What was God doing before creation for all
eternity?
This question is asked sometimes with an
idea that it would absurd to believe that God was doing nothing and therefore
the whole idea of an eternal God creating is unreasonable. This has been argued y P.C. W. Davies according
to Dr. William Craig:
“Davies argues that God can be neither temporal nor timeless. He
says that God cannot be timeless because God, as described in the Bible, is a
person; but persons are inherently temporal in nature. They act and react,
they're conscious beings who deliberate and anticipate and remember. They think
about things. They intend to do things and then carry out those projects. All
of these are temporal activities, and therefore if God is personal, as the
Bible claims, God cannot be atemporal, or timeless. On the other hand, says Davies, neither can
God be temporal. For if God exists in time, then He is subject to the laws of
relativity theory, which govern, space and time, and therefore He cannot be
omnipotent because he's under the laws of nature. So the theist is confronted
with a dilemma’”
We will deal with these two aspects of the God’s
relationship with time as we deal with this topic, but for now we can see that
these are some of the struggles that can appear to be facing those who believe
in a personal God who is both eternal, omnipotent, and personal.
How can we answer this question?
First, most humbly perhaps, we would have to
say that we don’t know since God has not told us clearly what God was
doing.
My ignorance does not mean that the answer
is either “nothing” or absurd. It just
means that I don’t know. Just because we
could not imagine an answer to this question does not means there is no answer.
So agnosticism concerning this question may be the most humble response.
Second we do know that in the Christian
perspective of “One God who exists eternally in three persons” that the three
persons of the Trinity were in loving and respectful relationship,
conversation, and dialogue would fit the outlook of the Messiah Jesus.
Gospel of the Apostle John
17:5 NASB - "5 "Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with
the glory which I had with You before the world was."
The idea of glory is the communication of
truth and beauty. So this is an
indication that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were active in relating and
communicating before creation. This
would also mean the planning of creation, redemption, and judgment as well,
would have been part of the conversation. This seems to be in the thought of the
Apostle Paul
Letter to the Ephesians 1:3-4 NASB - "3 Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation
of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love"
So this would seem to be part of what was occurring
for God before the creation of the world.
This problem is made more difficult because
of God’s relationship with time. Some
would say that God is “timeless” or outside of time entirely or is the Maker of
heaven and earth relationship to time on of “divine temporality”, in which the
LORD of creation has always existed in eternal time? [1]
This topic is worth its own discussion and
Christian thinkers differ on this issue.
The scripture would seem to support a type of “both/and” approach in which
God before creation was “timeless” and after creation entered into the realm of
“time” as part of divine involvement in creation. The prophet Isaiah reflects on this when he
says:
Isaiah 57:15 ESV - "15
For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose
name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who
is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to
revive the heart of the contrite."
Isaiah 57:15 NASB - "15
For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy,
"I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of
spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of
the contrite."
It should be noted that bible translations
are divided on this philosophical issue of God’s relationship with time and
this is reflected in the two translations used above.
What is clear that Isaiah is saying that God
exists in a high and separated place not being part of creation and yet has
decided to be deeply involved with those who are seeking truth and struggling
with their moral failures. He is both
“far away” from us in being the only being that has existed forever and is not
created, yet near us because of God’s concern and care for us.
Now if we take the timeless view of God with
time being part of creation, then the question of what God was doing before the
creation of the world is a problem of applying a category of “before” which
does not actually relate to God. Being
“timeless” all that happens in time happens as a singularity or as an eternal
“now”. Therefore in this view there is
no “before or after” only “NOW”. So
then the question simply does not exist for a being that is “timeless”.
If God simply “lives forever” within time
then the question can be explained in part with the discussion of the Triune
God being in dynamic and ongoing relationship and dialogue with each
other. The Christian view of God as
Triune would be superior at this point in answering the questions over a simple
view of God, which did not include a Triune conception of God’s nature.
Now if God simply “lives forever” we would
also have to fall back on the humble agnosticism which simply says that we can
only really know things about God if they are revealed to us and without such
revelation any theories we may hold would reflect mere wild speculations.
However, not knowing is not the same as
demanding that some type of impossible paradox exists which would demand we
reject faith in a personal and all powerful God. To make an argument from silence, would be
to not honor the lack of divine revelation we have on this topic or be
valid.
Therefore, we see that we can say that the
Triune God was in relationship within the Godhead and that there is not
impossible paradox set up by those who would raise this question.
Here is a discussion on this topic that looks at how
we could resolve these issues.
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