Q: so what are the consensus amongst the 4 group of protestant views you listed? or are there none?
A: That's an excellent follow-up question. The honest answer is that there is no single consensus among all Protestants on the nature of God's relationship to time, or the precise mechanics of the Genesis account.
However, we can identify a Classical/Orthodox Consensus and a Modern Evangelical Debate based on the four views you mentioned:
1. The Classical/Orthodox ConsensusThe dominant, historical, and most widely accepted theological position across mainline Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox traditions is the view derived from Classical Theism.
The Core Consensus: God is the Creator of TimeView: Traditional/Classical Theism (God is Timeless)
Holders: Nearly all major Reformed (Calvinist), Lutheran, Anglican, and traditional Methodist theology, as well as the historical consensus of the early church fathers (Augustine, Aquinas, etc.).
The Point of Agreement: God is ontologically prior to and transcendent of the created universe, which includes time. Therefore, the conclusion that God created time is fundamental to this view.
The Theological Basis: Since God is immutable (unchanging) and simple (not composed of parts), He cannot be subject to the succession of moments that define created time. For God, His eternal life is an "eternal now" that encompasses all of human time.
Summary of the ConsensusThe vast majority of Protestants, historically and theologically, agree that the temporal (time-bound) universe is part of God's creation, and God Himself is eternal in the sense of existing outside of created time.
2. The Modern Evangelical Debate (Disagreement on the How)The most significant disagreements are not about whether God created time, but about (A) God's internal experience of time, and (B) the interpretation of the Genesis timeline.
A. The Debate on Divine Temporality (Internal Time)View: Traditional/Classical Theism vs. Process/Open Theism
The Conflict: The Traditional view holds God is Timeless and Immutable (seeing the whole "road" of time at once). The Open Theism view, which gained traction in some evangelical circles in the late 20th century, argues that a timeless God cannot truly interact with a temporal world, and therefore, God must exist within time (i.e., He experiences moments sequentially) and may not know the future with absolute certainty.
Consensus/Dominance: Open Theism is considered a minority view and is often seen as outside of orthodox consensus by the vast majority of mainline and conservative Protestant denominations (Reformed, Lutheran, Baptist, etc.). Therefore, the Classical Theism view of God's timelessness remains the theological standard.
B. The Debate on the Creation TimelineView: Young-Earth Creationism (YEC) vs. Old-Earth Creationism (OEC)
The Conflict: This disagreement is about the duration of time in Genesis 1.
YEC (literal 24-hour days): Dominant in certain fundamentalist and evangelical churches.
OEC (day-age or framework theory): Widely accepted in many mainline Protestant churches, including the majority of academic theologians, as compatible with scientific understandings of an old universe.
Consensus/Dominance: There is no consensus here. The Young-Earth view is a marker of certain conservative evangelical traditions, while the Old-Earth view is the common position in most other Protestant groups, demonstrating a clear split on the interpretation of the creation timeline, though both agree God is the ultimate Creator.
ConclusionThe overarching theological consensus among Protestants is that God created time as a dimension of the physical universe, and He exists eternally outside of it (Classical Theism).
The lack of consensus lies in the details:
Philosophical Detail: Whether God's knowledge and action are entirely timeless (Traditional) or sequential/temporal (Open Theism).
Biblical Detail: Whether the "days" of creation describe literal 24-hour periods (YEC) or long epochs of time (OEC).
Would you like to explore the specific scriptural arguments for or against divine timelessness?