U
NIVERSITY OF
A
MSTERDAM
The Temporal Mode of an Eternal God
Classical, Contemporary, and Process Perspectives
Author:
Supervisor:
H. A. W
ALTONR. A. te Velde
Thesis Submitted: July 17th 2013 Thesis Defence: August 9th 2013
Word Count: 21,088
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Contents
Introduction ….……….………...
..
3
1 Atemporality, the Classical Thesis …...…...……….………….
.5
- Saint Augustine
……..………..……….……….. 7
- Boethius ………...……..………..……... 15
- Saint Thomas Aquinas ………... 20
- Evaluation
.……….……… 24
2 Contemporary Arguments for Timelessness ...….………...
29
- Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann
..... 33
- Brian Leftow
……...………..……... 40
- Evaluation ..………...…… 44
3 Contemporary Arguments for Temporality …..…….……….
45
- Nicolas Wolterstorff
.....………...………... 46
- William Hasker
…...…………..………..…....….. 51
- Evaluation ……….……….….……..… 55
4 Process Theism and the Doctrine of Divine Dipolarity.………...
57
- Evaluation ……….….………….….…. 69
5
Conclusion …...…………..……….….……….
74
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Deus est sphaera infinita, cuius centrum est ubique, circumferentia nusquam.
- Anonymous,
Liber XXIV philosophorum
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Introduction
As a great many questions turn on the particular stance taken towards God’s temporal mode, philosophers and theologians throughout history have recognised the topic as one of unique importance. As Nelson Pike contends, “the position that a theologian takes on the topic of divine temporality has a kind of controlling effect on the general shape and texture of his broad theological view about the nature of God” (Pike 1970 , ix); with such issues as divine providence, simplicity, immutability, freedom, foreknowledge, and agency all determined by God’s relationship with time, it is easy to see why the topic has been one of perennial interest for more than two thousand years.
The consensus as it stands typically regards the God of Western theism as an eternal God;1 however, the precise nature of what is meant by the word ‘eternity’ remains unclear.2 On a basic level it might be safe to assume that this notion of eternality describes a God who exists without beginning or end, a God who never comes into being nor departs from it; but this assumption would be the point at which any agreement ends. After this, the dichotomy that frames the debate centres on the question of whether God is temporal or timeless.
Deriving largely from roots in neo-Platonic metaphysics, the historically predominant
1
See, for example, Isaiah 57:15; Deuteronomy 33:27; Psalm 90:2. At this point it is worth noting that although occasional references to Biblical sources will be made throughout this essay, they are used merely as points of departure for our philosophical inquires, and should by no means be regarded as ‘proof texts’ in this context. Indeed, even though theologians recognise that the Bible is the heart of the Christian tradition, they are also aware that it was never intended to be a compendium of philosophy or dogmatics, and so it is not expected that philosophical and dogmatic questions will find direct or conclusive answers in Scripture. For this reason I shall forego an exegetical investigation and instead conclude with James Barr that “if such a thing as a Christian doctrine of time has to be developed, the work of discussing it and developing it must belong not to biblical but to philosophical theology” (Barr 1962, 149).
2 Beyond the fact that ‘eternality’ is understood as the condition of having eternity as one’s mode of existence,
there are almost as many views on the matter as there are commentators. See, for example, Padgett (1992, 23-37), Ganssle (2001), Ganssle and Woodruff (2002), and DeWeese (2004).
4 tradition has characterised eternity as timelessness, and has thus identified the contrast between time and eternity with the distinction between changeable reality and immutable divinity. On this view, God completely transcends time altogether; having neither temporal location nor temporal extension, God is thought to exist in a timeless and undifferentiated state. Standing opposed to this view is a minority tradition — which among contemporaries is perhaps no longer a minority — that interprets eternity as everlasting temporal duration, or ‘sempiternity’, so that the contrast is rather between that which is temporally bounded, having a distinct beginning and perhaps also an ending, and that which is boundless, existing
alongside time but with neither beginning nor end.3
In spite of Anthony Kenny’s declaration that “nineteenth- and twentieth-century treatments of these matters have added little to the work of earlier philosophers and theologians” (Kenny 1979, 8), the three decades that have elapsed since this assertion have seen a renewed interest in philosophical theology as a specialist discipline distinct from both systematic theology and the philosophy of religion. This fresh interest has inspired many innovative accounts of God’s relationship with time largely based around critical exegetical studies of philosophical
theologians from the Middle Ages.4
In light of the fact that the historical background constitutes the real foundation to the question of God’s temporal mode, our enquiry into this topic will begin by using a survey of the most eminent historical commentators in the debate as an introduction to some of the
3 Since Boethius and his sixth-century work on The Consolation of Philosophy, it has become commonplace to
distinguish between eternal timelessness and eternal duration or everlastingness.
4
The reason why the Middle Ages were such a fertile period for philosophical theology is that few but the clergy had the education and the leisure to pursue the art of philosophy. It is therefore hardly surprising that
practically all medieval philosophy is concerned either with theological issues or with philosophical questions inspired by theological issues.
5 more contemporary points of view. By focusing on the arguments of the three most prominent historical commentators on the issue, the first chapter will explore the reasoning behind the mainstream medieval consensus in favour of God’s timelessness. Following an evaluation of the historical mainstream, chapters two and three will look at contemporary arguments for God’s timelessness and temporality respectively. These, in turn, will be analysed and assessed in order to see what improvements, if any, the modern renaissance of the issue has brought to the ancient debate. In the fourth and final chapter I intend to propose a possible solution to the ancient problem that might be extracted from the Process Theism of Charles Hartshorne (1897 – 2000).5 Although potentially paradoxical, Hartshorne’s innovative perspective recasts God’s nature in such a way as to seemingly avoid the complications inherent in both the temporalist and and atemporalist perspectives while simultaneously consolidating their strengths.
Although the question of its actual metaphysical viability remains open, the conclusion of this thesis will maintain that it Process Theism makes significant and insightful advances on a debate that has for millennia suffered from persistent and intractable problems.
Chapter 1 – Atemporality, the Classical Thesis
The doctrine of God’s timelessness seems to have entered Christian theology from neo-Platonism, and there from Augustine to Aquinas it reigned.
– Richard Swinburne (1977, 217)
5 Charles Hartshorne is considered by many contemporary thinkers to be among the most important
metaphysicians and philosophers of religion of the twentieth century. Throughout his career he defended the rationality of theism, and even though he often criticised the metaphysics of substance found in medieval philosophy, his own theocentric approach to metaphysics is not dissimilar from that of the medieval
philosophers. In spite of the fact that he is most discussed in the context of arguments for the existence of God, his most original contribution to philosophical theism – and the aspect of his work that is of interest to my investigation – relates to what he says about the actuality of God, i.e. the question of how God exists. The ingenuity of his account has tremendous potential in terms of conceiving of God’s temporal mode in a manner that accords with both religious language and experience, but whether or not it is metaphysically viable and doctrinally coherent are issues that will be addressed in the final chapter.
