Ordering the Soteriological Elements

[Solo]

Obviously, you haven’t been reading very many of my posts, then. I don’t scream at people in giant bright colored fonts while condemning them as not born again and a child of Satan, but if you feel threatened by the truth, I guess I can understand your trepidation in regards to the content. Your insolent remarks don’t bother me but I find mostly you try to insult my intelligence with coy remarks about my ‘lost spiritual condition’ rather than dealing scripturally with an issue you can’t answer. Padding a post with paragraphs of un-interpreted scripture or a word search list is another favored tactic. Otherwise, you just pronounce your own argument superior based on your own opinion.

I’m sure you’re a swell guy, too.:

Another melodramatic, sarcastic, attack post by the pretender. The love of Jesus fails to permeate your posts. Work on that a little more.

 

[unred typo]

Another melodramatic, sarcastic, attack post by the pretender. The love of Jesus fails to permeate your posts. Work on that a little more.

May I use yours as an example to follow? That will be hard since I don’t find mine particularly melodramatic or sarcastic, in contrast with yours. I guess it depends on who is doing the posting, as to how it is perceived. Love on forums dealing with doctrinal issues comes in the form of correction. I may not agree with you, but I sincerely appreciate that you are trying to correct me for my own good, however misguided you are. I do realize that much of what you write as a personal attack is out of your frustration with the issues you can’t answer, and though I may respond in a similar attitude, I don‘t hold your motives in contempt, only your methods.

 

[Dave...]

I just lost my post. OOOOOooooh boy. Love it when that happens.

Try again tomorrow.

 

[JM]

Dave, I've been thinking about what you wrote. So, you're saying there is one decree that covers everything listed, right? I'd go for that.

~JM~

 

[unred typo]

I see Solo has lured me from the actual topic again. On a less dramatic note:
The scripture interpretations that you base your theology on are fraught with errors.

God has declared the end from the beginning. Nothing was left undone. Nothing was decreed after an event. To say otherwise would be to deny the omniscience of God. Not only did God declare the end from the beginning, He also promised to bring it to pass and to do it. "Do it" is not an act of permission but commission.

I hope this isn’t your big guns on this issue. Pretty lame to base an entire doctrine on. Let me illustrate how ‘declaring the end from the beginning’ is not connected to omniscience but to sovereignty:

When a Mother says to a son, “This room is going to be clean. (declaring the end from the beginning) If you don’t clean your room, I’m going to do it ("do it" is not an act of permission but commission) and you won’t like the way I do it but either way it is going to get done. (promising to bring it to pass and to do it)

Likewise, God can declare the end from the beginning without knowing or decreeing every pair of socks that will be put in the hamper, and every pizza crust that will go in the trash. Don’t you see that? When Jesus talks of knowing even the fall of sparrows, he is saying that God is aware of every single solitary thing that happens and nothing, not one thing, escapes his eye. He is not saying God has predetermined even when each sparrow is going to die.

 

[Fnerb]

Likewise, God can declare the end from the beginning without knowing or decreeing every pair of socks that will be put in the hamper, and every pizza crust that will go in the trash. Don’t you see that? When Jesus talks of knowing even the fall of sparrows, he is saying that God is aware of every single solitary thing that happens and nothing, not one thing, escapes his eye. He is not saying God has predetermined even when each sparrow is going to die.

So is He selective? As in does he let some things "just happen" while taking an active roll in others?

I guess in part I can't separate the fact that He knows when each and everything is going to happen, but doesn't have control over it...

 

[Dave...]

Jason, you don't need to reply to this, but, concerning the quotes you gave by Calvin, I still question whether he is speaking of being predestined to damnation from the beginning or only after the fact of original sin. If it's the first, it would be very easy to discredit his reasoning behind the scripture that he uses to support this. If it's the later, then it would make sense and be a reasonable argument to present. Here's some examples...

"...(Mt. 15:13). They are plainly told that all whom the heavenly Father has not been pleased to plant as sacred trees in his garden, are doomed and devoted to destruction. If they deny that this is a sign of reprobation, there is nothing, however clear, that, can be proved to them.

Matthew 15:13 doesn't seem to support a teaching of double predestination. This verse is just as comfortable with infra.. We can see the extent of what this verse teaches by looking at a few other similar passages like Malachi 4:1, Matthew 3:10, and John 15:6.

If Calvin is speaking of a predestination that considers, or plays off of the fall of man, then the whole quote would be a sound argument.

"By grounding election in it's first decree and placing it before creation and the fall, supralapsarianism abstracts election from it's biblical heart, namely that the people of God are chosen in Christ. (Ephesians 1:4; 2 Timothy 1:9). "Supralapsarianism theology removes the attention of the believer from the historical person of Christ and His work, and centers it on the eternal decree of God, cold and intellectual, before all time" (Brown "heresies") taken from why I am not an Arminian.

