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>From: dfsiemensjr@juno.com
>To: stark2301@voyager.net
>Subject: Re: concordism/time
>Date: Tue, Jan 11, 2000, 12:27 PM
>
> 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.
I agree, Dave. We are created IN that concomitant. That does not prevent
time from extending beyond it.
>The Eternal is not part of this universe, being its creator.
This Universe is space and matter. The space-time continuum is a convenient
mathematical structuring that has all kinds of problems because we do not
allow for the irreversibility of time in those equations. Prigogine is
attempting to do so. Nothing stops anyone from allowing time to be always
existent with God.
>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.
You point out one of the problems of assuming no creation for time. The
problem returns to a choice of what fundamental assumptions will allow us to
build a worldview that has a minimum of internal contradictions. Assuming
the nature of God who would be fixed and all-knowing is another assumption
to start with. The two assumptions are obviously incompatible. The
challenge to us is the selection of assumptions that will build a worldview
that is the closest to God's truth. The strongest trait for God, that we
should all accept from the Bible, is that God is the truth. Does the Bible
say that God is all knowing and all powerful, or was it some church father
solving the cultural problems of h/h time?
> 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.
>
Such is the challenge of interpreting the crucifixion. God designed each of
us to be capable of creating a unity out of a sample of reality. We do it
daily with our vision. We sample reality with our eyes and conceive a whole.
We are capable of doing this for any sample of reality that we take, even
our worldviews. The deeper challenge is the selection of the fundamental
assumptions. The crucifixion comes much later.
> 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
Where ought our sources of authority be? Relying on orthodoxy or tradition
is a choice. The fundamental sources of authority will remain to be reason
and revelation. We just need better means of testing the revelation that
underlies our assumptions.
Jim Stark
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