Introduction to Open Theism — Perhaps Over-Simplified
Open Theism has been a topic on interest in the comments lately. I thought I’d explain my understanding. Maybe it’ll make sense.
First, a definition —
In the openness debate the focus is on the nature of the future: is it fully knowable, fully unknowable or partially knowable and partially unknowable? We [supporters of Open Theism] believe that God could have known every event of the future had God decided to create a fully determined universe. However, in our view God decided to create beings with indeterministic freedom which implies that God chose to create a universe in which the future is not entirely knowable, even for God. For many open theists the “future” is not a present reality — it does not exist — and God knows reality as it is.
In other words, Open Theists believe that the future hasn’t been determined by God — except to the extent he chooses to intervene to cause something to happen. Therefore, God can be truly surprised by an outcome. Therefore, God is not morally guilty of all bad things that happen. Since he allows free will and doesn’t know the future perfectly, he does not cause the future.
The contrary view might be closed Closed Theism, which presupposes the traditional view of omniscience — God knows all the future perfectly. Therefore, an Open Theist would argue, God could have made things differently and so can be blamed for at least some bad things.
This is the viewpoint that underlies such questions as, “How could a good God have allowed the Holocaust?” The Open Theist would reply that God didn’t know the Holocaust was coming. The Closed Theist would say that God always knew it was coming, but he didn’t cause it. It was caused by sin, which is always contrary to his will and which is a necessary consequence of free will. People can’t truly love or be good unless they can choose to love and be good, and the power to choose necessarily entails the power to choose evil. Therefore, the Holocaust is a necessary consequence of God allowing people to be good, holy, and righteous.
Of course, under either view, God could have miraculously killed Hitler and even sent the Nazi army straight to gehenna before the Blitzkrieg. Therefore, I don’t find the debate particularly interesting or satisfying. Still, I’m pretty much in the “free will necessarily produces evil” camp even though I’m not a Closed Theist. Or an Open Theist.
I don’t have a catchy name for my position yet. But I’m working on it.
Open Theism and Einstein
To explain my understanding, we have to talk a little cosmology. Let’s take this in steps —
* The general theory of general relativity has been repeatedly and convincingly proved to be true. The theory is incomplete, meaning that it’s right but doesn’t explain everything. The theory has not yet been fully merged with quantum mechanics, and there are any number of interesting questions for the theorists to wrestle with. And yet for the incompleteness of the theory doesn’t affect any of the conclusions I’m about to draw.
* The theory demonstrates that time is a part of the creation. Time is woven into the fabric of the universe — the Creation. God created time when he created the heavens and the earth.
(2Ti 1:9 YLT) who did save us, and did call with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, that was given to us in Christ Jesus, before the times of the ages,
Indeed, time is relative, that is, it moves at different speeds in different inertial frames (a part of the universe moving at constant speed). For example, there are subatomic particles that exist for less than 1 second when sitting still, but when they travel a near light speed, they exist for much, much longer — because they experience time at a much slower speed (as we view it) due to moving so close to the speed of light.
* Therefore, God, who exists outside the universe, exists outside time as we experience it. After all, in our universe, time is not uniquely specified, that is, it moves at different speeds. What speed of time is God’s speed? Well, God exists outside of time and views time from the outside. There may be such a thing as heavenly time, but whatever time God experiences is quite independent of our time.
These three bullets aren’t crazy speculation. These are conclusions that follow directly from laboratory observation. It’s science at its hardest as applied to faith in God. God created time. God exists outside time. God is not bound by earth time.
And I’m not alone in reaching this conclusion. Augustine reached the same conclusion in the Fifth Century without the benefit of Einstein’s work. The great Medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides came to the same conclusion based on the Torah.
Now, if God created earth-time and exists outside earth-time and is not bound by earth-time (all of which I consider very firmly established), then God is not bound to see only what we perceive as the present. He can see our future, too. If not, then he would be bound by time — which he created. And that’s quite impossible.
