Did "Time" as we know it exist in the Garden before the fall?

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Its commonly believed that Heaven will be a realm outside of time; timeless. When God makes everything new again, will Heaven be likened to a new Garden of Eden? And was the original garden a temporal state or was it eternal in its nature before the fall?

Apologies if this is unclear. I'd be happy to attempt to clarify.
 

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strictly speaking -time- does not exist -
it is used to measure motion in a physical world -
I don't think heaven will be physical -so- it will be timeless
oooooh....

bake noodle here.

infinity-einstein.png


Forgive me...
 
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I used to believe God existed in all points in time simultaneously for a long time. But in time (no pun intended), I have come to learn that this thinking is false. I believe God is simply 100% aware of the future with pin point accuracy (which would even include the regular things we do through out the day or the week). But God is not existing in all points in time. Time does not exist like it does in some kind of Time Travel movie. For if the Lord exists in some kind of past dimension somewhere (simultaneously along with the present and the future), then God could not have technically rested on the 7th day and nor could He have offered up one sacrifice so as to forever perfect them that are sanctified.
 
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nonaeroterraqueous

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Time is the medium through which change happens. Did change happen? I'll say it did; quite a lot of it, in fact. It all came about as a result of the interaction between a person and a tree. This might seem to disprove the timelessness of Paradise, but it might be the exception that proves the rule. Nothing else appears to have been capable of breaking the stasis of Paradise. In a way, not much has changed. Humans are still the biggest cause of change in a world that mostly wants to remain in a steady state.

But...there must always be time, or there can be no movement, no action and no life. That doesn't mean there can't be stasis, a strong stability in the way things are.
 
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Time is the medium through which change happens. Did change happen? I'll say it did; quite a lot of it, in fact. It all came about as a result of the interaction between a person and a tree. This might seem to disprove the timelessness of Paradise, but it might be the exception that proves the rule. Nothing else appears to have been capable of breaking the stasis of Paradise. In a way, not much has changed. Humans are still the biggest cause of change in a world that mostly wants to remain in a steady state.

But...there must always be time, or there can be no movement, no action and no life. That doesn't mean there can't be stasis, a strong stability in the way things are.

But if God exists in some kind of past or future dimension somewhere, then that means He technically did not rest on the 7th Day because He was doing something else in some other dimension of time. This would also mean that He did not offer one sacrifice as the Scriptures say but that He would be continually offering this sacrifice even now (over and over and over and over and over) at this very moment in some past dimension of time. It would be like God is doomed to repeat history as if He was trapped in some kind of Ground Hog Day movie. That would not make any sense. People think in terms of time as existing past, present, and future simultaneously because they watched time travel movies or read time travel books, or comics, etc. They are influenced by these things and therefore, they draw the wrong conclusions.
 
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Ken Rank

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Its commonly believed that Heaven will be a realm outside of time; timeless. When God makes everything new again, will Heaven be likened to a new Garden of Eden? And was the original garden a temporal state or was it eternal in its nature before the fall?

Apologies if this is unclear. I'd be happy to attempt to clarify.
The answer would have to be yes. While I don't think Adam had a watch :) the things that give us time were created before Adam was. We have a day because the Earth rotates one time, a month being the cycle of the moon, and a year the orbit around the Sun. These things were in place before Adam was even created therefore time existed before Adam and would clearly have been present in the Garden.

So if we are talking heaven or the spiritual realm... that is not bound by time. But the physical is.
 
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And was the original garden a temporal state or was it eternal in its nature before the fall?
Genesis 1:3
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.​

"Day" is a measure of time. So time existed before God made the earth or the garden.
 
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God is outside of time.
True. And in it as well to be able to relate to us.

He fills all in all, both inside and outside our time/space existence.
 
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AlexDTX

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Its commonly believed that Heaven will be a realm outside of time; timeless. When God makes everything new again, will Heaven be likened to a new Garden of Eden? And was the original garden a temporal state or was it eternal in its nature before the fall?

Apologies if this is unclear. I'd be happy to attempt to clarify.

Every comment I have read seem to state some aspect of the truth. But we are like the blind men describing the part of the elephant we touch. That being said, I offer my part as a blind man touching another part of the elephant of time.

