“Before Time” Is Self-Contradictory! (Updated 4x)
Apr 23rd, 2009 by Micah Tillman | 4 Comments |
Dr. Thomas is now talking about election (in his “Theological Foundations” lectures), which, he keeps insisting, happened “before time.”
*shakes head sadly*
He understands that what happens “in God” happens “outside time,” and therefore cannot be ordered using time words. There he gets points.
What he doesn’t get is that if God is outside time, you cannot relate God to time, nor time to God, using time words without serious qualifications and constant cries of “This is all metaphorical!”
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To say something is “before,” “after,” or “simultaneous with” something else, the two things have to be inside the same time. But God and time are not inside time.
The term “before time” screams out, “I am self-contradictory, and therefore either stupidity or a metaphor!”
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Dr. Thomas recognizes that saying any one of God’s “decrees” happens before any of the others “in Him” is metaphorical. But not that saying any one of God’s “decrees” happens before time.
In other words, he understand God’s relation to Himself as being atemporal, but not God’s relation to the World.
And he’s not alone, by any stretch.
*Update*
I’m now on lecture 17 (I’m typing up notes, which doesn’t require any brain activity at all, so I’m listening to the lectures at the same time), and Dr. Thomas just said:
All Calvinists agree that the intial links [in the Golden Chain of God's decrees] were in Eternity Past, and that the final ones are in Eternity Future.
He’s discussing infra- and supralapsarianism, now.
*Update 2*
Still on the lapsarianism thing.
While making the excellent point that the “order” of the “decrees” of God has to be a logical, not a temporal order — since they happen (Dr. Thomas agrees) “outside of time” — Dr. Thomas says:
All four of these decrees [the decree of the creation of humans, the decree of the fall, the decree of election, and the decree of reprobation (?)] take place before Creation, and before the Fall.
*Update 3*
And again:
All of these decrees were before the Fall. The decree to allow the Fall was before the Fall, as it [the Fall] took place in time.
*Update 4*
And then he gets 100 points!
Dr. Thomas just noted that the word “simultaneous” is still a time word, and therefore that it probably isn’t right to say that God’s decrees happened “simultaneously.” Other than yours truly, Dr. Thomas is the first person I’ve heard say this (that I can remember, anyway).
Whenever I hear anyone use the phrase “Before Time” in conjunction with God, I always get this picture of God hanging out with those animated dinosaurs from the 80′s film “The Land Before Time.”
In fact, from now on, any time I hear someone using faulty theology or bad logic- I’m going to pretend that the person using it is hanging out with Littlefoot (I had to go to wikipedia to get that name).
With that picture in my head, I think the conversation will be a lot more fun for me.
*laugh*
I’ve always wanted to eat “tree stars.”
Hi Micah:
I noted the question mark after the “Decree of Reprobation.” I wasn’t sure if this meant you didn’t know what he was talking about or if you did know what the term meant but just didn’t agree with his use of it.
I spent a couple minutes researching it. My shallow understanding is that the decree of reprobation is God’s making an active decision to not save everyone.
I’m perhaps missing the point, but the claim strikes me as quite disgusting. It’s one thing to claim that, unfortunately, only certain people will make it to heaven. It’s a whole other thing, though, to say that God actively made this decision.
The question mark was indeed for the Decree of Reprobation, in that I wasn’t sure whether it counted as a separate Decree for Calvinists (separate, that is, from the Decree of Election). But since Dr. Thomas said there were four decrees (in the particular context he was speaking about), I figured it must be the fourth. But I wasn’t sure, and didn’t feel like going back to listen to paragraph or so that preceded the comment in hopes of getting a more explicit statement.
I believe you are correct as to what it is. And I think it’s disgusting too. From what I can tell, however, given what Dr. Thomas said in his lectures on “Total Depravity,” our revulsion at such ideas is just a sign of our depravity, not a moral reaction we can actually trust.
And I find that both petty and insulting (in addition to it being an argumentum ad hominem informal fallacy). But that’s just a sign of my total depravity.
Fortunately, I don’t think Dr. Thomas is either petty or insulting as a person, and is only rarely petty and insulting in his statements. He sounds like a really great guy (his accent sure helps!) and he’s Star Trek fan. And that gives him extra points, in my book.