No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
There seems to be a growing consensus amongst both theologians and philosophers that the classical doctrine of God as a simple, eternal (atemporal) being is untenable. Worries are expressed about the very notion of atemporal existence and when the examples of numbers and universals are offered, attention is drawn to the uncertain ontological status of such entities. Further, some of the traditional expressions of divine eternity are strictly speaking incoherent, bearing in mind that eternity means having neither temporal location nor duration. For example, it is clearly self-contradictory to assert that atemporal deity enjoys the ‘Eternal Now’ since this would entail temporal location, and similarly Boethius' famous definition of eternity as ‘unending life existing as a complete whole all at once’ is suspect, for it suggests that God has both infinite duration (‘unending life’) and also no duration (‘all at once’). Of course, the traditionalist will hasten to point out that God's magnum mysterium is forcing him to employ language analogically, but the critics suspect they are rather in the presence of the fog of unknowing and just plain woolly thinking.
page 81 note 1 Sutherland, S., God, Jesus and Belief (Blackwell, 1984), p. 56.Google Scholar
page 82 note 1 Mascall, E. L., The Openness of Being (Darton, Longman & Todd, 1971), p. 159.Google Scholar
page 82 note 2 Tomkinson, J. L., ‘Divine Sempiternity and Atemporality’, Religious Studies, 18, 2, p. 183.Google Scholar
page 82 note 3 Owen, H. P., Concepts of Deity (Macmillan, 1971), p. 20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 82 note 4 Sturch, R., ‘The problem of Divine Eternity’, Religious Studies, 10, 1974.Google Scholar
page 83 note 1 Tomkinson, J. L., op. cit. p. 187.Google Scholar
page 83 note 2 Pike, N., God and Timelessness (London; Routledge, 1970), p. 117.Google Scholar
page 83 note 3 Aquinas, T., Summa Theologiae, 1.14.15.Google Scholar
page 83 note 4 Anscombe, G. E. M. and Geach, P. T., Three Philosophers (Blackwell, 1961), p. 210.Google Scholar
page 83 note 5 Swinburne, R., ‘The Timelessness of God: II’, Church Quarterly Review (Oct.–Dec. 1965).Google Scholar
page 84 note 1 Lucas, J. R., A Treatise on Space and Time (Methuen, 1973), p. 301.Google Scholar
page 84 note 2 Kierkegaard, S., Concluding Unscientific Postcript (Princeton University Press, 1968; 1st ed. 1941), p. 140.Google Scholar
page 84 note 3 Mascall, E. L., He Who Is (Longmans, 1943), p. 141.Google Scholar
page 85 note 1 Ward, K.Rational Theology and the Creativity of God (Blackwell, 1982), p. 168.Google Scholar
page 85 note 2 K. Ward Ibid. p. 163.
page 85 note 3 K. Ward Ibid. p. 167.
page 85 note 4 K. Ward Ibid. pp. 208–9
page 85 note 5 It was the recognition of the two major deficiencies that resulted in Gruenler's, R. G. defection from Process Theism, and the production of his scathing critique, The Inexhaustible God (Baker, 1983).Google Scholar
page 85 note 6 Swinburne, R., The Coherence of Theism (Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 211.Google Scholar
page 86 note 1 Lewis, C. S., Mere Christianity (Fontana, 1955, 1st ed. 1952), p. 144Google Scholar
page 86 note 2 Swinburne, R., The Coherence of Theism, op. cit., p. 220.Google Scholar
page 86 note 3 Sutherland, S., ‘God, Time and Eternity’, Aristotelian Society, 1979.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 86 note 4 Laslett, P., ed., The Physical Basis of Mind (Oxford, 1950).Google Scholar See Penfield's article.
page 87 note 1 Ayer, A. J., The Problem of Knowledge (Pelican, 1956), p. 152.Google Scholar
page 87 note 2 Ward, K., op. cit. p. 166.Google Scholar
page 88 note 1 Macquarrie, J., ‘God and the World: one reality or two?’ Theology, 1972, p. 397.Google Scholar
page 88 note 2 Jantzen, G. M., God's World, God's Body (Darton Longman & Todd, 1984), ch. 4.Google Scholar
page 88 note 3 Lucas, J. R.op. cit. p. 307.Google Scholar
page 89 note 1 Davies, P., God and the New Physics (Dent, 1983), pp. 131–2.Google Scholar
page 89 note 2 Gale, R. M., ed., The Philosophy of Time (Macmillan, 1968), p. 115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 90 note 1 R. M. Gale, ed., Ibid. Dummett's article was first published in 1964.
page 90 note 2 Swinburne, R., Space and Time (Macmillan, 1968), ch. 8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 90 note 3 Kenny, A., The God of the Philosophers (Clarendon, 1979), pp. 103–9.Google Scholar
page 90 note 4 Davies, B., ‘Kenny on God’, Philosophy, 57 (1982), p. 113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 90 note 5 See the article on ‘Causation’ by Taylor, R. in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy.Google Scholar See also Chisholm, R. M., and Taylor, R., ‘Making things to have happened’, Analysis, 20, 1960;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Mackie, J. L., ‘The Direction of Causation’, Philosophical Review, LXXV, (1966).Google Scholar
page 91 note 1 Davies, P., op. cit. p. 39.Google Scholar
page 91 note 2 Especially the work of R. Targ, H. Puthoff, C. Tart and H. Schmidt. For an up-to-date review of the subject, see Zohar, D., Through the Time Barrer, (Paladin, 1983)Google Scholar which is one of a series published on behalf of the Society for Psychical Research.
page 91 note 3 Jantzen, G. M., op. cit. p. 65.Google Scholar
page 91 note 4 Gale, R. M., ed., op. cit. p. 114.Google Scholar
page 91 note 5 Ayer, A. J., op. cit. pp. 165–6.Google Scholar
page 92 note 1 Copleston, F. C., Aquinas (Pelican, 1955), p. 139.Google Scholar
page 92 note 2 Ward, K., op. cit. p. 75.Google Scholar
page 93 note 1 Of course, this analogy is of limited application because all the decisions of the characters are determined by the author. In her attempt to rescue human autonomy, Dorothy Sayers uses the analogy while focusing on the playwright's delight in watching the sensitive actor struggling to interpret the script in a creative way. She writes, ‘Within the limits of this human experience, the playwright has achieved that complex end of man's desire – the creation of a living thing with a mind and will of its own’ (The Mind of the Maker, Methuen, 1941, p. 52.)
page 93 note 2 Davies, P., op. cit. p. 124.Google Scholar