God and Time

These verses show that he is present in time; they don't say he is fully contained by it.

It says time (everlasting time) existed before creation. So, if time was not created with the rest of creation, but existed before creation, when does the Bible say time was created? If God is from everlasting, and God has always existed, then time must go back to everlasting as well.

I never said God is fully contained by time. What does that even mean?

True. Okay... we're good.

"from everlasting to everlasting" is idiomatically identical to "alpha and omega"

it neither means God has a beginning or end, not does it mean He is time itself or space itself.

there is no time during which He is not God and no space in which He is not God. this doesn't make Him equal to either; it declares He cannot be encompassed by time or space.

How are you proving it is idiomatic rather than literal? Maybe you just don't like what it says, so you are denoting it as idiomatic to escape taking in its obvious literal sense. Why do you feel it is necessary to denote it as idiomatic?

Who has said that God is equal to time or space? Straw man fallacy.

Or maybe its not so obvious literal sense- since the Greek doesn't have a definite sense of "forever", there is also a "a long time" sense of the same Greek.

So, I suppose this is all going to depend on whether we think of time as infinite. You've said there's no reason to think there was not time before creation; yet, others suppose there's no reason to think there was.

Well, you asked why "everlasting to everlasting" was not a "personal" characteristic of God- and he answered that question.

I said love and truth were "personality" characteristics of God. "everlasting to everlasting" is a "characteristic" but it's not a limiting characteristic. love and truth are self-imposed limiting characteristics.

What do you mean by "love and truth are self-imposed limiting characteristics"? If God is love, how is love a self-imposed characteristic? If God is the truth, how is truth a self-imposed characteristic? In what way are these characteristics limiting?

So, I believe that God is love and truth because he chose to be those things; but I also believe that concepts such as "love" and "truth" are his creation, and not some idea that is independent of him. Truth exists, because God made it so; and the same goes with love.

Love and truth are limiting in the sense that, in a person:
1) Truth precludes falsehood.
2)Love (Agape) precludes ill-will.

I am a Christian. That is a self-imposed characteristic.
I am a history-nerd. That is a self imposed characteristic.
I am an eater of spicy food.
I am a poster on Christian Chat.
I am a believer in an infinite God and a finite time-space.

I don't have to be any of those things. I could be an Idolater, an eater of crappy bland foods, a poster on anti-Christian chat, and a believer in a finite God and infinite time...That would be pretty lame though.

Fair enough. I agree that much of the language in Revelation is figurative. However, it is figurative of passing time in which God provides for the needs of his people. And, I agree with you that that provision is grounded in the work of Christ. A figure of speech still means something, even if the language is more prescriptive than descriptive.

So, even if we do not interpret the passage literally in the sense that there are actual trees that produce various fruits month after month, I do think it still implies that God is providing for his people’s needs through time. Heaven is pictured as a “new heavens and new earth.” Thus, it is safe to assume that whatever heaven is like, it is similar to the life we experience now in this time or as Adam experienced in the garden before the Fall. I dont think the early readers of Revelation would have read that book and assumed that we enter a timeless state with God in which there is no past, present or future. Rather, we see things like “feasts,” ”worship,” “celebration” and a time where we “reign” with Christ. All of these images suggest that we are doing things in heaven in our experience with God…which implies a past present and future through eternity.

I dont mind that illustration. I am fine with the idea that God, in his creation has set certain boundaries for us. I have never thought that free will is without limitation. Certainly the Bible, and common sense, indicates to us that God has “determined allotted periods and boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him“ (Acts 17:26-27). Certainly, none of us chose when we would be born, or where, or our parents, etc.

I also agree that the Bible is not an engineering book and we should not read it as a 21st century science manual. The Bible consists of various genres that we should read and interpret accordingly. The Bible‘s stories are chosen for a reason. Not simply to tell us what happened, but why and how we should live and perceive the world as a result. To try to strain those stories out to formulate timelines or models of cosmology is a mistake, imo.

Again, I agree that I dont know how God perceives time. I just think that it’s a mistake to suggest that the concept of immutability mandates that God is entirely outside of time and that the emotions described in the Bible are not accurate portrayals of how God interacts with events. So, I think it is safe to say that these interactions reveal that God is not in a state of stasis. However God is interacting with time, he is interacting with it genuinely. His sovereignty does not demand that he dictates all outcomes or that his free-will creatures are not genuinely free to make contrasting decisions. Thus, if God created the world in such a way so that all events were ultimately predetermined, then we would have to question texts that indicate that God’s “will” was being resisted or rejected. After all, why would Jesus model a prayer for us to pray, “Thy will be done” if it was impossible for anything to happen outside God’s will?

If the program you create for a computer mandated certain outcomes, then it would be disingenuous to suggest there is any free will or that you’d be “surprised“ “remorseful” or “angry“ by any of the results of the program. For instance, if you program a calculator to provide the answer 4 anytime someone types 2+2, why would you compose a revelatory text of yourself that suggests you were surprised when the sum 4 appeared on a screen? that would be nonsensical if not flatly false. If God created our world, its events and timeline and stands entirely outside of it in a continual present, then surely indicating any emotion about what lies within that timeline would seem to be a misrepresentation of reality. However, if God is somehow traversing through time and experiencing events in a fashion that is similar to how we experience it, then these depictions of God’s reactions and expectations would make sense.

So, to summarize, I dont think I disagree with anything you wrote. But I think we dont have to contemplate things long to recognize that a God that does not exist with a past, present or future could not be described as the Bible describes Him. While such a God could exist, I dont think the Bible would be accurately reflecting his personality and character under those circumstances. I hope that makes sense.

And to ask you a question: How do you suppose God created the universe if he does not have a past, present or future? How can someone do something ”new” if they exist in a state of timelessness where neither “new” nor “old” is a possibility?

But it does say, “In him we live and move and have our being“ (Acts 17:28). So I would take that to mean not only our physical bodies, but the time and space we exist in as well.

I believe that God all we have, are and exist in is an extension of God, himself. He is life, reality, truth and rationality. We derive all these things from his being. We are not ontologically independent or divorced from God as if he is some far off creature looking down on us. I think this mentality developed more from Deism which ultimately morphed into secularism. To ontologically separate the Creator from his creation, I think, is a problematic formula

Well, to answer this question accurately we need to again, understand how Time works which would then make us ask the question better, or more accurately.
But, in general i do agree with most of your post prior to this one, despite some minor misunderstandings there in regards to a videogame which was one example from our POV to show Pre-Determination while allowing for limited free-will as well as emotions like anger, joy and peace during the journey.

our existence isn't constrained to time and space. we were chosen in Him before those things, and when the whole world has passed away, we will be with Him.

a simple, fundamental proof that the spiritual realm exists is that our consciousness can't be explained by the physical brain, and the speed of thought is greater than thecspeed of its synapses.

if o just say "the alphabet song" you have comprehended the whole thing far quicker than you can recite it, even internally. theind inhabits the brain; it isn't the brain - and the ability to communicate to other minds finds limits in the physical brain, not inherent to the mind.

ergo..

Greetings Chaps; Yes I agree with you, believers will experience "Time " in Eternity and those terms together sound like contradictions but we are at this time incapable of understanding Eternity. Maybe time in Eternity will be in some way different to what we now experience. I think we will just have to wait and see. God of course can not be bound by His own creations. God Bless You.