Are there different Times?

[JMC]

I see. Well I hope we've been helpful. Any more questions or clarifications you after?

It has been most helpful! Thank you everyone so much!

 

[lynnie]

Jesus is in the resurrection body, forever. The incarnation wasn't just for a short time on earth, he is eternally man and God. He is coming back in that glorified body to redeem our body. Right now he is in a place that exists in physical space which exists in time. It is rather glorious the way God has ordained all these things. I don't know how that fits in exactly with your question about time, but we will forever be in a body, with the Lord also in a body, that I assume has mass and atomic structure, with all the movement that entails, which can forever be measured in nano seconds or however you measure electrons moving in an orbit. The entire creation will be freed from its fallen corruption and I expect to be totally amazed at what it looks like in that day.

 

[py3ak]

yeah, so he is saying that God is outside of time and therefore his decisions are chronological, which I think we agree with? But since they aren't chronological there is no cause and effect. For instance election and saving grace don't have a cause and effect relationship. That is what he is saying. So to defend it I started to get backed up into heresy by suggesting maybe God does have time in his realm because obviously election is the cause of saving grace. So I'm curious what a non-heretical argument is. So i think my friend is saying that sense God's decisions aren't chronological ordered they aren't logically ordered.

It sounds to me like your friend is arguing that since God transcends time (and so all times are equally present to him), therefore his eternal acts, like his decree of election, can be considered simultaneous with someone's belief. In that way, he doesn't have to say that belief caused election (which is textually impossible to maintain) but he also does not have to say that election precedes belief (which puts God in charge of who believes and who does not).

The difficulty is that it considers all of time spread out before God and accessible to him, independently of his will. But that runs afoul of Ephesians 1:11. God knows by himself. So he knows everything that could possibly happen, because he knows what he can do. But he also knows what will happen, because he knows what he has determined to do. The simultaneity approach tries to obscure this matter.