Quote:

"...This, indeed, is asserted in the preceding context, where God is said to have raised up Pharaoh, and to harden whom he will. Hence it follows, that the hidden counsel of God is the cause of hardening. I at least hold with Augustine that when God makes sheep out of wolves, he forms them again by the powerful influence of grace, that their hardness may thus be subdued, and that he does not convert the obstinate, because he does not exert that more powerful grace, a grace which he has at command, if he were disposed to use it (August. de PrÊdest. Sanct., Lib. 1, c. 2).

Again, is Calvin speaking within the context of being predestined to damnation from the beginning or only after the fact of original sin? The later fits very well, the first would easily be discredited. Concerning Pharaoh, the unbelief was already there. Is the hardening acceleration of the natural results from being bound to a sinful nature? Being "raised up" is speaking of Pharoah's position and power, and not his life.

I agree with Calvin that God is not held to the same standards as we are, but the context that he uses that argument in would seem to be too great if in fact it is from a supra perspective. God is still bound to His nature, the truth etc.

If Calvin is speaking of predestination sourced only in a decree, and not the fall, I would say that it's not me who needs to prove that God's will is sometimes permissive (Genesis 50:20), but the burden would be on him, or anyone else to prove that man's fallen nature is effectually caused without regard to the fall, or man is predestined to hell by God, not because of us all being in Adam when he sinned, but simply because God decreed it.

Jesus Christ created all things visible and invisible. Sin is invisible. Sin is used as both a verb and a noun in the Bible. Nothing can be excluded from the seemingly infinite parameter of God's creation. The atheist affirms that the universe suddenly appeared or evolved out of nothing. We say that this is futile and illogical. Yet these very atheists attack the man-centered presentation of God as all-knowing, all-powerful, yet not the author and cause of all things. This attack is justified primarily because the atheist sees the extreme irrationality of a God who is such. Though we will not consider it here, it is very profitable to thoroughly consider the profundity of the omniscience and omnipotence of God. Sadly, many secular courses in logic present a more Biblical view of God than most professing Christians. Certainly Arminianism has entirely deviated from the God of Scripture.

The hard facts of science never contradict revealed scripture, but the truth of scripture should never be presented to the public from a platform of science. Atheism, claiming to be the superior, or ultimate source of truth, makes these claims because they believe that their theory and logic is foundationally scientific. (the only thing that they trust). Thus, discrediting Atheism on it's own grounds (science, logic etc.), such as evolution, does not in any way mean that scripture must now be proved by the same. Atheists will alway think the simple truths of scripture, which we are commanded to preach only, namely the Gospel, to be foolishness because these things are spiritually decerned.

"IBID. Ultimately both infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism are unsatisfying. As John Frame has observed, the entire discussion of an order of decrees was engaged in a speculation that the Bible simply does not underwrite. One must "try to picture the process of God's thinking before He created the world." But "scripture warns against trying to read God's mind. His thoughts are not our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8). This discussion runs great risks of engaging in speculation into matters God has kept secret" Doctrine of God pp. 335-37 Brown.

Isaiah 46:9-11 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, {10} Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: {11} Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.

God has declared the end from the beginning. Nothing was left undone. Nothing was decreed after an event. To say otherwise would be to deny the omniscience of God. Not only did God declare the end from the beginning, He also promised to bring it to pass and to do it. "Do it" is not an act of permission but commission.

The council of His will includes permissive Ephesians 1:11. I'm just not seeing double predestination here at all.

Proverbs 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

God created all things, sin and righteousness for Himself. This is the purpose of all creation: to bring glory to God. God created the wicked to be damned.

He didn't make them wicked, He made "the" wicked. (see my response to Romans 9:22-23 also.) 1 John 3:8...with..."A house divided against itself cannot stand". John 8:44 would be a interesting study because it's speaking of the source of Satans sin.

Jude 1:4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

This passage clearly teaches they were ordained for condemnation. God planned or decreed that certain men would be damned for eternity.

NKJV has ordained as "marked out". This is actually speaking of OT prophets who warned about these apostates and apostacy from "the days of old". Wuest, in his expanded translation has "who were of old predicted with reference to this judgement". In both cases, the prediction is based on the actions, or the apostacy of the apostates. I'm not seeing double predestination here.

Romans 9:22-23 What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: {23} And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

I'll rearrange the passage. If you think that by doing this that it dishonestly changes the meaning, let me know. I think that it clarifies what is being said. Here it is.

