However, the NRSV and the 2011 NIV render the passage, respectively, “there is a new creation” and “the new creation has come.” That’s different.

What alerted me to these alternate translations was the section in David Garland’s commentary on this passage where he pointed out something that turned my understanding of 2 Cor 5:17 upside down:

Paul also never uses the noun “creation” (ktisis) to refer to an individual person (see Rom 1:2, 25; 8:19–22, 39), and the concept of a new creation appears prominently in Jewish apocalyptic texts that picture the new age as inaugurating something far more sweeping than individual transformation—a new heaven and a new earth. The translation “there is a new creation” would mean that the new creation does not merely involve the personal transformation of individuals but encompasses the eschatological act of recreating humans and nature in Christ. It would also include the new community, which has done away with the artificial barriers of circumcision and uncircumcision (Gal 6:15–16; see Eph 2:14–16) as part of this new creation.

(David E. Garland, 2 Corinthians, The New American Commentary, 286-87)

Garland’s not the only one that leans toward a “there is a new creation” translation. Ralph Martin writes,

Paul is talking of a “new act of creation,” not an individual’s renovation as a proselyte or a forgiven sinner in the Day of Atonement service. There is even an ontological dimension to Paul’s thought (so P. Stuhlmacher, “Erwägungen”), suggesting that with Christ’s coming a new chapter in cosmic relations to God opened and reversed the catastrophic effect of Adam’s fall which began the old creation (Kümmel, 205). To conclude: en Christo, kaine ktisis in this context relates to the new eschatological situation which has emerged from Christ’s advent (unlike the sense of Gal. 6:14, 15).

(Ralph P. Martin, 2 Corinthians, Word Biblical Commentary, 152)

Or, consider Colin Kruse’s words:

The thrust of this statement is that when a person is in Christ, he or she is part of the new creation. God’s plan of salvation, while primarily concerned with humanity, encompasses the whole created order (Rom. 8:21). When a person is in Christ he or she has become already part of the new creation so that it may be said, the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. This participation in the new creation is reflected in the changed outlook of which v. 16 spoke and in a new holiness of life (cf. 1 Cor. 6:9–11), and will culminate in the renewal of the whole person by resurrection to immortality in the new created order at the parousia (cf. Isa. 65:17; 66:22; Rom. 8:19–23).

(Colin Kruse, 2 Corinthians, Tyndale New Testament Commentary, 123)

What’s happening here? How could so many of the mainstream translations land on the singular “he is a new creation”, when a number of scholars have pointed out otherwise? I think this could be a case where Western individualistic bias has unduly influenced translations to focus on the singular transformation of an individual when it comes to the gospel. As a result, the gospel has been presented as something that is focused solely on the individual–a person’s spiritual life is a “just between him/her and God” sort of thing. Private spirituality. However, the Bible doesn’t conceive of it this way. The OT spent a lot of time talking about the entire nation of Israel and God’s story working in and among them. Blessings and curses recorded in the Law and the Prophets were typically applied to the whole group–if one person messed up, then the whole nation suffered. Not only that, but when God created the heavens and the earth, he saw that it was good. Humanity’s brokenness upended the created order as well. God is repairing all that was broken in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions–between God and people, God and his creation, and also between people and people, people and his creation, and other parts of creation with other parts as well.

So how would seeing this passage as “there is a new creation” instead of “he is a new creation” change things? I think this means is that the gospel is proclaiming a much grander reality than just you and me, it’s talking about all of creation that was started anew in Christ’s death and resurrection and will be completely restored to perfection in the end. When we isolate 2 Cor 5:17 to just a single person sort of thing, we truncate its fuller scope: God intends to reconcile all things to himself–whether on earth or in heaven (Col 1:20). It’s not meant to signal a transformation of individuals only (though they remain primary), but it’s talking about a new heavens and a new earth (Rev 21:1). In between then and now, we’re invited as active participants in this new creation as new creatures dwelling within it. There’s a tension that we live in, of course, as the new creation has been inaugurated but not yet completed.

