What is your definition of time?
Proof from the Bible that God is In Time
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
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What is your definition of time?
Shasta
Well-known member
Just like I thought: baseless accusations and ad hominem attacks.
I cannot believe you posted this Lighthouse. You have the most un-Christlike spirit of anyone I have met in this room. When people say something you do not agree with insults like "dimwit", "moron," "stupid"spew out of your mouth:
Is this the way you speak irl to believers, to unbelievers? or your spouse? This is not a a personal attack but an observation based on verifiable observable behaviors While I cannot judge your heart Jesus said that "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." If I were not already a believer you would be a stumbling block to me
This refers to earth time/history, human history, post-creation measures of time. It does not preclude the reality of duration existing before material creation (necessary for God to think, act, feel in His triune relations). Creating our unique measures of time is not the same thing as sequence existing before this as a concept (Ps. 90:2; Rev. 1:4).
Aimiel
Well-known member
:blabla:
Sorry, but The Bible doesn't have any mis-prints. It says: "first day," and I believe that is just what God meant to say.
Shasta
Well-known member
Time as we know it is a continuous succession of events, states and changes that exist on a linear chain of cause and effect. Prior to creation there was no time. The phenomenon we call time is an effect arising from the creation matter. The creation is telling us this.
In taking on flesh the Son entered the time space continuum. God can and does operate within linear time but because He is still transcendent He also exists in a non-temporal way. The idea the God permanantly surrendered all his divine attributes to become man forever, denies His coexistent divine nature
If God were solely within the time space continuum he would be in sync with the stream of time which it self is influenced by every force that influences time. If this is true then you are are advocating for a panENtheistic view of God, something I have yet to see addressed here.
Even worse, is the suggestion of someone here that time is an "attribute" of God. If it is than of course He would always have to be learning and evolving. He could even make mistakes.
Unlike what some seem to believe time is not absolute. Newton preferred the idea of absolute time because it made the universe seem more ordered and sensible like God Himself.
Intuitively he seemed to be right but observation, experimentation and mathematics have proven Einsteins theory to be correct. As it turns out time is not absolute and Newtonian physics is dead. Some of your group will not accept it because of the effect it would have on your theology
I have said perhaps too much
Shasta
Well-known member
Good answer. I would like to add that having a deadline always puts a some needed pressure on someone to make the right decision
Yes, it is the first day of creation, but that does not mean there is no duration before creation. Ps. 102:27 It does not say God has no years, but His years are without end. Endless time, not timelessness, is the biblical picture. Why do you prefer pagan, Platonic philosophy over the common sense, Hebraic view?
First day refers to earth time, creation time, unique measures of time, not the concept of time itself (which is not a created thing).
Your view is sheer philosophy, not explicit in the text. Every page of Scripture portrays God has experiencing sequence, succession, duration (time). Eternal now is Augustinian, not Bible. Cmon. Tradition is not always truth.
I give up. Oh, you should also rethink WOF since it has New Thought syncretistic roots and is too much Hagin, not enough Bible.
Shasta
Well-known member
Essentially you are saying that God's past lasted forever. Obviously it could not have otherwise He would never have a present.
If the definition of time is as you say: a series of events happening one after the other then each "moment" would have to give rise to the next. This is just another way of saying that each effect has to have a cause and indeed MUST have a cause otherwise there would be no progression. If even one "point" had no relationship both to the preceding and the successive one there would be no 'line" It would be just be a random series of "points" each of which has no rational connection to anything. There would be no succession or progression which is what time is.
If God were on such a time line then He would eternally be the effect of a cause not a PRIMARY cause that initiated ALL effects. This is why God is referred to as an uncaused Cause.
The law of cause and effect applies only to creation. In this case it is rational because creation has a definite beginning point to serve as a ground of being. In the same way a God on a linear time line would have no ground of being and would not exist.
This is the case only when a temporal model is imposed on God who is non-temporal
Aimiel
Well-known member
Good, because I've seen nothing to refute the logic of believing that what God said (The evening and the morning were the FIRST day.) is exactly what He meant to say.
Sorry, but I don't subscribe to any particular religion. There isn't one that has everything right. All of us are in need of preaching, teaching, evangelism, prophecy and being directed by apostolic leadership.
Aimiel
Well-known member
Very well-put. :thumb:
Tick tock.
Christ never insulted anyone? Ever? Are you sure about that?
