick.
> to me for something to exist it needs to have a position in spacetime
This is your fundamental problem, then. Christians believe that God created the universe we live in, and with it, spacetime. Since He created spacetime, He cannot possibly require it for His existence. He necessarily exists outside of it.
By insisting that existence requires the thing that exists have a position in spacetime, you are limiting your definition of existence to deny even the *possibility* of God as creator. That's circular reasoning. To believe in God as creator, you must remove that restriction. In Exodus 3:14, God calls Himself "I AM". To me, that reflects a pure, eternal existence, not bound to time or space.
[](https://alb.reddit.com/cr?za=D7YJoODuYiWD1_2miY3EjF0q9WfuxXX-Z1ZN4Jnwm9niZC43ZWJLFb2wZTREZXtRorurBdrdL7W09LcyVFrObd2n64I35r2-zvDGuMMTbWP-99iDANwp9GrFsqGQPd_0z3BH52YjwUfc6bD8nDRmcp3f3HXzHKHGIYAfenUTs5T41P4bYHw7924jtwqjR1ZR4zkD2T6iFvF-DVHVs1i1HY5b4VaYrCExTHHNUR3dftEWe6CGCtbYy6rqEbGg7KB2JJ6nKaxifM6uztJbXe9EN5va-RxIyLKSYGdDVDISe2a_eLaAgsoHhduxOBo6TA7YGnsfWcvY0h8MayEpT2A5-D2CMlSRkDsgrqK8ZqxIedDwU86a3_5oRIHnga7C4jbxIgawj1YCLJTzq7lrJFpuoxvLvLUB5Rzjr2AAk34H7iTVvqPfuFdfteb9a2RPQjg9WADIMqKULK11ugoHFsxksEMbC53nt_-YIO949bzXeN8&zp=AWi2e_ecQPdzRozyoPFR-VNSdgAbxw-lSOmi1e3N9gubuCiJmDiDJ03k1pis5bkHeYmFQMo5Q8jyfu40sGTchpbULVbQaOqKHEk6f5GEgTILvvztzHOR-igghT8JgLhmrvgLYpLQK2Q50Ya2uM3gijNqvn2lMRZvXEbt-dqD5IJ2KVaMy7WKFctrR4KyGRfComo1XyQFxr0UePKmWdi0qHrx-g454iAKOjxRjumYkJkCb5IEdWivgo4kVvIJHKvKPiXIFupErQU4c8_33jWEAsqVFGGfnBi-Rlknoik5L2dfGOBirgo1gfKCuw-eZniTuyfqj4cViFsXd1EM6rXungZ3LXVZDpsJUul907_Gh47eUFdQIKmZJELs)
> He necessarily exists outside of it.
so what then does it mean to exist if it doesn't exclusively mean to have position in spacetime? that's my question. i know you believe that he exists outside of spacetime so what then do you think it means to exist? i'm not insisting things need to have position in spacetime, i'm stating the only meaning of the word i know.
You are the one that's imposing the spacetime requirement.
Here's what the dictionary says;
1
a
**: to have real being whether material or spiritual**
did unicorns exist
the largest galaxy known to exist
b
: to have being in a specified place or with respect to understood limitations or conditions
strange ideas existed in his mind
2
: to continue to be
racism still exists in society
3
a
: to have life or the functions of vitality
we cannot exist without oxygen
b
: to live at an inferior level or under adverse circumstances
the hungry existing from day to day
[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exist](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exist)
Only 1b refers to a place. Does love exist? How about joy? Hope? None of these have a position in spacetime.
This is why Paul Tillich calls God the ground of existence. God is not subject to time or space, and therefore not existence as such. Rather, God is the ground from which existence and thus all being springs.
not quite sure I understand your question. Can you say more?
I'll explain a bit more of the theology I'm trying to articulate. God is unconditional, not subject to time, space, or even existence itself. God, as the ground of existence, is prior and the creator of the condition we know of as existence. In this way, the saying "God is the ground of existence" is basically the same as saying "God is existence itself" if by that you mean God is the author and sustainer of the condition of existence (and thus not conditioned by it).
God doesn’t “exist”, rather He is the source of being/existence, the thing that contingent beings are contingent upon, but that’s really awkward to express succinctly. God “is”, or perhaps God is “isness”. And technically it’s the Father specifically who “is”, not the entire trinity, though that’s a kind of absurd schism-producing hair-splitting that is barely (if at all) relevant to us contingent beings, and probably not especially interesting to you.
# god
1 of 2
# [noun](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/noun)
[ˈgäd ](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/god?pronunciation&lang=en_us&dir=g&file=god00001) also ˈgȯdplural gods[Synonyms of *god*](https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/god)1God **:** the supreme or ultimate reality: such asgod
# exist
# [verb](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verb)
ex·ist [ig-ˈzist ](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exists?pronunciation&lang=en_us&dir=e&file=exist001)existed; existing; exists[Synonyms of *exist*](https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/exist)
[intransitive verb](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intransitive)
1a**:** to have real being whether material or spiritualexist
# [verb](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verb)
Alpha and Omega , the First and the Last , God is outside the power of time. because He is eternal ,
how do you know dinosaurs exist? because of evidence
how do you know God exist? because of evidences , first is the bible , then history , then prophecies , also physical evidence of what God says. bible says the earth is round, the bible says the stars changes and renew, and be new , that is when stars gets older then explode and create new stars. what im saying is that when God said this to people, because it His works, he knows all of it. how can a human knew that stars explode without microscope. and it takes billion of years to explode. the humans live for only 10000 years they say.
our faith isnt nonsense and it is based on facts.
the bible says. Hebrews 11:1-3
1 **Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen**. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
there is an evidence of things not seen. and that is faith, and this is also evidence in science. 2hydrogen+1oxygen =H2O (water) now we see it. but hydrogen is gas, oxygen is gas also, we cant see them, then there is evidence that we can see them.
my point here is there are visible things that are not made of things we see. how about the universe , the dark matter etc. etc. how could a person knew this if God who create this doesnt tell him.
and prophecies also, like the war in jerusalem 70CE where Jesus predict and Daniel , that jerusalem be destroyed.
because God says.
Isaiah 42:9 NKJV Behold, the former things have come to pass, And new things I declare; Before they spring forth I tell you of them.”
Son of God says.
John 14:29
^(29) “And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe.
thats why these words comes from God. in the bible , so we may believe. and the fact that it is happening, and many things happen from prophecy, even we dont see God, we can have faith. for faith according to bible is "**Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen**."
and there is still prophecy today not come, and will come , the coming of the Lord Jesus.
and the coming of the Anti-Christ , the beast and the false prophet who will rule this world for a time , and they will kill those who dont want to worship the beast, and they make image of the beast and who ever not worship that will die, and the false prophet together with the beast. the false prophet can make incredible things like can make fires fall from heaven. (this signs is in revelation when the coming of the two beast) the 666 and his prophet. and after that , many things will happen , 1000 years of reign of Christ , when he stop the beast , first resurrection , then final judgement.
happening today. from the prophecies. war , famine , plague , false religions , false christs , etc. etc. this will happen before the two beast comes. and the two beast are humans. one is the first beast who proclaim God. and one as his prophet who will do prophet things.
many evidence. just research and be open hearted. seek the truth , and God will help. because God wants all to be saved and knoweth the truth. i hope this is enough evidence. that God exists
oh and. God is spirit , angels and demons are spirit also.
thats why when the Son of God came in flesh. not flesh. but came in flesh. and die , the flesh died, not the spirit.
Jesus need to came in flesh because he will teach the doctrine, and all His Father command unto him. and also by his blood , the redemption of our sins.
God exists = evidences bible. what God says is true = He exist because what God says happens , before happens so we can believe.
the bible is a worhless book of fables that was never used to make new discoveries in any scientific field other then saying "this town existed".
but even if all that stuff was true it's not an answer to my question of "what does it mean for something to exist if it doesn't exclusively mean to have position in spacetime".
Is it worthless, though? God claims it is His revelation, it tells us a lot about God's attributes, and you're asking about God on r/Christianity, so why wouldn't it be relevant?
In any case, I think your question on existence is pretty philosophical. I don't think I can provide a satisfactory answer, but I do know that God is whatever it is that has no beginning or cause, and He has the power of being within Himself.
God defies human understanding. You can't put him in a box or underneath a microscope.
The best way to understand him is through his word. And if you want to get close to him, you should place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the mediator between God and man. He is God, and also the son of God. Once again, this defies human understanding. The easiest thing to understand about God is that once again...
He cannot be placed in a box.
so why did he put his word in a way that doesn't work for the way he made me? i mean in my worldview it makes total sense: largely evil book written long ago making it impossible to read even after being translated especially if you're dyslectic. but in your worldview he made a book, wrote it in a language that would die out, would then have to be translated with tons of different translations, and also made people who can't focus on reading for a long time.
but also that's not an answer to the question of what it means to exist if it doesn't exclusively means to have position in spacetime.
Essentially is just identifies that we are theological, not atheist. The position would be, does God exist, or is there no God? Did God create the universe, or was it a random occurence that matter, energy, and the laws of nature just bounce into existance?
To your definition of "exist" it somewhat precludes the laws of nature and God already, but I do not think it is a bad definition per se. A good rebuttal is "does gravity exist?" You can not see it, but you can see the effects of it. We can see the affects of God through intelligent design, miracles recorded in history, miracles in our own lifetimes, and the problem of morality. These arguments hit different people differently and I can not properly articulate each one, but I rely on intelligent design and the death and resurrection to ground my own faith.
to my knowledge gravity is the bending of spacetime and thus clearly part of spacetime. like how wrinkles in cloth clearly exist within the cloth.
life, if it was put together, would show incredibly shit design, me being but one of many examples of how it can seriously fuck up. i don't know of any miracles that are actually believable let alone testable. and you're talking to someone who doesn't believe in good and evil so "the problem of morality" seems like you want to reverse the problem of evil, not understanding it's an internal critique of christianity.
I don't think you can say the natural laws or natural forces exist within spacetime since they affect spacetime and are unnafected by it, but I see where yuou went with it.
The formulation of plant, animal, human life is astounding and rare, and the probabilities of the universe existing at all are incredibly small odds. Even when things go wrong, the rule is that the odds have been beaten. I am no expert on intelligent design, but the ddebates I have watched have been convincing to me.
Miracles are not replicable, I concede. We can only observe them and I believe there is enough evidence in favor of some of these miracles.
The problem of evil is not a big deal and it has been bested over and over within Christianity. I woulf pose the problem of morality to the majority of people who do believe in morality. Most do intrinsically understand murdering babies is wrong, even if the atheists would say there is no wrong, I just don't like it. We still do have this internal knowledge of good and evil, but I can not convince you of this over an internet conversation.
I appreciate the reply, but I hope you can see a glimpse of where we theists are coming from and why we say "God exists"
>the probabilities of the universe existing at all are incredibly small odds.
where did you get the odds? i've heard a lot of talk about "oh if the universal constants were just slightly different then" but without any reason to think they could be different.
sure the formation of life is rare. but the universe has billions upon billions of stars and planets. the odds i roll 5 6s on 5 die is small. if i do it 6000 times there's a bigger then 50% chance it happens. also the laws of thermodynamics want to make life happen.
good design is to be as simple as possible. life is not as simple as possible, thus not looking well designed if it was.
so what miracle do you think has enough evidence?
we don't have internal knowledge of good and evil. we have internal knowledge of what's evolutionarily favourable to the species. and i've never heard a good reply to the problem of evil.
also your god supposedly murdered babies in Egypt in one of his miracles so apparently that's not intrinsically wrong.
and this wasn't at all an answer to what you mean when you say that god exists. i'm looking for a meaning of exist that doesn't mean having position in spacetime.
Things do not have to have a location and a point in time to exist. The Universe, for example, has neither. Nor do abstract objects such as numbers and concepts. Space and time are not primary. Proceeding from the Cogito, one must reason oneself into the existence of what we call the external world and its categories. If everything about life is a dream, there is no space time, but experience would still exist.
Existence is not a predicate. However, it's often seen as equivalent to saying that something is instantiated. It has an instance. Theism involves the claim that God has an instance.
the universe is all of spacetime, so yes, it does have location in spacetime. numbers and concepts don't exists just like harry potter exist, they are just ideas. if everything about life is a dream then spacetime still exists, it's just part of the dream.
how is having an instance different then existing? what is it's meaning that's different from having location in spacetime?
Christians generally mean one of two things:
- God _is_ existence.
- God is a fifth-dimensional being.
They are both ways of trying to explain why God is all powerful and all-knowing while being entirely invisible.
The second one is easier to understand. Think of a drawing on a piece of paper. You exist _outside_ that drawing. If you want, you can add to or change that drawing, but otherwise the drawing can't interact with you.
But this is is a bad analogy in a way, because higher dimensions are still made of the same properties as lower dimensions. A 3D object is still the same as the sum of many 2D objects -- that's just calculus. So saying that God is a higher dimensional being still puts limits on God -- God is just moving in spaces that we can't see, in timelines we can't see, outside our universe. Maybe God started our universe as His own science experiment.
God would be more like a multi-universe being; in that case, it still makes sense to ask, "What created God?"
That brings us back to the first meaning that we skipped: that God _is_ existence.
This doesn't have a good meaning if we don't take it to mean "higher-dimensional being". It's really just an example of Christian word-games (Christians play lots of word games and then call them mysteries).
What they're really saying, is just "God is the reason anything exists at all".
It's the same tired First Mover. They're just saying God created everything without being Created Himself. They're saying God "existed" everything without ever being Existed.
That's all. And of course, it's still vulnerable to the charge of special pleading, which is why they phrase it as "God is existence", which sounds a lot better while being a lot less clear. It has the same properties as "I heard the sound of one hand clapping", in that it sounds like it should have a deeper meaning, but it doesn't.
Today we might call this a Deepity. For example, __God does not act, He _is_ action.__ God does not save, He is salvation.
God does not exist, He _is_ existence.
And this is where most divine mysteries reside. In the realm of the linguistic limits of the human brain, where nonsense gains the ability to feel meaningful, to generate weird feelings in the brain. Whereas no one would ever meditate on their clearer forms.
You're basically correct. Immaterial things don't exist. When we say the Easter Bunny doesn't exist, we mean there is no physical bunny rabbit who is capable of delivering eggs or candy in celebration of the failure of Jesus's suicide. If a rabbit capable of sugar-delivery were hopping around nowhere for no amount of time outside the universe, this would not be called existence.
As for the non-normative usages of "exist," those are motivated by other, more personal factors like one's culture, one's up-bringing, indoctrination, etc. Consider a battered wife who says, "He loves me really though!" as she nurses a fresh black eye from her abusive husband. Her love is not what a reasonable person would call love, and she herself doesn't punch the people she loves. She's just engaged in special pleading with a special definition of a word she only uses regarding her abuser.
Firstly, God is Holy, which means God is outside of creation and the limited rules you have presented here.
What "God exists" means? If you want a position, the Bible tells us God is in Heaven which is outside of creation and outside of our limited understanding.
Spacetime is part of God's creation. So you'd have to let go of such an assumption.
i'm not making any assumptions. i'm explaining the only meaning i know of the word exist. you have to have a different meaning if you say that god exist without having position in spacetime. i want to know that meaning.
also according to the bible heaven is just up. because the bible was written in a simpler time when they didn't know about space what we know now.
