What is the Concept of Eternal Now?

[Binyawmene]

Before I answer the title of this thread. I will start this off with a brief Scriptural view about God’s eternalness. Both the Trinity and Hypostatic Union doctrines teach that the Son is co-eternal with the Father. For instance, Jesus Christ is temporal according to the human nature (Luke 13:33) and atemporal according to the divine nature (Revelations 1:8). Or the Eternal Person of the Son has no successions, like "before the world began" (John 17:5) or "the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:20). He remains the same without change and eternal (Hebrews 13:8).

So, theologically speaking, eternal is an essential quality of God’s nature and not a location. He is eternal (Isaiah 57:15 "who inhabits eternity" by his nature, not a place called eternity, Psalm 90:2, 93:2, who is also “the King Eternal” 1 Timothy 1:17, and “the Eternal God” Genesis 21:33, Deuteronomy 33:27). There are eternal thoughts of God before there was created time, scripturally known as foreknowledge (Ephesians 3:11, 2 Timothy 1:9, Titus 1:2, 1 Corinthians 2:7). Even eternal love before the creation (John 17:5, 24) and his eternal power (Romans 1:20). The Bible is very clear on this "Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me." (Isaiah 43:10, Colossians 1:17). There cannot be any ‘before’ and ‘after’ in relation to God's eternalness. His thoughts are simply a timeless uncaused-cause of himself.

God stretching out the heavens and he is above the heavens.​

God created time: The Eternal God spoke his thoughts into existence is what is called “in the beginning” (Genesis 1:1, John 1:1-3). The Big Bang is not an explosion but an expansion. All energy and matter, space and time, dimensions and laws of physics started from an infinitely small point that got so HOT and expanded outwards. The Bible describes this as "stretching out" (Job 9:8; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22; 44:24; 45:12; 48:13; 51:13; Jeremiah 10:12; 51:15; Zechariah 12:1). Like blowing up a balloon, the more you blow, the more the balloon will expand outwards. However, God foresaw and foreknew, he decreed everything, like Jesus Christ’s birth, death, and his return and judgement was already build-in into time that will unfold through our timeframe. According to his eternal purpose (Ephesians 3:11, “revealed in these last times”1 Peter 1:20, such as: “time had fully come” Galatians 4:4, Acts 2:23, “about the day or hour” Mark 13:32, Acts 1:7, “he has set a day” Acts 17:31, Romans 2:16, 1 Timothy 6:15) for judgement.

God is outside of time: God created time, and he exist outside of time. His eternal nature is not susceptible or affected by our time. He transcends our time and he is independent of his creation. Time is a created thing, and God exists independently of time. He is eternally actively involved with created things and events, etc. and he is exclusively separate from created time itself. Because his timeless eternal nature demands it. And he is not limited by a period of time in any way; for he supersedes and transcends time. He is existing beyond the bounds of time and dimensions of his creation. The Bible describes this as “above the heavens” (1 Kings 8:27, Psalms 57:5-11,108:5, 113:4, 148:13). On the other hand, the heavens and earth, also us, are bound and restricted to time (Psalms 90:10). God is simply outside of time because he cannot change and age through time. Here is a Biblical conception of God’s eternalness (Hebrews 1:10-12, Job 36:26). The earth has been around for 4-billions of years and perpetually continues until it meets the final end. If we compare the Eternal God to the earth to see who last the longest, then he would not change or age because he is outside of time and timeless.

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[Binyawmene]

God’s eternal nature: The concept of God’s “eternal” nature is timelessness (there is no time-sequence, no beginning or ending, no succession, no past, present, and future). The opposite of time is eternal. Scientists has pretty much grasped the idea of space-time theorem of general relativity. Take for example of the author of Psalms who was using a temporal conventional means like the earth or a garment to explain the Eternalness of God. In both Psalms 102:25-27 and Hebrews 1:10-12, the Son-person (who is the LORD) is being compared to a garment. The garment will change, rot, and fade away, but the Person of the Son remains the same because he is immutable. This Scripture also expresses the idea of eternalness. It takes time for the garment to change or creation itself to perish, but through the whole process we have the Eternal Person of the Son remaining the same without change. It also uses a literacy device "and your years will never end," it's not saying that God increase in age (one through countless years), since "years" imply change with time, and beginning in our temporal understanding. But it's understood in the sense that the Person of the Son is eternalness through immutability.