6 From the fourth to the fourteenth centuries the mainstream of theological orthodoxy
understood God to exist in a manner altogether outside of time.6 Whether this existence was conceived of as timeless duration (i.e., duration without temporal succession), or as
straightforward atemporality (i.e., existence to which temporal concepts simply do not apply), the general belief in a God who lacks temporal location or extension was undoubtedly the position of the consensus. In spite of the fact that this broad position has encompassed the traditional views adopted by Western theism for the majority of its history, the doctrine of divine timelessness is probably not one that we would naturally deduce from a prima facie reading of the Bible. Indeed, neither the Old nor the New Testaments give any clear indication that God exists in a temporal mode that is separate from that of the creation, and the
numerous examples of God’s direct and responsive interactions with the world suggest that a timeless conception of God’s eternality would be unintuitive to the average theist (DeWeese 2004, 110).7
As we shall see in the forthcoming analysis, the chief medieval proponents of an atemporalist approach all exemplify commitments to particular ideals rooted in a metaphysical perspective that originated in a philosophy that began outside of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. As indicated by Richard Swinburne’s epigraph to this chapter, the notion of divine
timelessness was almost certainly an import from neo-Platonism, which found its way into theology via the works of such writers as Philo of Alexandria (20BC – AD50), Plutarch (46 –
6 Following DeWeese (2004, 2n.2), I will generally avoid using the terms ‘inside time’ and ‘outside of time’ to
refer respectively to temporal or atemporal modes of existence. The reasoning behind this is that such terms appear to spatialise time and thus suggest that time is something that is necessarily distinct from God’s incorporeal being.
7 Scripture undeniably speaks of God in temporal terms (e.g. Gen. 1:1-31, Ps. 90:1-15, 2 Peter 3:8); but, as
William Lane Craig (1998, 221 n.1) rightly notes, “given the anthropomorphic character of biblical language, one must be cautious in one’s inferences.”
7 120), Clement of Alexandria (150 – 215), Origen (185 – 254), Plotinus (205 – 270), Gregory of Nyssa (335 – 395), and Saint Ambrose (340 – 397).8
The key characteristic of neo-Platonic metaphysics is the idea that there exists a distinct division between the realm of Being (i.e., the realm of the Forms), which is eternal and
immutable, and the realm of Becoming (i.e., the material world), which is temporal and subject to change. This first chapter will follow this immensely influential conceptual division from its origins in Plato’s Timaeus, through the works of Saint Augustine and Boethius, until it reaches its culmination in the works of the supreme luminary of medieval philosophical theology, Saint Thomas Aquinas. My intention in this chapter is to explore the question of why neo-Platonic concepts of divinity were so readily adopted by Christian theologians, and how the retention of these concepts came to influence centuries of thought about divine temporality.
Saint Augustine
Saint Augustine’s meditations on time are among the most discussed philosophical aspects of his works. Indeed, so far as the historical tradition of philosophical theology goes, Augustine is perhaps the most important figure that we will consider, since all the subsequent medieval philosophers either followed or dissented from his lead.9 However, in spite of their influence on the works of others, Augustine’s views on God’s relationship with time are bound up in the context of his doctrine of creation, and thus they require some careful exegetical work if they are to be faithfully extracted from his more general concerns. This task I will endeavour to
8
The idea that notions of time and eternity were imported from neo-Platonism into philosophical theology is explored in great depth by William Kneale (1961) and Richard Sorabji (1983).
9 Dissent against Augustine’s views was rare, and his reflections on God’s attributes and the nature of eternity set
8 accomplish with reference to both Augustine’s primary texts, and the texts of those who likely provided the inspiration for many of his most foundational ideas about the divine nature.
Beginning at ‘The Beginning’ with the Creation narrative from the Book of Genesis, it is clear that Augustine understands the universe to have been created by God ex nihilo.10 This
interpretation entails Augustine’s conception of time as a distinct entity – that is, as something created by God which did not exist until God had made it.11 For God to have created time it therefore stands to reason that God himself must transcend it; as maker and master of time, the conclusion follows that God himself must exist atemporally (Confessions, XI. xiii. 16; XI. xxx. 40;
City of God, XI. vi). This line of argument has been succinctly formalised by Garrett DeWeese
(2004, 113-4) as follows:
1. Time began with the creation of the universe. 2. God created the universe.
3. Therefore, God created time.
4. If God created time, he could not have done so in time. 5. Therefore, God exists outside of time.
Looking at this construction, (2) would undoubtedly be challenged by the non-theist.
However, since we are working within the tradition of Western theism there is no doubt that (2) is a fundamental tenet that must be accepted. Support for (1) can be found in the work of
10
Creation ex nihilo describes a creation out of nothing. This idea stands opposed to the Platonic idea of a Demiurgic architect creating from pre-existing matter and essentially entails that God is responsible for the creation of every existing aspect of the universe. See, City of God XIV. 11; Confessions, XII. vii-viii; and De
Libero Arbitrio, I. ii. 5.
11 As described by Sorabji (1983, 234), the idea that time began with the kosmos can be traced back to Plato’s Timaeus; however, it is by no means the case that this idea was interpreted in the same way by everyone. What
is important for Western theism is the fact that Philo of Alexandria – a source for much of the Christian tradition –interpreted it this way and then endorsed the idea in his own writings. From Philo, the idea passed through many Christian Gnostics, eventually reaching Augustine’s mentor Ambrose.
9 Steven Hawking (1988) and other eminent contemporary physicists, among whom the
consensus that time came into existence with the physical universe is generally accepted.12 The reasoning underpinning Augustine’s overall argument relies on his conviction of God’s
immutability and the subsequent idea that there can be no succession in divine being (Confessions VII. i, xv; XI. xiii). Tracing the origins of these ideas and trying to understand Augustine’s reasons for accepting them and working them into his theology will now become our primary concern in the remainder of this section.
Augustine’s commitment to an atemporal conception of God’s being is clear. As has been mentioned, however, this perspective is not rooted in Biblical exegesis but in philosophical reflection on particular ideas about the divine nature that were adopted from neo-Platonism and incorporated into Christian theology.13 One of the most important tenets of
neo-Platonism to have an influence on Augustine’s thinking about the nature of God is the idea that a state of ‘true’ or ‘perfect’ existence is characterised by its absolute immutability. Richard Sorabji (1983, 110-1) traces this idea back to Plato’s Timaeus, wherein the distinction is made between what always is and never becomes and what becomes and never is (27D6 – 28B1). This demarcation represents the fundamental distinction between the temporal material world that is characterised by change, and the eternal, immutable realm of Forms that exists in a perpetual state of perfection. At 35A2 we see how this distinction entails the idea that the highest form of existence – pure Being itself – is necessarily atemporal as it persists in an
12 Indeed, in his introduction to the issue of the beginning of time, Hawking even makes reference to the
soundness of Augustine’s reasoning on the matter (Hawking 1988, 8).
