TIME: What is time and when did time start?

Biblical Theology ^ | Biblical Theology

[The Grammarian]

I am aware that you think so.

Then why did you ask me whether I believed time was 'part of his nature'?

I just don't think it is fitting for an allmighty to be limited in this way. You are confusing how He reveals Himself to us, in time, with how He truly is.

Am I? How would you know? The only revelation he's given us strictly relates itself to time.

Do you believe, then, that Time is an uncreated thing?

Only insofar as any other divine attribute (e.g., mercy, wisdom, etc.).

[SoothingDave]

Only insofar as any other divine attribute (e.g., mercy, wisdom, etc.).

How is "time" a "divine attribute"? Is God the perfection of time? Is He the source of time? Is He time personified?

What is this all supposed to mean? How is "time" an attribute of God in the same way "mercy" might be?

SD

[winstonchurchill]

Sigh. We might as well say that God is a circle, He could not be a sphere, cause He has revealed Himself to us, in our 2 dimensinal world, as such. I appreciate your tenacity, but we must also understand that God is not the Bible. The Bible reveals Truth, but it is not the totality Truth.

Responsive sigh. The Bible is not exhaustively true (it does not tell us ALL truth), but it is intensively true (what it does tell us IS intensively true). Thus, God might not describe His nature to us (because, let us say, we could not understand 'spheres'), but He would not say He was a circle while being a sphere.

Thus, God would not say He was acting in response to what had gone before in time if He was not in fact doing so.

In short, He might well be silent, but He would not lie to us. That's why the proof from the Bible is relevant - and dispositive -- notwithstanding your (or my) guess as to His 'frame of reference.'

[smonk]

index !

[ladyinred]

This is way too deep for me. Reminds me of things I used to think about as a child, and I would drive myself nuts with wondering!

[1L]

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

This nonsense assumes God can only think like man. If that were true, he wouldn't be called "God." We need to quit with this simple minded notion that things must make sense to us (meaning, to man) or it is either untrue or has something wrong with it. After reading this, ask your computer to tell you how it was created. Then the coke can you just finished drinking. Then the chair you are sitting on.

When you get an answer, call me.

[xzins]

about what?

:>)

[Parableman]

Just to be clear, where is your evidence that Edwards and Clarke held to a temporal God? An expert in early modern philosophers told me that virtually all early modern philosophers assumed an atemporal God, so this would surprise me. Edwards even goes so far as to say "there is no succession in God's knowledge" (The Freedom of the Will, Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1996, 144), which was cited in footnote 9 here if you want an online source. Timelessness is often defined in terms of no succession in God's thoughts, so it seems Edwards did think God outside time. It's true that he didn't think Boethius had solved the foreknowledge problem by thinking of God outside time, but that doesn't mean Edwards didn't himself think God outside time. It just means he didn't think it was enough to solve the foreknowledge problem. His compatibilism solves that. That doesn't mean God is in time.