Is heaven outside of time?

[splat]

Here is something particularly for all those God is outside of time crowd.

Is all of God's abode (heaven) outside of time?

Therefore are all the heavenly angels outside of time?

Or just the angels in his throne room?

Or just the space around the throne itself?

What if God gets out of his throne and walks across the gardens of heaven, then does he walk into
heavenly time so He is no longer outside of time?

Or does his timelessness follow Him through heaven wherever He walks (like an anti-time suit)?

Anyway, food for thought.

[Rdr. Arsenios]

Here is something particularly for all those God is outside of time crowd.

Is all of God's abode (heaven) outside of time?

Therefore are all the heavenly angels outside of time?

Or just the angels in his throne room?

Or just the space around the throne itself?

What if God gets out of his throne and walks across the gardens of heaven, then does he walk into
heavenly time so He is no longer outside of time?

Or does his timelessness follow Him through heaven wherever He walks (like an anti-time suit)?

Anyway, food for thought.

Think Creator and creation... The Creator creates creation... Time is created... The Creator is RADICALLY OTHER than creation, infinitely beyond the difference between Edison and a light bulb... Because He created creation out of NOTHING... Creation cannot do this... Creation cannot understand its Creator, and can only know what it does about him by revelation OF the Creator...

So that being the Creator of time, God is both out of time, and as time's Creator, suffuses creation with Himself, knowing all things, and is thereby also in time, but is not enclosed by time... And we cannot understand HOW this can be, but we know that God is not comprehensible to us...

Have you read Athanasius' "On the Incarnation" yet? It forms a core formulation of the Orthodox understanding of the nature of our apophatic understanding of God... We understand God as IN-finite... Meaning NOT finite, but enclosing what IS finite, which is creation... So that it is not that God has no extent, but that his extent has no limits, large or small, and cannot be properly understood as extent at all...

Thinking about God is a stretch!

Arsenios

[Manwë Súlimo]

Well, I don't see Heaven as a fundamentally separate place from our universe. I see Heaven as the place and time that God inhabits in His glory. With that said, I think Heaven would be very boring without time as there would be no change or movement. I don't think that's the Christian hope of the hereafter.

[RBerman]

"That would be boring if it were true" is not a Biblical argument; we have no conception of what heaven feels like. But given that things are described as happening in heaven, and given that heaven seems itself be a creation of God, it seems reasonable to think that time passes in heaven.

[Sparko]

Revelation 8:1
When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.

[Chappie]

Think Creator and creation... The Creator creates creation... Time is created... The Creator is RADICALLY OTHER than creation, infinitely beyond the difference between Edison and a light bulb... Because He created creation out of NOTHING... Creation cannot do this... Creation cannot understand its Creator, and can only know what it does about him by revelation OF the Creator...

So that being the Creator of time, God is both out of time, and as time's Creator, suffuses creation with Himself, knowing all things, and is thereby also in time, but is not enclosed by time... And we cannot understand HOW this can be, but we know that God is not comprehensible to us...

Have you read Athanasius' "On the Incarnation" yet? It forms a core formulation of the Orthodox understanding of the nature of our apophatic understanding of God... We understand God as IN-finite... Meaning NOT finite, but enclosing what IS finite, which is creation... So that it is not that God has no extent, but that his extent has no limits, large or small, and cannot be properly understood as extent at all...

Thinking about God is a stretch!

Arsenios

Nothing in scripture indicates that time is created. The genesis account of creation illustrates how God chose to manifest time within his creation. Genesis makes the statement, "In the beginning", If God preexists "the beginning", then there was time before the beginning. Orthodoxy and the historical church did not get everything right... Grab on to this explosion of knowledge prophesied by God for the last days.

God is not outside of time; God is the quintessential manifestation of time. God has power and authority over time. He is not hindered by time as we are…

[Adrift]

If God preexists "the beginning", then there was time before the beginning.

