Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God and there is no other; I am God and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.
- Isaiah 46:9-10
It is simply earth-shattering when we sit back and think on God's power. There was never a time He wasn't, and there will never be a time He isn't. Can we ever truly comprehend this, being stuck as we are in the here and now, caught up in the present?
I believe the answer to this question is not as simple as many people will say. If you were to ask most Christians for an answer to this question, they would simply say: "No, we could never understand that. That's where faith comes in." Now, while a measure of faith will always be vital and needed as we could never fully understand, I believe we can at least come up with a simple illustration to simply get our heads around it. We know God is outside of time, but here's a shot at catching a glimpse of how that can be.
As I have touched on the 'creator aspect' of God previously, we will use the illustration of an author writing a book to create a picture of God's transcendence. This is fitting, as God is THE Author, and "author and finisher" of our faith, the "beginning and the end". Let's jump right in:
God is outside of time because He created it. Time, then, is not an 'original' aspect of the universe that God created, or the 'void' that He dwelt in beforehand. The "void" is a word used to represent the absence of anything, of time, space, matter, and light. Time is an artificial 'field' (for lack of a better word) that God designed within His creation. Think of it this way: an author writes a story from a plot. The story is his creation. So essentially he is outside of the story, because he is its creator. Now, let's suppose it is a fantasy - an epic fantasy - in which the author creates a whole history in which the world of his story ages and changes, and creatures are born and die. He has just created 'time' in his story, but he doesn't age in the story - because he is not a part of it - he is outside the 'time' in his story.
This illustration can also explain how God knows the future, and everything that is part of His "story" (this is what our word "history" comes from you know. It's 'his' (God's) + 'story'). Because God is looking at the universe from the outside and outside of it's time, He can see it as if it's a book , with it's future, past, and present as one and complete in front of Him. This is just like the author of our fantasy knowing everything concerning his world, even the future of the world that his story is taking place in - because he wrote the plot.
All of this leads us to one reality-shaking question. Will we let ourselves fall into the perfect plot that the Author of the universe has written for us? Are we willing to follow the Author's plan? Or will we simply tear the pages out of His book and paste in our own?
What right does the uneducated student have to tell the English teacher he could write a better book?
- Isaiah 46:9-10
It is simply earth-shattering when we sit back and think on God's power. There was never a time He wasn't, and there will never be a time He isn't. Can we ever truly comprehend this, being stuck as we are in the here and now, caught up in the present?
I believe the answer to this question is not as simple as many people will say. If you were to ask most Christians for an answer to this question, they would simply say: "No, we could never understand that. That's where faith comes in." Now, while a measure of faith will always be vital and needed as we could never fully understand, I believe we can at least come up with a simple illustration to simply get our heads around it. We know God is outside of time, but here's a shot at catching a glimpse of how that can be.
As I have touched on the 'creator aspect' of God previously, we will use the illustration of an author writing a book to create a picture of God's transcendence. This is fitting, as God is THE Author, and "author and finisher" of our faith, the "beginning and the end". Let's jump right in:
God is outside of time because He created it. Time, then, is not an 'original' aspect of the universe that God created, or the 'void' that He dwelt in beforehand. The "void" is a word used to represent the absence of anything, of time, space, matter, and light. Time is an artificial 'field' (for lack of a better word) that God designed within His creation. Think of it this way: an author writes a story from a plot. The story is his creation. So essentially he is outside of the story, because he is its creator. Now, let's suppose it is a fantasy - an epic fantasy - in which the author creates a whole history in which the world of his story ages and changes, and creatures are born and die. He has just created 'time' in his story, but he doesn't age in the story - because he is not a part of it - he is outside the 'time' in his story.
This illustration can also explain how God knows the future, and everything that is part of His "story" (this is what our word "history" comes from you know. It's 'his' (God's) + 'story'). Because God is looking at the universe from the outside and outside of it's time, He can see it as if it's a book , with it's future, past, and present as one and complete in front of Him. This is just like the author of our fantasy knowing everything concerning his world, even the future of the world that his story is taking place in - because he wrote the plot.
All of this leads us to one reality-shaking question. Will we let ourselves fall into the perfect plot that the Author of the universe has written for us? Are we willing to follow the Author's plan? Or will we simply tear the pages out of His book and paste in our own?
What right does the uneducated student have to tell the English teacher he could write a better book?
No comments:
Post a Comment