The Beginning of Time
By Fikayo Adeyemo
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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 |
Having considered the act of creation in a synoptic way, let us now take a closer look at the key issue of Time regarding this original work of God.
Notions of Time
The Scripture uses the word “Time” in two basic ways which we need to appreciate in order to understand the relationship of time to creation.
The first notion is Time of Succession. This describes the period during which an action or an event occurs, or a dimension representing a succession of such actions or events. This is the general way in which time is understood by people and it is the basic entity of time that was created at the beginning. The Greek word for it is kronos from which such words as chronometer, chronology, etc are derived. Under this notion, time is divided into quantitative segments like years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, etc. in hierarchical fashion. The fundamental basis of the divisions is the movements (rotations, revolutions and oscillations) of the cosmic bodies either in their gross forms or at atomic levels (i.e. objects of created matter) as established by God the Creator. This is the time of history and of dates. It is also the time of science and of computations. The Scripture is not very concerned with this notion of time (on its own merit), except to the extent that it may be engaged to qualify times of significance.
The second notion of time is Time of Significance. This views time not as a fixed point in the time-space continuum, but as the appropriate moment for something. This is the typical nature of the time of divine action and of human opportunity. (Ecclesiastes 3). The word in Greek is kairos and it indicates “proper” time, not necessarily preset to a particular chronos. It is the happening of an event at the beneficial moment that is of more significance than the precise hour of the occurrence. For instance, it is more important for our spiritual benefit to know that the prophet Isaiah had a life-changing revelation of God in the year that king Uzziah died than to identify the chronological year as, say, 740 BC. Similarly, the Bible is not concerned with whether Jesus Christ was born in 4 BC or 0 BC but that when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law. (Galatians 4:4) and that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have ever-lasting life (John 3:16) because truly, these (previous) times of ignorance God overlooked, but now (after the coming of Christ) commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man (Jesus) whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead. (Acts 17:30-31).
When Jesus declared in Mark 1:15 that "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." He certainly did not mean that a particular time such as 2:30 pm was predetermined for repentance and the clock had indicated its fulfillment!
Nonetheless, the chronos of an event may occasionally need to be identified after the event has happened usually for purposes of reference and history. In all, time of succession can be said to be elemental or foundational while time of significance, being higher, is secondary and applicative. Hence, the original time that God created was chronos. (Titus 1:2; 2Timothy 1:9)
When Was the Beginning?
Many people have attempted to determine chronologically, when God created the heavens and the earth. The most widely-known of these was the one by Archbishop. James Ussher, who declared in 1654 that he had traced back the dates of the Bible and arrived at 9:00 am of October 22. the year 4004 BC as the time of the Beginning of Genesis 1:1. What abysmal error!
There were at least four major reasons for this monumental blunder which many Christians have also partaken of, and are still doing today:
1 A deep-seated dissatisfaction with the purpose of the Scriptures (as made so clear for example in John 5:39 and 2Timothy 3:16-17) and a consequent attempt to use the Scripture for purposes it was never intended for by God. We know of course that the Bible accurately records many historical facts – but that does not make it a book of history; it has many outstanding geographical and cosmological facts which were declared even before science came to know them – yet it is not a book of geography or physics. As Christians, we are perfectly at liberty to declare what the Scriptures say, and to interpret under the leading of the Holy Spirit who will always only lead us in accordance with the principles of God. We are not at liberty to go beyond that.
2 A lack of consideration for the different uses of the word “Time” in the Bible, together with the different shades of meanings for words such as “Day”, “Week”, “Year”, etc. Once we set off on such a wrong foot, it be-comes suicidal, so to speak, to enter into a “competition” with science where “Day” always means twenty-four hours, and year means 365 and one-quarter days (lay approximations).
3 The mistaken notion that only certain particular interpretation of “literal” is holy and godly. And that who-soever does not have the same notion of interpretation as we do has “compromised” and/or even backslidden! Unfortunately, the people who exhibit this position always fail to follow it through to consistently apply the rule to the whole Scriptures. This, of course, is hypocritical.
4 Neglecting the fact that God did not create only the physical realm but also the spiritual realm and that these two realms which are differentiated by the type of substance they possess, (matter or spirit) make use of the time-space continuum differently. The fact that science does not even “officially” recognize the spiritual realm because it is beyond what the scientists can observe and measure with their puny equipment, should have warned Ussher against such an ill-advised enterprise.
