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3 - In God's good time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Jeremy S. Begbie
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

At the centre of the debates about the metaphors for time, whether mathematical, physical, or philosophical, are questions about whether time is a threat or gift.

Stephen Happel

Any theological account of time in the Christian tradition is sooner or later going to have to reckon with those Christological affirmations of the New Testament which relate the totality of created existence to what has taken place in the person of Jesus Christ. If in Christ ‘all things’ have found their fulfilment, then, presumably, the same is to be said of time as an integral dimension of the created order. The one ‘through whom’ all things were created (Col. 1:17), is ‘the firstborn of all creation … the beginning, the firstborn from the dead’ (Col. 1:15, 18), the one in whom God ‘gathered up’ all things (Eph. 1:10f.), ‘the first and the last, and the living one’ (Rev. 1:17–18.). Christ's time and history, his incarnate life, death and resurrection, are thus properly conceived as central and decisive for all time and history. In this chapter, drawing on material from the last two chapters, we explore through music two important corollaries of this, namely that due weight should be given, first, to the reality of time as intrinsic to God's creation and, second, to the essentially positive character of time as part of God's ‘good ordering’ of the world.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

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  • In God's good time
  • Jeremy S. Begbie, University of Cambridge
  • Book: Theology, Music and Time
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511840142.004
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  • In God's good time
  • Jeremy S. Begbie, University of Cambridge
  • Book: Theology, Music and Time
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511840142.004
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • In God's good time
  • Jeremy S. Begbie, University of Cambridge
  • Book: Theology, Music and Time
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511840142.004
Available formats
×