What if God, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, to show his wrath, and to make his power known, so that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

This is why God permitted the presence of evil and sin.

Dave...did you see this, "Infralapsarianism can be technically defined as God decreeing salvation because of the fall. Supralapsarianism is defined as God decreeing both the fall and salvation based upon no condition whatsoever. In essence infralapsarianism is here seen to closely parallel the Arminian doctrine of conditional election. Infralapsarianism must end with that conclusion. For if God decreed salvation because of the fall, for God to be consistent in His decree He must have decreed election because of the activity of the one who had fallen. This is not logic supporting supralapsarianism; rather this is the logic of infralapsarianism. There are many more logical conclusions to which infralapsarianism leads, however, we will examine the Biblical position of supralapsarianism."

The first sentence is about right. The big difference between the Arminian doctrine of conditional election and Infralapsarianism is that the conditional election of Arminianism is directly related to libertarian free will of man individually, which is unbiblical, and Infralapsarianism would only be conditional in the sence that election in general (no one in particular) is because of the fall.

I'll end with this, another clip from "why i'm not an Arminian" Great book that really dives into the history and understanding of this and many other topics.

"The concluding statement of the canons explicitly notes that the Arminian contention that Calvinist's teach that God is the author of sin, that He relates to sin and unbelief "in the same manner" such that "election is the source and cause of faith and good works, reprobation is the cause of unbelief and ungodliness. This "slanderous accusation" is one "which the Reformed churches not only disavow but even denounce with their whole heart."(74) God is not the author of sin and unbelief."

74 Cannons of Dort 1.15.

 

[unred typo]

So is He selective? As in does he let some things "just happen" while taking an active roll in others?

I guess in part I can't separate the fact that He knows when each and everything is going to happen, but doesn't have control over it…

Sure, I see you have given it enough thought to realize the consequences of God’s knowing the events of the future. A lot of people don’t even realize the difficulty that creates. They believe an oxymoron and don’t even know it.

I had a rather complex way of understanding how it could be, but one day (out of the blue : ) it hit me. Why exactly did I think God knew the future as if it was a written book that he could flip the pages on and see what was ahead or fast forward through with his galactic remote control.

So from then on, I began to study verses that seemed to say God knew the future. Like the future, they don’t really exist. There is no future to be known, so God’s “not knowing it†is not a problem of his lacking omniscience. What he does know basically is if you do this, he will do that. He knows everything there is that can possibly be known, being everywhere present, even to the thoughts inside your head and the intentions in your ‘heart.’ He knows the plans he has for the future, and he knows how to bring them to pass. He has a purpose in allowing us to have free will.

So yes, he allows things to happen so that he can know how you will react and to find out what lessons you have and haven’t learned. He takes an active role in teaching us just like a father does a child. He allows us to experience the pain of sin, and the joy of victory over sin. Sometimes he bolts on the training wheels and sometimes, he takes them off. He wants us to learn how to love one another and to forgive as he has forgiven us. Life is a course on ‘How to be a Child of God 101’. Just like school, some don’t want to learn, they just want to have fun.
(pssst…. Don’t worry if this seems off topic, it’s not, and besides ~JM~ has me on ‘ignore’ so he’ll probably think you’re talking to yourself…)
:-D

 

[stranger]

unread_typo wrote:
So from then on, I began to study verses that seemed to say God knew the future. Like the future, they don’t really exist. There is no future to be known, so God’s “not knowing it†is not a problem of his lacking omniscience.

Interesting if not somewhat puzzling, while we are time bound creatures very much in the present and in a sense only the present, the past and future as an immediate access are denied us - why suppose God lives as it were in the same environment? I also think the spiritual realm is without time constraints as we know them.

Even if Gods revelation - the written word - is as you suggest - is it not safe to assume that God knows more than He has actually revealed to us?

blessings: stranger

 

[unred typo]

Interesting if not somewhat puzzling, while we are time bound creatures very much in the present and in a sense only the present, the past and future as an immediate access are denied us - why suppose God lives as it were in the same environment? I also think the spiritual realm is without time constraints as we know them.

Even if Gods revelation - the written word - is as you suggest - is it not safe to assume that God knows more than He has actually revealed to us?

blessings: stranger

I find it problematic that God would be existing in other than the present because that would mean that Jesus would be still hanging on the cross throughout time until ‘time shall be no more.’ This idea that time will no longer exist doesn’t pose a difficulty since that would refer to the aging process and entropy(?) and decay and the non effect the passing time will have on our lives. Without calendars, clocks, years, days, or any other timepiece, who will care what time it is? No days, no nights, no aging, no death, no appointments, instant travel….who needs time?

