God and Time

[Achilles6129]

Explain God’s relationship to time. Is God timeless or temporal, or does he dwell in some sort of metaphysical time which we cannot explain? If God is temporal, then wouldn’t time have to have existed from infinity? And if God is timeless, then how can he interact with a temporal creation? Also, if God was timeless prior to creation and then temporal since creation, doesn’t this make God subject to time…which he created?

Discuss.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

Explain God’s relationship to time. Is God timeless or temporal, or does he dwell in some sort of metaphysical time which we cannot explain? If God is temporal, then wouldn’t time have to have existed from infinity? And if God is timeless, then how can he interact with a temporal creation? Also, if God was timeless prior to creation and then temporal since creation, doesn’t this make God subject to time…which he created?

Discuss.

God is beyond time. There is no time where God is. Yet God can comprehend our time-conscious lives.

 

[STT]

Explain God’s relationship to time. Is God timeless or temporal, or does he dwell in some sort of metaphysical time which we cannot explain?

Time is a component of creation hence God cannot be temporal.

If God is temporal, then wouldn’t time have to have existed from infinity?

Time cannot existed from infinity and God is not temporal. Time cannot existed from infinity since it takes infinite amount of waiting to reach from there to now which this is logically impossible.

And if God is timeless, then how can he interact with a temporal creation?

Through His eternal act. Think of the God’s act as an act which forks and affects creation at any given time.

Also, if God was timeless prior to creation and then temporal since creation, doesn’t this make God subject to time…which he created?

Discuss.

God is timeless always.

 

[John_Martin]

Moses climbed a mountain, talked with God, came down and told the people that a prophet like him was coming, “Listen to him.”
Elijah climbed a mountain, talked with God, and came down.
Jesus, James, John, and Peter climbed a mountain, where Moses and Elijah met with Jesus and talked with him. Then a voice, “This is my beloved Son, Listen to him.”

When Moses was going down the mountain he overheard this word about Jesus, “Listen to him.”, and that is what he told the people when he came down the mountain.

This was the real Moses, the real Elijah, on the mountain with Jesus, Peter, James, and John. On this mountain, they had entered into an awareness of God’s knowing - God knows the Son, knows Moses, knows Elijah, knows Peter, James and John, not temporally, but in an eternal knowing, and for an eternal moment, all the men together there on the mountain got to know each other as real, as God knows them, even now knows them.

Jesus said, “before Abraham was born, I AM”.

We have this same knowing every time we participate the Mass - there is only one last supper, only one knowing of Jesus giving his body and blood to eat and to drink, and we only eat and drink once, even though we re-know it countless times. When you eat and drink it is the first, last, only operation that you are knowing.

 

[Achilles6129]

Time is a component of creation hence God cannot be temporal.

My reasoning is that if God is temporal then God is subject to time, which he created. William Lane Craig’s position is that God is timeless without creation and temporal since creation.

Time cannot existed from infinity and God is not temporal. Time cannot existed from infinity since it takes infinite amount of waiting to reach from there to now which this is logically impossible.

Ah…but what if time works differently outside of this universe? Let me ask you a question: do you believe that God is incapable of manipulating time in such a way that it has existed since infinity?

Through His eternal act. Think of the God’s act as an act which forks and affects creation at any given time.

So you’re explaining that God interacts with a temporal creation through an ‘eternal act’? Can you explain more about this? Do you mean that God acted once and that affects his creation at many different times? Even if God acted once, wouldn’t that mean that God is temporal?

 

[Achilles6129]

God is beyond time. There is no time where God is. Yet God can comprehend our time-conscious lives.

If God thinks one thought then there is time where God is.

 

[STT]

My reasoning is that if God is temporal then God is subject to time, which he created. William Lane Craig’s position is that God is timeless without creation and temporal since creation.

I don’t understand why that is a necessity.

Ah…but what if time works differently outside of this universe? Let me ask you a question: do you believe that God is incapable of manipulating time in such a way that it has existed since infinity?

He cannot. This is logically impossible.

So you’re explaining that God interacts with a temporal creation through an ‘eternal act’?

Yes.

Can you explain more about this?

