Interrogating the Trinity: When is God?
Now, it’s time to discuss God and time and God and the absence of time.
When is God? God exists in eternity and in time, now and forevermore.
And, as a little bonus, we’ll consider how this question intersects with the question of the Son’s subordination, and Rahner’s Rule.
In Eternity (Inwardly)
First of all, God exists in eternity, prior to the existence of time. As we read in the Scriptures:
Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Psalm 90:2 (NIV)
God the Father is eternal:
Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
1 Timothy 1:17
God the Son is eternal:
“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”
John 8:58
God the Spirit is the eternal Spirit:
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God.
Hebrews 9:14
And the eternal God exists independently of creation. He doesn’t need the creation. If he wanted, he could have just not created the universe.
The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
Acts 17:24–25Can a man be of benefit to God? Can even a wise person benefit him? What pleasure would it give the Almighty if you were righteous? What would he gain if your ways were blameless?
Job 22:2–3For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
John 5:26
He exists independently of creation. He doesn’t need it. He’s not lonely or bored. He has all he needs within the dynamics of Trinitarian life. In John 17:5, Jesus talks to the Father about “the glory I had with you before the world began.” As the Father begets the Son, giving him “life in himself” and giving him the Spirit, who then proceeds from both the Father and the Son, each mutually indwelling one another, things are great. There is no need for creation.
So, in eternity, we can speak of God as being in himself without any reference to or need for creation.
God exists in himself, ad intra, in the processional life of the Three who are One.
He is eternal.
What does it mean to say that God is eternal? My safe answer is that God’s eternality means that “God exists before time as we know it.”
Theologians debate exactly what this non-time thing is. There are some who think that God’s eternity still involves some kind of time (this is a popular idea in Analytic Theology) as if there are multiple moments in eternity. But our Analytic Theology friends would be happy to say that eternity exists prior to time as we know it.
In the classical understanding of eternity, which I subscribe to, it’s simply one moment or frame.
You know when you’re editing some video footage and keep zooming in until everything is broken into individual frames? Eternity is like one of those frames. One moment. It can’t be divided into smaller moments (even if you get better-quality filming equipment). It can’t be fragmented or broken down into some sequence. It just is.
In his Summa Theologia (1.10.1), Thomas Aquinas adopted Boethius’ definition of eternity. What is eternity?
The simultaneously-whole and perfect possession of interminable life.
Breaking this down:
Eternity is Simultaneously Whole. It exists all at once, without division into past, present, or future moments, encompassing everything in a single, unified moment, one frame.
Eternity is a Perfect Possession. Eternity is perfectly complete and fully possessed, with no deficiency or need for progression.
Eternity consists of Interminable Life. Eternity is an unending, uninterrupted existence, without beginning or end, remaining outside the constraints of time, where nothing can interrupt or alter its infinite continuity.
Sometimes, you’ll hear people talk about the Immanent Trinity. This refers to God in this inward eternity, within the processional life of the three Persons, without reference to the created realm.
But it gets more complicated.
2. In Eternity (Outwardly)
We’ve just seen that God exists in eternity within himself without any need for creation. However, the Scriptures contain several places where God exists in eternity but faces creation in some way.
Consider these verses:
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
Ephesians 1:4He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.
2 Timothy 1:9… in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time.
Titus 1:2He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
1 Peter 1:19–20
Each of these verses clearly speaks of God doing something before the creation of the world and, thus, before the beginning of time. He predestined to choose and save people, granting them life in Christ Jesus. In eternity, he also decided to create the universe.
However, we’ve just argued that eternity consists of one frame. In that frame, God is perfectly happy, enjoying perfect glory. He lacks nothing, and there is no sequence. How does this make sense?
At one level, to our finite minds, it doesn’t make sense. But then, at another level, both things have to be true. 1) God exists in eternity, just happily existing within himself. 2) God exists in eternity, plotting out human history, with the goal of summing up everything under Christ (Ephesians 1:10).
So, in that one frame or moment of eternity, God exists inwardly, in himself, and outwardly, facing toward us.
