I will preface this post by saying that from a point of discipleship, what I’m about to say is meaningless. It’s also a place where I have no problem if people disagree with me, as long as they are actually considering the foundation of their disagreement. However, it’s a point I’ve encountered in the middle of a variety of discussions on predestination, free will, and other such stuff, and I think it’s a good example of people assuming a point as given without the proper consideration.
I refer to the relationship between God and time.
The conventional wisdom seems to be that time–the actual sequential experiencing of things, not merely our units for measuring it–is a part of creation that we experience, but that God himself exists outside of time. Therefore, the notion of whether God foreordained something (say one person’s belief or another’s unbelief) is actually somewhat academic since God sees past, present, and future in some timeless sense whereby the very notions of past, present, and future don’t actually apply to God’s experience. It’s how at least some folks explain the paradox in Romans 8:29 where God predestined (implying choice) those whom he foreknew (implying awareness of another’s choice).
There’s really no biblical evidence I can think of that supports this notion, which derives largely (I have heard) from Plato who did believe the ideal God was immutable (that is, unchanging/unchangeable), impassible (that is, unaffected by outside forces, so nothing can influence him) and extra-temporal. In contrast, though, the biblical account is full of instances of God interacting with his creation in ways that clearly show creation influencing the creator–for example Moses’ arguments persuading God not to blow the Israelites to smithereens, or God’s relenting from the disaster promised to Nineveh–and this in ways that rather clearly suggest that God intended or said one thing but as the circumstance unfolded he went a different way. Such accounts make very little sense in the context of a timeless and immutable God.
But what if time, rather than being a created thing, is rather an element of God’s nature itself? Before you get all freaked out on me, let me clarify. I’m not suggesting that time is divine, or that there is a divinity like Father Time of legend. Rather, what if God’s nature is to experience an unfolding reality rather as we do, albeit on a much grander and longer scale? God can still be eternal (existing from eternity past, will exist into eternity future) even if he experiences that eternity in an unfolding, progressive sense. But if God actually knows a past, a present, and the possibility of a future just as we (after all, his image-bearers) do, it does put these questions in a completely different light.
For one thing, it makes the possibility of free will truly free. The usual outside-of-time, sees-past-and-future-as-one construct really can’t escape the notion that everything we do is in some sense predetermined (I would go so far as to say that I can’t really see much room for a middle ground between absolute deterministic Calvinism on one hand and Open Theism on the other). One cannot foreknow an outcome unless that outcome is fixed and therefore subject to knowledge, and no amount of multidimensional babble frees us from that trap.
But it also brings a whole new meaning to prophecy, as I implied before in my post on God’s sovereignty. By this I mean that when God foretells the future, he’s doing so, not because he “knows what’s going to happen” in any passive sense of the word, but rather because he has purposed that this is going to happen. True future-telling prophecy, then, is merely the result of God tipping his hand about something he intends to accomplish; or what is far more likely, God decreeing what he has determined must be. It is true, not because of God’s omniscience, but because of his sovereign power.
What do you think? How else would a notion of a timely God rather than a timeless one, impact your theology or world view?
I've been hoping to post about this subject soon, though I don't know when I'll get around to it. However, you present an either/or position that I do not see, because I do not believe God is timeless or timely. My view of God is omnitemporal. Let me explain.
The notion of omnipresent is fairly well known. In some sense, God exists everywhere at once, yet He can enter into His world in such a way as to be local at the same time. So it is not simply that He is above everything in a separate sort of way, but that He is intimately everywhere at once, sometimes with a greater intensity than others.
Time can be viewed in the same way. God can enter into 1964 in a way that He is really in 1964 and interact with it under its own merits, while still remaining distinct from 1964, and be present in 2009.
I think this answers many of the questions that you raise about timelessness. What do you think?
Martin, your notion of an omnitemporal God would certainly find more support than my position, among most Christians. My issue with it is that if God is omnitemporal, then in some sense to God there is no future. To that extent, whatever will happen has, in at least some form, already happened or been determined, whether deliberately by God's choice, or simply as existing within God's passive foreknowledge.
How do you square that with your Arminianism? How, also, do you square it with Biblical assertions of God actually "repenting" or "relenting" of his intentions?
"To that extent, whatever will happen has, in at least some form, already happened or been determined, whether deliberately by God's choice, or simply as existing within God's passive foreknowledge.
How do you square that with your Arminianism? "
I do not see there being a discrepancy since God knowing a thing does not mean that He caused it. Being predictable doesn't mean that you are controlled; an action being known does not mean that it was determined. The point of free will is that what occurred could have been otherwise if humanity had chosen otherwise. Humanity could have, so free will is maintained.
"How, also, do you square it with Biblical assertions of God actually "repenting" or "relenting" of his intentions?"
That the precise difference between the notions of timelessness and omnitemporality. In omnitemporality, God reacts in the moment to the moment because He exists within it, not just beyond it. For instance, let us take the incident with the golden calf. God's honest reaction to what Israel wanted to do was to destroy them. But God's promise outweighed He's anger. However, this is true even from His eternal perceptive. Within our temporal existence, we see these two things work themselves out in time, as God's reaction to the golden calf is seen at the instance of the golden calf, while God's devotion to His promise is seen at Moses' mention of it. Both reactions are real, and eternal, but they are reaction to temporal things, and we seem them work themselves out temporally. This is begins in each moment God is literally in the moment.
I do not see there being a discrepancy since God knowing a thing does not mean that He caused it. Being predictable doesn't mean that you are controlled; an action being known does not mean that it was determined.
How is this so? If an action is known–not in a probabilistic sense (i.e. humans behave this way and have these proclivities, so this particular human is likely to choose X), but in a certainty (this WILL happen)–how then can you say that the actor has any free will in the matter? He is only truly free if the outcome of his choice is as yet undetermined.
It is for this reason I hold that if something is fixed in God's foreknowledge, only two scenarios are possible:
1) He has determined it will be so, and by his will and power it will be carried out in spite of any opposition he may encounter; or
2) It is a fixed and inevitable outcome, not subject to free will, whether God or another actor has so fixed it, and therefore God knows the certainty that will occur.
It is possible for you and me to have free will within scenario 1 in that we can choose to get with God's program or not; but within scenario 2 there is no freedom…particularly if ALL THINGS, and not merely some material ones, are fixed in God's foreknowledge.
Put a different way, whether or not God himself is the cause of all that happens, if you maintain that God knows ahead of time all that happens, we cannot have any choice in the matter and you might as well become a Calvinist. I say this because while God, in your argument, is outside of time, we ourselves are inside of it. If God, being outside of time, can look ahead and see what we will do, then it is already a determined thing. We don't actually have the choice since our future is fixed. Not fixed…not knowable.
As to the notion of omnitemporality itself, can you point me to any scriptural foundation that would support this? I like what Greg Boyd said in "God of the Possible," (see this post) which, if I may reinterpret it slightly, would come out "If Scripture tells us God interacted with humanity to the point of actually changing his mind or intention, why do we feel the need to superimpose a complexity such as omnitemporality over the simple notion that God changed his mind?