Posted on 02/05/2004 3:20:50 PM PST by xzins
Alamo-Girl, your reply #34 is simply outstanding! I have it bookmarked! I agree with you: There is absolutely no way for God to be in time, or constrained in any way to linear time, or any other concept of time.
I'm still working away at that metaxy piece. I've had a few distractions crop up, but I hope too finish it over the weekend. Working title: Cosmology, Ancient and Modern. Hope to post it soon!
Thank you so much for this outstanding essay!
If God exists in a universe with more than one dimension of time, he can easily violate every rule about our sequential time system without raising an eyebrow.
Yep. It's the typical time travel paradox. The author of the above states categorically that God can not make a decision and then undo it. Which is balderdash.
God could very well have made a universe where the sky was green and the sun blue, then gone back and made it like ours. To those of us inside of creation it would be to us as if the sky had always been blue.
SD
This statement makes no sense.
If we, rather, imagine God to be the Master and Creator of time, He can easily act "once" (for lack of a better word) to fulfill all of His interaction with the created world.
So what is God doing with the rest of his time? If God chose to predestine absolutely everything, why even bother going through the effort of the creation? This assumption of yours is nothing more than idle speculation.
We will experience these interactions sequentially as we move through time. But God, who is not limited to time, and can see and know all things and all times, can simply act from eternity in a single action.
Really? Then please explain how the Biblical account of creation took six days, with God resting on the seventh, fits within your assumptions. Seems to me that God was operating within time to me.
It also seems to me that such a position would also mean that the sequence of events would not be relevant. This is absurd on its face. Christ was not conceived, born, grow up, start his ministry, crucified, died, buried, rise again, and ascend into heaven all at the same moment.
God is a God of order and not disorder, and if man is made in the image of God, it would seem reasonable to me to think that God operates within time since man clearly thinks within time. I also think it is a bit of a stretch to use the phrase "God created time" when it seems reasonable to me that time is simply a characteristic of the nature of the world; and like God, has always existed. To think that time did not always exist would lead a reasonable person to question whether God always existed.
Why would one assume that God acted, and then waited to see what happened, and then acted again, and waited again, etc.? This means God has to wait, and if God has to wait, then He is not perfect unto Himself. He is unfulfilled while He is idling waiting for our next action.
God certainly has a plan for mankind, but doesn't the Bible say that God is patient, desiring that all be saved? I think God spends a lot of time waiting for men to turn to him and be obedient. I suppose God is often saddened by the actions of men, but I think he rejoices a lot, as well.
I'm so excited about your forthcoming metaxy article. And I love that title, "Cosmology, Ancient and Modern"!
This statement makes no sense.
Evidently.
If we, rather, imagine God to be the Master and Creator of time, He can easily act "once" (for lack of a better word) to fulfill all of His interaction with the created world.
So what is God doing with the rest of his time?
Sigh. God is eternal. He is outside of time. Saying "what does God do with His time" is nonsensical. God is. He exists.
Try to think of it as if you were a filmmaker. You can conceive the entire idea for the story of the film in one moment of inspiration. You don't have to sit around and wait for the story to unfold in real time before you decide what is going to happen next. And if you want to go back and change the opening credits, you can do so. You exist outside of the time frame of the movie. You are its creator.
If God chose to predestine absolutely everything, why even bother going through the effort of the creation?
I never said God "predestines" everything, though in a way He does. It is simply that God interacts with creation in a manner in which He is not limited to the time we experience.
This assumption of yours is nothing more than idle speculation.
And yours isn't? LOL
But God, who is not limited to time, and can see and know all things and all times, can simply act from eternity in a single action.
Really?
Yes, really.
Then please explain how the Biblical account of creation took six days, with God resting on the seventh, fits within your assumptions. Seems to me that God was operating within time to me.
Yes, it seems to you that way. You and I are in time. Of course it seems that way to us. That's what I am saying. Sheesh!
