Is God Getting Older?
Toward a Biblical View of the Omnitemporality of God
Posted
Friday, August 05, 2005
by
Sam Yeiter
For a long time, I've been intrigued by the questions surrounding time. I even went to the length of checking out a lecture series by some BostonCollege physicist from the library. I ended up more confused than when I started (of course), but it did raise a lot of interesting questions. Well, in the theological world, the question that interests me is, "How does God relate to time?" I'm still a newbie to this topic, so I welcome your thoughts along the way...
There seem to be only two major ways of looking at time. It must be either ontological
or non-ontological. (For those of you unfamiliar with that term, ontology has to do with our manner of existence. If something is ontological, then it has substance, whether spirit or physical matter or whatever else there is that we may not know about or understand. If it is non-ontological, then it exists as a concept, like truth, justice, and the american way). Those who accept time as ontological believe that God created time and that it is as real as you or me. They see time as something âcreation bound,â that is, something that has to do with our physical and spiritual existence. Because of this, time is something that creatures live within, like a box containing every event that will ever occur. It began in Genesis 1 and will end in Revelation 21. I imagine that some people believe time will go on as long as humans exist, though I think the concept of time ending after the MillennialKingdom is the most prominent.
Those who accept time as non-ontological believe that time does not have real existence. They would say that God did not make time, but rather, that it is a means of measuring events. The labels used to track time (hours, minutes and seconds) are arbitrary and could be changed at our whim to fit our needs.
I was always taught that time is a real entity, though it was not always called such. Science calls time the fourth dimension, and Hollywood sends people back and forth across time as if it were a ferry between two realities. Along the way, lack of information, half-biblical notions and Hollywood science got blended together and has been sold to and swallowed by the Christian community. I believe we may need to do some substantial (pun not intended) rethinking.
I believe that time is non-ontological and thus has only conceptual existence. So, what then is time? What is it that we experience so constantly?
Time is a way of making sense of sequential events. When I say âhelloâ to you, you then respond with a greeting and perhaps an inquiry as to my well-being. I reply with the standard half-truth response, âfine,â and may express interest in your health as well. At the end of the conversation we easily recognize that the events happened in a specific order and that it did not occur instantly. It is this realization that mandates some means to make sense of it all. This is what time is, a measure of events. God did not need to create something called time for us to be able to have sequential action. Rather, sequential actions call for some measurement. God knew of this need and gave us reliable sequential events, most notably the rotations of the Sun, Moon, stars and planets (Genesis 1:14), with which we could create a time-measurement system.
Godâs Relationship to Time
Understanding what time is (in a confessedly abbreviated way), we can make a positive statement of how God relates to time. God always has and always will experience time and is completely unaffected by it. God is not âoutsideâ time. Time is eternal, like God. In the same way Godâs omnipotence puts no limits on His strength and views it as beyond capability of measurement, so his omnitemporality, if you will, puts his length of existence beyond limit and measurement. To say that God is older now than he was 1000 years ago may be as unmeaningful as suggesting that God can get stronger or more holy. I don't want to get too distracted here, but it seems like a fun question.
Objections to This View
Objections to any idea ought to be considered. In this case, I am going to present some arguments against my view to try to flesh it out a bit.
Objection: But God is eternal and exists outside of time, Isaiah states this in verse 15 of chapter 57. âFor thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.â -KJV
Response: The phrase, the âone that inhabiteth eternityâ is ambiguous, and is not a clear statement in the Hebrew text. We do not see Isaiah chiming in on the nature of God and time here. The author is simply saying, âGod has always existed.â The NIV and NASB render it as the one âwho lives forever.â Delitzsch, in his commentary on the book says, âthis does not mean the dweller in eternity, which is a thought quite outside the biblical range of ideals; but...denotes a continuing life, a life having its root in itself, [it] must mean the eternally dwelling One, i.e. He whose life lasts for ever and is always the same.â God is comparing Himself to humanity. The emphasis of the âone that inhabiteth eternityâ is the contrast of Godâs eternality and manâs finitude.
Objection: How can time be eternal? Only God is eternal.
