The Creation of Time?

[Michelle]

I have a hard time remembering where to look for this topic because Views of Hell is the last place you'd expect it to be.

At the risk of incurring a reprimand from RickC for cross-posting, I'd like to copy my sort of incoherent question to Paidion from the other forum:

So, Paidion, this idea that God didn't create time is intriguing to me. Events have sequence and events have causes, both of which require time. Do you think that time is just a by-product of the way God created things? It, time that is, seems so important and so, well, natural, that it doesn't seem right to say it is just a by-product. Maybe I'm using a poor word for what I'm trying to express...

[TK]

I think of time as being a measure of "duration", i.e. for something to exist it must also "last." HG Wells called time a dimension in "The Time Machine" because the protagonist explained that objects exist in 3 physical dimensions but also have duration to some degree:

'You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.'

'Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?' said Filby, an argumentative person with red hair.

'I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know of course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness nil, has no real existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.'

'That is all right,' said the Psychologist.

'Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a real existence.'

'There I object,' said Filby. 'Of course a solid body may exist. All real things - '

'So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an instantaneous cube exist?'

'Don't follow you,' said Filby.

'Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real existence?'

Filby became pensive. 'Clearly,' the Time Traveller proceeded, 'any real body must have extension in four directions: it must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and - Duration. But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we incline to overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives.'

'That,' said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to relight his cigar over the lamp; 'that . . . very clear indeed.'

TK

[Michelle]

So... hmm...since God did create things with duration, it would seem logical to consider that he had time in mind, wouldn't it?

[SteveF]

So maybe instead of saying God created time, we could say the existence of time was in his creative mind ???

[RND]

Time is a tangible thing. Yet it is only relative to our planet and measurable based upon how our planet interacts within it's sphere of influence of the sun. In other words, time was made so that we could understand our world.

Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

[Paidion]

So, Paidion, this idea that God didn't create time is intriguing to me. Events have sequence and events have causes, both of which require time. Do you think that time is just a by-product of the way God created things? It, time that is, seems so important and so, well, natural, that it doesn't seem right to say it is just a by-product. Maybe I'm using a poor word for what I'm trying to express...

Michelle, I think I know what you mean in using "by-product" in this way, and that would be a good term to use if time were some tangible substance that automatically appeared as a result of the first two acts of God. Rather, I think time is intangible, but a necessary consequent of events taking place. The Father begat His Son as the first event ever to happen. After the second event occurred (whatever it was), there was time between the occurences of the two events. Time wasn't some kind of substance that needed to be created.

A similar concept is that of space. We may have a mental image of space as something "existing". At one time, space was called "the ether", as if it were some kind of substance. But space in NOTHING. The term "space" has meaning only if you are talking about the distance between two objects. In one sense, one could say that space "existed" only after God created matter. But it doesn't really exist at all. It is not some tangible substance that needed creating.

If you "create" an equalateral triangle, you find that it is also an equiangular triangle. You don't have to "create" the latter; it is simply THERE as a consequent of your having created the equilateral triangle. So it is with time. The enaction of the first two events necessitated a period of time which separated them. Time doesn't exist as an entity. It isn't a tangible thing that needs to be created. It is simply there as a consequent of any two events.

[Erik]

I realize this thread is very old, but I can't resist posting.

The Father begat His Son as the first event ever to happen.

I think you are stepping out on a limb with this (a creaky and fragile one hanging off the edge of a cliff).

The term "only-begotten son" is not a scientific one that is meant to explicate the nature of the temporal relationship between the Father and the Son, but a relational one that had clear meaning to those who heard it. It is a metaphor, primarily drawing on the preciousness and pride-of-position that an only son would have to a culture that sees passing one's name and inheritance to a son as the next best thing to immortality.

I cannot personally accept a description of Jesus that in any way implies that he was created. Jesus is in very nature God. To say the Father "begat him in time as an event" is to end up firmly in the Jehovah's Witnesses camp. They do agree that through Jesus all things were made, well, except Jesus Himself, of course.

The desire to come up with wonderful and interesting explanations for the universe and reality is one I share. I love reading sci-fi books and thinking deeply about each author's constructs, his unifying theory that ties everything together and hints at the "deeper" rules behind everything. But we have to keep clear on what is pure speculation and what is solid rock.

We don't know if time is a created thing or not. We don't know if God exists outside of time or inside of time. I am inclined to believe the former, as I see problems in the idea of eternity already having passed inside of time. But perhaps that's just my limitation as a human being, unable to conceive of such things.

I'm tempted to call out flaws in some of your other points (such as that space doesn't really exist at all) but I think for now I'd like to avoid diluting what I've said already.

Erik

[Homer]

First I must say that I am not an open-theist. But consider this: if God is outside time, and he knows all the past as well as all the future, then He knows evereything He will do in the future which would include every thought He will think. So it would not seem possible for God to ever have a new thought.

Methinks we are in over our heads.

[darinhouston]

I agree, Homer, but no one seems to be willing for God to simply choose not to know some things that He otherwise "could" know so as to "experience" something. If I had the "cheat sheet" I could look at the answers or choose not to, couldn't I? Do I get more joy out of the discovery than I would simply looking at the answers? I could read Cliff's Notes before reading a novel, but I'd lose a vital part of the enjoyment of the experience.

[TK]

darin- i think that type of explanation makes the best sense for our pea-brains. At least it solves some problems without necessarily causing a host of others.

TK