This series of files, which received their final editing on 10/22/89, contains a discussion of time and eternity: definitions, interrelationships, and so on. For the most part, the following is an edited version of private correspondence between Mike McCully ("MJM") and Dan Wiebe ("DNW"), which we decided to share with anyone else who was interested. For the sake of completeness, there is also a duplication of a few public postings on Christia, including comments from Eric Stein, Mark McGrew, Kurt Evans, and L. Anne Cole. Responses are welcome and can be sent to Mike at MJMCCULL@OWUCOMCN on Bitnet, or to Dan at "dnw@rsch.oclc.org".

Editorial insertions below are enclosed in brackets [ ]. The paragraphs have been numbered ([1], [2], etc.) so that commentators can refer back to specific points without having to re-type the quotation being discussed.

The present discussion was sparked by an earlier debate over whether the days of Creation in Genesis 1 were to be interpreted as normal 24-hour days or as lengthy ages of time. It was noted the Bible essentially says that a million years on earth is like one day for God. Eric Stein mentioned that this reminded him of what physicists say about objects traveling at different relative speeds: time flows more slowly for objects approaching the speed of light.

Eric: [paragraph 1] Now assume God was moving at very high speeds like 0.999999999999999C where (C= Speed of light in a vacuum). Then one day to God would be many years on earth and as His speed increased this difference would become even greater and thus one day to God could be millions of years on earth.

Dan Wiebe (DNW): [2] There are a couple of problems with this. First of all, if God was moving so fast relative to Earth, He probably wouldn't have stayed close enough to it to create it for six days in either His frame of reference or the Earth's.

[3] Secondly, even the above is a moot point, because God is eternal and the Earth is temporal. Most of the misunderstandings about things like this stem from the fact that many people really don't know what the word "eternity" means. They seem to think that it means "an infinite amount of time." (As a side note, in my experience, these same people haven't really thought much about the meaning of "infinite" either.) This misconception is helped along by hymns like Amazing Grace ("When we've been there ten thousand years...we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun.") and idiosyncratic expressions ("Where've you been? I've been waiting for an eternity!").

[4] However, "eternal" is actually the direct opposite of "temporal." We live in a temporal world and are completely governed by time. Our universe has three dimensions plus a piece of a fourth, and the fact that we don't have complete access to our fourth dimension (time--we can only move in one direction and at a constant speed) makes us temporal. A non-temporal, or eternal, being would have complete access to at least four dimensions, and going forward or back in time would be as easy for Him as walking is for us. (In reality, after considering this for awhile, I have come to the conclusion that eternity has at least either five or six complete dimensions.) For Him, time would not march steadily along in one direction unless He wanted it to. Consider as an analogy an author writing a book on a word processor. At any point, he can jump to any place in the book and add characters or events, or remove them. He can, if he wishes, write the book straight from beginning to end and then send it to his publisher with no revisions, but he probably won't--and even after it's written, it can be read many times, in whatever order the reader chooses. The way the author (or the reader) sees the book's characters and events corresponds roughly to the way an eternal being (God) would see us and our universe.

[5] To think about God as a truly eternal being, you have to completely dissociate yourself from our concept of a straight, steady, inviolable course of time. This is difficult, because this concept is intrinsically part of everything we are. But once you manage it, you see how silly it is to argue about how many days it took God to create the universe. Just as an example, there is no reason (the Bible notwithstanding) God couldn't have created the entire universe ten minutes ago and just created it to look like it had been around for billions of years. I mean, there are misguided clothiers who sell new jeans that look like they've been worn for several years, right? :-)

Mike McCully (MJM): [6] I thought this posting made a lot of good points, but I cannot just sit back while Dan attacks my favorite verse of "Amazing Grace." :-)

[7] Since God created earthly time along with everything else in the universe (by whatever method), it makes sense to say that God is outside of our time and could move back and forth if He wished. I'm not sure He would actually go back and change history, since this would seem a little disrespectful of free will and raises other uncomfortable questions (like what happens to the people who were alive before the historical intervention but were never born afterwards?). Also, the Bible seems to indicate that God accepts whatever evil is happening in the present time but works to transform it in the direction of good, for example how He turned the crucifixion into victory rather than defeat. But on general principles, I accept the idea that God could move from point to point in earthly time if He wanted.

[8] But I don't think it follows that God is without any sense of time just because He lives in "eternity" (and my following comments apply to us when we go to Heaven as well). God, I believe, has a "subjective" sense of time which is not necessarily linked to our earthly sense of time. To get at what I mean, we have to talk about the definition of time. Dan defined time as a dimension, a kind of geometric direction such as up or forward (earth is not only moving through space but forward through time). An outside observer like God would actually "see" us moving and know that "time was passing" for us. But another way to define time is through change: I type one word, and then I type another, and I know time is passing. In the same way, God takes one action and then He takes another, and so in a subjective way time is passing for Him. If God had no knowledge of the sequence in which He took His actions (no sense of time), then He could not plan or carry out rational actions, which would raise questions of what it meant to call Him "good". More fundamentally, we have to reject the idea of an irrational God because of the Bible and our own experience.

