P. Wilfrid Stinissen, OCD
Why did God create time? Why must we humans, before the gate of eternity opens to us, live this remarkable life with its many difficulties and suffering, with its sins and mistakes? If God is love, if God is so generous, why does he not give us everything straight away? Why is so much "time" needed before we reach our goal?
God himself lives outside of time, in eternal presence, in bliss, where he lacks nothing. If he desires— as Christianity claims— that we humans participate in his life, why does he not provide us immediate access to this bliss? Why must we undergo an infinite number of small, groping steps, most of which may even be steps in the wrong direction?
Time for growth
Many philosophers have pondered this remarkable situation into which humans are placed. Humans long for the absolute, for the whole, but in reality, they achieve only small fragments. Everything in human life must happen gradually.
A person cannot even be fully oneself. About God, it can be said that he is himself, that he perfectly coincides with himself. However, a person must leave himself in order to find himself again. One does not fully recognize oneself in what one is at the present moment. Instead of living in harmony with oneself, one is shattered: pulled simultaneously into the past and into the future. One lives in distraction, yes, is the embodiment of diaspora. His task is to transform this multiplicity into structural unity.
But why does God give a person such an "impossible" task? Why did he not create a complete person right from the beginning? In my short writing "Father, I entrust myself to you," I attempted to explain why God did not create a perfect person immediately. He did not do this to complicate life for humans, but because, in his love, he wants to provide the opportunity for humans to participate in his Trinitarian life. The life of the three divine Persons consists of a continuous mutual giving and receiving. If a person had been created perfect right from the start, he would indeed have participated in mutual receiving, but not in giving. A person would receive everything from God but could not give anything to God in return. This would deprive him of an important perspective of love. The essence of love is to continually give and receive.
Thus, a person is "de facto" unfinished when they leave God's hands. God equips a person with possibilities that they must realize themselves. God gives them free will so they can choose God voluntarily or reject him. This is precisely the meaning of the forbidden tree: God places the first human couple before a crucial choice. If they choose God, they do so for God, giving something to God. This brings joy to God and he is grateful for it. God does not want to have a monopoly on generosity and does not want to force a person into one-sided gratitude. He wants to give the person the opportunity for generosity and gratitude as well.
However, choosing God, putting one's possibilities into action, developing, maturing, and becoming a complete person requires time. The meaning of time is precisely that we develop and grow.
Compared to eternity, time may seem worthless, decadent. This line of thought, however, is abstract. When we consider the purpose of a person, that is, their introduction into the life of the Most Holy Trinity, we must realize that time is a gift from God. Time gives us the opportunity to grow.
Thanks to time, the seed that God placed in us can sprout and grow into a tree. Through time, we have the opportunity to participate in God's creative work and assist God in shaping ourselves.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) argues that a person is a being who chooses itself, and there is a grain of truth in those words. A person is indeed chosen by God, but God also gives them the possibility of their own choice. A person is different when they die than when they were born, and what they have become during their life is partly the fruit of their work, their own "merit." Perhaps we are sensitive to this word, but isn't it time to discover its rich content?
God reveals himself in time
That time is something positive follows from the fact that God reveals himself in time. At the beginning and at the end of the Bible, time is spoken of. The Bible begins with the words "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1:1) and concludes: "Yes, I am coming soon" (Rev 22:20). The entire revelation is set within time.
That God created at the beginning means that before creation, time does not exist. Time begins with God's creative work. The Bible immediately ascertains that God is transcendent, for he cannot be placed within the categories of time and space. Before the time of creation, there is no time in which God lived and developed. Time is thus related to creation. Without God's creative work, there would never have been time.
The seven days show that creation is a process. God creates one thing after another. This requires time, and completing creation is only possible in time. According to the Bible, time is not an illusion one must be freed from, as gnosticism and some Eastern religions assert. God himself establishes and confirms time by not creating everything at once, but in stages. Time is holy, has its religious significance, for its origin lies in God's creative work.
It suffices to read Genesis to understand that there cannot be a fundamental discord between time and eternity. If God, who is eternal and transcendent, created time, this time must contain something of eternity.
It is true that this dimension of eternity has partially faded due to original sin. The task of Jesus and all of us moving forward is to "redeem" time (Eph 5:16; Col 4:5).
