Omnichronic

This is an interesting discussion about creation and some of the nature of God. I created a new word to describe my understanding of how God relates to time: Omnichronic. (Update, I added a link to a video at the end that helps illustrate this)

FBUser #1: I don't believe God created the earth in 7 24-hour days.

Monday, December 10 at 2:37pm

·         FBUser #2: A day could be a thousand years to The Lord, so I agree.

·         FBUser #1: that’s one of the reasons for my belief

·         FBUser #1: the other is if he created the process of nature then it'd take more than a week to grow the stuff.

·         FBUser #3: I agree.

·         FBUser #1: it took at least a thousand years to create what he did in one day. cause it said a day is "like" a thousand years. it could be more.

·         FBUser #3: I believe it took a lot longer! When you take an account of the whole universe and the detail of it and earth. Every species, star, and galaxy (which there are billions of)...7 24hr periods isn't logical.

·         Andrew Kennedy: another thought, what does the original Hebrew mean for thousand years? It might also be translated, "many, much, lots of years"

·         FBUser #3: It also could mean "year, day, season, time, and age."

·         FBUser #4: A day can be 'like a thousand years' or it could be a day. Jesus didn't rise from the dead 3000 years after he died. Sometimes a day is a day. As for it taking more than a week to "grow the stuff". Seriously!? God can create it whatever size he wanted it to be. I don't think God was saying "Hmm, I want to create everything in 6 days, but I can only make baby stuff and I have to let it grow... Oh well, I guess I'm out of luck!"

·         FBUser #3: I don't either. Though there are some that believe that God could have created evolution…

·         FBUser #4: #3, theology seems to leave that option open, I just don't believe science does. From what I can tell evolution doesn't stand up as a scientific theory.

·         Andrew Kennedy: To me the 1000 years = 1 day verse is less a mathematical formula and more trying to make the point that God is outside of time. So you could say he's "omnichronic". In the end, does it matter if the Earth was made in 24 hour days or not? I haven't seen anything to prove or disprove that, so I chose to believe in 24 hour days. (Another thought, if Adam wasn't made until the 6th day, how does the history get written down, other than God telling us what he did?) The point is that God created it and he's watching over it.

·         Andrew Kennedy: In any case, I don't think evolution is compatible; it was created and is now developed, by people who don't want any supernatural influences. There are lots of holes in the theory and the evidence they do have keeps shifting around on them. My interpretation of that whole issue is that people naturally bring their biases into their research and if you take the same data and look at it a different way, you get different results.

·         FBUser #5: Why not?

·         FBUser #6: He could have.

·         FBUser #1: Andrew, I love how you make me think. You make me question my original status without insulting it. btw, what does "omnichronic" mean?

·         FBUser #7:  The reality is we don't know. It could have literally been 7 days though. Will find out in heaven.

·         Andrew Kennedy: Omnichronic is a word I made up to try to explain/define how I understand how God relates to time. He is "all time", ‘"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."’(Rev 1:8 NIV)

It also helps describe a couple of attributes God has. I see God as being outside of time, so He can affect history in ways that we don’t understand. I also believe he isn't limited by our linear perception of time, which brings up all manner of challenging implications, but if he’s outside of time and not limited by it, then that makes sense. (This idea gives legitimacy to “Schrodinger Prayers”, the idea that you can pray for something in the past if you don’t know how it turned out. So it’s already happened in our perception of time, but God still hears it. But, even if it doesn’t “affect the outcome” it still helps us empathize with others.)

Omnichronic is related to omnipresence because he's always present in both location and time. It's also related to omnipotence because he knows everything, including what has happened, what is happening and what will happen. (though I know at least one person who doesn't see it that way, but that's ok, it makes for good discussion )

So, to summarize, omnichronic is a way of describing how I understand God. It may or may not be theologically sound, and I’d love to discuss that more, but that’s my understanding at the moment.

·         FBUser #8: The creation account in Genesis clearly states that it was six days and that he rested on the seventh and confirmed in Hebrews 4:4 as the seventh day

·         FBUser #9 God's sense of time is much different than ours. Maybe the days God mentions is the only way we could make sense of it. 7 days in the week has grown to mold this society and many others. 6 days and then the Sabbath was the plan and has worked beautifully.

·         FBUser #7:  God is complex, yet simple. Would it be so crazy to believe that 7 days really means 7 days, and that if God wanted you to think it was more than that He would have stated it by His Spirit in scripture?

·         FBUser #10:  I pretty much think God exists apart from time. As his creation we are constrained to this dimension he created us in. To put it in terms we understand, God exist at the beginning of creation, at every point in time and at the end of time, simultaneously. It also explains why he is all knowing. It also explains why all things work out according to his knowledge and purpose. And no, we are not robots with no choice, God sees at the end the effect our choices have and in the end it is good because God is good. So this God that exists apart from time tries to tell us that "a day is as a thousand years..."

·         FBUser #6:  Let me point this out. We spend ETERNITY in heaven in the afterlife, right? Do you think in heaven there is any sense of time?! Would you keep time when you had eternity to live for? I do not believe that heaven has "time". However, I do believe God is capable of anything, so he could in fact create the heavens and the earth in SIX 24 hour periods....whether he did or did not I find irrelevant.

·         FBUser #11 I dont know if this was already mentioned, the bible clearly states that each day of creation had one evening and one morning.

·         FBUser #10:  But the sun & moon weren't created till day 4... "to separate day from night?" In my life we pretty much determine that a day is when the earth spins once on its axis relative to the sun. So if the sun wasn't there till day 4 then we really no have compass by which to determine dailiness. Suppose I'm going to hell for pointing out the obvious? Go figure. If you think I'm an evolutionist you are dead wrong as it is impossible for respiration (glucose consuming, a necessity of life) to evolve prior to photosynthesis (glucose generating). Photosynthetic organisms are themselves consumers of glucose. Furthermore on the sub-cellular level in the light reaction phase of photosynthesis, the excited charged hydrogen would have to be held in this excited state while the plastoquinone evolved to utilize the energy in the charged hydrogen ion. Absent the plastoquinone a hydrogen ion immediately would attach to something else... it isn't going to wait a couple million years for another part of the light phase to evolve even considering the evolutionist theory of "the great passage of time."


This part was completely separate from the above conversation, but it better illustrates omnichronic. I'm subscribed to Donny Pauling's public updates.

Donny Pauling Said: "I absolutely LOVE the illustration Rob Bell uses to explain the way God sees "TIME." We are trapped in time... He moves around it. This link will take you to the 43 minute, 10 second point of the presentation. Watch for about 2 minutes or so. http://youtu.be/i2rklwkm_dQ?t=43m10s"