We know that God is affected by time because we know that Lucifer and sin have caused a great deal of pain to Him over time. If God was not affected by time then sin would not have caused Him so much grief.

God does not exist outside of time, IMHO.

Time travel...

Is it possible? For humans? Is remembering a means of time travel, going back in time? Is dreaming (include visions in thinking about this...) a means of time travel, forward in time?

Does God time travel? Or does he just have perfect memory recall and unlimited visionary capabilities?

The idea was suggested in the topic about surprising God that the one thing God cannot do is change the past. Think about the movie Back To The Future and it's premise that time travel would alter history. If God went back in time (not just remembering the past) could he tinker with events that would then change subsequent events as a result?

Thinking along the same lines, how would God change the future? If he traveled forward in time and altered events in the future, would it ever be knowable that such events as they later happened had been altered? Change being a time-bound concept - would that even be, in a real and fundamental sense, changing the future?

Now go back to the question of living in the moment. If we really cannot time travel, the present moment is all we have to work with. We cannot alter the past as it would change our present and future which would mean a new present and future reality, leaving what would have been unknowable to us, or at best a matter of hypothetical speculation. Traveling forward in time, merely knowing the future would effect how we live now in the moment. It would cause us perhaps to alter our present actions in order to change those future events that are consequences of what we do right now. That would mean that the future you experienced traveling forward in time was in fact not real since it ultimately will not happen. In a real sense it is not changing the future, since the consequential events are the future and not hypothetically what might have happened had the events of the present been different.

Maybe God cannot change the future any more than he can change the past. Maybe God lives in the moment but understands perfectly the full and complete consequences of all events and actions, from the tiniest to the largest, in real time as they unfold. Alternatively, if God really can time travel, he may restrain or restrict himself to the moment in his interactions with us. To do otherwise would alter the space time continuum and new and different realities as a result.

That might explain why it has taken so long for Christ to return - God patiently living in the moment.

Yes, I believe it is possible. There are some equations and theories that suggest humans could, for some micro moment. Your closing line most likely sums up what God is doing, living in the moment.

For God one year here might mean 1 day for Him.

Lineman, a big part of the problem we have with understanding God is that he is infinite and we are finite. Our language just doesn't get the job done. Saying 'outside time' is not exactly what I mean - something more like 'not experiencing time in the same way we do', including being able to access every point in time at any time.

From a general relativity perspective we know that time is different at different places in the universe. And God is present everywhere in the universe. So we can't say, I don't think, that an infinite God limits himself to experiencing time exactly in the ways we on our little parochial backwater planet - which is nonetheless the focus of God's complete attention, as is every other planet in the universe - experience time.

Nor do I think there's a simple ratio of a day to a year or a day to a thousand years. Those terms, when used in the Bible, were attempts to use human language to describe God's infinite state. The language in the hymn Amazing Grace, where it says "when we've been there 10,000 years/bright shining as the sun/we've no less days to sing God's praise/than when we first begun" does a better job on it.

Lineman, the idea of God suffering in time is a little odd too. If we consider that he has existed for an infinity of time before creating the earth - not thousands, millions, billions or trillions of years, but eternity - then the time span of fallen human life on this planet, whether you think that is 6000 years or a million years, is the merest blink of an eye in comparison with the time he has already lived through (assuming he lives through it like us, a second at a time).

Rather, the idea that he has access to all of time all the time means that throughout his infinite existence he always has and always will experience our betrayal and the pain of sin, even after redemption of this world.

I think God can go back in time. He doesn't change anything. But at this very moment, God could be looking at Martin Luther nailing the theses to the door, or the stoning of Stephen, or some other event. I don't think He is limited by time as we know it. ... Just a thought....

My thinking keeps circling back to the idea of living in the moment. A question posed by an old friend on Facebook got me to thinking. She wondered if we had the same experience as she did in our days in academy. As Adventists were being presented with Jesus' soon coming such that we were not even visualizing an adult life past academy, past college, past marriage.

I think that was true for me. Even before my academy years I never thought I would make it to the next phase of my life before Jesus would come. This highlights one of the many paradoxes of our faith. (I have long said that God loves a paradox...) We live and prepare ourselves for the real expectation of an imminent return of Jesus and a future in heaven while still living a full life in the here and now that requires us to live and prepare for a long and productive life on earth. The dilemma of living in only one of those realities is that we end up missing the mark in both. It is the deep truth of one of my mother-in-law's favorite sayings that someone was so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good. They live so in the expectation of future reward that they put off and totally procrastinate life right here and now. It is carpe diem cras (Seize the day tomorrow). To embrace the divine paradox means that to truly be heavenly minded is to be of maximum value in the here and now. It is how we live our lives in the present that will determine if we even have a future, both here on this earth and beyond. After all, living in the here and now, truly living for the moment, is all we have and all we can do. We cannot change the past and cannot fast forward our existence to the future. That leaves us to live life in only the present. Carpe diem!

Tom,
I took a class at LLU/La Sierra from Dr. Rice, too. I had to read that book for his class, and I think it was published just before I took his class. I really liked Dr. Rice. I knew his family - his kids were in my Pathfinder club. (early 80's)

I'm coming to this discussion late but I've thought about this for quite awhile. The problem is multifaceted: 1) we are prisoners of time 2)our speculations of God's doings within time are at best very anthropomorphic 3)we can only understand space within the parameters of time 4) God would be even more inscrutable if time wasn't used in theological discussions 5) and for Adventists there would be serious complications with their understanding of Creation, Sabbath and time prophecies.

As for God evolving in or outside of time, I can't buy that. God is the "I AM THAT/WHO I AM". I adhere to the philosophical school of God being the ground of all being. Time then becomes (for me anyway)an invention of man. Thank goodness we have ontology. Just what is "being" anyway and its twin sister epistemology (just how do we know what we know anyway)???

Thank you Tom for creating this forum "back in time" I like the way you think! Why don't more Adventists think as deeply as you?
I think I'm going to like my new home here. That is if I have "time" to enjoy it

Alex

Welcome! I'm delighted to have you here and look forward to your thoughts.