[This is Part 2 of a discussion of time and eternity]

Mike McCully (MJM): [36] I guess my only question remaining at this point is to ask for a bit more clarification on why you think God's existence is so utterly different from human experience. Because the words "eternity" and "time" are semantically very different? Because by definition God is "omnipotent" and not bound involuntarily by anything, even logical impossibility?

[37] My point all along has been that perhaps our language gives us an inaccurate impression of what the real eternity is like, since I have (perhaps too much) faith that what is logically impossible on earth must be so in eternity as well. Otherwise our reasons would be defective in some way (I admit this is a possibility). As I've argued, it seems logical to me that there should be sequences and a kind of "time" in eternity. I find it plausible that God may have used His own sense of time in creating the earthly time dimension, just like He used His personality as a guide for creating humans in His own image.

[38] [Along the same lines,] I remember how we talked [in an earlier conversation] about [your adventure game idea in paragraph 20]. I'm not sure that I think we are an adventure game, but I agree [that this is an interesting analogy]. I would add that there might be some things we don't do because they are impossible due to logical self-contradiction. For example, could God do something hateful, or would this contradict His nature and mean He wasn't God? C.S. Lewis says this is not placing limits on God but instead it just reveals the limits of our language (the word "omnipotent" approximately describes God but it is not accurate when we look at the extreme examples of what that word means in our language).

Dan Wiebe (DNW): [39] I don't think I've ever said that something you suggest is either impossible or incorrect. All I've said is that I don't think it *has* to be correct. Time exists as a subset of eternity, not as something completely separate.

[40] I *agree* with you that logical impossibilities exist both in time and eternity. Remember [our earlier conversation]?

MJM: [41] Actually my memory is foggy on this specific point, and now I'm confused. I thought I said logical impossibilities don't exist; are you agreeing or disagreeing? :-)

DNW: [42] Gee, now I'm confused too. My position is that God can't be both A and NOT(A) any more than we can. I would add that we have to be careful to maintain generality in defining NOT(A) to avoid the problem that a graphics programmer might get into when assuming that NOT(white) = black. This is a perfectly valid assumption on a two-color monochrome display, but breaks down all over the place when you move the program to a color display. I think that if anybody comes up with an example where God is both A and NOT(A), it can probably be shown that the definition of NOT(A) is dependent on the assumption of a temporal frame of reference.

[43] There. Now what exactly is your position, again?

MJM: [44] I agree completely that God cannot be both A and NOT(A), you expressed this very well. So our (potential) disagreement revolves around the "temporal frame of reference" bit, as it has from the beginning of our discussion. I'm saying I don't see how God could be "alone" (before Creation) and "not alone" (after Creation) in a simultaneous way, which might be an implication of saying "eternity" partially transcends all notions of time and sequence (time is merely a subset of eternity). "Alone" and "not alone" simultaneously seem logically impossible, from which I conclude there is a time frame of sorts in God's environment. If I understand what you are saying, it is that "alone" and "not alone" *may* be possible, because eternity is *independent* of a temporal frame of reference (note that this is a little different from what you state in the second-tolast sentence above). I have also argued that if it is meaningful to say that there are songs in heaven, this implies at least "pockets" of sequence and timing within the dimension (?) of eternity. Comments?

DNW: [45] Instead of thinking about "before Creation" and "after Creation", think about "outside Creation" and "inside Creation," although the terms aren't used completely correctly. Take the Cartesian x-y plane, and draw a unit circle around the origin. Fill in the circle--say with red. Now pick a point someplace on the plane, and call it "alone" if it's in an uncolored area, and "NOT(alone)" if it's in a colored area. So, if the point represents in some sense the position of God, He can be alone or NOT(alone) in a mutually-exclusive way (we ignore edge effects for the sake of argument) without any help from sequence.

[46] Remember, time is just a dimension like all the others, and any movement along the time axis can be exactly analogous to a movement along a space axis in a larger-dimensional n-space.

MJM: [47] I think this is a very interesting and clear example. Would this apply to humans as well as they extend along a time dimension, with relation to various events in their life?

DNW: [48] There are a number of different ways of thinking about time, most of which are equally valid. You choose the way that makes it easiest to comprehend whatever you're considering at a particular moment. But yes, that's one way, and probably my favorite. The problem with humans that doesn't apply to God is that they can only move down the time dimension in one direction and at a steady speed. As a matter of fact, this is the one and only thing that makes time special.