13 The influence of Plato’s work (largely via the neo-Platonists) is well documented; see, for example, Callahan
(1979, 176-8), Craig (1988, 76-8), Leftow (1991, 73-111), and DeWeese (2004, 127-33). Indeed, Augustine himself tells us that he was influenced by neo-Platonism (e.g. Confessions, VIII. xi; City of God, VIII. v, xii; IX. x), and this is most evident from his doctrine of divine eternity for there is little in it which cannot find a parallel in Plotinus. That said, however, the clear influence of neo-Platonism on Augustine should not be overstated, and in spite of some strong similarities, Richard Sorabji (1983, 168-72) highlights the fact that there are many significant ways in which Augustine departs from neo-Platonic teachings.
10 unchanging state beyond the vicissitudes of succession inherent in a changing temporal present.
Even if there remains some dispute over whether Plato holds a ‘point-like’ or ‘durational’ view of timeless eternity,14 at least Plotinus seems to have arrived at a somewhat more
consistent and conclusive model of eternity as unextended and durationless. This can be seen in his definition of eternity in the Enneads:
So <the life of that which has real being> must not be counted by time, but by eternity. And this is neither more nor less, nor of any length, but a ‘this’, and unextended and not temporal. You must not then join what has being to what does not, nor time or the temporal always to eternity, nor must you stretch out the unextended. But you must take it all as a whole, if you take it all, and take not the indivisibility which is found in time, but the life of eternity which is not made up of many times, but is all together from the whole of time. (Enneads 1. 5. 7.,
cited in Sorabji 1983, 113)
Given the Christian notion of divine supremacy, it is clear why Augustine was keen to identify the God of the Bible with the Supreme Being that occupies the highest metaphysical peak in neo-Platonic philosophy. The idea that God is the vessel of Pure Being and that God’s perfection entails the same degree of immutability that we saw in Plato’s Forms is clearly evident throughout his writing:
Being is a name for immutability. For all things that are changed cease to be what they were, and begin to be what they were not. Nobody has true being, pure being, real being except one who does not change. . . . What does ‘I am who I am’ mean but ‘I am eternal. . . I cannot be changed’? (Sermon 7, 7, cited in Leftow 1991, 73)15
14 Sorabji (1983, 111) notes that “Plato allowed implications of timelessness and duration to stand side by side in
his account of eternity without offering a resolution.” However, while maintaining that there is no conclusive answer to the question, Sorabji (1983, 111-12) musters significant evidence in favour of a conception of eternity as durationless and unextended. For our purposes, however, the distinction between ‘point-like’ and ‘durational’ conceptions of timelessness is relatively unimportant.
15 Following God’s self-identification with Being in Exodus 3:14, Augustine maintains that God cannot be
subject to change for any change would necessarily entail a movement away from the absolute pinnacle of perfection. See also, Confessions, XII, i, 1; xv. 21. Additionally, it is worth noting that the title of “I AM THAT I AM” implies a life that is defined by its existence in the present and thus tells us that there is no ‘before’ or ‘after’ in God’s being. Furthermore, although biblical passages in support of the idea of divine immutability can be found (e.g. Malachi 3:6; John 8:58; Numbers 23:19; James 1:17; 1 Samuel 15:29;
11
Why do they [mutable creatures] become defective? Because they are mutable. Why are they mutable? Because they have no supreme existence. And why so? Because they are inferior to Him who made them. Who made them? He who supremely is. Who is he? God, the immutable Trinity, made them through his supreme wisdom and preserves them by his supreme loving-kindness. Why did he make them? In order that they might exist. Existence as such is good, and supreme existence is the chief good. Whatever is good must have some form, and though it be but a minimal good it will be good and will be of God. The highest form is the highest good, and the lowest form is the lowest good. (De Vera Religione, xviii, 35)
Although a thorough understanding of these remarks requires a grasp of Augustine’s core concept of the hierarchy of being, I will not rehearse the details of this well-known doctrine here.16 Let it be sufficient to say that there are strong resonances of Plato’s teachings about the Forms and the corresponding idea that the timeless and immutable Forms themselves have a higher degree of existence than any contingent, temporal, material particular. At any rate, the centrality of the concept of immutability leads us to articulate a second line of Augustine’s argument for God’s atemporality; carrying on from the first, it goes as follows:
6. God cannot change.
7. Anything in time can change. 8. Therefore, God is not in time.
These premises constitute the argument from immutability. As we can see, it is not enough that God does not change; for Augustine, God’s immutability and simplicity entail God’s atemporality, and this in turn entails that God cannot change. This idea is expressed clearly in the following passage:
suggest that he uses Scripture as a source of ‘proof texts,’ but rather as points of departure for his fides
quaerens intellectum. Rist compares Augustine’s use of Scripture to a contemporary philosopher’s use of
premises or models generated by thought-experiments (Rist 1994, 19-20).
16 In brief, Augustine’s doctrine of cosmological monism situates all existing things within a unified hierarchy
that begins with the absolute unity and perfection of God and descends through various stages of lesser being until it reaches the lowest and most fragmented realm of material objects (Confessions, VII. xv. 21). The corresponding idea in neo-Platonic thought is the ‘Great Chain of Being’ that emanates from the ‘One’. See, John Bussanich (1996, 38-65) and Dominic O'Meara (1996, 66-81). Additionally, Brian Leftow (1991, 81-9) provides a solid account of Augustine’s hierarchy of being in relation to ideas about God’s relationship with time.
12
That which is changed does not retain its own being, and that which can be changed, even if it is not actually changed, is able not to be that which it had been. For this reason, only that which not only is not changed, but also is even unable to be changed in any way, is most truly said to be. (De Trinitate V. ii. 3)
Alongside immutability, the other key aspect of neo-Platonic thought that Augustine incorporates into Christian theology is the notion of the unity or simplicity of the divine. For the same reason that God cannot have temporal parts, so, too, should God not be thought of as composed of any other kind of proper parts.17 As one of Augustine’s primary sources for Platonic metaphysics, Plotinus’s words on the matter are most relevant here:
So it does not contain any this, that and the other. Nor therefore will you separate it out, or unroll it, or extend it, or stretch it. Nor then can you find any earlier or later in it. If then there is neither any earlier nor any later about it, but ‘is’ is the truest thing about it, and indeed is it, and this in the sense that it is by its essence and life, then again we have got the very thing we are talking about, namely eternity. (Enneads 3. 7. 6., cited in Sorabji 1983, 112)
Clearly attracted to the theme of the unity of eternity that he finds in Plotinus,18 Augustine maintains that no spatio-temporal object can possess the metaphysical simplicity intrinsic to the nature of God:
When man fell away from the unity of God the multitude of temporal forms was distributed among his carnal senses and his sensibilities were multiplied by the changeful variety. … The reason why corporeal beauty is the lowest beauty is that its parts cannot all exist
simultaneously. Some things give place and others succeed them, and all together complete the number of temporal forms and make of them a simple beauty. (De Vera Religione, xxi, 41)
But who can find absolute equality or similarity in bodily objects? Who would venture to say, after due consideration, that any body is truly and simply one? All are changed by passing from form to form or from place to place, and consist of parts each occupying its own place and extended in space. (De Vera Religione, xxx, 55)
17 A metaphysically simple being is characterised by the fact that its intrinsic attributes are identical with its
individual essence, and so it is in this sense that it has no parts. It follows, therefore, that if God is simple, then for every intrinsic attribute F, if God is F then God is identical to F-ness. Since simplicity entails immutability, and immutability entails atemporality, the mutually-supportive strands of this argument maintain that a metaphysically simple being such as God is atemporal. Augustine acknowledges this relationship when he states that “The distinguishing mark between time and eternity is that the former does not exist without some complexity and change, while in the latter there is no change at all” (City of God, XI. vi).
