What is space and time?

[Pergamum]

It's the most basic questions that are the hardest.

What are these two things that we call SPACE and TIME?


Are these absolute things or labels attached to measurements between distance and events? Can these things be infinite, and if not, what about the time before time and the space outside of space? What is outside of space, the "void" and is this void a "something" or a "nothing" Could God have created the universe 3 inches to the left? If he moved the universe now 3 inches to the left, how would we even know?



These were all questions I was asked last night. How would you respond?

 

[BobVigneault]

Oh man, I'm too busy to answer right now Perg but I spent years studying theoretical astrophysics and I can answer these questions. (Really, I'm serious, it was my hobby) I'll try to get back to this.

 

[Pergamum]

Of course, if we say that God is outside of space and time, this will bring up further questions in the inquirer. What exactly does this mean that God is outside of space and time? He is, and yet, He is the most active participant at every moment in space and time as well.

-----Added 7/8/2009 at 11:22:36 EST-----

Oh man, I'm too busy to answer right now Perg but I spent years studying theoretical astrophysics and I can answer these questions. (Really, I'm serious, it was my hobby) I'll try to get back to this.

Wow, your eccentric hobbies might just serve to bless me. I will eagerly await your answers later.

 

[Herald]

Of course, if we say that God is outside of space and time, this will bring up further questions in the inquirer. What exactly does this mean that God is outside of space and time? He is, and yet, He is the most active participant at every moment in space and time as well.

-----Added 7/8/2009 at 11:22:36 EST-----

Oh man, I'm too busy to answer right now Perg but I spent years studying theoretical astrophysics and I can answer these questions. (Really, I'm serious, it was my hobby) I'll try to get back to this.

Wow, your eccentric hobbies might just serve to bless me. I will eagerly await your answers later.

God is outside of space and time in the sense that He created both. He is also in space in time in that He is omnipresent. God created the law of physics which govern the physical universe. But as a being, God is not bound by the laws He creates that govern His creation.

 

[Claudiu]

God is both outside of time and inside at the same time.
God created time, so he has to be outside of it. Yet he acts within time.

There are different definitions of time. One explanation is that time is a measurement between events, while another states that time is linear, and then another will counter that and say time is cyclical.
Some don't believe time is real.

This is one of those questions that have baffled humans since...time began

 

[Herald]

I posed a hypothesis in a physics class one time. I'll share it here.

If you were placed in a room that was devoid of light - not even the faintest particle - would you be able to see? This is not a trick question. The answer is, no. Light is necessary for sight. If there is absolutely no light than it is impossible to see. Light is a medium. It carries visual images to your brain which, through electrical current, is interpreted. If we accept this as an axiom, then we have never seen anything other than reflections. The reflection may be so close to the original that it renders variance negligible, but it is still a reflection.

Mull that one over.

 

[Pergamum]

Time and space appear to have began when the Creation began.

But, will they have an end?

I can imagine a "time" when time will be no more if time is the measurement of change between events. Heaven, being unchangeable, will have no time, only an eternal-ness.

God is timeless, outside of time, and active in time. This is hard to fathom.

However, Jesus, haven taken human flesh, and us, getting new bodies, and the universe, being redeemed, seems to lead us to the conclusion that "space" will now be an eternal property of things since there will be "bodies" forever.

-----Added 7/8/2009 at 11:38:37 EST-----

I posed a hypothesis in a physics class one time. I'll share it here.

If you were placed in a room that was devoid of light - not even the faintest particle - would you be able to see? This is not a trick question. The answer is, no. Light is necessary for sight. If there is absolutely no light than it is impossible to see. Light is a medium. It carries visual images to your brain which, through electrical current, is interpreted. If we accept this as an axiom, then we have never seen anything other than reflections. The reflection may be so close to the original that it renders variance negligible, but it is still a reflection.

Mull that one over.

Now you're getting all epistemological on us, Bill! Those are usually some pretty reliable reflections....and they seem to match up to "reality" most of the time.

 

[JML]

These were all questions I was asked last night. How would you respond?

