Time & Eternity. Press, 2012

Transcription

1 Time & Eternity Colossian 1:15-17 Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and for him and he is before all things and in him all things hold together. Time has long been an issue in Christian Theology. The problem is that we believe in a God who is eternal, who is infinite, a God who not only transcends time, but created time from some outside perspective. We, however, are fully temporal, and we believe that somehow God is involved in our lives. We have no real way of thinking about a timeless existence. There is another issue at stake here. The attributes of God that Christian Theology has long affirmed and relied on, are quite closely related to the view of the divine held by Greek philosophers, and not always easily reconciled with the God we find in the Old Testament. Is there a way to do justice to both the immanence (involvement in the material world) of God and the transcendence (being beyond the material world) of God? How does an eternal God interact with his time-bound creation? How does eternity relate to temporality? Is time simply an illusion, or are new moments truly new? Eternity Part of the problem of understanding how God engages time is that we have a very hard time imagining what eternity is like. We are inextricably bound by time, and all that we experience happens in time. If God is not bound by time what does that mean? How can we imagine such an existence? Can we imagine it? There are two traditional ways that eternity has been conceived. 1 The first is a sort of timeless moment where all events, past, present, and future, all congeal into one unchanging union. In this view of eternity there are no cause-and-effect relationships. Change doesn t occur and all moments in time blend together in some sort of undifferentiated, eternal Now. The other view is that of unending time, where time acts in eternity just as it does for us here, but without an end. In this view the past is forever lost, the future is unknown and the present is really all we can experience. This is the view that I personally had as a child and I remember I would lay in bed at night, unable to sleep as my mind pondered this kind of eternity; it freaked me out. Modern theologians have begun to consider a different view of eternity. Instead of either two options listed above, many 20 th century theologians have begun to imagine eternity as some sort of supratemporality that is both the source and fulfillment of the temporality of creation. 2 This kind of an eternity is far more difficult to imagine, but perhaps that is a good thing. Instead of the above options for eternity, where all moments in the past, present and future are either united to the point of loss of distinction (option 1) or differentiated to the point of only having the present available (option 2), theologians now talk about eternity having some kind of differentiated unity in which all time, past, present and future, are somehow all united and 1 For an in-depth look at this discussion see, Robert John Russell. Time in Eternity. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, Ibid, 5

2 accessible, but without losing their distinctiveness. We ll talk a bit more about this in a couple weeks, in Eschatology. Genesis 1 speaks of God creating all things and taken with texts like John 1:3, and Colossians 1:16-17 it is clear that time & space were included in God s creative activity. 3 Not only did God create time & space, but according to the Bible Christ continues to uphold his creation, in time (Heb. 1:3, Col. 1:17). This paints a picture that is coherent with more modern views of eternity. Eternity is not something utterly different than created temporality, but rather is the source of all creaturely time. 4 This modern view of eternity takes seriously the claims that Christ is continuing to uphold his creation, that Christ is still active in the creative process. It closely binds the various parts of reality, much like the three parts of the Trinity are bound together. God the eternal father, Christ the incarnate savior, and the active Holy Spirit are somehow bound together in a way that transcends our ability to explain. Somehow the three persons of the trinity all share the same will, intention and mission, but each has a distinct nature and each seems to have a distinct relationship with time. God can only be described in triune terms (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) because we believe that God is timeless yet active, that God is incorporeal yet incarnate, that God is Holy yet gracious. Somehow this intra- Trinitarian relationship exists and it suggests implications for how we view time. We cannot view God as simply the one who created all things and then sat back and watched it happened (Deism), yet this is the option that traditional views of eternity seem to offer. The Nature of Time Philosophers have wondered about the nature of time since the ancient Greeks. Scientists, theologians, and philosophers still debate about it and there seem to be two options, if we paint with a broad brush. Either the passage of time is actually an illusion, or time is truly flowing. If time is an illusion, then we only think that new things are real, but in fact they have been forever known to God. If time is truly flowing, then there is real opportunity, real potential and real newness. I grew up with the viewpoint that time is an illusion, even though I would have never articulated that myself. My conception of God s eternity was of God looking over a timeline from the very beginning of time, to the very end of time and I was somewhere in the middle (See Figure 1). Thus God could watch things unfold, 3 It was probably beyond the conceptual world of the ancient Israelites to conceive of Time and Space as abstractly as we do today. They were concerned about the how the world functions and naturally time and space were vital to its functioning. They were not concerned about how a timeless, eternal God brought something out of nothing. This was is a very Greek thought and Augustine covers it thoroughly in his The Literal Interpretation of Genesis (which ironically covers very few of the issues that we might consider literal these days, e.g. he wasn t concerned about 6 literal days, but he was deeply concerned with how God spoke before the creation of time, since speech can only happen within time). The ancient Hebrew s concept of beginning then, was probably not as nuanced as ours is and as the Greeks was. Thus, many scholars today don t feel it necessary to read Genesis 1:1 as the absolute beginning of all time and space and materiality, creation ex nihilo (from nothing). This doesn t mean that the Bible doesn t attest to such a view. John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1 all talk about Christ being before all things and all things being made and upheld through Christ. But we need to be vigilant in reading what the Bible says, not what we want it to say. To read our current conceptions of time and space into Genesis 1 is to read the Bible scientifically, which may satisfy our current intellectual curiosity, but cannot yield timeless truth, because Science is not timeless. For more on this see Walter Brueggemann. Genesis. Atlanta: John Know Press, 1982, John H. Walton. Genesis. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001, Gordon J. Wenham. Genesis Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987, but especially John H. Walton. The Lost World of Genesis One. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, I wrote a paper for a theology class that had to do with God s immutability, or inability to change. It is related to the concept of all time flowing from God s eternity. I ll post it on the web for those interested.