18
13 If we draw together the ideas of divine immutability and simplicity, we can clearly see how Augustine arrived at the specifically timeless, unextended, and undifferentiated conception of eternity that he envisages. His reasoning maintains that it is because of the succession inherent in a temporal existence that a life distinguished by ‘changeful variety’ suffers from inevitable imperfection. The transience of a temporal mode of existence is characteristic of the realm of Becoming, and thus stands opposed to the changeless eternity of the realm of Being in which existence is characterised by unity, simultaneity, and timelessness.
Augustine’s conception of a timeless God does a remarkable job of merging Christian theological doctrines with the Platonic metaphysics communicated to him via the neo-Platonists. Before we move on, however, it is worth addressing one final issue on the matter that is raised by Augustine’s contemporaries and dealt with explicitly in the Confessions: this is the question of what God was doing prior to the creation the universe (Confessions, XI. x. 12).19 The skeptics maintain that if the answer is that God was doing nothing, then at some point he must have made a decision to create, thus indicating a change in the divine will and subsequently threatening the doctrine of divine immutability.20 Anticipating this issue, Augustine dismisses it as resting on a misunderstanding; for if time was created by God ‘in the beginning’, then there could be no such thing as time before creation, and hence the
19 When posed with the question of what God was doing before the creation, a humorous response that
Augustine could not resist mentioning was that “[God] was preparing hells for people who inquire into such profundities” (Confessions XI. xii. 14).
20
Augustine states that “God’s will belongs to his very substance. If in the substance of God anything has come into being which was not present before, that substance cannot truthfully be called eternal” (Confessions, XI. x. 12); “It follows that he does not will first one thing and then another, but that he wills all that he wills
14 question, resting as it does on the temporal notion of ‘before,’ cannot arise.21 In Augustine’s own words:
How would innumerable ages pass, which you yourself had not made? You are the originator and creator of all ages. What times existed which were not brought into being by you? Or how could they pass if they never had existence? … Furthermore, although you are before time, it is not in time that you precede it. If this were so, you would not be before all time. It is in eternity, which is supreme over time because it is a never-ending present, that you are at once before all past time and after all future time. . . .
Your ‘years’ subsist in simultaneity, because they do not change; those going away are not thrust out by those coming in because they never pass at all. … Your ‘years’ are ‘one day’, and your ‘day’ is not any and every day but Today, because your Today does not yield a tomorrow, nor did it follow a yesterday. Your Today is eternity. (Confessions XI. xiii; see
also Confessions XI. xiv – xv; XI. xxx; City of God, XI. v – vi)
Augustine continues, “there was therefore no time when you had not made something, because you made time itself. No times are coeternal with you because you never change; whereas, if time never changed, it would not be time” (Confessions, XI. xiv). In these words we see all the elements that we have discussed come together in a coherent and mutually-supportive manner to combat the contemporary threat to the doctrine of divine timelessness that Augustine constructs.
Through our examination of a few carefully selected Platonic and neo-Platonic sources we can at last get a clear picture of why Augustine’s understanding of the creation and of the divine nature leads him to reason to a God who exists in a state of timeless eternity. As we have seen, the distinction that Augustine draws between temporality and eternality is based on his understanding of the Platonic realms of Being and Becoming, and on the role that immutability and simplicity play. However, although these views on God’s temporal mode were to set the tone for the mainstream theological tradition for centuries to come, we should
21 Indeed, as Arthur Peacocke contends, there is a qualitative distinction between asking what precedes any given
event and asking what precedes all events; God’s relation of logical precedence to time should not be confused with temporal precedence (Peacocke 1971, 122). See also Craig (2001a, 256-80).
15 begin to recognise that their dependence on certain ideas about the nature of the Judeo-Christian God is only as justifiable – or as questionable – as the neo-Platonic foundations upon which they are based.
Boethius
Ancius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480 – 524) is significant to this study primarily because of the classic definition of eternity that he formulated in the context of his reflections on God’s foreknowledge and human freedom. In addition to this, Boethius is also noteworthy for being the first philosopher to assign fixed terms to certain concepts, in particular the distinction that he draws between durational everlastingness (sempiternitas) and timeless eternity (aeternitas). In spite of the fact that his philosophy builds largely on the foundation provided by Augustine and his neo-Platonist predecessors, the importance of what Boethius brings to the tradition in terms of insight and legacy can scarcely be overstated.
Unlike Augustine, who does not offer a solution to the problem of fatalism in his theory of time, Boethius take this issue as a starting point and presents a resolution to the challenge that also works to support his reasoning in favour of God’s atemporality. Since God’s foreknowledge is generally considered to be a non-negotiable doctrine, the issue of
theological fatalism has been acutely problematic for Christian thinkers over the centuries. The basic issue here is the question of how humans can be truly free if God already knows what choices we will make prior to our making them. The problem of fatalism can be summarised as follows: if at time T₁ God knows that an event E will occur at T₂ (where T₁ is prior to T₂), then since God is omniscient and his knowledge is infallible, it therefore follows
16 that E will necessarily come to pass. Such foreknowledge on God’s part has intuitively
undesirable consequences for human free will, and is problematic for further theological reasons as well.22 Given the immutability of God’s eternal foreknowledge, there would seem to be no respect in which any possible future event could be contingent. In spite of the fact that the problem of fatalism already had a long history of consideration upon which he could draw, Boethius seems to have been unsatisfied with previous solutions to the problem. It is for this reason that he took the matter into his own hands and sought to refine the concept of eternity that characterises God’s temporal mode so as to resolve this obstinate problem.
Richard Sorabji underscores the importance of Boethius in the historical tradition of by stating that through his reconciliation of divine foreknowledge with human freedom it was “above all” he who was responsible for adapting and transmitting to medieval theology the neo-Platonic concept of divine timeless eternity (Sorabji 1983, 119). The central nucleus of Boethius’s thinking on this matter can be found in his Consolation of Philosophy, Book 5, Prose 6; and so, in light of its importance, this passage deserves to be quoted at length. It proceeds as follows:
Since, then, as was shown little ago, everything which is known is known not according to its own nature but according to the nature of those comprehending it. Let us now examine, so far as it is allowable, what is the nature of the divine substance, so that we may be able to
recognize what kind of knowledge this is. Now that God is eternal is the common judgement of all who live by reason. Therefore let us consider, what is eternity; for this makes plain to us both the divine nature and the divine knowledge.