It is like this:

Eternal act
||
||
V​

| | | | | | | | |
V V V V V
t1 t2 t3 t4 t5

Where t1, t2, etc are different time.

Do you mean that God acted once and that affects his creation at many different times?

Yes. Like the above diagram.

Even if God acted once, wouldn’t that mean that God is temporal?

No. Two acts requires temporarility.

 

[Achilles6129]

I don’t understand why that is a necessity.

Which part of my sentence?

He cannot. This is logically impossible.

Only by your understanding of time.

It is like this:

Eternal act
||
||
V​

| | | | | | | | |
V V V V V
t1 t2 t3 t4 t5

Where t1, t2, etc are different time.

Yes. Like the above diagram.

No. Two acts requires temporarility.

Doesn’t any action require time in order to complete the action?

Also, let me ask you: if God is timeless, then how can he judge humanity in the future? Wouldn’t that require him to be temporal, since he seems to be experiencing a temporal succession during the judgment? Also, if Christ enters into the world, thus becoming temporal, wouldn’t God by definition have to be temporal?

 

[Achilles6129]

Here’s an interesting passage which may have bearing on this subject:

“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:” Isa. 57:15 (ESV)

The question is, what does it mean to “inhabit eternity”?

 

[Achilles6129]

Here’s an interesting article on this subject:

iep.utm.edu/god-time/

 

[STT]

Which part of my sentence?

The part that God is temporal since creation.

Only by your understanding of time.

I already argue that time cannot be infinite.

Doesn’t any action require time in order to complete the action?

Why if it is one action?

Also, let me ask you: if God is timeless, then how can he judge humanity in the future? Wouldn’t that require him to be temporal, since he seems to be experiencing a temporal succession during the judgment? Also, if Christ enters into the world, thus becoming temporal, wouldn’t God by definition have to be temporal?

All the acts that we perceive is the result of one eternal act as it was depicted in the diagram.

 

[The_Serpent]

Here’s an interesting passage which may have bearing on this subject:

“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:” Isa. 57:15 (ESV)

The question is, what does it mean to “inhabit eternity”?

Philo writing in “On the Unchangeableness of God;” says nothing is past or future in eternity, but everything is present.

 

[yppop]

Explain God’s relationship to time. Is God timeless or temporal, or does he dwell in some sort of metaphysical time which we cannot explain? If God is temporal, then wouldn’t time have to have existed from infinity? And if God is timeless, then how can he interact with a temporal creation? Also, if God was timeless prior to creation and then temporal since creation, doesn’t this make God subject to time…which he created?

Discuss.

According to modern science, time emerged from the singularity. This seems to imply that there was no time before the big bang, but that cannot be, something had to cause the big bang and the something in my view was God. What we experience as time is the manifestation of change, namely the change of matter and energy in the form of clocks.

If there was time, God’s time, before the big bang, what was changing? The only thing that it could possibly be changing is thought. Thought is a sequence of scenarios of the mind that is a form of change and therefore represent something that could be construed as time. What existed before the big bang was God and God’s mind full of thoughts that manifest as a form of time.

Thus, we can argue that two modalities of time exist: pre and post big bang. I refer to the time we experience after the big bang as *cosmological time *; I refer to time before the big bang, God’s time, as ontological time. Ontological time is eternal—of infinite duration. Cosmological time is finite and thus is embedded in the flow of ontological time

We, of course, cannot know the nature of ontological time other than our supposition that it consists of the thoughts in the Mind of God, and unlike cosmological time that advances incrementally, ontological time flows continuously.
Yppop

 

[hu324b]

God created the universe - God was before the universe came into existence - which proves that God is outside of his creation.

Maybe look at Saint Thomas Aquinas first cause.

What is time - how long it takes to get from point A to point B - How is time measured - by earthly standards - a day is simple how long it takes the earth to spin once on its axis - a year it one trip around the sun - this is how we measure time - how we measure time is not universal - if you were on another planet it would be measured differently. A year and a day would not be the same.

The perception of time is different and complicated

I’m on my 55th trip around the sun!

 

[Peebo]

God created the universe - God was before the universe came into existence - which proves that God is outside of his creation.

Maybe look at Saint Thomas Aquinas first cause.