3 but it seems he was unable to affect anything in the past, or the future. All of time was laid out before God and he was just waiting to consummate things with Christ s return, so that he could finally hangout with his creation once we entered eternity. This is the way I conceived God s relationship with his creation, but I m not sure it s Biblical. Figure 1 - Time & Eternity, where Time is essentially an illusion to those of us who experience it The other option for the nature of Time is that it is truly flowing and the future is truly open. This view works well with the view of God we see in the Old Testament. The Old Testament talks about God being remarkably active in his creation. God walks through the Garden (Gen 3); God barters with Abraham (Gen 18); God changes his mind because of Moses (Ex 32). God uses prophets to warn the nations, but often with a clause involving their turning back to him which would result in a different activity of God. There is an element of contingency in God s relationship with his people. God s relationship with his people is defined by the term khesed, which refers to God s everlasting loyalty to the promises and commitments God made to the people, even when one generation or another fails to respond to that love 5 often translated steadfast love. John Polkinghorne writes that this khesed requires, not fixity of experience (which is the negation of responding love) but unchangeable benevolence of will (which is the way in which he is steadfast). 6 The God of the Bible appears not to be looking upon an unchanging future, but he seems to be truly allowing his creation to become something new. This isn t to diminish God s control or sovereignty. If God is intimately active in our world we can truly believe that The steadfast love (khesed) of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness (Lam 3:22-23, emphasis added). God s sovereignty remains even if he doesn t micromanage every event and even if he responds to our freedom. My wife suggests the image of God painting a picture. A person can paint a picture of a barn, and can achieve a painting of a barn, but can still respond to the process of painting. A dribble of paint, poor surface texture, or poor quality of paint will not deter the skilled painter from achieving a picture of a barn. God is an infinitely skilled painter. I think it would be wrong to think of him standing back and examining the painting that is History, rather than painting it. God s sovereignty is far greater, at least in my mind, if we imagine him truly working within our history, truly responding to our freedom and steering everything to his eschatological goal: New Creation. 5 Bruckner, James K. Exodus. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2008, p Polkinghorne, John. Science and Providence. Boston: New Science Library, p. 81

4 This suggests an alteration to the conception of God looking over the timeline of history. Instead of the timeline extending from Creation to New Creation with us somewhere in the middle, an active God suggests that this timeline only goes as far as our current experience. This allows the future to truly be open. It allows God to actually bring new mercies every morning, or every moment. It takes seriously the view of God that we see in the Old Testament, while still hanging on the view of God that Christian Theology affirms. The idea of an open future also coheres well with modern science. Time and Modern Science There are two main areas of modern science that have implications for how we view time and eternity. The first is Einstein s Special Theory of Relativity, which abolishes the idea of absolute time. The second area is that of Quantum Mechanics which has serious implications for how we understand the unfolding of events. Time in Special Relativity The most dramatic effect that Modern Science has had on how we conceive time has been Einstein s Special Theory of Relativity, which showed that time is not absolute. Where Newton could write, Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external 7, now we know that Time itself will actually be perceived differently by two observers who are moving at different speeds. Time is not absolute, and is not a fundamental constituent of our reality; it is in fact dependent on light, or at least the speed of light. How it works The theory of Special Relativity (SR) is not terribly easy to explain and is remarkably counterintuitive. Nonetheless it is how our universe operates so I will make an attempt. Suppose there are two trains travelling on two parallel rails. They are each going 50 mph. Now if these trains are going in opposite directions (Figure 2) than we would expect them each to measure things a little differently. For a person riding in Train A, the tree would appear to be moving at 50mph and Train B would appear to be moving 100mph, both going backwards to the Train A rider. A rider in Train B would experience the same thing but with directions switched. A person sitting in the tree would measure each train going 50mph in opposite directions. This is our intuitive view of reality. Figure 2 - Trains moving in opposites directions. 7 Quoted in Connes, Alain, Michael Heller, Shahn Majid, Roger Penrose, John Polkinghorne, and Andrew Taylor. On Space and Time. Edited by Shahn Majid. Cambridge: University Press, 2008.

