Category Archives: Metaphysics of Time

Leaping Both Young Earth and Old Earth Arguments in a Single Bound: But first, a TWW rant

Calvinism/Philosophy, Metaphysics of Time

So as not to draw any more attention to a site which no longer is fertile ground for actually producing any real change in the abuse/authority structure of the Calvinist juggernaut in the church today, I will be speaking in this post of the blog site, TWW.  Which stands for…The West Wing “survivor” blog.

The blogging queens who moderate it are Dolly and Dotty.

Their e-pastor is a “reformed” (i.e. “loving and kind”) Calvinist known as Wayne.

Recently, I was banished to The West Wing’s solitary confinement over in the Perpetual Moderated Comment Corner for Bad Little Boys with Smart Mouths Who Obviously Did Not Spend Enough Time On the Urinal Cake Cleaning Committee Learning Submission to Pastor Wayne.

But, in spit of this, I did not allow myself to concede that I’m dealing now not with those who seek truth but with the Ministry of Defense for Pastoral Authority.  So, like an idiot, I continued to comment anyway.  Like a fool.  Oh yes, all but admitting that I am the very slobbering barbarian who must be compelled by the “altruistic” dictators of sound doctrine like Wayne…much like the fools neo-Calvinist gnostic “authorities” take most laity for, even after my banishment into perpetual moderation bad-little-boy  time-out for daring to question the divine knowledge of the “great one”, Wayne, I attempted to be the humble and prostrate one–showing indeed that I was one of the precious “elect”–before the gnostic divines.

All because I wanted to help other people think about truth.  But I didn’t actually know that I had a fat chance in hell of that happening.

You don’t question the pastors.  No matter how nice the are, in the end, you NEVER question the pastor.  Wayne will not suffer confrontation; how dare I demand he defend his ideas.

Yes…I am bitter.

I’m sorry.  Does that offend someone’s poor little sound doctrinal sensibilities?  Awwww.  Well, truly, how wonderfully convenient for them.  It is convenient to engage in hypocrisy and unwarranted vengeance and then decide that when the inevitable reaction occurs by the other party you can merely appeal to the pretentious platitude “You know, a goooood Christian wouldn’t be bitter.  He would thank God for the privilege of being “corrected” by the perpetually morally superior.  And didn’t even Jesus “turn the other” cheek? Now, now…is that a piece of wood I see sticking out of your eye?”

By the way, which cheek was Jesus turning when He declared the Pharisees a brood of vipers and the Sadducees utterly ignorant of God’s truth?

I’m not saying Christ was a hypocrite.  I’m saying that, as always, context is everything…and is also everything denied by those who run blocker for doctrinal tyranny.  Turning the other cheek is not quite the best option when confronted with rank despotism under the guise of “sound doctrine” and the “enlightened traditions of men”.

That’s the point.

Anyway…in the midst of trying to play nice and wear my dunce cap all neat and straight and tidy in the corner, and with all the humility and navel gazing one would expect from a good little lay person trying to play nice in the neo-Calvinist sandbox (which they fill with broken glass)…yes, it was then I notice that mommy and mommy and daddy have a very convenient way of dealing with little boys that they’d quite rather ship off to a foster home.

You see, getting the left boot of fellowship from a site like West Wing must be done with all due deference to the subliminal.  It can’t be quite that overt, what with the standing on ceremony and waxing eloquent about all the unjust excommunication of people from neo-Calvinist dictatorial collectives for daring to question the “sound doctrine” of the ecclesiastical Marxists.

And…in case you don’t’ remember, this is, in my opinion, precisely what got me put in the corner there.  Yes, under the red herring and hypocritical guise of “tone”–which is just about as broad, vague and nebulous as one can make an excuse for essentially getting rid of someone questioning the “authority” of the Pastor–I was sent away to think about the evil I had done by making some grown-up bloggers cry (who post freely of their own volition, and who are obligated to defend the ideas that they willingly offer) and for being a big meanie to Wayne, who ALSO is frankly on the hook for defending his publicly stated doctrinal beliefs, like Total Depravity, and who apparently is only trying to help people see that the violence which is Calvinism isn’t always so blatantly violent; that there is in fact a nice way of bludgeoning people with sound doctrine.

I guess I got the nice bludgeoning.  That was fun!!

And I submit this is just what happened.  The beginning of the end for me was when I finally decided that Wayne was simply another Calvinist “authority” in Mr. Rodgers clothing.  And I began to demand he answer for his irreconcilable rational larceny.

So what happened?  Simple.  As promised, I was put into “immediate moderation”.  Okay…that’s fine; I can take my Blog Queen spanking like a big boy.  I’m not gonna run from it.  Their blog; their rules.  It’s a free country and I’m all for private property rights.  I made nice with my “tone” and understood I’d have to wait a bit to see my name in “lights” over there.

Cool.

But what they didn’t mention was that my comments would be put in moderation for hours and  hours and hours and hours on end.  Whether on purpose or not I cannot say, but I suspect that Dolly and Dotty are seasoned enough bloggers to recognize the outcome of such a maneuver.  Leaving my comments in moderation for six, seven, eight hours on end, even when I noticed that they were online and blogging and commenting, is certainly long enough for the thread to have moved a million miles from my comment, to where my questions or comments were no longer relevant, and/or were so far away from the actual time I made them that they couldn’t be seen.  This of course had the convenient effect of neutralizing me, without actually having to say:  yes, we BANNED him because we didn’t like what he had to say.

No…they couldn’t quite do that without making the hypocrisy as glaring as the morning sunrise on Mercury.  Plus, that would have required a LOT of cardiovascular stamina for all the backpedaling required to cover up their long history of decrying other blogs for doing that very thing.

The whole point of my little diatribe here is to simply say that once again that wise and rascally metaphysician, John Immel, proves himself right and much more experienced than I.  Whenever someone “warns” you about your “tone”, you must deny it. They are liars.  Tone is nothing.  Words matter.  Anyone blogging comes there of their own free will.  They are on the hook for defending their ideas; and you are NOT on the hook for conceding, through “tone” that they could be right.  That is ridiculous.

For “tone” is the last desperate death cry of a neo-reformed shill who has come face to face with one whom cannot and will not be bludgeoned with ludicrous, false, and destructive pretenses of “sound doctrine” or “orthodoxy”, no matter how great the appeal is to delicate sensibilities.  It is the Calvinist’s version of unleashing of the Kracken of egregious false gnostic and moral superiority upon the barbarian masses in order to maintain control and power over them.  If they can’t get you on the logic, they’ll get you on your “tone”.  And that’s what they got me on.  Sentenced to banishment for “improper tone”.

Now, if that doesn’t sound like good old fashioned Calvinist tyranny and thought-control, I don’t know what does.

My opinion is that someone runs that blog over there at West Wing, and I don’t think its Dolly and Dotty any longer.  Rather, it is merely the same “sound doctrine” which runs unopposed ever more and more in Christendom these days, and pushed by overtly despotic and “altruistic” Calvinists alike. The false humility of appeals like “we just need to love and understand everyone” has lead Dolly and Dotty straight back to the vomit which they, for a while, were so commendably trying to flee.  But approach a Calvinist pastor, nice-guy or not, with “yes, we just need to love one another”, and that stuff is like catnip to these pastors’ remarkable skills of doctrinal manipulation. And wiz-bang-shazamm!!!…the next thing you know you are conceding that “tone” is the real problem in church today.  Ahaaahaaaahaaaa!  LOLOLOLOROTFLMAO!!!!!.  See…we have a NICE Calvinist here with us.  All is well.  And finally it has been revealed: your ATTITUDE is the problem.

Yes…I’ve time-warped back into Sovereign Grace Ministries hell.

Meet the new boss.  Same as the old boss.

Oh, Dolly and Dotty.  It was all for naught.  How quickly we surrender to oppressive ideas when they are presented as angels of light.  How quickly and easily we fall in our hubris: we just need the right men forcing the rest of us in our depravity.

Oh, how quickly we forget that men kill IN THE NAME OF ideas, not in the name of themselves.  It is the doctrine which is the pit.  No matter how nice the guy is who is pushing you into it, if he concedes that the pit is where God says you must go, that is where you will go.

Sigh.

Well, recently at TWW there was a post on Extra Terrestrial life submitted by a guest blogger, who is a self-described “old experimental physicist”, and who uploaded his article and then proceeded to engage the comments section with about as little enthusiasm and time as my children spend eating cold oatmeal.

But hey! One useful thing I learned was that, as an experimental physicist, you can choose not to answer questions you deem “theoretical”.  And since, by definition, any question of physics is “theoretical” because the whole science is pretty much founded on theoretical concepts, it makes not answering really easy when confronted with questions you can’t answer without actually having to admit that you can’t answer them.  And which I submit is exactly the same reason NO physicist has ever entertained my questions.

One such example of one such question being this here, submitted on TWW blog, and, seeing as how it showed up three hours later (which was comparatively short, with respect to the norm) was never answered because no one saw it.  But anyway, this question forms the basis of my next post; a post which will show you how to have fun messing around with both Young and Old Earth apologists by dismantling BOTH arguments as arrogant presumption when aligned with philosophical belief systems such as Christianity.

Here it is:

“If time and space were created at the Big Bang, then it would be impossible to assign a “where” and a “when” to that event, right? Therefore, how do you define its beginning? You can’t really say it happened however many billions of years ago, because, by definition there can be no WHEN (and by extension no WHERE) to its “beginning” since time and space didn’t exist until AFTER the big bang. And so, it is impossible to tell ultimately then how old the universe is…indeed, you cannot even say it had a beginning, because something that is absent a time or place cannot be said to have a beginning.”

