Credo in Deum Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 (edited) There is no morality outside of space or time (the Christian God is not moral, he transcends any moral categories). Morality is simply regulation of human decisions and behavior. Even if it comes from revelation, it is still based on the a world where human behavior is real, an act of the will that affects who we are and what we are. If you can commit a sin, which has an effect on your immortal soul, but then somehow go back in time to some other point where you soul has not been affected...the basis of morality ceases to exist, your soul exists in one time before a particular sin, and in another time after it. If someone were to change your sin, who's to say someone in another time is not changing that person changing your sin? Since time has no reality, neither do our acts. If you commit adultery, your soul cannot exist in another time "not guilty" of adultery. It makes no sense to speak of morality in a time-traveling world, the world is then unreal. Sin not only affects us but it is an offense against God who is timeless! So if you commit adultery and then go back to the past to a time before you committed adultery, you have not removed your offense against God for the time you did commit adultery before time traveling to the past. All you have done is removed your ability to repent for the sin and make reperation to God for it. Edited March 25, 2015 by Credo in Deum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KnightofChrist Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 The paper only exists with a past behind it. You can fold it, and it then becomes a paper that was not folded, and now is folded. You cannot go back in time and turn it into a paper that has never been folded (else it would cease to be that piece of paper, and would just be a generic idea of paper that can be anything. If time-travel is possible, then there is no such thing as a "time-line," that assumes that there is a real past, a present, and a future. If a man can change his past acts, then any idea of sin or redemption is irrelevant, because redemption and sin assume a real world where the past cannot be undone, and the future only exists in the present decision, and hence action must be taken with that real past as its starting point. The Christian God is not "outside" time and space, or inside it, he transcends it, there is no outside or inside, he is utterly transcendent, but his creation does exist in time and space and form, they are not ideas that exist across time, they only exist in the present, and the present comes to be by real acts which cannot be undone. I would not want to exist in a world of time travel...what's the point? The whole point of being human is that I am what and who I am, and whatever that is takes on meaning by the mere fact that reality has produced this, whether my own acts or those of others or of nature. I cannot be other than what I am, and I cannot be what I have been or what I will be except in imagination. No, if there was a such thing as time travel it logically implies that one can travel along a timeline. Now if everything, and I mean everything that ever happened, is happening or will happen were to happen at once sure then there would be no timeline, only a dot, big blob or something of that nature. I guess one could try to travel back to the beginning of time and stop time from ever existing but that would introduce a paradox. If they stopped time from existing they would have never existed to go back in time to stop it's existence. There is only one God. Yes of course He transcends time and space, He is also outside time and space, let's not get hung up on silliness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Era Might Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 No, if there was a such thing as time travel it logically implies that one can travel along a timeline. Now if everything, and I mean everything that ever happened, is happening or will happen were to happen at once sure then there would be no timeline, only a dot, big blob or something of that nature. I guess one could try to travel back to the beginning of time and stop time from ever existing but that would introduce a paradox. If they stopped time from existing they would have never existed to go back in time to stop it's existence.There is only one God. Yes of course He transcends time and space, He is also outside time and space, let's not get hung up on silliness. I think we crossed that line a few posts ago. Whether or not time travel "logically" implies something has nothing to do with whether it is logical or in any way compatible with belief in the Christian God. Time travel is a nice literary device as a way to explore things like choice, memory, imagination, possibility, but as a literal idea it would make any Christian idea of the world meaningless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KnightofChrist Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 Sin not only affects us but it is an offense against God who is timeless! So if you commit adultery and then go back to the past to a time before you committed adultery, you have not removed your offense against God for the time you did commit adultery before time traveling to the past. All you have done is removed your ability to repent for the sin and make reperation to God for it. I'm not sure, if it were possible for us to go back in time and stop ourselves from sinning we would have never committed the act in the first place. God would know of the two possible timelines, yes. But He also knows of the countless possible timelines when we choose to commit or avoid any sin. So would we be punished for a sin we did but did not commit? Or would it be like making the choice to sin, but then changing our minds and stopping ourselves before we sin? Of course it presents a paradox. Going back in time to stop yourself or someone else from doing x will erase the reason why you went back in time in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Credo in Deum Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 I think it's nap time for me. