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God, time, and eternity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

William Lane Craig
William Lane Craig
Affiliation:
Fellow of the Alexander von Humbolt Foundation at the Universität München
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Extract

God is the ‘high and lofty One who inhabits eternity’, declared the prophet Isaiah, but exactly how we are to understand the notion of eternity is not clear. Traditionally, the Christian church has taken it to mean ‘timeless’. But in his classic work on this subject, Oscar Cullmann has contended that the New Testament ‘does not make a philosophical, qualitative distinction between time and eternity. It knows linear time only…’ He maintains, ‘Primitive Christianity knows nothing of a timeless God. The “eternal” God is he who was in the beginning, is now, and will be in all the future, “who is, who was, and who will be” (Rev. 1:4).’ As a result, God's eternity, says Cullmann, must be expressed in terms of endless time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 1978 , pp. 497 - 503
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

page 497 note 1 Isaiah 57:15 (RSV).

page 497 note 2 Cullmann, Oscar, Christ and Time (London: SCM Press, 1962), p. XXVI.Google Scholar

page 497 note 3 Ibid. p. 63.

page 497 note 4 Barr, James, Biblical Words for Time (London: SCM Press, 1962), p. 80.Google Scholar

page 497 note 5 Ibid. pp. 145–7.

page 497 note 6 Ibid. p. 147.

page 497 note 7 Ibid. p. 149.

page 498 note 1 Historically, this argument has been defended by Al-Kindi, , Al-Kindi's Metaphysics: A Translation of Ya' qūb ibn Ishāq al-Kindi's Treatise ‘On First Philosophy’, with an Introduction and Commentary by Ivry, Alfred L. (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Al-Ghazali, , Tahafut al-Falasifah (Incoherence of the Philosophers), trans. Kamali, Sabid Ahmad (Lahore: Pakistan Philosophical Congress, 1958)Google Scholar; Gaon, Saadia, The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, trans. Rosenblatt, Samuel (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1948)Google Scholar; Bonaventure, 2 Sentences 1.1.1.2.1–6. Modern defenders of the argument include Hackett, Stuart C., The Resurrection of Theism (Chicago: Moody Press, 1957)Google Scholar; Whitrow, G. J., The Natural Philosophy of Time (London and Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1961)Google Scholar; Huby, Pamela M., ‘Kant or Cantor? That the Universe, if Real, Must be Finite in Both Space and Time’, Philosophy xlvi (1971), 121–32. For a thorough discussion, see my forthcoming book with Macmillan, The Kalām Cosmological Argument.Google Scholar

page 498 note 2 On the big-bang model see Peebles, P. J. E., Physical Cosmology (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1971)Google Scholar; Sciama, D. W., Modern Cosmology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971)Google Scholar; Weinberg, S., Gravitation and Cosmology (New York: Wiley, 1972)Google Scholar. That this model requires creatio ex nihilo is explained by Hoyle, Fred, Astronomy and Cosmology (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1975), p. 658Google Scholar. See also my forthcoming book mentioned in the above note.

page 498 note 3 Swinburne, R. G., Space and Time (London: Macmillan, 1968), pp. 207–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 498 note 4 Ibid. p. 209.

page 498 note 5 Ibid. p. 245.

page 498 note 6 Ibid. p. 296.

page 498 note 7 Lucas, J. R., A Treatise on Time and Space (London: Methuen & Co., 1973), pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

page 499 note 1 Ibid. pp. 311–12.

page 499 note 2 Sklar, Lawrence, Space, Time, and Spacetime (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974), p. 274.Google Scholar

page 499 note 3 Ibid. p. 297.

page 499 note 4 Hinekfuss, Ian, The Existence of Space and Time (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 72–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 499 note 5 Zwart, P. J., About Time (Amsterdam and Oxford: North-Holland Publishing Co., 1976), p. 237.Google Scholar

page 499 note 6 Ibid. p. 36. ‘…time is the generalized relation of before-and-after extended to all events’ (ibid. p. 43).

page 500 note 1 Hackett, , Theism, p. 263.Google Scholar

page 500 note 2 Ellis, Brian, ‘Has the Universe a Beginning in Time?’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy xxxiii (1955), 33.Google Scholar

page 501 note 1 Whitrow, G. J., What is Time? (London: Thames & Hudson, 1972), pp. 146–7.Google Scholar

page 501 note 2 Lucas, , Treatise, pp. 3, 309.Google Scholar

page 501 note 3 Hackett, , Theism, pp. 286–7.Google Scholar I think that it is within the context of Trinitarian theology that the personhood and timelessness of God may be most satisfactorily understood. For in the eternal and changeless love relationship between the persons of the Trinity, we see how a truly personal God could exist timelessly, entirely sufficient within himself. Most writers who object to a timeless, personal God consider God only subsequent to creation as he is related to human persons, but fail to consider God prior to creation (e.g. Pike, Nelson, God and Timelessness [London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970], pp. 121–9)Google Scholar. The former would appear to involve God in time, but the latter would not, for if God is tri-personal he has no need of temporal persons with whom to relate in order to enjoy personal relationships - the three persons of the Godhead would experience perfect and eternal communion and love with no necessity to create other persons. Thus, the answer to the question, ‘What was God doing prior to creation?’ is not the old gibe noted by Augustine: ‘He was preparing hell for those who pry into mysteries’, but rather, ‘He was enjoying the fullness of divine personal relationships, with an eternal determination for the temporal creation and salvation of human persons.’ Why did God so determine? Perhaps to share the joy and love of divine fellowship with persons outside himself and so glorify himself; on the other hand, perhaps we lack sufficient information to answer this question. Once the temporal persons were created, God would then begin to experience temporal personal relationships with them.

page 501 note 4 Sturch, R. L., ‘The Problem of Divine Eternity’, Religious Studies x (1974), 492.Google Scholar

page 502 note 1 Pike, , God, p. 172.Google Scholar

page 502 note 2 Kierkegaard, Soren, Philosophical Fragments, trans. Swenson, David (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1936), pp. xii, 72.Google Scholar

page 502 note 3 Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologiae 1a.13.7.Google ScholarSee also Donnelly, John, ‘Creatio ex nihilo’, in Logical Analysis and Contemporary Theism, ed. Donnelly, John (New York: Fordham University Press, 1972), pp. 210–11;Google ScholarGeach, Peter, ‘God's Relation to the World’, Sophia viii (1969), 1–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 502 note 4 Swinburne, R. G., ‘The Timelessness of God’, Church Quarterly Review clxvi (1965), 331.Google Scholar

page 503 note 1 This serves effectively to rebut the objection of Julian Wolfe to the kalām cosmological argument ‘Infinite Regress and the Cosmological Argument’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion II (1971), 246–9.Google Scholar The crucial premiss is, in Wolfe's opinion, that an infinite time cannot elapse. He argues that this is incorrect because prior to causing the first effect, the uncaused cause existed for infinite time. Since the first event did occur, then an infinite time must have elapsed. But in the first place, Wolfe's formulation of the argument is defective, for the contention is that an infinite number of events cannot elapse, not that an infinite time cannot elapse. The Newtonian could hold that if God is changeless prior to creation, then an undifferentiated, measureless, infinite time could elapse before the first event, but that an infinite temporal series of definite and distinct events could not elapse. Because the argument concerns events, not time, Wolfe's analysis is inapplicable, since prior to creation there were no events at all. Second, if the relationist is correct, then an infinite time does not elapse prior to creation because time begins at creation. God is simply timeless before the first event.