The Un-Actuality of Time and Space; Relative to the Unreal Degree: Another Response to Commenter and Blogger James Jordan

Metaphysics, Metaphysics of Time, Physics and Metaphysics

Hi James,

Thanks for your thoughtful response!
“It doesn’t exist in a physical way. It “exists” as a concept, but as a necessary concept.”

Right…I would agree with this statement; I think for man to effectively organize his environment, “time” is extremely important.  It allows for the exceptionally effective interaction among people.  Dividing the “day” into “points” of contact has obvious positive implications.  Definitely.  But the fact that it isn’t “physical” has HUGE implications.  If we can correctly identify it as an abstract concept that exists as a function of man’s mind, then we will stop rooting our understanding of God and physics and metaphysics on the assumption that it not only is helpful to man, but that God, and the Universe are actually a direct FUNCTION of it.  That they are FORCED to submit to it as a matter of course.  If we can understand it is a concept, and nothing more, then we can begin to look beyond it for proper TRUTH.

“Time is real but not physical. The now is the set of positions of all physical objects and thoughts as the exist now. The past is the set of all physical objects and thoughts as they existed then. You can’t go back to the past, because this isn’t finite state machine. Nor can you go to the future. You are always in the now, but the now is not always the same now.”

From my perspective, it seems as though you rightly proclaim time as “not real” (which I describe as not “actual”), but then you proceed to argue as to why it is, in fact, real.  My posit is that if something is not physical, then it cannot be real (there is simply no evidence, physical or metaphysical, to defend the idea that the non-physical actually exists).  It is a concept…a concept is only real in that it occupies an area of biological brain space.  But the things the concept “denotes” still exist regardless of whether the concept is formulated in man’s mind or not.  The “concept” doesn’t create anything or destroy anything.  It merely describes it.  It cannot EFFECT anything.  It can only describe it, because it is only theoretical.  It has NO actual power.  Because it is not a real, physical thing.

“I don’t believe it is possible to live in a timeless moment where everything past, present, and future is the Now.”

James, by your own concession of time as “not real/not physical”, this is precisely what you must believe.  If time doesn’t actually exist, then as I said, it cannot effect the physical.  And as such, then, we must acknowledge that the reality of everything does, indeed, exist “now”.  The reason you struggle to accept my argument, I submit, is because you have spent your whole life assuming that the timeline actually has some kind of POWER to effect your world.  As you said, “denoting, something real”.  But again, time denotes nothing except in your MIND…because it isn’t actual.  And so, the real argument is that MAN denotes, not TIME.   Time is purely a conceptual tool.  So the reality of existence then MUST be that both WHERE and WHEN are purely the abstraction of time being extended cognitively to objects.  So, if YOU, the object, are the constant, and you are always WHERE and WHEN you are, then by definition, literally speaking, all must be NOW.

And further, movement does NOT imply time.  Because you see yourself move, and other things move, does not mean that time is REAL.  You are quantifying this RELATIVE movement by “time”.  The same way you do it by “speed”, or “distance”, or “dimension” or any other purely cognitive, theoretical abstraction.

“For one thing, if God had no sense of time, if everything was now to him, I don’t think he would have created anything, nor perhaps could he create anything if that were the case. If everything is now to God, in the sense you seem to be suggesting, then God can’t do anything. God becomes a prisoner of the future he foresees. He can only do in the now what he foresaw he would do, which means there must be some all-powerful fate determining God’s actions, and that all-powerful fate would then be God. So you end up with an infinite regress.”

Yes…I see what you are saying here. You are clearly using excellent discursive argument and inductive reasoning.  I LOVE to see this in people.  Occasionally I see this on the blogs…but usually these are the people who get booted pretty quick, because once they start thinking like this, it becomes increasingly easier to see the logical flaws in the arguments, even when the arguments are from “nice” Calvinists, like Wade Burleson.  And this really pisses people off, and they tell you that you are full of pride and want to force your ideas on others.  But the truth is that people don’t like having their long-held assumptions sacrificed up to rational scrutiny when they know they lack the tools to defend it.  And this has very little to do with intellect, and almost everything to do with two things:  they are lackadaisical and complacent thinkers, and the ideas are just plain bad.

But I digress.

James, the problem I see in your perspective is that you are still conceding that time is actual…in effect, anyway.  You are proclaiming that God is beholden to a “future” He sees, but the point is that since time is not actual, then He cannot, by definition, SEE a FUTURE.  He may be able to conceptualize a “future” in a theoretical sense, like man does, but that does not mean that He can create a future, because that would mean creating time, and then, you are right, HE would indeed be beholden to TIME.  HIS actions would be as determined and thus as obsolete as anyone else’s.  Which is precisely why I DENY that God can “know” the future, because if He knows a future then He MUST have determined it, and then time becomes the all determining Force and we wind up with the self-destructing metaphysical conclusions which doom the whole darn thing, as you rightly point out.  But since everything is, in fact, NOW, and all movement relative, then there is NO future for God to “foreknow”.  He operates as man operates in man’s existential reality…using conceptual tools within the machinations of RELATIVE movement  “like time and space and distance and love and hate, etc., etc.” in order to truly RELATE to man.

So IF we acknowledge that time is merely a concept, then we can actually concede a REAL and truly free-willed relationship with God without inexorably running into the impossibly irreconcilable determinism where ACTUAL time MUST eventually arrive.

By the way, I applaud you and everyone else that comes here to talk about this stuff.  Make no mistake, WE are the only ones doing it.  NO ONE else wants anything to do with this stuff.  I have engaged physicists, philosophers, etc., etc…they don’t touch it.  Time and Space are sacred cows.  I have brought up these questions on physics sites several times…it is surreal.  They don’t answer my observations about the subject, but they run me out of town on a rocket propelled rail.

Why?

Because they have no answer.  And their curse is that they are smart enough to KNOW they have no answer.  They aren’t merely lazy thinkers clinging to long-held assumptions because they just don’t feel like moving their minds.  They understand that the entire science hangs on ideas that are ultimately impossible to reconcile rationally (which is why so many, like Hawking, hate philosophers…philosophy, at least GOOD philosophy, like Aristotelian-type thinking, is their kryptonite).  I promise you, they have NO way to ever mathematically “prove” that nothing equals something.

For example, they laud the “big bang” and yet they understand that according to their own centuries of physics they cannot describe “where” or “when” it occurred, because, by definition, it can have NO time or space…because it “created them”.  Their silence is a mask for their “intellect”.  They love being the smartest people in the room…they will not suffer questions from philosopher types like us. As such, I have begun to question a LOT of what I assume.

Oh…one final thing:  There is NO beginning, for the very reason that a beginning for the “big bang” can never be concluded (there is no where or when, because space and time were “created” then). “Beginning’ is a function of “time”. Thus, even beginning is simply relative.

Think about that.  🙂

God and Man Have the Same “Time” and the Same “Space”, the Difference is Purely Relative: Response to commenter James Jordan

Metaphysics of Time, Physics and Metaphysics

Here at Unreformingtheology.com we have been having a tedious conversation regarding the issues of space and time, attempting to discern just which category (actual or abstract) they should be deposited in, existentially, in order to get the metaphysical presumptions right.

I am truly fortunate to have intelligent commenters (though my group is small) whose interesting insights, disagreements, and elucidations on such matters provide a seemingly endless supply of material for posts.

Today’s post is no exception.  This one springs from a comment by James Jordan with respect to my last post “I’m Laughing at the Superior Intellect”.

Oh…by the way, if you can name the movie and the character which said those words “I’m laughing at the superior intellect”, you…get a cookie.

James said:

“Again, since it doesn’t move, the timeline is static…so then the only ‘value’ you can give an object on a timeline that is static is ZERO, because you can never by definition know WHEN an object can exist on the timeline because the timeline itself is is NOT a function of time.”

My attempt to put that in English results in: “The only time that really exists is the present. The past is gone and the future does not yet exist.” I don’t know if I captured what you’re trying to say there or not.

“Time” in the sense we think of it has a beginning, the creation, and an end, the end of this planet. But “time” to God is infinite. So we are dealing with two sets of “time.” This is the only sense in which I will allow that God “exists outside of time” — his timeline is longer, even infinite. But that doesn’t mean he sees everything, past, present, and future as present, as the sophists allege. Saying that time “is not real” I think could result in bolstering the claims of the sophists who believe God exists in a kind of timeless moment in which he sees all time at once. I don’t like that. Time to me is “Real” but only real as an abstract idea is real. Love is real, but it isn’t a physical existence. Anger is real, but also not a physical existence. So, time is real, but it doesn’t really exist. The only time that exists is now, and the past is past (hence the name), and the future hasn’t happened yet and so cannot be exhaustively known.

As for space, it is the very definition of non-existence. When nothing exists, what do you have? Empty space.”

Here is my response:

Hi James,

Your translation of my post in English (LOL!) was pretty good.  I only (of course) have a small issue with it…which, may be a big issue depending on your point of view, but anyway…

Yes…the “present” as being the only thing that exists is a relatively fair assertion, and very astute.  Still…I struggle to leave it there, the reason being that “present”, like future or past, denotes a value of “time”–the NOW moment, so to speak–and as such, for me, denying that ANY such value is actual, but that ALL temporal values must be abstract, forms the core of my belief on the matter.