I’m pretty convinced there is a logical order to all of this. God is first inward-facing and second outward-facing. He is inward-facing simply because he is. He chooses to be outward-facing toward us and is under no compulsion to be outward-facing. If he’d wanted, he could have not created the world. But in that one frame of eternity, in which he freely and independently exists inwardly, he
There’s a logical order to this, but if my understanding of eternity is correct (I think it is), this logical order mustn’t be confused with a temporal order.
Sometimes, you’ll hear people (namely, me) talking about the Economic Trinity. We’re not talking about economics here. Economic kind of a dumb term to use, but it comes from the Greek word Oikonomia (οἰκονομία, see Ephesians 1:10, 3:9, Colossians 1:25), meaning “household management,“ “stewardship,” or “administration.”
When we talk about the Economic Trinity, we’re speaking of God as he faces the creation in the Economy of the created realm. The Economic Trinity certainly exists within time and space. But a strong argument can be made that the Economic Trinity also occupies this outward eternity we’ve just been speaking of. As God, in eternity, comes up with his plan— to create, send Jesus, and save those he has predestined—he’s definitely still in the domain of eternity, prior to the existence of time. But he’s also facing the creation or Economy. So, whereas the Immanent Trinity is only eternal, the Economic Trinity is both temporal and eternal, albeit eternal outwardly.
3. In Time
The Beginning of Time
But then comes time. As God creates the universe, he creates time. All of a sudden, we have sequence. God speaks, thing happens.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Genesis 1:3
Sun comes up, sun goes down.
And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
Genesis 1:4
Time begins.
God Enters Time
God enters time. Having created light, he enters the domain of time.
4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
God enters the sequence. He does verbs. He sees, he separates, and he calls. Stuff happens. God is in time.
And then he keeps popping up in the story of the Bible.
He talks to people. In Genesis, he talks to Adam (Genesis 2:16-17, 3:9-19), Eve (Genesis 3:13-19), Noah (Genesis 6:13-22, 7:1-5, 9:8-17), Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3, 17:1-22, 22:1-18), Hagar (Genesis 16:7-13) Isaac (Genesis 26:2-5, 26:24), and Jacob (Genesis 28:13-15, 32:22-32, 35:9-12).
He even appears to people. God appears to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:8-9), as one (or three?) of the three visitors to Abraham (Genesis 18:1-33), to Jacob as a man (Genesis 32:22-32), to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-6), as a pillar of cloud and fire to the Israelites (Exodus 13:21-22, 14:19-24), on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:16-19, 24:15-18), to Joshua as a man with a drawn sword (Joshua 5:3-5), to Gideon as the Angel of the LORD (Judges 6:11-24), in a vision to Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-5), in a vision to Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:4-28), (perhaps) as the fourth man in the fiery furnace to Daniel (Daniel 3:24-25), and as the Son of Man and Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:9–14).
God shows up in time. But none of this compares to what comes next.
As the creator of time who exists within time, it thus follows that God is entirely sovereign over time, controlling each and every tick of the clock. Recognising this, Daniel says:
Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.
Daniel 2:20–21
God is entirely sovereign over the times and seasons. Every moment in history is dependent on his say-so. It doesn’t matter what it is: God “works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (Ephesians 1:11), every single frame, moment and event.
He can even bend and change time if he wants to. In Joshua 10:12-14, God extended the day to grant Israel victory over the Amorites by halting the sun and moon's movement. Similarly, in 2 Kings 20:8-11 (cf. Isaiah 38:7-8), God makes the shadow cast by the sun go back ten steps on a stairway as a sign to Hezekiah, confirming His promise to extend the king’s life.
The Centre of Time
At the incarnation, God enters time in a new way. God is omnipresent, so the Father, Son and Spirit were always present in the domain of time. But at the incarnation, God the Son shows up in bodily form. We’ll cover this in more detail when considering the question Where is God? But as far as the question When is God, the incarnation is a big deal.
Time exists for God’s glory, centred on the coming of Christ. This is the whole reason the universe exists. In Ephesians 1, we read:
4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will
So, God devised a plan to save those he chose before time began. Why? Paul continues:
6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
God’s plan centres on his own glory (see 1:12 and 14 as well). And how does God get this glory? Paul continues:
8 With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfilment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
God’s plan for time centres on Jesus. His whole plan for history is to bring everything in heaven and on earth under Christ’s lordship. This is achieved through Jesus's coming, life, death, and resurrection, thus establishing his rule as Lord.
