An Engineer's Perspective on Creation

[Jarhead4Jesus]

For the sake of discussion, consider the whole of creation (time, space, matter, history, everything other than eternity) as an engineered device.

According to scripture, what was the INPUT and what will be the OUTPUT?

 

[Josheb]

God

 

[Jarhead4Jesus]

What about, 'God'? Please expand on that thought.

 

[atpollard]

For the sake of discussion, consider the whole of creation (time, space, matter, history, everything other than eternity) as an engineered device.

According to scripture, what was the INPUT and what will be the OUTPUT?

"Device" is itself misleading, because it carries a connotation of purpose that may not be appropriate for "creation". If we view creation as a "painting" [metaphor time] ... a painting fits most of the engineering definitions of a "device", yet few of the connotations typically associated with the word "device". Setting aside that "semantic" limitation ...

Creation is closer to a "clockwork poem" ...

• [Genesis 1:1-31 NASB] 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness He called "night." And there was evening and there was morning, one day. 6 Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." 7 God made the expanse, and separated the waters that were below the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse; and it was so. 8 God called the expanse "heaven." And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. 9 Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land "earth," and the gathering of the waters He called "seas"; and God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, [and] fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit according to their kind with seed in them"; and it was so. 12 The earth produced vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, according to their kind; and God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, a third day. 14 Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and they shall serve as signs and for seasons, and for days and years; 15 and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; [He made] the stars also. 17 God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day. 20 Then God said, "Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens." 21 And God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind; and God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." 23 And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. 24 Then God said, "Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kind: livestock and crawling things and animals of the earth according to their kind"; and it was so. 25 God made the animals of the earth according to their kind, and the livestock according to their kind, and everything that crawls on the ground according to its kind; and God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, "Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth." 27 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29 Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 30 and to every animal of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life, [I have given] every green plant for food"; and it was so. 31 And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
• God said ... like a poem.
  • the input was God's creative will and plan ... like that of a poet
  • the input was the Word of God ... as a poem isn't really alive until it is spoken.
  • [John 1:1-5 NASB] 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of mankind. 5 And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it. ... the WORD had a name.
• [Input] Three days of dividing - Light from Darkness; Above from Below; Land from Sea
• [Input] Followed by three days of filling that which was divided - Lights in heavens; Birds in Air and fish in the Sea; Animals on the land.
• [Input] Man to have dominion - all proclaimed VERY GOOD ... and a day of REST.
• A poem of structure and order and beauty.

Why do painters, paint?
Why do singers, sing?
Why do dancers, dance?


That is WHY for the creation of God!

 

[Josheb]

What about, 'God'? Please expand on that thought.

No.

No further expansion can be had because in the beginning there was only God. Creation is ex nihilo. It's not like an engineer constructing something from already existing materials. There were no already existing materials. God was it. To say, "God created things material and non-material* to create creation," is incredibly circular in logic.

And before this thread gets too lengthy and diverse, I think it is incumbent upon you to explain how the question asked in the op is specifically eschatological and belongs here in this specific board and not some other.

In the beginning there is God, and nothing else. At the end, if the heavens and the earth ever expire, there is God and nothing else. Because time is a created aspect of creation it is not even correct to use the words "was" and "will be" in the previous sentence. There is only "is" with God.












*Math would be an example of a non-material component of creation relevant to an engineer's perspective on creation. It should not be assumed math existed prior to Genesis 1:1.

 

[Josheb]

Why do painters, paint?
Why do singers, sing?
Why do dancers, dance?

LOL!

Why do engineers engineer?

Why does Creator create?
Why does God god?
Why do we try to anthropomorphize Him?

That is WHY for the creation of God!

If you say so .

 

[Josheb]

"Device" is itself misleading, because it carries a connotation of purpose that may not be appropriate for "creation". If we view creation as a "painting" [metaphor time] ... a painting fits most of the engineering definitions of a "device", yet few of the connotations typically associated with the word "device". Setting aside that "semantic" limitation ...

Very valid points, and I will and the presumption of "device" also assumes certain other limitations neither articulated or yet justified. However, to be fair to the op, the "device" is simply a construct (no pun intended) asserted solely for our consideration, a premise assumed as a given for the sake of the ensuing thread.

Creation is closer to a "clockwork poem" ...

All of those "then God saids" are all post-beginning. In other words, they are all a record of what ensued inside creation, inside of time, inside of the cause-and-effect of Genesis 1:1 and God's first move, and His first, "Let there be....." Because God, the Creator, does not exist inside that which He creates the discussion of creation as a "device" cannot be had as if He were inside the combustion engine, inside the suspension bridge, inside the solar panel, inside the antibiotic, or inside any other engineering feat. @Jarhead4Jesus is not inside the thread he is about to engineer . Neither are we.

It is true and correct to observe the creation account as a series of cause and effects, but the account is a record from within the creation, not external to it.