I’m quite certain we know practically nothing compared to what God knows. That doesn’t change the reality of truth. We can know some things, for instance, whether the future exists or it doesn’t exist. I believe it doesn’t and we only have memories of the past, and plans for the future. We live in the present and God said, “I am that I am’, always being the ever present one with us in the very present moments of our time on earth.

 

[Solo]

God transcends his creation of which time is a part of. The difficulty is not that God exists in the past, present, and future in the Spiritual realm; the difficulty is for the physical to understand the Spiritual. That is the purpose of God's liberal provision of faith to those who are born of God.

 

[unred typo]

God transcends his creation of which time is a part of. The difficulty is not that God exists in the past, present, and future in the Spiritual realm; the difficulty is for the physical to understand the Spiritual. That is the purpose of God's liberal provision of faith to those who are born of God.

So what scripture can you show to support your theory? Where do you get the idea that time is part of his creation or that God transcends time? The Bible starts by saying, “in the beginning,†not “once upon a time.†You can’t just make up something pretty to fill in the gaps of your thinking.

Time is merely the passing by of events at the speed of life. God created stars, sun and moon to make time a measurable concept, but time itself is not an actual ‘thing.’ God started the ball rolling by giving meaning to the measure of these signs and seasons. If the clocks all stopped, and the planets all changed their courses, there would still be a now which would become a ‘then,’ which could not be reversed or brought back to being ‘now.’ There has always been ‘now’ just as there has always been ‘God’ but ‘now’ is not something you can transcend, it will always be ‘now’. Without a memory, the past would have vanished entirely except for things that were physically made in the vanishing present of the past.
:infinity: :scatter:

 

[JM]

...is Calvin speaking within the context of being predestined to damnation from the beginning or only after the fact of original sin?

The Bible does read, "before having done good or evil."

I don't have a lot of time right now, peace brother.

jm

 

[Dave...]

I find it problematic that God would be existing in other than the present because that would mean that Jesus would be still hanging on the cross throughout time until ‘time shall be no more.’ This idea that time will no longer exist doesn’t pose a difficulty since that would refer to the aging process and entropy(?) and decay and the non effect the passing time will have on our lives. Without calendars, clocks, years, days, or any other timepiece, who will care what time it is? No days, no nights, no aging, no death, no appointments, instant travel….who needs time?

Unread, it's not that God is peeking into different time dimentions to see what will happen. Or even that He lives in different time dimentions. You've been watching too many Star wars type movies. :-D That's not the argument at all. I think that you get stuck on that because you will not let go of libertarian free will, which is not in the Bible. That's what puts you into that frame of mind and probably why you are having difficulting understanding what is being said.

 

[Solo]

So what scripture can you show to support your theory? Where do you get the idea that time is part of his creation or that God transcends time? The Bible starts by saying, “in the beginning,†not “once upon a time.†You can’t just make up something pretty to fill in the gaps of your thinking.

Time is merely the passing by of events at the speed of life. God created stars, sun and moon to make time a measurable concept, but time itself is not an actual ‘thing.’ God started the ball rolling by giving meaning to the measure of these signs and seasons. If the clocks all stopped, and the planets all changed their courses, there would still be a now which would become a ‘then,’ which could not be reversed or brought back to being ‘now.’ There has always been ‘now’ just as there has always been ‘God’ but ‘now’ is not something you can transcend, it will always be ‘now’. Without a memory, the past would have vanished entirely except for things that were physically made in the vanishing present of the past.

God, Time and Eternity
© Steve Bishop

Time is a perplexing subject. Physicist, Lee Smolin wrote:

• I have been studying the question of what time is for much of my adult life. But I must admit ... that I am no closer to an answer now than I was then. Indeed, even after all this study, I do not think we can answer even the simple question: 'What sort of thing is time?'[1]

In Smolin's honesty we can hear echoes of Augustine when he wrote:

• 
  What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I want to explain it to a questioner, I do not know. (Confessions ch. XI sec. XIV)

The relationship of God and time is even more perplexing!

Some precommitments

Before I start proper, I want to spell out some of my precommitments: God is lord of all - that includes time; Creator and creation are distinct; God is creator of all things; thus time is a creation. I assume these points and shall argue from them.

What is time?

Before getting in to the relationship of God and time we need to pause to examine 'what is time?' To do so we need to make some distinctions: distinctions between A and B theories of time, and absolute and relational (sometimes known as substantival) time.

A or B time

The distinction between A and B theories was first made by John McTaggart EllisMcTaggart (1866-1925). The A-series of time is the commonsense view: the idea that time passes, that time is a succession of events. Time could be compared to a flowing river. This view is also known as the process view of time. However, in the B-series of time, or a stasis view of time, space-time is viewed as a static 4-dimensional reality. This view, while counter to commonsense, has support from relativity theory. Einstein wrote: 'For us convinced physicists the distinction between past, present and future is an illusion, however persistent ...'.[2] Time does not pass, all times are equally real.

