God and the Concept of Time

by ezekiel3 60 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  ezekiel3

  Put your waders on, we?re going in the deep end?

  JW Premise: God created Jesus, and then together they created everything else.

  Fact: Time and space require at least two points to exist. You cannot reference time or space with only one thing.

  So before God created Jesus, there was no way to measure time. My point is God created time by creating Jesus.

  Thus, God cannot be measured or contained by time (this explains why God does not have a start or end). Because of the God stands outside of time, it can be likened to another dimension. Sort of like a human of 3 dimensions (width, height and depth) dealing with a picture of a person in a painting in 2 dimensions (no depth).

  If you think about ?time? as a box that God can step into or out of, now you can understand why God could make prophecies. God can see the whole picture ?beginning to end.? You could also use a DVD player as ?time?, with a DVD movie as ?creation.? God produces, directs and casts the movie, and uses the fast-forward and reverse buttons to watch it. Trapped on the DVD, the characters in the movie aren?t aware God is moving around time, they only exist when God pushes ?play?.

  The ramifications of this are huge:
  PREDESTINATION is a fact: God knows the whole picture. God could adjust the course of history, but would understand exactly what would happen then too.
  FREE-WILL is academic because God can ?fast-forward? to see your choices.
  PERMISSION OF EVIL is non sequitur because God foresaw that result when God created the opportunity of evil (Satan, etc.)
  GOD AS JUDGE: Not if all of creation has been ?framed?! Why resurrect those who will be destroyed at the end of the 1000-year reign if God could fast-forward to see who was faithful?

  JWs adamantly try to refute predestination while proclaiming fulfillment of prophecy:

  *** w95 2/15 p. 7 Can Predestination Be Reconciled With God?s Love? ***
  If God?s servants were predestined?or programmed, so to speak?could not the genuineness of their love for their Creator be called into question? Also, would it not be contrary to God?s impartiality for him to make a predetermined choice of persons destined to glory and happiness without taking their individual merits into account? Moreover, if some receive such preferential treatment, while others are destined to eternal punishment, this would hardly arouse sincere feelings of gratitude in the ?elect,? or ?chosen ones.? ... True, God can foresee certain events, but in many cases, he has chosen not to use his foreknowledge. Because God is almighty, he is free to exercise his abilities as he wishes, not according to the wishes of imperfect humans.

  *** w53 4/15 p. 255 Questions from Readers ***
  But what real praise would it be to God to make a man blind so that he could heal him later on? Rather than praiseworthy, that would be only the long-delayed righting of a wrong previously committed. It would be as hypocritical as one who sets up a straw man and then in a vain display knocks it down.

  Compare to the other side of the mouth:

  *** it-2 p. 692 Prophecy ***
  Daniel?s prophecy, for example, provided information that constituted an invaluable link between the close of the writing of the Hebrew or pre-Christian Scriptures and Messiah?s coming. Its forecast of world events, including the rise and fall of successive world powers, gave assurance to Jews living during the centuries of Persian, Greek, and Roman dominance (as well as to Christians thereafter) that there was no ?blind spot? in God?s forevision, that their own times were indeed foreseen and that Jehovah?s sovereign purpose was still certain of fulfillment.

  Notice these FULFILLED PROPHECIES according to JWs:

  • Jehovah predicts destruction of Babylon, names Cyrus as conqueror and means of attack. (Jeremiah 25:9-11)
  • Jehovah predicts fall of Tyre and describes land bridge built by Alexander. (Ezekiel 26:3, 4, 12)
  • Jehovah predicts world powers applied to Greece ?a leopard with four wings?, Rome ?it will devour all the earth and will trample it down and crush it?, British ?defeated the three rival empires of Spain, France, and the Netherlands to become the major world power. Thus did the newcomer ?horn? humiliate ?three kings.? God?s Word, pg 128
  • Jesus year of death predicted (Daniel 9:26, 27)

  How could any of the instances above have been foretold and come true without God 1) ?hitting the fast-forward button? 2) directly making specific humans to act certain ways?

  To me I don?t see how God would be selective with ?forevision?. In my mind it is clear (according to this premise) God not only ?knows? the future, God is IN the future, as well as the past, AT THE SAME ?TIME?.

  Any takers? The water?s warm!
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  Pleasuredome

  yes i would agree there is only now. "god" exists everywhere and everwhen.
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  frankiespeakin

  Ez,

  I think you need to take into account that time in only in the material universe and that time can be slowed down or even stopped by gravity. Hence if jehovah is outside of the universe since he is supposed to have created it, then there is no time for him since he created everything, even time (atleast that's what we can suppose).