Response: God is the only eternal ontological entity. No human or angel (or any other spirit being, Brian) is eternal, nor is any material thing. Nothing except God has always substantially existed. However, good and evil have always existed as concepts. In fact, everything we can think of has always existed conceptually. If we believe God to be eternal and we believe he knows about everything, we must accept this as true. Think of this...does an inch exist? Can you hold an inch? You cannot touch an inch, not because it is non-physical (like a spirit), but because an inch does not have ontology, substantial existence. Yet we think and speak of inches nearly every day. Measurements, such as inches, feet and yards are helpful as we make sense of and live in this physical world. In the same way, when I say time has always existed, I am saying that a measurement device (which has no substance, or real existence) has always been, and I am not taking anything from Godâs eternality.
Objection: But when we die we exit time...or at least we will at the end of the MillennialKingdom.
Response: âAunt Betty stepped into eternity today...â Frequently we say something similar to this when someone dies. I do not believe we are making a correct statement. Though it sounds comforting, I believe this circumlocution does more harm than good. It presents us with the problem of finitude (time dwellers) and infinitude (the non-time dweller) dwelling together, as defined by those who view time as ontological. Foundational to this statement is that God is outside of time, that He is transcendent to His creation and that something earthly (like time) cannot contain Him. The problems with this view quickly surface when we discuss the incarnation, or any cohabitation of Creator with creature. If the teaching is âbecause God is infinite He cannot dwell in time.â Then when we speak of exiting time, we make ourselves to be infinite, transcendent, dwelling outside of creation. Only God (so it would go) can be outside the box of creation. However, it says in Revelation 22:3-5, â...The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His bond-servants shall serve Him; and they shall see His face...and they shall reign forever and ever.â We will live forever in the same location as God, certainly not a place restricted to infinite persons. A positive statement of the state of believers who pass away would be, âAunt Betty has gone to dwell with God.â To me, this is far more comforting than the thought of stepping into eternity.
Objection: If time goes on forever in Heaven we will age forever...that certainly isnât Heaven.
Response: God is called the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7:9, 13, and 22. However, God does not show signs of aging. This objection has wrongly associated deterioration of body with passage of time. In our daily lives we often see time as the agent which ages us. We assume that as long as time exists we will continue to be ravaged. So the thinking goes, when we are taken to Heaven time will be no more and we will live forever, unchanging like the elves in Lothlorien. However, it is not passage of time which wears on the body. Rather, it is sin that is slowly destroying us and we often see a corresponding passage of time. At the present in America we see that it takes approximately 72 revolutions of the Earth around the Sun for someone to be totally destroyed by sin. There have been times and places in history when it only took 35-40 years, and there were times in the distant past that it took several hundred. In Heaven we will age, but that ageing will be free from the effects of sin. That will indeed be Heaven!
Objection: But there is no sequence with God, He experiences everything as present.
Response: The first problem is that this is certainly not taught clearly in Scripture. I have met many who hold to this (and yes, I used to as well), yet I know of no firm scriptural proof. The truth of Godâs infinite nature persuades some that He must not experience time like us. However, we may be foisting an extreme view of Creator/creature separation that is not warranted.
The second problem is that I believe we can affirm that God experiences sequence. We see from scripture that the Trinity did not simply sit quietly, doing nothing until suddenly they created. Jesus affirms in John 17:24 that there was interaction characterized by love within the Trinity before creation. In Ephesians 1:3-7 we learn that there was interaction before creation between the Trinity pertaining to the decrees and choices of God. Most important, we see sequence surrounding the incarnation and the installation of the church age. We can speak of a time before the Son had a body. He then came to Earth and after 33 years left it to return to the Father. Fifty days later the Spirit began a ministry of indwelling believers, something that he was not doing just one day earlier. I believe it is intellectually lazy or perhaps dishonest to look at these facts and merely say, âGod experienced all that as present.â
Application to Daily Life?
I believe that our study of Christology is affected by this view. One who sees God as âoutsideâ time has an awful time explaining the incarnation. This view helps us make sense of how an infinite God came to finite Earth and did not cease to be God. There were no time boundaries to cross. The glory of the incarnation is not that infinite God entered time (wouldnât that be a letdown), but that God dwelt among men in their own clothes and offered himself as our atoning sacrifice.
Finally, I think that a correct understanding of God and time will give us a new awareness of the awfulness of sin. When we see someone who has âaged poorly,â we say without thinking, âTime sure has taken its toll on him/her.â I hope that this post has emphasized the devastating nature of sin. It is all too easy to think of only the âbigâ sins as damaging. Yet all the decay we see around and in us is the result of one small sin, eating a fruit that was off-limits.
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