"Before the beginning" is mostly figurative language. It might be better to say that God created the "beginning" from outside of time, rather than chronologically "before" time.

This whole topic is also being discussed in the following thread in Christianity 201:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...utside-of-time

[Chrawnus]

If God preexists "the beginning", then there was time before the beginning.

lol


There's nothing that would logically require that to be the case.

[Tanakh Keeper]

Is all of God's abode (heaven) outside of time?
Therefore are all the heavenly angels outside of time?
Or just the angels in his throne room?
Or just the space around the throne itself?

G-d has always existed. G-d created everything, including space and time (and Heaven and angels). Therefore time exists in Heaven and for the angels, but not for G-d. This is a difficult concept for finite beings like ourselves to comprehend.

What if God gets out of his throne and walks across the gardens of heaven, then does he walk into
heavenly time so He is no longer outside of time?
Or does his timelessness follow Him through heaven wherever He walks (like an anti-time suit)?

G-d is everywhere at once. He can't be limited to being at just one place.

[rhutchin]

Is all of God's abode (heaven) outside of time?

Therefore are all the heavenly angels outside of time?

Or just the angels in his throne room?

Or just the space around the throne itself?

What if God gets out of his throne and walks across the gardens of heaven, then does he walk into heavenly time so He is no longer outside of time?

Or does his timelessness follow Him through heaven wherever He walks (like an anti-time suit)?

Genesis 1, says
14 God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

Of the firmament of the heaven, Genesis tells us,
6 Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven.

So, heaven seems to be what we call outer space and it is were God placed the stars. Given that God calls the firmament, heaven, it seems to me that heaven is characterized by passing time. This may not be the heaven that is said to be God’s domain. Given that our universe would fit into the palm of God’s hand (if God had a hand) I don’t see God being constrained within the boundaries of our universe.

God is omnipresent so God does not walk across the heavens – God inhabits all of existence (all that is inside our universe and outside our universe) at one and the same time and also inhabits all of time (past, present and future) at the same time. Thus, there is no passing of time with God.

[Chappie]

lol


There's nothing that would logically require that to be the case.

He he he...
Do you have anything that would logically require it to be otherwise. Scripture maybe?

He he he...

[Chappie]

"Before the beginning" is mostly figurative language. It might be better to say that God created the "beginning" from outside of time, rather than chronologically "before" time.

This whole topic is also being discussed in the following thread in Christianity 201:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...utside-of-time

And what do you base your figurative language conclusion on..

[Adrift]

And what do you base your figurative language conclusion on..

Assuming in the "beginning" God created everything including time and space, its nonsense to say "before the beginning".

[Chrawnus]

He he he...
Do you have anything that would logically require it to be otherwise. Scripture maybe?

He he he...

He he he...
The impossibility of an actual infinity. Maybe you've heard of the term "causally prior" (in contrast to "temporally prior")?

He he he...

[Chappie]

He he he...
The impossibility of an actual infinity. Maybe you've heard of the term "causally prior" (in contrast to "temporally prior")?

He he he...

When common sense/logic is applied to the concept of "in the beginning" we know that it cannot be applied to God, because we know from scripture that God has eternally existed. The only applicable logic that we know of that even approach an understanding of eternity is the concept of "the circle of time, not an absence of time.

" Before God created The Angels, any concept of time save stupidity will lead you to the fact that some form of time existed before God created them. Between the creation of The Angels and the Genesis account of creation some concept of time logically existed.

You depend on logic to conclude that God created time, because the bible NEVER makes such a claim, why do you now want to abandon the concept of logic in determining that before the Genesis account of creation that the phrase "In The Beginning" logically demands a concept of time before the beginning mentioned here. Without a concept of before and after, the phrase "in the beginning" is nonsensical and without factual value...

Your terms "causally prior and temporally prior" are nothing more than contextual foolishness when applied to the term "In The Beginning" as it is recorded in the bible…
He he he, ha ha ha.