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R. T. MULLINS

El fin del Dios

eterno
ESTUDIOS DE OXFORD EN TEOLOGÍA ANALÍTICA

Editores de series
Michael C.Rea Oliver D. Crisp
 ESTUDIOS DE OXFORD EN TEOLOGÍA
ANALÍTICA

La Teología Analítica utiliza las herramientas y métodos de la filosofía

analítica contemporánea para los propósitos de la teología cristiana
constructiva, prestando atención a la tradición cristiana y al desarrollo de la
doctrina. Esta innovadora serie de estudios muestra la investigación de alta
calidad y de vanguardia en esta área, en monografías y simposios.

Los títulos de la serie incluyen:

Metafísica y el Dios Tripersonal
William Hasker
El Proyecto Teológico de la Fe
Modernista y las Condiciones de la
Minería Kevin W. Hector
En defensa de la cristología conciliar
Un ensayo filosófico
Timothy Pawl
Fe ritualizada
Ensayos sobre la filosofía de la liturgia
Terence Cuneo
El fin del Dios eterno

R. T. MULLINS

1
 3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
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# R. T. Mullins 2016
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reivindicados Primera Edición publicada en 2016
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Para los que se quedaron
 Prefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando
en Dios y en el tiempo?

En la clase de inglés, en el penúltimo año de la escuela secundaria, nos

pidieron que leyéramos el clásico Mere Christianity de C. S. Lewis. Fue
una época muy emocionante para mí, ya que estaba empezando a entender
algunos de los fundamentos del pensamiento cristiano. Había crecido en la
iglesia, pero los mensajes del domingo por la mañana consistían en una
docena de maneras de decir que Cristo murió por nuestros pecados. Rara vez
se mencionaba la resurrección, la Trinidad o cualquiera de los atributos
divinos. Finalmente, al escuchar estas grandes doctrinas explicadas por
alguien tan elocuente como Lewis, abrí mis ojos a lo asombroso que es Dios.
Lo que cambió todo para mí fue el capítulo en Mera Cristiandad donde
Lewis discute la relación de Dios con el tiempo. Nunca se me había ocurrido
que Dios podría existir fuera del tiempo, como decía Lewis. Puedo recordar
la discusión de la clase sobre este capítulo. La maestra, la Sra. Fields, nos
explicó el concepto de que Dios existe fuera del tiempo. Era bastante obvio
que ninguno de los estudiantes había entendido realmente la idea, es decir,
asumiendo que habían leído el capítulo. Mientras hablaba, la miramos
fijamente. Reconociendo la mirada deslucida en nuestros ojos proclamó con
audacia: "Si esto no te está volviendo loco, no has entendido realmente lo
que significa que Dios existe fuera del tiempo". "Había silencio en el aula.
Nadie sabía qué decir. Entonces sucedió lo más asombroso, el tipo de cosas
que los maestros anhelan. Era casi como si pequeñas bombillas se
encendieran por encima de la cabeza de cada estudiante. Mientras miraba
alrededor de la sala, pude ver que las expresiones en las caras de mis
compañeros de clase cambiaban. Para algunos, sus mandíbulas se fueron
cayendo lentamente a medida que la idea de la eternidad se fue asimilando.
Para otros, sus ojos se iluminan de asombro. Para unos pocos, una leve
sonrisa comenzó a aparecer. Uno por uno, la mayoría de la clase vislumbró
la naturaleza eterna de Dios. Para mí, fue uno de los momentos de mi vida
en que me sentí movido a adorar a Dios.

¿POR QUÉ MOLESTARSE EN PENSAR EN DIOS Y EN EL

TIEMPO?

Antes de entrar en discusiones sobre la metafísica del tiempo y la naturaleza

divina, hay una pregunta apropiada que debe hacerse. "¿Por qué molestarse
en pensar en Dios y en el tiempo? "Es una pregunta justa, y es una que el
hombre promedio en la banca probablemente se preguntará cuando se le
presente el tema en cuestión. Tales cosas son muy fáciles de entender, y
muchos se preguntarán si
viiiPrefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando en Dios y en el tiempo?
o no es posible -y en algunos casos moral- discutir estos temas filosóficos
abstractos. No es difícil imaginar, o recordar, cómo pueden ser estas
conversaciones. "¿No es algo así sólo para los académicos que no tienen
nada mejor que hacer en sus torres de marfil que pensar en tonterías que no
afectan al mundo real? ¿No es un juego intelectual tratar de pensar en Dios y
en el tiempo? O peor aún, ¿no es una masturbación meramente intelectual,
algo que los llamados eruditos hacen por auto-gratification que no ofrece
nada de valor para el mundo en general? ¿Qué tiene que ver todo esto con
mi fe? ¿Qué diferencia habría si creyera que Dios es atemporal en vez de
temporal? ”
Hay varias razones para pensar que uno debe pensar en Dios y en el
tiempo. Para empezar, los niños hacen las preguntas metafísicas más
asombrosas. Los padres, maestros de escuela primaria y similares pueden
testificar este hecho. Hay preguntas clásicas como "¿Qué hacía Dios antes de
crear el mundo? "y "¿Tiene Dios un cumpleaños, y le gusta comer pastel de
cumpleaños? "Con demasiada frecuencia, los adultos se quedan sin palabras
ante tales preguntas. Desafortunadamente, también es demasiado frecuente
que los niños continúen teniendo sus preguntas sin respuesta hasta que su
imaginación se torna aburrida, su fe infantil se marchita y dejan de hacer
preguntas por completo. En muchos casos, las preguntas sin respuesta
pueden llevar a abandonar la Iglesia. Para no parecer tontos delante de los
niños, y para cultivar la imaginación y la fe de un niño, uno debe pensar en
Dios y en el tiempo.
En segundo lugar, el tiempo es una característica básica de la realidad y
de la experiencia humana. Como criaturas humanas estamos constantemente
pensando en el tiempo de varias maneras y tenemos múltiples metáforas para
capturar los muchos aspectos de él. Llevamos el tiempo en las muñecas y lo
usamos para decorar nuestras habitaciones. Experimentamos el reflujo y
flow del paso del tiempo en cada momento consciente de nuestra existencia.
Damos gracias a Dios por el tiempo cuando un evento horrible termina, o
cuando un evento anticipado llega. Lloramos cuando los grandes momentos
de nuestras vidas pasan o dejan de pasar. El tiempo es una característica
fundamental de nuestras vidas y no podemos dejar de pensar en ello. Quizás
deberíamos pensar en ello más claramente de lo que lo hacemos ahora.
Hay una tercera razón para pensar en Dios y en el tiempo que se relaciona
directamente con toda una serie de cuestiones de la fe y la práctica
cristianas. Si hay algo en lo que vale la pena pensar es en el Dios a quien
amamos y adoramos. Esto se debe a que cada momento durante el cual la
mente contempla la naturaleza de Dios es sagrado. Sería bastante extraño
pretender estar en una relación con Dios y no tener el deseo de saber más
acerca de Él. Pensar en la naturaleza eterna de Dios es una de las muchas
maneras en que podemos tratar de obtener un mejor entendimiento del autor
de la salvación.
Contemplamos y encontramos lo divino a través de varios medios tales
como las Escrituras y la adoración corporativa. Veamos las Escrituras en
first Las Escrituras nos dicen mucho acerca del Dios a quien amamos y
adoramos. A veces las afirmaciones de la Biblia son bastante impresionantes
en su retrato de Dios. Por ejemplo, Isaías
 Prefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando en Dios y en el tiempo? ix
57:15 dice que Dios "habita la eternidad. El Salmo 90:2 dice: "Antes de que
nacieran los montes, o que formaras la tierra y el mundo, desde la eternidad
hasta la eternidad, tú eres Dios". "El autor de Hebreos hace una observación
aún más asombrosa sobre la naturaleza de Dios. Hebreos 1:10-12 dice: "Tú,
Señor, pusiste el fundamento de la tierra al principio, y los cielos son obra
de tus manos; perecerán, pero tú permanecerás; todos se desgastarán como
un vestido, como un manto los enrollarás, como un manto los cambiarás.
Pero tú eres el mismo, y tus años no tienen fin. "Claramente el Dios a quien
adoramos es un Dios asombroso.
Puede parecer que difficult trata de entender lo que significan conceptos
como "eternidad" y "eterno", pero es importante que lo hagamos para
mantenernos en contacto con una cosmovisión bíblica. Como dice el escritor
devocional cristiano A. W. Tozer,
El concepto de eternidad corre como una elevada cordillera a lo largo de toda la
Biblia y se extiende por todo el pensamiento ortodoxo hebreo y cristiano. Si
rechazáramos el concepto, nos sería imposible pensar de nuevo en los
pensamientos de los profetas y apóstoles, tan llenos estaban de los largos
sueños de la eternidad. 1
Aún más, el concepto de eternidad está intrínsecamente relacionado con
otras importantes doctrinas cristianas. Tozer se atreve a afirmar que "el
concepto de perennidad es necesario para dar sentido a cualquier doctrina
cristiana. "2 Por ejemplo, el apóstol Pablo establece una estrecha relación
entre la naturaleza eterna de Dios y otras doctrinas importantes como la
omnisciencia de Dios, la guía providencial y la salvación humana. En
Efesios 1:3-10 Pablo dice que Dios escogió salvar a la humanidad a través
de Cristo antes de que los fundamentos del mundo hubieran sido creados. En
Romanos 1:18-20 Pablo declara que el poder eterno y la naturaleza de Dios
se manifiestan claramente en la creación de tal manera que los hombres no
tienen excusa ante la ira de Dios. Desde que la creación comenzó, los
hombres han sido capaces de conocer a Dios a través de lo que ha sido
revelado en la creación.
Las afirmaciones en las Escrituras acerca de la naturaleza eterna de Dios
y su plan eterno de salvación deben inculcar en nosotros el deseo de adorar a
Dios. Dios merece alabanza y gloria eterna. Como dice Judas 24-25: "Y a
aquel que es poderoso para guardarte de tropezar y presentarte irreprensible
delante de la presencia de su gloria con gran gozo, al único Dios, nuestro
Salvador, por Jesucristo nuestro Señor, sea gloria, majestad, dominio y
autoridad, antes de todos los tiempos y ahora y por los siglos. Amén. ”3

1
A. W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy (Nueva York: Harper Collins, 1961), 38.
2
Tozer, Conocimiento del Santo, 38.
3
Cabe señalar que la ESV -junto con muchas traducciones al inglés- traduce el griego
aionos aquí como "tiempo". Una traducción más literal sería "edades". "Esto es preferible ya
que evita insertar una incoherencia obvia en el texto. Decir "antes de todos los tiempos" es
hablar del tiempo antes del tiempo, lo cual es una tontería. En cambio, el pasaje dice "antes de
los siglos" o "antes de esto
xPrefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando en Dios y en el tiempo?
Pasajes como estos de las Escrituras indicarían que el conjunto de asuntos
relacionados con Dios y el tiempo son importantes para la fe cristiana. Si eso
no fuera suficiente, ya incorporamos estas ideas en nuestra adoración
comunitaria a través del canto. En "Cuán grande es nuestro Dios" un
versículo contiene los versos: "De edad en edad está en pie/y el tiempo está
en sus manos/el principio y el fin. "4 El himno clásico "Amazing Grace"
ofrece interesantes perspectivas teológicas y filosóficas sobre el tema que
nos ocupa. "Cuando hemos estado allí diez mil años / brillando como el sol /
No tenemos menos días / para cantar la alabanza de Dios / entonces cuando
empezamos first "La canción de adoración contemporánea de Pablo Baloche
"Aquí y Ahora" nos hace cantar "Qué majestad/qué misterio/el Dios de toda
la eternidad/pasó al tiempo/y dio su vida por mí. ”5
Esto es a lo que se reduce todo. Ya estamos pensando en Dios y en el
tiempo. Ya es parte de nuestra experiencia básica como seres humanos,
nuestro reflection teológico sobre las Escrituras, y nuestra adoración
corporativa a través del canto. La pregunta "¿Por qué pensar en Dios y en el
tiempo? "puede ser apropiado, pero creo que en el futuro reflection surge un
mejor conjunto de preguntas. Puesto que ya estamos involucrados en pensar
en Dios y en el tiempo, ¿lo estamos haciendo bien? ¿Lo estamos haciendo
de una manera que es glorificar al Dios a quien amamos y adoramos? Creo
que para muchos la respuesta a estas preguntas será no. Por lo tanto, un libro
como este es importante.

LA NECESIDAD DE CLARIDAD
DOCTRINAL: UN ESTUDIO DE CASO
ESCATOLÓGICO

Puesto que ya estamos comprometidos a pensar en Dios y en el tiempo,

debemos hacer un esfuerzo para pensar más claramente en Dios y en el
tiempo. Esto es importante porque la manera en que uno entiende la
eternidad de Dios impacta la forma general de su teología y práctica. En
capítulos posteriores, explicaré las maneras en que la eternidad de Dios ha
hecho posible el desarrollo de la doctrina cristiana a lo largo de la historia de
la Iglesia. En particular, ha dado forma a las doctrinas de la creación, la
encarnación y la Trinidad. Aquí, deseo señalar la forma en que puede ser
escatológico, y por qué es importante aclarar nuestra comprensión del
tiempo y de la eternidad.

edad" lo que significaría que Dios tenía gloria incluso antes de crear el universo. Esto también
fit con la intención de la doxología de hablar de la preexistencia de Jesús. El Hijo preexistió a
la creación con el Padre y participa de la gloria eterna. Sospecho que la mayoría de los
traductores hacen de esto "tiempo" en lugar de "edades" porque muchos asumen que la Biblia
enseña que Dios creó el tiempo. Esta suposición se pondrá en duda en capítulos posteriores.
4
Chris Tomlin, "How Great is Our God," Arriving, Six Step Records.
5
Paul Baloche, "Here and Now," A Greater Song, Columbia Records.
 Prefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando en Dios y en el tiempo? xi
Una razón por la que es necesario aclarar a tiempo es esta: la falta de
comprensión de estos asuntos puede resultar en obscuridades y confusiones
teológicas que pueden impedir que los creyentes vean la esperanza que
tenemos en Cristo. A veces los filósofos y teólogos hacen afirmaciones
extrañas sobre el tiempo y la eternidad, muchas de las cuales provienen de
una falta fundamental de comprensión de los temas básicos dentro de la
filosofía del tiempo. Por ejemplo, los teólogos pueden decir que Dios está
tratando de salvarnos del tiempo, o ayudarnos a vencer el tiempo. 6 Una vez
que uno comprende mejor la naturaleza del tiempo, verá que esta afirmación
es falsa. Parte del tiempo implica tener un antes y un después. Si una
criatura temporal es sacada del tiempo -lo que sea que eso signifique-
tendrá una parte de su vida después de su anterior modo de existencia. 7 Por
lo tanto, ella no ha escapado verdaderamente del tiempo. Así que cualquier
cosa que uno piense que Dios está tratando de lograr al completar la historia
de la salvación en el escatón, ciertamente no implica ayudar a las criaturas
temporales a superar el tiempo.
No es difícil ver de dónde viene esta confusión. En cuanto a la
escatología, hablamos a menudo del "fin de los tiempos" que se avecina.
"Esta frase es desafortunada porque oscurece el significado del mensaje. La
frase deriva de traducciones antiguas de Apocalipsis 10:6. Por ejemplo, la
versión King James traduce el pasaje diciendo "el tiempo ya no existirá".
"Las traducciones modernas han corregido este error y hacen que el pasaje
diga algo así como "no más demora" (NVI y ESV), "no debería haber más
demora" (RVA) o "no tendrás que esperar más" (CEV). La escatología de la
Biblia se entiende mejor como "el fin de una era" y no como el fin de los
tiempos más simple. Como explica George Ladd, "Bíblicamente, la
eternidad es un tiempo sin fin. La vida futura tiene su lugar en una nueva
tierra redimida (Rom. 8, 21; II Ped. 3, 13) con cuerpos de resurrección en el
siglo venidero. No es la liberación del reino del tiempo y del espacio, sino
del pecado y de la corrupción. Apocalipsis 10:6 no significa que el tiempo
ha de terminar. ”8
La Biblia se ocupa del fin de la era del mal, y de establecer un nuevo
reino eterno gobernado por Dios donde el mal ya no tiene voz ni voto. 9 Los
autores proféticos y apocalípticos en las Escrituras son mejor entendidos
como hablando del reino eterno de Dios -un reino que perdura por siempre
y siempre amén- y no como haciendo afirmaciones metafísicas del efecto
que el tiempo mismo terminará.

6
Edward Epsen, "Eternity is a Present, Time is Its Unwrapping," The Heythrop Journal 51
(2010), 417. Cf. Maximus la Confesora, Capítulos sobre el conocimiento, 1.68-70.
7
Keith Ward, Ciencia y Religión: The Big Questions (West Conshocken, PA: Templeton
Foundation Press, 2008), 115.
8
G. E. Ladd, "Age, Ages", en eds. Walter A. Elwell, Diccionario Evangélico de Teología (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1984), 21.
9
Antje Jackelen, "Una escatología relativista: Tiempo, eternidad y escatología a la luz de la
física de la relatividad", Zygon 41 (2006), 962.
xiiPrefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando en Dios y en el tiempo?
Sería mejor si uno pudiera evitar confusiones de este tipo porque la
anticipación de este reino futuro está destinada a moldear cómo vivimos en
el aquí y ahora. Antje Jackelen hace un comentario interesante a este
respecto. "Si la detem-poralización es la meta de la vida, las cuestiones
relativas a la configuración concreta de la vida en el tiempo pierden su
urgencia. "10 En otras palabras, cómo pensamos acerca de la importancia de
la vida temporal, y el don de Dios de la vida eterna, serán nuestras acciones.
Si la vida temporal se acaba, entonces parece que la vida temporal tiene
poco valor. Afortunadamente, esto no es lo que las Escrituras enseñan. Jesús
concede una vida eterna, no una vida eterna. Jesús no busca abandonar la
vida temporal, sino redimirla. Los caminos de este mundo pasarán, y con
ellos nuestras emociones negativas y vergüenza. El escatón será un tiempo
de aceptación y paz mental. 11
La vida temporal tiene valor a los ojos de Dios. La falta de claridad sobre
la naturaleza de la eternidad oscurece este aspecto del mensaje del
Evangelio. Así que es importante que busquemos claridad sobre los asuntos
teológicos del tiempo y de la eternidad. Sin embargo, desafortunadamente,
tal claridad es difícil de conseguir en estos días.

PROBLEMAS PROFUNDOS EN EL ESTADO ACTUAL DE

LA TEOLOGÍA SOBRE DIOS Y EL TIEMPO

Aunque se está haciendo mucho trabajo en la teología moderna y la filosofía

de la religión, hay que señalar que muchos de los principales actores de la
escena contemporánea no han ayudado a hacer avanzar nuestro pensamiento
sobre Dios y el tiempo. En un esfuerzo por hacer alguna teología innovadora
muy necesaria, se han cometido varios errores. Aquí señalaré algunos de los
problemas comunes y generalizados que afectan a la teología contemporánea
reflection sobre Dios y el tiempo.
Desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial ha habido un debate continuo y
sostenido sobre la naturaleza de Dios. Diversos grupos de teólogos han
rechazado el llamado teísmo clásico de la tradición cristiana y han expuesto
nuevas visiones de Dios. 12 Algunas de las críticas al teísmo clásico han sido
bastante crudas, a menudo implican caricaturas crudas de doctrinas clásicas,
y presentan falacias

10
Jackelen, "A Relativistic Eschatology," 966. También, Emil Brunner, "The Christian
Under-standing of Time", The Scottish Journal of Theology 4 (1951), 8-9. Henri Blocher,
"Ayer, hoy y siempre: Tiempo, tiempos, eternidad en perspectiva bíblica", Boletín Tyndale 52
(2001), 199.
11
Shai Hulud, "Un odio profundo al hombre", Hearts Once Nourished with Hope and Com-
passion, Crisis Records.
12 El
teísmo clásico fue originalmente un término peyorativo usado para denotar la falta
generalizada de
de Dios desde Aristóteles hasta el siglo XIX. Hoy en día ya no es un peyorativo, ya que
muchos buscan articularlo y defenderlo. Una articulación completa del teísmo clásico se dará
en capítulos posteriores. Por ahora se puede resumir como la visión de Dios como atemporal,
fuertemente inmutable, impasible y simple.
 Prefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando en Dios y en el tiempo? xiii
argumentos. Un argumento falaz común en las discusiones sobre la
eternidad divina es la tesis de la helenización de la teología cristiana. En sus
formas más unre- fined, la tesis de la helenización puede ser el tipo más
extremo de falacia genética. En un número desafortunado de escritos, los
teólogos rechazan el teísmo cristiano clásico por el mero hecho de que
deriva su doctrina de Dios de la metafísica griega en lugar de la Biblia. El
problema con la tesis de la helenización -aparte de su inexactitud histórica-
es que discernir la procedencia de una determinada doctrina cristiana de
Dios no demuestra que sea falsa. Eso sería cometer la falacia genética. Para
demostrar que una determinada doctrina cristiana de Dios es falsa, hay que
demostrar que es incoherente, y que se basa en la enseñanza bíblica. Uno no
sólo debe dedicarse a una cuidadosa exégesis bíblica, sino que también debe
dedicarse a una cuidadosa metafísica.
Desafortunadamente, cosas como la tesis de la helenización han
mancillado la disciplina de la metafísica para muchos teólogos modernos.
Ofrece una falsa comprensión de la disciplina y los métodos de la metafísica.
En algunos círculos teológicos contemporáneos, la metafísica es una mala
palabra, un hombre del saco que debe ser evitado a toda costa mientras los
teólogos tratan de presentar nuevas comprensiones de Dios.
Wolfhart Pannenberg está de acuerdo con estos teólogos modernos en que
el teísmo cristiano clásico debe ser rechazado, y que una nueva visión de
Dios debe ser presentada. Sin embargo, él argumenta que uno no puede
hacer esto exitosamente a menos que uno se haya comprometido
críticamente con la tradición clásica de la teología filosófica y su metafísica.
La mera afirmación de la tesis de la helenización, o algún dispositivo
polémico similar, no será suffice Sin embargo, Pannenberg lamenta el hecho
de que los filósofos contemporáneos hayan abandonado la tarea de la
metafísica. Sin un trabajo riguroso en metafísica, piensa que la tarea del
teólogo se convierte cada vez más en difficult cuando intenta examinar
críticamente la teología filosófica clásica. 13
Muchos teólogos contemporáneos parecen estar bajo la creencia de que la
metafísica está muerta, y que necesitamos encontrar maneras de hacer
teología después de la metafísica. Para algunos teólogos contemporáneos,
esto es bueno porque piensan en la metafísica como esa disciplina que busca
imponer violentamente sus conceptos al mundo. 14 Para otros, la sustancia
metafísica de los griegos es fría y estática, y necesitamos reemplazarla con
categorías relacionales y dinámicas. 15
Estas son cosas desafortunadas para los teólogos contemporáneos.
Tomaré nota de tres razones por las que esto es así. Primero, cuando
Pannenberg estaba haciendo su

13
Wolfhart Pannenberg, An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm.
B. Eerdmans, 1991), 23-4.
14
Kevin W. Hector, Teología sin metafísica: Dios, el lenguaje y el espíritu de
reconocimiento (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
15
F. Leron Shults, Reforming the Doctrine of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B. Eerdmans,
2005). Sin embargo, nunca se aclara qué significan términos como "frío", "estático",
"relacional" y "dinámico".
xivPrefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando en Dios y en el tiempo?
de doctorado, ciertamente habría sido cierto que muchos filósofos europeos
habían renunciado a la tarea de la metafísica. Pero la filosofía analítica
angloamericana apenas comenzaba a despegar en ese momento. Desde la
muerte del positivismo, la metafísica ha experimentado un gran
renacimiento. Lejos de ser el chivo expiatorio de la filosofía positivista, la
metafísica estaba viva y bien para cuando Pannenberg publicó su lamento en
1991.
En segundo lugar, los teólogos contemporáneos que afirman que la
metafísica es una disciplina violenta, o que buscan categorías relacionales,
muestran poca conciencia de la metafísica clásica y contemporánea. La
metafísica no es una disciplina que busca imponer sus categorías al mundo.
En cambio, los metafísicos intentan revisar continuamente sus categorías
conceptuales a medida que se acercan al mundo. El metafísico desea
permitir que la realidad obligue a su mente a ajustarse a ella, y no al revés.
Es cierto que los metafísicos fracasan en este objetivo e imponen sus
categorías a la realidad. Sin embargo, esto no es nada exclusivo de la
disciplina de la metafísica. Teólogos, científicos, artistas -la humanidad en
su conjunto- imponen sin querer sus categorías a la realidad. La cura para
esta imposición no es rehuir la metafísica. La cura es buscar continuamente
desafiar nuestras creencias y categorías a medida que aprendemos más sobre
la realidad. En otras palabras, la cura es dedicarse a una metafísica
cuidadosa.
Tercero, la metafísica de las sustancias no es fría, estática o anti-
relacional, sea lo que sea que eso signifique. Como explicará cualquier libro
de texto estándar sobre metafísica hoy en día, las sustancias son las mismas
cosas que se encuentran en las relaciones y persisten a través del tiempo.
Eso es lo más dinámico y relacional que se puede conseguir. El abandono de
la "sustancia" por más "categorías relacionales" ha causado una confusión
innecesaria en la teología contemporánea. Esto podría evitarse fácilmente
con un poco de metafísica.
La teología contemporánea necesita tomar el llamado de Pannenberg para
comprometerse en un examen crítico de la teología filosófica clásica y su
metafísica. Sin embargo, la teología contemporánea necesita reconocer que
la metafísica está muy viva. No necesitamos lamentarnos con Pannenberg.
En cambio, ha llegado el momento de un compromiso metafísico tan
profundo con el teísmo cristiano clásico.
Antes de seguir adelante, debo dejar claro que algunos teólogos y
filósofos de la religión han ofrecido críticas cuidadosas del teísmo clásico
antes de pasar a plantear otros modelos de Dios. La filosofía analítica
contemporánea de la religión ha sido uno de varios intentos importantes en
este proyecto, y los resultados han sido bastante fructíferos. 16 Como dejaré
claro, la esperanza es que la teología analítica pueda promover este
proyecto. También debo señalar que ha habido varias defensas rigurosas y
poderosas del teísmo cristiano clásico en los últimos años, especialmente
por parte de ciertos filósofos analíticos de la religión. Lo haré
 16
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Inquiring about God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2010).
 Prefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando en Dios y en el tiempo? xv
discutir estos teólogos y filósofos en detalle a lo largo de este libro. Por
ahora, deseo señalar algunas de las principales áreas problemáticas de la
teología contemporánea que aclaran por qué es necesario escribir un libro
como éste. Las oscuridades y confusiones teológicas abundan en la literatura
contemporánea, y no puedo afirmar la necesidad de claridad con la
suficiente fuerza.

Confusión Teológica #1: Dios es Temporal y Eterno, o

Algo en el Medio

Una de las principales áreas problemáticas de la teología contemporánea es

la falta total de claridad conceptual con respecto a la eternidad divina. Es
importante aclarar en qué consiste el debate entre la atemporalidad divina y
la temporalidad divina. Lamentablemente, esto no siempre se logra. Un
número alarmante de teólogos evangélicos contemporáneos continúan
propagando la noción de que Dios es eterno y temporal en lo que se refiere a
la creación y al desarrollo del plan de redención. Estas opiniones rara vez se
explican de manera significativa y coherente. 17 Usualmente hay un poco de
matiz en tales declaraciones, pero en última instancia se reducen a una
contradicción. Un ejemplo viene de Bruce Ware. "Sorprendentemente,
entonces, en la creación, Dios se hizo omnipresente y omnitemporal al
mismo tiempo que permanecía, en sí mismo, aparte de la creación,
completamente no-espiritual y eterno. "18 Parece como si Dios fuera
simultáneamente temporal y atemporal. Esa es una contradicción directa.
Ware trata de evitar esta contradicción diciendo que Dios es eterno en sí
mismo, pero temporal en relación con la creación. El movimiento que está
intentando hacer tiene la intención de ser análogo a un movimiento hecho en
la encarnación. Esto será discutido ampliamente en el Capítulo 7 que se
enfoca en la encarnación. Por ahora, vale la pena señalar por qué el
movimiento que hace Ware no es análogo a la encarnación. En la
encarnación el "qua move" tiene por objeto predicar las propiedades
contradictorias a diferentes naturalezas numéricamente distintas. Por
ejemplo, sólo la naturaleza humana de Cristo sufre mientras que la
naturaleza divina no sufre. Con la relación de Dios con la creación, no hay
naturalezas numéricamente distintas a las que Ware pueda apelar.
Simplemente existe la naturaleza divina. La naturaleza divina, al parecer, es
intemporal y temporal por cuenta de Ware. Eso es incoherente. Además, no
me queda claro que Ware realmente entienda lo que significa la
atemporalidad divina y la temporalidad divina. Este es un problema
persistente en la teología contemporánea.

17
John M. Frame, Teología Sistemática: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Phillipsburg,
NJ: P&R Publishing Co., 2013), 367. Rob Lister, Dios es impasible y apasionado (Wheaton, IL:
Crossway, 2013), 226-30.
18
Bruce Ware, "A Modified Doctrina Calvinista de Dios", en eds. Bruce Ware Perspectivas
sobre la Doctrina de Dios: 4 Views (Nashville, TN: B & H Publishing, 2008), 89.
xviPrefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando en Dios y en el tiempo?
Estrechamente relacionados con la afirmación de que Dios es eterno y
temporal, se puede decir que los teólogos dicen que el Dios atemporal
experimenta el tiempo. 19 Tal vez, se podría decir, que Dios experimenta el
tiempo de una manera diferente a la nuestra. Esto es un error, sin embargo,
porque un Dios atemporal no puede experimentar el tiempo. Tener
verdaderamente una experiencia de tiempo toma tiempo, y esto no es algo
que un Dios eterno pueda hacer.
Otra confusión común de la que se habla es la de find una tercera vía.
Tenemos que superar la brecha entre la intemporalidad o la temporalidad, se
podría decir, y find una tercera vía entre las dos posiciones. 20 Intentar find
una tercera vía es como cazar agachadizas y haggis: es una cacería inútil
porque no es más que un truco perpetrado a los desinformados. Cuando se
trata de si Dios es temporal o atemporal, simplemente no hay una tercera
vía. Las dos posiciones son lógicamente contradictorias. Si fueran
lógicamente contrarios -como si su mascota fuera un perro o un gato-
podríamos find otra opción. Con propiedades lógicamente contrarias -o Dios
existe o no existe- no hay otras opciones.
Para entender plenamente dónde van mal estas afirmaciones teológicas,
uno debe entender lo que significan la atemporalidad divina y la
temporalidad divina. A estos se les dará un tratamiento extenso en los
Capítulos 2 y 3, pero por ahora se les puede dar un poco de rápido
definitions
Dios es eterno si y sólo si Dios existe (i) sin principio, (ii) sin fin, y (iii)
sin sucesión. Decir que Dios existe sin sucesión significa que Dios no hace
una cosa y luego otra. La vida de un Dios eterno no se caracteriza por una
sucesión de momentos como los seres temporales. Dios es temporal si y sólo
si Dios existe (i) sin principio, (ii) sin fin, y (iii) con sucesión. La vida de un
Dios temporal se caracteriza por una sucesión de momentos. En otras
palabras, un Dios temporal tiene un antes y un después en Su vida.
Experimenta un momento tras otro, igual que nosotros. Un Dios eterno no
experimenta un momento de tiempo tras otro. En cambio, un Dios eterno
experimenta Su vida de una sola vez.
Con estos básicos definitions ante nosotros, podemos ver que la
afirmación de que Dios es eterno y temporal es falsa. Dios no puede tener
sucesión en su vida y carecer de sucesión en su vida. Esa es una
contradicción directa. Además, podemos ver que no hay una tercera vía
entre la sucesión y la falta de sucesión.

19
Epsen también hace esta afirmación en, "La eternidad es un presente," 427.
20
F. LeRon Shults afirma esto sin ninguna sugerencia en cuanto a cómo se vería tal punto
de vista. Shults, Reformando la Doctrina de Dios, 267-73. Eunsoo Kim hace una sugerencia,
pero termina pareciendo virtualmente idéntica a la temporalidad divina propuesta por Richard
Swinburne, por lo que no es una tercera vía. Ver Kim, Tiempo, Eternidad y la Trinidad: A
Trinitarian Analogical Understanding of Time and Eternity (Eugene, OR: Pickwick
Publications, 2010).
 Prefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando en Dios y en el tiempo? xvii

Confusión Teológica #2: El error de Barthian

Parece haber un desafortunado número de teólogos sistemáticos que

cometen lo que yo llamaría el error de Barthian. El error de Barthian implica
dos pasos. Primer paso: rechazar explícitamente la doctrina de la
intemporalidad divina. Paso dos: affirm una doctrina de la eternidad divina
que es indistinguible de la intemporalidad divina. Con respecto al primer
paso, los barthianos podrían decir que el teísmo clásico fue invadido, o
corrompido, por las categorías estáticas de las metafísicas griegas. Ella
podría decir que los teólogos contemporáneos deben rechazar estas
categorías estáticas y reemplazarlas con las categorías dinámicas del
testimonio bíblico, que representa a un Dios que no es ajeno al tiempo. Esto
podría ser un razonamiento persuasivo para algunos teólogos, pero las cosas
salen mal cuando los barthianos continúan articulando la doctrina de la
eternidad divina. En el segundo paso, reemplazan la doctrina de la
intemporalidad divina de la manera más desafortunada.
Considere la articulación de la eternidad divina de Karl Barth. Barth
affirms que Dios existe sin principio y sin fin, y sin sucesión. Él tiene sólo
affirmed el corazón de la intemporalidad divina. Recordemos de antes que
esta es la definition de la intemporalidad divina. Si esto no fuera suficiente
error, Barth continúa alabando y affirm Boethius's definition de la eternidad
de Dios. 21 El desea affirm, con Boethius, que la vida de Dios es un
momento eterno que carece de un antes y un después tal que no hay un
segundo momento en la vida de Dios. 22 La definition de la eternidad divina
de Boethius es la declaración clásica de la intemporalidad divina, y es
desafortunado que algunos teólogos sistemáticos deseen affirm esta
definition mientras tratan de ser temporalistas divinos. Barth parece no ser
consciente del hecho de que acaba de reafirmar la doctrina de la
intemporalidad divina porque dice continuamente que Dios no es ajeno al
tiempo, sino que existe en Su propio tiempo. El tiempo de Dios, como lo
hizo Barth defines, no tiene sucesión y está presente en todos los tiempos.
Esto es exactamente lo que dice la intemporalidad divina, así que la doctrina
de Barth de la eternidad divina es indistinguible de la intemporalidad divina.
Un error más reciente de Barthian viene de Kevin Vanhoozer. Vanhoozer
dice que Dios está fuera del tiempo y es omnitemporal. (Esto se remonta a la
confusión teológica de first). Él afirma que la vida de Dios es temporal
debido a su

21
Barth, Church Dogmatics III, 2, 438-9. Cf. Christophe Chalamet, "No Timelessness in
God. On Differing Interpretations of Karl Barth's Theology of Eternity, Time, and Election,"
Zeits- chrift für Dialektische Theologie 4 (2010), 25-31. Adrian Langdon, "Dios el eterno
contemporáneo: Trinity, Eternity, and Time in Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics" (Universidad
McGill, tesis doctoral, 2008). Langdon explica que la visión de Barth es una eternidad
dinámica debido al eterno movimiento y sucesión de las personas trinitarias. Sin embargo, este
movimiento es simultáneo, o todo de una vez, en el eterno ahora tal que no hay un antes y un
después en la vida de Dios. Langdon no parece ser consciente de que esto es simplemente
atemporalidad divina. Añadirle la palabra "dinámico" no cambia este hecho.
22
Stephen R. Holmes, The Quest for the Trinity: La Doctrina de Dios en la Escritura, la Historia
y la Escritura
Modernity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 16.
xviiiPrefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando en Dios y en el tiempo?
una vida dinámica de tres personas. (Esta será la confusión teológica número
tres.) Sin embargo, él dice que Dios no tiene un antes y un después en Su
vida. El Dios trino posee simultáneamente una sucesión tal que no hay un
antes y un después en su vida. 23 Esto es desafortunado porque comete el
error de Bartolomé. Además, la afirmación de que Dios posee
simultáneamente una sucesión tal que no hay un antes o un después en la
vida divina no está implícita en la doctrina de la Trinidad. En cambio, es
simplemente incoherente. La sucesión implica un antes y un después, por lo
que nada puede poseer simultáneamente la sucesión.

Confusión Teológica #3: La Trinidad Implica un

Entendimiento Particular de la Eternidad

El debate de Vanhoozer suscitó una confusión popular, y lamentablemente

generalizada, que vale la pena mencionar. Hay temporalistas divinos que
afirman que la doctrina de la Trinidad implica que Dios está en el tiempo.
Contrariamente a las afirmaciones de estos teólogos, nada acerca de que
Dios sea trino implica que Dios sea temporal. Varios teólogos
contemporáneos han intentado argumentar que las procesiones eternas del
Hijo y del Espíritu Santo del Padre implican que Dios es temporal. A veces
se afirma que las relaciones intra-trinitarias de las Personas divinas implican
que Dios es temporal. Otras veces la afirmación es que la doctrina de la
Trinidad fue desarrollada por los padres de la Iglesia primitiva en reacción y
en resistencia contra la intemporalidad divina. 24 Es difícil explicar cuál es el
argumento de estos teólogos, y la exactitud histórica de tales afirmaciones
es, en el mejor de los casos, dudosa. Ciertamente, nada en la superficie de la
doctrina de las procesiones y relaciones eternas implica la temporalidad
divina. La doctrina tradicional de las procesiones eternas proclama que el
Padre hace que el Hijo y el Espíritu existan atemporalmente. La doctrina
tradicional de las relaciones eternas es que el Padre, el Hijo y el Espíritu
están eternamente relacionados entre sí a través de esta procesión
inefablemente misteriosa. No veo cómo tal doctrina podría empujar a uno en
la dirección de la temporalidad divina.
Por otro lado, algunos afirman que una comprensión trinitaria de Dios
puede salvar la intemporalidad divina. 25 No está claro, sin embargo, que la
doctrina de la Trinidad marque una diferencia en la cuestión que nos ocupa.
26
La doctrina de la

23
Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology: Acción divina, pasión y autoría (Cam- bridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010), 255, 319-23, 454. Otro difficulty es que negar un antes y
un después en la vida de Dios socavaría completamente el teodrama de Vanhoozer porque un
Dios sin momentos en Su vida no puede ser un actor en el mundo temporal.
24
Richard Rice, "Trinity, Temporality, and Open Theism", en eds. Jeanine Diller y Asa
Kasher, Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities (Nueva York: Springer, 2013).
25
La obra de Epsen "La eternidad es un presente" es un ejemplo de ello.
26
Antje Jackelen, Time and Eternity: La cuestión del tiempo en la Iglesia, la ciencia y la
teología
(Londres: Templeton Foundation Press, 2006), 98-109 y 190-7.
 Prefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando en Dios y en el tiempo? xix
la Trinidad es ciertamente esencial para los cristianos, pero nada acerca de
que Dios sea tres personas y una esencia arroja luz sobre la coherencia de la
falta de tiempo divina. De hecho, sólo soy consciente de un argumento
contundente y claro en la literatura que intenta argumentar que sólo la
intemporalidad divina puede acomodar la doctrina de la Trinidad. Paul Helm
ha argumentado que la temporalidad divina, junto con la doctrina de las
procesiones, implica el arrianismo. 27 Sin embargo, como he argumentado en otra
parte, el problema no es la temporalidad divina. El problema es que la
doctrina de las procesiones eternas conlleva el arrianismo. 28 En escritos más
recientes, Helm también reconoce esto. 29
Sugiero que los teólogos dejen de apelar a la doctrina de la Trinidad para
resolver la disputa sobre el estado eterno de Dios. En cambio, los teólogos
deben enfocarse en la relación de Dios con el universo creado.

Confusión Teológica #4: Poniendo a Dios en el Futuro

Hay una confusión que quiero señalar antes de seguir adelante con este
libro. Demasiadas discusiones de Dios y el tiempo no articulan lo que es el
tiempo. Esto nos impide comprender plenamente la relación de Dios con el
tiempo. Una comprensión clara del tiempo es necesaria para tales
conversaciones. Afortunadamente, un número creciente de teólogos están
empezando a ver la importancia de involucrarse en la filosofía del tiempo.
En particular, los pensadores involucrados en el diálogo ciencia-religión son
conscientes de cómo la naturaleza del tiempo es para nuestro pensamiento
acerca de la relación entre Dios y el mundo. Algunos de estos teólogos han
ofrecido teorías coherentes del tiempo, pero los resultados han sido un tanto
desafortunados. Algunos han articulado entendimientos temporales de Dios
donde Dios de alguna manera existe en el futuro inexistente, acercando el
mundo a Él mismo. Dios causa cosas del futuro inexistente. 30 Es más bien
inoportuno poner a Dios en un tiempo inexistente. Como señala Thomas
Schärtl, poner a Dios en un futuro inexistente es poner a Dios en un lugar
temporal que, en principio, está fuera de su alcance. 31 Un Dios que existe en
el futuro no es un Dios que está presente con nosotros. Ni siquiera estoy
seguro de si un Dios que existe en lo inexistente

27
Paul Helm, "Time and Trinity", en eds. Robin Le Poidevin, Cuestiones de tiempo y tensión
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).
28
R. T. Mullins, "Divine Temporality and the Charge of Arianism," Journal of Analytic
Theology (Próximamente).
29
Timón, Dios Eterno: A Study of God Without Time, 2nd Edition (Nueva York: Oxford
University Press, 2010), 286.
30
Ted Peters, God-The World's Future-Systematic Theology for a New Era, 2nd Edition
(Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), 142-6.
31
Thomas Schärtl, "Por qué necesitamos la eternidad de Dios: Some Remarks to Support a
Classic Notion," en eds. Christian Tapp y Edmund Runggaldier, God, Eternity, and Time
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 55.
xxPrefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando en Dios y en el tiempo?
de hecho, el futuro existe. Esto parece una forma no intencionada de ateísmo
para ubicar a Dios completamente en un tiempo inexistente.
Para ser claros, la intención detrás de tales declaraciones es bien
intencionada. La procedencia de este pensamiento proviene del relato de
Pannenberg sobre la prolepsis. Prolepsis es la doctrina del reino de Dios que
se rompe y la esperanza que surge de esto. La idea es que en Cristo vemos el
futuro aquí y ahora. Pannenberg, y los que le siguen, han llevado este
concepto de prolepsis demasiado lejos. Una cosa es decir que actualmente
vemos las promesas de Dios en Cristo. En el ministerio de Jesús tenemos un
vistazo de cómo será el reino de Dios en el futuro. Ciertamente, la vida,
muerte y resurrección de Cristo fundamenta nuestra esperanza escatológica.
Sin embargo, es otra cosa muy distinta decir que el futuro está literalmente
irrumpiendo en nuestro presente, o que Dios existe en el futuro causando
que las cosas ocurran en el presente. Si el futuro está literalmente en nuestro
momento presente, el futuro ya no es futuro. Simplemente está presente. Si
existe un tiempo en el presente, está presente. Además, si Dios existe en el
futuro, y de alguna manera está causando cosas del futuro, Sus acciones son
demasiado tardías. La luz entra en la existencia, y entonces Dios dice:
"Hágase la luz". ”
A la luz de todas estas confusiones teológicas, no puedo evitar recordar el
llamado de Pannenberg que se mencionó anteriormente. Se necesita un
compromiso profundo y crítico con la metafísica y la tradición clásica de la
teología filosófica. Si hay alguna esperanza de avanzar en nuestra
comprensión de la eternidad de Dios y la naturaleza del tiempo, uno debe
comprometerse en la metafísica, y llegar a un entendimiento más profundo
de la concepción cristiana clásica de Dios. Es tiempo de ir en busca del Dios
eterno en el que los cristianos han creído por casi 2,000 años.

EL OBJETIVO DE ESTE LIBRO

Este es un trabajo en teología analítica. Esta nueva y en desarrollo field se

enfrenta a varios retos. En muchos círculos teológicos de hoy, la filosofía
analítica de la religión es acusada de ser antibíblica, ahistórica, no
sistemática e idólatra por abajo a la derecha. Según estos grupos de teólogos,
se supone que el nuevo proyecto de teología analítica sigue su ejemplo. La
afirmación de la idolatría, si bien es cierto que antes de la Cuaresma, es un
ataque ad hominem que no merece una respuesta, por lo que no lo abordaré.
32 Con respecto a
los otros cargos, es ciertamente cierto que algunos filósofos
analíticos de la religión muestran poca comprensión de los estudios bíblicos,
están bastante desinformados en asuntos de teología histórica, y a menudo
abordan los temas de una manera poco sistemática y poco sistemática. Lo
que rara vez se señala, sin embargo, es que lo mismo se aplica a muchos
otros grupos de teólogos.
 32
Para una respuesta a la acusación de idolatría, véase Marilyn McCord Adams, "What's
wrong with the Ontotheological Error? "Journal of Analytic Theology 2 (2014), 1-12.
 Prefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando en Dios y en el tiempo? xxi
Basta pensar en ciertos teólogos barthianos que proceden como si la teología
comenzara y terminara con Karl Barth. O dirija su atención a ciertos
eruditos tomistas dogmáticos que parecen pensar que nada de gran
importancia teológica ha ocurrido desde la muerte de Tomás de Aquino,
porque el médico angelical lo ha resuelto todo. Estos grupos de teólogos
parecen ser más bien ahistóricos. Para empeorar las cosas, los teólogos
bíblicos a menudo acusan a los teólogos sistemáticos de no leer sus Biblias,
mientras que los teólogos sistemáticos a menudo acusan a los teólogos
bíblicos de no ser sistemáticos. En especie, los filósofos analíticos de la
religión pueden fácilmente acusar a los teólogos de no leer su filosofía de la
religión. 33
En medio de tal infighting, ¿qué debe hacer el teólogo analítico? ¿Será la
teología analítica antibíblica, ahistórica y no sistemática? Espero que la
respuesta sea no, pero sólo el tiempo lo dirá. La tarea que se plantea ante la
teología analítica es la de un trabajo serio e interdisciplinario. Al tratar de
aprovechar los ricos recursos de la filosofía analítica contemporánea,
también debe aprovechar los recursos de los estudios bíblicos, la teología
sistemática, así como ofrecer un profundo compromiso con la tradición
cristiana. En un esfuerzo por hacer este tipo de trabajo interdisciplinario, el
teólogo analítico nunca podrá hacer feliz a todos. Por ejemplo, el filósofo
analítico promedio tendrá poca paciencia para la cantidad de tiempo que yo
dedique a la tradición, mientras que el teólogo promedio dirá que no me he
ocupado lo suficiente de la tradición. Encontrar un equilibrio feliz que
satisfaga a todas las partes puede ser una quimera, pero aún así es un sueño
que deseo perseguir.
El proyecto de teología analítica es todavía bastante joven, y queda
mucho trabajo por hacer si se quiere llevar a cabo esta tarea
interdisciplinaria. Mi meta es continuar este proyecto abordando un tema
central de la fe cristiana: la naturaleza de Dios y la relación entre Dios y el
mundo. Mi objetivo en este libro es evaluar la doctrina de Dios que ha
capturado la imaginación cristiana durante casi 2,000 años. No me interesan
los puntos de vista sobre la intemporalidad divina que sólo existen en el
espacio lógico. En cambio, me interesa examinar la visión de Dios que ha
moldeado profundamente el desarrollo del pensamiento cristiano desde los
primeros apologistas hasta nuestros días. El entendimiento de Dios que
tengo en mente es la doctrina de Dios que está detrás de los primeros
debates cristológicos y trinitarios. Esta es la doctrina de Dios que está
contenida y respaldada por los credos ecuménicos, así como en muchas
confesiones que abarcan la división denominacional. Es una comprensión de
Dios como intemporal que se convierte en parte del depósito doctrinal de los
padres de la Iglesia primitiva, y que es asumida por

33
Un ejemplo claro de esto viene del libro de N. T. Wright, El mal y la justicia de Dios
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006). Wright afirma que la filosofía no puede hacer
nada para resolver el problema del mal. Wright ha reprendido a los filósofos cristianos por no
haber leído sus Biblias. Wright, sin embargo, ha sido criticado repetidamente por filósofos
cristianos por no mostrar en su libro ninguna conciencia de las discusiones filosóficas
contemporáneas sobre el problema del mal.
xxiiPrefacio: ¿Por qué molestar pensando en Dios y en el tiempo?
generaciones subsiguientes de pensadores cristianos en sus intentos por
ampliar todo el alcance de la teología cristiana.
La doctrina de la intemporalidad divina no es una doctrina solitaria, y
como tal no puede ser examinada aisladamente de otras doctrinas cristianas.
La visión del Dios eterno que ha enamorado tanto a la Iglesia es la que está
sistemáticamente conectada a un conjunto particular de atributos divinos.
Estos atributos divinos son la simplicidad, la inmutabilidad y la
impasibilidad. Como se verá a lo largo del argumento de este libro, estos
atributos divinos forman un paquete muy apretado en el pensamiento
cristiano. Cualquier evaluación de la intemporalidad divina debe incluir
también una evaluación de estos atributos. Estos atributos se usan para
justificar, defender y articular la eternidad eterna de Dios. Para muchos
teólogos y filósofos cristianos clásicos, estos atributos son vistos no sólo
como mutuamente implícitos, sino como idénticos. Es esta robusta visión
clásica de Dios la que voy a examinar.
 Agradecimientos

Gracias a mi familia. Mis padres, Tom y Jan, y mi hermana Kelli me han

apoyado durante toda mi educación de posgrado. Saber que los hago
sentir orgullosos hace que sea más fácil continuar con mi investigación. Una
gran cantidad de gratitud va al grupo de jóvenes de la Iglesia Cristiana
Northside en Columbus, GA. Sus interminables preguntas me impulsaron a
un estudio más profundo, y sus mentes adolescentes me impulsaron a una
mayor claridad. Mis estudiantes de Covenant Christian High School en
Indianápolis, IN, fueron lo suficientemente amables como para escuchar mis
pensamientos sobre Dios y el tiempo, y me ofrecieron una cantidad absurda
de entusiasmo, así como comentarios útiles. Estoy en deuda con Jason
Smith, quien tuvo la amabilidad de perseguir una canción de adoración para
mí basada en una línea de la canción que yo pudiera recordar. Brandon
y Jennifer Craft no sólo han sido amigos maravillosos a lo largo de mi
educación, sino que también me animaron a solicitar mi doctorado en la
Universidad de St Andrews. Este proyecto se vería completamente diferente
si no fuera por ellos.
Gracias a las siguientes personas por sus comentarios útiles sobre las
versiones anteriores de este material y, en algunos casos, por su larga
conversación. Shawn Bawulski, Oliver Crisp, Harm J. M. J. Goris, Paul
Helm, Thomas McCall, Alan Padgett, Katherin Rogers, J. T. Turner, Nick
Wackerhagen, Keith Yandell, y los críticos anónimos a través de Oxford
University Press.
Gracias a las siguientes personas por sus conversaciones sobre los temas
de esta tesis. Katherine Hawley, Joanna Leidenhag, Robert Pasnau, Robert
John Russell, William Simpson, David Torrance, Peter van Inwagen, el
Grupo de Lectura de Metafísica de St Andrews, la Sociedad de Física y
Filosofía d e St Andrews, el Seminario de Investigación Teológica de St
Andrews, y el Seminario de Verano de St Thomas en Filosofía de la
Religión y Teología Filosófica 2012.
Un agradecimiento especial al Centro de Filosofía de la Religión de la
Universidad de Notre Dame por ofrecerme la beca de Teología Analítica.
Este compañero me dio el tiempo para refine y expandir el contenido de este
libro. El seminario de Filosofía de la Religión y el grupo de Lectura
Metafísica de Notre Dame proporcionaron muchas críticas cuidadosas y
minuciosas de versiones anteriores de este manuscrito. En particular, las
siguientes personas de Notre Dame me ofrecieron una gran cantidad de
ayuda: William J. Abraham, Natalja Deng, Evan Fales, Kate Finley, Douglas
Hedley, Ross Inman, Sam Lebens, Carl Mosser, Michael Rea, Amy
Seymour, Meghan Sullivan, Philip Swenson y Stephen Wykstra.
Mucha gratitud se dirige a Alan Torrance. Su entusiasmo por mi
investigación fue una fuente de aliento muy necesaria. Insistió en que este
proyecto fuera una obra de teología filosófica cristiana, y no meramente
xxivAgradecimientos
filosofía de la religión. Su guía y sus muchas preguntas me impulsaron a
tener siempre presentes los compromisos cristianos cuando pensaba en la
naturaleza de la realidad última.
Un agradecimiento especial a Brian Hutchinson por sus largas
conversaciones sobre el tema de Dios y el tiempo. Me ayudó a ver la
relevancia de este tema para la teología sistemática como un todo, al
empujarme a sacar a la luz las implicaciones para las doctrinas de la
creación, la encarnación, la expiación y la escatología.
Estoy profundamente en deuda con Lucy Badger, Sarah Langley, Lins
McRobie, Jerry Watssman y todas las demás personas maravillosas de
Edimburgo que saben cómo sanar un corazón roto. Su amor y amistad
significan mucho para mí. Si no fuera por su ayuda en mi tiempo de
necesidad, habría abandonado completamente este proyecto.
La mayoría de las secciones de reconocimiento pasan por alto a un grupo
de personas que son cruciales para cualquier proyecto de investigación. Me
gustaría corregir esto. Hay muchos artistas que me ayudaron a mantenerme
motivado para continuar con este proyecto de escritura. Su música
proporcionó la banda sonora de mi investigación, la musa de mi creatividad
y el rayo de esperanza de que un día la escritura estaría completa. En
particular, los siguientes artistas me dieron mucha inspiración a lo largo de
la evolución de este libro: El asesinato de la dalia negra, Tráeme el
horizonte, los constructores y los carniceros, cada vez que muera, el miedo
antes de la marcha de las llamas, ¡Hey Rosetta!, haz que sufran, Métrico,
Madre, Asesinato por la muerte, Shai Hulud, Estrellas, La extravagancia de
Tony Danza Tapdance, ¡Di fiesta! Decimos ¡Muere!, y Zao.
Mucha gratitud se dirige a varios editores y revistas por ofrecerme
permiso para reimprimir material previamente publicado. Las versiones
anteriores de algunos de estos materiales se pueden encontrar a
continuación:
"Simplemente imposible: A Case Against Divine Simplicity," Journal of
Reformed Theology 7 (2013).
"Cuadrangularismo, Maldad y Creencia Cristiana", Philosophia Christi
16 (2014).
"Divina Perfección y Creación", The Heythrop Journal (2015).
Por último, pero no menos importante, me gustaría dar las gracias a Gary
Carr. Metafísicamente hablando, es muy fácil estar totalmente presente.
Todo lo que uno tiene que hacer es existir. Fenómeno -lógicamente
hablando, sin embargo, estar totalmente presente puede ser bastante difficult
No es fácil vivir plenamente el momento. Gary ha hecho todo lo posible
para ayudarme a permanecer plenamente en el momento, así como para
ayudarme a conectar mi mente y mi corazón. Por eso estoy eternamente
agradecido.
 Tabla de Contenidos

1. Introducción1
2. ¿Qué es el tiempo? 13
3. ¿Qué es la Eternidad? 41
4. El Presentismo, la Omnisciencia y el Dios Eterno74
5. El Presentismo, la Creación y el Dios Eterno99
6. Divina Intemporalidad y Eternalismo Cuadrangular127
7. La encarnación del Dios eterno156
Conclusión195

Bibliografía 211
Indice 247
 1

Introducción

Esta es una obra sobre la relación de Dios con el tiempo. Originalmente lo

titulé En busca de un Dios eterno porque eso es precisamente lo que
pretendo hacer: embarcarme en una búsqueda genuina de una deidad eterna.
Sin embargo, como yo finished mi búsqueda, no podía find un Dios eterno
que se parecía remotamente al Dios cristiano. En cambio, encontré una
concepción de Dios que está en desacuerdo con la fe cristiana. Llegué a la
conclusión de que la doctrina de la intemporalidad divina era algo de lo que
había que prescindir. "¡Mátalo y entiérralo! "se convirtió en mi arma de
guerra. Sin embargo, tales proclamaciones descaradas sobre la muerte del
Dios eterno serán difíciles de aceptar para muchos teístas cristianos. Como
tal, espero demostrar al lector por qué he llegado a esta conclusión.
Una pregunta guía este estudio: ¿Hay alguna manera de que el Dios
cristiano sea atemporal? Para responder a esta pregunta habrá que tener en
cuenta varias cuestiones. ¿Quién es el Dios cristiano? ¿Con qué están
comprometidos los cristianos con respecto a la relación de Dios con la
creación? ¿Qué es el tiempo? ¿Qué es la eternidad? ¿Cómo se relacionan
entre sí? Todas estas cuestiones se abordarán a lo largo de este trabajo.
Lo que nos preocupa en este momento es cómo se evalúan las respuestas.
Propongo que podamos tomar la doctrina de la intemporalidad divina como
un programa de investigación y juzgarla en consecuencia. Primero,
necesitaremos saber lo que es un programa de investigación, y luego
podemos empezar a discutir lo que estará involucrado en un programa de
investigación cristiano que promueve la intemporalidad divina.

PROGRAMAS DE INVESTIGACIÓN

Dentro de la filosofía de la ciencia, el concepto de programa de

investigación ha sido de gran importancia en las últimas décadas. Un
elemento de los programas de investigación es que son "conjuntos máximos
de disposiciones metodológicas". "1 La idea básica es

1
Michael C. Rea, Mundo sin Diseño: The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism (Nueva
York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 3.
2Introducción
que un programa de investigación contiene un conjunto de teorías sobre una
faceta particular de la realidad, un conjunto correspondiente de datos
relevantes y un conjunto de disposiciones metodológicas para evaluar los
datos. 2 Cada programa tendrá una teoría de núcleo duro o un conjunto de
teorías que no están abiertas a revisión. 3 También contendrá un conjunto de
teorías auxiliares que están sujetas a revisión y confirmation Las teorías
auxiliares pueden servir a confirm la teoría del núcleo duro. Si una teoría
auxiliar particular carece continuamente de confirmation, se puede descartar
sin necesidad de que se descarte todo el programa de investigación. 4 De esta
manera es posible revisar varios aspectos del programa de cada uno a
medida que aparecen nuevas evidencias.
Para comenzar una investigación racional sobre cualquier tema uno debe
estar trabajando desde un programa de investigación en particular. Esto se
debe a que no se puede considerar la evidencia antes de tener disposiciones
metodológicas. 5 No es posible sopesar la evidencia a menos que uno tenga
alguna idea de lo que se consideraría como evidencia a favor o en contra de
una teoría en particular. En otras palabras, la evidencia es inútil sin un
programa de investigación.
La afirmación de la filosofía contemporánea de la ciencia es que todas las
teorías están subdeterminadas por la evidencia. 6 Nunca puede haber
suficiente evidencia (100 por ciento de prueba) para que uno pueda
responder si un programa de investigación en particular es verdadero o falso
con absoluta e incorregible certeza. Esto, por supuesto, asumiendo que el
programa de investigación en particular es lógicamente coherente. Algo que
es lógicamente incoherente no puede ser cierto.
Dado que los programas de investigación lógicamente coherentes están
subdeterminados por la evidencia, puede ser útil saber qué programa de
investigación se debe adoptar. Los programas de investigación pueden ser
progresivos o degenerados. Para diferenciar entre un programa de
investigación progresivo o degenerado, es necesario tener en cuenta varios
criterios. En primer lugar, deberá tener coherencia interna: el programa de
investigación no está cargado de información interna en difficulties En
segundo lugar, existe un poder explicativo: la capacidad de una teoría para
explicar el fe-nómena que se está considerando. Tercero, epistémico fit-la
plausibilidad de la teoría con otras creencias que tomamos como ciertas.
Cuarto, hay fecundidad: la capacidad de una teoría para avanzar en nuestra
comprensión del mundo desarrollando conexiones útiles con otras teorías,
ayudándonos a comprender mejor otras cosas que sabemos que son ciertas, y
haciendo que los fenómenos sean más probables de serlo. 7 Quinto,

2
Nancey Murphy, Anglo-American Postmodernity: Philosophical Perspectives on Science,
Religion, and Ethics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), 52.
3
Murphy, Anglo-American Postmodernity, 52.
4
Murphy, Anglo-American Postmodernity, 52.
5
Rea, World Without Design, 2.
6
Del Ratzsch, La ciencia y sus límites: The Natural Sciences in Christian Perspective
(Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 18-19.
 7
Robin Collins, "The Connection-Building Theodicy", en eds. Justin P. McBrayer y Daniel
Howard-Snyder, The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil (Oxford: John Wiley &
Sons, 2013), 232.
 Introducción3
simplicidad-es más probable que sea cierta una teoría que contenga las
afirmaciones menos innecesariamente complejas. 8
Un programa de investigación progresivo será aquel que tenga mayor
coherencia interna que cualquier otro competidor. Puede explicar todos los
fenómenos mejor que cualquier otro. Quizás pueda explicar más cosas que
su rival, o incluso ser capaz de incorporar todas las reivindicaciones de su
rival. Esto hará que los fenómenos observados sean más probables de ser
ciertos. A continuación, también tendrá un mejor fit epistémico que
cualquier otro rival. Además, no será simplemente fit con otras cosas que
sabemos que son ciertas, sino que avanzará nuestra comprensión de esas
cosas, y mucho más.
En algunos escenarios hay varios programas de investigación progresiva
que compiten entre sí y que pueden explicar un conjunto de fenómenos. En
estos casos, cada programa de investigación tiene una gran coherencia
interna, poder explicativo, epistémica fit y fecundidad. Cuando esto ocurre,
entra en juego el criterio de la simplicidad. Se considera que la hipótesis que
tiene las afirmaciones menos complejas e innecesarias es más probable que
sea más cierta que la de sus rivales.

UN PROGRAMA DE INVESTIGACIÓN CRISTIANA

Cualquiera que desee examinar la relación de Dios con el tiempo necesitará

tener en mente algunos compromisos cristianos básicos. El núcleo duro de
cualquier programa de búsqueda cristiana contendrá varias hipótesis que no
son revisables. Las hipótesis del núcleo duro no se pueden abandonar si se
desea seguir trabajando en un programa de investigación cristiano. Yo tomo
las siguientes hipótesis para ser incluidas en cualquier programa de
investigación cristiana. Esta no es de ninguna manera una lista exhaustiva de
los compromisos fundamentales de la creencia cristiana. En su lugar, se trata
de una lista de los compromisos fundamentales pertinentes.
(1) El Dios trino creó el universo ex nihilo y lo sostiene continuamente en
existencia momento a momento. El universo entero depende para su
existencia de la voluntad de Dios. Como mínimo, Dios guía
providencialmente a la historia hacia su meta final de alguna manera general
mediada. La meta final de la creación es la reconciliación de todas las cosas
con Dios (Colosenses 1:15-20). La manera en que Dios guía
providencialmente la historia va a ser parte de las hipótesis auxiliares de
uno, pero el núcleo duro contendrá la hipótesis de que el Dios trino actúa de
alguna manera providencial mientras sostiene la creación en la existencia.
(2) El núcleo duro también incluirá la afirmación de que Dios está
directamente involucrado en la historia a través de actos reveladores
personales. Como explica Bruce Ware, "Distintivo del testimonio bíblico de
Dios por encima y en contra tanto del Cercano Oriente como del Griego
 8
Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God, 2nd Edition (Nueva York: Oxford University
Press, 2004), chs. 2-4.
4Introducción
es esta convicción fundamental de que el único y único Dios verdadero se ha
involucrado personalmente en todos los niveles de su orden creado. "9 Bruce
C. Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terence E. Fretheim y David L. Petersen
están de acuerdo.
El Dios de los primeros capítulos del Génesis es retratado como un Dios
relacional. Básicamente, Dios está presente y activo en el mundo, entra en una
relación de integridad con el mundo, y lo hace de tal manera que tanto el
mundo como Dios se ven afectados por esa interacción. Dios ha escogido no
permanecer alejado de la creación sino ser atrapado con las criaturas al moverse
hacia los propósitos divinos para el mundo. 10
La manera en que uno entiende la participación de Dios en la historia y en
la acción divina será parte de sus hipótesis auxiliares. Estos actos pueden
ser entendidos como inter-venciones o violaciones de las leyes de la
naturaleza. O podrían ser entendidos de una manera no intervencionista. 11 De
cualquier manera, el cristiano está comprometido con la afirmación de que
Dios actúa de maneras especiales en la historia. Por ejemplo, Dios provocó
el éxodo de los israelitas. Esta historia involucra a Dios actuando de
maneras especiales en los tiempos de specific, y cualquier programa de
investigación cristiano tendrá que ser capaz de dar cuenta de esta época de la
historia y de muchas otras similares.
(3) El núcleo duro de cualquier programa de investigación cristiano
también incluirá un relato de los pactos. El Dios de la Biblia es un Dios que
establece libremente pactos con las personas humanas. Dios no estaba bajo
ninguna obligación de entrar en un pacto con Abram, sino que estableció
libremente un pacto con Abram. Al hacerlo, Dios asumió una serie de
obligaciones. 12 Hizo promesas a Abram y a sus descendientes. Dios
prometió bendecir al mundo entero a través de los discípulos de Abram.
Hay varias maneras de entender los pactos, y hay debates sobre si ciertos
pactos son condicionales, incondicionales, eternos o limitados
temporalmente. Éstas serán parte de las hipótesis auxiliares, pero el
compromiso con un Dios de alianza es una hipótesis central.
(4) Otra hipótesis fundamental es la doctrina de la encarnación. La
segunda Persona de la Trinidad, Dios el Hijo, se encarnó en un momento
particular de la historia. Admito que la frase "se encarnó" es cuestionable

9
Bruce Ware, "A Modified Doctrina Calvinista de Dios", en eds. Bruce Ware, Perspectivas
sobre la doctrina de Dios: 4 Views (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing, 2008), 81.
10
Bruce C. Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terence E. Fretheim y David L. Petersen, A
Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1999), 42.
11
Nancey Murphy, "Acción divina en el orden natural: Buridan's Ass y Schrodinger's
Cat," en eds. Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, y Arthur Peacocke, Chaos and
Complexity: Scientific Perspectivas sobre la acción divina (Notre Dame, IN: Vatican Press,
1995). También, Robert John Russell, "Quantum Physics and the Theology of Non-
Interventionist Objective Divine Action," en eds. Philip Clayton y Zachary Simpson, The
Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science (Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
12
Muchos pensadores como Marilyn McCord Adams negarán que Dios tiene obligaciones.
No soy
persuadido de que esto es compatible con un Dios que hace promesas de pacto. Adams, Cristo
y los horrores: The Coherence of Christology (Nueva York: Cambridge University Press,
2006), 43.
 Introducción5
rogando. Suena como si hubiera un estado de cosas más temprano donde
Dios no está encarnado, y luego un estado de cosas más tardío donde Dios
está encarnado. De hecho, así es como la Patrística explica la encarnación y
la preexistencia del Hijo. Un ejemplo lo encontramos en Hilary de Poitiers,
De Trinitate 9.6. "Hay una distinción entre los tres estados: Dios, antes de su
vida humana; luego Dios y el hombre; y después Dios y el hombre en su
totalidad. "Afirmar las cosas de esta manera hace que la encarnación de un
Dios eterno parezca imposible desde el principio. Dios no puede ser
atemporal ya que tiene momentos temporales -antes y después- en su vida.
Sería mejor afirmar la doctrina de la encarnación de una manera que no
favorezca automáticamente la temporalidad divina. La cuestión de si esto es
posible o no se tratará en el capítulo 7. Por ahora es sufficient para señalar
que cualquier programa de investigación cristiana incluirá la doctrina de la
encarnación. Existen varios modelos de la encarnación que formarán parte
de las hipótesis auxiliares. Por ejemplo, se podría sostener una cristología
compuesta de tres partes. Aquí es donde la encarnación involucra a la
segunda Persona divina asumiendo un alma y un cuerpo humanos. Tal vez
se podría añadir que Cristo tenía una voluntad divina y una voluntad
humana. Alguien más podría negar que Cristo tenía dos voluntades, o
incluso que Cristo tenía dos mentes y argumentar que tal visión se parece al
nestorianismo. 13 En cambio, se postulará que Dios el Hijo tomó un cuerpo
humano y limitó el ejercicio de sus poderes de tal manera que constituye una
persona humana. De cualquier manera, el núcleo duro incluirá una doctrina
de la encarnación.
La encarnación tendrá varias implicaciones para el núcleo duro. Primero,
la encarnación reaffirms lo que Dios declaró al principio de la creación: es
muy bueno. El mundo material no es intrínsecamente malo o deficient.
Segundo, la creación puede revelar y revela la naturaleza divina. No es
como si el mundo fuera inherentemente diametralmente opuesto al ser
mismo de Dios. Tercero, Dios puede revelarse a sí mismo en la historia, en
el tiempo. El tiempo tampoco es diametralmente opuesto al ser mismo de
Dios.
(5) Una doctrina del Espíritu Santo también será incluida. Como todo lo
demás, hay muchas maneras de explicar el papel económico del Espíritu
Santo. Una afirmación mínima incluirá algo acerca de que el Espíritu
Santo ha sido derramado en toda flesh (Hechos 2), o que "el amor de Dios
ha sido derramado en nuestros corazones a través del Espíritu Santo"
(Romanos 5:5). El Espíritu Santo está trabajando activamente en la vida de
cada persona para lograr la reconciliación de todas las cosas con Dios. El
Espíritu Santo no puede actuar en la vida de alguien hasta que esa persona
exista. Una vez que ella existe, el Espíritu Santo obrará de manera particular
en su vida para llevarla a la salvación y al gozo eterno. Cualquier programa
de investigación cristiano debe ser capaz de dar cuenta de esto.

