Christian Theological/Philosophical Book Club discussion
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Can God Really Go Back to The Future? Maybe NOT!
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Rod, I think you'll find this page interesting:"When Reading Your Bible, We See that God:
is - and was - and is to come - Whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting - Forever and ever - The Ancient of Days - From before the ages of the ages - From ancient times - the everlasting God - He continues forever - From of old - Remains forever - Immortal - The Lord shall endure forever - Who lives forever - God’s years - manifest in His own time - Everlasting Father - Alive forevermore - Always lives - Forever - Continually - God’s years never end - From everlasting to everlasting - From that time forward, even forever - And of His kingdom there will be no end.
Of course ALL THESE are verbatim phrases from Scripture, some being repeated many times. NOT ONE MEANS TIMELESSNESS. Rather, they mean unending duration."
HOWEVER:
"[...]the marking of time is irrelevant to God because He transcends it. "
I think that's closer to my belief: He is the Alpha and Omega: the Beginning and the End. I did have the thought that, perhaps, time itself is not the same but, no; 2 Peter 3:8 shows that the difference is God's perception of time (or how time unfolds to him compared to us): "But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day."
Interesting discussion. I wish I had time to dig more deeply into it this morning.
Good start. God is indeed the beginning AND the end. But has He been THERE?
Rod wrote: "Good start. God is indeed the beginning AND the end. But has He been THERE?"
Something tells me that, as a child, you used to poke snakes in the road with a stick to see if they were REALLY dead. :-D
This is an interesting question. We know from Genesis 1:1 that God was prior to the universe, so he must have transcended time AT LEAST prior to time. I think is it is likely that he continues to exist outside of time, because creating space-time should not constrain him to now exist within time. However, it is not necessary that all temporal moments are coexistent (i.e., all time is actualized simultaneously). It seems to me that time is continuous and that temporal events are the relations of objects with space-time that comprise reality itself. In other words, Jan 7 2016 does not continue to exist when Jan 8 2016 comes around, and Jan 8 2016 does not exist now, but will come into existence as the actualization of the relationship between temporally-bound beings at a specific place in the timeline. Therefore, it is not possible, even for God, to "time travel", because that would mean we could move through reality; this seems to me to be nonsensical.
Yet, God could still know the past, present, and future. Given that the relationships within space-time are finite (based on the limits required by logic that only a finite number of relationships amongst a finite number of beings), and that God knows all that can be known, he could (and in my view, does) know all outcomes and also knows which outcomes will be actualized.
WE need some indepth Bible verses to push or pull this conversation. I'll try and get some tomorrow.
But many assume that's because He's been there and back. Or that he is outside of time. I'm not convinced at the moment. (I could be wrong.)
Throughout the Bible God is directing history and future events. Trips to the Future appear to be mostly Visions - rather than frequent flyer journeys. Think how boring it would be if God had already seen and experienced everything... yawn.
Is God all-powerful? Sure. (Yet He can't create a God better than himself).
Is God all-knowing? You bet. (*does he know what it's like to be a cockroach and be stepped on? Probably not.)
Is God outside of time? Ummmh. Please post Bible verses to prove this one way or another.
If God knows all of time: then Demons and Angels may not be that useful. I think they push and pull history in the correct God Glorifying directions. The end will be just as God plans it.