It also seems to me that such a position would also mean that the sequence of events would not be relevant. This is absurd on its face. Christ was not conceived, born, grow up, start his ministry, crucified, died, buried, rise again, and ascend into heaven all at the same moment.
Not in time, no. But to God, all things, all times are the same.
God is a God of order and not disorder, and if man is made in the image of God, it would seem reasonable to me to think that God operates within time since man clearly thinks within time.
Rather, since you think within time, you think it is reasonable to think that God must share your limitations. Doesn't Scripture tell us that God's thoughts are not ours?
I fear you still are not understanding. Yes, to us God operates within our time, sequentially. That does not mean, to a Being outside of time, that this is necessarily the case.
I also think it is a bit of a stretch to use the phrase "God created time" when it seems reasonable to me that time is simply a characteristic of the nature of the world; and like God, has always existed.
The "nature of the world" has always existed? God didn't create it?
God created everything. Period. There are no "natures" or "ideas" that existed prior to God creating the universe.
To think that time did not always exist would lead a reasonable person to question whether God always existed.
Only a "reasonable" person who takes time and "nature" as given absolutes, rather than considering God to be such.
SD
God's value and worth is beyond judgement! It is to be acknowledged and praised, not tried in the balance by men!
The fact that God is an uncreated eternal being and has all power does not give Him any praise worthiness or value.
This is garbage. If this were true, then God would not be self-sufficient. He is glorious in and of Himself. He needs no one and no thing to praise Him. He is glorious, whatever He does or does not do and does or does not create.
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.
Who, besides God, decides what is inappropriate? Is there some standard higher than God by which to judge inappropriateness? Will the pot stand in judgement of the potter?
No reason to continue any further with this piece of rubbish of an article.
In describing our four dimensional perception of the physical realm, I used the examples of lines and drew an imaginary cube in motion. In reality, space/time has a topology which is not smooth, level planes.
Einstein arrived at his theory of relativity by thought experiments which visualized space/time geometrically. Gravity should be seen as an indentation in space/time. Objects which arrive within a horizon of greater gravity will orbit downwards. Likewise, that same object would have to accelerate to an escape velocity to leave the indentation.
This is most obvious within the event horizon of a black hole. Even light does not have the velocity to escape its enormous gravity. For a graphic explanation of this geometry: Schwarzschild Geometry
Conversely, because space/time outdents in the vacuum of space would cause acceleration of the universe they may indeed be the mysterious “dark energy” which cannot be detected under laboratory conditions. Indeed, gravity may be so small compared to the other fields because it is inter-dimensional. Two Branes are Better than One
But I digress…
The bottom line is that because of this geometry, time passes slowly in the presence of gravity. A week near a black hole may be 40 years on earth, etc. Spacetime Wheel (see bottom chart).
This effect is particularly significant with regard to Genesis 1 because of the Inflationary model (i.e. the universe is expanding.) The following excerpt is from an article written by a Jewish Physicist. The article itself is thick on interpreting the Genesis passages:
The way these two figures match up is extraordinary. I'm not speaking as a theologian; I'm making a scientific claim. I didn't pull these numbers out of hat. That's why I led up to the explanation very slowly, so you can follow it step-by-step. Now we can go one step further. Let's look at the development of time, day-by-day, based on the expansion factor. Every time the universe doubles, the perception of time is cut in half. Now when the universe was small, it was doubling very rapidly. But as the universe gets bigger, the doubling time gets exponentially longer. This rate of expansion is quoted in "The Principles of Physical Cosmology," a textbook that is used literally around the world.
(In case you want to know, this exponential rate of expansion has a specific number averaged at 10 to the 12th power. That is in fact the temperature of quark confinement, when matter freezes out of the energy: 10.9 times 10 to the 12th power Kelvin degrees divided by (or the ratio to) the temperature of the universe today, 2.73 degrees. That's the initial ratio which changes exponentially as the universe expands.)
