TIME & PREDESTINATION

The elephant is like a tree. Therefore, it is rooted to the ground like a tree. The elephant cannot move any more than a tree can.

Why do we feel it is necessary to tie God to our concept of time? Our own ignorance prevents us from thinking of time as a simple thing.

God is not limited to time. In the same manner that you can visualize this page as a single entity, God sees all time.

You can see the previous words and you can also look at the later words. You can look at any portion of this page you wish. All time is only a single page to God.

Why do people worry about the end of the world?

But as for that day and hour, nobody knows it, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, no one but the Father only.

In predicting the end of the world, you are working directly against the above message.

When the year turned to 1000, there were panics in the world. People were so sure that the Bible predicted the end of the world at that time that some even committed suicide. Why? Can God not count beyond 1000? Humans invented the way we count years, not God. Are you going to tie God to a time frame that is our invention? What drives people to be obsessed with the end of the world?

And again with the year 2000, we paniced. From unreasonable fears about our computers, to belief that the second coming is to be now.

I will make your descendants like the dust on the ground: When men succeed in counting the specks of dust on the ground, then they will be able to count your descendants!

It will be many thousands of years before that happens. Later, God promised Abraham that his descendants would outnumber the stars. There are more stars than specks of dust in the entire earth. I think the end will be a few years yet. However, the end of MY world may be at any moment.

Predestination

Predestination: The doctrine that God foreordained everything that would happen. God predestines certain souls to salvation and others to damnation.

I do not believe in predestination as defined by Webster. However, because God sees all time the same way you can see this page, God knows what we will do with our free will. He does not command our actions. He accepts our actions resulting from our own free will. I truly believe we have a free will. Because we cannot see what our future will be the way God can, we still control our own destiny. I do not know what the next sentence will be, but God does because He sees the entire book as it will be after printing. He does not control my typing. But because God spans all time, He knows what key I will/did press next.

God does not travel in time as in science fiction stories, but spans time. Because we are conceptually limited, we have problems approaching this mystery of God. The elephant is not like a tree, we are. We are firmly rooted to the small spot in time allocated to us. Not only are we unable to span time, we cannot even perceive time except second by second limited by our lack of comprehension. Our own mortal failure.

tree

Footnotes:
1.    The Jerusalem Bible - Matthew 24:36
2.    One of God’s promises to Abraham.
3.    Webster’s New World Dictionary

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