Epigraph

وَالْعَصْرِ

I swear by the passage of time. (Al Quran 103:1)

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times

In the Quran, Allah frequently employs oaths, swearing by various elements of His creation—such as the sun, the moon, time, and natural phenomena. These oaths serve multiple purposes, including emphasizing the significance of the ensuing message, highlighting the importance of the entities sworn upon, and directing attention to the signs of Allah’s majesty and power inherent in His creation.

One primary function of these oaths is to underscore the gravity of the statements that follow. By swearing upon notable aspects of creation, Allah draws the reader’s or listener’s attention to the critical nature of the message. This rhetorical device is akin to asserting the truth and importance of the forthcoming discourse. For instance, in Surah At-Tur, Allah swears by the Mount, symbolizing the significance of the revelations given to Prophet Musa (Moses) on Mount Sinai. On other occasions the Quran swears on the sun, the moon, the constellations and many other parts of our universe.

The entities by which Allah swears are often remarkable signs within creation, reflecting His wisdom and artistry. By drawing attention to these elements, the Quran encourages contemplation of the natural world as evidence of divine majesty. For example, in Surah At-Tin, Allah swears by the fig and the olive, invoking both the fruits and their associated regions, which hold historical and spiritual significance. 

Unlike humans, who are instructed to swear only by Allah due to His supreme status, Allah’s oaths by aspects of His creation serve to demonstrate His authority over all things. These oaths exemplify His dominion and the profound connection between the Creator and His creation. As noted in Islamic scholarship, “Allah swears by some of His creation because they are His signs and creation, so they are indicative of His Lordship, divinity, oneness, knowledge, might, will, mercy, wisdom, greatness, and glory.” 

By swearing upon various elements of the natural world, the Quran invites believers to reflect upon these signs and recognize the underlying messages. This approach encourages deeper contemplation of the universe and one’s place within it, fostering a greater appreciation for the Creator’s wisdom and the interconnectedness of all things.

In summary, the oaths in the Quran serve as powerful rhetorical devices that emphasize the importance of the conveyed messages, highlight the significance of the entities sworn upon, demonstrate Allah’s supreme authority, and invite believers to reflect upon the signs present in creation.

So, why does the Quran swear on time?

Time is one of the most profound mysteries – a dimension of existence that shapes every moment yet defies simple explanation. Different fields of inquiry approach time from unique angles, offering complementary insights. This article explores the enigma of time through three lenses: scientific, philosophical, and religious. Each perspective sheds light on aspects of time’s nature, from the physics of spacetime and entropy to the role of time in human consciousness and the theological concept of eternity. Throughout, we will reference key ideas and debates to provide clarity and depth on this timeless mystery.

The Nature of Time in the Quran

Time as a Creation of God – In Islamic understanding, time is not an independent or eternal force but part of the created order under God’s dominion. The Quran implies this by attributing control of cosmic cycles to Allah: “He alternates the night and the day” (Quran 24:44) and “made the sun and the moon for reckoning [of time]” (Quran 6:96). Classical scholars explicated this point clearly. Imam al-Nawawi, commenting on a famous hadith, stated that “Time (al-dahr) … cannot do anything in and of itself, for it is just one of the things that have been created by Allah.”​ In other words, God created time and governs its flow​. The pre-Islamic Arabs would curse “Time” (al-dahr) in misfortune, but the Prophet taught that since God is the one who ordains events in time, cursing time is effectively blaming God​. Thus, the Quranic worldview firmly rejects the notion of time as an autonomous power, portraying it instead as a servant of the divine will. God is often called “Al-Awwal” (The First) and “Al-Akhir” (The Last) (Quran 57:3), indicating that He exists beyond the confines of time’s beginning or end. Time had a starting point at creation, as everything did, and only God is truly timeless in His essence.