The Now But Not Yet
Now that Jesus has ascended to the Father’s right hand, we live in an overlap of ages. The main two events of history have taken place: creation and incarnation. Now, we’re waiting for the return of Christ.
In the meantime, God has sent his Spirit into the domain of time. Like the Son, the Spirit is also omnipresent. So, he was already present in time. But at Pentecost, the Spirit entered time in a new way. Before Pentecost, the Holy Spirit would come upon specific individuals for specific tasks (e.g., prophets or kings), but at Pentecost, he began to indwell every believer (John 14:16-17, Ephesians 1:13-14), offering new birth (John 3:3-8, Titus 3:5), empowering them to share the gospel (Acts 2:1-4) and complete the mission the Son gave (Acts 1:8). This marks the beginning of a new era, the Now But Not Yet era.
In this Now But Not Yet era, God kicks off the age to come now. Most stunningly, he gives us a dose of eternity in time.
In John 17:3, Jesus says:
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
The eternal and infinite Son of God enters time and finitude and gives us something eternal and infinite: eternal life. What is eternal life? Knowing God and knowing Jesus. Jesus kicks off Project Eternity while time is still ticking. This special eternal gift is guaranteed by the gift of the Spirit, who indwells us and guarantees our inheritance (Ephesians 1:13-14).
4. In Aeveternity?
In his Summa Theologia (1.10.5–6), Thomas Aquinas introduces the idea of aeveternity as a kind of halfway house between eternity and time. Thomas suggests that:
Eternity is completely outside of time, with no change or succession.
Time is fully subject to change and succession (past, present, future).
Aeviternity sits in the middle: it is not subject to constant change like time, but it can experience change in some way.
According to Thomas, aeveterinity exists for beings like angels, which are not subject to change in their overall essence or being (most significantly, they can’t die) but are capable of some kinds of change (for example, making decisions).
Thomas doesn’t offer much biblical support for the existence of aeveternity, but we can try and reverse-engineer it. Luke 20:36 tells us that angels can’t die (and it tells us that one day we’ll be like angels), meaning no change in their being. This makes sense of why Gabriel doesn’t seem to age much between the days of Daniel in the 6th-7th centuries BC (see Daniel 8:16) and the days of Jesus (see Luke 1:19). Nevertheless, passages like 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6 show us that angels are able to make decisions (including bad ones!) and thus subject to some degree of change.
Now, to be clear, the Bible doesn’t explicitly say that aeveternity is a real thing. It kind of makes sense that something like this would exist, but it’s highly speculative. However, we know that God spends a lot of time with angels (Job 1:6, Isaiah 6:2-3, Daniel 7:10, Luke 1:19, Revelation 5:11-12). If aeveternity is when angels exist, God is then with them.
So, when is God?
If aeveternity exists, God exists in aeveternity.
5. In Time For Eternity
Now, I just mentioned that Jesus kicks off Project Eternity while time is still ticking. That might have led you to think that time will cease to be when Jesus returns, ushering in the next era. After all, in Revelation 22:4-5, we read:
They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
Phrases like “no more night” and “the Lord God will give them light” might lead some to think there is no time in heaven. After all, the creation of these things brought about time in the first place.
A New Eternity
But as we read further, we realise that time has to inhabit the new creation. Time keeps ticking in eternity. In other words, we have a New Eternity.
Throughout Revelation, heaven is depicted as a place where people constantly praise God with words. Words require sequence. Without time, there can be no sequence.
Revelation 22:2 depicts the Tree of Life bearing fruit “every month.” It’s hard for a tree to bear fruit every month without time.
Revelation 21:24-26 mentions that the nations will walk by the light of the New Jerusalem and that “the kings of the earth will bring their splendour” to it. It’s hard to walk by a light or bring something without a sequence.
The New Eternity consists of time and sequence. As far as time goes, the main difference between the New Eternity and time as we currently experience is that the New Eternity continues “for ever and ever” (Revelation 1:18, 4:9, 4:10, 5:13, 7:12, 10:6, 11:15, 14:11, 15:7, 19:3, 20:10, 22:5).
