Understanding Time

[michaeldimmickjr]

I was wondering if anyone could help me understand Time better, from the Orthodox perspective. I have scoured the internet without much avail. I did find a book from St. Tikhon's press entitled, "Time and Man" by Georgios I. Mantzaridis. It has not arrived yet.

I know that the linear interpretation of time is not at all correct from my understanding. That even in the Divine Liturgy, it talks about Christ's Second Coming as if it has already happened.

One reason I guess I find this so interesting is that I was raised a protestant and the fascination with the end of the world seems to be almost at the forefront of the protestant mind. Acquiring the correct understanding of this issue for me is imperative I feel.

I also find it interesting that quantum physics attests to what the Fathers of the Church have taught from the beginning - that time is an illusion. I only understand this on a very ignorant level though.

If anyone would be so kind as to share any insight or point me in the direction of acquiring a better understanding of this fundamental issue, I would greatly appreciate it.

Michael

 

[jckstraw72]

i processed your order of Time and Man yesterday afternoon. It should be in the mail today!

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

Hah! Awesome!

 

[ArmyMatt]

from what I have heard, from our POV time is linear, from God's POV it is all one moment (the eternal "now").

 

[jckstraw72]

i'm curious - where did you get the idea that time is an illusion?

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

i'm curious - where did you get the idea that time is an illusion?

I guess I should have elaborated more - that our perception of time as linear is an illusion. Time itself is a created thing, given to us by God. I think I may have first heard mention of this entire "time" subject in one of Fr. Stephan Freeman's blogs or podcast.

 

[jckstraw72]

hmmmm, sounds interesting ... i think there are some issues with Fr. Stephen's understanding of cosmology ...

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

Keep in mind that I may be misrepresenting what he has said... That's one reason why I started this thread to get a better understanding. I'm sure that if there is an error, it is on my part.

 

[jckstraw72]

no, it's alright. i was commenting on one of his threads a few months ago, and i think time was precisely one of the issues we were going back and forth about ...

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

no, it's alright. i was commenting on one of his threads a few months ago, and i think time was precisely one of the issues we were going back and forth about ...

Then I guess this is a "timely" subject - pun intended!

 

[jckstraw72]

hey-o!

 

[ArmyMatt]

Then I guess this is a "timely" subject - pun intended!

it is. you could say the timing is "second" to none......

 

[RileyG]

I agree.

Knowing God is timeless and has always been there makes my head hurt. I'm just a finite human, so I hope he's not offended by my lack of understanding. shrug

 

[Macarius]

I'd put forward that the most important thing, for many of the patristic writers, was God's ultimate changelessness. The word we translate as "suffer" means something closer to "enduring something else acting upon you" - the way the dirt endures our feet trampling it or an oppressed people endures the whims of their overlords. That is "suffering" and that is "passion" in the negative sense (where we endure the control of our emotions that we lack the discipline to govern).

Christ entered into a voluntary suffering, which is itself as paradoxical a thought (in this scheme) as any attempt to reconcile His Infinitude with His finite humanity. The two are related. This was a huge problem for the 5th century Christological debates (but also pops up a lot in the 4th century Trinitarian debates). How can we say that "God suffered" since suffering would mean to endure something beyond one's control, and God by definition is utterly in control and therefore incapable of "suffering" - no one can act upon God. God acts upon us. That's what it means for Him to be God.

God's timelessness is an important corollary to this. Time, like any other non-God thing or concept or whatever, CANNOT act upon God. God acts upon IT. We can't really say God is "before" time since that places God "in" the timeline (that is, situates God relative to time). We can't say God is "above" time since, likewise, that posits God in-relationship to time. Rather, God is eternal. Without time. Time is an object God creates and manipulates, not something to which God is subject.

Except when God, in His omnipotence, voluntarily subjects Himself to it. And this is the only way for us (who are utterly bound in time) to relate to God. We cannot relate to a God-Eternal-Transcendent since that God is so utterly unspeakable that all our words are mere idols and whisps of blasphemy. We cannot presume to (accurately) put God in human words. Rather, God is Himself the Word, which - proceeding from the silence of the Cross and the fullness of the Empty Tomb - proclaims in a Word beyond words God's true insufferability and timelessness precisely through the vehicles of suffering and time.