My answer would be that there are things that we are given to know by God and there are things that only God knows. I would tell the person that asked me that there are many things more important to worry about such as holiness. Is it possible for us to figure this all out? Only God knows. Is it necessary for us to figure all of this out? It seems like it would be in vain if we spent hours upon hours trying to figure it out.

1 Timothy 6:20
O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:

I am not calling this questioning an opposition of science but it does seem to be vain babblings as there seems that there would be no solution. Paul encouraged Timothy to keep that which is committed to his trust...the gospel, teaching, exhortation, etc.

I guess it will only be a matter of time before somebody will post and say that if I think this way, then everything is vain babblings unless it is talk of God. I do think that it is acceptable to talk of other things but not when it is something that can never be figured out and will cause us to use precious hours for that other than things such as the Scriptures, family, etc.

Once again, my OPINION. Although, I think I have Scriptural grounds for it.

 

[Skyler]

It's the most basic questions that are the hardest.

What are these two things that we call SPACE and TIME?


Are these absolute things or labels attached to measurements between distance and events? Can these things be infinite, and if not, what about the time before time and the space outside of space? What is outside of space, the "void" and is this void a "something" or a "nothing" Could God have created the universe 3 inches to the left? If he moved the universe now 3 inches to the left, how would we even know?



These were all questions I was asked last night. How would you respond?

no




More seriously. Time can(and I think will be) infinite, but only in one direction--forwards. It had a beginning at Creation, before which it didn't exist. This can be proven based on the philosophical impossibility of constructing an actually infinite set of objects by adding successive finite objects. Note that a potentially infinite set is different--adding one item, then another, and another, and so on to infinity, is possible.

Space is also, I think, finite, because if it were infinite, it would suffer from the paradoxes found in the Hilbert's Hotel thought experiment.

Talking about a "time before time" is nonsensical, children's movies notwithstanding. "Before" is a preposition which relates two entities in time--to use it in this manner takes it out of its context and renders it useless. The same goes for "outside of space". "Outside" is a preposition which only has meaning within the context of the system in which it is defined--namely, space. To use it outside this context renders it undefined.

William Lane Craig has some good lectures on the topic. He goes into it somewhat, if I recall correctly, in his debate vs. Dacey.

 

[Rangerus]

there is only "now"

 

[Grymir]

Our universe is a created universe. Space, time, and energy as we know then were created in the 1st chapter of Genesis. The "Laws" (ie gravity) were also created. As big as we think our universe is, God could hold it in his hands (so to speak) like a 'scientist' holds a test tube in his hands. God can move the universe around and we would never know it. He can break the "Laws" of the universe as he sees fit. (That is what we would call a miracle, and what defines them so we know it is him)

He is outside of our space-time continuum. Our universe does end as described in Revelation when our universe becomes part of the universe of God.

 

[Pergamum]

But I would hate to curb curiousity in deep things.

God makes our minds to want to know about as much as possible. Sin has made our minds desire to look into sinful things too, but philosophical speculation (though speculation) glorifies God by trying to peer into legitimate areas.

-----Added 7/8/2009 at 12:32:34 EST-----

It's the most basic questions that are the hardest.

What are these two things that we call SPACE and TIME?


Are these absolute things or labels attached to measurements between distance and events? Can these things be infinite, and if not, what about the time before time and the space outside of space? What is outside of space, the "void" and is this void a "something" or a "nothing" Could God have created the universe 3 inches to the left? If he moved the universe now 3 inches to the left, how would we even know?



These were all questions I was asked last night. How would you respond?

no




More seriously. Time can(and I think will be) infinite, but only in one direction--forwards. It had a beginning at Creation, before which it didn't exist. This can be proven based on the philosophical impossibility of constructing an actually infinite set of objects by adding successive finite objects. Note that a potentially infinite set is different--adding one item, then another, and another, and so on to infinity, is possible.

Space is also, I think, finite, because if it were infinite, it would suffer from the paradoxes found in the Hilbert's Hotel thought experiment.

