Why Time Is Both Subjective and Objective and Why It Is Insidious For Some, But Good For Others
Have you ever wondered if time is an illusion? Specifically, does time appear to be one way when it actually functions another way? “Is time subjective or objective?” is another way this question could be posed. The quick answer to this question is “Yes; time is both subjective and objective.”
This question could be answered several ways. One might believe that time is subjective because time seems to pass quicker the older we become; this is why I believe time is, in one aspect, subjective. Another person could conclude that time is objective because the unit of time – seconds, minutes, hours, days, etc. – is stable: atomic clocks are supposedly based off the frequency of light, and the speed of light (particularly the speed of light through an established, stable medium, e.g. earth’s atmosphere) is a constant. This is why I also believe time is, in one sense, objective. Meanwhile, some might be more restrictive of time, cursorily holding to only one of time’s aspects – that time is either subjective or objective and that the two are mutually exclusive. Another might surmise that time is not real and that everything is simply a dream. This last supposition turns out to be untenable because reality is in fact real. If you have the time, here is an article that elucidates on why this is true. https://drive.proton.me/urls/8XG6Y9ET8M#Pq49aj7WX62f
Although I believe that time is both subjective and objective, I also recognize that time itself is temporary. Revelation describes how, at the end of this world, time will cease to exist. “5And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, 6And sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer” (Revelation 10:6).
A while ago, my older brother (for whom I have very high regards) and I were talking about this very topic – why time seems to pass quicker when we age. My idea was that, as we age, we get used to doing things, and as these activities become more automatic, our brains do not need to expend as much exertion and conscious effort on them. Since we typically further the familiarity of our habitual activities, we often don’t need to exert as much brain power. This diminished mental exertion makes time seem to pass quicker than if we were exceptionally focused on some endeavor. This model of time can be corroborated experientially: often in new life phases, time seems to pass slowly; the inverse of this is also true. Another experiential evidence for this model could be the perception of time during painful moments: when (or rather if) a keyboard warrior has to run, this time seems to go by much slower than if he was passing the time on his “throne”. Time may also seem to go by much quicker when one is sleeping than when one is actively conscious. This was my conclusion: that time seems to go by quicker as we age because our mental attentiveness typically drops.
My older brother had another idea. Rather than thinking of this topic philosophically, he thought of this topic mathematically (he is, after all, an engineer). During this discussion, my older brother substantiated our mutual view that the amount of time one feels has passed (the perceived time span) differs from the unit of time based on days, months, years, etc. However, the “why” behind this phenomenon varied. My older brother believed that time seems to pass quicker as we age because as we continue to live, each unit of time takes up an increasingly smaller proportion of our life. To put it another way, 1 year in the life of a 50 year old is worth 1/50, or 2%, of that person’s life. Meanwhile, 1 year in the life of a 5 year old is worth 1/5, or 20%, of that individual’s life. During this conversation, my older brother walked me through the proof to a calculus-based formula depicting this. Although I did not truly understand the math behind this formula, its results are certainly convicting. The formula is (100)(ln(x)/ln(n)) where x=current age and n=number of years lived. Let’s say Baxton is 19 years old. Assuming he lives to be 100, one would plug 19 in for “x” and 100 in for “y” into the above formula to calculate how much of his perceived life he has thus far lived as a percentage of his total anticipated age. For Baxton, this formula indicates that he would be around 63.938% done with his perceived life – this is very convicting. Also remember that we only have one life to live; our life on this earth is not extended by multiple lives. How true is it when the Bible talks about the mortality of man!