[9] In the same way, when we go to heaven we will sing one song, then another song (perhaps interspersed with other activities). Eventually we will have sung so many songs that it would have taken us ten thousand years if we had tried to sing them here on earth. So the author of "Amazing Grace" is vindicated after all!

[10] For interesting material on time, see Isaac Asimov's novel _The End of Eternity_ (humans discover a dimension outside of time which lets them manipulate earthly history, yet they still age within this dimension). Also see Madeleine L'Engle's young adult novel _A Swiftly Tilting Planet_ (a sequel to _A Wrinkle in Time_, with God sending Charles Wallace back in history to prevent a nuclear war in the present), Kurt Vonnegut's _Slaughterhouse-5_ (a man travels back and forth within his own lifetime, but is unable to change anything), and the TV show _Quantum Leap_ (a heartwarming and humorous story of a man shifted by God to various times to correct historical mistakes and/or make sure things happen correctly in the first place, with more emphasis on associated ethical issues rather than the logical paradoxes involved).

Mark McGrew: [11] [This is in response to the following comment made by Mike] "Since God created earthly time along with everything else in the universe (by whatever method), it makes sense to say that God is outside of our time and could move back and forth if He wished."

[12] Let me argue semantics a little here. The operative words ... are "earthly" and "our." He is outside *our* time and can work at any point along *our* time as He wills. However, He can access all of *our* time with equal facility, and He can be accessed from all points in *our* time likewise. It's kind of like saying He is equidistant (or "equi-close" if you wish) from all points in *our* time. THIS DOES NOT DENY GOD HIS OWN TIME FRAME. He gives us permission to talk about Him in terms that we can understand, both in feelings and in time. After all, when the Bible says He "loves" us, aren't we talking about a characteristic of God in human terms? And: (!) when the New Testament says "through eternity," chances are it reads "through ages of ages" (talking about the eternal in temporal terms!) What about Daniel's vision of the seraphim? Or Isaiah's? It's simply a manner of describing something with words of our limited language. I think St. Paul talks about it in his discussion about the man "who was caught up into the seventh heaven." He saw things that can't be described in human terms. I think this also goes back to "peace that passes understanding." It's there, it's real, but it's not for comprehension on the rational level. If it was meant for comprehension, I believe Paul would have had a term at his disposal to discuss it. After all, the Greek of the time was pretty sophisticated--four different words for love, and each with it's own distinct meaning! So maybe we're reading too much into the word "eternity." Besides, what does it matter if we stay in the temporal or vanish out of it into some other reference plane? As long as I have the fellowship of my Lord, I don't mind.

MJM: [13] Mark, you imply that the discussion of the relationship between time and eternity doesn't matter, the only important thing is God's promise that we will be in fellowship with Him in heaven. This experience will be wonderful, no matter what degree of intellectual understanding we have of the nature of eternal life compared to earthly life. I basically agree that this is most essential, though I can see several (more minor) benefits from discussing this rather exotic topic.

[14] First of all, it provides practice in thinking precisely and in defining words carefully. Time is a difficult topic to think about, and so it is especially important to be careful in these ways. If we gain experience here, we *may* develop a habit of preciseness in thinking about other Christian topics. (There is a controversy in academia over whether skills learned in one course will carry over to other courses.) Also, some people like myself consider time to be a fascinating topic, and so using it as the focus of discussion gives us the emotional energy that we need for the dreary task of developing good habits. :-)

[15] Furthermore, people occasionally have intellectual barriers which prevent them from fully trusting God, because they think God is just too mysterious and different from the rest of us. My posting was aimed at showing that maybe there is still a kind of "time" even in "eternity", so God and heaven are not totally different from our earthly experience. I am not saying, of course, that we can ever *totally* understand God!

Kurt Evans: [16] Mike, because of your strong interest in the concept of time, I encourage you to check out Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 (especially v.11 + v.15). As far as whether or not we'll ever totally understand God, I offer 1 Corinthians 13:12: "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood."

L. Anne Cole: [17] Also, see the first chapter of John's gospel.

DNW: [18] [responding to Mike's comments in paragraphs 6-8] I didn't mean to attack your favorite hymn. I like it too, and think it definitely has a message. (However, for whatever reason, my own favorite sacred song is "I Have Decided.") But I think a number of people misunderstand the message.

[19] Basically, I think you're saying that just as we live in three dimensions and a piece of a fourth, God lives in n dimensions, n > 3, and a piece of the (n + 1)th, and in this last dimension He moves only in one direction and at a constant speed. I will agree as far as saying that that *could* be what is going on; but I see no reason for God to be restrained by any such analog to our time.

[20] To see what I mean, think of the universe as an adventure-type game in the mind of God. He has complete and total control over it, just as we have complete control over the adventure games we play (unless we choose to relinquish control over certain aspects to dice, for instance). However, there are many things that we are capable of doing in those games that we choose not to do just because they wouldn't make any sense, or would defeat our purpose in playing.