Talking about a "time before time" is nonsensical, children's movies notwithstanding. "Before" is a preposition which relates two entities in time--to use it in this manner takes it out of its context and renders it useless. The same goes for "outside of space". "Outside" is a preposition which only has meaning within the context of the system in which it is defined--namely, space. To use it outside this context renders it undefined.

William Lane Craig has some good lectures on the topic. He goes into it somewhat, if I recall correctly, in his debate vs. Dacey.

I'd like to get a hold of these lectures. Where's a link or how do I get mp3 discs?

 

[Zenas]

Space and time are two constructs that intersect to comprise the present. Space is a physical location that moves along time which is a temporal point. In space, we have the ability to move around in any direction we please. All the while, however, we are travelling forward in time as we occupy space without the ability to move laterally or backward.

To put it visually, consider a cube travelling forward. The cube is space; contained therein is existence. The movement "forward" is the passage of time. The particular spot of time where the cube occupies at any given moment is the present. Points where it has occupied before but has invariably moved from is the past, and points which it will invariably occupy is the future.

You can hypothetically move about in the cube and occupy the same space twice, but never at the same point in time twice, because time has passed and the three dimensional reality has moved "forward" in time. To put it another way, you cannoy physically intersect in space AND time two seperate points in time. You can only intersect a point in space and time at one moment in time, thereafter only being able to occupy the same point in space at a different point in time.

When time and space are viewed in this way, it is easy to imagine how God occupies a space "outside" of time because only our physical reality exists on the linear line of time. To use another visual example, we are the fish in a stream, whereas God is the man standing beside the stream. The fish is us travelling forward in the stream, which is time. God, who is beside the stream, does not occupy the stream. He looks into the stream, he can interact at any point He choses in the stream, and can also go forward, backward, before, and beyond the stream.

In short, I consider time to be a sort of "fourth" dimension to reality. I feel that this is a reasonable explaination of our temporal occupation and existence.

 

[CatechumenPatrick]

Time and space appear to have began when the Creation began.

But, will they have an end?

I can imagine a "time" when time will be no more if time is the measurement of change between events. Heaven, being unchangeable, will have no time, only an eternal-ness.

God is timeless, outside of time, and active in time. This is hard to fathom.

Why do you say heaven is unchangeable? Maybe in certain respects it is (i.e., it is without end) but doesn't change happen in heaven? What's the appeal of thinking that time will end?

Here is one of the more helpful books on the subject, by meh prof. for a class of the same name: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/959876&referer=brief_results

I'd also recommend one of the best defenses of the traditional view on God's relation to time, by Paul Helm: Eternal God : a study of God without time [WorldCat.org]

 

[Pergamum]

There are certain changes in heaven it would seem. The fullness of the saints will be filled up...and the Last Judgment will change a lot of things...but isn't there a certain unchangeableness about heaven after the Last Judgment? There is no more progression to history, the Final State has arrived. If there were changes, then the final state would only be a penultimate state, right?

 

[Skyler]

There are certain changes in heaven it would seem. The fullness of the saints will be filled up...and the Last Judgment will change a lot of things...but isn't there a certain unchangeableness about heaven after the Last Judgment? There is no more progression to history, the Final State has arrived. If there were changes, then the final state would only be a penultimate state, right?

And we'll be singing. That would be kind of hard if there wasn't time--we'd be standing there, with our mouths open, frozen like dummies in a clothing store.

I'd like to get a hold of these lectures. Where's a link or how do I get mp3 discs?

Good question. I actually borrowed them from a friend, so I'm not sure... let me look.

Wow. He must've found them somewhere else... Craig's "official store" is selling them(the debates, anyway, I don't see the lectures I was thinking of) for $15 apiece. I'll ask him and get back to you.

 

[Zenas]

I get the feeling Heaven doesn't exist in linear time. With respect to where we are now, there is a certain progression of things in Heaven, however, that's only with respect to us. With respect to Heaven, time, as a cosntruct, is not only irrelevant, it's nonexistent.