Taking that all in, I lean this way–2 Cor 5:17 is better thought of as, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation”, or better yet, as Garland suggests to allow for both options to weigh in, “If anyone in Christ, new creation!” I think this preserves the nuance that allows the Christ’s big picture new creation to be primary and the individual new creations to be folded into the grander picture of God reconciling all things to himself.

Related posts:

1. The Biblical Story Line in One Paragraph

Often lost in the mix of news about more famous folks, though, is the “ordinary” or “common” man. Before the Jobs news hit the wire, I was actually anxiously following another piece of news arising out of Cupertino – a man shot and killed three co-workers and wounded many others, then disappeared into the Cupertino/Sunnyvale border, before being killed by police this morning. All three men killed–Manuel Pinon, 48, John Vallejos, 51 and Mark Munoz, 59,– had a story, a family, and a life, and each one was around the same age as Jobs. The shooter–Shareef Allman–had those things too.

Each of these five men that breathed their last on Wednesday were preciously created in the image of God.

From Jobs’ often cited commencement speech at Stanford, I was struck by this statement: “Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” I believe that “something” is Jesus, and He truly makes all the difference.

I’ve been meditating on Matthew 5:4 this week: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Lord, help me understand what that means. Help us connect the dots.

Related posts:

1. Saturday’s Flip Book (12/26/2009): The Day After Christmas

The first humans, created in God’s image, failed to obey the Lord their God and brought ruin on themselves and the entire world. After the judgment of expulsion from the Garden and the Flood, God began his work of reclaiming his fallen creation through Abraham and his descendants. From that line came Israel, the nation God chose to carry forward his grand plan of redemption. The nation was given the responsi- bility not only to worship God through their praise and obedience but also to be a “light to the nations”: to be the means of God’s blessing of the entire world. As both means of blessing and testing, Israel was given a land. Israel’s enjoyment of that land, indeed, her continuance in it, depends on her obe- dience to the covenant stipulations. Yet Israel fails on this score; and so the nation is sent into exile, removed from its land. But the prophets proclaim that the exile will one day be reversed. Central to many of the prophetic texts is this theme of return from exile, when God would bless his people anew, the land would once again be fruitful, and the ultimate purpose of God to bless the nations through Israel would be accomplished.Israel did, of course, return from exile, but it quickly became clear that this return fell far short of what the prophets had promised. And so a new deliverance was still anticipated. The NT claims that this deliverance has taken place in and through the coming of Jesus the Messiah. He, the second Adam, the true and ultimate image of God, obeys where Adam had disobeyed and through his death and resurrection inaugurates the last days that the prophets had longed for. The true “return from exile” has finally taken place. Yet, as we have already noted, the ultimate benefits of that fulfillment are not yet seen. Through Christ’s second coming God will consummate his redemptive work for the entire cosmos.

–Douglas Moo, “New Testament Eschatology and the Environment,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 49, vol. 3 (2006): 457-8.

Thoughts?

Related posts:

1. Ten Biblical Truths about Social Justice
2. The Old Testament and Material Possessions

What’s sad is that these terms shouldn’t even be necessary. Why is it that we need to have labels to tell us that our vegetables don’t have chemicals on them? Why is it that we need to have labels to tell us that the coffee farmer got paid fairly for the months and months of work that went in to raising those coffee beans? Fifty or sixty years ago these organic wouldn’t have meant anything. Organic? Of course! What’s a pesticide? Fair trade might be a different story given humanity’s propensity to exploit one another, but even still, if we were farming the land and treating human beings as we ought, “organic” and “fair trade” wouldn’t be a part of our everyday parlance. What they do represent, I believe, is an impulse not only to do right, but to go back to the way God created them to be—farming naturally and treating people like people.

