Proof from the Bible that God is In Time

[Guyver]

Open thread because you are confusing the unique measures of time after creation (sun, moon, stars, clocks, watches, sundials, hourglasses, etc.) with time itself (which is not dependent on measures and marches on with or without clocks). Time (duration) existed in the uncreated triune relations from eternity past, even before clocks subjectively measured it.

Ps. 90:2; Ps. 102:27; Rev. 1:4; Rev. 1:8; verses in Revelation about time in eternity/heaven, etc. are biblical support. Enyart has responded to the few timeless proof texts that say no such thing (I AM does not mean timeless, but eternality, self-existence, etc. An endless time God is as eternal as a timeless one, whatever that would mean).

Is time something that can be measured Godrulz?

Is God someone who can be measured Godrulz?

By definition, time is something that can be measured. therefore God is greater than time and therefore exists outside it. If you want to keep the thread open and continue the discussion, that's fine.

I'm out. Thread closed for me.

 

[godrulz]

Is time something that can be measured Godrulz?

Is God someone who can be measured Godrulz?

By definition, time is something that can be measured. therefore God is greater than time and therefore exists outside it. If you want to keep the thread open and continue the discussion, that's fine.

I'm out. Thread closed for me.

You are not been logical with your non sequiturs. Instead of looking at the strength and weakness of various views that you apparently are not aware of or do not understand, you parrot your party line.

Time is something that can be measured. Sugar can be measured, but it exists whether you measure it or not. The concept and reality of time and sugar is not identical to various measures of it. Whether we measure sugar or not, it still exists. Even before our measures of time, time as a concept existed forever (it is not a created thing like sugar).

God cannot be measured. Using your logic, God cannot think, act, or feel because they can be measured in a sense. Love and time are co-eternal with God. They are aspects of His experience. God is infinite spirit. You are confusing categories and coming up with a false parallel/analogy.

Your definition of time as measured confuses the various measures of time with the fundamental concept of it. Even if you don't measure succession, it still happens. Even if a tree falls in the forest, it makes a sound whether you are there to hear it or not.

Is God greater than love or is love part of God's reality/experience/expression? The eternal God must think, act, feel in sequence to be personal. This is exactly what we see on every page of Scripture. What we don't ever see is your Platonic timeless concept that you would be hard pressed to explain logically, biblically, in light of God's interactions with the temporal world.

You seem totally unaware of the complexity/simplicity and ongoing detailed debate on these issues. You have adopted a Sunday School version without thinking critically, academically, biblically.

 

[Lon]

There is Time in Heaven: When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about HALF AN HOUR (Rev. 8:1).

Er,Bob, if it is a literal half an hour then John was 'literally' there.........
....in the future! Stay consistent, man! Use that God-given brain.

- When He opened the fifth seal [martyrs in heaven said]: "HOW LONG, O Lord… until You… avenge our blood…" (Rev. 6:9; 11:17-18).
- …the tree of life… bore twelve fruits [a different one] EVERY MONTH (Rev. 22:2).

Besides not being consistent, you are also falling into the same incorrect/inconsistent loop as others before you have, and that being: God is relational to time and heaven is relational to it also, which doesn't mean what is assumed, that there is nothing else or no other possibility to existence. It is incorrect to assume that 'relational' means locked-in. That logic just doesn't follow as if it is the only way God can related. God is both relational to, yet unconstrained by time. I can be in Paris and yet fly home anytime I like. Being in Paris doesn't make me French.

- [God will not punish demons] "before [their] time" (Mat. 8:29).
If the TRUE perspective is God's ETERNAL NOW, then David is now killing Bathsheba’s husband, each believer is still in his sin, and the Father is right now pouring out wrath on His Son, right now. But this is false for Hebrews says that Jesus suffered "once for all."

Again, that's just silly. We live in a 'temporal' (created) environment and are finite creatures. The infinite cannot be thought of in terms of the finite and time is one of those logical as well as physically manifested properties. You are trying to say all but time are created properties? That logic just doesn't fly. It is logical that what I make is apart from me. God is no more 'bound' by time than moments of contemplative interaction making and observing the created, than He is bound inside the cookie jar He made. This kind of assertion, no matter where you want to conveniently redirect blame, is elementary or at least freshman.
The above consideration alone, that John is seeing a 'literal' half an hour then would mean it is a 'future literal' half an hour, proves the fact: relational, unconstrained.

For your convenience we have created a short link for this article at http://bit.ly/godandtime

Yeah, I'd think you'd want to wait until such starkly obvious discrepancies as above are adequately addressed before submitting first-drafts as if they are gold or something.

