A Question of Time

[See update below.]

I've been busy on other projects, one to be unveiled soon, so I haven't had much time to blog. I do have a question for you, though.

What does the word omnitemporal mean? How does it differ from eternal? How does it differ from atemporal?

And who made up that word, anyway? It's not in my spell check, so is it a real word?

Here's one explanation for omnitemporal that's been given: It means "in all times at the same time". I thought time was a succession of moments. How can something be in all of a succession at one point in the succession? Isn't that contradictory?

And yes, that's more than one question. If all times can be at one time, then several questions can be one question. Right?

Help!

Update: Brandon explains some views of God's knowledge in a comment, and helps me identify where the so-called omnitemporal view fits. I found Brandon's explanation fascinating. Perhaps you will, too.

The Boxing of God

In a former life, I spent a lot of time on theology discussion boards. You don't have to be on discussion boards long before you realize that there are a few standard oft-repeated, but mostly meaningless, rebuttal phrases. The purpose of these particular sorts of rebuttals is to be such shocking accusations that no additional response is needed. I thought it would be interesting to consider a couple of them.

First up is the God in a box rebuttal. The discussion in which this phrase is used usually goes something like this: Someone makes a propositional statement about God that doesn't sit well with someone else, but instead of giving a reason that the statement about God is wrong, the person who disagrees trots out this all-purpose propositional-statement-about-God rebuttal, "You can't put God in a box like that!"

Of course, part of that statement is always right. We can't put God in a box. God is infinite, and our statements and ideas about him will never contain the whole of who he is. He is other, and in a category completely separate from us, and not exactly like anything we know or are able to experience. He is creator--the one who created us and created the box we exist in--and as boxees, we will never succeed at packaging the packager.

Nope, the problem with that rebuttal statement is not so much with the "You can't put God in a box" part, but with the "like that!" part. Sometimes those words are an objection to any definite statement about God, coming from the idea that God is so beyond us, so mysterious, that we can know nothing much truly true about him. Definite statements about God make some people really, really, nervous. They have the idea that since much of who God is is beyond the realm of our comprehension, any statement about him necessarily is false, in the sense that it reduces him to less than he is by attempting to contain an infinite God in a statement (or set of statements) about him.

More often than not, though, the objection isn't that we can know nothing about God, but that the particular statement doesn't jibe with the objector's idea of God. God, as they understand him, isn't "like that!"

Often this objection arises when someone says that God can't do something or must do something. Statements like this are seen as limiting God, and don't we all know that God is completely free? There are no rules or standards that God must conform his actions to, and no limitations on his abilities, so how can it ever be right to say that God can't or God must?

It is, of course, true that God is completely free. He's the only truly free being there is. Unlike any other being, he is entirely free to express himself, and if you think about it, that's what true freedom is, isn't it? It's when we can't "be ourselves" that we feel our freedom is restricted. But God has freedom to be himself in a way that no other being does. Absolutely nothing stands in the way of his self-expression, but it's himself he's expressing, and he isn't anyone-or-anything-at-all, he's someone. He has characteristics, so when he expresses himself, he expresses himself according to his characteristics, and that's not limiting, that's freedom.

And while it is correct to say that the whole of God is incomprehensible to us, there are things about him that we can understand, and there are some understandable things about himself that he's chosen to communicate to us, so it's not correct to think that we can know nothing truly true about him. While we can't box him up, he's given us hooks we can hang our hats on.

One of the most important hooks that God has given us is the hook of his immutability, because that characteristic ensures the constancy of the other characteristics. God's character is unchanging. He is who he is, and who he was, and who he will be, and he isn't going to morph into something or someone else tomorrow, or ever. If he tells us he is truthful, then he is always truthful. His immutability makes his truthfulness an everlasting hook to hang our hats on, too. It's because of this that we are not limiting God when we say he can't lie. We are not saying that there is a set of rules (including "don't lie!") outside of himself that he must always live up to, even though he feels like lying. Nope, we are affirming his perfect ability to be who he is, forever, freely; and to speak and act in accordance with who he is and what he wants, forever, freely.

Sometimes the God in the box objection comes in slightly different form, but it all boils down to the same idea. For example, in the first comment on this post at Jollyblogger, an objection is made to the idea of penal substitutionary atonement. The idea of a penal substitutionary atonement, says the commentor,

suggests that once the Father has made a law, that He is unable to subsequently be merciful until that law if fulfilled. That makes God's law more powerful than God.