“8There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.” – Ecclesiastes 8:8
“10And I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity.” – Ecclesiastes 8:10
“12So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” – Romans 14:12
“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” – Romans 6:23
“10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” – 2 Corinthians 5:10
“24For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.” – 1 Peter 1:24
“4LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. 5Behold, thou hast made my days as an hand breadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah. 6Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them. 7And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee. 8Deliver me from all my transgressions: make me not the reproach of the foolish.” – Psalm 39:4-8
What makes the brevity of this life even worse for the natural man is that the vast majority of humanity will not only suffer the death of this body, but will also suffer the eternal death of his or her soul. You see, as one lives longer on this earth, his or her sin debt is compounded due to ongoing sins. Every time he or she lies, has an unprovoked, hateful thought towards another person, entertains a lustful fantasy, (etc.), his or her sin debt is increased; therefore, they store up the wrath of God against themselves. “But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Romans 2:5). In this way, the perniciousness of time is also multifaceted: as time goes on, our bodies degrade while our sin debt accrues. Our earthly bodies remain subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics (which cursorily states that matter and energy deteriorate and become chaotic over time), while our souls remain subject to our inherent and willful sin natures. The natural man’s (or natural woman’s) sin nature is culminated with the wrath of God and the second death – this is specifically hell, and it is simply what they earned; it is their wages (Romans 6:23). This second death is absolutely more terrifying than the death of our earthly bodies. Why? Since our soul was made to have fellowship with God (Isaiah 43:7, 21), and because hell is the state of being consciously and literally separated from God forever (and therefore hell is complete estrangement from everything that is good), the souls of those who die in their sins will continuously suffer excruciating death. I believe one reason for this is because, if there were time in hell (there is no time in hell), one second would be so terrible that, if someone in hell was experiencing this pain through his or her earthly body, the agony, anguish, and complete terribleness that he or she would feel would be enough to kill him or her. And yet, because God made us after His likeness, one aspect of this is that our soul cannot die; therefore, those who die in their sins will suffer eternal death! What is terrible is that most of humanity will suffer this death because they continuously reject the grace of God through the Lord Jesus Christ’s blood (Romans 5:1; 1 John 1:7). Jesus said “13Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14) Now, right now you might be surmising “No worries! I’m sure I’m part of those select few who will make it to heaven.” Hopefully you are! You see “9The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) Although I truly hope your eternal destiny is heaven, I cannot be certain. You see, many people will end up in hell, thinking that they are going to heaven. Even some self-professing “Christians” will end up in hell (Matthew 7:21-23)! The question is: are you like them? Are you deceived? Do you think you are good enough to inherently deserve to go there?
Let me tell you something. Most of those famous celebrities you admire – pop stars, world-class athletes, etc. – most of them will end up in hell. Jesus said “24And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. 25When His disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved? 26But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:24-26)
Again I ask: “Have you ever dreamed of becoming as famous and as rich as a pop star?” Would you do anything to be in such a position? What if I told you that, very often, many of these famous pop stars and celebrities (such as BTS, Taylor Swift, etc.) acquired their positions by willfully giving themselves over to the demonic. Would you still trade places with them? If you can say “yes”, then you ought to be terrified. In return for temporal fame and fortune for a season, these celebrity types run the grave risk of being damned in hell forever, where there is no hope at all. If they are “fortunate”, then the most they could expect to get out of this “deal” with the devil would be around 100 years of temporal sensuality (and I’m being generous). If they do not repent and trust in Christ then, after this carnal spell, they’ll be rotting worse than a dead fruit in hell-fire and brimstone forever. Now, these celebrities are certainly able to come to God when He calls them. However, they often reject His sweet call. This may be partly because these demon-filled pop stars oftentimes believe that they actually sold their soul to the devil, and therefore ultimately have no free will. The reality is that they didn’t for the specific reason that you can’t sell what you don’t own. Doing so would be like me trying to sell one of Donald Trump’s businesses. I can’t do this because I am not Donald Trump. So is it with these pop stars. They don’t own their soul – God does. However, if they die in their sins, then they will be handed over by God, bounded about in chains, to hell and to the demonic because this is what justice demands. Now, I believe that some of the reasons why many of these celebrities don’t come to God are because they are: too prideful to admit that they had went in with the devil; too afraid, thinking that the demonic would torture them if they even tried to come to God; believe that they are beyond hope, which is not true, because the blood of Jesus Christ is able to cleanse anyone from all sin if we would only repent and trust in Him (see 1 John 1:7). If you are not saved and have not died yet, then, regardless of who you are, you still have the opportunity of being saved. You better choose to do so now while you still have time because death is a ticking timer – one from which you know not the time left.