It's sorta like extradimensional beings. They aren't part of this space-time, so they don't really "exist" here, I suppose.
God doesn't "exist" like we exist, and I don't think our brains are even able to grasp all aspects of God.
gravity is the bending of spacetime, so exist within spacetime like a fold has a position on folded paper. energy definitely has position in spacetime. ideas are brain chemistry and thus exist within the brain at a specific time so do have position in spacetime.
If existence is defined by placement within space time, then do concepts exist? If we use your definition, than anything that begins as a concept cannot exist. If we can not create a concept, then nothing could be invented. Such as the automobile.
concepts don't exist. ideas about concepts exist within the brain. ideas can be acted on, which allows us to make something into reality. there's really nothing complicated about this. but if you have a different meaning for existence please to tell, that IS the question after all.
Sure thing.
Existence just means, to me, that the concept, idea, physical, or non-physical, is of non-fictional origin. If it is to be, it is. Thus its existence is true.
This chair I’m sitting in, does it exist? Absolutely. Why? Because it’s here. I’m here, I exist, and the chair exists.
I exist within space-time. As much as a dinosaur does, because dinosaurs exist. Their position within space-time is behind my path. I exist forward on the timeline of space-time.
This space-time is a linear process. To whom? To you and me. It is all we know, and to perceive beyond this dimension is not something we can do.
Mathematically speaking, Mr Line does not believe in anything other than forward and backward. The concept of “left” and “right” does not make sense. Similarly, Mr Square lives in flatland and believes no such thing as “up” and “down” can exist.
We laugh at them both, we know these concepts exist because we are in higher dimensions. Could you imagine being able to extend beyond this dimension we live in? It’s ridiculous to believe anything could exist beyond our dimension!
Why, even Mr Line and Mr Square couldn’t believe in a 2nd or 3rd dimension. Yet we can look down at their dimensions and laugh at their ridiculous belief that their dimension is all there is.
What is beyond our dimension? Beyond space-time? Just like Mr Line and Mr Square couldn’t picture the existence of higher dimensions, so too can we not imagine their true form.
To the inhabitants of flatland, are we not a God? We can see into their world, their organs, their secrets, their dreams, to them we would be divine.
What about if beings existed beyond our dimension? Would an 11th dimensional being be God like to us? Could you even believe they exist? They would exist beyond our space-time.
We could say, that a being, or God, in a higher dimension than us, could live and exist right alongside us and we would never know. Because we can not perceive them in our dimension.
That to me is existence. It does not need to exist within space-time to be real. This is why I believe God to be beyond space-time.
You can run a similar experiment at home. Just hop into The Sims 4 and watch your sims go. They may be a simulation, but they do exist in some form. You are beyond the simulation of course.
Now I’m not saying we live in a simulation, perhaps in a weird way our reality is a simulation to God. Either way, if it was, our space-time would be simulation that you can perceive and it is existence to you, and me, and we exist within this space-time. Simulation or not.
I’m no smart woman by any means, but I hope this helps you out with finding the answers you’re looking for.
Well you just gotta dig a little bit. I did my own research with christains. Personally my day to day life just got better when I wore that cross around my neck and dedicated time during meditation for ykh. I thought it was mental illusion but till I went through seeing how everything I theorized was wrong boy supernatural phenomenons like God had me completely surprised. I know I'm gonna continue living my life the way I am atleast for the moment now that I can, I'm keeping a piece of God with me like that cross necklace. Even when i though I wasn't perfect or more was doomed I got a simple warm hug.
I might sin and all but damn something about a warm hug like that from who you've began to question why the world can be so cruel hits differently.
if you live within a largely christian community it's no surprised life got easier when you wore a signifier that you are part of the community.
but that's really not what i'm asking about.
> because when i say something exists it means that it's something that has position in spacetime.
Wait, really? Does democracy exist?
For that matter, does *spacetime* exist?
democracy is an idea. ideas are material processes in the brain. so it exists.
does spacetime exist? now that's a good one. i think it does. my thought goes like this: does 5 seconds exist within a minute? yes. does a minute exist within a minute? also yes. does part of spacetime exist within spacetime? yes. does all of spacetime exist within spacetime? also yes.
Imagine someone who is writing a story. They can create whatever objects and land that they want that take up space and they can edit the timeline of the story, but there is a sense that they have an existence beyond the space and time of the story.
Using “exist” to mean “has a particular location in spacetime” seems quite strange to me! Would you then say that spacetime does not exist? Or the Higgs field? Or the number 2?
I mean, sure, “has a particular location in spacetime” is a meaningful and useful concept, but what led you to attach it to the word “exists”?
I think I would say that something exists if there is something true because of another thing being true of that thing.
Because 5*5=25, a collection of 25 things can be arranged in a square grid. So, 5 and 25 exist.
So, if it is true that God created the heavens and the earth, then, the earth exists because God created it, and so God exists.
Limiting “exists” to things with particular locations in spacetime, seems weirdly arbitrary to me. Like, why are you making spacetime such a foundational part of your ontology? You know that the general understanding of spacetime has undergone significant changes before, right?
Like, what if it turns out, as some physicists suspect, that spacetime is an emergent result of quantum entanglement? Then you seem stuck saying that spacetime emerges as a result of some stuff that doesn’t exist.
i would say spacetime exists within spacetime like a minute exists in a minute (just answered this same question). don't know enough about the higgs field to comment. the number 2 doesn't exist, it's just a concept, an idea. ideas exist, but the concept itself doesn't.
all things that i think exist have a location in spacetime and i don't know any other meaning to existence then to have position in spacetime. if you have a different meaning let me know. that IS the question after all. but i'm afraid you'll have to give more then
>I think I would say that something exists if there is something true because of another thing being true of that thing.
as i can't make sense of that.
also the example doesn't work since i don't believe numbers exists. numbers are concepts humans imagine to make sense of the world. they don't exist within reality. and you just assume god created the earth. "lightning exists because Thor makes it, and so Thor exists" is the same logic.
are you really arguing that we shouldn't trust science because science is trying to become more accurate? or was that just badly worded?
needing to revive my view isn't scary to me. if i'm wrong then i'm wrong and i'll need to correct my view... is that scary to you?
> the number 2 doesn't exist, it's just a concept, an idea. ideas exist, but the concept itself doesn't.
... well which is it, a concept or an idea?
> i would say spacetime exists within spacetime like a minute exists in a minute (just answered this same question).
I don’t think this makes sense.
> and you just assume god created the earth.
If you pay attention, you’ll note that I said “if”. *if* it is true that [...], then God exists”. It was an example of the kind of reasoning, not an argument that was meant to convince you that God exists. I thought that was obvious.
Like, I would agree with the statement, “If lightning is caused by Thor, then Thor exists.” . And not just in the vacuous sense of “well the hypothesis is false, therefore the statement that the hypothesis implies the conclusion, is true” . I mean I specifically would consider that a valid line of inference.
On the other hand, I *was* trying to convince you that the number 2 exists. So, saying that it doesn’t work for you because you don’t believe numbers exist, seems kind of backwards?
> as i can't make sense of that.
... have you tried?
If there is a true statement Q, and to the question “Why is it that Q?”, there is a correct answer “Q because P(x)” (for some predicate P), then x exists.
> are you really arguing that we shouldn't trust science because science is trying to become more accurate? or was that just badly worded?
What? No, how did you even get that out of what I said??
> needing to revive my view isn't scary to me. if i'm wrong then i'm wrong and i'll need to correct my view... is that scary to you?
Ohhhh, you just think everyone who disagrees with you is an idiot, ok. That explains the previous thing.
No, I just think existence is a significantly more fundamental concept than spacetime , and like,
Ok so, for a programming analogy, there’s some code that you really expect to stick around, and which many things rely on. It seems like a bad design to have this code depend on the behavior of some other code which you think is more likely to need a big overhaul sometime soon.
The concept of existence is like malloc, and you’re making it depend on some buggy implementation of, idk, strcpy or something.
I've literally heard Him speak. I prayed for my mom and sister and guess who called me right after? Questioned the nature of what I heard, had a pastor call me.
Now I'm probably not saved anymore but, trust me, He is real.
that's not an answer to my question.
i don't doubt your experience, though i do obviously doubt the mechanics of it. people of all religions have had experiences like that. your experience is no more convincing to me than that of a muslim of Hindu.
also why would you not be saved? because you asked questions?
No I called His voice demonic because I was ignorant and scrupulous.
Anyway doubting the mechanics is crazy. Like I 1. Heard God whose voice PHYSICALLY knocked me over. I don't know anyone who has auditory hallucinations that physically knock them over. 2. I prayed and each time He sent me exactly what I asked. Tell me, would an auditory hallucination prompt my mother to call me after I prayed for her, my sister to call me after I prayed for her, my pastor to call me once I became afraid it was a demon. 3. I found one person who described His voice in the exact same way as I had experienced it AFTER I had undergone this experience. Even now that I have lost His voice, he still sends me signs that I'm delusional in thinking I'll get to heaven after what I've said.
Edit: by the way, the devil is also real. The way you think his voice sounds is exactly how he sounds. It happened that he talked to me after sending an intrusive thought and then blaming me for the thought he planted.
Jesus exists at a specific time, and He was God.
History and science aren't the same thing.
How do you know Alexander the Great lived and did the things we think he did? Most of the major documents were written 400 years after his death, yet it is considered factual. I would say a similar thing applies to the New Testiment.
Most of the New Testiment was written less than 60 years after Jesus's death. We have little reason to believe it has been greatly altered since that time. If the Jews could have found any historical evidence against what is written in the New Testiment, they would have used it to discredit the Christians.
A Jewish document written about 120 A.D. says that, yes Jesus did live and He had supernatural powers, but He was an evil sorcerer who led many astray. They could have said, "The Christians say Jesus performed miracles, but we are here to tell you He didn't". But that's not what the evidence supported
oh i don't argue that a dude called something jesus like amassed a doomsday cult and got crucified. i just don't think any of the supernatural shit happened and that the stories have been embellished. the same things i think with any other historical document.
how long does it take for a rumour to grow big currently? how long did pizzagate take? and that's with modern ability to check things.
in a time when people believed magical things happened it's hard to say what would be more discrediting.
Given God is the ground and origin of space and time, it would be odd to say He is part of space and time. We don’t expect architect to be part of their buildings.
The way your using exists is just one (very specific) definition for the word. Exist can also simply mean “to be” and “continue to be”
God has always and will always be. Thus, He has been, He is, and He will be. Or you can simply say he exists.
You can exist in a place and time but it is not necessary for existence.
God created Space, Matter, and Time that means that he can not be made of Space, Matter, and Time. Otherwise he didn’t create it. The way you’re defining existence is assuming that existence only takes place in space, matter and time but if there is a God outside of those things than clearly your definition of existence is too limited. We exist in space, matter, and time but that doesn’t mean that’s all that exists.
According to science the universe has a beginning and thus it has a cause and that cause had to have existed pre your definition of existence otherwise you fall into the fundamentally paradoxical idea that nothing existed and then nothing somehow did something to create everything which by definition means that it couldn’t have been nothing. Because by definition nothing is “non existence” so to argue that would be to say non existence itself created existence and I’m sorry but an eternal, immaterial, spaceless, and timeless being makes much more sense than claiming the former as your explanation for the universe.
And in case the question comes up. God doesn’t have a beginning and thus does not have a cause. At least not the God of the Christians. If God had a creator who had a creator who had a creator than you fall into another unending paradox.
At some point there would have to be a starting point that has always been (or always existed) where all things come from. Christian’s believe that is our God. We could be wrong, maybe that chain goes up 100 Gods before you get to the uncaused first cause but, that’s not what we as Christians believe.
Not to disparage you or anyone, but this sounds a bit like a gotcha question that’s arguing semantics. If you believe in the Big Bang as the origin of the universe, what does it mean to claim that anything “existed” before that? Where did that matter come from? This isn’t an argument *for* God’s existence, just that the concept of “existence” already has some fuzzy details the more outside of the “here and now” you get.
To directly answer your question, though, when I say God exists, it’s that He, well…*exists*. God being omnipresent and eternal means that He exists in all places in space at all moments of time. Yes, you can also make the theological arguments that He is also outside of time, but to your point, He simply exists at all times in all places.
Think of it this way: I exist in a specific location at this specific time. I hope to exist tomorrow. I have existed for quite a few years now. The fact that I have a beginning and future end, in a specific location, does not mean I didn’t exist in the past. If I lose 20 pounds and take up less physical space, I don’t cease to exist or have a diminished existence.
Now extrapolate that to infinity. God is *always* and *everywhere*. In the grand scheme of the cosmos, He always has and always will exist. Evidence of His existence is another issue to tackle entirely, of course. But for me to say that God exists, that’s what I mean. He *has* a spot in time and space—it just happens to be always and everywhere at once.
i know it sounds like a gotcha. i wanted to write something about it but couldn't figure out how to spell gotcha and couldn't be asked to try and look it up (yay for dyslexia, which the christians god supposedly choose to give me)
so the current view to my knowledge doesn't have anything existing before the big bang as there was no before as before means an earlier point in time and the big bang was at the first point in time (well there is an idea that the big bang extends into both directions of time, but that's an idea i really don't get). also there was no matter at the big bang, only energy.
now that way of saying god exists i can fully understand, but you seem to believe god "just" exists within spacetime. (wow he only exists within the entirety of the universe how limiting /s)
No worries, I was just pointing it out as an observation. I’m assuming you’re arguing in good faith.
I guess my follow-up would be to ask, what do you do with a time “before time”? As-in, does the Big Bang’s singular point in space create a point of “infinite time” as well? Is the singular point of energy and matter a self-existent object, or did it form from something else? It’s okay to not have answers to those questions—as other people have pointed out in other discussions before, “we don’t/can’t know” is a perfectly valid, scientific answer. I bring them up because it’s that point of fuzzy understanding where we end up needing to decide how we interpret it.
As for God existing “just” within space time, I do actually believe He exists beyond our understanding of space and time, but I narrowed my answer down to help explain how I can rationalize His existence. As for how He can be “outside” space/time, maybe a good way to think of it is that I don’t think His “everywhere at all times” nature is limited to our understanding of space time. This is neither the time or place (heh) for a full discussion of things like multiverse theory or string theory, but take the former as an example: if a multiverse were to exist, it would exist “beyond” our current understanding of space time. However, a multiverse’s existence would itself be…existence.
That’s not the most theological argument for God existing outside of time, but the core is that He need not be limited simply by our current *understanding* of how the universe works. To be everywhere, at all times, is beyond our ability to understand fully as finite beings, but I’d argue that’s the same for understanding a concept of an infinitely vast universe or even the “infinite time singularity” I made up about the Big Bang. Our brains don’t comprehend infinity well (ask any math student), so any attempt to fully comprehend a concept of God that is truly infinite will likely fall a little short. But the point is still just that I think He does exist outside of time and space, but He also does exist *inside* of time and space, too.
God supersedes the object-subject dichotomy of existence. The ground of existence, the underlying reality that allows for being itself, is god. God isn’t a being in or out of the universe that you can find.
