TIME: What is time and when did time start?

What is time and when did time start? Many think that time started when the God created the world. It is true that the way that man keeps track of time is based on the physical universe. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years are all related to the earth's rotation around the sun. This does not mean that time did not exist before the creation of the world.

For a proper understanding of time, a person must understand that God is both an uncreated eternal being and a creator. He has many natural uncreated attributes or characteristics. These attributes exist out of necessity because they are part of God's uncreated eternal being. God has always existed; He has no beginning. God did not create Himself nor did He create any of His natural attributes. For example, God did not create His power. His power, like Himself, has no beginning. His power has its foundation in God's uncreated essence.

2. He has all possible knowledge. There is no knowledge that God lacks. There is nothing knowable that He does not know.

4. He has all possible power. There is no greater power then God. God can do all things that are possible.

God is also a creator. The things He creates exist out of His free choice. Some people get upset when they hear that God has limitations. They fail to understand that God did not create any of his natural attributes. These attributes are part of God's eternal make-up. He can not change the facts of these natural attributes any more than he change the fact that He exists. For example, God cannot change the fact that He has all power. He can choose how He uses His power but He cannot choose to have less power. God also cannot change the fact He has all knowledge. He can not choose to have less knowledge.

God is both uncreated and a creator. To help clarify this idea, study the following charts.

God's natural attributes exist out of necessity. God's creations exist out of free choice. God's real value and worth are not judged just by the facts of His natural attributes. The fact that God is an uncreated eternal being and has all power does not give Him any praise worthiness or value. What if God chose to use His power for selfish reasons or in some inappropriate way? It is what God chooses to do with what He has that gives Him true value and praise.

Time is also a natural attribute of God. God did not create time. Time is apart of God's eternal uncreated essence and make-up. Just like the other natural attributes, God cannot control the fact of it. He can not be outside of it nor separate Himself from it. He is time and nothing that He ever does will change this fact. Time, like God, has no beginning or end.

God is a eternal being that has an active intelligence. Isaiah 55:9"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." He is always thinking. It is impossible for Him not to have any active thoughts at all. Before He created the world the passage of time was marked by different thoughts and ideas. Time is the succession of duration. This means that time marks the passage of ideas, thoughts and events. God may think a thought for some interval and then think a different thought.

Time must be linear. Once God thinks a certain thought He cannot somehow go back in succession. He can create something and then destroy it, but it did exist for some interval or duration. He can not travel back in time before he created it. No matter what God did He could never undo any of His actions or thoughts as though they never existed. God cannot think a thought and then unthink it. God can think a different thought and change His mind, but He can never go back in time or the series of events. God is very personal and active. He has made many choices and will continue to make many more.

God has a free will. His thoughts are really his own creation. God is part of an endless and continuous sequence of thoughts, ideas and actions. Once God thinks a thought it becomes forever embedded in the essence of time.

If God is at thought-3 then no matter what He does, He will never undo thoughts 1 and 2. Thoughts 1 and 2 are now totally out of His control. He may think thought 4 that is 180 degrees opposite of thought 2, but He may never change the fact that thought 2 existed.

The future does not exist yet. Every thought of God is His own creation and must be a part of His endless duration. Every idea, thought or action of God must of necessity have some duration or interval of existence. In the sequence of events there is some interval before a creation, the creation itself and the interval after the creation. Each creation or thought of God must have these three basic truths. Every creation of God must take place within a series of events. It is impossible for any creation not to have these three truths.

God created man because he wanted intelligent creatures that he could share His love with. God created man in His own image, after His likeness. This refers to man's moral make-up, not his physical design. God has free choice and has created man with the freedom of choice. God has given man the ability to determine and create his own character, either good or evil. God his given each person the power and freedom to create their own thoughts ideas, and actions. Each person creates his own moral character. This means that any person has the freedom to become evil, rebellious and wicked or holy, obedient and righteous.

There are two types of law, physical necessity and free action. For example the law of gravity is a physical law. If you hold up a brick and then let go, it must fall. You will always get the same result no matter how often you do this. Physical law is a course or rule of action that has a fixed and certain result. There is no free choice involved and no other course possible. God's natural attributes are under physical law because they exist out of necessity and not free choice.

True freedom must involve choice. The choices any person makes are not fixed or certain. Freedom of action implies different responses to the same effects. The future resulting actions or choices of any free being are not certain or fixed. These future choices have not been created and in the series of events do not exist yet. Since future chooses do not exist until they are made, the knowledge of result cannot exist until the choice is made. This means that the future choices of a free being cannot be knowledge. No one can know them including God.

Animals do not have a free will and their actions and course are certain and fixed. They are governed by physical law. God created them with instinct. They do not have the power or ability to create any new thoughts. They are not moral creatures.