“Present” is not really any different from “past” or “future” in that it places man someWHERE on a timeline.  But since no such timeline actually exists, you cannot remove “future” and “past” without also removing “present”.  For according to the definition of time, and timeline, if you do not have a “future” or “past” you cannot have a “present”.  Why?

Because, again, it cannot have a value.  If the timeline doesn’t move, as I said in my last post, then any value on it is referenced to ZERO (meaning the timeline starts at 0 time…then, by definition, its initial value is zero, so then you cannot ADD to it; meaning time itself is nothing, and adding MORE nothing to nothing still gives you NOTHING).  This is no different for “present”.  For even NOW can only actually be valued at ZERO if we are to look at the timeline as anything other than a theoretical abstraction.

The fact is that there is no “past”, “future”, OR “present”.  The only thing that is constant (i.e. ACTUAL) is YOU (or whatever object we are discussing…but we’ll just say YOU, for the sake of this post).  Thus, no matter “where” you are (space) or “when” you are (time), your location can only ACTUALLY (that is, non-theoretically) be described as YOU.  YOU are “when” you are; and YOU are “where” you are.  ANYTHING else is a relative abstraction.

Not that abstractions are bad.  Not at all.  The ability to abstract is precisely why we are at the top of the food chain (or is it “food pyramid” now?).  But it is also why we destroy ourselves in the name of Primacy of Consciousness.  We come to the weird conclusion that these abstractions are somehow the REAL “laws” which govern us.  And thus we kill ourselves in service to the external-to-man “truth” which guides humanity.

It is just so silly.  And so ghastly.

But you can thank Plato and his “forms”.  That peculiar philosopher is the greatest destroyer of humanity I can think of.  I submit that practically ALL wars are fought in service to an idea of the supremacy of a particular Primary Consciousness.

Let’s move on to man’s “time” versus God’s “time”.

This is my take…the (partial) conclusion upon which my thinking has been deposited.  The ideas may sound hokey…but, for my money, they are the only rational explanation which allows truly FREE interaction between God and man, ultimately.  Any other explanation, I believe, is determinism.

The truth is that time, being purely an abstraction, is no more real for us than it is for God.  And not only is this true for time, but it is also PRECISELY the same for any other abstract idea we wish to consider:  time, space, love, hate, anger, sadness, good, evil, up, down, language, run, walk, distance, length, width, and on and on.  I submit that ALL of these ideas are merely abstract qualifications and quantifications used by man to organize and express the many variations of the RELATIVE MOVEMENT of all objects outside of SELF.  And among these objects is God, Himself, who man also organizes according to abstraction, and who willingly submits to such organization because it is within MAN’S cognitive and physical frame of reference that God MUST operate due to the obvious and massive existential differences.

But even more than this, it is also the very way in which man observes HIMSELF.

As an aside, have you ever noticed that man’s consciousness can never look INWARD?  In other words, you cannot observe yourself from directly INSIDE yourself.  That all of what you know of YOU has come from the sensory input you derive from looking BACK upon yourself, from the outside.  And that you cannot look directly upon your own SELF from the same place you observe outwardly…that is, from your own consciousness.  I find this absolutely fascinating.

Moving on…

The primary temporal difference between man and God is:

God’s ability to “think” (engage in the self-aware oriented cognitive process), to “sense” and act (manipulate and effect creation towards a given objective) is found at the root subatomic particle level…that is, at the level of the basic, dimensionless (and thus INFINITE) particles of subatomics which under girds ALL of the physical universe.  And by this I am suggesting that God not only EXISTS at this level, but that He IS such a particle in root bodily form.  This works for me because it can be effectively argued that this would allow Him to be ACTUAL, and INFINITE.  A part of the universe, and in it and of it and around it, while at the same time maintaining His categorical integrity as the infinite I AM.  Able to be “anywhere’ and “anywhen”, and yet wholly observed by man to be, in fact, a separate causal power, capable of manipulating man’s world and environment without actually POSSESSING it.  This idea does away with all the metaphysical contradictions of a God whose existence is mutually exclusive to Creation.

At any rate, the main point is that God is not a “prisoner”–for lack of a better word–of a wholly relativistic, finite, existential reality.  God is able to somehow observe, act and think on a level which is essentially boundless…that is, bound only by the very self-derived and self-generated ABILITY to BE of the Creation which exists apart from Him.

He operates from an infinite–and thus, by definition, NON relative–place where He observes everything as HERE and everything as NOW in relation to Himself.  He is somehow able to bridge the gap between His infinite Self and the infinite selves of ALL of the infinite (dimensionless) subatomic particles that make up all that exists in the universe.  Nothing is relatively “near” or “far” from God in either space or time.  Everything is NOW to God.

It is from this vantage point and in this way that He does everything, which is why He is, and we observe Him, as purely an infinite I AM.  And we describe Him as “all powerful” because of the non-relative nature of EVERYTHING around Him.  His control is unlimited in this sense:  that He can manipulate everything “now” at will (and according to a conscious objective).

He is able to manipulate everything in Creation from the reference location of ZERO DISTANCE.  To God, everything, according to His conscious and self-aware Will, is immediately accessible and wholly able to be effected by Him…again, as long as the boundary between what is God and what is NOT God is not breached; not violated.  And this is never a problem because God cannot violate that which exists as a SELF wholly apart from God.  Breaching this boundary means breaching His own Self’s integrity.  For God cannot be an infinite Self AND also ANOTHER self simultaneously.  This would irrevocably create a metaphysical schism He cannot survive, having made Him and all He is and does utterly redundant.  Because if He IS that which He effects, then this completely destroys the OTHER which He is supposedly manipulating.

And the problem with this of course is that if there is no other by which God can be defined AS God, then you CANNOT define God at all; and He cannot define Himself.  Because God does not functionally EXIST apart from that which OBSERVES Him to be God…namely Creation. (I hear the cries of “heretic” and smell the fumes of the burning stake as I type.)

Remember this metaphysical axiom; Argo’s Universal Truth Number Eight:

The existence of SELF is always predicated on the actual existence of OTHER.

But this is for another post…

Understanding Divine and Human Prediction of the “Future”

Calvinism/Philosophy, Metaphysics of Time

I think that this post is sort of a putting of  the cart before the horse.  Before we can really discuss consciousness, either man or God’s, we need to find a way to actually define it.  And this, believe me, is not easily done.  In fact, of all the ideas that I have been thinking on since starting this pilgrimage towards TRUTH as a function of purely that which can be explained reasonably (for I do not concede that truth exists apart from this; that is, all truth is reasonable (i.e. non-contradictory) truth), defining consciousness so that it is, indeed, truly conscious, instead of merely an illusory entity subservient to some other “law” or rote mechanical process has been…hmm, well, if not by far the most difficult it has been at least beyond-question observably the most difficult.

Nevertheless, I do believe I have a workable definition that still conforms to my premise that all truth is derivative of what actually IS; that is, the physical, observable, universe.  Which certainly excludes that which cannot be known or seen apart from physical, actual objects.  Like “spacetime” or the “void” or “laws” of nature and physics.  (I’m not saying that we observe everything, but that everything that is, IS someTHING which is ACTUAL…not a law, or process, or “spirit world” or theoretical abstraction.  For example, I believe in God, and I believe that God is physically real.  He is real in the same way that we are real; that everything is real; for all is real in the same way.  Our existence “there” may be relative, but our REALITY is the same:  physical.  Not law, not abstraction, not theory, not idea, not different “dimensions”.)

At any rate, the point is that I am going to plod on and discuss the nature of how a consciousness actually does something—in this case predict things—before I define what consciousness is.  It is a little ass-backwards, I know, but I think it is important to discuss this now; for more than defining consciousness, the importance of continuing to bludgeon to death all notions of determinism, whether physical or metaphysical, is of life-saving importance.

In general, I believe that God’s consciousness functions pretty much like man’s if you want my honest opinion.  It, that is, consciousness is likewise a product of God’s ability to be self-aware; that is, to see Himself as an “other” in a holistic sense…and a perpetual sense; as an “other” from everything including Himself.  Like man, He can predict the “future” (as an abstraction, not as an actuality) in Creation in a sense, I suppose, according to cognitive quantification of how things move (do, act, be). And God’s predictive ability is perfect, of course.  But this is not actually that profound, for so is man’s in many cases…man is able to use abstract mathematical laws to describe movement and thus predict perfectly, or nearly perfectly, how objects will move…that is, what they will do in the “future”.  The real difference is that God’s predictive ability must also be comprehensive …complete in regards to ALL of the physical universe at any given moment IF He so chooses.  Meaning God will not choose to predict something if that thing is irrelevant to His perfection, which would make Him redundant.  He predicts only what is necessary/reasonable to predict, that is.  And not every choice of His will need to be based on prediction.  Prediction has limited usefulness for the free consciousness of God because His omnipotence–that is, perfect power to ACT–precludes the necessity of prediction in most cases, I would argue.

Now, God’s comprehensive predictive power, I assure you, does NOT mean that the “future” is REAL before it comes to pass.  That is nonsense;  a logical impossibility.  Nothing can exist before it exists.  Which is why I deny the doctrine of election; for you cannot elect something that does not exist.  You cannot do anything with something that does not exist.  Go ahead…try to make a pizza with ingredients that do not exist.  I’ll wait.  Forever.  Incidentally, this is also why the concept of inevitability is purely abstract.  There is no such real thing; for nothing is “inevitable”…this is merely another way to qualify movement of objects.  A thing either is or it is NOT.  Both is and is NOT are absolutes which cannot be mitigated by anything…and this is according to their infinite nature as abstract qualifiers.  As I said, a thing cannot exist before IT does, and when it does, its existence is ultimately infinite on the physical level because it will always be a function of something physical, and whatever the physical thing in question is, it cannot be a function of is NOT.  You see, “being” itself is actually an abstraction.  In reality,  there are only objects and relative movement.  Everything else is abstraction.

