Is God Bound by Time?

by Bodie Hodge on May 19, 2006

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Is the universe infinite? If so, who created God?

I have responded once again to your website not to debate your beliefs, no matter how stuped they are, but to answer the question most Christians ask me:

C: Who created the Earth, and the universe?

M: It was always there.

X: It had to have been created, it couldn’t have always been there. Everything needs a beginning, it had to start somewhere.

Mike to Christians:

M: Who created God?

X: He was always there.

Does that clear up how stupid your beliefs are?
Mike.

I have responded once again to your website not to debate your beliefs, no matter how stuped they are, but to answer the question most Christians ask me:

C: Who created the Earth, and the universe?

M: It was always there.

This doesn’t agree with observational science. Few scientists, including materialists/naturalists, adhere to a steady state universe (having an infinite past)—and for good reasons. Everything is winding down and if the universe is infinitely old, the usable energy should have been extinguished long ago (see Get Answers: Thermodynamics and Order for more details). This is why most materialists/naturalists adhere to big bang models that have a beginning in time. (The big bang hypothesis has its own problems. Please see Big Bang)

X: It had to have been created, it couldn’t have always been there. Everything needs a beginning, it had to start somewhere.

This is part of the principle of causality. It is misstated, however; it would be better stated: “everything that has a beginning has a cause” (see If God created the universe, then who created God?). Thus your argument below is incorrect, but I will deal with that in a moment.

If one doesn’t accept causality, then one can’t rightly accept any scientific fact based on science methodology, since scientific method has assumptions—one of which is causality.

Mike to Christians:

M: Who created God?

X: He was always there.

Your question presupposes that time is infinite in the past, and that God is bound by time. However, time is finite; it has a beginning. This is confirmed by Einstein’s general relativity which, depending on boundary conditions, yields a beginning to the universe, linking time to space and matter.

I always am blessed by the articles featured in Answers in Geneseis Weekly News that I receive electronically but I particularly appreciated Dr. Lisle's answer (featured on April 7) to the person who insisted that science should be abandoned in order to accept the Bible. I am a practicing professional nuclear engineer (33 years of experience) as well as a licensed attorney and the concept of the Bible being the proper foundation for good science is one with which I am both familiar and comfortable. I once was an adjunct professor teaching a math course at a local college for a professor who was ill and I always added a heading to the exams that I gave. The heading read, "Mathmatics is man's attempt to describe the awesome order in God's creation." Thank you for anchoring to such sound and fundamental truths.
– Dan Williams, USA

God is beyond time; He did not come into existence at some point within time. Instead, He claims that, rather than having a beginning, He is the Beginning and the End (Revelation 22:13). In light of this, your question is an illogical one. God didn’t come from anywhere or anyone. God is the source of everything, and He created time. Time is not absolute; God is absolute. When someone asks where God came from or who created Him, they are assuming time is absolute and God isn’t—but this isn’t the God of the Bible.

To further illustrate, consider the following questions. “On what page of Hamlet could I find Shakespeare?” or “which page of Hamlet comes before Shakespeare?” Are they valid? No, obviously they aren’t. This is because Shakespeare wrote the book and isn’t confined to it. He is not part of the book.

Now apply this to God. God created time. Yet people ask, “who created God and where did God come from?” They are assuming that God is bound by time when asking a question like this. In other words, they believe that time was first and then God came on to the scene. From the Bible we learn that time had a beginning (Genesis 1)—that it was started by God, thus God is not bound by time.

The misconception lies with the view of time. Either time is infinite and God is bound by it, or God created time and time is not infinite. This can be visualized by Figure 1.

Figure 1. Fallacious view that time is infinite and God is bound by it

God, in Job 38, has laid claim that He created time (since time is part of the physical world, along with the three dimensions of height, width and length), thus the timeline of history and the future should be viewed as Figure 2.

Figure 2. Proper view of God with respect to time

When someone says that God is bound by time, they are saying that God is bound inside of what He created. This is a fallacy. Recall that God created everything physical—including time—because there was a beginning (Genesis 1:1). God had no beginning, and thus does not have a cause.

Does that clear up how stupid your beliefs are?

Mike.
USA

If you are implying inconsistency or lack of logic, I hope this causes you to reconsider your question. I want to encourage you to study this in more detail.

Kind regards in Christ,
Bodie Hodge, AiG–USA