God, Time, & Eternity
Are there things about God that you don’t understand? Me too. We yearn for
Him and grope for Him in the hope that we will find Him (Acts 17:26-27).
What about eternity? Even harder. God has placed that longing to know and
experience eternity in our hearts too (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
What about heaven? God has tried to help us picture that spiritual place, but
the problem is that He has to use physical terms or else we could never
understand anything about it (2 Corinthians 5:2-4).
There will always be problems trying to comprehend that which is humanly
incomprehensible (Romans 11:33). Therefore, God doesn’t explain everything to
our satisfaction—He just gives us enough to appease that yearning.
The Wisdom of Men
The wisdom of this world and scientific learning of our day intimidates us
because it claims to have insight that we don’t. It mocks us for believing
ridiculous and foolish things.
But what happens to the wisdom of each generation? It dies and is replaced by
the wisdom and learning of the next, and then the next, and then the next—until
the knowledge which men confidently assert in their own day, is mocked and
ridiculed in the decades and centuries to come (1 Corinthians 1:19-21).
Many people think God is a holdover from a superstitious age when men believed
in evil spirits, bogey-men, leprechauns, and ghosts—when he needed to believe in
something to protect him. But now that we live in an enlightened age, they think
God has outlived His usefulness.
The wisdom of God far exceeds theirs though—even the most learned wisdom of the
most learned men. They have merely learned about the works of the very God who
they deny. God has no limitations (1 Corinthians 1:25,
Isaiah 55:8-9). It was
through this wisdom that He created everything (Proverbs 8:22-31). That same
wisdom calls on us to listen to it in His works of creation (Proverbs 8:32-36).
God And This Realm
God created this realm. He is not bound by any of it. He spread it all out
before Himself like a great architect and builder (Psalm 33:6-9,
Isaiah
40:21-22,
25-26). We cannot place limitations on a limitless God. Therefore:
Limited Men Try To Understand An Unlimited God
Here is where the problem begins, as finite men try to comprehend an infinite
God (Romans 11:33-36). We speculate and propose what we think are very
intelligent questions. Actually, in our blind arrogance, we don’t realize how
laughably dumb our "deep philosophical questions" really are. Endless absurd
questions like:
- Where does God live?
- How many angels can you fit on the head of a pin?
- Can God create a rock so big that He cannot move it?
- When does God sleep?
- Is it daytime right now for God or nighttime?
- How old is God?
- If God created the world, then who created God?
Those questions show our ignorance… not our intelligence (Romans 1:20-22).
People mock what they don’t understand to hide the fact that they don’t
understand! Every one of those questions attempt to place our physical
limitations on a limitless God. Finite man tries to measure an infinite God with
finite measurements.
Illustration: A ruler measures in two dimensions—length and width. Draw a
circle on a piece of paper and you can measure it with that ruler. But take
out a sphere (ball) and you can’t do it. Why can’t you measure a sphere with
that same ruler? Because you are measuring a 3-dimensional object with a
2-dimensional tool. You will never be able to do it.
Now suppose you confidently say that proves that there is no such thing
as a ball—because it cannot be measured by your ruler. And you
condescendingly make fun of the rest of us because we still believe in
balls. You walk away thinking you are superior to the rest of us clods,
while we look at each other and snicker under our breath.
Do you see the difficulty of binding physical laws on a spiritual God?
Flatlanders
Imagine a land of only 2-dimensions—having length and width, but not height.
We’ll call in Flatland.
Flatland is inhabited by intelligent beings who appear in the form of different
geometric shapes—triangles, squares, rectangles, pentagons, hexagons, octagons,
etc.
To imagine what life looks like to a Flatlander, you may have to get down low
and look at the top of a table, so you only see the edge of all the figures on
it. Then, no matter what their 2-dimensional shape is, they all look like lines
(which are a 1-dimensional shape).
One day the Flatlanders wake to find that someone has drawn a line across their
town. Not having the ability to jump over, or tunnel under (since they are
2-dimensional they have never even heard of the concepts of "over" or "under"),
all they know to do is to try to go around it or through it.
They are helpless to get across that line. They are cut off from their families
and friends because of the outside boundaries of their city, and are now
hopelessly enclosed within the boundaries with no way out.
The leaders of Flatland meet together in a council room to determine how the
line got drawn there in the first place, to discuss their options, and then to
form some plan of escape. While they are meeting, a circle appears in their
midst who is not one of them. It startles them all because no one can see where
this circle came from.