The fact is that ALL quantification of movement, whether mathematical or otherwise, is a function of the object itself, not a function of the abstract idea which is quantifying.  This is purely how it is described, and thus not a function of prediction, which is purely rooted in a free consciousness’s ability to cognitively organize its environment according to theoretical, abstract constructs .  And thus, because of this, regardless of how precise and perfect the prediction is, even to describing the object’s “future” movement 100%, the object itself must first ACT according to its own ability (in order that IT is doing the act, not something else) to do so BEFORE the predicted/declared movement occurs.  And so the object, regardless of how accurately the object’s actions are quantified—including “prediction”, is still utterly culpable for making the action actual; for bringing it to pass.  Remember, prediction, like everything else, is always a function of the “present”, the “now”; it does not occur in the “future”.  Nothing, by definition, actually occurs in the future.  For if it did, the future would not be the future, it would be the “present”.  And there are no degrees of present; degrees of now.  There is no such thing as an earlier “now”, a present “now” and a future “now”.  Thus, prediction is merely assumptions about what can only ever be not yet.  When it comes to pass, that is the predicted action becomes a function of the present, then prediction itself is dead. Moot.  And irrelevant.  And you cannot ascribe TRUTH to that which is always irrelevant to what is happening now, in the real present.  In this sense, prediction itself is wholly meaningless in reality.  Since everything is always a real and actual function of now, prediction is moot and irrelevant in describing REALITY (which makes declaring “laws of physics” what “guides” and “directs” the universe impossible).  It is merely theoretical; a way to qualify/quantify.  It has no actual bearing on NOW.  Ever.  As I said, you only have objects and relative movement.  Anything else is pure abstraction.

The actions of an object, no matter how well predicted, DO NOT exist UNTIL the object engages them ITSELF.  There is a functional difference then–and more importantly a moral difference–between what is assumed to be true based on perfect prediction, and what ACTUALLY occurs as a function of the object actively doing.  You cannot judge someone or something for acting BEFORE they act, no matter how well you may predict it.  Because, really, though you may predict the action  the object has to DO IT before it can be known as real.  And reality is the only true knowledge.

The difference is not slight, nor a matter of semantics.  The difference is seminal.  The difference is between what is ACTUAL, that is real, and what is theoretical, that is, NOT real.  And one cannot be judged on what he WILL do, because WILL do is not the same as actual DOING.  The existential reality of creation is that there is only doing.  “Not doing” is an existential impossibility.  And prediction is an abstraction rooted in assumed actions verses assumed non-actions; but in the end, all that is real is the object and what it does, there is no NOT doing which gives definition to the doing.  There is the object doing, period, which is merely then this:  objects.  Doing is merely the object quantified and/or qualified as movement by an “observer” (another object; preferably conscious and self-aware) .  Which is why all movement of objects with mass is relative movement.  Don’t argue with me on that one, you can take it up with Doc Einstein.

One cannot be judged for NOT doing something, no matter how accurate the prediction is.  Because prediction is not reality, there is nothing real to judge, and nothing real to KNOW, and you cannot KNOW what does NOT exist, by definition (for knowledge can only be a function of what actually IS; if it isn’t actually there, then it isn’t truly KNOWING, it is assuming or presuming).  There is no true knowing unless and until an action becomes observably ACTUAL as a function of the object, not a function of the cognitive abstractions of the consciousness, which is what prediction is.

So, in the case of God knowing the “future”; okay, I can concede that His predictive power is as accurate as man’s and more so in that, because He is everywhere (and must be “everywhen”, per se) it can be utter.  But even this does not change the fact that any declaration or moral judgment of such actions can only be purely presumptuously descriptive of an action that must FIRST be freely and wholly and volitionally performed by the object or consciousness which makes them “predictable” and “knowable” to God.  Because only way a thing can be even predictable is because it is assumed that the object will “later” do it, not that it has already done it.  Which means that its “doing” does not presently exist.  So,there is nothing to judge, because you cannot judge that which does not exist.  NON-existence, by definition, precludes everything.

So, despite human and divine predictive ability, Man and Creation are still utterly free.  And it must be, because without the free ability of Creation and man to act and do of their own, innate and separate-from-God power, there is no “future” or actions of any kind for God to know, predict, judge, see, and/or declare.  The “future” (as well as “past”) is still purely theoretical, and its understanding is still purely abstract.  I maintain that there is no ACTUAL thing as time, and so basing our understanding of our actions and God and His actions as a function of time as the setting for what then must be determined-but-not-yet-existing actions is inherently dangerous to human existence.

There are merely objects and relative movement.  That is all that is real.

God’s existential substance and His relationship with “time”:

God is not necessarily a function of movement.  Man, having mass, like any other object with mass, MUST move; there must be movement implicit in his existence because he has “parts”; he can be quantifiably separated from other objects, and he can be geometrically separated from himself.  This cannot happen without implied movement.  If a thing does not move, then it cannot have “parts”, per se…it is what it is, and it is infinite; it cannot be measured. But a thing with mass has parts.  It has a “here” and a “there” to it, as it were.  And this cannot happen without movement; that is, movement is implied.  You do not get nor maintain a “here” versus “there” without movement, and movement perpetually.  If an object always has “parts”…a here verses there, for example, a right or a left, up or down, and thus it can be divided as it were, in relative space, then it must always be in a state of movement, even if it is perhaps positionally static relative to an outside observer.

So, to summarize:  I submit that there can be no thing which does not perpetually move which can, at the same time, be geometrically divided into parts.

But God is not like this.  God is an absolute.  He has no parts, by definition.  He is the sum of His own TRUTH.  He is absolute and infinite; He cannot be divided and can have no definable limitation.  Therefore, God does not move in relative space.  God merely IS.  There is NO movement implied in His own existential reality/being.  Now, He can move in Creation, but this is only relative to US, the created observers, witnessing the stark limitation of God separate from Creation; He does not possess it, therefore, between us and Him is a limitation… an existential and physical boundary.  When He acts and moves in Creation, His movements and actions, in other words, are limited to HIMSELF; He does NOT become Creation.  So, since God, having no parts– because any part of a perfect and absolute God must also be 100% perfect and absolute God; you cannot have part absolute or partly perfect, by definition–does not move.  And if He does not move, one cannot ascribe a theoretical timeline to His being and doing.  In other words, there is NO time which can be efficaciously applied to God’s existential reality.  And this being the case, one cannot declare a WHEN to any thought or action to God.  For all that God is and does is merely is and does, period.  That is, perpetually IS…never “was” or “will be”.  There is no “future” to God.  The theoretical coordinate system of spacetime cannot apply to that which has no “parts”, and therefore must be infinite (and does not move).  So to declare a “when” to God knowing what He knows or doing what He does what He does is irrational.  It has no logical basis within His absolute and infinite existential metaphysical reality.  ANY value of God’s doing or knowing is always going to be a value of infinity—his infinite, timeLESS being–which will always equal infinity.  Thus, there can be, again, no WHEN to God’s knowing what man and/or Creation will do or how it will act.  So any attempt to declare that God knows or decides BEFORE man exists or acts is logically untenable.

Literally then, there can be NO determination or declaration by God of something BEFORE it exists (including “election” or “predestining” this or that), because there can be no such thing as a “before” with God.  And because of this, there can really be no prediction of an action in man’s sense by God because prediction is predicated on the theoretical framework of time, which as we have already shown cannot apply to God.

The point is that when God declares something “will be”, whether because He is orchestrating it or “predicting” it, we can only accept that the declaration is of something that will come to pass as a direct function of the Created object acting of its own free and unfetter ability/volition to act and to be; we cannot make assumptions about “when” God knows this or “when” He sees it.  There is no such thing as when to an absolute, infinite Being.

So, in summary, I do not accept time as anything other than a theoretical quantification of movement for man and Creation.  And I deny it even more so with respect to an absolute God, who must be, by definition, utterly immune to the concept of time, even theoretically.  It is impossible to apply any concept of time to anything of God.  We can quantify God’s actions by “time”, but we must understand that the definition thus will be limited to assumptions based upon OUR physical observations within our own existence.  It cannot describe how God acts as a function of Himself apart from Creation.

No, God is NOT in Control: Another refutation of a platitude which is yet more divine determinism

Calvinism/Philosophy, Metaphysics, Metaphysics of Time

WAIT!  Don’t leave yet.  Hear me out.  This is not me being a polemic (not that I have a problem with that). 

Caution:  What follows requires thinking!  This is not easy stuff, but again, hear me out.  You see, the heresy is hidden in the humble platitude.  This is an effective tool of the Enemy.  His “light”.  Do not be deceived.  As usual with neo-Reformed theology, the Devil is in the details.  Literally.

God is in control.

That makes sense, right?

Or does it?

God is in control.  Hmm.  Something about this has just never sit well with me.

