The Apostle Paul's Conversion

[Paidion]

The theory of relativity tells us that not everyone's now is exactly the same, indeed that time is passing at different rates according to the relative state of the observer.

Yes, I am aware of some of the supposed ramifications of the theory of special relativity, for example, time passing at a slower rate as the speed of light is approached.
However, not all scientists agree. Some of them believe that the theory of special relativity is not about different rates of time, but about the behaviour of light.

And of course, because the speed of light is limited, we see astronomical events as if they were taking place in the present, whereas in reality they have taken place in the past. For example, the north star may have already exploded over 300 years ago. Since it takes light about 434 years to travel from the North Star to the earth, we now see the light which emanated from the star 434 years ago.

Photos HAVE been taken of stars which have exploded. Some are thought to be 9 billion light years away. If the exploding star below is that far away, then it exploded 9 billion years ago!

[Paidion]

Well, are we to believe that it was not inevitable that Jesus would give His life on the cross, that it could have turned out otherwise despite it being God's plan before the world was created? Or that, on the other hand, Jesus did not have free will and freely choose to die for our sins? I believe the scriptures inform us that God not only planned it but in God's mind it had already occurred before the world came into existence.

Homer, that is a very powerful question, and I see why you might feel a bit impatient that no one had yet addressed it. I have delayed in my response because I had not yet thought it through thoroughly.

My first thoughts were that the crucifixion was not inevitable, and that Jesus could have chosen not to go through with it.

I also considered His prayer, "If it is possible let this cup (of suffering) pass from me! Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will!" (Matt 26:39)
The Father did not relieve His Son from suffering. Does that imply that it was not possible? I don't think so, for Jesus said, "NEVERTHELESS, not as I will, but as you will!" In other words, "Even if it is possible, let it not happen according to what I want, but according to what You want!" As far as "slain before the foundation of the world" is concerned, I think that means only that the crucifixion was in the mind of God from the beginning, in case the human race should choose to fall into sin. Thus God devised a plan in the beginning to deliver man from sin if that should happen. I don't think that implies that God saw the crucifixion as a certainty before creation, but from the beginning He had a vast array of plans which He would carry out to deal with ANY choices which His chief creation, mankind (created in His image with free will as He Himself possessed) should make.

So that is my present thinking. I am not setting it forth as the only possible solution, but it makes sense to me.

[jriccitelli]

Just to prove I can't seem to get along with everybody, I am glad to say I side with Paidion here, pretty much. I understand it is almost impossible to perceive how God could predict the future on either side, or whatever camp you are in. But for me to suggest God actually see's the future, or has seen the future: that would suggest to many that the future has happened (or does God see it in a vision?). But that just moves the problem it does not solve it, for if the future happened then those involved have experienced it also, and thus they either forgot, are living repeated lives, or are time travelers like God then. If those involved in the future event hadn't forgotten what happened to them, then they to would be like God knowing the future, and actually everything involved in the event would have to have been moved back through time. You also have the dilemma of God not knowing, or did God know, of that future event before it happened, or did that event also happen in the future prior to it's future?? It continues to go back a step further indefinitely. This gets ridiculous. I think what you have to have here are parallel universes of which i would strongly discount as irrational. Even parallel Universes would not be actually having the same events, only similar ones.

If the future happened then are we simply repeating the same event? (whats the point of that then?). Or, what if what will actually happen in the predicted future is a different event than the one that already happened somewhere else in time. So again are the predicted events known by God to be coming to past, known by God because it already happened, or known by God before they happen, because God knows how things go and can perfectly predict they will go according to His plan? Why cant he also manipulate events to His good pleasure? Why or why not?

In the case of God having seen Christ slain before the Creation of the world, that is a slightly different type of event were God says the event actually happened already, but that just moves the ball back a few yards, because: did God see that event happening before it happened prior to it? We have to assume no future event had happened at one point in time, specifically before the creation of the Universe and the first atom. So if we must hold to a definition of Gods Omniscience as knowing the future because it has happened, well then it doesn't work, because there was an actual beginning, and a before the beginning.