"Who are you and how did you get in here?" they demand. The stranger says,
"Hello, my name is ‘Sphere’. I have been watching you from above and thought I
would come down and introduce myself. I am the one who drew the line through
town."
"What do you mean ‘above’ and ‘down’. You are crazy. There is no such thing as
‘up’ or ‘down’. Have you escaped from the lunatic asylum? We have heard about
people like you, and don’t want to have anything to do with your cockamamie
ideas about a third dimension," cry the townspeople.
The sphere says let me prove it to you. Then as he lowers himself down further
into their plane, his appearance becomes larger, then smaller, then he
completely disappears.
"Where did he go?" they ask each other in bewilderment.
"I’m right here below you now".
"What?" they say, "We don’t see you anywhere."
The sphere laughs, "Well, that’s funny, because I can see you. I can even see
what each of you ate for supper—chicken, fish, peanut butter and jelly." And
everyone’s mouth drops open in shock.
Then the sphere says, "Now I will let you see me again" and he rises up so that
they can see him in 2-dimensions again. He looks just like any other circle in
the room—only he can change in size as he goes up and down, and even disappear
from their sight at any time.
They ask him plenty of questions—like, "How can you change your size and shape?"
He says "I never did, it just looks that way from your own limited perspective."
They ask him "How can you be here or there across the room at any given time
without moving back or forth?" He says "I just move above you or below you in
the realm that you don’t see."
They still haven’t seen that 3rd dimension that he calls height. But he has made
believers out of them.
We are like the Flatlanders. We are limited by the physical dimensions of this
world—length, width, height, and time. We move about in these spatial dimensions
and can only move forward in time. When we try to conceive of God in terms of
those dimensions we limit Him in ways that He is not limited.
(The Flatlanders illustration comes from concepts explored in an interesting
science fiction book called Flatland by Edwin Abbott.)
God Is Unlimited In Either Realm
The Bible tells us that He inhabits eternity (Isaiah 57:15), that He dwells
in heaven looking down on us (Deuteronomy 26:15), and that He even dwells in
light (1 Timothy 6:16). For convenience, we could say that God lives in the
Heavenly dimension—the one that we are separated from because we are bound by a
world of three spatial dimensions (length, width, and height) and one dimension
of time.
No man can see God (1
Timothy 6:16,
Exodus 33:20). But that does not mean He is
not there. That only means that we are not in the same realm as He is—like the
Flatlanders and the Sphere. The reason we cannot see God’s face is not because
it is too horrible to behold, but in order to see God as He is, we would have to
leave this realm of the physical—that would take death (the separation of our
spirit from our body—James 2:26).
Throughout history, there have been times when God entered our plane of
existence (Exodus 3:4-14,
33:18-23).
When Jesus came into the world, He left the Heavenly dimension (John 1:1-2,
Philippians 2:5-7) and came in the flesh too (John 1:14,
Matthew 1:18-25). When
the stone was rolled away from His tomb, His body was already gone (Matthew
28:1-8). After the resurrection He appeared to His disciples in the middle of a
locked room (John 20:19-31), and on another occasion appeared to two disciples
on the road to Emmaus, then disappeared again (Luke 24:13-31). When He ascended
to heaven, He simply disappeared into the clouds (Acts 1:9-11).
Amazingly, even men have been transferred from this plane to the heavenly
plane—Enoch (Genesis 5:24), Elijah (2 Kings 2:11), and Paul (2 Corinthians
12:1-4). Some have even returned to this plane from that one for a short period
of time—Samuel (1 Samuel 28:13-19) along with Moses & Elijah (Matthew 17:1-8).
Eternity
God is eternal (Psalm 90:2). Before the world was created there was eternity.
After the world ends and is destroyed there will still be eternity—not eternity
will begin again, but it will continue as it always has. Thus God the Father and
God the Son could both say of themselves "I Am" (Exodus 3:14,
John 8:58).
Even their planning for man’s benefit has been plotted from eternity (Ephesians
3:10-11,
1 Peter 1:18-20).
To put physical limitations on God is foolish. To try to understand Him in view
of our finite limitations is frustrating. We will come to know Him fully one
day, but until that day comes, we must accept our limitations and not try to
place them on God.
Creation Of Time
We casually throw around the idea of billions of years, as if it was a proven
fact that the universe has been here for that length of time. We try to look at
processes and evidence in the present, then work our way back to find out how
much time has elapsed in the history of this world. Actually, the majority of
scientific conclusions about our history are based on the adage "the present is
the key to the past" (also called ‘uniformitarianism’).
