Proof from the Bible that God is In Time

[sky.]

Conceived of when? In your view (and the view of the other dissenters) the eternal God would never have created anything for all things would be in the mind of God eternally. ALL things would be as eternal as God is eternal.

The fact that you, Lon, zippy, and the others cannot comprehend this, speaks loud and clear that this subject is beyond your scope to reason.

That is moronic. God conceived of what He planned beforehand. If you don't know that then you don't know God and you don't have a clue of what is coming.

I don't plan on "reasoning" with a fool who can't understand the basics of Christian belief like Gods ALL KNOWING.. or would open theism have us believe that we know more than God because we haven't shown Him our hand yet?... Get a clue.

 

[chatmaggot]

ETERNAL means TIMELESS. God is Eternal. That is Christian that is what I believe. Also God is ALL KNOWING because He existed in eternity past.

No it doesn't. Knight explained how you are confusing things. If there is "no time" or timeless than nothing can happen because it takes time for something to occur (God creating, God not creating, or tossing Satan into a Lake of Fire).

Just out of curiosty...how much time passed before God created time?

 

[ghost]

That is moronic.

No, it's your logic that lacks an ounce of reason. It's obvious that this topic is well beyond your ability to think logically.

God conceived of what He planned beforehand.

There you go again. God is eternal, having no beginning and no end. According to your view that God knows all things, must include that he knows all things eternally, thus eliminating any possibility of anything being conceived.

 

[Bob Enyart]

Nang, quoting me, that "God did many things before creation..." you write:

So you theorize, but the answer is, no.

But you left out the verses that I listed showing some of the things that God did before the creation: (John 17:24, 5; Rom. 8:29; 1 Pet. 1:20; Eph. 1:4).

Of course Nang we may disagree on this, but I'm not "theorizing" the things listed in these verses that God did before He created the foundations of the earth (Gen. 1:1).

-Bob

 

[Nathon Detroit]

God conceived of what He planned beforehand.

So are you saying there was a time before God had conceived? This doesn't seem to match your settled theism.

Hmmm.... how can I ask this.... :think:

Do you believe that there was a point in history where God was planning out and deciding on the things He was going to do?

 

[Lon]

MrRadish, this is the kind of extra-biblical reasoning that all the Scripture in the opening post is meant to address. If you force yourself to address the biblical material in the OP, you might see that these issues that you've brought up have answers.

-Bob Enyart

Alright then Bob, but you lost before you started. I addressed it in part but will comply, not that you'll stand up and take notice, though you should. It doesn't matter who is arguing with you as long as you take the correction. I don't need credentials behind my name though there are a few I don't tend to advertise. I don't really care about those sorts of things, just the truth. Here goes:

Here is a biblical PROOF that GOD IS IN TIME and experiences change in sequence:

First of all, no problem. I say the same thing but rather am concerned that you are stuck in a ray rather than a line with your thinking.

[
In the "eternal state" before the foundation of the world God the Son was not also the SON OF MAN; then He "became" flesh as "the Son of Man" and so the Son remains eternally "the Man Jesus Christ" (1 Tim 2:5).
Many theologians reject this proof that God is in time. Why? They claim that their historical-grammatical hermeneutic, that is, their primary method of interpretation, proves that God is not in time. So let's look at the relationship of God and time.

Nope, in fact we say He is 'relational' (involved) yet also is apart from His creation, including time. He cannot be eternally non-created as a unidirectional being and this is math, not 'philosophy' from the Greeks or whoever else rightly apprehends mathematical truth.

When Reading in "the Greek" about God and Time, We See that God is:

- timeless,
- in an eternal now,
- not was nor will be but is, and
- has no past
- has no future.

Of course NOT ONE of these phrases are in the Bible. They're from Plato. And they're uncritically repeated by Christians in various systematic theology textbooks.