MJM: [49] A weakness with the example seems to be that "alone" is not merely a physical/geometric state, but also a matter of consciousness -- we are aware of the presence or absence of other beings. If in fact humans extend along a time dimension in a similar way, the sequence comes in terms of the location of their consciousness, which normally is in one location rather than another. Of course, we can travel to the past through memory or to the future through imagination or prophecy, but usually these are qualitatively inferior experiences to actually "being there" and so we don't assume that actual movement of consciousness has occurred in a physical way. In the same way, God might experience sequence in terms of where His consciousness is concentrated.

[50] To argue against myself, in the case of a true "vision" of the future (which I do believe is possible), one may be aware of one's current external environment or "what is happening now", as well as "what is about to happen". So, a kind of simultaneous location of one's consciousness may exist sometimes on earth, and so one could argue that God has this experience eternally. I just wonder whether a being whose consciousness was solely of this nature could relate well to creatures like us who normally have a different sort of consciousness, and what the point was of creating us with such a different consciousness. (Thus my point that perhaps God does experience sequence in His consciousness, and we really aren't so different in this regard.) If there does exist a big difference in terms of consciousness, perhaps the point of creation was a love of variety, and He learned to relate better to us during His life as Jesus when He experienced a similar sort of consciousness. (So according to this line of thought, He was eternally aware of Jesus' earthly insights because of a simultaneous consciousness of anything related to the earthly timeframe?) Have I basically stated all your rebuttal points about consciousness in this paragraph? :-)

DNW: [51] I haven't yet really thought about memories and premonitions and visions and "deja vu" and so on in this context, I suppose mostly because, as you say, they're qualitatively inferior to "being there." (I thought you put that very well indeed.)

[52] It seems to me that our problem degenerates basically into a single question: How big is God? I can see two extreme possibilities; in one, He's a point (or nearly a point in comparison with the size of His n-dimensional universe), and must travel around from place to place in it, just as we must travel from place to place in ours. Of course, the next immediate question is, "How fast can God run?" In our universe, the speed of light is a limiting factor, but it seems to be tied in integrally with the first four dimensions. In a greater dimensionality, it seems plausible that this limit, at least, might not exist, and therefore, travel in dimensions higher than 4 (and perhaps even including #4) would either be governed by some other fundamental limit or not governed at all, allowing infinite speed. In the other extreme, God is of infinite size, encompassing His entire n-dimensional universe (which includes ours), existing at every point simultaneously and continuously (to use two crassly temporal terms).

[53] In the first example, an omniscient God would have to run around to different places to find out what was going on at each (or receive communications from each, which if you think about it amounts to basically the same thing). In the second, He would automatically contain all knowledge, and it would be automatically updated as the things the knowledge told about changed.

[54] I'm not sure exactly what I think about this, but I would probably tend toward a case somewhere in between but closer to the first example.

MJM: [55] Yes, it's my understanding that experiments have actually demonstrated that time slows down for things moving at high velocity (it is not just a perceptual slowing but a slowing with physical consequences for the atomic clock). What I don't understand is why speed in three dimensions should mean less speed in the fourth, and what light has to do with these interdimensional relationships. Part of the problem is lack of physics background, but do you know if some aspects here are mysterious to physicists themselves? I.e. how much do we understand here, and how much is simply one of the mysterious building blocks of the universe such as the value of "pi", which we just have to accept?

DNW: [56] I hesitate to drag my dad (H. D. Wiebe) into this, because I know he's a busy guy, but I also know that he has a PhD in physics and I don't. I've kind of been hoping he would jump in anyway, because he's a lot smarter than I am, especially about stuff like this. But I really don't know what to think about your observation that a speed increase in one or more of the first three dimensions leads to a relative decrease in the fourth, except that this situation could probably be described by a hyper-surface in (complete) 4-space, in roughly the same way as we describe functions of two variables by a surface in 3-space and functions of one variable by a curve in two-space. What do you think, Dad?