13
Colin Gunton, Ser y actuar: Towards a Theology of the Divine Attributes (Londres: SCM
Press, 2002), 29.
6Introducción
(6) El núcleo duro cristiano debe incluir un relato del lenguaje religioso
que sea compatible con el hecho de que Dios se nos ha revelado a sí mismo
de manera significativa, y que las personas humanas pueden participar en un
discurso significativo acerca de Dios. El Dios de la Biblia es un Dios que se
nos revela. Él es un Dios que quiere que lo conozcamos íntimamente. Él nos
llama a orar a Él, a adorarlo y a interactuar con Él. Esto implica ser capaz de
estar en relaciones reales con Dios y ser capaz de referirse a Dios con
precisión. No significa que comprenderemos plenamente a Dios, pero sí que
podemos tener algún conocimiento de Dios. El acto divino de revelación a
través de los profetas y finalmente a través de Cristo implica que podemos
tener conocimiento de Dios. Si no pudiéramos tener ningún conocimiento de
Dios, sería inútil que Dios tratara de revelarse a nosotros. Nos dejaría
diciendo: "Jesús, sé que se supone que eres la representación exacta de Dios,
la plenitud de la deidad y todo eso, pero..." El "pero" aquí es intolerable al
evangelio.
Esto implica que la doctrina de la inefabilidad, o incognoscibilidad, de
Dios es falsa. Algunos pueden ver esto como una desviación de la tradición
cristiana, pero yo lo veo como una partida feliz, algo que vale la pena
celebrar. Como el apóstol Pablo aclara, los cristianos no adoran a un Dios
desconocido. En cambio, adoran a un Dios que se ha dado a conocer
(Hechos 17).
La inefabilidad es un cumplido metafísico mal juzgado dado a Dios. Es
una piedad fuera de lugar que intenta expresar la trascendencia de Dios
observando los límites del lenguaje y la razón humanos, pero que al final cae
en el sinsentido porque enseña que "Dios es desconocido e incognoscible".
"14
Como explica Colin Gunton, "lo que podría parecer una modestia humana
apropiada antes de que lo divino pueda convertirse en la blasfemia suprema
de negar la revelación. "15 Decir que Dios es desconocido e incognoscible es
decir que Dios no se ha revelado, y no puede revelarse. Esto va en contra del
corazón de la fe cristiana.
En mi opinión, ningún teólogo cristiano cree realmente en la doctrina de
la inefabilidad. Es algo a lo que los teólogos cristianos pueden referirse de
boquilla, pero no es algo que uno pueda creer realmente. 16 Hay dos razones
para pensar que esto es cierto. El first se debe en parte al hecho de que la
doctrina es auto-referencialmente incoherente. Ni siquiera se puede afirmar
de manera significativa. 17 Decir que Dios es incognoscible es saber algo de
Dios. Uno puede

14
Stephen R. Holmes, The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History
and Modernity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 117.
15
Gunton, Being and Act, 36.
16
Dale Tuggy, "The Unfinished Business of Trinitarian Theorizing," Estudios Religiosos 39
(2003), 176.
17
John Hick, "Ineffability", Religious Studies 36, 2000. Keith Yandell, "La inefabilidad
Tema", en International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4 (1975). También, Yandell, The
Epistemology of Religious Experience (Nueva York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), cap.
3.
R. T. Mullins, "An Analytic Response to Stephen R. Holmes, with a Special Treatment of His
Doctrine of Divine Simplicity," en eds. Tom Nobel y Jason Sexton, La Doctrina de la
Santísima Trinidad Revisitada: Ensayos en respuesta a Stephen R. Holmes (Londres:
Paternoster, 2015).
 Introducción7
mantener fácilmente los límites de la razón y el lenguaje humanos para
capturar a Dios sin aferrarse a algo que es contradictorio como la
inefabilidad. Uno puede decir que Dios no puede ser plenamente
comprendido por las mentes humanas, pero que los humanos pueden tener
algún conocimiento de Dios. Esto puede ser principal sin tener que decir que
Dios es inefable, incognoscible e incomprensible. 18 Estas últimas
afirmaciones no pueden formularse sin entrar en contradicción.
El intento de Agustín es tan bueno como cualquier otro de afirmar la
doctrina de la ineficacia, y se ve obligado a admitir que implica una
contradicción.
Si he dicho algo[sobre Dios], no es lo que deseaba decir. ¿Cómo puedo saber
esto, excepto por el hecho de que Dios es indecible? Pero lo que he dicho, si
hubiera sido incalificable, no podría haber sido dicho. Por lo tanto, Dios ni
siquiera debe ser llamado "indecible", porque decir esto es hablar de Él. Así
surge una curiosa contradicción de palabras, porque si lo indecible es de lo que
no se puede hablar, no es indecible si se puede llamar indecible. Y esta
oposición de palabras debe ser evitada más bien por el silencio que por la
palabra. Y sin embargo Dios, aunque nada digno de Su grandeza puede ser
dicho de Él, ha condescendido a aceptar la adoración de la boca de los
hombres, y nos ha deseado a través del medio de nuestras propias palabras para
regocijarnos en Su alabanza. 19
Si uno observa que una posición implica una contradicción, no puede
sostenerla racionalmente. No tengo en mente contradicciones aparentes
como la luz que a veces actúa como una partícula y otras veces como una
onda. Lo que tengo en mente es una contradicción estricta como hablable o
incalificable. Nadie puede creerlo. La segunda razón para pensar que ningún
teólogo cristiano cree realmente en la doctrina de la inefabilidad se deriva
del simple hecho de que cada uno de los principales teólogos cristianos la ha
ignorado completamente en la práctica. Agustín, Gregorio de Nisa, Juan de
Damasco y Pseudo-Dionisio son grandes ejemplos de personas que hablan
de boquilla sobre la inefabilidad, y luego escriben grandes tratados sobre la
naturaleza divina. 20 Si realmente pensaran que Dios es inefable, no
continuarían hablando de cómo es Dios con tanta extensión. Tampoco

18
La reciente defensa de Jonathan D. Jacobs de la inefabilidad me parece incoherente. Su
defensa de la inefabilidad afirma que "Toda proposición verdadera sobre cómo Dios es
intrínsecamente no es fundamental. No hay proposiciones verdaderas y fundamentales sobre
cómo Dios es intrínsecamente": Jacobs, "El Dios Inefable, Inconcebible e Incomprensible:
Fundamentality and Apo- phatic Theology," en ed. Jonathan L. Kvanvig, Oxford Studies in
Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), vol. 6, 165. Jacobs sostiene
que la inefabilidad se basa en la naturaleza de Dios, y no en los límites de la mente humana.
Así que parece que la inefabilidad es una declaración de cómo Dios es intrínsecamente. Pero si
ese es el caso, entonces no es fundamentalmente cierto decir que Dios es inefable. Así que la
doctrina es una vez más incoherente. Además, como Jacobs hace explícito, esta doctrina
implica que Dios no es fundamentalmente, intrínsecamente trino. Esto es antitético a la
teología cristiana.
19
Agustín, Sobre la doctrina cristiana I.6.
20
Un ejemplo contemporáneo es David B. Burrell, Knowing the Unknowable God (Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986).
8Introducción
defienden tan firmemente la doctrina de la Trinidad si Dios fuera
verdaderamente inefable. Si Dios fuera verdaderamente inefable, nadie
podría saber que Dios es trino. Es hora de deshacerse de la inefabilidad para
tener un adecuado relato del lenguaje religioso.
¿En qué consiste un relato adecuado del lenguaje religioso? Un relato
adecuado del lenguaje religioso incluirá el poder hacer afirmaciones literales
y determinadas acerca de Dios. 21 Esto no excluye hacer afirmaciones
indeterminadas acerca de Dios, ni excluir el uso de metáforas, analogías,
símiles, hipérboles y todas las grandes riquezas del lenguaje humano para
hablar de Dios. 22 Las declaraciones metafóricas acerca de Dios pueden
ofrecer una profunda comprensión cognitiva y emocional de la naturaleza
divina. Sin embargo, para hacer declaraciones metafóricas acerca de Dios
tales como "Dios es mi roca", uno necesitará tener una afirmación literal
subyacente acerca de Dios a la que la metáfora está apuntando. 23 Las
metáforas hablan de algo, transmiten una verdad literal, así que algunas
metáforas son aptas o no para hablar de Dios. 24 Para saber qué metáforas
son aptas para hablar de Dios, es necesario conocer las declaraciones
literales sobre Dios. Por ejemplo, considere dos metáforas: "Dios es un
terrorista" y "Dios es un pastor. "¿Qué metáfora es apta para hablar de Dios?
Depende de las propiedades determinadas que Dios tenga. Sin saber esto no
tenemos forma de discernir qué metáfora es apta. Si Dios es perfectamente
bueno, entonces cualquier metáfora que sugiera lo contrario no sería
apropiada. La idoneidad de la metáfora depende de las propiedades
determinadas que Dios posee. La habilidad del teólogo cristiano para usar
metáforas aptas depende de tener algún conocimiento de estas propiedades
determinadas.
¿Qué es una propiedad determinada? Todo lo que existe tiene por lo
menos una propiedad que es esencial para él, una propiedad que lo convierte
en el tipo de cosa que es. Algunas propiedades son determinadas mientras
que otras son indeterminadas. 25 Las propiedades determinadas son capturadas
por predicados que ofrecen descripciones precisas de lo que es el sujeto. Por
ejemplo, pesar 8 libras es una propiedad determinada de una bola de boliche
en particular. Las propiedades indeterminadas son capturadas por
predicados que ofrecen descripciones más vagas de un sujeto que dependen
de predicados determinados. Una bola de boliche que pesa 8 libras tendrá
varias propiedades indeterminadas como tener peso, tener masa y estar
localizada espacialmente. Según Keith Yandell, "no se puede tener un
concepto indeterminado sin tener también más

21
William P. Alston, "Religious Language", en eds. William J. Wainwright, The Oxford
Handbook of Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 238.
22
David K. Clark, Conocer y amar a Dios: Method for Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway
Books, 2003), cap. 12.
23
Michael Scott, Religious Language (Nueva York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), cap. 13.
24
Terence E. Fretheim, El sufrimiento de Dios: Una perspectiva del Antiguo Testamento
(Filadelfia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984), 5-12.
25
Yandell, The Epistemology of Religious Experience, 86.
 Introducción9
determinado concepto que cae dentro de él. "26 Uno no podría saber que
una bola de boliche tiene peso sin saber que tiene extensión espacial.
Con respecto al lenguaje religioso, un relato cristiano apropiado incluirá
todo esto. Por ejemplo, el cristiano debe ser capaz de decir que Dios es trino.
Decir que Dios es trino es una descripción literal y determinada de Dios. Un
cristiano también necesitará ser capaz de decir que Dios es el Creador,
Redentor y Señor. Si un programa de investigación no puede acomodar tales
cosas, no puede ser considerado cristiano.
La manera de articular el lenguaje religioso variará, pero la meta final es
tener una descripción significativa del Dios que nos creó, nos sostiene y
redime. Una posible explicación del lenguaje religioso es la vía triplex. Este
es el método utilizado por Pseudo-Dionisio en los Nombres Divinos e
involucra un proceso de tres pasos para hacer determinaciones acerca de
Dios. 27 El paso de first en la via triplex es la via positiva. En este paso se
busca una perfección o atributo comunicable que Dios y las criaturas tienen
en común como bondad. Así lo predicamos positivamente de Dios al decir
que "Dios es bueno". "Sin embargo, dicen los pensadores dionisíacos, Dios
no es bueno de la misma manera que nosotros somos buenos porque
participamos en la bondad, y seguramente Dios no participa en la bondad (es
decir, Su bondad no depende de algo externo a Él mismo). Así, en el
segundo paso quitamos una comprensión particular de la bondad de Dios, es
decir, de la bondad participada. Digo "eliminar" y no "negar" porque
Pseudo-Dionisio usa típicamente la aferesis que significa "eliminación" en
lugar de la aferesis que significa "negación". "28 Así que el segundo paso,
comúnmente llamado la via negativa, contrasta la manera en que Dios y las
criaturas tienen varias propiedades sin negar los predicados más simples de
Dios. Lo que nos lleva al tercer paso: la via causalitatis. En este paso un
Dionisíaco affirm que Dios tiene bondad de alguna manera sobreabundante
porque Él es la causa o fuente de toda bondad. Esto nos lleva a una
afirmación determinada acerca de Dios, pero no es la única manera de
desarrollar un relato del lenguaje religioso.
Muchos pensadores anteriores y posteriores a la Baja Edad Media
sostenían una doctrina de univocidad. Aquí es donde se dicen predicados
como el bien y el ser de Dios y de las criaturas en el mismo sentido. Otros
seguirán a Tomás de Aquino y sostendrán que el bien está siendo usado en
un sentido analógico. Aquí es donde el bien cuando se predica de Dios y de
las criaturas tiene un sentido similar y relevante, pero el predicado no se usa
unívocamente. 29 La teoría que uno sostiene será parte de su auxiliar

26
Yandell, The Epistemology of Religious Experience, 87.
27 El
método de Pseudo-Dionisio es a menudo abusado y mal utilizado en ciertos círculos
dentro de la teología contemporánea. Véase Timothy Knepper, "Three Misuses of Dionysius
for Comparative The- ology," Religious Studies 45 (2009).
28
Knepper, "Three Misuses of Dionysius for Comparative Theology", 209.
29
Ver E. Jennifer Shortwort, "Medieval Theories of Analogy", Stanford Encyclopedia of
Phil- osophy, <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analogy-medieval/#6> (14 de mayo de 2011). También,
Katherin Rogers, Perfect Being Theology (Edimburgo: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 17.
Guillermo
10Introducción
hipótesis, pero un relato del lenguaje religioso que dé descripciones
significativas y determinadas de Dios será parte del núcleo duro de cualquier
programa de investigación cristiano.
(7) Finalmente, cualquier programa de investigación cristiana sostendrá
que Dios no puede actualizar un mundo que está fundamentalmente en
desacuerdo con lo que Él es. Dios no puede actualizar un estado de cosas
que no es composible. Por ejemplo, cuando uno está trabajando en una
teodicea, ella argumenta que Dios no puede actualizar un mundo donde el
mal tiene la última palabra. Dios es necesariamente perfectamente bueno. Él
no puede actualizar un mundo que está sobre el mal en su totalidad porque
esto estaría en desacuerdo con lo que Dios es. Las Escrituras parecen
bastante claras en este punto. La Biblia retrata a un Dios que se enfrenta
radicalmente al mal y promete librar al mundo del mal.
Con respecto al tema de este libro, lo que debe entenderse es que el Dios
cristiano ha creado el universo temporal con la intención de tener una
relación íntima y amorosa con sus criaturas temporales. Él ha creado un
universo con el que puede interactuar. 30 Si un programa de investigación en
particular no puede dar cuenta de las acciones de Dios en la creación, no
puede ser considerado un programa de investigación cristiano.

EL PROGRAMA DIVINO DE INVESTIGACIÓN ATEMPORAL

Ahora que tenemos sobre la mesa el programa genérico de investigación

cristiana de núcleo duro, es el momento de analizar el programa de
investigación en particular que estamos considerando. La defensora de la
intemporalidad divina tendrá que incluir todo lo anterior en su núcleo duro,
pero también incluirá las siguientes cuatro hipótesis en su núcleo duro:
intemporalidad divina, simplicidad, fuerte inmutabilidad y fuerte
impasibilidad. Estas doctrinas se examinarán detenidamente en los capítulos
siguientes. Por ahora voy a ofrecer un breve definition de cada uno de ellos.
Decir que Dios es eterno es decir que existe sin principio, sin fin, sin
sucesión o momentos en su vida, y sin extensión temporal o ubicación. La
simplicidad divina es la tesis de que Dios carece de toda composición física
y metafísica. Dios no tiene partes ni diversidad en su esencia. Una fuerte
doctrina de inmutabilidad afirma que Dios no sufre ningún tipo de cambio.
De otra manera, Dios no sería eterno. Típicamente esto se toma como que
Dios no puede cambiar con respecto a las propiedades intrínsecas y
extrínsecas. Por supuesto, estrictamente hablando, un Dios sencillo no tiene
propiedades. Esto está estrechamente relacionado con una fuerte doctrina de
impasibilidad por la cual Dios no puede sufrir, ni ser afectado por

E. Mann, "Duns Scotus on Natural and Supernatural Knowledge of God," en ed. Thomas
Williams, The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003). Clark, Conocer y amar a Dios, cap. 12.
30
Fretheim, El sufrimiento de Dios, cap. 3.
 Introducción11
nada fuera de sí mismo. Dios es un gozo perfecto, y nada fuera de sí
mismo puede disminuir ese gozo, ni afectarlo de ninguna manera, forma o
manera.
Estas son las hipótesis centrales de este programa de investigación. No
están abiertos a revisión. Si se revisara cualquiera de estas hipótesis, estaría
adoptando un nuevo programa de investigación. Este es el programa de
investigación que examinaré en este libro. Sin embargo, este programa de
investigación puede tener varios conjuntos diferentes de hipótesis auxiliares,
por lo que necesitaré examinar también estas variantes. ¿Cuáles son las
hipótesis auxiliares que necesitan ser examinadas? Hay tres en las que me
centraré principalmente en esta tesis.
Para empezar, se necesita una teoría del tiempo. ¿Qué es el tiempo? Esta
cuestión se tratará en el capítulo 2. Por ahora, es necesario hacer algunas
observaciones preliminares. Hay varias teorías del tiempo que el defensor de
la intemporalidad divina puede adoptar. Como veremos, varios pensadores
cristianos argumentan que ciertas teorías del tiempo son incompatibles con
la intemporalidad divina. Un programa de investigación exitoso se aferrará a
una teoría del tiempo que es compatible con el núcleo duro de la
intemporalidad divina. Una manera segura y rápida de tener un programa de
investigación sin éxito es no articular una teoría del tiempo. A lo largo de
este libro interactuaré con un grupo diverso de pensadores cristianos. Mis
interlocutores no agotan el número de personas que han intervenido en este
tema. Sin embargo, creo que los interlocutores que he elegido son los
mejores representantes de la intemporalidad divina. He excluido
intencionalmente del diálogo a varios pensadores que han intervenido en
este tema porque han fracasado, y en algunos casos se han negado, a
articular una teoría del tiempo. Una de mis suposiciones de trabajo es la
siguiente: ningún programa de investigación que busque explicar la relación
de Dios con el tiempo puede esperar tener éxito sin articular una teoría
coherente del tiempo.
La segunda hipótesis auxiliar relevante es la acción divina. Este ha sido
un tema para los defensores de la intemporalidad divina en el pasado. Parte
del núcleo duro es que Dios actúa en el tiempo de varias maneras. Parece
que si Dios actúa a tiempo, debe ser temporal. Lo que se necesita es un
modelo de acción divina donde un Dios eterno pueda interactuar con una
creación temporal. Esta es una tarea difícil.
La tercera hipótesis auxiliar relevante que examinaré en este proyecto es
la encarnación. Hay varios modelos de la encarnación, así que tal vez hay un
modelo donde un Dios eterno puede encarnarse. Esto implicaría que la
humanidad del Hijo tuviera temporalidad, mientras que la divinidad del Hijo
permanece atemporal.

PROBAR EL PROGRAMA DE INVESTIGACIÓN

Hay dos maneras básicas de probar el programa divino de investigación

atemporal. El first es la prueba de la coherencia interna. Esto implica
examinar cómo el núcleo duro
12Introducción
e hipótesis auxiliares fit juntos, cómo explican los datos relevantes, y cómo
lo hacen fit con otras creencias de fondo. Si el programa de investigación es
incoherente, no puede explicar coherentemente los datos relevantes y no es
coherente con nuestras creencias de fondo, no es un programa de
investigación exitoso. Por ejemplo, si una versión de la intemporalidad
divina implica que Dios no puede ser el creador del mundo, encarnarse, o
que las personas humanas no pueden referirse a Dios en absoluto, no tiene
éxito. Un programa de investigación exitoso debe ser coherente
internamente para ser considerado un competidor viable.
Si un programa de investigación puede pasar la prueba de first, puede
pasar a la segunda prueba. La segunda prueba consiste en examinar los
argumentos y las pruebas a favor y en contra. Esto implicará mirar los
argumentos a favor de la intemporalidad divina - ¿hay alguna buena razón
para pensar que Dios es intemporal? La segunda prueba consistirá también
en examinar las pruebas de las hipótesis auxiliares. Es el argumento de
muchos hoy en día que la intemporalidad divina sólo es compatible con una
teoría del tiempo llamada eternidad. Una estrategia común entre los divinos
temporeros es argumentar que el eterno es falso. Puesto que la
intemporalidad divina necesita el eterno, cae con el eterno. Un programa
exitoso de investigación cristiana comprometido con la intemporalidad
divina necesitará ofrecer razones para pensar que Dios es intemporal, así
como defender la verdad de su teoría particular del tiempo.
Mi estrategia a lo largo de este trabajo es ver si el programa divino de
investigación atemporal puede pasar la prueba de first Examinaré la
coherencia interna de varios modelos y argumentaré que la intemporalidad
divina no es compatible con la ontología presentista del tiempo. A diferencia
de otros temporalistas, también argumentaré que el eterno no es compatible
con la intemporalidad divina. La idea central de mi libro es que no hay
programas de investigación cristianos exitosos que promuevan la
intemporalidad divina porque la intemporalidad divina no es compatible con
ninguna teoría existente del tiempo. Tal vez otros serán próximos como
discusiones dentro de la filosofía del progreso del tiempo, pero a partir de
ahora las perspectivas de la intemporalidad divina parecen sombrías con
respecto a la coherencia interna.
 2

¿Qué es el tiempo?

Entre estos tenemos una causa justa para dar cuenta del TIEMPO; ya
que si nos atenemos al uso popular y familiar de la palabra, nada puede
ser más fácil de entender: pero si nos extendemos al extranjero a esos
vastos Desiertos Desiertos, las Paráfrasis Dialécticas de los Filósofos de
allí, y cazamos un adecuado Definition, venciendo a su peculiar Género,
y a la Diferencia esencial; nada puede ser más oscuro y controversial.
-Pierre Gassendi1
En este capítulo la discusión se centrará en la metafísica y la ontología del
tiempo. Hay múltiples cuestiones y teorías que deben ser puestas sobre la
mesa y resueltas para poder tratar adecuadamente la cuestión de la relación
de Dios con el tiempo. Sin embargo, debo defender mi enfoque. Algunos
teólogos y filósofos contemporáneos se preguntarán si es apropiado o no
iniciar una discusión sobre la relación de Dios con el tiempo con un examen
de la naturaleza del tiempo. Atemporalistas como Katherin Rogers y T. J.
Mawson argumentarán que uno debe comenzar con la doctrina de Dios y
permitir que eso determine su metafísica a tiempo. Otros atemporalistas
como Eleonore Stump, Norman Kretzmann y Brian Leftow han tratado de
permanecer agnósticos en muchos temas relacionados con la metafísica del
tiempo mientras articulan sus doctrinas de la eternidad divina. Entonces,
¿por qué empezar con la metafísica del tiempo en lugar de profundizar
directamente en la eternidad?
La razón es muy simple. No tiene sentido preguntar cuál es la relación de
Dios con x si uno no tiene una pista de lo que es x de hecho. La respuesta
será diferente dependiendo del contenido de x. La respuesta a "¿Cuál es la
relación de Dios con las entidades matemáticas? "será diferente de "¿Cuál es
la relación de Dios con una sandía? "La pregunta "¿Cuál es la relación de
Dios con los pecadores? "recibiría una respuesta diferente a "¿Cuál es la
relación de Dios con los redimidos? "Saber qué es x tiene un impacto en el
trabajo que se debe hacer. No es aconsejable ignorar las cuestiones
pertinentes que intervienen en un proyecto determinado. Sólo

1
Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana, o, A Fabrick of Science Natural, Upon the
Hypothesis of Atoms founded by Epicurus, Repaired by Petrus Gassendus, Augmented by
Walter Charleton (Londres: Tho. Newcomb, 1654), 72.
14¿Qué es el tiempo?
Imagínese a un teólogo trabajando en la doctrina de la expiación mientras
trata de permanecer agnóstico sobre lo que es el predicamento humano.
El teólogo no hará ningún progreso. En tales casos, el agnosticismo es un
obstáculo, si no un absurdo.
La situación es la misma con Dios y el tiempo. Si el proyecto está
tratando de discernir la relación de Dios con el tiempo, uno no puede
progresar a menos que la doctrina de Dios y la metafísica del tiempo sean
discutidas. El tema que se desea discutir en first puede parecer una cuestión
de gustos, pero esto es un error. Es necesario tratar con el tiempo antes de
preguntarse si Dios es temporal o atemporal. Si uno no sabe lo que es el
tiempo, no puede decir con sentido que Dios es eterno. Decir que Dios es
eterno o atemporal es negar a Dios todos y cada uno de los aspectos del
tiempo. Si uno no sabe lo que es el tiempo, no puede negarlo de Dios. Es
intelectualmente irresponsable -si no imposible- decir que Dios es eterno
sin que first tenga alguna idea de lo que es el tiempo. El concepto de
intemporalidad depende del concepto de tiempo, por lo que el tiempo debe
ser discutido en first

LA METAFÍSICA DEL TIEMPO

Teorías Relacionales y Absolutas del Tiempo

¿Qué es el tiempo? Se podría decir que el tiempo es lo que usamos para

medir el cambio. 2 Si hay un cambio hay un tiempo. O se podría decir que si
hay un cambio hay un tiempo, pero sostenemos que el tiempo no es idéntico
al cambio. Quizás el tiempo podría existir sin cambios. 3 Hay desacuerdo
sobre si el tiempo puede existir o no sin cambios, pero todos están de
acuerdo en que si hay un cambio hay un tiempo. (Es decir, a menos que uno
sea un anti-realista sobre el tiempo.)
En una visión relacional del tiempo, el tiempo existe si y sólo si existe el
cambio. Si hay un cambio hay un tiempo. Si no ocurriera ningún cambio,
entonces el tiempo nunca ocurriría. Lo que hay que entender es que
cualquier tipo de cambio hará el trabajo, ya sea intrínseco o extrínseco. 4 De
los cambios más aburridos y mundanos

2
Esta es la afirmación de Aristóteles. Para más información, véase E. J. Lowe, A Survey of
Metaphysics (Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 310 y ss.
3
Robin Le Poidevin, "Time Without Change (In Three Steps)", American Philosophical
Quarterly 47 (2010).
4
Para más información sobre la distinción entre cambio intrínseco y extrínseco, véase Ross P.
Cameron,
"Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties", en eds. Robin Le Poidevin, Peter Simons, Andrew McGo-
nigal y Ross P. Cameron, The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics (Nueva York: Routledge,
2009).
 ¿Qué es el tiempo? 15
a los cambios más emocionantes y dramáticos, si hay un cambio hay un
tiempo. Este punto de vista es bastante intuitivo, y es difícil que haya
objeciones serias al mismo. La razón por la que uno podría negarlo es que
ella finds es más intuitiva que el tiempo puede existir sin cambios. En una
visión absoluta del tiempo, el tiempo puede existir sin cambios ni
movimientos.
La visión relacional del tiempo dominó en la mayor parte del tendón de
Cristo occidental. Sin embargo, se pueden encontrar algunos disidentes,
como la filósofa del siglo XIV Nicole Oresme. A medida que el
escolasticismo llegaba a su fin y comenzaba la Reforma, se observa un
disenso más generalizado. La vieja filosofía aristotélica de la ciencia
comenzó a dar paso a una nueva revolución scientific Varios teólogos,
filósofos y científicos comenzaron a argumentar que el tiempo podía existir
sin cambios, o al menos sin el movimiento de los cuerpos celestes. Por
ejemplo, un experimento de pensamiento común durante este período de
tiempo imagina que Dios podría pausar los movimientos de los cielos si
quisiera, y luego despausarlos. El argumento es que el tiempo continuaría
durante la pausa. 5 Tales especulaciones llevaron a algunos a rechazar la
teoría relacional del tiempo. Esto también llevó a varios pensadores como
Nicole Oresme, Pierre Gassendi, Isaac Newton y Samuel Clarke a equiparar
la inmensidad y la eternidad de Dios con el espacio y el tiempo absolutos.
Este movimiento, sin embargo, llevó a un flight lejos de la intemporalidad
divina hacia la temporalidad divina. 6 Esto también se debió al
reconocimiento de que Dios no sólo sostiene causalmente al universo en
existencia, sino que las leyes de la naturaleza son una manifestación de la
operación continua de Dios en la creación. 7 Estos pensadores no veían la
temporalidad divina como un problema para la teología. De hecho, el
pensamiento de Newton de equiparar la inmensidad y la eternidad de Dios
con el espacio y el tiempo absolutos estaba más cerca de la concepción
bíblica de Dios. A menudo invocaba Hechos 17:28, "en él vivimos, nos
movemos y tenemos nuestro ser. ”8
Leibniz, sin embargo, no estuvo de acuerdo. Pensó que las ideas de
Newton eran perjudiciales para la religión, y lo dio a conocer en una carta,
que finalmente desencadenó el

5
Nicole Oresme y Pierre Gassendi ofrecen este tipo de argumentos centrándose en la
historia de Dios deteniendo el sol en Josué 10. Oresme, Le Livre du Ciel et du Monde
(Londres: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1968), 375-7. Gassendi, Physiologia, 76.
6
Nicole Oresme abraza una teoría absoluta del tiempo y del espacio, pero sigue aferrándose
a la intemporalidad divina. Ver Nicole Oresme and the Medieval Geometry of Qualities and
Motions (Londres: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1968) trans. Marshall Clagett, 299.
También en Le Livre, 165, donde dice que Dios "es sin principio ni fin y sin sucesión, pero es
a la vez completo en su conjunto". ”
7
Por ejemplo, John Tillotson, The Remaining Discourses on the Attributes of God (Londres:
Rofe y Crown, 1700), 355-60. Los socinianos parecen haber rechazado también la
intemporalidad divina. El Catecismo Racoviano dice que la eternidad de Dios consiste sólo en
existir sin principio y sin fin. Faustus Socinus, Valentin Smalcius, Hieronim Moskorzewski y
Johannes Volker, The Racovian Catechisme (Amsteredam: Brooer Janz, 1652), 16.
8
Para una discusión al respecto, véase Geoffrey Gorham, "God and the Natural World in
the Seventeenth Century: Space, Time, and Causality", Philosophy Compass 4 (2009), 861-70.
Véase también Robert Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes: 1274-1689 (Londres: Oxford University
Press, 2011), cap. 18.
16¿Qué es el tiempo?
famosa correspondencia entre Leibniz y Clarke. 9 Parte de su debate giró en
torno a las teorías relacionales y absolutas del tiempo. Una cuestión que
surgió de esta correspondencia fue cómo entender el tiempo absoluto.
Para Newton, tiempo absoluto flows de la existencia necesaria y eterna de
Dios. El tiempo absoluto siempre existe porque Dios siempre existe. 10 No es
que el tiempo sea una propiedad o un atributo de Dios, sino que
necesariamente existe a causa de Dios. En algunos escritos Samuel Clarke
parece sostener que el tiempo absoluto es un atributo de Dios. Sin embargo,
en varias cartas intenta dejar clara su posición afirmando que el tiempo
absoluto, o la eternidad, es un modo de existencia. 11 En nuestros días, el
tiempo absoluto se ha articulado de varias maneras en lo que se refiere a
Dios. Por ejemplo, J. R. Lucas argumenta que el tiempo y el cambio no
están vinculados analíticamente. "Incluso cuando no sucede nada, tenemos
un sentido subjetivo del paso del tiempo, y eso es suficiente para mostrar
que los conceptos no sólo son distintos, sino que pueden ser aplicados de
manera diferente en alguna situación concebible. "Al igual que los
anteriores, Lucas sostiene que el tiempo absoluto depende del Dios personal.
El tiempo existe porque Dios existe. Para él, "negar que Dios es temporal es
negar que es personal en cualquier sentido en el que entendemos la
personalidad. Ser persona es ser capaz de ser consciente, y ser consciente es
ser consciente del paso del tiempo. "”12
Alan Padgett ha ofrecido una articulación ligeramente diferente del
tiempo absoluto que recuerda la visión de Isaac Barrow. 13 Para él, "el
tiempo es la dimensión de la posibilidad de cambio. El cambio no tiene que
ocurrir para que el tiempo ocurra, pero la posibilidad de cambio se deriva de
la realidad del tiempo. "Con respecto a Dios, Padgett sostiene que incluso
antes de la creación, "si es posible que Dios cambie, entonces Dios debe ser
temporal en algún sentido débil. "Según esta articulación de la teoría
absoluta del tiempo, el tiempo existe si y sólo si existe algún objeto, y este
objeto podría sufrir un cambio. Según el entendimiento de Padgett, Dios
puede cambiar, así que el tiempo existe porque Dios existe. Dios existe sin
principio y sin fin, así que el tiempo existe sin principio ni fin. La idea de
que es posible que Dios cambie es, en la mente de Padgett, crucial para la
teología. "Si el cambio no fuera posible, Dios podría

9
H. G. Alexander, The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1956).
10
William Lane Craig, Dios, Tiempo y Eternidad: La coherencia del teísmo II: la eternidad
(Londres: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 148-58.
11
Clarke, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God and Other Writings. Editado
por Ezio Vailati. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 122-3.
12
Lucas, "The Temporality of God", en eds. Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, y
C. J. Isham, Cosmología Cuántica y las Leyes de la Naturaleza: Scientific Perspectivas sobre la
Acción Divina, 2ª Edición (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), 235-7.
13
J. M. Child, The Geometrical Lectures of Isaac Barrow (Londres: The Open Court
Company, 1916), Conferencia I.
 ¿Qué es el tiempo? 17
nunca crear el mundo! "14 Según la teología cristiana, Dios no tenía que crear
el universo. Es posible que Dios no haya creado el universo. En la
comprensión de Padgett de la creación, hay un estado de cosas en el que
Dios existe sin el universo. Dios no siempre estaba creando el universo, pero
comenzó a crear el universo. Si Dios no puede cambiar, entonces, según
Padgett, Dios no podría crear el universo. Dios no podría comenzar a hacer
nada que no sea atemporal e inmutable. Estos temas relacionados con la
creación serán discutidos más adelante en el resto de este libro. Por ahora, se
pueden dejar de lado.
Parece haber una posible perplejidad en la noción de tiempo absoluto. En
algunas articulaciones del tiempo absoluto se dice que el tiempo existe
independientemente de las cosas contenidas en él, y de lo que suceda en él.
15
Sin embargo, los defensores teístas del tiempo absoluto sostienen que
Dios es temporal -Dios existe en el tiempo. Entonces, uno podría objetar a
estos divinos temporalistas argumentando que el tiempo absoluto podría
existir sin Dios ya que el tiempo absoluto existe sin importar las cosas
contenidas en él. En otras palabras, parece que el tiempo absoluto es más
fundamental que el Dios temporalista, ya que el Dios temporalista existe en
el tiempo. Si el tiempo absoluto puede existir independientemente de las
cosas contenidas en él, y Dios existe dentro del tiempo, entonces el tiempo
absoluto puede existir sin Dios. El objetor podría quejarse de que el Dios
temporalista no es Dios en absoluto. Dios, se sostiene típicamente, es lo
último en realidad. Toda la realidad depende de Dios de alguna manera para
su existencia. Así que el objetor podría argumentar que un Dios que existe
en el tiempo no es el último, ya que el tiempo absoluto no depende de Dios.
16 El
tiempo absoluto, según el objetor, puede existir completamente
independiente de Dios.
The divine temporalist who holds to absolute time can say that this objec-
tion rests on a confusion. This is not what the divine temporalist means by
absolute time, nor what she means by the claim that God exists in time.
Samuel Clarke clarifies the issue by pointing out that saying, “God exists in
time” is a rather loose way of talking. This loose way of talking can be
paraphrased away, and one can reach an understanding of what the divine
temporalist really means. When the divine temporalist says that God exists
in time, she means to say that God is eternal as understood on divine
temporalism.
God does not exist in space, and in time; but his existence causes space and
time. And when, according to the analogy of vulgar speech, we say that he
exists in all

14
Padgett, “Response to William Lane Craig,” in ed. Gregory E. Ganssle, God & Time:
Four Views (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 168–9.
15
Robin Le Poidevin, Travels in Four Dimensions: Enigmas of Space and Time (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2003), 27.
16
This is one form of the so-called “prisoner of time objection” to divine temporality. For
my refutation of this objection see my “Doing Hard Time: Is God the Prisoner of the Oldest
Dimension?” Journal of Analytic Theology 2 (2014).
18What is Time?
space and in all time; the words mean only that he is omnipresent and eternal,
that is, that boundless space and time are necessary consequences of his
existence; and not, that space and time are beings distinct from him, and IN
which he exists.17
The claim of divine temporalists who hold to absolute time should be some-
thing like the following. Time exists necessarily because an endurant God
exists necessarily. Time cannot exist without necessary beings, but time can
exist regardless of what contingent beings exist within it.18 This
distinguishes the theistic version of absolute time from a substantival theory
of time where time is an independent being or substance. On
substantivalism, time is a set of spacetime points that contains the rest of
reality.19 After Einstein, the absolute theory of time has typically become
conflated with substantivalist views on spacetime.20 This has led to some
unfortunate misreadings of the debate between Clarke and Leibniz, as well
as false interpretations of Newton’s theistic metaphysics.21 Absolute time,
theistically understood, does not say that time is an independent being.22
Instead, time is the dimension of possible change, and it exists because God
exists. This issue will be taken up further below in the excursus on divine
temporality.
A quick summary seems in order. On the one hand, there are those who
say that time exists if there is change; while on the other there are those who
hold that time can exist without change. But such discussions, important as
they are, only get us so far at this juncture. Though I think that time can exist
without change, my arguments in this work shall not depend upon that
doctrine since defenders of divine timelessness overwhelmingly hold to a
relational view of time.23 I shall set aside that issue, and assume that at the
very least, if there is a change there is time.

BEGINNING TO TALK ABOUT TIME

The debates between the A-theory and the B-theory of time have held the
center of attention for many analytic philosophers of religion engaged in

17
Clarke, The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, 104.
18
Thanks to Katherine Hawley for discussing this with me.
19
Barry Dainton, Time and Space (Chesham: Acumen Publishing Limited, 2001), 2–4.
20
The absolute theory of time is also often conflated with absolute simultaneity. This is an
issue within relativity theory, and space does not permit a discussion of such things here.
21
William Lane Craig, Time and the Metaphysics of Relativity (Norwell, MA: Kluwer
Academic Publishers, 2001), ch. 6.
22
However, a theist could easily maintain that God creates a substantival spacetime.
23
Rory Fox, Time and Eternity in Mid-Thirteenth-Century Thought (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2006), 134ff.
 What is Time?19
discussions on divine eternality. Anyone familiar with the literature on God
and time will have come across the terms A-theory, tensed time, and
dynamic time. These terms are often used interchangeably in the literature,
though perhaps they ought not to be. One will also have come across the
terms B-theory, tenseless time, and static time. These terms are also often
used interchangeably in the literature, though, again, perhaps they ought not
to be. In the next two sections I shall tell the typical story about the A- and
B-theories of time in order to familiarize readers who are not acquainted
with the previous literature on God and time. Then I shall go on to critique
the standard story, and argue that the ontology of time is what is of the
utmost importance for debating God’s relationship to time.

A-Theory of Time

In order to get a better handle on the nature of time, the philosopher

J. M. E. McTaggart proposed two main theories of time and gave them the
most creative names in the history of philosophy: the A- and B-theories of
time.24 The A-theory often goes by several names. In the literature one may
come across terms like dynamic time, process time, and the tensed theory of
time. Often in the literature, these are considered to fall within the family of
the A-theory.25 On this account, time is held to be dynamic in the sense that
it is constantly moving forward. All series of events can be described in
terms of having the properties past, present, or future.26 However, only the
present can be spoken of as existing “now.” The “now” is treated as having
some type of privileged status compared with the past and the future. 27
Every moment is relative to the present.
One reason often appealed to for holding this theory of time is that our
language typically entails this theory of time. 28 When we speak we often use
the present as a reference point for all other moments of time. “Yesterday I
ran into Mrs Jones.” “Tomorrow I am going to the movies.” “It is raining
outside right now.” This is because all other moments are relative to the
present on

24
J. M. E. McTaggart, “Time,” in ed. Michael J. Loux, Metaphysics: Contemporary
Readings (London: Routledge, 2001). Charles Taliaferro, Contemporary Philosophy of
Religion (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1998), 149.
25
Adrian Bardon, A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2013), 80–3.
26
Michael Rea, Metaphysics: The Basics (New York: Routledge, 2014), 72.
27
Gregory E. Ganssle, “Direct Awareness and God’s Experience of a Temporal Now” in
eds. Gregory E. Ganssle and David M. Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine
Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 173–80.
28
A. N. Prior, “Thank Goodness That’s Over,” in ed. Michael Tooley, Analytical
Metaphysics: A Collection of Essays Volume 2: Time and Causation (New York: Garland
Publishing, 1999).
20What is Time?
this theory.29 In our everyday language we typically predicate A-properties
and B-relations of events. A-properties are things that we predicate of
moments that have pastness, presentness, and futurity. 30 For instance, the
sentence, “Yesterday I ran into Mrs Jones” contains an A-property because it
is speaking about the past. B-relations work in a similar way. These are
predicated of moments that stand in earlier than, simultaneous with, or later
than rela- tions.31 The following sentences demonstrate this idea. “The death
of Socrates is earlier than the death of Christ.” “Whilst Ryan is typing his
paper, there is street theater going on outside.” “The birth is later than the
conception.” The A-theory will use both A-properties and B-relations in
describing the tem- poral aspects of reality. However, the A-theorist will
maintain that A- properties are more fundamental than B-relations because
B-relations are derivative of A-properties.32
One of the main contentions of the A-theory is that the world contains
propositions that can objectively change their truth-value. 33 Tensed proposi-
tions such as <Sally will eat a delectable cheeseburger> change their truth-
value over time. This proposition, says the A-theorist, is true now, but will
be false at a later time. Once Sally is eating the delectable cheeseburger, a
new proposition will become true: <Sally is now eating a delectable
cheeseburger>. However, this proposition, says the A-theorist, will become
false once the cheeseburger has been eaten. At that point, it will be false that
Sally is now eating a cheeseburger, because Sally has finished eating. The
A-theorist main- tains that the world is filled with tensed propositions of this
sort, and that such propositions objectively change their truth-value over
time.

B-Theory of Time

In the literature, the B-theory can also go by several names. It may also be
called static time, and the tenseless theory of time.34 The contention of the

29
Ganssle, “Direct Awareness and God’s Experience of a Temporal Now,” in Ganssle and
Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 173–80.
30
Garrett DeWesse, “Atemporal, Sempiternal, or Omnitemporal: God’s Temporal Mode of
Being,” in Ganssle and Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 50.
31
Rea, Metaphysics, 72.
32
Dean Zimmerman, “The Privileged Present: Defending an ‘A-Theory’ of Time,” in eds.
Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne, and Dean W. Zimmerman, Contemporary Debates in Meta-
physics (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), 212.
33
Dean Zimmerman, “The A-Theory of Time, Presentism, and Open Theism,” in ed.
Melville Y. Stewart, Science and Religion in Dialogue (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing
Ltd, 2010), 800.
34
Bardon, A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time, 82–3.
 What is Time?21
B-theorist is that B-relations are more fundamental than A-properties. 35
However, there is disagreement amongst B-theorists over whether or not
tensed propositions are a part of the world. In order to understand this
disagreement, it must be first understood that many will argue that the B-
theory entails a particular ontology of time called eternalism. On this
account all instances of time have equal ontological existence. This will be
further discussed below. On this understanding of the B-theory the
difference between A- and B-theorists is not merely over which properties
and relations are more fundamental. Where the A-theory treated the present
as having some object- ive privileged status, the B-theory holds that the past,
present, and future are all objectively real. Technically speaking, there is no
such thing as the past, present, or future because such terms are subjective to
an individual’s refer- ence point and as such have no objective purchase on
reality. All moments of time exist. None of them pass out of existence.
Events are in earlier than, simultaneous with, and later than relations. 36
However, the experience of change from one moment to the next is merely
subjective human percep- tion.37 The common sense intuition that we as
humans experience a passage of time is merely an illusion. With this in
mind, we can begin to understand the dispute amongst B-theorists over
tensed propositions.
Once upon a time a defender of the B-theory would reject the technical
use of A-properties and tensed propositions, and seek to translate everything
into B-relations and tenseless propositions. The old B-theorist would
acknowledge that A-properties are a part of common speech, but deny that
such properties adequately describe reality. For many years B-theorists were
engaged in the detenser project. This involved translating away tense from
our language about time. For instance, one might say, <It is raining now>.
This proposition contains an A-property, and the A-theorist would say that it
objectively changes its truth-value over time. The old B-theorist would try
to offer an alternative tenseless proposition that contained the same
propositional con- tent as the tensed proposition. She might offer something
like <It rains at 2:00 p.m. on April 10, 2017>. A-theorists argued that this
proposition does not express the same proposition as <It is raining now> and
contended that tense was not something that could be eliminated from
language about reality. In light of these debates a rare phenomenon took
place in philosophy; the kind of event that is only spoken of in fairy tales. A
consensus arose amongst the philosophers. By the 1980s philosophers
realized that there is not a tenseless

35
Zimmerman, “The Privileged Present: Defending an ‘A-Theory’ of Time,” Contemporary
Debates in Metaphysics, 212.
36
Rea, Metaphysics, 72.
37
J. J. C. Smart, “The Tenseless Theory of Time,” in Contemporary Debates in
Metaphysics, 226–7.
22What is Time?
translation for every tensed statement.38 Most B-theorists abandoned the
detenser project and headed off into new territory.
The new B-theory takes a different strategy. Instead of trying to eliminate
tense from our language it seeks to offer tenseless truth conditions for tensed
statements. Eric Olson lays out two basic rules for accomplishing this task.
1) “To say, at a time t, that x is present (or past, or future) is to say
something that is true if and only if x is located at (or before, or after) t.” 2)
“To say, at a time t, that x is now F (or was F, or will be F) is to say
something that is true if and only if x is F at (or before, or after) t.”39
Whether or not this B-theory makes sense, or if it is fruitful, is not my
concern here. At this point, I am merely concerned with laying out the
typical story of the A-theory and B-theory debate so as to catch up readers
who are unfamiliar with the literature on God and time. Now that the typical
story has been told, I shall point out problems in the typical story that cause
confusion for debates over divine eternality.

The A-Theory and the B-Theory: An Unhelpful Debate

As I have noted already, these debates have played a central role in contem-
porary discussions of divine eternality. Many defenses of divine
timelessness are made by invoking the B-theory or the tenseless theory of
time. Atempor- alists, however, typically shy away from talking about the
static theory of time because “static” is often used as a pejorative in
contemporary theology. Process theists, panentheists, open theists, and
relational theologians often reject divine timelessness because it offers a
static, inert, and aloof God who in no way resembles the dynamic, personal
God of the Bible. In light of such rhetoric, it makes sense why atemporalists
wish to refrain from using the word “static.”40
The assumption in much of the contemporary literature seems to be that
“tenseless” is equivalent to “timeless.”41 This is true not just of theologians
and philosophers of religion, but also of metaphysicians. Many
philosophers of

38
Michael Loux, “Time: The A-Theory and the B-Theory,” in ed. Michael Loux,
Metaphysics: Contemporary Readings, 257–8. Also, Nathan Oaklander, The Ontology of Time
(New York: Prometheus Books, 2004).
39
Eric T. Olson, “The Passage of Time,” in eds. Le Poidevin et al., The Routledge
Companion to Metaphysics, 443.
40
It is quite difficult to figure out what “static” and “dynamic” refer to in many contemporary
theological discussions. One cannot help but get the impression that these terms should be
defined as follows. Static= def those theological views that I disagree with. Dynamic= def those
theological views that I favor.
41
Robert John Russell, Time in Eternity: Pannenberg, Physics, and Eschatology in Creative
Mutual Interaction (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2012), 125.
 What is Time?23
time speak of the B-theory as timeless or atemporal.42 This is unfortunate as
it causes unnecessary confusion. This fails to account for the fact that
the tenseless theory of time is a theory of time. It is a theory about what is
true at particular times. The use of “timeless” by philosophers of time in
these discussions is a loose way of talking. It is meant to denote that the B-
theory of time understands change differently than the A-theory does. This
is important to note since many contemporary atemporalists have not
understood this point when seeking to use the B-theory in their defense of
divine timelessness. As Nathan Oaklander explains, “The rock-bottom
feature of time that must be accepted on all sides is that there is change, and
the different views concerning the nature of change constitute the difference
between A- and B- theories of time.”43 One of the ways to cash out the
difference in change is with regard to the truth-value of propositions. Recall
that the A-theorist holds that tensed propositions are features of reality that
change their truth-value over time, whereas the B-theorist may deny this.
Another way to cash out the different accounts of change is over the
nature of persistence through time. This shall be discussed below. For
now, it must be emphasized that both theories of time hold that the
temporal world involves change. The failure to realize this has caused
much unnecessary confusion in contemporary
theology.
There is another reason why the debate between the A-theorist and B-
theorist is unhelpful and confusing for contemporary theology. It should be
recalled that I mentioned earlier that the B-theory does not necessarily entail
a particular ontology of time as some contend. In fact, it is not obvious that
the A-theory entails a particular ontology of time either. The recent debates
between A- and B-theorists are actually quite confusing, and are not as clear
cut as they were when the debates over God and time became reinvigorated
in the 1990s and early 2000s.44 Debates over tensed propositions, change,
dy- namic vs. static time, and ontology are now quite complex, and do not fit
the neat story told above.
For instance, one can put five A-theorists in a room. All five will be
committed to the notion that the present has a privileged ontological status,
and that time is essentially tensed, yet all five could disagree about the
ontology of time. The first might say that only the present moment of time
exists, while the second holds that the past and the present exist. The third
might say that the past, present, and future all exist, but the now acts as a

42
For instance, Bardon, A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time, 87. Katherine Hawley,
How Things Persist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), ch. 1.
43
Oaklander, The Ontology of Time, 39. Emphasis in the original.
44
When I discussed an earlier version of this chapter with the Metaphysics Reading Group
at the University of Notre Dame, there was much debate in the room over the meaning of the
A-theory and the B-theory. No consensus on the meaning of these theories was reached
amongst the metaphysicians.
24What is Time?
spotlight indicating which moment is present. The fourth person might claim
that the present moment of time has the fullest degree of existence, but that
other times have lesser degrees of existence relative to the present. The fifth
person will say that all moments of time exist, yet the entire spacetime
manifold counts as present. 45 All agree that time is tensed, and that the A-
theory is true, but they do not agree on the ontology of time.
The same seems to be true for the B-theory of time. We can find
individuals with radically different ontologies of time holding to the new B-
theory. Individuals who hold that only the present exists, or that the past and
present exist, or that the past, present, and future all exist, can all hold to the
B-theory of time.46
For far too long the debates over the A-theory and B-theory of time
have obscured the discussions over the metaphysics of time. This, in turn,
has obscured the discussions over God’s relation to time. As Storrs McCall
points out, “Strictly speaking it is sentences and propositions, not time or
truth or events, that are either tensed or tenseless.”47 The issues that are
discussed in the A- and B-theories of time are important, but they simply do
not tell us about the ontology of time. “To give linguistic issues priority, and
try to draw physical and ontological conclusions from them, is to put the cart
before the horse.”48 In other words, if we are going to make any progress in
our understanding of God’s relationship to time, we need to stop talking
about how to talk about time, and begin to do metaphysics.
Here is how this is relevant to debates over divine eternality. Many con-
temporary arguments against divine timelessness will say that a timeless
God cannot know what time it is now. The argument is usually stated by
saying that a timeless God cannot know tensed propositions because tensed
propositions change their truth-value. If God had knowledge of tensed
propositions, the content of His knowledge would change, and thus He
would change and be temporal. One popular atemporalist strategy is to
detense all tensed proposi- tions such that there are no tensed propositions
for God to know.49

45
Cian Dorr, “The A-Theory, the B-Theory, and Temporal Counterpart Theory,” presented
at the University of St. Andrews, February 2012.
46
A few examples would be Craig Bourne, Joshua Rasmussen, and Michael Tooley. See
Bourne, A Future for Presentism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Rasmussen, “Pre-
sentists May Say Goodbye to A-Properties,” Analysis 72 (2012). Tooley, Time, Tense, and
Causation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Also, for a related discussion, see Dean
Zimmerman, “The A-Theory of Time, The B-Theory of Time, and ‘Taking Tense Seriously’,”
in Dialectica 59 (2005), 401–57.
47
Storrs McCall, “Tooley on Time,” in ed. L. Nathan Oaklander, The Importance of Time:
Proceedings of the Philosophy of Time Society, 1995–2000 (Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic
Publishers, 2001), 13.
48
McCall, “Time Flow,” in Oaklander, The Importance of Time, 146.
49
Paul Helm, Eternal God: A Study of God without Time, 2nd Edition (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2010), ch. 5.
 What is Time?25
The assumption underlying this dialectic is that the tensed and tenseless
theories of time entail a particular ontology of time. Without this assumption
it is not clear if the dialect makes any sense. 50 As we shall see throughout the
rest of this book, it is the ontology of time that is driving the arguments.
Further, without the assumption that the tenseless theory of time is a
timeless world without change, it is not clear that the atemporalist move
makes any sense. This will be discussed in later chapters, so I shall not
belabor the point here.
I shall end this section by noting one final reason that the A-theory and B-
theory debate is unhelpful for discussions on divine eternality. The debate
between A-theorists and B-theorists is relatively new in the history of ideas.
The distinction that McTaggart made was not a common distinction in
earlier eras. The medievals, for instance, were not sensitive to such a
distinction, so it will not be helpful to use these distinctions in assessing
their thoughts.51 What we need are metaphysical ideas that have been widely
held in the past and today in order to properly assess different accounts of
God’s relation to time.

GETTING METAPHYSICAL

Knowing the basic distinction between the A-theory and B-theory of time is
no longer helpful in doing philosophical theology. What will help us is
looking at different ontologies of time and their complementary theories on
persist- ence through time and change.

The Ontology of Time, and Persistence Through Time

Presentism, the growing block, and eternalism are theories about the
ontology of time, or about what moments of time exist. Each is typically
linked with a theory of change and persistence through time. Presentism is
usually held

50
Cf. Hugh J. McCann’s defense of divine timelessness in Creation and the Sovereignty of
God (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012), ch. 3. McCann holds that tensed
proposi- tions cannot be eliminated from reality, but neither can tenseless propositions.
Nowhere does he articulate which ontology of time he is working with, and at times it appears
as if he has two completely different ontologies of time in view. When he discusses the
arguments for and against divine timelessness, it is difficult to figure out how the dialectic is
going. He will make appeals to the tensed theory of time when it suits him, and then appeal to
the tenseless theory of time when the reality of tense seems to be working against him. For
instance, God can know tensed propositions, yet somehow God does not change in knowing
these propositions. Ultimately, it is not clear what sort of temporal world McCann has in mind.
51
Fox, Time and Eternity, 180.
26What is Time?
alongside endurantism, whereas the growing block and eternalism typically
hold to some form of four-dimensionalism. Allow me to elaborate.
Presentism is the thesis that only the present, the now, exists. The past no
longer exists and the future does not yet exist. 52 Time involves temporal
becoming, or absolute generation, as well as real passage from one moment
to the next. New things that did not formerly exist come into existence, and
other things pass out of or cease to exist.53 For the presentist, it simply is the
case that the only objects that exist are the ones that presently exist. As
Trenton Merricks says of presentism, “an object has only those properties it
has at the present time. The difference between past, present, and future is
metaphysical, not perspectival.”54
On presentism, an object endures through time by existing as a whole, or
all at once. To say that an object endures through time is to say that an
object is wholly present at each moment of its existence. Numerically one
and the same object exists at each time that it exists, and it does not have
parts laying about at other times. Further, the presentist and endurantist
explain change in terms of an object gaining and losing accidental properties
over time. Let us say that some object O begins to exist at time t1 and
persists all the way through to time t3. On this account O exists entirely at
each instant of time. Given presentism, as t2 comes into existence t1 ceases
to exist and t3 does not yet exist. So O exists entirely at each instant only
when that instant is the present. It is not as if O exists wholly at all of the
instants of t1 through t3 simultaneously because all of those instances do not
have equal ontological existence. As O endures through time it will gain and
lose various accidental, or non-essential, prop- erties. Let us say that O is an
armchair. At t1 the armchair is blue, and then at t2 someone paints the
armchair such that at t 3 the armchair is red. The armchair has retained all of
its essential properties, but it has lost one accidental property—that of being
blue—and gained a new accidental property—that of being red.
Eternalism and the growing block have several differences, but both have
the same basic feature of seeing time as a four-dimensional spacetime mani-
fold.55 On eternalism all moments of time have equal ontological existence.
To put it roughly the past, present, and the future all exist, they are all
equally real. To put it more technically there is no real distinction between
past, present,

52
Thomas M. Crisp, “Presentism,” in ed. Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman, The
Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 212.
53
St. Augustine, Confessions XI.20. Anselm, Monologion 21, 22, and 24. Also, Proslogion
13, 19, and 22. Robert Pasnau, “On Existing All at Once,” in eds. Christian Tapp and Edmund
Runggaldier, God, Eternity, and Time (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011).
54
Trenton Merricks, “Goodbye Growing Block,” in ed. Dean W. Zimmerman, Oxford Studies
in Metaphysics, vol. 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 103.
55
Michael Rea, “Four-Dimensionalism,” in eds. Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman,
The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, 247.
 What is Time?27
and future. There just is the four-dimensional spacetime manifold with no
privileged moment that marks the present. 56 On this account there is no real
passage of time because all moments of time exist. Nothing ever comes into
existence nor ceases to exist because everything simply does exist in the
spacetime manifold. As such, the experience of temporal passage is illusory.
Growing block theorists hold that spacetime is a four-dimensional manifold,
but they maintain that only the past and the present are real whereas the
future is not. Time, they say, is dynamic in the sense that new things really
do come into existence as new time slices are added to the four-dimensional
spacetime manifold.
Time slices are merely instants of time that can stand in earlier than and
later than relations. They are much like points on a map. In fact most
eternalists and growing blockers see a close connection between being
located in space and being located at a time, whereas presentists reject the
similarity between being located in space and located at a time.57 For the
growing block theorist new time slices are constantly being added to
spacetime. The eternalist holds that all time slices simply exist in the
spacetime manifold. None ever come into nor pass out of existence.
It has already been noted that presentists typically hold that objects
endure through time. Growing blockers and eternalists typically hold to a
version of four-dimensionalism. Four-dimensionalism says that objects
persist by having temporal parts. Four-dimensionalism is a family of views
about the nature of temporal parts, the most common of which is
perdurantism or worm theory. According to Michael Rea endurantists hold
that objects “last over time by being wholly present at every moment at
which they exist,” whereas perdur- antists hold that objects “last over time
without being wholly present at every moment at which they exist.”58 As
Sally Haslanger explains, “On the perdur- antist’s conception of persistence,
an object persists through time in a way analogous to how an object is
extended through space.”59 The perdurantist sees an object as being spread
out across the four-dimensional spacetime manifold, and that object is made
up of temporal parts. Each temporal part exists at a particular time slice in
spacetime and together they constitute the object. The object does not exist
as a whole throughout time, but instead parts of the object exist at different
times. On endurantism there simply is no such thing as temporal parts.
Perdurantism, or worm theory, is not the only version of four-
dimensionalism. There is a second version of four-dimensionalism called

56
J. J. C. Smart, “The Tenseless Theory of Time,” Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics, 227.
57
Trenton Merricks, Truth and Ontology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 121–
5. Also, Theodore Sider, “Four-Dimensionalism,” The Philosophical Review 106 (1997), 197
and 204.
58
Michael Rea, “Four-Dimensionalism,” The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, 247.
59
Sally Haslanger, “Persistence Through Time,” The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, 318.
28What is Time?
stage theory. Both versions of four-dimensionalism involve an object having
temporal parts at times, and both explain change in terms of different tem-
poral parts having different properties at different times. On worm theory
objects “stretch out through time just as (we all agree) earthworms stretch
out through space.”60 When referring to an object we speak of the entire
spacetime worm. On stage theory “the world is full of four-dimensional
objects with temporal parts, but when we talk about ordinary objects like
boats and people, we talk about brief temporal parts or ‘stages’ of four-
dimensional objects.”61 Perhaps an illustration will help.
Imagine that we ask Tony Bennett to sing “I Left My Heart in San Fran-
cisco.” The endurantist would say that Tony Bennett is entirely present
throughout the 2 minutes and 46 seconds of his performance. There is
numerically only one thing, Tony Bennett, which endures through the song.
The four-dimensionalist would see things differently. For each second of the
song there is a temporal part of Tony Bennett. According to the perdurantist
or worm theorist, when one puts all of the temporal parts together one gets
Tony Bennett. Tony is not identical to any of the temporal parts, but
somehow the temporal parts together constitute the spacetime worm that is
Tony. (In calling Tony a worm this is not to say anything of his moral
character. I’m sure he is a fine gentleman.) The stage theorist will say that
each temporal part is a Tony Bennett. There is the Tony Bennett that exists
at t1 and the Tony Bennett that exists at t2. Perdurantism and stage theory
have the same underlying four- dimensionalist ontology. The difference
between the two is over where the proper name goes. The perdurantist holds
that the proper name applies to the spacetime worm, whereas the stage
theorist says the proper name applies to each temporal counterpart or
stage.62
It is sometimes held that endurantism could be compatible with the grow-
ing block, or with eternalism. Yet most think that a problem arises from
intrinsic properties and change if endurantism is combined with either of
these ontologies of time.63 This is because the same object would have
contradictory intrinsic properties. Say eternalism is true, and that every
moment of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” is on the same ontological
par. If Tony were an endurant being, he would exist as a whole at every
moment of the song. As such he would simultaneously have the properties
of singing I left my heart at time t1 and on a hill it calls to me at t3. He would
have the properties standing at t2 and sitting at the piano at t4. How can
Tony be

60
Katherine Hawley, “Temporal Parts,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, <http://plato.
stanford.edu/entries/temporal-parts/> (accessed January 10, 2011).
61
Hawley, “Temporal Parts.”
62
Thanks to Katherine Hawley for discussion on this point.
63
Crisp, “Presentism,” The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, 220. Theodore Sider, Four-
Dimensionalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), ch. 4.
 What is Time?29
sitting and standing? Aren’t these contradictory intrinsic properties? Since
Tony exists as a whole at each moment of the song, and since each moment
of the song is equally real, all of the properties are within Tony’s domain of
discourse.
How do we remove the contradiction? There are two moves that might
seem obvious at first, but they are widely rejected by philosophers today.
First, it might seem as if one could say that Tony only has the property of
standing at t2 and the property of sitting at t4. However, this move will not
work since both properties are intrinsic to Tony, and as such this entails that
Tony is sitting and standing. The reference to time here does not remove the
contradiction since Tony is wholly located at both times. A second move
might try to say that the intrinsic properties are really relations to times. So
the property sitting is really a relation that Tony instantiates to time t 4. This
move has the unfortunate consequence of making all intrinsic properties
relational proper- ties. It removes the problem of temporary intrinsic
properties by removing intrinsic properties, hence, why this move is
typically rejected today.64
The standard move for the eternalist is to adopt the four-dimensionalist
doctrine of temporal parts. Tony Bennett does not have the contradictory
properties that arise from Tony changing. Instead, only the temporal part of
Tony that exists at t2 has the property standing and only the temporal part
that exists at t4 has the property sitting at the piano. The endurantist can
remove the contradiction by adopting presentism. On this scheme, Tony had
the property standing but that moment no longer exists, so Tony no longer
has that property. He only exemplifies the properties that exist at the present
moment.
There are more differences between endurantism and four-
dimensionalism worth discussing. Four-dimensionalism is often held to
come with certain metaphysical commitments that a presentist and
endurantist would most likely not accept. One such commitment is
universalism. This should not be confused with the theological doctrine of
universalism which is usually taken to mean something like all human
persons go to heaven. The metaphysical doctrine of “universalism is the
view that any collection of objects whatsoever has a sum, an object they
compose.” This is sometimes called unrestricted mereology. “Any
combination of temporal parts of any objects from any times, no matter how
scattered and disparate, composes an object.”65 It could be possible for a
four-dimensionalist to reject this metaphysical

64
Ross P. Cameron, “Truthmaking for Presentists,” in eds. Karen Bennett and Dean
W. Zimmerman, Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, vol. 6 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2011), 62–3. Katherine Hawley, “Why Temporary Properties are not Relations between
Physical Objects and Times,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 93/2 (1998), 211–16.
65
Katherine Hawley, “Temporal Parts.” See also Sider, Four-Dimensionalism, 7. Hud Hud-
son, The Metaphysics of Hyperspace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 5–9.
30What is Time?
doctrine, though that will depend on other metaphysical and theological
commitments she holds. For instance, she might hold to universalism
because she takes objects like bicycles and persons to be mere
conventions.66 Or she might adopt something close to universalism in order
to argue that Christ’s atonement involves fallen human persons becoming
part of a larger four- dimensional object with Christ.67
Another metaphysical commitment that four-dimensionalists typically
hold, and that presentists typically reject, is Humean supervenience.
Katherine Hawley describes this as the view that “facts about which intrinsic
properties are instantiated at which points determine all the facts there are.
There are no irreducibly holistic facts. In conjunction with perdurantism,
this entails that all the facts about a given persisting object supervene upon
intrinsic facts about its briefest temporal parts.”68 Again, a four-
dimensionalist may reject this depending on her other metaphysical and
theological commitments.
At this point one might wonder which theory is correct. It seems that
presentism and endurantism go nicely together, whereas the growing block
and eternalism go hand-in-hand with some form of four-dimensionalism.
Which set of theories is correct? What time is it: presentism, the growing
block, or eternalism? These are important questions, but space does not
allow me to offer an answer. Further, my strategy for assessing divine
timelessness does not depend upon such a discussion. Most contemporary
discussions on God and time hold that presentism is incompatible with
divine timelessness, whereas eternalism is compatible with timelessness.
The next move in such discussions is to argue for the truth of either
presentism or eternalism.69 This is not my strategy. Instead, I shall be
arguing that divine timelessness is incompatible with both accounts of time.
While I am a presentist, I do not seek to make my rejection of divine
timelessness rest solely on this ontological commitment.

66
Hawley, “Temporal Parts.” Also, Mark Heller, “Temporal Parts of Four-Dimensional
Objects,” in ed. Loux, Metaphysics: Contemporary Readings, 343–8.
67
Though Oliver Crisp does not explicitly endorse metaphysical universalism, it seems to
me that is what is needed in order to make sense of his doctrine of the atonement. Oliver
Crisp, “Non-Penal Substitution,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 9 (2007). Also,
Crisp, “Original Sin and Atonement,” in eds. Thomas Flint and Michael Rea, Oxford
Handbook of Philosophical Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). I have my
doubts, however, that such a position is coherent. It is not clear to me how one can maintain
the claim that Jesus Christ is sinless. If I, a sinner, am literally a temporal part of the spacetime
worm that is Christ,
Christ will literally have sinful temporal parts. I take it as obvious that no person can be sinless
and have sinful temporal parts.
68
Hawley, “Temporal Parts.”
69
Elsewhere I argue against four-dimensional eternalism. See my “Four-Dimensionalism,
Evil, and Christian Belief,” Philosophia Christi 16 (2014).
 What is Time?31

AN EXCURSUS ON TIME AND DIVINE TEMPORALITY

I am convinced that the profound truth of the temporality of God is

something that we as theologians are all sooner or later going to have
to learn.
—Schubert M. Ogden70
In the next chapter the question “what does divine timelessness mean?” will
be given a full treatment. A related question naturally arises. “What does it
mean to say that God is temporal?” Divine temporality is a position that can
be a bit difficult to grasp since there are many theologians today who hold to
it, but lack sufficient conceptual clarity with regard to the philosophy of
time. Also, there are an assortment of philosophical and theological issues
that divine temporalists disagree over. In this excursus I shall develop the
broad outline of divine temporality, and note various disagreements amongst
divine tem- poralists, as well as problems that temporalists need to sort out
in future discussions.
One of the best ways to understand divine temporality is to contrast it
with divine timelessness. To say that God is timeless is to affirm at least
three things: necessarily, God exists without beginning, without end, and
without succession. The divine temporalist will say that God exists without
beginning and without end, but she will believe that God does have
succession in His life. The divine life contains distinct moments. For
instance, T. F. Torrance ex- claims, “the creation of the world out of nothing
is something new even for God.”71 Torrance also explains that the
incarnation was not just a new event for the world, but was also a new event
for God. In order to understand this Torrance posits a distinction between
the created time of the universe and the uncreated time of God.72 This is a
common move amongst divine temporal- ists. The final distinction in this
chapter to be considered is to distinguish physical time from metaphysical
time.
Since most, though not all, divine temporalists are presentists, the
following should be understood in terms of presentism and endurantism.
God is a temporal being who endures through time. His eternal now is not
some static

70
Schubert M. Ogden, The Reality of God and Other Essays (New York: Harper & Row
Publishers, 1964), 163.
71
T. F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons (Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1996), 208. Cf. Bruce C. Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terence E. Fretheim, and
David
L. Petersen, A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press,
1999), 35. “God was there ‘in the beginning,’ but this is a new day for God, too. Given the
divine commitment to relationships with the creation, God will never be the same again.”
72
See Torrance, Theological and Natural Science (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005), 50–
1. Various theologians make similar claims. For instance, Robert W. Jenson, “Aspects of a
Doctrine of Creation,” in ed. Colin E. Gunton, The Doctrine of Creation: Essays in
Dogmatics, History, and Philosophy (London: T&T Clark, 1997).
32What is Time?
present that lacks a before and after. He exists in the ever-fleeting present
just like we do.73 God does have a before and after in His life.

