Spurred by discussion threads like this these here, here, and here, I have spent plenty of time contemplating the subjects of God’s foreknowledge and his relationship to time. The big question I have now is what is so awful about a God who resides in our time?

The idea is best fleshed out in Blake Ostler’s book on the Attributes of God. He makes some pretty compelling arguments on how much of this timeless and incomprehensible stuff we attribute to God today really had origins with Middle and NeoPlatonism instead of from God through prophets. I’m starting to think he is on to something.

But the question of this post is why such a negative reaction to a claim that God is bound by our time? We Mormons are often criticized for closing the gap between man and God. Critics claim we are making God too small. I counter that God is not smaller than we thought, but that humankind is much, much grander than we thought. Is conceiving of a God that is unlike the one agreed upon at the Nicene Council unusual to Mormons? Not at all. But it seems that suggesting a time-bound God generates passionate rebukes from some.

What about his being time bound make Him less worthy of our worship and adulation? We are promised lots of surprises when the veil is lifted – would the surprise that God exists within time as we know it make us highly disappointed? Someone help me out here…