Linear, Not Cyclical – The Quran presents time as essentially linear, moving toward a definite culmination (the Day of Judgment), rather than an endless repetitive cycle. It speaks of a clear beginning of the universe (“the heavens and earth were joined together” before creation – Quran 21:30) and its progression toward an end, which underscores a linear timeline. While the Quran recognizes natural cycles (night and day, seasons, lunar months) as signs of God’s order, these are cycles within a linear framework. There is no concept of reincarnation or eternal return in the Quran; each soul lives its earthly life once and moves onward. The disbelievers’ claim that “nothing destroys us except Time”​ – implying life and death as mere cycles of nature – is refuted by the Quran, which affirms that it is God who gives life and causes death at appointed times (Quran 45:24-26). In Quranic cosmology, time marches forward according to God’s plan, from creation (khalq) to resurrection (baʿth), rather than an infinite loop of events.

An Enigma Known Only to God – The precise nature of time is treated as part of the unseen mysteries. Humans perceive time through change and succession, but only God fully knows its reality. The Quran hints at the elusive character of time by swearing “By Time (al-‘Asr)! Indeed, mankind is in loss…” (Quran 103:1-2). By taking an oath on “Time,” the scripture draws attention to its significance while acknowledging, implicitly, that time itself – this ever-flowing “enigmatic creation of His” – is beyond human mastery​. The oath emphasizes that in the relentless passage of time our lives unfold and our destinies are decided​. Many commentators note that everything we do takes place within time, and thus as time lapses, our opportunities inherently diminish​. In this sense, the Quranic view aligns with our intuitive experience: time feels real and irreversible, carrying us from one moment to the next by God’s command. Yet the Quran also alludes to phenomena that puzzle our ordinary sense of time – a subject we turn to when discussing relative time and the contrast between human and divine time.

Scientific Perspective

Time in Physics: Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Thermodynamics

In physics, time is not absolute but interwoven with space. Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity revolutionized our understanding by showing that the flow of time depends on motion and gravity. In special relativity, time dilation occurs – a moving clock ticks slower relative to a stationary observer​. For example, an astronaut traveling at high speed ages slightly less than a twin on Earth, highlighting that time “moves relative to the observer” and can slow down at near-light speeds​. General relativity further reveals that gravity bends spacetime, causing time to run slower near massive bodies (such as clocks ticking slower on Earth’s surface than on satellites).

Quantum mechanics introduces its own puzzles about time. The fundamental equations of physics are mostly time-symmetric, meaning they work equally well forward or backward​. Yet our macroscopic experience has a clear direction – an “arrow of time” from past to future. This arrow is often linked to the Second Law of Thermodynamics: entropy (disorder) tends to increase, giving time a one-way direction from order to disorder​. A broken egg does not spontaneously reassemble, and a cup of hot coffee left out will cool down but never warm up on its own – signs of irreversible processes. The arrow of time paradox is that the underlying microphysics doesn’t prefer a direction, but statistically, entropy’s increase makes the forward direction overwhelmingly likely​. Physicists continue to investigate how this asymmetry emerges. Recent quantum studies even suggest that under certain conditions, two opposite arrows of time could coexist in the microscopic realm​, though in our ordinary experience we only perceive one forward flow.

Quantum physics also blurs the line between cause and effect in surprising ways. In some experiments (like Wheeler’s delayed-choice experiment), a measurement in the present can seemingly influence how a particle behaved in the past, challenging our intuitive sense of temporal order. These quantum time paradoxes raise the question of whether effects can precede causes. Most physicists interpret the results as strange but not truly violating causality – no usable information travels back in time. As physicist Sean Carroll notes regarding such experiments, “nothing really went backwards in time” – hints of retrocausality are often exaggerated​. In other words, quantum mechanics might permit odd correlations that transcend classical time order, but it does not allow one to send signals to the past in any straightforward way​.

Neuroscience of Time: How the Brain Perceives Time

Time is not only a physical phenomenon – it is also a psychological experience. Neuroscience shows that our brain actively constructs our sense of time, and this perception can stretch or compress under various conditions. We all know the feeling: time “flies” during engrossing activities but drags when we are bored or in pain. Context and mental state dramatically alter our time perception​. In high-adrenaline moments – say, during an accident or emergency – people often report that time slows down, allowing them to notice details in what objectively were just seconds. Psychologists have observed that in threatening situations, the brain may increase the sampling of information, making external events seem to unfold in slow motion​. This could be an adaptive mechanism (sometimes called the “oddball effect”) where novel or critical stimuli are processed with extra attention, stretching the subjective moment​. Conversely, in states of deep focus or “flow,” we have fewer distracting thoughts and time may speed up in our perception​.