Such a theory could possibly be true—if everything remained the same for all of
history. But it is a fallacious concept if supernatural processes were involved
in the world’s origin (Genesis 1:1), and if catastrophic processes have
influenced it’s history since its beginning (2 Peter 3:5-7).
If those things are true, then that first method of scientific interpretation is
found to be faulty, and we must not let it influence our view on the world’s
history.
Time Was Created With The Rest Of God’s Handiwork
Time was created with the rest of creation (Genesis 1:1,5). When God finished
creating the heavens and the earth, the light and the dark, the end of that
creative process completed the beginning of time. For the first time it was
measured as evening and morning—comprising the first day.
We don’t have the option of even assuming billions of years, because until that
first day "time" was irrelevant—it did not exist (the Bible measures God’s
existence, not in time, but in eternity [Isaiah 57:15;
Psalm 90:2]).
Was that evening and morning on the first day a period that could have lasted
for long ages? Evidently not, because the heavenly bodies He created on the
fourth day—the sun, moon, and stars began to mark that same period of time—which
has remained a 24-hour period of time since those heavenly bodies were created
(Genesis 1:14-19).
Time was created (like the other 3-dimensions of this physical world) to work in
this kind of world. Time is irrelevant to God. He is not bound by any of it (2
Peter 3:8,
Psalm 90:4).
Time was created by the Divine hand, and is marked out by the physical
time-keepers that He created. If we believe what God has said, then we don’t
even have the option of assuming the "days" of Genesis 1 could be "long ages of
time" (Genesis 1:14-19).
Someone asks "Well, how do you know that all of the days in the beginning were
24-hour periods, because the sun, moon, and stars weren’t even created until the
fourth day?"
That is true that they were created on the fourth day, but notice that night and
day had already been divided since the first day (Genesis 1:5). And then the
second day was divided (Genesis 1:8). And then the third day was divided
(Genesis 1:13).
It was not the sun, moon, and stars that divided them at first. It was the light
and the dark that God created which divided them. The sun, moon, and stars were
created to be continuous sources of the light He created, and would continue to
regulate what God had already done. By doing that, those heavenly bodies would
bring glory to Him and remind us of His creative power (cf.
Psalm 19:1-6,
Ecclesiastes 1:4-7).
The sun, moon, and stars were never the source of time—they were set in place to
be the regulators of the "time" which God has already created.
Illustration: If you don’t have a watch, does that mean that time does
not exist? That just means that you don’t have anything at the present to
measure it.
If you are not somewhere where you can see a clock, does that mean that
your 9:00 Monday appointment at the doctor can be just anytime you want to
get there?
The clock does not determine whether or not time exists—it only measures
it. Likewise, the divinely made clocks (sun, moon, stars) don’t determine
whether or not time exists—they only measure it.
Time was created to measure periods with a beginning and end. It cannot
measure something like eternity. That is why, to even ask the question "How long
is eternity?" confuses us. How can you measure something that has no
measurements? Conversely, time had a beginning (Genesis 1:1-5). Time will have
an end (2 Peter 3:10). Time means nothing to God (2 Peter 3:8).
Actually, this whole study about God and time has a bearing on another important
question that is being debated today in scientific and intellectual circles—even
among Christians.
How Old Is The Earth?
Are the six days of creation depicted in Genesis 1, six literal 24-hour days,
or could they be six ages or periods of time spanning millions of years each?
This seems like an acceptable compromise with the Bible record and the
scientific evidence—to consider them as long ages.
Someone says, "I don’t think it really matters whether or not we accept a
literal six days of creation, or interpret it as six long eons of time. It’s all
the same, because I still believe that God was behind it either way."
It made a difference to Jesus. He placed His stamp of approval on the accuracy
of the creation story (Matthew 19:4-5, cf.
Genesis 1:27,
2:24). He would know
the truth far better than any scientist with any sophisticated instruments—since
He was there (John 1:1-3,
Hebrews 1:1-3,
Colossians 1:15-17).
Someone says, "The six ages of time—spanning millions or billions of years—makes
more sense because it is impossible to think that God created all of the
complexity of this world in just six days."
Oh please! A God who could create this world in the first place could do it in
any length of time He chose!!
Someone says, "Well then, what about all of the scientific evidence that
indicates it is billions of years old? What about the assertions of radioactive
dating methods that the universe is billions of years old, that life is millions
of years old, and that man began his stage of evolution a million or so years
ago?"
Some of the better known scientific methods for dating rocks and fossils are
Carbon-14, Uranium-Lead, Potassium-Argon. Some appear fairly accurate, but these
systems present certain problems within themselves.
