Overall Preface
Time and Eternity
by Arthur C. Custance, PhD
THE SIX papers in this volume, published between the years 1957 and 1967,
do not form a connected series as the other volumes have done, but they
have this in common: they all assume Scripture to be the touchstone of truth,
and they demonstrate that it is able to stimulate one's thinking enormously,
especially when the mind is informed by the data of current research. The
Bible has nothing to fear from the most careful and detailed examination;
more often than not the more precisely we attend to its statements, the
clearer will be the overall picture of truth which emerges. I am convinced
that people who find Bible study dull are simply not studying with sufficient
care.
The first paper, "Time and Eternity," requires some stretching
of one's thinking processes! It is an intriguing excursion into the question
of the nature of TIME in heaven. It is well worth the effort it will demand
if the implications of the lines of thought suggested in it are to be understood,
and these implications are by no means purely academic or unrelated to present
Christian experience.
The second paper, "Three Trees and Israel's History," provides
an illustration of how one Spirit has clearly directed and supervised and
inspired the writing of Scripture throughout. From Genesis to Revelation
certain symbols have been consistently employed with hidden meanings to
which all writers subscribed, though they nevertheless nowhere indicate
to the reader that they are employing these symbols in such complete concordance
with all the writers who preceded them, often by many centuries. This is
a powerful witness to the existence of a single guiding Mind throughout.
The third paper, "Between the Lines: An Analysis of Genesis 1:1,2,"
is a study involving an issue which is highly controversial today because
it appears to be a recent concession to modern evolutionary geology by opening
up a "time-slot" of any length that geology might ask. That this
is a total misreading of the evidence is borne out by showing, not only
that the Hebrew original virtually demands such an interpretation, but that
the idea of a hiatus in time, of unknown duration, between Genesis 1:1 and
2 was recognized by Jewish commentators in the centuries before Christ and
has been continually referred to by Christian writers from the earliest
times to the present.
The fourth paper, "The Omnipotence of God in the Affairs of Men,"
is a detailed study in somewhat concentrated form of the extent to which
Scripture reveals that God rules or overrules in the affairs of men and
in the calling and saving and positioning of the child of God within the
Body of Christ. It is both a sobering and a comforting study--deeply rooted
in the Word of God.
The fifth paper, "The Confusion of Languages," explores the
fact that human languages do still indeed show many signs of having been
developed from some one single original, and that this original was almost
certainly a language belonging within the Semitic family, of which Hebrew
is a member. The evidence suggests that in the confusion of tongues which
put a halt to the building of the Tower of Babel, it was chiefly (if not
solely) the members of the family of Ham whose speech was dramatically and
very suddenly confused to such an extent that communication and further
cooperation became impossible.
The last paper, "Cain's Wife and the Penalty of Incest," is
brief but informative. It shows how beautifully consistent Scripture is,
both with itself and with the latest assured findings of research into the
genetics of inbreeding. There is no need whatever to suppose that Cain married
some non-Adamic creature or that Eve was not truly the mother of all
living.
The Doorway Papers are a collection of papers previously published one
at a time by the author. The entire collection of the Doorway Papers was
published in nine volumes and an index volume by Zondervan Publishing House
in 1977. (Now out of print).
Part I. Time and Eternity: Creation and the Theory of Relativity
Even if the attempt at discrimination should fail in exactitude,
it may yet, by opening out fresh views contribute light to minds of greater
precision--who may thus be enabled to hit upon the exact truth.--Lord
Arundell of Wardour, 1872
Preface
IT HAS BEEN well said that it takes two to tell the truth. I think what
this means is that there is a sense in which we conceive a truth most clearly
when we have given it verbal expression for someone else's benefit. Often
we think we understand-- until we try to share our understanding with another
person.
My impression is that the reader will profit most from this paper if
he lends it to a friend with whom rapport is already established and then
discusses it so as to verbalize its implications for himself.
If these things are true, there is wonderful comfort--one might almost
say a spiritual thrill--in the contemplation of them. Not the least surprising
is the fact that some of the implications in the Theory of Relativity were
so clearly perceived by Augustine and so wonderfully allowed for in Scripture.
The light which the theory both casts upon and receives from the New Testament,
especially John's Gospel, opens up all kinds of new avenues of Christian
thought on some of the deepest problems of eternity. Much remains yet to
be explored. If you begin to lose track, don't give up! Press on to the
end --it will become clearer in due time.