What is your definition of an insult? It sounds like you want to be insulting.
Shasta
Well-known member
The paradox was not applicable as originally conceived because Zeno used an abstract concept of numbers not actual events. His original idea has been modified in modern days to create a test of rationality as it applies to an infinite regress of time. When applied backwards to real events it shows that the arrow cannot have been shot an infinitely long time ago and ever reach the target.
Shasta
Well-known member
Let me ask you a question - if reliable measurements COULD be made that showed that time-space-matter are inseparable would that make any difference at all to your beliefs?
As I was browsing back through this thread. I came across this statement which was really quite an honest admission. Unfortunately this brings what was an abstract philosophical discussion into the created world where it can be tested and so far the idea of absolute time has has been proven to be false. Einstein idea of relative time related to space and gravity has always won out. MANY experiments on the real universe have shown this to be the case. Here is the latest
http://earthsky.org/space/epic-study-confirms-einstein-on-space-time
If you care to understand this than read it. If not then continue to hold to your philosophical concept of time and then deny science and say it is all just a conspiracy of atheists.
If Newton was right gravity should have no effect in any of the experiments. His idea of Absolute Time with a fixed duration has lost every round. If God is experiencing time then His experience of time cannot be fixed and absolute either
God could focus on every micro-change that occurs when a single electron to goes from one energy to level to another and back. To us it occurs in an infinitesimally small amount of time. On the other hand He can take in the whole of the ages in a blink of an eye. "A day is as a thousand years and a thousand years if a day" is a statement that directly bears on duration. It means that duration, an essential part of time as we know it, is meaningless to God. It is not meaningless in importance because we live in moments.
What amazes me is the willingness of some to reject an entire system of physics simply because it does not fit their concept of what they think the Bible says. It reminds me of how Luther rejected the idea of a helio-centric universe because the Bible said the sun rose and set (as it went around the earth). Phenomenologically it seemed that way but he was wrong
As I was browsing back through this thread. I came across this statement which was really quite an honest admission. Unfortunately this brings what was an abstract philosophical discussion into the created world where it can be tested and so far the idea of absolute time has has been proven to be false. Einstein idea of relative time related to space and gravity has always won out. MANY experiments on the real universe have shown this to be the case. Here is the latest
http://earthsky.org/space/epic-study-confirms-einstein-on-space-time
If you care to understand this than read it. If not then continue to hold to your philosophical concept of time and then deny science and say it is all just a conspiracy of atheists.
If Newton was right gravity should have no effect in any of the experiments. His idea of Absolute Time with a fixed duration has lost every round. If God is experiencing time then His experience of time cannot be fixed and absolute either
God could focus on every micro-change that occurs when a single electron to goes from one energy to level to another and back. To us it occurs in an infinitesimally small amount of time. On the other hand He can take in the whole of the ages in a blink of an eye. "A day is as a thousand years and a thousand years if a day" is a statement that directly bears on duration. It means that duration, an essential part of time as we know it, is meaningless to God. It is not meaningless in importance because we live in moments.
What amazes me is the willingness of some to reject an entire system of physics simply because it does not fit their concept of what they think the Bible says. It reminds me of how Luther rejected the idea of a helio-centric universe because the Bible said the sun rose and set (as it went around the earth). Phenomenologically it seemed that way but he was wrong
Aimiel
Well-known member
That is: according to 'our' laws of physics and current time/space theories. According to God: anything is possible. He is even capable of creating a 'limited' universe, from which those He creates to live in it cannot see the spirit-realm, stretch their reach beyond the current time and space they are in or even reach into the eternal realm, without His permission. He is eternal and that is above and beyond our capability to comprehend, much less define or put limits upon. He created this temporal realm and holds the keys to it, since He sits upon the 'circle of the earth' which I believe to be: time.
Shasta
Well-known member
Even if what you say is true it does not free your system from the grave clothes of Calvinistic predeterminism. Jesus said that had God done the same miracles in Sodom that He did in Capernaum they (Sodom) would not have been judged (Matt 11:23). By withholding the means by which they would most certainly have been saved He assured their destruction. Essentially this is the same as the Calvinists view that God decides the fate of people by withholding grace.
They were alive right then and certainly a God with the ability to analyze their hearts and forecast their responses would have known this, unless you suppose that it took a 1000 years of contemplation for God to figure that out.
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