According to Boman in Greek thought, time stretches out on a line, with the future stretching out before you and the past extending behind you. The point on which you stand is the present.
In Hebraic thought only the past and the present exist. The future does not yet exist. Anything we do is in the present and it shapes the future.
If true, how does this affect our views about predestination?
2 comments:
What are 'our' views about predestination? I'm not even really sure of my views about predestination. The concept of the future not existing doesn't bother me as I know the future does exist from Gods perspective. This is where I thought the concept of predestination resides anyway... from the perspective of God. I can't see how "in Hebraic thought" they believe the past to exist. Surely they believe the past "existed"? In other words it is no longer in existance apart, once again, from God's perspective.
David D.
Hmm I've thought about this further...The concept of the past, present or future are descriptions of time. Sure there is a past, present and future but whether they 'exist' in the same way an apple exists is illogical. Does time exist? Well we certainly experiance it. Can we experiance the past or the future? We can have a memory of the past that may affect our present and we can look forward to something in the future that may make us happy. So what differentiates the present from the past and future? While we can experiance all three, it is only the present in which we can act. So while time doesn't have a physical existance, it does have an inseparable relationship to the physical. It's like the relationship between the spiritual and eternal. I'm sure there's an equation here but I'm hopeless at math. A=(spiritual, eternal), B=(physical, time) It may go like this, B is a subset of A. The fact that the whole of B (past, present and future) exists in A is a necessity as it is finite.
Predestination appears to just be a reality of the spiritual and eternal. Ultimately in regards to life we are required to be a subset of Christ so maybe there's something to be said by that.
I guess there can be a danger associated with believing that different perspectives equal separate realities - The perspective of Man vs the perspective of God. I think we need to comprehend as much as we can of both perspectives and not just the realities but also the 'divine purpose'.
I've just had a weird and probably very limited analogy. Time could be like a video tape and God has the remote.
Take a look at this and other stuff they have, I might get some: http://apps.biola.edu/apologetics-store/products/audios/item/god-time-and-eternity_CD,
David
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