Physical Time

Often it is claimed that the beginning of the universe was the beginning of
all of space and time. One might also say that time cannot exist apart from
the universe. This is far from obvious. If the absolute theory of time is true,
there is no need for the universe to exist in order for time to exist. All that is
needed is some being with duration, and a necessarily existent God fits
the bill.
J. R. Lucas would think differently. He thinks that time is “a necessary
concomitant of the existence of a personal being.”74 Not any endurant object
will do. Time stems from God because God is conscious and a free agent.
Time exists because of who God is, and not any act that God performs.
The existence of time without physical objects is not only true of the
absolute theory of time. It is also true of the relational theory of time. If the
relational theory of time is true, all one needs is some sort of change in order
to have time, and change can occur without physical objects. For instance, a
common view in medieval theology is that the angels have their own time
that is not associated with physical objects. Yet, even the existence of angels
is unnecessary for the existence of time. All that is really needed is for God
to do one thing and then another in order to generate time on a relational
view.
Someone might ask about the doctrine of creation out of nothing. Doesn’t
the Bible clearly teach that time came into existence with creation? No, it
simply teaches that the universe came into existence out of no pre-existing
material a finite amount of time ago, and that the universe is dependent upon
God. As Alan Padgett points out, “The doctrine of creation out of nothing
does not necessarily imply a beginning to time. Rather, it points to the
radical dependence of all other beings on the Being of God.”75 John of
Damascus

73
J. R. Lucas, The Future: An Essay on God, Temporality and Truth (Cambridge: Basil
Blackwell Inc., 1989), 217.
74
Lucas, The Future, 213.
75
Alan Padgett, Science and the Study of God: A Mutuality Model for Theology and Science
(Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2003), 129. C.f. John H. Walton, Ancient Near
Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew
Bible (Nottingham: Apollos, 2007), 180–90 and 222. Walton explains that the Ancient Near-
Eastern (ANE) ontology is one of function. A thing exists when it has a function. So a thing,
like water, might exist simpliciter before it exists in terms of having a function. Walton,
however, doesn’t flesh out the full implications of this. He says that Genesis 1 does not clearly
teach creatio ex nihilo because the objects of creation might have existed simpliciter before
God gave them a function. Yet, Walton also says that the passage teaches that God created
time. However, it seems that if one were to be consistent with the functional ontology of the
ANE world, Walton cannot say that Genesis 1 teaches that time began to exist simpliciter.
Instead, the passage teaches that time began to have a function in the created order.
 What is Time?33
seems to agree. Unlike Padgett, John holds that God is timeless, but much
like Padgett, he posits that there was time before creation that could not be
measured or divided.76 It is not, nor has it always been, obvious to Christian
theologians that time came into existence with creation.
In fact, the Bible clearly speaks of time before creation. Psalm 90:2 says,
“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth
and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” The from/to
formula in this passage is a common formula in scripture used to denote a
span of time. In this instance, the Hebrew word olam—sometimes translated
as eternity depending on context—is used twice here to refer to the span of
God’s life.77 It quite literally means from perpetual duration in the indefinite
past to perpetual duration in the indefinite future. This is a deeply temporal
portrayal of God. Psalm 90 not only portrays God in temporal terms, it also
speaks of God existing alone before creation. One would be hard pressed to
say that this is not a temporal before since the language employed is
explicitly temporal. As Gershom Brin points out, “The earliest time
mentioned [in scripture] is that of the reality prior to the Creation.”78 The
idea that God existed temporally before creation is an important biblical
theme which looks strikingly like what the temporalist wishes to say about
God.79
One could, if she wants, hold that physical time came into existence with
creation. She could argue that this is perfectly compatible with the biblical
teaching even though it is not necessitated by Scripture. Various
contemporary philosophical and systematic theologians today will say that
Scripture implies that physical time came into existence with creation, but it
does not necessarily entail that metaphysical time came into existence. In
order to understand this we will need to get clear on the difference between
metaphysical and physical time. Physical time is what is typically associated
with our universe and it is said to have the following three features. First,
physical time began to exist, or it came to be. Second, physical time can be
measured. Third, the physical time of one universe cannot relate to a
separate physical universe and its time series.
(1) Physical time began to exist. When creation began spacetime came
into existence. This means that it has not always existed because it has
a definite starting point. Physical time began when the universe
began.80

76
John of Damascus, Orthodox Faith, II.1. For Padgett’s account see his God, Eternity, and
the Nature of Time (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1992).
77
Gershom Brin, The Concept of Time in the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill,
2001), 95–103.
78
Brin, The Concept of Time in the Bible, 179. See also, Bruce K. Waltke with Cathi
J. Fredricks, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 58.
79
Mt 13:35, Mt 24:21, Mt 25:34, Lk 11:50, Jn 17:24, Eph 1:4, 1 Pet 1:20, Tit 1:2, 2 Tim 1:9, Heb
9:6, Jude 25, Ps 90:2, Rev 13:8, and Rev 17:8.
80
Gregory E. Ganssle, Thinking About God: First Steps in Philosophy (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2004), 61.
34What is Time?
(2) Physical time can be measured. It can be measured because of a
localized internal clock.81 The way physical time is measured in a
particular universe depends on the laws of nature that are intrinsic to
that world.82 For instance, on earth we measure time based on our
local intrinsic clock. That clock is based on the duration of the earth’s
rotation around the sun. This constant revolution serves as a local
clock for those of us on earth. A planet on the other side of the
universe would not measure time by our local clock because it does
not revolve around our sun. That planet would measure time
according to its own local clock. Yet, these clocks can be
synchronized because the universe has its own cosmic time as
determined by the universe’s background space, or the frame of
reference of the universe at rest with respect to the cosmic
background radiation.83 The laws of nature are not local- ized, but are
held to be consistent across the universe making it possible to have a
cosmic time.
(3) The physical time of one universe cannot relate well to other
universes and their physical time. For instance, think of C. S. Lewis’
classic The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The children in this
story leave London and enter into another world called Narnia
through a magical wardrobe. They reside in Narnia for many years,
but when they return to London only a few minutes have passed by in
London. This is because the local clock in Narnia is not based on the
same clock that we on earth use. The claim is that there is no way for
our measurement of earth time to apply to Narnian time because both
universes have separate physical clocks based on the laws of nature
that are intrinsic to each universe.84
I am not suggesting that there is an actual Narnia. I am using it to
illustrate an idea that is quite popular in physics today: the multiverse.85
It is quite

81
Ganssle, Thinking About God, 61. Richard Swinburne’s The Christian God (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1994), ch. 4.
82
Garrett DeWesse, “Atemporal, Sempiternal, or Omnitemporal,” in Ganssle and Woodruff,
God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 50.
83
Quentin Smith, “A New Typology of Temporal and Atemporal Permanence,” Nous 23
(1989), 311. See also, Craig, “The Elimination of Absolute Time by the Special Theory of
Relativity,” in Ganssle and Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 139–47.
John Polkinghorne, “The Nature of Time,” in eds. Alain Connes, Michael Heller, Shahn Majid,
Roger Penrose, John Polkinghorne, and Andrew Taylor, On Space and Time (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2008), 280.
84
For more on this theme see Michael and Adam Peterson, “Time Keeps on Ticking, Or
Does
It? The Significance of Time in The Chronicles of Narnia”, in eds. Gregory Bassham and Jerry
L. Walls, The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy: The Lion, The Witch, and The Worldview
(Peru, IL: Carus, 2005).
85
It should also be noted that the notion of multiple universes is an ancient concept.
Aristotle, for instance, argued that there could not be more than one universe. Various
Christian theologians rejected Aristotle’s arguments and held that God could create multiple
universes if
 What is Time?35
popular today to posit a multiverse that generates an infinite number of
distinct universes, each with its own discrete time series. If there are
multiple universes, each with its own intrinsic natural laws distinct from our
own, it will not be possible for us to use our metrics to measure the time in
those universes. Or so the story typically goes.86
There is a further point to be made from this. This feature is also said to
apply to worlds that lack physical objects and laws of nature as well. We
cannot use our metrics based on our laws of nature to measure the life of
angels, or so the story typically goes. 87 Nor would we be able to use them to
measure the souls that reside in the intermediate state awaiting resurrection.

Metaphysical Time

Metaphysical time is often associated with God’s eternal, everlasting nature.

In contrast to physical time, metaphysical time never came into existence.
God resides in eternity. Eternity for the divine temporalist means that God
has no beginning and no end. God’s eternal now is fleeting in that God has
moments that slough off into the non-existent past, and He has not-yet
existing future moments. The difference between our now and God’s eternal
now is that God never came into existence. The now of physical time had a
beginning, and it need not exist, whereas God necessarily exists.
Another difference that some divine temporalists draw out is that, unlike
physical time, metaphysical time cannot be measured because it lacks an
intrinsic metric.88 Typically, it is said to be amorphous: there is no constant
metric by which one could neatly divide up the duration of moments. 89 Prior
to the creation of the world God exists without beginning and end in an
unmetricated time. One might say this looks like a timeless existence since

He so desired. For instance, the fourteenth-century theologian and philosopher Nicole Oresme,
Le Livre, 149–79. In the seventeenth century Gassendi used the concept of multiple universes
and their separate time streams to argue against Aristotle’s theory of time. See his Physiologia,
74–5.
86
In Gassendi’s discussion he argues that the proponent of a relational theory of time cannot
offer a way to relate the distinct universes together since they lack a time that is external to all
of the universes based on some general motion that the universes have in common. But this
seems to be a problem only for the relationalist, and not the absolutist. Perhaps the absolutist
can appeal to Gassendi’s distinction between the internal time of each universe, and an
external time that they all belong to. Of course, this would entail that the multiple universes
are in fact temporally related to each other in which case we no longer have multiple time
series. For an argument that multiple time series are impossible see Richard Swinburne, Space
and Time: Second Edition (London: Macmillan, 1981), ch. 10.
87
Garrett DeWeese, God and the Nature of Time (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), 243.
88
Ganssle, Thinking About God, 61.
89
This is the view of contemporary temporalists like Dean Zimmerman, Richard Swinburne,
Alan Padgett, and Garrett DeWeese. Newton and Gassendi seem to disagree and say that
metaphysical time does have an intrinsic metric.
36What is Time?
God’s life lacks a beginning, end, and succession. However, this is false. As
I shall explain in the next chapter, in order to be timeless God must
necessarily exist without succession and have no before or after. A temporal
God contin- gently exists without succession for He can create moments in a
variety of ways, many of which need not be creating physical objects.
The claim often made is that in this unmetricated state prior to the act of
creation there is no way to measure God’s metaphysical time, or what Dean
Zimmerman calls “dead time.” According to Zimmerman, in order to
measure a temporal series one will need temporal intervals “consisting of a
non- denumerable set of durationless instants.” Further, one will need to
have a set of coordinates that have the same “betweenness relations” or same
length. Without an intrinsic metric this will be an arbitrary convention. The
problem is that any such conventional metric could be devised to measure
God’s life, and there is no way in principle to say which one is wrong
because every instant of dead time is intrinsically alike and is the same
number of instants away from each other.90
Yet this is an epistemological problem. One might counter by saying,
“Just because we cannot know which conventional metric to apply to God’s
meta- physical time prior to the act of creation does not mean that there is no
right answer. Verificationist considerations like these simply will not do.”
The rejoinder from Zimmerman is to contend that without laws of nature
“nothing could ground counterfactuals concerning what various kinds of
clocks would or would not do throughout a given interval of pseudo-time.”91
In other words, there is simply no way to measure metaphysical time since it
neces- sarily lacks an intrinsic metric. Nevertheless, Zimmerman’s move is
too quick. Just because metaphysical time lacks an intrinsic metric does not
obviously entail that it is unmeasurable since we can come up with
conventional metrics. Perhaps the idea is that we cannot come up with any
non-arbitrary objective measurements.
It should be noted that not every temporalist agrees that the metric of time
is a convention absent uniform laws of nature. Some hold that metaphysical
time does have an intrinsic metric, and as such it is measurable. This is a
point of contention amongst divine temporalists that has yet to be sorted out.
Of course, the above considerations are with regard to God’s life prior to
the act of creation. In the act of creation God freely creates a universe with
intrinsic laws of nature that serve as a metric for the physical time of that
universe. In the act of creation God takes on succession in His life. Neil
MacDonald refers to this as God getting Himself into our time. God freely

90
Dean Zimmerman, “God Inside Time and Before Creation,” in Ganssle and Woodruff,
God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 82–4.
91
Zimmerman, “God Inside Time,” in Ganssle and Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the
Divine Nature, 84.
 What is Time?37
takes on succession in His life so that He will be related to the creatures that
He has made.92 This statement is a bit misleading since—as we shall see
later in this chapter—metaphysical time contains physical time. It would be
more accurate to say that God brings creation into His time than to say that
God gets Himself into our time.
Another claim amongst some divine temporalists is that any metric in the
physical universe will fail to apply to metaphysical time.93 According to
these temporalists, it would make no sense to try to use physical time to
measure God’s eternal time. Physical time has a beginning, and
metaphysical time does not. Where would one start their measurement of
God’s time? As Sir Isaac Newton once said, metaphysical time “exists
regardless of the sensible and external measurements we try .. . to make of
it.”94
It is the case that the cosmic present marks a boundary for God because
God cannot exist at our universe’s past or future. Further, God’s eternal now
and our temporal now stand in a one-to-one correspondence. The very fact
that we exist is due to the sustaining presence of God, so we always exist in
God’s eternal present. (In Chapter 5, we shall see that the atemporalist is
deeply committed to this claim as well.) However, several divine
temporalists claim that this does not entail that our temporal metrics apply to
God. DeWeese says, “As it is possible that there might not be an intrinsic
metric to metaphysical time, it is possible that no quantitative temporal
relations hold for [God]. What this means is that, although moments of a
temporal world can be placed in a one-to-one correspondence with moments
of metaphysical time, one could give no sense to the statement that a certain
duration of metaphysical time lasted a certain number of seconds (days,
years, and so on).”95
DeWeese’s claim might strike one as rather odd. DeWeese gives us little
by way of argument for thinking his claim to be true, nor does he fully
explicate what he means by this statement. Other divine temporalists agree
that it would certainly be the case that one could not use the metrics of
physical time to measure the life of God prior to the act of creation, but
argue that it is possible to do so subsequent to creation. Especially since
God’s metaphysical time stands in a one-to-one correspondence with our
temporal universe. It is the contention of William Lane Craig that cosmic
time sets the boundaries for God’s time as He relates to our universe. Craig
argues that since cosmic time is in a one-to-one correspondence with God’s
metaphysical time we can measure

92
Neil B. MacDonald, Metaphysics and the God of Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2006), 79.
93
DeWeese, God and the Nature of Time, 50.
94
As quoted in William Lane Craig, Time and the Metaphysics of Relativity (Boston, MA:
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 107.
95
DeWeese, God and the Nature of Time, 253.
38What is Time?
the life of God subsequent to creation.96 If certain divine temporalists wish
to continue making claims like DeWeese’s it must be articulated why it is
the case that the metric of this universe does not apply to God as He
continually sustains this universe.
Alan Padgett argues that a one-to-one correspondence does not entail the
same metric. Objects must be in the same inertial reference frame in order to
share the same metric. God, according to Padgett, is not in any inertial
reference frame, so God’s metaphysical time cannot be measured. 97 Padgett,
it seems to me, has a weak notion of omnipresence at play here. He holds
that he is following the traditional claim that God is aspatial, and so not
actually located in space. However, this is not the traditional doctrine of
omnipresence. Traditionally, omnipresence holds that the entire being of
God is wholly located in every point or region of space. According to Robert
Pasnau, “Medieval Christian authors, despite being generally misread on this
point, are in complete agreement that God is literally present, spatially,
throughout the universe. One simply does not find anyone wanting to
remove God from space, all the way through to the end of the seventeenth
century.”98 Ultimately, though, whether or not Padgett holds to a traditional
doctrine of omnipres- ence is somewhat beside the point. Grant that God is
aspatial. I don’t find it obvious that an aspatial being cannot be temporally
measured. Simultaneously co-existing with a clock seems to be sufficient to
be measured. Consider a similar case with the soul. There is debate about
whether or not souls exist in space, but say that they do not. Do we really
want to say that the soul of Socrates cannot be temporally measured because
it is not in an inertial reference frame? That would strike me as rather odd.
Perhaps there is a better way to argue that God’s metaphysical time cannot
be measured subsequent to creation. One possible avenue to take could
come from the multiverse.99 If there are other universes with their own
unique time series, God will be temporally related to those universes as
well.100 As Keith Ward explains,
God will stand at every leading edge of every process, moving with it toward
its own open future. God will not be confined to a particular time but will move
forward with many nontemporally related times . . . [He] will enter into all
processive times and will, thus, not be reducible to one linear temporal series
into which they are all put.101

96
Craig, God, Time, and Eternity, ch. 7.
97
Padgett, God, Eternity, and the Nature of Time, 128–9, and personal correspondence.
98
Pasnau, “On Existing All at Once,” 19.
99
Padgett, God, Eternity, and the Nature of Time, 128.
100
DeWeese, God and the Nature of Time, 243.
101
Keith Ward, The Big Questions in Science and Religion, 126.
 What is Time?39
One could argue that this would make it impossible to use our metrics to
measure the divine life of God since God is related to multiple universes and
their time series.
There are many interpretations of the multiverse in contemporary philoso-
phy and cosmology. For instance, one interpretation is that the universe is
bigger than what we can observe. That isn’t really interesting for our current
conversation as it does not seem to be what Ward is gesturing toward.
Further, this doesn’t really seem to be an actual multiverse. On another
understanding of the multiverse, each universe is causally, spatially, and
temporally isolated from other universes. What distinguishes some universe
A from some universe B is the fact that they are causally, spatially, and
temporally unrelated to one another. This seems to be what Ward is talking
about.
However, one might wonder if God’s eternal now would serve as a way to
make each universe related to one another. Perhaps it is the case that the
now of each universe is related because each now exists in the eternal now
of God’s metaphysical time. The now of each universe is simultaneous with
God’s eternal now, and thus simultaneous with each other. It would still be
the case that each time series “flows” according to its own intrinsic metric,
and it would still be the case that each instant of time exists in God’s now
only when that instant in fact exists as the presentist sees things. On this
model it would appear that God’s eternal now serves as the boundary for
each universe’s cosmic time. This would be to reverse Craig’s claim
mentioned earlier. What this would do is undermine Ward’s claim that God
would be related to several different temporally unrelated universes because
each universe would be temporally related via God’s eternal now.
This is a very difficult topic, and the very existence of the multiverse is an
issue of great debate. The cosmologist George Ellis claims that the
multiverse is not even a scientific hypothesis because it is not the sort of
thing that is even possibly open to scientific investigation. One simply
cannot do any empirical research on universes that are causally, spatially,
and temporally unrelated to our own.102 However, as noted before, there are
other definitions of the multiverse. Max Tegmark maintains that some of
these other definitions might be open to scientific investigation.103 These are
issues that temporalists will need to consider in order to flesh out the
concept of divine temporality.
This last point of contention brings us to the final theme that some divine
temporalists articulate. Metaphysical time, so they say, can relate to other
universes and their times. This is because metaphysical time is the grounds
of

102
Ellis, “Does the Multiverse Really Exist?” Scientific American (August, 2011).
103
Tegmark, “Many Worlds in Context,” in eds. Simon Saunders, Jonathan Barrett, Adrian
Kent, and David Wallace, Many Worlds? Everett, Quantum Theory, and Reality (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2010).
40What is Time?
ordering relations of physical time.104 Physical time’s existence and structure
are completely dependent on metaphysical time. It is God’s causal act of
sustaining the universe that not only keeps that universe in existence, but
also makes time flow in that universe. As such, God can easily relate to
other universes with various physical time structures because His eternal
time is what keeps those time structures in order.
Perhaps an illustration will help bring out this last point. Consider a comic
book. The panels of a comic book could be thought of as periods of time
standing in a successive temporal order. The order of these periods is due to
the work of the author of the comic book. Yet, there is no flow of time in a
comic book unless someone is reading it. In the very act of reading the
reader creates a flow of time for the comic book. The reader’s actions are
what sustain the time of the comic book, yet the reader’s time is not identical
to it. The reader can slow down or speed up his reading pace. He could even
take a break from reading only to pick up the comic at a later date.
In a similar way, God’s act of sustaining the world in existence creates the
flow of time in our physical universe, and the same goes for any other
universe that God may have created. Yet, one might contend that God’s time
is not identical to ours because He could slow down or speed up the
processes of the universe, or even cease to sustain the universe in existence.

104
DeWeese, “Atemporal, Sempiternal, or Omnitemporal,” God and Time: Essays on the
Divine Nature, 50.
 3

What is Eternity?

When you intend to know God . . . consider as you can the things about
him, for example his eternity, immensity, infinity, his goodness,
wisdom, and power which creates, governs, and judges creatures. For
that person among others is a great theologian if he searches out the
principles of these things, however much or little.
—Maximus the Confessor1
In this chapter I shall articulate the doctrine of divine timelessness and its
systematic connections with divine immutability, simplicity, and im-
passibility. I shall also look at questions about eternal duration, and how to
talk about timeless eternity. In passing, I shall briefly note the role that
these doctrines play in classical Christian theology. This will set the stage
for the critical assessment of the divine timeless research program in
subse- quent chapters. The discussion will also help clear up many
common confusions that appear in contemporary theology and philosophy
on divine eternality.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS

A few preliminary remarks are in order before moving forward. First, as

noted in the previous chapter, most classical theologians have tended to hold
to a relational theory of time where time exists if and only if change or
motion exists. It was also noted that there are philosophers and theologians
who think that time can exist without change. However, everyone seems to
agree that if there is a change, there is time. As we shall see, the relational
theory of time played an important role in the articulation of divine
timelessness and im- mutability. Along the way we shall also see the role
that presentism and endurantism played in the articulation of divine
eternality.

1
Maximus the Confessor, 400 Chapters on Love, 2.27.
42What is Eternity?
Second, in reading this chapter, one must be aware of the peculiar, and
technical, use of temporal terms to describe timeless eternity. The concept of
eternity was something developed over time throughout Greek philosophy
and Christian theology. As the concept was developed, theologians and
philo- sophers were forced to use temporal words to describe timeless
eternity. One early Christian statement of this sort on divine eternity can be
found in Clement of Alexandria. “Eternity, for instance, presents in an
instant the future and the present, also the past of time” (Stromateis, 1.13).
Elsewhere he speaks of “the true to-day, the never-ending day of God,
[which] extends over eternity” (Stromateis, 9).
The use of temporal words to describe eternity can cause confusion in
contemporary reconstructions of divine eternality. For instance, some will
argue that classical Christian theology did not hold to a strict account of
divine atemporality because they used temporal terms to describe God’s
eternity.2 This, however, is a mistake. Even though classical Christians
continually use temporal properties to describe God, they also continually
claim that these should be understood in non-temporal ways when
predicated of God.3
Going back at least to Plato, theists have held that it is best to speak of
God in the present tense because it is the easiest to give a non-temporal
reading. The move from classical theists is to offer non-temporal readings of
temporal terms like “present,” “is,” “always,” and “now.”4 One example of
this comes from Peter Lombard. In Sentences I, Distinction VIII.1, he says
that it is permissible to speak of God using various tensed verbs, but the best
way to understand God is to use “is.” The “is” is best because it does not
“distinguish temporal movements” in God. Instead, it denotes that God
“simply exists.”
Christian theologians have long held that inconsistency and difficulties in
Christian doctrine naturally arise when one lets one’s pen slip into temporal
phrases without qualifying their non-temporal sense. This was an important
issue in early Christian theology. Offering non-temporal readings of
temporal terms played a major role in explaining the eternal generation of
the Son and eternal spiration of the Holy Spirit.5 The early Church was at
pains to explain this in a way that avoided the Arian claim that there was a
time when the Son did not exist. The concepts of eternal generation and
spiration are causal

2
Brian Leftow, “The Eternal Present,” in eds. Gregory Ganssle and David Woodruff, God
and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 25.
3
Rory Fox, Time and Eternity in Mid-Thirteenth-Century Thought (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006), ch. 1.
4
Maximus the Confessor is somewhat different in that he speaks of time as “beginning,
middle, and end.” He says that God is our beginning, middle, and end in that God created us,
sustains us, and is our goal. However, God is infinitely beyond beginning, middle, and end.
We speak of God only by “fully excluding the notion of time” from Him. See his Chapters on
Knowledge, 1.1–10.
5
Christopher A. Beeley, The Unity of Christ: Continuity and Conflict in Patristic Tradition
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 90–2.
 What is Eternity?43
notions.6 As Gregory of Nyssa explains in On Not Three Gods, “The
principle of causality distinguishes, then, the Persons of the holy Trinity. It
affirms that the one is uncaused, while the other depends on the cause.”
Depending on how one views the filioque, there are two ways to
understand this. If one denies the filioque, she will say that God the Father
causes the Son and Holy Spirit to exist. If one affirms the filioque, she will
say that the Father causes the Son to exist, and the Father and the Son
together cause the Holy Spirit to exist. The causal claims at play in this
doctrine gave rise to various problems throughout Church history, but I shall
focus on the Arian contro- versy. It is a quite natural idea that causes are
temporally prior to their effects. In this instance that would mean that God
the Father exists prior to the Son and Holy Spirit. Hence the Arian question,
“How can Christ be a Son, without being younger than the Father: for
anything which derives its being must be later than its source?”7
Early Christian theologians sought to avoid this in several ways. The first
step was to say that the generation of the Son and the procession of the
Spirit take place in the Father’s eternal present. This is often captured by the
phrase, “The Son was begotten before all ages.”8 The second step involved
appealing to the non-temporal reading of the eternal present.9 One example
comes from Origen of Alexandria. In On First Principles 2.2, he claims that
all three of the divine persons lack a before and after in their life. When it
comes to speaking about God we are forced to use temporal expressions, but
Origen explains that “the statements made regarding Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit are to be understood as transcending all time, all ages, and all
eternity” (On First Principles 4.28).10 The big idea behind moves of this sort
is to say that not all causes are temporally prior to their effects. In the case
of the Trinity, the Father causes the Son to exist, but it is a timeless cause
with a timeless effect such that the Father never exists without the Son.11
Of course, this did not automatically end the debate, for all of the
heterodox theologians of the day believed that God was timeless,
impassible, immutable, and simple as well. This doctrine of God was an
unquestioned assumption by

6
Also, Alasdair I. C. Heron, “Homoousios with the Father,” in ed. Thomas F. Torrance,
The Incarnation: Ecumenical Studies in Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed A.D. 381
(Edinburgh: Handsel, 1981), 60–1. Kevin Giles, The Eternal Generation of the Son:
Maintaining Orthodoxy in Trinitarian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press,
2012), chs. 4–5.
7
John Chrysostom deals with this question by appealing to God’s timeless eternity. See
Chrysostom in ed. Henry Bettenson, The Later Christian Fathers (London: Oxford University
Press, 1970), 170.
8
Giles, The Eternal Generation of the Son, 108.
9
Gregory of Nazianzus, The Theological Orations, 3.3.
10
For more on Origen’s articulation of divine timelessness see P. Tzamalikos, Origen:
Cosmology and Ontology of Time (Leiden: Brill, 2006).
11
Beeley, Unity of Christ, 23.
44What is Eternity?
all parties involved after Nicaea.12 For instance, in his Apology, Eunomius
developed an argument against the doctrine of homoousios as well as against
the homoian theologians on the basis of these classical divine attributes. Just
like Origen and other Church fathers, Eunomius was adamant that one must
be careful to use the terms applied to God in a way that excludes all time.
One of the things that Eunomius, and other later Arians, found implausible
was the notion of a timeless cause with a timeless effect. How can an act of
God generate a timeless effect? How can God the Father timelessly
communicate His essence to the Son in a generative act such that the Son is
also timeless, immutable, impassible, and simple? The continued orthodox
response to this question is unanimous—eternal generation is an ineffable
mystery that one cannot pry into.13
I shall set aside the issue of eternal generation for now. What is important
at the moment is that classical orthodox Christianity made great use of the
following three themes when articulating theological doctrines: (i) the con-
nection between time and change, (ii) presentism and endurantism, and (iii)
the non-temporal usage of temporal terms. It will be important to keep these
in mind when reading the rest of this chapter.

WHAT IS TIMELESS ETERNITY?

The Protestant Scholastic Benedict Pictet states the doctrine as follows.

“Eter- nity, properly so called, such as belongs to God, denotes three things:
to be without beginning, without end, without succession. In this eternity we
cannot conceive of anything prior or posterior, anything past, present, or
future, since God is without beginning or end.”14
The understanding of the atemporal God, then, means at least the
following three propositions.
(1) God exists without beginning.
(2) God exists without end.
(3) God exists without succession, or successive moments, in His life.

12
Frances M. Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon, 2nd Edition, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2010), 241.
13
Stephen R. Holmes, The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History
and Modernity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), chs. 4–5.
14
Benedict Pictet, Christian Theology (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Board of Publication,
1834), Book II.viii. Cf. Richard Stock, A Stock of Divine Knowledge, 91. Francis Turretin,
Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1 (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed
Publishing, 1992), 202. Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology Volume 1: The
Doctrine of God (Philadelphia, PA: American Baptist Publication Society, 1907), 275.
 What is Eternity?45
The divine temporalist will affirm (1) and (2). Indeed, most agree that this is
the clear teaching of scripture. However, the temporalist will call into
question (3). This is because (3) is what distinguishes divine temporality
from divine timelessness. As Rory Fox explains, succession was the
fundamental basis in the Middle Ages for determining whether or not
something was temporal or non-temporal.15 If something undergoes
succession, or has intervals in its life, that thing is temporal. So (3) is
explicitly denying temporality of God. Before calling into question (3) we
will need to get a better picture of what Christians have held about God’s
eternity. As we shall see, the ideas presented in Pictet carry a lot of
theological and philosophical baggage. In particular, they are deeply
connected with the doctrines of divine simplicity, impassibility, and
immutability, as well as a relational view of time.
(1)–(3) carry wide assent throughout Church history. In discussing the
eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit,
Gregory of Nyssa states, “Extensions in time find no admittance in the
Eternal Life.” (Against Eunomius I.42) In his answer to Eunomius, Gregory
claims that creatures are circumscribed by time and place. Creatures have
intervals in their lives because they undergo a succession of moments. God,
however, transcends all intervals.16 Augustine makes similar statements
about the triune God. “In their own proper substance by which they are, the
three are one, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, without any temporal
movement, without any intervals of time or space, one and the same over all
creation, one and the same all together from eternity to eternity” (The Trinity
IV.30).
But (1)–(3) does not constitute the whole story. John Philoponus explains
that eternity, as pertains to God, “has neither temporal position, nor priority
and posteriority, nor any extension at all.”17 The idea that God’s life does not
have a before and after is a common theme in many Christian writers.
Philoponus makes it quite clear that the idea of divine eternity must also
include a lack of temporal position and extension. If something has a
temporal position or extension it is in time. Anselm follows suit by
proclaiming of God, “You exist neither yesterday nor today nor tomorrow
but are absolutely outside all time” (Proslogion 19). So in addition to (1)–(3),
we also need:
(4) God exists without temporal position and extension.

15
Fox, Time and Eternity, 226–7.
16
See also, David Bradshaw, “Time and Eternity in the Greek Fathers,” Thomist: A Speculative
Quarterly Review 70 (2006), 311–66. Bradshaw claims that Gregory and other Greek
theologians do not have divine timelessness in mind since they do not hold to the Western
doctrine of divine simplicity, but Bradshaw is mistaken. According to Bradshaw the Greek
Fathers, going back to Athanasius, distinguish between things that begin and have intervals, and
God who does not begin and has nointervals. But Gregory of Nyssa clearly has timelessness
inmind since he thinks God exists without beginning, without end, and without temporal intervals,
succession, or moments in His life.
17
John Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 12–18, trans. James
Wilberding (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 2006), 65.
46What is Eternity?
The idea behind (4) is that God cannot be located in, nor circumscribed by,
time. For many Christian thinkers like Anselm, (4) is a way of expressing
God’s aseity and sovereignty over creation.
The notion that God lacks succession, temporal extension, and location
causes problems when it comes to articulating God’s omnipresence and
conservation of creation. Christian theologians and philosophers in the past
have been aware of this and have offered ways around this problem. A
common strategy is to make a clear distinction between God’s eternal present
and our temporal present. “Present” when used of God is given a non-
temporal reading on this strategy. Boethius gives us a clear example of this
move.
In The Trinity is One God Not Three Gods IV Boethius says,
“He is everywhere” does not mean that He is in every place, for He cannot be in
any place at all—but that every place is present to Him for Him to occupy,
although He Himself can be received by no place, and therefore He cannot
anywhere be in a place, since He is everywhere but in no place. It is the same
with the category of time, as, “A man came yesterday; God is ever.” Here again
the predicate of “coming yesterday” denotes not something substantial, but
something happening in terms of time. But the expression “God is ever” denotes
a single Present, summing up His continual presence in all the past, in all the
present—however that term be used—and in all the future. Philosophers say
that “ever” may be applied to the life of the heavens and other immortal bodies.
But as applied to God it has a different meaning. He is ever, because “ever” is
with Him a term of present time, and there is this great difference between
“now,” which is our present, and the divine present. Our present connotes
changing time and sempiternity; God’s present, abiding, unmoved, and im-
moveable, connotes eternity. Add semper to eternity and you get the constant,
incessant and thereby perpetual course of our present time, that is to say,
sempiternity.18
Does giving God’s present a non-temporal reading solve the problem? Does
it assuage the tension of a timeless God sustaining a temporal world? We
will have to wait and see. For now we must content ourselves with exploring
the basic concept of timeless eternity.
One of the most quoted statements on divine timelessness comes from
another work by Boethius.
Eternity is the simultaneous and complete possession of infinite life. This will
appear more clearly if we compare it with temporal things. All that lives under
the conditions of time moves through the present from the past to the future;
there is nothing set in time which can at one moment grasp the whole space of
its lifetime. It cannot yet comprehend to-morrow; yesterday it has already lost.
And in this life of to-day your life is no more than a changing, passing moment
. . . What we

18
Author’s emphasis.
 What is Eternity?47
should rightly call eternal is that which grasps and possesses wholly and simul-
taneously the fullness of unending life, which lacks naught of the future, and
has lost naught of the fleeting past; and such an existence must be ever present
in itself to control and aid itself, and also must keep present with itself the
infinity of changing time. (Consolation of Philosophy V)
Note that this statement also contains a clear distinction between our present
and God’s eternal present. Brian Leftow suggests that Boethius’ use of
“present” is a literal predication of God.19 Perhaps the idea is that “present”
denotes what exists. Our present is fleeting because it stands between the
non-existent past and the yet-to-exist future. God’s timeless present does not
have a before and after. It simply exists. This is part of Gregory of Nyssa’s
conception of God’s eternity. “He is always to be apprehended as in
existence; He admits not a time when He was not, and when He will not be”
(Against Eunomius I.42).20
Anselm makes a similar statement. In Proslogion 22 he praises God by
saying, “[You have] neither past nor future existence but only present exist-
ence; nor can You be thought not to exist at any time.” In De Concordia I.5
he continues this idea. In “time things move from past to future” and only the
present moment of time exists. God’s eternal present is different in that it
has no movement from past to future. In “eternity there is only a present,
nevertheless it is not a temporal present as ours is.”21
The non-temporal reading of “present” as applied to God seems to be a
way of capturing the content of (1)–(4). It appears that, for classical
theologians, certain predicates like “present” can be applied literally to God
because they can be given a non-temporal meaning that overlaps with the
temporal mean- ing of “present.” Other predicates, however, cannot be
applied to God because He is timeless, immutable, impassible, and simple.
At this point it will be helpful to see the systematic connections between
divine timelessness, immut- ability, impassibility, and simplicity.

DIVINE IMMUTABILITY

The classical doctrine of divine immutability declares that God does not
undergo any kind of change whatsoever.22 Before fully delving into

19
Leftow, “The Eternal Present,” in God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 24.
20
Cf. John Duns Scotus, God and Creatures, 6.32.
21
Soren Kierkegaard agrees. God is “eternally changeless, everything is for him eternally
present, eternally equally present, no shifting shadow either of morning or evening, of youth
or of old age, of forgetfulness or of excuse, no shifting shadow shifts him—no for him there is
no shadow.” See eds. Howard and Edna Hong, The Essential Kierkegaard (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2000), 489.
22
Antonie Vos, “Always on Time: On God’s Immutability,” in eds. Gijsbert van den Brink
and Marcel Sarot, Understanding the Attributes of God (New York: Peter Lang, 1999), 53.
48What is Eternity?
immutability it should be noted that there are two pre-Christian assumptions
at play in the development of this Christian doctrine: a Platonic and an
Aristotelian assumption. These assumptions are vital for understanding clas-
sical Christian theology, and the systematic connections between the divine
attributes.
The first is the Platonic assumption about change and perfection. The
Platonic assumption is that there are no value-neutral changes. All changes
are for the better or worse. With this Platonic assumption, Christian theolo-
gians and philosophers argue as follows. A perfect being is one that cannot
get any better for it is the best of all beings. Further, a perfect being cannot
become worse, for if it did, it would not truly be perfect. A truly perfect
being cannot lose its perfection. God is a perfect being. If God is perfect,
God must be changeless. For if God underwent a change, God would either
become a better being, or a worse being, and such a thing is incompatible
with perfection.23
Second, there is an Aristotelian assumption with regard to modality that
plays a major role in the development of divine timelessness. It is an
assump- tion that hardly any contemporary metaphysician holds any longer,
thus making it somewhat difficult for modern thinkers to understand the
argu- mentative moves made by classical theologians. The presupposition of
the classical theologians is that immutability and necessity are equivalent, or
at least mutually entailing. Also, mutability and contingency are equivalent,
or at least mutually entailing.24 Any being that undergoes change cannot be a
necessary being. Since God is a necessary being, He must be immutable. It
is also the case that necessity and eternity are taken to be equivalent, or at
least mutually entailing.25 A necessary being cannot begin or cease to exist.
This is important for understanding several of the moves that Christians
make in their articulation of eternity. For instance, John Duns Scotus argues
that “Thou art a necessary being; and therefore Thou art eternal, because
Thou

23
Katherin A. Rogers, Perfect Being Theology (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
2000), 47–50.
24
See the introduction to John Duns Scotus: Contingency and Freedom: Lectura I 39, trans.
A. Vos Jaczn, H. Veldhuis, A. H. Looman-Graaskamp, E. Dekker, and N. W. Den Bok
(London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994), 20. Jaczn et al. explain how Scotus’ modality
marks a clear break from this tradition that was not previously seen in Western Christian
theology.
25
Samuel Clarke does not hold that eternity and necessity are equivalent since he denies
divine simplicity. However, he still sees the close connection between the two ideas. “The
ideas of eternity and self-existence are so closely connected, that because something must of
necessity be eternal independently and without any outward cause of its being, therefore it
must necessarily be self-existent.” Further, “[t]hat being, therefore, which has no other cause of
its existence but the absolute necessity of its own nature must of necessity have existed from
everlasting, without
beginning, and must of necessity exist to everlasting without end.” A Demonstration of the
Being and Attributes of God and Other Writings, ed. Ezio Vailati (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1998), Section V. Descartes also links eternity and necessary existence. Like
Clarke, he does not link it with timelessness. See Geoffrey Gorham, “Descartes on God’s
Relation to Time,” Religious Studies 44 (2008), 422–3.
 What is Eternity?49
hast at once an interminability of duration without a potency to succession.
For there can be no succession except in that which is continuously caused,
or at least in that which has its being dependent upon another; and this
depend- ence is far from that which is necessary of itself in being.”26
These two assumptions play a major role in the sixth-century debate
between Proclus and John Philoponus. Part of Proclus’ argument is that the
Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo conflicts with divine perfection, time-
lessness, immutability, and simplicity. If God were to create the universe out
of nothing, He would undergo a change. As such, the Christian God would
not be immutable. If the Christian God is mutable, He must be contingent.
As such, the Christian God would be the creature of a genuinely perfect
God.27 This will be given a full treatment in Chapter 5. For now it is
important to note the strong connection between perfection, necessity,
timelessness, and immut- ability with these Platonic and Aristotelian
assumptions.
Pseudo-Dionysius clearly links the notion of immutability with divine
eternity. This is a common theme throughout Christian history. The assump-
tion is that time involves change or motion, so God must be changeless in
order to be timeless.28 The way Pseudo-Dionysius expresses divine timeless-
ness picks up on the themes discussed in this chapter as well as the
connection with immutability. He writes,
“Ancient of Days” is a title given to God because He is the Eternity of all things
and their Time, and is anterior to Days and anterior to Eternity and Time. And
the titles “Time,” “Day,” “Season,” and “Eternity” must be applied to Him in a
Divine sense, to mean One Who is utterly incapable of all change and
movement and, in His eternal motion, remains at rest; He transcends both Rest
and Motion; and Who is the Cause whence Eternity, Time, and Days are
derived. (The Divine Names, 10.2)
In speaking of God’s beauty, he explains that God is beautiful in and of
Himself. He was not beautiful at one time and then not at another, because
God is eternally beautiful (The Divine Names, 4.7). Pseudo-Dionysius
speaks in a similar way with regard to God’s actions. God cannot act at one
time and not at another. If God did, He would suffer change, and thus not be
eternal (The Divine Names, 4.21).
Augustine makes the same connection between timelessness and immut-
ability. Like Pseudo-Dionysius, he also connects time with change. “Since
the flight of time involves change, it cannot be co-eternal with changeless
eternity”

26
Evan Roche, The De Primo Principio of John Duns Scotus: A Revised Text and a
Translation (Washington, D.C.: The Franciscan Institute, 1949), 143–5.
27
John Philoponus, Against Proclus On the Eternity of the World 1–5, trans. Michael Share
(London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., 2004), 42, 50, and 64.
28
In The Divine Names 4.4, Pseudo-Dionysius claims that the constant change and move-
ment of the heavenly bodies is the basis for time and our measurement of time.
50What is Eternity?
(City of God XII).29 In The Trinity IV he says, “For God’s essence, by which
he is, has absolutely nothing changeable about its eternity or its truth or its
will.” Later on he says God should be understood as “wholly everywhere
without place, everlasting without time, without any change in himself
making change- able things, and undergoing nothing” (The Trinity V.2).
Thomas Aquinas also makes the connections between time and change, as
well as necessity, timelessness, and immutability. In Summa Contra
Gentiles
I.99 Aquinas argues as follows. “God is utterly unchangeable .. . that which
begins or ceases to live, or is subject in living, is changeable . . . Therefore
God neither began to be, or will cease to be, nor is subject to succession in
living. Therefore His life is eternal.”
In later chapters there will be a lengthy discussion of how a timeless and
immutable God relates to an ever-changing universe. For now it will be
helpful to begin to see the connections between relational and accidental
properties that arise from interacting with a temporal universe, and divine
timelessness and immutability.
In The Trinity V, Boethius turns his attention to the topic of relations.
Relational predicates denote a substance’s relation to other objects. “It
cannot therefore be affirmed that a category of relation increases, decreases,
or alters in any way the substance of the thing to which it is applied.” He
offers an illustration. Say a man is standing in front of you. You walk up to
him and stand to his left. Then you stand to his right. The man has different
relational properties depending upon your position in relation to him, but his
essence has undergone no intrinsic change. Such “predicates which do not
denote the essential property of a thing cannot alter, change, or disturb its
nature in any way.” One might think that such predicates can be
appropriately used of God since this would not change His essential nature.
However, that does not seem to be the view of Boethius and other classical
theologians.
In Sentences I, Distinction XXXVII.7, Peter Lombard explains how things
change according to time.
But to change through time is to become different according to their interior or
exterior qualities which are in the very thing that is changed, as when it
undergoes a vicissitude of joy, suffering, knowledge, forgetfulness, or a change
of form or of some other exterior quality. For this change which happens
according to time is a change of qualities which happens in the bodily or
spiritual creature, and so it is called time.
Any kind of change, intrinsic or extrinsic, will make an object temporal.
Lombard holds that God is simple and immutable, and as such He cannot
undergo any intrinsic changes (Dist. VIII). Further, he holds that God

29
Aquinas in On the Eternity of the World 11 says “nothing can be co-eternal with God,
because nothing can be immutable save God alone.”
 What is Eternity?51
cannot undergo any extrinsic change.30 For instance, when temporal
creatures refer to God it would seem that God would undergo an extrinsic
change and thus Himself be temporal.31 When a human worships God and
says, “You are my Creator and Redeemer” she begins to predicate an
accidental property of God. God, so it seems, begins to have this accidental
property, and thus undergoes a succession and a change. Lombard
understands this problem, so he follows Augustine by holding that the
accidental properties that crea- tures predicate of God do not apply to God
(Dist. XXII, XXX, and XXXIX).32 What can be taken away from this is that
to be in time is to undergo intrinsic and extrinsic change. To be timeless is
to undergo no changes whatsoever.33 As such, we must add the following to
(1)–(4):
(5) God cannot undergo any intrinsic or extrinsic change.
At this point it will be helpful to sum up the discussion before moving on
to other issues. So far we can see that divine eternity involves existing
without beginning, without end, without succession, without intrinsic or
extrinsic change, and without temporal location or position. Now we can
turn to the topic of divine simplicity to see how it fits with timelessness and
immutability.

DIVINE SIMPLICITY

What does it mean to say that God is simple? Peter Lombard offers the
following definition of divine simplicity: “The same substance alone is prop-
erly and truly simple in which there is no diversity or change or multiplicity
of parts, or accidents, or of any other forms” (Sentences I, Dist. VIII.3). The

30
Paul Helm, Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time, 2nd Edition (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2010), 19. John Sanders, “Response to Ware,” in ed. Bruce Ware,
Perspectives on the Doctrine of God: 4 Views (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing, 2008), 140.
31
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Inquiring About God: Selected Essays (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2010), 153.
32
Aquinas offers a similar treatment in Summa Contra Gentiles II.12.
33
Anselm agrees that God cannot undergo any change, but he seems to allow for some
accidental predicates to be said of God. He does not think that all accidental predicates would
change God. Monologion 25. Yet, he is assuming that such accidents are not really properties
at all since they do not really bring about a change. Brian Leftow concurs in “Eternity and
Immutability” in ed. William E. Mann, The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Religion
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005). Leftow and Anselm both have in mind Cambridge
change, and both deny that Cambridge changes are in fact changes. Francis Turretin makes a
similar claim in Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 205. I disagree, for a Cambridge change marks
a before and after in the life of the subject.
52What is Eternity?
standard account of divine simplicity in the contemporary literature looks as
follows, but I shall note some deficiencies with it later in this chapter.34
(6) God cannot have any spatial or temporal parts.
(7) God cannot have any intrinsic accidental properties.
(8) There cannot be any real distinction between one essential property
and another in God’s nature.
(9) There cannot be a real distinction between essence and existence in God.
Before delving into these theses it would be good to have an understanding
of real distinction. Within the Middle Ages it was common to hold that
things can be really distinct or conceptually distinct. To say that there is a
real distinction between some thing A and some thing B is to say that there
is an extramental feature in reality that makes them distinct. For instance,
there is a real distinction between a glass and the water it contains. A real
distinction is contrasted with a conceptual distinction. To say that two things
are concep- tually distinct is to say that there is no extramental feature in
reality that makes them distinct. The distinction exists in our minds only.
For instance, one might say that Clark Kent and Superman are distinct, but
in reality this distinction exists in our minds only since Clark Kent is the
same person as Superman. In other words, Clark Kent is identical to
Superman. Toward the end of the Middle Ages, John Duns Scotus
introduced a formal distinction that lies between real and conceptual
distinctions. To say that two things are formally distinct is to say that there is
some extramental feature in reality that makes them distinct, yet they are
coextensive and inseparable.35 With this in mind we can return to the set of
theses noted earlier.
The big idea behind (6) is that God does not have any physical or meta-
physical complexity. The assumption is that in order to be spatial a thing
must have physical parts. God is immaterial, so God does not have any
physical parts. What about temporal parts? The concept of temporal parts is
tricky here. What we would call temporal parts in our day is not the same
concept. During the Middle Ages it was common to distinguish between an
endurant object and the life of the object. The object endures through time
and can be properly said to exist as a whole, or all at once, in the present.
The present is the only moment that exists, so an endurant object does not
have parts lying about at other times. Yet, we can draw a conceptual
distinction and say that

34
Brian Davies, “Simplicity”, in eds. Charles Taliaferro and Chad Meister, The Cambridge
Companion to Christian Philosophical Theology (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2010), 37–40.
35
Richard Cross, Duns Scotus on God (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 108–9. John
F. Wipple, “Metaphysics,” in eds. Norman Kreztmann and Eleonore Stump, The Cambridge
Companion to Aquinas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Scott MacDonald,
“The Divine Nature,” in eds. Eleonore Stump and Norman Kreztmann, The Cambridge
Companion to Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
 What is Eternity?53
the endurant object has a before and after in its life. Its life can be
conceptually divided up into parts.36 Yet even conceptual distinctions are
repugnant to divine simplicity. As Anselm explains, “what either actually or
conceptually has parts can be divided into parts, and this is altogether
foreign to God” (Incarnation of the Word VII). James Arminius agrees.
“Simplicity is a pre- eminent mode of the Essence of God, by which he is
void of all composition, and of component parts whether they belong to the
senses or to the under- standing.”37 When classical theologians deny that
God has temporal parts, what they have in mind is the life of God being
conceptually divided up into parts of before and after. They are asserting
that God has no before and after in His life because He has no distinct
moments in His life at all. There is just the one timeless present. On their
understanding, this makes God a truly per- manent entity. So, in addition to
the previous propositions, one must add
(10) The divine nature lacks conceptual distinctions.
It might seem odd to say that the divine nature lacks conceptual distinctions.
What must be understood is that theologians like Anselm are drawing upon
an ancient principle about division. This is a principle that philosophers and
theologians continued to hold well into the scholastic era. Even modern
philosophers, such as René Descartes, held to this principle that whatever
can be divided in the mind can be divided in reality.38 This principle not only
played a role in thinking about the divine nature, but it also played a role in
arguments for the existence of the soul, among other things.
Despite the support that (10) gives for divine timelessness, it has some
unfortunate consequences for theology. If conceptual distinctions cannot
even be applied to a simple God, it would seem that Christian theology is a
non- starter. This can be seen in the way theologians are forced to talk when
trying to be consistent with the doctrine of divine simplicity. Say one has a
theo- logical puzzle, any theological puzzle that comes to mind. In order to
remove the puzzle one must offer a careful distinction in God. Perhaps one
will need to distinguish between God’s act and thought. Or maybe one needs
to distinguish between God’s permissive and active will. It does not really
matter. In practice divine simplicity forces the theologian to say something
rather embarrassing. After the theologian has spent dozens of pages making
careful distinctions in

36
See Robert Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1689 (London: Oxford University Press,
2011), ch. 18. Also, Richard Cross, Duns Scotus on God, 122.
37
James Arminius, 25 Public Disputations, Disputation IV.XI. James Nichols trans. The
Works of James Arminius: The London Edition, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House,
1986), 115. Avicenna concurs that even conceptual distinctions are foreign to the simple God.
Jon McGinnis, “Avicenna (Ibn Sina)”, in eds. Graham Oppy and Nick Trakakis, The History of
Western Philosophy of Religion Volume 2: Medieval Philosophy of Religion (Durham, NC:
Acumen Publishing, 2009), 64.
38
Descartes, Meditation VI.
54What is Eternity?
God to remove the paradox she must admit that her distinctions exist in her
mind only. They do not apply to God at all because there is nothing in God
that could ground the conceptual distinctions.39 In other words, she has just
com- mitted all of her work to the flames. But set aside this problem for the
moment.
(9) comes from Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae I.Q3.a4, and
similar statements can be found in Anselm and Augustine. It is taken to be
part of what makes God unique from creatures. Of course, one might
wonder what this means. This will become clear when one reflects on (10),
and understands a deficiency in (8). (8) is close to the classical doctrine of
divine simplicity, but it is missing an additional claim—God does not have
any properties. The reason that there can be no real distinction in God’s
properties is not merely because the divine properties are all identical to
each other and identical to God, as (8) is often understood. The reason is
because the simple God does not, in fact, have any properties. Instead of (8),
divine simplicity should be seen as involving
(8*) There cannot be any real distinction between one essential property
and another in God’s nature because God does not have any properties.

Divine simplicity is often criticized on the basis of (8) in the contemporary

literature. Thinkers, like Alvin Plantinga, argue that (8) entails that God is a
property.40 If God’s properties are identical to each other, then it seems there
is really only one divine property. If God is identical to this property, it
would seem that God is a property. Properties, traditionally understood,
cannot think or act. So if God is a property, He doesn’t seem to be anything
like the Christian God. Various contemporary thinkers, wishing to avoid
Plantinga- style objections, take divine simplicity to be the weaker claim
that all of the essential divine attributes are mutually entailing, and not that
the divine attributes are identical. As such, one might wonder if (8*) is an
accurate portrayal of divine simplicity. Is divine simplicity really (8*), or is
it (8)? Or is divine simplicity really a weaker claim?41

39
For moves of this sort see John Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World
1–5, trans. Michael Share (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., 2004), 62. Thomas
Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate QII.14. James Arminius, Disputation IV.XI.
Katherin Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 31–8. Nicholas of Cusa uses simplicity and infinity
to argue that there is no difference between Christian belief in the Trinity and the Jewish and
Islamic denial of the Trinity. See Jasper Hopkins, “Nicholas of Cusa”, in Oppy and Trakakis
(eds) The History of Western Philosophy of Religion Volume 2, 243.
40
Alvin Plantinga, Does God Have a Nature? (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press,
1980).
41
It is said that the Eastern Orthodox theologians have a different version of divine
simplicity whereby the attributes of God are not identical to God. Why? Because the attributes
of God are God’s energy, and not God’s essence. We do not know anything about the
unknowable essence of God. Cf. Gavin Ortlund, “Divine Simplicity in Historical Perspective:
Resourcing a Contemporary Discussion,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 16
(2014) . I am skeptical that this can be
 What is Eternity?55
Augustine, among others, makes it clear that divine simplicity involves
(8*). In The Trinity XV.7, Augustine argues that God is genuinely immortal
since He never started to exist, and never can cease to exist. So, genuine
immortality is unchanging. “But that is also genuine eternity by which God is
unchangeable, without beginning, without end, and consequently
incorruptible. Therefore one and the same thing is being said, whether you
say God is eternal or immortal or incorruptible or unchangeable.” Whether
you say that God is wise, powerful, living, understanding, or beautiful, “the
same thing is being said.”
Divine simplicity is a much stronger claim than mutual entailment. Divine
simplicity involves the claim that the divine attributes are identical to each
other like (8) and (8*) both assume. Again, Augustine makes this clear. “But
for God it is the same thing to be as to be powerful or just or wise or
anything else that can be said about his simple multiplicity or multiple
simplicity to signify his substance.” (The Trinity VI.6). Even John Duns
Scotus makes this claim about divine simplicity. Though Scotus is known
for introducing the formal distinction that was discussed earlier in this
chapter, he seems to claim that on a higher level of logic, all of the divine
attributes are identical.42 “There is nothing in the divine that is not the same
thing as the divine essence and also the same as anything essential, so that
considering such in the abstract, one can say simply ‘This is this’” (God and
Creatures Q5.34). Maximus the Confessor agrees. “In the multiple there is
diversity, unlikeness, and difference. But in God, who is eminently one and
unique, there is only identity, simplicity, and sameness” (Knowledge of God,
1.83).
Elsewhere Augustine makes it even clearer that divine simplicity involves
the identity of the attributes.
God however is indeed called in multiple ways great, good, wise, blessed, true,
and anything else that seems not to be unworthy of him; but his greatness is
identical with his wisdom (he is not great in mass but in might), and his
goodness is identical with his wisdom and greatness, and his truth is identical
with them all; and with him being blessed is not one thing, and being great or
wise or true or good, or just simply being, another. (The Trinity VI.8)
This is the way Christians throughout history have understood divine simpli-
city.43 For instance, the seventeenth-century English theologian Richard
Stock notes that

regarded as a genuine doctrine of divine simplicity because the claim is that the essence of
God is unknown and unknowable. An ineffable mystery cannot be an alternative account of a
doctrine. Further, in my own reading of the Cappadocian reply to Eunomius, I cannot find an
outright rejection of Eunomius’ fairly traditional doctrine of divine simplicity. In fact, Young
maintains that Eunomius and Gregory of Nyssa hold the same doctrine. Young, From Nicaea
to Chalcedon, 157.
42
Roche, The De Primo Principio of John Duns Scotus, 77.
43
Boethius follows Augustine on the doctrine of divine simplicity. See The Trinity is One
God Not Three Gods IV. See also Anselm, Monologion 16–17. Aquinas does the same
throughout
56What is Eternity?
it appeares, that however these things are attributed to God, that he is love,
mercy, favour, and anger, howsoever they are spoken, as though they were
many and different, yet in God they are but one, and the same. True it is, that
we are of a compounded understanding, they are as severall things to us;
because we cannot conceive God as he is, yet by faith, we are brought to
beleeve that there is no such difference between them in God: that which is the
love of God, is the hatred of God; and that which is his wisdome, is his power
also; because there is but one and the same Essence. [sic]44
Stock, like so many others throughout church history, is following
Augustine’s moves in The Trinity.
Augustine continually argues throughout The Trinity that all of God’s
essential divine attributes are identical to each other. It is at this point where
one can see Augustine affirm (8*) instead of (8). On divine simplicity, any-
thing that one might properly predicate of God should be understood as
signifying the divine substance. One could say that God is eternal, immortal,
incorruptible, unchangeable, living, wise, powerful, beautiful, and so forth.
Yet all of those terms signify the divine substance. They are not qualities or
properties that God has because they are identical to God (The Trinity
XV.8). Creatures have properties by participating in goodness, wisdom, life,
and so on. God, who is the greatest being, does not have goodness by
participating in something else. Goodness is identical to His essence, and
God is identical to His essence. So God is the Good (The Trinity V.11).
Other things have an essence and subsist, or underlie, the properties they
have. Not so with the simple God. “It is impious to say that God subsists to
and underlies his goodness, and that goodness is not his own substance”
(The Trinity VII.10). As Katherin Rogers points out, the traditional doctrine
of divine simplicity denies that God has any properties. “With God we do
not hypothesize any unity underlying the diversity because there is no
diversity.”45 Rogers claims that Plantinga-style arguments against simplicity
fail because they neglect this point by treating God as if He has properties,
or is a property. The simple God does not have any properties.46 These types
of objections fail to see how truly radical divine simplicity is.47

Summa Contra Gentiles I. Arminius follows Augustine, but suggests that it might be possible
to allow the formal distinction. See his Disputation IV.XI. Cf. Richard Muller, Post-
Reformation Reformed Dogmatics vol 3: The Divine Essence and Attributes (Grand Rapids,
MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 273–82.
44
Stock, A Stock of Divine Knowledge, 88.
45
Katherin Rogers, “The Traditional Doctrine of Divine Simplicity,” Religious Studies 32
(1996), 166, see also 173. Also, Henry Church, Miscellanea Philo-Theologica (London: I.N.
for John Rothwell, 1638), 23.
46
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 27.
47
However these arguments do bring out a relevant objection that John Duns Scotus and
William of Ockham both noticed and criticized Aquinas for failing to answer. Our concepts
are clearly not identical to each other, and yet they are supposed to be identical in God. What
do our
 What is Eternity?57
I have put off discussing (7) until now so that a particular deficiency can
be seen in this proposition as well. (7) would appear to allow God to
undergo extrinsic change, but as noted in (5), classical theologians have
already denied this possibility of God in the doctrine of divine timelessness
and immutability. This is important to note since several contemporary
defenders of divine simplicity have not acknowledged this. For instance,
Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann claim that a simple God cannot be
exempt from having extrinsic accidental properties. 48 What they have in
mind are properties like being referred to. This is completely contrary to the
doctrine of God as spelled out by classical theologians. Augustine, Boethius,
Lombard, and Aquinas all deny extrinsic accidental properties of God.
Standard examples are things like Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. James
Arminius adds Judge of all men to the list as well. For these theologians
God cannot have these accidental predicates because that would entail that
God came to, or began to, have them, and thus He would be mutable,
temporal, and not simple. As will be discussed further in Chapter 5, classical
theologians held that we can refer to God, but that we must realize that our
accidental predicates only befall us and not God.49
In allowing extrinsic accidental properties to apply to God, Stump and
Kretzmann have failed to see the systematic connections between simplicity,
immutability, and timelessness. Of course, they admit that they are
weakening the claims of divine simplicity. 50 Rogers points out that this
weakening of divine simplicity is unsatisfactory for anyone committed to
classical the- ology.51 What Rogers understands, and what Stump and
Kretzmann seem to have missed, is that divine simplicity is a determinate
concept that cannot be weakened without destroying all of the other
elements of the doctrine. As noted by Rogers, God not only lacks accidental
properties, God does not have any properties at all. If we allow for God to
have an accidental property we have (i) said that God has properties, (ii) said
that God has accidental properties, (iii) introduced diversity in God, and (iv)
introduced potential into God since there are other ways He can be. In other
words, we have abandoned the basic claims of divine simplicity, as well as
undermined timelessness and immutability. Instead of (7), divine simplicity
holds to

concepts hang on? They can’t apply to the simple God for there is no diversity in Him. See
Richard Cross, “John Dun Scotus” and Gyula Kilma, “William of Ockham”, in Oppy and
Trakakis, The History of Western Philosophy of Religion Volume 2.
48
Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann, “Absolute Simplicity,” Faith and Philosophy 2
(1985), 354.
49
Augustine, The Trinity V.17. Boethius, The Trinity Is One God Not Three Gods IV. Peter
Lombard, Sentences I Dist. XXX.1. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles II.12. Arminius,
Disputa- tion IV.XIV.
50
See, “Absolute Simplicity,” 369, and their “Simplicity Made Plainer,” Faith and Philosophy
4 (1987).
51
Katherin Rogers, “The Traditional Doctrine of Divine Simplicity.”
58What is Eternity?
(7*) God cannot have any accidental properties.
One additional claim is needed to flesh out divine simplicity. There is one
final aspect of simplicity that is sometimes overlooked in contemporary
discus- sions: God is pure act.52 The claim that God is pure act can be found
in Eastern and Western theologians, but the most famous exposition of this
notion is found in Thomas Aquinas.53 As Aquinas explains, composite
things have potential. They move from potential to actual. But God is
simple, so He must lack potentiality and be pure act (Summa Contra
Gentiles I.16–18). One example of this idea is that God just is His act of
existence (Summa Contra Gentiles I.22). God is not something that
underlies His properties because He does not have any properties. God does
not go from potential to actual for He is pure act. God’s act is identical to
God, and not something distinct. “His action is His being .. . God’s action is
His substance” (Summa Contra Gentiles II.9). “The manifold actions
ascribed to God, as intelligence, volition, the production of things, and the
like, are not so many different things, since each of these actions in God is
His own very being, which is one and the same thing” (Summa Contra
Gentiles II.10).
So, divine simplicity must also include
(11) God is pure act such that God lacks all potential.
Now that we have a better understanding of divine simplicity, we can ask an
important question. How does simplicity connect with timelessness and
immutability? As Augustine explains, “Nothing simple is changeable; every-
thing created is changeable” (The Trinity VI.8). Again, on a relational under-
standing of time, time just is change. If God is unchanging, He is timeless. A
simple God has no properties. “So there is no modification in God because
there is nothing in him that can be changed or lost” (The Trinity V.5). Divine
simplicity would seem to make it metaphysically impossible for God to
change, thus entailing timelessness and immutability.
Further, a being who is pure act does all that He does in one timeless
present. He simply is His act of thinking, willing, creating, and so on. If God
went from potential to act, He would have accidental properties and undergo
a change. But as pure act, He has no accidental properties and undergoes no
change from potential to act. Since He has no accidental properties, or any
properties at all, there is no worry of Him changing or persisting through
time.

52
See Rogers, “The Traditional Doctrine of Divine Simplicity”, for more on this. James
E. Dolezal, God Without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God’s Absoluteness
(Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011).
53
Two examples are John Philoponus and John of Scythopolis. John of Scythopolis and the
Dionysian Corpus: Annotating the Areopagite, trans. Paul Rorem and John C. Lamoreaux
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 220. Philoponus’ views will be discussed at length in
Chapter 5.
 What is Eternity?59
Objects that persist through time are constantly gaining and losing
accidental properties. God has no accidental properties, so—the argument
goes—He is timeless.