Importantly, the brain does not have a single “time organ.” Research suggests time perception is distributed across neural systems, involving the cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and basal ganglia, among other regions​. These neural circuits act like internal clocks or timers for different durations. They can be influenced by neurotransmitters – for instance, higher dopamine levels tend to make animals and humans overestimate intervals (time feels faster), whereas depressant drugs have the opposite effect​. Aging also affects our time experience: as people grow older, time often seems to pass more quickly. This may be partly due to changes in the dopamine system and the accumulation of routine experiences – with fewer novel memories being formed, years feel shorter in retrospect​. On the other hand, childhood and novel environments feel lengthy because the brain is recording rich, new detail, effectively “slowing” subjective time​.

These findings have implications for consciousness. Our sense of now – the “specious present” – is actually a short interval during which the brain integrates information. The continuity of our awareness is built from memory and anticipation. Distortions of time perception (whether via trauma, drugs, or neurological conditions) can alter one’s sense of self and reality. Thus, neuroscience reveals time as not just something we pass through, but also something that passes through us – constructed moment by moment in the brain, intimately tied to attention, memory, and emotion.

The Nature of Time: Fundamental or Emergent?

A deeper scientific question is what time actually is. Does time exist as a fundamental feature of the universe, or could it be an emergent property arising from something more basic? In classical Newtonian physics, time was absolute – an ever-flowing river independent of the material world. Modern physics has complicated that picture. Relativity binds time to space and matter; there is no single universal time, only spacetime and the clocks carried by observers. Meanwhile, some approaches in quantum gravity and cosmology speculate that time might not be fundamental at all. Instead, time could emerge from more primitive elements of reality, such as quantum entanglement or quantum information processes​. In these views, what we experience as the flow of time might be a byproduct of increasing quantum complexity or entropy. One recent theoretical framework posits that the arrow and flow of time are linked to the growth of entanglement entropy in the universe – as quantum information becomes more entangled and complex, it gives rise to an emergent sense of a time direction​.

While these ideas are at the cutting edge of physics and not yet empirically confirmed, they attempt to unify our understanding of time. The flow of time might be a kind of illusion or emergent effect when looking at the universe at large. In the “block universe” interpretation (consistent with relativity), past, present, and future all coexist in a four-dimensional spacetime block – and it’s only our consciousness moving along this block that gives the impression of flow. Some physicists, however, resist calling time an illusion, since our experience of sequential change is real to us. What is clear is that time’s status in physics is unresolved. It could be a fundamental aspect of reality (as real as space), or it could spring from deeper laws – perhaps time emerges the way temperature emerges from the motion of atoms. As physicist Carlo Rovelli succinctly put it, “time is ignorance” – the arrow of time points from what we know (past) to what we cannot know (future), implying that entropy and information are key to understanding time’s essence​. The scientific perspective, therefore, paints time as flexible, observer-dependent, and possibly derivative, rather than an absolute universal tick-tock.

Philosophical Perspective

Presentism vs. Eternalism: Is Only the Present Real?

Philosophers have long debated the ontology of time – what times exist and what it means for time to “flow.” Two major camps are Presentism and Eternalism. Presentism is the view that only the present moment is real – the past no longer exists and the future is not yet real. In this view, as moments pass, they come into being and then slip out of existence. The presentist asserts that “only present things exist,” with the past being just a memory and the future a possibility​. By contrast, Eternalism (often called the “block universe” theory) holds that all points in time are equally real​. Past, present, and future events exist in a four-dimensional block of spacetime, just as all places in space exist – the flow of time is a kind of illusion of perspective. According to eternalism, a year ago and a year from now are just as real as today; we are simply located at a particular point in the time dimension​. Events do not pop in and out of existence – they are all “already there” in the block, and what we call “now” is just the subjective slice we are experiencing​.