Not only birth, but the entire revelation occurs in time. The entire Old Testament is an extensive narrative about the gradual revelation of God. If God desires to reveal himself to man, he does not do so in the form of a summary that contains all events right from the beginning. He does not place into our hands a treatise systematically explaining everything God wants to say about himself and us humans. No, God reveals himself to us in events. Noah is saved from the flood, Abraham is called to leave his land, the newborn Moses is saved from death, Israel is led out of Egypt, God takes his people in the desert and leads them into the Promised Land. God reveals his being by doing something for his people and alongside his people.
A great temptation for Israel is to not wait for God to reveal himself, but rather to create an idol and thus want to decide for themselves who God is. Whoever makes an idol can also determine what their god looks like and what attributes he should have. But God desires for us to respect time. How could he possibly reveal himself entirely and at once, he, of whom it is said (Isa 45:15): "Truly, you are a hidden God," and in the psalm (145:3): "Great is the Lord, … his greatness is unsearchable"? For us, insignificant people, God must reveal himself very gradually. To see God can mean death (Ex 33:20).
The meaning of the Old Testament is, among other things, to show that God chose a long path if he wanted to communicate himself to man. Conversely, in the New Testament, time is tremendously condensed. "I am the truth," Jesus says of himself (cf. John 14:6). He summarizes all truth in heaven and on earth: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9).
Just as the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration were blinded by the light radiating from him, we too are blinded by it. However, on the Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus revealed himself in all his glory, Moses and Elijah also appeared. Here the entire Old Testament is present. The full revelation does not fall suddenly and unexpectedly from heaven. It is preceded by a long history. And all this history will come to the fore when Jesus finally crowns the work. "Do not think," he says, "that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish but to fulfill" (Matt 5:17). Although we enter into time eternal with him and in him, Jesus does not deny time. Jesus does not reject what God has already disclosed about himself from the very beginning of creation. On the contrary, he allows all this to rise into full light. The time of the old covenant is included in the fullness of time that marks the new covenant.
The Church, from the very beginning, acts as Jesus. Although aware that the New Testament is indeed a "new" covenant, it continues to incorporate the Old Testament books into its liturgy. It understands that these books retain their value, that it is important for us to penetrate at least partially into God's pedagogy, into the way God patiently teaches his people.
Somehow, even we, as we live in the full light of revelation, must go through the entire path. The Old Testament is continuously relevant for us. The narrative of the exodus from Egypt is an ongoing challenge for us; we too must stop being slaves of Egypt, emerge from ourselves, and be led into the desert, where God will raise us. To understand this joyful message and allow it to permeate us, a period of preparation is needed.
For all who long for the absolute and who with zeal wish to skip all intermediate stages, it is beneficial to read the Old Testament and learn from it how God behaves when revealing himself to humanity.
God waits for us in time
The Romanian Orthodox theologian Dumitru Staniloae argues that we can only grasp the deepest content of time when we realize that its roots lie in the Trinity. Because humans are created in God's image, we can only understand humans when we view them as a reflection of God's being.
The Trinity is a loving dialogue between the Father and the Son. The Father gives all his love, that is, himself, to the Son, and expects the Son to accept this offer and in return fully give himself. This is the fundamental pattern of the essence of love: I give myself and expect that you accept me, and in doing so, you give yourself as well. In the Holy Trinity, there exists absolute immediacy: the Father’s offer and the Son’s response perfectly merge. Their love is absolute. Therefore, doubts or hesitation cannot arise between question and answer. The immediacy of love is part of God's eternity.
When God offers his love to us humans, the situation is different. He did not create us to respond "yes" unconditionally and automatically. What value would such love have? God wishes for us to freely decide to respond. God waits for our "yes." Time is precisely the duration and length of this waiting. "Do you want?" God asks us and gives us "time" to mature to a positive answer.
Time is a sign of God's patience; yes, time is the embodiment of God's patience. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock" (Rev 3:20). The fact that God stands and remains at the door is precisely what creates time. Most of us do not respond immediately upon hearing God's knocking. But God does not give up. God waits, and by his waiting, he creates time. By giving us time, he shows how much he values our response.
Growth and maturation prompt us to continually shorten the time between God's knocking and our response. God encourages us to gradually approach his own immediacy and thus grow into his eternity.
A person who is completely deaf to God's calling, who does not heed what God offers, robs time of its significance and renders it absurd. However, a person cannot go that far because God does not cease to hope and wait.
Everything has its "time"
It is truly not a curse that we must live in time. Many believe that time is the opposite of eternity. However, this is not the case. If we surrender ourselves wholeheartedly to time, take it seriously, and discover its original meaning, we will find eternity in it. Eternity is the marrow of time. If we use time properly, it will bear fruit, "lasting benefit…" (cf. John 15:16).
