Time, Creation and God
- Thread starter civic
- Start date
civic
Well-known member
Blue Letter Bible
God Not Inactive
Yet, we should not assume that God was inactive prior to creation. The Bible speaks of God loving and planning before the earth was created. Jesus, in His prayer to the Father before His betrayal, said:
The Apostle Paul spoke of God's eternal plan:
In another place, Paul spoke of the promises of God.
The Trinity
This brings up an interesting question. If the world had not yet been created, then to whom was the promise of eternal life made? The promise was made among the different members of the Trinity (the Father to the Son or to the Holy Spirit) because at this particular point, that is, before the world was created, there was no one else to whom to make the promise. The different members of the Trinity love and communicate with each other. Hence, communication occurred within the Godhead before the creation of man and woman.
Both Before And After
The Scripture, therefore, speaks of God making plans both before the beginning and after the beginning. Before creation there was communication, planning, and love within the members of the Trinity. After creation that communication and love was directed toward humanity.
Summary
With regard to the activities of God before the universe was created we can state the following:
1.The question of God's activity before creation assumes God dwells in time. The Bible say that God has eternally existed and that space and time were created by Him.
2.God, the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, were not inactive before creating the world. God planned and purposed it before humanity came on the scene. Once we were created, God then directed His love and energies toward us.
3.All we need to know about God is what He has done and what He plans to do in the future. He has revealed this to us in the Bible - the Word of God. The Bible says:
God Not Inactive
Yet, we should not assume that God was inactive prior to creation. The Bible speaks of God loving and planning before the earth was created. Jesus, in His prayer to the Father before His betrayal, said:
The Apostle Paul spoke of God's eternal plan:
In another place, Paul spoke of the promises of God.
The Trinity
This brings up an interesting question. If the world had not yet been created, then to whom was the promise of eternal life made? The promise was made among the different members of the Trinity (the Father to the Son or to the Holy Spirit) because at this particular point, that is, before the world was created, there was no one else to whom to make the promise. The different members of the Trinity love and communicate with each other. Hence, communication occurred within the Godhead before the creation of man and woman.
Both Before And After
The Scripture, therefore, speaks of God making plans both before the beginning and after the beginning. Before creation there was communication, planning, and love within the members of the Trinity. After creation that communication and love was directed toward humanity.
Summary
With regard to the activities of God before the universe was created we can state the following:
1.The question of God's activity before creation assumes God dwells in time. The Bible say that God has eternally existed and that space and time were created by Him.
2.God, the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, were not inactive before creating the world. God planned and purposed it before humanity came on the scene. Once we were created, God then directed His love and energies toward us.
3.All we need to know about God is what He has done and what He plans to do in the future. He has revealed this to us in the Bible - the Word of God. The Bible says:
THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME Relational and Absolute Theories of Time What is time? One might say that time is what we use to measure change.2 If there is a change there is a time. Or one might say that if there is a change there is a time, but contend that time is not identical to change. Perhaps time could exist without change.3 There is disagreement over whether or not time can exist without change, but everyone agrees that if there is a change there is a time. (That is, unless one is an anti-realist about time.) On a relational view of time, time exists if and only if change exists. If there is a change there is a time. If no change ever occurred, then time would never occur. What must be understood is that any kind of change will get the job done, be it intrinsic or extrinsic.4 From the most boring and mundane changes to the most exciting and dramatic changes, if there is a change there is a time. This view is fairly intuitive, and it is hard to find any serious objections to it. The reason one might deny it is that she finds it more intuitive that time can exist without change. On an absolute view of time, time can exist without change or movement.
