From: Jim Armstrong (jarmstro@qwest.net)
Date: Tue Apr 22 2003 - 14:50:47 EDT
With respect as well.....
This "outside of time" notion is widely held and expressed without
reservation. However, I am persuaded that we are always significantly at
risk when we speculate about the true nature of God, particularly when
those speculations lie outside our sphere of understanding and
experience. In the present instance, I think that applies to the notion
of God being "outside of time".
There is certainly a physics paradigm that "packages" space and time.
With that model, it is not unreasonable to think in terms of inside and
outside that "package". However there is one observation that causes me
to be a bit agnostic on this time matter. In our sphere of experience,
one who creates incorporates in his/her creation substance and
attributes that are a part of our being/knowledge/imagination. We build
clocks because which reflect a time component of our existence. We paint
on canvas as a reflection of our visual system and sense of aesthetics.
As others have observed, our creations are almost(?) entirely bounded by
and are a reflection of what we are and what we know. We create out of
our being and we very rarely create something and then find it does or
comprises something unexpected and ultimately unexplainable.
With that in mind, it is not unreasonable to assert with equal
confidence that the property of time is NOT meaningless in the being of
God. This is not to say that this inference is a sure thing, and it does
not even say in what way time is meaningful to God. But it may cast a
shadow of uncertainty on an assertion that "God is an entity entirely
ouside of time", meaning that God can view all of time, past and future,
as a single viewable-to-God landscape.
Now I admit our sphere of knowledge and experience is limited, and we've
not talked here about revelation. However I think it is safe to say that
our "reception" of revelation is not without noise, resulting in less
than a consensus in our speculations which may or may not be inspired.
But perhaps more to the point, I'm not so sure that the revelation is
all that explicit about God being "outside of time".
In light of that, it simply seems prudent to acknowledge the assertive
nature of the claim that God is outside of time. I'm not trying to
convert anyone here, but I think that more than a single speculation
(recognizing that they are speculations) can be valid here in the
absence of a present way to discriminate among them with confidence.
Regards - Jim Armstrong
igevolution@earthlink.net wrote:
>Burgy wrote, in part:
>In recent years, however, I have come to think it incorrect. I think God does NOT see the future -- at least not in detail -- but can and often is surprised by what we, his created yet partially autonomous beings, choose as courses of action in certain circumstances.
>
> Respectfully, I would differ with you on this. God is an entity entirely outside of time. He does not experience the moment-to-momentness of our life. Eternity is an instant to him; past, present, and future are synonymous from his perspective. Because of that, He knows with perfect clarity what the future is. In my mind, it is not necessary to see a dichotomy here with regard to our free will. The fact that He knows, perfectly, what we will do does not mean that that action is determined. We are completely free to choose, but because he sees "tomorrow" as clearly as "today," he has simply observed our choice already. As a matter of fact, he observed our choices before we or anything else came to be.
> The doctrine of salvation is intimately woven into this view (please don't hear me questioning the salvation of those who differ with me on this perspective--I'm certainly not). From an eternal perspective, Christ is now and always has been on the Cross (and simultaneously risen in glory by His Father). The sins of Adam and Cain were not forgiven by blood sacrifice. That was a picture for them of the real atonement, which for them was future. However, as God sees all of human history at once, Christ's atonement was already available to them, and their sins (assuming they trusted in God for their slavation) were placed on Christ's shoulders when they were committed. My sins committed today and in the remainder of my life are placed on Christ's shoulders, as He is still and forever making atonement for me.
> God's perspective is hard to talk about with our temporal language, but he "observed" my sins that I have not yet committed from eternity past, determined that there would need be an atonement, and provided that in Christ before anything came to be. From our perspective, God is telling the future, but that isn't the case. He has simply already witnessed it. This can be seen in the prophecy in Genesis 3:15:
> "...and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall crush thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
> The atonement was already accomplished from an eternal perspective. The language is, of course, in the future tense, but that is due to the audience's temporal nature, not the perspective of the speaker. God certainly is aware of our free-agent choices in advance of our making them. In fact, He has already paid the price for those made in error.
>
>Jason
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