ABSTRACT
This chapter considers various questions that arise in connection with eternalism, the doctrine that God is timelessly eternal.
It starts by considering the rationale for eternalism, where it is argued that the doctrine has two main sources: the data of the Christian Scriptures, and a priori reflection on the ideas of the divine fullness and aseity and on the distinction between Creator and creature.
Secondly, the chapter considers whether eternalism is coherent. It is argued here that the eternalist should think of the assertion of divine timeless eternity as a piece of negative thinking about the divine essence.
The chapter then moves on to consider eternalism’s relationship with omniscience, and in particular the argument that a timeless God cannot be omniscient since he could not know what is past, present, or future, because there are no segments of time that are past and present and future for him. It is replied that what God lacks when he lacks ‘knowledge’ of indexicals is not in fact propositional knowledge in the strict sense, but, rather, a skill of a certain sort.
Next, the chapter considers the relationship between eternalism and biblical language, and, in particular, the biblical language of change that implies that God is in time. It is responded that if a timelessly eternal God is to communicate to embodied intelligent creatures that exist in space and time and to bring about his purposes through them, then he must do so by representing himself to them in ways that are not exhaustively true.
The chapter briefly considers eternalism and creation, arguing that God is before the Creation not by virtue of existing at a time when the universe was not yet in existence, but by virtue of the causal dependence of the universe upon him.
The chapter next considers eternalism and God’s action in the world. It is argued that the correct way to think of God’s eternally willing something in time is to think of one eternal act of will with numerous temporally scattered effects.
Before concluding, the chapter compares the divine standpoint with the human standpoint, arguing that, while from our perspective the Creator may be said to be continuously creating the universe, from the divine standpoint what is created is one temporally extended or ordered universe. The chapter then concludes with a brief consideration of the union between the impassible God and human nature in the person of Jesus Christ.