In our family’s journey to live sustainably and justly, we’ve slowly been making changes. Part of the reason that we started our garden in the backyard to explore what it would take to wean ourselves off of mass-produced vegetables. According to the biointensive farming method, with 100 square feet you can technically grow enough vegetables to feed one adult for one year. It takes years of learning and practice to get those kinds of yields out of the soil (I think the book said 7-10), but it can be done. We’re now in our second year, and we’ve been getting a lot more out of our soil—we grew enough spinach to have quite a few tasty spinach omelets, our kale crop is producing large, hearty leaves for some healthy baby porridge, our peas have given us a few servings of fresh picked peas (nothing at all like the frozen variety), and we’re hoping for dozens of leek plants and a good green bean crop later in the summer. It’s been neat learning and also humbling to see how much work actually goes into getting these crops. We’ve essentially lost touch with where food comes from. Although right now our yields are essentially like decorations—we still rely heavily on our local supermarkets for produce—we’re learning. And we’re also shifting some of our purchases toward organic and locally grown foods in deference to more sustainable and environmentally responsible methods of farming.

In a similar vein, all our coffee at home is now fair trade. There’s a great 2.5 pound bag you can get at Costco that’s certified fair trade, Kirkland brand, brewed by Starbucks. 13 bucks. For something that I brew at home a few times a week, we thought it was important that we did what we could to ensure that coffee farmers in Latin America, Africa, and Asia were getting a fair wage. In many non-fair trade situations, coffee farmers are essentially losing money in their enterprise, but are unable to get themselves out. In other words, they are indentured servants to their landlords. It shouldn’t be that way.

Yes, we shouldn’t need the terms “organic” or “fair trade.” But the reality of the world we live in is that chemically and genetically engineered, unnatural food exists and unfair business practices exist. And yes, practically speaking, there are situations where you can’t always do it. I won’t stop frequenting my local coffee shops simply because they don’t serve fair trade coffee, because I also want to support local businesses. And I’ll still buy some produce from the corner market or food that’s not organic from our neighborhood restaurants for the same reason. It’s complicated. And because of the already-not-yet nature of the kingdom, we’re in this awkward in between stage. But where we are able to make some of those decisions—like buying fair trade for our home-brewed coffee—we do. I think it’s absolutely critical to consider and think about these things, because it aligns with God’s mandate to take care of the earth and love our neighbor.

Related posts:

1. Living Mulch: An Organic Illustration of Churches and Church Networks
2. Teach a Man to Fish

In Malcom Gladwell’s Blink, he tells a story about a car salesman who sold way more cars than any other salesman on the lot. In trying to ascertain the source of his success, the salesman shared that he treated every single customer as someone who could realistically buy a car. If a teenager walked on the lot, he didn’t automatically assume that it was just some kid who was dreaming about cars and just taking a look–he assumed that this kid could actually buy a car, either via his parents, or in some other way. Under his watch, cars were flying off the lot. He treated people like people.

My experience at the lumberyard got me thinking about the gospel. The gospel tells the story of a God who welcomes people–warts and all–into his family by a sheer act of grace. This unmerited favor extends to people across socio-economic, cultural, ethnic, national, generational, and every other line you can think of. To God, it doesn’t matter what you look like or what you’ve done, but rather your internal beauty as one of God’s creatures. The gospel tells the story of a God who sent His son to bear the weight of the shortcomings and failures of all of humanity so that we might be welcomed into God’s family in this way through faith and by grace. He doesn’t look at someone’s track record and turn away, but instead he extends the offer of grace through Jesus.

The church, as the people of God, should be exemplars of treating people like people. As people who have experienced this type of grace, the church shouldn’t be ready to write someone off because of his or her past, but rather demonstrate what it is to be a part of God’s family, ready to surround people with love and support and at the same time challenging them to be who God wants them to be. The church should be exemplars of avoiding preconceptions based on track record or appearance, but–much like my experience at the lumber yard–see the full potential of every human being as created by God and capable of being transformed by His grace.

