Time is Love

Buckle-up. This one's a handful after having read two books on ontology, time and existence. 

Reality is/was radically fragmented in Einstein’s view. Only observers sharing the same framework (that is, at relative rest) have the same time and space. Observers in other timeframes (that is, entities in motion) live in a different time and space. It is no exaggeration to say that on Einstein’s theory relatively moving observers literally inhabit different worlds/realities which may intersect only at a point of place and time. Therefore time is relative. The problem with this is that relative is not absolute and God is a God of order and absolute. If not reality descends into a relativistic quagmire of uncertainty or disorder. 

If God is in time, then the obvious question raised by Einstein’s theory of Relativity is: Whose time is He in? For according to Einstein, there is no unique, universal time and so no unique, worldwide universal “now.” It would then appear that none of the infinitely many time frameworks is authoritative. But the Bible tells us this isn’t true. The multitude of relative timelines are relative with one exception.

God’s

God is privileged or preferred, no other real or hypothetical observer can justifiably claim that their “now” is the real or true “now.” Unless of course the source of such claim is the authoritative source of time and reality. An absolute. A belief in the Inerrancy of Scripture  and logic requires this.

Although, in physicality each potential timeframe has its own time and its own present moment, in physicality there is no overarching absolute time in which all these diverse times are integrated into one. So, the question then becomes: Is God’s time the true “now”? As God is not confined to any one essential physicality, He is therefore neither confined to one essential time or even timeline. God needs to be outside of a timeframe reference point. God is therefore truly timeless but capable of temporal singularity, duality, triality, quaternity, etc. We begin to see images of this in the duality of light which is both a wave and particle. We see the triality described in the Bible in the Trinity which is one God but three persona: Father, Son and Spirit. We see the quaternity, et al in the ability of a thosand years to appear as only a day but a day as a thousand years (2 Peter 3:8).

In fact, Isaac Newton makes quite clear in the General Scholium of the Principia, which he added in 1713, that absolute time and space are constituted by the divine attributes of eternity and omnipresence. He writes:

“He is eternal and infinite . . . ; that is, his duration reaches from eternity to eternity; his presence from infinity to infinity. . . . He is not eternity and infinity, but eternal and infinite; he is not duration or space, but he endures and is present. He endures forever, and is everywhere present; and, by existing always and everywhere, he constitutes duration and space. Since every particle of space is always, and every indivisible moment of duration is everywhere, certainly the Maker and Lord of all things cannot be never and nowhere.”

Said plainly: Because God is eternal, there exists an everlasting duration, and because He is omnipresent, there exists an infinite space. Absolute time and space are therefore relational in that they are contingent upon the existence of God. Just as man is. 

In Newton’s, “On the Gravity and Equilibrium of Fluids,” he argued that space (therefore time) is neither a substance, nor a property, nor nothing at all. It cannot be nothing because it has properties, such as infinity and uniformity in all directions. It cannot be a property because it can exist without bodies. Neither is it a substance because it is not absolute in itself, but is as it were an emanant. Newton here declares explicitly that space is not in itself absolute and therefore not a substance. Rather it is an emanant—or emanative—effect of God.

Physical time and space are, in and of themselves derived directly from God’s essence and attributes. Time and space are parallel effects of God’s existence. But absolute time is of God alone. The act of measuring time therefore limits men to physical means. Just as God is the only absolute measure of truth only God can be an absolute measure of time. The question therefore isn’t, “What time is it?” The question is then, “What time does the Bible say it is?” The absolute measure of truth is what God says it is in the Bible. If it contradicts the Bible it is in error. So too the absolute measure of time whether it is an exact time or an epoch needs to correlate to Scripture. If it does not it is also in error. Based on what I understand of Scripture this is the best understanding I can come to. Why? The Bible says clearly…

John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Colossians 1:15-17 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Hebrews 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

It therefore appears that God existed changelessly alone without creation in a timelessness and that He enters time at the moment of creation in virtue of His real relation to the temporal universe. The image of God existing idly before creation is just that: a concept that language and human mind cannot fully grasp because it is not of this temporal realm. Not of the imagination but of the unknowable. Given that time began to exist, the most plausible view of God’s relationship to time is that He is timeless without creation but then takes on the attribute of temporality subsequent to creation.

It is clearly stated in Scripture that God has existed before all things. He therefore had transcended it while simultaneously contains it. Again, time is emanant—or an emanative—effect of God

As God cannot be temporal and non-temporal at this point in time (no pun intended), He must contain it or it must radiate from His essence. Without time or physicality, men cannot exist. God created time and the physical. In so doing gave a realm for physical man to inhabit. God entered time as a man so from the point of the conception of Christ God has not only forevermore allowed Himself to be linked to time but also in physicality or as Paul called it…a spirit body. He has made Himself a servant of time in Jesus for the sake of man’s salvation yet he also still transcends it in the Father as Spirit. Why? How?

Love. For the love of the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father. For the love of God to His creation. Love and time themselves are gifts from the Almighty. Without which we couldn’t love at all. Jesus took on the attribute of humanity and thereby physical temporality simultaneously. In this we also therefore see why evil is so reprehensible and so objectionable to God. It's an abomination. Evil is ontologically not possible without good. Good exists. Evil is merely an absence of negation of good. Evil seeks to undo what good is. Evil undoes spiritually exactly what love attempts to create. I have already tied the existence of reality, time and physicality directly to the love of God. In turn I also explain the connection via love to other members of the Trinity and through grace to mankind. That is why wherever Jesus went when He walked this Earth, things like disease and decay reversed course. Even reversing the effects of time and disease that resulted in death.

In so doing we can then see what evil is in its true essence. An absence of love that seeks to unlove things or find no value in them. A value only God could instill. To make and see them as unappreciated. Lives. Art. Beauty. Evil is Destroyer. It unmakes that which is. It seeks to undo any good God has given or created. It's an ontological parasite. It takes life, love and existence. Yet, without the time God allows to exist even evil would have no power whatsoever. Evil and the Devil truly are God's circus monkey. Here we see how God can and does use even the bad and evil in the in universe to His good purposes. 

How much time we live in this life an act of grace of a loving God holding back the hand of destruction introduced to the creation through evil and the Fall. How much time in love we have with others also an act of grace. We love for He loved us first. None of which we have right to. Not the time. Not the grace. Not the love. Consider yourselves fortunate to even be here. Perhaps the next time you see love in your God, in your spouse, children or a soulmate and time seems like it is standing still...perhaps it is?