MJM: [57] With regard to whether God is more like a point within a high-dimensional space or whether He encompasses everything, I guess I would lean more towards the former. The problem, though, is that it is already mysterious where God "came from originally", so to speak, and now we are postulating an even-larger dimensional space which appeared from nowhere. It might help if we can say that dimensions have no existence independent from concrete objects, i.e. the concept of dimension "sprang into existence" simultaneously with God because dimensions are a logical necessity for a meaningful discussion of God. But without God, there are not dimensions floating around empty. An analogous example would be to argue that the concept of "chair" does not exist outside of our minds (or God's mind) in the absence of actual physical chairs. I'm not sure if this line of argument validly applies to dimensions. But it would seem Biblical to say that dimensions can't exist unless God supports them.

DNW: [58] Actually, now that I think of it, the situation where God is a point that can move at infinite speeds and the situation where God is allencompassing are essentially the same thing, or could be. I think. I don't remember enough from CIS726 to say this with complete certainty, because I know that there are at least two different levels of infinity (aleph-null and c?) that have been discovered so far, where aleph-null is "more infinite" than c. But anyway, this is all beside the point.

[59] I'm not sure I understand why you seem to have so much trouble with the idea that God, and His universe, whatever the nature of it might be, could have existed "forever"--that however many dimensions exist for God, it is impossible to choose a point that God cannot get to. This is how I've always seen the situation, and why I balked when you suggested that God was governed by a sense of sequence just like us. That would imply that if God lives in n dimensions plus a piece of the n+1st that acts as a sequence counter, and if God is at the point (x[1], x[2], ..., x[n], x[n+1]) "now" (whatever "now" means in that context), that He could never again get to the point (x[1], x[2], ..., x[n], x[n+1] - 1). (I need subscripts!) This gets in the way of my idea of the omnipresence of God. If you do think this way, then it's quite possible that you have to worry about what was "before" God. However, if you give Him unlimited access to all of His dimensions, like I tend to do, "before" doesn't make any sense because it implies a temporality that doesn't exist.

[60] Now, you can take such a space and temporarily *impose* temporality (say that ten times fast!) on it, if you want to. Take the example of the 2D plane with the red circle in the middle. Stand on this plane at the point (-10, 0). Now walk at a steady speed down the x axis in the positive direction. You'll be "alone" for awhile, and then you'll be "NOT(alone)" for a bit longer, and then you'll be "alone" again. But you don't *have* to do it this way; you could walk through the circle backwards or sideways, or detour around it, or walk in a small circle inside it, or even stop and not move at all. You can't do any of these things in a temporal framework. Of course, to extend this example to n-space, you have to think again about temporal concepts like "move," "steady," "speed," "stop," and so on.

MJM: [61] Well, you are certainly stating an orthodox view here, that God has no beginning, is omnipresent, etc. My problem with this is that it is so mysterious intellectually: how could anything have no beginning? It may well be true, and may be impossible to understand with our human intellects; I am not denying that. But I prefer not to give up too soon in trying to understand, in case some insight is available, increasing our own satisfaction and also helping us in discussions with non-believers who resist Christianity because it is too mysterious. The problem with saying God *has* a beginning is then we have to ask what was before God, and when did that begin, and what was before *that*, etc.: an infinite regress which also is intellectually unsatisfactory.

[62] One other comment relates to your point about sequence: let me reemphasize that God could still experience sequence even if He is able to move back and forth along the heavenly temporal dimension that I am proposing (He can still return to points which He experienced earlier). If we call the sequence "A, B, C, D", it is possible that God's consciousness experiences things in this order, but that the timing is "A, D, B, C" (for example) from the viewpoint of a hypothetical observer moving in a constant forward direction along the temporal dimension. The only way we can eliminate the idea of sequence altogether is to say everything is simultaneous (God is both alone and not alone in His consciousness, both angry and not angry at the children of Israel, etc.). To me this seems schizophrenic and nonsensical, and I doubt that it is really the impression of God that the Bible offers us, either.

[63] You state, "you could walk through the circle backwards or sideways, or detour around it, or walk in a small circle inside it, or even stop and not move at all. You can't do any of these things in a temporal framework."

[64] Again, my point is that these convoluted movements would in fact be possible in a temporal framework; the only thing that would be impossible is to do everything/ be everything at once.

[65] One thought that I had here was that perhaps God does sometimes move back to an "alone" state for a while, in order to experience inter- Trinity communion uninterrupted by the concerns of other creatures. The Biblical parallel would be when Jesus went off to the mountains by himself to pray.

[This concludes our conversation to date. Again, comments are welcome, sent to MJMCCULL@OWUCOMCN on Bitnet or "dwiebe@csi.compuserve.com". 10/22/89]