“6Seek ye the LORD while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near: 7Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” – Isaiah 55:6-7
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, lose his own soul?” – Mark 8:36
Everyone’s going to die, regardless of fame, wealth, strength, intelligence, technical expertise (in any subject), or whatever. Because of this, everyone will R.I.P. The bodies of those who die in their sins will not just “rot into pieces”; they will “roast in phosphorous” (well, brimstone actually, to be exact). Phosphorous burns at around 1,4720 F. To put this into perspective, according to Aire Serv, the average person sets his or her thermostat somewhere between or around 680 F and 780 F. 1,4720 F is around 20.164 times hotter than the average of the two above temperatures (730 F). To put it another way, that would be around 10.985 times hotter than the “hottest temperature ever recorded”, according to PBS (according to PBS, the hottest temperature ever recorded was 1340 F in Furnace Creek, California). Only those whose sin debt has been satisfied by the blood of Jesus Christ will truly “rest in peace” forever. Heaven or hell. Where are you going?
And now, I would like to further my inadequate attempt at describing hell. Hell, in the Bible, is described as a lake of fire and brimstone. Now, think about tasting nothing but Chili Pepper X’s (which are around 1,000 times hotter than jalapenos), smelling nothing but rotting flesh and brimstone, seeing nothing but a penetrating darkness, hearing nothing but wailing and gnashing of teeth, and feeling nothing but burning brimstone, or sulfur (which has a boiling point of 832.30 F in which it burns up), all while suffocating from a lack of oxygen as well as suffering from eternal sleep deprivation. Think about forever being refused food and water in any form. Imagine being forced to endure complete emotional rejection – no one knows your name and, what’s more, nobody cares: you are never able to talk or interact with another person again. Never. In short, hell is a place of excruciatingly indescribable pain – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual agony. The suffering as described above, I believe, does not even come close to what hell is truly like. And yet, this is where we all deserve to go to when we die. “9Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). We are all deserving of hell-fire and brimstone. The good news is that God, while completely just, sent His Son to take the punishment that we deserve. It is as if a judge looks at a criminal that has a plethora of speeding fines written to his name. Instead of forcing this lawbreaker to somehow pay these fines (which could mean foreclosure of his or her house), the judge says, “You were charged all of these speeding fines, but you’re free to go because somebody else has paid your fine.” In this way, the judge can legally let the individual go while still maintaining his sense of justice. So it is with the Gospel. We all deserve death, but Jesus died and rose again bearing all of our sins on the cross so as to pay our sin debt in full. Now, this gift of salvation that Jesus paid for you is not yours yet. You see, in the giving of a gift, there are two parties. One party does essentially all of the work. This party both pays for the gift and delivers it to the intended recipient. The other party’s “job” is to simply accept the gift, which means accepting the terms of receipt as well. So it is with salvation. You and I deserve to go to hell, where the worm never dies and the fire never goes out. This is our natural future. “18He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath no believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved” (John 3:18). Is this not what mainstream culture has become? “Don’t judge!” is the dogma of contemporary society. “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” (Matthew 7:1). This verse, like many verses have been twisted by the world to mean something completely different from what God intended to be meant. “[…] they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.” (2 Peter 3:16). No. Proverbs says that we are to, “judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.” (Proverbs 31:9). We are not to judge with the hatred of man, but rather with the love of God and the hatred of evil. Now, right now you might smugly be thinking of me as a close-minded, dumb zealot. You might still be thinking, “I don’t think I’m going to hell. I’m a good person. I mean, I’ve never killed anyone. I try to do good more than evil.” No. You are a terribly sinful wretch, just like the rest of us. Do you not believe me? God’s authoritative definition of “good” is moral perfection. In other words, to be inherently good in God’s eyes, you must have kept and must keep all of the 10 Commandments throughout your entire life. “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” (James 2:10). Now then, have you ever lied? If you have ever done so, then what does that make you? A liar. God commanded mankind to not lie in the ninth commandment. How about lust (this is not just looking at pornography). Have you ever looked at someone with lust? In Matthew 5:27-28, the Bible says, “27You have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: 28But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Therefore, if you have ever looked at another person with lust, then you are effectively a whoremonger. In the seventh commandment, God commands us to abstain from promiscuity. And what about thievery. Have you ever stolen something, even if it was small (e.g. a pencil)? If you have, then you are a thief, and you have broken the eighth commandment. Then, there’s the issue of hatred. In Matthew 5:21-26, Jesus says that unjustified hatred is the same thing as murder. If you have ever hated anyone (including a sibling), then you are guilty of murder in God’s righteous eyes. There. We’ve only gone through four of the Ten Commandments, and you have already broken them all, and to break even one commandment is enough to condemn you to hell. It is clear. At heart, you are a double-faced, thieving, murderous whoremonger, and you are going to face a holy God on judgment day. By your own works, you will obviously be guilty for eternal death. You are condemned by a holy God. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Because of your sin, your punishment is eternal death. Your “wages” are literally hell. Just as a businessman gets monetary wages for working a corporate job, so are the wages of your sin eternal condemnation. Let that sink in.