Genesis 6:5-7"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

If God knew all the future choices of man He could not have been sorry or grief for what he knew would take place. It is not possible for God to be sorry for something that He knew for a fact that would take place.

When God told Abraham to slay his son He was not certain in advance if Abraham would be willing to kill his son.

Genesis 22:12"And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me."

God did not know the evil that certain people would do. In fact the idea of this evil happening never even came into God's mind.

Jeremiah 19:5"They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind."

Jeremiah 32:35"And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin."

God did not know of Saul's future disobedience. If God knew in advance that Saul would turn against Him, why did He appoint him as king and then regret it?

1 Samuel 15:11"It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night."

Exodus 32:9-14"And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever. And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people."

2 Kings 20:1-6"In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live. Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the LORD, saying, I beseech thee, O LORD, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore. And it came to pass, afore Isaiah was gone out into the middle court, that the word of the LORD came to him, saying, Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the LORD. And I will add unto thy days fifteen years; and I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.

Jonah 3:4-10"And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:

But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

If all the future choices of man were knowledge this would set aside free will. The only way God could be certain of the future choice of a free being is if He forced it. If God ever causes an individual to do something then God is truly responsible for this person's actions whether good or bad. If God really knew for a fact all the future choices of Adolf Hitler then He would be partly responsible for his actions. God could have easily prevented him from being born. Adolf Hitler had freedom and created his own evil character. Even our law would find a person guilty if he had the knowledge of an future evil act and then did nothing to prevent it. The law would hold him responsible for this knowledge and not doing anything about it. God is never responsible for any future created choice a free being makes because it is a free choice and not knowable in advance.

Each person has the creative ability to bring forth thoughts, ideas and actions that have never existed. Sin, it self, is a person's own creation. A person does not sin until they choose selfishness over God's will. God did not create sin nor did Adam's fall create sin in every born baby. The reason why sin is a crime worthy of eternal punishment in hell is because each person is fully responsible for it.

God has many future contingencies based on what you do or do not do. Prayer can really change God's mind and plans. You can go to God and change His plans concerning you or your surroundings. Your future choices are not knowable because you have yet to create them. Your present decisions, thoughts, ideas, and actions are beginning to form your future. If you change them now, you change your future.

Some people believe that the past, present and future are ever present with God while others believe that God lives outside of time. These ideas are completely absurd. It is impossible for God to leave time as much as it is impossible for God to leave himself.

2. God cannot create another being like Himself. He is uncreated. God cannot create an uncreated being.

5. God cannot think any thought that does not have a certain duration or interval. His mind is always active. He cannot stop thinking.

6. God cannot travel forward or backward in time. He cannot undo any past event or thought of any being including Himself. Once a sequence of events or thoughts takes place nothing can ever alter it.

13. Is it possible for man to have true freedom and his future choices knowable?

A couple of paragraphs from the same website (here) are really rather interesting as they relate to time's relation to God, as well.

The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." (Deut. 33:27)

