Can the god you believe in time travel?

[BigT]

The answer to any “Can he…” question when dealing with an omnipotent being is “yes.” Sure, sometimes, you create questions that have some inherent contradiction built into them, and there are interpretations of such. But this isn’t one of them.

Even if you throw in omniscience, that only means the being has no reason to time travel. It doesn’t mean that she is unable to.

Now, if you’re asking about the Christian God, then it gets slightly more complicated. Because the Bible says that God is the same “yesterday, today, and forever.” But yet we see Him acting in different ways throughout that same Bible. He is not always exactly the same.

But one interpretation of that verse is that God is “outside of time.” This also connects with the idea that, if God created “everything,” He must’ve created time.

Hence, for the Christian God to go back in time, He must first put himself into time. Or, in another interpretation, He is always “traveling through time” when he acts in two different time periods.

[Doctor_Jackson]

@Czarcasm

If the context is from our limited linear perspective, not the perspective of your god of choice does that help? Could(not would or should) she/he rewrite history so that, say, different Powerball numbers were picked last week and someone different won the jackpot? For what reason? I don’t care and that’s another subject involving knowing the minds of gods, I suppose.

In the Christian Bible, Jeremiah 1:5 says in part “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart…”. This indicates to me that God can, and does, “travel” forward through time and can affect things that have not yet happened. If He can affect the future I have no reason to believe He can’t affect the past. I know of no verses or stories that indicate it has ever happened (with the possible exception of that great theological documentary film “Groundhog Day”), but also none that say it can’t.

[SamuelA]

@Fredescu

Isn’t your first paragraph a good analogy for the possibility of what you say is probably impossible in your third paragraph? If god created a universe like programming a videogame, he stands outside time as we experience it, so he should be able to alter the flow of our time without any ill effects on himself.

For us, yes. If he’s subjected to time (not our time, but a different kind of time), then he’s still unable to time travel himself. He’ll remember what the previous timeline even though we don’t.

[Fredescu]

@SamuelA

For us, yes. If he’s subjected to time (not our time, but a different kind of time), then he’s still unable to time travel himself. He’ll remember what the previous timeline even though we don’t.

Fair enough. The original question doesn’t specify that. Just “change was has already happened.” Happened to us? Yes. Happened to him? Maybe not? So either option is valid to a degree, but our opinions are also irrelevant since neither of us believe in a god.

[Doubticus]

Well, the bible does start with “In the beginning”. A time traveling God would seem to contradict the bible.

[Scumpup]

@Doubticus

Well, the bible does start with “In the beginning”. A time traveling God would seem to contradict the bible.

That line refers to the beginning of Heaven and Earth. It is made clear that God was already there. God predating our world doesn’t speak to whether He can time travel at all.