BEHOLD THE HAPPY WRATH OF GOD:

DIVINE IMPASSIBILITY

“IMPASSIBILITY is a pre-eminent mode of the Essence of God,

accord- ing to which it is devoid of all suffering or feeling; not only
because nothing can act against this Essence, for it is of infinite Being
and devoid of external cause; but likewise because it cannot receive the
act of any thing, for it is of simple Entity.—Therefore, Christ has not
suffered according to the Essence of his Deity.”
–James Arminius54
The attributes of God discussed so far entail that God is impassible. As John
of Damascus explains, God is passionless because God lacks a body, and is
without flux or change, and is simple and uncompounded (On the Orthodox
Faith I.8). The big idea of impassibility seems to be that God cannot
undergo a change or alteration of His emotional state. 55 This is an important
component in the divine timeless research program as it played a central role
in the classical Christian doctrines of God, incarnation, and salvation. With a
better understanding of this doctrine, and its systematic connections to the
divine attributes discussed earlier in this chapter, one should be able to
better grasp the types of theological problems and proposed solutions that
will be discussed in later chapters.
There is a tendency within contemporary theology to caricature divine
impassibility by saying that it portrays God as lacking all emotion. The
quote from Arminius at the start of this section might lend credence to such
a view. Many contemporary theologians reject divine impassibility on the
grounds that a God without emotions would be a moral monster, an imper-
sonal deity that in no way resembles the God of the Bible. Divine
impassibility, however, has more nuance then this caricature allows. It is not
the claim that God has no emotions. This is true, in part, because “emotion”
is a modern category that does not neatly map onto ancient discussions.
Instead it is the claim that God lacks certain types of passions, or is void of
all passions. What counts as a passion is, however, a matter of dispute
amongst the ancient and

54
Arminius, Disputation IV.XVII.
55
Thomas G. Weinandy, Does God Suffer? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press, 2000), 99–100.
60What is Eternity?
medieval Christians.56 The Christian tradition shows an interesting variety of
opinion on what counts as a passion. There are theologians who wish to say
that mercy does not count as a passion, so God is merciful, whilst others
hold that mercy is a passion and as such God cannot literally be said to be
merciful.57 Even when modern defenders of impassibility do have the
concept of emotion, they are not willing to deny all emotion of God. For
instance, the nineteenth-century theologian William Shedd denies that God
has any pas- sions, but holds that God has two emotions: love and wrath.
Shedd says that these two emotions are in fact one and the same moral
attribute of God— holiness.58
How does one go about deciding which emotions or passions can truly be
literally attributed to God? This is a bit difficult because the early Church
fathers are quite unsystematic in their doctrine of divine impassibility. 59
Unlike later Christian thinkers, the early fathers’ comments on impassibility
are more like scattered sayings than a robust doctrine.60 Despite this, I
believe one can discern some core theses for answering this question. These
core theses are part of what later Christian theologians use to develop a
clearer account of impassibility.
To start, most accounts have some sort of inconsistency criterion. If some
passion is inconsistent with the divine nature, it must not be attributed to
God. Some early Church fathers held that all passions are of a sinful nature
or sinful disposition. God, according to Christian thought, is morally perfect.
So one criterion is inconsistency with God’s moral perfection. Any passion
—like lust, greed, or pride—must be ruled out from being literally attributed
to the morally perfect God. Other fathers held that the passions are
inherently irrational. Anyone who acts out of a passion must be doing so
irrationally. The passionate person does not have her emotions lined up with
reason. Such a person is out of control, and ruled by emotions instead of
sober reason. God, however, is perfectly rational. His actions are always in
line with, in fact identical to, His wisdom given divine simplicity. So
another criterion is inconsistency with God’s perfect rationality. Any passion
that entails irration- ality must not be literally attributed to God. Other
Church fathers held that not all passions are of a sinful disposition, nor are
all passions inherently irrational. Some passions are neutral, and others are
even positive. For these theologians, God can have the positive passions,
like love, but cannot have the

56
Anastasia Philippa Scrutton, Thinking Through Feeling: God, Emotion and Passibility
(New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011), ch. 1.
57
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1.Q21.a3.
58
W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, vol. 1. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1888),
174.
59
Rob Lister, God is Impassible and Impassioned (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 65.
60
Paul L. Gavrilyuk, The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic
Thought
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 47.
 What is Eternity?61
negative passions that imply sin or irrationality. 61 Even though there is a
disagreement here over what counts as a passion, a clear picture seems to
emerge. As Paul Gavrilyuk explains, “The divine impassibility meant first of
all that God is in total control of his actions and that morally objectionable
emotions are alien to him.”62
This is a good start to understanding impassibility, but it is not the whole
story. More is at play in figuring out which emotions can be attributed to
God and which cannot. Drawing on the church tradition, Shedd offers the
follow- ing criterion of blessedness to sort out which emotions can be
attributed to God.63 “The criterion for determining which form of feeling is
literally, and which is metaphorically attributable to God, is the divine
blessedness. God cannot be the subject of any emotion that is intrinsically
and necessarily an unhappy one.”64 In order to understand Shedd’s criterion
of blessedness, and the early fathers’ criteria of moral perfection and
rationality, one must have a better understanding of some of the background
assumptions underlying divine impassibility.
One of the core claims underlying the doctrine of divine impassibility is
that God cannot be moved, or affected, by an outside force. 65 What must be
understood is that, for most of Church history, passions have been seen as
the result of something external to the agent. Something outside of the agent
causes the agent to act in certain ways, or serves as the object of the agent ’s
desire to act in certain ways.66 The pagan gods that the early Christians
wished to disavow were dependent upon the universe to satisfy their
passions of happiness, lust, pride, rage, revenge, and so on. The events that
transpire in history affect a movement, or action, from the gods. It is
interesting to note that many early Church fathers, and later theologians like
Shedd, continually speak of God’s impassibility within the context of God’s
self-sufficiency.67 The Christian God, in contrast to the pagan gods, is in
no way dependent upon

61
For discussion see Lister, God is Impassible and Impassioned, ch. 3. Scrutton, Thinking
Through Feeling, chs. 1 and 2.
62
Gavrilyuk, The Suffering of the Impassible God, 51.
63
Scrutton, Thinking Through Feeling, 17. “[T]he early church tended to see apatheia
and/or blissfulness as an ideal on a ‘metaphysical’ as well as on a specifically moral level.
Because passions were thought to be involuntary and to overcome reason, the experience of
passions would disturb God’s existence and bliss.”
64
Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 174. Cf. Gavrilyuk, The Suffering of the Impassible God, 51–
62, for a discussion on divine anger and wrath.
65
Richard E. Creel, Divine Impassibility: An Essay in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986), 11.
66
This thesis is something that Scrutton wishes to overturn in her work. Thinking Through
Feeling, 27–32.
67
Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 178–9. Cf. Bruce D. Marshall, “The Dereliction of Christ and
the Impassibility of God,” in eds. James F. Keating and Thomas Joseph White, Divine
Impassi- bility and the Mystery of Human Suffering (Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 2009),
293. Scrutton, Thinking Through Feeling, 17–19.
62What is Eternity?
creation for His perfection. God is already perfect in Himself. Given
simplicity, God is identical to His perfection. God is completely
independent, for His being and nature are in no way dependent upon
anything outside of Himself. Further, God’s act, which is identical to God
Himself, is in no way dependent upon anything outside of Himself. God
does not create the universe out of some lack in His nature since God is
eternally perfect without the universe. As the early apologist, Athenagoras,
explains, “the world was not created because God needed it; for God is
Himself everything to Himself ” (A Plea for the Christians, 16).
In Chapter 5, this theme will be discussed in more depth. There one shall
see the classical claim that God always wills Himself in His action because
He is the highest good. So even when God creates the universe, on classical
theism God’s will is in fact directed toward Himself.68 In Chapter 4, we shall
see that classical Christian theology also held that God’s knowledge is in no
way dependent upon creation. God’s knowledge is only of Himself. It is by
having a perfect knowledge of Himself that God is able to know all true
propositions. For now, it is worth noting that classical Christian theology is
deeply com- mitted to a strong doctrine of divine self-sufficiency such that
the perfection of God’s nature and action are in no way dependent upon
anything outside of Himself.69
There are two different concepts at play here that are sometimes collapsed
into each other: aseity and self-sufficiency. These attributes were alluded to
earlier in this chapter, and play a pivotal role in how classical Christians
think through the God–world relationship, and the Creator–creature
distinction. As such it will be important to include them in the divine
timeless research program.
(12) God exists a se in that His existence does not depend upon anything
outside of Himself.
(13) God is self-sufficient in that the perfection of His nature and action
are in no way dependent upon anything outside of Himself.
It is in light of (12) and (13) that one can begin to understand the concept of
impassibility. The impassible God does not suffer any change from outside
of Himself. The events that transpire in the world do not affect God in any
way. The world cannot cause God to suffer; it cannot diminish God’s
blessedness or happiness. When one considers this claim in light of God’s
immutability one can see why later classical Christian theologians say that
the impassible God experiences nothing but a timeless, uninterrupted, state
of pure happiness. An immutable God cannot change in anyway, so God
cannot possibly change

68
Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles I.80–88.
69
Philoponus, Against Proclus 1–5, 66–8. Bonaventure concurs in Il Sent. d.1, a.1,q.2. See
also Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles I.86.
 What is Eternity?63
from His state of eternal happiness. For instance, Aquinas argues that God is
not, strictly speaking, merciful since mercy follows from feeling sorrowful.
God cannot feel sorrow over the misery of things. The effects of God,
according to Aquinas, may be said to be merciful, but God Himself is not
literally merciful (Summa Theologiae, 1.Q21.a3.). If God felt sorrow, this
would diminish and disrupt His eternal happiness. Sorrow and pain are not
befitting of God because the object of sorrow and pain are evil things
outside of God. Sorrow and pain denote a lack of goodness. God is sufficient
in Himself for His goodness because He is goodness itself. God supremely
delights in Himself as the object of His will, and as such, God is perfectly
happy (Summa Contra Gentiles I.89–90).
Traditionally, the notion that God is an immutable, and unperturbed,
happiness was taken to be a good thing for Christian thought and practice. 70
Given divine simplicity, God just is happiness itself, and is the source of all
our happiness.71 If we want to be happy, we must draw closer to the source
of all happiness. Further, given divine timelessness and immutability,
nothing could cause God’s happiness to change. Our happiness is based on a
sure and solid foundation of absolute immutability.72
So part of the timeless research program includes impassibility.
(14) God cannot suffer in any way that would deprive Him of pure,
uninterrupted happiness.
Of course, a question naturally arises. How could this timeless wrath of God
not conflict with God’s timeless happiness? Shedd, like most classical
theolo- gians, wishes to maintain divine wrath, but in a way that does not
conflict with God’s happiness. Otherwise, one must say that God is eternally
unhappy. It would seem a rather unfortunate state of affairs if, in the
eschaton when the world has been completely cleansed of evil, God were
eternally unhappy.73 Classical theologians like Shedd think there is a way
out of this unfortunate state of affairs. True, God is eternally wrathful, but it
is a kind of wrath that does not conflict with divine happiness. It is a happy
wrath.
Shedd argues that happiness is a pleasurable emotion that arises from the
harmony of the emotion with its proper object. In the case of the self-
sufficient God, the object of God’s happiness is Himself. With wrath, there
is also a harmony of the emotion with its proper object. So there is a kind of
pleasure that comes from the harmony of the emotion of wrath with its
object. Shedd goes on to say that in the human sphere of sin, wrath
brings a displeasure

70
Trent Pomplun, “Impassibility in St. Hilary of Poitiers’s De Trinitate,” in Keating and
White, Divine Impassibility and the Mystery of Human Suffering, 187–8.
71
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II.Q3.a1.
72
This is a continual theme throughout Augustine’s City of God.
73
Scrutton, Thinking Through Feeling, 47.
64What is Eternity?
because sinners hate what is morally perfect. Human wrath typically, though
not always, interrupts happiness because sin brings about a disharmony of
wrath and its proper object. Based on Ephesians 4:26, Shedd thinks that
humans can exhibit a righteous wrath, free of sin, that does not bring about
displeasure. This type of wrath, according to Shedd, is analogous with
divine wrath.74
Several things about this might seem odd. First, Shedd, like any classical
defender of divine impassibility, claims that God is not passively affected by
the universe. The things that transpire in the universe cannot cause God to
suffer and be moved. God is always self-moved because God is self-
sufficient. However, it seems like the sin of human persons is affecting God.
Consider again God’s happiness. Given divine simplicity, God is happiness.
The object of God’s happiness is Himself. As such, God’s happiness is not
dependent, nor affected, nor brought about by something outside of God.
When it comes to God’s wrath, however, the object clearly seems to be
something outside of God, for God cannot be the object of wrath. Shedd
claims that God does have wrath that is directed toward the unrighteous.
Surely this wrath demonstrates that God is affected by the world such that
God would unleash His wrath on the unrepentant. That seems to directly
conflict with the notion that God is self-sufficient. Given this, it seems that
God’s self-sufficiency, impassibility, and the principle of blessedness,
should lead us to deny that wrath is literally attributed to God.
A second thing that seems odd about this is the coherence of God’s happy
wrath. Shedd wishes to say that wrath is literally applied to God, but that
this wrath in no way disrupts God’s pure, timeless happiness. It seems a bit
much to swallow that there is a kind of happy wrath. In fact, several early
Church fathers like Clement, Origen, John Cassian, and Augustine deny that
God literally experiences wrath. Instead, divine wrath is really a subjective
human experience of God’s love. Unrepentant sinners experience God’s love
as if it were wrath, but wrath is not actually an attribute of God. Theologians
like Shedd, Tertullian, and Cyril of Alexandria will disagree, and continue to
maintain that there is a sense of divine wrath that does not conflict with
God’s blissful state.75
I shall set this issue aside for now, and point out one further concern that
arises from impassibility, and that is of crucial importance for Christian
theology. The heart of the Christian gospel involves a suffering servant. The
early Church underwent great ridicule for worshipping a crucified God. 76 An
impassible God cannot suffer, but the Son of God became incarnate and
suffered on the cross. The obvious tension in this claim gave rise to all sorts

74
Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 176–7.
75
Gavrilyuk, The Suffering of the Impassible God, 55–8.
76
Gavrilyuk, The Suffering of the Impassible God, 65–78.
 What is Eternity?65
of views that the early Church later condemned as heresy. For instance, the
Arians held fast to the claim that Christ suffered, and that God is impassible.
Within Arian theology, the Son of God is a lesser divine being, and as such
is capable of change and suffering. The Father and the Son are not
homoousios, but have similar natures. Both are divine beings, but each is a
different sort of divine being. The Father is the high God, or the greatest
divine being. He is the source, or fount, of all other divine and non-divine
beings. The Father is uncreated and impassible, whilst the Son is created and
passible. For the Arians, the tension disappeared since God the Father
remains impassible, whilst the Son undergoes change and suffering. 77 What
eventually became orthodoxy, however, wished to maintain the full divinity
of the Son such that the Son is impassible alongside the Father. As will be
discussed in Chapter 7 on the incarnation, the typical patristic move was to
say that the Son suffered in His human nature, but not in His divine nature.78
Much more could be said about impassibility, but for my purposes in this
chapter, the important thing to note is that an impassible God cannot suffer a
change in His emotional state. God is timelessly, and immutably, happy
such that nothing can disturb His happiness.

DOES ETERNITY HAVE DURATION?

With a better understanding of the divine timeless research program before

us, several other questions can now be addressed. A point of contention in
contemporary debates is over eternal duration. Can the timeless God really
be said to have duration? Brian Leftow, Eleonore Stump, and Norman
Kretzmann hold some version of atemporal duration.79 It is not difficult for
them to maintain that Christians have traditionally believed in atemporal
duration since one could easily find statements from Christians in the past that
speak of atemporal duration.80 In the Middle Ages duration is predicated of
anything

77
Lister, God is Impassible and Impassioned, 82–3.
78
Gregory of Nazianzus, The Theological Orations, 3.18. Cf. Scrutton, Thinking Through
Feeling, 9.
79
Stump, Eleanore and Norman Kretzmann, “Eternity” Journal of Philosophy 78 (1981): 429–
58. Brian Leftow, Time and Eternity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991).
80
Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles II.35. Luis de Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge: Part IV
of the Concordia, Disp. 48. Also, the Post-reformation protestant theologians were insistent on
God’s eternal duration. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, 345–64. The
dialogue partners in Nicholas Malebranches’ Dialogues on Metaphysics, dialogue 8 hold to
eternal duration. John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, XV, 12. Stephen
Charnocke, Several Discourses Upon the Existence and Attributes of God (London: Newman,
1682), 181ff. One can even find similar statements about God’s duration in Charles Hodge’s
Systematic Theology, vol. 1, V.6. Also, Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology, 276: “Time
66What is Eternity?
that has existence, be it temporal or non-temporal.81 In fact, one of the main
reasons for thinking that God is timeless is by arguing that endurance in
creatures is a perfection to be predicated of God.82 To endure is to exist as a
whole through time. The perfection that is said to be derived is that of existing
as a whole or all at once. Yet, when applied to God it is given a non-temporal
reading.
For Anselm, a man can exist as a whole throughout time. A man exists as
a whole at each time when that time is present. Since the present is the only
moment that exists, the man exists as a whole at the present and does not
have parts at other times. Yet, the man’s life can be conceptually divided
into parts because he has a before and after in his life. He no longer enjoys
the past and does not yet enjoy the future (Monologion 21). Anselm wishes
to say that God also exists as a whole, but in a non-temporal way. Eternity
lacks a before and after. Unlike the temporal present, eternity does not have
moments that slip into the non-existent past, nor does it have future
moments that do not yet exist. The duration of a temporal object can be
measured by time, whereas the duration of eternity cannot be measured by
time because it transcends time. Anselm makes it clear that the predicate
involved—existing as a whole—can be literally said of God and creatures.
Creatures exist as a whole at a time and place, and so does God. The
difference is that creatures are bound by, or contained in, time and place,
whereas God is not (Monologion 22).
For Anselm, to say that God has duration is to say that God exists as a
whole at all times and places. Many theologians in the past agree that God
exists as a whole at all times and places, and that this is the proper
understanding of eternal duration.83 For instance, the fourteenth-century
philosopher Nicole Oresme notes that there are different kinds of duration.
One kind of duration is appropriate to things that endure through the
successions of time. Another kind of “duration is not successive, but refers
to the continuity of everything together and to the things which cannot be
altered; it is called eternity.” Further, “of necessity, [this] type is without
beginning or end and without succession, but is at once complete as a
whole; and this is the duration of God.” This eternal duration of God’s is
“without past or future, completely in the present: Because neither any
moment of past time is lost nor any anticipation of the future. And this is
called the moment of eternity.”84 At this point one might ask, “is this a
legitimate use of duration?”

is duration measured by successions. Duration without succession would still be duration,

though it would be immeasurable.”
81
Fox, Time and Eternity, 36–8.
82
Robert Pasnau alludes to this move in his Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1689 (London:
Oxford University Press, 2011), 397.
83
For instance, Luis de Molina, Concordia IV, Disp. 48.
84
Nicole Oresme, Le Livre du Ciel et du Monde (London: The University of Wisconsin
Press, 1968), 163–5. Also, Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 204. “Time and eternity
are not
 What is Eternity?67
Samuel Clarke says no. He claims that the schoolmen see eternity not as a
real duration, but as a point or instant, “wherein all things are really
coexistent at once.” This, he says, is unintelligible and of no use to
religion.85 “The true notion of divine eternity does not consist in making past
things to be still present and things future to be already come, which is an
express contradic- tion.” By Clarke’s day there was a particular
misinterpretation of Thomas Aquinas that said all things exist
simultaneously in eternity. This will be discussed in the Chapter 4. For now,
what must be understood is that Clarke is here offering a standard rejection
of this view. He then goes on to make a common, and much needed,
clarification. Not all moments of time exist in God’s eternal duration. Only
the present moment of time co-exists with eternity. Instead, God has a
perfect knowledge of all things such that they are “represented to him in one
single thought or view, and all things present and future be as absolutely
under his power and direction as if there were really no succession at all,
and as if all things had been (not that they really are) actually present at
once.”86
Clarke’s complaint is not against predicating “duration” of God’s eternity.
His complaint seems to be twofold. First, God’s eternal duration is being
abused in order to posit an absurd notion that all of time is literally and
concretely simultaneous with eternity. However, as we shall see in the next
chapter, it is dubious that any classical theologian before Clarke’s day
actually defended such a view. Clarke’s second complaint is that “duration”
is not being used accurately. Clarke, as one might recall, is a defender of the
absolute theory of time. Time can exist without change. Time, for Clarke,
just is duration. For Clarke, eternal duration just is that which makes time
exist; God is the ground of time. His complaint is not over whether or not
God has duration, but over how time and duration are to be properly
understood. As he sees it, when people deny absolute time—duration—and
say that God is a point, they are basically denying that God exists. 87 Of
course, Clarke is not a defender of divine timelessness for he believes that
God does undergo succes- sion and is temporally extended. Perhaps one
might complain that Clarke

related to each other as part and whole, but as species of duration mutually opposed. Eternity
always was and will be. However, time neither always was nor always will be, but will cease
with the world.”
85
John Tillotson concurs with Clarke. See his, The Remaining Discourses on the Attributes
of God (London: Rofe and Crown, 1700), 359–68. As does Pierre Gassendi, Physiologia
Epicuro- Gassendo-Charltoniana, or, A Fabrick of Science Natural, Upon the Hypothesis of
Atoms founded by Epicurus, Repaired by Petrus Gassendus, Augmented by Walter Charleton
(London: Tho. Newcomb, 1654), 80.
86
Samuel Clarke, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God and Other
Writings, 138.
87
Clarke, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, 114–16.
68What is Eternity?
cannot be called upon to help us gain clarity on the notion of atemporal
duration.
Several contemporary philosophers also find the notion of atemporal dur-
ation otiose. Katherin Rogers maintains that the medieval philosophers held
that God’s eternity does not involve duration. Instead, they see eternity as
unextended—much like the point in the center of a circle. Putting historical
considerations aside, she argues that eternity simply cannot have duration.
“Since ‘duration’ ordinarily means ‘extension in time’, a ‘timeless duration’
is, prima facie, quite a puzzling notion.”88 William Lane Craig notes that
dur- ation is “not even applicable to a timeless being in any literal sense .. .
[because a] timeless being does not literally endure at all.”89 If divine
eternity lacks temporal extension, as previously stated, it is difficult to
understand what eternal duration could mean. “Eternity as duration can be
described only so long as ‘duration’ is stripped of any meaning by which to
distinguish duration from the lack of it.”90
One would have to strip duration of all of its meaning if she wishes to
apply it to a timeless being. Otherwise a direct contradiction follows.
Quentin Smith explains.
This notion of atemporal duration strikes me as self-contradictory. A duration
by definition is an extension and an extension by definition has parts. If this be
denied, then one is using ‘duration’ to mean its opposite, and an unextended and
simple instant. Now the parts of a duration, by definition, are sequentially
ordered as earlier or later. If this be denied, and it is asserted instead that its
parts are simultaneous, then one is again using ‘duration’ to mean its opposite,
an unextended instant . . . Thus to affirm unblushingly of the divine being that it
not only has an infinitely extended duration but also is such that there is no
earlier or later within its life is to embrace a straightforward contradiction.91
Anselm would disagree. He thinks there is a literal usage of “duration” that
applies to God and creatures—existing as a whole. Need we say that
“existing as a whole” is equivalent to duration? A classical theologian
wishes to say that God exists as a whole because God is simple, and because
God exists at every time and place by causally sustaining every time and
place in existence. One could say that a simple God exists as a whole
without also saying that God has atemporal duration. What about divine
sustaining? I will argue later that a timeless God cannot causally sustain a
presentist world. Rogers, Craig, and Smith all agree on this point. Perhaps
that is one reason why they

88
Katherin Rogers, “Eternity Has No Duration,” Religious Studies 30 (1994), 6.
89
William Lane Craig, God, Time, and Eternity: The Coherence of Theism II (London:
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 11–12.
90
Rogers, “Eternity Has No Duration,” 12.
91
Quentin Smith, “A New Typology of Temporal and Atemporal Permanence,” Nous 23
(1989), 323.
 What is Eternity?69
reject atemporal duration. When one reads thinkers like Anselm, Molina, or
Malebranche, they use eternal duration to speak of God existing at all times
by sustaining all times. They are quick to say we should not think of this in a
temporal way, but they keep the concept of duration directly connected to
existing as a whole at all times. As such, they have not given it an adequate
non-temporal reading which brings us back to the main reason for rejecting
eternal duration. The notion of duration involves temporal extension, and
this is the very thing classical theologians wish to deny of God. It seems that
duration has not been stripped of all its temporal meaning. 92 As such, to say
that God has atemporal duration involves a contradiction.
At this point one might try to avoid the contradiction by adopting the
doctrine of analogy—a thesis on religious language. Perhaps one might say
that “duration” is not being used univocally when predicated of God and crea-
tures. Instead it is being used analogically. The difficulty with this is that
analogical predication only works when one has an idea of the determinate
predicate that applies to God and the different but closely related determinate
predicate that applies to creatures. For instance, a standard example is the
predicate “wise.” One can say that “God is wise” and “Socrates is wise.”
Someone who believes in the doctrine of analogy will then say that “wise” is
not being used univocally of God and Socrates here because God is wise in a
different way. Socrates has wisdom contingently by participating in it.
Given divine simplicity, God has wisdom necessarily by being identical to
wisdom and being the source of all wisdom. 93 In this example we have a
clear under- standing of how “wise” is being used in each instance. We can
also see how each usage is related or similar. If there were no similarity
between the usages, we could not say they are analogical because they
would be equivocal. It is not clear how this similarity avoids univocity, but I
shall set that issue aside.94
The type of similarity needed for analogy does not seem to be available
with “duration.” If one has to strip duration of all its meaning in order to
predicate it of the divine, she will have no content left in the predication.
She will be left with an empty predicate for God and a determinate predicate
for creatures. That would not be analogical predication. Instead it would be
equivocation or

92
John Marenbon discusses how the medievals struggle to hold divine timelessness and
eternal duration. See his “Eternity,” in ed. A. S. McGrade, The Cambridge Companion to
Medieval Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
93
It is difficult to motivate the doctrine of analogy without divine simplicity. In Summa
Contra Gentiles I.31–5 Aquinas’ justification for analogy is explicitly dependent on divine
simplicity. Elsewhere, I have offered a refutation of divine simplicity, and as such I can find
no motivation for holding the doctrine of analogy. See my, “Simply Impossible: A Case
Against Divine Simplicity,” Journal of Reformed Theology 7 (2013).
94
Thomas Williams, “The Doctrine of Univocity is True and Salutary,” Modern Theology 24
(2005), 578–80.
70What is Eternity?
simply unintelligibility. As such there would be no reason to predicate it
of God.
There seem to be four options left for predicating “duration” of God. First,
keep duration’s temporal baggage and predicate it of God. This would make
God temporal, so a defender of divine timelessness will not be able to make
this move. Second, give up the notion of atemporal duration. Third, try to
offer a legitimate non-temporal account of duration. That appears to be a tall
order. Fourth, continue to predicate “duration” of God, but when asked what
this means simply say that it is an ineffable mystery that one cannot pry
into.
The fourth option may be attractive for some, but I would not recommend
it for it leaves us with no positive understanding of God’s eternality. As
Rogers explains, “Knowing what God is not like is insufficient. We are
supposed to love God, and as Augustine always says, you cannot love what
you do not know. Some attempt to grasp the nature of divine eternity ought
to be made, even if the understanding of the temporal creature must fall far
short of the reality of God.”95 Further, if “duration” is an ineffable mystery
when predi- cated of God, this would not give us analogical predication. It
would be equivocation at best, but more likely mere unintelligible jargon.
The best option for divine timelessness is to give up any notion of
duration.96
To sum up the discussion thus far we can start to see what divine
eternality looks like. It has no beginning and no end. It lacks any kind of
succession and change, and contains no before and after. It lacks temporal
extension, location, and duration.
One might wonder how someone like Augustine and Rogers can believe
in divine timelessness since they hold that we cannot love what we do not
know. The doctrine of divine eternality appears to be a list of negations.
What must be understood is that not all negative statements about God are
created equal. Some negative statements about God give us a determinate
predication while others do not. For instance, to say that “God is not wicked”
is indeterminate. It does not give us much of a clue what God is actually like
for God could be “morally ambiguous” or “a pretty good guy who has made
a few mistakes in the past” or “contingently good” or “necessarily good.” To
say that “God is immutable” is determinate. It narrows the field of other
possible predicates considerably. The same seems to be the case with “God
is timeless.” The predicate involved is a negation but it gives us a
determinate predicate, and thus has positive content.
This notion that negative statements can have positive content is not
novel, and seems to be the best way of interpreting classical theism. As
William Mann points out, most theologians from Augustine’s day and after
take

95
Rogers, “Eternity Has No Duration,” 14.96 Helm, Eternal God, 36–40.
 What is Eternity?71
predicates like incorruptible to be positive attributes.97 The nineteenth-
century theologian Augustus Strong concurs—some negative divine
predicates are also positive like infinite.98 I think it best that one understand
the divine timeless research program to be making positive statements
because the claims being put forth by classical theists have a determinate
content despite the fact that they appear, at first glance, to be a list of
negations.

CAN WE TALK ABOUT ETERNITY?

This might seem to be a bizarre question at first. Haven’t I been talking

about eternity this entire time? Obviously yes. The question that I am getting
at is with regard to our ability to predicate things of God and talk about His
actions. My intent at this point is not to criticize, but simply to articulate
what seems to be the best account available to divine timelessness. Christian
theologians constantly make claims about God’s eternal decrees, will, action,
and self-determination. For instance, God eternally willed salvation through
Christ. When did God will this? One could say, “before time,” but that
would be a rather unfortunate and confusing statement since the “before”
implies a before and after relation. A timeless God cannot have a before and
after in His life. Instead, one must answer that eternity itself is when God
willed. How is this to be understood?
Brian Leftow offers the following account. The eternal present functions
logically as a date in that one can index propositions to it. 99 “It seems to me
that a term x functions literally as a date-term if a sentence is true which has
the form ‘proposition p tenselessly-is true at x, and due to this, at t, p was
already true.’”100 This is meant to help us understand predications of God,
divine actions, and so on. It is also supposed to help us answer a question:
when does God exist?
A common objection to divine timelessness is to ask when God exists. It
seems obvious to say that God exists now. Yet, if one were to respond this
way she would be relegating God to time. If God exists now, He is temporal.
If God exists at a time, He is in time. God would have temporal location,
and such a thing is inconsistent with (4). 101 Leftow’s treatment of eternity as
a date is intended, in part, to circumvent objections like these. The idea is
that we

97
Mann, “Duns Scotus on Natural and Supernatural Knowledge of God,” in ed. Thomas
Williams, The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003), 249.
98
Strong, Systematic Theology, 9.
99
Leftow, Time and Eternity, 54.
100
Leftow, “The Eternal Present,” in God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 41.
101
Nicholas Wolterstorff, “God and Time,” Philosophia Christi 2 (2000), 8.
72What is Eternity?
should treat eternity like a time that is discrete from our own.102 This discrete
time would serve as the truthmaker for our claims about God. 103 One can say
that God exists in eternity, or at eternity, or simply that God exists. She can
say that from eternity God willed to save humanity through Jesus, or that
God eternally decreed the defeat of evil.
Again, it would be good to sum up what we have covered so far.
Necessarily, God’s timeless eternity means that God exists without
beginning, without end, and without succession. It lacks any before and
after. It is not temporally extended, nor does it have temporal location.
Eternity does not have duration. A timeless God cannot undergo any
intrinsic or extrinsic changes. Nor can anything disrupt God’s changeless
state of pure happiness. Further, as simple God is pure act, and has no
properties, nor is He subject to any distinctions be they real or conceptual.
Finally, eternity logically functions as a date or “time” that is discrete from
our own time-series.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Divine timelessness, immutability, simplicity, and impassibility have trad-

itionally been justified on the basis of perfect being theology. Unfortunately
space does not allow for a detailed discussion of the method of perfect being
theology. For now it will suffice to say that the end result of perfect being
theology is to predicate of God perfections that He has necessarily. 104 For
instance, it is better to be good necessarily than contingently. Further, one
should recall the discussion in this chapter on the Aristotelian assumption
about necessity. When it comes to understanding God’s eternality it must be
noted that Christians who hold to the divine timeless research program see
timelessness, immutability, simplicity, and impassibility as perfections that
God is necessarily. As such, God is held to be necessarily timeless,
immutable, simple, and impassible. Necessarily God exists without
beginning, without end, without succession, without temporal location and
extension. Necessarily God can suffer no change. Necessarily God is pure
act and has no potential and no properties. These are strong statements, and
their strength is not always appreciated in contemporary discussions. This
may be why some theologians and philosophers continue to look for a third
way between divine atemporality and temporality. The method of perfect
being theology, however,

102
Leftow, “Eternity and Immutability” in ed. William E. Mann, The Blackwell Guide to the
Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 59.
103
Leftow, “The Eternal Present,” in God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 42.
104
Thomas V. Morris, Our Idea of God: An Introduction to Philosophical Theology
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991).
 What is Eternity?73
brings us to the conclusion that either temporality or atemporality are
perfec- tions. As such, there is little sense in claims that God is timeless
sans creation but temporal with creation. If God is timeless, He is
necessarily timeless. It is not possible for Him to become temporal for that
would involve the possibility of change in God, and this is not something
that timelessness allows for. God must either be necessarily timeless or
necessarily temporal. The traditional understanding is that God is
necessarily timeless.
 4

Presentism, Omniscience, and the

Timeless God

In this chapter I shall attempt to do several things. First, I shall argue that
classical theists are presentists. This is important to know when it comes to
properly critiquing their research program on God and time. The classical
tradition’s temporal ontology has been widely misrepresented in the contem-
porary literature, and a correction to this error is in order. One cannot
understand the objections that classical theists themselves sought to refute if
one does not see the classical theists’ commitment to presentism. Second, I
will look at one particular objection to divine timelessness from presentism
that classical theists sought to refute: divine timelessness is incompatible
with omniscience.

PRESENTISM AND CLASSICAL THEOLOGY

Presentism and endurantism are the traditional views amongst Christian

theologians throughout Church history.1 In fact, one of the main reasons
given for thinking that God is timeless, based upon the incompleteness of
temporal life, assumes both presentism and endurantism. Yet, there are a
few issues that have come to the fore in contemporary debates. Does an
eternalist ontology of time need to be true in order for God to be
omniscient? Is eternalism needed in order to make sense of the claim that all
times are present for God in eternity? These are interesting questions that
one will need to address in her research program. For now I want to focus on
a question that sometimes arises out of these two previous questions. Is

1
One possible exception could be John Wycliffe who appears to have posited the existence
of the past and the future along with the present. See Robert Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes:
1274–1689 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 388–90. Pasnau notes that, unlike
most in the tradition, Wycliffe believes that God’s omniscience and eternality entail that past,
present, and future are all on an ontological par.
 Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God75
eternalism the view that classical theologians meant to, or did in fact, articu-
late? The answer is no. Far too many contemporary theologians and philo-
sophers either accuse or praise classical theologians for holding to
eternalism, but this is anachronistic.2 Presentism “was believed by everyone,
both the philosophers and the folk, until at least the nineteenth century; it is
written into the grammar of every natural language; and it is still assumed in
everyday life, even by philosophers who officially deny it.”3
In Chapter 3 I noted the tight connection between presentism, endurant-
ism, and the doctrine of divine timelessness—that is, God exists all at once
in a timeless present that lacks a before and after. In this section and the next
I will further show that presentism is the classical Christian position. This
will become even clearer in Chapter 6 on presentism, creation, and divine
time- lessness, but before we can delve into those issues it will be helpful to
see how deeply ingrained presentism is in Christian thought. One example
comes from Gregory of Nyssa. In a rather poetic fashion he says, “time’s
lapse sweeps away with it all existence in the past, whereas expected
existence gains substance from our hope” (Against Eunomius I.42).
Another example of a deeply ingrained commitment to presentism comes
from Augustine. In Confessions XI.15, Augustine deals with a puzzle about
the measurement of time. Part of the puzzle is about how to measure past
moments of time because once a moment “becomes past, it ceases to exist.”
The same applies to future moments, which “do not yet exist.” Though
Augustine examines several hypotheses, he maintains his commitment to
presentism throughout his entire investigation into the question of how to
measure time. In XI.20, he says, “It is now, however, perfectly clear that
neither the future nor the past are in existence.” Statements like these from
Gregory and Augustine only make sense on presentism.
From Augustine’s Confessions to Duns Scotus’ Lectura, presentism and
endurantism have been widely held. For the medieval theologians, both God
and creatures are endurant beings that exist wholly and entirely at the

2
A sampling of such claims can be found in the following. Katherin Rogers, “Anselmian
Eternalism: The Presence of a Timeless God.” Faith and Philosophy 24 (January 2007).
Christopher Conn, “Anselmian Spacetime: Omnipresence and the Created Order,” The
Heythrop Journal 52 (2011). Richard Cross, “Duns Scotus on Eternity and Timelessness,”
Faith and Philosophy 14 (1997). However, Cross recants his claim in Duns Scotus on God
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), ch. 8. Paul Helm, Eternal God: A Study of God without
Time, 2nd Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), ch. 14. Hans Kraml, “Eternity in
Process Philosophies,” in eds. Christian Tapp and Edmund Runggaldier, God, Eternity, and
Time (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011). William Lane Craig, “Time and Eternity,” in ed.
Melville Y. Stewart, Science and Religion in Dialogue (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2010), 686.
3
John Bigelow, “Presentism and Properties,” Nous 30 (1996), 35. See also, Dean Zimmerman,
“The A-Theory of Time, Presentism, and Open Theism,” in ed. Melville Y. Stewart, Science
and Religion in Dialogue, 793.
76Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God
present.4 The assumption of presentism is at work in their descriptions of
God’s timeless eternity and how it relates to our temporal present. It should
be recalled, however, that medieval thinkers claim that God’s eternal present
is different from the creaturely present (as discussed in Chapter 3). Yet they
think God’s present is similar enough to our present to warrant the predica-
tion present.
The Catholic and Protestant scholastics agreed with the medievals that
God is an endurant being who exists in a timeless present. The scholastics
also pro- pounded a common classical claim that eternity co-exists with all
times.5 Their view, however, is not that all created times eternally co-exist
with God as the eternalist sees it. As the Protestant scholastic Francis
Turretin explains, all times co-exist with eternity without being co-existent
with each other. “Thus the past, while it was, coexisted with eternity, the
present now coexists with it, and the future will coexist with it.”6 Turretin is
clearly holding to presentism here.
This clarification from Turretin is important to note. The common and
widespread statement that “all moments of time exist in God’s eternity” has
led to a great deal of confusion in the past and today. It has distorted the
classical tradition’s commitment to presentism, and led to many unfortunate
interpretations of classical Christian theology. Several misreadings and
misinterpretations of classical texts need to be dispelled before we can begin
to critique the classical position on divine timelessness. Their commitment
to presentism must be acknowledged in order for contemporary thinkers to
properly engage the classical philosophical landscape.

PRESENTISM, OMNISCIENCE, AND ALL OF TIME

EXISTING IN ETERNITY

As noted earlier in this chapter, there are theologians who are often called
upon by the eternalist, or who are accused of holding to eternalism. There
are passages in Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, and Aquinas that appear to
point in the direction of eternalism. I think it is a mistake to interpret these
thinkers as

4
See Robert Pasnau, “On Existing All at Once,” in God, Eternity, and Time. Also, Anselm,
Proslogion 13. Augustine, Confessions XI.
5
See Pasnau, “On Existing All at Once,” in God, Eternity, and Time. Richard A. Muller,
Post- Reformation Reformed Dogmatics vol. 3: The Divine Essence and Attributes (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 345–64. One can even find similar statements about
God’s duration in Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1940), V.6.
6
Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1 (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and
Reformed Publishing, 1992), 203. See also Stephen Charnocke, Several Dischourses Upon the
Existence and Attributes of God (London: Newman, 1682), 186.
 Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God77
eternalists because they are committed to presentism. The contemporary
confusion seems to derive from the claim that all moments of time are
present to God in eternity.7 Some think that this statement shows that
classical theologians are committed to eternalism. However, when properly
under- stood, this statement shows no such commitment.
The phrase “all moments of time are present to God” can, and has, caused
confusion, but such confusion can be cleared up. What must be understood
is that the classical theologians from Aristotle to the Catholic and Protestant
scholastics believe that God’s knowledge is not dependent upon creatures—
i.e. God’s knowledge of the universe is not perceptual or observational. As
we shall see in Chapter 6, atemporalists who hold to an eternalist ontology
of time maintain that God’s knowledge of the created order is based on
some- thing like perception. All moments of time eternally co-exist with
God, and fall under the divine gaze. This, however, is what classical
theologians explicitly deny. For classical theologians, God’s knowledge is
not based upon perception, but rather is based upon a perfect understanding,
or complete comprehension, of Himself.8 For some, God having a complete
understanding of His own essence is sufficient for God to know all things.
For others, God having a complete understanding of His will—the cause of
all things—is sufficient for God to know all things. Given divine simplicity,
God’s will is identical to the divine essence, so one ends up with the same
claim. Regardless, for classical theism, the mode of God’s knowledge is
through a complete understanding of the divine essence and is not based
upon a perception of the created universe. This understanding of God’s
mode of knowledge is deeply entrenched in the history of Christian thought,
as I shall now demonstrate. In demonstrating this, I shall also show that
classical theists were committed to presentism and not eternalism. Once one
has a proper understanding of the classical doctrine of omniscience, one will
gain a better understanding of what classical theolo- gians intended to
convey with phrases like “all of time is present to God’s eternity.” They are
intending to say something about God’s mode of know- ledge. They are not
intending to say anything about the ontology of time with this phrase.
I shall start this investigation with Augustine since he is the source of
much subsequent theological thought on this matter of presentism and God’s
mode

7
Another source of confusion that seems to be present during the 1980s and 1990s is over
the tensed vs. tenseless theory of time debate. It seems that some have confused medieval
claims about eternal truths with the tenseless theory of time and its alleged ontological
entailments. Others seem to have mistakenly assumed that since a particular medieval thinker
clearly held to a tensed theory of time (e.g. Scotus), then he must hold to divine temporalism
since timelessness is not compatible with tensed time. This is one reason why I do not find the
tensed vs. tenseless debate to be helpful for discussing God and time.
8
Thomas Williams, “Introduction to Classical Theism,” in eds. Jeanine Diller and Asa
Kasher, Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities (New York: Springer, 2013), 95.
78Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God
of knowledge. In Confessions XI.17, Augustine is trying to figure out how a
human person could see the future in order to prophesy since the future does
not yet exist. In XI.18 he claims the future itself is not seen, but perhaps the
signs or causes of presently existing objects are seen. Ultimately he leaves it
as a mystery in XI.19, and prays for further guidance from God. In other
writings Augustine continues his commitment to presentism as he
investigates ques- tions related to God’s omniscience and foreknowledge.
One such question is about God’s knowledge of the created universe. Is
God’s knowledge of the created universe dependent upon the existence of
the created universe? Augustine says no. In On the Trinity 6.11 he says,
“created things are not known by God because they have been made; it is
rather the case that they have been made because they are immutably known
by him.” In On Genesis
5.6 he says that God knows all things before He creates them, “they were in
God’s knowledge, they were not in their own nature.” Peter Lombard adds to
this that this is the way God knows things even after He creates them
(Sentences I Dist. XXXV 9.1–2). In City of God XI.21, Augustine explains
that God’s cognition is not like ours in that God does not “look forward to
the future, see the present, and look back upon the past.” Instead,
God’s mind does not pass from one thought to another. His vision is utterly
unchangeable. Thus, He comprehends all that takes place in time—the not-yet-
existing future, the existing present, and the no-longer-existing past—in an
immutable and eternal present ... His knowledge of what happens in time, like
His movement of what changes in time, is completely independent of time. 9
What we see here is not that all times are literally present to God in eternity
since some times no longer exist, and other times do not yet exist. Instead,
the truths about all times are present to God in His eternal mode of knowing.
This is sometimes referred to as the eternality of truth. For Augustine, these
eternal truths are ultimately grounded in the essence of God, and God knows
these truths by having a perfect comprehension of His own essence (The
Trinity XV.13.22).
In Chapter 3, I showed Boethius’ commitment to presentism in his
argument for, and articulation of, divine timelessness. However, Boethius’
claim that all of time is present to God has caused confusion over his
ontology of time. What must be understood is that Boethius is working out
the Augustinian claims about the mode of God’s knowledge and the
eternality of truth. Just like Augustine, Boethius holds that God’s knowledge
is not based upon the temporal universe. In the Consolations of Philosophy
he makes this clear. “How absurd it is that we should say that the result of
temporal affairs is the cause of eternal foreknowledge!” (V.147).

9
Author’s emphasis.
 Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God79
Like Augustine, Boethius is committed to presentism. He writes that, “All
that lives under the conditions of time moves through the present from the
past to the future” (V.161). Elsewhere he speaks of the “now that flows
away” that makes time.10 Yet Boethius continually makes the claim that all
moments of time exist for God in His eternal now, which is why some think
that he is committed to eternalism. What is often missed, however, is that he
makes this claim with a careful qualification. “Since then all judgment
apprehends the subjects of its thought according to its own nature, and God
has a condition of ever-present eternity, His knowledge, which passes over
every change of time, embracing infinite lengths of past and future, views in
its own direct compre- hension everything as though it were taking place in
the present” (V.163).11 What is Boethius saying here?
As John Marenbon explains, Boethius is making a claim about the mode
of God’s knowledge.12 Everything has a mode of knowledge appropriate to
its own nature. The mode of God’s knowledge is not based on a perception
of created things. Instead, it is based on a perfect knowledge of the divine
nature. To say that all of time exists in the eternal present is to make an
epistemic claim about God, and not a claim about the ontology of time. It is
not a claim that all times are literally present in eternity. God cannot “see”
the future, since Boethius says that the future does not exist. Instead, God
knows the future truths by having a perfect knowledge of Himself. So again,
we see a commit- ment to the eternality of truth and the mode of God’s
knowledge as self- knowledge. What we do not see is a commitment to an
eternalist ontology of time.
Allow me to skip ahead in history to Anselm since several contemporary
thinkers claim that Anselm is an eternalist. Sandra Visser and Thomas
Williams disagree with this eternalist interpretation of Anselm. They boldly
proclaim that “Anselm is clearly and unequivocally a presentist.”13 Anselm
certainly speaks in multiple places like a presentist. He speaks of “what has
had a past existence but does not now exist, and a future existence but does
not yet exist” (Proslogion 22). Yet in Proslogion 20 through 21 Anselm says
things that sound like eternalism. It would be anachronistic, however, to
read this passage as a commitment to eternalism. Anselm is working with a
distinction in medieval philosophy between permanent and successive
entities, and this distinction assumes presentism and endurantism. Permanent
entities endure through time, but their lives can be conceptually divided into
successive states/entities or temporal parts. These temporal parts are not
extramental

10
As quoted by Aquinas in Summa Theologiae I.Q10.objection 1.
11
Author’s emphasis.
12
Marenbon, “Boethius,” in eds. Graham Oppy and Nick Trakakis, The History of Western
Philosophy of Religion Volume 2: Medieval Philosophy of Religion (Durham, NC: Acumen
Publishing Limited, 2009), 22–30.
13
Sandra Visser and Thomas Williams, Anselm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 102.
80Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God
four-dimensional objects. They are conceptual divisions. (One may recall
this discussion from Chapter 3, and the role it played in articulating divine
time- lessness.) The basic thrust of his argument is that existing as a whole,
or all at once (endurance), is a perfection found in creatures. Thus, God must
have this perfection and be an endurant permanent being.
Another source of confusion in Anselm comes from De Concordia I.5.
Here Anselm uses his presentism to articulate his doctrine of eternity.
Eternity has “no past or future but only a present.” If Anselm were an
eternalist, it would make little sense to continually make comparisons
between our temporal present and God’s eternal present as he does. But the
passage goes on to say that
although in eternity there is only a present, nevertheless it is not a temporal
present as ours is, only an eternal one in which all periods of time are
contained. Indeed, just as our present time envelops every place and whatever
is in every place, so in the eternal present all time is encompassed along with
whatever exists at any time.
Anselm even says that all times “exist simultaneously in an eternal present”
which is why some think that Anselm is an eternalist.14 However, I believe
this to be a mistake because it ignores the context of the passage where
Anselm continually expresses a commitment to presentism. He is talking
about God’s knowledge and foreknowledge when he makes this claim. One
of the problems for God’s foreknowledge that Anselm is trying to address
here is that our actions and behaviors themselves are not everlasting because
they do not always exist. How does God foreknow them if they do not
always exist? This problem arises on presentism and not on eternalism. If
Anselm were an eternalist he would not have this problem because the
actions and behaviors of creatures would be co-eternal with God. (For more
on this, see Chapter 6.) The problem of future actions not existing is
consistent with a commitment to presentism since the future actions do not
yet exist, but it is not consistent with eternalism. Anselm’s solution to the
problem in De Concordia is consistent with the presentism that he explicitly
endorses elsewhere. Anselm’s move in this chapter is that all truths about
the past, present, and future exist in eternity immutably. It does not matter
that the actions themselves do not exist in eternity. All that matters is that
the truths exist. This is not a commitment to eternalism. It is a throwback to
an Augustinian commitment to the eternality of truth.15

14
Rogers, “Back to Eternalism,” 324.
15
Lesley-Anne Dyer, “Transcendent and Immanent Eternity in Anselm’s Monologion,”
Filosofia Unisinos 11 (2010), 269–73.
 Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God81
Thomas Aquinas has been accused by process theists of holding to etern-
alism in order to condemn his doctrine of the God–world relationship.16
Again, this is a mistake. Aquinas clearly speaks of the movable now which
suggests presentism (Summa Theologiae I.Q10.a4). Yet, Aquinas also uses
the metaphor of a man in a watchtower to explain God’s foreknowledge. The
metaphor seems to indicate that God sees all moments of time
simultaneously just as a man in a watchtower sees the whole of the land
simultaneously. However, Aquinas does not intend this to imply that the
past, present, and future are on an ontological par, though some have
claimed this of Aquinas in order to condemn him or put him on the side of
eternalism. Aquinas is a presentist.17
In Quaestiones Disputatae De Veritate QII.12 he writes of future contin-
gents coming into existence. “Although a contingent is not determined as
long as it is, future, yet, as soon as it is produced in the realm of nature, it
has a determinate truth. It is in this way that the gaze of divine knowledge is
brought upon it.” And a little later on he says, “Although a contingent does
not exercise an act of existence as long as it is a future, as soon as it is
present it has both existence and truth, and in this condition stands under the
divine vision.” The idea in both of these statements is that future things do
not exist as concrete objects until they become present. Aquinas goes on to
say of God’s omnisci- ence in De Veritate QII. 12.ad4:
although God’s knowledge does not change but always remains the same, the
condition according to which a thing is referred to His knowledge does not
always remain the same with respect to that knowledge. For a thing is related to
God’s knowledge as it is in its own present existence, yet present existence
does not always belong to it. Hence, we can consider the thing either together
with its condition of being present or without it, and, consequently, we can
consider it either in the manner in which it is referred to God’s knowledge or in
some other manner.
Aquinas is endorsing presentism here. Even further, in QII.7–13 he
considers several objections to God’s omniscience and immutability. Several
of the objections assume presentism. For instance, one objection goes like
this: Is it not the case that God’s knowledge changes from past, to present, to
future? At one time, God knew that <Christ will be born>, but now God no
longer knows this. Instead, God knows that <Christ was born>. Another
objection looks like this: A thing exists, then no longer exists. Can God
know when something exists now? God’s knowledge of Himself cannot
deliver knowledge of what currently exists.

16
Hans Kraml, “Eternity in Process Philosophies,” in God, Eternity, and Time.
17
Kevin Staley, “Omniscience, Time, and Eternity: Is Aquinas Inconsistent?” Saint Anselm
Journal 3 (2006), 9.
82Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God
Aquinas’ response is telling. He never rejects presentism, but instead
assumes it as do the objections. In fact, he assumes presentism throughout
the rest of the treatise to explicate various issues. (The same is true in
Summa Contra Gentiles I.63 and following.) What Aquinas contends is that
God’s knowledge does not change because of the divine mode of knowing.
God’s knowledge is based upon a perfect knowledge of His own essence. It
is not that God looks upon the world and sees what is presently occurring,
and thus has something added to His knowledge. God already knows
everything perfectly through knowledge of Himself. All truths are thus
represented to God through His own essence. (De Veritate QII.13, 1.) In De
Veritate QII.14 he makes this explicit. “It cannot be said, however, that what
is known by God is the cause of His knowledge; for things are temporal and
His knowledge is eternal, and what is temporal cannot be the cause of
anything eternal.” Aquinas’ defense is that God’s knowledge is not based on
the ever-changing temporal world. In considering these objections, Aquinas
concedes that if this were the case, God’s knowledge would in fact change.
Yet he denies that this is the case because God’s knowledge is based on His
own immutable essence, so it cannot change.
Another objection that Aquinas considers will further help make this issue
come into focus. In De Veritate QII.3 he considers the following objection.
“Whatever God knows He knows from eternity, since His knowledge does
not vary. Now, whatever He knows is a being, for knowledge is only of
being. Hence, whatever He knows existed from eternity. But no creature
existed from eternity. Consequently, He knows no creature.” If Aquinas is an
eternalist, he could respond by saying that all concrete objects exist eternally
in the four- dimensional spacetime manifold. As we shall see in Chapter 6,
Aquinas could agree with contemporary atemporalists and say that the
universe is co-eternal with God. There is never a state of affairs where God
exists without the eternalist universe. But Aquinas is not an eternalist. His
response instead is that the objects do not have to exist in order for God to
know them. “Although knowledge has only being for its object, it is not
necessary that what is known should be a real being at the time in which it is
known; for, just as we know things that are distant in place, we also know
things distant in time, as is evident from our knowledge of things past.
Hence, it is not inconsistent to affirm a knowledge of God that is about
things that are not eternal” (De Veritate QII.3.12).
A contemporary eternalist would most likely see this response from
Aquinas and say that Aquinas has a grounding problem like every other
presentist does with regard to truths about the past and the future. It is not
clear to me that the Augustinian move that Aquinas makes here—which
grounds these truths in the essence of God—is unable to meet the grounding
objection to presentism. However, arguing this is beyond the scope of this
book. It is merely worth pointing out that the medieval theologians might
have resources
 Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God83
for dealing with the grounding objection to presentism from within their own
research program.
Back to the present argument. Earlier I noted that process theists accuse
Aquinas of holding to eternalism. Interestingly this criticism is not new.
Around the time of Aquinas several theologians critical of his work falsely
accused him of holding that eternity was simultaneous with past, present,
and future as if all times were equally real. Shortly after Aquinas’ death,
certain theologians, like William de la Mare, would argue that Aquinas held
this so that they could condemn his views. A few seem to have taken up this
line of interpretation and ran with it, but it faced obvious objections early
on.18 The influence of de la Mare’s interpretation of Aquinas gained wide
acceptance by Dominican and Franciscan theologians all the way up to the
fourteenth century. Many theologians felt the need to refute this Thomistic
position because of its obvious incoherence with the faith. 19 For instance,
John Duns Scotus felt the need to reject this Thomistic school of thought.
The refutation was quite simple. God cannot co-exist, or stand in a causal
relation, with non- existent things. The present is the only moment of time
that exists, so God’s eternal now cannot be simultaneously present with the
non-existent past and the not-yet existent future.20 Scotus—like most prior to
the nineteenth century—thinks that presentism is obviously true and
formulates his theology accordingly. Further, Scotus continues to affirm the
Augustinian line with regard to God’s knowledge. God’s knowledge is not
based on created things, but is based on a perfect understanding of His own
essence.21
This alleged Thomistic confusion persisted throughout the Reformation
and Enlightenment. I am not certain how many people—if any—actually
held the view that God’s eternity literally contains the past, present, and
future. My uncertainty that anyone actually held this view is due to a
particular interpretation of this claim within Thomistic thought. Luis de
Molina in Concordia IV, Disp. 48, follows one Thomistic tradition that
holds that objects exist eternally and temporally. Everything exists in
eternity, and in time. There is the concrete Adam that exists in eternity, and
the concrete Adam that exists in time. Molina goes on to say that this is the
view of not only Aquinas, but also Anselm, Boethius, and Augustine. This
particular interpretation goes

18
See John Marenbon, “Medieval Metaphysics II: Things, non-things, God and Time,” in
eds. Robin le Poidevin, Peter Simons, Andrew McGonigal, and Ross P. Cameron, The
Routledge Companion to Metaphysics (New York: Routledge, 2009), 65.
19
Harm J.M.J. Goris, Free Creatures of an Eternal God: Thomas Aquinas on God’s
Infallible Foreknowledge and Irresistible Will (Utrecht: Thomas Instituut te Utrecht, 1996),
242.
20
John Duns Scotus, Contingency and Freedom: Lectura I 39, trans. A. Vos Jaczn,
H. Veldhuis, A. H. Looman-Graaskamp, E. Dekker, and N. W. Den Bok (London: Kluwer
Academic Publishers, 1994), 82–6 and 174–8.
21
Scotus, Contingency and Freedom, 142ff, and 188.
84Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God
back to the sixteenth-century Thomistic commentator Cajetan. 22 The claim
would not be that eternalism is true of time. Instead the claim would be that
somehow there are concrete counterparts of ourselves that exist in God’s
eternal present. This is a bizarre claim, but it does not lend support to
eternalism. The theologians who held this view still thought that a presentist
ontology of the temporal order is true.
Again, it is not clear that anyone prior to the nineteenth century actually
held the view that all times are literally present to God. 23 At the very least,
theologians and philosophers felt the need to mention it in order to refute the
notion. For instance, in Henry More’s Divine Dialogues from 1668 a group
of individuals are engaged in a dialogue about theology. Hylobares objects
to the notion of divine eternity since it entails a contradiction.
That it is an essential presence of all things with God, as well of things past,
present, as to come; and that the Duration of God is all of it, as it were, in one
steddy [sic] and permanent ... Instant at once ... For what can be more contra-
dictious, then that all things should have been really and essentially with God
from all Eternity at once, and yet be born in time and succession? 24
Hylobares’ dialogue partner Philotheus quickly rebukes Hylobares for being
uncharitable. Then Philotheus responds in a similar fashion to that of Scotus.
That the whole Evolution of Times and Ages from everlasting to everlasting is
so collectedly and presentifickly [sic] represented to God at once, as if all
things and Actions which ever were, are, or shall be, were at this very Instant,
and so always, really present and existent before him . . . [The divine mind
comprehends] the Ideas of all Things and Ages at once in the Intellect of
God.25
The claim is that God comprehends all things in eternity because all things
in time are “represented” to God at once. The things themselves do not exist
in eternity, just a representation of them in the divine intellect. It should also
be noted that the representation of things in time maintains the proper
temporal topology even though it exists eternally in the mind of God. In
other words, from all eternity God knows the order of events that take place
in time.26 After hearing all of this Hylobares concedes that his objection has
been refuted and says, “I am half ashamed I ever propounded it.”27
In the quote from Philotheus, I emphasized the “as if ” clause. The “as if ”
clause is an important point for clarity on this issue, and it can be found in

22
Cf. John Marenbon, “Medieval Metaphysics II: Things, non-things, God and Time,” in The
Routledge Companion to Metaphysics, 65.
23
Accept, possibly, John Wycliffe. See footnote 1.
24
Henry More, Divine Dialogues (London: James Flesher, 1668), 57–8.
25
More, Divine Dialogues, 60. Author’s emphasis.
26
More, Divine Dialogues, 61–70. Cf. James Arminius, 25 Public Disputations, Disputation
IV.XXXIII–XXXIV.
27
More, Divine Dialogues, 72.
 Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God85
several other theologians from this time period. Earlier I noted that Boethius
uses a similar qualifying clause, but it does not seem that many subsequent
theologians felt the need to emphasize this qualification until de la Mare. It
appears that de la Mare emphasized this qualifying clause in order to show
that Aquinas was clearly in the wrong. However, some Thomistic commen-
tators contend that Aquinas also made this qualification.28 Regardless,
various theologians and philosophers after Aquinas go to greater lengths to
emphasize this “as if ” clause so as to avoid any confusion about the nature
of time, eternity, and omniscience.
A contemporary of Henry More, Stephen Charnocke, stresses the same
point. Charnocke, like the dialogue partners in More, holds that God exists
without beginning, without end, and without succession. In God’s eternity
there is neither flux nor change.29 The things of the world are in time and
thus undergo change and succession. This succession does not cause a
change in God’s knowledge because God does not see things in time. God’s
knowledge is not based on what occurs in time. Instead, God knows all that
occurs in time by having a perfect knowledge of Himself. “He doth not
know one thing now, and another anon; He sees all things at once.” God still
knows the true temporal order of things even though He knows all of this at
once.
God knows time, he knows all things as they are in time; He doth not know all
things to be at once, though he knows at once what is, has been, and will be. All
things are past, present, and to come in regard of their Existence; but there is
not past, present and to come in regard to God’s Knowledge of them; because
he sees and knows not by any other, but by himself; He is his own Light by
which he sees, his own Glass wherein he sees; beholding himself, he beholds
all things.30
If one were still uncertain about this, Charnocke drives home the point again.
If God be eternal, he knows all things as present. All things are present to him
in his Eternity; for this is the notion of Eternity, to be without succession. If
Eternity be one indivisible point, and is not diffused into preceding and suc-
ceeding parts, then that which is known in it or by it, is perceived without any
succession; For knowledge is as the substance of the person knowing; if that
hath various actions and distinct from itself, then it understands things in
differences of time as time presents them to view: But, since Gods Being
depends not upon the revolutions of time, so neither doth his Knowledge; it
exceeds all motions of years and days, comprehends infinite spaces of past and
future. God considers all things in his Eternity in one simple knowledge, as if
they were now acted before him.31

28
Goris, Free Creatures of an Eternal God, 242–6.
29
Charnocke, Attributes of God, 182ff.
30
Charnocke, Attributes of God, 186.
31
Charnocke, Attributes of God, 192. Author’s emphasis.
86Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God
Charnocke’s claims here echo those of the medieval theologians, and yet it
also contains the “as if ” clause that is an important point of clarification
strongly emphasized in this time period.
In the eighteenth century Samuel Clarke also felt the need to address this
confusion about the claim that all moments of time exist in eternity, even
though he denies divine timelessness.
The true notion of divine eternity does not consist in making past things to be
still present and things future to be already come, which is an express
contradiction. But it consists in this (and in this it infinitely transcends the
manner of existence of all created beings, even of those which shall continue
for ever): that whereas their finite minds can by no means comprehend all that
is past or understand perfectly the things that are present, much less know or
have in their power the things that are to come (but their thoughts and
knowledge and power, must of necessity have degrees and periods, and be
successive and transient as the things themselves); the eternal, supreme cause,
on the contrary, has such a perfect, independent, and unchangeable
comprehension of all things that in every point or instant of his eternal duration
all things past, present, and to come must be, not indeed themselves present at
once (for that is a manifest contradiction), but they must be as entirely known
and represented to him in one single thought or view, and all things present and
future be as absolutely under his power and direction as if there were really no
succession at all, and as if all things had been (not that they really are) actually
present at once.32
Clarke’s statement here exemplifies the clarity that theologians had been
striving for with regard to this issue.
A quick summary is in order before moving on. When the Christian
tradition says that all moments are present to God in eternity—at least with
regard to God’s omniscience—it is not meant to say something about the
ontology of time. Rather it is saying something about God’s mode of cogni-
tion. Namely, that God knows the eternal truths, or the divine ideas, from all
eternity.33 God’s mode of cognition is not based upon His perception of
times and events, but rather based on His direct apprehension of His own
essence. As the medievals would say, God has a perfect knowledge of
Himself and thus knows all things. In this way one can say that all times are
present to God in eternity because it is true that from all eternity God knows
all eternal truths. Thus, the tradition did not have eternalism in view, nor
would a classical theologian think eternalism necessary in order to make
sense of God’s omniscience.

32
Samuel Clarke, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God and Other Writings
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 138, author’s emphasis. Cf. one of Clarke’s
influences, Pierre Gassendi, Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana, or, A Fabrick of Science
Natural, Upon the Hypothesis of Atoms founded by Epicurus, Repaired by Petrus Gassendus,
Augmented by Walter Charleton (London: Tho. Newcomb, 1654), 81–2.
33
Garrett J. DeWeese, God and the Nature of Time (Burlington, VY: Ashgate, 2004), 132–3.
 Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God87
None of this demonstrates that God’s knowledge of the future is in fact
possible on presentism. It merely shows that the majority of Christians in the
past saw no reason to posit the existence of the future in order to explain
God’s foreknowledge. If one wishes to argue that classical Christians should
have held to eternalism in order to maintain divine omniscience, one is free
to do so. It would be anachronistic to say that classical Christians did believe
in eternalism. This is because the majority of Christians in the past were pre-
sentists and used presentism to articulate their theological doctrines. They
never made statements like, “It only appears from our perspective that the
present is the only moment that exists, but from the divine perspective all of
time exists.” Instead they make direct inferences from the fact of presentism
to claims about God’s eternal present.

DOES GOD’S KNOWLEDGE CHANGE

WITH CREATION?

As discussed earlier, there is an obvious objection that arises from the com-
bination of presentism, timelessness, and omniscience, and the objection
remains today. In our day it is often argued that a timeless God cannot know
what time it is now if presentism is true. 34 The idea is that a timeless God
cannot know when it is now since that would require a constant change in
God’s knowledge. This objection only works if the research program in view
has a particular understanding of omniscience and a commitment to present-
ism. It seems that most in the classical Christian tradition would not find this
argument to be a serious threat to their research program since it assumes
that God’s knowledge is based upon, or dependent upon, the existence of the
concrete particulars of creation. Certain classical theologians would see this
as a mistake. God, they say, has a perfect knowledge of Himself. His
knowledge is in no way dependent upon creatures. There is no knowledge to
be gained from the concrete particulars of creation other than the knowledge
that God already eternally possesses. I will call this the Augustinian Option.
Another strand of classical thought takes this argument differently because it
holds that there is knowledge to be gained from the concrete particulars of
creation. I will call this the Thomist Option. In what follows, I shall examine
each option, and

34
William Lane Craig, “Divine Eternity,” in eds. Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea, The
Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009),
159–60. John Philoponus seems to have offered this argument against Proclus. See his
Against Proclus On the Eternity of the World 12–18, trans. James Wilberding (London: Gerald
Duckworth & Co., 2006), 74–81. Interestingly, divine temporalists from the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, like Samuel Clarke, Pierre Gassendi, and Thomas Hobbes, did not offer
this objection. They seem to agree with what I shall call the Augustinian position.
88Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God
seek to demonstrate the difficulties that arise from presentism for the divine
timeless research program.

The Augustinian Option

As stated earlier, this group of theologians holds that God knows all things
that occur in time, but His knowledge is not based upon the temporal
objects.35 According to Augustine, human persons gain knowledge when
new events occur in time. Not so with God. “God does not see in time, nor
does anything new happen in his sight or his knowledge when some
temporal and transitory action is performed” (The Trinity XII.10). Human
persons can only experience things one moment at a time. The divine
persons of the Trinity, however, see everything “all at once, not bit by bit”
(The Trinity XV.23). God’s cognition is not like ours in that God does not
“look forward to the future, see the present, and look back upon the past.” As
mentioned earlier,
God’s mind does not pass from one thought to another. His vision is utterly
unchangeable. Thus, He comprehends all that takes place in time—the not-yet-
existing future, the existing present, and the no-longer-existing past—in an
immutable and eternal present . . . His knowledge of what happens in time, like
His movement of what changes in time, is completely independent of time.
(City of God XI.21)36
In order to properly understand the Augustinian option, one must note a
distinction made between divine and human modes of cognition. Augustine
distinguishes divine and human ways of knowing as follows. He holds that
human persons acquire beliefs in three basic ways. First, we can know
things through self-perception or knowing ourselves. We can reflect on
ourselves, our own consciousness, and come to know a whole host of things
like <I am alive> and <I want to be happy>. Second, we come to know
things through bodily sensations or bodily perceptions. We can look around
and see trees and thus know that <there are trees near us>. Third, we come
to know things by testimony. Augustine points out that most of our beliefs
are dependent upon the testimony of others. Through testimony we come to
know that other places and people exist, we learn history and daily news,
and we learn about our birth and parents (The Trinity XV.3.21). When it
comes to God’s know- ledge, Augustine says that we do not hold that God
knows things through the testimony of others or through bodily perception.
Instead God knows all

35
Cf. Nicholas Malebranche’s Dialogues on Metaphysics, dialogue 8.
36
Author’s emphasis.
 Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God89
things through self-perception—by having a perfect knowledge of Himself.
God is simple so His knowledge is His substance (The Trinity XV.13.22).
How does this shed light on our question? Does God’s knowledge change
with creation? The Augustinian wishes to maintain that since God’s know-
ledge is not dependent upon changeable created things, God’s knowledge is
not changeable. The object of God’s knowledge is God’s own immutable
essence, so His knowledge is also immutable. Yet the temporalist will say
that the issue has not been fully resolved. It still seems that a timeless God
cannot know when it is now, nor what presently exists without undergoing
some sort of change of knowledge. Grant the Augustinian the claim that
God’s knowledge is not dependent upon the created universe, but is instead
based upon a perfect comprehension of the divine essence. The temporalist
might push back and say that God’s knowledge must surely grow as time
unfolds. As new things come into existence, it would seem that God’s
knowledge must increase as He becomes acquainted with His newly existent
creatures. For instance, the proposition <Socrates exists> was not always
true, but became true when Socrates came into existence.
The Augustinian will be quick to remind us that God’s knowledge is not
based upon created objects. The temporalist can happily concede this at this
point in the dialectic. The temporalist can grant that God’s knowledge is not
based upon Socrates, but is instead based upon God’s action of sustaining
Socrates in existence. Given divine simplicity, God’s sustaining action is
identical to His substance, so God’s knowledge is once again based upon
Himself. The temporalist will once again press upon the Augustinian. Even
if God’s knowledge is not dependent upon the creature itself, it still seems
like some new knowledge is to be gained as God comes to sustain Socrates
in existence. As omniscient, God must know all true propositions. It seems
to follow that God should know the proposition <Socrates exists> as well
as
<I am sustaining Socrates in existence>, but these are not propositions that
have always been true. Propositions like these change their truth-value over
time, and an omniscient God must surely know such things. But this would
entail God’s knowledge changing as certain propositions become true. God’s
know- ledge would increase as He comes to know true propositions that He did
not formerly know. When there is new knowledge to gain, God must surely
come to know it. If God’s knowledge increases in this way, God cannot be
timeless.
Augustine would not find this as a reason for rejecting divine timelessness
because He thinks that there is no new knowledge to be gained as time
unfolds, and new created concrete particulars come into existence. God’s
knowledge thus remains immutable as time unfolds. According to
Augustine, God’s knowledge does not increase as creatures come into
existence. He does not “become acquainted with them, so as to know them,
at any definite time” because He has eternally and immutably known them
before they came to be. God does not know created things “because they are,
but that they are because
90Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God
he knows them. He was not ignorant of what he was going to create. Nor did
he know them as created otherwise than as to be created; nothing accrued to
his wisdom from them, but when they came into existence as required, it
remained just as it had been” (The Trinity XV.13.22).
The move from Augustine seems to be an appeal to the eternal truths or
divine ideas. The eternal forms or ideas exist in the mind of God. Since God
is simple, His mind is identical to Himself. God has a perfect knowledge of
Himself and all that He can create and will create. Augustine in The
Trinity
VI.11 claims that
the almighty and wise God [is] full of all the living and unchanging ideas,
which are all one in it, as it is one from the one with whom it is one. In this art
God knows all things that he has made through it, and so when times come and
go, nothing comes and goes for God’s knowledge. For all these created things
around us are not known by God because they have been made; it is rather,
surely, that even changeable things have been made because they are
unchangeably known by him.
The claim is that creation adds nothing to God’s knowledge for He already
had, or rather eternally has, a perfect knowledge of everything through the
divine ideas (Lombard, Sentences I Dist. XXXIX).37 The way that God
knows things that do not yet exist, is the exact same way that He knows
things that do exist—that is, through a perfect knowledge of the divine
ideas/Himself (Lombard, Sentences I Dist. XXXV). When things that do not
exist come to exist, there is no new knowledge to be gained. So, according
to the Augustinian, the temporalist argument that God’s knowledge will
increase as time unfolds is a failure. There is no new knowledge to be gained
by God for He eternally knows it all.
The temporalist will not find this persuasive because she will say that
there is new knowledge to be gained when created concrete particulars come
into existence. This is so for several reasons. First, the proposition <Socrates
exists> changes its truth-value when Socrates comes into existence. That is
certainly something new to know. God cannot eternally know <Socrates
exists> if presentism is true because Socrates began to exist at a particular
point in time. Socrates does not share co-eternal existence with God.
However, there is a possible rejoinder to this temporalist worry. Perhaps
the Augustinian can say that it is enough that God knows the tenseless
truth
<Socrates exists from time tx to ty>. God need not know the tensed proposi-
tions related to the existence of Socrates because the truth-conditions for
the tensed propositions are grounded in tenseless propositions. A temporalist
might complain that this is incompatible with the classical theist’s
commitment

37
Cf. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1984),
66.
 Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God91
to presentism, but that is not obvious. A presentist can hold to an ersatz B-
theory where tensed propositions are dealt with in a similar way as the B-
theorist would, but without adopting an eternalist ontology.38
Yet this will not be enough to convince the divine temporalist for the
temporalist can claim that there is still new knowledge to be gained. On a
presentist ersatz B-theory, times are treated as abstract, proposition-like
objects that stand in earlier than and later than relations. On this version of
presentism, all abstract times exist, but only one time is actual or concrete.
Propositions that are true at the present are true simpliciter, and propositions
that are not are true-at-a-time tx.39 This theory has lots of interesting impli-
cations, but one is relevant for our present discussion. There is a truth of the
matter as to which time is present/concrete. Which time is concrete is con-
stantly changing, and this is not something that can be explained away by
appeal to an ersatz B-theory. The proposition <Time t x is concrete> changes
its truth-value over time. If God is going to be omniscient, God will need to
know which times are concrete and which are abstract. That will require
God’s knowledge constantly changing. It is not something that God can
immutably know. Perhaps God can immutably know that <Time t x is
concrete when- tx-is-present>, but that is not the same as knowing that
<Time tx is concrete> simpliciter. There is new knowledge to be gained as
time unfolds, and so it would seem that the Augustinian has not properly
dispelled the problem.
The Thomistic option adds some conceptual machinery, so perhaps it can
better handle the objection than the Augustinian.