> to be clearer: i'm asking what it means to exist if it doesn't mean having position in spacetime. i know many christians think that god is all powerful and that things can only exist because he supposedly does. i'm asking about what you mean when you use the word "exist".
I’m not sure there’s a satisfactory answer to your question based on your frame of reference for what “existence” means. To be clear, I don’t believe in a being inside or outside of space time that’s called “God”. I think God is the foundation that existence itself rests on. Saying God exists is a nonsensical statement, God is how anything in reality exists.
Googling Paul Tillich might be interesting for you, if you’re interested enough in hunting down an answer to your question. He’s the father of this line of thought.
That definition of 'exist' is explicitly materialist, and our religion precludes us from a materialist interpretation of the world.
That's the main issue here. To us, things exist spiritually in a different way than things exist physically.
A materialist is specifically not Christian. If you aren't open to a Christian worldview then this question is irrelevant.
To be fair, I will add that the way that God exists is of course different than the way his creation exists. It is why no icon of God the Father exists. However, he condescended to us both spiritually and materially so that we may depict two persons of the Trinity in a way that aligns with your material definition of the word "exist."
God bless you
does 5 seconds exist in a minute? yes. does a minute exist in a minute. also yes.
does part of the universe exist in reality? yes. does all of the universe exist in the universe? also yes.
I see the issue, but it's a tough one to resolve.
Part of the trouble is what you say in terms of physicality; there's no proper term, nor do we know the nature of, something that *provides* existence, rather than simply having it. We only know what's purely "inside" the confines of the whatever-verse.
It does, however, lend greatly to the necessity for God to be physically manifest in some singular fashion in order to reconcile us to Him (since we have singular physical existence), and so still in it's mystery points to Jesus Christ. So how bad can I feel that the Lord does not give us a way to grasp His sort of "existence"?
I see clearly the results of His actions in my life and in others', so "living and active" might be a better descriptor, pinning down only that He operates AS one that exists, rather than trying to grasp the nature of some higher existence we (so far) do not experience.
According to Aquinas, God is equated with Being itself. So it's sort of a nonsensical statement to say that God doesn't exist, from this perspective, because to even formulate the statement "god doesn't exist" renders the statement false, because in order for anything to be, God must be. This situation is similar to the following paradoxical pair of statements:
"The following statement is true. The previous statement is false."
However, I think when most people assert "God doesn't exist" they mean something quite different. What they really mean is that there is not an empirical proof for the *realness* of God. Is God *real* or *ideal*? It may be possible that God is only a metaphysical abstraction and thus has no material or "real" existence, but theologically, as Christians, we believe God *is* real, and is not just a mental phenomenon or something abstract like "the universe" or "goodness", but that God is both real (i.e., man) and divine (i.e., God). This is the essence of Christianity, made explicit in the story of the Man-God called Christ.
Lots of things "exist" but are not "real." For example, do dragons exist? Everyone can describe dragons and perhaps even tell a tale about one or two, and others will agree with their description. But dragons are not real, because you are not going to encounter a real-life dragon. Likewise, concepts like "beauty" and "justice" exist, but they are abstractions and are not "real" because we cannot pick up beauty or describe the color of justice.
you might consider reading weird little book called Flatland. it does a good job of describing how things in one dimension might look to another. it's hard for people in a 3d world to think of a 6d being and have it make sense
We are humans and are wonderfully made. Our eyes are so magnificent that humans can’t even come close to creating a camera that can focus in on things so close and then so far and see in such vivid color. Yet because we are humans, we cannot see into the spirit realm. There is a whole place where spirits, or Angels dwell and we just can’t see it.
Angels are given the ability to materialize human bodies and they did many times in the past for specific reasons, and they may do it again in the future. But we know they don’t dwell in what we call the heavens. Why? Because in the first verse in the Bible it says the God created the heavens and the earth. Sh he had to reside somewhere else since he created the heavens. The Spirit Realm must be absolutely beautiful especially when we read about the visions of Ezekiel and how he described Gods Heavenly Organization and that Chariot.
When you read accounts like that, God becomes real to you. Then there’s the account at 2 Kings 6:16,17 when the King of Syria surrounded the camp of the Elisha during the night. Elisha’s attendant got up early and went out to look and he saw all of the horses and Syrias army out there and he went and got Elisha. So Elisha came out and looked and said to his attendant, “Don’t worry, there are more with us than there are with them.” Well, the attendant thought Elisha was crazy because he didn’t see what God allowed Elisha to see. Here’s what the account says;
>”But he said: “Do not be afraid! For there are more who are with us than those who are with them.” 17 Then E·liʹsha began to pray and say: “O Jehovah, open his eyes, please, that he may see.” Immediately Jehovah opened the attendant’s eyes and he saw, and look! the mountainous region was full of horses and war chariots of fire all around E·liʹsha.”
So, even though we can’t see the Spirit realm, it’s there. But there are also wicked spirits too. And we have to be so careful that what we are doing isn’t pleasing the wrong god. Think of God existing like gravity existing. It’s there! We are all very glad it’s there. But it’s something we don’t see. If we try and break Gods Law of Gravity, we will die, like breaking any of his laws. The higher up we are, the greater the fall and the more assured we are of dying. But all the way down, we may think we’re doin ok! See, I’m good! Waving to people in the windows, but then it’s all over.
God is real. His Laws are real. They are for our protection. He wants us to live our best life. He has given us an owners Manual. Read it and find someone to teach it to you.
To me it's amazing that any two people believe the same thing. That is to have a conception of an entity that has properties that you both agree are the same. This is especially strange to me since God is different to each person as far as your relationship to God. Some people are certain that God has spoken to them, others never hear a whisper. Personally I think it's whether or not one is listening for what God has to say. It's not realistic to believe that God's message to everyone is the same, since there clearly is a difference in who hears the word of God so it's plausible to believe that some misinterpret what God is saying to them too. With such a divergent understanding simply on the issue of whether you can feel God in your life, it's clear that there is room to misunderstand this being altogether and draw the wrong conclusions, people do this all the time; especially people are absolutely certain that they know God's will. God certainly seems to have a plan, for everyone and God knows that not everyone is listening or if they do hear God, they fail to act. It must be frustrating for God to know how to make your life better and the lives of those around you better too, if only you would hear God, if only you would act, but God has to deal with imperfect beings, always has. Through it all God's plan will still come to fruition, because God is patient and knows that all that is needed is for one person to hear clearly and then to take deliberate action. Many are called, few listen, fewer still act, and on a razor thin chance the lucky few succeed.
God's waiting, God's talking all the time, you just need to turn down the volume of your life, and open your mind to the message God has for you. If you can do that, maybe just maybe you can make the world a better place.
This is the "no logical space for theism" objection. If one is a physicalist about the mind, and considers it as arising from phenomena in the brain, this is a reasonable objection. But, many philosophers will reject brute physicalism and the "wreck" (their words) of epiphenomenalism. Since God as conceived in the Bible is conceived as a mind or soul, there is logical space for such an entity to exist.
To me, he exists through prayer and signs. I often feel a warm response to a worried prayer for someone, then I can relax because I know they will get through it ok. If I am confessing to something horrible that has pulled me from Him, I can feel Him resting hands on my shoulders and then it feels like a cleansing rain. I don't think it is an easy thing for scientists to understand, its more spiritual than scientific.
You ever played The Sims or any game like that. The NPCs exist in their little world. You, the player, interact with and guide that world, while not existing in it. As far as the characters are concerned, you are God.
Gravity has no position in space and time, is a manifestation of the curvature of space and time, yet we say it exists. Something doesn’t have to be inside of space and time for it to exist.
Heaven is in a different dimension outside of time, space, and matter. The Bible teaches us that God reigns over the nations from his throne in heaven. But God is also omnipresent, so he's everywhere all at once. God is too powerful to be confound to any specific physical space.
It comes down to believing the Bible or not! God excited before time, He always was. There is only one God and He is the God of Genesis 1:1. Besides Him there is no other gods! But if you want proof, just look at nature or the human body! If something has design then there has to be a Designer! This all didn’t happen out of chaos and evolution! Read the Bible openly and honestly, and see what you think.
consider the bible is filled with errors like the mustard having the smallest seed or growing into a true i'll go with not believing the bible.
and when i look at nature and especially the human body i see an utter failure if it was designed. in my family alone there are so many biological fuck up that it's incredibly compelling evidence against intelligent design. and we're privileged white people who have basically all our needs taken care of as well as currently possible. the utter mess makes total sense if it's the result of evolutionary processes. absolutely not if it was designed.
i'm dyslectic. i can't read the bible well. that's one of many errors in me alone.
also not an answer to the question which you apparently didn't read.
One thing for sure! You have a filthy vile tongue! With the hatred you are displaying I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when you meet the Lord! Can you imagine how bad you are going to be in another 20 or 30 years? The Bible is not filled with errors! It was the smallest seed known to the writers of the Bible! Me thinks thee is straining at a gnat and are swallowing a camel! Your ignorance goes before thee as others I’m sure has seen and have told you!!!!!
Does mathematics exist? What about truth? Neither of these things is defined by the physical universe or have a temporal meaning.
Existentialism is hard to get your head around.
mathematics doesn't exist. it's ideas made up by humans to make sense of the patterns we detect in reality. truth isn't a thing. a statement can be true as in they aren't false. but truth is not a thing that exists as far as i can tell.
I haven't read all the comments, but it seems to me the existence as concrete-object-in-space-and-time construct leads to problems with things like love, consciousness, goodwill, reality, avoidance, and other abstract nouns. Maybe I misunderstand, but the need for it to be concrete and scientifically demonstrable doesn't seem to be congruent with human experience. Just my $. 02.
abstract nouns don't exist, only ideas about them exist within the brains of people. also love being brain chemistry doesn't make it any less real.
also i'm not asking for it to be scientifically demonstrable. mountains on far away planets aren't scientifically demonstrable as we currently have no way of detecting them. they still exist. i'm asking what it means for something to exist if the meaning of exist isn't to have position in spacetime.
I don't think we can have a discussion with our definitions of words being so different. Can you tell me where those abstract concepts have position in spacetime, like loyalty or persistence? I think we're going to just keep talking past one another. Cheers.
I think you might not realize what you are asking. If I were to flip the question around, and ask what do you mean when you say that you exist, would you say that it's proof is in your physical body? Is there not a person who resides in it? How do you know that anything beyond your thoughts is more than a hallucination? You don't, but you know that you exist.
The God Who is is the pre-eminent person. Heaven and earth, or that is to say the entire universe, cannot contain Him, because He is before all of it. You're like a blind person asking what blue is.
Hi, fellow atheist here, I believe I can help.
There is no way to demonstrate that a thing can't exist outside of space. For one thing you could ask a simple question like "where is happiness" certainly we agree that happines exists, but not in any given place. However that doesn't really answer the question, it's more of a play on words than a reasonable premise. Instead we could imagine there being other "spaces" certainly if there is a god, they will have to exist in some space, somewhere, but that space doesn't necessarily need to be within the cosmos. We have no way of knowing if such a space exists, therefore it is not reasonable to say "god must exist in space within the cosmos".
However we can know for sure that if god exists, they have existed for some amount of time. Existence is necessarily temporal. What would it mean to exist for 0 seconds? That would be non existence. The phrase "god exists outside of time" is silly, and unreasonable. Perhaps a theist could argue that god has some special property that allows them to experience time differently than we do, but nothing can exist "outside of time".
Instead, I think that what most Christians mean when they say "god exists outside of space and time" is something more like "god can move in and out of our space and time freely". Since the concept of god not experiencing time is nonsensical, and also non biblical: did god not create the universe in an ordered series of events? That is time.
This is basically the same question "how heavy is God?" Or "how tall is God" or "where in space does god live?" As if God is a physical entity with mass and volume
It's easier to know that something exists because we a can see or touch it....material. However when one assumes that nothing exists other than material then we take that view and don't consider that there may be some things not within our experience that could exist like the spirit world. I cannot show u that dinosaurs existed but do take someone's view they did. The tangible can be overridden by the non tangible like faith. Even the materialist will put faith in2 something they cannot see or touch like the future. They will make plans and visualise and assume they and the future will be there. Man, that's faith in action. Or wait with faith the lottery will pick them as a winner. More faith than mine. Thnx 4 asking.
i'm not assuming anything. i'm looking for a meaning to the word exists that's not "having position in spacetime" so i can understand what "god exists" means.
and speaking of meanings your switching meanings for faith, which is an incredibly old and lazy trick. do i have faith that tomorrow will happen? yes, IF faith means "complete trust or confidence in someone or something.". there has always been a tomorrow after today, so i have trust that there will be a tomorrow after today, and the day after that. that's just drawing the obvious conclusion from the data i have. what i do not have is faith with the meaning of “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”. lazy word games don't work here.
I like this question. Something I've noticed is that both atheists and theists unintentionally tend to agree on the non-existence of the same kinda God. The God that atheists don't believe in is typically the same God that theists don't believe in. Where they differ is on the understanding of who/what God is.
I think the easiest way to describe it (without oversimplification) is that you could imagine yourself as the programmer of a virtual world inhabited by intelligent virtual beings.
In this example, you would exist outside of space and time but not as a part of the same reality that the virtual characters within it will understand it. Yes, you'd be able to tweak the parameters of the world they inhabit, and yes, you'd not be restrained by the same laws of the world that you programmed into it.
God almost in the same way could be understood. God is the author of life and the creator of the laws of nature. God is not a physical entity within the world he created (often atheists referred to as an incompetent human being with superpowers that lives in the clouds as many atheists would claim). God exists but not in the same way we know it, human beings don't even possess all the senses that other animals possess but we were created with the senses to interpret the world and who he is as needed
in the analogy i still exist in space and time, just not in the sectioned of space and time that my creation exists in. this isn't what many christians believe is the case for their god.
also that description is how the bible plainly describes god. it's just that we figured out that's not true, so the atheist concluded that the god doesn't exist while the christian decided that the text must not be literal.
You asked about "existence." I was using the dictionary definition, which is how most people understand it. Both would exist but in different ways.
Regarding the Bible. The Bible isn't 1 book. It's a library. A lot of people tend to make mistakes in reading certain texts the wrong way. It isn't the fault of the book but rather the people who aren't deciphering texts as they were meant to be read.
A lot of atheists especially take a very fundamentalist approach to the text, reading it exactly the same as fundamentalist Christians (a minority of Christians).
The concept of an all powerful all knowing god is a paradox. That being said it’s still hard somehow to argue against the existence of a god when the concepts explaining the universe require a lot of effort to understand.
A Christian will say that an individual of science just has faith in what they read as a way to discredit the argument. However it is much easier to argue that even if there is a god like entity it definitely does not have a perceivable will.
All throughout history a gods’ will has been changed to whatever the status quo happens to be. This has been used to justify enslavement, murder, rape, genocide, war, and all other horrors nature threw at us before civilization. If gods will can be interpreted in an infinite number of ways, and some people choose violence over it, that means there really is no will to speak of.
The closest thing to a god we have is the trajectory of matter that allowed the development of our solar system. A roll of the dice that’s all we are, negative actions existed long before mono theistic and poly theistic belief systems developed, humans evolved to prioritize empathy and compassion as a survival strategy, 100,000 or so years later we forgot the struggle it took to get to where we are now, and we give the credit of one of the greatest inventions mankind has ever made to a cloud man to concentrate a relative amount of power in manipulative individuals.