No, you are missing the point again. Essentially you are doing the blind man/elephant trick here. We are the one's saying that the elephant is the tail, the trunk, the ears and the legs. Its the whole animal. You are the one saying God is unidirectional and I'm the one telling you that that is one bit of the expression of truth. You cannot have a God if He is only unidirectional as you cannot have an elephant with just a trunk. Don't over-extrapolate that we are saying 'elephants don't have trunks' or that 'God doesn't relate to us in finite terms.

By "the Greek" there, I meant pagan Greek philosophy (and pagan Hinduism, etc.). In contrast, the Bible's Hebrew and Greek terms are TOTALLY different. They all speak of God existing through unending duration and everlasting amounts of time. The above terms are foreign to the student of God's Word, whereas the Bible's terms are all so very familiar from our Scripture reading. Even though typically translated by those who claim that God is outside of time, yet still, the Bible's many descriptions present God as existing in a never-ending sequence of time.

Oddly enough, many of them weren't pagans.

When Reading Your Bible about God and Time, We See that God is:

Everlasting - From of old - Before ever He had formed the earth - The Ancient of Days - Before the world was - From before the ages of the ages - From ancient times - He continues forever - Immortal - Remains forever - Forever and ever - God’s years - manifest in His own time - God who is - Alive forevermore - Who was - Who is to come - Always lives - Forever - In the age to come - 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 quotes from Scripture and NOT ONE MEANS TIMELESSNESS.

That's like saying not one quote about an elephant's trunk mentions 'ears.'
Isn't that just silly? I don't argue passages like that, but rather 'add' to the full picture. An elephant isn't "like a snake" but in a micro-portion/consideration. There's a lot more to an elephant than that. There is more to God than the fact that He interacts with us in a time-ray (think time-'line').

The scores of passages represented from these phrases teach the opposite of pagan Plato's claim that God has "no past" and "no future." Open Theism claims that the future is open (and not settled) because God is free and eternally creative and will always have new thoughts. The Settled View claims that the future is utterly and exhaustively settled and its advocates includes all Calvinist and Arminian theologians. These Settled View adherents interpret ALL scripture about God and time as a FIGURE OF SPEECH. But they take Plato literally. Why?
The human philosophy of the pagan Greeks (which Augustine admited that he adapted to Christian theology), assumes that God exists outside of time, something the language of Scripture could easily present if that were God's intention.

Now who is departing scripture? No, let's look at Isaiah and Psalms, and Revelation. God having no past is both scripture 101 and math 101. "No other God before me" means "He knows." It is right there in scripture. In order for God to 'know' it means He has no beginning. You can say God has a past in the sense of one of the directions, but you aren't recognizing God has at the very least, two directions with time considerations. Even the scriptures go beyond your two-dimensional thinking here. Take Geometry again, Bob. Yeah, read your bible, too, of course.

The Above Proof By Proof Texts: Let's demonstrate the above proof again this time using only Bible excerpts. Those who claim that God is outside of time also frequently use the unbiblical phrase, "the eternal state." Actually, every moment is in the eternal state, including those moments before creation, all those since, and including those that will follow the New Creation. The following purely scriptural phrases show that in the "eternal state," WHO GOD WAS in eternity past differs from WHO GOD IS now and in eternity future. The differences do not include anythink like an abandonment of His fundamental attributes (which are that He is Living, Personal, Relational, Good, and Loving), but rather, they are divine expressions of these attributes. For:

"The Father… is Spirit" and "invisible," "from of old… from everlasting," just "like the Son of God," who "loved [the Son] before the foundation of the world." Yet "God was manifested in the flesh" for "the Word BECAME flesh," having "partaken of flesh and blood," and "coming in the likeness of men" "to be made like His brethren." So "He is the SON OF MAN," "from the seed of David," "Jesus Christ… the Son of Abraham." And "this MAN, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God." And "He ever lives to make intercession," for "the Mediator between God and men" is "the MAN Christ Jesus." So "God… will judge the world… by the MAN whom He has ordained," and "in the regeneration… the SON OF MAN sits on the throne of His glory."

