Thursday, January 12, 2012

What is Time? by Gary W. Driver

Driver started thinking about time and this self-published work is the result. It is a rambling, non-scientific work on a variety of topics, much of which I found nearly impossible to understand.
Driver distinguished universal time (movement of heavenly bodies) and relative time (human divisions of universal time for our own use). He notes that a definition of time must include universal and relative time. It is God's command that starts an era and God controls universal time. God controls the future. “Things that God command to absolutely occur will occur regardless of our free will decisions and changing environments.” (32% on the Kindle) “God's commands are the force behind time.” (44%)
Because it takes light some time to travel, what we see is always the past. It could be a nanosecond (if close) or light years (if far).

In his discussion about the curvature of the earth being flat, he uses Isaiah 40:21-22 to show that God said (through Isaiah) that the universe is flat. He points out that if you had a twenty square foot camping tent to lay out, and you had twenty square feet of terrain, you would choose flat terrain. Isaiah 40:22b says, “...that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.” Note that in the Isaiah passage, the heavens are likened to the tent, not the land under the tent!
Driver uses Psalm 19:6 to “prove” that God revealed that the Sun and solar system orbits in the Milky Way Galaxy. It reads, “His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.” Psalm 19 is a very pictorial passage, likening the sun to a bridegroom, to a man running a race, as being set in a tabernacle. Sorry, this is just too much of a stretch for me!

Driver's use of the English language sometimes just astounded me. For example, about eternity and time: “The concept of eternity has no start or end; in essence, it is beyond time itself. Eternity and time are the same and different.” “Eternity and time are the same, in that time is contained in and a part of eternity.” (74%) I just have to shake my head at such a use of language.
Here's another: “The purpose of the micro scale is to fulfill the purpose of the macro scale.” (38%) Or, “Time is not a series of individual events, but the simultaneous and continual occurrence of all events.” (21%) OK, whatever that means.
I do not agree with his discussion, “In a general sense, the human perception of the present is without an intervening medium outside of our senses.” (27%) There is certainly air as a medium or we would not be able to hear sounds!

Reading Driver's work was an odd experience. Sometimes he tries to sound like a scientist. I can tell he's read a bit on the subject. But he gets his concepts and meanings mixed up and what he is trying to communicate gets slaughtered.

Here is an example of an entire paragraph of his writing. “The element aluminum cannot be permanently magnetized but a ferrous metal can. The electrometric [sic] force is within all atoms; however, it operates as dictated by the metal of which they are composed. How can quantum fluctuations reverse the higher order of the universe we know today to dictate to the atoms and elements to form a universe? This brings about the need to cancel the laws of physics under the uncertainty umbrella. Order is from the large scale down to the smaller scale. There is no higher order than the command from God the Creator to the natural universe and its smallest components.” (38%) (If you can understand that paragraph, you'll understand the book. I can't, and I have a degree in physics!)

I read this book all the way through but I would not wish that experience on anyone else.

Gary is a native Texan along with his five brothers and eight sisters. Their common father and mother are the founding Pastors of the C.C. Driver Revival Center in Cleveland, Texas. Of which Gary is Senior Pastor. Gary has 23 years of ministerial experience. He was employed for many years as a senior project manager of a building automation systems design and installation operation.

This book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

I received an egalley of this book from the author for the purpose of this review.

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