What is causality, according to the Scriptures?
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I often hear that God caused time to exist, or created time.
But causality is relatable to us as a temporal concept, at least in the sense that it requires strict ordering; nothing caused can logically precede its cause (otherwise we could never prove for example that God is Supreme because of His power to cause anything, if causation is meaningless or without order or hierarchy). Time certainly teaches us this and causality is an attribute of time--but perhaps causality is not unique to time? It must be so if time was indeed "caused".
Therefore no definition of "eternal" may ignore causality, eternity itself providing for and always being consistent with causality; causality necessarily transcends "time" as we know it, because "time" as we know it was at least purportedly "caused".
Further compounding the subject is the fact that time is not always a singleton nor is it always referred to with the definite article in Scripture; it may be used in an apparent singleton sense as in Revelation 10:6 ("there should be time no longer"), but in other places the indefinite article is used, "a time", as in Ecclesiastes 3 .
Given that there are multiple "times" in God's purview and appointed by Him to His creations, what sense are we to make, Scripturally, from the assertion that God created time, if the causal aspect is discounted? For example there is no verse in any translation I am aware of that states that God "created time" or that He "caused causality to exist", since the latter would require circular definition.
One could purport that God is able to make no sense or have His attributes be circularly defined, but that would make Him unknowable (and void of virtue), contradicting John 17:3.
Therefore what is causality, or eternity for that matter, according to the Scriptures? How do time, eternity and causality relate, according to the Scriptures?
Is there any inherent attribute of time, if causality is not unique to time?
Asked by pygosceles
(2139 rep)
Dec 21, 2023, 06:10 PM
Last activity: Dec 21, 2023, 07:21 PM
Last activity: Dec 21, 2023, 07:21 PM