Is it already over?

Our 'certainty' comes from what is revealed in God's Word, and yes, time only exists here. God exists outside of space and time, viewing all of our timeline at once. He knows all about us, from start to finish, instantly. But we need not scratch our heads about that. As you indicate in your profile, Jesus paid it all. That's all we need to know.

 

Psalm 90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

2 Peter 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

1 Timothy 3:9 Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.

Revelation 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

 

Sounds rather neoPlatonist to me. But that does not invalidate the idea. Personally I rebel against the determinism involved in "has already happened", and, the more I read these debates, the more I wonder whether it is accurate to say that God exists outside of time altogether. I remember all that New Testament class material on the difference between kairos time and chronos time .. and see God as waiting for opportune moments to interact with us.

 

Wow soulman!

The passages phatcat quote means that the way we think about time and what happens when do not help when describing God.

From science we know that an electron moves at the speed of light, does not ever impact time, and therefore experiences its every point in space at the same time.

Einstein talked about time bubbles. Time as three dimensional. So here's the deal. a time line is just a construct of causual events. It does not move at the same speed as other timelines. And God is beyond the bubble. So he knows what happens at all points within it, at the same time at every time.

So yes, there is a sense in which everything that is going to happen , as far as God's perspective goes, has already happened. From our perspective however, it has not happened yet at all.

Art Jaggard

 

I like to call it "God's Eternal Now"

 

It is similiar to a Parent knowing what will happen on a child's first day of school. The child has no idea because they have nothing to compare it to or nothing to relate it to but the parent is 'all-knowing' because of prior knowledge/experience.

Now I don't mean to belittle God's power or knowledge but we as a 'child' just can't relate to it or understand it. When we try to make it fit our limited understanding we miss the point and insult our 'parent'.