-----Added 7/8/2009 at 01:46:56 EST-----

There are certain changes in heaven it would seem. The fullness of the saints will be filled up...and the Last Judgment will change a lot of things...but isn't there a certain unchangeableness about heaven after the Last Judgment? There is no more progression to history, the Final State has arrived. If there were changes, then the final state would only be a penultimate state, right?

And we'll be singing. That would be kind of hard if there wasn't time--we'd be standing there, with our mouths open, frozen like dummies in a clothing store.

To make that criticism you have to assume that there is time, which thereby renders the criticism null. Hypothesizing the non-existence of time doesn't translate to being stuck in a particular intersection of time and space. To do so would naturally be counter-intuitive because in hypothesizing there is no time, you'd be illustrating your hypothesis as merely one point in time, constantly occupied with no progression. It's very plain then, that that's not what Perg or I are talking about when we speak of no time.

 

[Pergamum]

There are certain changes in heaven it would seem. The fullness of the saints will be filled up...and the Last Judgment will change a lot of things...but isn't there a certain unchangeableness about heaven after the Last Judgment? There is no more progression to history, the Final State has arrived. If there were changes, then the final state would only be a penultimate state, right?

And we'll be singing. That would be kind of hard if there wasn't time--we'd be standing there, with our mouths open, frozen like dummies in a clothing store.

I'd like to get a hold of these lectures. Where's a link or how do I get mp3 discs?

Good question. I actually borrowed them from a friend, so I'm not sure... let me look.

Wow. He must've found them somewhere else... Craig's "official store" is selling them(the debates, anyway, I don't see the lectures I was thinking of) for $15 apiece. I'll ask him and get back to you.

I would argue that we can sing forever and even different songs in a timeless heaven.

 

[Skyler]

I get the feeling Heaven doesn't exist in linear time. With respect to where we are now, there is a certain progression of things in Heaven, however, that's only with respect to us. With respect to Heaven, time, as a cosntruct, is not only irrelevant, it's nonexistent.

All right. Why do you think that?

There are certain changes in heaven it would seem. The fullness of the saints will be filled up...and the Last Judgment will change a lot of things...but isn't there a certain unchangeableness about heaven after the Last Judgment? There is no more progression to history, the Final State has arrived. If there were changes, then the final state would only be a penultimate state, right?

And we'll be singing. That would be kind of hard if there wasn't time--we'd be standing there, with our mouths open, frozen like dummies in a clothing store.

To make that criticism you have to assume that there is time, which thereby renders the criticism null. Hypothesizing the non-existence of time doesn't translate to being stuck in a particular intersection of time and space. To do so would naturally be counter-intuitive because in hypothesizing there is no time, you'd be illustrating your hypothesis as merely one point in time, constantly occupied with no progression. It's very plain then, that that's not what Perg or I are talking about when we speak of no time.

Now I remember why this stuff made my head hurt... if you think you've got it figured out, you know that you don't really.

On a slightly different but related topic, are angels and demons constrained to space-time?

 

[BobVigneault]

Time and space cannot be separated, they are part of the same 'fabric'. Time does not run like a river with eternity at both ends - eternity past and eternity future. Every point can be located on the space-time fabric, you must think of time as a place. We live in a 4 dimensional space-time continuum with time being the 4th dimension. Every point in space is projected or extended onto a time reference.

Eternity is indeed outside of time but it's a function of location not a timeline. Time is not linear.

Dang, I'm still too busy to unpack all of this. Sorry.

Read the book Flatland and it will help you in these thoughts.

 

[Skyler]

Time and space cannot be separated, they are part of the same 'fabric'. Time does not run like a river with eternity at both ends - eternity past and eternity future. Every point can be located on the space-time fabric, you must think of time as a place. We live in a 4 dimensional space-time continuum with time being the 4th dimension. Every point in space is projected or extended onto a time reference.

Eternity is indeed outside of time but it's a function of location not a timeline. Time is not linear.

Dang, I'm still too busy to unpack all of this. Sorry.

Read the book Flatland and it will help you in these thoughts.

