Ask Father Mateo


Msg Base:  AREA 5  - ASK FATHER            CIN ECHO   AMDG
  Msg No: 287.  Wed  4-22-92 22:01  (NO KILL)  (MAILED)
    From: Father Mateo
      To: Bob Whelton
 Subject: God and Time

+-
| I asked this question before but am still not clear on how God perceives
| what for us is in the future. Since God already knows whether I will be
| in Heaven and since God's existence is all time, from God's perspective
| does He see my life in one shot so that for him I actully am in Heaven
| and here?  there is no time and no future then I must be in Heaven from
| God's view. If not how do two different points in time, for instance my
| birth and my death, appear to God?
+-[BW=>FM]
 
Dear Bob:
 
God is not in time.  He exists outside of time, unlimited by the
conditions of time.  Time is the matrix in which material beings,
including humans, exist.
 
God is eternally present to every moment of time because he is
eternally present, period.
 
It is not good to say:  "God`s existence is all time".  That is
meaningless. As a weak analogy, you can see that the statement, "All
color is wet" is meaningless.  You can not put two sorts of qualities
into the same sentence, joined by "is".  Even more, you cannot predicate
anything of time about God as He is in Himself.
 
Don't fret, please, that this is hard to understand.  If you are
content to know what God ISN'T, you've come a long way.  About what
God IS, we know very very very little.
 
 
                                Sincerely in Christ,
 
 
                                Father Mateo