This debate has profound implications. Presentists argue that only the ever-changing present “now” truly exists, often aligning with our intuitive experience of time’s flow. Eternalists argue that presentism has trouble making sense of relativity (which shows there is no single universal present)​. In Einstein’s relativity, simultaneity is relative – different observers have different sets of events that they call “now.” This suggests there may be no objective, globe-spanning present moment, which lends support to eternalism’s block universe​. However, accepting eternalism raises its own puzzles, such as how to account for the feeling of the passage of time or the distinction between past and future. Some philosophers (and physicists) propose a middle-ground theory like the “growing block” universe: the past and present exist, but the future is open and not yet real. Others propose a “moving spotlight” theory where all times exist but one special moment is lit up as present. The presentism vs. eternalism debate remains unresolved, hinging on whether time’s flow is an objective feature of reality or a subjective aspect of consciousness. It is a clash between our experience of an ever-changing now and the possibility that we inhabit a changeless spacetime landscape where change and flow are matters of perspective.

Time and Consciousness: Experience, Memory, and Decision-Making

Time is deeply woven into human consciousness and experience. We live in time and cannot step outside of it; every thought and sensation has a temporal character. Our perceptions occur in what seems to be a continuous stream. Philosophers and cognitive scientists note that consciousness “exists in time”, meaning our experiences are ordered in the same temporal sequence as events in the external world​. If you hear a sequence of musical notes or watch a movie, the timing of those perceptions in your mind aligns with the timing of the physical stimuli. In this basic sense, our minds run on the same clock as the universe around us – there is synchronicity between mental events and physical events​.

At the same time, time manifests within consciousness. We don’t just experience the present instant; we retain a sense of the just-past and an anticipation of the about-to-happen. Our memory gives us access to the past – allowing us to recall yesterday or ten years ago – while our faculty of foresight lets us imagine and plan for the future. As one account puts it, thanks to episodic memory “our earlier states of consciousness are not altogether lost to us: they can be recreated (or relived)… in our present consciousness,” and through anticipatory thoughts and emotions (like hope or fear) “we can anticipate future happenings.”​ In other words, consciousness has a temporal depth: it can travel mentally backward via memory and forward via prediction. This gives human experience a narrative quality – we are aware of having a personal past and an open future, which is essential for functions like decision-making. Any decision we make relies on remembering relevant past events and projecting possible future outcomes. Thus, time is integral to reasoning and free will: to choose, we must be able to imagine a later time that could differ depending on our actions now.

Philosophers also discuss the “specious present,” the short duration (perhaps a few seconds) that the mind treats as the present moment. Within that sliding window, we actually perceive change (e.g. we hear a melody as a whole, not an instant-by-instant series of clicks). This suggests the brain is buffering information to create a sense of continuity. Without this mechanism, we would only ever experience infinitesimal instants and never the flow. Time and consciousness are so intertwined that some have suggested consciousness is a process that integrates information over time – essentially, consciousness is the mind’s way of timing itself. Our very sense of self may depend on the continuity provided by memory (past) and intention (future). When neurological or psychological conditions disrupt the normal sense of time (as in certain mental illnesses or under the influence of psychedelics), the results can be disorienting, hinting at how fundamental the temporal structure is to conscious life.

The Paradox of Time: Is Time an Illusion and Can It Run Backwards?

Time often confronts us with paradoxes. One famous philosophical argument, by J. M. E. McTaggart, claims that time might not be ultimately real at all. In The Unreality of Time (1908), McTaggart argued that our descriptions of time (using concepts like past, present, and future) end up in contradictions​. He distinguished two ways of ordering events: the A-series (events being past, present, or future) and the B-series (events ordered as earlier-than or later-than each other). McTaggart contended that the A-series (which gives us a moving present) is essential for time, but also incoherent because every event would have to be present, then past, which seems contradictory. Meanwhile, a B-series without a moving present gives no genuine change. Finding both options untenable, he concluded that time itself is an illusion and that reality is atemporal​. Few philosophers fully embrace McTaggart’s drastic conclusion, but his paradox highlights the difficulty of making sense of time’s passage. If the future already exists (as in eternalism), why do we feel it unfolding? And if only the present exists, how do we even define “change” or “passage” without referencing other times? Some have suggested that time’s flow is a subjective feature of how our brains process reality, not an objective feature of the world – in that sense, time (or at least the flow of time) could be considered a sort of cognitive illusion. We perceive reality as a series of now-moments, much like we perceive motion in film frames, but the underlying reality might not have a moving present.