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KnightofChrist Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 I think we crossed that line a few posts ago. Whether or not time travel "logically" implies something has nothing to do with whether it is logical or in any way compatible with belief in the Christian God. Time travel is a nice literary device as a way to explore things like choice, memory, imagination, possibility, but as a literal idea it would make any Christian idea of the world meaningless. What nonsense, time travel would not make the Christian idea of the world meaningless. You simply have a dark and depressing view of the world that seems to effect every issue you take up. Time travel is possible, it even happens in very small ways but it does happen. The artificial satellites in space are slightly ahead of us in time. Gravity effects space-time by slowing it down or speeding it up. The faster one goes the slower time moves around them. Anyway, whatever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KnightofChrist Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 Space and Time Warps - Stephen Hawking Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Era Might Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 What nonsense, time travel would not make the Christian idea of the world meaningless. You simply have a dark and depressing view of the world that seems to effect every issue you take up. lol. Because I reject the idea of time travel I have a dark view of the world? I reject time travel precisely because it would negate reality, the actual human condition and the world that is, around which Christianity has developed its assumptions and approaches to life. I reject time travel because I believe in being human, and in the Christian ideas of redemption and free will. I prefer the sinners and saints of the real world, not covering up footprints and negating people's actions through time. Give me sin and death and life, not formless shapeshifting through time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Era Might Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 Space and Time Warps - Stephen Hawking Stephen Hawking, that noted Christian theologian of the Patristic age. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KnightofChrist Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 Stephen Hawking, that noted Christian theologian of the Patristic age. Theist I believe but I'm not sure he's Christian. Still, his views on space time are fascinating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 I think that morality and agency can certainly be preserved in a time-travelling scenario. Agency is perhaps slightly weakened, but not to such an extent that we should have to worry about it. A bit of fine tuning would solve that. Basically, if the time traveler has a sort of hyper-agency to affect events around him, then we could look at it with a many worlds interpretation, where the hyper-agent's choices actualize alternate worlds which existed in potentiality in other time lines. But to preserve agency I think we can simply establish a sort of de-actualization of 'previous' world lines, which leaves us just about where we started. We only have a true problem if we insist that the hyper-agent's time travelling actualizes multiple world lines, which then exist independently. But I do not think this is a necessary interpretation. It gives a rather vast amount of power to the time-travelling hyper-agent, but then again time travel of this sort is a pretty weird situation anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarenJoanna Posted March 25, 2015 Author Share Posted March 25, 2015 Hopefully it never exists. Imagine all the people who would abuse of it. lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 If human time travel were developed and become widespread, it would probably fundamentally change the way we perceive time and reality itself. I am not even sure we could accurately conceive of such a society. Each person could exist more or less simultaneously in any and all time periods, interacting with each other in a way that would be totally out of sync temporally speaking. Like, think of a River Song type situation, but rather than simply being kind of backwards instead it would be totally random. Parts of your reality could exist to the other person that you have not yet encountered, and vice versa. You might know that person along a nearly infinite number of intersecting points. The only time line which would make any sort of logical sense to you would be your own, and that would only be because you perceive it in its proper order. Although given how vastly different the world would be, like I alluded to I am not sure we would even perceive time in the way we do now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anomaly Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 Time travel is irrelevant to the person traveling. You never experience anything other than the singular "now". All else is past or potential future. Ethically the question is not what you can get away with, by going to a different possible existence. It's choosing what you subjectively think is right in context of your own experience. For example, is it okay to take five dollars from a rich man's pocket if you can get away with it? How much does it matter whether you give it to someone else or not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ancilla Domini Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 So, I am a huge Doctor Who fan, and I read that the doctor gives a winning lottery ticket to one of his companions he got from traveling into the future as he is a time traveler. I know time travel is not real (obviously), however, IF anyone traveled into the future and went back to the present to win the lottery would it be morally wrong or is it acceptable? I am just very curious because it's not like being psychic, where it would be a sin. I know it's a stupid question, but I like thinking too much This totally sounds like something I would wonder. "I know it's impossible, but what if?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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