The statement, “When we get to heaven, we will be timeless” represents a fundamental misunderstanding of Christian theology. To have this view of the afterlife, one must either be, as I said, either a modified pantheist or an atheist.

Really? C’mon, you were fine with the “fundamental misunderstanding” but to outright say someone is an atheist, or modified pantheist, is presumptuous at best, and self righteous at worse.

I understand your article, agree with you 100%, but I think you would do better to help those with “fundamental misunderstanding” by helping them understand. If this is a “fundamental” issue and someone does not get it, for whatever reason, and you come along and tell then they are not saved (are atheists and modified pantheists saved?) then I think you have made their belief and understanding of time a litmus test for salvation. I don’t think you can be so dogmatic as to assert that the understanding of time after death is indicative of true salvation.

I think I’m understanding Michael to say that we will always some experience of linear time (a succession of moments, one after the other), although it may not be time as we know it currently (measured in minutes, years, etc).

If we assume that time is a part of creation and a part of the material world (relative to one’s speed, and all that), then how we are to experience “time” in the afterlife depends on how God has organized the new heaven and new earth; presumably there may be some new laws of physics. But, we simply don’t know.

Another problem is that we simply can’t conceive of timelessness or any sort of non-linear experience of time. What sort of time do the angels experience? We don’t know.

So, our hymnology may be acceptable for the most part, if we mean that time as we experience it on earth will stop (I’m really looking forward to life without calendars…).

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the article.
I hope that you permit me to make a side note. As a person with secular views, I respectfully consider your exercise abstract. This stance however, allows for considerations that are perhaps not relevant to this tread, but nonetheless cogent in a broader perspective and certainly not stupid.
As you do, I apply skeptical scrutiny of familiar claims (you mentioned hymns, I could present Descartes in that way). We both study and arrive at conclusions (in this instance we even share subject). An as often, the pondering raises questions and intelligent counter statements (see Jason Dulle’s excellent comment). Skepticism is vital to the process of exposing error.
But why, Michael, call these efforts ‘Stupid Statements’. It seems to contradict with that part of your mission-statement dealing with anti-intellectualism, skepticism and confusion.

R.

@Doug Knighton does a good job of summarizing what I think I believe.

To say that God is transcends time and is not bound by time differs from saying that God is timeless.

Like Doug, I think space and time are, like logic, divine emmanations. They flow from the Divine and always have / always will. He transcends them and they proceed from Him.

A succession of moments IS a necessary precondition for action, thought, etc. When God decided to create the rest of what IS, he did so at some particular moment. God, who is not bound by time, enjoys specific, eternal fellowship, within the Trinity, at every moment.

Eternity is a infinite succession of moments. It isn’t our sun / moon kind of time, but it is time, as Michael describes. There will be music (based on time) in heaven. There will be sound and motion and communication (all requiring time) in eternity future.

So, I guess what I’m wondering is why the traditional view of God as timeless is so necessary for theological orthodoxy if one sees time as something proceeding from God? Like the moral law, which is not his fiat nor his judge, time exists because God exists. Is that unsound?

Good start to what could be an interesting conversation. Unfortunately, the terms are not sufficiently defined to resolve the conflict. In what sense are the terms being used? I think that in order to have a truly meaningful discussion about time and its relationship to God and to us much more work needs to be done to explain what you mean by time and why you feel that it is an essential attribute of divinity. I would think that at the very least you would have to deal with Kant’s categorical time as well as McTaggart’s type A / type B distinction as both have theological significance.

Most surprizing, however, is the lack of grappling with the explanation of time given by Augustine. His view that time is potentially tenseless and properly exists in the mind has huge implications for your thoughts on the hymns and the nature of time as it relates to God.

You have a lot more work to do on the theology of time before being so certain. I don’t disagree with you but I think that the arguments are not thought all the way through yet.

Response to the presupposition that God’s transcendence disconnects him from time:

Discussions of God’s existence always seem to be in time related terminology. Before God created, nothing existed but God. The Bible says: “From everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:2). To say that God exists is to imply the necessity of two dimensions, at least: time and space. While God, according to Jesus, is not corporeal but spiritual, he exists as something, not nothing. God does not exist “in” space, as though space were a creation or a part of God. Rather, God “is” space. Furthermore, because he exists, time exists as well, for it is impossible to be without being from moment to moment. Therefore, just as space is derivative of his being, so is time. When he creates all this is not God, it comes into being in God. Thus Paul’s affirmation that we live and move and are “in him” (Acts 17:28) signifies reality.

“Creatio ex nihilo” presupposes that “nothing” exists, which, of course, is nonsense. God has always existed. For a long while — until he created — he was all that existed. So at no time has there ever been nothing. Granted, when God creates, he makes what does not yet exist to be, but that begs the question of whether or not he created “out of nothing.” Hebrews 11:3 only says that what is seen was made from what is not seen, not from nothing. Because God has always existed, when he creates, the energy necessary to form physical reality comes from him. How he converts that energy to matter so that it becomes distinct from its creator remains a mystery, but that it does is the only proposition that makes sense to me (and is problematic in either system).

Can some kind of “universe” exist “outside” of God? If we affirm that God is everywhere, or to put it negatively, that there is no place where God is not, are we not saying just what Paul said when he stated that we live and move and have our being in him? How else could God be everywhere? Doesn’t David ask and answer this question in Psalm 139:7-12: “Where can I go from you Spirit?”? The answer includes the farthest reaches of space and the farthest dimension of hell — NOWHERE!

God’s being the “space” in which creation exists has many benefits, as does its existence in his time. One: The ability of entities to act on one another at a distance is greatly enhanced. Instantaneous cause effect would be possible. Two: multi-dimensional entities should exist and be able to interact. Three: time and space become absolute because God’s existence does not vary. The inferiority of God does not follow from the fact that he can contain in his being entities that do not constitute a portion of his being. That he creates us separately but intimately related to him actually helps us remember that he does not need us for his existence—he being completely self-sufficient—but that we need him for ours. Were he to cease willing our…

N.T. Wright is one of several writers recently who have been raising awareness of, and returning the emphasis to, the fact that our eternal life is actually life after life after death. That is, between now and Christ’s second coming with the new heaven and new earth the dead will experience some sort of intermediate life, and then at the second coming of Christ and the general resurrection we will experience the life in the new heaven and new earth with a resurrection body.

regards,
#John

This makes interesting reading, but to my mind is highly speculative and based on conjecture. I am not sure that the bible properly and fully explains whether there the saved will experiecne timelessness or not. In any case in I John 3 it says ” it does not yet appear what we will be like but we shall be like hin and shall see him as he is”

What about the promise of eter al life? What would your defination of eternal life be
Paul

Michael,

Good topic. I too have come from that particular folk theology, which misunderstands much more of the afterlife than this. Closely connected with the necessity of the passing of time for us humans in the eternal Kingdom is the idea that while being mature (perfect) morally, we will still not cease to learn and grow and discover – in other words, change. A very wise pastor friend of mine, who is an astute theologian with an apologetic bent, addressed such extrabiblical folk theologies with a statement like this: “Heaven will be a lot more like this present state than most of us believe; only it will be perfect.” Scripture certainly points more to a pre-fall type of existence, than to some etherial, other-worldly experience like in the movie What Dreams May Come. Certainly it will be more than Eden, but probably not so different from it.