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Monday, August 13, 2007

Eternal time and open theism

Peter writes in 2 Peter 3:8, "But do not forget this one thing, beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day."

Here's what I know: Eternity is qualitatively different from time. It is related to time, but it must be distinguished from it.

God transcends time. God is not bound by sequential, linear, earthly, temporary time.

Eternity does not simply take up where time leaves off, nor is eternity just endless time.

There are three distinct definitions of time:

Cosmic time: calendars and clocks, calculated mathematically on the basis of movement around the sun and symbolized by a circle.

Historical time: decades, centuries and millennia and symbolized by a line. This sort of time, stretches out into the future and is unrepeatable.

Existential time: This time is not subject to mathematical measurement. It is characterized by intensity of experience and symbolized by a point - movement in depth. There is no distinction between the future and the past, between the end and the beginning.

With God, there is no time, only eternity.

Jesus, on the cross, says to the thief, "today you will be with me in paradise." We say at funerals, "Joe is now in heaven, with his resurrected body."

What about the chronological sequence of Jesus coming back and the dead in Christ rising and receiving their "new bodies?" How do we reconcile the two thoughts?

That is resolved again by realizing that once we die we enter into eternity....we leave the temporary sequential time that we live in and enter into timelessness with God...new creatures, new bodies, for eternity.

Perhaps this will also aid us in an attempt to gain a handle on "open theism" or the lack thereof.

Any thoughts?

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