Jose White11
Member
13 messages
joined Dec 2019
How are you supposed to imagine paradise? You can't. Mission: Impossible. Trying to wrap your head around paradise is just a roundabout way of trying to grasp eternity. And let’s be real—has any human actually comprehended eternity? I certainly haven't, and I doubt you have either. The problem lies in how we try to define it. People love using the phrase "eternal present" to describe eternity. But what does that actually communicate? Nothing. It’s a hollow concept. Using that phrase is about as useful as saying eternity is "blah blah blah" and pretending you’ve just dropped some profound, meaningful truth. Think about it this way: if Time is the measure of change or movement, then eternity would have to be the measure of stasis. We can measure change; we can track motion. But how on earth do you measure absolute stillness? Change, dynamics, movement—these things exist along a timeline of past and future, where the Present is simply the point of transition between them. So, when someone rambles on about an "eternal Present," aren't they just describing eternal change? By using that term, they are unconsciously admitting that there is no actual change occurring. If change is the very essence of Time, and eternity is supposed to be the opposite of Time, then a state of total stasis is fundamentally incomprehensible to us. To the human mind, a complete absence of dynamics or movement isn't "eternity"—it's nonexistence. Some philosophers love to drone on about how this "eternal present"—which, as I've pointed out, lacks any real substance—somehow contains all of the past and the future. You really have to ask these people: what past and future are you even talking about? The whole point of the "eternal present" concept is to negate Time itself. If you negate the relationship between past and future, how can you suddenly claim that the "eternal present" encompasses both? It makes zero sense.
Here’s another crucial point regarding this debate: when people claim God exists within Meta-Time, they’re completely misplacing Him. They’re missing the entire context. Why? Because if you define God as an eternal being, He can't exist within any dimension of time—not even Meta-Time. The logic is simple: any form of time implies change or movement, and any change implies limitation. By trying to shove God into Meta-Time, we’re essentially reducing Him to just another creature. That flies in the face of the very attribute we use to define Him: eternity. You can't have it both ways. God exists outside of all time; He isn't "in" any version of it. Period.
Here’s how we can philosophically prove the Universe was created in a single sentence:
If you had to wait through an infinite number of days just to reach today, we’d still be waiting. We’d never actually get here. You can't cross an infinity; it's mathematically impossible.
Maybe this next part will help clear up what I was trying to explain earlier.
If our souls are actually immortal, then we’re looking at an existence that stretches out forever into the future. But let’s be real: "infinite" doesn't make sense if it only moves in one single direction.
That’s exactly why Plato argues our souls aren't just "created" beings with a finite lifespan—they are eternal.
If you want the theory of recollection to actually hold water, you have to accept that our souls existed long before we were born into this life, and that they’ll keep going once we're gone. It's pretty simple logic: if the soul is truly immortal, then it has to be eternal. Think about it—if something is incapable of ever ending, then it logically couldn't have had a starting point to begin with.
Plato attempted to dodge this issue by arguing that our souls are eternal rather than created. It’s basically the same thing as "Tat Tvam Asi"—which people translate as "Thou art that" or "You are that." The core idea here is that the Self, in its purest and most primal state, is either entirely or partially identical to the Ultimate Reality that serves as the foundation for everything in existence. It's a concept that sits right next to Pantheism, where God is essentially everything that exists.
Look, we can approach the logic this way: just because God’s essence remains constant doesn't mean He isn't actively engaged in every single shift from potential to actual. By sustaining all those incidental phenomena, He acts as the Pure Actuality—the source from which every possible non-contingent existence flows.
Look, here’s my actual question: How can Pure Actuality even exist if it precedes any kind of potentiality (any Non-Contingent being)? If it precedes something, then logically it existed before it. And if it existed before it, it has to possess some sort of "Meta-Time" mode of existence. It can't just be "nothingness." But if we're talking about a "Pure Something," our brains can't wrap around an existence that isn't defined by its own Meta-Time (rather than claiming it exists outside of all Time). Using basic logic, if it doesn't have that temporal dimension, our reasoning forces us back to the conclusion that it's just Pure Nothingness.
