You know what really grinds my gears? People who assume the possibility of time travel. People who propose the possibility of time travel (either forwards or backwards) immediately lose a bit of credibility in my mind. I am not referring to non-Christians because they don’t know any better, but a Christian who postulates such an idea is unfortunate. Let’s look at a few reasons why the concept of time travel is completely ridiculous. I do not pretend to be an expert in any of the scientific fields relating to this topic. However, some things can be evaluated on simple reason without any complex jargon. For this discussion, do not appeal to some authority and say “well, Einstein and Hawking said it could happen, so there.” Present ideas.
Providence
My first objection to time travel is that it seems to me against God’s character or plan to allow humans to manipulate time – the discussion of time travel is moot because God will not allow it. More will be said on this later. But moving forward, let’s assume that God would allow mankind to manipulate the space-time continuum.
Light/Speed of Light
Almost everyone who wants to say something about the possibility of time travel will discuss the effects of moving at the speed of light, so that is where I will begin. They daydream about shooting forward in time by traveling at the speed of light; while everyone ages at a normal rate, the individual shooting through space at such a rate ages much slower while the world passes him by.
First of all, aging is a physical process. Even if traveling at such a speed slows down the affects of aging on the body, it would still take 80 years of joyriding on a sunbeam for everyone on earth to age 80 years, for example. If even your own body did not age much physically, the rest of the world wouldn’t magically be 80 years ahead of you.
The whole idea of time slowing down for the object traveling at the speed of light is built on a flawed premise. Proponents of time travel look at starlight and assume that what they are seeing is light which is in the past – wrong. What they are seeing is light that is in the present, it is just finally hitting their eyes. It is the same light that, let’s assume for the sake of this discussion a universe which is very old, was shone from a star, say, one million years ago. What you are seeing is light that has been traveling for one million years. If that star burns out, it will take one million years for you to stop seeing its light. This concept to me does not seem very complex. You are not seeing light from the past; you are seeing present-time light that has simply been traveling for one million years. The light has not been “traveling through time,” it has been traveling through space, covering a very long distance.
If I take a direct flight from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, it will take me roughly four hours. If I traveled at the speed of light, however, it would take me roughly .01 seconds. Why would anyone else’s aging be affected as a result of this? And I don’t mean change in their physical bodies, I mean the space-time continuum. Why would time move any faster or slower as a result of the speed at which I was traveling, no matter the duration of my journey? Light travels at the speed of light and has been since the dawn of time – has this affected the rate of the passage of time? If I grabbed hold of a sunbeam, would it change the passage of time?
Two Models of Time
I believe there are two separate models of how time has been created by God.
The first: picture a globe. You can spin the globe and see the whole planet. You can put one finger on Moscow and another on Memphis. You can be in both places at once. God created a time with a definite beginning and end. God is outside of time and sees the whole of it at once. (I believe C.S. Lewis held this view; resident Lewis experts can confirm or deny this.) The second Person of the Godhead decided to enter time and be subject to it around the year 4 BC. With this model, all things must be happening at once. Julius Caesar is being betrayed at this very moment. Abraham Lincoln is being shot at this very moment. I am being born at this very moment. God gives prophecy based on what is going on right now, but at a different part of the globe. In this model, the possibility of traveling back in time is dependent upon God picking up a person and dropping him at a different part of the time. We simply cannot move to a different part of the globe, but God can and He can bring someone along for the ride.
The second: picture an arrow being fired. Time begins at the archer and ends at the target. As the arrow passes through space, it represents time as something that God started, and it will eventually end when God decides – the target. As the arrow passes through the air, the past is past and it is done with. There is no going back. The second Person of the Godhead decided to enter time when the arrow was at 4 BC and jumped off when the arrow was at roughly AD 29. God gives prophecy based on what He will in the future ensure happens. In this model, the height of ridiculousness is achieved by the one who believes traveling back in time is possible. One would have to resurrect every dead person and recreate every event on earth in reverse. Past events are not lingering around for someone to drop in on.
Time is Just a Concept
The universe in which we live is physical, not imagined. A person cannot manipulate every atom in the universe to reform and work in reverse to travel back in time. If you could witness the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it would be because you recreated the event by putting back together every atom of every cell of every person. You would not be viewing the actual event, unless, of course, you held to the globe model of time. If time is an object that God views from afar, you would still need to request Him to pick you up and drop you in a different area, you couldn’t scientifically derive a way to travel yourself – God simply would not allow it based on a comprehensive understanding of His character and plan for the timeline.
Time, really, is just a concept. It is not a physical element to be manipulated. People age because their bodies lose energy and then wither and die. Not because “time is passing.” I believe references to time in the Bible are anthropomorphisms. Planets rotate, weather patterns go through cycles, and objects are changed due to loss of energy or outside influences – this is the way God made it. We have calendars based on astronomical phenomena. Because we have calendars does not mean that some magical force called “time” is passing. I believe that if time is more than just a concept, then it would have pre-existence like God does. Time would have been passing all the while before God created the universe. Now, someone could easily say, “God created time and made it more than a concept.” Okay. But by “concept” I do not mean something that does not actually exist, I mean something that is not a physical force to be manipulated by any person. Not by building a time machine, and not by traveling at the speed of light.
Conclusion
The bottom line for the Christian is that time travel is simply impossible in any form because God will not allow it. But even if He did, I hold that it would not be possible due to time being a concept and not a physical force to be manipulated.
7 comments:
Great blog idea! The more brain workage, the better, I say.
'The light has not been “traveling through time,” it has been traveling through space, covering a very long distance.'
Exactly. The light is not "light from the past." It is simply light emitted in the past.
'They daydream about shooting forward in time by traveling at the speed of light; while everyone ages at a normal rate, the individual shooting through space at such a rate ages much slower while the world passes him by.'
Indeed. The only situation that comes to mind where time works differently (in theory) would be in a black hole. Space is, so they say, stretched out in a black hole so that if you were to enter one, everything outside of you would appear to move very quickly, whereas someone looking on from the outside would observe you to move extremely slowly. I don't understand all the logistics, or if time is supposedly changed (it's an application of the Theory of Relativity), but thing is, there's no way to escape from a black hole, so no go there.
The grammarian in me has struck again. I have reworded the main blog caption so that it comprises about 65 rather than 80 words:
"Crazy rantings of crazy people. This is a place to put ideas before research and expertise. Our Biblical worldview is assumed when we rant. The rules: no dismissing any topic out of hand. Present ideas, not appeals to authority (unless completely unavoidable). Posts are expected to be completely wacky before — and sometimes even after — they are refined through the constructive rants of fellow madmen."
Sorry, but I have so much fun editing. It's a disease.
Aronne, I like your blog description and we will run with it. Especially the notion that "This is a place to put ideas before research and expertise."
We in no way shy away from research and expertise, but our purposes here is to debate ideas. Ideas trump research and expertise. This of course would be seen as crazy by the scholar, but only by the scholar who takes himself too seriously. We are, after all, madmen. Here, the emphasis is more philosophical than scientific.
What if we aren't the ones manipulating time? What if time is the one manipulating us?
Hmmm....
...then we're being manipulated.
The key thing is whether time is more than a concept, I think.
Fun article. I think what you are really describing here is the belief that time is not casual. It is real in the same sense that numbers are real. Numbers are concepts which we use to understand the world around us, but they do not really do anything. They do not act, alter, or cause. And because they do not act, they cannot be made to act differently.
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