We are again privileged to have a guest post from Kevin Birth, an anthropology professor at Queens College with expertise on the history of time. His other contributions to the ESN blog can be found here and a series on his book "Objects of Time" can be found here. His previous 2016 post on Lent and time is here. Open up a datebook and day planner, and look at the empty boxes just waiting to be filled. They are all the same size, the same shape, and they convey a sense of time as being made up of containers to be … [Read more...] about The Passion and the Punctuated Day
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Science in Review: Is God Outside of Time?
Housekeeping: This is my final response to the reader question on time (earlier responses here, here, and here). A follow-up to Kevin Birth's reflections on time and Lent is forthcoming. HC asks: How would you describe time? How do you make sense of God as a being that is outside of time, and yet has created it, interacts with his creations that are confined to it, and at one specific point in history entered into time in the person of Jesus? God is frequently described as "outside of time." Growing up in Christian … [Read more...] about Science in Review: Is God Outside of Time?
Cockcrow, Darkness, and the Coming Light
This week we are privileged to have a guest post from Kevin Birth, an anthropology professor at Queens College with expertise on the history of time. His other contributions to the ESN blog can be found here and a series on his book "Objects of Time" can be found here. “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5, NRSV) The poor rooster--long ago, Pope Gregory the Great dubbed it the wisest of all God's creatures, and now it is a mere marketing icon for Kellogg's corn flakes and … [Read more...] about Cockcrow, Darkness, and the Coming Light
Once Upon a Time: The Story of Creation Told in the Language of Science
When we "look up at the heavens" that God "set in place" (Psalm 8:3), I think we want to see a work of art. We want to marvel at a masterpiece honed to perfection, every last brushstroke precisely composed as the artist intended. We want to wonder at the final product, awed that anyone could be so skillful, certain we could never reproduce anything so astonishing. We don't want to know how it was made; that would break the spell. Questions would creep in. Could it be reproduced? Could it have been done differently? … [Read more...] about Once Upon a Time: The Story of Creation Told in the Language of Science
Science Reader Question: What’s a Few Minutes Between Friends?
HC asks: How would you describe time? Last week I went a bit esoteric, musing that time is the feature of the universe that makes forgiveness necessary. Now let's try something a bit more basic. Time is the feature of the universe that we measure with clocks. As banal as that statement may be, it is possibly the only statement about time one can make with certainty. Time allows us to decide which events come before which other events and how rapidly or slowly the second followed after the first. And since time is … [Read more...] about Science Reader Question: What’s a Few Minutes Between Friends?