The Big Bang
Currently, science has practically “settled” for the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, despite many unresolved fundamental problems. This is the idea that about 13.7 billion years ago, the universe started by an enormous explosion of an extremely hot and dense compact physical matter. Since then, it has been expanding and cooling down, forming numerous galaxies, stars, planets, etc. in the process. (We must not forget that there are other scientifically-valid mod-els that are very consistent with both the theory of relativity and practical observations. The Big Bang is merely the one that is favoured by those who thought they had something furthest from God. i.e. Its adoption was not on pure merit but on religious philosophy) So the question is, “Was the Big Bang the creation mentioned in Genesis 1:1? The answer in the first instance, is an emphatic NO because:
1 The Big Bang started with an unexplained physical entity already in place whereas God created entirely out of His eternal will – no preexisting substance was used – whether physical or spiritual, particle or wave.
2 Scientists insist that the Big Bang was the result of purely physical laws and principles inherent in matter with-out any intelligent guidance but we know that God created by His Wisdom.
But suppose the scientists admit that they could only have been partially right – at the most? Suppose they realize that the original source of the Big Bang must itself have a Source, that is, God? Suppose they even say that the Big Bag and the subsequent events (called Cosmic Evolution) could only have been designed and ordered by an intelligent being and moving toward a certain purpose? (See, the Anthropic Cosmological Principle, John D. Barrow / Frank J. Tipler). Suppose they tidy up their “house” and resolve the very many serious problems that show that the Big Bang may indeed be a big lie?
Suppose, suppose, suppose…?
Then we could say they have done well to discover, at last, what the Bible had established by revelation thousands of years previously. You see, God has revealed all the things that are needed for life and godliness to us by His power (2Peter 1:3) via the Bible which is actually speaking of Christ (John 5:39) and He expects us human beings to diligently search out the remaining (mundane) things (which are good for our existence here on earth but irrelevant to our spiritual life and eternity. - Proverbs 25:2). Therefore, the Bible never primarily talks about things that do not have eternal value except in a secondary way or to help clarify certain truths. It is never done in a didactic form. But because revelation is always superior to deduction, even such “incidental” comments remain true and ahead of science. For example, about 2000 years ago, God revealed that “images would be able to speak” (Revelation 13:15). No doubt, the scientists of that time would have had a good time laughing at such an idea, but now, science congratulates itself for images speaking on television, movies, computers, cartoons, etc. Similarly, the Bible revealed about 3000 years ago that God created the universe by wisdom (not by chance, but by intelligent design and purpose) and that there was an initial primeval dust (Proverbs 8:26) after which the rest of creation was formed in increasingly complex phases of six “days” (Genesis 1).
Creation of Time
With specific reference to Time, knowledgeable Christians would be quite amused by the exhilaration of scientists (Stephen Hawking et al, in "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology", 1970") about the "discovery" that time had a beginning. Prior to that moment, science had been very ignorant and undecided about this matter of Time, which, incidentally is an elementary principle of Christian doctrine based on biblical revelation (2 Timothy 1:9, Titus 1:2). It is also instructive to note that no other religion talks about the beginning of Time. To other faiths, when they refer to "creation" they imagine it to be "in time" - i.e. according to their doctrine, Time is eternal. I believe this fact alone is enough to show that truth resides only in the Christian Scriptures. To the scientists who are now wiser, the popular words of Robert Jastrow remain quite applicable
"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in
the power of reason, the story ends like a bad
dream. He has scaled the mountains of
ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest
peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he
is greeted by a band of theologians who have
been sitting there for centuries."
If science now, at last, appreciates these truths, good! If it goes ahead to search out the details not supplied by the Bible (e.g. duration, sequence, physical properties, chemical nature, etc.) but not in any way contrary to the Bible, better! But if science opines anything that is contrary to what the Bible has declared (e.g. saying that the original dust was self-existent and/or governed by its own inherent laws under no intelligence, then we say capital NO. As Christians, we oppose any theory that contradicts the Bible while remaining neutral to those that do not. If they have points of agreement with the Bible, we may point them out – not necessarily for the purpose of accepting such scientific theory, but to show how well they have progressed in getting nearer to the truth. Usually, such discoveries are tentative and the scientists keep on modifying them – practically to confess their inadequacies! We, as Christians do not therefore become followers of science with its ever-changing tenets. We remain followers of Christ whose truth, as Himself, is the same yesterday, today and forever more.