Now, on to that patio bench…

Related posts:

1. Mystery Brought to Light Through the Church

What is success anyways? There’s a very common acronym that people use when creating goals: S.M.A.R.T. It suggests that you shouldn’t make vague, loosey-goosey goals that are hard to see if you’ve succeeded. Instead, you should make goals that are:

1. Specific
2. Measurable
3. Attainable
4. Realistic
5. Time-based

In so many quarters, this makes a lot of sense. Corporations can’t press forward on undefined goals and hope to stay in business. Service agencies actually have to provide services. Restaurants have to bring in more money than they spend and have a continuous customer stream. Software companies actually have to make software and deliver it.

So it would seem that you should take the S.M.A.R.T. paradigm and apply it to the spiritual realm. A S.M.A.R.T. goal for prayer might be, “I will pray three times a week for 30 minutes a time.” A S.M.A.R.T. goal for starting a church might be, “We will have 50 adult members and five small groups in two years.” A S.M.A.R.T. goal for community action might be, “We will find five neighborhood parks and donate $100 to each.” All nice and packaged, very measurable, and simple to see if you’ve succeeded or not.

Trouble is, I don’t think spiritual success works that way. You see, the reason that my spiritual mentor’s prayer was so unnerving for me is because my identity is so wrapped up in what I’ve accomplished rather than who I am. But that gets away from the essence of identity anyways–identity is something that’s internal (who you are), not external (accomplishments, pedigree, resume). The beauty of the gospel is that God says that you are precious and valuable because you derive your identity from your Maker, God Himself. In fact, the gospel says that in Christ we get to be included as part of the family, as co-inheritors from our spiritual Father, and are deemed successful as a result of our relationship with God, not with what we’re able to attain in a S.M.A.R.T goal sense.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the last few years is that spiritual success is not accomplishment, but spiritual success is following through on God’s directions. If you do what you’re supposed to do, but outwardly the desired results don’t come, does that make you a spiritual failure? Say you’re supposed to tell a friend the truth about something. You’re hoping that the successful outcome will be a change of heart or change of behavior. You don’t want to do it, but you feel very strongly that it’s the right thing to do, regardless of outcome. So you tell your friend the truth. Your friend doesn’t change. Does that make you a failure? I think not. You did what you were supposed to do. So if God tells you to pray a certain amount, then do it. If God tells you to start a church, then do it. But don’t base your success or failure on the outcome. Base it on obedience. In the case of that prayer that I’d be willing to fail, the context points to a failure in terms of a specific outcome, but the success is found in listening to God and doing what He told me to do. That’s still a hard road, but it does turn the standard S.M.A.R.T. metrics upside down.

When you do what God wants you to do, then you’ve succeeded, regardless of outcome.

Related posts:

1. Success
2. Spiritual Sustainability and the Net (part two)
3. A New Project: Spiritual Sustainability in a Frenetic Age

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15)

Wow. The Gospel is good news.

Related posts:

