God and Time: Does God exist in all points in time?

[Bible Highlighter]

Stopped the Sun (or the earth turning, or suspended daylight or "something") (who knows exactly how he did it or it was done, but it was done) for Joshua...

God Bless!

The sun stopping does not mean that time froze. God can easily just stop the sun if He wants. He does not have to use time to do it. Again, there was no description of a dog jumping through the air (with him being frozen in place) etc.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Who said anything about dogs walking backward? All living things, including all people, experienced the clock getting set back. If God reversed the inertia of the Earth, He had to separate the inertial connection with the rest of the universe, and all living things would experience it. How is that any different than all living things experiencing the clock getting set back?

If God has full control of all inertias of all bodies and molecules of the universe, then He also has control of time, since inertia and time are connected. If God could separate the inertia of all bodies and molecules on earth from the rest of the universe, He could have just as easily done so with time.

Any way you look at it, it's speculation. Don't try to put God into a physics box. He is a miracle worker.
TD

While it is certainly possible, why didn't He make the people to go back in time except for Hezekiah? That would be a little more clearer that God was doing this by controlling time.

 

[Neogaia777]

This was about the shadow on the sundial being reversed back due to the light in the sky (Which could have been the sun moving back or God providing a miracle of light upon the sundial). Time was not reversing backwards here for Hezekiah. It was merely the light on the sundial changing. There is no mention of how people who spoke backwards and or dogs walking backwards and or a cup of water that spilled was back in the cup again.

I don't know how He did it, for there are some "logic problems" with a lot of the explanations that we would or might come up with, I just know that somehow, the sun was stopped from setting from Joshua's view and eyes and he got the extra daylight he needed "somehow"... To finish the battle or win the fight...

God Bless!

 

[ToBeLoved]

I am not denying GOD does not have the power to create things in the way that you suggest, but I just don't think it is something that is really necessary for God to do. God can just as easily be aware of future events in perfect detail, too. God does not need to exist in a pocket of time (outside of our time) in order to see what is going to happen. GOD can calculate every possibility of what will happen with pin point precision.

The problem with GOD being in some kind of outside dimension would basically be like GOD watching re-runs on TV over and over. He could not change the past because it is set for us. It is already done.

I don’t think it works like that at all. With God watching reruns or something.

I think God knows ALL absolute Truth. God is Truth and Holiness. I don’t think God can change who He is at the core.

So I think God knows all Truth. He doesn’t need to watch anything, He knows.

Jesus said He only does what He sees the Fatger do. That is at the core who and what God is. He cannot be anything but Who and What He is.

 

[tdidymas]

While it is certainly possible, why didn't He make the people to go back in time except for Hezekiah? That would be a little more clearer that God was doing this by controlling time.

As yet, we don't see extra-biblical sources saying anything about an experience of the clock getting set back, so a more reasonable speculation would be that only Jerusalem experienced it. It would be necessary for multiple people to see it, since it would not be deemed a miracle if only Hezekiah saw it (in that case, it would be considered a hallucination). To prove it a miraculous event, there had to be witnesses.

So, since there is no other historical witness than the writers of the OT scriptures, it stands to reason that only the people of Jerusalem experienced the event, and that would make it time related. A wider speculation is that maybe the whole world experienced it, but no one understood it and so we have no other historical evidence.

In the case of the "sun standing still," it had to have a much wider audience.
TD

 

[Bible Highlighter]

As yet, we don't see extra-biblical sources saying anything about an experience of the clock getting set back, so a more reasonable speculation would be that only Jerusalem experienced it. It would be necessary for multiple people to see it, since it would not be deemed a miracle if only Hezekiah saw it (in that case, it would be considered a hallucination). To prove it a miraculous event, there had to be witnesses.

So, since there is no other historical witness than the writers of the OT scriptures, it stands to reason that only the people of Jerusalem experienced the event, and that would make it time related. A wider speculation is that maybe the whole world experienced it, but no one understood it and so we have no other historical evidence.

