While I understand that there are various ways of delineating God's supposed atemporality, the theologians with whom I have interacted in writing formulate their theories of divine atemporality in terms of timelessness. Allow me to review some of these theories.
"Let them see than [sic] that there can be no time apart from creation, and let them cease to talk such nonsense. Let them stretch forth to the things that are before, and let them realize that before all times You are the Eternal Creator of all times, and that no times are co-eternal with You, nor is any creature, even if there were a creature above time" (Augustine, Confessiones 11.XXX).
"Thou wast not, then, yesterday, nor wilt thou be tomorrow; but yesterday and today and tomorrow thou art; or, rather, neither yesterday, nor today nor tomorrow thou art; but, simply, thou art, outside all time. For yesterday and today and tomorrow have no existence, except in time; but thou, although nothing exists without thee, nevertheless dost not exist in space and time, but all things exist in thee" (Anselm, quoted in Stephen T. Davis' Logic and the Nature of God, p. 9).
THomas Aquinas makes this affirmation about God and time: "For time, as is made clear in Physics IV [11], is 'the number of
motion.' But God, as has been proved, is absolutely without motion, and
is consequently not measured by time. There is, therefore, no before and
after in Him; He does not have being after non-being, nor non-being
after being, nor can any succession be found in His being. For none of
these characteristics can be understood without time. God, therefore, is
without beginning and end, having His whole being at once. In this
consists the nature of eternity" (Summa Contra Gentiles 1.15.3).
Paul Helm wrote Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time. William Lane Craig critiques the book at http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/helm.html
In part, he states concerning Helm's work:
"Writing in the spirit of Jonathan Edwards, Helm provides a philosophical defense of the coherence and plausibility of the view that God is a timeless, omniscient being whose existence is logically inconsistent with libertarian freedom in any of His creatures. As the title of the book suggests, the fulcrum of Helm's case is his defense of divine timelessness."
There are plenty of other sources that I could quote to substantiate my understanding of divine atemporality. However, my view is that possibly, a temporal mode of existence is the only mode of existence, for God and creatures. I'm trying to work out this idea in my mind, but I'm inclined to see this as possible at the moment. I will be reading more Ryan Mullins in the near future.
Tuesday, July 13, 2021
God, Atemporality, and Classical Theism
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13 comments:
"I will be reading more Ryan Mullins in the near future."
WLC is having an interview with him by the 23rd of this month to discuss Divine Simplicity, but may be they will have a word about this.
I just can't wait for the full book "Timemaker"
https://www.academia.edu/45600890/The_Divine_Timemaker
Thanks for reminding me. I will try to keep apprised of the interview and book.
Fascinating, I too am trying to work this out in my mind. A few questions I have still that I'm trying to work out:
What would time look like for God sans creation? How could any sequence happen?
How can one differentiate physical time and other kinds of time? Do descriptions of time by physics apply universally? How should we think of them in terms of a philosophy of time or even an theology of time?
How does God's time relate to our time?
Did God create time?
Is time contingent?
Is time just an aspect of being? What else is an aspect of being?
I'm gonna be (re)reading Augustine this summer, perhaps I'll get some insights.
Also Gonna be reading Stephen RL Clark, who takes a neo-platonist view.
Thanks for getting into these topics, I'm always happy when I see friends tackle things I'm also thinking about :), many minds are better than one.
Thanks for adding your thoughts: questions about time span multiple disciplines. I tend to believe that physics won't provide full answers because of its inherent limitations and conflict with quantum mechanics.
What also makes answering some of the questions difficult is that we do not have direct answers from the Bible and philosophy is limited too. I'm addition to William Lane Craig's work on time and Mullins, I recommend Wolterstorff and Peter van Inwagen's work on metaphysics. Particle physicist Stephen Barr once have a talk about time: it may still be on YouTube. Lots of literature on these questions, but few definitive answers. There is also the question about the A series and B series of time. I try not to get too wrapped up with these questions because they're interminable 😂
Stephen R.L. Clark looks like an interesting writer. I have not read his works, but I used to read lots of Platonic dialogues and was attracted to that philosophy before realizing that it's likely false. I still like reading Plato and Plotinus, but do so critically. Aristotle, John Philoponus and Ed Feser have all pointed to flaws in Platonism. Even advocated like Augustine had to modify the claims of Neoplatonism. But I'd still like to read Clark.