Scripture declares that God is eternal. In theological categories, eternity is treated as an attribute of God's essential nature. Defining and describing this attribute is not an easy task. In fact, any definition will fall short, for the simple reason that we have no way to understand what it means to be uncreated or to have no beginning. This does not mean, however, that any derived understanding will necessarily be inaccurate, only incomplete. But this of course is true with all theology.
In defining eternity as it relates to God's existence, a good starting point is to acknowledge His uncreatedness. That is to say, God is self-existing, with neither beginning nor end. There was no cause that brought forth God's existence, but rather creation owes its existence to God. That something was selfexistent is the proof of the cosmological argument. "If anything does now exist, then something must be self-existent because from nothing, nothing comes."
The idea that God has no beginning or end is unexplainable but nevertheless conceivable. But to stop here with our description of eternity would be unsatisfactory. The next step is to ascertain the relationship between eternity and time. Does eternity transcend time? Are eternity and time mutually inclusive or exclusive? These questions form the essence of our inquiry. How one answers here, will effect the way one views other qualities of God's nature, such as immutability, omniscience, and transcendence. In other words, one's concept of eternity becomes a theological watershed to which other theological implications must flow. It is at this juncture that theologians are divided on the concept of eternity. Some have postulated that God is timeless, while others contend that time is essential to His nature.
Eternity as Timelessness
Eternity as timelessness means that God transcends or dwells outside the dimensions of time. Past, present, and future lose their distinctiveness as they merge into one eternally fixed moment. There is no succession or duration for God. These characteristics apply to the created order, but not to the Creator. He enjoys the whole scope of knowledge, experience, events, and relations in one eternal moment. Yesterday is not past. Tomorrow is not future. Both are eternally present. It would seem that this view of eternity is favored because it anchors such doctrines as immutability, omniscience, and transcendence. Time or succession implies change. If God can have an experience now that He did not have a moment ago, it could be said that He has changed in some way, though not necessarily in His essential Being. Timelessness adds permanence and security, two qualities which bring hope in a world of constant change and uncertainty. If God lives above time, He would have a perfect account of all knowledge. Nothing could be future and contingent for Him because He already inhabits the future. Just as we have a certainty of knowledge at the present, God has a certainty of knowledge of all the future, because the future for God coexists with the present. And if God is a timeless Being it would make Him qualitatively different from man in that He would not be bound by the restraints of time. It would make Him unique and Divinely otherly. This is the doctrine of transcendence.
Many argue, such as Ronald Nash, that the doctrine of Divine timelessness is a Greek concept originating in the philosophy of Plato, maturing in the system of Neoplatonism, and finding passage into Christian thought by way of Augustine, who he considers to be a Christian Platonist. In addition to Augustine, it was later held by Anselm, Aquinas, and the Reformers.
Eternity as Endless Time
Eternity as endless time means that there is no beginning or end to the process of time. Time stretches infinitely into the past and will endure infinitely into the future. The present for God is the same as the present for us. God does things sequentially, whether thinking, acting, or relating. Past, present, and future are clearly distinguishable to God. The past is gone. The future is yet to be. All that exists for now is the present. This view is favored for its simplicity and dynamism. It is easy to comprehend and it makes sense. Since we have left the past, enjoy the present, and move on to the future, it seems natural to us that God experiences the same. It also presents a God who is active and personal. He is an agent who continually transmits His energy to sustain the universe. He acts in the present world with no philosophical difficulties of how He does it. Temporal location is not a problem for a God who experiences time. Relationship with man is real and intimate. In addition, it would seem that a case for endless time would be more easily ascertained from scripture than would that of timelessness.
Samuel Clarke and Jonathan Edwards both held to the idea that God's eternal existence was everlastingness rather than timelessness.
Upon consulting a number of theology books in the 19th and 20th century, I discovered that neither position on God's eternity was only held by a hand full, rather each position had many advocates. In addition, neither view was strictly a Calvinistic or an Arminian doctrine. Both systems have had advocates of each view.

Thank you so much for the ping!

Jeepers, I have sooo many objections to this article. You asked for specificity, so let me begin by saying that the author has subordinated God to the physical laws, in particular space/time and cause/effect. Science does not draw such limitations in the physical sense, so I find it very troubling that anyone would suggest such limitations on God in a spiritual sense.

The author said:

Time must be linear. Once God thinks a certain thought He cannot somehow go back in succession.

The author has not addressed relativity, superstrings, inflationary universe models or geometric physics. He sees time as an existent apart from God.

Has anyone here ever wondered why the term space/time is rarely broken into "space" v "time"? It’s because the two terms are interrelated. For an introduction with graphics: Postulates of Special Relativity and for more detail on this specific issue of transformation Lorentz Transformation

If Einstein’s Relativity (the geometry of space/time) were not true, we would not be able to do space exploration. The theory has held up repeatedly over these many years.

What all of this means in layspeak is that time is a dimension.

If you were to draw a line and try to describe a point on that line you would use a coordinate, a number x, relative to some point 0 on the line, e.g. –3, 4. If you were to draw another line perpendicular to that line, it would take two coordinates, an x for the first line and a y for the second.

Visualize the two lines laying on a plane, and draw another intersection line at a right angle and you’d need three coordinates. To describe a point is such an imaginary cube, you’d need x,y and z.

But our universe is moving, continually, so there is yet another coordinate for time, t.

Where anything is in the universe is specified by those four coordinates, x,y,z,t.

We must remember that the “world” we perceive is limited to three spatial dimensions and one of time. But there may indeed be many more spatial dimensions and there may also be extra time dimensions. These dimensions are expected to exist – just like Einstein’s space/time – because they mathematically resolve a multitude of observed phenomenon in the universe.

But the key question we ought to all be asking here is why our vision and our minds are limited to only four dimension? If there are many spatial and temporal dimensions, why this particular choice of coordinates?

This article, on the curse of dimensionality explains that if we could see in four dimensions we would be able to see the inside of a box without opening it. If our minds – our mental construct of reality – could deal with it, we could remove the content of the box.

IOW, we have been designed so that we can only “see darkly” even in a physical sense!

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these [is] charity. – I Corinthians 13:9-13

Even in our blindness, we know that time is a dimension – and there may be many of them – so why would we choose to relegate God to any particular one of them? How would anyone choose which one He must exist in?

