The Timelessness of God
- Thread starter Jerry Shugart
- Start date
Jerry, my argument is based on what the verse says.
It would not even matter if you wanted to spiritualize it or take it literally, as far as the grammar is concerned.
Spiritualizing it would only tell us that now GOD knows Abe's spiritual heart.
That word now is gonna give ya trouble, Jerry.
I know you like to diagram sentences with tenses and such,
Take a stab at it.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
Unless you want to argue that the LORD did not know the heart of Abraham before he offered up his son then you can argue that the verse should be taken in a literal sense.
Are you willing to argue that?
Right Divider
Body part
Units assigned to the duration of known physical phenomenon (the rotation of the earth) are arbitrary, but not time itself. You've got a categorical error.
We actually measure time in the material world and we find that it's intimately connected to space. The two are not distinct, but are part of a singular time-space continuum.
Time is not an idea, but an attribute of the material world.
Right Divider
Body part
The point that I was making is that the Bible frequently uses anthropomorphic terminology to communicate about God to man.
We, as humans living in the time-space continuum, have a difficult time putting things into language. Especially things related to the Almighty.
nikolai_42
Well-known member
I think what is meant by that is really that man cannot undo events after they have happened. Time itself is more of an illusion (lunchtime doubly so...) in the sense that we call it time when it is more of a recognition of what science calls entropy and what is associated with (irreversible) change. Lock yourself (without any timepiece) in a small room for days, months and years on end and the only indication of time you may have for a long time is that you get hungry, tired and bored.
So I take it that the idea that God is "timeless" is (actually) more that He is "changeless". Which is straight out of scripture. But to be timeless in the way you want to make Him is, I think, a misnomer. I think more accurately He permeates all time.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Revelation 1:8
When I read that, I don't read a God who exists outside of time, but is intimately connected with it at all points. Without getting too mystical, He exists everywhere at all places and time. He knows each one of our frames - down to the very number of hairs on each head. David said "Though I make my bed in hell, You are there" (Psalm 139:8). So to hold God as "timeless" in the sense you describe would, I think, make Him more Deistic than anything.
One of the best illustrations (I think) of how we should think about these things is found in the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Here, in a single picture at a single point in time (so to speak) is represented (in some detail) a succession of empires that span hundreds - even thousands - of years. That image is only revealed in time over that many calendric turnovers - but is seen, known and understood by God both before it is revealed and in every detail (as it is revealed). We can get a dim vision of how such a thing is so by comparing it to dragging some 3D object "through" a sheet of paper. If we were to live on that sheet, we would only see a "paper-thick" slice of that object as it is dragged through the plane of the sheet. Living in a 2D world, it would be impossible to understand (at least relate to) what time is in a 3D sense. I take that as a poor reflection of what our understanding of God and His timelessness is.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
I can not understand that since nothing which I said even hints that the the subject is in regard to the impossibility of undoing events after they have already happened.
Could you please explain the connection which you see in that regard to what I said?
Thanks!
Again, this is an unsubstantiated claim that you have no means to substantiate whatsoever. Even if you could prove that man cannot know some specific thing about the future, you have no means whatsoever to establish that this lack of ability has anything to do with being constrained by time nor that such a lack of ability would also be true of God.
What I think is entirely irrelevant to your argument. What is relevant is the fact that it's primary premise is unsubstantiated.
I've never made any such claim. The burden of proof is not on me. You have made an argument and I have shown the flaw in that argument and then I declared the end from the very beginning. I predicted in my first post on this thread - before you had even seen it to be able to read or react to it - that the refutation of both your argument and your position itself wouldn't move you an inch. And I'm just a mere mortal! Amazing!
I don't understand the point that you're making and so I'm not sure how to respond.
I highlighted the word "about" in your post to show where you are tacitly acknowledging that the fact that a day has 24 hours isn't precisely correct and that therefore the number 24 is arbitrary. The reasons for why there are 24 hours in a day or why 60 minutes in an hour or 60 seconds in a minute or 7 days in a week all have to do with matters of convenience or tradition or other such reasons. All such time measurements could easily have been quite different than they are. If God has created for seven days and rested on the eighth, then we'd all be working off an eight-day week and would think it weird to contemplate a seven day week. In fact, just about the only aspect of our current time keeping that isn't totally arbitrary is the length of the month which is ROUGHLY the length of a lunar cycle but the fact that months even exist is somewhat arbitrary. I mean months are useful for discussing particular parts of the year and all but the point is that there is no NEED for months. We could have chosen to ignore the lunar cycle and time would have still moved right along and we would have measured it some other way.