On the B-series we have to replace tensed phrases such as 'before and after' with tenseless ones such as 'earlier and later'; e.g. 'We had a lecture on God and time before (past tense) lunch' becomes: 'We had a lecture on God and time earlier (tenseless) than lunch'.

Whilst science may endorse a B-series of time there are a number of problems that it raises.

• It dismisses our experience of time as a psychological quirk. Genevieve Lloyd writes of the distinction between past, present and future as, 'an epistemological accretion which affects our perception of the world'![3]
  [/*:m:276ec]
• It raises problems for the doctrine of the incarnation. It makes mockery of the Nicene creed, which claims: 'The only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God...' If God is in time, then there implies there was a time before the Son was not begotten ..! [4]
  [/*:m:276ec]
• It fails to fully explain creation ex nihilo.
  [/*:m:276ec]
• It cannot account for causality; i.e an event (E) can cause another (C)
  
  Table 1. A comparison of the A-series and B-series of time.
  
  
  [/*:m:276ec]

Relational or Absolute

Another distinction we need to make is that between relational and absolute time. To see if you are an absolutist or a relativist ask yourself this question, 'Suppose the universe never came to exist - would there still be time?' An absolutist would answer 'yes', a relativist 'no'.

This distinction between the relational and absolute views of time has a long history. Aristotle advocated an absolute view; a view that was challenged by Archimedes. The dominant view of time, until perhaps the beginning of the twentieth century, was a Newtonian absolute view of time. Newton in his Principia (1687) wrote:

• Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself and from its own nature flows equably without relation to anything eternal.

Time for Newton was independent of the world; it was a kind of thing; and it flowed.

Leibniz challenged this view; he proposed a relational view of time. For Leibniz events are more fundamental than moments. In the relational view of time, time is derived from events, not events from time. He also argued that it was absurd for instants to exist when there are no things.

In 1905 Einstein's formulated the Special theory of Relativity. This was incompatible with the absolute view of time, but could be viewed as a development of the relational view of time.

I am always wary of invoking the god of science into theological discussions. Paraphrasing Dean Inge, if theology marries the science of this age, it will find itself widowed in the next. We also do well to recall Feyerabend's advice:

• When I was a student I revered the sciences, and mocked religion and I felt rather grand doing that. Now that I take a closer look at the matter, I am surprised to find how many dignitaries of the Church take seriously the superficial arguments I and my friends once used, and how ready they are to reduce their faith accordingly. In this they treat the sciences as if they, to, formed a Church, only a Church of earlier times and with a more, primitive philosophy when one still believed in absolutely certain results. A look at the history of the sciences, however, shows a very different picture.[5]

Where relativity theory supports a relational view of time, quantum theory 'took over completely Newton's notion of an absolute ideal time'.[6] Smolin comments:

• So, in theoretical physics, we have at present not one theory of nature but two theories: relativity and quantum mechanics, and they are based on different notions of time.[7]

On the relational view of time, time can be seen as a creation; on the absolute view of time, time is pre-existent. Thus if time is a creation, Christians must adopt a relational view of time.[8]

Having dealt with time, we can now turn to God.

What does it mean God is eternal?

Christians have always advocated that God is eternal. But just what does it mean to say that God is eternal? There are two main explanations; we can call these divine timelessness and divine temporality.

Divine timelessness

This is the traditional view of God. God is outside of time. It is the position advocated by Augustine (AD 354-430), Boethius (c. AD 475-525), Anselm (1033-1109) and Aquinas (1225-1274) among others.

Thus, Boethius in his Consolation of Philosophy (Book 5.6) wrote:

• It is the common judgement, then, of all creatures that live by reason that God is eternal. So let us consider the nature of eternity, for this will make clear to us both the nature of God and his manner of knowing. Eternity, then, is the complete, simultaneous and perfect possession of everlasting life... And if human and divine present may be compared, just as you see certain things in this your present time, so God sees all things in His eternal present.[9]

Aquinas:

• [God's] knowledge, like his existence, is measured by eternity, which in one and the same instant encompasses all time; so his gaze is eternally focused on everything in time as on something present ...What happens in time is known by us in time, moment by moment, but by God in an eternal moment, above time. (Summa Theologiæ 14.13)[10]

Divine temporality

The notion of the divine timelessness of God has recently come under sharp criticism by philosophers and theologians.

