Question:
Must God be constrained by the construct of time?
Last Ent Wife (RCIA)
2008-01-08 21:11:13 UTC
A day - 24 hours, only applies to life on Earth. A day elsewhere can be longer or shorter. Indeed a day on Earth was not always 24 hours long.

Why must God be made to fit into our construct of time?
Twenty answers:
δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ
2008-01-08 22:16:38 UTC
Wonderful! Yes! It is essential to right thinking about God and his interaction with humankind to not artificially force him to live by our rules.



We ask questions like why did God wait so long to...



or



Why has Jesus still not returned?



These types of questions are incorrect in their perspective. God is not bound by time. This knowledge helps answer a myriad of theological questions.
Gryphon Noir
2008-01-08 21:55:07 UTC
Excellent question.

The Hebrew word "yom" is often translated as "day" but this isn't completely accurate. Yom can mean "forty days" or even a season or a year--the only requirement aside from context being that the period of time has a beginning and an end.

The only English word I can think of that approximates "yom" would be the OE/Norse word "jara" which meant "a time" or "a process" such as from seedtime to harvest [the origin of our word "year"]. In mystical terms, jara can be interpreted as "in God's time" which is different from Human reckoning.

One of the answers suggested that God invented time. I don't think so, because God is eternal, and therefore outside of time. After all, time is only meaningful if there is an end-point, [ie, death ] so time could be said to be a human creation within God's permissive will. He didn't intend it, because He made humans 'in the full measure' to be eternal beings. Humans made the choice that brought about the consequence of time.
carole
2008-01-08 21:17:00 UTC
I don't think he is. In fact - to the best of our knowledge, the day could be considerably longer than 24 hours. I mean, where are we while we are sleeping? Sure, the clock indicates so many hours have passed, but who's to say someone didn't put our life on pause while we mentally went and did something else during that time?



A being like God could do anything. Our entire existence could have started 2 generations ago with an elaborate story put together as "history". Once you start messing with a God, anything is possible.



Peace!
Don
2008-01-09 03:25:11 UTC
In the beginning God.. God has always existed and is therefore outside of time. Time is part of His creation and He is not bound by it. We are creatures of time and cannot conceive of something that is timeless which is why so many people have trouble understanding where "God came from". The physical laws that God has put in place in His creation do not relate to the Creator as Jesus demonstrated during His time on earth.
spike missing debra m
2008-01-09 00:55:46 UTC
God is not constrained by anything-i find it amusing to read posts, mostly by atheists, describing what God must be or do and what He cannot be or do-as if God has to fit into their silly definition...God created everything and, like we used to sing in vbs way back in the day, 'can do anything but fail!'
2008-01-10 11:04:41 UTC
The existence of time in this corner of the universe does not prove that it exists in heaven.



Indeed it does not.



It was necessary that we be limited in this LIFE / TEST. It's a "timed" test!



But in heaven, God's home, time does not constrain Him.



That is how "He knows the ending before the beginning", as the bible says. He sees yesterday today and tomorrow with equal ease, knowing what we do with our free will, even before we are conceived!!!
jayakrishnamenon
2008-01-09 00:05:16 UTC
God need not get fit into any constraints for that matter, and if He/She/Thee/It/THAT wish/wishes to get fit into some constraint as per His/Her.... liking perhaps nothing can prevent also ...



Perhaps aspects of a restricted God you have seen already.



https://answersrip.com/question/index?qid=20060822193746AAMbVNv



And Sathya Sai Baba says,



"Man is basically and essentially immortal. But yet he is afraid that he will die. He is Ananda Swaroopa (Embodiment of Bliss), but he weeps and is miserable. He is Shanti Swaroopa (Embodiment of Peace), yet he is burdened with anxiety. This absurd self-deception is the root of the tragedy from which the world is suffering today. The truth has to be driven in to the consciousness of man. The human being is a composite of man, beast and God, and in the inevitable struggle between the three for supremacy, you must ensure that God wins."



- BABA



http://www.radiosai.org/pages/thought.asp



SAI RAM
frenzy-CIB- Jim's with Jesus
2008-01-08 21:44:44 UTC
The moment you are in the presence of God, time ceases to exist.



Some people point to Peter's epistle where he says a day is as a thousand years with the Lord, and a thousand years as a day. They take this literally, thus we get the young-earthers. However, to me it says that there are no time constraints where my God is concerned.