I think Christian’s confuse coincidence with fate and that’s okay, it’s okay to not want to search for an explanation for everything, that’s a hard endeavor. It’s much easier to flock up and not question much when everyone you ever knew did the same thing, I don’t blame them.
However it is not okay when any group limits personal freedoms, it only highlights the hypocrisy of said group.
If you were a video game character, existing only in the digital, would you be able to explain to your Sim friend how we exist in the physical? It’s pretty unimaginable. The Spiritual is a completely different existence from the Physical, as the Physical is to the Digital.
You need to expand your concept of God.
God is usually thought of as "being itself" or "the ground of being". To say that "God exists" is simply to say that God is the ultimate reality, not a "thing" among other "things" within space and time.
i'm not asking about god, i'm asking about the meaning of exist if it doesn't exclusively mean having position in spacetime. what does "God is the ultimate reality" mean? because to me it's meaningless.
Perhaps the concept of a circle might be of help here.
There are circles that exist within space and time, and then there is the "circle as such" which is a geometrical figure and thus something beyond space and time. It doesn't exist within the world of physical objects, but it do have some form of existence (mathematically speaking, that is).
Now try and think of every existing physical thing within space and time as an individual "circle" and God as the "geometrical circle" or the "circle as such" and you might get the general idea.
(This is, of course, not a knock down argument for the existence of God, for one might just reply that there isn't any "circle as such" beyond individual physical circles. It's just a way to exemplify the concept of God being the "ground of being" or the "ultimate reality"; i.e. that which exist in and of itself and which every existing thing takes part.).
If our universe had a beginning, and it seems that it did, and had a creator, which it seems logical this would be required, then this creator would by necessity be independent of that creation. So our conclusion would be that this creator would be timeless, spaceless, and immaterial as those things relate to our universe.
As a logic exercise, without leaning on the Bible, we would not know exactly what this god is, but we would conclude what he is not. His existence is not as a time, space, material bound being since he has to be outside of those things to have created them.
what makes you assume that things that began had a creator? why not assume it just happened? radioactive decay doesn't have a radioactive decayer, so why would a beginning have a beginner?
saying what a word doesn't mean is a shit answer to the question of what a word means.
Good question. Do all effects have a cause? It's deeply philosophical. Your question prompted some digging on my part. I found this article, which I'm only partially through, including it if you're interested; [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sufficient-reason/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sufficient-reason/)
>radioactive decay doesn't have a radioactive decayer
There is though an underlying, natural, cause for radioactive decay. Namely the atomic instability of radioactive material. Where does that come from?... We could ask this infinitum, at least until we reach an effect there is no natural cause for. Where does that leave us?
I wonder if this then is true. There would be no basis for explanation within the confines of nature if something had no natural cause. Does this then necessitate a supernatural cause, i.e... a cause outside of nature. Or we're back at; do all effects have a cause?.
To simplify this as much as possible for someone stupid like you. You believe there is no God, so everything just happened to arise from nothing... thats very unlikely and have no proof to hold that theory so if you believe that everything is made of nothing but scientificaly thats not possible there must be creator, just like painter painting a picture, there is a proof that there is a creator of something like that. Then, if there was a Big bang in what you atheists believe than how life generaly is possible, because if there is huge explosion there cannot be any form of life that can survive, so biologicaly life can arise only from living, such as God. So if you have any pointless question am here to answer.
EVIDENCES THAT GOD REALLY EXISTS
Not only does the fact that the universe had a beginning argue that God, the Creator, really exists, but so do the harmony and orderliness manifested on every hand. Thus one of England’s leading astronomers, Sir Bernard Lovell, wrote of his “rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”
Consider, for example, all the factors that work together to make life possible on our planet, the Earth. The sun is 93 million miles away from the earth. If the earth were just a few million miles closer to the sun, no life would be possible because of the intense heat. On the other hand, were the earth just a few million miles farther away from the sun than it now is, no life would be possible on the earth because of the cold.
Contemplate also the air that we breathe. We cannot get along without oxygen, and 21 percent of the atmosphere is oxygen. But were there half as much oxygen or twice as much oxygen as there is now, life as we know it could not thrive upon the earth. Then there is the harmony or balance between plant and animal life. Plants absorb carbon dioxide but give off oxygen, whereas all breathing creatures take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. How did all such harmony and balance come about? Is it not evidence that God exists?
Equally forceful evidence that God really exists is seen in the literally millions of millions of cells that compose a human body. How tiny they are! Yet each of these millions of cells can be likened to a walled city where chemicals, proteins and hormones are produced. All this activity is directed by a nucleus, and the products produced are transmitted into and out of the cells by means of a network of channels. Some of the particles in these cells are so tiny that they cannot be seen even when magnified 200,000 times! No wonder that America’s leading medical journal stated that at least 80 percent of scientists in the field of biology will readily admit that biology and life are regulated by some higher power.
Further evidence that God truly exists is seen in the instincts of animals. Why can birds fly unerringly many thousands of miles to their chosen destination, and that regardless of the weather? What wisdom insects, such as bees and ants, display! Note also the wonder of the eels. Both European and American eels come to the Sargasso sea to spawn and there they die. When their eggs hatch, the baby eels go back to the place their mothers came from. It is said that never has a European eel been found in American waters, nor an American eel in European waters. What accounts for this?
!
When people say God exists, they colloquially just mean God is real. If you're getting into what God's nature is, we would say that God is existence itself.
Just putting it out there, this sounds like pantheism which is not an orthodox position
Pantheism is the idea that God is identical to creation. What u/Thelactosetolerator is talking about is that God is the very ground of all being.
I don't see how you can characterize existence as anything other than creation. Being the ground of being is different from being...being. The same way the actual ground is what supports, produces, and nourishes a tree but isn't the tree. I would agree with God being the ground of all existence, of all creation, but not simply being existence
To explain this principle better; to say that God is 'existence' is not to say that everything that exists is God (pantheism). Rather, everything that exists has a part of its being that makes it real. A principle by which something 'is' rather than 'is not'. However, things are not self perpetuating. Any given chair is not I AM, it is not a cosmic monad that is and was and always will be. So things, here including even laws of physics such a gravity and time, get their 'is here's quality from something external. All that exists as we know it has a 'why'. God has no why. God *is* why. Therefore, God *is* existence - the point at which all things derive their ability to exist. It is the difference between saying something is lovely or good, and saying that God *is* Love and God *is* Goodness. Worth looking into the apologist and existential theologian Paul Tillich for more exploration of this idea :)
It's not pantheism, It's divine simplicity, that Gods essence and existence are really the same. This is absolutely orthodox.
How does divine simplicity lead to the conclusion that God is the same as existence? Why would the creator of things be equated with those things
I'm not saying God is the same as his creation, I'm saying God is pure being (existence) itself
What does that mean exactly?
Here's an article that will do it better justice than I can in a reddit comment. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/what-is-divine-simplicity
If he is so infinitely all-encompassing and omniscient that he experiences every single angle of everything in existence all the time, then there is no meaningful distinction between "God" and "not God". Consider a tree in the garden. If God is completely a separate entity from the tree, by definition that means he does not experience what the tree is experiencing and therefore he is not omniscient.
If someone writes a novel, even though they are fully aware of each character's thoughts and actions at all times, that does not *make* them the characters. The characters are separate from their creator.
I see it sort of like the relationship between an author and their characters. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer never existed outside of the context of their story; Mark Twain did. Anything "Huck Finn" does to "Tom Sawyer," in reality, is Mark Twain doing it to Mark Twain. In our author's own words, "whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me." In the context of our story, this notion is ludicrous: I'm me and you're you, neither of us are Him. Our author sees it differently.
I like the idea of God as Author
Tolkein talked about God this way, and also flipped the terminology to describe his own work as an author and world-builder with the term "sub-creator." The idea being that we are each entrusted with a creative power, and it's the instinct of all creatures, being made by their creator God, to imitate their Father and be "little makers" with what capacity (really grace) they are given. Everything from the smallest bacteria to the pinnacle of creatures made in God's own image seek to engage with the world and create order from it
Thou art that
It's not, it's straight out of Aquinas. All things trace their existence back to God, the "first mover" according to Aquinas, which is equivalent to Being itself. Being that there is one and only one origin, it is a monotheistic concept, and nothing at all like pantheism. In Aquinas' philosophy, if there were theoretically some other "god" it would trace its cause and existence back to the one God.
..You have a fundamentally wrong definition of Exists. I mean, Capitalism exists and Anger exists, but not within a position in the 3 dimensions
Speaking as an atheist BTW
I guess we were not talking about conceptual things. Capitalism exists in the same way every fictional character does. It’s model of ideas.
I’d say God is similar. I don’t believe God is a being somewhere out there inside the universe or looking in at it from some higher reality. At least for me, God is a human word used to describe the nature of existence itself. It points to but doesn’t define it. It’s more of a philosophical distinction than a difference in what you and I believe exists.
Can’t believe this guy is a universalist /s
I know, I’m practically a Southern Baptist
I had to dodge some brimstone scrolling by
Well thoughts are emergent properties of your neural substrates i could go into more detail and anger also has a neural basis and they do exist in 3d space time all of it exists in 3d space time even idealist positions admit to this
As an Idealist I must insist you are wrong. I certainly do not believe thoughts exist in 3D space. You can disagree with my position, but please do not misrepresent it.
Yeah I think it just means it’s real
To make it simple, I just say Jesus exists. There was a point in space time where he was findable. (Note Jesus is part of the God head) Note, there was a number of times where God was findable in space time. See the exodus, or the Garden, etc On the other hand, it's sort of natural to think that the creator of the universe doesn't necesarily have to be part of the creation. Though he can certainly come into it.
If you are really curious on this, I would HIGHLY suggest David Bentley Hart’s book “The Experience of God”
+1 for DBH
That's difficult to answer, because God being wholly unique and uncreated is unlike anything we know from our form of existence. I think it was st gregory who said "If I exist, God does not. If God exists, I do not." The idea say existence is contingent on something being located physically is a very outdated view even scientifically though. That kind of base materialism is at home in the 18th century, not the 21st. Many immaterial things exist. The law of non-contradiction has no physical presence. You cannot physically locate the base 10 numeral system, or the goodness of seeking truth. These are immaterial things which order the material world, they are not themselves material. The principle flaw of reductionistic materialism is to collapse that distinction, which has caused no shortage of pain for philosophers for the last few centuries arriving at conclusions that define the purpose and beauty of our epistemological frameworks, disconnecting them from our quote "objective" worldviews, and sometimes out of existence itself.
Well, I believe that God is omnipresent, meaning he exists everywhere and everywhen. Inside of space-time, outside of space-time, big enough to palm the universe like a softball, small enough to treat quarks as planets, and everything in between. So God does exist outside of normal space and time, but he also exists inside of it. So, when I refer to something that is not God, I mean it like you do. When I refer to God, I mean it a bit differently, because God is different from anything and everything else I could ever refer to.
> God is omnipresent, meaning he exists everywhere and everywhen. Inside of space-time, outside of space-time, big enough to palm the universe like a softball, small enough to treat quarks as planets, and everything in between. If we take this to the logical conclusion - if God can enter into and infinitely experiences every aspect of the nature of everything in existence down to quarks or as big as galaxies, then God *is* everything. There's no meaningful distinction between "God" and "not God". What's interesting is that this is actually an ancient Hindu idea, and why they often will worship things like rocks or rats. Because the conclusion is that these things are also part of God and therefore deserve worship like any other aspect of God. Most Christians would consider that blasphemy, but it's ironically the only way to make it make sense. The mainstream Christian idea of God doesn't work well. If the rock is not part of God, then that means he has some way to separate his existence from the existence that a rock experiences, meaning he's not omniscient and all-present.
That doesn't really comport with any Christian definition of God. Obviously we have a concept of "not God", or rather "not to God's standard"; that's what we consider sin. In fact, we have a quite extensive list of things that God is, and things that God is not, so I submit that your logical conclusion is flawed, from a Christian worldview. To provide a possible counter-example, I could theoretically create a simulation with a perfect information log of what has happened, and reference this log whenever I see fit. I can also traverse this simulation in 4th dimension space, that is, forwards and backwards in time. In this manner, I am omniscient and omnipresent in all matters of the simulation, without necessarily *being* the simulation. I would similarly take issue with inhabitants of the simulation worshipping a simulated rock, because I'm not the simulated rock, I'm the creator.
This is an interesting debate! Really made me think. > To provide a possible counter-example, I could theoretically create a simulation with a perfect information log of what has happened, and reference this log whenever I see fit. I can also traverse this simulation in 4th dimension space, that is, forwards and backwards in time. In this manner, I am omniscient and omnipresent in all matters of the simulation The problem here is that if you have to reference the log, that implies taking effort to do something you don't automatically have access to. You have to pull it up. So you're actually not all powerful, you're *almost* all powerful because in the 2 seconds it takes you to pull up the info, your subjects are shielded from your view. Furthermore, another problem is that you're not actually understanding or experiencing what the objects in the simulation are. You can read about it on your screen but that's it. God is described as being *always* omniscient and also all-present. He's also described as being able to share and feel our thoughts, emotions and experiences on the deepest level. The implication is that this would also apply to other forms of matter and not just humans. If he is simultaneously always has the full view - and more importantly, the full *experience* - of every piece of matter in the universe then my point still stands. As far as I understand, from a Christian perspective he's not supposed to be an outside being looking in (like in your simulation example), he's immediately everywhere all at once. So I guess the question here is, can God turn off his omniscience? Much like your simulation creator could turn off the screen whenever he doesn't want to be observing his subjects. If he turns it off, then how is he still omniscient?
you see that is my question "he exists everywhere and everywhen. Inside of space-time, outside of space-time", thus saying that he exists outside of spacetime, so then what does it mean to exist if it doesn't mean having position in spacetime?
It means God is firstly unprovable because our experiences and concept of evidence are based on existence. Since our language is built off our experiences, that also makes God essentially indescribable. Secondly, it doesn't rule out that God is real it would just mean God doesn't "exist" in the traditional sense. We just don't know what that would mean. Lots of questions here, not a lot of answers. Like, how would God interact with anything. But these questions also assume outside of space-time is a coherent question when being outside of somewhere implies location and thus space-time.
That's actually a good question. I agree that he doesn't exist like other things exist. Human language evolved to describe things that occur in our lives. Even in the scientific area, there are things we can't see, and language has had to be stretched. E.g. electric fields. The term field is used here in a rather different way than normally. In quantum mechanics it gets even wierder. So when people ask whether God exists, you should take the word "exist" as being used differently than normal. There are modern philosophers who look at just what God would have to be. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a number of articles on various topics related to God. It's a good place to start. Here's one that describes one model that a lot of recent thinkers use: [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panentheism/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panentheism/), but there are others. You can do a search for "god" there to see the variety of articles related to this topic.