A theologian, Oscar Cullmann:

• Primitive Christianity knows nothing of a timeless God. The 'eternal' God is he who was in the beginning, is now and will be in all the future, 'who is, who was, and who will be' (Rev 1:4). Accordingly, his eternity can and must be expresses in this 'naive' way, in terms of endless time.[11]

A philosopher, Richard Swinburne:

• the claim that God is timeless ... seems to contain an inner incoherence and also to be incompatible with most things which theists ever wish to say about God.[12]

The recent defectors from the traditional position, as well as Swinburne and Cullmann, include: Nelson Pike, Nicholas Wolterstorff, A.J.P. Kenny, the Process theologians (e.g. Whitehead, Birch and Cobb), Paul Tillich and William Hasker. Older defectors included: John Duns Scotus (c.1266-1308) and William of Oakham (?-1347).

On this view, God's eternalness is expressed as being everlasting, i.e. without beginning and end, but he experiences time. So, why have so many philosophers of religion adopted this a divine temporality position? We will examine seven of their objections to divine timelessness.

Objections to divine timelessness

Neo-platonic

One objection is its neo-platonic origins. Swinburne states: ‘the doctrine of God's timelessness seems to have entered Christian theology from neo-Platonism, and there from Augustine to Aquinas it reigned'.[13]

Indeed, Hasker, Kneale and Wolterstorff all show that it is strongly dependent upon a neo-platonic view of time and eternity. Wolterstorff even goes so far as saying:

• Every attempt to purge Christian theology of the traces of incompatible Hellenic patterns of thought must fail unless it removes the roadblock of the God of eternal tradition. Around this roadblock there are no detours.[14]

Biblical language

Secondly, Hasker in Openness of God asserts that divine timelessness is not taught in the Bible and 'does not reflect the way the biblical writers understood God'.[15]

Nature of God

A third objection arises from the nature of God. Pike claims that creation and preservation implies some sort of temporal relationship. Wolterstorff maintains that:

• God the redeemer cannot be a God eternal. This is so because God the redeemer is a God who changes. And any being which changes is a being among whose states there is a temporal succession ... A theology which opts for God as eternal cannot avoid being in conflict with the confession of God as redeemer.[16]

Personality

Fourth, following from the above, the doctrine is incompatible with God as a person. A person acts within time; God is a person; therefore he must act in time; if someone acts in time they must be in time. This is the approach is taken by William Kneale, J. R. Lucas and R. Swinburne.

Indexicals

Fifthly, A. N. Prior and Wolterstorff claim that some truths to whose expression ‘now’ are essential.

A timeless God cannot know truths, which require a 'now'. For example, It is now 11 am; for God to know this he must exist at 11 am. If he is timeless, he does not. Thus, the idea that God is timeless entails a contradiction.

A sub-argument of the argument from indexicals is the argument from simultaneity, which goes something like the following: If God is timeless then he exists simultaneously with all moments of human time. If A happens at the same time as B, and B happens at the same time as then A happens at the same time as C. But, following Kenny,[17] my writing of this paper is simultaneous with the whole of eternity; likewise the battle of Hastings in 1066 is simultaneous with the whole of eternity; it follows then that I am lecturing while the Battle of Hastings is being fought! Not a very coherent position to hold!

Dependent upon a B-theory of time

Sixthly, Delmas Lewis has pointed out that the traditional view of eternity entails a B-theory of time.[18] We have already seen that a B-theory poses problems for the traditional theist. Thus, Lewis concludes:

• ..the existence of an eternal God logically depends on the truth of the tenseless account of time. The claim that God is eternal may well be a coherent piece of philosophical theology. It remains to be shown that it is a coherent piece of Christian theology.

Answering the objections to divine timelessness

Neo-platonic

There is no doubt that the doctrine of divine eternity has platonic origins. Boethius many times draws upon Plato. There is also no doubt that a platonic influence upon Christianity has been to Christianity's detriment. However, to reject divine eternity on the sole basis of its platonic origins is to commit the genetic fallacy: the mistake in arguing that something is to be rejected because of its dubious origins.

Biblical language

The biblical language indeed does talk of God acting within time. He repents (Gen 6:6; Ex 32:12; 1 Sam 15:35; Jonah 3:4); he responds to prayer; he acts; he remembers; he speaks etc.

However, the Bible also refers to God being in spatial locations; it refers to him having arms, hands, feet, eyes ... . Does this then mean that God is to be located in certain spatial locations? Does it mean that he has hands, feet, eyes etc? If the temporalist is being consistent, then to assert that biblical language about God demands that he is in time, then she should also assert that biblical language demands that God is in space and that he has hands, arm, and eyes.

