The Right Lens for Interpreting Scripture (Part 2 of 2)
Indeed, if such an idea were taught in scripture it would serve to falsify the entire Christian faith. Timelessness is a philosophical fiction. A timeless being is a contradiction in terms. Being presupposes time. Existence presupposes duration. Time is simply the relationship that one event has to another. When we speak about time, we are talking about the duration and sequence of events relative to other events. To act, to think, to know, to choose, to speak, to be, to live are not things that happen "within" time; they are time in motion. They are events that occur either before, during, or after other events. Strip away succession, and you have stripped away the very possibility of action or identity, because both action and identity are events. A being that does not experience before and after is not living, not conscious, not anything at all. It is not merely less than personal; it is utterly incoherent.
The God of Scripture is not timeless. He speaks, He remembers, He anticipates, He fulfills. These are not metaphors; they are the grammar of life. Time is not a container that limits God. On the contrary, duration and succession are inherent to existence itself. The God of Scripture does not step into time as a concession to our finitude. He simply exists. You cannot have existence without duration. You cannot have identity without continuity. The living God does not feign sequence. He lives it. And it is precisely this that makes relationship possible, redemption meaningful, and love real.
Some, however, will object. They will say that to affirm God's eternal existence as a sequence of lived moments is to introduce an infinite regress. If there was no first moment in God's life, how did we ever arrive at this moment? If there are infinite steps behind us, how have we moved forward? Surely, they reason, an infinite past is impossible.
This objection arises from a misunderstanding of what infinity is. An infinite regress is only a problem if one imagines that infinity must be crossed like a finish line. Yet infinity is not a finish line. It is not a journey that must be completed. On the contrary, it is the absence of any starting point or terminus. We did not arrive here by traveling from the first moment of God's existence. There never was a first moment. Just as there is no first negative number, there is no earliest moment in the life of the eternal God. His life is not measured by countable events but by the boundlessly infinite, continuous fullness of being.
Some have claimed that an actual infinite cannot exist and that an unending sequence of past moments is metaphysically impossible. That claim does not hold. Modern set theory has long demonstrated that actual infinites are both logically coherent and mathematically well-defined. The difficulty lies not with infinite sequence but with finite intuition. We are creatures of beginnings and endings, and we wrongly suppose that what is true of the finite must be true of the infinite. It is not. Infinity is not a number and cannot rightly be placed into a mathematical equation. It is the endlessness of that which never began and will never end. The infinite regress objection applies the concept of addition (or subtraction) to the concept of infinity and thereby commits a category error.
The God of Scripture is not timeless. He is infinite. Not frozen outside of sequence, but alive within it, without beginning or end. His love has no starting point. His righteousness no moment of origin. His knowledge no initial impulse. He has always been what He is, not statically, but relationally, actively, eternally.
This puts a new and deeper meaning on what it means for God to be infinite. Infinity is not the absence of motion, but the fullness of life without boundary. It is not timelessness, but unbounded vitality. The God who is infinite is not abstract, aloof, or frozen in a changeless present. He is the ever-living One, whose infinite being is the very ground of relationship, meaning, and love.
So then, after having seen two stark examples of how this lens affects one’s understanding of God and of Scripture, a final point must be made. These two lenses (i.e. absolute immutability vs. quality of character) are not minor differences in emphasis, nor do they stand as two co-equal options from which one may choose based on doctrinal inclination or personal preference. They represent two fundamentally incompatible ways of understanding God and of reading Scripture. One system begins with divine immutability as its lens and forces every passage, doctrine, and narrative through that filter. The other begins with God's revealed character, His righteousness, His justice, and His relational integrity, and lets those qualities support and guide our interpretation of Scripture.
Some may be tempted to think they can have it both ways, that they can cling to Aristotle’s immutability while still affirming that God is loving, but the choice cannot be avoided. One is forced to choose between a God who predestines everything that happens and a God who pleads for repentance, between a God who knows everything in advance and a God who investigates Sodom, between a God whose plan is unalterable and a God who is persuaded from wrath by Moses, between a God who is immutable and impassible and a God who becomes a man, who weeps at the death of a friend, who sweats drops of blood, who dies the death we deserve, and who rises from the dead by His own power.
Either we read the Bible through the lens of Neoplatonic philosophy, or we read it through the lens God Himself has given us, that He is personal, rational, relational, righteous, and just. Each framework yields a different God, a different gospel, and a fundamentally different understanding of what it means to know Him.
Having chosen the latter and exchanged metaphysical absolutes for moral and relational integrity, we are left with a pressing question: Can a God who feels, chooses, and responds be counted on without fail?
