The Timelessness of God

JudgeRightly

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What about eternal and everlasting?

What does that mean with regard to time?

Ps 41:13 (AKJV/PCE)
(41:13) Blessed [be] the LORD God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen.

God is.
Eternal and Everlasting are words used to describe an amount of time. They both mean forever.

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JudgeRightly

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I'm not avoiding the question, I'm saying that you misinterpret that verse because you do not have an all knowing God.
If you want to discuss God's omniscience, we can do that in another thread. I asked you a question about your belief that God knows everything that's going to happen and "foretells" it.

So, RD, did God know beforehand and foretell that His people would do such things to their children? Or is God a liar?

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Evil.Eye.<(I)>

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I don't see how 'infinite' can be a contradiction of 'time', because infinite is just another term describing time.
One second, or a million years, or infinity are just words to describe time.

Infinite literally means beyond any scope of measurement. It denotes no beginning and no end.

This is God.

It is impossible for us to fathom this, but it is the case.

If you insert God into the "constraints of time", then you end up with a linear view of God's existence. This is not only impossible to explain, but it creates conundrums that become self defeating.

#Through the lens of supposition and opinion, with all known Physical conceptualization of reality factored in.

#Remember... I enjoy all sides of this topic and have locked in on the side that seems, controversial at this time. : )
 

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If you want to discuss God's omniscience, we can do that in another thread. I asked you a question about your belief that God knows everything that's going to happen and "foretells" it.
Gods omniscience is inseparably connected to His ability to be anywhere and any TIME that He wants.

So, RD, did God know beforehand and foretell that His people would do such things to their children? Or is God a liar?
It seems that you are claiming that God must foretell ALL.... that is not the case.

Do you think that prophecy is just Gods "best guess"?
 

Evil.Eye.<(I)>

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Is the created universe expanding?

This is a whole other box of worms...

The return question is this..... If the "canvas of reality has boundaries", what are beyond them?

Cosmic ornaments, hung from nothing in the midst of nothing are still surrounded by something, thus nothing can't be nothing, but must be something...

# Tee He He
 

Jerry Shugart

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Did God know that His people would sacrifice their children on the altar to Molech? Did He declare/foretell of it before He created the universe we live in?

The LORD knew that they would do that because He exists in the ever present "now". The following explains what that means:

"Much of the difficulty in regard to the doctrine of Predestination is due to the finite character of our mind, which can grasp only a few details at a time, and which understands only a part of the relations between these. We are creatures of time, and often fail to take into consideration the fact that God is not limited as we are. That which appears to us as 'past,' 'present,' and 'future,' is all 'present' to His mind. It is an eternal 'now'...Just as He sees at one glance a road leading from New York to San Francisco, while we see only a small portion of it as we pass over it, so He sees all events in history, past, present, and future at one glance" (Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination [Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1932]).​

In reality the LORD sees everything at one glance. Since there is no before or after with Him the verses which speak of His "foreknowledge" are not to be taken literally.
 

JudgeRightly

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How do you measure "infinite time"?

In seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, millenia. Trying to measure it from the beginning is pointless, because "eternal" means there is no beginning and no end. We humans can only measure from one point in time to another. God alone Has crossed an eternity past, but from the point He casts those who reject Him into the Lake of Fire, He will have us to fellowship with.

For the Bible says that God put eternity into our hearts. He made us to be eternal creatures.

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Evil.Eye.<(I)>

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In seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, millenia. Trying to measure it from the beginning is pointless, because "eternal" means there is no beginning and no end. We humans can only measure from one point in time to another. God alone Has crossed an eternity past, but from the point He casts those who reject Him into the Lake of Fire, He will have us to fellowship with.

For the Bible says that God put eternity into our hearts. He made us to be eternal creatures.

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Ecclesiastes 3:11

# One of the most beautiful verses to be found! Imho
 

JudgeRightly

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Gods omniscience is inseparably connected to His ability to be anywhere and any TIME that He wants.

It seems that you are claiming that God must foretell ALL.... that is not the case.

So if God wanted to, He could go back and experience again His Son dying on the cross?

Do you think that prophecy is just Gods "best guess"?

Do you think that God is dumb? That He does not know how His creation will act? That He cannot make predictions on what He knows?

The omni-'s and im-'s (among other things) of pagan Greek philosophy are partially to blame for the idea that God is outside of time.

Omniscience, according to Greek philosophy, means that God knows everything about everyone and everything, that He knows the future. That means, in addition to God knowing the good things, it also means that he knows the bad. It means that God knows exactly how every child that's ever been victimized by a pedophile feels, how long he was wronged, how he was molested.

It also means that God can't forget anything, yet we see in scripture that God forgets sins. The omniscient God of the Bible according to the Greeks is restricted to pagan philosophy.

Yet from a Christian perspective, God's omniscience means that He can know things, and not know things. For example, God did not know what Adam would name the animals in the Garden, God did not know that Adam and Eve would sin (though He did know it was a possibility, and built into the earth a means of punishment should He need it), He didn't know that His own people would kill their own children, and there are many more things that God did not and could not have known.

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JudgeRightly

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The LORD knew that they would do that because He exists in the ever present "now". The following explains what that means:

"Much of the difficulty in regard to the doctrine of Predestination is due to the finite character of our mind, which can grasp only a few details at a time, and which understands only a part of the relations between these. We are creatures of time, and often fail to take into consideration the fact that God is not limited as we are. That which appears to us as 'past,' 'present,' and 'future,' is all 'present' to His mind. It is an eternal 'now'...Just as He sees at one glance a road leading from New York to San Francisco, while we see only a small portion of it as we pass over it, so He sees all events in history, past, present, and future at one glance" (Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination [Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1932]).​

In reality the LORD sees everything at one glance. Since there is no before or after with Him the verses which speak of His "foreknowledge" are not to be taken literally.

So you and the reformists are calling God a liar? Here's the verse (And yes, God is speaking):

Jeremiah 7:31 (NKJV) "And they have built the high places of Tophet, which*is*in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into My heart."

And the parallel verse later in the book:

Jeremiah 32:35 (NKJV) "'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*to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.’"

So who has more authority on this, the Bible? or Loraine Boettner/Jerry Shugart?

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