Thanks for the question. It's a good one, Ent Wife.
Molly
2008-01-08 21:17:34 UTC
HE is not constrained by the construct of time, but He knows WE are. Therefore, when He refers to a 'day' in His Word, it is a day as WE know it.

He created the day and knows what it is made of and how it applies to humanity.
?
2016-12-01 11:08:59 UTC
reward to all. Love has no eyes different than the holy regulation of God, no direction different than for God's instructions. Paul noted the affection of Christ constraining us. It strikes us to accountability. Love is the only authentic reason for all worship and accountability, yet via itself it would not define the two. hence, we will not placed love "as against regulation." They belong at the same time. Christian habit springs from like to God and our neighbor. If we enjoyed them completely, our character and behaviour could be ideal because of the fact it may adjust to God's will. Love is a reason for and expresses itself in obedient action. Such action fulfills the regulation: "Love does no harm to a neighbor; hence love is the success of the regulation" (Rom. thirteen:10). reason and action would be unable to be greater tightly joined than they are in this passage. If love would not constrain us to fulfill the ethical regulation, that's not the affection of which the Bible speaks. The apostle Paul made this very clean while he pronounced that "the affection of Christ constrains us" (2 Cor. 5:14). that's the affection of God that places the regulation of God into result. actual love for God is very preoccupied with Him because of the fact the very merely right merchandise of affection. that's, hence, intrinsically lively in doing His will. Love itself is commanded interior the previous testomony besides because of the fact the recent. Jesus pronounced, "those issues I command you, which you like one yet another" (John 15:17). Love is likewise defined as a command in Deuteronomy 6:5-7: "You shall love the LORD your God with all your coronary heart, with all your soul, and with all your could desire to. And those words which I command you immediately would be on your coronary heart; you shall instruct them diligently on your infants, and shall communicate of them once you take a seat on your place, once you walk via the way, once you lie down, and once you upward push up." We could desire to be very clean that the command to love won't create love or generate love. This command, like another, can not create the disposition or will to obey. however the mere actuality that love is a command could desire to silence people who argue for an antithesis between regulation and love. Moses, Jesus, and Paul all related regulation and love, as does John in a million John 5:3: "For that's the affection of God, that we shop His commandments. And His commandments at the instant are not burdensome." Woe to all people who separates what Moses, Christ, and the apostles have pronounced belong at the same time! What God has joined enable no guy placed asunder.
dogwhisperer16
2008-01-08 21:46:39 UTC
Who said He is? Certainly not I. An all encompassing being would not be constrained by that or dimension
Max
2008-01-08 21:21:28 UTC
No, God knows all the ways around:)
ayubchy
2008-01-10 09:45:23 UTC
God is the Almighty.
2008-01-08 22:59:01 UTC
Everything about God must has been made to fit our construct.



God is referred to as "He."

He is uber-concerned about Israel winning battles and His people not touching unclean things...



God repented of having ever created humans...



So God killed them all, except for a few... (animals to boot!)



Then God absolutely RUINS a man's life (Job) all based on a bet with Lucifer (Whom God lied to - again - God foreknew that Job wouldn't fail but made the wager anyway (That's insider trading!)



Because what we see and know (nature) is what we see and know...



If God really wanted men to believe in Him, He should have done a better job of being able to manifest Himself to them, except through ancient myths, and the hope of a second (third?) coming that has, so far, taken over 2,000 years)



No one in their right mind should embrace any God whose requirements are, "join or die.."



God... This transcendental shylock, demanding His pound of flesh and smugly declares His love for His creation by blaming them for something they didn't do and blessing them for something somebody else did.



If God didn't create Hell for unbelievers, He sure as Hell is responsible for it.
The GMC
2008-01-08 21:14:09 UTC
Of course not. He made time, he obviously doesn't conform to the way we see it. Plus we already know time is relative.
Ace of Spades
2008-01-09 09:01:15 UTC
Too many small boxes that He lives in. He who has ears, let him hear.
2008-01-08 21:20:39 UTC
Don't think so.

Were out there back in the past, present and future.

Revealation 22.13-17

What do you think?
2008-01-08 21:13:34 UTC
Because God was invented by beings who ARE restrained by time (humans).
2008-01-08 21:14:49 UTC
If god is 'outside' time and space, then the word 'god' is meaningless gibberish.
2008-01-08 21:15:37 UTC
Who told you so?



Obviously, you don't know what you are talking about!


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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