In the case of the "sun standing still," it had to have a much wider audience.
TD

I think people see what they want to see. There was no indication that time was being altered here. While God can certainly do that, I just don't think He did so.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

I don’t think it works like that at all. With God watching reruns or something.

I think God knows ALL absolute Truth. God is Truth and Holiness. I don’t think God can change who He is at the core.

So I think God knows all Truth. He doesn’t need to watch anything, He knows.

Jesus said He only does what He sees the Fatger do. That is at the core who and what God is. He cannot be anything but Who and What He is.

Yes, I believe God knows all truth, too. Look, I am not denying God has the capacity to manipulate time or to create a pocket of time, etc. I just don't think that is clearly revealed to us in Scripture.

 

[tdidymas]

I think people see what they want to see. There was no indication that time was being altered here. While God can certainly do that, I just don't think He did so.

Like I said, it's all speculation.
TD

 

[ToBeLoved]

Yes, I believe God knows all truth, too. Look, I am not denying God has the capacity to manipulate time or to create a pocket of time, etc. I just don't think that is clearly revealed to us in Scripture.

It makes more Biblical sense then God watches reruns or only rested and did nothing on the 7th day of creation.

Not trying to cut down your answers, but I think what I said is more Biblical

 

[Bible Highlighter]

It makes more Biblical sense then God watches reruns or only rested and did nothing on the 7th day of creation.

Not trying to cut down your answers, but I think what I said is more Biblical

You are still just offering opinion and nothing substantial for me to be convinced.

 

[SkyWriting]

Yes, I believe God knows all truth, too. Look, I am not denying God has the capacity to manipulate time or to create a pocket of time, etc. I just don't think that is clearly revealed to us in Scripture.

He exists outside of time. What we perceive is by His design as well.
The miracles in scripture may have been changes to reality or to
our perception of reality. Easy to imagine God controls both or
that they may be the same thing.

It could be we are all in the "Matrix" of God's mind.

 

[Tom 1]

You either did not catch what I said, or you are failing to grasp what I am saying. If God is outside of time, this does not stop God from also being a part of His creation that is constrained by time. On the 7th day after the 6 day creation, God had rested (i.e. stopped from His work). So how can God actually stop from His work if He is existing in some other dimension of time? God would be connected to the past via this outside pocket of time and would be working in the past and thus, He could not truly stop from His work. He would always be connected to the 6th day creation and thereby He could not truly stop in His work.

I’m not sure what you mean by God being part of his creation - in what way do you see God as being part of creation, as opposed to interacting with creation?

Maybe the issue you are having is just one of definitions. To state the obvious, we don’t know how this works in any kind of detailed, technical sense, but we can draw some conclusions from what we can find in the bible:

God created ‘creation’, or at least put into order something that was already there. This doesn’t make him ‘part of’ it, quite the contrary, creation is a thing, God is a being, they are separate.

Creation is subject to progress, one moment follows another, time is how we measure that. God, being infinite and eternal, isn’t subject to that.

God sustains and interacts with creation, from outside, outside as in ‘not part of’. In some sense creation is within God, but not part of him, which would be impossible - the universe and everything therein is subject to change, God isn’t. He doesn’t have bits of him that are, and bits that aren’t. See Acts 17:27-28 for example - God is not far from us; but we have our being in him; the same dual sense is found in Colossians 1:16-17, in him, through him. God sustains creation in some sense but is spirit, i.e. not a physical part of what we think of as the physical universe, although he affects it.

Re. ‘Stopping his work’ - if you take this to be a literal description of God ‘doing’ creation a bit at a time, then stopping, then this is God interacting with creation according to the ‘rules’ by which creation functions; creation itself progresses, God, when he interacts with it, takes part in that progression from the perpsective of creation, not from his perspective.
If you take it more as it was understood when it was written, God brings order to creation, directing it and providing for it kind of like some mix of composer and conductor, and the same applies in terms of interaction in progression (the progression of creation); he then ‘rests’ or ‘takes up his position as ruler and sustainer of’ the universe.