If I understand the commenter correctly, her objection is to the idea that sin must always be given its just deserts, as if the just deserts for sin comes from a rule God set up outside of himself, and if he always has to go by his own rule, God is limited. This is really just another form of the God in a box objection--that any must or can't statements pertaining to God are limits to God's freedom. In this particular case, it isn't that God made a rule that he must always make sure sin receives what it deserves, but rather, that God exists as a God who is characteristically just. Expressing himself fully and freely means that he always gives justice to sin, and if he didn't he wouldn't be who he is. Therefore, he cannot simply pass over sin out of mercy for sinners, but his mercy must be given in a way that is also just.

Of course, there are things for which the objection of boxing God might rightly be made. Whatever limits we speak of in regards to what God can do, if they are not limits that arise directly from the specific characteristics he's revealed and explained to us through his word, then, in a sense, we are trying to put God in a box. If I were to tell you that God was confined to one place at one time, that'd be making God out to be less than he has revealed himself to be, and boxing him in that way. I still don't think that "You can't put God in a box like that!" is nearly as good a response as giving evidence that God has revealed himself to be a both a transcendent and immanent God.

Next up, the oft repeated rebuttal, "You're making God the author of sin!"

God's Eternality

What does it mean that God is eternal? It means, for one thing, that God has no beginning or end. He has always been and always will be. His duration is constant. Scriptures that express this idea say that God is from "everlasting to everlasting," or that God lives forever. He had no beginning point, and he will have no end point.

However, when God expresses to us that he is eternal, it would seems he means something more than just that he is forever enduring, with no beginning or end. We might say that as well as being forever enduring, God also has no succession of moments, so he is always in the eternal now, or the eternal present. God communicates this idea to us with the name "I AM", and statements like the one given to us by Jesus in John 8: "..before Abraham came into being, I AM." God also tells us that he does not change, and if there were a succession of moments with him, He would change as successions of experiences were added. A God who experiences the succession of time would be a maturing God. That time does not unfold for God is probably also part of what is meant by the statements that tell us that a day is the same thing as a thousand years to God. God does not experience time as a succession of cycles of days and nights, but exists somehow beyond the moments of time, or beyond time as periodical.

Time is also something that God controls. He has power over it and is therefore not bound by it. "He declares the end from the beginning," and events in time that he has yet to bring about were already declared by him from ancient times (Isaiah 46:9-10). When I read these statements, I understand them to mean that God calls time itself into being, for if he declares successive events, would he not declare time itself? Then, too, if God is the dwelling place of all successive generations (generations being partly an expression of time), then it seems that time itself must "dwell" within God, and time must in some way be held or encapsulated by God. (As I write this, I'm reminded of the limitations of our language to express these things. Everything I write makes it sound as if God is spatial, and, of course, he's not.) If God calls time into being and time exists within him, then God exists outside the bounds of time. Another way to express this thought is to say that God transcends time.

God transcends time, yet sees the events of time, acts within time, and relates to us within time. There are events in time that he will bring about in the future and things he has already done in the past. God does what he does "at the right time." He sent Christ into the world "when the fullness of time came." It is yet another mystery to add to our list of the mysteries of the being our incomprehensible God: God transcends time and yet relates to time by knowing every moment of it and acting within every moment of it.

Like the other of God's attributes, God's eternality is impossible for us to grasp in any complete way, although we can nibble around the edges of it, and know something about it. I tend to see things mathematically, so I'd like to be able to put God's relation to time into some sort of Venn diagram, and I find it frustrating that I can't. There is no Venn diagram for this, just as there is no language to express it, or even thoughts to think it.

Examining God's eternality shows us in one more way how "other" God is. We are vapor or "breath"—constantly changing, here one moment and gone the next—but God is from everlasting to everlasting. We cannot even speak of present moments, because before the words are spoken, the moment has moved to the past. Yet God is the eternal "I AM".

What does this mean for us? It means God is always there. We can always come to him and be assured that he is there to receive us. Time is our enemy, bringing death, and decay, and loss; but beyond time, there is one constant, and that is our God, who stands beyond the grasp of time. The God who loves us does not change. The God who works all things for our good is not subject to time, but controls and uses it to bring about his perfect will. That God is eternal is yet another reason to trust him.

Let's remember, too, that what God promises comes about certainly, but in his own time. The terms "one day" and "a thousand years" don't have the same meaning to him as an eternal being that they have to us. He is never slack concerning his promises, even though we don't see them fulfilled in our own lifetimes, or even in the lifetimes of countless generations. What he says will happen, but in the "fullness of time" of an eternal God.

What say ye? Have you anything to add in regards to God's eternality? Anything to quibble over?