1. Learning to say “No”
2. A Powerful Parable
3. Death Undone

1. Follow, by Floyd McClung. I was first introduced to Floyd when I took the Perspectives class. In the reader, there’s a short article called “Apostolic Passion” which is a tremendous piece that really challenged me. We are reading through this book as a church, which talks about following Jesus as simple but not simplistic. I’m through chapter three, and so far I like it–accessible yet profound. (Page 50 of 256)
2. For the Fame of God’s Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper, edited by Sam Storms and Justin Taylor. John Piper’s Desiring God was a book that God used to inject new life into my walk with Jesus. I still remember moments reading it while on Semester at Sea and getting stuck on certain pages, thinking about how his idea of Christian Hedonism (“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him) upended a lot of my spiritual paradigms. When we were handed this book by a friend, I was excited to see a great collection of contributors, many scholars and pastors that I respect quite a bit. The essays aren’t so much “in honor of” John Piper, but something more akin to “inspired by God’s work through” John Piper. Each article is a well-researched contribution on a particular theme. The one I just finished, written by D. A. Carson, delved into the question, “What is the Gospel?” by analyzing all the uses of gospel, preaching the gospel, and evangelist in the New Testament. Here’s something he said that stuck out to me: “Because the gospel is news, good news (even if some will hear it as bad news), it is to be announced: that’s what one does with news.” I’m reading this mostly right before bed, although I’ve gotten a few good chunks of time in the last couple weeks sitting down with it for longer. It’s one of the favorite books I’m reading right now and I highly recommend it. (Progress: Page 170 of 544)
3. The New Testament and the People of God, by N. T. Wright. This book was on sale recently from Logos (my Bible software + eReader of choice), and I’d read a lot of good stuff about his six-part New Testament Theology series entitled “Christian Origins and the Question of God.” I’m just getting into it right now (read mostly on my iPhone while rocking a little boy to sleep at night), and I really, really like it. His writing is so smooth and clearly well researched. In the part I’m reading, he tackles a lot of difficult questions about epistemology and the role that stories play in constructing any sort of truth. From his section on stories (40): “Tell someone to do something, you change their life–for a day; tell someone a story and you change their life.” (Progress: Page 64 of 535)
4. Hearing God’s Words: Exploring Biblical Spirituality, by Peter Adam. I’m reading this volume from the excellent New Studies in Biblical Theology series as part of my Sustainable Spirituality project. This book attempts to ascertain what the Scriptures have to say about spirituality, and also what a spirituality of the Word looks like. So far it’s been somewhat helpful–I just read through a great section on spirituality defined in Colossians. I’m reading this mostly on my bus ride home. Here’s one quote from earlier in the book (39): “The great barrier to true spirituality is not the lack of technique in spiritual aptitude, but sin.” (Progress: Page 98 of 237)
5. The Meaning of the Pentateuch, by John Sailhamer. The first five books of the Bible are some of the most exciting and perplexing ones to me. After reading so many rave reviews online of this book, plus the fact that he’s a GGBTS professor, I decided to take the plunge. He’s a very gifted writer and I’m looking forward to devoting more time to this volume in the future. I haven’t picked it up in a few weeks though. (Progress: Page 102 of 632)
6. Hebrews 1-8, Word Biblical Commentary, by William Lane. Also connected to my Sustainable Spirituality project, I’m studying the book, specifically at Hebrews 1-4 and the sections on rest, but also the entire book. Call me weird, but I really like reading Bible commentary introductions. He defines the letter as essentially a sermon recorded in written form, with text, exposition, and application repeated over and over. Good stuff. (Progress: Page lxxiv of 376)

I’ll keep posting insights gleaned from these books as I encounter them. Fun stuff!

No related posts.

"With us, God"

For me, as the year wraps up and Christmas draws near, Jesus usually gets swallowed up in all the hoopla. There’s always some last minute talk of gifts or preparations or whatnot, and the whole point, Emmanuel–literally “with us, God”–gets swept under the rug. I always get to this point, and the end result is always the same–a flurry of activity right before the end of the year.

As you know, I’ve been reading through Craig Blomberg’s Neither Poverty Nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Possessions, in part to get a better, biblical view of wealth and in part to see how that ties in to sustainable living and a sustainable pursuit of Jesus. I think they are all linked together. How we view possessions and wealth is undoubtedly impacted by how we view God. Is He just some sort of cosmic Santa Claus, or is He the Creator of the universe (including wealth and possessions), who governs all things and completely entered into the human experience as Jesus Christ? I know it’s the latter, but all to often I live as if the former is the case. In light of that, I leave you with these five final themes that Blomberg observed in his biblical treatment of possessions and wealth (Blomberg, 241-246). As you read through these, consider this – Jesus, Emmanuel, loved us so much that he became a man so that we could fully identify with Him. That also means He fully identifies with us, including our struggles with wealth and possessions.