So why can't we reverse the flow of time then? We can move forward and backward in space, we can speed up or slow down our progress through time--at least to some observers--but why can't we reverse it?

 

[Pergamum]

Jesus is in a human body right now. He will occupy space for all of eternity. Does this mean that there then must be time for all eternity?

 

[Skyler]

Jesus is in a human body right now. He will occupy space for all of eternity. Does this mean that there then must be time for all eternity?

No, not all eternity, just the part of eternity that comes after the beginning of time.

 

[BobVigneault]

I don't know, I only know that I'm sure time travel backwards is impossible or we would be visited by our future selves. Time travel backwards would go against providence and predestination. The fabric of space-time is complete but there is no way to visit the past.

Time doesn't flow, it just is, the Lord separates the future from past, it's a spatial thing.

Time and space cannot be separated, they are part of the same 'fabric'. Time does not run like a river with eternity at both ends - eternity past and eternity future. Every point can be located on the space-time fabric, you must think of time as a place. We live in a 4 dimensional space-time continuum with time being the 4th dimension. Every point in space is projected or extended onto a time reference.

Eternity is indeed outside of time but it's a function of location not a timeline. Time is not linear.

Dang, I'm still too busy to unpack all of this. Sorry.

Read the book Flatland and it will help you in these thoughts.

So why can't we reverse the flow of time then? We can move forward and backward in space, we can speed up or slow down our progress through time--at least to some observers--but why can't we reverse it?

 

[Skyler]

Time and space cannot be separated, they are part of the same 'fabric'. Time does not run like a river with eternity at both ends - eternity past and eternity future. Every point can be located on the space-time fabric, you must think of time as a place. We live in a 4 dimensional space-time continuum with time being the 4th dimension. Every point in space is projected or extended onto a time reference.

Eternity is indeed outside of time but it's a function of location not a timeline. Time is not linear.

Dang, I'm still too busy to unpack all of this. Sorry.

Read the book Flatland and it will help you in these thoughts.

So why can't we reverse the flow of time then? We can move forward and backward in space, we can speed up or slow down our progress through time--at least to some observers--but why can't we reverse it?

I don't know, I only know that I'm sure time travel backwards is impossible or we would be visited by our future selves. Time travel backwards would go against providence and predestination. The fabric of space-time is complete but there is no way to visit the past.

Time doesn't flow, it just is, the Lord separates the future from past, it's a spatial thing.

1. How do you know we haven't been visited by our future selves? *puts on tinfoil hat*

2. If reverse time travel were possible, it would have been predestined just the same as anything else. You wouldn't be able to change history; you might, in fact, end up being the cause of it turning out the way it did.

3. If time doesn't flow, why do we observe the passing of time?

 

[LawrenceU]

Doesn't time 'flowing' imply that it is fluid and that 'particles' of time move along a course? I don't see how that could be. Once time is past it is past. It appears to be fixed, not fluid.

 

[Skyler]

Doesn't time 'flowing' imply that it is fluid and that 'particles' of time move along a course? I don't see how that could be. Once time is past it is past. It appears to be fixed, not fluid.

No, I don't think so. It's just figurative language that comes from the days of yore when time was kept with an hourglass.

What it means is, we're moving through time(or time is moving through us, depending on how you look at it).

 

[Theogenes]

Check out this essay, Time and Eternity,
Trinity Foundation: Explaining God, man, Bible, salvation, philosophy, theology.

 

[LawrenceU]

Doesn't time 'flowing' imply that it is fluid and that 'particles' of time move along a course? I don't see how that could be. Once time is past it is past. It appears to be fixed, not fluid.

No, I don't think so. It's just figurative language that comes from the days of yore when time was kept with an hourglass.

What it means is, we're moving through time(or time is moving through us, depending on how you look at it).

I wanted that to be clarified. I've heard people define the nature of time in the way that I stated regarding 'flowing'.

 

[Claudiu]

Check out this essay, Time and Eternity,
Trinity Foundation: Explaining God, man, Bible, salvation, philosophy, theology.

Thanks for the article