Now, for the good news. This same almighty Judge who has condemned you has also graciously paid your fine – but have you received it? Jesus Christ, the holy Judge, has paid Christians’ sin debts with his blood. He took on your wages by living the life we could never live and by dying the death we could never die. God demonstrated that His blood was worthy of propitiation (or atonement) by raising Him up on the third day following His crucifixion. Therefore, if you simply accept His free gift of salvation (through His blood), you will be saved. The terms of accepting this gift are simple: confess and repent of (or turn away from) your sins, believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and man (meaning that He is the Lord over everything, including your life; therefore He has the power to save you), and believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and rose again three days later, making the payment of your sin debt complete. Now I know that that is a mouthful, so if you simply say this prayer and mean it, you shall be saved. There are no magic words to this prayer. God is looking at your heart. “O God! I am a sinner! I have no means of salvation other than through your finished work on the blessed cross. Please save me! I believe that you came to earth as fully man and fully God in order to live the life I could never live and to die the death I am so deserving of. I believe that you were tortured and crucified on the cross, dying for all of my sins. I, by my free will, choose to believe that three days after your death, you rose up from the dead and defeated death, thus paying my death wages in full. Please apply your blood to my sin-debt account. I am choosing right now to believe on you, Jesus, rather than on my own works. Please take me to heaven. Thank you Jesus for saving me! Now, I want to please you the rest of my life. Amen.” If this prayer is too psychologically taxing for you, you could simply cry out to Jesus for salvation in your own words.
Now, if you prayed that prayer, or a fundamentally similar prayer, and meant it, then you are by a certainty saved. Congratulations! Additionally, if you are saved, you are now sealed with the Holy Spirit “unto the day of redemption.” (Ephesians 4:30). Mark this day as your spiritual birthday and begin to grow to be a good Christian. Attend a Bible-believing Church, get baptized, read your Bible daily, pray, etc. However, remember that while all of these things are important and good, these aren’t what save you. Jesus’ blood was what saved you. Romans 5:1-2 reads, “1Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Finally, if you are saved, then the perniciousness of time is reversed. Very notably, as a true Christian continues to live, he has the opportunity to lay up treasures in heaven. “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal” (Matthew 6:20). True Christians are given power and the option to do this because of Jesus’ death and resurrection – upon death, rather than being punished according to the evil we have done, we are instead rewarded for the good that we have done – this is all because Jesus’ holy blood has paid for our sin debts in full (1 John 1:7). And, as we live longer, we come closer and closer to the finish line of heaven, where God is awaiting the death of His precious saints!
To close this article, I would like to recapitulate my belief that time is both subjective and objective. Time is subjective because of the principle depicted in that time seems to speed up as we age. At the same time, time is objective because the fundamental unit of time, as categorized in seconds, minutes, hours, etc., is stable. Time is also multifaceted in that it is harmful to the natural man, but is beneficial for the Christian. For the natural man, after death, he will end up in hell. For the Christian, death is the beginning of our eternal time in heaven. Although the Christian will suffer persecution in this world, in heaven, things will be different. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” (Revelation 21:4) If there is one thing I hope you get from this article, it is that you simply must choose to put your faith on Jesus Christ and not on your good works. Your eternity depends upon it! Thank you.
Any error in this article is the fault of the writer. Any truth is from God.
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