From: Peter Ruest (pruest@pop.mysunrise.ch)
Date: Fri Apr 25 2003 - 00:47:53 EDT
Jim Armstrong wrote (in answer to Jason (igevolution@earthlink.net)):
...
> 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 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...
>
> 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
and Jason answered (re. the human creations analogy):
> Nice illlustration, but I would say that it does not extrapolate upwards as far as God. God is boundless. The adjectives that theology gives for him (omnipotent, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, etc.) describe Him not as He is, but as He is not. He is not bounded by any of the characterists which bind us. I see no reason why God should be bounded in one way and not in others.
>
> Also, someone has said (I know I'm a bad academic to not know who it was; please forgive me) that God is "that being greater that which nothing can be thought." Granted, that this expression is not divinely inspired, but I believe it to be true. If God is the greatest entity in existence, whether in our universe or out of it, than He must, accoring to the above statement, be fully knowledgeable about the future and fully aware of all time simultaneously. Otherwise, there could be something greater. Not the surest footing to build an argument on, I know, but while we're bantering with illustrations, here's another.
>
> Jason
I'd like to support Jason's view. Our 4-dimensional space-time package
was created at the big bang. The biblical references to God's eternity
suggest a different kind of "time", God's time. Granted, God's eternity
is not just time as we know it, extended on both sites to infinity. But
why shouldn't it include something like a time dimension? He may have
many more dimensions unknown to us. As I understand the biblical texts,
God's pre-knowledge of the future (in our time dimension) is clearly
revealed - without compromising our free will, as Jason correctly
pointed out.
There are other cases of objects in creation, e.g. the tabernacle, being
mirror images of or types pointing to realities in God's eternity (cf.
Ex.25:9,40; Hebr.8:5 - and much else in Hebrews). Also, humans being
created "in God's image" is pertinent, in my opinion.
Peter
-- Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland <pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution "..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)
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