Another classic paradox revolves around the possibility of time travel to the past. In theory, general relativity permits scenarios (like closed timelike curves around rotating black holes) where one could loop back in time. But this raises the specter of the grandfather paradox: what if you went back and killed your own grandfather before your parent was born? You would prevent your own existence, which would make it impossible for you to have traveled back to do that deed – a logical contradiction​. This consistency paradox suggests that backward time travel might be impossible in any universe that obeys logic. Some have proposed resolutions, such as the Novikov self-consistency principle, which says any attempt to change the past would fail or events would conspire such that the past remains consistent (for example, you might travel back in time and inadvertently end up ensuring your grandparents meet!). Alternatively, the universe might forbid paradoxical changes by branching into parallel timelines (a idea often explored in science fiction). As it stands, we have no evidence that backward time travel is possible; it remains a speculative concept largely constrained to thought experiments. What these paradoxes illustrate philosophically is that time is strange. Whether time is an illusion, a one-way street, or a landscape we traverse, it challenges our understanding of causality and existence. The fact that we even contemplate scenarios of reversing time underlines how unsettled we are on what time really is. Our minds experience it in one direction, yet the fundamental laws and logical considerations suggest time could be more malleable or elusive than it appears.

Divine Time vs. Human Time

“A Day with Your Lord is like a Thousand Years” – The Quran explicitly teaches that Allah’s perspective on time is drastically different from our own. What we experience as long periods may be trivial in the sight of God. For instance, Surah al-Hajj declares: “A day with your Lord is like a thousand years of those you count.”​ This relativizing of time serves to humble human beings and to assert that God is not bound by our temporal framework. Another verse states, “He arranges matters from the heaven to the earth; then it will ascend to Him on a Day whose measure is a thousand years by your reckoning.”​ And in yet another context, the ascent of angels to God is said to take a Day “the measure of which is fifty thousand years” (70:4). These descriptions convey the idea that divine time is not linear or equivalent to human time. Classical scholars note that such verses underscore the relativity of time: depending on the frame of reference (divine, angelic, or human), the length of “a day” can vastly differ​. God, who created time, can stretch or compress it as He wills, and He perceives all of history in a single view. Thus, from the human vantage point, an event may seem delayed, but from God’s vantage, it is as if it occurred in “one day.” The Quran uses this point to assure believers that God’s promised outcomes (justice, reward, punishment) will indeed come to pass, even if they appear slow by human expectations – for God, time is always at hand (compare 22:47-48).

Timeless Knowledge and Decree – From the Quranic perspective, God’s relationship to time is qualitatively different from ours. While we are bound by chronological flow – the past locked away and the future unknown – God is al-ʿAlīm (All-Knowing) and His knowledge encompasses past, present, and future in one eternal act. Verses affirm that Allah has complete knowledge of every event before it occurs: “No calamity befalls on the earth or in yourselves but it is inscribed in a Book before We bring it into existence” (57:22). This “Book” (often understood as the Preserved Tablet, al-Lawḥ al-Maḥfūẓ) symbolizes God’s preordained decree (qadr), in which all of history is laid out from beginning to end. Because God is beyond time, His decrees are not subject to change or surprise. The Quran often uses past-tense verbs for future events of the Day of Judgment, hinting at the certainty and “already witnessed” nature of those events in God’s sight. For example, “The Hour has come near” (54:1) is stated as if the event is accomplished. Islamic theologians extrapolate that Allah’s will operates on an eternal, timeless level – “His Command when He wills a thing is only that He says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is” (36:82). There is no delay between God’s command and its fulfillment; the delay we perceive is part of the created spatiotemporal order, not a hesitation on God’s part.