Eternity, then, is the whole, simultaneous and perfect possession of illimitable life,23 which
22 One of the main reasons why free will is so important to Christianity is soteriological – humans must be free in
order to make the free choice to renounce evil, turn towards God, and thus be worthy of an afterlife in heaven. Although the idea of predestination is not unknown in Christian thought (e.g. John Calvin’s doctrine of double predestination), it is generally rejected by mainstream theology.
23 “Aeternitas igitur est interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio.” This phrase is the real key to
Boethius’s contribution, and it is worth noting just how closely this definition parallels the definition of eternity given by Plotinus in Enneads III 7: “The life, then, which belongs to that which exists and is in being, all together and full, completely without extension or interval, is what we are looking for, eternity” (quoted in Armstrong 1967, 304). Additionally, Stump and Kretzmann (1981, 431n.5) point out that from the way he is
17
becomes clearer by comparison with temporal things. For whatever lives in time proceeds in the present from the past into the future, and there is nothing established in time which can embrace the whole of its life equally, but tomorrow surely it does not yet grasp, while yesterday it has already lost … . Whatever therefore comprehends and possesses at once the whole fullness of boundless life, and is such that neither is anything future lacking from it, nor has anything past flowed away, that is rightly held to be eternal. And it must be in possession of itself and always present to itself, and must have present to itself the infinity of moving time. Hence those are not right who hear that Plato thought this world had no beginning in time and will have no end, and who conclude that the created world is in this way made co-eternal with the creator. For it is one thing to be drawn through an endless life, which is what Plato attributed to the world, and another to have embraced equally the whole presence of a life which cannot end, which is clearly the special characteristic of the divine mind. (The Consolation of Philosophy, Book 5, Verse 6, cited in Padgett 2000, 45)24
There are several things of significance which emerge from this passage and that are
important to highlighting. First of all, Boethius is writing in the context of his concerns about the nature of God’s foreknowledge, and it is this issue which motivates his interest in
eternity.25 The passage begins by stating that the nature of one’s knowledge corresponds to one’s nature, and because God’s nature is considered to be timeless and embracing of all times simultaneously, God’s knowledge of the future is therefore not foreknowledge at all, but simply knowledge. In this way, God’s knowledge of the future is based on what he perceives from the perspective of absolute timelessness, and this holds for his knowledge of the past and the present as well. In Boethius’s words:
His knowledge too, surpassing all movement of time, is permanent in the simplicity of his present, and embracing all the infinite spaces of the future and the past, considers them in his
writing, Boethius is not arguing for a definition of eternity or omniscience, but is rather presenting what he takes to be a familiar philosophical concept associated with a recognised definition. This detail adds further evidence to the widely-accepted idea that neo-Platonism was the dominant metaphysical framework within which philosophical theology was operating at this time.
24 It is of interest to note how the basic idea as well as the specific language of this passage resonates with the
oldest description of eternity in Parmenides as a life lived ‘all together’ (Parmenides, The Way of Truth, 8.1.5-6, cited by Sorabji 1983, 99). In addition to this, Werner Beierwaltes (1967, 198-200) provides evidence of how the same words are repeated in the definition of eternity given by Plotinus; the particular examples he cites show how eternity is described in both instances as a ‘life’ which is ‘whole’ or ‘complete’ and ‘simultaneous’ or ‘always present’.
25
William Hasker notes that the Greeks considered temporal events to be “so lacking in inherent dignity as to be beneath God’s notice” (Hasker 1989, 3 n.1). Boethius’s stance on foreknowledge is therefore a key point of divergence from this tradition, and a reflection of the idea that the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition is more concerned with his creation than previous deities had been.
18
simple act of knowledge as though they were now going on…. If you will rightly esteem it to be the knowledge of a never fading instant rather than a foreknowledge of the ‘future‘, it should therefore rather be called provision than prevision because, placed high above all lowly things, it looks out over all as from the loftiest mountain top. (The Consolation of Philosophy,
Book 5, Verse 6, cited in Padgett 2000, 45)
In terms of addressing the problem of freedom and foreknowledge, the Boethian solution maintains that in the same way that my present knowledge of your present actions does not impinge upon the exercise of your free will, neither does God’s timeless knowledge of temporally future free choices conflict with the exercise of human free will. Indeed, it is precisely because of God’s atemporal existence that the doctrine of divine omniscience can be preserved in such a manner as to avoid the theologically undesirable consequence of a totally deterministic creation.
In addition to this, Boethius draws an all-important distinction between eternal life and sempiternal life. On his account, sempiternity refers to an everlasting life in time as distinct from timeless and unextended eternity. However, as well as the fact that eternity is timeless and sempiternity is everlasting and temporal, an eternal life is also lived all ‘at once’ (simul),26 as Boethius makes clear in his comparison of the divine present and the temporal present:
But the expression ‘God is always’ denotes a single Present, summing up His continual presence in all the past, in all the present – however that term be used – and in all the future. Philosophers say that ‘always’ may be applied to the life of the heavens and other immortal bodies. But as applied to God it has a different meaning. He is always, because ‘always’ is with Him a term of present time, and there is this great difference between ‘now’, which is our present, and the divine present. Our present connotes changing time and sempiternity; God’s present, abiding, unmoved, and immovable, connotes eternity; add ‘semper’ to ‘eternity’ and
26 Without clarification, the property of a ‘life’ which is lived ‘all at once’ threatens to add a confusing
dimension to our conception of a timeless God. Edward Khamara (1974, 206) describes how Boethius’s use of the word ‘vita’ (meaning ‘life’) is probably just a poetic way for him to describe ‘being’ or ‘existence.’ In support of this idea, Khamara cites examples of other places where Boethius uses the word ‘life’, such as in the distinction Boethius draws between God’s eternity and the temporal world which ‘lives in time’. See also Craig (1988, 92).
19
you get the constant, incessant and thereby perpetual course of our present time, that is to say, sempiternity. (On The Trinity 4.64-77, cited in Craig 1988, 93)27
As we can see, God’s ‘present’ is described as a unity, embracing past, present, and future, which never comes to be or passes away. This eternal present stands in contrast to the fleeting and transient ‘now’ of the temporal process. For Boethius, God is able to possess the ‘completeness’ of life precisely because God’s life is timeless and therefore not spread out, diffuse, and subject to the vicissitudes of temporal succession. Understanding that eternity is a ‘present’ moment and that God’s is a durationless life lived all ‘at once’ confirms that Boethius did indeed conceive of eternity as fundamentally timeless.