For myself, i have to conclude that a future that already happened would have to be a different event than what will happen. For me I can logically perceive that God has the ability to know because of His fantastic power and mind, God can know what will happen, or God can cause them to come to past, both these things are biblical, logical and possible. The objection is that how can God predict the future actions of freewill beings. And the objection seems rather a moral point with God and freewill, rather than one that defies logic. We already have computers that can calculate events based on data, with lightspeed responses to multiple billions of pieces of data. And these are simple machines that amount to nothing compared to the mind of God. It is not a position without difficulties, but I would move my bet on it, rather than put my money on logic that tries to argue that the future has already happened.

'But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased 16. to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood (Galatians 1:15-16 NASB)
I believe many others may possibly also have had the call, and failed to respond. But I believe God organized the events to best suit His plan, a plan to take a highly educated zealous unbeliever, and give Him an amazing visitation, which Paul could have refused. But God looks for and knows the heart of all of us. I predict someone will disagree with this.

[dizerner]

But JR, you don't have to consider the future as already happened for God to know it. From an eternal perspective, every point in time is "now." All of histories "nows" are happening concurrently. Consider God's point of view like thus:



By complicating your idea of how things might work, you are creating more logical problems than are necessary.

But for people who think God must be limited and thus subservient to time, why do you have no problem with God not being limited to space? If God is temporally located, shouldn't he be spatially located as well? So God being everywhere breaks our logical understand of physics, but when we get to time, suddenly God has to obey how time interacts with a human being?

[Paidion]

From an eternal perspective, every point in time is "now." All of histories "nows" are happening concurrently.

It's a fairly common view that God, in some sense, exists "outside of time." That view doesn't make sense to me. If every event is one "eternal now" to God, then how could God interact with man in time, as He seems to have done according to Scripture?

If God is temporally located, shouldn't he be spatially located as well?

This is an excellent question! The following passages from the Old Testament seem to strongly indicate that God exists outside of space:

1 Kings 8:27 "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!
2 Chronicles 2:6 But who is able to build Him a temple, since heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him? Who am I then, that I should build Him a temple, except to burn sacrifice before Him?
2 Chronicles 6:18 "But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!

But then there are other OT passages which indicate that God dwells in Heaven:

1 Kings 8:30 "And may You hear the supplication of Your servant and of Your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. Hear in heaven Your dwelling place; and when You hear, forgive.
1 Kings 8:39 "then hear in heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive, and act, and give to everyone according to all his ways, whose heart You know (for You alone know the hearts of all the sons of men),
1 Kings 8:43 "hear in heaven Your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to You, that all peoples of the earth may know Your name and fear You, as do Your people Israel, and that they may know that this temple which I have built is called by Your name.
1 Kings 8:49 "then hear in heaven Your dwelling place their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.
2 Chronicles 6:21 "And may You hear the supplications of Your servant and of Your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. Hear from heaven Your dwelling place, and when You hear, forgive.
2 Chronicles 6:30 "then hear from heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive, and give to everyone according to all his ways, whose heart You know (for You alone know the hearts of the sons of men),
2 Chronicles 6:33 "then hear from heaven Your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to You, that all peoples of the earth may know Your name and fear You, as do Your people Israel, and that they may know that this temple which I have built is called by Your name.
2 Chronicles 6:39 "then hear from heaven Your dwelling place their prayer and their supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You.
2 Chronicles 30:27 Then the priests, the Levites, arose and blessed the people, and their voice was heard; and their prayer came up to His holy dwelling place, to heaven.
Psalms 123:1 Unto You I lift up my eyes, O You [singular] who dwell in the heavens.

Revelation also indicates that certain beings dwell in heaven, presumably including God:

Revelation 12:12 "Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you [plural] who dwell in them!

So what can we say? That God exists everywhere, but in a special sense in heaven? If so,how would that be analogous to time? Would you say that God exists at all points in time, but in a special way in the continuing present?