The essential thing you need to grasp is the idea of separateness. For a crude and non technical illustration of the idea if you can imagine space time as a long cylinder then from our perspective it is constantly getting longer, as it progresses. From God’s perspective it has a beginning and an end. God can interact with any part of it at any time (time as a property of the cylinder - a part of what it is and how it functions) from the outside. Outside of it, the question of time is irrelevant; God is interacting with our then, now and not yet from his eternal ‘now’.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

While God has no limits to what He can do (See this thread here), does God actually exist in all points in time?

I imagine somebody out there believes God had hit the rewind button. Now, while God could have let events in human history to unfold rapidly fast to view it all and then He could have pressed the rewind button, I do not get any indication He has done that. Also, how could God do that if the future is still moving ever forward? It is like a never ending movie or story.

Others may believe God also has the power to exist in some outside dimension where our time moves super fast from his perspective while we experience time normally. Five of our years of our time could be like 5 minutes from his perspective (when a part of Himself exists in this dimension). But what about the other part? The part of God that is ever active and presently involved in our creation? Does this make sense in light of what we see in Scripture?

The most popular belief among Christians is that God exists in all points in time. However, does God really exist in all points of our time? Does God exist in the past, present, and future simultaneously?

While God most certainly has the power to do this, I do not think this is so.

If God rested (stopped from His work) on the 7th day, and God existed in all points in time, this means that God would still be working in the past in creating everything on the 6 day creation.

"But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;" (Hebrews 10:12).

Jesus offered one sacrifice for sins forever. Jesus only did this once. For all time!!!

But if God existed in all points in time, God would still be doing this right now. He would be sacrificing Himself more than once. But He would be sacrificing Himself over, and over, and over, and over again. As if God was a slave to time or something. But I do not believe that is the case. Nowhere does Scripture tell us that God exists in some past dimension. Also, nowhere does God say that He is in the future right now, either. Yes, God is our future because our end is in Him, but God does not exist in all points in time.

If God did not have a past and future, He would be frozen on the spot like a still photograph. He couldn't exist. For anyone, including God, to exist, he has to be in an environment where there is a succession of events. The difference between time and eternity is that our time has a beginning, middle and an end one day. But eternity is an endless series of events that has no beginning nor end.

We have no idea what God did in eternity past, where He went, what and who He created. All we know is at some time He created our universe. We have no way of know how long ago He did that. Could have been billions of years. We have some idea when Adam and Eve were created, and some think it is about 6000 years ago, but we cannot be sure, because much of the genealogy was in cultural groups rather than individuals. For instance, Cain kills his brother and then goes into the land of Nod and marries a wife. That couldn't have happened in just a short time. There could have been hundreds of years between the murder of Abel and Cain's marriage, because there was a culture in the land of Nod and a population that would have taken several generations to form. We might have some idea when Abraham came on the scene by calculating back through his family line because the genealogy involved individuals and not cultural groups.

The point I am making is that past, present and future are absolutes. If we are aware of our past, God is aware of His past. If our future is being created by the decision we are making today, then God's future is being created by the decisions He is making. The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ happened 2000 years ago in our time, and also in the same space of time for God too if He measured time in the same way we do. But God doesn't have to measure time in terms of the rotation of the earth and the orbit of the earth around the sun, because He doesn't have to, because there is no point for Him, because there will be no end for him, whereas our time is limited by our life span, so we are conscious of its measurement.

 

[mark kennedy]

At which point in time does God not exist?

I almost rated that funny, but apparently your candor was serious. God transcends time, occupies every second of it.

 

[Pneuma3]

I don't know how He did it, for there are some "logic problems" with a lot of the explanations that we would or might come up with, I just know that somehow, the sun was stopped from setting from Joshua's view and eyes and he got the extra daylight he needed "somehow"... To finish the battle or win the fight...

God Bless!

Maybe Joshua chased the bad guys to a different time zone. LOL

Just a little humor.

