A netfriend wrote:

The scientific minded might like to discuss how it is possible for an action to take place when there is no time.

Chris (an atheist) responded:

The scientific minded can actually do something like this.

Time is stranger than one might think; and present indications are that time does not simply extend indefinitely into the past. It may extend indefinitely into the future; though there is a possibility of finite duration to time as well.

This is really really hard to grasp.

The origin of the universe, in modern physics, is not something that happened at a point in time some 13.7 billion years ago. It is that time itself has only been going for some 13.7 billion years; there is no "before" that point.

There are some models which have time extending prior to the singularity; but that involves very speculative physics which applies even in conditions of extreme of energy density such as existed in the very earliest moments of the "Big Bang"; where existing established physics simply falls apart.

But most models -- including the speculative models to apply in those conditions -- have a strong bound on time itself. This really does mean "no before". It is not simply that nothing existed that far back; it is that time itself does not extend that far back.

The conventional intuition for time is that it is a backdrop against which events take place, and we can always speak of before and after an event; by this convention it is almost irresistable to speak of "before" the origin of the universe.

The weird thing is that this conventional notion of time turns out to be an abstraction which is not really how time works.

None of this has anything particularly to do with religion; this is just some background on the physics of time; as a kind of caution that conventional intuitions don't work well in arguments about time and the origins of the universe.

Another wrote:

As the Ground of all being God simply IS.

And another responded: Does that mean anything?

Chris:

I'm not sure. I don't think it makes much sense with respect to "God" because God is not well defined here. We have now moved a long way past the rather anthropomorphic God of conventional religion; and it is not clear that the more abstract concepts of God can really support the Christian religion; with a focus of God acting in history through the person of Jesus.

But suppose we forget God for a moment and speak of the "laws of physics".

Can we ask when they began?

In one sense; yes. It seems likely that in the very early stages of the "Big Bang" conditions may have determined some fundamental constants and relations which now apply in our universe; like the strength of gravity and the speed of light, and even things as apparently basic as the fact that we live in three spatial dimensions.

But on the other hand, this is (most likely?) an indication of a kind of deeper more fundamental set of laws of physics, of which the laws we now use are an emergent consequence.

If we use "God" to mean "laws of physics" then we can, at some level, probably say that God does not begin; God simply is.

On the other hand, this is confusing; because God is not "laws of physics". That is merely a redefinition of terms which adds nothing but confusion.

Yet it does point to a way for a theist to envisage conception of "God" as something more fundamantal still; and outside of time. But just be clear that it is something *different* from simply a set of physical laws.

I can't adopt this style of religion for myself. It does nothing to explain physical phenomena; which remain entirely due to material or natural causes. It omits entirely the scope for God to act as an entity within the universe; which is crucial for the doctrine of the incarnation on which Christianity is founded.

One can speculate, perhaps, as to a deeper "meaning" or "significance" due to this hypothetical God-outside-the-universe; but that too becomes vaccuous. Meaning and significance are best seen as human concerns which we must wrestle with ourselves.

Cheers -- Chris