(by Dave, 15-20min)
God, time and why create
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
In the beginning of what seems a question worth asking? Beginning implies temporality. Something cannot begin unless there is time to mark its beginning. God must’ve created time before the heavens and the earth, or at least simultaneously, if this sentence is to make sense. Otherwise, “in the beginning” would have no meaning. This line of Scripture could be interpreted to say overtly what is implied: the substance of the universe was created by God including time and space and within/from that he created the heavens and the earth.
The reason this is important is because it means God stands outside of time and space. He is the author of them and everything that happens within them. If having always existed God stands outside of time and is independent of it, then time is of no consequence to God for everything that happens within time is already known. It might be analogous to me knowing everything that’s in my house when I’m standing outside of it. To God, it was already known that I was going to write this piece because he can see all of time. To me, I had no idea I was going to write this today until it occurred to me, and I decided to do it.
These observations raise a question: do I (or any of us) have free will? Many would say I do not have free will because God’s creation has already set in stone the steps I will take. Because God knew I was going to write to you today, this really wasn’t my choice it was God’s, and it was already made before I did it.
If this is true, what is the point of us being here? If we are nothing but a bunch of preordained puppets plowing our way through life, why would God spend the time he did to create us? Of course, one compelling answer to this question is he didn’t create us, and religion is nonsense. In fact, maybe that is why it’s so torturous to conceive of reasonable explanations for predestination and free will. It’s hard because there is no God, and we are trying to create interpretations based on a false underlying premise (there is a God). Consequently, I think it’s worth a pause to make at least a small case that there is a God.
Is there a God?
There are lots of arguments for God. Probably you’ve read some. But there is one that stands out for me. Where did the universe come from and how did information get into it? The evolutionary answer is the universe popped into existence out of nothing. Even though it came from nothing, it is complete with natural laws that are predictable. From those natural laws and random chance, basic elements were forced together into the basic molecular building blocks of life (amino acids, purines, etc.).
These were randomly forced by natural laws to code peptides (short strings of amino acids). In the absence of synthetic machinery, those peptides were extended to proteins. Those proteins (again with no protein synthetic machinery yet available) were then randomly forced by natural laws into more complex structures until the machinery to hold and implement information appears. Once formed, DNA produces RNA which produces proteins all contained within a self-sustaining energy utilizing unit that can replicate. Thus, through random chance and natural law DNA exist and is now infused with information capable of coding all of life. The opposing point of view is that there is an author that directed this either from the start or incrementally along the way. Which seems most likely? To me, the latter.
To help appreciate why, consider the original publication of Stanley Miller, a graduate student in the laboratory of Harold Urey working at the University of Chicago. In 1953 Miller published a paper in Science (A Production of Amino Acids under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions, 117:529, 1953, See most of article at Science.org). The conclusion of the study, and several that followed from different authors, were that amino acids and other basic building block compounds for life could be formed when gases comprising old earth atmosphere were exposed to electrical charges. The experiment of course took some time, and decisions had to be made in setting up the apparatus.
Here’s one decision from the 1953 publication:
“Electrical discharge was used to form free radicals instead of ultraviolet light, because quartz absorbs wavelengths short enough to cause photo dissociation of the gases”.
Here’s another decision describing some of the methods:
“The apparatus used is shown in Fig 1. Water is boiled in the flask, mixes with the gases in the 5L flask, circulates past the electrodes, condenses and empties back into the boiling flask. The acids and amino acids formed in the discharge, not being volatile, accumulate in the water phase. The circulation of the gases is quite slow, but this seems to be an asset, because production was less in a different apparatus with aspirator arrangement to promote circulation.”
Here’s a third:
“The experimental procedure was to seal off the opening in the boiling flask after adding 200 mL of water, evacuate the air, add 10 cm pressures of H2, 20 cm of CH4, and 20 cm of NH3.”
Notice how much information is required to make this experiment work. Electrical charges had to be used rather than ultraviolet light. One-way flow flasks, boiling water, precise control of circulation flow, and precise amounts of gases had to be introduced. The whole thing had to be in a vacuum. Underlying every single one of these decisions was the information Miller and Urey possessed as chemists. Therefore, their experiments were infused with their own information, even though presumably no such information was available in old earth nature. That is, they added information to the experiments to get just some of the molecules needed for life to form. The fact that even that could not be done without adding their information suggests perhaps information from outside of natural law and random chance was also present for the complex systems we see.
Still, one could legitimately say it is possible the things I described above happened randomly through natural physical laws. But again, which seems more likely? To me, information seems to be needed, and in fact is present in all of us today. A completely natural explanation for the universe fails to explain how something like DNA capable of coding information emerges from information-less natural law and random chance?
For this reason, I find it far more likely to believe that there is a God than the alternative. If that’s true, then we are back to the question I asked above: why are we here?
Why are we here and predestination?
We are here because God desires to have a relationship with those he created in his image. Everything in the Bible is consistent on this point. From:
- Declaring his creation of humans good to
- His covenant after the flood
- His choosing of the Israeli nation to be a blessing of revelation to the world
- All of the prophets who warned people to return to God
- The punishments (including the flood) issued out as guidance for the kind of relationship desired
- To the ultimate self-sacrifice of God to eliminate sin from ruining a right relationship with him,
Every action of God is an attempt through punishment or mercy to bring us into a right relationship. Many of us can relate to this for we had parents who largely treated us this way, with love, punishment and mercy. They very much wanted to have a relationship with us.
But if everything is preordained, then why did God go to such lengths in interacting with us through the history of the Israeli people and the New Testament? Why did Jesus give us the Holy Spirit to help guide us toward a right relationship if it’s already preordained that we are to have that right relationship? Why is that spirit perhaps working on you right now to help restore a right relationship with God if the Spirit’s presence already indicates you are preordained to have a relationship with God?
These actions of God suggest we have free will, yet how can that be if God stands outside of time? It obviously can’t. It is preordained, but only from God’s perspective. From our perspective we are utterly free. So free that all that I mentioned above was given to us by God to keep us in a right relationship with him.
Predestination and free will cannot coexist?
A reasonable response to this could be: “that is not real freedom then, because it’s preordained. What kind of relationship is that if God already knows what we are going to do?” Indeed, but there must be something going on because if the relationship is as empty as this response suggests, then why create us in the first place? Again, one could resolve to he didn’t create us, but then we are back with the paragraphs above. In my mind, far more likely is the presence of God than his absence, and so we are left to address the question of why create us in the first place if everything is just preordained.
Here is where our hunger to understand must supplicate itself to the reality God presents. Because he stands outside of time, he knows what is going to happen within time. To God that means we are preordained to either be followers or not. But for us he has created a world where we are utterly ignorant of that and gone to great lengths to let us know that our decisions matter within that world. How they matter might be because our lives and decision-making are in some way necessary to change us for the kingdom of God and prepare us for the relationship God truly desires with us during and when this life is over.
If you reject this idea of perspectives, what way would you do it? If you knew everything that was going to happen within time because you stand outside of it, but you wanted a relationship with something you created that lived in time, how would you do it? I would say the best way would be to restrain the knowledge of preordination to the creator and provide an environment where the created perceive complete and total freedom to choose to be with me or not. They don’t know what I know, and therefore experience complete freedom.
The Bible is completely consistent with this hypothesis. There are sections that strongly imply preordination and the sections that strongly imply free will. Both can be true if you just consider it from the perspective of author and creation.
Dave
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