VARob was just asking how can God be genuinely angry at someone who offended when God already knew what they were going to do.
I guess I didn't explain well.
I replied to VARob as best as I could from my own experience with God because I wanted to let VARob know that God's reactions and feelings He expresses to people are GENUINE.
-=<>=-
I know God is eternal - without beginning or end. But when God created in Genesis, He also created time as we know it. So the Bible might not spell it out (just like with Trinity and the rapture), but yes God does lives outside of time.
There's a lot of writing about whether God lives outside of time or not, but I don't think this is a salvific issue. As long as one is close to the Lord, we can ask God about it when this is all over. In the meantime, you can believe whatever you want and I won't argue your view. I've already presented my own points about it.
2ndTimeIsTheCharm,
I think everyone around here appreciates you, and appreciates the gentle ways you try to explain doctrine to people.
I also think it's a pretty big deal when our members are willing to open up about themselves, and share their past struggles, so we can all learn from that. This is a hard thing to do. So when you do that, it's not only a help to the lost, and to those young in the faith, but to all of us.
: )
Now, on to the matter of "time."
History & Frailty:
Discussions of time have baffled philosophers and theologians as long as we've been here.
It's an extraordinarily strange and mysterious thing to discuss, because it doesn't really seem to be a thing at all.
Philosophers and theologians still debate this topic, and even Christian philosophers disagree, because it's such a hard thing to discuss.
Physicists like to weigh in, but there's a lot of debate about whether or not time is better relegated to philosophy than science. And even when scientists discuss it, they make a lot of philosophical statements rather than sticking strictly to science. So even scientists end up doing a lot of philosophy which is frankly outside of their expertise.
* We all suffer from the same general problem here: because we all have a personal experience of time, and we all deal with it on a daily basis, we all tend to philosophize about time in quite ordinary terms, without first thinking about how to really define it. And yet as soon as we define it, we often find ourselves in even more conundrums than where we started.
: )
Now Some Of The Weird Problems:
- It is true that God created time, in the beginning.
- So before he created time, was he "outside" of it?
- How could he have been outside of something that didn't yet exist?
- So it seems, that before he created time, he was not outside of it.
- How about AFTER he created time, was he "outside" of it then?
- Well, how can you be outside of a thing that has no spatial dimensions to be "outside" of?
- So, it isn't really possible to say God is outside of time, since there is no "place" to either be inside or outside of it.
- Now, it is still possible, I suppose, for God to "not engage with time", in some way... there might be some way that is possible.
- However, if we start by defining time, and really thinking about what it is, it's very hard to rationalize any way in which God could not be engaging with time.
- It is ESPECIALLY hard to think of God "not engaging in time" if we consider that the Bible actually shows God ENGAGING IN TIME.
- In the Bible, a linear, ordered, consistent, and immutable sense of time is merely implied throughout scripture... and God even speaks of himself, and temporal events, in this same way.
- We might simply say, "time is a thing God pops in and out of."
- But does he?
- Does the Bible really teach that?
- It is easy to merely speak an idea, especially an idea we've often heard, but it's much harder to show that a particular idea lines up with scripture or logic.
Conclusion:
A.) This is not an issue we should ever divide over. It's good to discuss it, and think about it, but we shouldn't ever divide over any issues that remain so mercurial in the realm of men.
B.) Time is a very strange thing, and it's a very hard topic to discuss - languages have words to "use" time, not to "analyze it's being."
C.) To the best of my understanding, the Bible seems to support a simple "A Theory of Time", in which time is linear and transitory.
D.) However, the Bible does not suggest a "B Theory" cannot exist, or does not exist... the scripture does not preclude this other theory.
E.) So either an "A Theory" or a "B Theory" are logically possible, in scripture, or in theoretical physics... but this doesn't mean they're equally likely.
F.) The theory of time we actually experience, in both daily life, and in all of science, is the "A Theory." And the one we see both used and implied in scripture, is the "A Theory."
G.) We often hear the expression that God is "outside of time", primarily, I think, because time has little effect on God, and this is just an easy way to encapsulate this strange idea. But that doesn't necessarily make it an articulate expression.
H.) We cannot, with perfect certainty, take a stand on either theory of time. So we should be thoughtful and gracious on this. But it seems to me (in my fallible mind) that if we were to embrace a different theory of time, that would undo the gospel, sin, salvation, the human experience, logic, everything in scripture, the fabric of the universe, and even the nature of God. So although we cannot stand with perfect certainty on either theory of time, if I were to stand on the side with the most evidence for it, and the least evidence against it... I think that would be the traditional "A Theory" of time.
I hope this has been fun to think about.
God Bless.
: )
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