This understanding of divine time versus human time profoundly shapes Islamic thought on destiny (Qadr) and free will. Since God is not limited by sequential time, He can know and ordain all choices and outcomes without negating the reality of human decision within our temporal realm. A useful analogy some scholars employ: Imagine time as a line on a page – we move along the line point by point, but God sees the entire line at once. The Quran alludes to God’s all-encompassing view, saying Allah knows “what happens to them (His creatures) in this world and what will happen to them in the Hereafter” and that “to Allah all matters are returned (for decision)” (22:76, 3:109). God’s knowledge “from outside time” means that past and future are all present to Him. Thus, Muslims reconcile divine predestination and human accountability by recognizing two scales of time: on the human scale, time unfolds and we exercise will, but on the divine scale, everything is already known and ordained. The Quran invites believers to trust in Allah’s timing – “Allah never delays a soul when its time has come” (63:11) – and to be mindful that any time we have is by His decree. In practice, this means being content with divine destiny (since one cannot “outrun” God’s time) and being urgent in obedience (since one never knows when one’s allotted time will end). Ultimately, God’s “time” is qualitatively different: He is eternal and unbound, “He does not fatigue nor does He sleep” (2:255), and He exists beyond the flow of moments even as He ordains every moment. As one contemporary writer put it, “God is the Creator of time, and thus exists beyond time, while we, the creation, move within time.”​ This Quranic conception of divine vs. human time instills humility – our timelines are in His Hand – and hope – for no matter how long or difficult an era may seem, “Allah’s help is near” (2:214) and every moment is within His sight.

Religious Perspective

Time in Abrahamic Faiths: Creation, Eternity, and Divine Knowledge

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (the Abrahamic religions) share a broadly linear view of time. Time has a beginning – typically at the moment of creation by God – and it will have an end or fulfillment according to divine plan. In these traditions, God is often described as eternal, existing above or beyond the flow of time. For example, the Bible portrays God as the “Alpha and Omega” (first and last letters of the Greek alphabet), meaning the beginning and the end of all things​. This phrase (from Revelation 1:8) implies that God encompasses all of time and is not bound by it. In Islamic theology, likewise, Allah is believed to exist beyond time and space, in a state of absolute timeless perfection. One of the Quran’s names for God is “Al-Awwal wal-Akhir” (the First and the Last) (Quran 57:3), underscoring that God’s existence spans before the beginning of the universe and after its end​. In Judaism, classical sources also emphasize God’s eternal nature. The Hebrew Bible opens with “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” indicating that time started with creation. Medieval Jewish philosophers like Maimonides explicitly wrote that God is outside of time and not subject to time’s passage​. God’s perspective, in this view, is not confined to our timeline – past, present, and future are all known to Him in an eternal present.

This notion of God’s relationship to time leads to important theological questions. If God is outside time (timeless), all times are equally “present” to God’s knowledge. This would mean that God already knows every choice we will ever make and every event in history from beginning to end. Alternatively, some theologians argue that God is temporal but everlasting, meaning He has always existed and will always exist through time (without beginning or end), but still experiences sequence (before/after). The dominant view historically (held by Church fathers like Augustine and theologians like Aquinas) was that God is completely outside time – truly eternal and unchanging​. In modern philosophy of religion, however, a growing number of thinkers contend that God can be within time (reacting and interacting) while still never beginning or ending​. This debate – divine timelessness vs. temporality – tries to reconcile the idea of an unchanging perfect being with a deity who engages in a temporal world. Scripture in all three faiths sometimes portrays God as acting in time (answering prayers, performing miracles at specific moments), which suggests temporality, yet also calls God everlasting or eternal, which suggests a different mode of existence.

God, Free Will, and Predestination: Theological Debates

With God’s relation to time comes the classic problem of foreknowledge and free will. If God already knows everything that will happen – every choice each person will make – how can those choices be free? This is often framed as the conflict between omniscience and human free will, or in religious terms, between divine predestination and human responsibility. The argument, sometimes called theological fatalism, goes like this: if a being (God) infallibly knows today what I will do tomorrow, then it is necessary that I do that thing (otherwise God’s knowledge would be wrong, which is impossible). In other words, if the future is already known with certainty, it seems it cannot turn out differently – hence, how can my choice be free?​ This dilemma has occupied thinkers in all three faiths. For instance, in Islam the concept of qadar holds that Allah has foreordained everything, yet the Quran also affirms human accountability for one’s actions. In Christianity, the debate surfaces in discussions of predestination (as in Calvinism) versus free will (as emphasized in other traditions).