Time and space are considered to be the same thing. This is why it is called the space-time continuum. Time is measured by motion. Hence, when an object nears the event horizon of a black hole, time stops because the gravitational force of the black hole is so strong that all movement stops. Likewise if two identical clocks are used to measure time on Earth, one clock being at sea level and the other clock on the highest mountain, the clock at sea level will run slower than the clock on the mountain since the force of gravity is greater at sea level than on the mountain. That being said, that does not mean time does not exist, it simply means that the measurement of time depends on motion.

Regarding time in heaven, it depends on what heaven is, and only those in heaven may know. In my view, the creation is one. That means heaven is part of the created universe, thus part of the space time continuum. I see heaven as another dimension that we can not perceive of this same physical world, although it is not physical but spiritual, whatever that really means. So I think time exists in heaven as well.

Regarding God, I believe God is outside the creation, therefore does not live in time, although he does through his Son who became part of the creation. When we told that we will have eternal life, I understand that to mean we have the very life of God in us who is eternity. I define eternity as no beginning nor end since it is not part of time. As created beings we have his eternal life is in us, but our created lives is an everlasting life, which I mean is life with a beginning but no end.

I merely offer this a food for thought.
 
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Ken Rank

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Every comment I have read seem to state some aspect of the truth. But we are like the blind men describing the part of the elephant we touch. That being said, I offer my part as a blind man touching another part of the elephant of time.

Time and space are considered to be the same thing. This is why it is called the space-time continuum. Time is measured by motion. Hence, when an object nears the event horizon of a black hole, time stops because the gravitational force of the black hole is so strong that all movement stops. Likewise if two identical clocks are used to measure time on Earth, one clock being at sea level and the other clock on the highest mountain, the clock at sea level will run slower than the clock on the mountain since the force of gravity is greater at sea level than on the mountain. That being said, that does not mean time does not exist, it simply means that the measurement of time depends on motion.

Regarding time in heaven, it depends on what heaven is, and only those in heaven may know. In my view, the creation is one. That means heaven is part of the created universe, thus part of the space time continuum. I see heaven as another dimension that we can not perceive of this same physical world, although it is not physical but spiritual, whatever that really means. So I think time exists in heaven as well.

Regarding God, I believe God is outside the creation, therefore does not live in time, although he does through his Son who became part of the creation. When we told that we will have eternal life, I understand that to mean we have the very life of God in us who is eternity. I define eternity as no beginning nor end since it is not part of time. As created beings we have his eternal life is in us, but our created lives is an everlasting life, which I mean is life with a beginning but no end.

I merely offer this a food for thought.
The interesting thing about Einstein is having had Jewish parents he was at least acquainted enough with the Hebrew language and the concept of "olam" (eternity, universe, world, etc.) that he had an edge when it came to the areas he concentrated on.

Everything that accounts for time is the effect from something God created. But being there before creation... outside of time.... we then add in the "endless" concept to both time, space and even God.

Gosh... just writing this out causes me to cringe just thinking about certain types of people who are so dogmatic about their own understanding of God. :) We don't even come close to fully grasping what He created and yet we are all experts on the Creator. :)

Blessings.
Ken
 
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We don't even come close to fully grasping what He created and yet we are all experts on the Creator.
Very well said. I like the name of the writing group that Lewis and Tolkien were a part of, The Inklings. The pun and tongue in cheek are evident: they used ink to write, but they only had a small understanding of what they were writing, that is, they only had an inkling of an understanding.

How much more for us in discussing the Supreme Mind? Not only is physical space much more complicated than we know, but every life form is beyond our ken. As I age in Christ I have come to accept that each person is uniquely made by God and everyone is wired for His purposes. This is especially true in my marriage. The longer I live with my wife the more I simply accept who she is, and that God made her in ways I still don't understand. If I barely understand her, how little do I truly understand God?
 
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We know some wonderful, amazing, and good things. Not everything though! Just stay humble and remember you don't know for sure about a lot of things. :=) We cannot encompass or specify God of course, and He has only revealed some wonderful things to us, but not everything of course.
 