 

[RDKirk]

If God did not have a past and future, He would be frozen on the spot like a still photograph. He couldn't exist. For anyone, including God, to exist, he has to be in an environment where there is a succession of events. The difference between time and eternity is that our time has a beginning, middle and an end one day. But eternity is an endless series of events that has no beginning nor end.

I don't think such assertions can be made of a dimension in which no physical law that we can comprehend is in effect--which is what God the creator of our universe is. What does "event" mean in such a dimension where nothing exists but God? What changes in the dimension that is wholly Him and nothing but Him, that existed before He created anything?

What "past" did God experience? Maybe He didn't have a beard when he was younger? What "future" will God experience? Will He get arthritis?

Such concepts can only be applied within in our created universe. All "events" occur in that which is created, not that which is uncreated.

With respect to our created universe, the Son exists in this created universe--the First Entity to appear in this created universe--and He can point to the events of this created universe in terms of "past" and "present" and "future" because they relate to temporal progressions.

 

[ToBeLoved]

Yes, I believe God knows all truth, too. Look, I am not denying God has the capacity to manipulate time or to create a pocket of time, etc. I just don't think that is clearly revealed to us in Scripture.

Please reread my post. It says nothing about manipulating time or creating a pocket of time.

I’m not sure where you got this from my post.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Please reread my post. It says nothing about manipulating time or creating a pocket of time.

I’m not sure where you got this from my post.

Well, there are not that many explanations of a believer's erroneous view on God and time. Notice that I put the "etc." in there. This means that it could be any of of the views that you have about God that goes contrary to Scripture in the fact that God is timeless (even though He has the power to be in a timeless state - hopping continually from the past to the present, to the future, etc.).

Okay. So why don't you share with us your belief on God and time? Is it a secret?

 

[Bible Highlighter]

He exists outside of time. What we perceive is by His design as well.
The miracles in scripture may have been changes to reality or to
our perception of reality. Easy to imagine God controls both or
that they may be the same thing.

I don't believe God is into trickery like that. I think the creation is very real and it is physical. If God merely changed our perception of reality and He did not actual change the physical universe, then it would not really be a miracle. The greatest miracle of all was Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and raising from the dead. Was that also God just changing the perception of our reality and that such a thing did not really happen? If so, then the gospel is not real according to this line of thinking.

It could be we are all in the "Matrix" of God's mind.

Again, this would undermine everything the Son of God went through for us. If He truly died and rose again, it has significance. If our reality was all in the mind of God and was not really real or physical, then it would mean that sin lives in the mind of God and it would mean God makes light of what His Son did for us. So yeah, we are not in a Matrix. I know you probably like the movie, but it is unbiblical. I would encourage you to stop watching things like that. Oh, and yes. It was one my all time favorite movies at one time, too. But Jesus set me free from that kind of junk.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

I don't think such assertions can be made of a dimension in which no physical law that we can comprehend is in effect--which is what God the creator of our universe is. What does "event" mean in such a dimension where nothing exists but God? What changes in the dimension that is wholly Him and nothing but Him, that existed before He created anything?

What "past" did God experience? Maybe He didn't have a beard when he was younger? What "future" will God experience? Will He get arthritis?

Such concepts can only be applied within in our created universe. All "events" occur in that which is created, not that which is uncreated.

With respect to our created universe, the Son exists in this created universe--the First Entity to appear in this created universe--and He can point to the events of this created universe in terms of "past" and "present" and "future" because they relate to temporal progressions.

I think the conundrum we run into is that of our reality.
If God does exist in some future time line somewhere (even some kind of pocket universe that is outside our time), that would mean that we are reliving the events of our life over and over and over again or God let things play out once before within a nanosecond (like a test run) and then He hit the rewind button to let things play out in real time. But when I read the Scriptures, I do not get the impression that God had done something like this. I think GOD is just 100% aware of every single detail that is going to happen. God knows how many leaves will be on your largest tree you have on your front lawn 747 days from now. God knows it all. He is sovereign (even amongst us having free will to choose Him or not). Not one bird falls to the ground without the Father knowing about it.