jeremyduncan.ca

Chickens, Eggs, God and Causality

// October 13th, 2007 // collected thoughts, theology

Oddly, it came up in conversation at breakfast this morning. (then again he always knew it would) Not your usually morning fare but of late it seems to be a familiar point of discussion. (or perhaps he didn’t)

The question specifically, did God already know that my Eggs Benedict would be overcooked, almost dry, even before the chef rolled out of bed this morning, perhaps even before the proverbial chicken or the egg. The question in general, which is entirely more enticing than my eggs, is, does God know the future and then if that is true what does it mean for God to be outside of, or unaffected by our concept of time. Strangely of late I have entered into this same query in a number of conversations. Each time becoming more and more convinced that the standard response; “of course”, as most standard answers are, is entirely a product of its familiarity rather than its utility.

Truth is, I don’t think most of us have a good reason to believe that God is outside of time. We have simply accepted it as spiritual, perhaps metaphysical fact because it serves to make God- other. That and we’ve always been told he was, is and will be forever (ironic) unconstrained by the experience of timing. Then again, there is one obvious utility to the idea. It makes us feel considerably safer about our own uncertain future. It’s nice to believe in a God who knows our next steps, what’s around the corner, what’s behind the door, what’s under the bed. As long as someone knows the unknown feels a lot safer.

While I understand that draw, there is also something unsettling about a God outside of time. He feels very distant from me. So much of who I am, is about the experience of my life; the purpose in believing that my life can accomplish something meaningful, the anticipation of entering into my next opportunity, failure or success. The idea of a God who saw it all coming and experienced nothing remotely like what I did along the way makes him feel very separate from me. It also means a God who can’t grow into a relationship with me, who can’t learn about me and take pleasure in discovering who I am or conversely take pleasure as I discover what it means to know him. It means a God who can’t celebrate in my success and affection or be hurt by my failure and offense. See, all of these relational ideas and constructs that we want to apply to God rely on causation A God who is outside of time, though, can’t be affected. I’m not suggesting that God is subject to calendars and stopwatches, but a being who is not subject to linear reality can’t have one decision affect a dependant decision. Without linearity there is no ability for one choice to cause a reaction, response or subsequent choice and this is the fundamental building blocks of the common understanding of relationship that we employ (and ascribe to God). I want to know a God who can feel hurt when I reject him, not just a cognitive awareness of my choice. I want to love a God who can who can feel a swell of emotion when I turn to him in need and who in turn can respond to my sincerity with a love that surely outstrips my own.

Now don’t get me wrong I’m not trying to anthropomorphise God into something very much like me, though that is of course the only way we really have to conceptualize God. I have no issue, in truth, I take great comfort in the idea of a God who is eternal, omnipresent and omniscient. I’m just not sure that all of those things we understand about God necessitate his being outside of linear time.

I imagine it this way, when God was alone before the universe. There was no time. He simply existed as himself (I use anthropomorphic language because it is the best we have). God existed as pure conscious love. But the moment he decided to act, to move, to create something outside of himself, time (linearity not seconds and minutes and hours) became. There was a moment where there was nothing but God. And then a decision, then an action, then a creation. Time. God entered into it by the act of creating- for the sake of creating. This is one of the most beautiful images I can imagine. A God who exists, eternal and complete, needing nothing, wanting nothing. A reality immeasurable in seconds or year or eons or eras. But then this God, eternal, complete, love, makes a choice to change that perfection for something… better?

Do I believe that God knows everything? Short answer, yes. More complicated answer is that I believe God knows everything there is to know. I’m not sure where I’ve landed on the idea of God and time but if indeed God has the pleasure of linearity that I have been given, I would say there are things that God doesn’t know. He took a chance on us. He took a chance on me. And though God has all of the experience of the world at his disposal and could calculate the odds of every chance to the smallest degree of probability, sometimes, I think that God’s greatest pleasure is the stuff he specifically created to surprise him- namely… us.

There are lots of implications if I look down this road. Some of them are scary – God doesn’t know my tomorrow, some of them are comforting- God understands my anxiety, some of them are imposing- the future is not a forgone conclusion, while some of them are inspiring- my contribution to history is meaningful to the world and to God but through it all what continues to orient me as I navigate philiosphy and theology is the attempt to know this God more than I did yesterday. And for that I need both today and tomorrow.

Anyway those are my thoughts on a Saturday afternoon, unfinished and still evolving, but perhaps that’s the way it was always meant to be.