Why Time Probably Works Very Differently in God's World Than in Our World
In earlier posts, I referred to the idea that our universe (this Earth and solar system) is a smaller entity nestled within God's wider Universe. This notion is something that Christians will be familiar with anyway through their faith, although many atheists may be uncomfortable with the concept.
Rest assured there are many secular movies and books that deal with a universe-within-a-universe concept, the most familiar of these being the movie The Matrix. In this movie, there is a specific way to move into and out of the nestled universe from the larger universe. In The Matrix, someone from the outer universe could move in and out of it via a jack that went into the back of their head, to create an electronic connection with the inner universe, which was an entirely virtual universe. However, this inner virtual universe was indistinguishable from reality to those within it.
This led me to consider the ways in which we move into our inner universe, and out of it into God's wider Universe. We are born into this inner universe. This is totally out of our control, by the way. No individual human can choose for themselves to be born, or when. And we move out of our inner universe and into God's outer Universe when we die. In the vast majority of cases we do not have control over the timing of that event either (exceptions being cases such as suicide or extreme foolhardiness). In a sense then, since we don't usually have control over our entry or exit, we could say that in practice time is what clocks us in and clocks us out of this universe. I don't mean to invoke a Calvinistic idea that everything is predestined - it's not, and we do have free will. However, since we can't (and aren't supposed to) control our entry and exit ourselves, we sort of have to 'wait' until it happens - meaning that we are dependent on time for that. Indeed, the death rate is 1 per person. Everyone eventually dies; it just comes down to when. So time as we know it clocks us in and out of this world of Earth and its solar system.
Now, when God created the Earth and its solar system (which to us is enormous but to God is not), he imparted a bunch of physical laws to it. It is probably safe to assume that time as we know it is one of those laws. Everything is pretty much 'clocked' in our world - there is a sequence of events, and cause-and-effect exists.
Again, I'm not saying that everything is predestined. It's not. It's just that time runs one way. You can make your own decisions during the running of time, and they are your decisions, not predestined. In fact you may have wished you could turn back the clock on some not-so-good decision or action you made! - yet you can't. You're free to make your decisions, but, to consider time as a river, you can choose to move to one side or the other of the river as much as you want (i.e. your own decision) while running downstream. But you can't swim upstream (backwards in time).
So God made this universe (big to us; little to him), and clocked it pretty heavily, I think. He kind of had to, in order to let us get in and out of it and to have our lives happen during this time.
To use a sort of an analogy, humans have built computers. Inside a computer, the CPU clocks everything very carefully - in timescales that are much tinier than what is meaningful to us as humans. Every event the computer does is timed in a specific way. It runs off a clock that goes in increments much tinier than what we are used to experiencing in practice ourselves.
Thus, suppose you leave your computer on, and plan to come back to it in say an hour, then you might say to yourself "I'll be back in an hour." You would not say "I will be back in 50 zillion cycles of the CPU." Because your 1 hour is the 'real' time (to you). The 50 zillion CPU cycles is an artificial time construct (based on yours, but still in a sense artificial) and not of especial meaning in your universe. The number of CPU cycles, however, have incredible importance within the universe of the computer. Your 1 hour is an abstract and not very concrete concept to the CPU, or rather, it would equate to an enormous number of CPU cycles.
Likewise, I think that time probably works very differently in practice and in meaning in God's world than our world (but is still somehow related) . We live in a CPU-like world where time as we know it is an artificial construct made just for us (i.e. the inhabitants of Earth and the physical universe we know). Our time is based on some sort of a 'real' time construct out in God's universe (the nature of it I do not know, not having been there).
So, while time as we know it is important and necessary for our world, time probably works very differently in God's outer Universe.
If you found this post interesting, you might also like these related posts on this blog:
Rest assured there are many secular movies and books that deal with a universe-within-a-universe concept, the most familiar of these being the movie The Matrix. In this movie, there is a specific way to move into and out of the nestled universe from the larger universe. In The Matrix, someone from the outer universe could move in and out of it via a jack that went into the back of their head, to create an electronic connection with the inner universe, which was an entirely virtual universe. However, this inner virtual universe was indistinguishable from reality to those within it.
This led me to consider the ways in which we move into our inner universe, and out of it into God's wider Universe. We are born into this inner universe. This is totally out of our control, by the way. No individual human can choose for themselves to be born, or when. And we move out of our inner universe and into God's outer Universe when we die. In the vast majority of cases we do not have control over the timing of that event either (exceptions being cases such as suicide or extreme foolhardiness). In a sense then, since we don't usually have control over our entry or exit, we could say that in practice time is what clocks us in and clocks us out of this universe. I don't mean to invoke a Calvinistic idea that everything is predestined - it's not, and we do have free will. However, since we can't (and aren't supposed to) control our entry and exit ourselves, we sort of have to 'wait' until it happens - meaning that we are dependent on time for that. Indeed, the death rate is 1 per person. Everyone eventually dies; it just comes down to when. So time as we know it clocks us in and out of this world of Earth and its solar system.
Now, when God created the Earth and its solar system (which to us is enormous but to God is not), he imparted a bunch of physical laws to it. It is probably safe to assume that time as we know it is one of those laws. Everything is pretty much 'clocked' in our world - there is a sequence of events, and cause-and-effect exists.
Again, I'm not saying that everything is predestined. It's not. It's just that time runs one way. You can make your own decisions during the running of time, and they are your decisions, not predestined. In fact you may have wished you could turn back the clock on some not-so-good decision or action you made! - yet you can't. You're free to make your decisions, but, to consider time as a river, you can choose to move to one side or the other of the river as much as you want (i.e. your own decision) while running downstream. But you can't swim upstream (backwards in time).
So God made this universe (big to us; little to him), and clocked it pretty heavily, I think. He kind of had to, in order to let us get in and out of it and to have our lives happen during this time.
To use a sort of an analogy, humans have built computers. Inside a computer, the CPU clocks everything very carefully - in timescales that are much tinier than what is meaningful to us as humans. Every event the computer does is timed in a specific way. It runs off a clock that goes in increments much tinier than what we are used to experiencing in practice ourselves.
Thus, suppose you leave your computer on, and plan to come back to it in say an hour, then you might say to yourself "I'll be back in an hour." You would not say "I will be back in 50 zillion cycles of the CPU." Because your 1 hour is the 'real' time (to you). The 50 zillion CPU cycles is an artificial time construct (based on yours, but still in a sense artificial) and not of especial meaning in your universe. The number of CPU cycles, however, have incredible importance within the universe of the computer. Your 1 hour is an abstract and not very concrete concept to the CPU, or rather, it would equate to an enormous number of CPU cycles.
Likewise, I think that time probably works very differently in practice and in meaning in God's world than our world (but is still somehow related) . We live in a CPU-like world where time as we know it is an artificial construct made just for us (i.e. the inhabitants of Earth and the physical universe we know). Our time is based on some sort of a 'real' time construct out in God's universe (the nature of it I do not know, not having been there).
So, while time as we know it is important and necessary for our world, time probably works very differently in God's outer Universe.
If you found this post interesting, you might also like these related posts on this blog:
- God's Earth and Outer Space - a universe within a Universe
- Why do some Atheists Struggle to Accept God, Yet Would Supposedly Accept a "Matrix-Like" World?
- Blessed Assurance - How do you Know You Have Accepted the Salvation Offered Through Jesus?
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