Can anything exist for an infinite time or outside of time?

Sorry for my terse posts to you guys, but it takes a lot key-mashing to respond to 8-10 people who more or less are in consensus against me.Your remarks regarding the Creator are off the mark because it is within the nature of the Creator (the Source, the Originator) not to need a cause. That's why He is the Creator...He is the first...He answers the question of First Cause as, "He Is" (in the same way that you guys say that the Universe "Just Is").For me, Ockham's razor does not fit the case because I don't see The Universe Just Is as answering all of the questions. Simpler, perhaps. But if does not answer the question (and I do not think that it does), then it is not the preferred answer.God has chosen to reveal Himself most clearly in His Word (the Bible). That is the nature of His preferred mode of revelation. I can throw Bible at you, but you do not recognize it as authoritative; so I can present the evidence, but you will not embrace it. I can throw something like the fact that God said 4000+ years ago (recorded 3500+ years ago) that He would limit the lifetime of man to 120 years (Gen. 6:3) and people even in our advanced medical day abide by this:Oldest people - Wikipedia(Yes, there appears to be a woman who reportedly lived 122 years, but she is not technically a *man,* and I don't think that God is as hard and fast in the way he deals with numbers as we are... I think 120 years is more of a general-ish guideline He set down in mandating how things would be.)On a final note, scientists at the top of their fields recognize that science does not determine fact solely and absolutely. Science answers the questions science can answer in the way that science can answer them. And yet there are realms of reality that lie beyond the scope of science. This where philosophy, cosmology, theology, etc., must step in and answer the questions.What do you think on this matter? Let's say that God exists (just for discussion's sake); He is infinitely large (in fact, beyond space), infinitely ancient (in fact, outside of time), and Spirit rather than body. How, by scientific methods, do you propose that we prove or attempt to disprove His existence?

Please excuse the tardiness; I haven't been on the site for a long time. I have my doubts if you guys missed me, hah.What I mean when I use the term *God* is, I suppose, my ultimate locus of reality. As a Biblical Christian, my *God* looks like this: "In the beginning God created [everything]..." (Gen 1:1); "...in [God] we live and move and have our being..." (Acts 17:28); "...all things have been created by [Christ] and for [Christ]..." (Col. 1:16); "It was fitting for [God], for whom are all things, and through whom are all things..." (Heb. 2:10).I think since you cite the existence of the Universe as a fait accompli--as barebones reality itself, I think--then you would have to agree that this fits the bill as your *God,* where you find your ultimate locus of reality.I guess I am a little hesitant to mention here that I serve a transcendent God. The Biblical Christian understanding of God is that He exists outside of space and time. In fact, the Universe itself is held together and sustained by God Himself. He is the "invisible God" (1 Tim. 1:17). These elements of His transcendence put His actual Person beyond the realm of empirical experimentation--God simply does not operate within our bounds. I understand the obvious reply to this that the burden of proof still remains on me. But no mortal man can build such an instrument as to detect, formulate such an equation as to prove, or develop such a philosophical argument as to necessitate God; I will not pretend that I am the exception. It is clear from Scripture that God is not a reality that all men can and will accept; the majority will not. As a Christian, all I can do is point you to Him. But the question of God is one that all men must deal with in some way in the span of their lives. It is the inclination of the human heart to ask himself whether there must be something more to life.With respect.

Nothing supernatural is required for the creation of matter? Or are we assuming the pre-existence of matter?

Alright, I am going to take Genesis 1-3 in a very literal sense. I think your question is something like this: If man were not created until the 6th day of Creation, how could he know what happened on Days 1-5? I hope I am following you rightly here. And I think that is a solid question. I would respond by pointing to the relationship between God & the man and the woman in the Garden--the conversant, intimate, personal relationship that is implied as they hear the "sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day" and God asking the man and the woman as to their whereabouts.The Mind of God comes through the Bible clearly because it is His personal revelation of Himself, His Mind, and His Plan to us. Man cannot discern it Himself; it can only be revealed.Am I hitting in the general ballpark with your question?

I think it is important to make a distinction between who God is and what God does. What I mean by this is that, yes, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, but that does not mean that what God is doing is the same yesterday, today, and forever. What God is doing will progress with history, but it will always remain in accord with the unchanging character of who God is.In a sense, Creation on the grand scale ended on Day 7 of Genesis 2, where it says that God rested from all the work of creating that He had be doing. To be sure, passages like Psalm 139 describe God's forming the individual person in the womb of his mother, and then of course the is the concept of being "born again" and becoming a new creation; in the eschaton, there will be the rebirth of the created order as the old heaven/earth pass away and a new heaven/earth are made. All of this to say that God is still in the business of creating, but that looks differently in the passage of time.God's work through the history can roughly be outlined as something like this:Creation -> (Fall of Man) -> Promises of Restoration -> Redemption -> Judgment (Eternal Life or Eternal Condemnation)On the issue of the location of God within space and time, I would push John 1 as arguing for the existence of the triune God alone in eternity past. On a merely philosophical basis, I think it could be argued as well that if God is creating all that exists in Genesis 1, what/Who existed and what was going on prior to this creative act?I do appreciate the civility with which you write. This is a welcome departure from the bulk of my discussions on here in the past.

I know this is old, old stuff, but I suppose I'm coming out of a retirement of sorts.You may wanna re-count the years on Shigechiyo Izumi. 120 years. Go down a bit in the article you linked and see that the oldest undisputed male in history was 115 years old.And I am not saying a woman is not a human or that she does not count as a person. I am saying what was written spoke of "men," which could be taken in the Old Testament either as "mankind" (humans) or, specifically, as "men" (males). Let's just say it includes all of mankind--men and women. There is one woman who has lived past 120 years--supposedly, at least. Search through the way the Bible tends to deal with numbers, dates, and years, and I think it is a fair case to say that it is not as concerned with laser-beam precision all the time as we are. A lot of numbers seem rounded off, etc., even when they are listed with more precision in other locations (e.g. when comparing parallel accounts in Samuel/Kings and Chronicles).I don't feel any need to debate the nature of cosmology any more than simply to say that one's cosmology is tied very closely to one's worldview. One deals with some definites and absolutes, and then come the necessary processes of integration, interpretation, and interpolation.To the final issue of the incomprehensibility of a transcendent God, you are exactly right. In my finite nature, I am absolutely incapable of discerning the infinite. The only way to discern such a God would be for Him to reveal Himself to finite man--in Christianity, we call that the Bible.

My understanding is that there is indeed loss of matter/energy in nuclear fission. Additionally, I believe the consensus is that the distinction we make between matter and energy is a little blurrier than we have made it here.

Fair enough. I can use some correction, hehe.