The Thomist Option

Aquinas’ position seems to be somewhat different than the Augustinian

position according to standard interpretations of this school of thought. 40 Just
like the Augustinians, Aquinas agrees in certain places that God’s know-
ledge is not based upon temporal things. In De Veritate QII.14 he writes, “It
cannot be said, however, that what is known by God is the cause of His
knowledge; for things are temporal and His knowledge is eternal, and what
is temporal cannot be the cause of anything eternal.” He agrees that God’s
knowledge is first and per se of Himself. God knows all things by having a
perfect timeless knowledge of Himself (Summa Contra Gentiles, I.45–54).41

38
Joshua Rasmussen, “Presentists May Say Goodbye to A-Properties,” Analysis 72 (2012).
39
Craig Bourne, A Future for Presentism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 52–69.
40
Harm Goris, “Divine Foreknowledge, Providence, Predestination, and Human Freedom,”
in eds. Rik Van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow, The Theology of Thomas Aquinas
(Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 111.
41
Cf. Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names VII.
92Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God
Aquinas adds an extra caveat to explain God’s perfect and complete
know- ledge. For Aquinas, if one has a perfect knowledge of a cause, one
will have a perfect knowledge of its effect. God is the cause of all things, so
He has a perfect knowledge of all things by knowing the cause of all things
—that is, Himself.42 Since God’s power is His essence, given divine
simplicity, He has a perfect knowledge of all that He can produce. Further,
God is pure act, so He has a perfect knowledge of what He does in fact
produce. All truths are thus represented to God through His own essence
(De Veritate QII.13, 1). This is what the Thomists call natural or simple
knowledge.43
Apart from this caveat, there seems to be another Thomistic departure
from the Augustinians. Aquinas seems to disagree with the Augustinians
over God’s knowledge of concrete particulars. The Augustinians seem to
hold that God does not have knowledge of concrete particulars as they are in
themselves because such knowledge would not add anything to God’s
eternal knowledge. Aquinas disagrees and argues that God in fact does have
knowledge of concrete particulars as they are in themselves in time. Why?
One reason is that humans have knowledge of concrete particulars that occur
in time. God’s cognitive power is greater than humans, so He must have this
knowledge too. If God is perfect in knowledge, He must have knowledge of
these things. Otherwise He would be foolish (Summa Contra Gentiles I.65).
In several places Aquinas deals with an objection to God’s omniscience
from concrete particulars, or as he would say, singulars. Earlier I noted an
objection in De Veritate QII.7 that looks like this. A thing exists, then no
longer exists. Can God know when something exists now? God’s knowledge
of Himself cannot deliver knowledge of what currently exists. In Summa
Contra Gentiles I.63 one of the objections goes as follows. “Singulars are
not always. Either therefore they are always known by God, or they are
known at one time and unknown at another. The first is impossible, since
about what is not there can be no knowledge, which is always about true
things, and things which are not cannot be true. The second is also
impossible, because the knowledge of the divine intellect is altogether
unchangeable.” The problem underlying both of these objections is that
concrete particulars only exist at the present. In the first objection, the
difficulty is whether God can know what currently exists without
undergoing change. In the second, the difficulty is against the very
possibility of an immutable God knowing concrete particulars because they
only exist at the present.

42
W. J. Hankey, God in Himself: Aquinas’ Doctrine of God as Expounded in the Summa
Theologiae (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 97.
43
Thomas P. Flint, “Two Accounts of Providence,” in ed. Michael C. Rea, Oxford Readings
in Philosophical Theology Volume II: Providence, Scripture, and Resurrection (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2009), 21.
 Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God93
Aquinas could affirm, like most before him, that God’s knowledge
consists only of Himself and the representations of things in the divine
ideas, and not of the concrete particulars themselves. Thus, God’s immutable
knowledge would not need to undergo any change by knowing the concrete
particulars. But Aquinas is not content with this in some of his writings. He
wishes to go further and say that “the divine knowledge extends to singulars
as existing in themselves” (Summa Contra Gentiles I.66). How can he do
this? The strategy seems to be an appeal to God’s knowledge of vision. By
knowledge of vision God knows what has existed, currently or presently
exists, and what will exist.44
One of the issues Aquinas tackles is about God’s knowledge of non-
existent things. For instance, the future does not yet exist. Can God’s natural
know- ledge deliver knowledge of non-existents? Aquinas says yes. An
astronomer can know a future eclipse before it happens. A craftsman can
know what he will make even before he has made it because the craftsman
has knowledge of what he—the cause—will do. The idea is that God too has
this knowledge, but in a perfect way. God is the cause of all, so by knowing
the cause/Himself, He has a perfect knowledge of every effect (Summa
Contra Gentiles I.66). Yet, the temporalist will complain that this is not
sufficient to give God knowledge of what presently exists in such a way that
God will remain immutable.
How can God have a timeless knowledge of the concrete particulars that
exist in time? As stated earlier, God’s knowledge of vision gives God know-
ledge of what has existed, currently exists, and will exist. Aquinas’ answer is
that the present moment of time syncs up with eternity such that God’s
knowledge of vision provides God knowledge of what currently exists. 45
Aquinas explains as follows. “There is no succession in God’s act of under-
standing, any more than there is in His existence. Hence it is all at once
everlasting, which belongs to the essence of eternity, whereas the duration
of time is drawn out by the succession of before and after.” Now “since the
being of the eternal never fails, eternity synchronizes with every time or
instant of time,” much like the point of the circumference of a circle.
Accordingly whatever exists in any part of time, is coexistent with the eternal
as though present thereto, although in relation to another part of time it is
present or future. Now a thing cannot be present to, and coexistent with, the
eternal, except with the whole eternal, since this has no successive duration.
Therefore whatever happens throughout the whole course of time is seen as
present by the divine intellect in its eternity. And yet that which is done in some
part of time was not always in existence. It remains therefore that God has
knowledge of those

44
Joseph P. Wawrykow, The Westminster Handbook to Thomas Aquinas (Louisville, KY:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), 82–3.
45
Cf. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology III.xi.8–9.
94Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God
things which are not as yet in relation to the course of time. (Summa Contra
Gentiles I.66)46
A quick comment is in order before proceeding with Aquinas’ solution.
Some might misinterpret this passage as a commitment to eternalism
because it states that God has knowledge of all moments of time. In fact,
Harm
J. M. J. Goris notes that it is passages like this that led de la Mare and others
to misinterpret Aquinas. Goris insists that Aquinas is a presentist, but con-
cedes that Aquinas’ language is ambiguous at times.47 What must be under-
stood is that this statement above from Aquinas is made in the middle of a
chapter called “That God Knows the Things That Are Not.” One of the main
issues is how God can know non-existent things like the past and the future.
After Aquinas states the argument from which the quote is taken, he con-
cludes that God knows “not-beings” or non-existent things. Further, in his
next chapter, 67, he states, “the vision of the divine intellect from eternity
sees each thing that happens in time as though it were present, as we have
shown above.”48 This being the case, it would not be wise to interpret
Aquinas as holding that the past and future are on the same ontological par
with the present. With that in mind, we can proceed with Aquinas’ strategy.
Aquinas, and others, hold that the present is co-existent with eternity. 49 As
the Protestant scholastic Francis Turretin explains, all times co-exist with
eternity without being co-existent with each other. “Thus the past, while it
was, coexisted in eternity, the present now coexists with it, and the future
will coexist with it.”50 How does this help with God’s knowledge of the
present? Aquinas continues his argument in Summa Contra Gentiles I.66 as
follows.
On the other hand things which to us are present, past, or future, are known to
God as being not only in His power, but also in their respective causes, and in
themselves. Of such things God is said to have knowledge of vision, because
God sees the existence of things which, in relation to us, are not as yet, not only
in their causes but also in themselves, in as much as His eternity is by its
indivisibility present to all time.51
This is not clear, but the argument seems to be this. God knows things that
are past, present, and future as they are represented in His power. He also
knows them by knowing the cause of all things, which is God Himself. Yet,
when it comes to knowing the concrete particulars in themselves He knows
them when they are present because He is the cause of their existence.
Further, Aquinas adds that God knows the concrete particulars in themselves
in

46
Author’s emphasis.47 Goris, Free Creatures of an Eternal God, 244.
48
Author’s emphasis.
49
Rory Fox, Time and Eternity in Mid-Thirteenth-Century Thought (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2006), 89–91.
50
Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology III.xi.8–9.51 Author’s emphasis.
 Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God95
addition to knowing their cause. Again, God knows things “not only in His
power, but also in their respective causes, and in themselves” (Summa Theo-
logiae I.Q14.a11).
A problem arises here for the Thomist. The present co-exists with
eternity, and God knows the present by knowledge of vision. One may
wonder how Thomists can maintain that God is immutable. Since the
present is constantly changing, new moments of time are constantly coming
into being and co- existing with eternity, then no longer co-existing with
eternity as they cease to exist. Further, God’s knowledge of vision will
constantly be changing since He will constantly be aware of new concrete
particulars. Recall from earlier in this chapter Aquinas’ discussion in De
Veritate QII.12, where he writes of future contingents coming into
existence. “Although a contingent is not determined as long as it is, future,
yet, as soon as it is produced in the realm of nature, it has a determinate
truth. It is in this way that the gaze of divine knowledge is brought upon it.”
And a little later on he says, “Although a contingent does not exercise an act
of existence as long as it is a future, as soon as it is present it has both
existence and truth, and in this condition stands under the divine vision.”
The idea in both of these statements is that future things do not exist as
concrete objects until they become present. When they become present, a
proposition about them becomes true. Consider again the case of Socrates.
In Thomistic terms, when Socrates becomes present he begins to exist, and
the proposition <Socrates exists> begins to be true. When this occurs, it
comes under the gaze of God’s knowledge of vision.
The knowledge of vision seems to clearly imply succession, though
Thomists will deny this. In order to see that knowledge of vision implies
succession, consider the way Aquinas deals with God’s knowledge of
infinite things. In Summa Contra Gentiles I.69, Aquinas argues that God
knows infinite things. One difficulty is that the infinite cannot be counted or
traversed. God, says Aquinas, lacks succession, so He can know the infinite
without having to traverse the infinite. God knows infinite things all at once
from all eternity. “God does not know infinite things by His knowledge of
vision, to use the expression employed by others, because the infinite neither
is, nor was, nor will be actual.” The knowledge of vision here is about
temporal succession, and one cannot reach actual infinity through succes-
sion. Instead, God “knows the infinite number by His knowledge of simple
intelligence. For God knows the infinite number of things that neither are,
nor will be, nor have been, and nevertheless are in the power of a creature.
He knows also the infinite things that are in His power, that neither are, nor
have been, nor shall be.” God’s simple, or natural, knowledge deals with
knowledge of all that is possible, whereas God’s knowledge of vision deals
with things that have been, are, and will be. The contrast clearly seems to be
between knowledge that involves temporally successive things and know-
ledge that does not.
96Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God
I take it that the Thomist will continue to insist that God’s perfect know-
ledge of Himself is not increased in any way by God’s knowledge of vision
of temporally successive things. But that seems less than obvious, for
Aquinas asserts that by knowledge of vision God knows the concrete
particulars as they are in themselves. If God has a knowledge of concrete
particulars as they are in themselves, His knowledge will constantly be
increasing as new concrete particulars come into existence for God to know.
This is something a timeless God cannot do. How is the Thomist to
respond?
There is an unfortunate ambiguity and tension in Aquinas’ thought here.
W. J. Hankey points out that in some places Aquinas says that God only has
a knowledge of Himself. For instance, in Summa Theologiae I.Q14.a15, he
deals with the objection that God’s knowledge must be variable since God
knows what occurs in time. Thomas does not mention God’s knowledge of
vision here, but says that all of God’s knowledge is knowledge of His own
substance. As Hankey explains, on this account the existence of a thing has
a truer existence in the divine intellect, so God’s knowledge is perfect by
knowing His own intellect. God would somehow know things as they are in
themselves by knowing the divine ideas. This would be the Augustinian
claim articulated earlier where the existence of created concrete particulars
does not add anything new to God’s knowledge.
However, Hankey also points out that in other places Aquinas says that
things have a truer existence outside of the divine intellect. 52 Hence, as noted
earlier, for God to be omniscient, He would have to know things as they are
in themselves through knowledge of vision. That type of knowledge would
certainly add to God’s natural knowledge. It seems, then, that God’s know-
ledge of concrete particulars in themselves causes problems for divine time-
lessness because God’s knowledge of vision is in constant flux as new
concrete particulars come into existence.
An Augustinian might claim that she does not have this problem for she
denies that things have a truer existence outside of the divine intellect.
However, this seems implausible. A created thing cannot have a truer exist-
ence in the divine intellect for the simple fact that a created thing is not
identical to a divine idea. I am identical to myself and no other. I am not a
divine idea. The divine ideas exist necessarily, and I exist contingently. So I
am not identical to a divine idea. However great God’s knowledge and
under- standing of a divine idea is, it is not the same as knowledge of me.
There is a distinction between knowledge de dicto and knowledge de re
that is relevant here. Knowledge de dicto is propositional knowledge, or
knowledge that. Knowledge de re is first-hand knowledge, or experiential
knowledge, of a thing. Allow me to illustrate this distinction. I have some
de dicto knowledge

52
Hankey, God in Himself, 97–106.
 Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God97
about Augustine. I have read many of his works, and various secondary
sources about his life. However, I do not have de re knowledge of
Augustine. I have never met the guy. If, Lord willing, I am able to meet
Augustine after the resurrection of the dead, I will gain new knowledge
about him. I will have experienced him first-hand.
Here is where this is relevant to the present conversation. Perhaps the
Augustinian can maintain that the divine ideas give God perfect knowledge
de dicto about me, but she cannot plausibly maintain that this will give God
a perfect knowledge de re of me. Knowing a divine idea is not the same as
knowing me because a divine idea is not me. So whatever “truer existence”
this divine idea might have, it is not me, and thus cannot deliver a perfect
knowledge of me. So it seems the Thomist has good reason to part ways
with the Augustinian here.
If the Thomist does say that created concrete particulars have a truer
existence outside of the divine intellect, it would seem that God would be
lacking a particular kind of knowledge until concrete particulars come into
existence. The divine temporalist would agree with the Thomist on this
point. However, the temporalist maintains that God’s knowledge would then
grow as time unfolds. For instance, it would seem that God would come to
have knowledge de dicto that <Socrates exists> when Socrates comes into
existence. Further, God would come to have knowledge de re as things
come into existence. It is one thing to know the divine ideas perfectly, but it
is altogether something different to know a created concrete particular as it
is in itself. If God is maximally cognitively excellent, He will have
knowledge of concrete particulars as they are in themselves. Granting God
this type of knowledge, however, makes God temporal for what concrete
particulars presently exist is in constant flux, and God cannot know concrete
particulars as they are in themselves unless they exist.
There are two possible ways that I am aware of for the Thomist to avoid
this problem. First, the Thomist could simply deny that created concrete
particu- lars have a truer existence outside of the divine intellect. All God
needs to know is the cause of created things (Himself) in order to have a
perfect knowledge of created things. The Thomist will have to argue that
there is no new knowledge to gain when a created thing comes into
existence. However, it certainly seems like there is a difference between
knowing a divine idea, and knowing a concrete particular in itself. It
certainly seems like there is a difference between knowing the cause of a
concrete particular, and knowing the concrete particular as it is in itself. The
Thomist will have to explain away these seemings.
There is a second possible way for the Thomist to remove this problem.
One could deny presentism and adopt eternalism. On this theory of time
there is no objective present for all moments of time are on an ontological
par. Thus, God’s knowledge of temporal things would not be in constant
flux. This will be
98Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God
discussed at length in Chapter 6. For now it is worth noting that those who
are not willing to get rid of presentism from their research program will not
be able to make this move.
As it stands, any Christian research program that holds to divine timeless-
ness and presentism has a serious conflict between omniscience and know-
ledge of the present. An atemporalist will most likely have to defend some
version of the Augustinian option in order to assuage this difficulty. In other
words, God’s mode of knowledge is such that it is completely independent,
and not subject to the vicissitudes, of time. In Chapter 5, however, I shall
argue that this will be of little help. For some, the Augustinian option may
appear to avoid this difficulty, but it only does so by setting aside the
systematic connections between omniscience, omnipresence, and divine
sustaining. As we shall see in Chapter 5, once those systematic connections
are brought into view, the problems for divine timelessness become more
difficult to avoid.
 5

Presentism, Creation, and

the Timeless God

In Chapter 4 I argued that the classical tradition was, historically, committed

to presentism. There I looked at the difficulties that arise for timelessness,
omniscience, and presentism. In this chapter I shall examine the problems
that arise for the divine timeless research program from presentism and
creation. As we shall see, classical Christian thinkers in the past were aware
of these issues. What I shall do in this chapter is examine the ways that
classical Christians in the past have dealt with the problems that arise from
presentism and divine timelessness with regard to creation. I shall argue that
their solutions to the problems are not successful, and that presentism is not
compatible with the divine timeless research program. This is an important
task because many contemporary Christian thinkers have not properly
under- stood what they are getting involved in when they seek to defend or
deny the classical Christian doctrine of God and the God–world relationship.
Further, understanding the problems discussed in this chapter will help one
under- stand the pitfalls that contemporary proponents of the classical
Christian tradition wish to avoid by adopting four-dimensional eternalism.
The two main problems to be discussed in this chapter are as follows.
First, the timeless God cannot create a presentist temporal universe out of
nothing. Second, the timeless God cannot sustain a presentist universe in
existence.
I shall first lay out some of the initial worries that arise from creation ex
nihilo and sustaining. Then I shall offer an examination of John Philoponus’
attempt to solve these problems. I shall argue that Philoponus has failed to
solve the problems. From there I shall consider one prominent proposal from
classical theology that seeks to circumvent these problems. The proposal is
that God is not really related to creation. 1 I shall argue that this is a proposal
that Christians cannot accept.

1
It should be noted that a good number of contemporary theologians continue to affirm that
God is not really related to creation. However, there has been very little work done to advance
the discussion beyond that offered by Aquinas. Cf. Thomas G. Weinandy, Does God Suffer?
(Notre
100Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God

THE TIMELESS CREATOR

In On the Catholic Faith, Boethius proclaims, “this our religion which is

called Christian and Catholic is founded chiefly on the following assertions.
From all eternity, that is, before the world was established, and so before all
that is meant by time began, there has existed one divine substance of
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in such wise that we confess the Father God,
the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God, and yet not three Gods but one God.”
He goes on to say, “The divine nature then, abiding from all eternity and
unto all eternity without any change, by the exercise of a will known only to
Himself, determined of Himself to form the world, and brought it into being
when it was absolutely naught.”
John Philoponus agrees. “God, since he is the creator of time, must create
timelessly.” If God is immutable, simple, and timeless, His creative action
cannot cause a change in God. “The creative activity of God is
instantaneous.”2 John of Damascus concurs as well. “For the creation, even
though it originated later, is nevertheless not derived from the essence of
God, but brought into existence out of nothing by His will and power, and
change does not touch God’s nature” (Orthodox Faith I.7).
As noted, most Christians have traditionally held the relational theory of
time. If there is a change, there is a time. Since God cannot undergo any
change, He must be timeless. In City of God XI.6, Augustine explains as
follows:
there could have been no time had not a creature been made whose movement
would effect some change. It is because the parts of this motion and change
cannot be simultaneous, since one part must follow another, that, in these
shorter or longer intervals of duration, time begins. Now, since God, in whose
eternity there is absolutely no change, is the Creator and Ruler of time, I do not
see how we can say that He created the world after a space of time had elapsed
unless we admit, also, that previously some creature had existed whose
movements would mark the course of time.
Augustine is here expressing a commitment to the relational theory of time
and divine immutability. He is also expressing his commitment to the notion
that time began with creation. This is something Augustine explores further
in Confessions XI, and many subsequent Christian thinkers follow suit.
However, as noted in Chapter 2, John of Damascus disagrees with
Augustine on this

Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000). James E. Dolezal, God Without Parts:
Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God’s Absoluteness (Eugene, OR: Pickwick
Publications, 2011).
2
John Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 9–11, trans. Michael Share
(London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 2010), 46.
 Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God101
point. So then, not everyone in the Christian tradition affirms that time
began with creation.
The doctrine of creation ex nihilo raises difficulties for immutability,
time- lessness, and simplicity. This is because the classical tradition holds
that the universe is not co-eternal with God. According to John of Damascus
“it is not natural that that which is brought into existence out of nothing
should be co-eternal with what is without beginning and everlasting”
(Orthodox Faith I.7). Aquinas in On the Eternity of the World 11 says
“nothing can be co-eternal with God, because nothing can be immutable
save God alone.” Augustine in City of God XII concurs. “Since the flight of
time involves change, it cannot be co-eternal with changeless eternity.” On
this view there is a state of affairs where God does not exist with creation.
There is also a state of affairs where God does exist with creation. This is a
view that has widespread assent in the Christian tradition, and much ink has
been spilt trying to solve the problems that arise from it.3
The main difficulty is explaining how this does not create a change—a
before and after—in the life of God. As Thomas F. Torrance puts it, “God
was always Father, but not always Creator.”4 God has always existed as
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but creation has not always existed. God
cannot be the Creator until He causally brings the universe into existence. It
seems, for all the world, that when the universe came into existence out of
nothing God began to stand in a new causal relation that He did not
previously stand in. As we shall see, there are many related problems that
stem from this difficulty.

THE PROBLEM OF CREATION EX NIHILO

INITIALLY STATED

There are several objections to the Christian doctrine of creation out of

nothing based on divine timelessness, simplicity, immutability, and impassi-
bility. Many of the arguments try to conclude that the world must be eternal
since God is eternal. This will be taken up at length in the section on John
Philoponus, but for now it would be good to see how others have attempted
to address the issue. Aquinas addresses this objection in several works. One
form of the objection can go like this.5 Temporal causes produce temporal
effects.

3
Alexander Broadie, “Scotistic Metaphysics and Creation Ex Nihilo,” in eds. David B.
Burrell, Carlo Cogliati, Janet M. Soskice, and William R. Stoeger, Creation and the God of
Abraham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 53.
4
T. F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God (New York: T & T Clark, 1996), 237.
5
This is my own variant from the objections that Aquinas considers in Summa Contra
Gentiles II.32.
102Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God
Eternal causes produce eternal effects. God is eternal. God willed that
creation exist. God’s will causes creation to exist. God’s will is eternal, so
creation must be eternal. The problem is that the biblical doctrine of creation
ex nihilo clearly entails that the universe is not eternal, but is finite in the
past. The Christian who holds to divine timelessness has to explain why
God’s eternal will to create does not entail the eternality of the universe.
Perhaps one can respond by pointing out that God is a voluntary agent.
His act of creation is said to be free. When an agent voluntarily wills to
produce something she can delay for various reasons. Perhaps the agent
needs to wait for the right time. Say Molly has a bill to pay, but she does not
get paid until Friday. She must wait until Friday to pay the bill due to a
current lack of funds. She wills to pay the bill, but her action must wait.
This cannot be the case with the simple, immutable, and timeless God.
Necessarily, a timeless God cannot wait. Necessarily, a God who is strongly
immutable cannot begin to perform a new action. Necessarily, a God who is
pure act cannot delay His action. His eternal acts must produce eternal
effects. So, God’s eternal act of creation must produce an eternal universe.
How can the atemporalist respond?
Aquinas’ responses are, unfortunately, underwhelming. One response is
simply to deny that eternal acts necessarily produce eternal effects. Aquinas
does have to say that eternal acts sometimes, though not always, produce
eternal effects. This is because he believes in the eternal generation of the
Son and the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit. In this instance Aquinas
must surely hold that God’s eternal act does produce an eternal effect.
Otherwise there would be a time when the Son and Holy Spirit were not,
and Aquinas would fall into Arianism. Despite the fact that eternal
generation and proces- sion are an ineffable mystery, and that I find
ineffable mysteries to be incoherent and repugnant to Christian theology, I
will grant for the sake of argument that it gives us a clear example of an
eternal cause with an eternal effect.6 What Aquinas needs to do is offer a
clear example of an eternal cause with a temporal effect. This is precisely
what Aquinas does not do.
He says that God’s “act of understanding and willing must be His act of
making. Now the effect follows from the intellect and the will according to
the determination of the intellect and the command of the will. And just as
every other condition of the thing made is determined by the intellect, so is
time appointed to it.” Just as God “wills this thing to be such and such, so
does [He] will it to be at such and such a time” (Summa Contra Gentiles
II.35).
The idea seems to be this. When an agent wills or decrees that such and
such take place, she wills or decrees that it take place at a certain time. Her
will or decree need not immediately produce the intended effect. Perhaps an
example

6
Lombard, Sentences I Dist. IX.1. He states that eternal generation is an ineffable mystery. I
have no problem with mysteries of the faith. I object to ineffable mysteries.
 Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God103
might help. I get motion sickness very easily. One day I decide to go to
Edinburgh. I know that I must take medicine before I get on the train in
order to prevent illness. However, the medicine has clear directions that it
should be taken 20 minutes before travel. About a week before my trip I will
that I take the medicine 20 minutes before travel. My will never changes
throughout the week, but I do not act until the right time. If I take the
medicine immediately following my will it shall be of no use to me. I must
wait to act until 20 minutes prior to travel. My will in this instance does not
produce an immediate effect.
The problem is that this in no way helps Aquinas explain how the will of
an eternal God does not produce an eternal effect. The reason my will did
not produce an immediate effect is because my will and act are distinct. For
Aquinas, God is simple. God’s will, intellect, act, and so on are all identical
to God. The scenario describes something that God cannot do if He is
simple, immutable, and timeless. Aquinas has failed to defeat the objection.
What makes this failure even more serious is that several of Aquinas’ later
rejoinders to other objections of this sort assume the success of this one.

THE PROBLEM OF DIVINE SUSTAINING

INITIALLY STATED

Another problem for the timelessness research program is related to God’s

act of sustaining the universe in existence. This will be treated fully in the
section on John Philoponus, but for now I wish to lay out some of the initial
difficulties. In Chapter 4 I discussed the common belief that eternity and the
present are synced. The notion that God’s eternity syncs up with the present
is essential for Christian thought because eternity is said to contain time or
sustain the universe in existence. God’s sustaining of the universe in
existence has traditionally been tied up in the doctrine of divine
omnipresence. It will be illuminating to see the way previous thinkers have
tried to deal with the problems that arise from a commitment to divine
timelessness, omnipresence, divine sustaining, and presentism. This will
help us to see where exactly the problems are, and why the proposed
solutions fail.
I will begin with Anselm’s discussion on these matters. Throughout
Mono- logion and Proslogion Anselm claims that God exists at every place
and time. Then he is quick to qualify this by saying that God does not exist
in any place or time. What is Anselm trying to say?
He says of God, “You exist neither yesterday nor today nor tomorrow but
are absolutely outside all time” (Proslogion 19). Yet, he also says that God
has “neither past nor future existence but only present existence; nor can
You be
104Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God
thought not to exist at any time” (Proslogion 22). God must exist at all times
and places, but somehow he is absolutely outside time. This sounds rather
confusing, but what must be understood is that Anselm is attempting to
distinguish God’s eternity from time as well as establish the fact that God
sustains each moment of time in existence. 7 For Anselm, God’s eternity
contains all of time so that he can say that God does not exist in any place or
time, but that God exists wholly at all times and all places.8
Anselm wishes to deny that God is contained in time and place because
that would limit God. “It would seem that only things that are limited to the
time and place they are in are bound by the law of time and place”
(Monologion 22). For creatures that are limited by time and place can only
exist wholly at the times and places that they are bound to. God, who
transcends time and place, is not bound by time and place and so can exist
wholly at all times and places. “The creator of all substances, the supreme
substance, is necessarily free from the natures and laws of everything it has
created from nothing. It is not subject to them” (Monologion 22). Anselm
proclaims of God that “nothing is greater than You, no place or time
confines You but You exist everywhere and always. And because this can be
said of You alone, You alone are unlimited and eternal” (Proslogion 13).
God is not contained nor constrained by the universe, therefore “it is
necessary that [He] be present as a whole simultaneously to all places and
times, and to each individual place and time” (Monologion 22).9
God cannot be contained in time and place, and yet He exists at every
time and place. God “exists everywhere, in everything and through
everything” (Monologion 20). God must exist as a whole at everywhere and
everywhen because “nothing ever, or anywhere, exists without God”
(Monologion 21). Creatures can exist as a whole in time because they
endure through time. God exists as a whole outside of time, and yet Anselm
wishes to say that He exists at every time. We have a clear tension. God
exists timelessly. Yet, in order for anything other than God to exist “it is
necessary that [God] be present as a whole simultaneously to all places and
times, and to each individual place and time” (Monologion 22).
How can this be understood? As discussed in Chapter 4, some will try to
argue that Anselm is a four-dimensional eternalist. These thinkers would say
that God can be wholly present to the entire spacetime manifold. But
“Anselm is clearly and unequivocally a presentist.”10 When comparing
God’s eternal

7
Brian Leftow, Time and Eternity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 185–6.
8
See Anselm, Proslogion, 19–21.
9
Aquinas makes a similar statement in Summa Contra Gentiles III.68. “The mover and the
thing moved must be simultaneous.” And later, “The active cause must needs be joined
together with its proximate and immediate effect. Now in each thing there is a proximate and
immediate effect of God .. . Accordingly God must be present in all things at the same time:
especially since those things He called into being from non-being, are continually preserved in
being by him.”
10
Sandra Visser and Thomas Williams, Anselm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008),
102.
 Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God105
present to our temporal present he makes this very clear. “Nor does part of
[God’s] eternity leak away with the past into non-existence, or fly past, like
the scarcely existing momentary present, or, with the future, wait, pending,
in not- yet existence” (Monologion 22). A clearer proclamation of
presentism cannot be found. To say that Anselm is a four-dimensional
eternalist is to ignore the many statements like this that Anselm makes. He
does not say that the past and future appear to be non-existent from our
perspective. Instead, he is making a direct move from the way the world
actually is—presentism—to the way eternity actually is. Anselm’s
comparison would be completely under- mined if he were an eternalist.
On presentism, the present moment is the only moment of time that
exists. All that exists exists at the present. In order to flesh out God’s
sustaining of the universe, Anselm makes a direct comparison between
God’s eternal present and our temporal present. “Indeed, just as our present
time envelops every place and whatever is in every place, so in the eternal
present all time is encompassed along with whatever exists at any time” (De
Concordia I.5). God’s eternal present “sustains everything other than itself,
preventing every- thing from falling into nothingness” (Monologion 22).
Fair enough. God’s eternal present syncs up with our temporal present by
sustaining it, and all that it contains, in existence. Yet, wouldn’t this mean
that God is constantly undergoing change? He sustains one moment of time
in existence, and then as that moment ceases to exist, He causally sustains
another moment. Anselm never addresses this problem as far as I know.
Peter Lombard struggles with similar difficulties. God who is “existing
ever unchangeably in himself, by presence, power, and essence is in every
nature or essence without limitation of himself, and in every place without
being bounded, and in every time without change.” One of the issues that
Lombard attempts to answer has to do with how God is more present in the
lives of the saints than in the lives of others. This is related to God’s grace,
and would take us off topic. Another issue is this: Where was God, or where
did God dwell, before there was a creature? The saints of God are His
temple. Earth is His footstool. Where did He dwell before these things came
into existence? In Himself. The “saints are not the house of God in such a
way that, if the house is taken away, God falls. Instead, God dwells in the
saints in such a way that, if he should depart, they fall.” Much like Anselm,
Lombard is saying that God’s presence sustains all created things in
existence. Yet Lombard thinks more is contained in this idea. What more is
contained in this idea? I don’t know, and neither does Lombard. He leaves it
as a mystery.
A final issue that is directly relevant is whether or not God’s presence
makes Him subject to change and time. Lombard considers the following
objection. “Every day, creatures are made which do not exist before, and
God is in them, but he was not in them before; it follows that he is where he
was not before, and so he seems to be mutable.” This argument has some
serious teeth.
106Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God
Unfortunately Lombard’s rejoinder does not. “But although every day he
begins to be in creatures in which he was not before, because they did not
exist, yet this happens without change on his part, just as he began to be in
the world which he made, and yet without change. Similarly, without change
on his part, he also ceases to be in things in which he was before; he does
not at that time cease to be in the place, but the place ceases to be”
(Sentences I Dist. XXXVII).
I might be mistaken, but this rejoinder looks like little more than “I know
it looks as if God changes, but He doesn’t.” God’s continual causal activity
of sustaining creation in existence is a serious difficulty for the divine
timeless research program. Much more is needed to remove the problem
than simply saying, “nope.”
Aquinas and his contemporaries have a standard reply to this type of
objection that goes as follows.11 God’s will never changes. Given God’s self-
sufficiency, God always wills His own good. Given divine simplicity, God’s
good is Himself. Whether or not God wills that something other than
Himself exist, He always wills His good, Himself, as the final end (Summa
Contra Gentiles II.31).
This is a woefully unhelpful reply. God could eternally will that some
thing x come to exist at time t1, but God cannot eternally act at t 1 because
that time does not always exist. God cannot act at non-existent times, nor is
God eternally sustaining yet-to-exist future times. So one can easily grant
the Thomist the claim that God’s eternal will never changes, but this does
nothing to assuage the problem. God still has to wait to sustain future
moments of time, and God still has to wait to perform certain actions until
those future moments become present. This is not something that a timeless
God can do. A timeless God cannot wait to perform actions. A timeless God
cannot wait to be present to, and sustain, yet-to-exist moments of time. This
would involve God changing from one moment to the next. The difficulty
becomes even worse when one recalls that, given divine simplicity, God’s
will is identical to His act. So the idea of eternally willing to bring about
something at a particular time seems impossible since that time is not co-
eternal with God’s one, simple, timeless act.
The atemporalist will quickly assert that God can perform timeless causes
with temporal effects. One can appeal to timeless acts with temporal effects
if she so wishes. All she needs to do is to offer a plausible model of timeless
acts that bring about temporal effects in a presentist world. At the moment
there

11
Richard Sorabji, Time, Creation, and the Continuum (Chicago, IL: Chicago University
Press, 2006), 238–42. Michael Dodds offers the same response. The Unchanging God of
Love: Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Theology on Divine Immutability, 2nd Edition
(Washington,
D. C.: The Catholic University Press, 2008), 181.
 Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God107
are no plausible models.12 In fact, every model that I know of is based on
analogies involving temporal agents and temporal effects. For instance, one
common analogy is as follows. “I set my heater to turn on at 5:00.”13 Another
common analogy is based upon the game Mousetrap where an agent
performs just one action that starts off an elaborate causal chain that
eventually ends with a cage falling on top of a mouse. 14 It is true that the
agents in these analogies have a determinate will that never changes, but
these are temporal agents who will a thing at one time and act at another
time. This simply cannot help us understand an atemporal agent’s acts that
have temporal effects. Further, these analogies are dependent upon agents
with distinct wills and acts. This cannot shed any light on a simple God
whose act and will are identical.
Analogies are meant to illuminate aspects of models. Analogies fail to
illuminate if they break down at the precise point that they are meant to
illuminate. These common analogies for timeless causes with temporal
effects break down at the point at which they are meant to illuminate. We
already know that temporal agents who are not simple and immutable can
bring about effects that are spread throughout time. In fact, the problem for
timeless agents bringing about temporal effects arises from our deep
familiarity with temporal agents and their temporal effects. What we want to
know is how a timeless God could bring about temporal effects because this
is not familiar to us, and seems quite implausible. If anything, the analogies
offered here further bring home the point that timeless causes with temporal
effects is implausible. It is so implausible that one cannot even offer an
illuminating analogy.
One thing that these analogies are meant to illuminate is the claim that the
effects of an agent do not have to immediately follow the agent’s act. For
instance, it needs to illuminate why it is that God’s eternal act does not
immediately produce a co-eternal universe. A timeless God only performs
one simple, changeless act. So the analogy needs to illuminate how the
effects of this one eternal act are not also eternal. It must illuminate how the
effects of God’s act do not immediately produce effects. Yet these analogies
fail to illuminate this. Consider the agent who sets the timer on his heater.
The act

12
Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann once offered the ET-Simultaneity model, but it
is widely regarded as explanatorily vacuous. It simply does not illuminate how time and
eternity are related. Brian Leftow and Paul Helm—both atemporalists—have rejected it in
several writings. Just about every divine temporalist has taken their turn refuting it. Katherin
Rogers,
T. J. Mawson, and Don Lodzinski all hold to atemporalism and eternalism. Thus, they have no
need for ET-Simultaneity, and never make an appeal to it. As the atemporalist Hugh J.
McCann says, ET-Simultaneity “is both unnecessary and misguided.” McCann, Creation and
the Sover- eignty of God (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012), 53.
13
This example comes from Paul Helm, “Divine Timeless Eternity,” in ed. Gregory
E. Ganssle, God and Time: Four Views (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 53.
14
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Inquiring About God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2010), 174.
108Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God
of setting the timer has the immediate effect of the timer being set to turn the
heat on at 5:00. The action immediately produces a causal chain that will
eventually terminate in the heat being turned on at 5:00. So the ultimate goal
of the agent’s act does not immediately follow on this story, but a particular
effect does immediately follow that leads to the agent’s ultimate goal. So the
analogy does not illuminate actions that do not have immediate effects.
Further, the analogies do nothing to illuminate the problem of divine
sustaining and omnipresence. The problem under consideration is not simply
that the effects of God are temporally spread about. The problem is that God
must be present to each moment of time in order to sustain it. These
analogies are attempts to illuminate how an agent can act at one time, and
the agent’s effect not arise until a much later time. This does nothing to
illuminate how a timeless agent can causally sustain each moment of time,
and be wholly present to each moment of time. In fact, the analogies seem to
point in the other direction. Consider again the case of the heater. The
reason the agent sets the timer on the heater is so that the heat will come on
without the agent being present. This is simply disanalogous to an
omnipresent God.
What is needed is a working model of how a timeless God can sustain a
presentist world. Without a working model of this, one cannot develop an
analogy to illuminate it. There seems to be no model to illuminate. There is
simply an inchoate idea that somehow a timeless God can causally sustain,
and be wholly present to, the ever-fleeting present moment of time.
In the seventeenth century, Pierre Gassendi offered a similar complaint.
He expresses a dissatisfaction with the fact that no defender of divine
timelessness has explained how eternity could be co-existent with the
successions of time, and states they will continue in this failure until the
second coming. Atem- poralists, he says, have not bestowed “one serious
thought upon the consid- eration of it; for had they, doubtless they must
have found their Wit a loss in the Labyrinth of Fancy, and perceived
themselves reduced to this Exigent: either that they had fooled themselves in
trifling with words not well under- stood; or that they had praecariously
usurped the Quaestion.”15

JOHN PHILOPONUS TO THE RESCUE?

One might find Gassendi’s claim to be a bit premature given the fact that so
many in the Christian tradition have reflected on these sorts of problems.
Thankfully, for atemporalists, John Philoponus has offered a thorough

15
Gassendi, Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana, or, A Fabrick of Science
Natural, Upon the Hypothesis of Atoms founded by Epicurus, Repaired by Petrus Gassendus,
Augmented by Walter Charleton (London: Tho. Newcomb, 1654), 80.
 Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God109
treatment of these related problems. Perhaps he can sort things out and save
the divine timeless research program.

A Proclus-Inspired Dilemma

In the sixth century John Philoponus examined an argument from Proclus

that he took to be an objection to the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo
based on divine perfection.16 Before laying out the argument, there are two
assumptions that Proclus and Philoponus hold about time. First, they both
seem to hold a relational view of time where time is change or movement.
This is clear from their statements on God’s immutability. Second, they both
accept presentism.17 With these two assumptions we can begin Proclus’
dilemma.
Proclus’ argument goes a little something like this.18 Assume that God is
simple. God lacks physical and metaphysical composition. God’s wisdom,
power, goodness, thoughts, will, and so forth are all identical to each other
and identical to God. Further, God is purely actual; He contains no potenti-
ality. Divine simplicity is part of a package that includes a strong doctrine of
immutability and timelessness, and Proclus and Philoponus take these attri-
butes to be mutually entailing. As immutable, God undergoes no intrinsic or
extrinsic change. As simple, He has no accidental properties, and is pure
actuality. As timeless, God exists without beginning, without end, and
without succession or moments in His life. A timeless God lacks temporal
extension and location.19

16
It is a matter of debate as to whether or not Proclus’ work on the eternity of the world was
intended as an attack on Christian theology. It is also a matter of debate as to whether or not
Philoponus’ response is written from his Christian perspective or as a Platonic philosopher.
See Dirk Baltzly, “Proclus,” in eds. Graham Oppy and Nick Trakakis, The History of Western
Philosophy of Religion Volume 1: Ancient Philosophy of Religion (Durham, NC: Acumen
Pub- lishing Limited, 2009), 265. Also, Proclus, On the Eternity of the World, introduction,
translation, and commentary by Helen S. Lang and A. D. Macro (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2001), 1–16. Regardless, Christians followed the moves Philoponus made
thereafter. See
G. R. Evans, Philosophy and Theology in the Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 1993), 69.
17
There are several clear statements on presentism in Philoponus’ treatise against Proclus.
For instance, “all things have their existence in the present.” John Philoponus, Against Proclus
On the Eternity of the World 12–18, trans. James Wilberding (London: Gerald Duckworth &
Co. Ltd, 2006), 79. This is in the midst of a discussion where Philoponus is arguing that God
must have knowledge of the present. God “will not even know whether He Himself exists, if
He does not know the present. For He too, exists.”
18
Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 42, 50, and 64. As Philoponus
portrays Proclus’ argument, there are actually a few different subtleties. The second horn of
the dilemma is not simply that God is not perfect. Proclus goes on to argue that this less than
perfect god must have been created by an actual perfect God. Within Aristotelian thought,
immutability and necessity are seen as equivalent, as are contingency and mutability. The
assumption, then, is that if the Christian God suffers any change, He must be contingent. For
those of us living after John Duns Scotus it is hard to see how necessity and immutability are
equivalent. Cf. Chapter 3.
19
Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 12–18, 65.
110Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God
Assume further that the act of creation is brought about by the thoughts
and will of God. God’s thoughts are what directly bring creation into
existence. Since God’s thoughts are identical to God Himself, and since God
is eternal, God’s thoughts are eternal (without beginning, without end, and
without succession). So creation must also be eternal (not timeless, but
existing without beginning and without end). God is always thinking the
thoughts that bring creation into existence.
Classical Christians will not like this conclusion since they hold that God
freely created the universe ex nihilo at some point in the finite past. As
Philoponus explains, God always possesses the principles and Forms of
creation within Himself. God is actual and perfect for He always has the
capacity to create, “but God brings each thing into existence and gives it
being when he so wishes .. . and he so wishes at the time when coming into
existence is good for the things to come into existence.”20
Proclus does not see this as a viable option for a perfect God. In order to
make his conclusion stick, he offers what appears to him to be the only
alternative account for God and creation. It is an account that classical
Christians will find unsatisfactory. One could say that God does not always
create or produce the universe. Instead God comes to produce the universe.
But, argues Proclus, God would then not be purely actual for He goes from a
state of not creating to creating. He has some potential that becomes actual.
Hence, we have destroyed divine simplicity. Further, God is undergoing
change in this act. He brings new moments into existence. So God is not
immutable nor is He timeless. According to Proclus, a God who undergoes
change, and is not purely actual is not perfect.
As Philoponus examines this argument he looks at one further line of
attack that strengthens the dilemma. It would seem that if God does not
eternally will creation into existence, He must will that some objects exist
and then not exist. Say that God wills Socrates to exist and then no longer
wills that Socrates exist. Socrates comes into existence then ceases to exist.
It would seem that we have three moments in the life of God: existing
without Socrates, existing with Socrates, and then again existing without
Socrates. God’s life is undergoing constant alteration through this process of
willing things into existence and no longer willing them in existence. Also,
God’s will is divided in this process for He wills one thing and then another.
So God cannot be timeless, immutable, or simple, and such a being is not
perfect.
The dilemma seems to be this. Either God is perfect (simple, immutable,
and timeless) and creation is eternal, or creation is not eternal and God is not
perfect.

20
Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 64.
 Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God111

Philoponus against Proclus

Philoponus offers several arguments against Proclus’ critique of Christian

belief. Many of them depend on offering a proper interpretation of Plato and
Aristotle’s philosophy and science since Proclus and Philoponus are both
working within these philosophical traditions. For instance, Philoponus’ first
line of attack is to argue that the universe cannot be infinite in the past since,
following Aristotle, it is impossible to traverse the infinite. Since Proclus is
an Aristotelian, Philoponus thinks that Proclus must accept this. 21 What
Philoponus offers is an early version of the Kalam argument that is often
discussed in contemporary philosophy of religion.
Another line of reasoning is to turn Proclus’ argument on himself. Philo-
ponus is here willing to grant Proclus the claim that the cosmos is without
beginning or end, that it is infinite in the past and the future. Philoponus
points out that Proclus suffers from the same problems as the Christian.
Since the present is the only moment that exists, God is only sustaining the
present moment in existence. God is not the actual creator of the future since
the future does not yet exist. God is only the actual creator of the present
moment. So even on Proclus’ account of God and creation it is the case that
God is not purely actual and thus not perfect since He has not yet created the
future.22 However, Philoponus’ main argument is that this understanding of
pure act and perfection is mistaken, as we shall see in the next argument.
A third line of reasoning from Philoponus is to argue that the world is a
pattern of the Forms, but that the Forms can exist without the world. God
possesses the Forms, and it is possible for them to “pre-exist all created
things. And so, even if the Forms and patterns of things are certain ideas and
principles of the creator, in accordance with which he has brought the world
into existence, it is certainly not necessary that the world itself should
coexist from everlasting with God’s knowledge about the world.”23 To quote
Philoponus at length, he says
But just because he brings all things into existence by thought alone and always
possesses the concepts and principles of all things in exactly the same way, it is
not therefore at once necessary that things should have coexisted with the
thoughts of God from everlasting For God does not bring his creations
into
existence willy-nilly by a necessity, for which reason it is not at all necessary
that whatever is thought by God should automatically exist simultaneously with
the thought. For it is agreed that God knows even future things that have not
yet

21
Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 19–41.
22
Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 69–78.
23
Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 42.
112Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God
come to pass . . . even future time is already present through foreknowledge to
the creator of time himself.24
One might wonder how this is possible. How could an eternal action not
create an eternal effect? Following Proclus one might argue as follows. “If
the creator is the creator of something, either he will always be an actual
creator, or sometimes only a potential one and not always be creating.”25
From here Philoponus sets out to defend God’s perfection in light of His
temporal creation. His defense starts with a careful examination of potential
and actual in Aristotle, and then argues that Proclus’ use of “potential” and
“actual” are ambiguous. With a proper understanding of these terms he
thinks Proclus’ argument fails to go through. Philoponus distinguishes two
types of potential and two types of actual. The first sense of potential is what
one might call “natural fitness” like when a child is naturally gifted at
grammar. The child has the potential to become a great grammarian and
make her parents proud. The second sense of potential is capacity. This is
when the child has developed all of the skills of grammar and possesses all
of the grammatical theorems in her mind. This second potentiality is the first
sense of actuality. The child actually possesses the attributes to be
considered a grammarian. But say that she is not currently practicing
grammar. Perhaps she is asleep and not dreaming about grammatical
theorems. She has the capacity to practice grammar since she is a
grammarian, but she is not actively participating in that fast-paced cut-throat
discipline. Thus she is not actual in the second sense of actual which
involves actively using her capacities.26
Philoponus wishes to say that God is actual in the first sense of actual.
God is not a potential creator since He possesses all of the attributes for
being the creator. Proclus is assuming the second sense of actual in his
argument. Philoponus thinks that this assumption is fallacious, so Proclus’
argument fails.27
Does this distinction really help Philoponus? Grant that God is actual in
the first sense: God has the capacity to create. It would seem that for God to
actively use His capacities to create would involve Him undergoing some
kind of change. He would go from a state of not actualizing His capacity to
create,

24
Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 63.
25
Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 42.
26
Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 44–6.
27
Bonaventure makes a similar move in his In Il Sent. d.1, a.1, q.2. Aquinas makes a
different move to this objection in Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate QII.14. Instead of
drawing the distinction in actuality, Aquinas says that the divine act of knowing is perfect in
itself and is distinct from the act of willing. Only the willing brings things into existence. His
move then becomes very similar to Philoponus’. But he then goes on to note that since God is
simple, there is no real distinction between God’s knowing and willing. Further, he even says
that God’s thoughts bring things into existence. As I shall discuss shortly, this commitment to
simplicity undermines the rejoinder.
 Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God113
to a state of actively creating. Both Proclus and Philoponus think that a
perfect God cannot change. Could Proclus not just reassert the point that the
Chris- tian God cannot be perfect because the Christian God undergoes
change?
Philoponus thinks not. To move from a capacity to an activity “is instant-
aneous. The end of not producing and the beginning of producing occur at
the same instant Therefore no time elapses between not producing and
pro-
ducing and, more generally, between the mere possession of any capacity
and the activity that flows from the capacity.” Since change involves time,
and there is no change in activating a capacity, there is no time involved in
God creating.28 What can be taken away from this, says Philoponus, is that
God can create and remain changeless and timeless.
In order to avoid confusion, it should be understood that Philoponus’
argument here depends on time being continuous. Time is continuous if
and only if it is dense: between any two instants of time, there is a third
instant of time. This is to be contrasted with discrete time where there are no
instants, but instead time is composed of temporal atoms or periods of a
shortest interval that cannot be further divided.29 Philoponus argues that
there is no third instant between God’s not producing and producing. They
are the same instant.30 Typically thinkers who hold that time is continuous or
dense also hold that change is dense. This commitment to the density of
change rules out the possibility of discrete changes like the passage from
existence to non- existence.31 This seems to be what Philoponus is
articulating. His argument looks as follows.
Producing and not producing are contradictories. If there were a third
instant between these two contradictories one would have a time when a
contradiction obtained. Since contradictions cannot obtain, there is no third
intermediate instant between these two contradictory instants.32 Therefore,
no time has elapsed between not producing and producing. Activity out of a
capacity involves no change and thus no time.
Several quick comments on this argument are in order before moving on
to my main objection. First, say ~ that p obtains at time t 1 and p obtains at a
later time t2. Further say that time is continuous so that there is an instant
between t1 and t2, namely t1.5. If it is truly between these two contradictory
instants, then it would not be the occurrence of a contradiction. So we do
have an interval of time between
~ p and p. Second, I do not find it obvious
that discrete changes cannot take place. It seems to me that the best example
of a

28
Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 54.
29
Quentin Smith and L. Nathan Oaklander, Time, Change and Freedom: An Introduction to
Metaphysics (London: Routledge, 1995), 21.
30
Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 54.
31
Robin Le Poidevin, Travels Four Dimensions: The Enigmas of Space and Time (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2003), 114–15.
32
Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 54.
114Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God
discrete change is the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, but I digress. The
crucial issue is whether or not an activity out of a capacity involves a
change.
It is not clear that an activity out of a capacity involves no change or time.
Philoponus thinks that this principle applies to God and everything else, so
perhaps he can provide a concrete example from everyday life to make
things clear. One of his examples is that of a builder and a building. Say that
the builder has the perfect capacity to build. He is an actual builder.
According to Philoponus, when the builder decides to build a house out of
timber and stone his mind undergoes no change whatsoever, but his body
and the building materials do. Somehow the movement and change befall
the builder’s body and the materials, but not the builder’s mind. Philoponus
takes this to be an actual example of the principle he has in mind: “someone
who possesses a perfected capacity and then acts in accordances with it has
not become different in any respect from his former self.”33 Given this,
Philoponus thinks he can employ this principle to explain God’s creative
activity of objects that exist at one time and not at another. He explains as
follows.
[God] everlastingly possesses the concepts and principles of things, through
which indeed he is a creator, in exactly the same way, and does not become
different in any respect whether he produces or does not produce. For, speaking
generally, it is not even proper to say that capacity and activity are different
things in the case of God; the two are one and the same thing and difference
arises in the sphere of that which shares in them.34
In other words, God’s activity of creation does not change Him but changes
everything else. God’s creative activity brings things into existence that did
not previously exist. God actively sustains certain things in existence, like
Socrates, and then ceases to sustain them in existence. Though it appears
that this would involve God in a continual process of change, and hence God
would be temporal, somehow God is not changed at all.
This is utterly baffling. It seems quite clear that the builder who decides to
start building does in fact undergo change. It also seems that a God who is
not creating and then creates does undergo a change. He is not standing in a
causal relation to anything, and then He is standing in a causal relation to
creation. Activity out of a capacity involves change and time, for it at least
creates a before and after in the life of the agent. As J. R. Lucas explains,
“Time is the passage from possibility through actuality to unalterable
necessity. The pre- sent is the unique and essential link between the possible
and the unalterably necessary.”35 “To be an agent is to be crystallizing
potentiality into actuality,

33
Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 62.
34
Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 62.
35
J. R. Lucas, The Future: An Essay on God, Temporality and Truth (Cambridge: Basil
Blackwell, 1989), 8.
 Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God115
thereby making it unalterable thereafter. No unalterability, no agency.”36 To
put this in Philoponus’ terminology, for an agent to go from first sense actual
to second sense actual is a temporal change. Philoponus has failed to rebut
Proclus’ dilemma.
If this were not enough, Philoponus’ rejoinder to Proclus fails for another
reason. Note what he says in the last sentence from the quote. “For, speaking
generally, it is not even proper to say that capacity and activity are
different things in the case of God; the two are one and the same thing.”
Philoponus is demonstrating a commitment to divine simplicity: there is no
composition in God. The distinction between first and second actuality does
not apply to God since God is simple. This commitment to simplicity
undercuts one of Philoponus’ rejoinders to Proclus. Recall earlier that
Philoponus rejected Proclus’ argument because Proclus failed to make this
distinction about first and second actuality. Proclus was assuming that God
must be actual in the second sense, but Philoponus pointed out that God was
actual in the first sense so Proclus’ argument does not go through. Yet, if
God is simple, there is no meaningful distinction between first and second
actuality in God. So Philoponus has not defeated Proclus’ argument. The
dilemma still stands.
To make matters worse, it would seem that a commitment to divine
simplicity prevents one from solving any theological puzzle. What we have
just seen in Philoponus is instructive. As discussed in Chapter 3, one can
take any theological puzzle where the strategy involves making clear
distinctions in God. A theologian can write dozens of pages making careful
distinctions in order to solve the puzzle. If she is committed to divine
simplicity she is forced to say that none of her distinctions apply to God at
all. They are only conceptual distinctions that exist in her mind, and do not
apply at all to reality. Her labor is in vain. It would seem that divine
simplicity makes Christian theology a non-starter.
Philoponus has failed to defeat Proclus’ dilemma on multiple accounts.
Where is the atemporalist to go from here? How can she refute Proclus’
dilemma? There is a very prominent proposal developed throughout Church
history that seeks to circumvent this dilemma. The proposal is that God is
not really related to creation. This proposal seems to have been initially
developed to deal with scripture predicating accidental properties of God
such as Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. This proposal is eventually used to
solve the problems of creation ex nihilo and divine sustaining. Perhaps this
proposal can save the divine timeless research program.

36
Lucas, The Future, 213.
116Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God

CAN A TIMELESS GOD BE CALLED CREATOR,

REDEEMER, AND LORD?

In The Trinity Augustine articulates an account of divine timelessness, sim-

plicity, and immutability. He holds that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are
timelessly co-eternal (The Trinity I.9). The three divine persons are one in
substance, and this divine substance does not undergo any passage of time
or change (The Trinity I.3 and V.2). “In their own proper substance by which
they are, the three are one, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, without any
temporal movement, without any intervals of time or space, one and the
same over all creation, one and the same all together from eternity to
eternity, like eternity itself which is never without verity and charity” (The
Trinity IV.30). Further, the Godhead is immutable. “There is no modification
in God because there is nothing in him that can be changed or lost . . . he
remains absolutely unchangeable” (The Trinity V.5). Yet, he allows for
Trinitarian relational predicates to be made of God that do not modify the
divine substance such as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for all three are
eternally related to each other (The Trinity V.6). Also, the Godhead is
simple in substance (The Trinity V.9). Other substances participate in
attributes like greatness, and so are distinct from greatness. The greatness in
which they participate is something greater than them. Yet, this cannot be
the case with God since “there is nothing greater than God. So he is great
with a greatness by which he is himself the same greatness.” In other words,
“God is the same thing to be as to be great.” And the same is true of all the
other attributes we typically predicate of God like goodness, eternity, and
omnipotence (The Trinity V.11).
The doctrines of divine timelessness, immutability, and simplicity have
been criticized throughout Church history as being in direct conflict with
Scripture. Scripture proclaims that God does things in time. It predicates
contingent temporal properties of God like Creator, Redeemer, and Lord.
Major Christian thinkers in the past sought to answer this problem.
Typically the claim is that scripture is speaking anthropomorphically due to
the weak- ness of our finite minds.37 How might we understand this?
Augustine has a hermeneutical principle that can be deployed to deal with
troublesome pas- sages of this sort. “Whatever there is in the word of God
that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or
soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative. Purity of life has
reference to the love of God and one’s neighbour; soundness of doctrine to
the knowledge of God and one’s

37
Pseudo-Dionysius, Divine Names 10.3.2. C.f. John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian
Corpus: Annotating the Areopagite, trans. Paul Rorem and John C. Lamoreaux (Oxford:
Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1998), 233–8. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol.
1 (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1992), 203. Stephen
Charnocke, Several Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God (London: Newman,
1682), 181 and 186.
 Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God117
neighbour” (On Christian Doctrine III.10. Also, cf. III.15). Working from
this principle Augustine asserts that when scripture predicates of God
“position, possession times, and places, they are not stated properly about
God but by way of metaphor and simile” (The Trinity V.9). Since Augustine
thinks that it is proper to refer to God as timeless, any passage of scripture
that says otherwise must be taken as speaking in some non-literal way.
Augustine is not out of the woods yet. He does not quickly dismiss all
passages that ascribe temporal properties to God. Instead, He considers
various issues that arise from scripture itself. One such issue that he deals
with comes from creation. God is lord of creation; He created the universe
out of nothing. Yet, creation has not always existed—it is not co-eternal
with God. Can we predicate Creator and Lord of a timeless God? Augustine
lays out the problem in detail.
But what about “lord”? If a man is not called a lord except from the moment he
begins to have a slave, then this relationship title too belongs to God from a
point of time, since the creation he is lord of is not from everlasting. But then
how will we be able to maintain that relationship terms are not modifications
with God, since nothing happens to him in time because he is not changeable,
as we established at the beginning of this discussion? (The Trinity V.17)
To put the problem a bit differently, God “cannot be everlastingly lord, or
we would be compelled to say that creation is everlasting, because he would
only be everlastingly lord if creation were everlastingly serving him” (The
Trinity V.17). We thus have a tension with the Christian doctrine of creation
out of nothing and divine timelessness. The universe has not always existed.
It began to exist a finite amount of time ago. God is said to exist timelessly
and without any modification. It seems that God must undergo some kind of
modification when creation comes into existence. God would become the
Creator in the act of creating the universe. This Creator–creature relation
would be accidental to God since God is not essentially and eternally
creating the universe. As we saw before, it would seem that God would
come to have the accidental property Creator. Augustine understands that
accidental relational properties of this sort would make God temporal. Since
God is simple, He can have no accidental properties. Recall again that, for
Augustine, all accidental properties entail a modification in the subject who
possesses them. “How then are we going to be able to maintain that nothing
is said of God by way of modification?”
Augustine answers as follows:
Well, we say that nothing happens to his nature to change it, and so these are
not relationship modifications which happen with some change in the things
they are predicated of Thus when he is called something with reference to
creation,
while indeed he begins to be called it in time, we should understand that this
does not involve anything happening to God’s own substance, but only to the
created thing to which the relationship predicated of him refers.
118Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God
The move that Augustine is trying to make is a bit difficult to grasp at
first. The idea is that God does not change essentially or relationally when
creation comes into existence. Instead, only the things created undergo
change. This is because God is not related to creation, though creation is
related to God such that the accidental properties from the relationship only
fall on the creature and not God. “So it is clear that anything that can begin
to be said about God in time which was not said about him before is said by
way of relationship, and yet not by way of a modification of God, as though
something has modified him” (The Trinity V.17). Again, this is a difficult
concept to grasp, but this is a theme developed throughout the Middle Ages.
Perhaps understanding the development of this theme will help us
understand the move Augustine is gesturing toward.
Following Augustine, Boethius in The Trinity is One God Not Three
Gods IV says,

There are in all ten categories which can be universally predicated of things,
namely, Substance, Quality, Quantity, Relation, Place, Time, Condition, Situ-
ation, Activity, Passivity. Their meaning is determined by the contingent
subject; for some of them denote real substantive attributes of created things,
others belong to the class of accidental attributes. But when these categories are
applied to God they change their meaning entirely. Relation, for instance,
cannot be predicated at all of God; for substance in Him is not really
substantial but super- substantial. So with quality and the other possible
tributes, of which we must add examples for the sake of clearness.

It should be noted that Boethius and Augustine allow for relations when
one is talking about the eternal relation between the divine persons of the
Trinity. In most instances of relations, a relation is something that relates
two or more substances. This relation involves the substances having
accidental properties in virtue of standing in a relation to the other. Since a
relation involves two or more substances, a substance cannot itself be a
relation. However, Christians allowed an exception to be made in the case of
the Trinity. In this special case, Christians said that a substance could be a
relation. When Boethius and Augustine deny relations of God it is with
regard to God and anything ad extra to God.
Peter Lombard further develops Augustine’s idea that the relational prop-
erty befalls the creature and not God. “For there are some things which are
said of God in time and which are fitting for him in time without any change
on his part. These are said relatively, according to an accident which does
not befall God, but which befalls the creatures, such as creator, lord, refuge,
giver or granted, and suchlike” (Sentences I Dist. XXX.1). A bit further on
Lombard summarizes Augustine’s thoughts from The Trinity V. “From these
com- ments, it is plainly shown that some things are said of God in time
relative to creatures, without change of the deity but not without
change of the
 Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God119
creature; and so the accident is in the creature, not in the Creator. And
the name by which the creature is called relative to the Creator is relative,
and it denotes the relation which is in the creature itself; the name by which
the Creator is called relative to the creature is also relative, but it denotes no
relation which is in the Creator” (Sentences I Dist. XXX.1).
How is this supposed to help with the problem of God having the
accidental properties from His relation with creation? The idea is that when
we come to passages like Psalm 90:1 where God is said to be our dwelling
place or refuge, we interpret this to mean that we have changed and that God
remains the same. This is because God is not related to the creature, though
the creature is related to God. The same can be true when it comes to
passages that describe God as Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. These are
accidental relational proper- ties that do not really apply to God, but instead
denote some kind of change in us.
We have a bizarre claim on our hands: accidental relational properties
cannot be predicated of the simple, immutable, and timeless God. However,
one minimal claim of Christianity is that creation would not exist if God did
not sustain it in existence.38 God must stand in a causal relationship to the
universe. Yet Christianity claims more than this minimal divine sustaining.
Christians are also committed to the notion that God is deeply and intimately
related to creatures. Not just merely related, but intimately related in such a
way that the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh, and that we are His
children. God, according to Christian theology, truly is our Creator,
Redeemer, and Lord. When Augustine, Boethius, and Lombard argue that
God is not related to creation, and that these accidental properties don’t
really fall upon God, they seem to be in direct conflict with the basic claims
of Christianity. How is the classical theologian to assuage this problem?
Aquinas further develops the idea that God cannot have any relational
properties because God is not really related to creation. Perhaps Aquinas’
development of this claim can help solve this problem.

IS GOD REALLY RELATED TO CREATION?

The problem, again, is this—it seems perfectly appropriate to say that God is
my Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. Since God has not always been these
things, this must surely involve some kind of change. Aquinas agrees that
this would involve change. “Whatever receives something anew, must needs
be changed, either essentially or accidentally. Now certain relations are said
of

38
Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names 5.
120Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God
God anew: for instance that He is Lord or governor of a thing which begins
anew to exist. Wherefore if a relation were predicated of God as really
existing in Him, it would follow that something accrues to God anew, and
consequent- ly that He is changed either essentially or accidentally” (Summa
Contra Gentiles II.12). But Aquinas thinks that God cannot undergo any
essential change, and a simple God does not have any accidental properties.
So how can Aquinas explain God’s relationship to the universe whilst
avoiding change and accidental properties in God? The answer, thinks
Aquinas, lies in a proper analysis of relations.
For Aquinas, relations cannot be in God as an accident since a simple God
has no accidental properties. In most instances of relations, the relata are
accidentally related such that their existence does not depend upon each
other. In these cases, each relatum has an appropriate accidental property
from standing in the relation. It would seem that this is going on with God
and creation. God eternally exists, and does not depend upon creation for
His existence. The existence of the universe is contingent upon the free act
of God, so it is accidental to God that He create. A simple God, however,
cannot stand in such a relationship because a simple God cannot have any
accidental properties. So what other options does Aquinas have for
explaining God’s relationship to the universe?
Another option is to say that the relationship between God and the
universe is essential, and not accidental. This would seem to get around the
problem of God having accidental properties like Creator and Lord, because
those prop- erties would be essential to God. Though this avoids God having
accidental properties, it would raise worries about the Christian claim that
God’s act of creation is free and gracious. It would also land us on one horn
of Proclus’ dilemma. Aquinas, however, rejects this possibility. With
essential relation- ships the relata depend upon each other for their essence
and existence. Given God’s aseity and self-sufficiency, God depends upon
nothing outside of Himself for His existence and essence. He cannot stand in
an essential relation to anything outside of Himself because “it would follow
that God’s substance is essentially referred to another, depends in some way
thereon, since it can neither exist nor be understood without it. Hence it
would follow that God’s substance is dependent on something else outside
it: and thus it would not be of itself necessary being” (Summa Contra
Gentiles II.12).
If Aquinas will not allow for God to be accidentally related to creation,
nor essentially related to creation, what other options are left? Aquinas
wishes to maintain the Augustinian claim that creatures are related to God,
but God is not really related to creatures. Aquinas defends this idea by
developing a modified Aristotelian theory of relations.39

39
Matthew R. McWhorter, “Aquinas on God’s Relation to the World,” New Blackfriars 94
(2013).
 Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God121
On this Aristotelian account there are three modes of relations. First-mode
relations are relations of reason. These are logical relations that exist in the
mind only and do not involve any substances possessing accidental
properties. Second-mode relations are real relations. These are founded on
an absolute category and entail that each substance in the relation has an
appropriate accidental property. Third-mode relations are sometimes called
mixed rela- tions because they involve both a relation of reason and a real
relation. In the case of a mixed relation, one of the relata has an accidental
property, whilst the other does not. Mixed relations can be founded on any
of the categories mentioned by Boethius, and examples include things like
the relation between measurable and measured, or knower and known.40
When Aquinas denies that God is really related to creation, he is saying
that a second-mode relation does not obtain between God and creatures
because God cannot have any accidental properties. It is third-mode
relations that Aquinas has in mind here when thinking about the God–world
relationship. Creatures are really related to God because they depend upon
Him for their existence, and have an appropriate accidental relational
property. God, how- ever, is not really related to creation, but only exists in
a relation of reason to creation. How is this to be understood? Perhaps a few
illustrations will help shed light on this issue.
In medieval philosophy real relations were held to obtain between extra-
mental things.41 For instance, the properties slave and master are grounded
in a real relation between two persons. Yet, medieval philosophers also held
that there are non-paradigmatic cases of relations where two accidental
properties are not involved. These non-paradigmatic cases are the third-
mode mixed relations where one of the relata stands in a real relation whilst
the other stands in a relation of reason. By way of example, say that Peter
begins to think about Socrates. The accidental property, they would say,
belongs to Peter only. No accidental property befalls Socrates since
Socrates, they say, is not actually related to Peter in this instance. Peter
clearly has the extramental property thinking about Socrates. What
corresponds to our concept being thought

40
Peter King, “Scotus on Metaphysics,” in ed. Thomas Williams, The Cambridge
Companion to Duns Scotus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 36. Dodds, The
Unchanging God of Love, 165–9.
41
There are many views on relations in medieval philosophy, yet one agreement seems to be
that polyadic properties and relations cannot exist outside of the mind. For instance, one might
say there is a relation between a father and a son. Yet, medieval philosophers would maintain
that this relationship does not exist outside of the mind. The relation expresses something
between two subjects, but nothing in the subjects. There is, however, an accidental monadic
property that the son has (i.e. being the son), but it cannot be the same property that the father
has. The father cannot be the son in this relation, but he does have the property being the
father because of this relation. See Jeffrey Brower, “Medieval Theories of Relations,”
Stanford Encyclo- pedia of Philosophy, <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relations-medieval/>,
3 (accessed June 2, 2012).
122Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God
about? One might be tempted to say that Socrates has this accidental
property, but medieval thinkers argued that this is a concept that has no
extramental reality. It exists in our minds only.
Examples like this of mixed relations, says Aquinas, are able to help us
answer the problem of God’s relationship to creation. Creatures are really
related to God, but God is not really related to creation. A simple God can
have no accidental properties, so God cannot stand in a real relation with
creation. God’s relation to creation is a relation of reason. Accidental proper-
ties like Creator and Lord are conceptual, they only exist in our minds, so
they cannot cause any real change in God.42
The claim is that the relational properties that we predicate of God are not
in Him, nor are they extrinsic to Him. Yet we refer to God all the time in
worship and in theology—both natural and revealed—and predicate all sorts
of relationships of Him like Redeemer, Refuge, Savior, and so forth. The
solution to the problem, again, is this. These relations, says Aquinas, “are
not really in Him, and yet are predicated of Him, it remains that they are
ascribed to Him according only to our way of understanding.” Other predi-
cates, like wisdom, are appropriately said of God because they denote His
essence. These types of predicates are extramental. When it comes to
relational predicates this is not the case. They exist in our mind only and do
not apply to God, as is the case with all third-mode relations. Aquinas
maintains that our understanding is not false when we refer to God as our
redeemer and lord. We can predicate relations of God because “the divine
effects terminate in God Himself ” (Summa Contra Gentiles II.13–14).