Yep, and we are stuck on the elephant trunk again. I'll repeat this as my mantra with every open theist: God is 'relational to' and 'unconstrained by' creation's unidirectional increments. Itsa' whole elephant thing again.

The second person of the Trinity, God the Son, was not OF MAN through eternity past. Neither David, nor Adam, nor any of us, were necessary for God to be God. But the second person of the Trinity is now Jesus, the SON OF MAN. But willing to trade away God's freedom, holiness, and a thousand literal Bible verses, many theologians will sacrifice the greatest truths of Scripture for Platonic immutability. (Some Christians even say that they would reject Christ if God had actual freedom.) As we've seen in the "comment thread" to Bob Enyart's Open Theism Debate with the president of The North American Reformed Seminary, a reader responding to our own BEL producer Will Duffy, wrote:

"Jesus Christ is God and man, he is both, he has eternally existed as both."
Christians desperate to win an argument that God is outside of time will even flirt with the unbiblical claim that God the Son was always a man, from eternity past. However, regarding the extension of humanity onto God the Son Himself through the incarnation, there is a divine chronological order. For:

"...the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth… the second Man is the Lord from heaven." 1 Cor. 15:46

But theologians committed to the Settled View handle this verse like they do a thousand others. They turn it into a figure of speech meaning the EXACT OPPOSITE of what the passage naturally states. If they were correct in this, then of course Christians could we can safely ignore the evident teaching of this and many other such passages. But in truth, Jesus was the Son of God from eternity past, and He became forever the Son of Man only at the Incarnation. For remember that writing in Genesis Moses introduced Melchizedek without parents making it appear that He had no beginning, "like the Son of God" (Heb. 7:3).

You realize, I hope, that you are essentially arguing that God is subject to something and someplace greater than Himself, right? Basically your confusion here is between intrinsic vs. extrinsic change. We of the traditional persuasion aren't arguing about extrinsic things, these aren't important and will have us going round and round for a long time, like if my clock which is mechanic and doesn't intrinsically change. I've made this point clear in thread - different T-shirt today, same Lon (extrinsic vs. intrinsic).

The Son of Man: As men, we probably would never pick the same title for Jesus as is His favorite title for Himself, "the Son of Man." That title seems almost common to us, because we are all sons of man. But He took that title for Himself after much humbling and lowering and emptying of Himself. That title, the Son of Man, is precious to Him because it cost Him so much. But many theologians reject that the Incarnation shows change in God, as demonstrated in the TNARS Open Theism debate (mentioned above). In defending their position, such theologians claim that Open Theists confuse Christ's humanity with His divinity. However, there are not four persons of the trinity, as is implied by such objections. His humanity did not become human. It is the eternal God the Son who became flesh.

Please pay attention as you don't seem to be getting it: extrinsic vs. intrinsic. Unless such terms are used and understood, contention is pointless and meaningless. As graciously as I can reiterate: the above then is pointless and meaningless for it isn't rightly accounting for what we are talking about. You can say 'a clock changes' all day and I'm going to disagree with you but it all comes down to this: we are talking about two entirely different things. The clock goes through a changing routine but does not and cannot change other than extrinsically. It affects absolutely nothing of 'clockness.' Same clock, no change. "But it now says 12:01!" Yeah, I'm not listening. That's trivial smalltalk. I hope you realize what I'm saying here, I'm not being flippant on this particular except to make the cogent point.

To defend Platonic utter immutability those who hold the Settled View will deny that God has the freedom even to think new thoughts. So what do they get in trade for God's freedom? They can claim that before the criminal was ever born, God decided how often to rape that child and how filthy each time would be, "all for His glory and pleasure" including the rapist being beat to death in prison. The fact that God says, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked" (Ezek. 33:11) is irrelevant because it's all a double figure of speech meaning the EXACT OPPOSITE of what the text says, as we can see from the sad reality that many theologians believe that God did ordain the rape, and the beating death, "for His pleasure." And they even claim that God is impassible, that is, that He can have no emotion or passion, for in contrast to a hundred verses in Scripture, John Calvin wrote that God is, "incapable of every feeling." So when God says He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, they claim really that He can have NO pleasure whatsoever. Yes, God's ways are higher than our ways. But they're not lower. He doesn't take pleasure from adultery.