We hear this a lot, and usually it is qualified on the basis of what He “allows” or does not “allow”.  And what does He allow or not allow?  Well…we are not given the grace to perceive these things…of course.  Like so much of what is taught in church these days, you must merely accept that the contradictions in such notions are merely that which God has somehow decided we don’t need to know.  See, logical and existential contradictions aren’t really contradictions in the new reformation sweeping like a contagion throughout our churches.  They are the pure “truth”.  What we can actually see and know to be true as a function of humanity’s existential reality, based on a right and quantifiable understanding of our environment, based on our ability to reason, is merely a shadow of reality, if that.  This of course is quite convenient.  If the human beings which fill the pews and the burgundy chairs by definition cannot know anything, then they are easily manipulated by those who, somehow, do.  And even if those who are specially dispensed to somehow rule concede that they don’t know either, what they can concede is that God put them in charge at any rate; and so if you don’t know and your ecclesiastical “authority” doesn’t know, well, its basically a zero sum game.  You might as well sit down and submit, because YOU have not been divinely appointed to explain what to do with the knowledge that is…er, unknowable, because it is contradictory, because it is divine “truth”.  And because you are totally depraved.

But God is in control…that just makes sense, right?  I mean, this is not even a neo-Calvinist thing.  Everyone says this; almost every Christian is wholly committed to the idea that God, as a direct function of his omnipotence, must of course actually BE in CONTROL of EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE.  For that, after all is our definition of perfect power, no?

Well, I suppose I could accept that.  Except for one small thing.

The idea that “God is in control” is completely irrational.

Wait.  Don’t leave.  Let me qualify.  It is not irrational if by “God is in control” we mean that God is in control of Himself.  It IS, however, irrational, and untenable if by “God is in control” we mean that He is in control of Himself AND everything else.  For this cannot be reconciled to sense or reason. It is wholly unworkable in organized reality, and thus, should be dismissed as an appeal  to rank fantasy and mysticism.  Further, I submit that in almost all cases, this is exactly what is meant.  God’s control is NOT limited merely to Himself, but to everything else as well.  Again, this notion should be summarily dismissed as rationally untenable.

Here’s why.

The very idea of God’s “control” over Creation is purely a theoretical, infinite absolute.  Since the control is of God, and God Himself is an infinite absolute, the control of which we speak must be absolute as well.  But, since the control itself is NOT God, and it is NOT Creation (or man), then control cannot be actual; that is, it cannot be viscerally, physically real.  Therefore and again, control must be purely theoretical.  It is not an actual thing.  Yes, like God, it is infinite.  Yes, like God it is absolute.  But, unlike God, it doesn’t actually exist.  It is merely a way that MAN is able to qualify some observable action which is a function of something real.  Like God, for example.

So, God is real, but “control” is not, as such.  And in such a case, “control” being absolute AND theoretical cannot be applied to man’s contextual physical reality, because man’s physical reality is not absolute and not theoretical, and does not actually exist in a way that can be consistent with the idea of infinite absolute “control”.

Have I lost you?  I thought so.  I know…this is tough stuff.  Forgive me.  You gotta think about this a while.  Believe me, I have.

Take a breath.  Hang on.  Stay with me.  This is going someplace.

“Control” cannot be applied to man’s contextual, physical reality without some form of quantifiable limitation.  For example, a coordinate system such as mathematical spacetime; or linguistic concepts (e.g. run, sky, black, car, stop, etc.) which are buffeted by actual physical reality; that is, observable physical boundaries between separate objects within that reality.

But if God’s absolute control (for God’s control must, again, be absolute, as anything which IS a direct function of God MUST be absolute also, by extension) is limited by the observable limitations of Creation’s physical boundaries between objects within it and with God, then God’s control cannot be absolute control, it can only be limited control.  And limited control as a function of God’s absolute power over his Creation absolutely is, obviously, a contradiction in terms.  So what this means then is that God’s control cannot be absolute over Creation unless Creation is an extension of God himself…again, because ABSOLUTE control cannot by definition be exerted over what is ultimately LIMITED, without being a contradiction in terms.

Listen again:  Absolute control cannot be LIMITED by the actual SELF of the thing over which it exerts its absolute control–in this case, Creation.  If we concede that Creation is indeed limited, then absolute control cannot be exerted because absolute control cannot possibly be exerted over what is NOT absolute because this creates a contradiction whereby the infinite, limitless absolute control must be, by definition, limited in its application precisely because the context of where it is occurring (Creation), is limited.  And absolute-ness cannot be a function of both infinity and limitation.

Okay.  Maybe this has not gotten easier.  Go take a smoke break.  Maybe hit the bathroom.  Perhaps a sandwich and a glass of your favorite adult beverage (if your are an adult, or over 21,which are not necessarily the same thing).  Regroup, and come back.

I’ll wait.

Okay.  Let’s go back a bit.

God is absolute, Creation is observably limited–qualified, for example, by the mathematical, theoretical constructs of space and time–between objects.  ALL theoretical abstractions then, whether linguistic or mathematical, must be qualified by the context in which they are applied, either by “pictures” in our minds of the object or objects which the language is describing, or by set numerical values within the theoretical framework of the mathematical “system”.  In other words, observable reality, apprehended by the senses, is what actually allows these theoretical concepts to be practically applied.  Reality…that is, our physical universe, provides the observable limitations to man’s infinite (in and of themselves) cognitive theoretical abstractions he uses to organize it.  Without physical reality as the anchor for ALL of man’s understanding, there can be NO measurable and thus knowable efficacious truth.

But, according to our neo-reformed Christian foundations, man’s physical reality cannot limit God’s absolute…well, anything.  Including His control.  So, again, God’s control cannot be absolute unless Creation is actually like God.  And, since the only thing “like” God in its absolute-ness is God…you can easily see where this must mean that Creation IS God.  This is the only context where God’s control can be absolute over Creation.  Creation IS God, metaphysically and, moreover, physically. This makes Creation infinite, and so God’s control can be likewise infinite.  Thus producing a situation where God’s absolute control is not a contradiction limited by the setting of His control.  Namely, Creation.

Now, among other very serious and certainly blasphemous (and worse) problems with this  notion is that it means that, really, control then cannot be exerted at all over Creation, much less absolutely, because it is contradictory to say that God controls Himself within the absolute One-ness which is Himself.  This is an untenable, unworkable redundancy.

So what conclusion are we left at the end of this dicey and cumbersome excursion into logical metaphysics?  It is namely this:  that God’s control cannot be limited in Creation at ALL; what we are really speaking of when we speak of God’s control can only be God’s control over HIMSELF, within the context of an independent, self-abled Creation, which then must, by definition, include man.

God’s control then, cannot logically be a function of “allowing” or “not allowing”…for the idea of absolute control over Creation does not grant the possibility of this kind of distinction whatsoever.  Because in the context of absolute control by God over Creation, “allowing” things in Creation to happen towards a given end is the very same thing as “NOT allowing” to a given end.  They are both direct functions of God’s singular absolute divine control.  Which I have already shown is impossible unless Creation is God.

Again, if God’s control is limited it is not absolute.  And we have seen that IF God “controls”—employs “control” of some kind in His interactions with Creation, which I submit He does—then this control must be limited; and what defines this limitation of His control must be demarcated, and quantified so that the “control” can be declared a separate thing, in order to be workable within the context of God interacting with Creation.  The demarcation must be a very stark, very real, quantifiable and thus physical boundary.

What is this boundary?  Well, I submit that what it is, and what it can only be, is the inherent and wholly separate mutually exclusive (i.e. God cannot be Creation and Creation cannot be God) abilities of Creation and God to BE what they are and to DO what they do, wholly apart from one another.  In short, and as I said before, if God is in control then He is only in control of Himself.  Because He cannot be in control of Creation without making Creation Himself, which is metaphysically and rationally impossible.  And, conversely then, Creation (and more importantly, man) is in control of itself, apart from God.  Creation and man is the sole determiner of ITSELF/HIMSELF. God cannot determine man or Creation unless they are Himself.  And I’m not sure anyone, not even a Calvinist, will accept this.

How God controls things in Creation must then be similar to how man controls things in his environment.  If I pick up a glass of water, I am in “control”, but only in a limited sense, of the glass of water.  The glass of water moves where I take it…to the table, to my mouth, tilted over your head.  But what is clear is that I do not become the glass of water.  My control is limited by notion and reality of self; that is myself, and the self that is the glass of water.  Any control I have cannot go beyond that boundary; it can only take advantage of the glass of water insofar as the glass of water is able to be moved and manipulated and still be declared a separate thing.  My moving the glass of water does not mean I possess it…it is wholly a function of my free consciousness and volition taking advantage of the innate ABILITY of the glass of water to BE what it is, separate from me.  My control cannot exceed its ability to be what it is…made of glass, full of water, able to be picked up, tilted, poured over your head…all of this is a direct function first and foremost of the glass of water’s innate ability to BE and DO, not a function of my control.  The ability of the glass of water to BE and DO constrains my control of it.  Therefore, my control is NOT absolute. 

The same is true of God.  His control is NOT absolute, but MUST first and foremost be constrained by the innate and self-generated ability of Creation and Man to BE and DO.  Even if God is performing a miracle, such as turning water into wine, or parting the Red Sea (I have this water theme on my mind, apparently), all miracles occur within the confines of the SELF which is the water, which becomes wine, which is also its SELF.  The root of which is always inexorably and categorically the external, separate thing.

Now, it may seem as though I am hyper-rationalizing the argument…God can do anything with anything at all, even changing its physical reality (water becomes wine;  Lazarus who died becomes Lazarus who lives).  And that is true, but the germane point is recognizing that there is always an inherent self in the Created thing which cannot be undone, or usurped, in order that there may be a constant boundary between God (who is absolute and cannot be anything other than what He is, by definition; He cannot be Creation) and the other object (whether wine, or water, or a glass, or MAN) so that God does not become existentially redundant.  Where this argument becomes supremely important is in regards to other living consciousnesses…namely man.  Man must always be himself, of himself, by himself, regardless of how God interacts with him.  Any other construct is hypocrisy and a divine impossibility.