I know things that will happen in the future.
Example, you cry? Sure. You will disagree with me.
Einstein bugs the crap out of me. You never can bring this topic up without someone bringing up the self-contradictory idea of Einstein's "space-time".
Suffice it to say the following three things.
1. Einstein's theories are called theories (i.e. rather than laws) for a reason.
2. Even if Einstein's theories ever were to become laws, (which they won't) the sort of time he is talking about is not synonymous with the "time" in the way we are discussing it here. Even in Einstein's most esoteric theoretical mind experiments where "time" slows down for one thing relative to another or whatever, nothing ever - EVER - leaves the present moment. All that exists, exists now.
3. "Science" based on pure mathematics is one of the places where science went off the rails. You can make nearly anything you want "work" if you constrain yourself to mathematics. Math and reality are not always the same thing.
There are several other threads where I go into this in great detail. Here's one of the best ones...
Summit Clock Experiment 2.0: Time is Absolute
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
Greetings Clete,
Perhaps we have a different understanding of the meaning of the word "constraint." I am using that word in the sense of "the state of being restricted," or to confine within bounds.
As mere creatures we are restricted from traveling into the future so in that sense we are "constrained" by time. In fact, we cannot have a definite knowledge of very specific things which will happen in the future, such as knowing who will believe the gospel and who will not.
That is what I mean when I am talking about the fact that we are constrained by time. But the LORD is not so constrained (Acts 13:48) so we can know that the environment in which He exists, the eternal state, is one which can be described as being timeless.
I have used the same method which Paul used (he reasoned out of the Scriptures) in coming to my conclusion. If you think that anything which I said is in error then I will be willing to listen to what you may have to say.
Thanks!
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Right Divider
Body part
You skipped over the point about the fact that the UNITS are arbitrary but the actual MEASUREMENT is not. Much of our modern technology would not even work without the measurement of time.
Time is not an idea, it is attribute of the physical, material world.
Also, I did NOT bring up Einstein. There are many others that also see the connection. And I honestly did NOT have Einstein in mind when I brought it up.
[MENTION=2589]Clete[/MENTION],
I have a sarcastic way about me, and I was trying to feel you out.
However,
This thread is on time (timelessness of God), and you said that the 24 hour day was irrelevant. I fully assert biblical counter argument.
Genesis 1:5
My seemingly wisecracking submission of my last 2 comments were tied to your statement that the "measure" of time is just an idea and the universes provision of tracking time is irrelevant. For us, according to the inspiration of God, through Moses, in the book of Genesis, there is a distinct purpose for the "measure" of time in God's plans for the "fading" universe.
Edited in addition... The wise men were kin to astrologers and they knew that God was going to join with humanity. They read the stars and writings about the stars to understand this. This shows that God intended us to conceptualize time in a very important way.
I also submit that the concept of time travel is based on anomalies of Einsteins theory of relativity. This seems whacky... but...
Before you jump on the idea that Einestein isn't valid, note that physicists are now experiencing mysteries in the "micro" (particle) aspect of physics that are pointing to time being a type of "dimension" that assists in the allocation of space and the universe. If you go into the concept of a teseract...
#
...You will find that complex math, Physics and Astro-physics are repeatedly pointing to the fading universe being subject to a mysterious observer that is beyond the fading universe that is "bound to the decay of death."
The ephemeral keeps showing itself subject to something infinite. This is a debate point for the scientific proof of the existence of God.
It also shows that God intended us to conceptualize time, though, He Himself is outside of it.
# Conjecture, but stoutly supportable conjecture.
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Right Divider
Body part
Logic is not a physical entity. There are a number of things like that, including numbers.
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He definitely created our ability to comprehend its concept.
Spock... simply "owns" the copyright© to it.
But logic does exist, right?
Did it have a beginning or has it always been?
Right Divider
Body part
No doubt.
Good question.... how about the same question about numbers?
Have numbers always existed?
Time is proven to be a part of the physical, material world. Those other things are not.
Nang
TOL Subscriber
God is a God of order and logic is orderly thought. All of creation exhibits the logic and orderliness ("ordinance") inherent to God.
Being made in His image, we possess logical intellectual facilities.
Hopefully!