Apostolic Antiquity

Many Trinitarians claim that, in order for God to be love, as stated in 1 John 4:8, He must have within Himself multiple persons that form a Trinity. Why? Because love requires two or more parties, meaning that the sentence, “I love,” is essentially incomplete because it requires a direct object upon which this love is being bestowed. The question, therefore, arises: whom was God loving before creation?

This could be explained away by saying that God now is what He once was not, in the same way that God now has become man but was not always a man. However, this argument falls short. God is essentially unchanging in His eternal divine nature, though not necessarily incapable of any change whatsoever when He chooses to enter into time. He therefore experiences moments within sequence, but in order for God to do this, He has to take on the nature of a finite body or substance—not changing from one substance into another, but taking on a new one.

When we put on clothes, it does not change the nature of the body that is being covered; rather, the body simply takes on a new appearance for the outward observer. When God takes on human nature, it does not negate Numbers 23:19, which states that “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent:” because the word “God” is proper to the divine nature and person of God, not necessarily any qualities or clothes, if you will, that He chooses to take on.

However, the case is much different when dealing with 1 John 4:8 because the text does not treat love as an added characteristic or nature of God, but rather treats it as intrinsic to His nature: “God is love.” So, when dealing with the text and trying to determine what its implications are, we must first and foremost recognize that God has always been love and that this is not a trait subject to change, nor is it itself an addition to the divine nature. Because the divine nature is unchanging (Malachi 3:6), love is therefore truly inherent in God throughout eternity.

Now, this word “eternity” has been abused in the use of this argument because proponents assert that eternity encompasses both eternity past and eternity future. If God existed in eternity past and was alone and by Himself before the creation of mankind, then He must have needed some other object of love before the creation of man in order for this inherent quality of love to be eternal and not an alteration or addition. This object, they claim, is the three divine persons, who, in exchange and in unison, bestow love upon one another.

This interpretation, however, is built upon one major flawed assumption, and that is their understanding of God’s eternity. They speak as if God was, before the creation of the world, affected by time. However, even the phrase “before creation” is flawed and misused within this context. It should better be thought of as outside of creation.

Because there is no point at which time could have begun, since to begin is itself a consequence of time, it must therefore follow that neither was there a time in which time was not—the very concept being extended by the word “before.” There cannot, by any means of reason, be a concept of “before time” because the word before insinuates time: a time in which time supposedly had not yet come into being. This is an obvious contradiction and paradox.

This does not mean that time itself is superfluous, because we clearly see the changes and sequences of events, which is the very definition of time. Neither can it be that time goes infinitely backward, because this would make it impossible to arrive at the present. We cannot take one through infinity and then flip it and count backward all the way to one, or any number for that matter. So, if time cannot have a beginning, nor can it be said to go backward into infinity while still being a reality that is not superfluous, then that means that time truly does exist, just not as something inherent within itself.

Time must be relative to the observer and cannot be inherent within itself outside its being perceived. This philosophical framework is known as idealism. All of this is to essentially say that the concept of there being a time “before creation” is incoherent and illogical.

So then, we might rightly ask how God could have been said to create the universe if creation insinuates new things coming into existence through the temporal sequence of time. The answer to this is easily explained within an idealist framework. The answer is that God eternally had within His mind the idea of creation, and while He possesses these ideas actively in an eternal state, it is we who passively perceive them and therefore perceive things in sequence, which God sees all at once in His eternal state.

But does this make creation co-eternal with God? No, because God’s eternity is defined by its being outside of His creation, as we shall later explore; therefore, creation cannot be outside of itself. God may actively perceive even the concept of time in an eternal state, thereby separating creation itself from God’s eternity. God’s act of eternal perception must be distinguished from the consequences of that perception, which generate time and separate it from God’s eternity.

In short, if God exists outside time and time is a part of the creation He perceives, then creation must exist apart from His eternal existence. And when Scripture speaks of a “before,” it is simply using language that is relevant to our perception of temporal sequences. It might be said, from our perspective of the unfolding of God’s plan, that He already had the view of Christ in mind in His eternity while the patriarchs were in a temporal state, not yet seeing the promise in full.

The argument that God required an eternal object of love prior to creation assumes that God existed in a sequence of moments before the world was made. Yet classical Christian theology has often denied precisely this point. Augustine understood God to exist outside temporal succession, inhabiting what has sometimes been called the “eternal present.”

He describes this beautifully in his Confessions 11.15–16:

“15. But if the roving thought of anyone should wander through the images of bygone time, and wonder that You, the God Almighty, and All-creating, and All-sustaining, the Architect of heaven and earth, for innumerable ages refrained from so great a work before You would make it, let him awake and consider that he wonders at false things. For whence could innumerable ages pass by which You did not make, since You are the Author and Creator of all ages? Or what times should those be which were not made by You? Or how should they pass by if they had not been? Since, therefore, You are the Creator of all times, if any time was before You made heaven and earth, why is it said that You refrained from working? For that very time You made, nor could times pass by before You made times. But if before heaven and earth there was no time, why is it asked, What were You doing then? For there was no then when time was not.

16. Nor dost Thou by time precede time; else would not Thou precede all times. But in the excellency of an ever-present eternity, Thou precedest all times past, and survivest all future times, because they are future, and when they have come they will be past; but You are the same, and Your years shall have no end. Your years neither go nor come; but ours both go and come, that all may come. All Your years stand at once since they do stand; nor were they, when departing, excluded by coming years, because they pass not away; but all these of ours shall be when all shall cease to be. Your years are one day, and Your day is not daily, but today; because Your today yields not with tomorrow, for neither does it follow yesterday. Your today is eternity; therefore You begot the Co-eternal, to whom You said, This day have I begotten You. You have made all time; and before all times You are, nor in any time was there not time.”

Now, if God did not have to wait in a temporal sequence of time but exists in an eternal present, then in that eternal present He both created and loved us and therefore would have no need of an eternal triad within His divine nature in order for love to be inherent within His nature, because His idea of us has always been inherent within His mind in that eternal present. This is why Christ was said to have been slain for our sake before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8; Romans 5:8).