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CHAPTER THREE

EPILOGUE

TIME CONCENTRATE, EXTRAPOLATE, IMMEDIATE

 

 Time gives occasion to timing, measurement devices, though these are not in themselves time, merely an estimating method. Sometimes, time may be concentrated. This is found in the well-known trend for people facing imminent death or immense crisis, to have vast shafts of intelligible recollection, perhaps with highly specific orientation, to rush through their minds.

Minds are not in themselves bound to a given rate of time. Their events can speed enormously, in terms of the norm of processing time and the spirited flash. Time relates to mind,  to spirit, to matter in different ways. It is not a thing in itself, though as noted, it is measurable by process, given you are assured of the objectivity of the process for the measurement of time, and that you are not without realising it, confusing time with a given mode attempting to measure it.

Time, like space, is an invention of God, and it has many modes, various forms; and appropriate formats are available for consideration, but not confusion, relative to time itself.

Time for creation is obviously not dependent on the processes OF creation when it HAS BEEN made. It depends entirely on the will and constructional means, if measurable, chosen by the Inventor of time. If for example, the Lord makes something in what He deems in His description to those who live in the 'time' frame which is now already in operation, to be one day with careful notation to avoid confusion, and the use of the ordinal to make usage serve*1, then that is the apt and true and faithful designation.

It is what He who knows the thing He made, our sort of time, to be, and what He deems it to be as used in creation, that matters. Hence to try to make this sort of time something else is mere spiritual madness, in this, that it is telling the inventor that His choice of terms, which go from Genesis Ch. 1 through to 11, for example in the invention of time and space and creation, and its historical proceedings, that He is inept, confused, confusing by undistinguished variable usage, misleading and so forth.

In fact, it is ONLY GOD who knows what He is doing, beyond reactive responders (cf. SMR pp. 100-101, *30, *31). What is the introduction to the creation of time and space as found in material objects, is expressly expressed in measuring terms,  morning and evening, or vice versa, courtesy of what was being instituted, if expressed in NO TIME units would so stand, being in that case without reference available in our kind of time, at all. This could have been, and in this, Augustine is right in speaking of the invention of time with creation; but we need to go further.

Time is what God makes it; and it is not only spatially relevant time. It is intellectual time, spiritual time, material time, time in relativity settings, where it relates to action,  time absolute, where it is in the supra-siderial power of God.

As far as history is concerned, many things normally taking a given time in terms of social, economic and other criteria, can be speeded up or  slowed down, by actions either in the minds of man, by choice, or by talent, or by divine intrusion; and events such as the termination of this world can be worked in the same way, by being limited for some reason, to the sort of processes which are inherent in the present creation, or NOT so limited, and made subject,  as was the case in their institution, to whatever forces and foci were most pleasant, apt and instructive for those to be instructed, in the mind of God.

Just as the beginning of our times, is to be regarded in the way God presents it in the most monumentally clear-cut and consistent terms, co-ordinate with history and without confusion*1A, so the end of time is the same. If God removes it swiftly by divine fiat, it is in a way rather like an author burning his books, whether by a flash of power beyond nature, or by the various ways of nature, by changing the laws of nature (only if God), or acting in any other chosen manner,  relative to process, procedure or direct destructive fiat.

We ourselves, lowly creation and exceptionally vulnerable as we are because of sin, can thrust through material and ideas and outcomes in ways scarcely imaginable in normal mental function, because intellectual time is not limited like material time. We can receive intimations at great speed from the God of glory, or be rather slow to perceive. It depends on the work of God, and HIS means as chosen. Time is neither merely subjective nor merely objective, in this, that it is not exclusively for the action of the conscious subject, or of the material process. These are mere aspects.

The RATE group of scientists are presenting evidence for various hurryings up of some processes, which would be correlative with divine use of time for special purposes, as in the flood, and these may be of the order of many magnitudes (cf. Sarfati, Refuting Compromise), and they have produced two volumes on their work so far, one of which has been perused, for its restraint and care to be confirmed. Again, it has been pointed out by one of Creation Ministries International contributors, referring to Professor Wanner, that in plasma form, there can be increases in the rate of radioactivity by billions of times*2.

Following some of the suggestions of Einstein*3, one would have hoped that there would be a little more restraint than is often shown in blusters about time and timing, as if all kinds of times and timings were simplicity itself. God is very deep, and His modes of usage are to instruct us in terms conclusively clear, and not to tell us what is untrue, inept or confusing. Such is His own attestation to Himself (cf. Proverbs 8:8). Small wonder when many things which some scientists sometimes assume and proclaim and teach, and some governments uncritically accept, while they are disputed by other scientists of equal nous and training, are found to be simplistic and false. Pride comes before a fall.