The concept of divine timelessness reaches a real high point in the philosophy of Boethius. Although he was largely building on the work of others, the antecedent theological doctrine was relatively underdeveloped and its implications for other doctrines were consequently underexplored. With Boethius we find a clear account of what the doctrine entails, an explicit definition of terms, and the use of the doctrine to solve an otherwise intractable theological problem. In addition to Augustine’s arguments for simplicity and immutability as reasons for affirming God’s timelessness, Boethius adds the promise of a resolution to the problem of divine omniscience and human freedom as yet another a good reason to uphold to this doctrine.28
27 Stump and Kretzmann (1981, 431n.3) point out two misleading aspects of this passage. The first is that
eternality (when applied to God) always refers to present time. The second is that Boethius’s etymology of
sempiternitas is mistaken. ‘Sempiternitas’ is a compound of semper + aeternitas, and in this way the word is
in fact an abstract noun constructed directly on ‘semper’. Stump and Kretzmann state that “his etymology is not only false but misleading, associating ‘sempiternity’ with ‘eternity’ in a context in which he has been distinguishing between sempiternity and eternity.”
28
Not only is Boethius’ discussion of the issue of foreknowledge and freedom philosophically superior to Augustine’s brief reflection on the matter, it also has a unique poignancy in light of the circumstances of the
20
Saint Thomas Aquinas
According to DeWeese (2004, 151), Saint Thomas Aquinas labours over the issue of God’s temporal mode “to a greater extent than any medieval philosopher since Augustine.” Indeed, in a similar manner to Augustine, Aquinas bases much of his reasoning on the notions of God’s simplicity and immutability. Also following in the footsteps of Boethius, however, Aquinas situated his discussion of God’s temporal mode in the context of his discussion of the problem of divine omniscience and human freedom. In fact, although our analysis of Aquinas will seem to focus primarily on his discussion of the relationship
between God’s knowledge and temporality, the key thing to remember here is that Aquinas took the notion of God’s simplicity to entail that there is no division in God’s nature. What this means for Aquinas is that everything that is predicated of God’s knowledge is also predicated of God’s being, and so if God’s knowledge exists in a particular relationship to time, then so, too, does God himself exist in this selfsame relation. The atemporalist position that Aquinas assumes throughout his deliberations is reflective of the enduring strengths of the arguments given by his historical predecessors, as well as the relative ease with which a timeless conception of God seems to cohere with other theological doctrines and norms.
In the Summa Contra Gentiles (hereafter SCG), Aquinas begins his discussion of God’s foreknowledge of future contingent events by characterising it as ‘a knowledge of vision’ (SCG, I. 66. 8). Utilising the metaphor of sight, he considers Aristotle’s discussion of a man who sees Socrates sitting (SCG, I. 67. 10). In this example we are invited to consider the idea
work. Boethius wrote his Consolation of Philosophy while in prison, awaiting execution on a charge which he denied. This is the context in which he considers whether his circumstances are the result of ill fortune or of divine providence, and, if of the latter, whether that implies determinism. For more information, see Sorabji (1983, 256).
21 that although it remains a contingent fact that Socrates should happen to sit at this particular moment, the fact that Socrates is presently sitting makes this fact historically necessary, for any contingent event that is realised becomes certain. The event of Socrates’ sitting has therefore become certain to the observer, but the crucial fact of the matter is that this does not alter the nature of the event from contingent to necessary. As Aquinas puts it:
The contingent is opposed to the certitude of knowledge only so far as it is future, not so far as it is present. For when the contingent is future, it can not-be…. But in so far as the
contingent is present, in that time it cannot not-be. It can not-be in the future, but this affects the contingent not so far as it is present but so far as it is future. Thus, nothing is lost to the certitude of sense when someone sees a man sitting, even though the judgment is contingent. All knowledge, therefore, that bears on something contingent as present can be certain.
(SGC, I, 67, 2)
Through this argument, Aquinas maintains that although God’s foreknowledge is certain, this does not make foreknown events necessary, and thus the challenge of fatalism is
averted. But how exactly is God’s “knowledge of vision” to be construed? It would surely be wrong to say that God knows a future contingent event because he knows the cause of that event, for that would involve a causally determined sequence leading up to the event which would consequently render the event necessary and therefore predetermined. Aquinas locates his answer in his understanding of God’s eternity and the perspective of a timeless life in relation to time. Here he considers an image used by Boethius:29
We may see an example of sorts in the case of a circle. Let us consider a determined point on the circumference of a circle. Although it is indivisible, it does not co-exist simultaneously with any other point as to position, since it is the order of position that produces the continuity of the circumference. On the other hand, the center of the circle, which is no part of the circumference, is directly opposed to any given determinate point on the circumference. Hence, whatever is found in any part of time coexists with what is eternal as being present to it, although with respect to some other time it [the part of time] be past or future. Something can be present to what is eternal only by being present to the whole of it, since the eternal does not have the duration of succession. The divine intellect, therefore, sees in the whole of its eternity, as being
29 Aquinas’s reasoning on this matter draws heavily on the work of Boethius. In his magnum opus, the renowned Summa Theologiae (hereafter ST), Aquinas explicitly accepts the Boethian definition of eternity and even
22
present to it, whatever takes place in the whole course of time. And yet what takes place in a certain part of time was not always existent. It remains, therefore, that God has a knowledge of those things that according to the march of time do not yet exist. (SCG, I, 66, 7)
The circle metaphor comes directly from Boethius (Consolations, Book IV, Prose 6, and De
Trinitate, 354.78-366.82) and helps us to understand how Aquinas conceives of God’s
ever-present perspective on temporal events. Contrary to what Anthony Kenny (1969, 264; 1979, 38-9) maintains, this perspective does not entail that God sees all temporal events as
simultaneous with each other, for Aquinas explicitly states that it is God’s perception of the events, and not the events themselves, which are simultaneous. Indeed, the sequential nature of temporal events is captured in the circle metaphor by the fact that any particular point on the circle’s circumference is situated within an ordered-relationship with respect to all the other points so as to reflect a continuous-series. The specific arrangement of these relations would therefore form a part of what God would see as he perceives each event
simultaneously.30
Another famous metaphor that Aquinas uses to illustrate his perspective on the relationship between God and time considers the way in which a person at the top of a high tower looks down upon a caravan of travellers and sees them all at once while a person standing by the roadside only sees each individual traveller pass successively. “God,” Aquinas writes, “… is wholly outside the order of time, stationed as it were at the summit of eternity, which is wholly simultaneous, and to Him the whole course of time is subjected in one simple
30 Although I believe the circle metaphor to be invaluable in terms of its ability to aid our conception of what it
means to exist as timeless being, the fact that the metaphor represents time as a circle does somewhat risk misrepresenting the linear temporal order .