In the concept of "time" perhaps the most mysterious and fascinating thing is precisely this: something more fragile and fleeting than time is hard to imagine, yet time is completely filled with something that is "lasting." Only to one who fully accepts the transience of time, who does not in the least try to hold onto anything, but allows everything to have its "time," will time bring "lasting benefit."
Do you not feel how something of the peace and stability of eternity descends upon you when you hear the Preacher speak of the transience of time?
"For everything, there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time for war, and a time for peace."
(Eccles 3:1–8)
In the process of growth, which is our life, we are given to go through many stages, to take many steps, and fortunately, everything has its "time." Time is an important means, as it gives us the opportunity to develop without having to skip important phases of the entire process. For every step, there is a time. And conversely: every period of time is given to us for gradual growth. Time is an opportunity for growth.
Twisted time
That time is a necessary means does not need to be proven to the contemporary person. Everyone knows that time is money. The question is whether this calculating, quantitative view of time does not directly contradict the very purpose of time. Naturally, it is not wrong to regard time also as productive capacity. However, if this capacity is emphasized to the point where it ultimately represents all the value of time, then something is undoubtedly wrong. If a worker is constantly pressured to increase the pace of work, if the goal is to produce as much as possible in the shortest time, then time becomes an evil force. Instead of giving the worker a chance to grow and live, time is manipulated so that it kills everything alive. Forcing a person to work beyond their capacity, regardless of their character and personal rhythm, means blocking every possibility for the development of their personality.
Jesus teaches us how we are to work. "Let your light shine before others" (cf. Matt 5:16). As natural as it is for light to shine, it should be equally natural for us—who are the light of the world (cf. Matt 5:14)—to spread light through our work. This presupposes that our work emerges from our innermost self, that there is a connection between our work and our inner selves, and that work is given the necessary time.
When I say that time is an important means, I mean something different than "time is money." Equating time with "dishonest mammon" is the same as giving time a twisted meaning. In eternity, mammon will leave you behind, says Jesus (cf. Luke 16:13). If we use time to accumulate mammon, we strip it of its eternal dimension. If we want to define mammon, then it is something transient. "You fool! This very night, your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12:20–21).
Ultimately, everything depends on how we understand the development of a person. Is human existence a journey towards death (Heidegger) or towards life? Investing time in money, using it to accumulate wealth makes time a journey towards death. For not only will everything be taken from us when the time comes, but accumulating treasures also bears the mask of death.
Seeking the meaning of life in something external to ourselves, in something that is also very easily breakable, only increases our sense of alienation and rootlessness. The inner development of a person is then replaced by the accumulation of material things. What a dreadful waste of time!
"But seek his kingdom, and these things shall be added to you," says Jesus (Luke 12:31). Everything material will be given to us additionally—exactly as much as we need, as what we do not need is merely burdensome—if we first expend our efforts on the development of our inner self. And to develop our inner self means to seek his kingdom, i.e., God's love.
God wants to give us his love and created time for us to gradually open ourselves to his love.
And yet we receive everything at once
Again we can ask the question: Why doesn't God give us all his love at once? Why must this process take so much "time"?
In reality, God gives us everything at once. On his side, there is no hesitation or delay. God cannot wait. At baptism, he gives us his Holy Spirit and in him, he bestows everything upon us.
But we need time to open ourselves to this gift and so, with our own small contribution, together with God, build the mutual relationship of love between him and us, a relationship for which we were created.
In John of the Cross (1542–1591), we read a very precise text about this difference in tempo between God and humans. "This betrothal, which took place on the cross, is not the same as the one we are now going to discuss. For the former took place at once when God gave the first soul its grace: and this takes place every time in every soul at baptism. However, the second betrothal takes place through the way of perfection and realizes itself only gradually and step by step. Although both form a unity, there is a difference: one takes place at the pace of the soul and thus gradually; the other occurs at God's pace and therefore instantly."
May we learn something from the "children of the world" regarding their sense of time! Each second is given to us to grow into the love we have already received. Time is the environment, the divine all-encompassing environment that is there for those who are not yet perfect but are on the way.
To not become is to do injustice to time, robbing it of its meaning.
But for one who is aware that it is about becoming what they are, time is filled with eternity.
(Article from the Swedish magazine KARMEL 2(92))
Translated by Dagmar Chvojková
