Oh, boy! Please explain what did this "time" measure? Don't you know that eternity is "timelessness?"
Time measures a reality, an existence. Just as Dr. E. said, God existed before He created. The alternative is that creation is itself eternal just as God is. The Bible just doesn't say that. The Bible says "In the beginning", YET we know that God HAS no beginning. Ergo, God existed before creation. I'm no temporal physicist, but this seems pretty basic to me. :)
We all believe in God, but God doesn’t “exist”, FK. Before existence, there is God. “...this seems pretty basic to me. :)”
Interesting concepts, FK. God created the world (gave it 'existence') but God remained in the unchanghing eternity. We assign existence to the created; we can't assing the same characteristic to the uncreated.
Yet, the bible tells us that God is "active" and activity is incompatible with changelessness.
Time measures change or, as Aristotle would put it "motion".
Think about what a clock is. It's an attempt to make an obsesvable closed system (so that the clock isn't affected by things outside it) in which something happens (and something else counts the thing that happens - but that's not essential, We could hire a grad student do the counting for us if the system is observable.)
Since, as much as possible, the cause of what happens is constance (closed system) therefore the manner of it's happening should be similarly constant.
But it depends on change/motion, on something happening.
That's why it's hard to apply the concept of time to a situation in which there is nothing but the changeless/immovable God. Which is why it seems simpler to think that time began with the first act of creation.
Just for your amusement. I owe it all toe Aristotle.