God is no liar (as seen in Barbs, Arrows and Balms  6   -7 for example, as in Sparkling Life ... Ch. 4), and to assume that He who knows and IS the truth, and the ONLY POSSIBLE TRUTH, does not know how to present in understood terms what He has in mind is tantamount to playing God oneself. There are many variables and perspectives which have to be contemplated when one is dealing with the design and purpose of Almighty God, and if one does not follow what HE says, there is absolutely no other way of knowing. Thus you have to have first of all, what IS the absolute truth, not dependent on the sort of mind or equipment which you may happen to have at your disposal at any time; then access to this absolute truth; then a mode of receiving it from itself, in fact from God Himself, which overcomes the peril of pollution through the inherent culture or equipment of man. Since God is infinite, this is a very big 'ask'. However, for precisely the same reason, God is well able to do this, but it is necessary at all times to adhere to His word as authority, and to give to philosophy, the thoughts of man not starting with God, normally, no scope for intrusion, confusion, pollution or its separate and alien programmatics (Colossians 2:8). That will indeed spoil you.

In fact, for my own part, while strongly urged by the Chairman of the Philosophy Department at Melbourne University to follow this subject at home and abroad, and to 'distinguish yourself', the matter became banal. The TRUTH, and not distinguishing myself, was pre-eminent. Without that, one finds that one is scarcely human. God, as I found, in HIS speech is infinitely and profoundly above philosophy, and when this speech is followed, there is no particle of the principles and realities of this world, its created proclivities and ways, as to type, which presents the slightest difficulty. Philosophy bogs, in general, BECAUSE it sets out without the basics of God and His revelation, being so clever that it is bereft from the outset.

To be sure, when one is in the presence of God Himself, one can but learn; but WHEN one follows His word, there is no door which is unlocked in the understanding of what He has done, since His writing is supremely clear, and He helps one to understand all that one needs, from the words of life, in the Bible. To show the marvels of His ways, and His glory in truth, the work
LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST, Who Answers Riddles and Where He Is, Darkness Departs, has been added to this site. It is just staggering what the Lord has done and provided for us, if only we seek Him, and take His word for our instruction.

Time and again, the Lord in His love, kindness and humility  has spent time to show the meaning of time and eternity, the things of time and of truth, and to bring apprehension to bear on the topics that in themselves might bewilder, but in Him and in the light of His word, are as an open book.

Praise God that He takes time.

 

NOTES

*1

Dr Jonathan Sarfati in his Refuting Compromise, pp. 67-105, treats this ably.

 

*1A

See:

 Let God be God Ch. 12, as marked, in this connection.

 

*2

Thus from TMR, Models and Marvels, we have this which follows.

.  .

Snelling then notes the conditions of dating, via assumptions:

bullet 1) no daughter radiogenic atoms in the extrusion;
 
bullet 2) rock must be a closed system after hardening;
 
bullet 3) radioactive decay rate must be constant.

"If," he indicates, "any of these assumptions are violated, then the technique fails and any 'dates' are false."

11 samples were collected from the five recent and conspicuous lava flows during field work in 1996 - from the flows of 1954, 1975 and 1954. All with maps were clearly identified. Various carefully checked samples were sent to an eminent laboratory for dating. The dates for the age of the ROCKS were of the order of millions of years. The laboratory manager re-checked his equipment and tested again.  The results were similar.

Since the rocks are KNOWN to be of the order of 50 years old, the apparent 'age' is assumed to have come from 'excess' argon, radiogenic inclusion, in the lava, before the rocks formed. This sort of failure is "also known to occur in many other rocks, including both recent volcanics and ancient crustal rocks," Snelling adds, giving references.

Here the INITIAL SITUATION assumptions are wrong, but confidently made (cf. SMR pp. 240), just as the VARIABLE RATE can be merely a theory based on philosophical preference, abstracting from the ages to the present, or to the ages from concepts of choice. As noted, Professor Keith Wanser indicated (CREATION, Sept.-Nov. 1999, p. 40) that - "It's not really widely known that standard quantum electrodynamics predicts that the speed of light (c) is a function of the field strength, thus changeable in principle ... some are starting to accept that c may not be some eternally immutable thing." IF THIS is NOW known, what else ?

Playing with these fundamentals, in the midst of unexperienced catastrophes and unobserved onsets, and extrapolated to creation itself, when by its very nature (and even Davies accepts it began) its institution is no mirror copy of its subsequent maintenance, it is almost like philosophy itself: a work for bright young minds, not overburdened with factuality. Speaking of that, we recall the work of Dr Russell Humphreys, who has shown a DIFFERENT aspect of the matter, in terms of General Relativity theory, so that estimates of age can ON THOSE TERMS be hugely astray, based on false hypotheses.

The velocity of light appears in an equation which relates to the rate of radioactive decay.

*3

Einstein acknowledged problems in his understanding, in fact resulting from his serious but not biblically adequate concept of God. This is shown in particular in SMR pp. 299ff..