Featured Regarding Time...

The biggest problem any of us has in regards to time(when did it start), is that we are finite beings, with finite minds, trying to understand God, One who is Infinite. None of us will truly be able to give an answer to suffice, since there are things(such as this subject, imho) that are just waaaaay over our heads.

 

Speak for yourself, I personally am omniscient.

 

I would note that to view the kind of relationship that is built upon “sequence” one must consider God’s nature, which is the Spirit of Love, Truth and a being of “aseity” (a self-derived infinite nature in and of itself that is “One” Being without a beginning); and is a Spirit that interacts with us (finite “created” beings), who He made in His image and likeness and gave us a physical mortal body as well.

This Spirit from within Himself made a sacrifice in a promise, before the foundation of the world; this promise was given in the Spirit of Love and Truth to provide a “Way” for His creatures to be with Him, in Heaven for eternity, and there was a need to have a special “Way” to exist with man, to communicate with him, to interact and to allow for the immortal part of our being to have a relationship with Him forever. This “Way”, is described to us as being planned from the foundation of His creation and which involved a miraculous kind of transfiguration that was to provide a “Mediator” between God and man. In order to place this “Mediator” into the created world it is explained to us that God/One Holy Being gave His Only begotten to become a man in the world He created; still God, still One Being, but when time (creation of the world) began God spoke His Word into existence into the world He created, to the creatures He created, in the form of a man within that time. This was an event, it had a beginning, a period in which time for us began but for God who is unchanging I believe it was a beginning of the “Way” He would co-exist in time, a coming into the world in Truth, with the creatures He created which were subject to that time. He created us in time and to be subject to His judgment which is based on what we are responsible for in truth.

I believe there was a need for this special “Way”, the need for a “Mediator” between God and man at the foundation of the world for Him to establish a relationship within time with His creatures. It would be very difficult to explain why He sacrificed His Son if it was not necessary to achieve these things. God is Truth, His Word is Truth, His offer of redemption is given in Love and in Truth, and if there was no need for the truth of this manifestation of God to come into the world in the way it did, to achieve a way of interaction with His creatures, then all this would be little more than an illusion to us, a world in which God designed down to the finest details for every event to happen exactly the way it does and of course that would include evil which would deny the truth of His nature. And what would be the purpose of a Mediator within time?

That God interacts with us within time in truth is an essential for so many reasons especially in the reasoning that He brought His Word into the world in truth and that Word declares that He is Truth and that all His ways are judgment. What is righteous judgment without the truth of creaturely volition within time behind the action of creation and the beginning of time?

That God existed before the creation of the world, before time began, is also essential because we are told in the Word that the world had a beginning and we know that God did not have a beginning.

SO I believe there is a separation of God and time and also a “Way” that God exists within time. I believe that through His Trinitarian nature is how He achieves this feat. I believe He has a Trinitarian type of knowledge which allows for a type of “middle knowledge” if you will and just as it is miraculous that He came into the world as a man it is also true that He exists and interacts with us within time and yet is beyond time. He achieved everything He said He would and He did it in truth, how do I know, because I know he is Truth!

Okay, my coffee is cold now…

 

And how do you know you're all knowing? Who told you you was? Who gave you the permission to be all knowing? :laugh:

 

CARNAL HUMAN REASONING!!! THIS IS NOT OF GOD!!! YOU HAVE POSTED NO SCRIPTURES TO PROVE YOUR ASSERTIONS...MERE VAIN REASONINGS AND BABBLINGS!!!! GOD IS SOVEREIGN!!!

Seriously, great post Ben! :wavey::thumbs::applause:

We all have a cross to bear...
2Ti 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

 

If you read my post for what it says, you would have seen in regards to time I'm not familiar to Augustine. I'm quite familiar with his other views, hence why I reject his stance on original sin :thumbs:

 

Thanks. I graduated from physical therapy school with honors, but I still need a college level math class of which I had to study for and pass a placement just to get into in order to complete my transcript and reflect that I am officially done so I can take the National Physical Therapy Exam. My transcript needs to be in the hands of the NPTE board by June 18…Soooo I am attempting to complete a 3-unit online math class in about 3 weeks…sigh! On that note:

No, I cannot conceive a “true” relationship (value) between two beings that is not built on a sequence of something built on 2 parts. What “sequence” is there in instant determination? …without the “reality” of the existence of time? Take the emotion of love on which a relationship might be built. Love is a feeling that comes from within one being toward another being or object. 1 +1 = 2, or 2 is built on the relationship of 1 and 1. If 1 being did not have the “ability” to project that feeling toward another being we still have 1 – being placing (determining) His own feeling of love toward Himself. 1 + 0 = 1, or 1 only has relationship to itself and nothing. A sequence can not be built on 1 and nothing can it? 1 might consider that 1+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0…is a sequence, but it would be a sequence built on 1 and nothing. Love is something, or if it were nothing it has no value. Ain’t that right Quantum??? :laugh:

 

O.k. fine...have you now dismissed the sum total of my post based on this? I will concede Rev 10:6 at least for the sake of argument, and I may have misapplied it. There are still the passages in I John, and well, the rest of my argument. I am suggesting a majority orthodox view....
1.)once there was not time,
2.)God does not exist in time, at least prior and post creation.
3.)God will eventually do away with time.

You have appealed to authority to dispense with (one verse) of my post. I am now appealling to majority, tradition, and the sum total of the argument presented in the rest of my post for mine. Do you disagree?

Unless I am mistaken, you have proposed that God has existed within time ALWAYS. This is a difficult position to defend and, quite frankly, seems absurd, in that, you contended that there have been a theoretical infinite sequence of events prior to creation? Am I mistaken about what you are contending? Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

All glory goes to God alone...it was determined by his own wise counsel and perfect pleasure from eternity past.

 

I have never seen DNA discussed in reference to Scripture or the Christian Faith?

 

In regards to "Christian Faith" I have. Directly refered to in Scripture...no, of course not. The fascinating thing about DNA as regards Christianity is that DNA is Information and thus Intelligence is implied in the creative act. I once heard a Christian philosopher belabour this in regards to John chapter 1..."In the beginning was the Word..." He then went on to talk about how that phrase in the Greek, understood at that time as it was, essentially meant law, order, information, intelligence et. al. A fascinating discussion really. The Man who taught it works with RZIM....The aplogetics ministry headed by Calvinist apologist Ravi Zacharias.

 

:thumbs:

I would subscribe to the "ant-in-a-bubble" model of the universe based on relativity physics and the expansion of the universe. Time is not just a conceptual sequential relationship between events, but is a property of space itself, thus spacetime. Spacetime is not infinite; it is finite, but is not evenly distributed. It is "curved" but also "wrinkled" in places like a cloth.

Time cannot be eternal or infinite just like space cannot be eternal or infinite. If God created all things, there can be nothing that is part of the material universe that exists outside creation.