The calculations come out to be as follows:
The second day, from the Bible's perspective lasted 24 hours. From our perspective it lasted half of the previous day, 4 billion years.
The third day also lasted half of the previous day, 2 billion years.
The fourth day - one billion years.
The fifth day - one-half billion years.
The sixth day - one-quarter billion years.
But there's more. The Bible goes out on a limb and tells you what happened on each of those days. Now you can take cosmology, paleontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world, and see whether or not they match up day-by-day. And I'll give you a hint. They match up close enough to send chills up your spine.
Really?
Yes, really.
In all respect, the question is not what He can do in some hypothetical sense that our minds could imagine, but what does the biblical data suggest that He can and did do. It appears to me that the biblical data suggests that He acts linearly and sequentially.
Yes, in our frame of reference, which is inside of time.
It's really a simple question. Do you think God is time's master or servant? Is God constrained by time? Is it a limit on Him?
Phrase the question however you like. It is not consistent, to me, with the Biblical revelation of an all-mighty Being to consider this Being subject to the limitations of something He Himself created.
SD
"What is the purpose of discussing time as it relates to God? Doesn't the Bible start with "In the beginning" and isn't God eternal and "from everlasting to everlasting"? And isn't Jesus Christ the focal point of all of human history? This all seems so obvious to me that there really isn't much, if anything, to add that is worthwhile stating; or am I missing something?"
It seems to me this discussion involves much speculation on both sides. I would make comments on several of your statements, but I simply don't look at the matter of whether God is within time or outside of time to be interesting enough to devote further effort on my part. I am not trying to say others shouldn't discuss it; just that it is not of any real compelling interest to me.
Have a great day.
While I accept scripture without hesitation, my mind often asks, "How did that happen?" For example: 2 Kings 6:15-17 reads: "When an attendant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. His servant said, “Alas, master! What shall we do?” He replied, “Do not be afraid, for there are more with us than there are with them.” Then Elisha prayed: “O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the LORD opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw; the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha."
I'm just intrigued by dimensions of time, space, and what appears to be parallel realities. Just me, but I can't help but say "Yes, Lord," and "What's going on?"
On one hand he says that God out of neccessity knows everything there is to know or can be known, but then on the other hand, he says God doesn't and can't know the future because the future has yet to be.
Contrary to his philosophy, time is a dimension of the creation. The terms "eternal" and "God is time" are mutually exclusive. Eternal means, without time, or timeless. Even in the created universe there are examples of there not being "time" as a dimension, such as inside a blackhole, or for any thing traveling at the speed of light, where time essentially stands still or stops operating.
I find his article to be dogmatic without substantiation and void of reason, as well as flying in the face of Scripture.
While it is certainly true that our frame of reference is inside time, the real problem for the 'eternity as timelessness' view (as shown by the article posted by The Grammarian at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1072809/posts) is that the biblical data repeatedly show God acting in time as His frame of reference, i.e. doing things in succession, changing His mind after intervening acts, and then citing intervening events as a reason for the revision.
One of the points in my post 34 is that our vision and minds are limited to three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. We are “blind” to extra spatial and temporal dimensions, as well as spacelessness and timelessness even though it is known to be the initial condition of the beginning.
Later, at post 53, I posed these two questions with this blindness and the issue you raise in mind:
My two cents…
The risk here is that what we really are saying is that the words used by the inspired authors are 'anthropomorphic' (which, of course, those authors could not see or understand) and can thus be essentially disregarded as to their common-sense meaning, but that we, living in more enlightened times, can see them as such and speak of such elevated concepts as 'timelessness', etc. This raises a lot of issues such as 'inerrancy' versus 'infallibility'with other, wider 'factual' errors sneaking into the inspired text, which can in turn start us on a slippery slope, looking for 'anthropomorphic' formulations (which are, so it goes, simply inaccurate).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.