It’s probably more helpful to speak of the New Creation as everlasting or continuing forever and ever. Originally, the word eternity was primarily used to describe God’s timelessness. However, it has now taken on a second definition: something akin to everlasting or forever and ever. Thus, we have to differentiate between two kinds of eternity: the eternity that knows no time and the eternity that continues forever.
But here’s the point I’m trying to get to with all this: God exists in this New Eternity. He is with us in it (Revelation 21:3).
So, when is God?
God exists in eternity and in time, now and forevermore. He exists in timeless eternity, facing both inwardly and outwardly. He enters the time (which he created) most climactically through the coming of his Son at Christmas and the Spirit at Pentecost. And he will be with us in the time-filled New Eternity when Jesus returns and establishes the New Creation.
Eternity and Subordination?
Before I close, I want to consider how this discussion helps us think through the question of the Son’s subordination and submission, which came up a few posts ago.
Here are four thoughts.
Submission and Inward-Facing Eternity
First, it makes no sense whatsoever to talk of subordination or submission within God’s processional life. As you hopefully remember, in eternity, the Son and Spirit both proceed from the Father (the Spirit proceeds from the Son) in perfect Of-Ness, as the three mutually indwell one another in perfect In-Ness. This processional life belongs to the domain of God’s inward eternity, which has no recourse to time and creation.
It simply doesn’t make sense to speak of subordination, submission or relations of authority and submission when it comes to the processions. Think about it. What does it mean?
Does the Father say to the Son, “Son, go have life in yourself,” and the Son says, “Yes, Father, I will obey you and go have life in myself”? Does that make sense to you?
Does the Father say to the Spirit, “Spirit, go be given to the Son and then proceed jointly from me and him”? Does that make sense to you?
It doesn’t make sense to me.
2. Submission and Outward-Facing Eternity
Second, it kind of makes sense to speak of submission when it comes to God’s outward eternity, but we should still tread with care. Earlier in this post, we saw that God exists eternally in an outward-facing sense. This is the domain in which he predestines things and from which he sends the Son and the Spirit.
The main verse that comes to mind for me here is Philippians 2:5-8. At first, this might sound like a ridiculous place from which to make this point, but bear with me. Paul writes:
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
In this passage, Paul instructs the Philippians to have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. What is Christ’s mindset? It’s a humble, obedient mindset (2:8). So far, so good.
When is Christ’s mindset? Obviously, he had a humble and obedient mindset once he entered time and took on a human body. But isn’t this also his mindset—albeit a mindset entirely one and in tune with the Father’s mindset—prior to taking the “nature of a servant”? Isn’t Jesus taking on a humble and obedient mindset as he decides (in perfect unity with the Father’s will) that his unquestionable equality with the Father isn’t something to be used to his own advantage?
That’s what Athanasius says:
When, then, the minds of men had fallen finally to the level of sensible things, the Word submitted to appear in a body, in order that He, as Man, might centre their senses on Himself, and convince them through His human acts that He Himself is not man only but also God, the Word and Wisdom of the true God.
Athanasius says that the Word submitted to God for the purpose of taking on a body.
If you argue that the Son submits to the Father in eternity, Philippians 2:5-8 is the place to go.
That said, if you want to argue that, you have to recognise a few things.
First, this submission doesn’t take place in God’s inward eternity. It would have to take place in his outward eternity.
Second, any kind of submission would be with a view to taking on flesh, which basically means it takes place in the domain of Augustine’s form of a servant rule. It has to do with the Son’s humanity, even if it takes place before he takes on flesh.
Third, you’d have to be confident that this humble and obedient mindset is taking place in eternity specifically. In sections 1.5–1.6 of his Summa, Thomas Aquinas speaks of a kind of intermediary between time and eternity, which he calls Aeveternity. He explains that Aeviternity is a measure of duration for beings like angels, which are unchangeable in their being but can experience change in terms of action or choice. Unlike time, which is marked by “before” and “after” and involves continuous change, Aeviternity has no intrinsic “before” and “after,” although it can be associated with them in relation to changeable actions. Unlike eternity, which is entirely changeless and simultaneously whole, Aeviternity is a middle state, having a beginning but no end and allowing for some potential for change. Maybe the Son takes on his humble and obedient mindset in a domain like Aeveternity. To me, that seems unlikely, but these are the kinds of objections that could be thrown in the direction of those seeking to defend some form of submission or subordination in eternity.
