Row, Row, Row Your Boat
Course correction on the way to the Future
Everyone wants to have a crystal ball about the future. In spite of the difficulty of prediction, we still try our best to peer over the time horizon. If we are really sophisticated, we develop statistical models, forecasts, and algorithms. If we are the ordinary types; we go for tarot cards, astrology and readings. But it always comes down to the same thing. Prediction is very difficult, especially when it is about the future.
God is interested in the future too. Fortunately, His view is a little different than ours. But He does give us some instruction about how to deal with this passionate future quest. The picture He paints comes from two important words from Scripture that help us settle once and for all the pressing issue of our future. These words are aharit in Hebrew and suneidesis in Greek. While these two words are never used together in the Bible, they each give us part of a picture that is a startling correction to our preoccupation with the future.
The Hebrew word aharit is unusual because it literally means “afterward, backwards, or after part.” So how can it be about the future? H. W. Wolff says that the Hebrew concept of time is like a man rowing a boat. He sees where he has been, but the future is toward his back. He backs into the future. It is entirely unknown to him because it is behind him.
This picture has some very powerful theology in it. Only God can see “behind” us. We have as our guide what we see, the course we have been following – the past. We see the past because we are facing it. The past is in “front” of us. No wonder our history with God is so important. It is not just about where we came from. It is the visible guide for our course into the future.
The implicit powerful assumption in this metaphor is that I am “in” the temporal flow. Time is the water that surrounds me as I row the boat. My past is visible to me because I can see where I have been. But the substance of my future is just the same as my past and present. It is the stuff that I am moving in. I just don’t have the advantage of turning around to look where I am going.
This way of looking at time is not how we currently picture the temporal universe. Our metaphors for the future portray a different spatial relationship. A Greek metaphor has deluded us. The Greeks viewed time like a river. But instead of being in the river, we are passive observers on the shore. Where we stand on the riverbank is the present. What has happened already is now “down stream” in the past. The future is “up stream” flowing toward us. It is already there, but in a different location.
Notice how this metaphor changes some fundamental elements about my temporal relationship. First, it locates me on the sidelines. I am not “in” the temporal process. I am rather a passive observer of the process. I don’t impact the course of the river, the speed of the current, or the volume of water flowing past me. I am much more like a witness to events that come into view on the river of time and then flow past me and out of view into the past. In this picture, time has its own life apart from me. Even if I were not on the riverbank, events would still just continue to flow along. In fact, my present location on the riverbank is really completely arbitrary. If I decided to move downstream, I would just see those things that were once in my present. And if I moved upstream, I could see what is now (relatively) in my future. This “riverbank” illusion leads me to imagine that if I could only change my location relative to the river flow, I could actually observe what is already in the upstream river – and therefore, I would know the future.
What an ingenious and deceptive model this is! It seems so “commonsense.” It has great appeal, so much appeal that it is the underlying model of all those science fiction stories about time travel. But it is deadly in its deception because it depends entirely on converting time into space. You see, it suggests that time is really some sort of physical-spatial reality. Like a river, time has events in its structure that are already in some present spatial relation. They are either in our present view or further (a spatial word) away from us downstream or upstream (both spatial concepts). In addition, this metaphor suggests that I have a relative spatial position in relation to the spatial structure of time. I am the passive observer at this particular point (spatial) along the shore. All kinds of confusions result from this model of time.
The biggest problem is this: time is not like space. It doesn’t seem to have multiple dimensions like width, height and length. It doesn’t package very well. It doesn’t seem to be able to be bent, rolled, angled, compressed, stretched, or a dozen other spatial kinds of descriptions. It’s actually hard to imagine time in its essence at all. Time seems to be always connected with something else.