Same thing here. You can argue the clock face changes all you like but the greater truth is, still, that there is no change. Even the OV agrees with the traditional view here. Yeah, go ahead and make the incidental point of extrinsic change, no problem. Even a few of the Greeks would have agreed.

When pressed, as in the above debate, many theologians will admit that Sovereignty is NOT an eternal attribute of God. That is a valid position, for otherwise, God's very existence would be dependent upon the creation. Just as Adam is not necessary for God to be God (as he would have been if the Son of God were also the Son of Man, eternally) so too if the quantitative attribute of exhaustive foreknowledge is required for God to be God, then the one reading this sentence at this very moment would also be a necessary prerequisite for God to be God, for God could not then exist apart from each and every one of us being and doing and thinking everything in fact that we've been and done and thought. For if our existence is necessary in His mind eternally for Him to be God, then in a fundamental way we are also eternally necessary for God's very existence, and He then could not be God without me. This is a twisted theological perversion. Such notions diminish God. And they bring the Christian into absurdities like praying to change the past. After all, if God is outside of time, then there is no difference to God in prayers for the future and those for the past, in praying for those living today and for those who died yesterday. Christians find themselves battling the same absurdities as time traveling science fiction characters. Coming back to reality though, even in sovereignty we see God changing. For in eternity past He was not sovereign. Yet after He returns "in His own time" as "the King of kings" (1 Tim. 6:15) He will reign Sovereign in His kingdom that will never end (Isaiah 9:7).

No, here you confuse the difference between the extrinsic and intrinsic.

Bad Translations: "Before time began" (2 Tim. 1:9 & Titus 1:2) is widely quoted yet in the Greek text of the New Testament there is no verb "began" in the orginal language. And the singular word "time" does not appear. Instead, Paul wrote, "before the times of the ages," which is very different from the way many of our Bible versions render this phrase, which translations do not flow from the grammar but from on the translators' commitment to Greek philosophy.

- "Time shall be no more" (Rev. 10:6; hymns) is corrected even by Calvinist translators in virtually all modern versions as is also made overtly clear from the text and the context, "There will be no more delay!"
- "The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" at Revelation 13:8 can be corrected (as at the NIV footnote) by cross-referencing the passage with Revelation 17:8. For the bible teaches that "only those written in the Lamb's Book of Life" (Rev. 21:27) shall have be saved, and that God could save Old Testament believers because He looked forward to the cross, and He can save believers now because He looks backward to the cross. So in the Old Testament God looked forward and in the last two millenia He looks backward to that wonderful and yet terrible time. However, if Christ had been slain previously, before the foundation of the world, then there would have been no need for the righteous dead to wait in Abraham's Bosom "until the death of the one who is high priest in those days" (symbolizing Christ). The parallel passage at Revelation 17:8 shows that the qualifier does not apply to the slaying of Christ but to the wicked, "whose names were not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world." This means that these evil men were not believers who had fallen away, but that their names were NEVER written in the book. (See a similar construct in Jeremiah 2:32.) Revelation 13:8 can even be seen as giving the title and sub-title of The Book of Life – Of the Lamb Slain.

There is Time in Heaven: When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about HALF AN HOUR (Rev. 8:1).

- When He opened the fifth seal [martyrs in heaven said]: "HOW LONG, O Lord… until You… avenge our blood…" (Rev. 6:9; 11:17-18).
- …the tree of life… bore twelve fruits [a different one] EVERY MONTH (Rev. 22:2).

- But this Man, AFTER He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down… FROM THAT TIME WAITING TILL His enemies are [defeated] (Heb. 10:12-13).

