# God and time



## August (Aug 8, 2007)

Can someone recommend a good reformed treatment of God and time? I have read the Lane-Craig treatment, and it left me a bit cold. I also looked at Dooyeweerds cosmic time, and a whole host of other articles, but none seems to really address God's sovereignity vs time.

I am concentrating some study time on creation, and specifically what effects the fall had on time, with a view to write an article about it. I am pretty worn out from lots of evolution/YEC/OEC debates, and it crossed my mind that maybe we are asking the wrong questions to begin with in this whole debate, irrevocably bound by our fairly recent concept of rational-linear time.


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## G.Wetmore (Aug 8, 2007)

It's not exactly on the topic of God Time and Creation, but a there are a couple of really good lectures on God and Time by Dr. Greg Bahnsen. You can find them at covenant media foundation in the Philosophy of Chrisitianity series. They are entitled "God and Time: Indexical Reference." I must warn though, they are very advanced. It is probably some of the hardest to follow lectures that Dr. Bahnsen ever gave. But I think they would help.


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## ChristianTrader (Aug 8, 2007)

August said:


> Can someone recommend a good reformed treatment of God and time? I have read the Lane-Craig treatment, and it left me a bit cold. I also looked at Dooyeweerds cosmic time, and a whole host of other articles, but none seems to really address God's sovereignty vs time.
> 
> I am concentrating some study time on creation, and specifically what effects the fall had on time, with a view to write an article about it. I am pretty worn out from lots of evolution/YEC/OEC debates, and it crossed my mind that maybe we are asking the wrong questions to begin with in this whole debate, irrevocably bound by our fairly recent concept of rational-linear time.



Here is Oliphint' review of Lane-Craig's treatment of God and time

http://mysite.verizon.net/oliphint/Writings/Craig review cited.htm

You can get some help by looking at how he critiques it. Paul Helm has a book on the subject as well as an entry in the Four Views book on God and Time. I have not read these but know that Helm is know to be good defender of the reformed view of the subject.

CT


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## August (Aug 8, 2007)

Thanks for the response. I read the Oliphint review, and I pretty much came to the same conclusions. 

I have bought the two Bahnsen tracks, will listen tonight and see how far I get.


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## August (Aug 8, 2007)

Btw, if anyone is interested to review the article when I get done with it in a couple of weeks time, please send me a PM.


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## Theogenes (Aug 9, 2007)

Check out this essay: http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=21
Jim


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## Cheshire Cat (Aug 9, 2007)

You may want to checkout Ch. 4 (a) of this thread: http://www.puritanboard.com/showthread.php?t=19573


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## JM (Aug 9, 2007)

link


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## tellville (Aug 9, 2007)

Paul Helm is pretty good. Then again, Paul Helm is the only person I've ever read on the Reformed idea of time! 

This is his book on Time:
Amazon.com: Eternal God: A Study of God without Time: Books: Paul Helm

This is a book on 4 views on Time, him writing the Reformed essay and responses:
Amazon.com: God & Time: 4 Views: Books: Gregory E. Ganssle

This is a book on 4 views on Divine Foreknowledge, him writing the Reformed essay and responses:
Amazon.com: Divine Foreknowledge: 4 Views: Books: Gregory A. Boyd,David Hunt,William Lane Craig,Paul Helm,James K. Beilby,Paul R. Eddy

The Four view books are quite good and filled me in on what all the issues are. Highly reccomended. I haven't read Paul Helm's main treatment on time but it has excellent reviews. 

Hope this helps!


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## August (Aug 9, 2007)

Jim Snyder said:


> Check out this essay: http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=21
> Jim



Thanks, that is pretty good. But I wonder how Clark gets around the issue when he quotes Augustine: "There could be no time before God created time.". If there was a moment in which time began to exist, there must have been a prior moment in which it did not exist. But if there was progression from the moment it did not exist to moment it came into existence, that is successive acts and therefore time passed from one moment to the next. So time existed before it came into existence, or at least, at the same time? 

It wasn't clear to me in the article how Clark addresses that.


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## ChristianTrader (Aug 9, 2007)

http://www.freewebs.com/royclouser/IGE.doc


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## VanVos (Aug 10, 2007)

Also Michael Sudduth is very good http://www.homestead.com/philofreligion/OxfordFiles1.html
Summary of Sudduth's view:

God is non-spatial and atemporal and everything He does is eternal. So God timelessly determines to create but the effects of that "action" is not reflexive.
VanVos


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