This is why the Hebrew view is so incredibly powerful. First, it takes me right off the shoreline and plunks me in the middle of the flow. I am not an observer. I am a participant. Time is the stuff I row my boat in. Secondly, the Hebrew concept suggests that what I really know about time is all in front of me. Time is the continuous sequence of actions that stretch from me into the past. As the sequence of events that connect this moment to all previous moments, time places me in the historical fabric of created connection. I am not standing by observing the universe flow past me. I am stuck right in the flow of everything that ever existed up to this precise moment. And just like the water below my boat, as I row I make changes in the very substance of time. It is dynamic, not static. It can be altered.
But what about the Hebrew view of the future? My future is really in the process of becoming. Rowing the boat never allows me to see where all of this is going. It only allows me to see where I am coming from. Each pull of the oars draws another piece of the temporal fabric under the keel. I experience the effort, the slice of the oar, the slap on the water. It is real involvement. And I can change that involvement. I can pull deeper, harder, faster. I can alter course, steer left or right. My future (what is presently “behind” me and cannot be seen) is changed when I alter my direction by shifting course.
This idea is given more elaboration by the second important word, the word that Paul uses for “conscience.” That Greek word (suneidesis) is one of the few words that Paul uses that is entirely Greek. Most of Paul’s vocabulary is Greek but with Hebrew thought forms. But not this one.
Suneidesis comes from two root words, sun and eido. Sun is a common prefix that means “together.” We see the same thought in English with the transliterated word “sum.”. Added together. The second root is eido. Greek has several words for “know.” These words distinguish how we acquire knowledge. The most common, ginosko, is knowledge that is gained from observation and experience. Paul avoids the implication of partial and progressive knowing when he uses eido. He wants us to see that the knowledge associated with his concept of conscience is not gradually accumulated from experience. This is knowledge that comes intuitively. It is not pieced together slowly. It comes complete. It is a fully formed insight, a personal revelation. It is the kind of understanding you have when you say to yourself, “I just know that this is right.” Paul tells us that conscience is the “bringing together of intuitive understanding.” So, where does this intuition come from? Paul’s answer is that it comes from the inscription of God’s moral code on the hearts of men and from the interaction with the Holy Spirit.
Because we are future oriented, we often think of conscience as an inner voice that guides us about future choices. We see conscience as a kind of inner roadmap that we need to consult in order to determine what we should do. But Paul tells us that the function of conscience is to evaluate what has already happened. That is to say, conscience looks back on my actions and either approves my choices or condemns them. Conscience is the vehicle by which I determine if I have been staying on course. Here Paul tells us that conscience is like an independent internal witness passing judgment on my actions. When conscience is entirely open to communication with God, this internal witness acts in two important ways: it corrects my course by passing judgment on those actions that misdirected me and it confirms my course by pointing me to the right buoy markers.
Let’s put these two words together and see how our picture is enhanced.
Life is the process of involvement in following a course. We are in the middle of it all, rowing into the future. Conscience directs our vision to the correct buoy markers in the past so that we can set the right course. As we look back, we see conscience showing us that this action and that action were not on course. And we see conscience showing us that these other actions were on course. The guidance we need is behind us. Once we let conscience show us the proper markers, we will row a straight course. This is the reason that our past history with God is so important. And it is not just our personal past history. We find direction in the history of God with every man. Conscience points to God’s total involvement in human history as the right markers for setting our course into the future.
If we have the right markers in the past, we do not need to see the future direction of our rowboat. By keeping on a course that uses these markers as bearing points, we know that we are going in the right direction even if we cannot see where we are going. It is not necessary to see the course of the future because our future is merely an extension of the same line we have taken with God in the past. Those of us who know God will know that we are on the right course because God’s faithfulness marks the way we have already come and God does not change course.
Those of us who are not using God’s markers for our course will have no idea if we are rowing in the right direction. We will have no history that shows us a faithful, straight line. We will end up trying to row a boat in the fog.
Rowing backward into the future is no problem at all if we allow our inner independent witness to constantly correct our view of the markers God leaves us in the past. Lining up all the points will always bring us on course – a straight line that will continue into the future because God’s faithfulness will keep it straight.
