[betty boop]

Essentially, I'm thinking that our existence from God's perspective spans over past-present-future, the paths we took on our worldline (linear) and the ones we could have taken had we chosen differently (hyperplane). I realize this is a bit Everett (multi-world) but I couldn't resist ... LOLOL!

WONDERFUL observation, dearest sister in Christ! The paths not taken — relegated to the "hyperplane" — probably fall into the realm of imaginary or complex numbers. (Just to keep the mathematical analogies going here!)

Don't sweat any analogy to Everett. We're dealing with problems of the One Cosmos. Everett is dealing with problems of generating and justifying other cosmic systems altogether.

I've been trying to grasp the meaning of MHGinTN's extraordinary meditations on time, captured in his marvelous article at Post #37.

[Since we three have been chatting up this issue in private FReepMail in recent times, I hope it's okay to bring some of our issues into public view here.]

An excerpt:

... Time may embrace greater than linear reality ... moment by moment construction of the past is a linear nature, whereas present is a planar nature composed of all the 'arriving' moments on an near infinite number of timelines.

From the backside of this planar present eternity would appear as a plane, but from the otherside of the planar present eternity would appear as a near infinite number of points (moments) each able to extend 'linearly' into a 'nother' planar present of '1/2 infinite directions'.

Dear brother in Christ, please help me here. I seem to lack any understanding of what "1/2" of an infinity may be. But then, when I heard that it was mathematically demonstrable that infinities come in different sizes, I was perplexed then, too. (Topology is not my strong suit.)

I applaud your descriptions of the linear and planar aspects of time. I feel sure you are right about the volumetric extension as well.

It seems both of us are bumping up hard against the crux of the problem: We are, in effect, trying to have a "dialogue" with God. But soon we find we cannot do that, without first ascribing to Him such characteristics as "position" or "movement in time." The ever-transcendent God has neither: He is wholly "outside" spacetime however understood.

Yet as you truthfully wrote, dear brother:

On the one hand, Eternity must be real within the context of the creation, thus God remains greater than eternity because God created the 'bubble' within which eternity may be an temporal expression. On the other hand, perhaps eternity is not even a temporal expression, but we humans have conceived of it that way. In such a context, perhaps God divided eternity in order to create the expression of dimension time for our existence.

God created both Heaven and Earth. I take this to mean that both Eternity and the temporality of His Creation are in His Gift. Or as you suggest, "God divided eternity in order to create the expression of dimension time for our existence."

I really liked your "bubble!" Indeed to me it seems that Eternity is the context, or crucible, in which all spatiotemporal events actually come to pass.

Dearest Alamo-Girl, my sister in Christ, thank you ever so much for your outstanding observations, for "hosting" this exchange, and for the wonderfully engaging links!!!

[MHGinTN]

I'm afraid I cannot agree with the following: "The ever-transcendent God has neither: He is wholly "outside" spacetime however understood." God is in Christ, reconciling we flawed beings to Himself, thus He is intimately in contact with spacetime in the person of Jesus Christ. That is how He can reconcile us to Himself, through The Christ, The Son of the Everliving God.

God diminishes none of His transcendence by functioning as The Holy Spirit holding the unbelievably delicate balance of the Universe together, and in being the earnest of our inheritance present in our human spirit through Christ's work. And God compromises none of His transcendence by indwelling Jesus through Jesus's human spirit made Divine forever more. As Creator, perhaps God is 'outside' the Creation, but as The Holy Spiirt and as Christ, He is with us, as the name Emmanuel was given to mean.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your wonderful essay-posts, dearest sister in Christ, and for your encouragements!

I seem to lack any understanding of what "1/2" of an infinity may be.

Half of infinity would still be infinity. But I understood the meaning to be a binary turn in infinity, e.g. 0 or 1, left or right, up or down.

In reference to your reply at 142, dear MHGinTN, I understand that some believe God created "all that there is" within Himself - and some believe God created "all that there is" apart from Himself.

But either way, or indeed any way, there is nothing of which anything can be made ex nihilo but God's will. And He did incarnate as our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit indwells us even now.

But He does not indwell all people or all things. For that reason, I suspect that whereas "all that there is" originates and sustains "in" His creative will that He stays apart from much of it to accomplish His permissive will.

But that may again raise the never-ending debate of predestination (prophecy) versus free will (commandments.)

God's Name is I AM.