 

[Lighthouse]

Time can be measured, but I don't think that God is limited to physical measurements. God is both in time and outside of time, both eminent and transcendent.

As far as I am aware, matter, energy, space and time are all attributes of the physical universe, but God is Spirit (John 4:24); therefore, God transcends all physicality, including time.

Time is physical? Can you show me that it is? Can you touch it? Taste it? See it? Hear it? Can you smell it?

If God can't see the future, He can't know the consequences of His actions. He also can't guess the consequences of His actions as guessing implies He has the capacity to be wrong. If He can't know or guess the consequences of His actions then He is totally blind and has even less power than a human being, who can at least make some sort of prediction based on the information available to them.

You underestimate God's intelligence.

I am merely human and I can guess the consequences of my actions, how much more can God know the consequences of His own?

If God can see the future, He must be able to see it in its entirety, including the decisions He is going to make. If He exists in time, then He must therefore have made all of those decisions at the beginning of His existence. But His existence didn't have a beginning, therefore he must be seperate from time.

This is circular reasoning.

...before time.

This is an oxymoron.

God is ETERNAL! that means TIMELESS!

No it doesn't.

Time is a function of the sun, moon, and stars. Since God created those things he is definitely outside them....for they could not exist without his creative capability.

No scripture needed.

Close thread.

You might as well be sitting on the sidewalk in rags asking Charles Victor Szasz for change.

 

[OMEGA]

God won't be in time for Xmas 2030 AD

because three days after Xmas

He is going to Destroy the world.

Have a nice day.

 

[zippy2006]

Er,Bob, if it is a literal half an hour then John was 'literally' there.........
....in the future! Stay consistent, man! Use that God-given brain.


Besides not being consistent, you are also falling into the same incorrect/inconsistent loop as others before you have, and that being: God is relational to time and heaven is relational to it also, which doesn't mean what is assumed, that there is nothing else or no other possibility to existence. It is incorrect to assume that 'relational' means locked-in. That logic just doesn't follow as if it is the only way God can related. God is both relational to, yet unconstrained by time. I can be in Paris and yet fly home anytime I like. Being in Paris doesn't make me French.


Again, that's just silly. We live in a 'temporal' (created) environment and are finite creatures. The infinite cannot be thought of in terms of the finite and time is one of those logical as well as physically manifested properties. You are trying to say all but time are created properties? That logic just doesn't fly. It is logical that what I make is apart from me. God is no more 'bound' by time than moments of contemplative interaction making and observing the created, than He is bound inside the cookie jar He made. This kind of assertion, no matter where you want to conveniently redirect blame, is elementary or at least freshman.
The above consideration alone, that John is seeing a 'literal' half an hour then would mean it is a 'future literal' half an hour, proves the fact: relational, unconstrained.

Yeah, I'd think you'd want to wait until such starkly obvious discrepancies as above are adequately addressed before submitting first-drafts as if they are gold or something.

Nice post Lon. Standard Christianity but well explained :thumb:

 

[rainee]

First I have to apologize.
My conscience is sorely bothering me for saying any Pastor or a Forum Admin or any Christian man is full of wicked thoughts. I'm sorry.

Although I do believe people have a fallen nature,
I believe there are good men - men who want to do good and they are not the same as the rapist - indeed they are the men who by their light and salt and love for justice and hatred of perversion and evil work to preserve this world just as The Lord wants them to.

I think one of points Bob Enyart is trying to make with this article is for people to understand the impossibility of statements like "before time".

There is no such thing as "before time". If time was created...then there was time before the creation of time.

I was told once the Hebrew for "In the beginning" in Genesis looks like a house with an entrance to it. So that is how I try to understand what I am reading.

I think: This is God's construct (the creation , the plan for it and us) and this is how He is leading us to look at it (through the Bible.)

So in the beginning God was not vacuuming over the expanse of water but hovering. I ask is this picture of suspended-like inactivity as close as we can get to an idea of no activity but what ever is going on in the mind of God??

So later, when we talk about time are we talking about when God made the sun stand still in the sky for Joshua? Because for Joshua a day was given him that should not have existed - is that time?
I mean it - is that time? What is it?

It appears that by saying God is "in time", Bob is trying to point out that God experiences events sequentially.

Ps 82 also brought this up too and I agree one hundred percent there are definitely stages.

God cannot go back in time because the past does not exist. God cannot go to the future because the future is not a place to go.