5 Likewise if the two trains were going in the same direction we would have a similar addition/subtraction of speeds. In Figure 3, a person riding Train A would see the tree moving at 50mph backwards and Train B moving at 25mph backwards. A rider in Train B would see the tree moving at 25mph backwards and Train A moving at 25mph forwards. Figure 3 - Trains moving in same direction. This is all well-and-good and we fully expect things to behave in such a manner. However, light breaks this rule. Light does not act as the trains do. The speed of light in a vacuum (c) is about 300,000,000 meters per second, or 671,000,000 miles per hour. What is interesting is that the speed of light is measured the same regardless of a person s motion toward or away from it. So in Figure 4, we have both trains moving at an unrealistic 1/2c, or half of the speed of light. What is interesting is that according to SR every observer will measure the same speed for the passing ray of light. For a passenger of Train A, the passing light will be measured at c. For the passenger of Train B, the speed of the passing light will be measure at c. Even the kid hanging out in his tree house will measure the speed of the passing light beam at c. To add to the confusion a passenger in Train A will not measure Train B s speed as c, the speed of light, but as something quite a bit less, and vice-versa. The simple addition of velocities that we used with the slow moving trains only works for objects that move slowly as compared to the speed of light. For things that move near the speed of light a more complicated equation is needed, because the speed of light is always measured the same. Figure 4 - Superfast Trains traveling at half the speed of light So what is actually going on with the trains in Figure 4 is that essentially their reality is shrinking/expanding relative to the speed of light. According to SR time and space are intricately connected and are not absolute. As Train A gets faster meters and seconds will actually change their value (their size), at least compared to a person in the tree or Train B. Time is no longer absolute but will actually respond to one s

6 motion relative to the speed of light. A timeline, as viewed from eternity, would look, at best, somewhat fuzzy if SR is accounted for (See Figure 5). Figure 5 Time & Eternity with SR accounted for Quantum Mechanics We ll talk more about Quantum Mechanics (QM) next week, but I just want to highlight one of its core implications for reality. QM suggests that on a fundamental level, our reality is not deterministic. It cannot be described by simple cause-and-effects, but is rather based on probabilities. Newton s science suggested that if one had all the relevant data, a person could perfectly predict the future based on the cause-and-effect interactions between objects. However QM suggests that this is not true, but rather every interaction has a number of probable outcomes. So instead of the straight timeline of events that Newton s science seemed to offer, QM s timeline looks more like a tree where at every junction there are multiple possible paths, which expand into a hugely divergent view of possible future realities (See Figure 6). Figure 6 Time & Eternity with QM accounted for

7 Putting it All Together I have long imagined time & eternity according to Figure 1, and from what I read this has been the traditional picture, but perhaps there is a better way. Science challenges the validity of this model (Figures 5 & 6), but so does the Old Testament, so does the incarnation. Without absolute time, per SR, we cannot imagine a single timeline over which eternity hovers. The progression of that timeline is viewed differently depending on a person s motion. This means that there is no absolute consensus on the timing of an event, no simultaneity if you will. Events are seen to occur at different times to different people if they are moving at different speeds. What does this mean for cosmic events like the incarnation and the resurrection? The traditional model suffers too under the stories we have in the Old Testament. The picture of God that the Old Testament gives us is one where God is active, God engages. The future does not seem predetermined in the Old Testament. God seems to have imbued his creation with an extraordinary amount of freedom and potential. While God does not change, it seems as though the future is not absolutely set in stone either. This true openness to various potential futures works hand-in-hand with QM. QM says that reality is not deterministic. It is not governed by simple cause-and-effect interactions. There is true potential at the most fundamental level that we can observe for new things to happen. Probabilities rule the atomic world and we have every reason to believe that God rules the probabilities (More on that next week though). The picture that we get then isn t of an atemporal, timeless eternity from which God watches things happen. Instead we have our time flowing out of the eternity that God inhabits. This allows God to interact with our time, yet remain eternal. Science seems to be pointing pretty strongly in the direction of God being active in the continual creation of his universe (see handouts on Big Bang, and Quantum Mechanics) and the Bible points to this kind of thinking too. While the end picture (New Creation) may be determined, the process of painting that picture goes on. I don t believe that our experience of time in an illusion, nor do I think that God is watching from afar. Instead I believe that the evidence (both Biblical and Scientific) supports a God who is actively engaging his creation, steering it to its purposed end. Recommended Reading Lane, William Craig. Time and Eternity. Wheaton: Crossway, Polkinghorne, John. Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, Science and Providence. Boston: New Science Library, Each of the above books has a chapter devoted to Time. They are quite good. Russell, Robert John. Time in Eternity. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012.