What is time - how long it takes to get from point A to point B - How is time measured - by earthly standards - a day is simple how long it takes the earth to spin once on its axis - a year it one trip around the sun - this is how we measure time - how we measure time is not universal - if you were on another planet it would be measured differently. A year and a day would not be the same.

The perception of time is different and complicated

I’m on my 55th trip around the sun!

And traveling at 67,000 mph…or 500,000 mph around the galaxy

 

[hasantas]

God is creator. Others beings are creature. Time exist through actions of materials. The relation between God and time is the creating. That means God create the time and it exist just like other presences.

God has eternal substance which has no beginning and end. God is always out of time and matter. God create time and matter. We cannot comprehend eternal substance and humanbeing cannot penetrate the eternal essence. So human cannot determine and surround God’s action. We can just perceive the product of God’s action which is in time and matter. Beyond that is out of our comprehend. Because if we attempt to comprehend eternal essence we will allways make wrong. Our mind run through material measures but God is not material. God create materials.

And we cannot feel out an eternal time yet we cannot consider any time for God. As I said our mind act through material so we think God must have a time! But that is not true.

God is in every where but also God is in no where. God has a presence in everywhere by creative eternal power and will but also God is always out of time.

 

[hasantas]

Moses climbed a mountain, talked with God, came down and told the people that a prophet like him was coming, “Listen to him.”
Elijah climbed a mountain, talked with God, and came down.
Jesus, James, John, and Peter climbed a mountain, where Moses and Elijah met with Jesus and talked with him. Then a voice, “This is my beloved Son, Listen to him.”

When Moses was going down the mountain he overheard this word about Jesus, “Listen to him.”, and that is what he told the people when he came down the mountain.

This was the real Moses, the real Elijah, on the mountain with Jesus, Peter, James, and John. On this mountain, they had entered into an awareness of God’s knowing - God knows the Son, knows Moses, knows Elijah, knows Peter, James and John, not temporally, but in an eternal knowing, and for an eternal moment, all the men together there on the mountain got to know each other as real, as God knows them, even now knows them.

Jesus said, “before Abraham was born, I AM”.

We have this same knowing every time we participate the Mass - there is only one last supper, only one knowing of Jesus giving his body and blood to eat and to drink, and we only eat and drink once, even though we re-know it countless times. When you eat and drink it is the first, last, only operation that you are knowing.

If Jesus were alive nowadays we would be able to see Him on TV. So does that mean that Jesus had turn into energy and electromagnetic wave by original essence? No.

So God can manifest and talk to human by many ways which we cannot comprehend actually.

 

[Achilles6129]

The part that God is temporal since creation.

I already argue that time cannot be infinite.

Why if it is one action?

All the acts that we perceive is the result of one eternal act as it was depicted in the diagram.

I’d like to try to nail one point down: why doesn’t one action for God (in his timeless state) require time?

 

[Achilles6129]

According to modern science, time emerged from the singularity. This seems to imply that there was no time before the big bang, but that cannot be, something had to cause the big bang and the something in my view was God. What we experience as time is the manifestation of change, namely the change of matter and energy in the form of clocks.

If there was time, God’s time, before the big bang, what was changing? The only thing that it could possibly be changing is thought. Thought is a sequence of scenarios of the mind that is a form of change and therefore represent something that could be construed as time. What existed before the big bang was God and God’s mind full of thoughts that manifest as a form of time.

Thus, we can argue that two modalities of time exist: pre and post big bang. I refer to the time we experience after the big bang as *cosmological time *; I refer to time before the big bang, God’s time, as ontological time. Ontological time is eternal—of infinite duration. Cosmological time is finite and thus is embedded in the flow of ontological time

We, of course, cannot know the nature of ontological time other than our supposition that it consists of the thoughts in the Mind of God, and unlike cosmological time that advances incrementally, ontological time flows continuously.
Yppop

So you basically believe that God is in metaphysical time which has an infinite past. This is my proposition as well, but I would add one more thing: I think that this metaphysical time actually has to be a part of God’s being or else God is somehow subject to time.

 

[STT]

I’d like to try to nail one point down: why doesn’t one action for God (in his timeless state) require time?

Because it is only one act. Time is required if there are two acts and more, when one act follows another one etc.