1. Material possessions are a good gift from God meant for his people to enjoy.
2. Material possessions are simultaneously one of the primary means of turning human hearts away from God.
3. A necessary sign of a life in the process of being redeemed is that of transformation in the area of stewardship.
4. There are certain extremes of wealth and poverty which are in and of themselves intolerable.
5. Above all, the Bible’s teaching about material possessions is inextricably intertwine with more ‘spiritual’ matters.

If Jesus is at the center of your life, what would Christmas truly be like for you?

Related posts:

1. The Old Testament and Material Possessions
2. Blomberg on Economic Paradise
3. Mystery Brought to Light Through the Church

One of the most perplexing questions for theologians is how to interpret and understand various anthropomorphisms in the Scriptures.  In particular, such language occurs in various places in the Bible with regards to God and his relationship with time.  From the very first lines of the book of Genesis, it starts with the words, “In the beginning, God.”  Anyone who has taken a little bit of time reflecting on the nature of creation ex nihilo has dabbled with the question – what was there before the beginning?  Even those approaching the question of the origin of the universe from a non-theistic point of view have looked at theories like the Big Bang and wondered, “What was there before the Big Bang?”  While the Scriptures do not offer an exact propositional statement regarding God and his relationship to time, there are certainly references to it, that when taken together can be used to construct various theories on how he stands in relationship to time.

I entered this with a general bias or presupposition that time has no restrictions whatsoever on God, and that He is completely free to operate exactly how he chooses with regards to sequential time or timelessness altogether.  It seemed perfectly reasonable to stand with theologian Wayne Grudem’s definition of God and his relationship to time: “God has no beginning, end, or succession of moments in his own being, and he sees all time equally vividly, yet God sees events in time and acts in time.”[1] In other words, God is completely outside of time, or atemporal, yet is able to work in and through the mechanism of time to accomplish what He desires.  Or, as A. W. Tozer remarks, quoting C. S. Lewis, “if you could think of a sheet of paper infinitely extended in all directions, and if you took a pencil and made a line one inch long on it, that would be time.”[2] This understanding of a timeless God falls as a subset of an understanding of God as immutable.  If God were contained in any way by a temporal understanding of time, then it would logically follow that at certain points God undergoes change.  As each new event unfolds, God in a sense “acquires” a new set of knowledge that He did not previously have.

Upon further research, it became evident that while the atemporal, divinely timeless view of God had stood for centuries as the general majority view of God’s relationship to time, there were particular nuances on exactly how to understand that timelessness.  Particularly helpful was a book edited by Gregory Ganssle, God and Time, which allotted the space for four theologians to outline their positions on God and His relationship to time.  Of those four positions, I will focus on the three here that discuss some version of timelessness, and reflect on how they impacted my understanding of our glorious Triune God.

Paul Helm, Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Regent College, holds the position of Divine Timeless Eternity.  This is most in line with the classical positions of Augustine, John Calvin and Thomas Aquinas, and holds to an idea of God being completely timeless irrespective of His relationship to the created order.  He has always been timeless and always will be timeless.  In approaching some of the language of the Bible that seems to suggest that God indeed operates in a temporal manner, Helm offers the following solution: “But may not such representations of God be anthropomorphic (or anthropochronic) in order to render his relations to his creation more intelligible to us?”[3] I appreciate his usage of the term anthropochronic, because it reminds us that not just in relationship to space, but with regards to all attributes of God, we are attempting to put into human understanding an infinite being.  As Helm contends, “For divine eternality is timelessness, and it cannot be expected that human analogies and models will throw much light on what more positively it is or is like.”[4] All of our attempts to systematize and understand how God operates timelessly is ultimate an improbable exercise.  As the theologian William Hasker puts it, “no experience of ours is timeless, so in that respect the analogy is not only incomplete but incompleteable.”[5]