That certainly isn't ALL that the Cross does - but if we are strictly on the subject of time and God, we have to start there. We must know nothing but Christ crucified. There, we see the One Beyond Suffering, the Eternal Lord, suffering and undergoing change (time). As one contemporary Orthodox thinker puts it, this is the movement from "On the night in which He was given up" (seeing the crucified one as someone victimized by his oppressors - as a sufferer) to the very theological vision of "or rather, on the night in which He gave Himself up for the Life of the world" - seeing this apparent time-constrained and suffering victim instead as the Life-Giving and Eternal Lord.

That's the theological vision that sits under and guides ALL Orthodox thinking: that we cease to see the world in one way (the victim of suffering), and instead we come to see it in another way: as Christ's Triumph, and God's Creation.

If you like, I can post a few really trippy passages from early Church fathers dealing with God and time in the context of Christ and Christ's salvific suffering. They're good fun and take a LOT of thought to consider carefully!

In Christ,
Macarius

 

[Macarius]

Also, if you like questions dealing with God and time, I'd recommend just about anything by Fr John Behr. The Mystery of Christ is a good starting point, but his more recent Becoming Human is more pastoral-meditative and prayerful rather than reading like a theology book.

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

I'd put forward that the most important thing, for many of the patristic writers, was God's ultimate changelessness. The word we translate as "suffer" means something closer to "enduring something else acting upon you" - the way the dirt endures our feet trampling it or an oppressed people endures the whims of their overlords. That is "suffering" and that is "passion" in the negative sense (where we endure the control of our emotions that we lack the discipline to govern).

Christ entered into a voluntary suffering, which is itself as paradoxical a thought (in this scheme) as any attempt to reconcile His Infinitude with His finite humanity. The two are related. This was a huge problem for the 5th century Christological debates (but also pops up a lot in the 4th century Trinitarian debates). How can we say that "God suffered" since suffering would mean to endure something beyond one's control, and God by definition is utterly in control and therefore incapable of "suffering" - no one can act upon God. God acts upon us. That's what it means for Him to be God.

God's timelessness is an important corollary to this. Time, like any other non-God thing or concept or whatever, CANNOT act upon God. God acts upon IT. We can't really say God is "before" time since that places God "in" the timeline (that is, situates God relative to time). We can't say God is "above" time since, likewise, that posits God in-relationship to time. Rather, God is eternal. Without time. Time is an object God creates and manipulates, not something to which God is subject.

Except when God, in His omnipotence, voluntarily subjects Himself to it. And this is the only way for us (who are utterly bound in time) to relate to God. We cannot relate to a God-Eternal-Transcendent since that God is so utterly unspeakable that all our words are mere idols and whisps of blasphemy. We cannot presume to (accurately) put God in human words. Rather, God is Himself the Word, which - proceeding from the silence of the Cross and the fullness of the Empty Tomb - proclaims in a Word beyond words God's true insufferability and timelessness precisely through the vehicles of suffering and time.

That certainly isn't ALL that the Cross does - but if we are strictly on the subject of time and God, we have to start there. We must know nothing but Christ crucified. There, we see the One Beyond Suffering, the Eternal Lord, suffering and undergoing change (time). As one contemporary Orthodox thinker puts it, this is the movement from "On the night in which He was given up" (seeing the crucified one as someone victimized by his oppressors - as a sufferer) to the very theological vision of "or rather, on the night in which He gave Himself up for the Life of the world" - seeing this apparent time-constrained and suffering victim instead as the Life-Giving and Eternal Lord.

That's the theological vision that sits under and guides ALL Orthodox thinking: that we cease to see the world in one way (the victim of suffering), and instead we come to see it in another way: as Christ's Triumph, and God's Creation.

If you like, I can post a few really trippy passages from early Church fathers dealing with God and time in the context of Christ and Christ's salvific suffering. They're good fun and take a LOT of thought to consider carefully!

In Christ,
Macarius

Thank you. That was very insightful! I would love to take a look at those passages.

Michael

 

[ArmyMatt]

If you like, I can post a few really trippy passages from early Church fathers dealing with God and time in the context of Christ and Christ's salvific suffering. They're good fun and take a LOT of thought to consider carefully!

I know this is not my thread, but please do

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

I know this is not my thread, but please do

My thread is your thread