Not only that, but the one time dimension we actually can perceive with our vision and our mind is known to have a beginning. This is a mathematically unavoidable determination. Scientists no longer argue for a steady state universe, which they would prefer, because the fact of a beginning is a theological statement. It is after all the first words in the Scripture:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. – Genesis 1:1

This conclusion was startling to scientists, as Robert Jastrow remarked:

JASTROW: Oh yes, the metaphor there was that we know now that the universe had a beginning, and that all things that exist in this universe-life, planets, stars-can be traced back to that beginning, and it's a curiously theological result to come out of science. The image that I had in my mind as I wrote about this was a group of scientists and astronomers who are climbing up a range of mountain peaks and they come to the highest peak and the very top, and there they meet a band of theologians who have been sitting for centuries waiting for them.

What all of this means is that space/time is created as the universe expands. Inflationary Theory for beginners. Space/time does not pre-exist. Therefore God the Creator did not exist in space/time.

Finally, the author insists that time must be linear, that God must abide by the rules of cause and effect. Scientists truly would prefer that were the case, but there is no such requirement.

Specifically, if you were existing in an extra time dimension, time would be a plane not a line. It would explain how photons move faster than the speed of light (superluminal) which they do: Non-locality gets more real. The cause/effect relationship could be reversed to effect/cause. Past, present and future would be all equally accessible. Schrodinger’s cat would be both alive and dead (superposition) in the extra dimension though it would be only one or another by the choice of 4 coordinates (3 spatial, 1 time).

Moreover, if you could stretch your mind outside of space/time altogether (regardless of dimensions) here’s how things would look:

Tegmark: Parallel Universes

A mathematical structure is an abstract, immutable entity existing outside of space and time. If history were a movie, the structure would correspond not to a single frame of it but to the entire videotape. Consider, for example, a world made up of pointlike particles moving around in three-dimensional space. In four-dimensional spacetime--the bird perspective--these particle trajectories resemble a tangle of spaghetti. If the frog sees a particle moving with constant velocity, the bird sees a straight strand of uncooked spaghetti. If the frog sees a pair of orbiting particles, the bird sees two spaghetti strands intertwined like a double helix. To the frog, the world is described by Newton's laws of motion and gravitation. To the bird, it is described by the geometry of the pasta--a mathematical structure. The frog itself is merely a thick bundle of pasta, whose highly complex intertwining corresponds to a cluster of particles that store and process information. Our universe is far more complicated than this example, and scientists do not yet know to what, if any, mathematical structure it corresponds.

To carry this metaphor a bit further, with God outside of space/time altogether (regardless of how many there may be) – He would see any of us like that strand of uncooked spaghetti. He sees our beginning and our end and the path that we are on. He can also change that – past, present or future. What He cannot do is lie because – being outside of space/time – once He has done a thing or said a thing it is over all of space/time.

IMHO, this is the mechanism of our free will. It’s not that we can accomplish anything as corporeal existents. It is the soul of man which God breathed into Adam (neshama) which makes us different from ordinary wildlife.

And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. – Genesis 2:7

IOW, I perceive that it is the soul, or spirit, of the man communicating with God which gives us free will. betty boop has promised someday to write an essay for us on metaxy - a Plato philosophy. Knowing her and what I already know about Plato, I strongly suspect it will have something to do with this mechanism.

BTW, the Tegmark article is not at all theological. He is looking at multi-verse from a mathematician’s point of view in a materialistic science article. But the very nature of math is significant:

What is Mathematics?

The view [Platonism] as pointed out earlier is this: Mathematics exists. It transcends the human creative process, and is out there to be discovered. Pi as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is just as true and real here on Earth as it is on the other side of the galaxy. Hence the book's title Pi in the Sky. This is why it is thought that mathematics is the universal language of intelligent creatures everywhere....

Barrow goes on to discuss Platonic views in detail. The most interesting idea is what Platonist mathematics has to say about Artificial Intelligence (it does not think it is really possible). The final conclusion of Platonism is one of near mysticism. Barrow writes:

We began with a scientific image of the world that was held by many in opposition to a religious view built upon unverifiable beliefs and intuitions about the ultimate nature of things. But we have found that at the roots of the scientific image of the world lies a mathematical foundation that is itself ultimately religious. All our surest statements about the nature of the world are mathematical statements, yet we do not know what mathematics "is" ... and so we find that we have adapted a religion strikingly similar to many traditional faiths. Change "mathematics" to "God" and little else might seem to change. The problem of human contact with some spiritual realm, of timelessness, of our inability to capture all with language and symbol -- all have their counterparts in the quest for the nature of Platonic mathematics. (pg. 296-297)

Food for thought…

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God's natural attributes	God's creations
This is God's uncreated and eternal being. God has no free choice over having these attributes. They exist out of necessity because these must exist since God Himself exists.	This is what God freely chooses to do with His natural abilities. These are the result of His own free choice and not just the result of uncreated fact.