Featured Did Time always exist?

Good question, can't wait to read some replies.

I'm curious as to what people think of time as a dimension, instead of just as a river flowing in one direction.

 

Theologians differ? Theologians never differ! ;o

Please provide some sources.

Rob

 

Why?

 

Because we are created beings subject to time who desire to understand our eternal Creator?

Just guessing.

 

Speculation on things not revealed in scripture does nothing to help us know Him.

 

Spot on Revmitchell.

Science tell us that physical time began at the Big Bang, so God created physical time. Scripture tells us the souls in heaven are aware of the passage of time, so it appears some sort of "spiritual time" exists in eternity.

The enabling scenario of "God is outside of time" allows the view that the sequence provided in scripture can be ignored. But such an argument is the speculation addressed by Revmitchell.

 

I'm wavering between communist plot or scourge from Satan.

 

So the spatial dimensions that God created allow for left and right, forward and backward, and up and down. Is the same true for time?

 

That sentence got away from you.

 

Nah, he's quoting Dr. Who from the episode "Blink".

Sent from my Moto Droid Turbo.

 

I know...so was I. That is my favorite episode of Doctor Who.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

The Bible is pretty mute on the subject. It does say God created the Universe, but leaves out many details. However, since God created the Universe and all within, God also created all the rules of activity in the Universe humans consider 'science'. Humans do not have all the rules of nature down - at least we can't be sure and in some cases, we cannot explain 'stuff' and therefore understand we don't know all the rules...

On the other hand, science - primarily the broad swath of 'physics' - has attempted to collect all the bits and pieces of evidence and form some rules - which improve with more data - about time.

Dr. Einstein in his rather noted equation explaining general relativity, understood 'space' and 'time' as being one in substance and two in experience. (It is the same thing, really, but we see both as two items or subjects rather than one. Rather similar to - not the same as - the Trinity in some regards.) Space, that is 'volume' not 'outer space' cannot exist without time, nor can time exist without space.

The most usable definition of time - which I haven't been able to find again - is the passing of events. Without something happening, time isn't moving. This passing of events can be viewed as 'change' as well.

All that is to say prior to the creation of the Universe, nothing - in the physical sense we understand and grasp - happened. Therefore, there was no time, either.

Therefore, time - as humans understand the term - did not exist prior to the creation of the Universe.

There does appear to be some 'before' and 'after' in Eternity. Satan and his renegade angels rebelled after being created, for instance. At the second coming - outlined in The Revelation - all humans will be assigned eternal places in Heaven or Hell. That seems to be a definite event and not one which shifts back and forth.

Frankly, I don't understand much of it, and what I think I understand may not be close to the actuality. I'll stick around and see.

 

Is God bound by time? No! It exists apart from God. Therefore time is a created function.


In John Walton’s book, The Lost World of Genesis One, he defines the creation passages as a series of ‘days’ where God assigns function to his creation.

For since what is called into existence is a period of light that is distinguished from a period of darkness and that is named “day,” we must inevitably consider day one as describing the creation of time. The basis for time is the invariable alteration between periods of light and periods of darkness. This is a creative act, but it is creation in a functional sense, not a material one.

John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 54–55.​

I put this book in my top ten of biblically worldview changing books. One I’d hope everyone might read.

This past Christmas my wife and I listened to it on our way up to northern Maine. She had heard me speak about it in general terms but the concepts never really connected. By the time we arrived at our destination she firmly grasped what the author was saying and it opened her eyes to concepts that would entirely change the way she interprets the bible.

I you haven’t used Audible Books before, you can get the book for free [LINK]. This one is well worth the time you spend listening.

Rob