  If there is a God he must not have any of the limits we humans have and time to him has to be totally different than time to us creatures on earth. Heck a creature that gets close enought to a black hole when he reaches what they call an "event horizon"(I think?) would see all eternity pass before his eyes in an instant.
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  Narkissos

  Again the word "apory" comes to mind...
• 

  frankiespeakin

  Here's a link for explanation of an event horizon:http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/BlackHoleAnat.html
• 

  wannaexit

  God stands outside of time

  When I finally understood this very thing everything made much more sense.
• 

  zen nudist

  The concept of time most people have makes absolutely no real sense if you think it through....

  first off, let me try to explain time from a different perspective: time is NOT a property of reality, but a means of measuring changes and cataloguing experiences. what I mean is that there is only ONE total system of elements, matter energy spirit, whatever...and the number of these elements never grows nor shrinks in number but like lego blocks can be taken apart, moved around reshaped and reformed, etc...but never added too nor subtracted from.... what we call time is the experiencing the changing patterns and relationships among these blocks compared to some apparently stable cycling patterns of these same blocks... example, earth rotation proves a somewhat stable cycle which we call a day relative to the sun... babylonians with an obsession for 12s and 60s divided the day into 12 basically equal parts and night into another 12, calling them hours, sub dividing those into 60 parts, minutes, etc... by a comparison of the relationship of the earth to sun, they could say such and such an event happened at such and such a time. so time requires the following: changing relationships, some stable cycling countable relationships, and most important, someone to notice with the ability to count and remember... without all these elements there is no time at all, only the present moment with changing relationships.

  there is thus no future, other than our experiences projected into anticipations, no past, besides our memories of former positions. Thus predictions about the future are only guessworks unless you have the ability to manipulate all elements... as to standing outside of time, each and everyone of us can be said to do this as we are always in the eternal now, the present moment... we are never in the past, nor the future...those are only mental inventions.

  the concept of time travel is just human silliness...there is no other time to travel too.

  Consider what it means to travel to the past for example... you would have to take every single block of matter and energy and put them back to where they were to get to the time you wanted to travel back to... no machine can do this... since the blocks only have ONE existance you cannot leave them where they are now and go back to where they used to be and expect them to still be there.

  there is no explanation for where any extra matter and energy can come from to make each unique moment, conservation of matter and energy demands that only one total set exists no more, no less.

  assuming I am completely wrong and the western view is right, claiming one could travel to another time... think of a omni-dimensional being, god if you like, looking down upon our world time as a movie with one frame per moment of existance [each moment is like 10-43seconds in length according to the notion of smallest time scale]..... our god sees every single moment in existance, one complete movie reel... the problem with this is that not one of those frames is the present moment and there is nothing moving per se....

  if we think of God as putting the film into the projector to make it move, then all motion exists beyond our worldtimeline and not in it, so our sense of motion cannot be explained, how do we see and feel movement of any sort? we must be outside the film as well--once again in the eternal present, which would mean that everything we experience is just a movie and we have no real stake in it, no real choices, no real part other than audience... and so we could not really become time travellers in any real sense either, other than to learn perhaps how to move the film to any location we desire.
• 

  ezekiel3

  Zen: I closely agree with your explaination of time: it is a system of measurement and not related to reality. What does a tape measure have to do with the height of a tree?
  

  I would love to hear a response from one who believes in Free-will AND and The Almighty Creator of All. I do not believe they could reasonable rationalize both.

  For JWs this subject is damning. Note that there is no reference in WTS publications about "Jehovah creating time."

  For you logodaedalians, "apory" is trully perplexing - thanks for adding that one to my vocabulary!
• 

  Narkissos

  Note that there is no reference in WTS publications about "Jehovah creating time."

  WT 10/15 82, "Does God Keep Time?" 1st par.:

  AS THE First Cause of events, Jehovah God is the creator of time. This fact can be noted by reading the first book of the Bible. At Genesis 1:1, 14 we read: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And God went on to say: ?Let luminaries come to be in the expanse of the heavens to make a division between the day and the night; and they must serve as signs and for seasons and for days and years.?"

  The previous article was "Time--What is it?" In the 4th par. you could read

  How would you explain what time is? Some would say that time is a way of looking at things or that it is the distance between events. Therefore, if nothing ever happened there would be no time. Yet to define what time actually is becomes as baffling as explaining what universal space is. But certain aspects of time are known.

  (Actually I could only find this issue because I remembered translating it into French... )
• 

  JamesThomas

  e3,
  
  Your post was interesting and inventive.
  
  However, it is based on a god separate and apart that created something. Why limit our Source to a thing outside (I mean besides most of society believing this way)?
  
  What if all there is, is timeless, spaceless, FORMLESS Consciousness (God, if you like). In which is manifest a sense of time and space and the sense of phenomena (much like a dream)?
  
  What if there is no "predestination" because God, the Source is infinite, and thus a wonder even to Itself (if it knew everything, then it would have an end, and It would be finite, it would have form).
  
  The problem is, is that the mind seeks answers (ends) of which there are none in the INFINITY of God/The Source. What if the ultimate answer is: everything -- just IS.
  
  Strange thing, when we stop seeking ends or answers, we notice a wondrous and beautiful thing called -- Life.
  
  
  j