FIRST PERSPECTIVE
Its very popular to ask whether God can exist outside of time. The short answer is no. Yes, logically it feels better to imagine a God who is beyond us in some spiritual realm of dimensionless space but it is a moot question. It has no meaning to us except that it makes us feel good. If God was beyond us then there would be no us. Creation would cease to exist. Nor could we ever answer this question as we would cease to exist. However, God and space (used in the quantum mechanic sense of "spacetime", e.g. think Einstein et al) must ever exist the one with the other. If there were no God there is no space. It ceases to exist. And conversely, if there were no space, logically God ceases to exist in any meaningful way to our creation-bound spacetime dimensions. Thus God and space have ever existed one with the other and ever will exist one with the other. Whatever "spirit realm" people are referring to is either part of a higher spacetime dimension or existent in some logical world that cannot exist in any of the multidimensional multiverses math and physics have posited may exist. For myself, this "spirit realm world" is the here-and-now. To caretake each other and the planet around us. We are part of a larger process of goodness and love and should contribute all time and energy in bringing into being (or nurturing) valuative processes in the lives and habitats of all around us. This is a godly thing. A godly act. A godly use of rightful agency. Let's begin today. Living in tomorrow's future promises of a spirit realm is as meaningless as living our existence here without rightfully, spiritually, contributing to it. Whatever this heavenly spirit realm is, our spirit realm now is here, with each other, in this dying planet.
R.E. Slater
March 10, 2021
SECOND PERSPECTIVE
On a protoplasmic quantum level space-time exists bc of its relationship to energy-matter. In the Big Bang all was energy but within its space all was timeless. That is, time went to zero and joined with infinity. Time's relationship to energy-matter (radiant forces) was all bound up in one dimensional timeless space. And, for that matter, spaceless space. The kind of space which has but one dimension (not zero dimensions as it would cease to exist. Cease to be space). One can lose time in space but one cannot lose space. Conclusion: time is always defined in terms of its relationship to space of whatever dimension. This means that in Whiteheadian terms of process, moments and events compose life and reality. The Platonic ideas of Eternal Objects become phenomenological expressions of a moment-by-moment event-filled reality but upon relationships between processes.
Secondly, for God to be "outside of time" is impossible. God may be "timeless" (in the one dimensional sense, not the zero dimensionless sense as this latter is nonsense). But God must always exist in the space created by energy-matter forces. So the better question to ask is if God can exist apart from a quantum void of energy-matter.
A panentheist (not pantheist) would say no, God and creation have ever been one together per the idea of "creatio continua." For the theist, they'll say yes, per their ideas of "creatio ex nihilo". But in a quantum universe you can only have the former sense. Granted, in a philosophical logic argument you can have the latter. But the latter is meaningless to us. It only says God can be apart from creation which is a moot point. If God was apart from creation then we, as creation, would never know this. Further there would be no creation us to think these though. Nor, for God to create from. Why? Physics states: "Something cannot come from nothing." Hence, the question of God being outside of spacetime is meaningless except to reinforce the idea that God and creation ever were and ever will be. Apart from that, there can be no "now". Time only exists in relation to energy matter. For God to be beyond time is impossible as the universe is quantumtatively constructed, though logically argued to make God feel bigger to us. Yet the logic fails in the relational reality of physics.
R.E. Slater
March 10, 2021
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