CHRISTIANITY CANNOT DENY THAT GOD

IS REALLY RELATED TO CREATION

The denial that God is really related to creation brings about severe incoher-
ence within Christian theology and practice. If our relational predicates do
not apply to God at all, but only exist in our minds, what are we doing in a
worship service? I would imagine that the average person in the pew thinks
that she is singing about God. When she sings, “Lord my Savior” she is
intending to

42
Brower, “Medieval Theories of Relations,” 5.1. It is not entirely clear that Aquinas always
wishes to say that predicates like Creator and Lord are relations of reason that only exist in the
minds of creatures. In De Potentia Q7, a.11, Aquinas says that if there were no created
intellect in existence, God would still be Lord because Lord expresses a relation of reason.
Brower notes that this is a move away from the Aristotelian understanding of relations that is
motivated in part by theological considerations. Brower points out that “this shift away from
the traditional Aristo- telian conception has the awkward consequence that things can be
related even if their relations do not exist.”
 Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God123
actually refer to God. But on the picture that we have from Aquinas, this is
not the case. When singing “Lord my Savior” she is not referring to God.
The phrase from the song does not apply to any extramental reality. Instead
it is only stating something that belongs to the creature’s mind.
Grant that the accidental relational properties only fall upon creatures and
not God. When a man cries out in prayer, “God my Creator and Savior,” is
he offering up proper praise to God? To be sure, Augustine, Lombard, and
Aquinas will say yes. They maintain that it is perfectly appropriate to
predicate of God the titles Creator and Savior just as long as we remember
that the accidental property really befalls us and not God. Yet, if the
property Creator does not really apply to God but instead expresses a
property in our minds, how can it be said that it is appropriate to predicate of
God? It does not actually express anything at all about God. When we cry
out in praise we are really saying things about ourselves. This looks like a
clear case of religious subjectivism. “According to the religious subjectivist,
religious sentences are about the states of minds of religious believers.”43 In
offering up various speech acts with the intent of praising God we are in fact
doing no such thing. We are only expressing things about ourselves and not
anything about extramental reality.
Surely Augustine, Lombard, and Aquinas would find religious
subjectivism repugnant. In fact, I think it obvious that they would consider
themselves to be engaged in serious theological work that does in fact say
true things about God. Of course they would be modest and say that they do
not perfectly comprehend God, but there should be little doubt that they are
realists about theological language. They articulate accounts of predicates
that can be said of God’s essence: properties like goodness, wisdom, and so
on. It is hard to see how anyone who is a Christian theological realist could
actually believe this notion that the accidental predicates like Creator and
Redeemer are not true of the biblical God but only true of ourselves. Further,
if it is only true about ourselves, then why should we think that it is
appropriate to say we are speaking about God? Either we are speaking about
God, or we are not. It seems that this is another doctrine that someone can
only pay lip service to but not actually believe because the Christian God is
really related to the universe and is truly the Creator and Redeemer. This
puts Christian theology in direct conflict with this proposal of the divine
timeless research program.
To be clear, my argument in this section is not that Augustine, Lombard,
and Aquinas deny that God is in fact the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord.
My argument is that this claim is not coherent with other things they hold
about accidental properties and relations. This is important to note because
contemporary defenses of classical theology sometimes proceed by merely

43
Michael Scott, “Religious Language,” Philosophy Compass 5 (2010), 508.
124Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God
pointing out that someone like Aquinas held both that God is not really
related to creation and that God is the Creator. The idea in such defenses
seems to be that modern critics of classical theism are failing to realize that
Aquinas held both doctrines. Other times, the idea in such defenses seems to
be that critics are being most uncharitable because surely someone as
brilliant as Aquinas would have noticed the incoherence if there is one.
Defenses of this sort, so say I, are woefully inadequate. Merely pointing out
that a thinker held two different doctrines is not sufficient to show that the
two doctrines cohere with one another. Arguments of the sort that I am
articulating here are pointing out that the different doctrines held by classical
theists do not cohere with one another. There is nothing uncharitable about
this sort of argument because theologians and philosophers say incoherent
things all the time. Even the most brilliant among us are still all too human.
Of course we should all seek to give charitable interpretations of others, but
there is nothing in principle uncharitable about pointing out incoherence.
With that clarification in mind, consider another consequence of the
proposal that God is not really related to creation. When it comes to God’s
relationship to sinners and saints, the divine timeless research program
forces us into an awkward position. It would seem that when sinners repent,
God would change in His relationship to them and would come to have an
accidental relational property. Bruce Ware refers to this as God’s relational
mutability since the New Testament clearly describes God as changing His
attitude toward persons who are in Christ. 44 The divine timeless research
program cannot account for this sort of change in God’s attitude toward
repentant creatures because this sort of change assumes that God stands in
deep, intimate relations with His creatures.
Like many of the previously discussed problems, classical theists were
aware of this difficulty. Augustine and Lombard consider the following case,
and argue that God would not change in the midst of dealing with repent
sinners. Say that Peter is unrepentant in his sins. He stands in God’s wrath.
Yet, God’s wrath against sin has always been the same, so Augustine and
Lombard say no change has occurred in God. Say that Peter then becomes
repentant and begins to enjoy the grace and love of God. Augustine and
Lombard maintain that God has not changed; only Peter has. God is love;
He always has been and always will be eternally without time.
Is this satisfactory to prevent God from having accidental properties and
remaining timeless, immutable, and simple? Surely not. Grant that God is
eternally and necessarily love. It still seems that God undergoes a change in
bestowing grace and love on the repentant Peter since Peter does not
become repentant until a particular time. Augustine and Lombard’s claim
that the

44
Bruce Ware, “A Modified Calvinist Doctrine of God,” in ed. Bruce Ware, Perspectives on
the Doctrine of God: 4 Views (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing, 2008), 91.
 Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God125
accidental properties befall the creature and not God looks like nothing more
than a linguistic game, and does nothing to assuage the problem. Further, it
seems quite incredible to claim that God is not really related to the repentant
sinner in order to avoid the problem. Christian theology wishes to say that
God is in an actual loving relationship with the repentant Peter. God is
actually forgiving Peter. This forgiving relationship does not just exist in the
mind of Peter, but has an extramental foundation in God Himself. Forgiving
is something that God does in reality, and not just in the minds of believers.
Augustine and Lombard will quickly appeal to the doctrine of predestin-
ation at this point to avoid any change in God. God has, from eternity,
decreed to love Peter, they will say, so God has undergone no change in His
decree. Does this really solve anything? Not at all. God’s eternal decree to
bestow grace upon Peter is not identical to the actual manifestation of that
grace upon Peter for Peter does not eternally exist. God cannot bestow grace
on Peter or express His love toward Peter until the actual concrete particular
that is Peter comes into existence. God can express all sorts of loving
gestures toward Peter before Peter comes to exist (e.g. eternally decree to
send the Son and temporally send the Son), but certain expressions of love
simply cannot occur until Peter in fact exists. This involves God activating a
potential that He did not previously actualize: bestowing grace on Peter. It
also involves God coming to have an accidental property: the bestower of
grace on Peter. God has undergone a change, and Augustine and Lombard
have failed to rebut this difficulty. They might try to appeal to the denial of
real relations again, but it seems difficult for any Christian to seriously
maintain that God only stands in a relation of reason to creation in the
economy of salvation.
Consider one more problem that arises from the denial of real relations for
natural theology. The problem is that a real relation involves an extramental
foundation, and Aquinas, in Summa Contra Gentiles and Summa
Theologiae, is denying that relations in God are extramental. This claim is
too strong and undermines what Aquinas wishes to say in his natural
theology and in his doctrine of omnipresence.
Aquinas’ five ways depend on God’s causal activity. If God is not really
in a causal relation with the universe, but only in our minds, natural
theology faces a serious challenge. The atheist will be happy to say that the
universe’s causal dependence upon God exists in the minds of believers
only. The Christian cannot be sanguine about this. Many of the arguments
from natural theology rest upon the notion that God is causally related to the
universe. It is not clear how one might construct a cosmological argument
for the existence of God that includes a premise expressing that God only
stands in a relation of reason to the universe.
The same problem arises for God’s omnipresence. For Aquinas, God is
omnipresent through His power which sustains all of creation in existence.
An incorporeal thing like God “stands in relation to being somewhere by its
126Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God
power” (Summa Contra Gentiles III.68). This looks like a clear example of
second-mode relations, but we are forbidden from saying this in light of
simplicity, immutability, and timelessness. If we deny real relations of God,
then we must say that <God is not omnipresent>. God does not stand in a
relation to creation by His power. God only stands in a relation of reason to
creation. Perhaps we can say that <God is omnipresent> as long as we admit
that this is strictly false and give it a different interpretation because this
relation exists only in our minds. Again, the atheist will be happy to accept
this, but the Christian cannot. So the Christian should reject Aquinas’ denial
of real relations in God.
Of course, if we reject this claim it would seem to allow for God to have
accidental properties as creatures continually refer to God in worship, and as
God continually causally sustains all things in existence. In rejecting this
proposal, we have lost the solution to Proclus’ dilemma. Proclus’ objections
still stand. The Christian God cannot be timeless, strongly immutable, and
simple.

CONCLUSION

Throughout this chapter I have done my best to show that divine

timelessness, simplicity, and strong immutability bring serious difficulties
for Christian theology when combined with presentism. If one is a presentist
and a Chris- tian, she should not believe that God is timeless, simple, or
strongly immut- able. This is because the divine timeless research program
that accepts presentism is not compatible with creation ex nihilo and divine
sustaining. Perhaps a Christian can abandon presentism in favor of four-
dimensional eternalism in order to save the classical account of the divine
perfections. This move is gaining popularity in contemporary discussions,
and will be the subject of Chapter 6. There I shall argue that four-
dimensional eternalism is also incompatible with divine timelessness.
 6

Divine Timelessness and

Four-Dimensional Eternalism

It is often held today, amongst analytic philosophers of religion, that divine

timelessness is not compatible with presentism, but that it is compatible with
four-dimensional eternalism. Unfortunately most of the proposals are under-
developed. There have been many suggestions that divine timelessness is
compatible with four-dimensional eternalism, but few have actually articu-
lated robust models that can be adequately assessed. One common problem
is that some of the models that have been put forward do not actually have a
clear cut account of divine timelessness. Another common problem is a
failure to understand all of the entailments of four-dimensional eternalism. It
is almost as if people forget that four-dimensional eternalism is a theory
about time and change. (Recall the discussion in Chapter 2.) Thankfully at
least one person, Katherin Rogers, has put forward a robust model that more
fully understands the doctrine of divine timelessness and four-dimensional
etern- alism.1 In this chapter I will examine Rogers’ model. Along the way I
will note similarities and differences with others in this camp as a way to fill
in some gaps in Rogers’ account.
First, I wish to note the difficulties that eternalism is said to help divine
timelessness overcome. In Chapters 4 and 5 I laid out various arguments that
need to be dealt with. These can be summed up as four broad problems for
divine timelessness. (1) As simple, God cannot have accidental properties
like Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. (2) The doctrine of creation ex nihilo.
Again, this was traditionally understood as there being a state of affairs
where God exists alone and a state of affairs where God exists with
creation.2 The dilemma from Proclus brought out various difficulties, one of
which is that if God is eternal, then creation must be eternal. (3) God’s
knowledge of the ever changing world

1
It should be noted that Rogers does not like the qualifier “eternalism” since eternal is
traditionally reserved for God. She would prefer to use “isotemporalism” instead. Since the
term “four-dimensional eternalism” is widespread in the literature I will continue to use it so as
not to cause confusion.
2
Maximus the Confessor, Chapters on Knowledge, 1.48.
128Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism
should entail that God’s knowledge changes. In contemporary discussions
this falls under the question “Can God know what time it is now?” (4)
Divine sustaining. God is sustaining an ever changing world and it is hard to
see how He could be immutable, pure act, and timeless.
As we shall see, abandoning presentism and adopting four-dimensional
eternalism does help solve some of these problems. However, I will argue
that it brings up other difficulties that make the doctrine of divine
timelessness untenable for Christian belief. Ultimately, I will argue that
four-dimensional eternalism does not save the divine timeless research
program. Instead, if four- dimensional eternalism is true, God is temporal as
understood on four- dimensionalism.

KATHERIN ROGERS INTO THE FIFTH DIMENSION

For Katherin Rogers it is no surprise that presentism is incompatible with

divine timelessness. For her, atemporality entails four-dimensional eternal-
ism.3 Though she claims to be doing Anselmian perfect being theology, she
thinks that one ought to derive her metaphysics of time from the divine
perfections.4 One starts with the nature of a perfect God, and then can
discern the true nature of time.
T. J. Mawson agrees. He claims that one can be agnostic at first as to
which ontology of time is correct. One should reflect on the idea of God as a
perfect being, and then from there one can decide if presentism or eternalism
is correct. Whichever account gives God the greatest possible perfection,
which- ever one is more power-granting, is the one we should go with. 5 As
Mawson sees it, God would know more if four-dimensional eternalism were
true, than He would if presentism were true.6 Mawson, unlike classical
theism, thinks that God’s knowledge of the future depends on the future
actually existing. Further, if all of time exists, then God can act directly
upon it.7
This is completely contrary to the method of perfect being theology as
discussed in Chapter 3. On perfect being theology, one must start with the
actual perfections found in creatures and then move to discern what the pure

3
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 59. Also,
see her “Anselm on Eternity as the Fifth Dimension,” in The Saint Anselm Journal 32 (2006),
1–8.
4
Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: The Presence of a Timeless God,” in Faith and Philosophy
24 (2007), 5.
5
T. J. Mawson, “Divine Eternity,” International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 64
(2008), 41.
6
T. J. Mawson, Belief in God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2005), 43–5.
7
T. J. Mawson, “God’s Body,” Heythrop Journal 47 (2006), 179.
 Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism129
perfections are that God possesses. 8 On this method the nature of reality sets
the limits on possible perfections. The intuition is that God cannot create a
world that is incompatible with who He is. Mawson’s method is not helpful
in this regard. For instance, it would be more power-granting if God could
defy the law of non-contradiction. Thus, we should affirm that God can do
such a thing. It would be more power-granting to affirm that God can change
the past, thus we should affirm that the past is such that it can be altered.
Someone who follows the method of perfect being theology will find such
claims implausible because of the way the world is. The world is not such
that the law of non-contradiction can be broken, nor is the world such that
the past is alterable. These are not metaphysical possibilities and as such
they are not power-granting. Mawson would agree with this, but his method
does not help one get there. I will set this issue aside for the time being.
On Rogers’ account God’s eternality fits together with divine simplicity,
immutability, omniscience, and creation. The divine attributes are mutually
entailing, though it seems to me that simplicity is the driving force in
Rogers’ account.9 Allow me to briefly sketch each attribute as Rogers sees it
in order to help illuminate her account of divine eternality.
In saying that God is simple Rogers means that God is pure act. She takes
the standard sovereignty-aseity move in order to get to the claim that God is
a simple being who is not composed of parts, nor is God dependent upon
anything for His existence or essential nature. God is identical to His nature
and each divine attribute is identical to the others and to God.10 In response
to contemporary criticisms of divine simplicity à la Alvin Plantinga, she
says, “strictly speaking God neither has properties nor is He a property
God is
simply act.”11 There are no potentialities in God for God is eternally doing
all that He is. God is His existence as well as “His act of knowing and doing
and being perfectly good” because “these are all one act.”12 Further, one
ought not to “hypothesize any unity underlying the diversity in God because
there is no diversity. There is just the one, perfect act which is God.”13
From simplicity Rogers moves into immutability and atemporal
eternality. Since God is pure act, and whatever He does He does in one
single eternal act, God is unchanging. Thus God is immutable and
timeless.14 From here she notes that within early Islamic theology God
was held to be temporal and

8
Brian Leftow, “Why Perfect Being Theology?” International Journal for Philosophy of
Religion 69 (2011). Edward Wierenga, “Augustinian Perfect Being Theology and the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 69 (2011).
9
In Rogers, Perfect Being Theology and The Anselmian Approach to God and Creation
(Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1997) she begins her discussion of the divine
attributes with divine simplicity.
10
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 24–6.11 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 27.
12
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 29.13 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 30.
14
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 32.
130Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism
immutable, but this caused problems for immutability. It “is only by postu-
lating divine [atemporal] eternity that God’s immutability can be preserved,
and with it His simplicity. If God does first one thing and then another He
cannot be simple because His essence must stay the same over time, and
thus be something other than the part that does the changing.”15
To further bolster atemporal eternality she considers the argument from
the radical incompleteness of life. The argument from the radical
incompleteness of temporal life is often mentioned in passing in the ancient
and contemporary literature, and is seldom given a full articulation.16 The
Anselmian form of the argument was mentioned in Chapter 3, and this will
be discussed again later in this chapter. The other form of the argument—
call it the Boethian form of the argument—that Rogers appears to have in
mind at this point seems to go as follows. Creatures who live in time lose
moments of their life into the irretriev- able past. Temporal creatures can
only remember the past, they can no longer directly experience it. Further,
temporal creatures must wait in anticipation for future moments to come into
existence. Such beings cannot directly experience the future until those
moments become present. However, once those moments become present,
they quickly slip into the irretrievable past. Such a life, so the argument
goes, is radically incomplete and transitory compared to a God who enjoys
all of His life in one timeless present that lacks a before and after. A
timeless God never has to wait for future moments of His life to come into
existence, nor lose moments of His life into the irretrievable past.
However, Rogers seems to notice that the argument loses its force when
one accepts four-dimensional eternalism. “One might point out that the very
reason which the medievals gave for introducing the distinction between
eternity and time was to insist upon the radical transitoriness of creaturely
existence in comparison to the perfection of God’s immutable mode of
being, and yet if [four-dimensional] eternalism is correct and we are four-
dimensional beings ever present to God, then we are not as transitory as we
seem to ourselves.”17 Yet, despite the diminished force, she seems to think
that the argument still goes through. “By comparison with God who
‘possesses’ His unlimited life ‘at once’, we lead a dreadfully ‘disconnected’
life in that at each

15
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 55–6.
16
William Lane Craig, “On the Argument for Divine Timelessness from the Incompleteness
of Temporal Life,” Heythrop Journal 38 (1997). Paul Helm, “Is God Bound by Time?” in eds.
Douglas S. Huffman and Eric L. Johnson, God Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents
God (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002). Hugh J. McCann, Creation and the Sovereignty of
God (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012), 62. Thomas G. Weinandy, “Suffering
and the Sovereign Love of God: A Conclusion to God’s Sovereignty and Evangelical
Theology,” in eds.
D. Stephen Long and George Kalantzis, The Sovereignty of God Debate (Cambridge, MA:
Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2009), 143–5.
17
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 62.
 Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism131
present instant we have little access to or power over all the other instants of
our lives.”18
Surely she is right that perdurant beings would live an incredibly discon-
nected life. As she notes, “I seem to myself to exist only at the present
instant, but in fact the ‘I’ of an instant ago really exists and perceives an
instant ago as the present instant, and the ‘I’ of an instant hence really exists
and perceives an instant hence as the present instant. And these successive
time-slices of ‘me’ do not have access to one another.”19 This is a radically
disconnected life, and surely the life of a perfect God would not suffer from
such a defect. Hence, she thinks that God must be atemporal and exist all at
once.
As discussed in Chapter 2, God can exist all at once on divine
temporality. God is an endurant being. So the atemporalist cannot assert that
existing all at once straightforwardly entails atemporality. As I argue
elsewhere, only the temporalist can make sense of the claim that God exists
all at once.20 However, that discussion must be set aside so that we can
continue to investigate Rogers’ model of God.
To flesh out her doctrine of eternality it will be helpful to look at her
account of omniscience and creation. She takes the traditional claim about
all moments of time existing in eternity for God differently than the classical
tradition. On her account this claim does not amount to God knowing
propositions or abstract states of affairs through a perfect knowledge of
Himself. She makes it very clear that God’s omniscience is not based on
propositions or divine intentions. Instead, “the things and events themselves
exist in divine eternity.”21 This is because God’s eternity acts as a fifth
dimension in which the four-dimensional spacetime world exists. “Time is a
fourth dimension containing all of space, and divine eternity is a sort of fifth
dimension containing all of time and space.”22 The notion of a fifth dimension
sounds a bit odd. Perhaps any literal talk of a fifth dimension here should be
avoided since dimensions do not contain other dimensions.23 I do not believe
that Rogers is positing God’s eternity as literally a dimension. Perhaps she is
speaking metaphorically. What Rogers is trying to express is that “all of time
is equally present to God’s eternity since it is God’s eternal activity which
causes it all to be.”24 “God is the source of each temporal

18
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 62.
19
Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: the Presence of a Timeless God,” 7.
20
R. T. Mullins, “Doing Hard Time: Is God the Prisoner of the Oldest Dimension?” Journal
of Analytic Theology 2 (2014).
21
Rogers, “Anselm on Eternity as the Fifth Dimension,” The Saint Anselm Journal 32 (2006), 7.
22
Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: the Presence of a Timeless God,” 6.
23
Evan Fales has pointed out to me that “odd” is not strong enough. The notion of a fifth
dimension here is incoherent. First, a dimension does not contain other dimensions. Second,
dimensions typically have a metrical topology. A timeless God does not have a metric. Third,
given divine simplicity, one would have to say that this fifth dimension is a point in order to
avoid God having parts. But a point cannot be a dimension.
24
Rogers, “Anselm on Eternity as the Fifth Dimension,” 2.
132Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism
instant. He is not contained in any of the temporal instants, but is directly,
causally, and cognitively related to each and every one of them equally.”
God’s eternity is a fifth dimension in the sense that it contains all of space
and time since “God knows and acts causally upon all of space-time in one,
eternal, act.”25
She explains that this is a form of theistic idealism. “All of space is within
God’s omnipresence in that it is all immediately cognitively and causally
present to and absolutely dependent upon God.”26 “Whatever has creaturely
existence in any way at all is kept in being in all its aspects from moment to
moment by the power of God. God is simple and His power is His thought.
For a creature to be, then, is to be thought by God. There is nothing more to
a creature than what God is thinking.”27
All things depend for their existence on God. Since God is simple and
immutable all of His actions take place at once. The divine choice to create,
along with simplicity, immutability, and timelessness entail that “the created
world is always present to God’s eternity. There is no point before creation at
which God exists alone and then a later point at which He exists with
creation.”28 On her account if “God eternally wills to create this world, then
necessarily He eternally wills to create this world . . . There was never a
point at which He chose to create rather than not. From eternity He chooses
to create.”29 For a simple God “being” and “act” are identical. Thus, “given
God’s nature He could not do other than He does . . . God does not have
literal options, but since He exists a se this is no limitation on Him.”30 It is the
case that there “are other imaginable worlds, but the actual world, from God’s
perspective in eternity, and allowing for the input of free creaturely choice, is
the only really possible world.”31
For Rogers, in order to maintain omniscience and timelessness, four-
dimensional eternalism must be true. God sustains the entire spacetime
manifold by His one eternal thought or act. The so-called “fifth dimension”
that Rogers posits is merely a way of expressing that God eternally sustains
all times and places in one eternal act.

REAPING THE BENEFITS OF

FOUR-DIMENSIONAL ETERNALISM

A few benefits for this model of the God–world relationship are worthy of
note before proceeding. First, Rogers rejects the classical claim that God is
not really

25
Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: the Presence of a Timeless God,” 8.
26
Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: the Presence of a Timeless God,” 9.
27
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 109.
28
Rogers, “Anselm on Eternity as the Fifth Dimension,” 3.
29
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 33.
30
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 34–5.31 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 36.
 Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism133
related to creation.32 She finds it to be an incredibly difficult doctrine to hold,
so she escapes all of the incoherence that arises from this.
Second, Rogers’ proposal avoids the common objection to divine time-
lessness from creation ex nihilo. If there is a state of affairs where God
exists without creation and another where God exists with creation, God has
a before and after in His life. Rogers’ avoids this by making the four-
dimensional universe in a sense co-eternal with God. There is no state of
affairs where God exists without creation, so no worry of a before and after
in His life.
Third, by adopting four-dimensional eternalism she avoids the problem of
divine sustaining as the world unfolds through time. On presentism God
sustains a moment, then ceases to sustain it, and sustains another. God
would constantly be doing something different and thus not be immutable,
simple, and timeless.33 On eternalism this is not the case. Moments of time
do not slough off into the non-existent past and there are no yet-to-exist
future moments. All of time exists and is sustained by God in one timeless
immutable act. It seems that God can exist all at once instead of having to
lose moments of His life as He would on presentism.
Fourth, she also avoids the problem of God’s knowledge growing as the
world unfolds through time. Strictly speaking, there is no unfolding through
time—there is no temporal becoming. From God’s perspective, the best
perspective, the whole four-dimensional universe simply exists. There is no
knowledge for God to gain. Can God know what time it is now? No,
because there is no now with a unique ontological status. Granted, from the
perspec- tive of temporal creatures things appear as if the present is unique
and that the past no longer exists and the future does not yet exist. This,
however, is not the way reality is. Terms like “past,” “present,” and “future”
are relative from the perspective of temporal parts or person stages. From
God’s perspec- tive, the best perspective, He sees the world as it actually is.
From His perspective there is no “now,” there is just the entire four-
dimensional space- time universe.34
It seems that four-dimensional eternalism helps avoid these common
prob- lems for divine timelessness. Does it help solve Proclus’ dilemma?
Also, does it avoid the problem from accidental predication? In other words,
can Creator be predicated of the simple God? Are there any other problems
that might arise by adopting four-dimensional eternalism?

32
Rogers, “Back to Eternalism: A Response to Leftow’s Anselmian Presentism,” Faith and
Philosophy 26 (2009), 336.
33
Rogers, “Back to Eternalism,” 331.
34
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 60–4. “Anselm on Eternity as the Fifth Dimension,” 2–7.
134Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism

LEAVING THE FIFTH DIMENSION BEHIND

There are several difficulties that I see with Rogers’ account, and I will now
spell them out. It should be noted that if four-dimensional eternalism is
false, Rogers’ account does not work. The standard move in contemporary
philo- sophical theology is to argue that four-dimensional eternalism is false
so divine timelessness cannot appeal to it. 35 Elsewhere, I have offered an
argu- ment against four-dimensional eternalism as well.36 Here, however, I
shall not take this well-trodden path. Instead, I shall argue that Rogers’
account suffers from internal incoherence. I will also argue that she offers us
no good reason for thinking that God is timeless. The main reasons she
offers for God being timeless are from divine simplicity and the radical
incompleteness of life. She also thinks that four-dimensional eternalism
must be true in order to preserve divine atemporality.37 I argue that divine
simplicity and eternalism both bring about severe incoherence within the
Christian divine timeless research pro- gram. Further, in adopting four-
dimensional eternalism Rogers cuts herself off from the argument from the
radical incompleteness of life. Finally, I will argue that eternalism is not
compatible with divine timelessness regardless of what many contemporary
thinkers say.

Proclus’ Dilemma and Creation Out of Nothing

It looks as if Rogers’ view falls prey to Proclus’ dilemma. Creation is the

result of God’s thoughts. God eternally has the thoughts that bring creation
into existence. So creation is co-eternal with God. For Proclus this means
that creation is infinite in the past and future. This is not the case on Rogers’
proposal. Her account has some subtle differences.
For Rogers, it certainly is the case that “God’s thought causes things
immediately and directly .. . There is no intermediary cause between God’s
thought and the created existent.” Yet, unlike Proclus, Rogers does not hold
to presentism. Proclus himself is subject to the criticism that God’s eternal
acts cannot produce temporal effects since many of the effects do not yet
exist and

35
E.g. Alan G. Padgett, God, Eternity, and the Nature of Time (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock
Publishers, 1992). William Lane Craig, Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to
Time (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001). Garrett J. DeWeese, God and the Nature of Time
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004).
36
R. T. Mullins, “Four-Dimensionalism, Evil, and Christian Belief,” Philosophia Christi 16
(2014).
37
She also claims that eternalism helps reconcile divine foreknowledge and free will. I am
skeptical, and shall ignore this issue due to space limitations. Cf. Alan Rhoda, “Foreknowledge
and Fatalism: Why Divine Timelessness Doesn’t Help,” in ed. L. Nathan Oaklander, Debates
in the Metaphysics of Time (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014).
 Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism135
others no longer exist. By adopting eternalism Rogers avoids this. All of
time simply does exist, and all of the temporal parts simply do exist at their
respective times. “If something exists at time t, then the causal efficacy of
God’s thought is acting at time t. This most fundamental sort of cause does
not precede its effect, but is contemporaneous with it.”38 The entire four-
dimensional universe is contemporaneous with the timeless God who exists
all at once.
This makes the universe co-eternal with God for there is no state of affairs
where God exists without the universe. God is eternal, and God always
exists with the four-dimensional universe. Is this a problem? Perhaps not.
When looking at the four-dimensional spacetime manifold one must
consider it from two perspectives. From one perspective we can see that the
universe is temporally bounded in that it has a finite past, and that moments
of time are chronologically ordered in earlier than, simultaneous with, and
later than relations. Also, objects persist through time by having temporal
parts that exist at each moment of time. Yet from an atemporal perspective
there just is the spacetime manifold with all of its various temporal parts.
The temporal parts do not persist through time, but are eternally existent at
the times at which they exist. The universe is co-eternal with God in the
sense that there is never a state of affairs when God exists and the universe
does not exist. The universe is still temporally bounded, and dependent upon
God. In light of this it seems that Rogers could argue that she does not fall
victim to Proclus’ dilemma in any damaging way.
However, one could complain that she has destroyed the doctrine of
creation ex nihilo. God never exists without creation. It is co-eternal with
God. God eternally exists with the four-dimensional spacetime manifold.
John of Damascus will not like this one bit. “For it is not natural that that
which is brought into existence out of nothing should be co-eternal with
what is without beginning and everlasting” (Orthodox Faith I.7). Maximus
the Confessor thinks it impossible that anything created could be coeternal
with God. He further wonders “how are they really creatures if they are
coeternal with the Creator?” (400 Chapters on Love 4.6).
For John and Maximus, like most classical theologians, creation out of
nothing entails that God has not always existed with the universe. They
agree with Rogers that creation is brought about by divine thought, but they
hold that there is a state of affairs in which God exists alone. 39 William Lane
Craig notes that adopting four-dimensional eternalism completely destroys
the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. This “emasculated doctrine of creatio ex
nihilo does not do justice to the biblical data, which give us clearly to

38
Rogers, “Back to Eternalism,” 328.
39
Cf. John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus: Annotating the Areopagite, trans. Paul
Rorem and John C. Lamoreaux (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 190–1, 220–1, and
238.
136Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism
understand that God and the universe do not timelessly co-exist, but that the
actual world includes a state of affairs which is God’s existing alone without
the universe.”40
This is a problem, and the only move I can see for someone like Rogers is
to say that the Bible does not clearly teach that creation out of nothing
entails that there is a state of affairs where God exists without creation. A
common stance for contemporary defenders of divine timelessness is to say
that the doctrine only entails that creation is contingent upon God. 41 Rogers
doesn’t think that the doctrine tells us whether or not the universe has
always existed. What it does tell us, she says, is that the universe is a unique
act of God and that everything other than God is kept in existence from
moment to moment by His will.42
However, this does not satisfy the biblical data. The Bible is very
comfort- able talking about God existing before, and hence without,
creation.43 The typical move from atemporalists is to interpret these “before
the world began” passages as a logical priority and not a temporal priority,
but this is an implausible interpretation.44 There is nothing within the
biblical texts them- selves that warrants one in taking these “before the
world began” passages as logical priority instead of temporal priority.45 The
terms used in these passages are explicitly temporal. One must impose
divine timelessness onto the text in order to interpret these passages as God
existing logically prior to the begin- ning of the world, and that is not a solid
exegetical practice. Adopting eternalism conflicts with the biblical teaching
on creation, and this is a strike against this position on God and time.46

40
William Lane Craig, God, Time, and Eternity: The Coherence of Theism II (London:
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 254.
41
Paul Helm, Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time, 2nd Edition (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2010), 234–6.
42
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 107–8.
43
Mt 13:35, 24:21, 25:34; Lk 11:50; Jn 17:5, 17:24; Eph 1:4; 1 Pet 1:20; Tit 1:2; 2 Tim 1:9;
Heb
9:6; Jude 25; Ps 90:2; Rev 13:8, 17:8. One might point out that the Jude passage is often
translated as saying “before all time.” True, several English translations do this, but this is not
a good translation for several reasons. First, the Greek word here is aionos, not chronos or
kairos. This word is typically translated as “ages” depending on the context. Second, if the text
really did mean “before all time” this would be incoherent. To talk about a state of affairs
before time is to talk about time before time, which is nonsense. The passage in Jude should
instead be translated as “before the ages” or “before this age.” In this case it would mean
something like God had glory even before He created the universe and began this present
epoch of time. Third, translating this as “age” fits better within the eschatology of the New
Testament which often speaks in terms of “this age,” “the present age,” and “the age to come.”
Further, it fits better with the eschatological tone of Jude.
44
Helm, Eternal God, 234–6.
45
Henri Blocher, “Yesterday, Today, Forever: Time, Times, Eternity in Biblical Perspective.”
Tyndale Bulletin 52 (2001).
46
It should be noted that biblical scholars have varying opinions on the biblical status of the
doctrine of creation ex nihilo. There was a time when many doubted if it is even a biblical
doctrine at all, but instead is the invention of various second-century theologians. I can only
note
 Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism137

Divine Simplicity Entails a Modal Collapse

The divine timeless research program suffers from a deep incoherence

because it entails a modal collapse as well as the demise of aseity and self-
sufficiency. In this section I shall first articulate what a modal collapse is,
and explain why this is detrimental to Christian theology. Then I shall argue
that the divine timeless research program entails a modal collapse that ends
up destroying the doctrines of aseity, self-sufficiency, and creation.
What is a modal collapse? To answer this question, one must first know
what modality is. Modality is a topic in philosophy that examines issues
related to necessity, contingency, and possibility. Substances and
propositions can have varying modal statuses. For instance, the proposition
<2+2=4> is typically taken to be necessarily true. It cannot possibly be false.
It is true in all possible worlds. The proposition <David Cameron is the UK
prime minister> is contingently true. It could be false. It was not always
true, and did not have to be true. With regard to substances, theists typically
say that God is a necessary being because God cannot fail to exist. God
exists in all possible worlds. Creatures, however, are contingent beings.
They do not have to exist. There are possible worlds in which creatures fail
to exist.
Different schemas for modality will typically say that there are different
kinds of necessity. One example is conditional necessity. A state of affairs is
conditionally necessary given prior states of affairs. Say I have two apples,
then you give me two more apples. It necessarily follows that I have four
apples. The state of affairs is necessary given certain prior conditions. It
necessarily follows from these prior conditions that I have four apples.
However, the prior conditions did not have to obtain. The prior conditions
are contingent. This is why philosophers will distinguish conditional
necessity from absolute necessity. Absolute necessity is not dependent upon
some prior state of affairs. Instead, something is absolutely necessary if it
cannot be any other way. Examples of absolute necessity would be the
existence of God or mathematical propositions.
With this in mind, we can now state what a modal collapse is. A modal
collapse obtains when all modal statuses are collapsed into absolute
necessity.

two things here. First, I believe that much confusion has taken place in biblical studies due to
the fact that many assume that God is timeless, and that God created time. This, I posit, has
obscured the discussions within biblical studies over issues like creation. Second, a significant
literature is building that argues that the ideas of creation ex nihilo can be traced back to
biblical and second temple literature. Cf. Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, Creation Out
of Nothing: A Biblical, Philosophical, and Scientific Exploration (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2004). David
B. Burrell, Carlo Cogliati, Janet M. Soskice, and William R. Stoeger, Creation and the God of
Abraham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Markus Bockmuehl, “Creatio Ex
Nihilo in Palestinian Judaism and Early Christianity,” Scottish Journal of Theology 65 (2012).
Janet Martin Soskice, “Creation and the Glory of Creatures,” Modern Theology 29 (2013).
138Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism
If a modal collapse occurs, there is no contingency for everything is
absolutely necessary. The way things are is the way they must be. It is not
possible that things be any other way. Another way to state a modal collapse
is that there is only one possible world. The entire way the world is is the
only way the world can be. For example, you reading this sentence at this
time is absolutely necessary. There is no other way history could have
played out. It is not possible that you fail to read this sentence at this time.
What makes a modal collapse so terrible? There are many reasons for
thinking that a modal collapse is contrary to Christian theology, but I shall
only note three. First, contingency and freedom completely vanish.
Everything becomes necessary, so there is no such thing as free will.
Second, it denies that God is free over creation. He cannot exist without it.
He must create it. Third, any concept of divine grace is gutted of the very
meaning of grace. Grace is supposed to be a free gift from God that He did
not have to give. On a modal collapse, there is no such thing as grace
because everything must happen as it does in fact happen. There are no
other possibilities.
Does divine simplicity entail a modal collapse? Yes. There are multiple
ways to set up the modal collapse argument, and elsewhere I have defended
several ways to do this.47 Here, I shall articulate two ways. The simplest way
is as follows. On divine simplicity God’s essence is identical to His
existence. Also, God’s one simple act is identical to His essence/existence.
God’s act of creation is identical to this one simple act, and so identical to
God’s essence/existence. God exists of absolute necessity. So His act of
creation is of absolute necessity since it is identical to His
essence/existence.48
Thomists will be quick to respond by saying that creation only exists of
conditional necessity, but this is false. If God’s act of creation is of
conditional necessity, His act is not identical to His essence. This is so
because conditional necessity is not identical to absolute necessity. So if the
Thomist makes this move, she will be abandoning divine simplicity because
she will be forced to say that God’s act is not identical to God’s essence.
Since simplicity is part of the hard core of the timeless research program,
this is not a move open to the atemporalist.
Reformed theologians will reply to this modal collapse argument by
saying that God has distinct decrees with regard to creation. When one
considers the decrees of God from the perspective of eternity, the decrees
are actually identical to each other and so identical to God. However, when
one considers the decrees from the perspective of creation, the decrees are
distinct.49 The

47
R. T. Mullins, “Simply Impossible: A Case Against Divine Simplicity,” Journal of
Reformed Theology 7 (2013).
48
Thanks to Perry Robinson for pointing this argument out to me.
49
Steven J. Duby, “Divine Simplicity, Divine Freedom, and the Contingency of Creation:
Dogmatic Responses to Some Analytic Questions,” Journal of Reformed Theology 6 (2012).
 Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism139
decrees are not identical to each other, and so can have different modal
statuses. Since we have different modal statuses, we do not have a modal
collapse.
This reformed reply, however, fails. One can talk about God under the
perspective of eternity and under the perspective of creation, but all such
talk is a red herring because the eternal perspective is the true description of
reality on the divine timeless research program. God’s perspective, the
eternal per- spective, is what really matters because it is what describes the
way the world actually is. From God’s perspective, divine decrees are divine
actions. Given divine simplicity, all of God’s actions are identical to each
other such that there is one divine act. So there are no distinct divine decrees
for they are identical to each other and identical to the one divine act. This
one divine act is identical to the divine essence. The divine essence is
absolutely necessary, so anything identical to it will be absolutely necessary.
So the divine decree/one simple act is absolutely necessary. Thus, we have a
modal collapse.
There is a second way to set up the modal collapse argument that shows a
deeper incoherence within the divine timeless research program. It shows
that simplicity is incompatible with God’s freedom, aseity, and self-
sufficiency. This is not a good position to be in since these are all essential
components of the timeless research program. How does this argument go?
First, it should be recalled what aseity and self-sufficiency are. God exists a
se if and only if His existence is not dependent upon, nor derived from,
anything ad extra. God is self-sufficient if and only if the perfection of His
nature and action are not dependent upon, nor derived from, anything ad
extra.
Next, we need to understand a commitment within Christian thought with
regard to God’s freedom and creation. As discussed in the previous section,
the Christian tradition holds that God and creation are not co-eternal. The
Christian tradition also holds that God did not have to create the universe.
God was free to create or not create. As John Webster explains, “the triune
God could be without the world; no perfection of God would be lost, no
triune bliss compromised, were the world not to exist; no enhancement of
God is achieved by the world’s existence.”50 Note the connection here with
self-sufficiency—God’s perfect essence is not dependent upon His act of
creation. God is perfect in and of Himself.
Philoponus claims that it would be impious to say that God’s perfections
depend upon creation in any way. Philoponus takes it as a general principle
that things are perfect in themselves because of the powers that they neces-
sarily possess, and not by external relations things stand in, nor the activities
that they perform. With regard to God, Philoponus explains that “if God
cannot be perfect unless created things also exist, then his products will be

50
John Webster, “Trinity and Creation,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 12
(2010), 12.
140Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism
perfective of the producer himself. Such, then is the situation if perfection
has come to God not from his own substance but from outside.”51 This, says,
Philoponus, is most impious because God’s perfection cannot be dependent
upon creation, or any divine acts for that matter. This is an entailment from
self-sufficiency. Call this the Creation Principle (CP). (CP) can be stated as
follows.
(CP) (i) God is free to create or not create, and (ii) God’s essence is not
dependent upon His act of creation.
With this in mind, we can run a modal collapse argument that shows that
divine simplicity entails that (CP), aseity, and self-sufficiency are false.
Given divine simplicity, God is pure actuality. God has no unactualized
potential. This entails that there is no other way that God can be. Otherwise,
God would have unactualized potential. This entails that condition (i) of
(CP) is false. If God is free to create or not create, then He has unactualized
potential. So God must create in order to be purely actual.
Divine simplicity not only entails that God must create some universe of
some sort, it entails that God must create this universe. If God could create
this universe, but chose not to, God would have unactualized potential. So in
order to be pure act, God must create this universe. The same is true of any
other potential universes that God might be able to create. Say it is possible
to create a multiverse. Then God must create the multiverse. Otherwise, God
will have unactualized potential and not be pure act. For any possible
universe that God can create, He must create. Otherwise, God will have
unactualized potential. It is at this point that we have a modal collapse.
Anything that God might possibly be able to create or bring about, God
must create or bring about. Otherwise, God has unactualized potential. This
entails that there is only one way that the world can be—God actualizing all
possible states of affairs. In
other words, there is only one possible world.
It is the case that Christian theists have long maintained that God does not
have to perform all of the actions that He can possibly perform. Merely
pointing this out does nothing to assuage the problem. Pointing this out
only shows that there is a deep inconsistency in the history of Christian
thought since Christians held (CP) and the divine timeless research program.
It is the divine timeless research program that entails this modal collapse.
However, I have only argued that this entails a modal collapse and the
falsity of condition (i) of (CP). I still need to argue that the timeless research
program entails the falsity of condition (ii) of (CP), aseity, and self-
sufficiency. It is to this that I turn next.

51
Philoponus, Against Proclus 1–5, 66–8. Cf. Bonaventure, Il Sent. d.1, a.1,q.2. Aquinas,
Summa Contra Gentiles I.86.
 Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism141
As Rogers explains, God must create this world in order to be perfect. 52
Otherwise God would not be pure act, immutable, simple, or timeless. What
we have here in Rogers is a modal collapse. There is only one possible
world. “From the divine point of view things cannot be other than they in
fact are. It is only the temporal and limited point of view which allows
discussion of other possible worlds.” Since God’s perspective is the best
perspective, it is the right perspective.53 Things simply could not be any
other way. In fact, she holds this as an entailment of divine omniscience.
“The only actualizable world is the one which God eternally chooses
from the point of view of divine creativity,
taking into account that God responds to our free actions, the world which
God does make must always be known to Him as the only world He ‘can’
make.”54 In other words, from all eternity there is God and the four-
dimensional universe. We limited creatures could imagine different
scenarios and conceive of things differently, but these are not real
possibilities from God’s perspective, the best perspective.
Again, this is a straightforward modal collapse. Yet Rogers does not seem
to think that this is a problem for God’s aseity. Rogers holds that if “God
eternally wills to create this world, then necessarily He eternally wills to
create this world .. . There was never a point at which He chose to create
rather than not. From eternity He chooses to create.”55 For a simple God
“being” and “act” are identical. Thus, “given God’s nature He could not do
other than He does God does not have literal options, but since He exists
a se this is no
limitation on Him.”56 It is the case that there “are other imaginable worlds,
but the actual world, from God’s perspective in eternity, and allowing for the
input of free creaturely choice, is the only really possible world.”57
Is God’s aseity intact? No. In order to see this, we need to consider the
fact that God’s perfection is dependent upon His act of creation. Rogers
seems to be somewhat aware of the entailment. She writes,
From God’s perspective, if His essence is His eternal and immutable act in this
the actual and only really possible world then He could not fail to have any of
His attributes and still be Himself. They are equally necessary. That means that
we are forced to conclude that creatures do have some effect on God’s very
essence. This seems shocking since a major motivation for insisting on
simplicity is the absolute aseity of God. And now we have apparently arrived at
the conclusion that He is dependent on creatures!58

52
Rogers, The Anselmian Approach, 48.53 Rogers, The Anselmian Approach, 54.
54
Rogers, The Anselmian Approach, 68–9. Cf. Hugh J. McCann, Creation and the
Sovereignty of God (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012), 170.
55
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 33.56 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 34–5.
57
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 36.58 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 37.
142Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism
Why is God dependent on creatures? Rogers specifically has in mind the
libertarian freedom of created human persons. 59 Which possible world is
actualized is in part dependent on human acts. Ultimately which possible
world is actual is dependent upon God’s one act which is identical to God.
Part of that act includes the acts of human persons, so in this sense she says
God is dependent on creatures.
This may not be that terrible an entailment if God desires to create human
persons with free will. Most temporalists would agree. If God desires to
create persons with libertarian free will that in no way diminishes God’s
self- sufficiency or aseity. Of course, temporalists are also willing to say that
God is contingently the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. These are contingent
and accidental attributes that God freely takes on, and as such are not part of
God’s essential nature. On divine temporality, creation does have a
contingent effect on God, but it does not affect His essential nature. So His
self-sufficiency and aseity are intact.
Rogers cannot make the same move. Given divine simplicity God cannot
have any accidental properties. Can she say that God is contingently the
Creator? She cannot, given the atemporalist understanding of perfection. “If
originally He was not creating, and then He became a creator, He would
become better. And there’s a difference between intending to create and
creating, so if God goes from being someone who intends to create to being
someone who creates He’s changed for the better. But then He does not
possess perfection as a necessity of His nature.”60
This entails that God is essentially the Creator. Since God is pure act, and
all He does is done in one timeless act, He never becomes the Creator for He
is eternally the Creator. If Creator is an essential—not a contingent—divine
attribute, God must create something in order to be who He is. 61 On the type
of perfect being theology that Rogers is working with there are no value-
neutral potentialities or changes. All change is for the better or worse. If it is
possible for God to create, He must create. Otherwise He would not be pure
act because He would have unactualized potential. So, as pure act, God must
create in order to be who He is. His perfection is dependent upon His act of
creation. This violates condition (ii) of (CP).
(CP) is entailed by self-sufficiency. If (CP) is false, self-sufficiency is
false. The atemporalist says that God must be pure actuality in order to be
perfect. God is dependent upon creation in order to be pure actuality. So
God’s essential nature is dependent upon creation. If He did not create, He
would

59
Rogers, The Anselmian Approach, 48.
60
Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: the Presence of a Timeless God,” 10.
61
Rogers has pointed out to me that those of a Platonic bent will see this “must create” as
inevitably following from God’s perfect goodness and love. This seems to me to gut the
Christian claim that creation is a gracious act of God.
 Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism143
not be God—that is, He would not be pure act. That is not compatible with
God’s self-sufficiency. From here, it is a quick step to show that this is not
compatible with aseity as well. Given divine simplicity, God’s self-
sufficiency is identical to His aseity. So this is incompatible with God’s
aseity.

Begotten Not Made?

As already noted, on eternalism creation is co-eternal with God. One might

wonder what distinguishes the created universe from the only begotten Son.
The Father eternally causes the Son to exist and both are co-eternal. As
Gregory of Nyssa puts it in On Not Three Gods, “The principle of causality
distinguishes, then, the Persons of the holy Trinity. It affirms that the one is
uncaused, while the other depends on the cause.” The Father is uncaused,
and the Son is caused. As such, the Son depends upon the Father. Yet both
are co- eternal. On eternalism God eternally causes the universe to exist. As
such, the universe depends upon God. Yet both are co-eternal. What is the
difference between the two?
Historically, the pro-Nicene theologians distinguished between “begotten”
and “made.” The term “begotten” was intended to denote “that which has a
cause or source outside itself.” This causal source could be a something, or
in the case of the Trinity, someone. This need not involve the begotten thing
coming into existence. The term “created” or “made,” however, was intended
to denote “that which has come into being.”62 The difference between
begotten and made, then, is supposed to be that the Son never came into
existence. The Son is caused to exist, but He never began to exist. The
universe is caused to exist, but it did begin to exist. The Son has always
existed, but the universe has not always existed.
As I have argued in earlier chapters, classical Christian theology was
committed to presentism. The difference between things that are begotten
and made is that things that are made are subject to temporal becoming.
They did not exist, and then they come into existence. On eternalism there is
no temporal becoming. Nothing comes into existence because everything
eter- nally exists at the times at which they exist. We now have nothing to
distinguish begotten and made. This is not a good position to be in if one
holds to the eternal generation of the Son. Things are even worse when one
considers the modal collapse. God the Father must cause the Son and the
universe to exist in order to be who He is. So there seems to be no difference
between generating the Son and creating the universe.

62
Alasdair I. C. Heron, “Homoousios with the Father,” in ed. Thomas F. Torrance, The
Incarnation: Ecumenical Studies in Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed A.D. 381 (Edinburgh:
Handsel, 1981), 60–1.
144Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism
There is a possible rejoinder. One could reject the doctrine of eternal
generation. The temporalist John Feinberg has argued that eternal generation
is not a biblical doctrine.63 One does not need it in order to be a Trinitarian.
It seems obvious to me that an atemporalist could make the same move. In
fact, the atemporalist Paul Helm suggests this move as a way of avoiding
Arian- ism.64 So the difficulty that I have laid out is only a problem for those
who wish to affirm the doctrine of eternal generation as it is stated in the
Nicene Creed.

The Threat of Pantheism

The nominalistic notion that God is a being of absolute simplicity, and

that in his nature there is no internal distinction of qualities or powers,
tends directly to pantheism; denies all reality of the divine perfections;
or, if these in any sense still exist, precludes all knowledge of them on
the part of finite beings. To say that knowledge and power, eternity, and
holiness, are identical with the essence of God and with each other, is to
deny that we know God at all.
—Augustus Hopkins Strong65
One might have noticed that there is more polemical bite to Strong’s
statement than a substantive argument. However, there is a long tradition of
pantheist arguments that seek to establish that classical theism entails
pantheism.66 In light of this, it is interesting to note that Rogers’ account of
simplicity and creation looks strikingly like a form of pantheism when one
considers her stance on theistic idealism. Rogers does not want to align
herself with pan- theism given her commitment to perfect being theology.
Creation, she says, does not add anything to the being of God.67
She makes claims that try to distinguish creatures from the Creator. In
articulating her form of theistic idealism she says,
To be an idea of God’s is not to be God or ‘part of ’ God. As long as we
maintain a distinction between the act of thinking and the object thought, we
can hold that created things just are what God thinks and wills to exist in His
one, perfect act which is identical to His nature, and yet that the objects of
divine thought are not identical to that thought itself and hence are not God.68

63
Feinberg, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2006),
489–92.
64
Paul Helm, The Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time, 2nd Edition (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2010), 286.
65
Strong, Systematic Theology Volume 1: The Doctrine of God (Philadelphia, PA: American
Baptist Publication Society, 1907), 244.
66
William J. Mander, “Omniscience and Pantheism,” The Heythrop Journal 41 (2000), 199.
67
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 113.68 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 111.
 Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism145
Perhaps it is coherent to maintain the distinction between Creator and
creature, but I find it difficult to do so given her account of simplicity and
idealism. If “there is nothing more to a creature than what God is thinking”
and God’s thoughts are identical to His nature,69 how is it not the case that
creatures are identical to God’s nature? Further, if God’s nature is identical
to God Himself, how is it not the case that creatures are identical to God?
It is illuminating to see Don Lodzinski’s defense of divine timelessness,
immutability, and simplicity.70 He concurs with Rogers that four-
dimensional eternalism is needed to maintain timelessness. Also, he agrees
that creation is co-eternal with God, and that creation is the product of God’s
one eternal thought. Yet he thinks that all of this clearly entails pantheism.
What is the difference between Rogers and Lodzinski? Why does one deny
pantheism and the other willingly embrace it? There is a move that Rogers
makes that Lodzinski does not.
Rogers attempts to avoid pantheism by placing God on a different onto-
logical level. In earlier writings she holds that there are three ontological
levels, yet in later writings the third one seems to have disappeared. The big
idea is that God is on one ontological level. Everything that exists apart
from God are divine ideas, or reflects the divine ideas, and are thus on a
second ontological level. As created beings our ideas are copies of the
divine ideas and are thus inferior. They exist on a third ontological level.71
I must confess that I do not understand the notion of different ontological
levels. It seems to me that existence does not admit of degrees. Granted,
God exists necessarily and creatures exist contingently. The modality of
each is different, but existence is basic and univocal. Existence is not the
sort of thing that could admit of degrees. Any claims to the effect that some
thing X has “more existence” than some thing Y is built upon a more
fundamental assumption that each in fact exists simpliciter. So the notion of
“more exist- ence” seems to me to be nothing but a poor choice of words, or
an unintuitive concept.
However, I don’t think Rogers needs this notion of different ontological
levels to ward off pantheism. She just needs to be able to distinguish divine
thoughts from the divine mind. In order to make her position clear she asks
us to consider our own minds. In our own minds we can distinguish between
our mind and our thoughts. In an analogous way, she says, we can
distinguish between the divine mind and His thought (which is creation).
“We must distinguish the ontological level of the mind where the thinking
goes on, and the ontological level of the ideas sustained by the thinking.
The process

69
Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 109.
70
Don Lodzinski, “The Eternal Act,” Religious Studies 34 (1998), 325–52. Cf. John Leslie,
Infinite Minds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
71
Rogers, The Anselmian Approach, 230 and 238.
146Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism
of thinking is not exactly the same thing as the idea which exists as the
object of thought. .. . The mind is not just the same thing as its ideas and
vice versa.”72
This move does appear to be intuitive. Our minds are not identical to our
thoughts. Say I am at a restaurant and have to figure out how much to tip the
server. This puts me in the awkward position of having to do math in my
head. My mind clearly exists before I engage in the mathematical thought
process, and it continues to exist once I have ceased to think about the tip.
My mind is not identical to my thought about the tip.
Is this a good analogy for thinking about God’s mind? Not if God is
simple. My thoughts are not identical to who I am. They are things I do, but
not things I am. With the simple God, His thought is identical to His
essence. God just is His act of thinking. If God were not simple, immutable,
and timeless this analogy would be apt, but it cannot help Rogers. She will
need to come up with something else to defend her notion of different
ontological levels. As it stands, it is not clear how her theistic idealism
avoids pantheism.

What Perfections Can Be Derived From Four-Dimensionalism?

Earlier I noted that Rogers and Mawson wished to move from divine perfec-
tions to the metaphysics of time. For them, the correct metaphysics of time
is four-dimensional eternalism. Earlier, I also noted that this is going about
perfect being theology in the wrong order. As discussed in Chapter 3, the
method of perfect being theology starts with the assumption that God can be
known from the perfections found in creatures. If the universe is a four-
dimensional spacetime manifold and creatures are perdurant objects, what
perfections can be derived from this? It does not appear to be anything like
divine atemporality, simplicity, or immutability.
If creatures are perdurant beings it would seem that the perfection to be
derived would be divine perdurantism. One certainly cannot derive the per-
fection of infinite endurance from perdurant creatures. The argument from
the radical incompleteness of life assumes that creatures are endurant beings
— they exist as a whole or all at once. It further assumes that enduring
through time is better than not. The next move is to predicate that endurance
through time can be had to an infinite degree. Hence, God has infinite
duration, or endures without beginning or end. The next step is to try to
argue that it is better to be without a before and after than to have a before
and after in one’s life. As noted in previous chapters, this is where divine
simplicity comes into play. In particular, the claim that conceptual
distinctions do not apply to God.

72
Rogers, The Anselmian Approach, 239–40.
 Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism147
This is the point where the argument gets a bit fuzzy and makes some odd
jumps, but the end result is supposed to be a God who exists all at once in a
timeless present that lacks a before and after.
If human persons are perdurant beings, the argument will look different. It
will have to assume that perduring through time is better than not. The
question will then be, can perdurance through time be had to an infinite
degree? Let us say that it can be. In that case God would have an infinite
perdurance which means that He would have an infinite number of temporal
parts or stages. If God has temporal parts, He is not simple, immutable, or
timeless. No defender of the traditional view of God will take delight in this
entailment. Assuming eternalism and perdurantism does not lead to divine
timelessness. It leads to a perdurant God, and a perdurant God is a temporal
God.
There is a further problem in assuming four-dimensional eternalism. The
argument from the radical incompleteness of life not only assumes endurant-
ism, it also assumes presentism. The life of creatures is transitory precisely
because creatures lose moments of their lives as the present moment slips
into the non-existent past, and they do not yet possess the non-existent
future moments of their lives. The argument hinges on presentism and
endurantism. If one rejects these metaphysical doctrines, she is cutting
herself off from one of the main arguments for divine timelessness.
Four-dimensional eternalism will not get the job done. On Rogers’ account
God is eternally creating and sustaining the four-dimensional spacetime
mani- fold. There never was a moment when God existed and the universe
did not. The universe simply is not transitory on this view. Setting aside the
modal collapse, one can say that the universe is contingent because its’
existence depends upon God, but it is co-eternal with God. So there is
nothing transitory about creation. Bringing the modal collapse back into
consideration, the universe is not possibly transitory for it exists necessarily.
It would seem that Rogers has cut herself off from one of the main
arguments for divine timelessness.

FOUR-DIMENSIONAL ETERNALISM
DOES NOT SAVE DIVINE TIMELESSNESS

Many defenders of divine temporality have claimed that the only way to
maintain divine timelessness is to hold to four-dimensional eternalism.
Atem- poralists like Paul Helm, Mawson, and Rogers agree. However, I
must disagree for it seems that God would still be temporal even if four-
dimensional etern- alism were true. God would be temporal in the way that a
four-dimensionalist understands time.
It seems to me that the reason that contemporary philosophical
theologians have claimed that four-dimensional eternalism is compatible
with divine
148Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism
atemporality stems from the notion that this view of time involves an
unchan- ging reality. On presentism it is obvious that the world is constantly
changing. If God is sustaining this constantly changing world He cannot be
immutable for He can only sustain objects that exist at the ever changing
present moment. On four-dimensional eternalism it might appear that the
world is unchanging since all moments of space and time have equal
ontological existence, and the flow of time is said to be illusory. As such,
God can sustain the universe in one eternal and immutable act.
The problem is that this is a false understanding of this theory of time. As
Nathan Oaklander explains, “The rock-bottom feature of time that must be
accepted on all sides is that there is change, and the different views
concerning the nature of change constitute the difference between A- and B-
theories of time.”73 One will recall from Chapter 2 that philosophers used to
think that the A-theory corresponded to presentism, and that the B-theory
corresponded to eternalism. In Chapter 2 I pointed out that this is no longer
the case. What matters for my purpose here is that Oaklander is stating that
presentism and eternalism both agree that the temporal world involves
change. As the four- dimensional eternalist, Theodore Sider, puts it, “What
is certain is that things persist, somehow, that things change, somehow, and
that things have proper- ties at times, somehow.”74
The eternalist does not deny that the world involves change. Instead, she
holds to a different understanding of change—that is, the four-dimensionalist
doctrine of temporal parts. Things change by having different successive
temporal parts with different properties at different successive times. 75 The
world involves change from one moment of time to the next. Perdurantism is
the way eternalists typically explain how an object changes over time without
having contradictory temporary intrinsic properties. Though, others adopt
stage theory instead. Either way, on four-dimensional eternalism, God is
sustaining a changing universe. To hold to four-dimensional eternalism is not
to hold to a changeless universe.
In this section I wish to lay out several reasons for thinking that four-
dimensional eternalism does not save divine timelessness.

The Timeless God Exists at Every Time

Mawson’s account of divine timelessness falls into divine temporality. God,

on his construal, is temporal as understood on four-dimensionalism. This is
not

73
Nathan Oaklander, The Ontology of Time (New York: Prometheus Books, 2004), 39.
Emphasis in the original.
74
Theodore Sider, Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001), 215.
75
Sider, Four-Dimensionalism, 2–5.
 Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism149
intentional. He does attempt to distinguish his account from divine tempor-
ality. I will argue that he does not succeed.
On his model, much like Anselm’s, God’s relation to time is directly
parallel to God’s relation to space. “God is not located at any particular point
in time, in the sense that he exists then but not at other times. Rather, he
transcends time. Despite his temporal transcendence, he is not absent from
any time.”76 He notes that the temporalist will agree with this assessment,
and as such he has not clearly distinguished timelessness from temporality.
What distin- guishes the two positions? “The answer is that the atemporalist
believes that if God had not created a universe, he would have existed at no
time for there wouldn’t have been time, whereas the temporalist believes that
even if God had not created the universe, he would have existed at times,
indeed at all times, for there would still have been time.”77
At this point, the divine temporalist will argue that to exist at a time is
sufficient to be in time.78 Thus, Mawson’s account does not give us divine
timelessness. If God exists at any time, He must be temporal. An Anselmian
will say that God exists at all times and places.79 On the Anselmian view this
means that God is causally related to each moment of time. He exists at
those times. If He did not, those times would not exist. This, says Mawson,
is sufficient for God to exist at every time. “It is a sufficient condition of
one’s being at a particular time that one knows what is going on at that time
directly, without first needing to do something at some other time, and that
one can act directly at that time, that is without first needing to do something
at some other time.”80 The temporalist will argue that this is also a sufficient
condition for existing in time.
Mawson will disagree for three reasons. First, his appeal, again, is that if
God had not created the temporal world He would not exist at any time.81
This fails to distinguish Mawson’s divine atemporalism from William Lane
Craig’s divine temporality. On Craig’s view, God is timeless sans creation,
but tem- poral with creation. So no advancement has been made toward
distinguishing Mawson’s view from divine temporality.
Second, this is irrelevant since God has in fact created a temporal world
and exists at every time. On the picture of the God–world relationship under
examination here, God and the universe are co-eternal. There is never a state
of affairs where God exists without creation. Further, divine simplicity
forces the atemporalist to say that this is the only possible world. If this is
right, there is no possible world where God exists without the temporal
universe.

76
Mawson, Belief in God, 49.77 Mawson, Belief in God, 49.
78
Nicholas Wolterstorff, “God and Time,” Philosophia Christi 2, (2000), 8. This is why
Paul Helm, in his defense of timelessness, claims that God cannot stand in any temporal
relations, not even simultaneity. Helm, The Eternal God, 27.
79
Anselm, Monologion, 22.80 Mawson, Belief in God, 50.
81
Mawson, Belief in God, 50. Also, “God’s Body,” 180.
150Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism
There is no possible world where God does not exist at all times. Recall
again that Mawson’s claim is that God is atemporal because God could
possibly exist without time. It seems that the divine timeless research
program cannot say that God could possibly exist without time. So, again,
no advancement has been made to distinguish divine timelessness from
divine temporality.
Third, Mawson claims, like Anselm, that existing at every time is not
sufficient for existing in time.82 He gives us no hint as to how this is the
case. Thus, we have no reason to think this claim is true. In fact, this is a
general problem for atemporalists. There is a widespread assumption
amongst atemporalists that there is a clear distinction between existing at a
time and existing in time, or between existing with a time and in time. As
Rory Fox points out, this distinction was taken to be obvious throughout
the Middle Ages, but was left vague and largely unexplored. For instance,
Fox notes that Aquinas was willing to concede that angels who exist with
time must be in time. However, Aquinas was not willing to concede this
with respect to God.83 If the at time and in time distinction fails with regard
to angels, why does it succeed with regard to God? The answer seems to
be that the distinction is obvious with regard to God. However, I do not find
this distinction obvious. I dare say it is empty. To exist at a time is to have
temporal location. To exist in time is to have temporal location. Having
temporal location makes one
temporal. What is the difference between at and in?
The atemporalist wants to draw the distinction by saying that eternity
contains time in that “God is the source of each temporal instant. He is not
contained in any of the temporal instants, but is directly, causally and cogni-
tively related to each and every one of them equally.”84 The temporalist
agrees, but she understands eternity as metaphysical time as outlined in
Chapter 2. So, once again, the atemporalist has failed to distinguish herself
from divine temporality.
How can the atemporalist distinguish herself from the temporalist? What
metaphysic of time makes this distinction between at and in time
intelligible? I don’t know. If the absolute theory of time is true, time can
exist without change. There is no distinction between existing at a time and
existing in time. Nothing can be timeless if the absolute theory of time is
true for it is a necessary concomitant of God’s existence. Several divine
temporalists will be happy with this, but it will not help divine timelessness.
If a relational theory of time is true, time is just change. There is no
meaningful sense in which an object exists at a change but not in a change.
An object persists through change by either enduring or perduring. An
object either does or does not

82
Mawson, Belief in God, 50.
83
Rory Fox, Time and Eternity in Mid-Thirteenth-Century Thought (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006), 311 and 324–7.
84
Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: the Presence of a Timeless God,” 8.
 Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism151
change. The atemporalist will say that God does not change intrinsically or
extrinsically. Later in this chapter I will argue that this is not possible. For
now I will simply note that this does not make the at-in distinction
intelligible.
What seems to be going on with the at-in distinction is a strong analogy
between space and time. Yet even an ardent four-dimensional eternalist, like
Theodore Sider, will note that space and time have clear distinct qualities
despite being strongly analogous. “Unlike time, space has three dimensions
and lacks a distinguished direction; unlike space, time seems to be specially
connected with causation.”85 The at-in distinction assumes that time is like a
container, but time just is not the sort of thing that could be a container.86 It
is not enough like a physical object to be described literally in this manner. 87
Granted, temporalists do speak of God existing in time, but as I pointed out
in Chapter 2 this is a non-literal way of saying that God is temporal.
One way that might make the at-in distinction work is to say that time is
created by God. God cannot be bound by created things. Does this help? No,
and for two reasons. First, it isn’t obvious that time was created. For
instance, John of Damascus held to the notion of a period of indivisible time
prior to creation. The atemporalist needs to offer a reason for thinking that
time was created. As discussed in Chapter 2, the Bible will be of no help
here, so the atemporalist will have to look elsewhere for reasons. Augustine
posits that God created time to avoid the question, “Why did God not create
sooner?”88 It is an ad hoc move that one need not accept. 89 One will need
independent justification for making this claim. One could offer a kalam
argument to the conclusion that time had a beginning. However, this
would get us to the conclusion that there was a first change, or first event,
which is consistent with John of Damascus’ position. It cannot get us to the
conclusion that time began. One will need another argument for that
conclusion.
Second, say that time is created. Time is either relational or absolute. No
progress has been made over the previously mentioned difficulties by
making time a created thing. The atemporalist needs to explain, without
appealing to

85
Sider, Four-Dimensionalism, 87.
86
Lesley-Anne Dyer, “Transcendent and Immanent Eternity in Anselm’s Monologion,”
Filosophia Unisinos 11 (2010), 275–8. Dyer notes the difficulties surrounding the metaphor of
time as a container.
87
On the absolute theory of time one can describe time as a container in a very loose sense.
As already noted, this does not help the atemporalist.
88
Augustine, Confessions XI.13. Maximus the Confessor simply declares that we are not
allowed to ask that question. 400 Chapters on Love 4.3–5.
89
If the temporalist is bothered by the question she has several moves she can make. See
Thomas Senor, “Divine Temporality and Creation ex Nihilo” Faith and Philosophy 10 (1993).
Also, Dean Zimmerman, “God Inside Time and Before Creation,” in eds. Gregory E. Ganssle
and David M. Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002).
152Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism
excessive metaphors and ineffable mysteries, why time being created helps
make the at-in distinction intelligible.
So where does this leave us? Recall from Chapter 3 that one of the condi-
tions for divine timelessness is that God does not have temporal location. As
it stands, the timeless God under consideration here exists at every time and
thus has temporal location. That is sufficient for God to be temporal.

The Arguments against Timelessness Work on Eternalism

To bolster this conclusion it is worthy of note that some of the arguments

against divine timelessness work on presentism and four-dimensional etern-
alism. John Duns Scotus argued against Thomism that God cannot be co-
present, or immense, with an event unless that event exists. 90 In other words,
God cannot be equally co-present with all moments of time because
moments of time only exist at the times at which they do. Scotus was
assuming presentism, so his claim is that God can only be co-present with
the present moment. God cannot be co-present with any other moments
because those other moments simply do not exist on presentism. However,
Brian Leftow suggests that the same argument could work on eternalism.91
On four-dimensional eternalism, objects are constituted of temporal parts
or stages. Stages only exist at the moments at which they exist. Some object
O has stages at times t1 through tn. It simply is the case that those stages exist
at those times and no others. The whole notion of perdurant objects and
stages arises because endurant objects cannot exist at multiple times as the
four- dimensionalist sees it. Since all moments of time have equal
ontological existence an endurant object would exist wholly at several times
and would thus have contradictory properties. Say O exists as a whole at t1
through t2. At t1 O is blue all over and at t2 O is red all over. Since O exists
as a whole at both times the properties of each time fall within O’s quantifier
domain. O has the properties blue all over and red all over. O has
contradictory properties. The adoption of temporal parts removes the
contradictory properties.
What does this have to do with God and time? If God is immense, or
equally present, to all moments of time as the eternalist sees it, God will
have contradictory properties. From all eternity God is incarnate and not
incarnate. From all eternity God is initiating the Mosaic Covenant and He is
not. Since God is equally and wholly present to each moment of time, and
since each moment of time has equal ontological existence, all of these
properties are within the quantifier domain in that all of these properties can
be predicated of

90
Scotus, Contingency and Freedom: Lectura I 39 (London: Kluwer Academic Publishers,
1994), 174.
91
Brian Leftow, Time and Eternity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 229.
 Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism153
God. In order to remove the contradiction one would have to adopt divine
temporal parts so that she could say that <at time tn God is incarnate> and
<at time tx God is not incarnate>. Again, no defender of divine simplicity
will accept that for God literally has temporal parts. If God has temporal
parts, He is not timeless.
Rogers may have a rejoinder. In one place she writes, “Although God is
‘timeless’ in that His life is not stretched out four-dimensionally across time
as our lives are, it does not follow that He is incapable of being related to the
temporal universe God knows and acts causally upon all of space-time in
one, eternal, act.” Here she is clearly denying that God is spread out through
the spacetime manifold. Yet God is still causally related to each moment of
time. He is “the source of each temporal instant.”92 God is the source of each
instant by being cognitively and causally related to each instant. Does this
help? No. A simple God is identical to His cognition and His cognition is
temporally spread out. Thus, God is temporally spread out. His act of
causing t1 to exist only exists at t1 and not at t2.
There is one way to avoid this conclusion, but the atemporalist will not
like it.93 The atemporalist could appeal to a claim that she is already
committed to: all of time is simultaneously present to God. All of time is
simultaneous with eternity. Time t1 is simultaneous with eternity. Time t 2 is
simultaneous with eternity. Thus, t1 is simultaneous with t2. This has the
advantage of clearly making God’s causal activity one single act. Of course,
it has the high price of collapsing the chronology of time and thus
destroying eternalism. As I said before, this avoids the problem, but the
atemporalist will not like it.
There is another argument worth considering that comes from Dean
Zimmerman and Roderick M. Chisholm. Their argument explicitly endorses
presentism, but I believe that it works on eternalism as well. One of the
starting points for the argument is that God stands in real relations to
creation. As noted before, Rogers has no taste for the medieval denial of
God’s real relation to creation. Zimmerman and Chisholm argue that if God
stands in a relation with temporal entities He too must be temporal. “If
anything changes, then everything changes. If you change from the state of
sitting to the state of standing, then each of us becomes such that you change
from the state of sitting to the state of standing. And so does God.”94

92
Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: The Presence of a Timeless God,” 8.
93
Leftow suggests another option in Time and Eternity, 230–5. Drawing on an analogy
from STR he says that times are co-present to God in His eternal reference frame. On one
interpret- ation of this he will be subject to the aforementioned argument. God’s reference
frame will be the preferred reference frame, and thus the one that defines absolute
simultaneity. On another interpretation this amounts to the claim that all objects have two
modes of existence: an eternal and a temporal mode. I am in agreement with Rogers in that I
cannot make sense of this. See Rogers, “Back to Eternalism,” 324.
94
Roderick M. Chisholm and Dean Zimmerman, “Theology and Tense,” Nous 31:2 (1997): 264.
154Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism
What Zimmerman and Chisholm are describing are Cambridge changes.
A Cambridge change is a relational, or extrinsic, change. It is not the same
thing as an intrinsic change. If person P decides to perform some action a,
and then performs a, P will have undergone an intrinsic change. If a red
apple turns brown it has undergone an intrinsic change. A Cambridge
change is different because it does not involve a change in something
intrinsic to the subject. Allow me to illustrate. At the moment I am typing
this from my flat which is south of the Cambridge Faculty of Divinity. Say
that I later walk north of the faculty building. The Faculty of Divinity
building has not undergone an intrinsic change throughout this process. It
has only undergone a mere Cambridge change. It has gone from being
“North of Ryan” to being “South of Ryan.”
What does this have to do with God and time? Zimmerman and Chisholm
are arguing that a subject that has undergone a Cambridge change is in time.
The building was standing in a relation to me at t 1 and then was standing in a
new relation at t2. God is eternally sustaining both of those times. He stands
in a real relation to this Cambridge change. It would seem that God would
be subject to a Cambridge change as well since He is really related to both
times. If God undergoes a mere Cambridge change, He is temporal.
One could try to get out of this by denying that Cambridge changes
should even count as changes at all.95 I find this less than persuasive since
Cambridge changes are enough to change the truth-value of propositions
about other subjects. One will need to offer an argument as to why they are
not legitimate changes. Ultimately, that does not matter since Christian
theology proclaims that God stands in several types of relations with
creation that are far more significant than mere Cambridge change. He
created and sustains the world. The world is causally dependent upon Him,
so the world is in a dependency relation with God at each moment of its
existence. Also, God through Christ and the Holy Spirit stands in an
intimate loving relationship with human persons. These are not mere
Cambridge changes.
Anything related to a time is in time. Anything related to a change is also
changed. Four-dimensional eternalism is a theory about time and change.
Time and change are part of the furniture of the world. God is really related
to a temporal and changing world, as understood on four-dimensional
eternal- ism, so God is temporal as understood on four-dimensional
eternalism. This brings us back to a God with temporal parts.
Thinkers like Rogers and Mawson could avoid this by denying that God is
really related to creation, but then they would run into all of the problems
discussed in Chapter 5. As already noted, Rogers thinks that the denial of
real relations is untenable, so it is best to look for another way out.

