ABSTRACT
The Special Theory has no place for absolute simultaneity. This seems to rule
out the possibility of there being a God who knows everything that happens when it happens, and responds to the prayers of His children. Does this
matter? Some theologians claim that it does not, because God is outside time.
It is possible to argue that the Deity of the Greek philosophers is outside
time, but implausible to maintain that the God of the Judaeo-Christian
tradition is. Nevertheless that has been maintained by many theologians.
Their arguments are not convincing. The only way a timeless Deity can be
omniscient is for Its knowledge to be of timeless truths, and the only way for
timeless truths to be ascribed to temporal propositions is to evacuate them, as in contemporary arguments against fatalism, of all substance. And if
prayers are to result, as a consequence of the existence of a timeless Deity, in
the boon asked for actually occurring, both must be the effect of the
unchangeable structure of the universe. Not only must God’s knowledge be
insubstantial, but Man’s freedom must be illusory.