[21] In the same way, I don't think that just because God is (perhaps) capable of changing history, He must necessarily do it.

MJM: [22] Your comments here really provide me with food for thought, since when I said that God had a subjective experience of time I wasn't really thinking about whether this was a "dimension". It is not completely clear to me when we call something a dimension and when we don't. The dictionary says that in mathematics a dimension is "Any of the least number of independent coordinates required to specify a point in space uniquely."

DNW: [23] That is a wonderful definition. A corollary of it is that you can't call something a dimension if A) it's not orthogonal to all the other dimensions, or B) if there are two identical sets of coordinates that describe distinct events ("event" here is used in the larger sense). Basically this means that if you have a space with n dimensions, then you can pick an event in that space and look at n-1 of its dimensions and still have absolutely no information about the missing dimension.

MJM: [24] My original definition of a dimension has relevance to the real world in the sense that objects move or at least have extension, and we need names (dimensions) for the directions in which the object is moving or extending. My interpretation is that every aspect of an object would not have an associated dimension, but only ones associated with movement or extension. So there is not a dimension for a constant (?) like color, but there is one for time, since we move through time. But I wonder if logically there could be something like a "love dimension" (sounds like a 1960s TV show) as people move in and out of love. I'm still trying to pin down exactly how the word ought to be used.

[25] I guess if God moves through His own timeframe from the perspective of observers who are not God, because God carries out a sequence of actions where it is possible to say "Event A happened, then Event B", then we can say there is a time "dimension" for God; this term fits the definition.

[26] The most basic point of my posting was that God does in fact have some sort of time experience, even if it is not the same as our time. (I am responding to the idea that "eternity is totally opposite to time".) A concrete example ties into the Creation issue that we have been discussing. There was a "time" when God was alone, before earthly time itself was created. Then creation took place, and God's situation was different (He was no longer alone), so measured in terms of change, time passed. Logically it seems to me that God cannot be both alone and not-alone simultaneously, so there must be the passage of time in some sense, and the existence of a timeframe.

[27] You bring up a related issue, can God move back and forth in this time dimension? This is like asking, can God double back on Himself, could He go back and visit Himself before creation took place and stop creation, for example? I haven't made up my mind whether this makes sense or not. But even if it did take place, it would mean that time for God was looped or convoluted, it would not mean that God lived in a situation of no-time. There would be a sequence of events like A, B, C, D where D occurred between A and B as God loops back. There is still an order of events here, a time dimension. If no time at all existed (which might be the interpretation of a statement like "eternity is the total opposite of time"), then A, B, C, and D would have no fixed order, their sequence would change randomly. And this would seem to mean that there is no possibility of rational action, a conclusion which I felt was unacceptable.

[28] One further thought to whether there is a "time" dimension to "eternity". If we literally will sing songs in eternity, I am not sure what meaning this would have if there was no time, because it seems a song is fundamentally a series of notes related to one another through timing. Timing would also seem important for anything for which "song" is a good analogy, so it would not solve anything to say the songs are not literally like the ones we sing on earth. But maybe you already accept my idea of a time dimension to eternity, and I am just "preaching to the choir" (groan).

DNW: [29] My own view (and I should preface this with all the usual disclaimers about how while this is not unScriptural it certainly isn't Scriptural either and I present it not as fact but merely as suggestion) is that God can constrain Himself, if He wishes, to a particular sequence of events, but that He doesn't have to, and probably frequently doesn't. The absence of sequence does not preclude the existence of cause/effect and rational relationships; it just requires that the meaning of the terms be extended a bit.

MJM: [30] I really don't understand the concrete meaning of your last sentence here. Could you elaborate/give an example?

DNW: [31] You're right--this is a hard thing to give an example for, just because it's so far outside the realm of human experience. But here goes for a try, anyway.

[32] The problem here, if I understand it correctly, is to see how we can have a cause/effect relationship without a sequence of events, or without one event (the cause) preceding the other (the effect). The best example I can come up with right now would be in the engine of a car. For the sake of argument, we'll take this to be a very tightly- adjusted car and assume that the speed of sound in steel is infinite (which is a reasonable assumption when you consider relative speeds). Consider the camshaft/rocker-arm/valve assembly. The camshaft turns under one end of the rocker arm. When a lobe comes by, it pushes up on that end of the rocker arm and the rocker arm rocks, pushing down on the valvestem and opening the valve. I think that you will agree that the opening of the valve is an effect of the causal action of the camshaft lobe coming by, and not the other way around (opening the valve will not cause the camshaft to turn, at least not reliably). However, the camshaft lobe coming by happens *simultaneously* with the opening of the valve, if everything works as outlined above. There is no time delay.

[33] I realize that this example has to do with an event that itself takes time to happen, but since eternity is entirely outside the human experience, I don't think I can give you a truly non-temporal example.

[34] "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

MJM: [35] Your example of simultaneous car engine actions is an interesting one. Although I am still not entirely confident that this gives an accurate description of God's actions, it does help me to see better what you are saying.

to be continued ...