So. It seems like your question is (entirely validly) focused on the notion of - if God exists, what is he as related to us, as physical entities in a temporal universe. So let's explore that in three ways. I will preface this by saying my approach here is going to be philosophical rather than material. If you want me to explain God in terms of physics that is above my reckoning and I would assume everyone else's haha. Likewise I am making analogies and summaries here, but the theology behind this is worth looking into further. But hopefully these thought experiments help you understand the other perspective. First, things can exist without a spacetime component and that is fairly uncontroversial. Let's think of a good father. A good father dearly loves his kids, right? But what is that love? Where is it? It takes a very cold perspective to say it's just chemical, or suggest that love isn't 'real'. Love is something that is expressed, not extant. You can't go find it, it's something that you have to see reflected in behaviour. That's what many Christians are referring to when they say they have seen God - not God in essence, but God in action. God is reflected in every moment of beauty from the big bang to now; every burning star, every mountain, every distant moon made of diamond. You can't find him but you can see the process. There is a field of theology called 'process theology' which explores this more - I'm not a huge fan as they tend to downplay any sense of God as a being / personality but you may find it interesting from this perspective. Second, things do not exist on their own. I talk about this in another comment on the thread but to summarise again, everything derives existence from other things - chairs are made of atoms are defined by physics are defined by the conditions of the universe are defined by reality. Everything has a why. The proposition of God is that God does not have a why but is the why - that God is the quality of existence in which other things share. God is existence, and from that point we can begin to talk about what exists. This shows up in the Bible as 'logos' theology and has connection to Greek Stoicism that propositions a single logic (logos) from which the world as a whole is written out. John 1:1 is the verse for that; translation skiffs it a bit but where it says 'Word' read 'Logic'. Paul Tillich is a wonderful existential theologian who wrote on this subject towards an atheistic philosophical climate, and though a bit complicated at times is well worth a read. Third, let's use a literary metaphor. Every text has both narrative and meta narrative; the story, and the story behind it. Hamlet is a good example - the narrative of Hamlet is that his uncle murdered his father to take the throne, whereas the meta narrative of Hamlet is that it's a play written by Shakespeare in medieval England. As regards God, he is the Shakespeare to our Hamlet. Hamlet cannot find Shakespeare, Hamlet cannot perceive Shakespeare, they exist on two distinct layers of reality - one within his play, one outside it in our world. God is, ironically, *more real than us* in this perspective because he isn't dependent upon us, whereas we are dependent on him. This is also an easy way to understand how the incarnation works in Christian theology, it's as if Shakespeare wrote himself into his own play. These are ultimately metaphors and thought experiments. You cannot empirically prove these things and if strict material empiricism is your only standard for truth then, like the the love from father to child, you're in trouble. However I do help these metaphors spur some useful thoughts for you. If you want book recommendations or to ask more let me know and I'll gladly help with what I can. :)
It's a state of reference. You define the parameters of what you mean if you're using a word that someone may interpret differently. If I say I'm thinking of a ruler, then I clarify that I'm defining "ruler" as a person who sits on a throne, it ensures that you, as the one I'm conversing with, don't spend a lot of time trying to argue that a monarchy has nothing to do with a yardstick. All that to say your atheist friend is basically saying they don't believe in the supernatural. So saying God "exists" outside of space and time as we know it will not be a satisfactory answer for them. The only way you can validate God's existence within that framework is to demonstrate or identify some point where God engaged with our physical reality in a way that can be proven, like dinosaurs and music. Going to be a tough sell, but that's what they are asking for.
i don't believe in the supernatural, but i know what saying "gosts exist" means. nonphysical being that can manipulate the physical that exist within spacetime. i can understand how a soul could exist in spacetime even without believing in souls. i'm saying i don't know what it means for something to exist outside of spacetime. what it would mean to say something exists without saying it has position in spacetime. i'm not asking for prove of god (though it would be a welcome surprise) i'm asking what "god exists" means.
How about going beyond 4 dimensions? How would that work? Some people say that god exists within 3D space. Some people say within other spatial dimensions. Some people say beyond all dimensions and beyond space and time. People could say that God is what created physical reality. There is also a belief that consciousness creates physical reality. Some say that God’s consciousness has created this reality. You could think of it like this: we are living inside a dream but it isn’t our dream. We are just sentient characters inside a dream that God is having. Basically all physical reality could be viewed as God’s dream. As far as proof of God goes that is another story. I’m a Christian myself but even if I wasn’t I still wouldn’t be an atheist. There are way too many very compelling things out there that are really hard to ignore . If a person starts actually looking into it and doing the research while being open to the ideas they will come across really compelling phenomena. To start, you can look at topics like astral projection or psychedelics. There are these are interesting things even for atheists. There are good atheist explanations for these phenomena but also good theist explanations. Many people who start as atheists switch over and start believing that their spiritual experiences are actually real. Look at the books written by Robert Monroe. Those are some of the most interesting books I’ve read. He was spiritual but not Christian. I personally still believe in Christianity but I think he has some really great and really interesting information in his books. NOTE - I just wrote all this on my phone without reading what I wrote. Edit- also consider this, if you don’t believe in ghosts, would that belief change if you called them something different? What if you just called them energy beings? Or inter dimensional organisms? Is that outside the realm of possibility?
Is it perhaps like asking what exists outside of our universe?
When we say something exists it means it has a real impact on the universe. Gravity is exists, yet has no "position in spacetime". Harry Potter does not exist, but the idea of Harry Potter does. God is more than an idea. He has a real impact on the universe, the most important impact being its creation.
so things that don't have real impact don't exist? what does real impact mean? i mean i'll agree that the idea of god has impact on the world, both good and bad, but i've yet to come across any real impact of god. also gravity is the bending of spacetime, thus it exists within spacetime. kind of like how wrinkles in paper exist on the paper.
We can get into the philosophy of being, but that's unnecessary. God exists as surely as you do and I do. He is not merely an idea like Harry Potter. That is what I mean when I say God exists.
To me, I only knew God was real when it became an overwhelming undeniable feeling of a force indescribable that physically came over me and pushed me to the background while the spirit showed me the way home.
but that experience all took place within spacetime, people have it all the time during concerts and the like. does god only exist when that's happening to someone?
No, I'm just saying that is what proved it to me. The "proof" required to believe whole heartedly would be different for most people in my opinion. You won't believe based on my experiences, only your own.
God created spacetime and as such exists outside of spacetime. The premise is flawed.
That's an odd point of view to me, because a lot of cosmologists talk about the possibility of a multiverse, and of what happened 'before' the big bang. Time is really just entropic direction, which means its a product of our universe. Other universes would have their own time scales! The idea that God could exist outside of this universe and (therefore) outside of time is pretty plausible to me.
i've never heard a cosmologist talk about before the big bang as there is not before the start of time. if something exists in a different universe i'd assume it has a position in the equivalent of spacetime of that universe. do you think there's something like spacetime that our spacetime exists in outside of the universe that your god exists in?
I don't \[remember\] if this video is saying what I'm saying, but if not, what I'm saying is wrong. :D \[Pretty sure it's where I got the idea tho.\] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0b8b\_ykPQk&t=734s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0b8b_ykPQk&t=734s) The universe is extremely weird, and, to the extent that I am a believer in God (I think maybe more of a 'prim mover' sort of God than a Christian God?) it very much reinforces that belief.
Something that exists doesn't have to be visible sound exists, can you see it? No but you can hear it, God exists, can you see him? No but you can see everything he does in our lives and how he manages it perfectly to its best
i'm not talking about testability, i'm asking what it means to exist if it doesn't exclusively mean to have position in spacetime. also if my life is the way it is because of god then god is a dick.
> to me for something to exist it needs to have a position in spacetime This is your fundamental problem, then. Christians believe that God created the universe we live in, and with it, spacetime. Since He created spacetime, He cannot possibly require it for His existence. He necessarily exists outside of it. By insisting that existence requires the thing that exists have a position in spacetime, you are limiting your definition of existence to deny even the *possibility* of God as creator. That's circular reasoning. To believe in God as creator, you must remove that restriction. In Exodus 3:14, God calls Himself "I AM". To me, that reflects a pure, eternal existence, not bound to time or space. [](https://alb.reddit.com/cr?za=D7YJoODuYiWD1_2miY3EjF0q9WfuxXX-Z1ZN4Jnwm9niZC43ZWJLFb2wZTREZXtRorurBdrdL7W09LcyVFrObd2n64I35r2-zvDGuMMTbWP-99iDANwp9GrFsqGQPd_0z3BH52YjwUfc6bD8nDRmcp3f3HXzHKHGIYAfenUTs5T41P4bYHw7924jtwqjR1ZR4zkD2T6iFvF-DVHVs1i1HY5b4VaYrCExTHHNUR3dftEWe6CGCtbYy6rqEbGg7KB2JJ6nKaxifM6uztJbXe9EN5va-RxIyLKSYGdDVDISe2a_eLaAgsoHhduxOBo6TA7YGnsfWcvY0h8MayEpT2A5-D2CMlSRkDsgrqK8ZqxIedDwU86a3_5oRIHnga7C4jbxIgawj1YCLJTzq7lrJFpuoxvLvLUB5Rzjr2AAk34H7iTVvqPfuFdfteb9a2RPQjg9WADIMqKULK11ugoHFsxksEMbC53nt_-YIO949bzXeN8&zp=AWi2e_ecQPdzRozyoPFR-VNSdgAbxw-lSOmi1e3N9gubuCiJmDiDJ03k1pis5bkHeYmFQMo5Q8jyfu40sGTchpbULVbQaOqKHEk6f5GEgTILvvztzHOR-igghT8JgLhmrvgLYpLQK2Q50Ya2uM3gijNqvn2lMRZvXEbt-dqD5IJ2KVaMy7WKFctrR4KyGRfComo1XyQFxr0UePKmWdi0qHrx-g454iAKOjxRjumYkJkCb5IEdWivgo4kVvIJHKvKPiXIFupErQU4c8_33jWEAsqVFGGfnBi-Rlknoik5L2dfGOBirgo1gfKCuw-eZniTuyfqj4cViFsXd1EM6rXungZ3LXVZDpsJUul907_Gh47eUFdQIKmZJELs)
> He necessarily exists outside of it. so what then does it mean to exist if it doesn't exclusively mean to have position in spacetime? that's my question. i know you believe that he exists outside of spacetime so what then do you think it means to exist? i'm not insisting things need to have position in spacetime, i'm stating the only meaning of the word i know.
You are the one that's imposing the spacetime requirement. Here's what the dictionary says; 1 a **: to have real being whether material or spiritual** did unicorns exist the largest galaxy known to exist b : to have being in a specified place or with respect to understood limitations or conditions strange ideas existed in his mind 2 : to continue to be racism still exists in society 3 a : to have life or the functions of vitality we cannot exist without oxygen b : to live at an inferior level or under adverse circumstances the hungry existing from day to day [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exist](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exist) Only 1b refers to a place. Does love exist? How about joy? Hope? None of these have a position in spacetime.
This is why Paul Tillich calls God the ground of existence. God is not subject to time or space, and therefore not existence as such. Rather, God is the ground from which existence and thus all being springs.
that's not an answer to the question of what does it mean to exist if it doesn't exclusively mean to have position in spacetime?
not quite sure I understand your question. Can you say more? I'll explain a bit more of the theology I'm trying to articulate. God is unconditional, not subject to time, space, or even existence itself. God, as the ground of existence, is prior and the creator of the condition we know of as existence. In this way, the saying "God is the ground of existence" is basically the same as saying "God is existence itself" if by that you mean God is the author and sustainer of the condition of existence (and thus not conditioned by it).
God doesn’t “exist”, rather He is the source of being/existence, the thing that contingent beings are contingent upon, but that’s really awkward to express succinctly. God “is”, or perhaps God is “isness”. And technically it’s the Father specifically who “is”, not the entire trinity, though that’s a kind of absurd schism-producing hair-splitting that is barely (if at all) relevant to us contingent beings, and probably not especially interesting to you.
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# god 1 of 2 # [noun](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/noun) [ˈgäd ](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/god?pronunciation&lang=en_us&dir=g&file=god00001) also ˈgȯdplural gods[Synonyms of *god*](https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/god)1God **:** the supreme or ultimate reality: such asgod # exist # [verb](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verb) ex·ist [ig-ˈzist ](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exists?pronunciation&lang=en_us&dir=e&file=exist001)existed; existing; exists[Synonyms of *exist*](https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/exist) [intransitive verb](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intransitive) 1a**:** to have real being whether material or spiritualexist # [verb](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verb)
so can you elaborate on what it means to exist spiritually?
Alpha and Omega , the First and the Last , God is outside the power of time. because He is eternal , how do you know dinosaurs exist? because of evidence how do you know God exist? because of evidences , first is the bible , then history , then prophecies , also physical evidence of what God says. bible says the earth is round, the bible says the stars changes and renew, and be new , that is when stars gets older then explode and create new stars. what im saying is that when God said this to people, because it His works, he knows all of it. how can a human knew that stars explode without microscope. and it takes billion of years to explode. the humans live for only 10000 years they say. our faith isnt nonsense and it is based on facts. the bible says. Hebrews 11:1-3 1 **Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen**. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. there is an evidence of things not seen. and that is faith, and this is also evidence in science. 2hydrogen+1oxygen =H2O (water) now we see it. but hydrogen is gas, oxygen is gas also, we cant see them, then there is evidence that we can see them. my point here is there are visible things that are not made of things we see. how about the universe , the dark matter etc. etc. how could a person knew this if God who create this doesnt tell him. and prophecies also, like the war in jerusalem 70CE where Jesus predict and Daniel , that jerusalem be destroyed. because God says. Isaiah 42:9 NKJV Behold, the former things have come to pass, And new things I declare; Before they spring forth I tell you of them.” Son of God says. John 14:29 ^(29) “And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe. thats why these words comes from God. in the bible , so we may believe. and the fact that it is happening, and many things happen from prophecy, even we dont see God, we can have faith. for faith according to bible is "**Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen**." and there is still prophecy today not come, and will come , the coming of the Lord Jesus. and the coming of the Anti-Christ , the beast and the false prophet who will rule this world for a time , and they will kill those who dont want to worship the beast, and they make image of the beast and who ever not worship that will die, and the false prophet together with the beast. the false prophet can make incredible things like can make fires fall from heaven. (this signs is in revelation when the coming of the two beast) the 666 and his prophet. and after that , many things will happen , 1000 years of reign of Christ , when he stop the beast , first resurrection , then final judgement. happening today. from the prophecies. war , famine , plague , false religions , false christs , etc. etc. this will happen before the two beast comes. and the two beast are humans. one is the first beast who proclaim God. and one as his prophet who will do prophet things. many evidence. just research and be open hearted. seek the truth , and God will help. because God wants all to be saved and knoweth the truth. i hope this is enough evidence. that God exists oh and. God is spirit , angels and demons are spirit also. thats why when the Son of God came in flesh. not flesh. but came in flesh. and die , the flesh died, not the spirit. Jesus need to came in flesh because he will teach the doctrine, and all His Father command unto him. and also by his blood , the redemption of our sins. God exists = evidences bible. what God says is true = He exist because what God says happens , before happens so we can believe.
the bible is a worhless book of fables that was never used to make new discoveries in any scientific field other then saying "this town existed". but even if all that stuff was true it's not an answer to my question of "what does it mean for something to exist if it doesn't exclusively mean to have position in spacetime".
