Friday, 7/3/20 – Tough Question: God, Time, and Eternity?

God, Time, and Eternity?

An illustration I find helpful in grasping this idea of God’s interaction upon our limitations of time and space is this… Imagine a two-dimensional world. It has height and width, but no depth. It’s inhabitants can move left, right, up and down, but the concept of going around something is impossible for them to grasp.

Now imagine that in this 2-D world there is a right angle triangle,

In this 2-D world it would only be possible to roll this triangle forward, or pull it backward.

You would need to climb over it to get past it: it would be impossible –inconceivable– for you to walk around it.

But imagine the astonishment of the inhabitants of this 2-D world if one day they discovered this triangle flipped!

This would be beyond their comprehension. The triangle would need to have been acted upon by something outside the limitations of their 2-D world. The triangle would have been picked up and turned over by a hand that had reached in from a 3-D realm. The realities of 2-D, height and width, still respected, but a 3rd dimension of depth had also come into play.

This is the dilemma we are up against when we begin to ask questions of time and eternity. How can predestination, free-will, and foreknowledge be reconciled. How can Jesus be “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8)? If I pray about an unknown outcome which occurred two hours earlier can my prayer be effective?

Our questions arise because we cannot yet see beyond the constraints of linear time. But God sees all things.

Questions of free will and foreknowledge, of prayers and their influence, of cause and effect often find their answer in this present mystery to us of time and eternity.

The fact of God being incomprehensible to us should not disturb us, in fact, it should give us great confidence. If you or I could wrap our teeny heads around the Creator of the universe and Sustainer of all things, the one Who called light and space and time into being, the One Who dwells in unapproachable light in the high and holy heavens, He who cast Lucifer from His Presence, has angel hosts who do His bidding, and Who is Author and Finisher of all things including our salvation – if we could get our puny minds around such a One as Him, well… the very thought is ludicrous.

In dealing with such concepts and questions as these Faith is far superior to Intellect — and Faith is exactly what God asks of us.

Press on…

Got a question? Use the Contact page and send It to me. We’ll search the Word for God’s answer.