Page 778 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

A person's past is
actually information
PAST PRESENT FUTURE located in his mem-
ory. If that person's
memory were
erased, his past
would be gone. The
future is composed
of human thoughts.
We make plans for
the future and think
about it, but if our
thoughts were de-
stroyed there would
remain no concept
of the future. If our
memory and our
thoughts were taken
from us, we would
have only the mo-
ment of experience,
or this particular
Memory = Past Thought = Future moment, left.

Memory = Past Thought = Future

this person's memory, then, for this thirty year old individual, both his thirty years and the "future" be-
tween the ages of thirty and seventy, would become the past. In this situation past and future would be pre-
sent in the memory, and each one would be lived experiences for him.
Because God has made us perceive events in a definite series, as if there were a time moving from past

to future, He does not inform us of our future or give this information to our memories. The future is not in
our memories, but all human pasts and futures are in His eternal memory. This, as we said before, is like ob-
serving a human life as if it were already wholly depicted and complete in a film. Someone who cannot ad-
vance the film sees his life as the frames pass one by one. He is mistaken in thinking that the frames he has

not yet seen constitute the future.

Past And Future Are News Of The Unseen

In the verses, God reveals that the only one who knows what is secret, invisible, unseen and unknown
is He Himself:

Say: "O God, Originator of the heavens and the earth, Knower of the Unseen and the Visible, You will judge
between Your servants regarding what they differed about." (Surat az-Zumar: 46)
Say: "Death, from which you are fleeing, will certainly catch up with you. Then you will be returned to the
Knower of the Unseen and the Visible and He will inform you about what you did." (Surat al-Jumu'a: 8)

He said, "Adam, tell them their names." When he had told them their names, He said, "Did I not tell you that
I know the Unseen of the heavens and the earth, and I know what you make known and what you hide?"
(Surat al-Baqara: 33)

Generally, the word "secret" is thought to refer only to something unknown about the future; however,
both the past and the future are secret. Those who have lived in the past and those who will live in the fu-
ture are kept in God's sight. However, God gives some of the knowledge kept in His sight to the memories
of people and makes it known. For example, when God gave knowledge concerning the past in the Qur’an,

He told the Prophet Muhammad (may God bless him and grant him peace) that this was news of the un-
seen:

That is some of the news of the Unseen which We reveal to you. Neither you nor your people knew it before

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