Creation was a Temporal Act

Stop Watch Antique On February 25, 2009, Hugh Ross and Fuzale Rana from Reasons to Believe debated Michael Shermer (of Skeptic magazine fame) on the question of the scientific testability of divine creation. Gary Whittenberger wrote an article on the debate for eSkeptic, a weekly email report produced by Skeptic magazine. According to Whittenberger, “Ross asserted that God caused the beginning of time at the moment of the Big Bang. As other Creationists often do, Ross seems to ignore the fact that an act of a person causing something is itself an event in time, and so he backs himself into the corner of contradiction by implying there was time before the beginning of time. Of course this makes no sense, but Ross is unfazed; he simply imagines that there is a supernatural time and a natural time and supposes that this solves everything.”

While I am familiar with Ross’ work, I do not know enough about his views on time and God’s relationship to it to either defend or critique his position. Instead, I would like to challenge Whittenberger’s claim that God’s causal act of creation requires a time before time, and thus is nonsensical. God’s causal act of creation requires no such thing.

God’s causal act of creation constituted the first moment of time (i.e. it was a temporal act), being simultaneous to the effect of the universe coming into being. God’s causal act could not have been an eternal act, because that would require the universe to be eternal as well. Let me explain. A cause cannot exist without its corresponding effect. Take for example, the act of lighting a match. For the match to light, it requires a sufficient cause (an agent acting to strike the match against an abrasive surface). As soon as the sufficient cause is present, the effect (the match being lit) immediately follows. There is no temporal gap between the sufficient cause and the effect. If the match would have been struck from eternity past, it would have been lit from eternity past as well. It would be impossible to strike the match from eternity past, and yet the match remain unlit until a finite time ago. Likewise, if God’s causal activity to create the universe was an eternal act, the universe would have been created an eternity ago, making it co-eternal with God Himself. And yet we know from both philosophy and science that the universe if temporally finite, ergo God’s act of creation had to be a temporal act (an act in time).

Since God was timeless without creation, His causing the universe to come into being must have been the first temporal event of the universe. God’s causal activity in creating the universe was a temporal act that constituted the first moment of time. The change from God existing alone without creation, to God willing creation and co-existing with it, then, brought time into existence.

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Scott Speight Says:

July 10, 2009 at 12:33 am

William Craig deals with this (I think, although can’t find it) by saying that before creation, God is not temporal, and at the point of start of creation, God becomes temporal due to relationship change.

jasondulle Says:

July 10, 2009 at 1:28 am

Yes, that is Craig’s position. He has several different articles on this on his website, as well as a couple of books. I am convinced of his position. In fact, the article I wrote that is linked at the end of my post is a summary of his arguments for divine timelessness sans creation, and divine omnitemporality with creation.

Craig offers the same solution to the problem of the beginning of time as I do here. He argues that God’s causal act constituted the first moment of time, and that the effect of the universe coming into being was simultaneous to God’s causing it to come into being.

Jason

ikester Says:

July 16, 2009 at 3:03 am

Ross is a progression creationist.

For the longest he did not have any page on how someone is to accept Christ. I pointed this out and had this on my website and forum. He got a bunch of complaints so he put up a page addressing it. And guess what type of prayer he put up? One that would not offend anyone. One that did not mention Christ. One that was basically new age.

Progression creationists are basically those who are afraid to say God did it. In others words they would rather deny the power of God instead looking stupid in front of secular scientists for standing behind the word of God.

What I mean by God did it, is being able to say God’s power did it even though I cannot explain it. And they search to much for temporal explainations for their answers.

The YEC view stands behind the word of God.
http://www.yecheadquarters.org/Creation9.0.1.html
http://www.yecheadquarters.org/Creation9.0.2.html
http://www.yecheadquarters.org/Creation9.0.3.html

July 16, 2009 at 2:33 pm

ikester,

I don’t see why one must have a page walking someone through to salvation in order to have a Christian web ministry. I don’t. I went to Ross’ site, and I didn’t find any such page, so I cannot comment on the nature of the prayer.

As for your charge that progressive creationists (including Ross) are afraid to say “God did it,” this is absolutely false. That charge may apply to some theistic evolutionists, but progressive creationists like Ross affirm over and over again God’s causal activity in creating the universe, as well as all that is within it. Just because they believe God created everything over a long period of time rather than in a short period of time is inconsequential to the question of agency itself.

January 4, 2011 at 12:28 am

One might object that God cannot will time and the universe into being because that would require a change, and a timeless being such as God cannot change. But this presumes that timelessness, and hence changelessness, are necessary properties of God. I see no reason for thinking this to be true. While eternality is a necessary property of God, timelessness is not.

As William Lane Craig responds to this objection: “A timeless being must be changeless, but that does not entail unchangeability. A timeless being is timeless just in case He exists changelessly, but should he change, then he becomes temporal. That, I suggest, is exactly what God did in creating the universe. But how could a changeless being initiate a change? By being a personal agent endowed with freedom of the will—hence, the conclusion that the cause of the universe must be a personal Creator.” See William Lane Craig, “Youtube Takes Out the Cosmological Argument!”; available from http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6515

January 4, 2011 at 12:32 am

I should add in the way of clarification to my previous comment that God did not cease being eternal at creation, but merely timeless. Temporality does not stand in contrast to eternality, but atemporality (timelessness). Omnitemporality and atemporality are two different ways in which one can experience eternality. What is essential to God is that He is eternal, not that He is eternal in a timeless way, or eternal in an omnitemporal way.