GOD, TIME, AND ETERNITY

Ratio Christi Spring 2015Presented by Andrew Robbins

DOCTRINE OF GOD: FOUNDATION•Old Testament•New Testament

Key components:•Transcendence• Immanence

How can we know God?

THE GOD OF THE PHILOSOPHERS The One (The Ultimate):•Utterly simple•No parts, no properties•Ineffable• incommunicable•Unknowable•Beyond being•Impersonal

THE GOD OF AUGUSTINE

•Creatio ex Nihilo

•Beyond good

•Perfectly just

•Omnipotent

•Unchangeable

•An unsayable other

•All present being

•Incorporeal

•Timeless

•Purely abstract apprehension of another ontological possibility not thinking, not willing, not existing in the way we do

•“the qualities he imputed to God were so lofty, so far removed from human capacity, that it was foolish to claim that any human community possessed them fully”

DOCTRINE OF GOD: CONTENT•Ineffability (unknowable)

•Impassibility (emotionless)

•Immutability (changeless)

•Trinity (three persons in one essence)

•Omnipotence (all powerful)

•Omniscience (all knowing)

•Timelessness/Eternity (unending in time)

•Simplicity (indivisible)

•Necessity (the only necessary being)

GOD AND TIME

God has no beginning or end, is uncreated, eternal:• Isaiah 57:15, 41:4

• Hebrews 1:10-12• Psalms 90:2• Revelation 4:8b• Genesis 1:1• Proverbs 8:22-23• John 1:1-3• Jude 1:25

WHY FORMULATE A DOCTRINE OF GOD AND TIME?• Biblical Christianity has been attacked on the basis of divine eternity:

• “God the Creator, by His very nature, must transcend space and time… the coming into being of the

physical unioverse involved the coming to being of space and time as well as matter. I can’t emphasize

this too strongly and so if we wish to have a God who is in some sense responsible for the origin of the

universe or for the universe, then this God must lie outside of the space and time which is being

created.”

-Paul Davies

•Many Christian have already said careless/silly things about it

• Hugh Ross views God in a multi dimensional “hyper-time”

• There are many flawed and contradictory analogies people use to discuss this issue

GOD AND TIME: TWO THEORIES Divine TimelessnessGod is “outside” of time

Divine TemporalityGod is unending throughout all of time

WHAT IS TIME?

‘A’ theory of time Temporal becoming is real

The past and the future do not exist

‘B’ theory of time Time is a dimension of reality

All points in time are equally real

DIVINE TIMELESSNESS: ARGUMENT 1•Divine Immutability and Simplicity

1) God is immutable or simple

2) If God is immutable or simple, then He cannot be temporal

3) Therefore God is not temporal (i.e. He is timeless)

DIVINE TIMELESSNESS: ARGUMENT 2•The Theory of Relativity

1) STR is correct in its description of time

2) If STR is correct, then if God is temporal He is associated with one or more inertial frames

3) Therefore if God is temporal He is associated with one or more inertial

4) God does not exist in time associated with one or more inertial frames

5) Therefore God is not temporal

DIVINE TIMELESSNESS: ARGUMENT 3•The incompleteness of temporal life

1) God is the most perfect being

2) The most perfect being has the most perfect mode of existence

3) Temporal existence is not the perfect mode of existence

4) Therefore God is not Temporal

DIVINE TEMPORALITY: ARGUMENT 1•The impossibility of atemporal personhood

1) Necessarily, if God is timeless he does not have properties X, Y, Z

2) Necessarily if God does not have X,Y, Z, then God is not personal

3) Necessarily, God is personal

4) Therefore, Necessarily God is temporal

DIVINE TEMPORALITY: ARGUMENT 2 Divine relations with the world:

1) God is creatively active in the temporal world

2) If God is creatively active in the temporal world, then God is really related to the temporal world

3) If God is really related to the temporal world, then God is temporal

4) Therefore God is temporal

DIVINE TEMPORALITY: ARGUMENT 3 Divine Knowledge of tensed facts

1) A temporal world exists

2) God is omniscient

3) If a temporal world exists and God is omniscient, then God knows tensed facts

4) If God is timeless He does not know tensed facts

5) Therefore God is not timeless

TIMELESSNESS

Only makes sense on the ‘B’ theory of time

Implies utter immutability

Implies that all points in time are equally real, so no progress is ever actually made. i.e. sin is never really vanquished

It is difficult to understand how temporal beings (us) can have a relationship with an utterly static atemporal being (God).

DIVINE ETERNITY

God is unending throughout time

Permits God to have legitimate changing relationships with people

Fits with a view of divine immutability that allows for God’s accidental properties to change

Implies that God has thought processes, and can have knowledge of tensed facts

FOREKNOWLEDGE

Understanding foreknowledge depends on: ‘A’ or ‘B’ theory of time Divine eternity, or divine timelessness? Human freedom (or lack thereof)

HOW DOES GOD KNOW THE FUTURE? Calvinism (no freedom, Timelessness) God knows because he causes

Open Theism (freedom, Eternity) Freedom means that God cannot know the future

Arminianism (freedom, ‘B’ theory, timelessness) God ‘sees’ the future (i.e. the future must exist)

Molinism (freedom) God knows the future by virtue of middle knowledge

God knows what free creatures would do in any circumstances they would be placed in