The temporalmorphites do well to recall Calvin's riposte against the anthropomorphites: 'For who is so devoid of intellect as not to understand that God, in so speaking, lisps with us as nurses are wont to do with little children?' (Institutes 1.13.1)

Nature of God

In many ways we can respond to the biblical language used of God in a similar way as above. We are limited in using creaturely language to describe the Creator. Our language is laden with temporalness, it is thus not surprising that attempts to refer to God are so 'tainted'.

We could also argue that 'God is so unlike [humans] that it is improbable that he is temporal...'[19]

Personality

The arguments from personality can be simplified as (1) -(3). However we can use a parallel argument to show that God has a body: (1')-(3').

(1) All persons are in time (1') All persons have a body

(2) God is a person (2') God is a person

(3) God is in time (3') God has a body

If we accept that God does not have a body, why then accept that God is in time? The same argument is used to prove both.

Indexicals

Paul Helm[20] has argued that the indexical arguments for God being in time can be applied to God being in space. God obviously cannot be located in any one space, so therefore we can reject these arguments to support the idea that God is in time. The argument exactly parallel to the argument against divine timelessness is as follows:

If God is spaceless then he is spatially present at different places. But if A is at the same place as B, and B is at the same place as C, then A is at the same place as C. God is present with my son who at the moment is in Minehead, likewise God is present with me in Bristol. Therefore, Bristol is in the same place as Minehead. Not a very coherent position to hold! Thus God cannot be spaceless.

Dependent upon a B-theory of time

If we concede that the timelessness of God depends upon a B-theory of time, it could be possible for God to be in a B-theory, but creation to be in an A-theory of time. This may mean we have two conflicting theories of time, but as we have seen we have a precedent in science: QT demands an absolute theory; relativity a relative theory of time. If science can live with contradictions, why not theology?

Another response is to suggest that the B and A theories of time are flawed.

Religious language

Part of the problem is our limited language. We are creatures, language is also a creature how then can we use creaturely devices to describe the creator? We cannot transcend time. How then can we describe something that does? That does not mean we have to surrender it as a 'mystery'; part of the task of philosphical theologians is to grope in the darkness of creaturely language to attempt to understand our creator.

Most discussions also fail to distinguish between human and divine perspectives. We are doing our theology/ philosophy from below.

Back to precommitments

If God is lord of time, then it is difficult how he can be subject to time.

If God is creator of all, then time is a creature. If God were subject to time, then it would blur the distinction between Creator and creation.



Further reading

Augustine Confessions chapter XI

Boethius The Consolation of Philosophy Book V

Oscar Cullman Christ and Time (London: SCM, 1962, 3rd edn)

Paul Helm The Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988)

Quentin Smith and L. Nathan Oaklander Time, Change and Freedom: Introduction to Metaphysics (London: Routledge, 1995)

Thomas Torrance Space, Time and the Incarnation (London: Oxford University Press, 1969)

G. J. Whitrow What is Time? (London: Thames and Hudson, 1972)

Appendix

Concept map showing the relationship between the different concepts.

• 

[1] Lee Smolin 'What is time?' in J. Brockman and K. Matson (eds) How Things Are (London: Wiedenfield and Nicholson, 1995). Also in Science , Mind & Cosmos (London: Phoenix Paperback) p. 44; page numbers are from this edn.

[2] Cited in Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield The Arrow of Time (London: Flamingo, 1991) p. 30.

[3] 'Time and existence' Philosophy 53 (1978) p. 215; cited in Delmas Lewis 'Eternity, time and tenselessness' Faith and Philosophy 5(1) (1988) p. 81.

[4] Paul Helm 'Eternal creation' Tyndale Bulletin 45(2) (1994)

[5] Farewell to Reason, Verso, 1987, p. 264

[6] Smolin 'What is time?' p.49.

[7] Smolin 'What is time?' p. 49.

[8] On the problems of theologians rejecting a relational view of time see T. F. Torrance Space, Time & Incarnation (London: Oxford University Press, 1969).

[9] Translated E. V. Watts (1969) Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, p. 163-5

[10] From Timothy McDermott (ed.) Summa Theologiæ: A Concise Translation (London: Methuen, 19991) p. 41-2

[11] Oscar Cullmann Christ and Time (London: SCM, 1962, 3rd edn) p. 63. Cullman's methodology - though not all his conclusions - has been criticised by James Barr (Biblical Words for Time, London: SCM, 1962). Barr contends that: “if such a thing as a Christian doctrine of time has to be developed, the work of discussing and developing it must belong not to biblical but to philosophical theology†(p. 149).

[12] The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993, rev. edn) p. 228.

[13] Coherence p. 225.