95
Leftow, “Eternity and Immutability” in ed. William E. Mann, The Blackwell Guide to the
Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005).
 Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism155
In Chapter 2 it was noted that the problem of temporary intrinsics motiv-
ates the doctrine of temporal parts. The idea is that endurantism is not
compatible with eternalism. What I did not discuss in detail is that there are
philosophers who hold that endurantism is compatible with eternalism. In
other words, they think that the problem of temporary intrinsics does not
motivate the doctrine of temporal parts. The atemporalist might be tempted
to say that whatever solution the endurantist uses to avoid temporal parts can
be invoked to avoid God having temporal parts. The timeless God can exist
as a whole, all at once. As tempting as this might be, I doubt that it will be a
fruitful endeavor. This is because the solutions assume that the endurant
object is temporal, and has temporal properties. The typical ways of
removing the problem of temporary intrinsics whilst maintaining
endurantism involve modifying the temporal properties that the endurant
object possesses. If the atemporalist tries to do the same, she will still have a
God with temporal properties that is temporally located. That is a temporal
God, and not a timeless God.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

In Chapter 5 I argued that the traditional view of divine atemporality is not

possible given presentism. Here I examined a contemporary account of
divine timelessness that assumes eternalism. I have argued that this account
fails to maintain divine timelessness as well. Katherin Rogers has said that
unless divine timelessness “entails some logical or metaphysical
impossibility” Chris- tians ought to hold to this doctrine since it expresses
“the most ontologically perfect way to exist.”96 What I am positing is that
divine timelessness is metaphysically impossible given that God has created
a temporal universe.97 It does not matter which theory of time one holds. We
know that God has created a temporal universe and that He causally sustains
this universe and interacts in it, and as such God must be temporal.

96
Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: the Presence of a Timeless God,” 11–12.
97
At the very least, one could posit that we currently do not know how divine timelessness
could be metaphysically possible given that God has created a temporal world.
 7

The Incarnation of the Timeless God

Formerly he was not man, but only God the Son, before all ages, uncon-
nected with a body or anything corporeal; but at last he became man
also, assuming manhood for our salvation; passible in the flesh,
impassible in the Godhead; limited in the body, unconfined in the spirit;
on the earth and at the same time in heaven; belonging to the visible
world, and also to the intelligible order of being; comprehensible and
also incomprehen- sible; so that man as a whole, since he had fallen into
sin, might be fashioned afresh by one who was wholly man and at the
same time God.
—Gregory of Nazianzus1
It is often said that the incarnation conflicts with divine timelessness, though
this is seldom fleshed out in the contemporary discussions. The intent of this
chapter is to find a way for the incarnation to be compatible with divine
timelessness. I shall argue that the traditional doctrine of the incarnation is
not compatible with the divine timeless research program. First, we need to
get a clear statement of the conflict. Then we need to find a model that is
possibly compatible with timelessness. I shall examine Christological
models that arise out of the ecumenical councils of the Church, as well as
the so-called Christo- logical deposit. The ecumenical councils do not arise
in a vacuum, and are not intended to be interpreted in whichever way the
contemporary Christian theologian or philosopher desires. The
Christological deposit, as I shall call it, comprises the teachings of the
councils, the official creeds and formulas that develop out of these councils,
the documents that are attached to the creeds by the councils, and the
theological doctrines that the early Church fathers argue are standing
behind, in, and with the creeds. Throughout this chapter I shall refer to the
ecumenical councils and the Christological deposit as “ecumenical
Christology” or “classical Christian Christology.” The upshot for the divine
timeless research program is that ecumenical Christology assumed the
divine timeless research program as it developed the classical Christian
doctrine of the incarnation. On the face of it, this seems favorable for

1
Epistle 101.4–7, 10.
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God157
the atemporalist. However, I shall argue that there are no existent incarna-
tional models that are compatible with the divine timeless research program
and an ecumenical Christology. Since the incarnation is part of the hardcore
of every Christian research program, it is a non-negotiable doctrine. Divine
timelessness does not have the same status as the doctrine of the incarnation.
As such, Christians should give up the divine timeless research program in
order to maintain the incarnation.

THE INITIAL OBJECTION

It should be recalled that all one needs is a change, any kind of change, in
order to have time. Any kind of change that a being undergoes will be
sufficient for that being to be temporal as it will create a before and after in
the life of that being. The incarnation seems to be a clear example of God
the Son undergoing a change, and thus being temporal. As Colin Gunton
puts it, in the incarnation “the eternal love of God locates itself in time and
space, and so becomes datable.”2 T. F. Torrance puts the matter even more
boldly.
the assumptio carnis also means that the eternal God, without ceasing to be
eternal, has taken temporal form, as well as creaturely existence. God has
assumed our time into union with himself, without abrogating it. He the
eternal has become temporal for us in the form of our own temporal and
historical existence, not simply by embracing our time and historical exist-
ence and ruling it, but by permitting time and our historical existence to be
the form of his eternal deity. Thus he is not only accessible to us in time and
history, but we in time and history are free to approach the eternal and to live
with him.3
As provocative as Torrance’s claim is, Christians have traditionally wished
to resist the notion that the incarnation entails that God is temporal. In
speaking of the incarnate Christ, Pope Leo I says that “while continuing to
be beyond time, he begins to exist from a point in time.”4 This appears to be,
at best, highly paradoxical, and at worst, a complete contradiction.
It is not surprising that the doctrine of the incarnation was theologically
offensive in the ancient world. The notion that the immutable God could
change was an offense against His perfection. The suggestion that the
timeless

2
Colin E. Gunton, Yesterday and Today, 2nd Edition (London: SPCK, 1997), 134.
3
Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 2008), 66.
4
Pope Leo I in ed. Richard Norris, The Christological Controversy (Philadelphia, PA:
Fortress Press, 1980), 149.
158The Incarnation of the Timeless God
God could enter into time—let alone be aware of what is happening in time
— was taken as an assault on the most exalted being. It was an uphill
struggle for early Christians to establish the intellectual credibility of the
incarnation because it suggested that the impassible God suffered death on a
cross. In fact, many of the early Christological heresies were motivated by
the prima facie incompatibility of divine timelessness, immutability,
impassibility, and the incarnation.5
As Christianity became the dominant religion in the West, the critics did
not go away. Christian theologians continued to feel compelled to answer
objections against the compatibility of God’s perfection and the incarnation. 6
A common objection was that it is unfitting for God to become anything
which He was not eternally. The incarnation is a new event in history, it is
not eternal. As such, God cannot have become incarnate at some point in
history.7
These objections were common because it was assumed that God is atem-
poral. The incarnation was on trial before the bar of the classical understand-
ing of divine perfection. In our own day the objections usually run in the
other direction. The classical understanding of the divine perfections is
placed on trial before the bar of God incarnate. This is as it should be if we
truly believe that the incarnation is the ultimate revelation of God to human
persons.8 The incarnation should force us to reconsider what God is like.9
There are several ways of articulating the objection in the contemporary
literature. Thomas Senor puts it like this.10
(1) Jesus Christ was the bearer of temporal properties.
(2) No bearer of temporal properties is atemporal.
(3) Jesus Christ=God the Son (a divine person).
(∴4) God the Son is not atemporal.

5
David Bentley Hart, “No Shadow of Turning: On Divine Impassibility,” Pro Ecclesia 11
(2002). See also the “Deposition of Arius” in ed. Philip Schaff, A Select Library of the Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, Volume 4: Athanasius:
Select Works and Letters (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), 271–9.
6
E.g. Origen, Against Celsus. Athanasius, Against the Pagans: On the Incarnation.
Gregory of Nyssa, On Religious Instruction. Anselm, Cur Deus Homo.
7
G. R. Evans, Philosophy and Theology in the Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 1993), 97.
8
Richard A. Holland Jr., God, Time, and the Incarnation (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock,
2012), ch. 2.
9
Alan Torrance, “Does God Suffer? Incarnation and Impassibility,” in eds. Trevor A. Hart
and Daniel P. Thimell, Christ in Our Place: The Humanity of God in Christ for the
Reconciliation of the World (Exeter: The Paternoster Press, 1989), 352.
10
Thomas D. Senor, “Incarnation, Timelessness, and Leibniz’s Law Problems,” in eds.
Gregory E. Ganssle and David M. Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 220.
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God159
Brian Leftow strengthens Senor’s argument as follows, displaying a clear
understanding of the role change plays in the argument: 11
(5) Jesus Christ existed in time.
(6) Jesus Christ=God the Son.
(7) God the Son existed in time.
(8) God the Son began to be human.
(9) Whatever begins to be human changes intrinsically.
(10) God the Son changed intrinsically.
(11) Whatever changes intrinsically exists in
time. (∴12) God the Son exists in time.
Senor notes that his argument does not necessarily entail that the entire
Godhead is temporal. “It does follow, however, that there exists a temporal
divine being and, a fortiori, atemporality is not essential for divinity.”12
Senor’s modesty here ignores some important issues in Trinitarian theology
—that is, the doctrine of homoousios. The homoousios doctrine states that
all of the divine persons share the same essence. If the Son is temporal
whilst the Father and Holy Spirit are atemporal, they will not be
homoousios.
The temporality of the incarnation is a serious threat to divine
timelessness. “If God is timelessly eternal, then there can be no time at
which the Word of God can be said to do or become anything.”13 This would
seem to make it impossible for a timeless God to become incarnate, but the
incarnation is an essential part of any Christian research program. The
atemporalist needs to

11
Brian Leftow, “A Timeless God Incarnate,” in eds. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and
Gerald O’Collins, The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the
Son of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). One will notice that I do not engage
Leftow here. I have chosen not to do so for several reasons. First, on Leftow’s model, God the
Son is not identical to Jesus Christ. He denies (6). This is not an adequate account of the
incarnation for the early creeds clearly say that the Son is the exact same person as Jesus.
Second, I simply do not understand how Leftow’s metaphysical model is supposed to work. It
is heavily dependent upon an analogy (that of a diver in a wetsuit), and light on transparent
metaphysics. I do not understand how to assign a truth value to the claims that Leftow’s model
makes. As it stands the account is underdeveloped and could be subject to two fatal problems:
(i) Jesus Christ is not a person, or (ii) Nestorianism. Third, I fail to see how it can account for
the communicatio idiomatum. In fact, Leftow never even mentions the communicatio
idiomatum. Nor does he offer a detailed discussion of how the two natures are supposed to
relate to one another. Fourth, because of the previous reason I fail to see how it is not
Nestorianism. If it is not Nestorianism, it does not seem to be an incarnation of any sort. For
an extended articulation and defense of this model, see Brian Leftow, “The Humanity of God,”
and Oliver D. Crisp, “Compositional Christology Without Nestorianism,” and for a critique see
Thomas P. Flint, “Should Concretists Part with Mereological Models of the Incarnation?” and
Thomas Senor, “Drawing on Many Traditions: An Ecumenical Kenotic Christology,” in ed.
Anna Marmodoro and Jonathan Hill, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2011). Also, Brian Leftow, “Composition and Christology,” Faith and
Philosophy 28 (2011).
12
Senor, “Incarnation, Timelessness, and Leibniz’s Law Problems,” 220.
13
Oliver Crisp, “Incarnation,” in eds. John Webster, Kathryn Tanner, and Iain Torrance, The
Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 168.
160The Incarnation of the Timeless God
offer a model of the incarnation that is compatible with divine timelessness
if she is going to have a coherent Christian research program. There might
be a way to develop a model where this is possible.

CHRISTOLOGICAL MODELS

There are various models of the incarnation at large today, many of which
claim to be consistent with ecumenical Christology. 14 The dominant strands
are composite Christologies.15 This can involve two, three, or four parts of
the composite Christ depending on one’s anthropology. For instance, the
two- minds view is a three-part Christology since it posits that Christ has a
divine mind, a human mind, and a human body. 16 Someone who is a
substance dualist may find this attractive. However, she may also find the
two-part Christology of Athanasius equally attractive. This is where the
divine mind constitutes a human person by being connected to a human
body in the appropriate way, perhaps through some sort of psycho-physical
laws.17 A trichotomist will most likely have a four-part Christology since she
holds that human persons are comprised of a body, soul, and spirit. In this
instance, the divine mind would take on a human body, a human soul, and a
human spirit. However, it is not necessary for a trichotomist to hold to a
four-part Christology. Apollinarius seems to be a trichotomist who believed
that human persons are comprised of a human body, a rational soul, and an
animal soul. He had a three-part Christology since, on his view, the Son
takes the place of the rational soul. According to Apollinarius, if the Son
assumed another rational soul that would involve the Son assuming another
person. For Apollinarius, the Son counts as fully human because the Son is a
rational soul with an animal soul and a human body.18
Closely related to this discussion of philosophical anthropology is the
question of the divine and human will. Monothelites hold that the Son only
has one will, whereas dyothelites hold that the Son has two wills—a human

14
I will be following the taxonomy of incarnation models that Oliver Crisp uses in Divinity
and Humanity: The Incarnation Reconsidered (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2007).
15
Anna Marmodoro and Jonathan Hill, “Composition Models of the Incarnation: Unity and
Unifying Relations,” Religious Studies 46 (2010).
16
Thomas V. Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate (London: Cornell University Press, 1986).
17
William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian
World- view (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), ch. 30. Richard Swinburne, The
Christian God (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), ch. 9. However, Swinburne offers
a variant of the two-minds view by dividing the Word’s consciousness.
18
Apollinarius says, “If, then, a human being is made up of three parts, the Lord is also a
human being, for the Lord surely is made up of three parts: spirit and soul and body.” Norris,
Christological Controversy, 110.
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God161
and a divine will.19 A monothelite will say that only persons have a will,
whereas a dyothelite will maintain that natures have a will.20 A dyothelite
will say that since Christ took on a human nature, He must have taken on a
human will as well. What might this look like? Say one has a three-part
Christology and is a dyothelite. On this view God the Son—a divine mind—
assumes a human mind, a human body, and a human will.
There are other Christological models available as well. There are two
broad kenotic positions that one might hold. These can be compatible with
three- and four-part Christologies, though one need not hold them in order to
flesh out a kenotic account. A functional kenotic view holds that the Second
divine Person limited the exercise of His powers to such an extent that He
constitutes a human person. 21 The Son does not give up any of His essential
attributes in the incarnation. He simply limits the exercise of His attributes.
An ontological kenosis view holds that the Son does give up His omni-
attributes in the incarnation in order to be considered human.22 This view, at
least the plausible versions of it, will also try to maintain that the Son does
not give up any of His essential attributes. A proponent of this view will
argue that an attribute like omnipotence is not necessary for being divine,
but that love is. The Son gives up omnipotence, but does not give up love.
Which type of model will help us maintain divine timelessness? The
kenotic views will be of no help since the very idea of kenosis involves
giving something up. A timeless God cannot give up anything for that
would involve change and a new moment in the divine life. On an
ontological kenosis the Son loses certain properties at a particular time, and
that certainly cannot be compatible with divine timelessness. A functional
view holds that for a particular stretch of time the Son does not exercise
certain divine powers.

19
Oliver Crisp, “Incarnation,” 162–3.
20
John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith III.14. For John of Damascus,
and most classical orthodox Christians, there is only one divine will. This raises a particular
problem for any account of the incarnation. How can the actions of Jesus be truly predicated
of the Son? It would seem that if there is only one divine will, all of the actions of Jesus can
be truly predicated of the entire Godhead. But this cuts against the traditional claim that only
the Son is incarnate. I will ignore this problem for the purposes of this chapter, but it seems
that what is needed is Social Trinitarianism whereby we have three divine persons, each with a
distinct will. For more on this see Richard Cross, “Vehicle Externalism and the Metaphysics of
the Incarnation: A Medieval Contribution, ” in The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 201–
3.
21
Thomas D. Senor, “God, Supernatural Kinds, and the Incarnation,” Religious Studies 27
(1992). Keith E. Yandell, “Some Problems for Tomistic Incarnationists,” International
Journal for Philosophy of Religion 30 (1991).
22
See Stephen T. Davis, Christian Philosophical Theology (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2006), ch. 10. C. Stephen Evans, “The Self-Empyting of Love: Some Thoughts on
Kenotic
Christology,” in eds. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins, The
Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God. Also,
Peter Forrest, “The Incarnation: A Philosophical Case for Kenosis,” in ed. Michael Rea,
Oxford Readings in Philo- sophical Theology Volume 1: Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
162The Incarnation of the Timeless God
Such a view has already given up the idea that God is pure act, and instead
holds that God can act or refrain from acting at particular times. This is
certainly not congenial with atemporality as it involves real change in God.23
What about a composite model? It is not clear how a two-part monothelite
Christology will work. The Son becomes connected to a body through
psycho- physical laws and the divine will acts at particular times. Many
Apollinarians and Arians held to a two-part Christology for two basic
reasons. First, a three- part Christology comprised of the Son, a soul, and a
body, seemed to them to obviously entail two persons in the incarnation.
This is something they wished to avoid. Second, as noted in Chapter 3, the
Arians held that the incarnation clearly entailed that the Son was mutable
and temporal. Since the Arians did not think that the Son was homoousios
with the Father, they had no qualms denying divine timelessness,
immutability, and impassibility of the Son. On their understanding, only the
Father enjoys these particular divine attributes because only the Father is
the one true God, whereas the Son is a lesser divine being. Nestorius and the
Cappadocians will have none of this since they affirm the homoousios
doctrine. They agreed that Apollinarian and Arian Christ- ology is
incompatible with impassibility, immutability, and timelessness
because the Son would be directly related to the body.
This issue will be taken up at length later in this chapter. For now, it will
help to highlight for the reader the problem that is being fought over in the
early Church. The Son becomes causally connected to a body at a particular
time, and He was not always causally connected to a body, lest we hold that
the incarnation is timeless. Ecumenical Christology put forward a three-part
dyothelite Christology as the way to preserve the Son’s immutability,
impassi- bility, and atemporality. Classical Christian Christology is quite
explicit on this point. For instance, one of the reasons the Third Council of
Constantinople affirmed a three-part dyothelite Christology was to maintain
that the divine nature did not change or suffer in the incarnation. 24 The three-
part dyothelite Christology becomes the majority view after the seventh
century for all of those who adhere to the seven ecumenical councils. 25 As
stated earlier, this ecumenical Christology is the view that I shall examine
throughout the rest of this chapter. Before doing so, I need to lay out a few
preliminary issues.
First, one might complain that I am ignoring the trichotomist position and
a four-part Christology. In fact, I am doing this for at least two reasons. (1)
The trichotomist position has not had many major contenders in Church

23
Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, 121.
24
Gilles Emery, “The Immutability of the God of Love and the Problem of Language
Concerning the ‘Suffering of God’,” in eds. James F. Keating and Thomas Joseph White,
Divine Impassibility and the Mystery of Human Suffering (Cambridge, MA: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publish- ing Co., 2009), 31–2.
25
Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, 49 ff. Also, Crisp, “Incarnation,” The Oxford Handbook of
Systematic Theology, 163.
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God163
history. Nor am I aware of any contemporary trichotomists who have suffi-
ciently fleshed out the incarnation in light of divine timelessness. (2) If it is
possible for a three-part Christology to maintain divine timelessness, a
tricho- tomist can easily reap the benefits of this view and tack on a human
spirit. It is not obvious what the human spirit would do that a human soul
cannot do, nor how adding a human spirit would help solve the problem of a
timeless God incarnate. Regardless, if a three-part Christology can uphold
divine timeless- ness, so can a four-part Christology.
Second, as argued in Chapter 4, an overwhelming majority of Christians
have been presentists and endurantists. Very few have been eternalists and
four-dimensionalists until recent times. As such, there are not many models
of the incarnation cut in terms of four-dimensional eternalism. I will do my
best to construct a composite Christology on both accounts, but it will be
difficult since there has not been much reflection on the impact of four-
dimensionalism on Christology. With that being said, let us begin to
construct a composite Christ.

The Two-Minds View: The Basics

The three-part Christology under consideration here is widely known as the

two-minds view. Before getting into the details it would be good to get a
feel for what an adequate ecumenical Christology is trying to capture by
positing the two-minds view. The most significant aspects of ecumenical
Christology come from the Council of Chalcedon in 451. 26 What does
Chalcedonian Christology look like? Oliver Crisp summarizes five relevant
desiderata from the Chalcedonian creed.27

26
It should be noted that Chalcedon was controversial in its own day. The Monophysite
Christians in the East at that time were not happy with “the sickness of Chalcedon” that
declared that Christ had two natures. See Sergius the Grammarian in Iain Torrance,
Christology After Chalcedon: Severus of Antioch and Sergius the Monophysite (Norwich: The
Canterbury Press, 1988), 144. Like Chalcedon, many Monophysites held to a three-part
composite Christology, but unlike Chalcedon they held that after the incarnation the two
natures became one nature— without confusion—through the composition. I will focus my
critique on Chalcedonian Christ- ology for two reasons. First, while one can acknowledge the
importance of Monophysite Christology in the past, and acknowledge that it continues to exist
today in the Oriental Orthodox Church, it must be admitted that most Christian theologians in
the past and today hold to a Chalcedonian Christology. Because of this more time and effort
has been spent developing Chalcedonian ideas, and as such it is a better developed theory.
Second, the metaphysical differences between Chalcedonian and orthodox Monophysite
Christology seem negligible to me. For instance, both hold to the Nicene Creed, a three-part
Christology, and the communicatio idiomatum. As such, one could take the arguments I
develop later in this chapter and easily tweak them to fit the Monophysite view.
27
Crisp, “Incarnation,” in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology, 161.
164The Incarnation of the Timeless God
(13) Christ is of one substance (homoousious) with the Father.
(14) Christ is eternally begotten of the Father according to his divinity
and temporally begotten of the Virgin Mary according to his humanity.
(15) Christ is one theanthropic (divine-human) person (hypostasis) sub-
sisting in two natures (phuseis), which are held together in a personal
union.
(16) Christ’s two natures remain intact in the personal union, without being
confused or mingled together to form some sort of hybrid entity or tertium
quid.
(17) Christ’s two natures are a fully divine nature and a fully human nature,
respectively, his human nature consisting of a human body and a “rational”
soul.
These desiderata naturally raise issues related to personal identity,
anthropol- ogy, and the doctrine of God. What does it mean to be human?
What does it mean to be divine? What is personal identity? I have already
discussed some of the issues related to personal identity through time in
Chapter 2, and will do so in the next section. For now I will stick with
answering the first two questions. The two-minds view starts by
distinguishing between a kind-essence and an individual-essence.28 A kind-
essence is a cluster of properties that are essential for being a part of a
particular kind of thing. For instance, there is a kind- essence called
bovinity that signifies the necessary and essential properties a thing must
have in order to be considered a cow. An individual-essence is a cluster of
properties that are essential to a particular entity. Each human person
has an individual-essence, a haecceity or thisness. An individual-
essence is what distinguishes one from everyone else in the human race. It
distinguishes one from every other person be they human, angelic, divine, or
other. One cannot lose an individual-essential property and continue to exist.
One can lose a kind-essential property and continue to exist, but one will
cease to exist as that kind of thing. The move for the two-minds view is to
posit that an individual-essence can have more than one kind-essence. It can
only have one kind-essence essentially, but it can contingently have other
kind-essences as well.29 In this instance, God the Son can have a human and
divine essence. Next, the two-minds view tries to distinguish the properties
that make up the kind-essence divinity and the kind-essence humanity. How
would one go about doing such a thing? With regard to divinity one could
use the method of perfect being theology, though perfect being intuitions
vary from person to person. Upon doing so she might come up with a
traditional list as follows: necessary existence, aseity, self-sufficiency,
omnipotence, omniscience, omni- benevolence, omnipresence, perfect
freedom, immutability, impassibility, sim-
plicity, and timeless eternality.

28
Thomas Morris, “The Metaphysics of God Incarnate,” in Oxford Readings in
Philosophical Theology. Also, Our Idea of God: An Introduction to Philosophical Theology
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), ch. 9.
 29
Marilyn McCord Adams, “Christ as God-Man, Metaphysically Construed,” in Oxford
Readings in Philosophical Theology, 241–2.
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God165
Part of the desiderata assumes that to be human is to have a human mind
and a human body. Yet there seems to be more entailed. How might one go
about discerning the necessary properties of humanity? One strategy is to
look around at other human persons. The patristic list that makes up part of
the Christological deposit includes the following: contingent existence,
created, limited in power, limited in knowledge, limited in goodness, locally
and spatially limited, free, mutable, passionate, complex, and temporal. 30
Clearly we have a problem. The two lists conflict with each other in a
fundamental way. It would seem that the Son would have contradictory
properties in the incarnation.
There are some possible ways around this problem. One can start to
assuage the difficulty by pointing out that not all properties that one finds
amongst humans are essential. There are common human properties that are
not essential human properties. “Sinful” is an example. G. K. Chesterton
once said that the doctrine of original sin was the easiest of Christian
doctrines to verify. All one needs to do is look out on the street.31 It is not
hard to come to the conclusion that all human persons are sinful. Yet part of
the doctrine of the incarnation is that at least one human person, Jesus
Christ, was not sinful. One of the things we learn from the incarnation is that
“sinful” is not an essential property of humanity. It certainly is a common
property, but it is not an essential property. One can be human and not sin.
In fact, Christian theology proclaims that one day sin will be no more and
that human persons will enjoy everlasting life. Christian theology proclaims
that humans flourish best when they are not sinful. If “sinful” is an essential
property of humanity this is not even possible.
That may be all well and good, but it does not tell us about some of the
other incompatible properties. What about necessary existence? Necessary
existence is not just an essential property of the divine essence, it is also a
part of the Son’s individual-essence. Necessarily, a thing cannot change its
modal status. A contingent thing cannot become a necessary thing, nor can a
necessary thing become a contingent thing. The Son simply cannot become
contingent. Isn’t this a problem? The defender of the two-minds view will
say no. The humanity of the Son is contingent, even though the Son Himself
is not. As Thomas Morris explains, “For God the Son to become human, he
thus had to take on a human body, and a human mind, with all that entails.
He did not have to become a created contingent being. He just had to take on
a created, contingent body and mind of the right sort.”32

30
Stephen R. Holmes, The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History
and Modernity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 96.
31
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York: Simon and Brown, 1908), 11.
32
Morris, “The Metaphysics of God Incarnate,” 217.
166The Incarnation of the Timeless God
The defender of the two-minds view will argue that Christ is fully human
since He has all of the essential properties that are entailed by having a
human mind and a human body. Yet Christ is not merely human. We who
are merely human are contingent, limited in power, and so on, but Christ is
not merely human. Notwithstanding, the two-minds view still attempts to
make room for limitations of power and knowledge by appealing to the
human mind.
God the Son is a divine mind that is omnipotent and omniscient. In
assuming a human mind and body He becomes causally connected to this
composite such that He constitutes one person with two natures. The divine
mind is fully conscious, and so is the human mind. “The human mind drew
its visual imagery from what the eyes of Jesus saw, and its concepts from
the languages he learned.” The divine mind does not do this since it is
already omniscient. The human mind is limited to the resources of its own
conscious- ness and body, but the divine mind is not so limited. There is an
asymmetrical accessing relation between the divine mind and the human
mind such that the divine mind has access to all of the contents of the human
mind, but the human mind does not have access to the contents of the
divine mind.33

Is the Two-Minds View Nestorian?

Any adequate ecumenical Christological model must be able to explain, and

not merely assert, the doctrine of the hypostatic union. The hypostatic union
teaches that the two natures in Christ are united in such a way that there is
only one person, God the Son. The heresy of Nestorianism is said to affirm
that there are two persons in the incarnation—a human person and a divine
person. So an adequate ecumenical Christology must explain how Jesus
Christ is God the Son incarnate in human flesh such that there is one person
with a fully divine and a fully human nature, and not two persons. I
emphasize that it must explain, and not merely assert, because the mere
assertion does nothing to distinguish adequate Christological models from
heretical Christological models.
By way of example, consider the correspondence between Cyril of
Alexan- dria and Nestorius. In Cyril’s second letter to Nestorius, Cyril
continually asserts the hypostatic union without explanation, and claims that
Nestorius has failed to adequately affirm the hypostatic union. He claims
that Nestorius’ Christology entails that there are two persons in the
incarnation instead of one. Naturally, Nestorius disagrees for he wishes to
affirm the hypostatic union as well. So the burden is upon Cyril to explain
what the difference is between the two Christological models that renders
one orthodox, and the

33
Morris, “The Metaphysics of God Incarnate,” 220–4.
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God167
other heterodox. Unfortunately, this is not what Cyril does. Cyril’s only
explanation is that the hypostatic union takes place in some unspeakable,
unutterable and incomprehensible way. This appeal to ineffable mysteries
does nothing to show the difference between Cyril’s own position and that
of Nestorius for it is an unspeakable mystery what the difference really is.
Again, merely asserting the hypostatic union will be of little help. One must
offer a model that explains how there is only one person in Christ and not
two. If the two-minds view cannot explain how there is one person in
Jesus Christ, it cannot be a part of a Christian research program. If it
cannot be a part of a Christian research program, it cannot be employed
in a Christian research program that also holds to divine timelessness. Later
in this chapter I shall argue that the divine timelessness research program
entails Nestorian- ism when combined with an ecumenical Christology. For
now, I wish to lay out the initial charge of Nestorianism to illuminate the
problems that will face the atemporalist. Also, discussing the charge of
Nestorianism will help illus- trate another component of ecumenical
Christology—the distinction between
enhypostasia and anhypostasia.
The charge of Nestorianism can be put in several ways, and I shall now
offer a version of a monophysite argument that later became standard
medieval prolegomena. Typically one might think that a person just is a
mind with free will, a rational soul, or a self-conscious subject as thinkers
like John of Damascus, Tertullian, or Boethius would put it. 34 On a two-
minds view Christ, naturally enough, has two minds. Further, on
dyothelitism Christ has two wills. The Third Council of Constantinople
affirmed that each nature has a will of its own. A human person, they said,
consists of a human mind, a human will, and a human body.
The situation seems to be this. We have two minds each with their own
will, so we must have two persons.35 Each has its own set of beliefs. The
first mind can believe p and the second mind can believe ~p. The first mind
can intend to will some action a, and the second mind can intend to will
~a.36 The first

34
Stephen R. Holmes, The Quest for the Trinity, 71. Brian E. Daley, “Nature and the ‘Mode
of Union’: Late Patristic Models for the Personal Unity of Christ,” in The Incarnation:
Interdiscip- linary Symposium, 194.
35
Tim Bayne, “The Inclusion Model of the Incarnation,” Religious Studies 37 (2001). Peter
Lombard attempts to answer objections of this sort in Sentences III Dist. V and X.
36
Historically, it is not clear that there is much consensus on this point. It is a point of
contention in contemporary theology as well. For instance, Ivor J. Davidson holds that the
human will of Jesus “cannot exist in opposition to the will of God.” Davidson, “‘Not My Will
but Yours be Done’: The Ontological Dynamics of Incarnational Intention,” International
Journal of Systematic Theology 7 (2005), 194. Within contemporary philosophy of religion,
defenders of the
two-minds view typically hold that it must be metaphysically possible for the human nature of
Jesus to be able to will differently than the divine mind. One of the motivations that could be
developed for this claim is the “without confusion” constraint from the Chalcedonian creed. If
it is not possible for Jesus to sin because of His divine nature, there is a confusion of natures.
The stated motivation, however, is soteriological. If Jesus cannot possibly sin, then this would
seem to
168The Incarnation of the Timeless God
mind experiences nothing but uninterrupted joy (given divine impassibility).
The second mind experiences moments of suffering. The first mind cannot
be tempted. The second mind suffers temptations of all sorts. The first mind
never experiences change and stands in no temporal relations of any sort
(given immutability and timelessness). The second mind does experience
change and stands in temporal relations. The first mind cannot be simultan-
eous with the second mind for simultaneity is a temporal relation and the
first mind cannot stand in any temporal relation at all. The first mind is pure
act and performs all its actions in one timeless present (given simplicity and
timelessness). The second mind has potentiality and its actions are spread
out temporally. The first mind does not exercise direct causal control over
the second mind, and vice versa. The first mind and the second mind are not
identical to one another, can stand in an I–Thou relation, and converse with
one another.37 In fact, the second mind has adoration for the first mind, and
freely obeys the first mind.38
It would seem that we are clearly referring to two different persons, but
the ecumenical doctrine of the incarnation states that there is one person
with two natures. As Anselm explains, the Son “assumed another nature,
not another person.” (Incarnation of the Word XI) How can the two-minds
view escape this problem? It certainly looks like the two-minds view entails
Nestorianism. Several contemporary defenders of the two-minds view will
concede that normally two minds and two wills means two persons, but in
the instance of the God-man two minds and wills come together to function
as one person.39

undermine the claim that Jesus was tempted in every way. See David Werther, “Freedom,
Temptation, and Incarnation,” in eds. David Werther and Mark D. Linville, Philosophy and
the Christian Worldview: Analysis, Assessment and Development (New York: The Continuum
International Publishing Group Inc, 2012). Thomas P. Flint, “‘A Death He Freely Accepted’:
Molinist Reflections on the Incarnation,” Faith and Philosophy 18 (2001), and “The
Possibilities of Incarnation: Some Radical Molinist Suggestions,” Religious Studies 37 (2001).
37
Andrew Loke, “On the An-Enhypostasia Distinction and Three-Part Concrete-Nature
Christology: The Divine Preconscious Model,” Journal of Analytic Theology 2 (2014), 103–4.
Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation: Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2002), 316–22.
38
Karhl Rahner, Theological Investigations: Volume 1 (Baltimore, MD: Helicon Press,
1961), 158.
39
Marmodoro and Hill, “Composition Models of the Incarnation,” 483–6. Marmodoro and
Hill argue that the human nature does not count as a person since it is subsumed into a larger
whole. Another standard defense of this view is to say that <necessarily, no person can have a
person as a proper part>. See Leftow, “The Humanity of God,” and Crisp, “Compositional
Christology Without Nestorianism.” The Son took on a human body and soul. Normally we
think that a human body and a human soul make a person. However, that cannot be the case
since the Son is incarnate and He cannot have a person as a proper part. Yet I find this strategy
to be lacking. It does not explain how a human soul and body that thinks, feels, and acts is not
a person. It just asserts that this is not a person in the case of the incarnation. It seems that
since
<necessarily, no person can have a person as a proper part> and <a person is a mind that
thinks, feels, and acts>, compositional Christologies of this sort have a defeater on their hands.
In other words, given their account of a human person, it seems prima facie impossible for
the
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God169
Does this escape the charge of Nestorianism? No. This looks suspiciously
like the moves of Theodore of Mopsuestia and various other Nestorians
where a functional, and not an ontological, unity is offered to bring the two
natures together as one person.40 The early Church eventually condemned a
merely functional unity as well as a merely semantic unity, so contemporary
defend- ers of the two-minds view cannot appeal to this to escape the charge
of Nestorianism.41 The early Church proclaimed that only an ontological
unity could account for the hypostatic union. What is needed to escape
Nestorian- ism is an ontological unity that explains how the two-minds are
one person in Christ.
Unfortunately, it is not clear that an ontological unity was ever articulated
by the ecumenical councils. This lack of a clearly articulated ontological
unity was even a worry for the Illyrian and Palestinian delegates at the
Council of Chalcedon who had to be convinced that Pope Leo was not a
Nestorian. The Tome of Leo appears to affirm a merely functional unity
between the divine natures. After the Formula of Chalcedon was framed,
many in the East remained unconvinced that there was a clear difference
between the defenders of Chalcedon and the Nestorians. 42 Christopher
Beeley explains that the Chalcedonian definition, which was enforced under
governmental pressure, “left the basic identity of Christ and the nature of the
union disastrously ambiguous from the point of view of the more unitive
traditions. It is no wonder that Nestorius reportedly felt vindicated by the
result.”43 While many in the East were distraught over the result of
Chalcedon, various Nestorian parties felt that they were able to interpret
Chalcedon in such a way that they could agree to the Formula. In fact, one
of the main motivations for the fifth ecumenical council, Constantinople II
(553), was to give a proper interpret- ation of Chalcedon that fully excluded
Nestorianism.44 The Eastern Church made a serious push to get single-nature
Christologies included in the scope of

incarnation to happen as the model understands things. Grant that a human person is a mind—
or a body–soul composite—that thinks, feels, and acts. If this is the case, the Son cannot
become part of a larger whole with anything that meets this description on pain of having a
person as a proper part.
40
Norris, Christological Controversies, 113–44.
41
Thomas G. Weinandy, Does God Change? (Still River, MA: St Bede’s Publications,
1985), 36–7.
42
See J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London: Adam and Charles Black Limited,
1958), 340–2.
43
Christopher A. Beeley, The Unity of Christ: Continuity and Conflict in Patristic Tradition
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 284.
44
Fred Sanders, “Introduction to Christology: Chalcedonian Categories for the Gospel
Narrative,” in eds. Fred Sanders and Klaus Issler, Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective (Nashville,
TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2007), 27–35.
170The Incarnation of the Timeless God
orthodoxy, and the emperor Justinian was keen to make peace with these
groups from the East. Hence, the need for the fifth ecumenical council.45
Though some complain that the fifth ecumenical council pushed ecumen-
ical Christology in an Apollinarian direction, many contemporary
theologians have remained unconvinced that this move successfully
distinguishes ecu- menical Christology from Nestorianism. The
contemporary Lutheran Robert
W. Jenson is one such unconvinced theologian. He writes,
According to Leo, “Each nature is the agent of what is proper to it, working in
fellowship with the other: the Word doing what is appropriate to the Word and
the flesh what is appropriate to the flesh. The one shines forth in the miracles;
the other submits to the injuries.” If this is not Nestorianism, it is something
rather worse. The Son does the saving, the man Jesus does the suffering. The
Son does the self-affirming, Jesus does the victim part.46
Yet a defender of the two-minds view will naturally wish to disagree with
Jenson. A defender of the two-minds view might try to avoid the charge of
Nestorianism in the following way. Oliver Crisp will say that there never
was a time when the human nature of Christ exists apart from God the Son.
When the Holy Spirit conceived the human nature of Jesus in Mary’s womb,
the Son joined Himself to that human nature. So there never was a moment
when the human nature existed without being joined to the Son. The “human
nature is never in a position to form a supposit distinct from God the Son.”47
In order to understand what Crisp is up to one must be aware of the
anhypostasia and enhypostasia distinction within the classical Christian doc-
trine of the incarnation. This is a distinction that developed in the aftermath
of Chalcedon leading up to the fifth ecumenical council. The distinction was
developed in an effort to rid ecumenical Christology of any Nestorian ten-
dencies. T. F. Torrance explains the distinction as follows. Anhypostasia
claims that “Christ’s human nature has its existence only in union with God,
in God’s existence or personal mode of being (hypostasis). It does not
possess it in and for itself—hence an-hypostasis (‘not person’, i.e. no
separate person).” Enhypostasia expresses the fact that “the human nature of
Christ is given existence in the existence of God, and co-exists in the divine
essence or mode of being.”48 The claim is that the Son’s human nature would
not have existed if it were not for the incarnation. It did not exist prior to the
incarnation. It only

45
Beeley, The Unity of Christ, 294.
46
Jenson, “With No Qualifications: The Christological Maximalism of the Christian East,”
in eds. Kenneth Tanner and Christopher Hall, Ancient and Postmodern Christianity: Paleo-
Orthodoxy in the 21st Century (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 19. Author’s
emphasis.
47
Crisp, “Compositional Christology without Nestorianism,” The Metaphysics of the Incar-
nation, 59. Cf. Peter Lombard, Sentences III Dist. II and III.
48
Thomas F. Torrance, Incarnation, 84.
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God171
exists because of the incarnation. Further, the human nature is only personal
because it is assumed by a divine person—God the Son. The human nature
is not a person independent of the Son’s assumption. Fred Sanders explains
that this is where the strength of the distinction comes into play in riding
ecumen- ical Christology of Nestorianism. It excludes the very possibility
that the human nature of Christ could have formed some person “Adam
Davidson Ben-Msriam” from coming into existence if the Son had not
assumed this nature.49 The human nature of Christ cannot form a person
apart from the incarnation.50 The human nature is only a person because it is
assumed by the person of the Logos.
With the anhypostasia and enhypostasia distinction on the table, we can
return to Crisp’s effort to avoid Nestorianism. What must be understood is
that the move that Crisp and others make avoids the charge of adoptionism,
but not Nestorianism simpliciter. Adoptionism is one Christological heresy
that often falls under the category of Nestorianism. On adoptionism, Jesus
exists for a certain stretch of time and is later united to God the Son. In this
scenario we clearly have two persons. But what must be understood is that
adoptionism isn’t the only way to be a Nestorian. All one needs to do in
order to be a Nestorian is to offer a Christological model that entails two
persons in Jesus Christ. Even Theodore of Mopsuestia held that Jesus “had
union with the Logos straightaway from the beginning when he was formed
in his mother’s womb,” and he was still charged with Nestorianism.51 More
needs to be said in order to avoid Nestorianism, and the en/anhypostasia
distinction is supposed to accomplish this. How does affirming the
en/anhypostasia distinction re- move the charge of Nestorianism simpliciter?
It does not.
This distinction, whilst interesting, does not help in understanding how
the two-minds view can explain that the God-man is one person and not two.
The en/anhypostasia distinction does not give us a Christological model.
Instead, it serves as a constraint for developing Christological models that
avoid Nestor- ianism. Affirming a constraint on adequate Christological
models does not explain how Christ can be one person with two natures.52
The underlying

49
Sanders, “Chalcedonian Categories,” Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective, 30–5.
50
David Brown, Divine Humanity: Kenosis and the Construction of a Christian Theology
(Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011), 24.
51
Theodore of Mopsuestia, in Norris, Christological Controversies, 117.
52
Perhaps there is another way one might try to explain the unity of the person of Christ.
Joseph Jedwab, “The Incarnation and Unity of Consciousness” in The Metaphysics of the
Incarnation attempts to explicate how two spheres of consciousness and two wills can be
unified. His account is cut in terms of divine temporality and as such will be of no use to
divine timelessness. Although, he notes that one could do the same on atemporality, but limits
his discussion to temporalism. I am skeptical about the success of this on timelessness for a
timeless mental state cannot have a unity of consciousness with a temporal mental state.
Jedwab defines unity of consciousness as follows: “a subject has unity of consciousness at
some time if and only if all the conscious states she has then are co-conscious with each
other.” But a timeless mental
172The Incarnation of the Timeless God
intuition of the en/anhypostasia constraint seems to be that persons are
necessarily identical to themselves. Necessarily, a person cannot exist apart
from, or separate from, herself. If P and P* could possibly exist apart from
one another, P and P* are two different persons.
What is needed is a model that makes sense of this constraint. Instead of a
model that merely asserts this constraint, we need a model that grounds the
truth of the en/anhypostasia constraint. To understand my point, consider the
following. There is a Christological tradition arising out of the work of
Athanasius and his followers that is often called a Logos-sarx Christology.
On a Logos-sarx Christology, Christ is composed of the Son and a human
body.53 This is a two-part Christology that says that the Son is a divine
person who assumed a human body. To be a person is to be a rational soul, a
thinking thing with free will. The Logos is a thinking thing with free will, so
the Logos is a person. The Logos is also a person with a divine nature
because the Logos has all of the properties that are necessary and sufficient
for being divine. In order for a person to be a human person, a person must
be appropriately related to a human body. (This appropriate relation will be
expounded upon in the next section.) A human person is a rational soul and
a human body. The Logos, in the incarnation, becomes appropriately
related to a human body and thus becomes a human person. On this two-
part Christology, the Logos does not become related to another rational
soul. The Logos already is a rational soul. This two-part Christology would
explain the en/anhypostasia distinction as follows. This particular human
nature would not possibly be a person without the incarnation because this
particular human nature would not have a rational soul. It would simply be
a body. It only has a rational soul because the Logos (a rational soul) is
appropriately related to it. So the human nature
of Christ, on this model, is only a person in and because of the incarnation.
It does not seem that the two-minds view can give the same easy explan-
ation of the en/anhypostasia constraint. The early Church fathers do not do
much to develop a model that grounds the truth of this constraint. The
scholastics, however, attempt to develop an explanation for this facet of the
Christological deposit by appealing to something called the assumption rela-
tion. The assumption relation is said to be the relation that obtains between
the Son and His human nature such that there is only one person in Christ.
So perhaps the two-minds view can escape Nestorianism, and explain the
en/anhypostasia constraint by appealing to the assumption relation.

state cannot stand in any temporal relations with a temporal mental state. A timeless mind
cannot have an experience of something at time t and so cannot be co-conscious with any mind
that has an experience of something at time t. For more on this see Richard Swinburne, “The
Coherence of the Chalcedonian Definition of the Incarnation,” The Metaphysics of the
Incarnation, 160.
53
Garrett J. DeWeese, “One Person, Two Natures: Two Metaphysical Models of the Incar-
nation,” in Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective.
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God173
What is this assumption relation, and how does it work? Thomas Flint
says that the assumption relation works as follows. In most cases, a soul and
a body is a human person. This is because it is a conscious being that thinks,
acts, and feels. However, there are some cases in which a soul and a body is
not a human person. All things being equal, a soul and a body would be a
human person. If, however, a soul and a body are assumed by a member of
the Trinity, the soul and body cease to be a human person.54 The soul does
not cease to think, feel, and act, but it ceases to be a person. For instance,
say I am walking about town when all of a sudden the Holy Spirit assumes
me. The Holy Spirit does not merely indwell me, but actually assumes me. I
continue to think, feel and act, but I cease to be a person. Instead, the only
person walking about is the Holy Spirit.
The case of me being assumed by the Holy Spirit is a case of adoptionism
so the defender of the two-minds view will complain that the case I am
giving is not directly analogous to the incarnation. So grant the two-minds
view the claim that the Son assumes a soul and a body at the very moment
the soul and body come into existence. The soul and body of Jesus never
existed without being assumed by the Son. I still find it difficult to see how
this is one person, and how this explains the an/enhypostasia constraint. The
assumed soul and body still thinks, acts, and feels like all other unassumed
human persons. Does this really explain the en/anhypostasia constraint? If it
cannot, it falls victim to Nestorianism.
There are at least three reasons for why the assumption relation does not
help the two-minds view explain the an/enhypostasia constraint. First, the
assumption relation simply asserts that there is one person in the
incarnation, and does nothing to explain how this is the case. The defender
of the two- minds view might claim that I am being unfair, so I shall focus
on the next two problems instead. Second, the assumption relation does not
help explain the an/enhypostasia constraint because the human nature of
Christ would be a person if not assumed. Third, the assumption relation does
not explain the constraint because the human nature of Christ is not only a
person because of the incarnation.
Take the second problem. The human nature of Christ would be a person
if not assumed, and this violates the an/enhypostasia constraint. Again, the
constraint says that the human nature of Christ would not be a person
without the incarnation. The assumption relation does not help maintain this.
If the Son did not assume the soul and body of Jesus, Jesus would have been
a human person without the incarnation. On the two-minds view, a soul and
a body only fail to be a person when it is not assumed. On Flint’s version of
the two-minds view, it is possible that the Son could refrain from assuming
the

54
Cf. Thomas P. Flint, “‘A Death He Freely Accepted’: Molinist Reflections on the Incarna-
tion,”, and “The Possibilities of Incarnation: Some Radical Molinist Suggestions.”
174The Incarnation of the Timeless God
soul and body of Jesus. In fact, as Flint explains, it is quite possible that the
Son could have assumed any one of us instead of Jesus. 55 So on Flint’s view,
it is possible that the soul and body of Jesus is a person without being
incarnated by the Son.
Perhaps a defender of the two-minds view will wish to part ways with
Flint. Perhaps she will say that, given the virgin birth, the particular soul and
body of Jesus would never have come into existence without the incarnation
of the Son. She will go on to say that the very coming into existence of this
particular soul and body is a miracle performed by the Holy Spirit. Of
course, couldn’t the Holy Spirit perform the miracle of a virgin birth without
an incarnation? That seems like a metaphysical possibility. If this is a
metaphysical possibility, then it is possible that the particular soul and body
of Jesus could come into existence without being incarnated by the Son. As
such, it is a metaphysical possibility that the particular soul and body of
Jesus be a person without the incarnation. So we still have violated the
an/enhypostasia constraint. The two- minds view needs something stronger
than the mere fact that the particular soul and body of Jesus only came into
existence with the incarnation of the Son.
In order to avoid this, it looks like the two-minds theorist will have to say
that it is metaphysically impossible for the particular soul and body of Jesus
to come into existence without the incarnation. I am not certain what the
two- minds theorist can offer to explain this metaphysical impossibility, but
per- haps she can come up with some sort of story. Whatever story she
comes up with will most likely supplement the assumption relation, so the
assumption relation is not doing anything by itself to avoid the charge of
Nestorianism.
However, she is still not out of the woods because it seems like a
metaphys- ical possibility that the Son could cease to be incarnate. Perhaps
at the ascension of Christ (Acts 1), the Son ceased to be incarnate because
He no longer has a body. The Son will become incarnate once again upon
His return, but in the meantime He is not incarnate. If the Son ceased to be
incarnate, then the soul and body of Jesus would become a separate person
until the Son reincarnates at His reappearing. This would violate the
an/enhypostasia constraint.
It should be noted, however, that the Christological deposit denies that the
Son ceased to be incarnate at the ascension. Even though no ecumenical
council makes a ruling on this issue, the continual incarnation of the Son is
affirmed by a majority of the early Church fathers. 56 It is a part of the
Christological deposit of classical Christian theology. Yet all that is needed
for this objection to go through is the metaphysical possibility that the Son

55
“The Possibilities of Incarnation: Some Radical Molinist Suggestions.”
56
Jonathan Hill, “Incarnation, Timelessness, and Exaltation,” Faith and Philosophy 29
(2012), 4.
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God175
cease to be incarnate. That is all that is needed for a violation of the an/
enhypostasia constraint to occur. It seems like the two-minds theorist will
need to assert that it is a metaphysical impossibility for the Son to cease to
be incarnate. Again, I don’t know what sort of story the two-minds theorist
would tell, but one seems necessary to avoid the charge of Nestorianism.
Further, the assumption relation by itself is doing nothing to ward off the
charge of Nestorianism. So again, the assumption relation does not help
maintain the an/enhypostasia constraint.
Say that the two-minds theorist comes up with the appropriate story to
give the needed metaphysical impossibilities. The two-minds theorist is still
not out of the woods for she has not yet explained how the particular soul
and body of Jesus is a person only in the incarnation. Recall that this is the
third problem from the an/enhypostasia constraint. If the soul and body of
Jesus is not assumed, it is a person. Nothing, as far as I can tell, about the
assumption relation makes it the case that this particular soul and body
would not be a person without the incarnation. Recall that the two-minds
theorist is working with the following principle: a soul and a body is a
person in every case unless assumed by a member of the Trinity. Nothing
from this principle explains why the soul and body of Jesus is only a person
in the incarnation. In fact, the principle explicitly entails the exact opposite.
The soul and body only fail to be a person because of the incarnation.
Again, I am not certain what sort of story the two-minds theorist can offer to
explain this problem away.
It is time to summarize the difficulties I have laid out in this section.
I cannot see how the two-minds view can avoid Nestorianism at this point.
First, on this model we have two conscious beings—God the Son and the
human nature—and it seems impossible for a pair of conscious beings to be
one conscious being, but I will set this issue aside for now.57 Second, it is
not at all clear how the two-minds view can explain the an/enhypostasia
constraint. In fact, it looks like it violates this constraint on many levels. As
noted before, I will pick up the charge of Nestorianism later in the chapter.

What is the Unique Relationship

between the Son and His
Humanity?

The charge of Nestorianism is a difficult challenge for the two-minds view,

but it is not the only challenge it must face. It must also answer the
following two issues. First, the two-minds view must explain what the
unique relation is that the Son has to this human nature that makes the Son a
human person. Second, the two-minds view must also explain how the Son
is uniquely related to His

57
David Barnett, “You are Simple,” in eds. Robert C. Koons and George Bealer, The
Waning of Materialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
176The Incarnation of the Timeless God
humanity in a way that is different from how He is related to our humanity.
The answers to these issues are closely related, and will help one understand
the arguments against divine timelessness discussed below. Also, examining
these questions will help to illustrate three more components from the
Christological deposit that make up an adequate ecumenical Christological
model. Those components are said to be perichoresis, the communicatio
idiomatum, and embodiment.
How can the proponent of the two-minds view explain Christ’s unique
relationship to His humanity? She cannot appeal to the asymmetrical access-
ing relation between the divine mind and the human mind because the
asymmetrical accessing relation is not unique to the incarnation. The Son
already has an asymmetrical accessing relation to all human minds, and we
do not consider any of us to be the incarnation of God. Further, it seems that
the commitment to dyothelitism only serves to bolster this point. The divine
mind has a distinct will from the human mind. All human minds have wills
that are distinct from God. A traditional dyothelite will not be happy with
my termin- ology. She will say that natures, not persons, have wills. But the
problem can easily be restated. The divine nature has a distinct will from the
human nature. All human natures have wills that are distinct from God. So
what is the difference between me and Jesus?
The doctrine that is supposed to help us understand the unique relation
between the Son and His humanity is the doctrine of perichoresis.
Perichoresis is a tricky doctrine because the same term is used in a different
way of the Trinity than it is of the incarnation. 58 Quite literally perichoresis
means interpenetration.59 In Neoplatonic thought, perichoresis was used to
describe the relationship between a soul and body. 60 In the doctrine of the
Trinity the three divine persons stand in a perichoretic relation to one
another—they interpenetrate one another such that, necessarily, they cannot
exist apart from each other. In the incarnation perichoresis “is the idea that
the divine nature of Christ somehow penetrates his human nature, but not
conversely, and without compromising the integrity of either of the natures
in Christ’s theanthropic person.”61 The idea is that the Son stands in a
perichoretic relation to His humanity, and does not stand in a perichoretic
relation to the rest of humanity.
Perichoresis is supposed to be the unique relation that we have been
looking for. But does it distinguish the Son’s relation to His humanity from
His relation to the rest of humanity? It is not clear that it does. The doctrine
of

58
Though Nestorius suggested that the usage was the same in the case of the Trinity and the
incarnation.
59
John Anthony McGuckin, ed., The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology
(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 260.
60
McGuckin, Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology, 260.
61
Crisp, “Incarnation,” 170.
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God177
perichoresis within the Trinity can be given a clear modal interpretation—
necessarily the divine persons are strongly internally related such that they
cannot exist apart from each other. 62 The doctrine of perichoresis cannot be
given this same interpretation within the context of the incarnation because
the Son can exist without the human nature. Further, within the Trinity
perichoresis gives us three persons with one nature. Within the incarnation,
perichoresis is supposed to give us one person with two natures. So what
exactly is being affirmed here with perichoresis in the context of the
incarnation?
It is hard to say because the doctrine of perichoresis has been used by
theologians in the past and today to say all sorts of things about the God-
world relation, salvation, and anthropology.63 None of which is easily
distinguishable from how it is used within the doctrine of the incarnation.
For instance, a panentheist can say that God stands in a perichoretic relation
with creation. On some accounts of panentheism God necessarily exists with
creation, so it will be hard to distinguish how perichoresis is being used here
from how it is used within the Trinity. Others claim to be eschatological
panentheists. On this account God will one day bring creation to its
completion. On that day God will be all in all. The eschatological
panentheist interprets this to mean that God will eventually stand in a
perichoretic relation with all of creation, but in such a way that the integrity
of the natures of each is maintained.64 Some eschatological panentheists will
even say that the perichoretic relation entails that God has divine and
creaturely attributes, and that creatures will also have divine and creaturely
attributes, yet again, in such a way that the integrity of each nature is
maintained.65 This interpretation of perichoresis is indistinguishable from
how it is used in the context of the incarnation. Perhaps, then, perichoresis
is of little help.
The defender of the two-minds view will most likely argue that these
panentheists are using perichoresis in a fast and loose way. She might try
tightening up the doctrine by connecting it to the doctrine of the commu-
nicatio idiomatum. Because of the perichoretic relation between the Son and

62
Thomas H. McCall, Which Trinity? Whose Monotheism? Philosophical and Systematic
Theologians on the Metaphysics of Trinitarian Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: William
B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), 170.
63
McCall, Which Trinity?, ch. 5. Randall Otto, “The Use and Abuse of Perichoresis in
Recent Theology,” Scottish Journal of Theology 54 (2001).
64
John Polkinghorne, The God of Hope and the End of the World, (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2002), 115. John W. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the
Philosophers—
From Plato to the Present (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), chs. 10 and 13. Ted Peters,
“Models of God,” Philosophia 35 (2007), 285–8.
65
Cooper, Panentheism, 256–7.
178The Incarnation of the Timeless God
His humanity there is said to be a communication of the attributes from the
two natures onto the one person.66 Anselm explains as follows.
And we truly predicate everything, whether regarding God or regarding the
human being, of him. For we cannot designate or name the divine Son as
person apart from the human son, nor the human son as person apart from the
divine Son, since the very same one who is the human son is the divine Son,
and the combination of proper characteristics of the Word and the assumed
human being is the same. (Incarnation of the Word XI)
The idea is that the person who is God the Son is the same person who is
Jesus Christ. The council of Chalcedon, following the theology of Cyril of
Alexan- dria, teaches that there is a strict identity relation between the Son
and Jesus. They are numerically the same person. The same person who
existed with the Father in eternity, is the very same person we encounter in
the gospel narrative. The communicatio idiomatum tries to capture this
whilst maintain- ing the soteriological significance of the incarnation. The
connection between incarnation and soteriology was one of the driving
motivations for rejecting Nestorianism in the early Church. We need to
know that God Himself has come to us. Why? We need to know if it is even
possible for human persons to be reconciled and united to God. The
incarnation is an act of reconciliation.67 In the one person Jesus Christ,
humanity and divinity are perfectly united. Not only is it possible for
humanity and divinity to be united, they are in fact united and the
incarnation is a demonstration of that fact. If the incarnation is to be
meaningful we must know that God Himself has become incarnate. Further,
as John of Damascus argues, if God has not taken on the fullness of
humanity, we are not saved. That which God has not assumed has not been
healed (Orthodox Faith III.6).
This may be all well and good, but it is still not clear that we have
explained how the Son is uniquely related to His humanity such that He (a)
counts as a human person, and (b) is differently related to my humanity. Just
as with the an/enhypostasia distinction, we do not have a Christological
model by appeal- ing to perichoresis and the communicatio idiomatum. The
reason the an/ enhypostasia distinction does not help is because it is a
constraint on ecu- menical Christological models, and not a working model
itself. Perichoresis and the communicatio idiomatum do not help for
different reasons. I take perichoresis to be an unsuccessful attempt at
offering a model. It is too coarse- grained of a concept to be useful. The
communicatio, however, is an entail- ment from an adequate ecumenical
Christological model. Any adequate

66
This is to be distinguished from the Lutheran doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum.
On the Lutheran version, the attributes of each nature are communicated to one another. On
the ecumenical version that I discuss in the body of this chapter, the attributes are only
communi- cated to the one person, and not to each other nature.
67
Torrance, Incarnation, 65.
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God179
Christological model will hold that Jesus Christ is one person with two
natures. As such, Jesus will be one suppositum, one ultimate possessor of
the properties of each nature. This is not an explanation for how Christ is
human, and how His relation to His humanity is different from my own.
Instead, the communicatio assumes that there already is an explanation from
an adequate Christological model for these issues. We do not have that yet.
The answer to these issues does not lie in affirming constraints on models,
nor affirming the entailments of an adequate model. The answer lies in
actually offering a model that is compatible with these constraints and has
the desired entailments.
What is needed to answer these questions is an account of embodiment.
Earlier, I noted that the Neoplatonists used perichoresis to describe the
relationship between the soul and body. In fact, the early Church fathers
often say that the Son’s relationship to His humanity is much like the
relationship between the soul and the body. Perhaps the best way to interpret
perichoresis within the doctrine of the incarnation is to understand it as
embodiment. To say that the Son is human is to say that He is appropriately
related to a human organism or body. The relation that the Son has to His
human body will not be identical to the relation I have to my human body.
In order to understand this, we need an account of embodiment.
What does it mean to be embodied? There are several accounts of
embodi- ment in the literature, but there appear to be two basic accounts. 68
The first is physical realization. This assumes a physicalist anthropology of
human per- sons. This view holds that “a person P is embodied in body B if
and only if all the (intrinsic) states of P are wholly realized by (intrinsic)
states of B.”69 One way to put this is that all of P’s mental states supervene
upon the brain states of B.70 Someone who holds to a materialist Christology
will argue for this account of embodiment.71 However, Leftow and Robin Le
Poidevin note that such a thing is impossible for the Son—an immaterial
thing—cannot become wholly material.72 My inclination is to agree with
Leftow and Le Poidevin here,

68
Robin Le Poidevin, “The Incarnation: Divine Embodiment and the Divided Mind.” Royal
Institute of Philosophy Supplement 68 (2011). Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 102–4. T. J. Mawson, “God’s Body,” The Heythrop
Journal 47 (2006).
69
Le Poidevin, “The Incarnation: Divine Embodiment and the Divided Mind,” 273.
70
For more on supervenience see Jaegwon Kim, Supervenience and Mind: Selected
Philosoph- ical Essays (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
71
Trenton Merricks, “The World Made Flesh: Dualism, Physicalism, and the Incarnation,”
in eds. Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman, Persons: Human and Divine (New York:
Oxford
University Press, 2007).
72
Leftow, “The Humanity of God,” 21–2. Le Poidevin, “The Incarnation: Divine Embodi-
ment and the Divided Mind,” 276.
180The Incarnation of the Timeless God
but I will not press the point. All that matters for the discussion is that this is
not a live option for divine timelessness. It is not a live option since an
immaterial person becoming wholly physical involves change, and a
timeless person cannot change. Perhaps the second account of embodiment
will be of use for divine timelessness.
The second broad account is more congenial with immaterial minds and
cuts things in terms of a causal connection between the mind and the body.
A mind is fully embodied in a physical body if and only if the following five
conditions are met. The first condition is that the disturbances of the
physical body can cause pain in the mind. Also, the various goings-on in the
body can cause pleasure in the mind. If the body stubs a toe, the mind will
feel pain. If the body is hugged in the right way, the mind will feel pleasure.
Second, the mind can feel the inside of the body. An example would be the
feeling of an empty stomach. Third, the mind can move the body through a
basic action. A basic action is when an agent can perform an act without
having to perform some other action in order to accomplish the first act. For
instance, I move my arm by a basic act. I do not move the cup of water on
my desk by a basic act. Fourth, the mind can look out from the world from
where the body is. The body is the mind’s locus of perception of the world.
The mind acquires perceptual knowledge as mediated through the body.
Fifth, the thoughts and feelings of the mind can be affected by the things
that go on in the body.73
With this understanding of embodiment the proponent of the two-minds
view can finally answer the questions of this section. If the second divine
person is embodied in a particular human organism, He will be a human
person. To be a human person is to be a person, a thinking thing with free
will, that is embodied in human flesh. The proponent of the two-minds view
can further say that God the Son is only embodied in one human organism.
The Son does not stand in the numerically same relation to my body as He
does to His own. Thus, we have a way of distinguishing the Son’s relation to
His humanity from His relation to the rest of humanity. Even further, the
two-minds theorist can now say that she has a Christological model that
entails the communicatio idiomatum. The Son being embodied in a
particular human organism entails the Son having certain properties from the
body. For instance, one can say that the Son walked on water. This cannot
be said of God the Son unless the Son is embodied. It is only by having a
body that one can predicate this of the Son. This will be discussed further in
the next section.

73
I follow Swinburne’s account here. Le Poidevin makes some minor revisions to this
account, and Mawson’s account lacks several of the conditions.
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God181

THE REDUPLICATIVE STRATEGY AND

CONTRADICTORY PROPERTIES

Now that we have an outline of the ecumenical model of the incarnation to

work with, we can start to see how it might answer some problems. One
problem is that an adequate Christology entails the doctrine of the commu-
nicatio idiomatum, and this doctrine entails that the one person with two
natures has contradictory properties. The attributes of divinity and humanity
are communicated through the interpenetration of one another onto the one
divine person.74 For instance, it is because of the communicatio idiomatum
that the person of Christ has the contradictory properties timeless and tem-
poral. How do we resolve the contradiction? In this section I will outline the
basic strategy that the compositional Christology of the two-minds view
uses to remove contradictory properties. In subsequent sections I will
discuss specific ontologies of time and argue that this strategy may help with
certain properties, but it does not help with the divine timeless research
program.
The Reduplicative strategy, or the qua move, is the standard way to
remove contradictory properties. This strategy has a very early history in
Christian thought. Tertullian, Athanasius, Apollinarius, and Gregory of
Nazianzus all make this move. Interestingly, they say that they learned this
move from the apostle Peter. 1 Peter 4:1 says, “Christ suffered in the
flesh.”75 According to Apollinarius, one can say that Christ only suffered in
the flesh, but not in His divinity. The idea in the qua move is that we can
coherently talk about the properties of Christ’s humanity and divinity as
parts of the Son. When we talk about the properties of His divinity we do
not ascribe to it the human parts. When we talk about the properties of His
humanity we do not ascribe to it the divine part. We can, however, ascribe
both sets of properties to the one person. For instance, we can say that the
Son was crucified. Yet the divine essence was not crucified.76 It is only in
virtue of the Son’s humanity that He is crucified. One might say, qua human,
the Son was crucified. How exactly does this work? In order to get a better
feel for the qua move we will need to see some examples of how it works.
One might say that <the apple is red>. Why is the apple red? It is red
because its skin is red. The apple is red qua skin, or in virtue of its skin. If
one were to peel the apple it would no longer be red. <Socrates is wise>.
What makes Socrates wise? Socrates is wise in virtue of having a well
trained mind. If Socrates lost his mind, (however you wish to understand
that) he would no longer be wise. Imagine you have a ruler and one end is
painted

74
John of Damascus, Orthodox Faith III.3.
75
See Norris, Christological Controversy for further discussion, in particular 92. Boethius’
Theological Tractates is another great example of this move. For a discussion of medieval
accounts of reduplication see Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, ch. 8.
76
John of Damascus, Orthodox Faith III.3–4.
182The Incarnation of the Timeless God
green while the other end is painted blue. Your ruler is green and blue by
virtue of its painted ends.
Perhaps the idea is that we can say that <Christ is atemporal qua divine,
but temporal qua human>. Have we removed the contradiction? We have
only if we refuse to consider the communicatio idiomatum.77 It is not the
case that we have two unrelated subjects of predication. We have one
person, one ultimate bearer of properties, who is said to be atemporal and
temporal. Once we bring back in the communicatio idiomatum we have
<Christ is atemporal simplici- ter> and <Christ is temporal simpliciter>.
This is because sentences of the form <x qua G is F> entail <x is F>.78 We
could ignore the communicatio idiomatum in an effort to save this position, but
we would then face Nestorianism, and thus have abandoned an ecumenical
Christology. Of course, the proponent of the two-minds view could say maybe
we have not used the qua move in the right way since we still have
incompatible properties. So perhaps there is a better way to employ the qua
move that will help the two-minds view out.
As Le Poidevin points out, “One way in which a single thing can exhibit
incompatible properties is by having different parts, each of which exhibits
one of the incompatible properties. As long as the properties are not
exhibited by one and the same part, contradiction is avoided.”79 How exactly
is treating Christ’s humanity and divinity as parts to be understood such that
it solves the problem? Douglas Blount points out a possible way to
understand this.80 He asks us to consider the following.
(18) The Fightin’ Irish qua defensive team played well during time t.
(19) The Fightin’ Irish qua offensive team did not play well during t.
Blount wants to say that the following inferences are not valid.
(20) The Fightin’ Irish simpliciter played well during t.
(21) The Fightin’ Irish simpliciter did not play well during t.
I take it that the inferences to (20) and (21) are not valid since it is only
certain parts of the team that played well or poorly.

