The New Testament contains somewhat more direct statements of the same principle, such as:
> Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)
So although the Bible is not a philosophy book, it does convey these ideas about God that we today put in more philosophical language.
@anonymouswho And God's being timeless and changeless does not prevent God from acting into time, such as with Abraham and Moses, and from appearing to human beings in different ways at different times. God is infinite, and encompasses all states of being, even if God may manifest only some of those states of being in particular times and places due to the level and type of receptivity on the part of the particular recipients.
And even when God does manifest in particular ways at particular times, the totality of God is still present in everything God does. The perceived "change" is in the finite, time-bound recipients, not in the infinite, timeless nature of God.
Relative to this, according to Swedenborg (and even traditional Christian theology to some extent), the entire Old Testament tells the story of Jesus Christ even though from our human, time-bound perspective, Jesus Christ did not exist yet. However, for God, the divine author of the Scriptures, this is no limitation, because everything that happens in all time is a present reality for God.
Something that to us is in the future and has not yet happened is just as present to God as something that to us already happened and is in the past.
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Thank you very much @Nathaniel and @LeeWoofenden for your replies. I am not a Christian. In fact, I am an ex-Christian because I lost faith in God. But I would still like to study the Bible again and see where that takes me.
Augustine said "Thy years are but a day, and thy day is not recurrent, but always today. Thy 'today' yields not to tomorrow and does not follow yesterday. Thy 'today' is eternity." — St. Augustine, Confessions, Book XI, Chapter XIII Where does he get this idea? This just sounds like a bunch of words thrown together that mean nothing. As you pointed out, the Scriptures say 1000 years is like a day to God. That is not eternal, that's relativity. Jesus cannot be "the same yesterday, today, and forever" in an eternal sense, because when he supposedly "preexisted", he was not the same. He lacked…
I agree that God surpasses our experience and understanding of logic and reason (I don't know about reality though). If there is such a thing as logic, then God's word would give us the most logical explanation. If there is such a thing as reason, then God's word would provide the greatest of all reasons. Our understanding of logic is contradictory and nonsense. "Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:
According to one verse of the Quran, a muslim man can marry a woman if she is from "the people of the book" (Jews and Christians). That's why a lot of muslim men nowadays marry Catholic women.
But the problem is that Catholics believe in the Trinity. Allah condemns the Trinity in the Quran and i...
@LeeWoofenden Lee, I asked this question, What is the distinction between Justification and Salvation? and it ended up as three: Reformed point of view, Eastern Orth PoV, and Catholic PoV. Do you think it would be productive or helpful to add a fourth, from the PoV of Swedenborg's theology? THought I'd ask you before I went for a fourth question.
@LeeWoofenden Productive meaning "would I get a different answer?" because if that is the case, I think I should ask that.
@LeeWoofenden "Before the Incarnation there was no Son or Holy Spirit, although there was the divine wisdom and power that they express. After the Incarnation, there was a Son and Holy Spirit." Is this the same as or different from, "proceeds from the Father" in terms of the Holy Spirit. (You explained how Jesus was begotten with Mary as his Mother, so I am not asking if Jesus "proceeds" in the Swedenbor PoV).
@KorvinStarmast Based on the answers posted so far on the three existing ones, a Swedenborgian answer would be massively different from the Protestant answer, and quite different from the Catholic answers. No answers have yet been posted on the question about the Orthodox perspective, but I presume a Swedenborgian answer would be different from an Orthodox answer, also.
@KorvinStarmast First, it's necessary to grasp that Swedenborg utterly rejects the Trinity of Persons. So there is no "person" proceeding from another "person" with or without the involvement of yet another "person." The whole filioque controversy that doctrinally separated the Catholic and Orthodox churches was, from the point of view of Swedenborgian theology, error piled upon error.
@KorvinStarmast To answer your question more specifically, though, when speaking more informally Swedenborg says that the Holy Spirit is the Divine Proceeding, which comes from the Father and the Son. When speaking more technically, he says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father by means of the Son.
But once again, this has a completely different meaning than it does in trinitarian theology. In Swedenborgian theology, the Father is the divine love or the divine soul, the Son is the divine wisdom or the divine body and human presence, and the Holy Spirit is the divine power flowing out from the divine love through, or as shaped and guided by, the divine wisdom.
@LeeWoofenden I don't understand the eternal thing, and I think it gives men an excuse to say whatever they'd like for no other reason than "our finite minds cannot understand the infinite God". I think it's interesting that you wrote the Ancient Jewish people did not have "the level of abstract thought present in Greek philosophy". This tells me that you know the Ancient Jews were not given a concept of eternity by God, and instead He chose to reveal His true nature to pagan philosophers.
This is my major problem with the trinity (other than it's not in the bible whatsoever). But I'd still like to continue discussing Swendenborg's christology if thats okay. However, if a question can only be answered with "God is outside of time", it may be easier for you to just say that next time and I'll know to move on to the next question. Does that sound fair enough?
@Decrypted My issue with this is, how could God "decide" to move if He is outside of time? If He cannot move, then He cannot move from one frame of thought to the next. In other words, if God existed eternally in the past and never moved, then afterwards (?) a change/movement occurred within His mind to "decide" to move, how did the decision to move occur?
@anonymouswho Ancient pagan philosophers did not understand the true nature of God. But they did develop some concepts that the ancient Hebrews didn't (and vice versa). All human knowledge can be useful in understanding the nature of God.
@anonymouswho You know I'm not a trinitarian. But if you have specific questions you want to ask or issues you want to discuss related to Swedenborg's Christology, I'm all ears.
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