If any excursive brain...wonder that Thou the God Almighty and All-Creating
and All-Supporting, Maker of Heaven and Earth, didst for innumerable ages
forbear from so great a work before Thou wouldst work it: let him awake
and consider that he wonders at false conceits. For whence could innumerable
ages pass by, which Thou madest not, Thou the Author and Creator of all
Ages? Or what times should there be, which were not made by Thee? Or how
should they pass by, if they never were? Seeing then Thou art the Creator
of all times, if any time was before Thou madest Heaven and earth, why
say that Thou didst forego working?...But if before Heaven and earth there
was no time, why is it demanded "what Thou then didst"? For there
was no "then" when there was no time.--Augustine, Confessions
Introduction
IN THE HISTORY of science it has frequently been observed that every
new theory involving highly abstract ideas has to be discussed and argued
about at the upper levels for some time before it can be understood by the
educated public in general. In the ordinary processes of conversation, the
words and phrases and analogies essential for its verbalization have to
be generated and combined in various ways before it can be communicated
meaningfully to a larger audience.
At first the search for terms with which to convey the new ideas is slow
and, for all but a few specialists, quite inadequate. But in the course
of time a kind of natural selection operates to eliminate terms that confuse
and to elaborate those that clarify the issues involved. Modes of expression
are standardized. More and more individuals come to attach the same specialized
meanings to phrases that are commandeered as the particular property of
those who possess the new truth. A scientific "jargon" grows up
that facilitates expression and gives new freedom to the exchange of ideas.
The more abstract and removed from common sense the theory is, the longer
it takes for it to percolate down to the lower levels. Occasionally the
process is accelerated by the appearance of some scientific genius who has
a peculiar gift for expressing the abstruse in remarkably appropriate common
terms, thus bridging the gap from the specialist to the layman much more
rapidly. A. S. Eddington and Sir James Jeans were men of this type. (1)
The Theory of Relativity is a case in point. The difficulty of making
the implications clear was increased by the fact that the terms themselves
were all common ones, like space and time This had the effect of misleading
the public into supposing that employing the terms was equivalent to knowing
what they meant. And, of course, since Relativity was applied to time, everybody
knew what was meant because we all experience apparent fluctuations
when we are waiting for someone or when we are trying not to be late! All
this was plain common sense....
The problem was even further complicated by the fact that the novelty
of the idea stirred the imagination of popular science writers who explained
Relativity to their readers by the use of analogies which at first appeared
to give immediate insight into the new mysteries but afterward proved to
be misleading. It then became difficult for those whose thinking had thus
been influenced to escape from the insights supposedly gained in
order to achieve the more profound insight which was required for a true
understanding.
This paper inevitably suffers from both these difficulties, and undoubtedly
much discussion and argument is required to generate the more exact terms
and phrases necessary to crystallize the somewhat new application of the
Theory of Relativity to the scriptural meaning of Time and Eternity.
A basic tenet of Einstein's theory is that time, as a fourth dimension,
has no meaning or existence apart from the physical universe and could not
be said to have existed prior to the Creation. In one of his more popular
statements, Albert Einstein put it this way:
If you don't take my words too seriously, I would say this: If we assume
that all matter would disappear from the world, then, before relativity,
one believed that space and time would continue existing in an empty world.
But, according to the theory of relativity, if matter and its motion disappeared
there would no longer be any space or time.
This in itself is difficult enough for anyone who has not reflected upon
it. But there is an equally important corollary: namely, that in a spiritual
world (in which matter has no place) the same situation would exist--there
could be no passage of time. This would be a real world which either existed
in the absence of a physical world altogether or existed alongside a physical
world but without any dependence upon it. In either situation there need
not be any experience of time as we understand it. If this spiritual world
is thought of as existing in the absence of a physical world, it would be,
as it were, "before" the Creation--that is to say, before Genesis
1:1. If it is thought of as existing alongside a physical world but not
dependent on it, then we have the situation as it is now. Yet, although
the present situation is what it is and time is being experienced by those
of us who exist within the framework of a physical universe, those who now
live outside this physical universe do not experience the passage of time
m any form.
This concept is in a sense a part of the philosophy of modern physics,
yet it really is completely understood only by something akin to spiritual
insight. Its implications are highly complex. The light which is thrown
upon many passages of Scripture fully justifies the effort necessary to
grasp what is really being said--an effort made particularly necessary because
we first have to abandon our characteristic common-sense views of what time
is
That Scripture explicitly and repeatedly takes into account the fact
that time is wedded to the material world but not to the spiritual world
is by no means a new discovery. Augustine, among others, saw it clearly,
as a proper understanding of his quotation will show. But a careful exploration
of those passages of Scripture that reflect this fact reveals much more
than has been hitherto suspected: and the revelation is, to put it quite
simply, a truly wonderful one. It will probably help considerably, before
examining these passages, to review briefly the historical background of
the events that led to Einstein's formulation of the two essential principles
of the Theory of Relativity.
References:
1. For example: Sir Arthur Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World,
Cambridge U. Press, 1930; Sir James Jeans, The Mysterious Universe,
Cambridge U. Press, 1931.
2. Einstein: quoted by Philipp Frank, Einstein, His Life and Times,
Knopf, New York, 1947, chap. 8, section 5, p. 178.
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