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God can answer millions of prayers at once. So clearly our time/space is not a restriction for Him as it is for us. I believe time is linear (and time is not happening all simultaneously), for if God rested on the 7th day, then He cannot exist in some past or future dimension of time somewhere whereby He is still doing things. God would have to rest in these other dimensions of time, as well.

One way God could perfectly predict all events in the future is that He could have played out the whole of creation in His own mind before He actually made it physically. God existed from eternity's past, so He had a lot of time to fully predict and calculate everything that man would do (even down to what kind of clothing we were going to wear on a specific day).

I believe God is aware of each soul He was going to make before He put forth the first atoms within creation. God had it planned out where each soul was going to live, and what time period they were going to live in, and how old they were going to live to. God is able to arrange souls into whatever place or time for His greater plan for good. It is why Abraham has a line of believing children and why the 144,000 will all be Messianic faithful believers in the end times (from the 12 tribes). God knows it all. God is all powerful and can do great and amazing things that we cannot begin to comrephend. Glory be to the Lord God who knows things too wonderful for us to understand. He holds all things together by the word of His power. He names all the stars and has the very hairs on our head all numbered. He counts our steps and knows what we are going to pray before we even say any words. The most important thing about God and His amazing power is His love. His love is what melts our hearts and makes us new creatures in Him. His love went further than any other man could ever do by going to the cross on our behalf to pay the price for our sins. Christ took the sins of the entire world upon His physical human body because of the depths of love God has for you and me. The depths of His love is long suffering towards us and is not willing that any should persih, but that all should come to repentance. How beautiful our Lord God is. He is not only powerful in ways we cannot understand, but He is loving and good just as equally the same. His goodness and love far reaches past what we can know on this Earth.
 
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Oh, and I don't believe Heaven is some kind of timeless place, either. For the city of New Jerusalem comes down from out of Heaven and lands on the New Earth after the Millennium. This means that Heaven can coincide or interact with our space/time. In addition, the saints who are beheaded for Christ cry out to God for vengeance at the breaking of the fifth seal under the altar of God in Heaven. God responds by bringing judgment with the six seal upon the Earth. We see that there is the Ark of the Covenant revealed from Heaven upon as mentioned in the book of Revelation. So clearly things happen in Heaven so as to match up with our time here on Earth. So time must operate in the same way in Heaven as it does on our Earth.

I believe God is the One who is the miracle worker and there is no place that is timeless, etc.
 
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A friend of mine who is a Creation Science teacher says that time is actually coming from the future and going into the past. My wife and I are still scratching our heads.

That makes no sense. Time is linear. It exists in the present and travels towards the future. If God could exist in some future time line or past time line, then God could not have technically claimed that He rested on the 7th day because God would no doubt be working within those other dimensions of time (and not resting). I believe time exists only in the present. Like a gift. God who is a miracle worker can do things much faster and or He can do things simultaneously or by some other miraculous means so as to answer millions of prayers at once and so as to predict the future with pin point accuracy (even amongst what we would think are trivial things like how we dress, etc.).
 
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I once thought that God operated in a different pocket of time that was slower than our time. This was based on a verse from Peter that says,

"But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2 Peter 3:8).​

I came to believe this for a short time based on the Star Trek Voyager episode called, "Blink of an Eye."


The idea is that for every thousand years that would pass on Earth, it would be one day in Heaven. But this concept of two different time bubbles does not really allow one to time travel. It only slows down time for one individual in one pocket of time as the other pocket of time goes by much faster. Also, 2 Peter 3:8 says the reverse is true, too. Are we to assume that a day on Earth is like a thousand years to God? I can imagine it could be if He wanted it to be. But God is all powerful. He does not need to restrain Himself or put limitations on Himself like that. I believe the phrase from 2 Peter 3:8 is merely to help us to recognize the language that the Bible uses to figure out prophecy correctly. I do not believe it was also meant to be in reference to any kind of science within our universe.

Side Note:

Please take note that I do not watch Star Trek anymore. I have put away watching worldly films, and TV shows; And I feel blessed by God for doing that. For they can have a bad influence on you that you do not realize. The posting of the video trailer above is only to help you to understand what I am talking about. It is my encouragment to you so as not to get caught up into watching lots of Star Trek. Life is too important than getting hooked on the things of this world.
 
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