Thanks
The Bible is filled with evidence that God experiences time sequentially just like we do. What is lacking from the Bible is any evidence whatsoever that God created time or is not experiencing one event after another event and so on. The burden is on folks like you to demonstrate where in the Bible it portrays God as being in some sort of eternal "now".
I propose to you that this sort of evidence is one that is highly influenced by the preconceptions of the reader. To me, the passages that are always given as proof texts for the Open View are obvious evidence of how God "stoops" to interact with us or examples of metaphor, parallelism, poetry, or such like. Also to me, words like "In the beginning" are loaded with the implication that time was a part of the creation; and prophesy (another part of this thread which I may join later) is - again
to me - obviously used on multiple occations merely to demonstrate the uniqueness of God's ability to transcend time.
So when you say that there is no evidence, you begin to sound like an evolutionist arguing against creationism. The message of the evidence is in the ear of the listener, so to speak.
You are making the common mistake of confusing the concept of time (i.e., one event follows another event and so on) with the measurement of time (i.e., e=mc2)
I don't think so. The way I understand it, astronomers presume that prior to the beginning, there was something
completely different than the universe in which we reside, but since I'm no physicist nor astronomer, I'll let it go.
In the beginning wasn't the beginning of everything right?? Clearly you don't think God, love, mercy, judgment and a dozen other things were created "in the beginning" do you?? Likewise, time wasn't created "in the beginning".
Clearly God wasn't created in the beginning - the fourth word, after all is "God," so we have only God in the beginning (which includes all His attributes - love, mercy, judgment, thought, etc). But if we go from the very true notion that God and His attributes existed before the beginning to the notion that 'Likewise, time wasn't created "in the beginning"', we've stretched the point beyond reason. We could just as easily assert that dirt pre-existed the beginning - you know, since love did.
The creation account is rather clear and nowhere in the creation account does God mention creating time (which of course would be irrational). So... tell me... on what day did God create time? :idunno:
At the very moment upon which He created it on day one: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" is all about God creating the entire universe, time included. That God is seen creating sequentially at this point is not surprising. Since He'd created time for our universe, why should He not then be able to act within it as well as beyond it (whatever that means in His greater-than-my-ways way of doing/seeing things, my lower-than-His-thoughts mind can't grasp)?
God created us in His image. From beginning to end the Bible is filled with evidence that God experiences one event after another event and so on, He created, then He rested, He came in the flesh, and later said "it is finished". If God is stuck in the "eternal now" He could never had the change to be creative, to think, to design, to "bring to pass". If God is stuck in the eternal now He is nothing more than a static being that is less capable than we are.
I don't think that this idea of "eternal now" is a very clear picture of how God experiences anything - so on that we agree. I must tell you, I don't know
how God transcends time, I just know that He does, partly because prophesy is given by Jesus Himself as a unique attribute of God, partly because the Scriptures as a whole describe
for me (that is from my perspective) a God who knows all things for all times and all places. A God who can transcend time is a bigger God to me than one who cannot.
I never asserted that God can't see more than we can see and hear more than we can hear (please don't put words in my mouth).
Sorry. Didn't mean to do that at all.
God can see everything that is happening right now and has seen everything that has ever happened in the past. But that doesn't mean He doesn't see things in a rational order. He is after all, the living God.
That God can see the present doesn't negate His seeing the future and the past. Our limited perspective on "rationality" cannot possibly give us a clear picture of Almighty God. His thoughts are higher than ours, His ways greater than ours, why should this not include the ability to transcend time - even if we don't really understand what that is, but only what it
looks like from our temporal world (like seeing the future that hasn't yet happened), and what it means for us: that He knows the outcome of all, that we are in the hand of the One who can "look ahead" in order to guide us in the way we are to go? I am much comforted by the time-transcendant God never being caught off-guard, never being surprised, while still being delighted in us, calling us the apple of His eye.