 

[atpollard]

Why do we try to anthropomorphize Him?

imageo dei

[dogs don't worry about such things ... they just live in the moment, stick their head out the car window, and let their tongue flap in the wind.]

 

[atpollard]

All of those "then God saids" are all post-beginning. In other words, they are all a record of what ensued inside creation, inside of time, inside of the cause-and-effect of Genesis 1:1 and God's first move, and His first, "Let there be....."

I took that as a limitation on the focus of the OP:

everything other than eternity

 

[atpollard]

And before this thread gets too lengthy and diverse, I think it is incumbent upon you to explain how the question asked in the op is specifically eschatological and belongs here in this specific board and not some other.

It is probably more of a General Theology question.

 

[Josheb]

imageo dei

[dogs don't worry about such things ... they just live in the moment, stick their head out the car window, and let their tongue flap in the wind.]

Hey! I do that too!

It is probably more of a General Theology question.

Seems to me, too, but I am intrigued how this is gonna be made eschatological.

 

[atpollard]

Why do engineers engineer?

That's either an Asperger or OCD thing.

It is not that we want to do it, it is that we HAVE TO do it!

 

[Josheb]

That's either an Asperger or OCD thing.

It is not that we want to do it, it is that we HAVE TO do it!

lol. Be nice. I'm not sure our engineering brother will appreciate the association (although I suspect we'd all choose that option over the reason being Jer. 17:9 or Rom. 3:23 ).

 

[EarlyActs]

How 2 Peter 3 may shed light on the creation week:

Grammatically, what is truly significant is that 'ekpalai' (from ancient time) and 'sunestosa' (to form, in the pottery sense) are most likely set in contrast. The universe is out there, but the earth's system (inc. its star) are more recent. I notice a couple logical things about this:
1, that our local sun does not appear until the 4th day, just after we learn that vegetation has been embedded in the land. This has the same necessary logic as the 2 tables of 3 days: the earth goes from unformed to formed and from unfilled to filled in each of the 3 day sets (1 and 4, 2 and 5, 3 and 6). This can also suggest how light was 'there' before our local sun.
2, that our local system may be a special creation that was not here before Gen 1, while the distant universe was. There could have been a big bang as far as the distant universe is concerned. But not our local system. Physical support for this is the number of indicators of recentness (for ex., the salinity of the oceans), the 'hot' radiation readings of Jupiter taken in the 70s by Viking, the life span of Saturn's ice and Pluto's ice mountains.

 

[EarlyActs]

What about, 'God'? Please expand on that thought.

Do you mean God as an engineer?

 

[Jarhead4Jesus]

Simply put, the INPUT is God's word.

Anyone, care to speculate on the OUTPUT?

 

[QVQ]

I believe Aquinas made an argument that input and output are one and the same. It is one word, one act, one creation, one time.
It has to do with Divine Simplicity
I would have to look it up...

 

[Jarhead4Jesus]

I dunno about that... the input from breakfast is greatly different from the output. LOL

But seriously, the output from God's creation will be far greater, for believers, than the original input.

 

[makesends]

God

AMEN!!!

 

[makesends]

For the sake of discussion, consider the whole of creation (time, space, matter, history, everything other than eternity) as an engineered device.

According to scripture, what was the INPUT and what will be the OUTPUT?

God

No.

No further expansion can be had because in the beginning there was only God. Creation is ex nihilo. It's not like an engineer constructing something from already existing materials. There were no already existing materials. God was it. To say, "God created things material and non-material* to create creation," is incredibly circular in logic.

And before this thread gets too lengthy and diverse, I think it is incumbent upon you to explain how the question asked in the op is specifically eschatological and belongs here in this specific board and not some other.

In the beginning there is God, and nothing else. At the end, if the heavens and the earth ever expire, there is God and nothing else. Because time is a created aspect of creation it is not even correct to use the words "was" and "will be" in the previous sentence. There is only "is" with God.

This is one of my thoughts concerning very FACT, and in particular, God's Immanence: God is the only source of "new".

(Ha! We marvel at the 'otherness' of a new-born, and then credit ourselves for 'creating' him/her. How many times do we see the self-determinist's worldview rearing its ugly head with that notion, in arguments as to God's work and purposes, in order to prove false doctrines!)

In the law of causation, not to mention its many corollaries, there can be only one ever first cause. Therefore, only one ever "new". "A body in motion tends to stay in motion" but if it is even to go into motion, it is only by God's doing, and if it is to divert from its motion, it is by God's doing. If the universe comes into being, it is by God's doing, whether by use of the "big bang" or whatever.

The pun of, "original causation = sustaining of fact", is hilarious and beautiful to me.

I certainly would like to see Einstein in Heaven, and laugh with him at the beauty and wisdom of Omnipotence. I would like to laugh with Stephen Hawking there, too, concerning our best physics and God's immanence in sustaining the fact of very reality, but I find that a bit less likely to find him there. But, what do I know?