Timeless/eternal

• What is the common belief about God's relationship with time?

  Eternal
• What is another belief about God's relationship with time?

  Everlasting or sempiternal
• God as Eternal :

  • All believers believe that God has no end or beginning
  • BUT different thinkers suggest that God being eternal means different things

  1. God is timeless
  2. God is everlasting
  3. God moves through time with his creation but changes with it - process theology
• Strengths of a Timeless God:

  • shows that God is not limited - world was made by God but he is not bound to it
  • God's omnipotence is not threatened
  • God is immutable and unchangeable so can stay perfect
  • Creel - people can still have freewill as God know an infinite number of outcomes
  • preserves his omniscience
  • more unique as it means that he doesn't present a human trait
  • Augustine - biblical accounts
  • Anselm - ontological argument is upheld
• Weakness of a timeless God:

  • limits our free will
  • how can a loving God allow evil if he knows whats going to happen
  • Swinburne argued that love required change
  • How can he interact and answer prayers if it would change the future
  • challenge omnipotence
  • Swinburne - goes against other key teaching of God
  • do actions matter
  • In the old testament God interacts with people - Isaiah 38: 1-5
• Strengths of an Everlasting God:

  • personable God and thus can relate to us
  • prayer is meaningful
  • God can be benevolent
  • preserves free will
  • everlasting in the Bible
  • can't prevent evil is he doesn't know its going to occur
• Weaknesses of Everlasting God:

  • God can't be perfect as he changes
  • goes against Ontological Argument
  • How did God make the universe - inside the universe
  • cant be all loving as he can' feel pain
• The Goodness of God: The Euthyphro Dilemma

  Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good:

  1. Something is good because God commands it - what is right is set/decided by God --> God becomes relative what is good changes
  2. God commands it because it is good - there is a standard of rightness independent of God --> God isn't good all the time
• God as everlasting (Swinburne):

  • For God to be loving, God has to be within the timeline as change corresponds with love and time = change
  • A timeless God would be impersonal and therefore not love people
  • In the Bible God does not have fixed Purposes
  • God interacts with People
  • Rules out the idea that God is omnipotent and omniscient - Descartes - as he can't change the past and or know the future
• Timeless God:

  • God is outside of time and therefore is ETERNALLY PRESENT
  • God is in control of time and can see the past present and future all at once
  • Links with the idea that God is the most perfect and powerful thing that can be thought of - Anselm's Ontological Argument
  • His omnipotence is not threatened
  • AQUINAS - influenced by Plato and the forms for the idea that God couldn't be a subject to change
• What was Swinburnes Book about the Everlasting God?


  Was Jesus God
• God is the supreme Grand Master who has everything under his control. Whatever the players do God's plan will be executed God cannot be surprised or thwarted or cheated or disappointed. 


  Peter Geach's View on God and Time quote
• Peter Geach's view on God and time:

  • Peter Geach explains that God is omnipotent and omniscient
  • has a plan regardless of what occurs that will be carried out
  • God can anticipate events but it won't be altered
  • God is the creator and sustainer of the universe
  • process throughout
• Process theology strengths and weaknesses are similar to that of an everlasting God
• Freewill:

  • reward/punishment
  • on our freedom
  • our morality
  • God judging us
  • sheep and the goats parable
• And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.


  Romans 8: 28-30 == people don't have free will in the way they think. John Calvin (a Christian thinker) said that God predestines everything. Including salvation -- chooses who goes to heaven
• Can God judge us if we have no choice:

  • God punishes and rewards us
  • if God knows whats going to happen, then how can God truly punish us - no our fault
  • We would do good to get rewards
  • Knows our motives
• Is it right to send people to hell?

  • Universalist - Hick believes that everyone will go to heaven (will be saved)
  • Swinburne - human freedom must include the freedom to damn ourselves to hell
  • hell could also been seen as symbolic and intended to encourage commitment to Jesus and follow him
• the whole, simultaneous and perfect possession of unending life


  Eternity
• What is Boethius' book called?


  The Consolation of Philosophy
• Boethius and his book:

  • he presents the difficulty of eternity and foreknowledge in the form of dialogue between himself and Lady Philosophy
  • God is omniscient and immutable
  • how can he know the future, yet free will still exist
  • what about heaven and hell
  • if God sees everything how is he not responsible for what happens
• Boethius' Solution:

  • God is not constrained by time like we are - with a fixed past a fleeting present and uncertain future
  • God doesn't have a past present or future
  • His knoweledge transcends the temporal nature of our existence
  • God can look down on us "as though from a lofty peak' above us"
  • can see us in the past, present + future so he has perfect knowledge which is NOT THE SAME AS FOREKNOWLEDGE - doesn't force people into that idea
  • not the cause of future events happening = perfect knowledge
  • cause by human free will
  • all events occur simultaneously
• Criticisms of Boethius:

  • Anthony Kenny - idea of time being equally present to God in incoherent - it does not make sense
  • if he is outside of tie, how can he know whats going on in time
  • if he knows what happening 'in time' - does this effect his immutability
  • Katherine Rogers - time is equally existent to God rather than equally present
• Another Criticism of Boethius:

  • If our future actions are known, they are fixed and thus not chosen. However, while God’s knowledge may not determine our choices, nonetheless it still seems like the results of our choices are fixed and inevitable.
  • Boethius responded to this challenge by distinguishing between simple and conditional necessity. He agreed that God knowing our future actions made our actions necessary – but only conditionally necessary. He illustrated conditional necessity with observing someone walkingng. 
• Process Theology:

  • Charles Hartshorne - God moves through time with his creation. Attempted to fill some of the gaps left by Swinburne when describing an everlasting God
  • God is within time, acting & responding loving & rejecting as we do
  • God is part of the world and is also above it - so to some extent -- God's powers and knowledge is limited by physics
  • God is affected by his interaction with the world and changes with us - powerful but not omnipotent.
• God is in every time and space

  Anselm