(note) I wrote two different pieces on science, math and the bible for Koinonia Institute, an online seminary I am attending, and even though I borrowed a couple of paragraphs from one to use as filler for the other, they are thoughts on the same subject from two different angles so I segregated the topics on time into two parts. This is part 1.
Jim
This is a potentially fun subject for me because I have always been fascinated by science…so lets look at it and see where it leads.
I was taught, as most of us were, that time is linear, that time is virtually one continuous and constant stream that flows from beginning to end. My teachers spoke of time as impervious to changes in our environment. Therefore, I grew up attempting to grasp the concept of eternity as it relates to my concept of time. Obviously, it is almost impossible to under stand such an enormous amount of time as eternity. I ended up relegating eternity to the ‘I can’t understand or grasp it, therefore I will take it on faith’ category to be filed away until I go to heaven as we are told in John.
I John 3:2Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.(NKJV)
But, hold on. What if we could begin to understand eternity? What if we could get a little insight into God, the creator of all things? What if we could rub clear a tiny spot in the window of obscurity that has plagued mankind since we first read the scriptures and peek outside of our little chunk of reality…wouldn’t that be ultra cool? I believe we can do just that, thanks to our pagan brothers in the scientific community that worship at the altars of silliness*1.
For millennium, time had been viewed as linear and absolute without relation to our physical universe. We that are older than 30 grew up with this concept and, whether we knew it or not, we followed Euclidean Geometry*2 which taught us there are three physical dimensions that we deal with: width, depth and height.
A little over a hundred years ago Albert Einstein published his Theory of Special Relativity,*3 which turned the scientific community on it’s ear and began an avalanche of theories and equations which brought the Quantum Mechanics*4 hypotheses out of the back room of mathematics where it had resided since the early eighteen hundreds and shoved it into the scientific spotlight where it remains to this day.
One of the central theories of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics is the linkage of time to the other three dimension to make four knowable and provable dimensions. Interestingly, whether Paul understood actually what he was writing or not, the Holy Spirit in the book of Ephesians told us that very thing a couple of thousand years before the scientific community figured it out.
Ephesians 3:17-19 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (NKJV)
That’s cool, right, but what does this have to do with anything, other than Trivia Pursuit?
I learned all this garbage about physics and time dilation (as I felt about it at the time) over thirty years ago, how that time changes with it’s surroundings, how that time is affected by the mass or gravity or the speed of an object being observed. Before Einstein had the insight to postulate that time changed with it’s environment, most everyone though time was constant. Up until that time, science thought time was unchangeable and not affected by the physical world. Since Einstein’s breakthrough, the scientific community realized that time is affected by it’s surroundings and therefore it is a measurable, physical property of our existence, or to look at it from another angle, time is just a factor of our local reality. What does this mean to God? Absolutely nothing, in the sense that he is affected or limited by the constraints of time. This little tidbit of science has completely and drastically altered our understanding of the physical universe. Biblically it is just as drastic because it exponentially increases our ability to understand that because time is a property of the universe God created, time has no bearing on God, because it is one of the things he created when he created us.
I believe the Lord has constructed the Holy Scriptures and also constructed the time-lines of mankind to work in conjunction with each other as some sort of infinite, well oiled and balanced clockwork mechanism. With the advance of understanding of our universe through science and mathematics there is another spiritual lock in this infinite clockwork that tripped open at just the right time to allow science to prove the veracity and timeliness of the Holy Word and of the Creation at the time it comes under ever increasing attacks by a fast growing paganistic world with a sole purpose of marginalizing and destroying the credibility of God and Christ and ‘The People of the Book’ as we are called by the Islamic world*5. Whenever Satan finds new ways to use the tools of mankind to try and thwart the will of our Lord, God uses the same tools to block Satan in this sort of spiritual chess match between good and evil. It seems increasingly with the events of the last few weeks that we in the end game portion of the match.
Therefore, since a portion of Satan’s minions, commonly referred to as scientists, have expanded our knowledge of our universe it allows us to better understand the scriptures. I have a technical mind and I strive for knowledge and I believe the more advanced, voracious and complex Satan’s attempts to discredit the bible become, the more the Holy Spirit is able to give proof and evidence using the tools of mathematics and science. I feel as we as humans progress in our humanistic endeavors, with Satan’s nod, to create and evolve our new religions called science and math (the altars of silliness), the Holy Spirit is patiently waiting to use the more advanced tools and knowledge of the secular world to prove even more insights that have yet to be unlocked in the Holy Word. I get like a kid with a puzzle when I read the Word of God sometimes, and at those times I want to become as a king to search for the hidden treasures still locked within the scriptures as Solomon conveyed in Proverbs,
Proverbs 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.(NKJV)
So, to answer the question, No. God does not have ‘lots of time’ since he created the physical property that we call time. God however, does fully understand time and tells us that our time upon this Earth is limited and in Job he implies that we are basically people existing here temporarily in strife on the way to our ‘retirement’ home in heaven is the way I understand his passage there.
Job 7:1Is there not a time of hard service for man on earth? Are not his days also like the days of a hired man? (NKJV)
I believe this topic is an experiment of human understanding and the history of man proves that we as human attempt to discount as fantasy, myth, lore or legend things that we don’t understand. We as human have a tendency to place God, and even more tragically, Satan in a comfortable box of understanding. When we do that we virtually create limitations on them that can be deadly to us spiritually. To marginalize God means that we create situation where we don’t trust in him, because “he can’t possibly do that, using our understanding of thing, right?”…wrong. God understands us and has compassion on our human failings.
In my opinion, what is even more tragic and deadly is when we put Satan in a box. When we do that, when we begin to believe that Satan is limited by constraints that we can understand relating to our existence, we suddenly find ourselves completely underestimating our enemy. It would be analogous to a primitive tribe with archaic weapons going against an enemy with tactical nuclear capability alone, without help. The primitive tribe doesn’t understand the modern concept of nuclear physics, therefore they can’t understand the weapons available to their opponent. They don’t have to understand the weapons of their opponent, though, if they understand they can’t win against them alone and they ally themselves with a power greater than their enemy. That is where we stand. We are the primitives, without understanding of the abilities of our foe, our enemy Satan, and the only hope of winning is to allow The Lord to stand in front of us in the heat of the battle that we are embroiled in. The battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil that want to consume and overwhelm us, a battle ultimately between the hosts of our Lord and of our opponent, Satan.
God Bless, Jim
12-11-10
*1Altars of silliness…with the advanced understandings of Quantum Mechanics, came the increase in the understanding that the current theories were horribly unprovable and incorrect. That is when science grudgingly pinned the title ‘Intelligent Design’ to explain the beginning of all things. When the religious community accepted the title and ran with it you could almost see the scientific community running around in a panicked and frantic state attempting to debunk the ‘intelligent design’ explanation because it means CREATION! They can’t have that at all. The notion that science is proving God is causing fits and spastic attacks and already they are attempting (without a lot of success) to rearrange the mathematics. At this point the best they can do is to ignore the elephant in the room and back away from the provable ‘intelligent design’ and fall back on randomness and evolution. Satan’s…sorry, I meant science’s…unprovable, but comfortable disinformation campaign.
*2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_geometry
*3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity
jimbussell 