Long ago in Sophomore English class, I often wondered if I would ever use some of the bizarre poetry and literature we poor young minds were forced to slog through. Well, younger self (if you’re reading this through some sort of time warp), today is one of those days.

John Godfrey Saxe’s poem, “The Blind Men and the Elephant“, which is based on an older Indian legend, tells a story of six blind men who encounter an elephant. The first one feels the side of the elephant and claims that the elephant is like a big wall. The second one feels its tusk and says, no, it is like a spear. The third one feels its tail and says that an elephant is like a snake. And so on… The jist of the story (I really was listening, Mrs. B!) was that the elephant was too big for any one man to comprehend, and that the collective view of the elephant was much closer to right than the individual viewpoints of the elephant.

Having read recent discussions over on the group blog I manage dealing with Pelagius, semipelagianism, monergism, synergism, open theism, and mixtures of -isms from the practical folk who don’t talk in -isms, I am drawn back to this analogy for a number of reasons, but primarily to to the nature of God and Time.

The Characters in the Story

Most churches in modern Christianity would agree that God is the Creator of time and space, and that He is not bound by them. This is summed up in His name – I AM – So, in my use of this story, God and his relationship with time comprise the ‘elephant’.

We humans, God’s created beings, are bound three dimensions of space and a half of one dimension of time (we experience it in one direction). Therefore, it is literally impossible for us to create a frame of reference in which we can completely understand time. (If you do not believe this, imagine that you lived in a two-dimensional world and you had to explain thickness.) In this story, we are the blind men.

Interacting with the Elephant

Each of us can interact with the elephant to feel and experience it, but we also have a very limited frame of reference. Unfortunately, like the blind men in the story, we treat our frame of reference as the only valid frame, where everyone else is mistaken and must be feeling something other than the real elephant.

The key mistakes that each of us tend to make are 1) assuming we have the only valid frame of reference, and more importantly; 2) we place the entire elephant inside our frame of reference! We then build our entire systems of theology around our single view of the elephant, all the while mocking/cajoling/condemning the other blind men who are busy doing the same thing with their limited view.

Individual Interactions

Some of us, primarily of the Calvinist persuasion, read parts of scripture which emphasize God having foreknowledge and predestining people or events. Everything else about God and time is then forced through this filter of ‘preknowing’. This ends up ignoring or reinterpreting other wide swaths of scripture which make it evident that God allows man to choose certain things, or that show that God has changed His mind (I guess He was just fakin’ it), or – worse yet – having a man, be it Abraham, Moses, Hezekiah or other prophets/kings, convince Him to change his mind. It also puts Jesus in a bizarre kabuki dance in the garden of Gathsemene, in which Jesus is God but he prays to God to change His mind, but He does not. In the end, God comes out being something much less than God, where fatalism trumps love.

Others of us, primarily of the Arminian persuasion, read parts of scripture which emphasize men choosing to follow or not to follow guidance, Torah, given by God. Everything is then forced through this filter of ‘free will’, ignoring parts of scripture which show God predestining or having foreknowledge of something, like tacking an extra 15 years on to someone’s life, which would limit all sorts of choices. Additionally, when taken to extremes, God becomes little more than a servant to man’s whims, idling by on the sidelines hoping that man will notice Him there. In the end, God comes out being something much less than God, where easy-believism trumps soveriegnity.

Still others tend to follow an Open Theistic line of reasoning in which God doesn’t really foreknow things, but man doesn’t really have complete free will, either. However, it puts man and God into a position in which prayer makes logical sense, where God may be persuaded, but still remain God. This view, while much newer, tends to ignore God’s omniscience and omnipotence, trapping Him within the bounds of His creation. Scripturally, this line of reasoning also does a lot of picking and choosing what to take literally and what to take figuratively, kind of like my previous post on Purdue’s Old Oaken Bucket. In the end, God comes out being something much less than God, where uncertainty trumps omnipotence.

In all of these views, systems are built upon one key aspect, or set of related aspects: foreknowledge, free will, relationship

I would posit, though, that each is but one view of the whole, which is impossible for us to see in its entirety. I would posit that each view, in and of itself, builds a system based on its own limited eisegesis of scripture. I would posit that the most accurate view possible for us to attain is in accepting that the basis of each of these views, like those of the elephant, are all correct and not in contradiction to one another. I would posit that any apparent contradiction exists because of the previously mentioned shortcoming in our blindness – we try to place God inside of time in order to understand Him, when He clearly exists apart from it.

[Note - if science and physics make your head spin, skip the next section and replace it in your mind with the phrase 'it is a mystery how time works, but it works for God in ways different than we understand'.]

The Nature of Time

From where we sit, time exists in a straight, one-dimensional line, running in a single direction through distinct, set points in the past to distinct, set points in the future. Additionally, we only experience time in one direction – forward.Â

In the world of physics, string theory and superstring theory define the existence of 7 to 20 dimensions beyond our own. Unfortunately, we are not capable of visualizing this because of our being trapped in our own 3.5 dimensions. With God sitting beyond time and space as its Creator, what is it like for Him to be able to move ‘right’ or ‘left’ or ‘up’ or ‘down’ or ‘backward’ in time? We only understand how ‘forward’ in time works. Those other directions cannot be explained where we sit.

What if God’s will is such that when He declares something will happen, all other potential futures and pasts in which that event would not happen cease to exist, but all other potential futures/pasts exist? What if God exists as omnipotent and omniscient in all of those potential futures/pasts? These are the kinds of questions you start to get into the nature of time, as God would be able to experience it.

It is a mystery how time works, but I think it is safe to say that it works for God in different ways than we can understand.

God in a Box

When we eschew the mystery apparent in scripture, when two explicit concepts appear to contradict one another (like free will and predestination, or an unchanging God changing His mind), and choose instead to build a systematic theology around the concept(s) that seem most pleasing to us, we are, in effect, seeking for the tree from which Adam ate, and laying the first bricks of the tower of Babel all over again.

In this entire debate about God and time, we have placed Him in a box called ‘Time (as we experience it)’, trading comfort for truth. Truth that we truly can’t handle the truth. Literally.

God out of the Box

God told Moses that if he looked upon Him it would destroy him, but that Moses could look and see where God had been.

Imagine, if you will, that you, a three-dimensional being, wanted to interact with a bieng in a two-dimensional world (like a piece of paper). In order to do so, you would have one of two choices: 1) punch a hole in the two-dimensional world, which would destroy the two-dimensional being in the process, or 2) become two-dimensional, yourself, accepting the limitations of that frame of existence, so that you could fit into that world without destroying it.

Does option #2 sound at all familiar to you?

All the Answers

Lest I become like those I am likely criticizing right now, I think this entire discussion boils down to: God is God and I am not. I can’t fully know how He works, so I had best accept the descriptions of how He works as true. If His workings seem contradictory, it is because I don’t or very well can’t understand how they work in concert.

It is up to me to act as if God has given me free will to choose to obey Him or to follow my own, mistaken way – how would I know the difference between having free will or being predestined? It is up to me to pray and petition, and it doesn’t really matter if God changes His mind, or if it was preordained – it will look the same to me, either way. It is up to me to realize that I can’t do anything to earn His grace – it has already been given to me freely. It is up to me to evangelize as if other men have been given the free will to choose to obey Him or follow their own, mistaken way.

It is up to me to believe that God told the truth when He said that He is love, and that He always acts in this capacity.