CHAPTER 4
WHAT IS TIME?
At this point you might ask: “What does time consist of? What are its underpinnings, and what kind of stuff is time made of?” Although your grammar teacher would tell you that you should not end your questions with a preposition, those are still very good and deep questions, and of course there are answers, at least to some degree. Time was based on God's desire to create souled creatures with free will so they could benefit from His love, and so those creatures could freely make decisions to worship Him. Such creatures needed the components of time to survive and also to be able to express worship. They also required location inside of time. God wants to express His love, and He also deserves worship, to say the least, and these are the basic reasons for the existence of souled creatures, and by extension the basic reason for time's existence.
For souled creatures to benefit from the love of God and to worship God in return, those creatures must first and foremost have a continuation of existence. If they did not have continuation, there could be no existence at all. Without time a creature would exist for no time at all, therefore not at all, so they could not get to the point of worshiping God. This then becomes one of the underpinnings of what time is made of, which is continuation. Continuation establishes the ability to have a present, to use the present to build a past, and to look from the present into a future. These are all required to motivate souled creatures to action, as well as to allow such creatures to continue to exist. If there were no continuation of time, there could be no continuation of existence. If there were no past, there would be no memory, and if there were no future, there would be no motivation or purpose for existing.
Secondly, time includes sequence, with one thing following another, the latter things being later in sequence than the former things. Latter things are built upon former things, which defines sequence. Sequence builds up a past, where things which have previously happened (having already passed through a present) are part of a reality which becomes the past, known as history. Sequence uses a continual series of present actions to build up past actions, which lead to complex realities, such as worship of God which is the ultimate complex reality. Sequence allows for future things to be anticipated as possible, or able to happen, with the ability to influence outcomes, allowing free will decisions to affect that future. Sequence enables all of this, allowing a souled creature to orient to life, to realize a past, and to have motivation based on a series of causes and effects where decisions in the present affect outcomes in the future. Sequence also requires that souled creatures must live with the consequences of previous decisions, which have led to the current present reality.
And we just mentioned a third component of time, which is series. Series means actions in relation to one another. Time allows the interrelationship of actions, whereby a souled creature's actions not only relate to one another but yield a life experience. Past actions in the series lead to either advantages or disadvantages in the future series of events. These are called consequences. The actions taken and decisions made under free will influence future outcomes and allow souled creatures to change the course of their own lives, and requires them to live with the consequences of those decisions.
Additionally, time is made of sub-issues which support these overarching concepts, including duration, measurability, uncertainty, and so forth. But it all adds up to what we know as time, which is a continuing march toward a future, lived in an ever-changing knife-edged "present time" which passes in a dizzying sequence of nanoseconds, and makes continual forward progress toward an eventuality which is never fully achieved. Meaning time has no end once it is set in motion. Therefore, each souled creature who ever exists, angel or human, will live forever once their life begins since even eternity continues time, as we shall see. And there are two very different forms of future time, although both continue forever.
The following is a bit nerdy but bear with me because there is a purpose in it. Let me ask the Reader to ponder these questions: What is the “present time”? Is there such a thing, or is there anything other than the present time? The reason for asking if there is such a thing as the “present time” is that it lasts much less than a nanosecond (billionth of a second) in duration. By the time you have started and ended reading the following word “NOW” millions of nanoseconds passed, meaning it occurred in the past before you think you finished the task. At what time were you in the “present time”? Are you in the “present” now? Now you are no longer in what you considered to be the present a moment ago. I am not playing with either your mind or semantics, but rather I am trying to explain the “present time” in an attempt to help us understand why God cannot be subject to such a volatile thing. The “present time” is so fleeting that God must not be subject to it, so He does not exist inside of time. Therefore God must exist in an eternal now outside of time, which is essentially an eternal present. We humans and even angels live on a razor-edged present time, which so rapidly changes from future to past that the present is never fully grasped. The brain signals required to process a thought about the present time arrives at its destination and becomes a thought after that thought is initiated, meaning the thought was completed in the past before the brain could call that thought a present thought. It takes more time to consider the present time than is allowed to grasp what is a present thought. What you think you understand as the present is therefore always in the past. Any present thought arrives as understanding at a point past where it is allowed to be called the present, so such a thought always occurs in the past. The pause you just made between sentences is now in the past, and will be forever. Are you in the “present” now? Or now? Or can the brain and soul process only future and past? Again, the point here is not to disprove that such a thing as “present time” exists, because it does. But it is so razor thin that the present time changes more than a billion times in a second, making it something that God cannot be enslaved to. If God were inside of time even He would be subject to the uncertainty it imparts, but He is not. God does not rely on this ever-changing ephemeral present time to reveal the future. Therefore He must at all times be in His eternal now living in all points of time, and outside of time, and all at the same time, knowing past, present, and future all at once. Therefore to God all time is the present time, whereas souled beings are in the present in a never-ending razor-thin sequence of nanoseconds which constantly changes the future into the past at a dizzying rate. God is immutable (unchangeable) and therefore cannot be subject to this ever-changing aspect of time, which is an endless progression of changes, one-billionth of a second after another. If God were inside of time He would also be endlessly changing, and that is not the God described in the Bible. Recall that a central tenet of this book is that God is not inside of time, but rather He created it. Hopefully this exercise in looking at what “present time” means will help make the concept of God's “eternal now” more understandable, since God could never be inside of something which controlled Him to the degree time controls those inside of it, namely the way souled creatures are in an ever-fleeting present. The difference is that souled creatures cannot live without time, or outside of it. But God could not live inside of it and still be God. But of course, God knew what He was doing when He created time and remained outside of it.
Let us compare and contrast God's eternal now with time:
1) God's eternal now is part of His existence and essence, not a created thing. Time was created by God and therefore had a beginning.
2) God's continuation has never relied on time. Souled creatures can only continue inside of time, both during history and eternally.
3) The eternal now is not sequential, but rather is all encompassing with all things known and available to God at all times. However, for souled beings time passes in a continuous sequence at a set rate and revealing the future only as it arrives.
4) God in His eternal now is in all parts of time at the same time, all at once. All parts of time are the present to God. But creatures inside of time can only exist in a continuous series of the "present time" which passes at a dizzying rate measured in billionths of a second. The eternal now is not subject to splitting the present into passing nanoseconds, but rather all parts of time are in the present, whether past, present or future.
5) God does not simply know the future, He exists in it just as He also exists in the past and present. God has always been equally in all parts of time, and outside of time. Souled creatures can only be in the present, cannot know the future until it arrives, and only has memories of the past but cannot return to it or change it.
6) Therefore God is outside of time and could not exist inside of it, but souled creatures are inside of time and cannot exist outside of it.
This does not mean God ignores time. He created it, and He makes commitments to His souled beings which He keeps at the proper moments in time. God has made promises to His souled creatures in the form of covenants and prophecies, all of which He must fulfill at the times He said He would, since He cannot do otherwise once He has made a promise. This comes from His love, not from being subject to time. Hebrews 6:13 says “When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, 14 saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.” 15 And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.” Making commitments to fulfill promises in time does not make God subject to it. It is merely a fair and loving God promising things to His creatures, and then fulfilling those promises when He committed to do so. All of them, at the proper time, sequentially and completely.