In spite of the difficulty in understanding eternal timelessness, Helm and others still make their best attempts to shed light on how to view God and time.  At the outset, there are passages like Isaiah 46:9-10, “remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’”  From passages like this, it seems clear that God stands outside of time and is unrestricted by successive temporal events in any way.  Everything works in conjunction with His purposes, and he is able to see the end of time at the same time as seeing the beginning.  On the other hand, the notion that God acts in time in the Scriptures must be addressed.  For example, God seems to respond to Abraham’s plea for Sodom and Gomorrah and Moses’ intervention on behalf of the idolatrous Israelites.  The response of theologians like Helm and Hasker is that God has eternally willed something to pass, not being surprised by any of these circumstances, and the result is effects that appear to be temporal.  For example, our understanding of God sustaining and preserving the universe could be seen as a temporal activity.  However, an alternative way of looking at preservation is to see it as something that has been eternally willed yet being effective in a temporal manner from our limited perspective.  As Hasker suggests, “the temporal characteristics of the effects of divine actions need not characterize the actions themselves….the act of bringing about responses that occur in time to the actions of temporal beings need not itself be a temporal act.”[6] As finite beings, our understanding of God’s timelessness is inherently limited.  Helm helpfully remarks, “There is for him no past and no future.  It makes no sense to ask how long God has existed, or to divide up his life into periods of time.  He possesses the whole of his life at once: it is not lived successively.”[7] In other words, instead of talking about God in terms of segments of life, it suffices to say, “God is.”

Two other positions, variants of the divine timelessness position warrant discussion here.  The first, defended by Alan Padgett at Luther Seminary, is that of “Eternity as Relative Timelessness.”  This intriguing suggestion defines two primary modes of time.  The first, as we from a human perspective would see it,  is regular, physical time which operates in successive moments.  Physical time had a beginning which God brought about, and will have an end.  Apart from that, however, is an idea of metaphysical time, the time that God himself operates in.  While God is timeless with respect to the created, physical time that we experience, he is temporal with respect to the metaphysical time, which does not operate with the same metrics or restrictions as physical time.  In other words, God exists in “God-time.”  Padgett’s contention with a purely divine timelessness like Helm and Hasker is that “the doctrine that God determines every event ‘from eternity’ is incoherent with a libertarian understanding of human free will.”[8] Moreover, one of the primary tenets of a purely timeless theory of God, known as the stasis or tenseless theory, that every event actually exists with regards to the time it happened, is false.  Because of that, Padgett suggests, “we should reject the timeless view because we should, whenever possible, bring coherence to theology.”[9] As he continues, “All times’ being present to God, while a traditional idea, is incoherent.  Being past, being present and being future are temporal properties that God cannot partake of, if God is absolutely timeless.”[10] His solution, then, is to have two aspects of time, the physical and the metaphysical.  The space and time that we exist in is of the created type, that which God exists in is of the necessary type – it exists as a necessary result of God existing.  Within this scheme, “God is not contained within time, not even God’s own time.  Rather, God’s Being is conceptually prior (in terms of ontological dependence) to eternity, even though God’s life is not temporally prior to God’s time.”[11] Moreover, God’s time remains “infinite and immeasurable,”[12] and we cannot understand the precise manner in which it operates.  God remains the Lord of time as we know it because He created it, yet is able to operate temporally within it while being timeless in relation to it, but temporal with regards to God-time.

A third suggestion that includes a version of timelessness is that of “Timelessness and Omnitemporality” as proposed by William Lane Craig at Talbot School of Theology.  Craig offers a particularly interesting solution to the conception of God as timeless and yet operating within time.  In his scheme, God was completely timeless before the creation of the universe, but ever since that particular event, God became temporal and actually operates in a sequenced manner.  Craig does not buy into a tenseless theory of time, and hence concludes, ”Given a dynamic theory of time, it follows from God’s creative activity in the temporal world and his complete knowledge of it that God is temporal.  God quite literally exists now.  Since God never begins to exist nor ever ceases to exist, it follows that God is omnitemporal.  He exists at every time that ever exists.” [13] Craig suggests that an entirely timeless God would be unable to have any real knowledge of tensed facts, because He would be unable to operate within that realm.  So in keeping with the trajectory of the world, once God created time, He changed into a temporal being, while still being completely omniscient and omnipotent as long as it is now, and operating temporally with temporal beings.  That, to Craig, does not take away from the ultimate power and knowledge of God while making his character compatible with creation.