If God is atemporal (without time), then change could not occur.

a). The universe and all things created (even the laws of physics) is confined and restricted to a single dimension of time. Time is not static and mutable, there is change. The arrow of time proceeds in one direction only and always forward. The flow of time can never be reversed or be stopped. Only moving forward (consistent change in our surroundings) and not backwards.

b). God is not static and immutable, there is no change. The eternal now is not moving forward. The now is the same now as the now. There is no now preceded the other now, since there are no sequences of time in God. As if now passes, that was once the present now becomes part of the past now, and part of the future now, in turn, becomes the new present now. There is simply no distinct present now moving forward into the future now and leaving the past now behind.​

If God is atemporal (without time), then everything would be known at once.

a). Everything we ‘think and do’ takes time and is experienced within time. Time allows us to experience one thing to occur before another or after another (we experience a before, after, earlier, later, then, prior to, when, as soon as, while, during, etc.). So, time is what keeps everything we experience from happening at once.

b). God from his eternal nature also ‘think and do’ too. He has countless of thoughts that are derived out of his eternal nature that is perfect in wisdom reflecting his full omniscience. Except he does not experience a succession of moments of time as we do, rather, God known everything at once. He would not look forward in time or backward in time, rather, he would see everything in a single, eternal now.​

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[Binyawmene]

What is the eternal now? The phrase "eternal now," the words "eternal" and "now" is an oxymoron to the average person. The word “now” simply means “at this present time or at this moment.” Because the word "now" itself is time related and is a tense word. However, theologically speaking, the definition of “now” is not used to mean in the sense of time, like earlier, now, and later. The word “now” has a timeless conception. That means the word “now” is understood as indexical to the past, present, and future. And the "now" is equally and simultaneously with the past, present, and future because eternal nature of God is timeless.

The phrase "eternal now" is not found in Scriptures, but we see the Biblical descriptions for the concept. From the Biblical authors’ perspective of eternalness is metaphorical, that God has a "day," which was not implying time day but a timeless day (Psalms 90:4, 2 Peter 3:8). The biblical authors didn’t have hands-on knowledge about space-time theorem of general relativity. Even though they were aware of concept of eternal and concept of time but articulating them into words is a different story. After all, we are only human and have always lived in time. It is impossible for us to completely comprehend what it means for God to be eternal. There really is no analogy to express “eternalness” without using temporal to describe eternal or tense words to describe the Eternal God, like:

Example,

a). A person’s temporal existence confined to time ‘can and do’ experience a whole yesterday, a whole today, and a whole tomorrow. But the three days the person exist in are divisions of time intervals. A timespan from each three whole exclusive days. But not so in the eternal now. God’s eternal existence is a ‘wholeness’ of himself. He does not experience time, the eternal now is undivided, equally, and simultaneously as a whole.​

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b). Like right now I’m typing this post is simultaneous with the whole of eternity and the Roman siege of Jerusalem is simultaneous with the whole of eternity. God knows all-at-once of every part of our time wholly to himself. Since all times are known at once to God, then all times are simultaneously with each other. If B and C are simultaneously known by A, then B and C must be simultaneous with each other. That means God is timelessly known the fall of Rome and, in the same timeless now, he known the spilling of my coffee.​

God who exists outside of time knows all times that exist or will exist equally and simultaneously within the past and the future. All the future events and things do exist from God's standpoint of timelessness, even though, those stuff hasn't occurred from our standpoint of time, yet these things are equally real to God. Everything was created from him, through him, and for him. God knows the future as exhaustively. Your thoughts were known before you even thought it. He known each star, each grain of sand, and how many hairs you have on your head. He always has known precisely what is to happen at any future moment, and the future cannot be changed. He known all events equally and vividly simultaneously. From the laying down the foundations of the earth, to the entire course of history, and to the kingdom come is and always has been known by God.

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