OK, so we all have the same problem with time: sometimes there just isn't enough of it when we have a lot to get done and at others it seems to drag interminably, when we're bored or waiting for something exciting or important. But we know that that's just an illusion - the passage of time is so steady that we can our clocks by it! On the face of it, time seems so straightforward. It just passes - tik, tok, tik, tok. On and on it goes, always at the same pace, never hurrying, never pausing for breath.
Physicists, though, worry about it a lot. It doesn't actually pass uniformly and your experience of time is in reality slightly different from mine. Then there is the problem that it always goes forward. Why should that be? When we consider God, the issues become even more complex. If God is omniscient (i.e., he knows everything), then does he just watch while everything plays out as he knows that it will, because it is all preordained, or does he have to do things at the times when he has known forever that he will be required to do so? Has he always known that at certain times we shall pray effectively in a way that will cause him to respond, and that at other times things will go badly because we won't be asking for him to intervene but rely on our own strength and powers of reasoning? What about when we are going to pray but he won't be answering as we want? Does he know that we shall be praying for the wrong things, or not sincerely enough so that he won't be able to respond positively? Does he really sit back and just let all this happen because he has known it from the beginning of time, or even before?
That seems a very boring existence for the author of life itself and a very impersonal way of relating to his creation, including us who are made in his own image. So does he actually make decisions with us, responding in real-time to our prayers and even changing his mind if we have good reason for asking? This is known as open theism, and has been quite controversial, but allows for a real interaction between us and God. What, though, does that mean about prophecy? For unconditional prophecies to come about, God needs to know that the events foretold will take place. Are there some unconditional prophecies and others that are dependent on the way that we respond when we hear them? The theological debate continues with no clear answer.
Our God is a relational God, who is all-knowing and yet responds to us moment by moment.
So what does physics have to say about this. As I mentioned above, time is a difficult concept. It flows at different rates under different circumstances, it is somewhat interchangeable with space and so doesn't even have its own identity. (Those of you who have read or watched much science fiction will have probably come across the spacetime continuum or some similar term which conveys the idea that space and time are not independent.) And, or course, it always moves forward. Why does it only move forward? The second law of thermodynamics doesn't allow the reversal of time in practice (although that seems to have been achieved in certain computing experiments), but that doesn't mean intrinsically that time always has to move forward.
One proposal is that our universe split from a 'master universe' in which time is neutral. Various universes could then have split from that, perhaps symmetrically, with a forward moving universe always being accompanied by another in which time always moves backwards, to maintain symmetry. The question of causality in a backward moving universe is not something to to be discussed here, and I don't buy into such an overall concept personally. However, this does raise the issue that perhaps the most fundamental form of existence, that realm in which God lives, is neutral in time. It neither moves backwards or forwards, but all times are equivalent, allowing a free passage around the whole temporal panoply. Time for our universe, then, began when God started creation, but perhaps Heavenly time, or maybe just God's own time, is more neutral. This would mean that he could both have access to knowing everything throughout our time, while also being able to take part in it and respond in real time to our prayers.
I am not proposing this as a fully thought through concept, but just as an initial idea based on some tentative physics suggestions. However, the bottom line is that, one way or another, our all-knowing God does listen to our prayers and respond to us on a daily basis which implies that the future is not entirely preordained. That is the clear implication of what is written in the Bible and it corresponds well to the nature and character of the God whom I am getting to know more each day.