77
Unfortunately, most treatments of reduplication by contemporary analytic philosophers of
religion do not consider the communicatio idiomatum. For example, Timothy Pawl, “A
Solution to the Fundamental Philosophical Problem of Christology,” Journal of Analytic
Theology 2 (2014) and Michael Gorman, “Christological Consistency and the Reduplicative
Qua,” Journal of Analytic Theology 2 (2014).
78
Thomas D. Senor, “Incarnation, Timelessness, and Leibniz’s Law Problems,” in eds.
Gregory E. Ganssle and David M. Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 229.
79
Robin Le Poidevin, “Incarnation: Metaphysical Issues,” Philosophy Compass 4 (2009),
707. Also, see his “Identity and the Composite Christ: An Incarnational Dilemma,” Religious
Studies 45 (2009).
80
Douglas K. Blount, “On the Incarnation of a Timeless God,” in Ganssle and Woodruff,
God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 239–40.
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God183
Of course, two points can be made. First, there is a sense in which these
inferences go through. Say Notre Dame won the game. It would seem that a
fan could assert (20) without any shame. The team as a whole pulled it off in
the end. But say Notre Dame lost the game. A fan would have to shamefully
concede that (21) was true. Any denial of (21) would be the sort of post-
game bull that one expects to hear on a sports talk show. It is sheer bluster
trying to cover up the fact that they did not bring it together, did not give it
their best, and did not play well as a team. We can only deny the inferences
to (20) and
(21) when we ignore the fact that there is a team out on the field. What this
illustrates is that not all cases of the reduplicative strategy can be treated the
same.81 This is because there are certain cases where one property trumps
another.82 For instance, a human person has various non-thinking parts like a
nose or an arm. She is not intelligent qua arm. She is intelligent qua mind
since the mind is the thing that does the thinking. If Notre Dame loses the
game the property played poorly trumps its contrary, and if Notre Dame
wins the property played well trumps. Assuming, of course, a fair game was
played by all.
Second, this seems to be a poor analogy for the incarnation. Surely the
mereology of Jesus is nothing like the mereology of a football team, despite
what Notre Dame fans might say to the contrary. The divine nature and the
human nature are not loosely related parts. They stand in a very close
relation, a perichoretic relation through embodiment. As Le Poidevin
explains, “The human and divine parts are parts of a single substance—that
is, an object that persists through time, enjoys a certain independence from
other objects, and is a single individual. The properties of the parts can carry
over to the whole.”83 The contradictory properties come back in full force
because of the unity of the person of Christ.
Maybe there is a way to successfully maneuver through all of this. It
seems some reduplicative strategies work. A two-minds view is typically
committed to substance dualism.84 Human persons are a composite of an
immaterial soul and a material body. On substance dualism a person is an
immaterial soul, and has a material body—the “is” being the “is of identity.”
A human person has material properties because she has a body, but this
does not entail a contra- diction because the dualist is not saying that she is
entirely physical. With regard to this set of contradictory properties one can
say that God the Son is an immaterial being who possesses a human body.
The Son has material properties by having a body. A proponent of the
two-minds view is not

81
Richard Cross, “Incarnation,” in eds. Thomas Flint and Michael Rea, The Oxford Hand-
book of Philosophical Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 456.
82
Le Poidevin, “Identity and the Composite Christ,” 173.
83
Le Poidevin, “Identity and the Composite Christ,” 173.
84
Thomists will disagree, but I must confess that I find hylomorphism mysterious. So I will
stick with the substance dualism of the patristics for this discussion.
184The Incarnation of the Timeless God
committed to saying that the Son is entirely physical. All she is committed
to is saying that Christ has physical and non-physical parts.
What about necessary and contingent existence? The Son is a necessary
being, but His humanity only exists contingently. The person of Christ exists
necessarily, but His humanity exists contingently. The two-minds view pro-
ponent can argue that persons who are merely human exist contingently,
whereas a person who is fully human but not merely human can exist
necessarily. In the case of the Son incarnate, the necessity of the Son trumps
the contingency of His humanity. So only the necessity carries over to the
person.
Of course, a particular problem for the divine timeless research program
arises here. It would seem that the Son is only contingently related to His
humanity. If He were necessarily related to His humanity, His humanity
would not be contingent. This means that the Son’s human nature is acciden-
tal to Him.85 But, recall from Chapter 3, that accidental properties are repug-
nant to divine simplicity.86 The Son, being simple, cannot have accidental
properties. The communicatio idiomatum entails that the Son has accidental
properties. So divine simplicity is incompatible with the communicatio idio-
matum. So much the worse for divine simplicity and the divine timeless
research program.
There might be a way to get around this. Perhaps one could say that only
the divine nature is simple, and not the Son. Of course, that would seem to
destroy the doctrine of divine simplicity since, as one will recall from
Chapter 3, a simple God has no metaphysical diversity or complexity at all.
A multiplicity of persons in God is diverse and complex, despite the protests
of defenders of divine simplicity.87 Further, it would seem to call into
question whether or not

85
Blount, “On the Incarnation of a Timeless God,” 243. The traditional “language is
intended to emphasize the fact that, while the Son possesses a human nature, such a nature is
accidental to him (and, perhaps, that he has it voluntarily).” In Summa Theologiae III, Q2,
Aquinas denies that the humanity is accidental to Christ. He offers several nuanced
distinctions in an attempt to make this work. I find this baffling.
86
John Duns Scotus, De Primo Principio (Washington, D. C.: The Franciscan Institute,
1949), 143.
87
James E. Dolezal, “Trinity, Simplicity and the Status of God’s Personal Relations,” Inter-
national Journal of Systematic Theology 16 (2014). Dolezal says that there are no real
distinctions in the simple God, yet the three divine persons are really distinct. Further, the
three really distinct persons just are God. This is prima facie incoherent. Three distinct persons
in God is not compatible with the claim that God has no distinctions. Dolezal tries to hide
behind the doctrine of analogy as well as the claim that the divine persons just are subsisting
relations. This fails to be compatible with divine simplicity for the following reasons. (1) A
multiplicity of distinct relations in God is still to introduce distinction into a God who
supposedly lacks all metaphysical distinctions. Dolezal tries to escape this problem by stating
that the divine relations are identical to the essence of God, but this is to give up the claim that
there are three distinct persons. If F is identical to G, and S is identical to G, then F is identical
to S. (2) The subsistent relations are all identical to the one simple divine act, which in turn is
identical to the essence of God. So the relations end up being identical to each other. Each
divine person just is identical to an act of
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God185
the Son is divine since classical theology is committed to the claim that to be
divine is to be simple. Another possible way to get out of this is to deny the
communicatio idiomatum, but then one would be left with an inadequate
Christology. One might deny that the Son has His humanity accidentally,
and insist that the Son has it necessarily. Apart from being prima facie
implausible, this would seem to lead to immanent subordinationism and not
economic subordinationism for the Son would not be homoousios with the
Father and Holy Spirit. Divine simplicity, it would seem, is incompatible
with the Incar- nation. So much the worse for the divine timeless research
program.
One might try to ditch divine simplicity in order to save the timeless
research program. As noted in previous chapters, this move would
undermine the justification of the timeless research program since one of the
reasons often given in support of divine timelessness is divine simplicity.
Say one bites the bullet and gives up this source of justification for divine
timelessness in an attempt to make the timeless research program compatible
with the incarna- tion. She will still need to answer several questions. Is it
possible for the reduplicative strategy to solve the apparent contradiction of
the Son being atemporal and temporal? Is it possible for the Son to have a
timeless part and a temporal part? Or is this a case where one of the
properties trumps the other? That may depend on which theory of time she
adopts.

The Reduplicative Strategy, Presentism, and Endurantism

There appears to be a very serious difficulty with presentism and the incar-
nation even if one does concede that the humanity is a part of Christ. The
New Testament witness, the early Church creeds, and the orthodox
theologians all affirm (a) that the Son pre-existed His incarnate state, and (b)
that the human nature of Christ came into existence at a particular point in
time.88 The humanity of Christ simply did not exist until sometime around 4
BC. At that time it came into existence. The Son could not have been
embodied with His humanity prior to that time because there is nothing in
existence for the Son to be embodied in. God may have timelessly decreed
that the Son be embodied with His humanity at 4 BC, but that does not alter
the situation. Embodiment is an extremely intimate relation that the Son
stands in with regard to His humanity, and it is impossible for Him to
stand in this relation until His

procession, and all of God’s acts are identical to each other such that there is only one simple
act. A simple God is identical to His act. So, again, Dolezal has given up any distinction
between the persons. (3) A person cannot be a relation. A person is a thing that stands in
relations. The Thomistic notion of divine persons as subsisting relations is a category mistake
that needs to be put to rest. Hiding behind the doctrine of analogy and the doctrine of divine
ineffability or incomprehensibility does nothing to remove the category mistake.
88
Holland, God, Time, and the Incarnation, ch. 2.
186The Incarnation of the Timeless God
humanity comes into existence. This is a real change in the Son since the
Son is deeply and intimately related to His humanity. There is no way to
remove the temporal implications of this. One might say that <Christ qua
divine is atemporal> and <Christ qua human is temporal>, but this does
nothing to relieve the fact that at a particular time in history the Son began
to be embodied in a particular human nature. The human nature is accidental
to Him. The human nature is not itself timelessly eternal. It simply did not
exist prior to 4 BC. The divine nature itself undergoes a change in the
incarnation by becoming embodied in an endurant human nature.
There are two ways that I can see to avoid this. First, one can give up the
doctrine of embodiment. Maybe she will go medieval and say that the Son is
not really related to His humanity. If she does this she will have given up
any adequate notion of the incarnation. Embodiment is what distinguishes the
Son’s humanity from everyone else’s humanity. If we abandon embodiment
there is no legitimate sense in which we can say that the Son assumes
humanity, nor any way for us to distinguish the relationship between the Son
and His humanity from the Son and our humanity (i.e. how are we not
incarnated by the Son as well?).This first option is not a very good move to
make. The second possible way to avoid this is to adopt four-dimensional
eternalism.

The Reduplicative Strategy and Four-Dimensional Eternalism

Instead of treating Christ’s human nature as an endurant object that object-

ively came into existence with the flow of time, one could say that Christ’s
human nature is a four-dimensional object. On four-dimensional eternalism
Christ’s human nature is eternally located at a particular stretch of time. The
human nature will either be a spacetime worm or a series of person stages
(temporal counterparts). On this theory of time there is no worry about the
human nature not existing and then coming to exist. The temporal parts
that make up the humanity of Christ are co-eternal with God. There is never
a state of affairs in which God exists alone without the universe. There is
never a state of affairs at which God exists without the humanity of Christ.
This may look attractive at first, but an entailment must be brought out. In
adopting perdurantism or stage theory one has given up the numerical
identity of God the Son with Jesus Christ. This is because perdurantism
and stage theory are not numerical identity through time. Le Poidevin
explains that “the result is a view of Christ and God the Son as overlapping
series of temporal parts.”89 On perdurantism, Jesus Christ is a collection of
temporal parts. On stage theory, there are many different Jesus Christs—
one for each instant at which the career of Jesus spans. Cyril and those at
the council of Chalcedon

89
Le Poidevin, “Incarnation: Metaphysical Issues,” 713.
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God187
will not be happy with such a position. Again, it should be recalled that the
Christological deposit is resolutely committed to the numerical identity of
the Son and Jesus. It is clear that we do not have numerical identity between
the Son and Jesus on perdurantism or stage theory.
Perhaps the four-dimensional eternalist will insist that things are not as
bad as they sound. One will recall from Chapter 2 that perdurantism and
stage theory are considered to be identity through time, just not numerical
identity through time. On perdurantism an object persists through time by
having temporal parts at different times. On stage theory, an object persists
by having temporal counter parts. On both accounts, the temporal parts are
supposed to be in the right sort of intimate spatiotemporal and causal
relations to each other in order for identity to obtain. A four-dimensionalist
might say that surely an omnipotent being like God could ensure that the
humanity of Christ has the appropriate relations necessary for identity
through time even though it is not numerical identity. I fail to see how this is
compatible with an ecumenical Christology, but I shall rest my case for
now. Instead, I shall point out a deeper problem for this position.
What we have is a model where God the Son is eternally related to a four-
dimensional object. The object in question is a human nature. Does this save
divine timelessness? Le Poidevin says no since the Son is causally joined
with a collection of temporal parts.90 The Son acts at particular times so
temporality trumps atemporality. As was argued throughout Chapters 5 and 6,
to act at a time is sufficient to be in time. Perhaps a dyothelite can get around
this. She could assert that the Son eternally decrees that the human nature
will certain actions at particular times. The human will acts in time, whereas
the divine will acts timelessly. This may sound promising, but we have not
yet considered embodi- ment or the communicatio idiomatum. If the Son is
embodied in a four- dimensional humanity He will assume the properties of
that humanity. That means that the Son will literally have temporal parts.
Such a thing is odious to divine timelessness and divine simplicity since, as
discussed in Chapter 3, no timeless or simple being can have temporal parts.
One could avoid this by saying that it is only the human nature that has
temporal parts, but the success of this move depends on denying
embodiment and the communicatio idiomatum.

FOUR-DIMENSIONALISM AND SUBORDINATION

Another problem arises for four-dimensional eternalism and the incarnation.

There is a very real sense in which the Son is eternally incarnate. Typically a

90
Le Poidevin, “Identity and the Composite Christ,” 183.
188The Incarnation of the Timeless God
Christian theologian will want to say that there is a distinction between the
immanent and the economic Trinity. The immanent Trinity distinguishes the
necessary and essential properties of the divine persons as they are in them-
selves. The economic Trinity distinguishes the contingent properties and
roles of the divine persons in the economy of creation and salvation. The
immanent Trinity is about God in Himself, and the economic Trinity is
about God in relation to creation. In the economy of salvation the Son is
subordinate to the Father by being obedient in the incarnation. This is said to
be a non-essential role that the Son freely takes in the economy of salvation.
(Of course, divine simplicity makes this impossible since God cannot have
any accidental prop- erties or any properties at all.) In what sense can we
maintain the immanent and economic distinction on four-dimensional
eternalism? The Son is eter- nally incarnate, and thus would seem to be
eternally subordinate. If the Son is eternally subordinate it is hard to see how
He is equal to the Father.
The defender of divine timelessness cannot say that the Son is only subor-
dinate to the Father from 4 BC on. That would make the Son temporal, and
on four-dimensionalism that would entail that the Son has temporal parts. As
such, one has abandoned timelessness, simplicity, and immutability.
A possible move is to distinguish between absolute necessity and condi-
tional necessity. Absolute necessity applies to the essence of a thing,
whereas conditional necessity applies to a particular supposition.91 A
triangle has three sides of absolute necessity. The proposition <Socrates is
sitting> is condition- ally necessary. If it is true, it is impossible for
<Socrates is not sitting> to be true. With this modal distinction in hand one
might say that the Son is subordinate of conditional necessity. It could have
been the case that God did not create a world at all. It could have been the
case that the Father or the Holy Spirit had become incarnate instead of the
Son.92 However, God has eternally/timelessly decreed the subordination of
the Son. There never was a time when the Son was not subordinate to the
Father. We may have a modal collapse on our hands since it appears that
things could not have in fact been otherwise given divine timelessness,
immutability, and simplicity.
Modal collapse can be avoided if it were actually possible for God to have
willed differently. Of course, as discussed in Chapter 6, this will be of little
help. If God could have done otherwise, He would have been different in
several respects. First, His will would have been different. Instead of
actualiz- ing world A where the Son becomes incarnate, God would have
actualized world B where the Holy Spirit becomes incarnate. Second, the
contents of God’s beliefs would have been different. Instead of believing
<the Son is

91
Michael J. Dodds, The Unchanging God of Love: Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary
Theology on Divine Immutability, 2nd Edition (Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2008). 172.
92
Anselm, Incarnation of the Word X.
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God189
incarnate> God would have the belief <the Holy Spirit is incarnate>. The
reason this is of little help is that it undermines divine simplicity. Again, it
should be recalled that a simple God cannot have any potential. He is pure
act. If God could have done otherwise, these possibilities represent potential
acts that God could perform but did not. As such, God has unactualized
potential, so He isn’t pure act and thus not simple. Further, it undermines
immutability. His act of creation does effect His essence in a meaningful
way. God is the creator of world A, and not the creator of world B. If it is
actually possible for God to create a different world, then God is not
immutable in the sense necessary to preserve divine timelessness. The type
of immutability needed is one where it is impossible for God to undergo any
change or be different in any respect.
Modal collapse can be avoided by getting rid of divine simplicity and
immutability, but those doctrines are reasons for holding to atemporality.
If those doctrines go, we have no reason to think that God is timeless.
Further, these doctrines play an integral role in the atemporalist’s research
program. Abandoning these doctrines destroys the integrity of her research
program.

CAN A TIMELESS GOD BE EMBODIED?

This is an important question for part of the meaning of incarnation is that

the Son became embodied in human flesh (John 1). If a timeless God cannot
become embodied, the incarnation is impossible. In this section I shall argue
that a timeless God cannot become incarnate.
Can a timeless person be embodied on the account discussed earlier? It
seems the answer is no for a timeless mind can, at best, only satisfy one of
the four conditions for embodiment. Le Poidevin points out that the
“conclusion must be that on the composite model, only Christ’s human mind
is embodied, not the divine mind.”93 I will take each condition in turn.
The first condition holds that the disturbances and goings-on of the phys-
ical body will cause pain or pleasure in the mind. The human mind of the
Son can meet this condition, but the divine mind cannot. The human mind
felt pleasure as the body was warmed by the sun. The human mind felt pain
as the body was nailed to the cross. The divine mind felt none of this for
several reasons. First, these are temporal—successive—experiences and a
timeless mind cannot have such experiences. Second, a timeless mind is also
impass- ible. It does not receive joy from anything ad extra, nor can its joy
be interrupted. The Christological deposit holds that the divine nature did
not

93
Le Poidevin, “The Incarnation: Divine Embodiment and the Divided Mind,” 278.
190The Incarnation of the Timeless God
suffer on the cross, but that only the human nature did. It would appear that,
on a two-minds view, the divine mind does not meet this first condition.
The second condition holds that the mind can feel the inside of the body.
The human mind of Jesus experienced the feeling of an empty stomach
during the temptation in the desert. I gather that the resurrected body of
Jesus also experienced hunger. In Luke 24:36–43 Jesus appears to the
disciples. Naturally they are startled and suspect He may be a ghost. Jesus
offers several signs that He is not a ghost. He points out that He has a body
that can be touched. Then He asks if there is anything to eat. I would assume
that the broiled fish He was given gave Him the feeling of a full stomach. It
seems that the human mind of Jesus can experience the body’s full stomach,
but that the divine mind cannot. First, these bodily sensations are successive,
and a timeless mind cannot experience succession. Second, an embodied
mind would acquire knowledge through the body about this feeling, and a
timeless mind cannot acquire knowledge. Third, a timeless mind is also
impassible, and an impassible mind cannot suffer the pangs of an empty
stomach.
The third condition is that a mind can move a body through a basic action.
This seems to be the only condition that a timeless mind could satisfy, but it
satisfies this condition in a rather unsatisfactory way. The doctrines of om-
nipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence entail that God can move any
material object through a basic action. There is nothing that distinguishes
God’s ability to perform basic actions on the entire universe from His ability
to perform basic actions on a particular body. (Since I have already argued
in Chapters 5 and 6 that there is no account of atemporal action with
temporal effects, I will not rehash that here. For the sake of argument I will
assume that there is some working model of this.)
There is another problem as well. On the two-minds view under consider-
ation the God-man has two wills. The human mind wills that the body
perform some action a through a basic action. The divine mind also (time-
lessly) wills that the body perform some action a through a basic action. We
have overdetermination. It appears that one of the wills is completely un-
necessary and superfluous. How can this overdetermination be avoided? One
could posit that the human mind actively wills a whereas the divine mind
passively or permissively wills a. This would be a similar move to that
which is made in various accounts of divine providence.94 This move,
however, is open

94
What I have in mind are reformed accounts of divine providence, but the same applies to
medieval accounts as well. Thomas Aquinas seems to cut the operations of the two wills of
Christ in terms of primary and secondary causation just like he does in his account of divine
providence. He explicitly compares the relation between the divine and human wills in Christ
to that of the divine will and the saints. “Whatever was in the human nature of Christ was
moved at the bidding of the Divine will; yet it does not follow that in Christ there was no
movement of the will proper to human nature, for the good wills of other saints are moved by
God’s will, ‘Who worketh’ in them ‘both to will and to accomplish,’ as is written Phil. 2:13.” A
little later he says,
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God191
to the charge of Nestorianism since it is indistinguishable from the way God
interacts with other human agents. Further, it appears to only give us a
functional unity of the two natures, and not an ontic unity. In short, it is not
clear how one can avoid having to bite the bullet on overdetermination.
Regardless of this, if a defender of atemporality can solve these problems
she has only succeeded in satisfying one of the conditions for embodiment.
Yet not all models of the incarnation can even come this close to
satisfying this condition. The Christological deposit seems to explicitly deny
that the divine mind interacts directly with the body. As such, the divine
mind does not move the body by a basic act. Instead, the divine mind works
through the human mind in order to interact with the body. Thinkers like
Origen, Max- imus the Confessor, John of Damascus, Gregory of
Nazianzus, Augustine, and Peter Lombard claim that the human mind acts as
a mediator between the Son and the body. The idea is that the human soul
serves as a wall to protect the Son from the “grossness” of human flesh.95 It
also somehow prevents the Son from suffering any change. This aspect of
ecumenical Christology is wide- spread in the ancient and medieval Church.
This prevents the Son from satisfying the third condition for embodiment.
Condition four holds that a mind’s locus of perception on the world is
from the perspective of the body. The mind acquires perceptual knowledge
from the body. As noted, on a two-minds view the divine mind does not
acquire knowledge through the body. Only the human mind does.96 The
divine mind as timeless and omniscient cannot acquire any knowledge.
Further, a timeless mind cannot look out from the perspective of a body for
that would require having succession. An embodied mind perceives one
thing, then another, then another, and so on. A timeless mind cannot have
any succession. The final condition holds that the thoughts and feelings of
the mind are affected by the body. The human mind of Jesus can easily
satisfy this condition for reasons noted earlier, but the divine mind cannot
satisfy this condition. The divine mind is timeless, immutable, and
impassible. It cannot be affected by anything ad extra nor change in any
way. If the human body suffers, the divine mind will remain in a timeless
state of uninterrupted joy. As the human body grows weak and tired, the
human mind feels it and thinks “I should get some sleep.” The divine mind
has no knowledge of what it is like to feel tired, nor can the divine mind
entertain the belief “I should get some sleep” in any

“the human will of Christ had a determinate mode from the fact of being in a Divine hypostasis,
i.e. it was always moved in accordance with the bidding of the Divine will.” ST III, Q18.
95
Gregory of Nazianzus in ed. Henry Bettenson, The Later Christian Fathers: A Selection
from the Writings of the Fathers from St. Cyril of Jerusalem to St. Leo the Great (London:
Oxford University Press, 1970), 108. Marmodoro and Hill, “Compositional Models of the
Incarnation,” 475–9. Origen in Norris, Christological Controversy, 76. Peter Lombard,
Sentences III Dist. II, XXI, and XXII.
96
Morris, “The Metaphysics of God Incarnate,” 220–4.
192The Incarnation of the Timeless God
meaningful way. This is because a timeless, immutable, and impassible
mind cannot possibly experience the sensation of growing tired and weak.
As it stands divine timelessness cannot meet the conditions for embodi-
ment. Since all five conditions must be met for embodiment to take place
one may reasonably conclude that the divine mind is not embodied. Sure the
human mind is embodied, but so what? God the Son is a divine mind. If a
timeless divine mind cannot become embodied, and God the Son is a divine
mind, God the Son cannot become embodied. It looks like we do not have
an incarnation on our hands, and that is repugnant to Christian belief. At
best we have a divine mind that is generically related to all physical objects
in virtue of being omnipresent (and I have already laid out the problems this
causes for divine timelessness). Omnipresence does not provide one with
enough re- sources to satisfy embodiment. The relationship of God’s
omnipresence to the world is far too loose for an adequate ecumenical
Christology. If a timeless divine mind cannot be incarnate, Christians must
give up belief in timeless divine minds.

TWO- MINDS AND KNOWLEDGE DE SE

God’s knowledge is so peculiarly his own, as to be impossible to be

communicated to any thing created, not even to the soul of Christ;
though we gladly confess, that Christ knows all those things which are
required for the discharge of his office and for his perfect blessedness.
—James Arminius97
Some may find my last point about embodiment contentious. Perhaps one
might object that the relation thus described is not too loose to be considered
an adequately ecumenical account of the incarnation. What makes it “too”
loose? The fact that the divine mind is not embodied. No embodiment, no
incarnation. Incarnation means taking on flesh. Further, the fact that the
divine mind bears the same basic generic relation to the human mind and

97
Disputation IV.XLVI from “25 Public Disputations” in ed. James Nichols and William
Nichols, The Works of James Arminius: The London Edition, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Book House, 1986). Peter Lombard would disagree with Arminius. For him, the human soul
of Christ knows all that God knows. However, the human soul does not comprehend all things
as clearly and perfectly as God does. See Sentences III Dist. XIII and XIV. Francis Turretin
points out that this is a theological difference between Catholic scholastics and Protestants.
Catholics and Protestants agree, he says, that the human soul of Christ knows all things after
the ascension. They disagree over the human soul’s knowledge during Christ’s earthly sojourn.
See Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2 (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and
Reformed Publishing Company, 1994), 348–50. Cf. Timothy Pawl, “The Freedom of Christ
and the Problem of Deliberation,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 75 (2014).
 The Incarnation of the Timeless God193
body of Jesus that He does to all other human minds and bodies makes the
relation far too loose to count as an incarnation.98 But the point can be
pressed even further when we consider de se beliefs. Knowledge de dicto is
knowledge about propositions. There is also knowledge by acquaintance or
first-hand knowledge. Knowledge de se is personal knowledge, or
knowledge from a first- person perspective.99 Allow me to illustrate.
Say there is a bachelor named Bill. Bill has heard on more than one occasion
that
<sex is enjoyable>. After receiving an overwhelming amount of testimonial
evi- dence to this effect he develops the de dicto belief that <sex is enjoyable>.
However, he has not yet experienced it himself at first hand. At this point
Bill’s belief is merely propositional. Now say that Bill finds a wonderful girl
and he marries her. After Bill’s wedding night he acquires a new type of
knowledge: knowledge by acquaint- ance. He can now entertain the belief that
<sex is enjoyable> ina different way. He has a first-hand knowledge of sex
that he did not previously have. He can also entertain a de se belief, or a first-
person belief that no one else can entertain:
<I enjoy sex>. Other people can entertain a similar belief, but it will not be the
exact same de se belief as Bill’s since this de se belief is about Bill. One
cannot entertain this de se belief unless he is in fact Bill. Other people can
entertain the de se belief <I enjoy sex>, but it will be a unique de se belief
about them and no one else. The “I” will pick out someone different, and thus
be a different proposition.
What does this have to do with the incarnation? In the incarnation there is
supposed to be one person with two natures. There is supposed to be one “I”
and not two, one subject of predication and not two. To put it in patristic
language, there is supposed to be one Son and not two Sons. Given the
nature of de se beliefs—that they pertain to unique individual persons—it
seems that a timeless God cannot be incarnate since a timeless God cannot
entertain the same de se beliefs as Jesus. Consider the following.
(22) If God the Son cannot entertain the same de se beliefs as Jesus, God
the Son is not the same person as Jesus.
(23) If God the Son is timeless, immutable, and impassible, He cannot
entertain the same de se beliefs as Jesus.
(24) God the Son is timeless, immutable, and impassible.
(25) Thus, God the Son cannot entertain the same de se beliefs as Jesus.
(26) Thus, God the Son is not the same person as Jesus.
(22) follows from the nature of de se beliefs. They are beliefs that can
only be entertained by a unique person. Two different persons cannot
share the same de se belief. They may have a belief that takes the same
form like <I enjoy sex> but the propositional content is different for
each person. The “I” in the

98
John Hick offers a similar argument against the two-minds view. “The Logic of God
Incarnate,” Religious Studies 25 (1989).
99
It should be noted that the exact nature of de se knowledge is controversial.
194The Incarnation of the Timeless God
proposition picks out a different person. (24) is the assumed premise as it is
the divine timeless research program.
(23) is the contentious premise and will need some defense. Say that
Jesus has the following de se beliefs.
(27) I am suffering on the cross.
(28) I begin to feel hungry at 11:00 a.m. on 3 March, 28.
(29) I begin to feel full at 12:00 p.m. on 3 March, 28.
(30) I am ignorant of the second coming.
Can God the Son entertain (27)–(30)? No. As impassible the Son cannot
entertain the belief <I am suffering>. As timeless and immutable the Son
cannot begin to feel hungry or full. As omniscient the Son cannot be
ignorant. Jesus has these de se beliefs, but the Son does not.
Maybe the proponent of divine timelessness can try to find beliefs that the
Son has that would make it the case that He counts as the same person as
Jesus. What kind of beliefs could the Son entertain? Perhaps one will say
that the Son has the tenseless belief that <my human nature is hungry at
11:00 a.m. on 3 March, 28>. Surely this is not good enough. This simply is
not the same de se belief that the human mind of Jesus holds. It should be
noted that the atemporalist cannot say that the Son holds the tenseless belief
<I begin to feel hungry at 11:00 a.m. on 3 March, 28> for that would entail
the Son beginning to have an experience and a belief at a time. Nor can the
atemporalist say that the Son holds the tenseless belief <I begin to feel
hungry at 11:00 a.m. on 3 March, 28 qua humanity> for that would fall
subject to the problems noted earlier for reduplication: it would entail (28).
The de se beliefs of the human mind of Jesus captured in (27)–(30) are
temporal beliefs that involve change, succession, variation of emotion,
ignor- ance of the future, and an interruption of pure joy. These simply are
not de se beliefs that any timeless, immutable, or impassible divine mind
could enter- tain. (23) is true, and (25) and (26) follow. If the Son is not the
same person as Jesus, we have a clear cut case of Nestorianism.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

In this chapter I have argued that divine timelessness is not compatible with
the ecumenical model of the incarnation. One must pick either divine time-
lessness or the incarnation. Christians cannot give up the incarnation. It is
essential to Christian belief and is at the heart of the gospel. Atemporality is
not at the heart of the gospel, nor is it essential to Christian belief. Divine
timelessness is not even taught in the Bible, and as such Christians should
feel no worries about giving up divine timelessness in order to be faithful to
the explicit teachings of scripture.
 Conclusion

In this book I have argued that the Christian God cannot be timeless. Given
the existent theories of time, and the models of God’s relation to time, the
prospects for a Christian research program that includes divine timelessness
seem bleak.
At this point, however, there may be some remaining questions from the
reader. Perhaps the reader might like to know why I did not discuss certain
issues. For instance, one might ask about my commitment to presentism, or
my take on particular biblical material. Clearly, given the limitations of
space and the focus of this research, certain questions must be left aside for
future work. Here, I have done my best to discuss all of the essential issues,
but there are other remaining issues that I would like to have gone into. In
this conclusion I wish to note briefly some of these issues, and how they
might impact the debate concerning God’s relation to time. A full treatment
would need to be offered in a sequel to this book.

SCIENCE AND TIME

First, it might seem quite obvious that I did not delve deeply into scientific
issues as they relate to time. For example, one might ask how I can square
my presentism with contemporary physics. It should be noted that many
others have done this better than I can, and as such I am quite happy to leave
it in their capable hands.1 There are fascinating debates in the current
literature

1
Dean Zimmerman, “Presentism and the Space-Time Manifold,” in ed. Craig Callender,
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
William Lane Craig, God, Time and Eternity (London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001)
chs. 6–7. Michael Tooley, Time, Tense, and Causation (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1997), ch. 11. C. J. Isham and John Polkinghorne, “The Debate Over the Block Universe,” in
eds. Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, and C. J. Isham, Quantum Cosmology and the
Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, 2nd Edition (Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1999). Craig Bourne, A Future for Presentism (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006), chs. 5–7.
196Conclusion
between presentists and eternalists over the implications of relativity theory
and quantum mechanics. Ultimately, this debate is not relevant for the
argument of my work. As I have argued, even if eternalism is the correct
theory of time, God cannot be regarded as timeless. However, my current
and future publications develop an account of God’s temporality from a
presentist ontology of time, and not from an eternalist ontology. Further, my
account of divine temporality holds that time never began to exist. As such,
a few brief comments seem appropriate at this point, but it must be stressed
that these comments are brief. A thorough discussion would delve into the
structure of scientific theories, the ways that theories are open to
metaphysical interpret- ation, and what one thinks mature scientific theories
are accomplishing.2 This task clearly goes beyond the bounds of this current
project.
So what can be said briefly? Two things. First, there is no clear difficulty
from physics for presentism. Second, science does not clearly teach that
time began with the universe. I will look at physics and presentism first
before discussing the beginning of time.
First, it should be noted that with the Special Theory of Relativity (STR),
there is nothing within the theory itself to give us a preferred reference
frame. In other words, there is nothing within the theory itself that picks out
the present moment of time.3 An eternalist can argue that STR refutes
presentism and confirms her theory of time. Christopher J. Isham and John
Polkinghorne explain this understanding of STR as follows.
In the common parlance, within the theory of relativity there is no unequivocal
meaning to the simultaneity of events, and thus no unequivocal concept of
“time.” Consequently, no meaning can be ascribed to the notion of the future or
past .. . The most that can be affirmed in special relativity is the existence of an
infinite family of possible definitions of time that are related to inertial
reference frames.4
Since there are an infinite number of inertial frames an eternalist will
contend that there is no justification for the presentist to pick one inertial
frame as privileged over any other to be the cosmic present.5

Robert John Russell, Time in Eternity: Pannenberg, Physics, and Eschatology in Creative
Mutual Interaction (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012), ch. 5.
2
Katherine Hawley, “Science as a Guide to Metaphysics?” Synthese 149 (2006). Tim
Maudlin,
“Distilling Metaphysics From Quantum Physics,” in eds. Michael J. Loux and Dean
W. Zimmerman, The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics (New York: Oxford, 2003). Jeffrey
Koperski, “Metatheoretic Shaping Principles: Where Science Meets Theology,” in eds.
William Hasker, Thomas Jay Oord, and Dean Zimmerman, God in an Open Universe:
Science, Meta- physics, and Open Theism (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2011).
3
Smart, “The Tenseless Theory of Time,” in eds. Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne, and Dean
W. Zimmerman, Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing,
2008), 232.
4
Isham and Polkinghorne, “The Debate Over the Block Universe,” 141.
5
Robert John Russell, “Time in Eternity: Special Relativity and Eschatology,” Dialog: A
Journal of Theology 39 (2000), 50.
 Conclusion197
This might seem like an interesting fact of STR that should inform our
philosophy of time. However, should we give up our deep seated beliefs
about the present just because nothing within STR can pick out the present?
Polk- inghorne cautions us against doing so. “As for the present moment, so
much the worse for physics if it finds no representation of such a basic
human experience—only the most crassly physical reductionist could try to
turn this deficiency of science into a source of metaphysical insight.”6
Why think Polkinghorne is right about this? To begin, it should be noted
that STR, and physics in general, does not give us all there is to know about
the world. For instance, fundamental physics does not account for causation,
and that is not a good reason for giving up our belief that causation is a
fundamental feature of reality.7 Just because STR fails to account for certain
features of reality, does not mean that we should give up our belief in
those features of reality.
Ultimately, the presentist should not give up her position in light of STR
because STR is, strictly speaking, false. This is why physicists continue to
work on the General Theory of Relativity (GTR) and Quantum Theory
(QT). Bradley Monton explains as follows.
[STR] is a false theory, and prima facie it’s not a good idea to derive
metaphysical lessons for our world on the basis of a theory that doesn’t
correctly describe our world. The reason special relativity is false is that it
makes predictions at variance with reality. For example, according to special
relativity, a clock at the base of a building will run at the same rate as a clock at
the top of the building (assuming that the building is in an inertial frame of
reference), but in fact the clock at the base runs slower. This fact about clocks
is one piece of evidence for general relativity—according to general relativity,
a clock in a stronger gravitational field runs more slowly than a clock in a
weaker gravitational field.8
STR is still quite useful in contemporary science, just as Newtonian physics
is, but it does not give us a full and accurate picture of fundamental reality.
GTR tries to account for things that STR does not. However, the eternalist
could try to say that GTR is incompatible with presentism since GTR does
not give us a preferred way to pick out the present either. But this is not
entirely obvious since there are some models of GTR that do allow us to
develop a way of picking out the present. What must be understood is that
fundamental physics does not give us the whole story of reality. As noted
earlier, just because one scientific discipline fails to account for a particular
facet of reality does not

6
Polkinghorne, “Space, Time, and Causality,” Zygon 41 (2006), 977.
7
Bradley Monton, Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design
(Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2009), 91–2. Also, Paul Humphreys, “Causation,” in ed.
W. H. Newton- Smith, A Companion to the Philosophy of Science (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000),
36–9.
8
Monton, “Prolegomena to Any Future Physics-Based Metaphysics,” in ed. Jonathan Kvanvig,
Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion, vol. 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 145.
198Conclusion
entail that other disciplines fail to do so as well. When one investigates
reality she will want to draw upon as many disciplines as possible because
each discipline focuses on a particular facet of reality. In order to figure out
which model of GTR best describes the universe that we actually live in, one
will need to draw upon knowledge gained from other disciplines. As
Polkinghorne explains, “when one moves from physics to cosmology and
considers the Universe as a whole, there is indeed a natural meaning of
cosmic time (and so a cosmic ‘now’), which is defined by the frame of
reference at rest with respect to the cosmic background radiation.”9 These
considerations from cosmology are how we come up with the calculation
that the universe is about 13 billion years old. When one considers scientific
disciplines other than fundamental physics, the privileged present comes
back with vengeance. So GTR does not appear to be a problem for the
presentist either.
However, it should be pointed out that GTR, as it is currently stated, is
most likely false since it conflicts with QT. As noted, GTR says that clocks
run faster or slower depending upon the influence of the gravitational field
they are in. QT says that ideal clocks run the same rate regardless of the
gravitational field. Does QT conflict with presentism? Again, the answer is
that it does not obviously do so. It is the case that many physicists maintain
that the relativity of simultaneity is a lesson learned from STR, and they
hope that this will carry over into QT, but it is also the case that there are
interpretations of QT that do have a privileged present.10 What must be made
clear is that we have no idea what time will ultimately look like in later,
more refined versions of QT.11 It is quite possible for a version of QT that is
compatible with presentism to turn out to be true, but we simply do not
know at this time which version, if any, will turn out to be the true
description of reality.
What about the beginning of time? Doesn’t contemporary science teach us
that time began with the Big Bang? As noted in Chapter 2, this is far from
obvious. Contemporary physicists appear to be working with something like
a relational theory of time, but it is not quite as fundamental as the relational
theory. The physicist concerns herself with measurable physical changes,
and as such is methodologically unconcerned with the possibility of non-
physical changes. Further, she will be methodologically unconcerned with
whether or not the absolute theory of time is true.12 For the physicist, if there
is no way to

9
John Polkinghorne, “The Nature of Time,” in eds. Alain Comes, Michael Heller, Shahn
Majid, Roger Penrose, John Polkinghorne, and Andrew Taylor, On Space and Time (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 280.
10
Bradley Monton, “Presentism and Quantum Gravity,” in ed. Dennis Dieks, The Ontology
of Spacetime (Oxford: Elsevier, 2006).
11
Zimmerman, “Presentism and the Space-Time Manifold,” Oxford Handbook of the Phil-
osophy of Time, 178.
12
Thanks to the Physics and Philosophy Society at the University of St Andrews for much
discussion and clarity on this issue.
 Conclusion199
develop a clock, then there is no time even if events can still be in a chrono-
logical order of before and after.13 This is why one will see physicists say
things like “time began at the Big Bang,” but then see physicists ask the
question, “What came before the Big Bang?” The same physicists who say
that time began at the Big Bang will also posit a universe or a multiverse
generator that exists prior to our universe to explain what caused the Big
Bang. This is an unfortunate way of talking. It would be better for physicists
to say that measured time as we know it began shortly after the Big Bang (to
account for the Planck era), instead of saying that time simpliciter began at
the Big Bang. Quite clearly they are talking about time before the Big Bang
when they posit prior universes with their own measured time series.

THE BIBLE ON TIME AND ETERNITY

One might complain that I did not delve too deeply into the biblical
literature. I had developed a full chapter that offered a detailed discussion of
the biblical material on God, time, and eternity, as well as a companion
chapter that developed the method of perfect being theology and how to use
it to interpret scripture and use scripture to interpret perfect being theology.
But space limitations did not allow me to include these chapters. Basically,
what I would suggest is that there is no hint of divine timelessness in the
Christian scriptures. One can easily find the claim that God exists without
beginning and without end in the Bible, but one cannot find anything that
implicitly or explicitly resembles a “without succession” clause anywhere in
scripture. More importantly, the Bible describes eternity in temporal terms.
As G. E. Ladd puts it, “Biblically, eternity is unending time.”14 As Ted Peters
explains,
The biblical words that come into English as eternity refer to an age that lasts
a long time, perhaps forever. Isaiah uses the Hebrew word olam when writing,
‘I will make you majestic forever, a joy from age to age’ (Isaiah 60:15 NRSV).
In the New Testament the principal term for eternity is aion, which comes into
English also as aeon, meaning literally an age that lasts for a long time. This is
the term used in John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only
Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal
life (zoen aionion).’15

13
George Musser, “Could Time End?” Scientific American 21 (2012). Roger Penrose, Cycles of
Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe (London: Vintage Books, 2010).
14
G. E. Ladd, “Age, Ages,” in ed. Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1984), 21.
15
Peters, “Eschatology: Eternal Now or Cosmic Future?” Zygon 36 (2001), 352.
200Conclusion
Whenever the Bible talks about eternity it uses temporal terms. Despite this
fact, most of classical Christian theology ignores this. Most thinkers
through- out Church history in the East and the West simply assume divine
timeless- ness and offer proof-texts like Exodus 3:14, Numbers 23:19,
Malachi 3:6, Psalm 90, Psalm 139, Isaiah 46, James 1:17, 2 Peter 3,
Hebrews 13:8, and Revelation 1:4. None of these passages, however, give us
the without succes- sion clause. In fact, many of them directly, or indirectly,
suggest that God does have succession in His life. Further, the passages
noted here that say that “God does not change” have a limited scope of the
ways in which God does not change. They do not teach that God does not
change in any way, shape, or form. Instead, they speak of God not changing
with regard to keeping His promises, or never ceasing to be good and
loving. Elsewhere I have delved into these issues a bit more, but space
limitations do not permit me to discuss this fully here.16
If one were to hazard a guess as to why so many theologians overlooked
the fact that the Bible speaks of eternity in temporal terms, one should recall
the discussion of Chapter 3. There I discussed how classical theologians and
philosophers were in the practice of providing non-temporal readings of
temporal terms when speaking about God. Theologians admitted the weak-
ness of using terms like “present” to speak of God, but they felt that they had
given a sufficiently non-temporal meaning to such terms in these particular
contexts. One example comes from the Dionysian mystical tradition in the
East. Theologians in this tradition struggled with the fact that the Bible uses
temporal terms to describe eternity. They note that sometimes the Bible
uses terms that are not worthy of God, and that these things can be
interpreted to say something that is truly worthy of God.17 The idea seems to
be that even though the Bible describes eternity in temporal terms, we
should not let this deter us from believing that God is timeless and that He
existed before, and without, creation. In other words, one can give these
temporal statements in the Bible a non-temporal interpretation. This is better
than the kind of proof- texting that has characterized classical Christian
theology, but it still does not help to ground divine timelessness biblically
because there is nothing within scripture to suggest that we should give
these passages a non-temporal reading.18
By way of example, consider the common proof text for divine
timelessness, Revelation 1:4, which speaks of God as the one “who is and
who was and who

16
See my “Divine Temporality and the Charge of Arianism” Journal of Analytic Theology
(Forthcoming), and “Divine Perfection and Creation,” The Heythrop Journal (Forthcoming).
17
Pseudo-Dionysius, Divine Names 10.3.2. C.f. John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian
Corpus: Annotating the Areopagite, trans. Paul Rorem and John C. Lamoreaux (Oxford:
Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1998), 233–8.
18
Henri Blocher, “Yesterday, Today, Forever: Time, Times, Eternity in Biblical Perspective.”
Tyndale Bulletin 52 (2001).
 Conclusion201
is to come.” This phrase, and variations of it, is repeated throughout the
book of Revelation. It might strike one as an odd proof-text for divine
timelessness since it clearly speaks of God having a past and a future. The
same God who came to us in the past is the same God who is with us now,
and is the same God who will come again. This phrase does imply God’s
eternality, but it also implies succession in the life of God. An atemporalist,
like the seventeenth- century theologian Francis Turretin, will quickly point
out that this passage speaks anthropopathically, so in actuality it does not
imply succession in God.19 Why think a thing like that? Since the time
of Plato, philosophers have thought it proper to speak of the timeless God in
the present tense only. As noted in Chapter 3, the present tense “is” is given
a non-temporal reading when applied to the timeless God. As such, they say
it is not strictly speaking proper to refer to God with the past tense “was” and
the future tense “will be.” Should we take Revelation to be speaking
anthropopathically here? Surely not! This is so for at least two reasons. First,
if we say “yes,” we cannot use this passage as a proof-text for atemporality.
Why? Because it does not explicitly teach that God exists without
succession. One must presuppose that God exists without succession in
order to argue that this passage must be taken in an anthropomorphic or
poetic way. A proof-text is of little use if one must
explain away what it actually says.
Second, taking this passage to be anthropomorphic prevents one from
seeing how unique this phrase is in Revelation. One of the striking features
of Revelation is that it continually speaks of God as being the one who “was,
is, and is to come.” Despite the fact that the timeless “is” was widespread by
the time Revelation was written, the author does not take up this way of
speaking about God. The conceptual machinery needed to speak about God
as timeless was available to the author of Revelation, and yet the author
does not use it. As David E. Aune points out, the predicate “the One who is”
was often used in Greco-Jewish texts to denote a non-temporal existent God.
The author of Revelation, instead, modifies the common language and
speaks of “the One who is to come.” The formula of the One who was, is,
and is to come is unique to Revelation, and does not occur elsewhere in
Jewish and Christian texts before the third century.20
The author of Revelation seems to have a particular purpose in speaking
of God as the one who “was, is, and is to come.” It is not an unreasonable
interpretation to say that the author wishes to emphasize that this God has a
past. Even further, this God has made promises about the future. Given what

19
Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed
Publishing Company, 1992), 203.
20
David E. Aune, “God and Time in the Apocalypse of John,” in eds. A. Andrew Das and
Frank J. Matera, The Forgotten God: Perspectives in Biblical Theology (London: Westminster
John Knox Press, 2002), 230–2.
202Conclusion
we know about God from what He has done in the past, and is currently
doing in the present, we can be confident that He will keep His promises. In
short, the portrayal of God advanced by the author of Revelation is deeply
temporal. As such, it cannot be a proof-text for divine timelessness.
This exposition of Revelation fits nicely with another common proof-text
for divine timelessness—Exodus 3:14. This passage has long been, and still
is, used as a proof-text for divine timelessness, aseity, immutability,
impassibility, and simplicity.21 In this famous passage, God reveals Himself
to Moses as “I AM WHO I AM.” The reason this is a common proof-text is
because it is translated in the present tense. Atemporalists contend that the “I
AM” should be read as the timeless present tense. This, however, is a poor
interpretation of the text because the passage implies divine temporality. It
portrays a God who will be forever divine regardless of what transpires in
the future. As Wolfhart Pannenberg points out, most exegetes prefer to
translate this passage as “I shall be who I shall be.” This implies that God
has a future.22 Henri Blocher draws another important point from this
passage. “I AM, in itself, does not exclude ‘I was’.”23 This implies that God
has a past.
This passage simply does not indicate that God exists in a timeless present
that lacks a before and after. It cannot justify divine timelessness. To make
this point more clear, consider the meaning of the divine name that is given
to Moses. Bruce C. Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terrence E. Fretheim, and
David L. Petersen concur with Pannenberg that the passage is better
translated as “I will be who I will be” or “I will cause to be what I cause to
be.” What this divine name conveys is that God is the Creator. As they
explain, this name in part points back to God’s past. This name also points
toward God’s future. God will be Israel’s savior. What God is trying to
convey to Moses in this divine name is that Moses will know who God is by
what God is about to do— that is, deliver the Israelites out of slavery.
Further, in giving His name to Moses, God is entering into an intimate
relationship that implies a type of vulnerability. In Exodus 3, God is freely
choosing to identify with the suffering of the Hebrew people in order to
redeem them and the world.24 This is not an impassible God who exists in a
timeless present. This is a God with a history and a future. This is a God
who is active in the present, and willing to suffer with His beloved children.

21
Hugh J. McCann, Creation and the Sovereignty of God (Bloomington, IN: Indiana
Univer- sity Press, 2012), 48.
22
Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Eternity, Time, and the Trinitarian God,” in ed. Colin E. Gunton,
Trinity, Time, and Church: A Response to the Theology of Robert W. Jenson (Cambridge, MA:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000), 64.
23
Henri Blocher, “Yesterday, Today, Forever,” 194.
24
Bruce C. Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terrence E. Fretheim, and David L. Petersen, A
Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1999), 112–
14.
 Conclusion203
In spite of the long history of proof-texting from atemporalists, it should
be noted that not all proponents of divine timelessness think that the Bible
clearly teaches the doctrine. Paul Helm, for one, thinks that the doctrine is
under- determined by the biblical evidence.25 Others are even less confident
than this about the biblical teaching. The seventeenth-century theologian
Stephen Charnocke notes that the Bible does not teach that God exists
without succession. However he does offer a reason as to why the Bible
does not teach this—because of the weakness of our concepts the Holy
Spirit describes eternity in the Bible simply as without beginning and
without end.26 John Tillotson, a contemporary of Charnocke’s, finds this
reasoning implausible. Tillotson thinks that timelessness is inconsistent with
a God who is co-existent with succession. So he says we should instead
stick with the plain meaning of the biblical text when it says that God exists
without beginning and without end. We need to believe what the Bible says,
and not the “unintelligible notions of the schoolmen.”27
The twentieth-century theologian Louis Berkhof makes a similar move to
Charnocke’s. He notes that Scripture teaches that God’s eternity is duration
throughout endless ages, but comments that this is merely a popular way of
speaking. Scripture, he says, does not give us the strict philosophical sense
of eternity (i.e. without succession), though he suggests that 2 Peter 3:8
might allude to it.28
This is an unfortunate suggestion from Berkhof because 2 Peter 3:8 makes
no such allusion. 2 Peter 3:8 alludes to Psalm 90, and as discussed in
Chapter 2, Psalm 90 teaches that God exists from perpetual duration in the
indefinite past to perpetual duration in the indefinite future. It is hard to get a
more temporal description of God than this. But this is not the only reason
that Berkhof ’s suggestion is unfortunate. It is unfortunate because reading 2
Peter in terms of divine timelessness completely obscures the message of the
passage. It is at this point that I wish to mention the unfortunate pastoral
consequences of the divine timeless research program. In Chapters 3 and 5,
and elsewhere, I showed that the divine timeless research program explicitly
entails that God is not the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord because of divine
simplicity.29 To say that this undermines the basic claims of the Bible would
be an understatement. But the destructive effects of the timeless research
program

25
Helm, Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time, 2nd Edition (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2010), 11.
26
Charnocke, Several Dischourses Upon the Existence and Attributes of God (London:
New- man, 1682), 181 and 186.
27
Tillotson, The Remaining Discourses on the Attributes of God (London: Rofe and Crown,
1700), 359–68.
28
Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1984), 60.
29
See my “Simply Impossible: A Case Against Divine Simplicity,” The Journal of
Reformed Theology 7 (2013).
204Conclusion
to the gospel do not stop there. Divine timelessness prevents us from
affirming the loving patience of God since a timeless God cannot be patient.
Let us take a closer look at 2 Peter 3. The context of the passage involves
Peter considering an objection to the eschatological claims of the gospel. 30
Peter comments on the fact that some scoff at Christians for proclaiming that
Christ will come again and judge creation. The scoffers point out that things
appear to be the way that they have always been with no signs of a coming
judgment. Peter rebukes such claims as impatient and invokes the simile of
“a thousand years as one day” as a way to demonstrate God’s patience as
compared to ours. The everlasting God does not count slowness as the
scoffers do. A thousand years is a long time for us, but not for a God who
exists from “everlasting to everlasting.” The main thrust of Peter’s claims is
to call the believer to be patient and rest assured that God has His reasons
for waiting to return. God, according to Peter, has a very good reason for
waiting. God is patient toward us so that all might reach repentance since He
does not wish for anyone to perish. That is a very patient God for, it seems
to me, God will have to wait a very long time for all to reach repentance.
This passage, like Psalm 90, is profoundly temporal in its description of
God. God is described as patiently waiting to return at a time that He
decreed for a specific purpose, and this is something a timeless God cannot
do. A timeless God cannot patiently wait. As Richard Bauckham makes
clear, “the intended contrast between man’s per- ception of time and God’s is
not a reference to God’s eternity in the sense of atemporality .. . The point
is rather that God’s perspective on time is not limited by a human life
span.”31 To read 2 Peter 3 in terms of divine timelessness is to completely
gut the passage of any meaning. Ultimately, it robs the hope of the gospel
from the believer since it entails a denial of what the passage teaches. A
timeless God cannot be patient, and the passage teaches that God is
extremely patient. So much the worse for divine timelessness!

TRUTHMAKER THEORY

Another issue that space in this volume did not allow for is truthmaker
theory. This issue is relevant to debates about the ontology of time as well
as about the doctrine of omniscience. Is presentism compatible with
truthmaker theory? Is truthmaker theory coherent? Can God know the
future? There are extensive and ongoing discussions of these questions, but
a full examination is beyond

30
J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Epistles of Peter and of Jude (London: Adam &
Charles Black, 1969), 360–2. Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (Waco, TX: Word Books
Publisher, 1983), 304.
31
Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 310.
 Conclusion205
the bounds of this project. In this section I shall note some of the relevant
issues for the philosophy of time and theology.
The intuition behind truthmaker theory is that every truth claim or prop-
osition has a truthmaker—something that makes the proposition true. This is
called Truthmaker Maximalism. Another intuition is called Truthmaker Ne-
cessitarianism which is the thesis that the truthmakers must necessitate the
truths that they make true.32 The big idea, then, is that there is something
about the world that makes every truth claim true. In other words, truth is
grounded in the way the world is, or truth supervenes on being. What makes
<the grass is green> true? The fact that there is in the world grass that
instantiates the property green, makes the proposition <the grass is green>
true. Any patch of grass can serve as the truthmaker for this. There is not a
one-to-one correspondence between all propositions and truthmakers. The
relationship between propositions and truthmakers is one-to-many in most
instances.
The eternalist will say that truthmaker theory entails eternalism and is in
direct conflict with presentism. Truthmaker theory is said to conflict with
presentism in the following way. There are truths about the past, but on
presentism the past no longer exists. What makes it true that <Caesar
existed>? The times at which Caesar existed no longer exist on presentism. 33
To put a theological spin on the objection, what makes it true that <Christ
atoned for our sins>? On presentism the significance of Christ’s death seems
to be swept away with the flow of time. How can the work of Christ have
any meaning for our lives if that state of affairs no longer exists?34
Presentists respond to objections like this in many different ways. One
option advocated by Trenton Merricks is to say that truthmaker theory is
false.35 Not all propositions need a truthmaker. For instance, necessary pro-
positions, like those of mathematics and logic, are necessarily true. Nothing
makes these propositions true. They simply are true. So truthmaker theory is
false. Further, truthmaker theory cannot seem to handle negative existential
propositions like <unicorns do not exist>. Within the confines of standard
truthmaker theory, there is nothing that can serve as the truthmaker for this
proposition, and yet we know it is true. So, again, truthmaker theory is false.
Other presentists take a different option. Instead of rejecting truthmaker
theory, many opt for a modified version of truthmaker theory. 36 In fact, most

32
D. M. Armstrong, Truth and Truthmakers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004), 5–7.
33
Armstrong, Truth and Truthmakers, ch. 11.
34
Thanks to Alan Torrance and Jeremy Tudor for pushing me on this.
35
Trenton Merricks, Truth and Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
36
Thomas Crisp, “Presentism and the Grounding Objection,” Nous 41 (2007). Brian
Kierland and Bradley Monton, “Presentism and the Objection From Being-Supervenience,”
Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (2007). Craig Bourne, A Future for Presentism, 52–69.
Alan Rhoda,
206Conclusion
truthmaker theorists in general agree that truthmaker needs to be revised.
However, there is no consensus on what this revised version looks like.37
Some wish to ground truths about the past in an ersatz B-theory of time
where tenseless propositions about the past serve as the truthmakers. Others
seek to ground truths about the past in the infallible knowledge of God.
Another option is to ground truths about the past in properties that the world
currently possesses. For instance, what makes it true that <Christ atoned for
our sins>? The fact that God the Son exists now and currently exemplifies
certain properties serves as the truthmaker. It is true that the Son was
crucified. Being the one who was crucified is an enduring property of the
Son. It is something that will forever be true about Him.
This is a fascinating area of ongoing research, but again, a full discussion
cannot be had here. What is relevant for the argument of this project is that,
even if truthmaker theory does entail an eternalist ontology of time, God
cannot be regarded as timeless. However, it is not clear that truthmaker
theory entails an eternalist ontology of time since truthmaker theory is
currently being revised or outright rejected. How one responds to truthmaker
theory will have an impact on one’s theology.
What is relevant for future work in theology with regard to truthmaker
theory is whether or not God can know the future. Most divine temporalists
today are presentists, but they disagree about whether or not God knows the
future. Divine temporalists will claim that the presentist can account for
truths about the past, but not all agree that the presentist can account for
truths about the future. Calvinists and Molinists who are divine temporalists
will say that there are determinate truths about the future, and God has an
exhaustive knowledge of these truths.38 Open theists, however, disagree.
There is some debate amongst Open theists about whether or not there are
truths about the future, but the more sophisticated versions of contemporary
Open theism hold that most propositions about the future do not have a
determinate truth- value of true or false. 39 In particular, the Open theist says
that propositions about what creatures will freely do in the future do not
have a determinate truth-value.

“Presentism, Truthmakers, and God,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 90 (2009). Jonathan

Tallant, “Presentism and Truth-Making,” Erkenntnis 71 (2009). Alex Baia, “Presentism and
the Grounding of Truth,” Philosophical Studies 159 (2012). John Bigelow and Neil
McKinnon. “Presentism, and Speaking of the Dead.” Philosophical Studies 160 (2012).
37
Gonzalo Rodriquez-Pereyra, “Truthmakers,” Philosophy Compass 1 (2006), 187.
38
For a Calvinist perspective see John Feinberg, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God
(Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001). For a Molinist perspective see William Lane Craig in
eds. James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy, Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views (Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001).
39
Dean Zimmerman, “The A-Theory of Time, Presentism, and Open Theism,” in ed.
Melville Y. Stewart, Science and Religion in Dialogue (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing
Ltd, 2010). Rhoda, “The Fivefold Openness of the Future.”
 Conclusion207
Here is where truths about the future connect with omniscience. As dis-
cussed in Chapter 4, omniscience is traditionally defined as God knowing all
truths and no falsehoods. For every true proposition, God knows that it is
true, and for every false proposition God knows that it is false. Take the
proposition
<Sam will choose to propose to Sally next Friday>. A Calvinist and a
Molinist will say that this proposition has a determinate truth-value, and
God, being omniscient, knows what that truth-value is. The Open theist,
however, will say that this proposition does not have a determinate truth-
value. It is neither true nor false. Since an omniscient God knows all truths
and no falsehoods, and this proposition is neither true nor false, there is
nothing for God to know. So, an omniscient God does not have exhaustive
knowledge of the future.
This is a topic of much debate in the contemporary literature, but I
suggest that future work needs to be done in the following areas. First, the
actual implications of truthmaker theory for the status of propositions about
the future need to be established. Since it is not clear which version of
truthmaker theory, if any, will ultimately be deemed to be true, it is not clear
what the entailments of truthmaker theory are for propositions about the
future. So, theologians should be cautious when articulating theories of
omniscience in light of truthmaker theory.
Second, the biblical material seems to testify to the fact that God knows a
great deal more about the future than the average Open theist will allow for.
It also seems to present a God who is engaged in meticulous divine
providence, and not the risk taking God of Open theism. It is the case that
some Open theists have tried to rebut this challenge by abandoning a risky
God, and offering accounts of God’s providence that appear to be quite
meticulous.40 It is even claimed that God can, if necessary, override our
freedom to bring about certain states of affairs that He desires to bring
about.41 If Open theists make these claims, it needs to be made clear what
the difference is between them and Calvinists.
Third, when one says that propositions about the future do not have a
determinate truth-value of true or false, one has to rewrite certain fundamen-
tal laws of logic, like, say, abandon the principle of bivalence. 42 That is not a
desirable to situation to say the least. Suffice it to say, theologians should be
cautious when fleshing out the supposed philosophical and theological
impli- cations of truthmaker theory.43

40
Alan R. Rhoda, “Beyond the Chess Master Analogy: Game Theory and Divine
Providence,” in, ed. Thomas Jay Oord, Creation Made Free: Open Theology Engaging
Science (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2009).
41
Zimmerman, “The A-Theory of Time, Presentism, and Open Theism,” in Science and
Religion in Dialogue, 792.
42
Craig Bourne, “Fatalism and the Future,” in Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time,
46–60.
43
Amy Seymour has told me that her version of Open theism does not abandon the principle
of bivalence. She says that all propositions about the future have a determinate truth-value,
and
208Conclusion

THE TRINITY

Another issue that one might raise is whether there might not have been
further discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity. As noted in the Preface,
within some theological circles the doctrine of the Trinity has been used to
argue that God must be temporal, or must be timeless. It is not clear what
the argument is from the Trinity to divine temporality, despite the fact that
several have suggested there is one. Further, some of these so-called
Trinitarian divine temporalists end up saying the most bizarre things like the
Father is timeless, the Son transcends time but is also simultaneous with all
of time, and the Holy Spirit experiences time according to presentism. 44 It is
not clear what this means, nor is there any good reason for projecting these
types of distinctions into the doctrine of the Trinity. 45 Further, this clearly
destroys the homoou- sious of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit since each
has different essential properties.
I do, however, feel some of the force of the argument from the Trinity to
divine timelessness. Paul Helm, for instance, once argued that divine time-
lessness is needed to avoid Arianism. He has softened this argument in
recent years, and I have offered a refutation elsewhere. 46 The problem,
however, is not divine timelessness or temporality. The problem is with the
traditional doctrine of the Trinity. The way the traditional doctrine is
articulated simply entails Arianism. In order to avoid Arianism, one must get
rid of the claim that the Son and Holy Spirit are eternally caused to exist by
the Father. The Christian theologian should not be concerned about giving
up this claim since it is not biblically grounded.

THE REAL CONCLUSION

In this book I argue and conclude that the Christian God cannot be timeless.
I also argue and conclude that there is no such thing as a third way between
atemporality and temporality. My arguments leave us with the conclusion
that

all the values are false. I’m assuming she has some nuance to allow for things that God has
determined about the future like the defeat of evil such that the proposition <God will defeat
evil> is true. I await the details of her account before I can properly assess it.
44
Reinhold Bernhardt, “Timeless Action? Temporality and/or Eternity in God’s Being and
Acting,” in eds. Christian Tapp and Edmund Runggaldier, God, Eternity, and Time
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 131–3.
45
Antje Jackelen, Time and Eternity: The Question of Time in Church, Science, and Theology
(London: Templeton Foundation Press, 2005), 190–7.
46
“Divine Temporality and the Charge of Arianism,” Journal of Analytic Theology
(Forthcoming).
 Conclusion209
God is temporal. My suggestion is that theologians and philosophers should
abandon the divine timeless research program because it is unworkable and
devastating to Christian theology. Instead, they should devote their attention
to developing models of divine temporality and the implications that it has
for the rest of Christian theology. Divine timelessness has had a long run in
Church history, but it is time to bury it and move on. We should not mourn
its passing. It shall not be missed.
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 Index

Anselm 45–7, 53–5, 66, 68–9, 76, 79–81, 83,

103–5, 149, 150, 168, 178 Simple (definition) 51–9
Apollinarius/Apollinarians 160, 162, 170, temporal (definition) 31–40
181 Aquinas, Thomas xxi, 9, 50, 54, 57, 58, timeless (definition) 44–7
63, 67, Gregory of Nazianzus 156, 181, 191
76, 81–5, 91–6, 101–4, 106, 119–26, Gregory of Nyssa 7, 43, 45, 47, 75, 143
150
Arminius, James 53, 57, 59, 192 Helm, Paul xix, 144, 147, 203, 208
Athanasius of Alexandria 160, 172, 181
Augustine 7, 45, 49, 51, 54–8, 64, 70, 75–9, Incarnation
83, 88–91, 97, 100, 101, 116–20, 123–6, Adoptionism 171, 173
151, 191 anhypostasia/enhypostasia 167, 170–3
communicatio idiomatum 176–80, 181–2,
Barth, Karl xvii–xviii, xxi 184, 185, 187
Boethius xvii, 46–7, 50, 57, 76, 78–9, 83, 85, Dyothelitism 160–2, 167, 176, 187
100, 118–19, 121, 167 Kenosis 161
Logos-Sarx Christology 172
Clarke, Samuel 15–18, 67, 86 Monothelitism 160–2
Clement of Alexandria 42, 64 Nestorianism 5, 166–75, 178, 182,
Covenant 4, 152 191, 194
Craig, William Lane 37, 39, 68, 135, 149 perichoresis 176–9, 183
Creation ix, x, xv, xxiv, 1, 3–5, 10–11, 15– qua move, reduplicative strategy 181–7
17,
35–8, 45–6, 62, 73, 75, 87, 89–90, 99, John of Damascus 7, 32, 59, 100, 101, 135,
119–22, 122–6, 136–42, 144–7, 149, 151, 167, 178, 191
153–4, 177, 188, 189, 200, 204
creation ex nihilo 31–3, 99–107, 110–15, Leftow, Brian 13, 47, 65, 71, 152,
116–19, 127, 129–36 159, 179
multiverse 34–5, 38–9, 140, 199 Leibniz, G. W. 15–16, 18
Crisp, Oliver 163, 170–1 Lombard, Peter 42, 50–1, 57, 78, 90, 105–6,
Cyril of Alexandria 64, 166–7, 178, 186 118–19, 123–4, 191

Eschatology, eschatological x–xii, xx, xxiv, Mawson, T. J. 13, 128–9, 146–50, 154
63, 177, 204 Maximus the Confessor 41, 55, 135, 191
prolepsis xx Merricks, Trenton 26, 205
Eunomius 44–5, 47 Modality 137
Necessity 48–50, 72, 188
Gassendi, Pierre 13, 15, 108 Modal collapse 137–43, 188–9
God More, Henry 84–5
aseity 46, 62, 120, 129, 137, 139–43, 164,
202 Newton, Isaac 15, 16, 18, 37, 197
divine ideas/forms 84, 86, 90, 93, 96–7,
111, 145 Oresme, Nicole 15, 66
eternal duration 65–71 Origen of Alexandria 43, 44, 64, 191
Immutable (definition) 47–51
Impassible (definition) 59–65 Padgett, Alan 16–17, 32–3, 38
omnipotent 116, 161, 164, 166, 187, 190 Panentheism 22, 177
omnipresent xv, 18, 38, 46, 98, 103, 108, Pannenberg, Wolfhart xiii-xiv, xx, 202
125–6, 132, 164, 190, 192 Pantheism 144–6
omniscient 74–98, 129, 131–2, 141, 164, Persistence through time 25–30
166, 190, 191, 194, 204, 207
self-sufficiency 61–4, 106, 120, 137,
139–43, 164
248Index
Philoponus, John 45, 49, 99–100, 101, 103,
Eternalism, Presentism, and Growing Block
108–15, 139–40 (definition) 25–30
Polkinghorne, John 196–8 Identity, see Persistence
Pseudo-Dionysius 7, 9, 49 Metaphysical time 35–40
Physical time 32–5
Religious Language 6–10 Relational 14–18, 32, 150–1
Analogy 8, 69 Relativity 196–9
Ineffability xviii, 6–8, 44, 70, 102, 152, Synced with eternity 93, 103, 105
167 Theodore of Mopsuestia 169, 171
Subjectivism 123 Torrance, T. F. 31, 101, 157, 170
Univocity 9, 69, 145 Trinity vii, x, xviii–xix, xxi, 4, 8, 116, 118,
Rogers, Katherin 13, 56, 57, 68, 70, 127, 173, 175, 176–7, 188, 208
128–34, 134–6, 141–2, 144–7, 153–6 Arianism 42–3, 44, 65, 102, 162, 208
homoousios 44, 65, 159, 162, 164,
Scotus, John Duns 48, 52, 55, 75, 83, 84, 152 185, 208
Shedd, William 60–4 Processions, generation 42–5, 102, 143–4
Strong, Augustus 71, 144 Turretin, Francis 76, 94, 201
Stump, Eleonore 13, 57, 65
Ward, Keith 38–9
Time
Absolute 14–18, 32, 67, 150–1, 198 Zimmerman, Dean 36, 153–4
A-theory vs B-theory 18–25