On Mon, 10 Jan 2000 21:37:34 -0500 "James W Stark"
<stark2301@voyager.net> writes:
>
> Could someone explain the logic of interpretation that asserts time
> was
> created? "In the beginning" implies the beginning position of a
> sequence of
> events in time. It does not appear to assert that the position has
> to be
> zero for time. What was created was space and matter. Does the act
> of
> creation, itself, not imply the necessity of time before creation
> and a time
> after creation? What am I missing in that logic?
>
> Here too I see no logic that says God is outside of time. Time could
> have
> always existed along with God.
>
> Jim stark
The basic reason for separating God's existence from time is that time
requires change. In all our experience, time, space and matter are
concomitant, because we are created in a space-time continuum with
mass-energy the area where we notice change. The Eternal is not part of
this universe, being its creator. Otherwise we get into some version of
pantheism, such as the Whiteheadian process theology which is currently
popular among liberal "theists." Theirs is a god who (which ?) can be
surprised by events he (it ?) did not foresee.
George Murphy will not agree with my view, for he thinks that the
crucifixion changed God. I think this view is one product of
Melanchthon's Aristotelianism which spoiled Lutheranism. (I hold that
Aristotle loused up Plato, as Thomas did Augustine. Calvin stuck with
Plato and Augustine, but Luther's Augustinianism was diluted.) I hold
that Malachi 3:6 is unconditional. The crucifixion changed our
relationship with the deity because we are in time, but did not change
God's eternal purpose. The problem in communicating this to us is that we
are so totally temporal that we do not have language to match
timelessness. The use of the past tense and "beginning" in the first
verse of John reflects the eternal Sonship, not a time before the
creation.
Hebrew scholars tell me that Genesis 1:1 may be translated either "in the
beginning God created" or "when God began to create." So it does not
prove _creatio ex nihilo_. Hebrews 11:3 does better. But what I am giving
is not based on a simple exegesis of scripture, but on a theological and
philosophical construction within strict orthodoxy.
Dave
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