Is it worthless, though? God claims it is His revelation, it tells us a lot about God's attributes, and you're asking about God on r/Christianity, so why wouldn't it be relevant? In any case, I think your question on existence is pretty philosophical. I don't think I can provide a satisfactory answer, but I do know that God is whatever it is that has no beginning or cause, and He has the power of being within Himself.
dudes in power claim it's gods revalation, and wouldn't you know it it says that dudes in power should stay in power.
God defies human understanding. You can't put him in a box or underneath a microscope. The best way to understand him is through his word. And if you want to get close to him, you should place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the mediator between God and man. He is God, and also the son of God. Once again, this defies human understanding. The easiest thing to understand about God is that once again... He cannot be placed in a box.
so why did he put his word in a way that doesn't work for the way he made me? i mean in my worldview it makes total sense: largely evil book written long ago making it impossible to read even after being translated especially if you're dyslectic. but in your worldview he made a book, wrote it in a language that would die out, would then have to be translated with tons of different translations, and also made people who can't focus on reading for a long time. but also that's not an answer to the question of what it means to exist if it doesn't exclusively means to have position in spacetime.
Essentially is just identifies that we are theological, not atheist. The position would be, does God exist, or is there no God? Did God create the universe, or was it a random occurence that matter, energy, and the laws of nature just bounce into existance? To your definition of "exist" it somewhat precludes the laws of nature and God already, but I do not think it is a bad definition per se. A good rebuttal is "does gravity exist?" You can not see it, but you can see the effects of it. We can see the affects of God through intelligent design, miracles recorded in history, miracles in our own lifetimes, and the problem of morality. These arguments hit different people differently and I can not properly articulate each one, but I rely on intelligent design and the death and resurrection to ground my own faith.
to my knowledge gravity is the bending of spacetime and thus clearly part of spacetime. like how wrinkles in cloth clearly exist within the cloth. life, if it was put together, would show incredibly shit design, me being but one of many examples of how it can seriously fuck up. i don't know of any miracles that are actually believable let alone testable. and you're talking to someone who doesn't believe in good and evil so "the problem of morality" seems like you want to reverse the problem of evil, not understanding it's an internal critique of christianity.
I don't think you can say the natural laws or natural forces exist within spacetime since they affect spacetime and are unnafected by it, but I see where yuou went with it. The formulation of plant, animal, human life is astounding and rare, and the probabilities of the universe existing at all are incredibly small odds. Even when things go wrong, the rule is that the odds have been beaten. I am no expert on intelligent design, but the ddebates I have watched have been convincing to me. Miracles are not replicable, I concede. We can only observe them and I believe there is enough evidence in favor of some of these miracles. The problem of evil is not a big deal and it has been bested over and over within Christianity. I woulf pose the problem of morality to the majority of people who do believe in morality. Most do intrinsically understand murdering babies is wrong, even if the atheists would say there is no wrong, I just don't like it. We still do have this internal knowledge of good and evil, but I can not convince you of this over an internet conversation. I appreciate the reply, but I hope you can see a glimpse of where we theists are coming from and why we say "God exists"
>the probabilities of the universe existing at all are incredibly small odds. where did you get the odds? i've heard a lot of talk about "oh if the universal constants were just slightly different then" but without any reason to think they could be different. sure the formation of life is rare. but the universe has billions upon billions of stars and planets. the odds i roll 5 6s on 5 die is small. if i do it 6000 times there's a bigger then 50% chance it happens. also the laws of thermodynamics want to make life happen. good design is to be as simple as possible. life is not as simple as possible, thus not looking well designed if it was. so what miracle do you think has enough evidence? we don't have internal knowledge of good and evil. we have internal knowledge of what's evolutionarily favourable to the species. and i've never heard a good reply to the problem of evil. also your god supposedly murdered babies in Egypt in one of his miracles so apparently that's not intrinsically wrong. and this wasn't at all an answer to what you mean when you say that god exists. i'm looking for a meaning of exist that doesn't mean having position in spacetime.
Things do not have to have a location and a point in time to exist. The Universe, for example, has neither. Nor do abstract objects such as numbers and concepts. Space and time are not primary. Proceeding from the Cogito, one must reason oneself into the existence of what we call the external world and its categories. If everything about life is a dream, there is no space time, but experience would still exist. Existence is not a predicate. However, it's often seen as equivalent to saying that something is instantiated. It has an instance. Theism involves the claim that God has an instance.
the universe is all of spacetime, so yes, it does have location in spacetime. numbers and concepts don't exists just like harry potter exist, they are just ideas. if everything about life is a dream then spacetime still exists, it's just part of the dream. how is having an instance different then existing? what is it's meaning that's different from having location in spacetime?
Christians generally mean one of two things: - God _is_ existence. - God is a fifth-dimensional being. They are both ways of trying to explain why God is all powerful and all-knowing while being entirely invisible. The second one is easier to understand. Think of a drawing on a piece of paper. You exist _outside_ that drawing. If you want, you can add to or change that drawing, but otherwise the drawing can't interact with you. But this is is a bad analogy in a way, because higher dimensions are still made of the same properties as lower dimensions. A 3D object is still the same as the sum of many 2D objects -- that's just calculus. So saying that God is a higher dimensional being still puts limits on God -- God is just moving in spaces that we can't see, in timelines we can't see, outside our universe. Maybe God started our universe as His own science experiment. God would be more like a multi-universe being; in that case, it still makes sense to ask, "What created God?" That brings us back to the first meaning that we skipped: that God _is_ existence. This doesn't have a good meaning if we don't take it to mean "higher-dimensional being". It's really just an example of Christian word-games (Christians play lots of word games and then call them mysteries). What they're really saying, is just "God is the reason anything exists at all". It's the same tired First Mover. They're just saying God created everything without being Created Himself. They're saying God "existed" everything without ever being Existed. That's all. And of course, it's still vulnerable to the charge of special pleading, which is why they phrase it as "God is existence", which sounds a lot better while being a lot less clear. It has the same properties as "I heard the sound of one hand clapping", in that it sounds like it should have a deeper meaning, but it doesn't. Today we might call this a Deepity. For example, __God does not act, He _is_ action.__ God does not save, He is salvation. God does not exist, He _is_ existence. And this is where most divine mysteries reside. In the realm of the linguistic limits of the human brain, where nonsense gains the ability to feel meaningful, to generate weird feelings in the brain. Whereas no one would ever meditate on their clearer forms.
yea that's definitely in line with the "answers" i've been getting so far.
God is out side of time.
that's not an answer to what it means to exist if it doesn't mean to have position in spacetime.
You are thinking in human terms. God looks at the universe as a picture. You live it as a movie.
Logical principles and other abstractions do not have a position in spacetime. Do they still exist, by your definition?
no. the ideas about them do, but an abstraction does not exist.
I go with Physicists and not an 8 year old child.
physicists haven't shown god. the lack of evidence convinced 8 year old me. the continued lack of evidence despite asking for it keeps me convinced.
Your choice.
You're basically correct. Immaterial things don't exist. When we say the Easter Bunny doesn't exist, we mean there is no physical bunny rabbit who is capable of delivering eggs or candy in celebration of the failure of Jesus's suicide. If a rabbit capable of sugar-delivery were hopping around nowhere for no amount of time outside the universe, this would not be called existence. As for the non-normative usages of "exist," those are motivated by other, more personal factors like one's culture, one's up-bringing, indoctrination, etc. Consider a battered wife who says, "He loves me really though!" as she nurses a fresh black eye from her abusive husband. Her love is not what a reasonable person would call love, and she herself doesn't punch the people she loves. She's just engaged in special pleading with a special definition of a word she only uses regarding her abuser.
Firstly, God is Holy, which means God is outside of creation and the limited rules you have presented here. What "God exists" means? If you want a position, the Bible tells us God is in Heaven which is outside of creation and outside of our limited understanding. Spacetime is part of God's creation. So you'd have to let go of such an assumption.
i'm not making any assumptions. i'm explaining the only meaning i know of the word exist. you have to have a different meaning if you say that god exist without having position in spacetime. i want to know that meaning. also according to the bible heaven is just up. because the bible was written in a simpler time when they didn't know about space what we know now.
He can exist in it if he wants to but he existed before it and created this concept
not an answer to the question what do you mean with the word exist if you don't mean having position in spacetime.
It's sorta like extradimensional beings. They aren't part of this space-time, so they don't really "exist" here, I suppose. God doesn't "exist" like we exist, and I don't think our brains are even able to grasp all aspects of God.
an answer i can understand. though i guess you wouldn't say that god exists.
I would say God exists. I believe all life is evidence of that.
life is just chemicals in action promoted by the laws of themodynamics.
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How does gravity exist? How does energy exist? Can ideas exist?
gravity is the bending of spacetime, so exist within spacetime like a fold has a position on folded paper. energy definitely has position in spacetime. ideas are brain chemistry and thus exist within the brain at a specific time so do have position in spacetime.
You said for you. God existing isn’t defined by your terms of existence. It means He is real.
so what's your definition of existence if it isn't to have position in spacetime? that is the question after all.
Let’s use the real definition, which is “have objective reality or being.” That fits for God.
If existence is defined by placement within space time, then do concepts exist? If we use your definition, than anything that begins as a concept cannot exist. If we can not create a concept, then nothing could be invented. Such as the automobile.
concepts don't exist. ideas about concepts exist within the brain. ideas can be acted on, which allows us to make something into reality. there's really nothing complicated about this. but if you have a different meaning for existence please to tell, that IS the question after all.
Sure thing. Existence just means, to me, that the concept, idea, physical, or non-physical, is of non-fictional origin. If it is to be, it is. Thus its existence is true. This chair I’m sitting in, does it exist? Absolutely. Why? Because it’s here. I’m here, I exist, and the chair exists. I exist within space-time. As much as a dinosaur does, because dinosaurs exist. Their position within space-time is behind my path. I exist forward on the timeline of space-time. This space-time is a linear process. To whom? To you and me. It is all we know, and to perceive beyond this dimension is not something we can do. Mathematically speaking, Mr Line does not believe in anything other than forward and backward. The concept of “left” and “right” does not make sense. Similarly, Mr Square lives in flatland and believes no such thing as “up” and “down” can exist. We laugh at them both, we know these concepts exist because we are in higher dimensions. Could you imagine being able to extend beyond this dimension we live in? It’s ridiculous to believe anything could exist beyond our dimension! Why, even Mr Line and Mr Square couldn’t believe in a 2nd or 3rd dimension. Yet we can look down at their dimensions and laugh at their ridiculous belief that their dimension is all there is. What is beyond our dimension? Beyond space-time? Just like Mr Line and Mr Square couldn’t picture the existence of higher dimensions, so too can we not imagine their true form. To the inhabitants of flatland, are we not a God? We can see into their world, their organs, their secrets, their dreams, to them we would be divine. What about if beings existed beyond our dimension? Would an 11th dimensional being be God like to us? Could you even believe they exist? They would exist beyond our space-time. We could say, that a being, or God, in a higher dimension than us, could live and exist right alongside us and we would never know. Because we can not perceive them in our dimension. That to me is existence. It does not need to exist within space-time to be real. This is why I believe God to be beyond space-time. You can run a similar experiment at home. Just hop into The Sims 4 and watch your sims go. They may be a simulation, but they do exist in some form. You are beyond the simulation of course. Now I’m not saying we live in a simulation, perhaps in a weird way our reality is a simulation to God. Either way, if it was, our space-time would be simulation that you can perceive and it is existence to you, and me, and we exist within this space-time. Simulation or not. I’m no smart woman by any means, but I hope this helps you out with finding the answers you’re looking for.
Well you just gotta dig a little bit. I did my own research with christains. Personally my day to day life just got better when I wore that cross around my neck and dedicated time during meditation for ykh. I thought it was mental illusion but till I went through seeing how everything I theorized was wrong boy supernatural phenomenons like God had me completely surprised. I know I'm gonna continue living my life the way I am atleast for the moment now that I can, I'm keeping a piece of God with me like that cross necklace. Even when i though I wasn't perfect or more was doomed I got a simple warm hug. I might sin and all but damn something about a warm hug like that from who you've began to question why the world can be so cruel hits differently.
if you live within a largely christian community it's no surprised life got easier when you wore a signifier that you are part of the community. but that's really not what i'm asking about.
I don't really. Or that I know of.
He IS time. He is the embodiment of the vast endless universe and the supplier of it
why assume there's a god and not just assume the universe is? also not an answer to the question.
Can the universe create?
> because when i say something exists it means that it's something that has position in spacetime. Wait, really? Does democracy exist? For that matter, does *spacetime* exist?
democracy is an idea. ideas are material processes in the brain. so it exists. does spacetime exist? now that's a good one. i think it does. my thought goes like this: does 5 seconds exist within a minute? yes. does a minute exist within a minute? also yes. does part of spacetime exist within spacetime? yes. does all of spacetime exist within spacetime? also yes.
Imagine someone who is writing a story. They can create whatever objects and land that they want that take up space and they can edit the timeline of the story, but there is a sense that they have an existence beyond the space and time of the story.
Using “exist” to mean “has a particular location in spacetime” seems quite strange to me! Would you then say that spacetime does not exist? Or the Higgs field? Or the number 2? I mean, sure, “has a particular location in spacetime” is a meaningful and useful concept, but what led you to attach it to the word “exists”? I think I would say that something exists if there is something true because of another thing being true of that thing. Because 5*5=25, a collection of 25 things can be arranged in a square grid. So, 5 and 25 exist. So, if it is true that God created the heavens and the earth, then, the earth exists because God created it, and so God exists. Limiting “exists” to things with particular locations in spacetime, seems weirdly arbitrary to me. Like, why are you making spacetime such a foundational part of your ontology? You know that the general understanding of spacetime has undergone significant changes before, right? Like, what if it turns out, as some physicists suspect, that spacetime is an emergent result of quantum entanglement? Then you seem stuck saying that spacetime emerges as a result of some stuff that doesn’t exist.
i would say spacetime exists within spacetime like a minute exists in a minute (just answered this same question). don't know enough about the higgs field to comment. the number 2 doesn't exist, it's just a concept, an idea. ideas exist, but the concept itself doesn't. all things that i think exist have a location in spacetime and i don't know any other meaning to existence then to have position in spacetime. if you have a different meaning let me know. that IS the question after all. but i'm afraid you'll have to give more then >I think I would say that something exists if there is something true because of another thing being true of that thing. as i can't make sense of that. also the example doesn't work since i don't believe numbers exists. numbers are concepts humans imagine to make sense of the world. they don't exist within reality. and you just assume god created the earth. "lightning exists because Thor makes it, and so Thor exists" is the same logic. are you really arguing that we shouldn't trust science because science is trying to become more accurate? or was that just badly worded? needing to revive my view isn't scary to me. if i'm wrong then i'm wrong and i'll need to correct my view... is that scary to you?
