Did God create time/duration? Or is the experience of time/duration an eternal attribute of God? This fundamental issue is vital to the doctrine of open theism. Time, by definition, is duration. The Platonic Philosophy of Eternal Now or that God is outside of time is that God does not experience any before or after as that would be the succession of events which is time/duration. It is commonly accepted, without question, that God created time. But is this even possible? No, it is not. All events must occur in time because all events have a cause and effect. A cause and an effect is in and itself a before and an after and therefore there can be no cause and effect without time. Given this self-evident truth, the event of creation could not have occurred without time/duration as its pre-condition. When an object is created, it goes from non-existence to existence which is itself duration. And since time/duration is a precondition for the creation of anything whatsoever, time cannot be a creation of God. But as the Bible states that God is the Creator, it evidently takes for granted that the experience of duration is an experience of His existence. Furthermore, God could not have thought about, decided, and exerted His powers to create anything at all if He did not naturally experience duration. Duration is a precondition for all thoughts, decisions, actions, etc. So God could not have thought about creating, decided to create, and then exerted His powers to create, if duration was not first or already an experience of His being. God would have had no time for any of these things. To say that God created time is to say that God existed before time as its cause but for God to exist before time as its cause, He must already experience time because that itself is duration. God could not exist before time if there was no such thing as a before and an after yet. God is an eternal being and eternity is infinite duration. God did not create eternity for the simple fact that He is an eternal being and therefore eternity is as uncreated as He is. He did not create His own attributes - they are an eternal part of His uncreated being. It is just as absurd to say that God created Himself as it is to say that God created time. And the simple fact that the Bible repeatedly portrays God as repenting of His plans when new circumstances call for it shows that the Bible presupposes that God is in time because all change must occur in time. All change must occur in time because change has a before and an after. And for God to change His mind, He must necessarily experience time/duration. God being in time does not by any means deny or undermine the fact that He inhabiteth eternity. For eternity is nothing more than endless time. Eternal Life is not life without time or timelessness but endless life. They sing holy, holy, holy, it says day and night. And so those in Heaven do experience duration. Eternal damnation is not death without time or timelessness but endless death. Those in hell are tormented and have no rest day or night. And God is eternal because His experience of duration has no beginning and has no end - He is from everlasting to everlasting. And from and to is a before and an After aka duration/time.
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 02:46:22 +0000
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