- They assume the very long age they are trying to prove. If we knew
beyond a shadow of a doubt that the earth was old, then radioisotope dating
might help us determine exactly how old—but if it is young, then the methods
would be completely useless.
- Original levels of the compounds and elements which are being measured
have to be assumed.
- It must be assumed that the rate of decay has remained constant and no
cataclysmic changes have thrown off the timetables. Therefore, if the
worldwide flood of Noah’s day was true, then the world would have been
different in many respects after the flood than it was before (which the
Bible affirms [2 Peter 3:5-6]).
- It must be assumed that there was no daughter material present when the
rock was first formed—that there was absolutely no radioactive breakdown
when it was formed (The parent material is considered as the original
levels, and the daughter as the remaining levels).
- There is both a large margin of error and many discrepancies in the
conclusions reached, rendering them very unreliable for accuracy.
- Quote—"The troubles of the radiocarbon dating method are undeniably deep
and serious. Despite 35 years of technological refinement and better
understanding, the underlying assumptions have been strongly challenged, and
warnings are out that radiocarbon may soon find itself in a crisis
situation. Continuing use of the method depends on a ‘fix-it-as-we-go’
approach, allowing for contamination here, fractionation there, and
calibration whenever possible. It should be no surprise, then, that fully
half of the dates are rejected. The wonder is, surely, that the remaining
half come to be accepted. No matter how ‘useful’ it is, though, the
radiocarbon method is still not capable of yielding accurate and reliable
results. There are gross discrepancies, the chronology is uneven and
relative, and the accepted dates are actually selected dates." (Robert E.
Lee, ‘Radiocarbon, Ages In Error’, Anthropological Journal of Canada, Vol.
19, No. 3, 1981, pp. 9,29 [Assistant Editor]).
And you were led to believe that there was no doubt about the ages of the
rocks and fossils, weren’t you?
Dating The Age Of The Earth
Did God give us carbon-dating or any of these other methods to measure the
passage of time? No.
The only accurate dating that can be done must be measured by the sun, moon, and
stars—the markers God has given man to identify "signs and seasons, and for days
and years" (Genesis 1:14). We cannot date accurately by measuring the breakdown
of radioactive isotopes or carbon—then by projecting back in time, based on
assumptions about the method which are not necessarily accurate.
Since man has not kept a complete, accurate calendar throughout his history,
then the exact age of the earth can never be known.
The Appearance Of Age
What about the idea that the universe "looks old?" That there are so many of
these measuring sticks—starlight, dating methods, fossils, coal, oil, fossil
fuels, diamonds, the Grand Canyon—which seem to indicate a much longer period of
time than the few thousand years that the Bible indicates?
Think about the manner and purpose in which God created the world.
When God created trees, He created them full grown—as tall as any tree that
could have grown for a hundred years—and capable of reproducing from the
beginning (Genesis 1:11-12).
If you were to cut that tree down how many rings would you find inside it? One?
One hundred? None? I don’t know. The point is that you couldn’t measure the age
of that tree by a standard method of measurement that is accepted today.
If Adam cut it down 5 years later to build a fire, how many rings would he find
inside? One? Five? One Hundred Five? None? Again, I don’t know—ring counting is
not an accurate measurement for something that was created from nothing!
When God created man, He created the first man and woman full grown (Genesis
1:27-28,
2:15-24). There were no parents to take care of them and they were
capable of reproducing from the beginning.
Exactly one year after his creation, how many candles would be on Adam’s
birthday cake? One. How old would he look? Twenty to thirty?
People ask the humorous question "Did Adam have a belly button?" The very
question itself recognizes that Adam came into this world differently from any
of the rest of us. So did Eve. So those things that were created would have
appeared to age differently than those things which were produced by natural
methods.
When God created the earth, He created it full and complete, and ready for man
and all the rest of life to inhabit it (Psalm 115:16).
If God created those other things (trees, man) in their mature stages rather
than their infancy, why would He not create the entire universe in the same way?
Why would it not appear to be older and fully established in order to support
life? That makes sense doesn’t it?
Conclusion
Man in his own wisdom has always rejected God (1 Corinthians 1:18-29). In his
arrogance and perceived knowledge, he shows himself to be a fool for rejecting
what God has said (Romans 1:20-22).
We don’t have to give in to those condescending scientific minds who think that
we act on faith and they act on fact. Don’t let them hide their assumptions,
theories, and speculations behind a bunch of technical gobbledygook.
The reason we don’t understand their arguments may not be because they are
smarter than we are, but because they don’t make any sense!!
- Rob Harbison
 |
