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Eternity has no Duration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Katherin A. Rogers
Katherin A. Rogers
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19716
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Extract

In 1981 Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann published a landmark article aimed at exploring the classical concept of divine eternity.1 Taking Boethius as the primary spokesman for the traditional view, they analyse God's eternity as timeless yet as possessing duration. More recently Brian Leftow has seconded Stump and Kretzmann's interpretation of the medieval position (with qualifications) and attempted to defend the notion of a durational eternity as a useful way of expressing the sort of life God leads.2 However, there are good reasons to reject the idea that divine timelessness should be thought of as having duration. The medievals probably did not accept it, as it contradicts a principle of classical metaphysics even more fundamental than the atemporality of the divine. In any case, it is not possible to express the notion of durational eternity in even a minimally coherent way, and the attempt to salvage the concept by appealing to the Thomistic doctrine of analogy is unsuccessful. The best analogy for God's eternity is still the one proposed by Augustine at the end of the fourth century. God lives in a timeless ‘present’, unextended like our temporal present, but immutable and encompassing all time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 Stump, E. & Kretzmann, N., ‘Eternity’, The Journal of Philosophy, LXXVIII (1981), 429–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Pages cited refer to reprinting in The Concept of God, Thomas V. Morris, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 219–52.Google Scholar

2 Leftow, Brian, Time and Eternity (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991).Google Scholar

3 De consolatione philosophiae, Book V, Prose VI, lines 9–11. (References to translations will be given in the notes when translations are not my own.)

4 Stump & Kretzmann (1981), p. 220.

5 Ibid. p. 225.

6 Stump, E. & Kretzmann, N., ‘Atemporal Duration: A Reply to Fitzgerald’, The Journal of Philosophy, LXXXIV (1987), 214–19,Google Scholar see p. 219.

7 Leftow (1991), p. 117.

8 Stump & Kretzmann (1981), p. 223.

9 Fitzgerald, Paul (‘Stump and Kretzmann on Time and Eternity’, The Journal of Philosophy, LXXXII (1985), 260–8)CrossRefGoogle Scholar points out that Boethius may intend such language to apply to God, quoad nos, from our perspective, but not in se (p. 265).

10 De consolatione philosophiae, Book V, Prose VI, lines 68–9, 71–2.

11 Stump & Kretzmann (1981), p. 223.

12 Leftow (1991), p. 116.

13 De consolatione philosophiae, Book V, Prose VI, lines 27–8. (Leftow follows the translation of Stump & Kretzmann (1981), p. 220.)

14 Leftow (1991), pp. 116–17.

15 Ibid. p. 117 (Boethian text is De consolatione philosophiae, Book V, Prose VI, lines 22–4).

16 De consolatione philosophiae, Book V, Prose VI, lines 25–7.

17 Leftow (1991), p. 119.

18 Confessions XI, 11.

19 Confessions XI, 18.

20 Confessions XI, 15.

21 Confessions XI, 28.

22 Confessions XI, 13.

23 Confessions XII, 15.

24 Summa Theologiae 1, 14, 13 ad. 3. Leftow cites ST 1a, 10, 1 ad. 2 as evidence that Aquinas accepted eternity as duration. What Aquinas is arguing is that God's eternity is better called ‘life’ than mere ‘existence’. When Aquinas speaks of eternity as duratio, he need not mean more by it than ‘enduring’ or ‘persisting’ quoad nos. In any case, in the same question he frequently speaks of eternity as existing all at once, lacking succession.

25 Enneads VI, 5, 11. I am following the MacKenna translation, recently made available in paperback by Penguin Books (London, 1991). The analogy of the circle also appears in 1, 7, 1; V, 1, 12; VI, 5, 4–5; VI, 8, 18; VI, 9, 8.

26 De consolatione philosophiae Book IV, Prose 6, lines 80–1.

27 Summa Contra Gentiles, 1, 66, 7. I am following the translation of Anton C. Pegis (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975).Google Scholar

28 Enneads VI, 8, 18.

29 Enneads V, 3, 12.

30 De libero arbitrio 11, viii, 22; De Musica 1, 12.

31 Periphyseon III, 1. I am following the translation by Myra L. Uhlfelder (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1976), p. 126.Google Scholar

32 Enneads VI, 7, 32.

33 Stump & Kretzmann (1981), p. 222.

34 Ibid. p. 220.

35 Leftow (1991) p. 267. Leftow does mention in a footnote that one might see the duration of temporal things as resembling the eternal duration, and this might provide support for the idea that creation is an image of the Creator. I address this in discussing the doctrine of analogy.

36 See, for example, Responsio (to Gaunilo) VIII, and Cur Deus Homo Book 1, Ch. 25.

37 Stump & Kretzmann (1987), p. 219.

38 Stump & Kretzmann (1981), p. 225.

39 In the classic tradition it is a truism that what can be divided is less perfect than what cannot. See for example, Anselm's Proslogion, Ch. XVIII.

40 Stump & Kretzmann (1981), p. 225.

41 Leftow (1991), p. 134.

42 Ibid. p. 120.

43 Ibid. p. 146.

44 Ibid. p. 157.

45 Ibid. p. 137–43.

46 Ibid. p. 142.

47 Quinn, Philip L. discusses this point in ‘On the mereology of Boethian eternity’, International Journal For Philosophy of Religion, XXXII (1992), 51–60, see pp. 56–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Leftow (1991), p. 145.

49 Confessions XII, 29.

50 Leftow (1991), p. 145.

51 Stump & Kretzmann (1987), p. 219. Leftow (1991) discusses their position briefly (p. 129).

52 Summa Contra Gentiles 32, 2.

53 Summa Contra Gentiles 32, 7.

54 Summa Theologiae 1a, 13, 5.

55 Summa Theologiae 1a, 13, 5.

56 Summa Contra Gentiles 20.

57 Confessions XI, 11.

58 De libera arbitrio III, iv, 11.

59 De concordia praescientiae et praedestinationis et gratiae dei cum libero arbitrio 1, V.

60 De concordia praescientiae et praedestinationis et gratiae dei cum libero arbitrio 1, V.

61 Confessions XI, 29.

62 See e.g. Anselm's Monologion XXVIII.

63 Confessions XI, 11.