3. Submission and the New Eternity
Third, the Son’s submission in the New Eternity is not an eternal submission in the classical definition of “eternity.” In 1 Corinthians 15, we read of the final day when the Son hands over the kingdom to God the Father, having “destroyed all dominion, authority and power” (15:24). We then read,
When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject (ὑποταγήσεται or hypotagēsetai) to him who put everything under him so that God may be all in all.
1 Corinthians 15:28
The Son will be made subject to the Father. The verb hypotagēsetai is the future passive form of the verb ὑποτάσσω (hypotassō), meaning “to subject” or “to subordinate.” According to this verse, the Son will be subordinate to the Father immediately after he hands over the kingdom to the Father at the end of this present era.
Some would read this and say, “There we have it—the Son is eternally subordinate!”
And they are correct! However, his subordination is only in terms of the New Eternity (that is, time that continues forever and ever) and only in terms of his human nature, in the form of a servant. As Augustine explains,
He is himself subject as priest, in the form of a servant he has assumed for us (Phil 2:7), to the one who has subjected all things to him, and to whom he himself has subjected all things (1 Cor 15:28).
Augustine, The Trinity: Introduction, Translation and Notes, ed. John E. Rotelle, trans. Edmund Hill, vol. 5, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century 1 (Brooklyn: New City, 1991), §1.13.19, page 89.
4. Rahner’s Rule
Fourth, we shouldn’t use Rahner’s Rule to insist that subordination in time can be read into eternity. As we saw a few posts ago, several texts depict the Son as being somehow subordinate to the Father in time (e.g., John 5:19, 14:28, 1 Corinthians 11:3 and 1 Corinthians 15:28).
Rahner’s Rule states:
The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity and vice versa.
Karl Rahner, ‘Der Dreifaltige Gott Als Transzendenter Urgrund Der Heilsgeschichte’, in Sämtliche Werke, ed. Peter Walter and Michael Hauber, vol. 22/1b,32 vols (Freiburg im Brisgau: Herder, 2013), 535.
By this, Rahner means that the relations between the Father, Son and Spirit in time (what we call the Economy, the domain of the Economic Trinity) correspond with, reflect and are grounded in the relations between the Father, Son and Spirit within the processional life of the Immanent Trinity in eternity. We’re not saying there are two “Trinities.” That’d be weird. We’re just looking at the same Trinity from two different angles. We’re saying:
The Father’s relationship with the Son in the economy (in time and outward eternity) is an outward (and, in the domain of time, temporal) manifestation of their inward eternal relationship.
The Father’s relationship with the Spirit in the economy (in time and outward eternity) is an outward (and, in the domain of time, temporal) manifestation of their inward eternal relationship.
The Son’s relationship with the Spirit in the economy (in time and outward eternity) is an outward (and, in the domain of time, temporal) manifestation of their inward eternal relationship.
When we meet the Father in the pages of history and Scripture, we really do meet the Father. When we meet the Son in the pages of history and Scripture, we really do meet the Son. When we meet the Spirit in the pages of history and Scripture, we really do meet the Spirit. This is what Rahner is getting at with his Rule.
But that doesn’t mean that we should read everything that is said of the Persons into eternity. That’s obvious when it comes to things like Jesus eating and walking. Obviously the Son can’t eat or walk in eternity—he doesn’t have a physical body. It’s a little more complex regarding his submission to the Father. A connection can be made between his temporal obedience and his eternal generation. His obedience in time reflects something of his eternal Of-Ness, such that it is fitting that the Son would be obeying the Father but not vice versa. However, as previously discussed, it doesn’t really make sense to say that the Son is obeying the Father as he is begotten.
So, when is God?
God exists in eternity and in time, now and forevermore. And in aeveternity if aeveternity exists.
And where is God? More on that soon.