Till next issue, God bless you.
Notions of Time
The Scripture uses the word “Time” in two basic ways which we need to appreciate in order to understand the relationship of time to creation.
The first notion is Time of Succession. This describes the period during which an action or an event occurs, or a dimension representing a succession of such actions or events. This is the general way in which time is understood by people and it is the basic entity of time that was created at the beginning. The Greek word for it is kronos from which such words as chronometer, chronology, etc are derived. Under this notion, time is divided into quantitative segments like years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, etc. in hierarchical fashion. The fundamental basis of the divisions is the movements (rotations, revolutions and oscillations) of the cosmic bodies either in their gross forms or at atomic levels (i.e. objects of created matter) as established by God the Creator. This is the time of history and of dates. It is also the time of science and of computations. The Scripture is not very concerned with this notion of time (on its own merit), except to the extent that it may be engaged to qualify times of significance.
The second notion of time is Time of Significance. This views time not as a fixed point in the time-space continuum, but as the appropriate moment for something. This is the typical nature of the time of divine action and of human opportunity. (Ecclesiastes 3). The word in Greek is kairos and it indicates “proper” time, not necessarily preset to a particular chronos. It is the happening of an event at the beneficial moment that is of more significance than the precise hour of the occurrence. For instance, it is more important for our spiritual benefit to know that the prophet Isaiah had a life-changing revelation of God in the year that king Uzziah died than to identify the chronological year as, say, 740 BC. Similarly, the Bible is not concerned with whether Jesus Christ was born in 4 BC or 0 BC but that when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law. (Galatians 4:4) and that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have ever-lasting life (John 3:16) because truly, these (previous) times of ignorance God overlooked, but now (after the coming of Christ) commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man (Jesus) whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead. (Acts 17:30-31).
When Jesus declared in Mark 1:15 that "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." He certainly did not mean that a particular time such as 2:30 pm was predetermined for repentance and the clock had indicated its fulfillment!
Nonetheless, the chronos of an event may occasionally need to be identified after the event has happened usually for purposes of reference and history. In all, time of succession can be said to be elemental or foundational while time of significance, being higher, is secondary and applicative. Hence, the original time that God created was chronos. (Titus 1:2; 2Timothy 1:9)
When Was the Beginning?
Many people have attempted to determine chronologically, when God created the heavens and the earth. The most widely-known of these was the one by Archbishop. James Ussher, who declared in 1654 that he had traced back the dates of the Bible and arrived at 9:00 am of October 22. the year 4004 BC as the time of the Beginning of Genesis 1:1. What abysmal error!
There were at least four major reasons for this monumental blunder which many Christians have also partaken of, and are still doing today:
1 A deep-seated dissatisfaction with the purpose of the Scriptures (as made so clear for example in John 5:39 and 2Timothy 3:16-17) and a consequent attempt to use the Scripture for purposes it was never intended for by God. We know of course that the Bible accurately records many historical facts – but that does not make it a book of history; it has many outstanding geographical and cosmological facts which were declared even before science came to know them – yet it is not a book of geography or physics. As Christians, we are perfectly at liberty to declare what the Scriptures say, and to interpret under the leading of the Holy Spirit who will always only lead us in accordance with the principles of God. We are not at liberty to go beyond that.
2 A lack of consideration for the different uses of the word “Time” in the Bible, together with the different shades of meanings for words such as “Day”, “Week”, “Year”, etc. Once we set off on such a wrong foot, it be-comes suicidal, so to speak, to enter into a “competition” with science where “Day” always means twenty-four hours, and year means 365 and one-quarter days (lay approximations).
3 The mistaken notion that only certain particular interpretation of “literal” is holy and godly. And that who-soever does not have the same notion of interpretation as we do has “compromised” and/or even backslidden! Unfortunately, the people who exhibit this position always fail to follow it through to consistently apply the rule to the whole Scriptures. This, of course, is hypocritical.
4 Neglecting the fact that God did not create only the physical realm but also the spiritual realm and that these two realms which are differentiated by the type of substance they possess, (matter or spirit) make use of the time-space continuum differently. The fact that science does not even “officially” recognize the spiritual realm because it is beyond what the scientists can observe and measure with their puny equipment, should have warned Ussher against such an ill-advised enterprise.