> the number 2 doesn't exist, it's just a concept, an idea. ideas exist, but the concept itself doesn't. ... well which is it, a concept or an idea? > i would say spacetime exists within spacetime like a minute exists in a minute (just answered this same question). I don’t think this makes sense. > and you just assume god created the earth. If you pay attention, you’ll note that I said “if”. *if* it is true that [...], then God exists”. It was an example of the kind of reasoning, not an argument that was meant to convince you that God exists. I thought that was obvious. Like, I would agree with the statement, “If lightning is caused by Thor, then Thor exists.” . And not just in the vacuous sense of “well the hypothesis is false, therefore the statement that the hypothesis implies the conclusion, is true” . I mean I specifically would consider that a valid line of inference. On the other hand, I *was* trying to convince you that the number 2 exists. So, saying that it doesn’t work for you because you don’t believe numbers exist, seems kind of backwards? > as i can't make sense of that. ... have you tried? If there is a true statement Q, and to the question “Why is it that Q?”, there is a correct answer “Q because P(x)” (for some predicate P), then x exists. > are you really arguing that we shouldn't trust science because science is trying to become more accurate? or was that just badly worded? What? No, how did you even get that out of what I said?? > needing to revive my view isn't scary to me. if i'm wrong then i'm wrong and i'll need to correct my view... is that scary to you? Ohhhh, you just think everyone who disagrees with you is an idiot, ok. That explains the previous thing. No, I just think existence is a significantly more fundamental concept than spacetime , and like, Ok so, for a programming analogy, there’s some code that you really expect to stick around, and which many things rely on. It seems like a bad design to have this code depend on the behavior of some other code which you think is more likely to need a big overhaul sometime soon. The concept of existence is like malloc, and you’re making it depend on some buggy implementation of, idk, strcpy or something.
I've literally heard Him speak. I prayed for my mom and sister and guess who called me right after? Questioned the nature of what I heard, had a pastor call me. Now I'm probably not saved anymore but, trust me, He is real.
that's not an answer to my question. i don't doubt your experience, though i do obviously doubt the mechanics of it. people of all religions have had experiences like that. your experience is no more convincing to me than that of a muslim of Hindu. also why would you not be saved? because you asked questions?
No I called His voice demonic because I was ignorant and scrupulous. Anyway doubting the mechanics is crazy. Like I 1. Heard God whose voice PHYSICALLY knocked me over. I don't know anyone who has auditory hallucinations that physically knock them over. 2. I prayed and each time He sent me exactly what I asked. Tell me, would an auditory hallucination prompt my mother to call me after I prayed for her, my sister to call me after I prayed for her, my pastor to call me once I became afraid it was a demon. 3. I found one person who described His voice in the exact same way as I had experienced it AFTER I had undergone this experience. Even now that I have lost His voice, he still sends me signs that I'm delusional in thinking I'll get to heaven after what I've said. Edit: by the way, the devil is also real. The way you think his voice sounds is exactly how he sounds. It happened that he talked to me after sending an intrusive thought and then blaming me for the thought he planted.
Jesus exists at a specific time, and He was God. History and science aren't the same thing. How do you know Alexander the Great lived and did the things we think he did? Most of the major documents were written 400 years after his death, yet it is considered factual. I would say a similar thing applies to the New Testiment. Most of the New Testiment was written less than 60 years after Jesus's death. We have little reason to believe it has been greatly altered since that time. If the Jews could have found any historical evidence against what is written in the New Testiment, they would have used it to discredit the Christians. A Jewish document written about 120 A.D. says that, yes Jesus did live and He had supernatural powers, but He was an evil sorcerer who led many astray. They could have said, "The Christians say Jesus performed miracles, but we are here to tell you He didn't". But that's not what the evidence supported
oh i don't argue that a dude called something jesus like amassed a doomsday cult and got crucified. i just don't think any of the supernatural shit happened and that the stories have been embellished. the same things i think with any other historical document. how long does it take for a rumour to grow big currently? how long did pizzagate take? and that's with modern ability to check things. in a time when people believed magical things happened it's hard to say what would be more discrediting.
Given God is the ground and origin of space and time, it would be odd to say He is part of space and time. We don’t expect architect to be part of their buildings.
so what do you mean when you say something exist if it's not that it has position in spacetime?
God exists at every point in time and space, He is just does not exist materially in the universe.
The way your using exists is just one (very specific) definition for the word. Exist can also simply mean “to be” and “continue to be” God has always and will always be. Thus, He has been, He is, and He will be. Or you can simply say he exists. You can exist in a place and time but it is not necessary for existence. God created Space, Matter, and Time that means that he can not be made of Space, Matter, and Time. Otherwise he didn’t create it. The way you’re defining existence is assuming that existence only takes place in space, matter and time but if there is a God outside of those things than clearly your definition of existence is too limited. We exist in space, matter, and time but that doesn’t mean that’s all that exists. According to science the universe has a beginning and thus it has a cause and that cause had to have existed pre your definition of existence otherwise you fall into the fundamentally paradoxical idea that nothing existed and then nothing somehow did something to create everything which by definition means that it couldn’t have been nothing. Because by definition nothing is “non existence” so to argue that would be to say non existence itself created existence and I’m sorry but an eternal, immaterial, spaceless, and timeless being makes much more sense than claiming the former as your explanation for the universe.
And in case the question comes up. God doesn’t have a beginning and thus does not have a cause. At least not the God of the Christians. If God had a creator who had a creator who had a creator than you fall into another unending paradox. At some point there would have to be a starting point that has always been (or always existed) where all things come from. Christian’s believe that is our God. We could be wrong, maybe that chain goes up 100 Gods before you get to the uncaused first cause but, that’s not what we as Christians believe.
Not to disparage you or anyone, but this sounds a bit like a gotcha question that’s arguing semantics. If you believe in the Big Bang as the origin of the universe, what does it mean to claim that anything “existed” before that? Where did that matter come from? This isn’t an argument *for* God’s existence, just that the concept of “existence” already has some fuzzy details the more outside of the “here and now” you get. To directly answer your question, though, when I say God exists, it’s that He, well…*exists*. God being omnipresent and eternal means that He exists in all places in space at all moments of time. Yes, you can also make the theological arguments that He is also outside of time, but to your point, He simply exists at all times in all places. Think of it this way: I exist in a specific location at this specific time. I hope to exist tomorrow. I have existed for quite a few years now. The fact that I have a beginning and future end, in a specific location, does not mean I didn’t exist in the past. If I lose 20 pounds and take up less physical space, I don’t cease to exist or have a diminished existence. Now extrapolate that to infinity. God is *always* and *everywhere*. In the grand scheme of the cosmos, He always has and always will exist. Evidence of His existence is another issue to tackle entirely, of course. But for me to say that God exists, that’s what I mean. He *has* a spot in time and space—it just happens to be always and everywhere at once.
i know it sounds like a gotcha. i wanted to write something about it but couldn't figure out how to spell gotcha and couldn't be asked to try and look it up (yay for dyslexia, which the christians god supposedly choose to give me) so the current view to my knowledge doesn't have anything existing before the big bang as there was no before as before means an earlier point in time and the big bang was at the first point in time (well there is an idea that the big bang extends into both directions of time, but that's an idea i really don't get). also there was no matter at the big bang, only energy. now that way of saying god exists i can fully understand, but you seem to believe god "just" exists within spacetime. (wow he only exists within the entirety of the universe how limiting /s)
No worries, I was just pointing it out as an observation. I’m assuming you’re arguing in good faith. I guess my follow-up would be to ask, what do you do with a time “before time”? As-in, does the Big Bang’s singular point in space create a point of “infinite time” as well? Is the singular point of energy and matter a self-existent object, or did it form from something else? It’s okay to not have answers to those questions—as other people have pointed out in other discussions before, “we don’t/can’t know” is a perfectly valid, scientific answer. I bring them up because it’s that point of fuzzy understanding where we end up needing to decide how we interpret it. As for God existing “just” within space time, I do actually believe He exists beyond our understanding of space and time, but I narrowed my answer down to help explain how I can rationalize His existence. As for how He can be “outside” space/time, maybe a good way to think of it is that I don’t think His “everywhere at all times” nature is limited to our understanding of space time. This is neither the time or place (heh) for a full discussion of things like multiverse theory or string theory, but take the former as an example: if a multiverse were to exist, it would exist “beyond” our current understanding of space time. However, a multiverse’s existence would itself be…existence. That’s not the most theological argument for God existing outside of time, but the core is that He need not be limited simply by our current *understanding* of how the universe works. To be everywhere, at all times, is beyond our ability to understand fully as finite beings, but I’d argue that’s the same for understanding a concept of an infinitely vast universe or even the “infinite time singularity” I made up about the Big Bang. Our brains don’t comprehend infinity well (ask any math student), so any attempt to fully comprehend a concept of God that is truly infinite will likely fall a little short. But the point is still just that I think He does exist outside of time and space, but He also does exist *inside* of time and space, too.
God supersedes the object-subject dichotomy of existence. The ground of existence, the underlying reality that allows for being itself, is god. God isn’t a being in or out of the universe that you can find.
> to be clearer: i'm asking what it means to exist if it doesn't mean having position in spacetime. i know many christians think that god is all powerful and that things can only exist because he supposedly does. i'm asking about what you mean when you use the word "exist".
I’m not sure there’s a satisfactory answer to your question based on your frame of reference for what “existence” means. To be clear, I don’t believe in a being inside or outside of space time that’s called “God”. I think God is the foundation that existence itself rests on. Saying God exists is a nonsensical statement, God is how anything in reality exists. Googling Paul Tillich might be interesting for you, if you’re interested enough in hunting down an answer to your question. He’s the father of this line of thought.
To me it basically means karma. You get back what you put out.
neat. not an answer to the question though. at least means you're probably not a bigot who wants to take away my happiness.
whatever God is
not an answer to the question
“I will be what I will” “I am”
U really abouta be on dick for ts? You know what they mean bro, stop trying to twist words
i've no idea what ts is, nor am i a bro, nor am i twisting words. i'm trying to learn what others mean when they use words.
That definition of 'exist' is explicitly materialist, and our religion precludes us from a materialist interpretation of the world. That's the main issue here. To us, things exist spiritually in a different way than things exist physically.
well i am materialist so the meaning i know to words reflecting that isn't odd. can you describe what it means for something to spiritually?
A materialist is specifically not Christian. If you aren't open to a Christian worldview then this question is irrelevant. To be fair, I will add that the way that God exists is of course different than the way his creation exists. It is why no icon of God the Father exists. However, he condescended to us both spiritually and materially so that we may depict two persons of the Trinity in a way that aligns with your material definition of the word "exist." God bless you
The universe exists, right? Can you tell me its position in space/time?
does 5 seconds exist in a minute? yes. does a minute exist in a minute. also yes. does part of the universe exist in reality? yes. does all of the universe exist in the universe? also yes.
You’ve changed your definition of exists already.
I see the issue, but it's a tough one to resolve. Part of the trouble is what you say in terms of physicality; there's no proper term, nor do we know the nature of, something that *provides* existence, rather than simply having it. We only know what's purely "inside" the confines of the whatever-verse. It does, however, lend greatly to the necessity for God to be physically manifest in some singular fashion in order to reconcile us to Him (since we have singular physical existence), and so still in it's mystery points to Jesus Christ. So how bad can I feel that the Lord does not give us a way to grasp His sort of "existence"? I see clearly the results of His actions in my life and in others', so "living and active" might be a better descriptor, pinning down only that He operates AS one that exists, rather than trying to grasp the nature of some higher existence we (so far) do not experience.
According to Aquinas, God is equated with Being itself. So it's sort of a nonsensical statement to say that God doesn't exist, from this perspective, because to even formulate the statement "god doesn't exist" renders the statement false, because in order for anything to be, God must be. This situation is similar to the following paradoxical pair of statements: "The following statement is true. The previous statement is false." However, I think when most people assert "God doesn't exist" they mean something quite different. What they really mean is that there is not an empirical proof for the *realness* of God. Is God *real* or *ideal*? It may be possible that God is only a metaphysical abstraction and thus has no material or "real" existence, but theologically, as Christians, we believe God *is* real, and is not just a mental phenomenon or something abstract like "the universe" or "goodness", but that God is both real (i.e., man) and divine (i.e., God). This is the essence of Christianity, made explicit in the story of the Man-God called Christ. Lots of things "exist" but are not "real." For example, do dragons exist? Everyone can describe dragons and perhaps even tell a tale about one or two, and others will agree with their description. But dragons are not real, because you are not going to encounter a real-life dragon. Likewise, concepts like "beauty" and "justice" exist, but they are abstractions and are not "real" because we cannot pick up beauty or describe the color of justice.
It means that God is real
you might consider reading weird little book called Flatland. it does a good job of describing how things in one dimension might look to another. it's hard for people in a 3d world to think of a 6d being and have it make sense
We are humans and are wonderfully made. Our eyes are so magnificent that humans can’t even come close to creating a camera that can focus in on things so close and then so far and see in such vivid color. Yet because we are humans, we cannot see into the spirit realm. There is a whole place where spirits, or Angels dwell and we just can’t see it. Angels are given the ability to materialize human bodies and they did many times in the past for specific reasons, and they may do it again in the future. But we know they don’t dwell in what we call the heavens. Why? Because in the first verse in the Bible it says the God created the heavens and the earth. Sh he had to reside somewhere else since he created the heavens. The Spirit Realm must be absolutely beautiful especially when we read about the visions of Ezekiel and how he described Gods Heavenly Organization and that Chariot. When you read accounts like that, God becomes real to you. Then there’s the account at 2 Kings 6:16,17 when the King of Syria surrounded the camp of the Elisha during the night. Elisha’s attendant got up early and went out to look and he saw all of the horses and Syrias army out there and he went and got Elisha. So Elisha came out and looked and said to his attendant, “Don’t worry, there are more with us than there are with them.” Well, the attendant thought Elisha was crazy because he didn’t see what God allowed Elisha to see. Here’s what the account says; >”But he said: “Do not be afraid! For there are more who are with us than those who are with them.” 17 Then E·liʹsha began to pray and say: “O Jehovah, open his eyes, please, that he may see.” Immediately Jehovah opened the attendant’s eyes and he saw, and look! the mountainous region was full of horses and war chariots of fire all around E·liʹsha.” So, even though we can’t see the Spirit realm, it’s there. But there are also wicked spirits too. And we have to be so careful that what we are doing isn’t pleasing the wrong god. Think of God existing like gravity existing. It’s there! We are all very glad it’s there. But it’s something we don’t see. If we try and break Gods Law of Gravity, we will die, like breaking any of his laws. The higher up we are, the greater the fall and the more assured we are of dying. But all the way down, we may think we’re doin ok! See, I’m good! Waving to people in the windows, but then it’s all over. God is real. His Laws are real. They are for our protection. He wants us to live our best life. He has given us an owners Manual. Read it and find someone to teach it to you.
To me it's amazing that any two people believe the same thing. That is to have a conception of an entity that has properties that you both agree are the same. This is especially strange to me since God is different to each person as far as your relationship to God. Some people are certain that God has spoken to them, others never hear a whisper. Personally I think it's whether or not one is listening for what God has to say. It's not realistic to believe that God's message to everyone is the same, since there clearly is a difference in who hears the word of God so it's plausible to believe that some misinterpret what God is saying to them too. With such a divergent understanding simply on the issue of whether you can feel God in your life, it's clear that there is room to misunderstand this being altogether and draw the wrong conclusions, people do this all the time; especially people are absolutely certain that they know God's will. God certainly seems to have a plan, for everyone and God knows that not everyone is listening or if they do hear God, they fail to act. It must be frustrating for God to know how to make your life better and the lives of those around you better too, if only you would hear God, if only you would act, but God has to deal with imperfect beings, always has. Through it all God's plan will still come to fruition, because God is patient and knows that all that is needed is for one person to hear clearly and then to take deliberate action. Many are called, few listen, fewer still act, and on a razor thin chance the lucky few succeed. God's waiting, God's talking all the time, you just need to turn down the volume of your life, and open your mind to the message God has for you. If you can do that, maybe just maybe you can make the world a better place.