The Ontology of Time, and Persistence Through Time Presentism, the growing block, and eternalism are theories about the ontology of time, or about what moments of time exist. Each is typically linked with a theory of change and persistence through time. Presentism is usually held alongside endurantism, whereas the growing block and eternalism typically hold to some form of four-dimensionalism. Allow me to elaborate. Presentism is the thesis that only the present, the now, exists. The past no longer exists and the future does not yet exist.52 Time involves temporal becoming, or absolute generation, as well as real passage from one moment to the next. New things that did not formerly exist come into existence, and other things pass out of or cease to exist.53 For the presentist, it simply is the case that the only objects that exist are the ones that presently exist. As Trenton Merricks says of presentism, “an object has only those properties it has at the present time. The difference between past, present, and future is metaphysical, not perspectival.”54 On presentism, an object endures through time by existing as a whole, or all at once. To say that an object endures through time is to say that an object is wholly present at each moment of its existence. Numerically one and the same object exists at each time that it exists, and it does not have parts laying about at other times. Further, the presentist and endurantist explain change in terms of an object gaining and losing accidental properties over time. Let us say that some object O begins to exist at time t1 and persists all the way through to time t3 . On this account O exists entirely at each instant of time. Given presentism, as t2 comes into existence t1 ceases to exist and t3 does not yet exist. So O exists entirely at each instant only when that instant is the present. It is not as if O exists wholly at all of the instants of t1 through t3 simultaneously because all of those instances do not have equal ontological existence. As O endures through time it will gain and lose various accidental, or non-essential, properties. Let us say that O is an armchair. At t1 the armchair is blue, and then at t2 someone paints the armchair such that at t3 the armchair is red. The armchair has retained all of its essential properties, but it has lost one accidental property—that of being blue—and gained a new accidental property—that of being red. Eternalism and the growing block have several differences, but both have the same basic feature of seeing time as a four-dimensional spacetime manifold.55 On eternalism all moments of time have equal ontological existence. To put it roughly the past, present, and the future all exist, they are all equally real. To put it more technically there is no real distinction between past, present, and future. There just is the four-dimensional spacetime manifold with no privileged moment that marks the present.56 On this account there is no real passage of time because all moments of time exist. Nothing ever comes into existence nor ceases to exist because everything simply does exist in the spacetime manifold. As such, the experience of temporal passage is illusory. Growing block theorists hold that spacetime is a four-dimensional manifold, but they maintain that only the past and the present are real whereas the future is not. Time, they say, is dynamic in the sense that new things really do come into existence as new time slices are added to the four-dimensional spacetime manifold. Time slices are merely instants of time that can stand in earlier than and later than relations. They are much like points on a map. In fact most eternalists and growing blockers see a close connection between being located in space and being located at a time, whereas presentists reject the similarity between being located in space and located at a time.57 For the growing block theorist new time slices are constantly being added to spacetime. The eternalist holds that all time slices simply exist in the spacetime manifold. None ever come into nor pass out of existence. It has already been noted that presentists typically hold that objects endure through time. Growing blockers and eternalists typically hold to a version of four-dimensionalism. Four-dimensionalism says that objects persist by having temporal parts
The end of the timeless God - R T Mullins
civic
Well-known member
Thanks for the reference
You are welcome
civic
Well-known member
also if time is assumed to be linear and there is an eternal future that never ends this assumes there is also an eternal pst that never began. Creation is just a time stamp on the timeline. There was time prior to creation just no time stamp or a marker.
Unless one assumes the Creation is as eternal as Godalso if time is assumed to be linear and there is an eternal future that never ends this assumes there is also an eternal pst that never began. Creation is just a time stamp on the timeline. There was time prior to creation just no time stamp or a marker.
But to do so one must reject the belief God created out of nothing
civic
Well-known member
Yes that is as bad as the eternal decree theory- to many holes. Can you imagine thinking or holding to the position that God does not think or process anything in His mind, does not reason, express love within His own Being as Father, Son and Spirit- just one eternal static thought like a stamp on a piece of paper. Thats all there is in the mind of God. Absurd. God being relational exposes such nonsence and Jesus asking to be back with the Father together agains sharing the glory they had together before the world existed. John 17:5 and 17:24. How could the Father express love before creation to the Son of He is static and not dynamic ?
So they are stuck either way if they ever deal with the issue
civic
Well-known member
Yes in a giant pickle
It's totally unbiblical but it is held because of a denial God does anything sequentially