[14] Nicholas Wolterstorff 'God everlasting' in S. M. Cahn and D. Shatz Contemporary Philosophy of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982) p. 79.

[15] William Hasker 'A philosophical perspective' in The Openness of God (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1994) p. 128.

[16] Wolterstorff 'God everlasting' p.78.

[17] God and the Philsophers ch. 4.

[18] Delmas Lewis 'Eternity, time and timelessness' Faith and Philosophy 5(1) (1988) pp.72-86.

[19] Richard Sturch The problem of the divine eternity' Religious Studies 10 (1974).

[20] Paul Helm The Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); 'God and spacelessness' in S. M. Cahn and D. Shatz Contemporary Philosophy of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982)

Steve Bishop is a lecturer at the City of Bristol College. He has degrees in Physics and in Applied Theology. His e-mail is: stevebishop_uk @ yahoo .co .uk


Retrieved from http://www.quodlibet.net/bishop-eternity.shtml#_ednref1

 

[Dave...]

...is Calvin speaking within the context of being predestined to damnation from the beginning or only after the fact of original sin?


The Bible does read, "before having done good or evil."

If it read "before knowing that they would do good or evil", I would see you point.

Peace

 

[unred typo]

Unread, it's not that God is peeking into different time dimentions to see what will happen. Or even that He lives in different time dimentions. You've been watching too many Star wars type movies. That's not the argument at all. I think that you get stuck on that because you will not let go of libertarian free will, which is not in the Bible. That's what puts you into that frame of mind and probably why you are having difficulting understanding what is being said.

When someone says something isn’t like ‘that’ they usually say, “it’s like ‘this’.†How about trying to explain it to me as you understand it. Use little words so I can follow you. Some scripture would be nice. No dissertations from someone we can’t ask further questions of, please.
Thanks. :-D

 

[unred typo]

“Where relativity theory supports a relational view of time, quantum theory 'took over completely Newton's notion of an absolute ideal time'.[6] Smolin comments:
So, in theoretical physics, we have at present not one theory of nature but two theories: relativity and quantum mechanics, and they are based on different notions of time.[7]
On the relational view of time, time can be seen as a creation; on the absolute view of time, time is pre-existent. Thus if time is a creation, Christians must adopt a relational view of time.[8]â€Â

Aw, man, Solo, that’s way over my head. Would you mind translating that into laymen’s terms for me? In fact, the whole thing is too esoteric for me to get a handle on. Could you boil it down for me in a paragraph or two in your own words? Some scripture references would help too, I think.
:fadein:

 

[JM]

If it read "before knowing that they would do good or evil", I would see you point.

Peace

In the context of Romans 9 with the Potter making one for wrath and one for glory, I fail to see how God didn't know anything about those He created or what they were created for.

Quote:
Supralapsarianism is the teleological order and infralapsarianism is the historical order. Since the purpose for discussing the order of the eternal decrees is to discover the logical arrangement of the formulation, and not the historical order of the plan's execution, supralapsarianism is the biblical position.

Peace.

 

[unred typo]

In the context of Romans 9 with the Potter making one for wrath and one for glory, I fail to see how God didn't know anything about those He created or what they were created for.

Try to keep your mind on what Paul is talking about. Verse 22 is not about Jacob and Esau but is referring to Pharaoh in verse 17 and those Egyptians who had cruelly oppressed the Israelites, killed the infant boys, and worshipped idols and all manner of beasts instead of the one true God who had sustained them through famine by the hand of his prophet, Joseph. They were fitted for destruction as punishment for their evil deeds and lack of repentance. Instead of killing them by disease or sword, God waited to avenge the injustice inflicted on his people by the Egyptians through the plagues dealt by Moses’ hand in order to make his power talked about throughout the nations around them. Their sin brought this spectacular judgment on them and made them the ‘vessels of wrath,’ that God used to make his power known.

His people were called vessels of mercy. Why? Because they were the vessel that would be bringing forth the savior of the world. This is what chapter 9 is about. The lineage of Christ and the privilege enjoyed by the Jews to bring the Messiah to the world. They were not chosen by works but because of the faith of Abraham and the promise made to him.

The illustration is not about the creation of men for destruction. It emphasizes the control of the Lord over who would be destroyed for their sin in a display of divine wrath and who would be the glorified people marching triumphantly to the promised land. These same ‘glorified’ ones were later called “carcasses†that fell in the desert. Their works determined their ‘destiny.’ they ceased to be the vessels created for glory and became vessels of dishonor.

Can you not see that the potter has power over the clay to mold it and form it, even to remold it if he wishes and God has power over men to create situations to use them to accomplish his purposes? He doesn’t mean they were created from the foundation of the world as vessels of wrath or glory.