So does this argument destroy free will? Of course, not. I can watch my children and wife make choices, but that doesn’t mean I compelled those choices. Far from it! I know my wife well enough to know to near-perfect certainty what drink she’ll order at a restaurant, but that doesn’t mean she has no choice or that her choice is my fault. It just means I have knowledge of her choice.
Humans can only predict the future from the present. We can only perfectly predict the future as to objects with no free will. If I drop a book, I know to a certainty that it will fall because it has no choice but to follow the Law of Gravity. It will certainly fall — and therefore I can predict its future.
We sometimes unconsciously anthropomorphize God and assume that he predicts the future by extrapolating from the present — as we do. And since we can only predict the behavior of objects without free will, we assume God’s perfect ability to predict the future would mean we have no free will. But God isn’t like us. God doesn’t predict the future. He sees the future from outside time.
Therefore, God can see the future of people and nations without depriving them of free will. He is not like us.
Can God be surprised?
But what about all the verses that suggest God has been surprised or disappointed in the actions of mankind? Ahh … I’ve said nothing to the contrary. You see, God acts in human history. He is involved in the answer to prayers, in the Spirit’s actions on our hearts — not to mention in the call of Abraham, the Exodus, etc. God is constantly, powerfully active in human history.
Now, imagine that you are outside time, looking not just at the spinning globe of earth, but at billions of such globes, one for each day that man exists in the universe. You would have perfect knowledge of the future. You need but look.
Suppose that you enter a particular globe for a particular day in history and make a change. You say a word to a leader. You encourage someone in need of courage. And yet the humans that live on that globe have free will. In such a case, you’d not know to a certainly what would happen next. You can see the future perfectly, but you only see the future as it exists before you enter the universe and make a change.
Could you be surprised and yet see the future perfectly? Absolutely, because you don’t see the future that results from your intervention in the world until after you intervene. You could be truly surprised at the choices made by people of free will in response to your intervention.
You see, God can have perfect knowledge of the future and yet be surprised at the future — because he is constantly active in the universe in many ways — surely in ways beyond our comprehension.
But a being with the knowledge and wisdom of God would not be routinely surprised on a large scale. He’d be capable of predicting human behavior quite well, because he did, after all, make man, and he knows each human perfectly well. But free will prevents perfect prediction of any one human’s behavior. Nonetheless, in the grand scheme, God could predict things quite well. And he could perfectly predict his own behavior — his keeping of a covenant, his sending of his Son, etc.
And, of course, if God doesn’t like how his interventions turn out, he can intervene again. That’s the nature of omnipotently existing outside time.
The scriptures plainly show God as able to influence the human heart. He could, perhaps, control a human’s will, but he chooses to influence, not control. And as a result, he has considerable ability to shape the history of humanity, but he chooses not to exercise ultimate control. God insists on free will.
Therefore, although God has given his church a mission and empowered each Christian with his Spirit, he does not control the eternal fate of every human. We are left to make choices and to live with results of our choices. And if we choose to reject the gospel, then we suffer the consequences. And if we choose to refuse to preach the gospel, others suffer those consequences.
This is not election in the Calvinistic sense. God doesn’t exercise that kind of control. But there is election because God chose Jerusalem in the First Century, not Beijing and not the Aztecs. God’s choices dramatically influence the direction of history, but so do ours.
If we send a missionary to Ireland — or not — that choice will change the history of the world. The decision of Patricius (St. Patrick) to teach the gospel in Ireland has had a profound impact on world history. We would be foolish to assume our decisions are necessarily less important. We don’t know the future nearly as well as God, but we know it well enough to know that certain decisions will help redeem the world and certain decisions will not.
And therefore our decisions and non-decisions carry great moral weight. We have far greater responsibility that we usually imagine. You see, God could have prevented the Holocaust. But so could the German church. So could have Luther and his disciples. So could have countless Catholic bishops and scholars who, for centuries, treated Jews as subhuman. You see, bigotry against the Jews didn’t begin with Hitler.
We can can ask why God allowed the Holocaust, but we can also ask why we did. Why did millions of European Christians choose to hate rather than to love, when most of them had heard the Sermon on the Mount?
