God’s Omniscience with Respect to Time

Presented to Dr. Roark

In partial fulfillment of

The requirements of

Christian Doctrines

4/22/1999

by

Frank Wacholtz

God’s Omniscience with Respect to Time

Is God all knowing? In what way is He all knowing? If He is what, then, does that mean? What about God’s relation ship to time? Does this relationship with time affect His omniscience? These questions will be answered through the course of this paper, hopefully to the reader's satisfaction. This paper will slide a bit more to the scientific answers for two major reasons. One, This author has taken his view of time from science. Two, most of the theologian’s books were already checked out of the library.

First, allow us to define "time". Kant suggested that we, "inevitably perceive things as being in space and time." ¹ "Our physical world is composed of four dimensions, three of space and one of time." Space is three dimensional involving length, height and depth or x, y, and z. It is impossible to separate the two aspects of space and time as changing one will change the other. For this reason they are commonly referred to in conjunction as "space-time".

Then superstring theory presents an interesting view of time if fellow dimensions. The superstring theory is mathematically formulated theory built around the idea of string that are Planck length, ten to the negative thirty-third power, in length. For the mathematics to work, however, a ten dimensional field is needed. What is noteworthy is that it seems that six dimensions, the Calabi-Yau manifold, have been compacted leaving four dimensions which mathematically might be able to interact with the compacted six. Time is simply the name we have given to this fourth dimension of ten.

Bergson, a process thinker, had an excellent idea of time. He suggested that we "think in duration." This is real, continuous time as opposed to spatalized, divided time. He suggests that units of time are simply imposed by humans. The continuous flow of time is what is real.

Humans are capable of manipulating their movement to some degree through the three dimensions of space. They merely helplessly perceive and measure their passage through the fourth dimension called time. The "previous" passage is what history is, and the passage not yet experienced is term "future" by your average person.

This author prefers to think of time as one singular finite unit that simply flows unbroken. Past, present, and future are all contained in time. They are all in the "now", for lack of a better term, in God’s eyes.

Davies has wonderful way of proving this. He speaks about the effects of warped time. He suggests that time is dynamic not having a fixed rate of passage. This has been tested by the little space travel we have done. It has been discovered by placing atomic clocks in spacecraft or even high altitude jets the times are just a bit apart. Thus, one slows, or one accelerates.

Time is apparently relative to the observer. If one can speed one’s passage through space then one can slow one’s passage through time. If a space traveler can approach near light speeds relative to an earth-bound person, then the perception of time varies greatly and the "now" of one could be quite different than the "now" of the other. The question is, "whose time is the real time?" or is that not even a valid question.

An example of this could be seen in Jesus’ death on the cross. Jesus died, is dying, and will die to atone for your sins. Thus, your future sins are already covered by His blood. God knows what you did, what you are doing, and what you will do. He loves you despite all that, because it is already, is being, and will be forgiven.

It seems, though, that God made time for a purpose. There is a reason behind the creation of time. Time is that odd dimension mixed with space that serves as the vehicle for humans, as creatures created by God, to participate in God’s eternity or have a relationship with Him. Try as we might, there is yet no escape from time until the end of it.

What is God’s relationship to time? Leviticus 11:44a states, "I am the Lord your God, consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy." (NIV) God says he is holy. What does the word holy mean? A look into a thesaurus brings out the following definition of this adjective, "dedicated to the service or set apart by religion" (italics author’s) The Hebrew word for holy is "kodesh". This word appears in the Old Testament four hundred sixty-nine times. Its root meaning is "apartness" or "sacredness".

The idea that this paper is aiming for is that God is holy. To be "holy" is to be "set apart". Thus, God is set apart. The word "apart" has root word "part" defined as, "noun, a segment, portion or division of a whole; a component ..." The prefix "a-" comes from Greek and means "the opposite of" or "not". Therefore, "apart" means "not a segment or portion of the whole." What is God apart from? This author would say that God is apart from or above and beyond the whole of His creation. What is His creation but space and time.

II Peter 3:8 states, "But do not forget this one thing friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." (NIV) This seems to suggest that God is not bound by time. Time has no effect on God! He moves through time with more ease than humans passing through space.

"God is eternal, above and beyond time and space." Notice that Draper ties eternity to being above time and space. "Eternal" means "existing without begging or end," or, "infinite, illimitable, supertemporal." Closely related is "eternity" which means, "... forever; the immeasurable extant of time," or, "the quality or state of being eternal; eternal existence or duration; continuance without end." Apparently, if one is eternal then one must be beyond or more than the limits of time.

The old Cosmological argument calls God the unmoved mover. He is that which started it all. This author believes that God created space-time ex-nihilo. He would therefore be above His Creation or set apart from it, thus, "holy". God would in that case be above time.

God is apparently eternal. Rahner separates the idea of eternity from the idea of time. He states that eternity has no past or future, nothing at all to do with temporality. Do to the fact God created time makes God the master of it as he is beyond time and unlimited by it.

The author wholly agrees with this point as demonstrated earlier, and it will continue to be illustrated throughout.

The superstring theory allows for God to exist within a higher dimension, thus being Anselm’s highest being. As noted earlier there is certainly the possibility for the higher dimensions to interact with the lower. It follows, if God was a being of higher dimension (this author thinks God is above all dimensions) He would be able to interact with our dimension without breaking the rules of the complex universe in which humans exist.

Karl Barth presents some interesting ideas in his Doctrine of God. He would agree with statement that God is not dominated by the passage of divisions of time. He sees God as possessing "pure simultaneity", yet not blurring the distinction between past, present, and future. He even goes on to suggest that "God’s eternity is real time" as opposed to fleeting human time. In effect, he imposes an "authentic temporality" upon God as opposed to timelessness. This author departs from his agreement with Barth for most of the latter ideas.

God has an interesting relation to infinity. The Greeks defined infinity opposed to finite and thus literally, boundless. Augustine influenced by Plotinus of Alexandria writes in City of God that God is infinite, and, therefore, has a "limitless knowledge of the world."

Of course, it must be kept in mind that "we know that God is perfect, infinite self existence but we can not conceive how God is perfect, infinite self existence."

So what? God knows infinity. God knows every number that is possible. That suggests that God can put numbers to and count anything. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that it is impossible to know the position and momentum of anything. If God is infinite and beyond our finite world or dimensions, then He can know the position and momentum of everything in nearly infinite but still finite universe.

So what? How can you know someone? Do you spend time with them and learn about their past? Is it possible for a human to know everything about another person? This author would say an emphatic, "No!" Why is it impossible to completely know someone? Everything is connected.

It possible to know any one or any one thing, for that manner, wholly unless one knows everything. Everything relates and is connected to each other. The whole world is relative. "... Everything is complex and interdependent," says Whitehead. To know who a person is one must look to their family. To understand the family one must look to their genealogy. To under stand their genealogy one must see where they lived. To understand where they lived one must see who lived nearby, and so the cycle goes on until everything about the universe is known down to the smallest particle’s speed and momentum.