This supreme being is thus impersonal and is for Williams both the collective whole and an abstraction of that whole, in that is it impersonal energy. The necessity of abstractionism for Williams is thus inescapable. To understand reality means to pursue a necessary process of abstraction. For the Christian thinker, however, such a process takes him away from God and is a denial of Him. But to do justice to history, and to avoid turning history into a meaningless shadow against the void, it must be seen as the creation of the personal and triune God.
Time is real because eternity is real.
Neither time nor eternity is shadows and abstractions. God's concern about man's sins in any and every age is an historical concern rooted in His eternal decree and His purposes therein. Abstractionism soon loses its hold on both time and eternity, because it seeks a truth behind and under both of them. The concreteness of that word is offensive to fallen man, because it is too clearly the personal word of the personal God. But there is no other word.