23 intuition” (In perihermeias 14.20, cited in Craig 1988, 107).31 The ‘simple intuition’ of God’s perspective towards which Aquinas gestures refers both to God’s being and to God’s knowledge, and is addressed more explicitly in the Summa Theologiae. For Aquinas,
simplicity is God’s most fundamental property, and it entails that all of God’s attributes are identical with his nature or essence (ST, Ia, q.3, a.4; q.14, a.4). Because of his immutability and simplicity, God does not change from this state of pure existence,32 and so it follows that he exists timelessly, for time is the measure of change. 33
When discussing the question of God’s changelessness, Aquinas adopts Augustine’s reasoning by asserting that divine simplicity entails immutability (ST, 1a, 9, 1) and immutability entails eternity (ST, la, 10, 2). Aquinas elaborates on this familiar train of thought by adding that because only God is simple, it is also the case that only God is eternal. Deweese (2004, 155) suggests that this thinking might be behind Aquinas’ comparison of eternity to an unextended point, and highlights the following passage to illustrate this:
Moreover, God’s understanding has no succession, as neither does His being. He is therefore an ever-abiding simultaneous whole—which belongs to the nature of eternity. On the other hand, the duration of time is stretched out through the succession of before and after. Hence, the proportion of eternity to the total duration of time is as the proportion of the indivisible to something continuous; not, indeed, of that indivisible that is the terminus of a continuum, which is not present to every part of a continuum (the instant of time bears a likeness to such an indivisible), but of that indivisible which is outside a continuum and which nevertheless co-exists with any given point in the continuum. (SCG, I, 66, 7)
31 Aquinas uses the same image in Summa Theologiae, Ia, q.14, a.13, as well as in De Veritate II, 12, and Compendium Theologiae 133. The problem with this metaphor, however, is that it situates the observer within
a temporal reference frame, and thus not in a distinct, timeless frame of reference.
32 Like Augustine, Aquinas is keen to associate God with a state of supreme existence, and thus maintains that
“this name, Being Itself (Qui Est) is the most proper name for God” (ST, Ia, q.13, a.11).
33
In the Summa Contra Gentiles (1.15), Aquinas states that “God is entirely without motion … Therefore, he is not measured by time … nor can any succession be found in his being … [Rather, he has] his being all at once (totum simul) – in which the formula of eternity consists … And divine authority bears witness to this truth, for Psalm 101.13 [says], ‘Thou, Lord, endures throughout eternity (in aeternum permanens).’”
24 In spite of such a clear assertion of eternity as being ‘indivisible’, other examples indicate that Aquinas understood eternity as some form of timeless duration. The reason for the
complication here is that God is a living being, and Aquinas elsewhere maintains that “that which is truly eternal not only exists but lives. Now living includes in a way activity … and flow of duration is more apparent in activity than in existence” (ST, Ia, q.10, a.1 ad 2, tr. Leftow 1991, 150). In virtue of God’s life, then, eternity is conceived of as a form of duration, even though it must somehow be a timeless duration.
The conclusion that we may draw, then, is that whether extended in duration or static and point-like, the consensus that emerged during the Middle Ages was that eternality, the temporal mode of God’s being, was characterised by its conviction of timelessness. However, even a condensed survey such as this one shows the enduring presence of neo-Platonic metaphysics throughout the philosophies of Augustine, Boethius, and Aquinas; in particular, concepts of simplicity, immutability, and eternity have all been adopted from Plato’s Timaeus and are applied without discrimination to the God of the Bible. In the evaluation that
follows, the aim is to assess just how far such properties are compatible with each other in a philosophical sense, and just how compatible they are with the Judeo-Christian God in a theological sense.
Evaluation
As has been shown, the consensus of the philosophical theologians during the Middle Ages built on neo-Platonic foundations to determine that God’s temporal mode was essentially timeless. The reasoning underpinning this perspective dominated the mainstream Western
25 theological tradition throughout the majority of its history, and for good reason. Given, for instance, that atemporal entities are immaterial, immutable, and necessary34 things, it is clear why the Judeo-Christian God might naturally be thought to fall into this category; prima facie, these are all attributes that traditional theists would typically want to maintain. In addition to this, Paul Helm (2001, 28-31) notes that this conception of God is also markedly less anthropomorphic than the God of much contemporary philosophy and theology, for it does not subject God to “the vicissitudes of temporal passage” and thereby preserves the
traditional idea of divine fullness or self-sufficiency.35 Perhaps the greatest strength of the atemporalist’s account, however, is that it seems to offer a practical solution to the problem of reconciling divine foreknowledge with human freedom: the idea that God does not
foreknow anything but instead just knows it in his eternal present remedies a difficult
theological problem and preserves the uncompromising sense in which God is thought to be omniscient.
While the atemporality of God is a systematically appealing and highly defensible
supposition, the arguments of its medieval proponents have been criticised both by historical dissenters and contemporary commentators.36 Contemporary arguments against the classical thesis are common, possibly because temporalists feel they must first refute the classical doctrine of timelessness before they can assert their own alternative view. Harm Goris (1996, 35) describes how the route taken by Biblical scholars typically emphasises the way in which timelessness is an invention of Greek – notably neo-Platonic – philosophy, and is thus “alien
34 The modality is metaphysical (i.e. not logical) necessity. 35
Recalling Boethius, to be whole one must be eternal, and to be eternal is to include the whole of one’s temporality – past, present, and future – in a single moment.
36 For a thorough account of the medieval dissent, see DeWeese (2004, 185-208). Though interesting, it is in the
26 or even contrary to the God of Israel as pictured by the Old and New Testament writings.”37 Analytical philosophers, on the other hand, have criticised the idea of God’s timelessness by detailing its incoherence with the concept of God’s personhood, as well as its incompatibility with the doctrines of creation, redemption, conservation, incarnation, and omniscience.38 Indeed, some versions of this criticism go back as far as Augustine,39 but more recently it has been put forward by Nelson Pike (1970, 97-129)40 and Richard Swinburne (1977, 220-226).41 A similar route is taken by theologians such as Paul Tillich and Karl Barth, both of whom reject the doctrine of divine timelessness because they see it as incompatible with a living and personal God. Tillich (1953, 305) argues that God’s personhood implies a reciprocal, responsive interaction with the creation which is simply not possible from a timeless position, while Barth (1957, 620) highlights the necessity of temporality involved in the incarnation.
Additionally, given that the classical thesis is often presented in the context of a discussion of God’s knowledge, it is not surprising that refutations of timelessness also hone in on this particular aspect of the doctrine. In a compelling paper entitled ‘The Formalities of
Omniscience’, Arthur Prior (1962) argues that the effect of conceptualising God’s knowledge
37 Nicholas Wolterstorff defends this position most emphatically, and maintains that “Every attempt to purge
Christian theology of the traces of incompatible Hellenic patterns of thought must fail unless it removes the roadblock of the God eternal tradition. Around this barricade there are no detours” (Wolterstorff 1982, 80). The argument from Biblical theology against God’s timelessness is also used by Cullman (1951), Kneal (1960), and Lucas (1989, 209-216).
38 Grace Jantzen (1983, 574) combines these points in her rejection of timelessness, stating that “A timeless and
immutable God could not be personal, because he could not create or respond, perceive or act, think, remember, or do any of the other things persons do which require time. Thus, within the framework of a theology of a personal God, the doctrines of divine timelessness and immutability cannot be retained.”
39
For arguments from late antiquity, see Sorabji (1983, 232-252).