And what sins will our great great-grandchildren discover we were guilty of?
Even though I know I’m not capable of understanding Omniscience with a finite mind, I can’t attribute anything less to God… I believe He knows… And, just as God cannot lie, I believe it would be difficult for Him to make Himself ignorant of an outcome or circumstance… How could He “un-know” what He already knows… I can, because I have “some-timers” …
Part of the mystery and awe of God is how God’s knowledge and my free will can co-exist. I do not have to be albe to draw a line down the middle of a legal pad and list on one side my free choices and on the other, Gods knowledge and plan.
I have no problem in accepting God’s knowledge, past, present, and future, and my free will as being indivisable, while being total responsiblity for what I do or do not do. I can thank God for all the good and bad, confess to God my sins against God and God’s children, knowing that every “atom” of it all is used by God to create every moment.
Your joke about not having a name yet for your position illustrates, to me, the greatest problem in discussions of this topic. Our own hubris. We are unsatisfied with our lack of firm knowledge and therefore strain to arrive at a hypothesis that makes sense. I suggest that we admit that we are attempting to know the unknowable here. We cannot fathom the depths of our Creator’s knowledge – period. Things that we perceive as problems certainly are not problems to our Designer.
I am firmly in the same general camp as you are, Jay, in the following respects: I take it as axiomatic that true freedom of will implies, even requires, that evil exists. And, I believe it is well established that God is not bound by Time as it is His own creation. But we *are* bound within that construct. Therefore, our attempts to understand how He interacts with us from outside our confines are futile. Some things are simply unknowable from our perspective.
As we humans struggle to understand further what we’ve managed to decipher (literally) over the past two decades, just in the limited area of our own genome, one thing should become increasingly clear to us – we don’t know even a fraction of what is knowable. More knowledge has just opened up more complex riddles.
I assert that the same is true in our struggles to explain the things we perceive as problems, i.e. the existence of evil. We want to know these answers so we can explain them to others and help them as they are struggling to develop or maintain some level of faith. But faith, by its very nature, is not knowledge. Job struggled, and was answered by a series of unanswerable questions. Perhaps we should simply, awefully, accept that our Designer expects us to trust Him in these matters.
To really get into this topic, you have to include not only Einstein’s thoughts, but Heisenberg’s, Feinman’s, et al.
These really smart guys took Einstein’s ideas and developed them to their logical conclusion – not just that time is relative, which Einstein had no problem accepting, but that nature is, definitionally, indeterminate, which Einstein could never accept (hence the famous statement “God doesn’t play dice”).
One of the fundamental questions that science struggled with during the atomic age was whether or not Einstein was right or Heisenberg. It has been definitively proven in the lab that Heisenberg’s understanding of nature was right – leading to things like fluorescent lights, microwave ovens, and the atomic bomb – none of which are really understandable with a purely Einsteinian view of the universe.
We must have quantum mechanics to understand the universe, and that means indeterminacy.
I think the root question isn’t “Does God see the future in perfect clarity”, but “Can God see behind the viel of indeterminacy that he built?”
Things like Hawking radiation, Feinman light diagrams, even the firing of synapses in our brain – these things are dependent on h-bar, therefore unknowable at the most fundamental level – only understandable through statistics.
Said differently, in science we cannot say whether a particular synapse in the brain will fire or not as the mechanism that controls it is dependent on non-linear, non-logical processes (electron tunnelling). Similarly, we cannot say what path a photon of light takes in reaching our eyes – we must do the calculus sums of all available paths in the entire universe to reach the right observable phenomenon. This doesn’t make sense – it is not logical – it is truly strange, but it is how the universe works.
We make the mistake of taking our observable and relatable scale and assume that that is the very essence of nature. That, unfortunately, is not the case, hence the very clear break between Newtonian physics and quantum mechanics. However, we can derive the Newtonian view from the quantum view once the appropriate scale in introduced. It doesn’t work in reverse – quantum physics can never be derived from Newtonian physics – quantum physics is the foundation – it is how the universe “works” at the most fundamental level.