“Clear the way of the Lord in the wilderness, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Isaiah 40:3
Hi Skip (and everyone), As I read “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” today, I was struggling with how difficult it is to imagine the world as it relates to time rather than space. I have two questions.
First, I know there are many, who’s thinking is Greek through and through, who see the world as a place for them to conquer or “change” and life as having endless potential. It doesn’t seem that they would consider themselves as passively observing a river of time from the bank in any way. The future/the world is what you make of it they might say. They might look to divert the river and control and harness it. How does this concept look when considering a person who is verb/action oriented and fully devoted to affecting “the future”?
Also, in light of Psalm 1, where David describes the man who is blessed as being like a tree planted by streams of water…it sounds like there is also something very beneficial to simply being rooted on the shore or the bank near the water. I couldn’t help but notice a resemblance in the illustrations you have used here and the one in Psalm 1, but my guess is that I am missing some key understandings about what the elements represent in each, and what idea the illustration is being used to shed light on. Could you help me just a little with distinctions?
Thanks for sharing. I’ve learned a lot from your writings and speaking over the years.
A quick reply.
Psalm 1 uses Hebrew metaphors to describe stability and faithfulness. The fact that some of the imagery COULD BE seen as compatible with a Greek idea of time is only coincidence. The concepts are not the same.
While it is true that there are people in the Greek world who speak about making their own future, the underlying issue is God’s relationship to time. That creates the problem of a fixed or flexible future. Since the modern man has little concern for God’s perspective, he might embrace the idea that the future is flexible without worrying about the theological implications. But contemporary Christianity still embraces Aquinas’ view of foreknowledge and inerrancy, and the combination leaves us with intractable logical conflicts over free will.
Oh, no, Zach, you dug up this bone again!
The big difference between Eastern and Western thinking when it comes to the concept of free choice vs. ‘destiny’, or, fate, I think, may revolve around the concept of free will. However, I don’t see the Greek time river thing as actually allowing for free will; events are ‘already’ in the stream of time, they just haven’t gotten ‘here’ yet. Thus, East and West really agree; choice is illusion – well, historically agree. Most people did not really think they had free will before humanism – unless they were reading their Bibles really, really well, anyway.
Along comes modern man with his new humanist god; namely, himself. Finally, he has shucked determinism in every way on his own and can exercise free will BECAUSE he left fate (East) behind along with superstitions like a God Who lets bad things happen even though He ‘knew’ all about it – at least according to mainstream Christianity (West). Skip has tried to set this stuff straight in his book, which you probably have read.
So we now (finally) have free will on a new basis; namely, atheism, which the Greeks may have dreamed of (witness Socratic Platonism, etc.), but did not actually achieve. I can’t see how the Greeks thought they could override the future UNLESS they left the capricious gods behind. I think they dreamed of a day they could determine the future through choice, but they saw that they would have to control reality to do it – on their own, anyway, without the gods. In other words, I think they were the first who dreamed of true atheism. I have thought this is the real reason they wished to find the atom so desperately. Today, we who have carried that Greek torch think we have achieved their dream; we can now have true choice because we can control reality via our manipulation of the atom. You are right; this is VERY Greek! (However, the people you are describing as “Greek” in their thinking, I am quite sure, do not subscribe to the ancient Greek gods; they most likely are basing their confidence upon what they think they have learned about what I think was the new humanist god the Greeks were dreaming of; namely, science, which so many people worship today.)
I do think the cracks are already showing, however. Reality is not based on the forms so beloved of the Greeks: not the forms of power we ascribe to God that Skip outlines in his book, nor the forms (atomic) we so longingly wished for in the scientific realm, either. In other words, we don’t have the ability to affect the future by our choices for the reasons the atheist thinks we do, nor does the future (gods) have the ability to shove us around like all false religion thinks, either. I think everybody has a wrong understanding of what true free will is or why we have it (except, of course, those folks who have really been reading their Bibles all along.).
Thanks, Skip, for permanently messing up my head!