But in our discussion of eternity, one of our group members threw out a wonderfully intriguing idea: What if time is not linear?
The modern mindset with all of it's science and logic has taught us to think of time in a very... well... chronological manner . Now, yes, our own life experience displays time to us as linear but, of course, our own life-span is very limited. So what if we're wrong?
What if time is not a "line" but a "soup" (to use her words)?
What if time is not a "stream" but an "ocean"?
For me, this may help me understand God's place both inside and outside of time. Christianity insists, rightfully so, that God acts and intercedes in human history. Yet God is also, according to Christian doctrine, "outside" of time; not subject to it as He created it.
So, if time is an ocean and our lives are but one current in it's vast expanse; if our lives are but the undertow in the unexplored depths of eternity; is not God able to swim in and out each current wherever He wishes? In this way God is fully capable of acting and interceding at any and all points of history as He wills.
CS Lewis toyed with some of these ideas in his story, "The Dark Tower". Unfortunately, he never finished the story and so it has been published (in it's unfinished form) posthumously. It's just as good as the rest of his fiction and ends just as it's getting really good.
Anyway, in this novel He plays with the concept of time as "uni-linear". What if there are parallel times (ie. in our terms multiple, parallel currents within the ocean of time)?
Do you have any other ideas, models, concepts, or analogies to offer us?
How do you think of eternal life?
How do you think God interacts throughout all history?
Does eternity make your mind hurt?
9 comments:
I think you made people's brains stop working! There are no comments.
I do like the idea of time as a "soup" and not linear. It makes my brain hurt a little less when trying to understand eternity.
Yeah, that's why I liked it so much.
I know that people read these posts so I guess I'll just have to deal with the irony that they won't take the time to comment:)
I'm taking time out of short lunch break to comment.
Mostly I just really think that sounds like a good book. But here's what I'm wondering, why couldn't time be linear and God be working in and out of time at any point that he chooses. He's not in time, but we are. I think of it like a train: we can only move forward with time as the track but God is the air around the train and he can do what he wants wherever he wants. He could be the tailwind for the train or the headwind slowing it down. He could blow it off the track or bring snow to cause it to stop. But he is everywhere and free and we are still stuck on the train. Maybe becoming a Christian is like opening the window and letting fresh air into the stuffy compartment. Now we just have to open our door to the other passengers as they pass by to go to the washroom and they can get a taste of freedom and maybe open their windows too. Who knows.
The idea of time as an ocean current is interesting. However it does have it's issues. I like the idea of us entering the current at one point and then exiting at another point, and our life is the brief period that we were a part of the current. I don't really see how that is different that the linear example because from our point of view we get on at one point and get off at another. It doesn't really matter if the line in straight or winding through the ocean, we cannot be in more than one place and we cannot jump around in the line. If it helps to think of God moving between different currents I suppose you can think of it that way but does God really do that? Does He act in two points of time at once? Does he really go from one time period to another? Since God created time and he placed us in this law of time then He would be breaking His own law if He were to, for example, listen to our prayers and then go back in time and answer them. Since God made time and put us in it then would it not make sense that He would choose to work linearly in the time that He made. Sure He is outside of time and can see perfectly into the future, even the end of time, as well as the past. God is not limited to time but I think that since my handy dandy Bible program shows time or references to time 664 times in the NASB, maybe time is important. Even heaven or the eternal life has a sense of time about it. Eternal means time without end, perhaps that is only because it something that we can grasp and maybe it really means "without time" but I don't think so. I don't see why eternity would not be linear as well with us continuing to discover more and more about God as we went. Think about it, if we will continue to discover more and more about God forever, then think about how much we don't know about God now. No wonder we can't understand time.
Tim S.
By the way, I think Lisa's idea is way off track. If you know what I mean.
I'll show you off track...!!!
What if time is not linear at all and that is only what our limited minds can grasp. Didn't people at one point believe the earth to be flat?
God is definitely not limited to time and I don't think we can limit Him to our definition of time.
I suppose I've generally thought of the whole time thing as a large 3d- wall mural that God sees and interacts with with the beginning of "time" to the left and the end to the right and all of us somewhere on the 3D, moving wall mural....
Given that, though the world may not be flat, perhaps the time space continuum is!?!
Careful there near the edge...
After having some more time to think about it- maybe the mural is actually not on a linear wall- but perhaps it's more like a round screen like the large 360 degree IMAX type screens --...
I think that time is a constraint of the universe that we live in...and without some dimensional universe, time does not make sense. We can know this by realizing how we measure time. We measure it by some physical parameter...like the sun moving or your clock ticking or breathing. Without the physical dimensional reference, time has no reference.
Now how will this change in the eternal? My thoughts are that time will change because the dimensional reference will change. Right now God does not exist in our dimensional reference...He has the ability to exist in our dimensional reference but normally He does not. We cannot (typically) see or touch God. But in eternity, this will change. So potentially our new body's we will have another frame of reference...and the new earth will have its own set of constraints...such as time, which may still be a rule, but it may not be the same rule.
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