ABSTRACT
Is God in time? If he is, how can he be a perfect being that has created time? If he is not, how can he relate to a temporal creation? ese seem highly theoretical questions, of interest only to a small group of philosophers of religion. But in fact, they are closely related to topics that feature widely in theology, metaphysics, and anthropology. Can a timelessGodunderstand our prayers, can he be compassionate with his sušering creatures, can he act in any way in time, and can he be present to creatures – as the biblical image of God has it? Can the knowledge of an infallible, omniscient being change over time? If not, would not the existence of an infallible, omniscient, temporal being preclude human freedom? If God knows now that I shall do p tomorrow, am I really free not to do p tomorrow? is volume presents contributions from scholars of world-wide reputation who
tackle various aspects of these complex questions. e contributions have been presented and intensely discussed during a conference on God, Eternity, and Time held in Berlin September 28-30, 2008. e First Part of this book contains three papers devoted to the analysis and
defence of a classical conception of divine timelessness. In his paper, On Existing All at Once (pp. 11š.), Robert Pasnau argues that with respect to traditional conceptions of eternity, one should distinguish carefully between two aspects of timelessness: being “outside of time” (atemporality) and having no temporal parts (‘holochronicity’, Pasnau’s neologism). Atemporality implies holochronicity (what is outside of time cannot have temporal parts), while it is not clear that holochronicity implies atemporality. Pasnau then considers Boethius’ traditional denition of eternity as interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio (the complete possession all at once of illimitable life). Pasnau takes it for granted that eternity requires holochronicity (which seems to be a perfection), andhe askswhether it also requires atemporality. According to Pasnau, Boethius’ statement that God is not in time is open to other interpretations than the atemporality of God. If it is understood in the sense of holochronicity, it denies the temporal locatability of changing,merechronic (that is, non-holochronic) entities. is view was, Pasnau points out, evident to Anselm of Canterbury who advocates the thesis that God is in time, but in a holochronic sort of way that makes God immune to temporal change. Pasnau argues that, given that holochronic but temporal existence is possible, thiswould be amode of existence much more likely to be a perfection than is holochronicity possessed in virtue of atemporal existence. Moreover, he shows that the contemporary debate about 3-vs. 4-dimensionalism has a striking parallel in medieval times. When medieval philosophers and theologians distinguished between successive and per-
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manent entities, they did not necessarily mean that God is the only permanent entity while all of creation is successive (which would have approximated modern 4-dimensionalism). Instead, for instance, Nicole Oresme proposed that creatures are not merechronic simpliciter, but merechronic in a certain respect: a temporal being’s life has successive parts while its essence remains permanent during the succession of the events of its life. Pasnau draws an interesting parallel between the medieval distinction of existence and essence and the modern distinction between perduring through time and enduring (in the sense of a thing’s existing wholly at each moment of its existence). Pasnau advocates an Oresme-inspired view that ‘the mode of existencemanifested by divine eternality is simply the perfect instantiation of a phenomenon displayed by ordinary substances all around us’. For Eleonore Stump it is beyond dispute that timelessness is a divine per-
fection. In her paper, Eternity, Simplicity, and Presence (pp. 29š.), she examines arguments for the thesis that the classical doctrines of eternity and simplicity preclude God from being present to human beings and from being known in the ways biblical scriptures presuppose. ose arguments have led some philosophers and theologians to reject the classical doctrines in favour of what they take to be a biblical view. Stumpwants to show that this rejection is groundless. To this end, she analyzes what it means for persons to be present to one another. en she shows that such presence is not ruled out by classical conceptions of eternity like that ofomas Aquinas. In accord with Aquinas, she rejects arguments based on the principle that to be present to temporal beings requires being temporal oneself. Stump’s main reason for rejecting this principle is that the generalization of it (presence generally presupposes a sharedmode of being) is completely implausible, even though the a›rmation of the generalization seems to be the only reason for accepting the principle with respect to time. As for the unknowability of God as allegedly implied by the doctrine of divine