So, what this all means, once again, is that any sort of idea of divine determinism is rationally untenable. “God controls all things” put simply, cannot be true.

God Allows/Does Not Allow:  Encore and expansion

In the context of the Divine, the Perfect, and the Absolute Sum and Fullness of Itself, who is named by the only rational name—I AM; yes, in this context the control of Creation, which is to say of anything NOT God, must also then be perfect and absolute.

This being the case, when directly applied to the notion of divine control over Creation there can be no logical difference between God allowing or not allowing certain and/or specific events, circumstances, etc.  They are both functionally the exact same thing.  Since God’s control is absolute, He is wholly and categorically responsible and culpable for the outcome of the event or circumstance, regardless of whether He “allows” it or not.  The event is directly caused by God’s absolute control, and thus, there can be no real distinction between allowing and not allowing.  In both cases, each are a function of God’s perfect control, and the outcomes thus are anchored and tethered, uninterrupted, to the exact same source.

For if A=B=C means that A=C; and also we accept that A=X=C means likewise that A=C, then the argument for this specific example, where we substitute A, B, C, and X with values from my argument, looks like this:

Divine Control = Allowing = Event Comes to Pass; and

Divine Control = NOT Allowing = Event Which Comes to Pass

Thus it follows that in both cases, the outcome is identical:

Divine Control = Event Which Comes to Pass, regardless of whether it is allowed or not.

The equation is undeniable.  All events are directly a function of God’s control.  If the car accident happens because God caused it or allowed it to happen, God is–because He is unable to appeal to ANY outside influence over the events by definition because He and His control are ABSOLUTE–completely culpable in both cases.   Attempting to somehow make a distinction about what caused the accident—between what God DID do and DID NOT do; which are functions of the same absolute: God—is redundant, confusing, and contradictory; and even worse, I submit that this idea is specifically designed to camouflage the real message which is implicit in the theology.  It is merely a further facet of a neo-Reformed/Calvinist construct designed to remove humanity from itself and to place it under the ownership and exploitation of tyrannical mystics masquerading as today’s Christian “leadership”.

My argument concerning what is the evil root of this theology then inexorably concludes with the logical (and my oft-stated) assumption that God is all that Creation and Man is and does.  Which either makes God the direct author of evil or destroys the concept of evil entirely, replacing it with what amounts to moral relativism; there is no such thing, in this construct, as good or evil.  For all that happens—both the event and its moral implications—is by and of God, absolutely. 

Which is the greater apostasy of the two options I will leave you to decide.  For me, they are both equal parts abuse, exploitation, oppression, violent suppression, and ultimately, utter destruction of humanity.

Why Time Cannot Have a Before or After; Nor Can it be Eternal, It Is Only Theoretical

Metaphysics of Time

If you say that there is a “before and/or after” time, you concede that time is in fact a definition of both time and NO time.  That time only exists BECAUSE it once did not exist.  You concede that there was a “time” that time did not exist.  Thus, you have made time a function both of itself and NOT itself.  This is clearly contradictory to logic and reason.  This being the case, there is no way time can have a beginning or and end.  There is no way there can be an “end” of time.  For what is the end of time but NOT time?  And, again, how is it possible that time can be a direct function of  NO time; that the father of time is in fact no time at all?  Christians will never concede evolution, and yet they are willing to concede that the creator (be it God or be it something else) of space and time is utterly and totally mutually exclusive to space and time.

At the same time (no pun intended), we cannot logically declare that time is eternal; that is, it has NO beginning or end.  This is a problem for several reasons.  The first is that it makes time, again, a function of NO time.  The “time line” somehow leaves a part of itself “always” (in suspended animation?) in the past, and extends “always” in the future.  This means that the time line itself is not a function of time, that the time line is really, NO time at all because it just IS, by definition.  It goes on forever; an eternal timeline is a static time line, and “static time” is a contradiction in terms.

Further, “present” cannot be given a value, ever, because time itself, being eternal, can only ever have a value of infinity.  Infinity, by definition, cannot possibly have a value ascribed to it except for infinity, because there is no such thing as partial infinity…another impossible contradiction.  Therefore, and again, you cannot have a present moment that can ever be given a set value that does not in fact violate the definition of time; and this of course means that objects cannot exist as a function of time because, since they are limited, having set values for their dimensions in 3 dimensional space (or,having set dimension in non-3 dimensional space, even), they cannot be given an unlimited value of time to define their “present moment”.  You see, this is where time breaks down due to the “infinity paradox”, as I have termed it.  Infinity’s value must, since it can never be set, always and only, when applied to the real-world (non-theoretical) frame reference of a physical object, be given a real-world practical value of zero.  Thus, the value of time given to an object at any given present moment must always be zero.  This, of course, is precisely why physicists use a mathematical 4-dimensional coordinate system to describe “spacetime”.   They understand (though don’t mention it often because, of course, their science depends on measurements) that without this theoretical coordinate system, no actual value of spacetime can be given to the physical universe; that is, given to those things which are actually observed.

As we can see then, time itself is purely theoretical.  Any attempt to apply a value of time in any way to an actual observable object in our universe quickly falls into the trap of logical-contradiction.  The object becomes an impossible function of an impossible idea.  The only way then to view time is as a function of the theoretical framework of the coordinate system.  This being the case, one cannot rationally or logically speak of ideas like “predestination”, “election”, God’s “foreknowledge”, or “God having determined or elected or decided or created “before” time”, because not even God is capable of violating the logic and reason that are the root truths (that objects cannot possibly exist while contradicting their own existence) of a universe He designed.

In addition, the most obvious logical violation of an idea like “God, preordaining an event or a thing before time” is that not even God can preordain a thing or an event that by definition does NOT EXIST.  It isn’t THERE to PREDESTINE.  NON-existence cannot be a functional component of existence.  It is impossible. It violates the root truth of the entire universe, again:  a thing cannot both exist and not exist.

There can be no time that “God can see through” to preordain or predestine or elect or anything else.  I have said this before and it is axiomatic:  there can be no future that God can know.  If there is future that God knows then God has violated the logical truth which declares that it is impossible for something to both BE and NOT BE at the same time.   Therefore, if God knows the future, then to God, the future must be now…the future must be IS.  And if the future IS to God before it is to the person or the event that He has “seen”, then the only explanation for the event or person is that it or he or she is an extension of God.  If a thing is REAL before it is manifest in human reality then it must be a function of the thing which declared it WAS, before it became IS to us, in our frame of reference.  Therefore, if there is a future for God to know, the future can only and ever be HIMSELF.  And this is the contradiction of God.  He has contradicted Himself by declaring predestined Creation as something wholly separate from Himself.  He has contradicted Himself and made Himself a liar.  This of course is the giant, blasphemous metaphysical contradiction inherent in the current explanation of ANY idea that invokes God has doing, knowing, or calling as existing anything before time. Most prominently among them is the idea of preordained election of specific human beings to either salvation or damnation.  It is impossible in any rational arena.  It simply cannot be true in this universe.

If there is a before time then there is nothing around you which is real.  It is all God.  There is no you, nor me, nor judgment, nor Jesus…no thought, no understanding, no righteousness, and no sin.  Our faith is a lie.

We must stop this nonsensical appeal to the idea that man can both be a function of time and no time, choice and no choice.  It is irrational, it is illogical, and it says many dreadful things about our God.

Why Determinism (and Other Concepts) is Self-Contradicting and Mutually Exclusive Outside of the Theoretical

Metaphysics of Time

Determinism (and its twin sisters “election” and “predestination”)  is concept which, in order to avoid being self-contradictory and a logical fallacy, must remain only theoretical.  There is no actual, physical thing (person, object, particle, or otherwise) which can be determined, or be a function of determinism.  And here’s why:

Determinism is a concept which can have no end; no corners, no stipulations.  Like “spacetime” and “inerrancy”, once you qualify it, outside of a theoretical/abstract construct it immediately becomes an impossible idea; untenable, and unable to fit within the physical realm’s frame of reference.  It is because of this it must not ever be qualified.  More simply put:  determinism is determinism is determinism, period.  Attempting to apply something ELSE to an idea that is the utter and complete source of itself; meaning, the whole and categorical definition of IT is IT…yes, attempting to apply this idea to a physical “thing”, which must be transient to the concept of “determinism”–meaning, it is NOT determinism but is itself– means you have added extra–meaning to the concept; and therefore the concept is no longer the concept; it is destroyed.  Because determinism is determinism is determinism is something else also…is no longer determinism.

It’s that simple.

Or not.

By definition, in order for determinism to remain ITSELF, that is, a concept which can actually have a theoretical definition, it cannot be added to, because adding to it will only ever LIMIT it; and determinism, if limited, is by definition no longer determinism.  It is impossible that something is partially determined; it is impossible that something can be determined and then not be determined for a time.  The point is that if something is determined then it IS determinism, and is LITERALLY nothing more.

See the problem here?

An object cannot be a function of determinism.  If an object is said to have either a beginning or end, then one must concede that, logically, the object at some point was NOT determined.  But the problem is that a thing cannot be both determined AND not determined…or rather, it cannot be a function of determinism and NOT-determinism.  Determined and NOT determined are mutually exclusive ideas, obviously.  Just as black cannot also be white.  They are utterly incompatible concepts.  What we are irrationally saying is that the determined object, actually WAS (by virtue of it’s non-existence either prior to its “beginning” or after its “end”) in a place where it was not determined…and that is impossible.