And I find this view very, very comforting. It is the place in which the mystery of love and relation can exist. It is the space where the otherness of God can interact with the otherness of His creation.
What I am saying is this. God is love. Love requires otherness – otherwise love is nothing but self-love, narcissism. The true power and mystery of our God is shown in his ability to create a universe in which true love can exist – in which he can relate to and with without negating and destroying the necessary mystery of otherness that is required for love to flow. This is what we see when we look at nature.
That is why I studied physics – to learn about God.
1Cr 2:5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
1Cr 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
Interesting thoughts, Jay. I particularly like the impact on mission in the last few paragraphs.
Are you familiar with OT scholar John Goldingay’s views on open theism? He has expressed some similar thoughts and concerns.
Does God know the Future? Hmmm… well, we see instances of God’s changing His mind, e.g., 2 Kings 20:1-6. What actually happened in that passage?
1. God told Hezekiah (through Isaiah), “You are going to die.”
2. Hezekiah prayed.
3. “The Word of the Lord” came to Isaiah as he was leaving, after delivering the death notice. “Go back and tell Hezekiah he won’t die.”
What can we conclude?
We have to assume, don’t we, that God does not lie? And so, He did not lie when he told Hezekiah he was going to die. In other words, the future that God saw was that Hezekiah was going to die!
But Hezekiah prayed. (Oh, the power of prayer! The “power” of course is in God, not so much in the prayer.)
And the future changed.
The future that God saw… changed.
There is a lot to be said here, but as something else to think about… Can He be surprised? Consider Jer 7:31, “31 They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire — something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.”
Maybe someone who knows Greek can explain that this is a bad translation? But the English sure sounds like God was surprised that an event (a future) came about that He had never anticipated.
This is an interesting and vast topic, which are two descriptors that can lead to long posts.
We have data from both the physical and spiritual realms. There are differences, one is confirmed by observation and measure, the other by faith and experience. But to understand as much of God as we can (since we are being transformed into his image), we must seek His revelation in both the physical and spiritual realms. God is revealed in the things He has made (Rom. 1:19-20), and the Spirit searches the mind of God and makes it known (1 Cor.2:10-13) in spiritual concepts. The testimony of all is consistent and in agreement (1 John 5:7).
Paul said that knowledge puffs up (1 Cor. 8:1), meaning knowledge without a perspective of God can promote human pride and self-sufficiency. The increase in knowledge about the universe, with its celestial and quantum mechanics, combined with humility can produce an awe and reverence for God’s creation and power. However, combined with pride and selfish ambition, knowledge can produce the arrogance of humanistic thinking that says humans will soon know everything according to their own intelligence. It is claimed that this knowledge will be attained by humans without the need for manufacturing some divine being. Yet God has said, in 1 Cor. 1, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? (vs 20). For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.” (vs 25).
There must be something akin to the Unified Field Theory, the Theory of Everything, the Holy Grail of theoretical physics, the common denominator pointing to the sovereign God who created the physical realm and rules the spiritual realm. In the words of Paul in 1 Cor. 2, the church should be the example of unity with one another and with God so that a formula that explains the energy of the universe will fit into its proper God glorifying prospective. The unity of God over everything, whether visible or invisible (Col. 1:15-17). What has been the value of our fellowship’s contribution to this?
String theory and the probability or a certain order within randomness is actually relevant to a consideration of the meaning of the omnipotence of God, of the free will God has given to humans, and the place of physical laws in God’s plan for the church. The organized church in the US is essentially turning it future over to the control of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. We are exercising our choices, and God has already created and foreordained the consequences. It should be plain before our eyes.
We have been born again, created to be like God.
God foreknows things that turn out to be wrong? I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that for a while.
When did God first know that Jesus was going to have to die for our salvation ?? That’s how far in advance God knew we weren’t going to be able to do it right on our own…
“…things that turn out to be wrong?”
What is the definition of “wrong” as used in this context, who gets to author that definition, and what is the time frame for making a determination?