When I looked at these second two positions by Padgett and Craig, I was initially drawn in by both suggestions.  Padgett’s idea of a second, immeasurable metaphysical time appealed to my mind the most, as it seemed to offer a reasonable solution to an understanding of how God could somehow operate temporally within creation while himself remaining timeless.  It seemed to be a way of simultaneously answering yes to the questions of whether God is atemporal or temporal.  Craig’s suggestion, while certainly innovative, did not seem to work as cleanly to me.  First, God had to undergo some element of change in order to become temporal, and therefore his immutability is threatened within such a scheme.  Furthermore, I wonder if this view is compatible with any form of timelessness at all, because the creation happened at a certain point in time, and God existed “before” that moment, and therefore in a way was temporal prior to the creation as well.  God would have had some sort of measurable interval of time antecedent to his transformation into a temporal being.  In that sense, it seems to me that Padgett’s view of a separate metric for God-time or Helm’s view of the classic divine timelessness are the most compelling.  On this point I am inclined to agree with Helm because it does not introduce a second layer of complexity to the mechanism in which God-time works.  There is also a similar problem with God existing prior to the created order on some other immeasurable metaphysical time scale.  If God-time is immeasurable, yet there is some interval before which God existed in his own time scale, then in some way that time-scale is temporal.  It seems to me to be easier to say that God is, and there is no contingent time scale, physical or metaphysical, that He is dependent on, and he eternally wills things into place.  Obviously, the matter is far more complicated than the few sentences that I have written to condense these ideas, but it seems most in line with my understanding of the Scriptures and God’s sovereignty for Him to be divinely timeless without any restrictions.

Thinking about even a single moment in time, say January 1, 2008, there were billions of people being affected by billions more events and interactions, not to mention the other living creatures of the earth along with the activity in the entire universe.  And God understood and was able to see every one of them.  He knew what I was eating for breakfast that day and what sensation I had when food entered my mouth at the same time as understanding a mother caring for her child halfway across the world.  He saw it simultaneously, with equal vibrancy, along with billions upon billions of other events.  One minute later, the event that occurred did not surprise God one bit, for He saw that with the same omnipotent ability as the prior moment, because he exists outside of time.  Or, more accurate, because He exists.  In my mind, this view of divine timelessness best preserves the concept of the sovereignty of God and his ultimate goodness – He is not adapting to surprising changes in any temporal manner, but as Lord of all He guides and understands every event in time while standing outside of it.  From our perspective, we are only able to see things one moment at a time – we can have some recollection of the past, no real vision of the future, and a limited and dulled understanding of even the present moment.  Yet for God, I believe there are no such restrictions.  He can see all events equally vividly, yet understands the sequential order of them.  He can view the entire landscape of history without being perplexed by anything.

Any thoughts?

[2] A.W. Tozer, The Attributes of God, (Camp Hill: Christian Publications, 1997), 5.

[3] Paul Helm, Eternal God, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 2.

[4] Paul Helm, “Divine Timeless Eternity,” in God and Time, ed. Gregory Ganssle (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 37-8.

[5] William Hasker, God, Time, and Knowledge (Ithaca: Cornell Press, 1989), 150.

[6] Ibid., 158.

[7] Helm, Eternal God, 23-4.

[8] Alan Padgett, “Eternity as Relative Timelessness,” in God and Time, ed. Gregory Ganssle (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 94.

[9] Ibid., 95.

[10] Ibid., 98.

[11] Ibid., 107.

[12] Ibid.

[13] William Lane Craig, “Timelessness and Omnitemporality,” in God and Time, ed. Gregory Ganssle (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 153.

Related posts:

1. Jesus’ Parables and God’s Intended Design
2. Time to start blogging again…
3. Playoff time!