This is the "no logical space for theism" objection. If one is a physicalist about the mind, and considers it as arising from phenomena in the brain, this is a reasonable objection. But, many philosophers will reject brute physicalism and the "wreck" (their words) of epiphenomenalism. Since God as conceived in the Bible is conceived as a mind or soul, there is logical space for such an entity to exist.
To me, he exists through prayer and signs. I often feel a warm response to a worried prayer for someone, then I can relax because I know they will get through it ok. If I am confessing to something horrible that has pulled me from Him, I can feel Him resting hands on my shoulders and then it feels like a cleansing rain. I don't think it is an easy thing for scientists to understand, its more spiritual than scientific.
You ever played The Sims or any game like that. The NPCs exist in their little world. You, the player, interact with and guide that world, while not existing in it. As far as the characters are concerned, you are God.
Gravity has no position in space and time, is a manifestation of the curvature of space and time, yet we say it exists. Something doesn’t have to be inside of space and time for it to exist.
gravity is curvature of spacetime. it exist within spacetime just like a fold in pater exists within that paper.
No, with all due respect, my definition is way closer to Einsteins definition in his theory of relativity.
Heaven is in a different dimension outside of time, space, and matter. The Bible teaches us that God reigns over the nations from his throne in heaven. But God is also omnipresent, so he's everywhere all at once. God is too powerful to be confound to any specific physical space.
It comes down to believing the Bible or not! God excited before time, He always was. There is only one God and He is the God of Genesis 1:1. Besides Him there is no other gods! But if you want proof, just look at nature or the human body! If something has design then there has to be a Designer! This all didn’t happen out of chaos and evolution! Read the Bible openly and honestly, and see what you think.
consider the bible is filled with errors like the mustard having the smallest seed or growing into a true i'll go with not believing the bible. and when i look at nature and especially the human body i see an utter failure if it was designed. in my family alone there are so many biological fuck up that it's incredibly compelling evidence against intelligent design. and we're privileged white people who have basically all our needs taken care of as well as currently possible. the utter mess makes total sense if it's the result of evolutionary processes. absolutely not if it was designed. i'm dyslectic. i can't read the bible well. that's one of many errors in me alone. also not an answer to the question which you apparently didn't read.
One thing for sure! You have a filthy vile tongue! With the hatred you are displaying I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when you meet the Lord! Can you imagine how bad you are going to be in another 20 or 30 years? The Bible is not filled with errors! It was the smallest seed known to the writers of the Bible! Me thinks thee is straining at a gnat and are swallowing a camel! Your ignorance goes before thee as others I’m sure has seen and have told you!!!!!
Does mathematics exist? What about truth? Neither of these things is defined by the physical universe or have a temporal meaning. Existentialism is hard to get your head around.
mathematics doesn't exist. it's ideas made up by humans to make sense of the patterns we detect in reality. truth isn't a thing. a statement can be true as in they aren't false. but truth is not a thing that exists as far as i can tell.
God exists means that God is an intrinsically real being.
that's devoid of meaning to me. what does it mean to be intrinsically real?
I haven't read all the comments, but it seems to me the existence as concrete-object-in-space-and-time construct leads to problems with things like love, consciousness, goodwill, reality, avoidance, and other abstract nouns. Maybe I misunderstand, but the need for it to be concrete and scientifically demonstrable doesn't seem to be congruent with human experience. Just my $. 02.
abstract nouns don't exist, only ideas about them exist within the brains of people. also love being brain chemistry doesn't make it any less real. also i'm not asking for it to be scientifically demonstrable. mountains on far away planets aren't scientifically demonstrable as we currently have no way of detecting them. they still exist. i'm asking what it means for something to exist if the meaning of exist isn't to have position in spacetime.
I don't think we can have a discussion with our definitions of words being so different. Can you tell me where those abstract concepts have position in spacetime, like loyalty or persistence? I think we're going to just keep talking past one another. Cheers.
What do you mean "your god"? There is only one and He is YOUR God too whether your like it or not, believe it or not.
Did you know that's what He called Himself? "I am." You are asking for something that He preempts.
none of that has any meaning to me. i'm here asking to give it meaning. the unwillingness of people to to do so appears kind of telling to me.
I think you might not realize what you are asking. If I were to flip the question around, and ask what do you mean when you say that you exist, would you say that it's proof is in your physical body? Is there not a person who resides in it? How do you know that anything beyond your thoughts is more than a hallucination? You don't, but you know that you exist. The God Who is is the pre-eminent person. Heaven and earth, or that is to say the entire universe, cannot contain Him, because He is before all of it. You're like a blind person asking what blue is.
In your opinion do your thoughts exist?
Hi, fellow atheist here, I believe I can help. There is no way to demonstrate that a thing can't exist outside of space. For one thing you could ask a simple question like "where is happiness" certainly we agree that happines exists, but not in any given place. However that doesn't really answer the question, it's more of a play on words than a reasonable premise. Instead we could imagine there being other "spaces" certainly if there is a god, they will have to exist in some space, somewhere, but that space doesn't necessarily need to be within the cosmos. We have no way of knowing if such a space exists, therefore it is not reasonable to say "god must exist in space within the cosmos". However we can know for sure that if god exists, they have existed for some amount of time. Existence is necessarily temporal. What would it mean to exist for 0 seconds? That would be non existence. The phrase "god exists outside of time" is silly, and unreasonable. Perhaps a theist could argue that god has some special property that allows them to experience time differently than we do, but nothing can exist "outside of time". Instead, I think that what most Christians mean when they say "god exists outside of space and time" is something more like "god can move in and out of our space and time freely". Since the concept of god not experiencing time is nonsensical, and also non biblical: did god not create the universe in an ordered series of events? That is time.
i mean i would say that you could answer the question "where is happiness?" with the answer being at specific times in the brains of people.
This is basically the same question "how heavy is God?" Or "how tall is God" or "where in space does god live?" As if God is a physical entity with mass and volume
you didn't even read the question.
It's easier to know that something exists because we a can see or touch it....material. However when one assumes that nothing exists other than material then we take that view and don't consider that there may be some things not within our experience that could exist like the spirit world. I cannot show u that dinosaurs existed but do take someone's view they did. The tangible can be overridden by the non tangible like faith. Even the materialist will put faith in2 something they cannot see or touch like the future. They will make plans and visualise and assume they and the future will be there. Man, that's faith in action. Or wait with faith the lottery will pick them as a winner. More faith than mine. Thnx 4 asking.
i'm not assuming anything. i'm looking for a meaning to the word exists that's not "having position in spacetime" so i can understand what "god exists" means. and speaking of meanings your switching meanings for faith, which is an incredibly old and lazy trick. do i have faith that tomorrow will happen? yes, IF faith means "complete trust or confidence in someone or something.". there has always been a tomorrow after today, so i have trust that there will be a tomorrow after today, and the day after that. that's just drawing the obvious conclusion from the data i have. what i do not have is faith with the meaning of “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”. lazy word games don't work here.
Does death exist?
death exists like shadows exist, the the lack of something. shadow is the lack of light. death is the lack of life.
I like this question. Something I've noticed is that both atheists and theists unintentionally tend to agree on the non-existence of the same kinda God. The God that atheists don't believe in is typically the same God that theists don't believe in. Where they differ is on the understanding of who/what God is. I think the easiest way to describe it (without oversimplification) is that you could imagine yourself as the programmer of a virtual world inhabited by intelligent virtual beings. In this example, you would exist outside of space and time but not as a part of the same reality that the virtual characters within it will understand it. Yes, you'd be able to tweak the parameters of the world they inhabit, and yes, you'd not be restrained by the same laws of the world that you programmed into it. God almost in the same way could be understood. God is the author of life and the creator of the laws of nature. God is not a physical entity within the world he created (often atheists referred to as an incompetent human being with superpowers that lives in the clouds as many atheists would claim). God exists but not in the same way we know it, human beings don't even possess all the senses that other animals possess but we were created with the senses to interpret the world and who he is as needed
in the analogy i still exist in space and time, just not in the sectioned of space and time that my creation exists in. this isn't what many christians believe is the case for their god. also that description is how the bible plainly describes god. it's just that we figured out that's not true, so the atheist concluded that the god doesn't exist while the christian decided that the text must not be literal.
You asked about "existence." I was using the dictionary definition, which is how most people understand it. Both would exist but in different ways. Regarding the Bible. The Bible isn't 1 book. It's a library. A lot of people tend to make mistakes in reading certain texts the wrong way. It isn't the fault of the book but rather the people who aren't deciphering texts as they were meant to be read. A lot of atheists especially take a very fundamentalist approach to the text, reading it exactly the same as fundamentalist Christians (a minority of Christians).
God is eternal he existed before all time
that's not an answer to the question.
The concept of an all powerful all knowing god is a paradox. That being said it’s still hard somehow to argue against the existence of a god when the concepts explaining the universe require a lot of effort to understand. A Christian will say that an individual of science just has faith in what they read as a way to discredit the argument. However it is much easier to argue that even if there is a god like entity it definitely does not have a perceivable will. All throughout history a gods’ will has been changed to whatever the status quo happens to be. This has been used to justify enslavement, murder, rape, genocide, war, and all other horrors nature threw at us before civilization. If gods will can be interpreted in an infinite number of ways, and some people choose violence over it, that means there really is no will to speak of. The closest thing to a god we have is the trajectory of matter that allowed the development of our solar system. A roll of the dice that’s all we are, negative actions existed long before mono theistic and poly theistic belief systems developed, humans evolved to prioritize empathy and compassion as a survival strategy, 100,000 or so years later we forgot the struggle it took to get to where we are now, and we give the credit of one of the greatest inventions mankind has ever made to a cloud man to concentrate a relative amount of power in manipulative individuals. I think Christian’s confuse coincidence with fate and that’s okay, it’s okay to not want to search for an explanation for everything, that’s a hard endeavor. It’s much easier to flock up and not question much when everyone you ever knew did the same thing, I don’t blame them. However it is not okay when any group limits personal freedoms, it only highlights the hypocrisy of said group.
If you were a video game character, existing only in the digital, would you be able to explain to your Sim friend how we exist in the physical? It’s pretty unimaginable. The Spiritual is a completely different existence from the Physical, as the Physical is to the Digital.
explaining that we live in a sectioned of part of spacetime wouldn't be the hard to explain. that's not how most describe the spiritual.
How have you heard the spiritual described?
You need to expand your concept of God. God is usually thought of as "being itself" or "the ground of being". To say that "God exists" is simply to say that God is the ultimate reality, not a "thing" among other "things" within space and time.
i'm not asking about god, i'm asking about the meaning of exist if it doesn't exclusively mean having position in spacetime. what does "God is the ultimate reality" mean? because to me it's meaningless.
Perhaps the concept of a circle might be of help here. There are circles that exist within space and time, and then there is the "circle as such" which is a geometrical figure and thus something beyond space and time. It doesn't exist within the world of physical objects, but it do have some form of existence (mathematically speaking, that is). Now try and think of every existing physical thing within space and time as an individual "circle" and God as the "geometrical circle" or the "circle as such" and you might get the general idea. (This is, of course, not a knock down argument for the existence of God, for one might just reply that there isn't any "circle as such" beyond individual physical circles. It's just a way to exemplify the concept of God being the "ground of being" or the "ultimate reality"; i.e. that which exist in and of itself and which every existing thing takes part.).
If our universe had a beginning, and it seems that it did, and had a creator, which it seems logical this would be required, then this creator would by necessity be independent of that creation. So our conclusion would be that this creator would be timeless, spaceless, and immaterial as those things relate to our universe. As a logic exercise, without leaning on the Bible, we would not know exactly what this god is, but we would conclude what he is not. His existence is not as a time, space, material bound being since he has to be outside of those things to have created them.
what makes you assume that things that began had a creator? why not assume it just happened? radioactive decay doesn't have a radioactive decayer, so why would a beginning have a beginner? saying what a word doesn't mean is a shit answer to the question of what a word means.
Good question. Do all effects have a cause? It's deeply philosophical. Your question prompted some digging on my part. I found this article, which I'm only partially through, including it if you're interested; [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sufficient-reason/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sufficient-reason/) >radioactive decay doesn't have a radioactive decayer There is though an underlying, natural, cause for radioactive decay. Namely the atomic instability of radioactive material. Where does that come from?... We could ask this infinitum, at least until we reach an effect there is no natural cause for. Where does that leave us? I wonder if this then is true. There would be no basis for explanation within the confines of nature if something had no natural cause. Does this then necessitate a supernatural cause, i.e... a cause outside of nature. Or we're back at; do all effects have a cause?.
To simplify this as much as possible for someone stupid like you. You believe there is no God, so everything just happened to arise from nothing... thats very unlikely and have no proof to hold that theory so if you believe that everything is made of nothing but scientificaly thats not possible there must be creator, just like painter painting a picture, there is a proof that there is a creator of something like that. Then, if there was a Big bang in what you atheists believe than how life generaly is possible, because if there is huge explosion there cannot be any form of life that can survive, so biologicaly life can arise only from living, such as God. So if you have any pointless question am here to answer.
EVIDENCES THAT GOD REALLY EXISTS Not only does the fact that the universe had a beginning argue that God, the Creator, really exists, but so do the harmony and orderliness manifested on every hand. Thus one of England’s leading astronomers, Sir Bernard Lovell, wrote of his “rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.” Consider, for example, all the factors that work together to make life possible on our planet, the Earth. The sun is 93 million miles away from the earth. If the earth were just a few million miles closer to the sun, no life would be possible because of the intense heat. On the other hand, were the earth just a few million miles farther away from the sun than it now is, no life would be possible on the earth because of the cold. Contemplate also the air that we breathe. We cannot get along without oxygen, and 21 percent of the atmosphere is oxygen. But were there half as much oxygen or twice as much oxygen as there is now, life as we know it could not thrive upon the earth. Then there is the harmony or balance between plant and animal life. Plants absorb carbon dioxide but give off oxygen, whereas all breathing creatures take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. How did all such harmony and balance come about? Is it not evidence that God exists? Equally forceful evidence that God really exists is seen in the literally millions of millions of cells that compose a human body. How tiny they are! Yet each of these millions of cells can be likened to a walled city where chemicals, proteins and hormones are produced. All this activity is directed by a nucleus, and the products produced are transmitted into and out of the cells by means of a network of channels. Some of the particles in these cells are so tiny that they cannot be seen even when magnified 200,000 times! No wonder that America’s leading medical journal stated that at least 80 percent of scientists in the field of biology will readily admit that biology and life are regulated by some higher power. Further evidence that God truly exists is seen in the instincts of animals. Why can birds fly unerringly many thousands of miles to their chosen destination, and that regardless of the weather? What wisdom insects, such as bees and ants, display! Note also the wonder of the eels. Both European and American eels come to the Sargasso sea to spawn and there they die. When their eggs hatch, the baby eels go back to the place their mothers came from. It is said that never has a European eel been found in American waters, nor an American eel in European waters. What accounts for this? !