[dizerner]

So what can we say? That God exists everywhere, but in a special sense in heaven? If so,how would that be analogous to time? Would you say that God exists at all points in time, but in a special way in the continuing present?

Yes, that's exactly what I would say. I know it's difficult to find a text that says God lives outside of a singular time, although to me, I think the "I am" statements clearly are meant to express eternality because they are meant to define the essential nature of God, that is, there is no where and no time you cannot call God the "I am." But for some reason that isn't convincing to some people. It's a trickier concept to express in the ancient languages I think than omnipresence, but one I particularly like is:

כּי֩ כֹ֙ה אָמַ֜ר רָ֣ם וְנִשָּׂ֗א שֹׁכֵ֥ן עַד֙ וְקָד֣וֹשׁ שְׁמ֔וֹ מָר֥וֹם וְקָד֖וֹשׁ אֶשְׁכּ֑וֹן (Isa 57:15 WTT) [http://biblehub.com/text/isaiah/57-15.htm]

This says, literally:

This thus he-says (the) one-being-high and-one-being-lifted-up, one-tabernacling (the) beyond, and holy (is the) name-of-him: high and-holy I-am-tabernacling.

Many English translations translate "Shokhen Ad" as "inhabiting eternity" and I believe that is the closest you could get to saying that phrase in Hebrew. You remember my other study of Ad here, where it was rendered with the phrase "everlasting father" in most translations: http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.ph ... lam#p67976

[Paidion]

I don't know Hebrew, but the Greek Setuagint translation of the passage (which the New Testament writers used) begins Isaiah 57:15 this way:

Thus says the Lord, the highest in high places, dwelling [during] the ages...

As for the "I am" statements, the writer of Revelation indicates that he saw in his vision four living creatures who cry day and night:

"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!" (Rev 4:8)

Isn't that what God means by "I am", that is "I always existed in the past, I exist now, and and I will always exist in the future." This statement does not imply that He exists at all times simultaneously.

[jriccitelli]

'By complicating your idea of how things might work, you are creating more logical problems than are necessary' (Diz)

It is not complex to point out that time is not a 'thing' (or simply a thing you can look at). Time is only a measurement of an actual real thing. If there is no actual event, then there is no time to perceive, look at, or exist, as time. Same thing for an inch / a mile / or a pound, they are only measurements. Same for a moment, a movement, a jump, or a fall, they are only 'describing' something that is real and have no value or reality of themselves (God cannot logically look at time, God can look at events that happen from different perspectives). Also, Gods ability to be Omnipresent is not illogical or hard to fathom, He only needs to be large enough, which is feasible.

So the common 'cliche' (what I call it) to say God sees everything as an eternal now, or concurrently, is not in scripture or logic, but falls from pulpits from time to time. Your nice illustration, as cool as it looks (and it works somewhat with the past), would have God looking at a real event happening in the future, not just a vision, or light image. Because an image would have to have an actual event to project or see. If that event happened, then that event happened, and we are again back to the future position where that event must be actually occurring. So that doesn't solve anything, and the same dilemma stands (that future is then where we are now, because we would have to be at the event - for that event to actually occur).

[dizerner]

If that event happened, then that event happened, and we are again back to the future position where that event must be actually occurring. So that doesn't solve anything, and the same dilemma stands (that future is then where we are now, because we would have to be at the event - for that event to actually occur).

Never did I say we our in the future. Our future selves are in the future, just as our past selves are in the past. God is the one who is at all times and all places.

So you really see God as time-bound being? If God is time-bound, how can he know the future without just being either, a deteminist, or a super good guesser that sometimes gets things wrong?

[dizerner]

As for the "I am" statements, the writer of Revelation indicates that he saw in his vision four living creatures who cry day and night:

"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!" (Rev 4:8)

Isn't that what God means by "I am", that is "I always existed in the past, I exist now, and and I will always exist in the future." This statement does not imply that He exists at all times simultaneously.

So essentially, then, the exact same statement could be applied to you.

"Paidion was, and is, and is to come!"

How is that a unique or exalting declaration in that case?