Towards an Informed Faith: Redefining Time through Science and John’s Gospel

Yung Suk Kim, PhD

What exactly is time? We track it with calendars, watch it slip away on our wrists, and structure our entire lives around its steady progression. As a biblical scholar, my daily work involves exploring time through ancient texts, examining how human history, memory, and faith are bound up in chronology. Yet, I find myself deeply interested in understanding time from various other perspectives—including the rigid equations of science and cosmology.

In my view, faith or textual interpretation should never contradict science. Instead, faith can be better informed, challenged, and ultimately understood through the lens of scientific discovery. The traditional, static views of faith are simply not standing the test of modern science. Science tells us plainly that naive belief does not work; the laws of nature are consistent, and magical suspensions of these laws won't happen in our physical world. If we want a fresh, vibrant faith today, it must be an informed faith.

To be clear, this does not mean science is perfect enough to dictate faith. Science and faith simply operate in different realms of interest. Science examines physical things as they are. Faith, on the other hand, grapples with value questions and ultimate questions of where, why, or how—existential dilemmas that science cannot answer. Science cannot explain why bad people so often prosper, nor does it help a person deal with the deep suffering caused by systemic injustice. It cannot tell us how to find the courage to live in a world of profound uncertainty.

Nevertheless, science can and should enter into faith in crucial respects—especially in how we understand time. For me, that means recognizing that we experience only the present, while constantly remembering the past or reimagining the future. The past is a repository of memory, and the future is a canvas of imagination, but our existence unfolds entirely in the now. While science operationally defines time as that which is measured by a clock, a deeper look into cosmology suggests that time is not just a mechanical ticking, but the very status of reality in the present. Science anchors us in reality, helping us understand exactly who and where we are in the immediate now.

Here is a look at how our understanding of time evolves when we look through the lens of physics and cosmology, and what it means for how we live and believe today.

1. The Clockwork Universe: Absolute Time
For centuries, classical physics relied on the framework laid out by Sir Isaac Newton. In this view, time is:

• Absolute and universal: It acts as a static, unchanging background to the universe.
• Independent: It flows at the exact same rate everywhere, regardless of who is watching or what is happening.

In our daily lives, this is how we intuitively perceive time—as a steady, unyielding river that carries us along.

2. The One-Way Street: The Arrow of Time
Why can we remember the past but not the future? The answer lies in thermodynamics and the concept of entropy (a measure of disorder).

• The Second Law of Thermodynamics: In a closed system, things naturally move from a state of order to disorder.
• An Irreversible Flow: A dropped teacup shatters, but a shattered teacup never spontaneously reassembles. This relentless rise in disorder provides the "arrow of time," dictating its forward direction and mimicking our own linear experience of moving from memory into anticipation.

3. The Fabric of Reality: Einstein’s Relative Time
Albert Einstein completely transformed our understanding by proving that time is not absolute. Instead, it is deeply bound to space.

• Spacetime: Space and time are woven together into a dynamic, four-dimensional fabric.
• Time Dilation: Time is flexible. Clocks tick slower for an object moving at high speeds (Special Relativity) or positioned close to a massive gravitational body, like a planet or black hole (General Relativity).

In short, physics confirms that time passes at different rates depending on where you are and how fast you are moving, shattering the illusion of a single, universal "now."

4. The Beginning of Everything: Cosmic Time
In cosmology, scientists use a standardized measure known as cosmic time to chart the history of the cosmos. This is the time experienced by a hypothetical observer moving precisely with the expansion of space.

• The Birth of Time: According to the standard Big Bang model, time itself began roughly 13.8 billion years ago.
• The Ultimate Singularity: Because the temporal dimension was created in the Big Bang, asking what happened "before" it is like asking what is north of the North Pole—the question itself loses its meaning.

5. The Ultimate Question: Is Time an Illusion?

When we try to merge the physics of the very large (relativity) with the physics of the very small (quantum mechanics), time presents a massive paradox.

• The Quantum Conflict: Quantum equations treat time as a rigid, external backdrop, while relativity treats it as a fluid fabric.
• An Emergent Property: In certain advanced theories of quantum gravity, time completely vanishes from the fundamental equations. This has led some physicists to suggest that time might be an emergent phenomenon—a macroscopic illusion arising from a deeper, timeless quantum reality.

Conclusion: Realizing the Kingdom in the Present

Whether we are looking at Einstein’s flexible spacetime or the quantum theories that suggest time is an emergent property, science shatters our rigid, traditional assumptions. It forces us to realize that time is not a mechanical clock, but the dynamic status of reality in the present.

While science provides the physical map of this present reality, faith provides the meaning. In our daily lives, we can feel this reality—the very reign of God—tangibly through the light and the wind, and through loving relationships with God and others. True love and authentic relationships go on forever; they transcend linear constraints. It is precisely in this way that we realize the kingdom of God right here, right now.

This is perhaps how the profound concept of "eternal life" in John's Gospel can be better understood. Eternal life is not a distant, future destination after we die; it is the quality of living fully in the divine presence today. When science anchors us in the present, it helps us understand our context. It frees us from a frozen past or a passive future, allowing an informed faith to answer the ultimate questions of values, meaning, and purpose. It calls us to action in the only moment we truly possess: the loving, just, and eternal now.