Question on God’s Relationship to Time – Is He in the Continual Present?

Question about God and his relationship to time.

Can it be said that God can neither “remembers” or “think” due to his relationship with time. I believe that these occurrences in the bible may be anthropomorphic.
My reasoning is that only a being who exist in our concept of linear time is capable of remembering and thinking. The best way to describe this is to use yourself as an example. Right now in this moment your full attention is on these words as such you do not need to “remember” them neither do you need to “think” about them since it is in your current attention span (consider this “ real time processing”).

For God everything in creation, visible and invisible (atoms, stars, distant galaxies, angels, demons, humans, animals, viruses, bacteria ….), past, present and future is constantly before him (in his real time). In other words his full attention is always “viewing/looking upon” everything regardless of when it occurred (past, present, future) as such he cannot remember a past event (by our human understanding of the word “remember”) or think of a future event since it is always in his “now”. With the assumption that the aforementioned is correct how does God view each individual?

NB: I guess the error of this is that I am restricting God to the present continuous but it seems to be impossible for me to understand his relationship to time since I have always been bound by a linear existence and will never transcend time as he has/is done (doing). This seems to be an incommunicable attribute

From God’s perspective am I in heaven right now rejoicing with him or am I in front of my PC writing this? I can confidently say that right now I am most aware of myself as being in this moment (the now) but to God am I really in this segment of time? A more common question would be “If my name was written in the book of life from before the foundation of the world did God always view me as a sinner or did he always view me as being saved by the blood of Christ? Can there be a point in time (from his perspective) in which his viewing of us changes from us being depraved sinners deserving of eternal punishment to being saved by the blood of the lamb?

I hope this was as understandable as possible and that you were able to bear with me to the end.

It is these type of questions that I am eager to ask the Lord when I finally meet him.

I have been praying for everyone throughout the week and I hope that God continues to give us the strength we need.

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Ed Chait, Laurel J. Davis and Jed Kramer like this.
Robert Lowry Kris I think you are unnecessarily complicating all this. It is really quite simple. In his omniscience and omnipotence, God transcends time and space. And God loves each and every one of us. He has predetermined which ones of us will accept Jesus (election). We can’t understand it all but we accept it based on God’s word and faith in him.

March 7 at 8:29pm · Like · 1
Dale Agner Kris, it is great to have questions…but what is interesting…is that the wisdom of understanding comes from repentance and obedience to Jesus (love)…and the understanding of God comes from growing in love. A friend/pastor stated years gone by…”God gives us wisdom for the obedience we have done.” What we see in Proverbs 8 is that wisdom is what was present at the foundations of the world, and growth in wisdom only comes through love and obedience. I read a devotional this AM that talked about “Being Filled with the Spirit.” The devotional spoke of time in the Word and meditation on the Word (all good)…but omitted the process of taking off the old self and putting on the new self (Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4). Gideon only had success after he ridded the alter of Baal (at night and much afraid)…yet the cleansing and obedience to Him is what gives us the wisdom and filling of the Spirit.

Yesterday at 7:40am · Like · 1
Jesse Mcphaill Good afternoon Kris! I would have answered sooner, but was waiting for a much wiser individual to do so before I chimed in. Anyway, I’ll be brief. I do not want you to be in the dark concerning this philosophical question, for it is important. When the four living creatures in Heaven cry out, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” (Rev. 4:8), we can only imagine the depth of their understanding of the Lord in their words. While we can never fully comprehend God (He’s God, of course), I believe we can develop great theories that make belief in divine attributes more understandable and fun! I have (unwittingly) read a book by William Lane Craig on this matter, and found it extremely helpful. It is called “Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to Time.” I highly recommend it. In it, Craig analyzes God’s relationship to time and also the reality of tense. He analyzes scholarly work on the philosophy of time and recommends many works on the matter. I will give you his conclusions (a summary). Craig concludes that God, while timeless and eternal, took on a temporal mode of being when He created the universe. He does not change like we do, but rather understands intimately our temporal existence. It is sort of like an emptying Himself of His pure timelessness in creating us, a humbling act of our Lord God. Even so, Christ was further an illustration of the humility of God, not merely taking on temporality but also flesh and bone, “the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3). He affirms time as a foundational aspect of our universe, the tensed/dynamic/A-theory of time. This may sound foreign to many (and I hope it does, so you will be curious to investigate!), but I believe Craig is correct. I have not researched much into the issue, but this is a great primer on it. May God bless you sir!

20 hrs · Edited · Like
Ed Chait My understanding is that because He is omnipotent, the only thing that we can do that God can’t do is sin.

18 hrs · Like
Jed Kramer Kris, I LOVE your pursuit of God’s attributes & your recognition that they are very different from ours. Have you considered that the way he experiences relationship is entirely different from ours because he is not time-bound? You suggest that he must see you as you are now OR as you will be OR as you were. Might he experience relationship with you at all points of your existence simultaneously? I have no idea what that would be like or feel like. Keep in mind that the Bible expresses God’s qualities to us in a way that we can best understand in our human time-bound way. As Steve Ray Webb said in another post, all of us are ‘fallen’ theologians with only a partial view of God’s reality.

15 hrs · Like · 1
Sarah Van Baale As I was thinking about your question the past few days, these are the thoughts that popped into my head: God gave us time because we need it. What does God reveal to us about Himself in light of time? Patience, forgiveness, and omniscience, are a few characteristics that are functions of time. In other words, without time, we could not begin to understand the depth and breadth of God’s character and how He relates to us. Imagine a world of immediate condemnation, immediate consequences, never learning to trust His omniscience and plan, all of these things would be present outside of time. But instead He gives us time to grow and understand and discover more of Him because of time. I’m thankful for this gift. Just as God gives babies 9 months in the womb to prepare for life on this earth, he gives our souls enough time in this world to prepare for life in eternity. If we see time as a gift and an opportunity to slowly begin to know the Greatness of our God, perhaps we’d use our time a little differently. I know your question was a bit more loaded than this, but sometimes instead of focusing on the logistics of how it all works out on God’s end (which truthfully we will never fully understand on this earth), it is important to try and understand why God did what He did. And the answer will always reflect back to Himself. The Bible was created so we would know Him better. The world was created as a reflection of Him. If we live our lives in obedience, always seeking to know Him more, God will slowly reveal Himself to us. This is why I especially like Dale‘s answer above. God gives wisdom to those who seek Him. We can try and sort out the pieces mathematically/logically and map out God to the best of our abilities, but He will only reveal Himself to us proportionately to the depth of our love and obedience. We can’t get to know God on a strictly scientific level. If that were so, every scientist would be a devout believer. Instead, there is a very personal/spiritual aspect to knowing the character of God. The more we seek Him/love Him/obey Him, the more our wisdom and understanding will increase.

4 hrs · Like · 1