Various solutions have been proposed. One influential idea, put forth by the philosopher Boethius in late antiquity, is that God is outside time and sees all of history at once. From God’s eternal perspective, there is no “future” – everything is “present” to God. Thus, God’s knowledge of what we call the future doesn’t cause or constrain our actions; He simply observes our free choices in an eternal now​. Boethius analogized God to someone watching a man walking on a sunny day – the observer on a hill can see that the traveler will soon pass under a shade tree, but the traveler is still choosing his path. In this way, divine foreknowledge would not conflict with free will, because knowing is not the same as causing. Another approach is to redefine what God’s omniscience means – for example, some theologians (and philosophers who espouse “Open Theism”) suggest that the future is not a fixed reality to be known. God may know all possible outcomes and all natural laws, but if humans have truly free will, even God might allow for an element of openness in how the future unfolds. This is controversial, as it seemingly limits God’s knowledge, but it attempts to preserve free will. Traditionalists, however, often assert that God’s plans and knowledge include human free choices in a way beyond our comprehension – from our perspective we choose freely, yet somehow those choices fit into God’s foreknown plan without turning us into puppets. The compatibilist view in theology is that God’s sovereign omniscience and human free will are both true, even if we cannot fully understand how (a matter of faith). Ultimately, within the Abrahamic religions, the tension between predestination and free will is often seen as a divine mystery. Christianity and Islam both teach that humans are morally responsible for sin or righteousness (implying freedom), and yet God’s wisdom and knowledge are complete. The reconciliation of these truths varies by theological school, but the debate itself highlights how time and knowledge are central to religious conceptions of destiny.

Conclusion

Across scientific, philosophical, and religious perspectives, time remains an enigmatic phenomenon. Science shows time to be flexible and intertwined with the physical universe, perhaps even emergent from deeper laws of nature. Philosophy grapples with time’s reality and our perception of its flow, raising paradoxes that challenge our common-sense view of past, present, and future. Religion places time within a grand narrative, with a beginning, a divinely guided progression, and an end that opens into eternity. Despite their different approaches, all perspectives agree that time profoundly affects existence – structuring the cosmos, shaping human experience, and framing our ultimate destinies. In seeking to understand time, we find ourselves confronting fundamental questions about reality, consciousness, and meaning. The mystery of time endures, inviting continued exploration from all angles, and reminding us that we ourselves are “creatures of time” trying to comprehend the very medium of our existence. Through science we measure it, through philosophy we question it, and through faith many find hope beyond it – yet time itself, in its passing, keeps urging us onward. Our journey to understand time is far from over, but every insight gained is, fittingly, right on time.

Additional reading

Einstein’s Dream that Inspired Relativity

Sources

• Einstein’s relativity and time dilation ​space.com
• Arrow of time and entropy in physics ​quantamagazine.org​en.wikipedia.org
• Quantum perspective on time’s arrow ​phys.org
• Sean Carroll on retrocausality in quantum experiments ​preposterousuniverse.com
• Neuroscience of time perception and distortion ​neurosciencenews.com​en.wikipedia.org
• Effects of age and dopamine on time perception ​en.wikipedia.org
• Temporal consciousness (memory and anticipation) ​plato.stanford.edu​plato.stanford.edu
• Presentism vs eternalism definitions ​en.wikipedia.org​
• McTaggart’s argument on time’s unreality ​en.wikipedia.org
• Grandfather paradox of time travel ​en.wikipedia.org
• Abrahamic conceptions of God’s eternity ​judicial.mc.edu
• God outside time vs in time (Augustine to modern view) ​iep.utm.edu​iep.utm.edu
• Theological fatalism (divine foreknowledge vs free will) ​plato.stanford.edu
• Boethius’s solution (God’s atemporal knowledge) ​plato.stanford.edu
• Jewish, Christian, and Islamic end-of-time beliefs ​en.wikipedia.org