- [God will not punish demons] "before [their] time" (Mat. 8:29).
If the TRUE perspective is God's ETERNAL NOW, then David is now killing Bathsheba’s husband, each believer is still in his sin, and the Father is right now pouring out wrath on His Son, right now. But this is false for Hebrews says that Jesus suffered "once for all."

Neither men nor angles can be omnipresent, even in heaven, for they would thereby have to be divine. The same limitation would apply with timelessness. If God existed outside of time the angels before His throne ("who do not rest… saying, 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come'") and the men ministering to Him forever would also have to be timeless, which would mean that they were divine also. And Jesus said we shall receive much "in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life" (Luke 18:30), and as for things that can happen, as He said in a parable, some things happen "by chance" (Luke 10:31). And "In the beginning" does not mean in the beginning of time, for that's Augustine's interpretation based on Plato, but we have the Lord's interpretation based on Mark, for as Jesus said, the phrase means in "the beginning OF CREATION" (Mk. 10:6; Mat. 19:4).

God did many things before creation (John 17:24, 5; Rom. 8:29; 1 Pet. 1:20; Eph. 1:4) and His children shall "endure forever" (Ps. 39:36) enjoying God eternally through an "everlasting covenant" (Gen. 17:7), "established forever." So the Bible teaches that God is in time. And a foundation of the Settled View is seen to be heavily based on human philosophy and contradicted by the entirety of the relevant biblical material.

By Bob Enyart, KGOV.com &
Pastor, Denver Bible Church

For your convenience we have created a short link for this article at http://bit.ly/godandtime

The rest of this I addressed here where I summarize:

Yeah, I'd think you'd want to wait until such starkly obvious discrepancies as above are adequately addressed before submitting first-drafts as if they are gold...

 

[Lon]

I personally have not drawn any conclusions about Open/Settled Theism and am trying to understand both views. Is there any Salvific implications of one view over the other? Or is just how we view God. Just a question....

Lon I see you are using a line and a ray, don't you believe that a line also has a start point before going both directions? I mean a number line has a zero before going infinite in both directions which would still indicate time in both directions, positive and negative, no?

Such a point is extrinsic (artificial) for the purpose of measuring between two points. This is the only concept of time we have other than segmenting it further.

 

[GuySmiley]

You can spin it any way you want but ETERNAL means TIMELESS.

You can repeat it over and over, but no, eternal implies time, not timelessness.

 

[GuySmiley]

ETERNAL means TIMELESS. God is Eternal. That is Christian that is what I believe. Also God is ALL KNOWING because He existed in eternity past.

You cant even discuss this without stepping all over your own point.

 

[Lon]

Well, I'm sure you'll agree that Jesus the human being did have a start-up date at the Incarnation (Heb 1:6), while Jesus the Son of God is eternally begotten of the Father (Heb 7:3).

Same as with Bob. You can suggest that a clock is changing as it ticks every second but this isn't the same thing. We necessarily must use two separate terms because my clock on my desk isn't changing. That it is relational to me is incidental. Same numbers everyday, no change at all. Specifically I would agree if we throw in extrinsic and intrinsic change. The clock doesn't change but it 'displays change.' So, for the most part, if we are recognizing each other's arguments and understanding we are using 'change' to mean two different things, okay.
If we are going to argue about change without being specific and more technically accurate, we'll be at this until we reach His kingdom.

 

[ghost]

Lon, you are stuck on a point that I'm sure no one is arguing :sigh:

And you keep missing the points that are being made.

 

[Lon]

So are you saying there was a time before God had conceived? This doesn't seem to match your settled theism.

Hmmm.... how can I ask this.... :think:

Do you believe that there was a point in history where God was planning out and deciding on the things He was going to do?

Yes. God is 'relational to' an arbitrary point on a time-line just as in math, a dot is relational to any infinite number of lines intersecting it.

Time is relational to any durative starting point of consideration. Yes God has time. No God doesn't experience only unidirection as you and I and it is impossible to think so if you accept He has no beginning without a contradiction. Unidirectional and 'no-beginning' are mutally exclusive.