I too am skeptical of Platonism (and neo-platonism), even moreso of Aristotielanism.
What I like about Clark is that he's very good at focusing on the phenomenological fact of reality as experienced, and focusing on the idea that rather than us being insignificant dots on space and time, we are the phenomenological vessels of all reality, kind of in an idealist sense (not Barkley or anything like that, just focusing the primacy of conscious experience and rationality above the material).
Here's a short 6 minute video of him at a conference presenting what I mean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mE-zOe6Eao
Reading and teaching philosophy has made me pretty much skeptical of about all philosophers, including Aristotle. You probably know the main players in phenomenology Edmund Husserl did one of analysis, Maurice Merleau-Ponty analyzed the mind and body relationship and Sartre made use of phenomenal thought despite his atheistic worldview.
Thanks for the video, I will watch it. I'm not against phenomenology; for me, it's a tool. But you know I believe that conscious experience and rationality arise from material causes.
Interesting video, but I'm not sure about the inference from extrapolating between one place in the universe and another requires belief in a non-material principle. Even if one accepts that reasoning, why does that non-material principle have to be a soul? How do we know we have souls, if we do? What would be the nature of this soul? And so forth.
You might like Mikhail Bakhtin: he analyzes the potential non-identity relationship between T1, T2 . . . Tn
One other point of disagreement with Clark: one can distinguish between objective and subjective time. One doesn't have to cancel out the other. So, we can say that the universe was created a long time ago. I don't see why that "long time" has to depend on us. We can establish an objective measure for the time when things came into existence that is not dependent on our subjectivity much like determining the weight or magnitude of a material object, M.
Those are all good points, and I agree, he does make jumps that he doesn't really argue for. What i like about phenomonology (at least what I've read) is more the method, I think the best philosophical schools/philosophers are not necessarily the ones who get to the truth, but the ones who develop ways of analysis that allow one to approach the truth from different angles and catch things you hadn't thought of earlier.
I don't think the kind of dualistic soul (Descartes, etc etc) works, I think whatever the human mind is there are two things I'm pretty sure need to be accounted for:
1. It cannot be reduced to a mechanistic view of matter, i.e. the scientific descriptions of matter.
2. It is independent on a body that gives it a place in the world.
I don't think dualism works. But I do think for a theist, one should begin with the fundamental being mind ... i.e. God, I think if you start from there the "problem of consciousness" because at least addressable. This is one problem i have with "classical theism" you end up with a God that is not exactly a mind, since mental aspects are not reducible to the existence of the subject, which is what one needs if one is to assert that one's "essence is his existence" Thomism, of course there might be less dogmatic forms of "classical theism," but I think the ground of reality must be a dynamic mind (as it is in the bible), not merely being itself.
As far as time, I'm afraid I'll have to remain silent on that, although what you're saying seems correct.
I agree with you about phenomenology: it has wide-ranging applicability per methodology. It has been used in psychology, religion studies and to deal with questions regarding time and the mind.
Some of the medieval tried to develop alternative accounts of matter. The current view won the day, but Fewer is probably right that modern physics describes the universe/matter but does not exhaust our potential knowledge of it. I also like Searle's take on these issues.
Agreed that mind needs a body. Again when it comes to body and perception, Merleau-Ponty has some good observations and I recommend Antonio Damasio and David Chalmers.
The question you raised about classical theism is a good one. I hope to post something concerning that subject soon. What does it mean to be pure existence?
I don't know what the fundamental entity/nature of the universe is, but mind is a viable candidate.
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