Oliphint on God, Time, and Incarnation

Too good not to share with others:

So, to the question, “Is God subject to time?” we can answer reduplicatively. We can say, “God as essentially God is not subject to time,” and, “God as covenantal is subject to time.” So, the answer given must be something like, “Essentially, no, but covenantally, yes.” And because he is subject to time only covenantally, there is no situation in which his essential character is compromised, undermined, or otherwise altered. That character is not confused, mixed, divided, or separated with respect to his covenantal properties, though those properties are fully a part of who he is, as a person, to and for us.

…How could the full deity of God be so compatible to the full humanity of man such that both could fully reside in one haecceity, one individual essence, one person? Yet this is just what a Christian compatibility teaches us. The muddle of many philosophers (and theologians) concerning how God can accommodate himself to his creation without giving up on (at least aspects of) his essential character is clearly (though, ultimately, mysteriously) revealed to us in the coming in the flesh of the second person of the Trinity. The person of Jesus Christ shows God and creation (humanity) to be compatible without sacrificing the essential character of each.

Oliphint, Reasons for Faith, 324-5