This is geek sci fi talk.

We often think of "Heaven" as the place/dimension in which God dwells. The Bible states that "...there was silence in heaven for about half an hour." This contradicts the cliche that there is no time in Heaven.

Well I won't go that far but you have enough there to prove not only are we talking about change in God (Advent of Jesus) and in us - but also in heaven.

 

[rainee]

Ps 82, I read every bit of what you wrote and it is so excellent!

It really irons out some thing clearly!!!

God is in time due to his having chosen to have a relationship with the things he created. God chose to set a process in motion and time began.

Excellent!

One might say that HE entered time when he began to create at a point he initiated and which HE called - "In the beginning."

Interesting - but what do you hold then regarding the Advent?
(For He really did enter time then, yes? Even to the point of birth then growing from a baby to a man.)

Now, this starting point began before the world was ... For our Lord Jesus Christ tells us that he, being the WORD of God, had existed WITH God and shared his glory before the world was and took part in the creation process of everything.

I agree with you that the visible Lord Jesus, the Christ, showed up at a specific time ...but the invisible divine essence called The WORD existed before time the world was.
Time relates to the creation, but God relates to his creation and therefore entered time. Jesus told us that the hitherto the Father worked ... but that he (in his day) also worked. This shows us that God has established a time table ... and when "the times are fulfilled," then HE participates in the next stage by accomplishing certain things. I'm sure everyone is familiar with this phrase: "When the times of the Gentiles is fulfilled."
...

It all began when God created an image, which he would use to manifest his presence in a literal concrete finite manner within his creation. That image is first mentioned in Gen.1:26,27... and it is also mentioned in Colossians 1:15 KJV

quote: (Lord Jesus) who is the IMAGE of the invisible God, the first born of every creature.

Grammatically speaking "IMAGE" is a noun... and the phrase "the first born of every creature" is the antecedent of that noun.

IOW, the IMAGE belonging to God was the first born of EVERY CREATURE.
IOW, God's IMAGE came before any other creature was formed.

We know that His IMAGE already existed before God formed a body for Adam ... because God made Adam visible form after HIS OWN IMAGE and likeness.

I think so too!

Excellent points.

Just how an invisible spiritual infinite, eternal, omni-present, omni-everything God was able to step into a finite creation that moves through stages called TIME is what is interesting.

...


God entered time when he made the way for his appearing within his own creation. God appeared as the glory of the divine LORD Father in OT times ... and again appeared in NT times with a lesser glory of flesh as the divine Lord Jesus, the Son.

Understanding how the IMAGE of God is a created visible presence personally used by God within the creation should give you a whole new revelation when you read this phrase: "Know that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.

IOW, the invisible God was able to have all things existing IN HIM ... while he was also able simultaneously be WITHin his own creation.

Our Lord Jesus was the infinite invisible God appearing on earth - aka Emmanuel.

Wow - that was pretty nearly a psychedelic thought process there for me!

 

[rainee]

This is an oxymoron.

I don't know why this is seen that way to you, but at least I can thank you for not calling me an ox or a moron.

 

[One In Christ]

I don't know why this is seen that way to you, but at least I can thank you for not calling me an ox or a moron.

before time... if time doesn't exist then there can be no before

before assumes time... oxymoron

 

[Ps82]

Rainee said:

Ps 82, I read every bit of what you wrote and it is so excellent!

It really irons out some thing clearly!!!

Excellent!

Interesting - but what do you hold then regarding the Advent?
(For He really did enter time then, yes? Even to the point of birth then growing from a baby to a man.)


Excellent points.

Wow - that was pretty nearly a psychedelic thought process there for me!

Thank you rainee for reading my post and sharing your thoughts. You are so kind. I'm glad that you see some merit in them.

When no one responds I just have no idea whether anyone has even read my post or whether they have - but dismissed it as foolishness. I'm sure that's true of some... BUT is just seems so obvious to me from scripture how things are working. I certainly do not KNOW IT ALL ... but some things seem clear.

 

[Ps82]

God is not bound by time ... but has been willing to participate in TIME and SPACE when it comes to having a relationship with the things and beings he created.

He became intertwined with TIME and SPACE, when he chose to create an IMAGE that he could manifest within his own creation and use for his personal reasons.

God is not the IMAGE ... but has predestined ITS work and purposes... and God has accomplished his will with IT. God literally has marched through TIME and SPACE (OT and NT times ... and perhaps preceding the beginning of the world ... by appearing and working within his own creation (s) with his created IMAGE.