simplicity, Stump presents several reasons for doubting such an implication. She holds Aquinas to be correct in saying that we cannot know what God is. e impossibility of knowing the quid est (a technical term of medieval logic) of God does not rule out every form of positive knowledge about God, for even Aquinas, when explaining divine simplicity in negative terms, relies on several positive claims about God. If, contrary to her reasoning, divine simplicity did make propositional know-
ledge of God impossible, then there would still be, Stump says, another kind of knowledge whereby God could be known by human beings: the knowledge of persons. While the sentence ‘Aquinas knew that God exists’ expresses knowledge that, the sentence ‘Aquinas knew God’ expresses knowledge of persons. According to Stump’s account of knowledge, these two sentences are neither equivalent nor can the second be reduced to the rst. Knowledge of persons, Stump says, is a prerequisite for shared attention and, thereby, a precondition for the presence of one person to another. Hence, it is presupposed in biblical stories about God’s presence to human beings, but it is in no way ašected by divine simplicity.us, Stump arrives at her central thesis that the doctrines of divine eternity and simplicity do not imply
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that God can be neither present to nor known by human beings in the way the biblical stories presume. Thomas Schärtl presents an overtly theological argument for divine timeless-
ness in his paperWhy we Need God’s Eternity (pp. 47š.). Most systematic theologians today are, according to Schärtl, in favour of a temporal conception of God, for eternity as timelessness seems to be incompatible with the interactiveness of the Christian God. Schärtl follows Robert Jenson in his diagnosis that there is also a deeper Christological problem at issue: the intimate relation between Jesus Christ, a temporal person living in Palestine some 2000 years ago, and the Logos or Son in the sense of the second person of the Trinity. If God is a non-temporal entity, how can such an identication be possible? Jenson drew the conclusion that we must conceive of the Trinitarian God in a
radically temporal way. He tied the Holy Spirit to the future and read Karl Rahner’s famous axiom, that the ‘economic’ Trinity is the ‘immanent’ Trinity, as an identity claim. But then, Schärtl complains, we face a modal problem, since the Father is necessarily the Father, but the Logos is not necessarily the Word Incarnate, Jesus Christ. Furthermore, Jenson’s account leads to paradox, for it implies that Jesus Christ had once been a future entity for a God whose second person is identical to Jesus Christ. Jenson can solve this problem only by what Schärtl calls ‘futurizing’ God, making him a future entity. But then is God still a ‘temporal’ God? Can he be said to be present at any moment of history at all? Schärtl tries to follow Jenson’s incentive to focus on the “Christological frame of
reference” while avoiding such aporias. He thinks the only way to keep the immediate reference of the Trinitarian Logos to Jesus Christ in a stable way is to hold onto a strong concept of co-presence between God and Jesus Christ.is is possible only, Schärtl argues, by employing a concept like Stump and Kretzman’s ET-simultaneity (a concept of simultaneity according to which temporally separated events can both be simultaneous to something eternal) and, in consequence, by holding onto the classical doctrine of an eternal God. Schärtl nds his conclusion especially pressing in case temporal presentism (the
thesis that something temporally exists if and only if it is temporally present) is right in that the predicate ‘exists’ can only be truthfully attributed to present entities. In this case, the possibility of referring to past events may require a mind which is aware of them. is “job” could only be done by an eternal entity which can be termed ‘super-present’, that is, co-present with all past and future events in the sense of ET-simultaneity. As a result, for Schärtl, the possibility of temporal presentism presses us towards accepting the traditional concept of divine timelessness.is is especially remarkable, as many philosophers have argued that temporal presentism is incompatible with the conception of an atemporal God. While the First Part of this book is devoted to divine timelessness as conceived
by its defenders, the Second Part supplements it with two papers devoted to the relation of divine omniscience and human freedom. Both papers show that this important topic in the philosophy of religion is intimately connected with the question of Divine timelessness.
