In our examination of spatial dimensions, we saw how each figure—points, squares, cubes, and hypercubes—had escalating degrees of freedom of motion. Whether we move back and forth, up and down, or in and out we are always moving through time. If we could freeze time at the moment we call “Now,” it could be illustrated as a point.

As with a geometric point, the immediate present as conceptualized above would have zero degrees of freedom of motion. Recall that a point is a geometric position, not an actual space. The frozen present would contain information, like a picture capturing a scene, but nothing would precede it and nothing would follow it. It is our memory of the stacked up moments we call “now” that give us the perception of the motion of time. Whether these are memories of what we have actually experienced or memories of what we have learned of or in the past, they allow us retrospection and the sense of traveling through time. We are accustomed to illustrating this with the time line.

In the illustration above, I have used the paragraph sign (¶ ) to designate the Past and the F for the future. The dots from ¶ to the present are the recalled “Now” moments that have brought us here. No dots are on the line past the present because the future is a concept of the time we are going to from the here of Now. It is in the reality of the arrow of time—the fact that it only moves in one direction—that space fails as a time analog. A line provides one degree of freedom of motion. Remember Citizen A and B from Lineland? A can move to B and B can move to A. This represents a full degree of freedom of motion. But we can only move toward the future. At best, we could call this ½ degree of freedom of motion.

If our time line extended to eternity past and eternity future and we could travel in either direction, we would then have a full degree of freedom of motion through time.[1]

To gain a dimension of time, we must either compound experience or arrive at an x/y function. Compounded experiences are memories shared. They make the “times” of our lives fuller. Cherished memories of solitary experiences are not uncommon, but they are seldom as rich as experiences shared. It is why we gather for family feasts, go to restaurants with friends, and gravitate to the excitement of seeing a movie on opening night.

When I was a contractor, I sold compounded experience or output in the form of man hours. If I sent three technicians to a job site and they worked for three hours, I would bill my client for nine man hours.

3 men x 3 hours = 9 man hours

The math is analogous to figuring out the area of a rectangle except we are using men and hours instead of length and width. The technicians in the example above would have shared the experience of nine man hours of production. But they aren’t exactly experiencing time squared. The realty of the math looks more like this:

3 hours + 3 hours + 3 hours = 9 hours

Than it does like this:

3 hours x 3 hours = 3 hours²

But what if we could experience time two dimensions? If we had full freedom of motion through time and two time dimensions we could live in simultaneously, then our perceptions and possibilities in such a time continuum would be as different as our theoretical two-dimensional creatures are from one-dimensional creatures. Science fiction often deals with alternative time lines as parallel universes. In this thought experiment, I am staying in this universe but adding a perpendicular time line.

For any experience within the x/y coordinates, there would be a two-dimensional property of time as illustrated in the formula below:[2]

T_x x T_y = T²

If one lived in T_x and T_y simultaneously and clocked in at work at 9 am_xy and clocked out at 12 pm_xy, said person would have worked 3 hours² or nine square hours. These squared hours are as different from nine man hours as nine square feet are from nine linear feet. Suppose we had a third time dimension? We can illustrate it with a Z function placed on a diagonal.

If we experienced all three time dimensions simultaneously, our time would be voluminous instead of simply linear. Our “when” compared to moments experienced by those confined to the arrow of time would appear to them as astounding as Jesus appearing in a locked room. I dare say it might even appear to be “time travel.” The time experienced by a three-temporal being[3] could be expressed as:

T_x x T_y x T_z = T³

The Godhead is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is transcendent and omnitemporal. Though He is above time, He also interacts with His creation within time. God’s fullest integration into time was in the Incarnation. Jesus Christ is the fullness of the Godhead bodily.[4] He is the Alpha and Omega. The triunity of the Godhead would make every moment of His experience T³ time at the very least. His pain and joy would accordingly be exponentially greater than ours.

Hebrews 12:1-3
1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

Hebrews 1:9
Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

We are so aware of time being part of our material realm that many of our conceptions of heaven and the spirit realm are intentionally timeless. Being there is being free of the restrictions of time and entering into the “eternal” state. But we owe Plato more for those concepts than we do the prophets. As we shall see, time does exist in the spirit realm. Since God interacts with His creatures in the material realm from the spirit realm, every T³ moment is expanded through experiencing it in both realms (R²). We could represent this as:

T³ x R² = TR⁵

I propose this not as doctrine, but as a thought experiment to conceptualize the wonders of our infinite God interacting with us in such dynamic ways. We live a day in twenty-four hours. In the thought experiment above, His experience of that same day would be at TR⁵ level. I find it provocative that 24⁵ hours is approximately 1,000 years.[5]

2 Peter 3:8
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

[1] Of course, I am not dealing with the paradox that as we did so, we would still be in our “now” each moment of the way. Theorizing about time travel complicates language. Suppose I am a scientist planning to get in my time machine and journey to the past. From my “now” the past would be in my future plans which I would arrive to in my present.
[2] One small disclaimer about the mathematical formulas presented regarding time: though I have done my best to be true to mathematical principles, the time formulas used are primarily for the purpose of illustration. They are not to be taken, or necessarily understood, as scientific axioms.
[3] I am using three-temporal in much the same way we use the term three-dimensional.
[4] Col. 2:9.
[5] Actually, the result is 921.6 prophetic years of 360 days each. The point here is not to attempt to bind God within math (as if one could), but to present one possible means of the amplification of time without resorting to time dilation effects of general relativity.