Time is just an arbitrary man-made construct that we use to reference velocity and acceleration of an object in an arbitrarily referenced man-made construct of given points in space.
God is above such things.
” People can’t truly love or be good unless they can choose to love and be good, and the power to choose necessarily entails the power to choose evil.”
Or else we’d just be doing what we were genetically programmed to do like animals. Humans are coded to eat meat genetically, but people choose to be vegetarians.
Also why would God give us revelations about the future if he didn’t ultimately know it? Either he knows the future or he’s a liar.
I think it would be wise, for discussion on this topic, to define just what “knows the future” means. Here are some differing possibilities/examples:
1 – God knows, from nanosecond to nanosecond, the location and trajectory of every single atomic and sub-atomic particle in the universe, as well as all observable (and unobservable?) characteristics of all electromagnetic waves extant in the universe. (Hmmm, kind of sounds like Hebrews 1:3?)
2 – God knows ahead of time whether the next bite you take from your plate will be peas or Jello (if you happen to have those things at your next meal). Similarly, He knows ahead of time [that’s an interesting phrase, isn’t it? “ahead of TIME”] that person “A” will violently abuse child “B”.
3 – God knew ahead of time that He would shape the path of the universe such that He would offer His Son for the sins of all in a few millennia (as mankind measured time).
I would suggest that possibility “1” includes “2” and “3”, but that possibility “3” does not require either “1” or “2”.
I think Jay’s comment, “Could you be surprised and yet see the future perfectly? Absolutely, because you don’t see the future that results from your intervention in the world until after you intervene” fits in there somewhere… I’m just not sure exactly where?
Mark there wouldn’t be “ahead of time” for God because as i assert, time is a man-made reference, and God existed before space (neccesseary for time to exist) since he created the universe; therefore, God is outside time and thus would see all “times” simultaneously i would suggest.
God does get frustrated and no wonder! How boring to know everything.
God once regretted He made man. Strange thought if all man did was known beforehand.
Man just might be the only thing that throws God a curve every now and then in all the universe. Maybe that’s why God made man. Man above all causes God and His angels to cry and laugh.
Unless I am badly misinterpreting 2 Peter 1:10 (“make your calling and election sure”), it would seem that what we do, determines what God has predestinated, as much as what God has predestinated, determines what we do.
In the salvation of man’s soul there are two necessary parts: God’s part and man’s part. God’s part is the big part, “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.” ( Eph. 2:8-9). The Love which God felt for man lead him to send Christ into the world to redeem man. The life and teaching of Jesus, the sacrifice on the cross, and the proclaiming of the gospel to men constitute God’s part in salvation.
Though God’s part is the big part, man’s part is also necessary if man is to reach heaven. Man must comply with the condition of pardon which the Lord has announced. Man’s part can be clearly set forth in the following steps:
Hear the Gospel. “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”(Romans 10:14).
Believe. “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6).
Repent of past sins. “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent”(Acts 17:30).
Confess Jesus as Lord. “See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? 37 And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” (Acts 8:36-37).
Be baptized for the remission of sins. “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”(Acts 2:38).
Live a Christian life. “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev. 2:10).
God’s part in providing the necessary grace, but also stresses man’s responsibility in accepting this grace. A passage in establishing both God and man’s involvement in man’s salvation is Ephesians 2: 8-10:
“8: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9: Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
“Grace” is God’s part and “faith” is man’s part. Faith is a “work of God” and is required of man (Jn. 6: 29; Acts 16: 31). God has provided the means so that man can develop faith (Jn. 20: 30, 31, Rom. 10: 17). Faith is a work, in one sense, because it requires effort on man’s part to believe. Saving faith is more than just intellectual accenting as to the existence of God, even the demons have this kind of faith (Jas. 2: 19). Saving faith is always seen as obedient, doing whatever God would have them do in their given circumstance (Phili. 2: 12, Gal. 5: 6, Jas. 2: 14-26). In regards to such “children of obedience,” Jesus is said to be the “author of eternal salvation” (Heb. 5: 8, 9, cp. I Pet. 1: 14).