Ah, you will say:  “But, Argo.  Non-existence is not a place. So it does not have to be determined.”

Nice try.  Attempting to get around your logical fallacy with another one.  That’s double the points, by the way!

To which I would reply:   “Precisely, which is why determinism is falsely applied.  A determined object by definition can never NOT have a place; it can never functionally NOT exist, because that which does not exist cannot be determined…again, by definition (my favorite phrase).  You cannot determine/predestine/or elect that which IS NOT.  You cannot determine nothing.”

And further, and again, a determined object cannot be NOT determined, even by non-existence (another qualifier to determinism because…why, class?  Because if you qualify a theoretical concept with ANYTHING you automatically make it self-contradictory, and destroy it), because then IT, in its “uncreated form” was not determined.  Impossible and illogical on many levels.

See, the idea of an object being determined  is really that the object, because it is determined, can at no time be in a place where it could  not be/have been.  If we concede it had a beginning, we contradict ourselves by declaring that there was a time where it actually existed so that it could be determined, but also at the same time, did NOT exist.  It was determined and not determined at that same moment.  This is rational nonsense.  So here we see TWO glaring logical contradictions.   They are stark, and they are real, and they make determinism an impossible idea, outside of a purely theoretical framework.

Well, okay.  We’ll just decide that the object is eternal, right.  We’ll say it has no beginning or end.  That way, it can be consistent with determinism.  Easy peasy, right?  It always existed.

You wish.  Remember the rule:  qualification = self-contradiction.

Eternally determined?

Hmmm….really?  How does that work, exactly?  I mean, never mind that this flies in the face of everything considered orthodox by pretty much every science and every religion in the world…that a physical thing is eternal.  But this is really besides the point.   If the object has no “where” or “when” to go, because it is eternally going…pursuing a “there” which which cannot exist because eternal is infinity and infinity can, by definition, have no set value, how on earth can it be determined?

That’s another two points for trying, though.

See, the very same problem arises if we say that the object is eternal…the object NEVER had a beginning nor an end.  An eternal object cannot be a determined object because the idea of determinism is dependent on time in order for it to be even theoretically possible.  But by definition any eternal thing cannot be a function of time, because eternal time means that time is infinite, and infinity can have NO set value.  To declare that an eternal object is a determined object, according to infinite time, begs the question:  just when will its “determined”  status be realized (and, as a short aside, think about this:  what you are really saying is that a determined instance of an object is existing prior to existing; and really the idea of determinism falls flat on its face with simply THIS one single obvious contradiction; a thing, or act, or movement, or thought, cannot exist before it exists; right there tells you that “time” itself is purely theoretical)?  If time is infinite then there can be no set time where an object’s determined status is realized, because you cannot have a set value of infinity; and this is because, functionally, any set value of infinity will only ever amount to zero.  (This is the paradox of infinity, as I call it…and it’s a real paradox, not a contradiction, like predestination as the reformed teach it).  Simply put, you can have no WHEN to a value of infinity.  The answer of “when” it will be realized can only be:  always; and always, as a value of time can only be zero, or NEVER.

This of course means that the sum of an object’s determined status is completely within the object itself…the object becomes its own “time”, and if that is true, then it cannot be determined because it cannot have a transcendent “future” apart from itself.  If the object is its own time, then time is eternal as a function of the object–meaning, it has an infinite value as a function of the object, and thus, cannot manifest or reveal a determined WHEN or WHERE outside of the object…the when and where of the object’s determined status is:  here and now, always, which of course is NOT determinism because there is no “future” for the object to be apart from where it is; because for an eternal object, its future is itself.  And add to that the logical contradiction which says that an object can determine itself.  As I have already proven, determinism and physical object are mutually exclusive ideas; one cannot exist as an actual function of the other.

I’d like to point out that the same logical fallacy applies, again, to “spacetime”, and I plan on elaborating on this idea (which follows the same logic as this post) later.  But, for now, suffice to say spacetime can have not beginning or end without contradicting itself, and it cannot be eternal without contradicting itself; space and time cannot be eternal because then they must be valued at infinity, equates to zero when attempting to make an object a function of space time.  Eternal spacetime means that spacetime is not actually a function of space or time; it must be without BOTH.  And if that is true, then space and time are really neither space nor time as they pertain to physical objects, because nothing applied to an object begets nothing; no value.  Qualifying space time as either “created spacetime” or “eternal spacetime” always contradicts the concept. Argo’s functional premise #7, by the way.

The point here is to remember that the anchor of our truth must only be the physical.  We can never, and I mean never attempt to categorize physical objects (and I mean people and bibles in this…yes, you heard me) as functions of purely theoretical constructs.  Once you do, you will destroy the life and/or being/essence of the object and the truth of the theory.

The theoretical can only exist as true in the theoretical world.  The physical can only exist as true in the physical world.  Attempting to couple the two is an exercise, always, in mutual exclusivity, and both worlds are destroyed.

Reconciling Free Will and Predestination Rationally: Consider–“Pre” or “fore” are constructs created by MAN; in Himself (in His frame of reference), God cannot do anything “before” or “after” any moment.

Metaphysics of Time

I invite all (four) of my readers to consider this:

How is it possible for God, who is, by definition, outside of time, able to predestine, foreknow, or elect anything? By definition, it is impossible to ascribe ANY ATTRIBUTE (place, name, action, will, thought, force, etc.) to that which does not exist. Thus, if God “foreknows”, how is that reconciled outside of the abstract construct of “time”? What I mean is, God cannot foreknow, but simply “know”, because there is no future with God (He is the I AM, not I was or will be) anything He declares IS already. Thus, all ideas of “pre” or “fore”, can only be rationally explained via the reference of man’s temporal existence. Thus, “FOREknowledge”, PREordinating” is a doctrine that is unique to MAN’S understanding of his reality. Since there is no “when” to God’s actions outside of man’s particular frame of reference, it is impossible to argue that God determined ANYTHING before it was brought to pass by CREATION’S own actions. The point being that since you cannot reconcile the meaning of “when” to GOD’S existential reality, we must reassess exactly what we mean by “God preordained”, and I would argue, we cannot logically conclude a certain specific “moment” or “when” to God’s actions. From God’s frame of reference, He cannot do anything before or after anything, and his knowledge is also not bound by a linear “arrow of time”.

The point of this is to say that God’s foreknowledge has nothing to do with the free volition of man. Man is free (and MUST) do and choose and act on his own behalf, and he is not constrained in his will by the idea that God knows (read: DETERMINES) the “future”.  There is no future for God to know UNTIL it is brought to pass by the willful actions of man.

It’s Not Paradox, It’s Contradiction: Thirty-three contradictions of Total Depravity and Election

Calvinism/Philosophy, Metaphysics, Metaphysics of Time

The rational licentiousness of Reformation theology’s total depravity doctrine is this:  those who are totally depraved simply cannot be saved.  That is the metaphysical conclusion of this idea.  There is no man beyond his depravity, and implicit in this is the notion that the very core of man is wicked.  Calvinists will be the first to holler to their high “undeserved” heavens that there is not one sole molecule within man himself that is not hell-bound, and rejoicing in it.  There is NOTHING within man that is “good”.  Nothing.  The root of him is evil.  Man IS evil.  The only rational and logical conclusion of this belief is what I have said since the early days of my break with the rank heresy that is Reformed Theology:  Calvinism demands that the singular evil of man is his very existence; his creation.  This can be the ONLY conclusion about the nature of man from Calvin’s ideas.  IF there is NO good in ANY part of man so that he is totally depraved, then man’s very BEING, yes…even the very IDEA of man in God’s mind must logically be wicked.  If God speaks the word in order to create, and the word is “MAN” (“Let man be made in Our image”), then the very word of God by which man is made–man, who IS wholly and resolutely evil, perpetually turning away from God–is also then, logically to be considered the very inception of the evil itself.   And what does this say about God?  Things that should terrify anyone who accepts the doctrine of total depravity.

Do you see now the evil that is implicit in the thousands upon thousands of church “Statements of Faith” which affirm total depravity?  This wicked doctrine is found in almost every American church in the nation, and we wonder why, more and and more, Christians are becoming the pariahs of the world.  They have been duped into celebrating a God that created evil personified.

People, we need to run, horrified and reverent, from this dreadfully insane doctrine.

And do not be tempted to say to yourself, as the Calvinists do:  “I’m sure, that man was born pure, created good by God, but fell of his own volition.”  This bit of logical fantasy cannot hold water.  The fact is that if man is wholly and totally depraved then he could NOT have been anything else.  Ever.  By their own definition the very base and core of man is EVIL; his root existence thus is evil. He could no more have once been good than green could have once been red.  If the thing IS red, and that is the utter root essence of it, and it could not ever have been green.  Because, for obvious reasons of logic and common sense, the color red cannot become the color green.  (I know people fight me on this point; they cannot get their heads around it…they constantly think of a THING which is colored, instead of the color itself…the color being the utter end of the concept; there is NO thing beyond the color, is what I mean.)  An object which can be colored can be red and then become green, sure, but the color red itself ceases to exist if it is anything BUT red because the complete truth of this color is:  red is red.   Likewise, the truth of man who IS evil, according to total depravity is:  evil is evil; there is nothing beyond it.  But if we say good has now become evil, then the human being we are talking about, who forms the platform for the moral dichotomy, must be a separate thing altogether. That is, there IS something beyond the evil; and thus, man cannot be totally depraved.

