TIME
Is timelessness biblical?
Does scripture support time as being created and had a beginning?
For this thread, my position is that time is not created but has always been and always will be.
Perhaps an opening question could be ..... Would there be any purpose at all that would make it necessary for GOD to have the capability to back into the past or to go into the future?
Anthropomorphism
A form of Personification, but slightly different.
Anthropomorphism is the art of placing human characteristics onto non-human objects or beings.
For this study it is the art of placing human characteristics on GOD in scripture --- GOD is said to have eyes, arms, hands, hair, etc.
The argument sometimes arises that this is a means GOD uses in scripture to "dumb down" what is really happening so that humans can better understand it by having a visual imagery of things we are accustomed to seeing.
Along with this argument is that GOD cannot have arms, eyes, hair, etc., so even though He is spoken of with those terms, we are not to REALLY think of Him as having these characteristics.
They don't like the idea of thinking of GOD in any form at all, much less as similar to man.
For this thread, my position is that being similar to man IS how we are to envision GOD.
And my question would be "Why shouldn't we envision GOD as similar to a man" if that is the very imagery He provides us with?
*** I have included both these subjects in the same thread because in some theology groups these are used often and have some overlap to express what GOD is and how He operates, although they can also be talked about in this thread separately.
It is to keep another thread from going down an off-topic rabbit hole. ***
Chose your poison and go with it!
I appreciate your topic choice! And joining the two together is not a bad idea, as the references to God acting in time would have to be anthropomorphic if God is wholly outside of time.
The definition of "time" seems so necessary here, yet it eludes our grasp.
"Sequence" makes sense to our minds--if one thing is done "before" another, then time is assumed, as "before" is a time word. But, is the "before" anthropormorphic. Does God have the ability to do things that seem sequential without having to do them in sequence.
For instance, if the Father and the Son have an eternal relationship in the Godhead, but they made a covenant regarding the Son's sacrifice for humankind, it is outside our ability to comprehend that mankind was really created at the same "time" as the covenant, especially when we read: "in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began," [Tit 1:2 NKJV]
Or in the KJV: "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;" [Tit 1:2 KJV]
The promise could not have been to any human, but only to each other. The phrase "before the world began" and "before time began" are not too far off from each other, but the second is counterintuitive, as it references a time (sequence) outside of ("before") time.
Another possible interpretation of "time" is according to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which essentially says that disorder ("entropy") is increasing. God is not a God of disorder, and an eternal God could not increase forever in disorder. Thus, God is not affected by time in the same way that we are. This leads me to think that God is "inside of" or interacting with time, but is not affected by time--He doesn't get old, for instance.
I've heard the suggestion before that at the fall, the universe experienced a shift in the laws of thermodynamics, where the 2nd law was introduced for the first time. I don't know that such makes sense, but it is an interesting perspective. Thus, before the fall, there was "evening and morning" signifying a passage of time, but not entropy, allowing for an eternal creation, and humans could still live forever.