40
The real crux of Pike’s argument here is that “A timeless individual could not produce, create, or bring
about an object, circumstance or state of affairs, since so doing would temporally locate the agent’s action”
(Pike 1970, 110).
27 as timeless would be to limit God’s knowledge to only those truths which are themselves timeless. He writes:
God could not, on the view I am considering, know that the 1960 final examinations at Manchester are now over. For this isn’t something that anyone could know timelessly, because it just isn’t true timelessly. It’s true now but it wasn’t true a year ago (I write this on 29th August 1960) and so far as I can see all that can be said on the subject timelessly is that
the finishing date of the 1960 final examinations is an earlier one than the 29th August, and
this is not the thing we know when we know that those examinations are over. I cannot think of any better way of showing this than one I’ve used before, namely the argument that what we know when we know that the 1960 final examinations are over can’t be just a timeless relation between dates, because this isn’t the thing we’re pleased about when we’re pleased the examinations are over. In any case it seems an extraordinary way of affirming God’s
omniscience if a person, when asked what God knows now, must say ‘Nothing’, and must yet again say ‘Nothing’ when asked what God will know tomorrow. (Prior 1962, 116)42
Indeed, it certainly seems problematic that, owing to his atemporal mode, an omniscient God might not know what time it is now. However, even if we were to grant that a timeless God could somehow know what time it is, this still does not solve the underlying issue
concerning the relationship between time, change, and knowledge. Norman Kretzmann shows how problems in this area are generated not only by the doctrine of timelessness, but also by the concomitant doctrine of immutability. Kretzmann (1966, 409-10) outlines his reasoning in seven propositions to show the contradictions inherent in the classical concept of a perfect being:
1) A perfect being is not subject to change. 2) A perfect being knows everything.
3) A being that knows everything always knows what time it is. 4) A being that always knows what time it is subject to change. 5) A perfect being is therefore subject to change.
42 Citing Prior’s argument, Anthony Kenny (1979) also objects to a timeless conception of God, describing the
notion as “radically incoherent”. Both arguments might be summarised by the succinct statement that timelessness is incompatible with omniscience if there are tensed facts about the world.
28
6) A perfect being is therefore not a perfect being. 7) Ergo, there is no perfect being.
Although Peter Geach (1969, 71) has argued against Kretzmann by describing how a change in the object of knowledge does not entail a change in the knower, Kretzmann maintains that to know a change is to first know p and then know not p, and it is this transience of
knowledge which he maintains constitutes a real change in its beholder.43 That change occurs in this way is obviously problematic given the notion of God’s absolute immutability upon which the classical tradition is largely based.
In spite of significant and seemingly inexorable problems, the tradition of timelessness need not be rejected (at least, not yet anyway). The acceptance of neo-Platonism brought with it certain metaphysical commitments that dominated the tradition of thinking on God and time. What we must remember, however, is that the metaphysically tricky concepts of immutability and simplicity were imported from pagan philosophy and adopted as
axiomatic; nowadays, there is by no means a clear consensus on whether these concepts are correctly applied to the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition.44 Although they figure large in the tradition, these concepts threaten to distort an accurate picture of God and reality, and thus must be subject to revision. The true test for any contemporary doctrine of timelessness, as we shall see in our next chapter, is whether it can avoid the difficulties associated with the classical tradition and circumvent the problems associated with the neo-Platonic concepts. At this point the question of whether or not an atemporal God could be reconciled with his temporal creation to the degree that reciprocal interaction could take place would seem to be
43
Kretzmann’s point is reinforced by Richard Creel (1986, 88): “That God sees things as they are is unnegotiable, and a changing thing can be known as changing only by a knower whose awareness follows along with it. . . . This seems true of God as well as of all other knowers.”
29 the real deal-breaker that contemporary philosophers cannot fail to address.
Chapter 2 – Contemporary Arguments for Timelessness
Before we begin looking at contemporary arguments in favour of a timeless conception of God’s temporal mode, it is important to acquaint ourselves with a fundamental distinction in the philosophy of time that will bear on our investigation. In a now famous paper,
Cambridge philosopher J. M. E. McTaggart (1908) formulated and refuted two theories of time in order to attempt to prove the unreality of time. Although his overarching thesis has generally been rejected, the distinction that he draws between the static (B-Series) and dynamic (A-Series) models of time was to polarize much of the ensuing debate about the nature of time.45
In spite of some vague similarities with Parmenidean stasis and Heraclitean flux, the distinction that McTaggart’s draws between the static and dynamic models of time was probably not something that the philosopher theologians of the Middle Ages were aware of. In light of McTaggart’s distinction, however, we can see that the classical tradition –
consciously or unconsciously – conceives of time in the manner of the B-Series. What this theory maintains is that all moments of time are equally real and coexistent, for it asserts that there is no ontological difference between past, present, and future. The everyday notion of
45
McTaggart categorises time into the two distinct series that appear to us prima facie: he calls these the A-Series and B-A-Series, and notes that “we never observe time except as forming both these series” (1908, 458). Every event belongs to both series, and yet the series have quite different characteristics. Events in the A-Series are constantly changing their positions as they move through the three monadic temporal predicates: x is ... past/present/future. As can be seen, A-Series predicates locate events relative to the present. In contrast with this, events in the B-Series exist in fixed, tenseless, relationships to each other and are described from a standpoint that is indifferent to its own temporal position using only two dyadic predicates: x is ... earlier-than/later-than y.
30 temporal passage is therefore the product of an illusion; it is simply a by-product of the phenomenology of our psychology. This view does not deny the reality of change, for it remains the case that objects have histories and that different episodes of objects exist at different times. Indeed, although it is true that only the present episode of any object presently exists, the point here is that this fact does not preclude the existence of any of the other episodes of the same object. All other episodes do not, however, exist in the present, for only the present episode of any object exists in the present. In his defence of the stasis view of time, D.H. Mellor writes that according to this model,
What exists cannot be restricted to what is present, or future, or past, because the restriction has no basis in reality. The world can neither grow by the accretion of things, events or facts as they become present, nor can increasing pastness remove them. (Mellor 1981, 103)
The static view of time entails a view of the universe as a four-dimensional space-time manifold in which events simply ‘occur’ at various points along the way. The time that is determined ‘now’ is merely deemed as such from the vantage point of an observer inside the manifold. The stasis theory maintains that there is no reason for objects or events to pass in and out of existence simply because observers identify different times as ‘now.’ With regards to the medieval philosophical theologians, we can see that because they began with doctrinal considerations their view of B-series time came as an afterthought and was consequently relatively unexamined; for them, the stasis view of time appears to have come about just as an inevitable consequence of a God with timeless yet ‘present’ knowledge of all events – the fact that God can see what we perceive to be the future is evidence that the future already exists, it just has not yet come to pass in what we perceive as the present. By enabling us to think of the temporal series from a standpoint that is indifferent to any point within it, the B-series made it easy for the medieval philosopher theologians to conceive of God existing