So, again…to reiterate, because this MUST be understood:  If the root of man is evil, then he could never have been good.  For if, as the Calvinists say, man IS evil, it means that he could never have, by definition, been good.  If man was once good, but is now evil, then the root of man which can make this moral positional shift must be something else entirely.  And the truth is that at his root man is God’s child; his crowning omnipotent achievement.  Man’s creation by God is thus “good”, and “very good”.  This is the root of man: a child of God Indeed, Jesus is the Son of Man; not because man is evil, but because at his root, man is GOOD.   He is redeemed because he is supremely WORTH redeeming.  If man was worthLESS, he could not be God’s creation.

Man cannot be totally depraved at all.  For the root of man is man himself; his independent consciousness which is the pinnacle of his being; his very REASON for being created.  And the ability of man to be self-aware and to know and apprehend and grasp and see cannot be held morally accountable to any standard.  Ability is not subject to morality; only volition and desire and action.  All of these stem from man’s ability to be self-aware.  The ability of creation to do what it does is from God, and thus, the root of all in Creation, especially man, is GOOD.  NOT evil.  And the fact that man represents the singular object of our existential reality which God can LOVE means that man cannot ever be considered something God cannot love, as the Calvinists declare.  And this  means that anyone who proclaims total depravity as “sound doctrine” is a liar.  If man is totally depraved, the God is the author of evil.  There is no way around this logical conclusion.  Calvinism is the traditions of men, nullifying the commands and metaphysics of God by their irrational hermeneutics.

So, having said all of the above, we can now understand, following Calvin’s logic to its inexorable conclusion, that there is nothing in the totally depraved human to save, even if the Lord wanted to (which…why would He? because logically He would have had to CREATE man ALREADY totally depraved).  Yes, even if He wanted to save man, there is nothing in the human being which can do anything except reject God, hate God, regardless of anything God does, or even, ironically, regardless of whether man “wants” to hate God or not.  For not even God can change a totally depraved person into a good person–a worthy person–for the same reason, again, that green cannot become red.

Now, one might suppose that what we mean by a “new creation” in Christ is that God replaces the “elect” man with a “new man”.  And what is really meant by this is that the old one, being totally depraved, is destroyed so that the YOU that is elect is no longer really YOU at all; but you are irrelevant, a divine utter redundancy.  A cosmic, divine, perfectly determined MISTAKE.  And what I mean by this is:  God created YOU in order to destroy you to replace you with a new YOU, or a “new man” [and thus we have:  contradiction #1].

This “new man” just happens to look like you and have the same thoughts as you and the same consciousness as you.  So even though YOU were elect from birth…you, er, really weren’t [contradiction #2]; but the new YOU is really the one who is elect, and he/she then was somehow both predestined and foreknown from before birth and at the same time was not [contradiction #3] because this new YOU both is and is not YOU at all and so he/she both must have and could not have been elect from birth and predestined before time [contradiction #4].

Unfortunately this completely rational and vividly clear answer to the the question of how God saves the totally depraved (yes, that was sarcasm) falls short when we remember that, according to the doctrine, ALL men are equally totally depraved; so new man or old, they are both totally depraved by definition, and thus, new or old, neither can be saved because both are irrelevant.  The old IS the new and the new IS the old [contradiction #5].

Therefore the only possibly solution is that whether before you accept Christ or after, you are equally totally depraved.  Your salvation does nothing, in fact, to rectify your sinful nature.  Not even Christ can make YOU “good” positionally; instead Christ can…well, effect no change in you whatsoever.  You see, it’s really quite simple: you need Christ to realize that you don’t really need Christ at all, because you are totally evil at the core, and He cannot change this; and this is why you are elect, because you MUST be, because Christ’s sacrifice really can do nothing for you.  And because you are elect, your depravity, which somehow condemns you, doesn’t really condemn you…because you’re elect [contradictions #6, 7, and 8].  And, lo and behold, this is exactly what the neo-Calvinists of our day teach.  If you are a Christian, guess what?  You are just as horribly wicked, and devoted to and slavishly following evil as you were the day you were shaking your fists at God and declaring that you wanted nothing to do with him.  And even if you never really did this, you really did…because you are not you, you see, and your mind doesn’t know what you are doing because your mind is totally depraved, and you then are not you, but only whatever force is compelling you, so whatever good you think you did you must think you didn’t  [contradiction #9], and whatever evil you think you did not, you must think you did [contradiction #10].  But then if you agree that you only think you did good but did not really do good, you acknowledge that you did a good thing by reversing your thoughts about the good you could not possibly have done that you thought you did; and this of course is impossible because you cannot think anything good because you are depraved and thus cannot know good and so you must go back to believing that you did good instead of trusting that you did not, which is the good which you cannot do, according to your depravity [contradiction #11].  And so whether you think you are evil or think you are good, and both and neither, it is all irrelevant because whatever you think, you can’t possibly be really thinking [contradiction #12].  If you think that you think, then you are a liar.  And if you think that you don’t think, so that you are not really culpable for your evil thoughts, you are a liar [contradiction #13]. Your thinking is a lie.  And if you think that, you are a liar [contradiction #14] because you cannot think anything true, which means you cannot think.  And this is the obvious (?) and clear(?) and sound(?) doctrinal proof of your depravity.  So remember, believe in Jesus, and remember that you cannot really believe in Jesus, because you are depraved [contradiction #16].  And thus you are both you and NOT you, but merely your depravity, which isn’t you at all, because that makes you an abstraction [HUGE CONTRADICTIONS # 17, #18 AND #19…three points for this idiotic Calvinist doozy].

If man is totally depraved then there can be no “new man”, and this is my point.  Indeed, in light of the doctrine, we can only draw one conclusion.  God must BE man for man.  God must elect man for man, and must then sanctify man for man, because man is evil and does not and CANNOT change according to the very description of the doctrine by Calvinists themselves.  Okay…fine, you might accept that.  But what is so alarmingly common these days is the willingness of people to simply accept that the “logic” stops there.  That there is no other link remaining in the metaphysical chain.  People…this is just flagrant insanity.

I mean, think about the next step in the doctrinal equation.  Just think!  I’m not the only one who can see this, believe me!  It’s right there, in front of your face!  Stop looking at the stupid Calvinist trees and SEE THE FOREST.  What does it logically mean if God has to do EVERYTHING for man so that man, who is totally depraved, can be saved (which, he can’t BY DEFINITION because he was created fundamentally depraved).

Do you have it.  Yes?  Yes!  Great.

Okay, let’s see if you are right.  What I am saying is this:  only God can really be saved.  God came as Christ to save Himself, so that He may sanctify Himself, in order that He may dwell eternally with Himself, to make remission for His OWN sins….[contradiction #20].

Ahh…oops.  Sounds a littler, er…blasphemous-like, huh?

Yes, it does.  Why?  Because Calvinism is EVIL, and its acolytes are PHARISEES!

And the more you dig into this insane hole of morbid and putrid doctrine the darker and more incestuous the tunnel becomes.  What this crusty bit of reformed doctrine teaches, further, is that God creates wicked, evil man so that He may save Himself through the vehicle of that very same wicked, evil man.  Man is thus a created act of divine apostasy, determined according to the doctrine of unconditional election and limited atonement, and thus usurped from himself so that he may be utterly controlled by God, which, as a determined creation, was never really itself at all.  This means that depraved man is an extension of God, Himself [contradiction #21], which then somehow IS sin, and thus God sins against Himself, by Himself [massive contradiction #22] and sends Christ so that He may be saved by Himself [contradiction #23].  And thus God somehow, though determined, manages to “fall” away [contradiction #24], so that He might send Himself to die as a sacrifice for Himself; and the part that He is dying for was always elect to salvation, and thus not really in need of Christ at all, thus making the sacrifice pointless, [contradiction #25].

It is “reasonable” to conclude, then, that the “elect” part of God was always then fundamentally good, because God is, of course, good…but the problem is that even the “good” part of God is in man, and thus is also still totally depraved and wicked [contradiction #26]. But this doesn’t really matter because the depravity of the “elect” doesn’t lead to any sort of need to repent or change because they are both elect and totally depraved, both of which utterly preclude the possibility or even option of repentance or change [contradiction #27].

Further, we can “reasonably” conclude from Calvin’s peculiar doctrine that the part of God which is not elect [contradiction #28] is doomed to hell to be eternally separated from Himself [blasphemous contradiction #29].  For Christ, who came to save sinners, cannot really save sinners, but only the elect, because sin is irrelevant:  irrelevant for those elect before they were born (whether they repent or not they are still elect, by definition), and irrelevant for those who were already going to hell before they were born (whether they repent or not they are still going to hell, by definition); and so Christ cannot save the part of God which is unelect [contradiction #30], but only the elect part of Himself, which was always elect even before it accepted Himself [contradiction #31].  Thus, the elect part of Himself which He, Himself came to save, and for whom the sacrifice of Himself is alone efficacious, finds Christ, Himself, utterly irrelevant to Himself, because He must, unequivocally be saved by His own election, not His own sacrifice [contradiction #32 and #33].

Now…if that is “paradox”, then religion is for fools.

“Tell me, friend.  When did Saruman the Wise abandon reason for madness?”

-Gandalf the Grey

“The Cross does not make election possible, but election makes the Cross pointless.”

-Argo