 

[Lon]

Lon, you are stuck on a point that I'm sure no one is arguing :sigh:

And you keep missing the points that are being made.

I know it might 'look' that way, but to those who have gotten into these higher math classes, it is a forgone. You cannot have a God who only experiences duration, that also has no beginning. These two ideas are mutually exclusive (saying the exact opposites of who God is and what is possible).

 

[sky.]

Same as with Bob. You can suggest that a clock is changing as it ticks every second but this isn't the same thing. We necessarily must use two separate terms because my clock on my desk isn't changing. That it is relational to me is incidental. Same numbers everyday, no change at all. Specifically I would agree if we throw in extrinsic and intrinsic change. The clock doesn't change but it 'displays change.' So, for the most part, if we are recognizing each other's arguments and understanding we are using 'change' to mean two different things, okay.
If we are going to argue about change without being specific and more technically accurate, we'll be at this until we reach His kingdom.

That's it right there. Some people who are not qualified to teach theology present it in a way that confuses the issues. People who have a Biblical foundation in the truths about God know what they are teaching goes outside the bounds of the truth. You do a very good job of explaining it technically. I understand it foundationally and spiritually.

 

[ghost]

I know it might 'look' that way, but to those who have gotten into these higher math classes, it is a forgone. You cannot have a God who only experiences duration, that also has no beginning. These two ideas are mutually exclusive (saying the exact opposites of who God is and what is possible).

Time is because God is. You cannot separate God from time, anymore than you can separate God from movement, communication, or math.

 

[zippy2006]

It only does so from the temporal viewpoint that you force on God. God's "future creativity" is not limited because God transcends time.

This is completely illogical, and false.

Where does the logic fail?

Holding to your view of God means that God has eternally known all things and cannot create anything. That is a fact.

He has eternally known all things and He did create. I see no problem there.

 

[ghost]

Where does the logic fail?

by opening up the possibility for God to "create" in the future. If God is eternally all-knowing than He can only bring to pass what has already eternally been in His mind, but would have no ability to create an idea to do anything in the future. This is an indisputable fact.

He has eternally known all things and He did create. I see no problem there.

Take away man, the universe, angels, etc., and all there is that exists is God, and then tell me how God who knows all things can think of "making man in His own image"?

 

[Lon]

Time is because God is. You cannot separate God from time, anymore than you can separate God from movement, communication, or math.

Yes, please forgive, I meant 'unidirectional' time in the above. God can't 'only' experience unidirectional duration because it eliminates a non-beginning, which defines Him as God. Those are two exclusive ideas from one another. This topic needs precision so for that I note and appreciate your correction. I had used 'only' but see where that might not have conveyed the idea to you clearly.

 

[zippy2006]

by opening up the possibility for God to "create" in the future. If God is eternally all-knowing than He can only bring to pass what has already eternally been in His mind, but would have no ability to create an idea to do anything in the future. This is an indisputable fact.

But I've already addressed this by noting that you are implanting God within time. If God were in time you would be right, but you aren't properly examining the Settled View, because we do not believe He is in time.

Take away man, the universe, angels, etc., and all there is that exists is God, and then tell me how God who knows all things can think of "making man in His own image"?

The language is anthropomorphic and the Jews knew it (they celebrated the Passover on a yearly basis and believed that they were mysteriously partaking in the original Passover, just as the Church partakes in Calvary at Mass).

Your case and Enyart's is based on Biblical literalism. I have no problem with taking the Bible literally at times, but there are a number of justifiable reasons we have for not taking the anthropomorphic language applied to God literally in this case, not to mention the fact that there are as many verses that directly oppose as support the Open View.

What do you think God was doing before He created? :think:

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Time is because God is. You cannot separate God from time, anymore than you can separate God from movement, communication, or math.

Excellent. :up:

Time itself isn't a thing, it's merely the notion or concept that one event follows another event and so on.