How about the objection, “if any work of any kind is required of man in his salvation, then man is saved by work; hence, meritorious salvation.” As we have noticed, belief itself is a work, a work of God (Jn. 6: 29). Since John 6: 29 is so important in our effort to herein establish the right view of man’s part in salvation, allow me to quote from commentator Matthew Henry regarding Jesus’ statement of faith being a “work of God.”
“…Christ having told them that they must work for the meat he spoke of, must labour for it, they enquire what work they must do, and he answers them, v. 28, 29. 1. Their enquiry was pertinent enough (v. 28): What shall we do, that we may work the works of God? Some understand it as a pert question: “What works of God can we do more and better than those we do in obedience to the law of Moses?’’ But I rather take it as a humble serious question, showing them to be, at least for the present, in a good mind, and willing to know and do their duty; and I imagine that those who asked this question, How and What (v. 30), and made the request (v. 34), were not the same persons with those that murmured (v. 41, 42), and strove (v. 52), for those are expressly called the Jews, who came out of Judea (for those were strictly called Jews) to cavil, whereas these were of Galilee, and came to be taught. This question here intimates that they were convinced that those who would obtain this everlasting meat, (1.) Must aim to do something great. Those who look high in their expectations, and hope to enjoy the glory of God, must aim high in those endeavours, and study to do the works of God, works which he requires and will accept, works of God, distinguished from the works of worldly men in their worldly pursuits. It is not enough to speak the words of God, but we must do the works of God. (2.) Must be willing to do any thing: What shall we do? Lord, I am ready to do whatever thou shalt appoint, though ever so displeasing to flesh and blood, Acts 9:6. 2. Christ’s answer was plain enough (v. 29): This is the work of God that ye believe. Note, (1.) The work of faith is the work of God. They enquire after the works of God (in the plural number), being careful about many things; but Christ directs them to one work, which includes all, the one thing needful: that you believe, which supersedes all the works of the ceremonial law; the work which is necessary to the acceptance of all the other works, and which produces them, for without faith you cannot please God…..” (Complete Commentary on the Bible).
Those who contend that man is totally passive in his salvation contradict themselves, when they say man is saved by faith. Faith itself is a work and requires man’s participation. Moreover, repentance, confession of Christ’s deity, and baptism are seen as being essential to salvation (Acts 2: 38; Rom. 10: 9, 10; Acts 2: 38). The only intelligent answer is that works God has required, including faith, are not works “whereby man can earn salvation or boast.” These acts reflect favorably on God, not on the man doing them. All God required works are simply, put another way, man’s acceptance and appropriation of the wonderful grace God provides. God’s grace and man’s role is analogous to the drowning man who is doomed without help. A man suddenly appears and throws out a lifeline; the man takes hold, and is pulled to safety. Can you imagine such headlines as would read: “Drowning man performs a meritorious act of great proportion in saving himself!” The headline would be concerning the real hero, the one who extended the lifeline to the helpless, doomed man, would it not? Hence, the case of God and man in man’s salvation. The saved must humbly remember, though, the words of Jesus: “So likewise ye, when ye have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do” (Lk. 17: 10, cp. Tit. 3: 5).
In conclusion, the view that man merits salvation makes a mockery out of Jesus’ death and exalts man; salvation being wholly of God strips man of any responsibility and makes him a robot and precludes his growth; the view that man’s salvation involves man’s participation in accepting God’s grace places emphasis on God but requires man to responsibly act. The third view also results in merging and blending all pertinent scriptures so that there are no contradictions. This final view also allows man to approach Jesus’ blood, wherein lies the means of forgiveness of sin (salvation) by water baptism and walking in the light (Acts 2: 38, cp. Matt. 26: 28; I Jn. 1: 7).
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I know this is late in coming. I just read it today. It dawned on me in reading the comments that maybe when it comes to God being surprised it might be explained in the Trinity. For example Jesus did not know the time of the second coming, yet the Father did. There may be an argument for God existing inside and outside of time.
In fact what if Jesus is God seeing time as we do except where the Father reveals more. Not unlike the prophets.