Becker Bible Teacher Resources

"If God's creation is a history, this means that it takes place in time.  Time, in contradistinction to eternity is not merely the negation of time.  It is not in any way timeless.  On the contrary, as the source of time it is supreme and absolute time, i.e., the immediate unity of present, past and future; of now, once and then; of the centre, beginning and end; of movement, origin and goal.  In this way it is the essence of God Himself; in this way God is Himself eternity.  Thus God Himself is temporal, precisely in so far as He is eternal and His eternity is the prototype of time, and as the Eternal He is simultaneously before time, above time, and after time.  But time as such, i.e., our time, relative time, itself created, is the form of existence of the creature; it is, in contradistinction to eternity, the one-way sequence and therefore the succession and division of past, present and future; of once, now and then; of the beginning, middle and end; of origin, movement and goal.  When God creates and therefore gives reality to another alongside and outside Himself, time begins as the form of existence of this other.  It is itself, of course, the creation of God (or more correctly, the creation of His eternity).  But it actually begins together with His creation, so that we have to say that His creation is the ground and basis of time."

Church Dogmatics by Karl Barth