 

[One In Christ]

Time is change... or better yet "stuff happening"

God made stuff happen, so he is definitely in time, as far as we can see.

We cannot exist outside of time, nor can we think or understand what it is like "outside of time". We cannot however just limit God to "inside of time", as He is infinite.

We will never truly understand God's infinite Glory

 

[Ps82]

Hello hoofadoo,

You think:

We cannot however just limit God to "inside of time", as He is infinite.

I agree ... he is inside and outside of time and is in control of the time processes (the stuff that's happening).

You say:

We will never truly understand God's infinite Glory

I agree ... but we can certainly understand a lot more than most people do now. For instance - understanding the GLORY of God.
The term GLORY has a number of definitions and it seems to mean so many different things to so many people. Yet, there is a key for understanding an important truth about 'the GLORY of the LORD.'

The key for me was understanding that God actually did create an IMAGE for his personal use and then used IT within His created realms ... heavenly and earthly. Moses in Exodus 33 asked God to show him His GLORY ... and God agreed and promised to reveal unto Moses "ALL His goodness" IOW, God was not going to hold back any of the excellent GLORY of his presence.

Exodus 34 reveals to us exactly what it is like for ALL of God's excellent GLORY to show up. It was dangerous to be in ITS presence ... and Moses could not look upon it as it approached due to the intensity of the GLORY ... and only after the presence of God began to retreat could Moses look upon ITS back parts more safely.

Through Exodus 34 God reveals that He gave a NAME to his GLORY ... and that He called out that NAME as He passed before Moses. That NAME is - The LORD, The LORD God... abundant in truth, mercy, goodness, ... etc.

 

[Paulos]

Time is not a created thing nor space. It is philosophical, not physical. The measures of time should not be confused with time as a concept of duration/succession/sequence.

The problem with time is that time is relative to the observer:

Time and Relativity

Do you believe that God is relative or absolute? or both?

(eminent and imminent are different words)

Fixed. Thanks for catching that.

 

[godrulz]

God won't be in time for Xmas 2030 AD

because three days after Xmas

He is going to Destroy the world.

Have a nice day.

You too, false prophet/teacher.:noid:

 

[godrulz]

The problem with time is that time is relative to the observer:

Time and Relativity

Do you believe that God is relative or absolute? or both?



Fixed. Thanks for catching that.

You need to put a video of a philosopher, not a physicist. The measures of time, subjective perception of time, relativity (difference with general vs special and not applicable to concept of time), physical issues, etc. are not the main issue in time/eternity/God, especially before material creation.

Einstein was not right about everything and his ideas are being challenged today. Time is not a created thing; it is not a 4th dimension; it should not be confused with space; the distinctions between past/present/future should not be blurred, etc.

Endless time vs timelessness views have responded to the misapplication of relativity theory to the philosophical concept of time as duration/sequence/succession (with or without measures of time).

The effect of clocks from gravity, impossible speed of light travel, etc. is a limited, different issue than the conceptual nature of time that theology is interested in.

Philosophy, not science, will settle the real issues for us, God, reality.

 

[Ps82]

The problem with time is that time is relative to the observer:

Time and Relativity

Do you believe that God is relative or absolute? or both?



Fixed. Thanks for catching that.

Can't watch your video at the moment ... but wondering whether your statement has something to do with this: With God a day is a 1,000 years ... and a 1,000 years is a day. Will watch your video soon.

 

[elohiym]

I think God was in time as Jesus.

Still, I think God is outside time in some sense.

The scriptures seem to reveal both states are possible somehow.

Scientific evidence of human prescience suggests to me that we have a spiritual component to our soul outside of time.

 

[Paulos]

Can't watch your video at the moment ... but wondering whether your statement has something to do with this: With God a day is a 1,000 years ... and a 1,000 years is a day. Will watch your video soon.

2 Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90:4 do seem to be related.

You need to put a video of a philosopher, not a physicist...Philosophy, not science, will settle the real issues for us, God, reality.

There is a temporal realm called the Planck scale, where even attoseconds drag by like eons. It marks the edge of known physics, a region where distances and intervals are so short that the very concepts of time and space start to break down......The problem, in brief, is that time may not exist at the most fundamental level of physical reality. If so, then what is time? And why is it so obviously and tyrannically omnipresent in our own experience? “The meaning of time has become terribly problematic in contemporary physics,” says Simon Saunders, a philosopher of physics at the University of Oxford. “The situation is so uncomfortable that by far the best thing to do is declare oneself an agnostic.”​

Source: http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/in-no-time