I’ve read that before (I’ve probably even quoted it), but it doesn’t answer the questions I’m asking now.
Persons think, reason, remember, and anticipate.
How is any of that possible without time?
If time is created by a timeless God, wouldn’t some part of Him have to be impersonal?
If time itself is uncreated, and God had no begining, His infinite past would be an endless sequence of thoughts, memories, and anticipations leading up to creation, but how could an enless sequence lead anywhere?
Perhaps Lewis was right, and the Trinity can help us conceive of God as more than a person.
But it seems to me that there must also be a sense in which He (at least partly) is impersonal–and I don’t see how that fits in with classic, Orthodox Trinitarianism.
But if man is created in the image of God, and man has both a conscious and a subconscious mind, perhaps The Father’s subconscious mind could be the impersonal reality that lies behind time.
It would contain the ideas of time, space, all the laws of physics, and everything that ever has or ever will be–but God would only be a conscious, thinking person (or three persons) here within the dimension of time.
I don’t know if that’s heresy.
I only know the creeds say that The Father is uncreated, unmade, and un-proceeding–and that He generated The Son “before all worlds.”
(I need my faith. I still have a father to take care of, and I’ve been little comfort to him–but I’m finding that I have more questions than answers.)
Any thoughts would be welcome.