Time is a very interesting thing. Humans experience time in a linear directed fashion. That is we progress into the future having experienced the past and existing in the present. We have a sense of causality which gives us a short glimpse into what MAY happen, and we have memory which gives us access to what COULD HAVE happened. In the category of memory, I include books, video, songs, stories, and all the things that give us access to what could have happened in places and times which we could not directly experience.
For any one person, the only bit of time for which we can attempt to verify is that of the present and even the present moment is not well defined. I might say, it is NOW, but now has passed and it is a different NOW a few moments later than the first. -- BTW, notice my use of "later", this is really an expression of direction which allows us to sequence moments in time. It is very hard to make statements about time without refering to how we experience it, but I will try.
God... How does God experience time? The implication of the Bible is that God created time, in Genesis he created the Sun and the Moon, Light and Darkness and hence the first Day. God is not said to have sprung into being as he created the first day, but rather he authored it, having existed before it. "Before" in this sense is a misnomer, because "before" is a reference to something happening before another, i.e. it is a marker in time, as "later" is. And this begins the problem we have in understanding perspectives outside of the limits of time.
I have thought a lot about this problem and the best thing I can come up with is this:
The creation, all of it, from the first evolving microbe to the last celestial body consumed by a black hole and the black hole itself are like a gigantic, multidimensional tapestry. In the way we look at a painting and see its height and width or the depth of the panter`s brush strokes and all the subjects of the painting at once, so God sees everything at once. All of creation can be surveyed as a whole. We experience this tapestry as a sense of becoming, we are miniscule bugs moving through this tapestry from one side to another, and what we experience of time is the sequential encounters with different partsof this celestial tapestry. God sees every possibility, every choice, every thing and every moment. He does not decide for us, but can see the consequences of our decisions; He does not choose our fate, but He knows its outcome no matter what we could possibly choose.
The Christian God, and to some extent the Jewish God, put his divine finger in the middle of this tapestry, he inserted himself into time, in the same way that a painter touches his brush to a painting. He didnt do this to remove our will but to exemplify His(or Her if you prefer) will. He gave us examples of what He does that we may emulate Him and be able to guess at what to do when no situation for emulation is possible. In the Old Testament we are taught to avoid defilement. We are told to set aside what we make as an offering to God, a thanks, a repentence, an acknowledgement that nothing we have is our own. He made it know that humanity, and all of creation is His In the New Testament we are told that God is Love, and that Love is this, that a man lay down his life for a friend. And Christ, the incarnate God laid down his life for those who would accept him, those who he would make his friends.
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If you're ever interested, you should watch some of the new series of Doctor Who on Sci-Fi or BBC America. It's an interesting metaphor about a "lonely god" who travels through space and time. And it's British, so it's extra good :-)
So you believe in a sort of Hegel-ian synthesis of immanence and transcendence. Of course, Christianity is by definition a religion of immanence. I'm not sure if Protestant religions accept the Holy Trinity? I was raised Catholic so I was taught to believe in an entirely separate Holy Spirit, in addition to the Father and the Son. Guess they wanted to cover all their bases, huh?
I tried to leave a comment for you on this last week or something, but I guess it didn't go through? (Or perhaps you rejected it?) Anyway, if you are at all able to read religious philosophy into tv shows you should try the new Doctor Who on BBC-America. He's a lonely Time Lord who regenerates instead of dying and has all of space and time at his disposal. Pretty good stuff!
I suppose I should research the Hegelian position. I managed to get through my undergrad philosophy program without reading Hegel at all. I will try to see if I can clarify how God fits into my time rant and you can tell me if that is an example of immanence and/or transcendence.
I believe that God is infused in creation in the sense that an artist is infused in their work. That is, it is clear that God was involved, but God is not of creation, and in fact is uncreated(at least from our vantage point).
As for transcendence. I think that term fits pretty clearly. In that I think that God condescended into a temporal framework to effect change in various parts of history.
As for you comment about the Trinity. Most protestants do believe in the Trinity. When I was in an AG church there were times when we recited the Nicene creed which clearly expresses faith in a triune God. I am in an Orthodox Church now and our view of the Trinity is slightly different from the Catholic view in that we think that the three persons of the Trinity are distinct "hypostases" and that they are united in their will, which is the will of the Father. If you are interested in that doctrinal schism, I believe it is referred to as the "filioque" and refers to the language of the creed which was changed when talking about the nature of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father. In Catholicism, I believe the creed adds "and from the Son", which implies that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son, which some have argued causes all hell to break loose. If anything it is one of the roadblocks between conciliation of the Eastern and Western Churches.
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