The Big Bang
Currently, science has practically “settled” for the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, despite many unresolved fundamental problems. This is the idea that about 13.7 billion years ago, the universe started by an enormous explosion of an extremely hot and dense compact physical matter. Since then, it has been expanding and cooling down, forming numerous galaxies, stars, planets, etc. in the process. (We must not forget that there are other scientifically-valid mod-els that are very consistent with both the theory of relativity and practical observations. The Big Bang is merely the one that is favoured by those who thought they had something furthest from God. i.e. Its adoption was not on pure merit but on religious philosophy) So the question is, “Was the Big Bang the creation mentioned in Genesis 1:1? The answer in the first instance, is an emphatic NO because:
1 The Big Bang started with an unexplained physical entity already in place whereas God created entirely out of His eternal will – no preexisting substance was used – whether physical or spiritual, particle or wave.
2 Scientists insist that the Big Bang was the result of purely physical laws and principles inherent in matter with-out any intelligent guidance but we know that God created by His Wisdom.
But suppose the scientists admit that they could only have been partially right – at the most? Suppose they realize that the original source of the Big Bang must itself have a Source, that is, God? Suppose they even say that the Big Bag and the subsequent events (called Cosmic Evolution) could only have been designed and ordered by an intelligent being and moving toward a certain purpose? (See, the Anthropic Cosmological Principle, John D. Barrow / Frank J. Tipler). Suppose they tidy up their “house” and resolve the very many serious problems that show that the Big Bang may indeed be a big lie?
Suppose, suppose, suppose…?
Then we could say they have done well to discover, at last, what the Bible had established by revelation thousands of years previously. You see, God has revealed all the things that are needed for life and godliness to us by His power (2Peter 1:3) via the Bible which is actually speaking of Christ (John 5:39) and He expects us human beings to diligently search out the remaining (mundane) things (which are good for our existence here on earth but irrelevant to our spiritual life and eternity. - Proverbs 25:2). Therefore, the Bible never primarily talks about things that do not have eternal value except in a secondary way or to help clarify certain truths. It is never done in a didactic form. But because revelation is always superior to deduction, even such “incidental” comments remain true and ahead of science. For example, about 2000 years ago, God revealed that “images would be able to speak” (Revelation 13:15). No doubt, the scientists of that time would have had a good time laughing at such an idea, but now, science congratulates itself for images speaking on television, movies, computers, cartoons, etc. Similarly, the Bible revealed about 3000 years ago that God created the universe by wisdom (not by chance, but by intelligent design and purpose) and that there was an initial primeval dust (Proverbs 8:26) after which the rest of creation was formed in increasingly complex phases of six “days” (Genesis 1).
Creation of Time
With specific reference to Time, knowledgeable Christians would be quite amused by the exhilaration of scientists (Stephen Hawking et al, in "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology", 1970") about the "discovery" that time had a beginning. Prior to that moment, science had been very ignorant and undecided about this matter of Time, which, incidentally is an elementary principle of Christian doctrine based on biblical revelation (2 Timothy 1:9, Titus 1:2). It is also instructive to note that no other religion talks about the beginning of Time. To other faiths, when they refer to "creation" they imagine it to be "in time" - i.e. according to their doctrine, Time is eternal. I believe this fact alone is enough to show that truth resides only in the Christian Scriptures. To the scientists who are now wiser, the popular words of Robert Jastrow remain quite applicable
"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in
the power of reason, the story ends like a bad
dream. He has scaled the mountains of
ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest
peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he
is greeted by a band of theologians who have
been sitting there for centuries."
If science now, at last, appreciates these truths, good! If it goes ahead to search out the details not supplied by the Bible (e.g. duration, sequence, physical properties, chemical nature, etc.) but not in any way contrary to the Bible, better! But if science opines anything that is contrary to what the Bible has declared (e.g. saying that the original dust was self-existent and/or governed by its own inherent laws under no intelligence, then we say capital NO. As Christians, we oppose any theory that contradicts the Bible while remaining neutral to those that do not. If they have points of agreement with the Bible, we may point them out – not necessarily for the purpose of accepting such scientific theory, but to show how well they have progressed in getting nearer to the truth. Usually, such discoveries are tentative and the scientists keep on modifying them – practically to confess their inadequacies! We, as Christians do not therefore become followers of science with its ever-changing tenets. We remain followers of Christ whose truth, as Himself, is the same yesterday, today and forever more.
Till next issue, God bless you.
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