Does God See Time the Way We Do?

How can we reconcile the fact that God sees and knows everything, but still seems surprised by certain things?  For example, God says it never even entered His mind that Israel would engage in child sacrifice (Jeremiah 19:5 and Jeremiah 32:35). God also expresses regret that He created man (Genesis 6:6-7). He regrets that He made Saul King.  (I Samuel 15:11)

We also read of God changing the future.  God “bargains” with Abraham (Genesis 19:26-23). When God saw Nineveh’s repentance, He changed His mind about destroying it as He has planned.  (Jonah 3:10) There are many more examples of both God expressing surprise and God changing His plans.

There are many schools of thought on this apparent contradiction, and we do not say we have the “right” answer.  We will provide a brief summary of the positions we find to be most credible.  We will offer our perspective. 

First, some believe that, since all examples we have seem to come from what we know as the Old Testament, that this was a way that God could manifest His sovereignty and set an example of repentance.   Second, there are those who point out that it is possible to punish and have regrets at the same time, like parents disciplining their child.  Third, there are people who contend that God chooses to veil the future from Himself in certain instances.

We see scriptural problems with all these perspectives.   Our point of view is that God does see and know everything.  We believe God communicates with us in time-bound terms which we can understand.  He must communicate that way with us – that is the only way we can understand.   That would explain why God chooses to use terms like the ones above.

But does God also operate in a greater sense without a sense of time?  Peter, in talking about the Lord’s return, tells us to remember how God sees time – a day is like a thousand years to God. (II Peter 3:8) A thousand was just a big number back then, which was often substituted for “infinity” or “everything” as in the cattle of a thousand hills belong to the Lord.  (Psalms 50:10) The Psalmist is not saying the cattle on the thousand and first hill don’t belong to the Lord.  Clearly Peter is not saying that a thousand and one years is not like a day to the Lord – Peter is saying God has no concept of time. 

There are those who try to limit this statement to the larger context of the question Peter is addressing here – which is Christ’s return.   This position holds that Peter is saying to those who are becoming discouraged that Christ had not come yet should not feel that way because God’s notion of time is not ours.

There are some fundamental problems with limiting Peter’s statement that way.    First, one cannot have it “both ways,” arguing that Christ’s nature of time is one way in one case, but not in others.  Second, if that were the case, Peter could have made his point by saying a day is like a thousand years to the Lord.   He would not need to add that a thousand years is like a day.   Third, Peter’s statement here is the equivalent of what we would call a parenthetical – he even says “don’t forget this fact” – as if to say, “remember – this is how it is.”

This has vast implications. God can and does know everything.   There is no notion of time with God. We, being time bound creatures cannot even begin to understand this concept.  Remember that God is a lot higher than what we can even understand. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Some argue that this contradicts free will and endorses predestination.  Our response is simple – this very notion implies an element of time.  The fact that on some level God knows our choices does not mean that He does not allow us to make them.  Remember, we just cannot understand the concept of timelessness.

It is kind of like the age old question “can God make a rock so big He cannot move it.”  Our answer has always been “sure He can.  He can also change His mind and decide to move it again.”  Both the question and the answer assume a notion of time.  They just prove once again that we cannot conceive timelessness the way Peter tells us God does.

Still others posit that this perspective makes God seem disingenuous.  They wonder why God would represent that He doesn’t know things that He clearly does.   To us, this position tries to use our earthly logic to try to explain God’s methods.   Since God is a lot higher than what we can even understand, this position seems to us like trying to understand God out of time, which is an exercise in futility as we have already seen.

This is another one of those questions that is fun to think about, but probably does not matter much in the grand scheme of things.  We do know that we have been given all things we need to know for salvation (2 Peter 1:3) and the things we don’t need to figure out for our salvation belong to God (Deuteronomy 29:29).