Eternal/Everlasting God and Omniscience

Eternal vs Everlasting God

Eternal: Boethius, Anselm, Aquinas: would argue that God is eternal because God created time and is out of time
Everlasting: God moves along the same timeline as we do, but exists always

Problems with God being eternal

• How can a God who is separate from the world have a relationship with the people in it?

• If God knows the future, surely he’s responsible for the problem of evil?

• If God is both eternal/knows our actions, can we be held morally responsible for our actions? Are we truly free?

• If God is eternal, can he choose between actions? Does he even need to if he can simultaneously see what the choice was?

God as eternal

God’s knoweldge/powers ARE NOT limited
Holds it all in - simultaneous present. Everything in one moment, eternal
God vs our own nature: ‘clearer by comparison’ with all eternal beings
Boundless time, succession - we don’t embrace the infinity of life all at once

Boethius

Takes into account that if God is eternal/knows the future, how cn we be morally responsible for our actions?
God simply sees the result of our free choices, always our free will: knowledge does notdetermine or force our action

Against Boethius

God’s omniscience may not force our actions, but means our actions are fixed/set in stone: if God knows I chose vanilla, means I am not free to choose chocolate

Defending Boethius

• However, this criticism fails because it is overcome by Boethius’ distinction between simple and conditional necessity.

• Boethius ultimately argues that yes – God’s knowledge of our future actions means they are set in stone and necessary – it God’s knowledge isn’t what makes our future actions set in stone/necessary.

• Iit was our free choices that set them in stone and made them necessary.

• Boethius argues that yes, God’s knowledge of our future choices does make them fixed and necessary, but a special type of necessity which doesn’t undermine free will but actually depends on it.

• Boethius asks us to imagine seeing someone walking – it’s necessary that they are walking – because it’s necessary that what’s happening is happening, otherwise it wouldn’t be happening. However – in the past, they could have chosen not to walk, and then it wouldn’t have become necessary that they are walking.

• So – sometimes our actions can become necessary – yet their necessity still be dependent – conditional on – our having chosen them.

• Similarly – when God views our future actions – this does make them necessary and fixed – but only because – only conditionally on – the fact that we chose them.

• In other words, God only sees the future choices that he does – because they are the choices we freely will make.

• God’s knowledge of our future actions doesn’t undermine their being freely chosen. God eternally sees that I choose X, which means that I will freely choose X. This still does seem unsatisfying because it still sounds like I can’t do otherwise.

• This is something Anselm addresses by fleshing out a more detailed account of the relationship between time and eternity.

Anselm’s 4 dimensionalism

• Anselm wanted to improve on Boethius’ view – to further be able to explain how an eternal God’s actions could still have an effect on time. 

• Boethius presents God as radically disconnected from time – but then how could God do anything to the world? For example how could God be the sustaining cause of the universe if he’s so radically separate?

• Anselm wants to upgrade Boethius’ theory of God’s eternity to explain how God could act upon time.

• So, Anselm wants to show that God has some relation to time – to be able to act on it – but he doesn’t think God could be inside time, as then God would be confined within time, which seems to detract from omnipotence – from being the greatest conceivable being.

• Anselm concludes that God is not in time, but all of time is in God.

• All of space – the first three dimensions – are contained within one moment of time (4th dimension). Anselm’s proposal is that similarly, all the moments of time are contained within the one eternally present moment of divine eternity – both in and with God.

• So, now Anselm can give the same solution as Boethius – that God knows our future actions – not merely by observing them from outside of time, but through actually being with them in divine eternity – because all of time is within God.

Critique of Anselm

• Kenny’s critique – the eternal view of God makes no sense because events in time are not all happening in one moment. 

• Some events necessarily happened before others – e.g. my parents birth was before mine. 

• If God is seeing all events in one moment – he’s not seeing them correctly – so he lacks omniscience.

Defending Anselm

• This criticism works against Boethius – but not Anselm.

• Anselm can say:

• Within time, my birth and my parents birth are non-simultaneous.

• Within eternity, my birth and my parents birth are simultaneous.

• All events within time, whether they are simultaneous with each or not, all exist in one moment in eternity. So in eternity, non-simultaneous events are simultaneous.

• So when God sees my birth and parents birth happening at the same time in eternity, that isn’t seeing things incorrectly – because it is correct that in eternity all events happen at once, even if they don’t within time.

• In the first dimension, a straight line cannot be part of a cube, but in the third dimension it can.

• Similarly, in the fourth dimension of time, my parents’ birth cannot be simultaneous with my birth, but in eternity it can.

• It’s Boethius who gives the impression that God is radically outside time – seeing time in one moment, which leads to the problem that time isn’t all in one moment.

• Anselm, however, with his use of dimensions, shows that actually – in divine eternity – all events really are happening in one moment – because all the moments of time are actually happening at once. It’s not merely from God’s perspective that they ‘appear’ to be simultaneous, as Boethius had suggested.

• Anselm Scholar Katherine Rogers interprets Anselm as viewing eternity as a kind of 5th dimension – which contains all the moments of fourth dimensional time within it.

• Stump and Kretzman – introduced useful terminology to explain Anselm’s view – there is ‘t-simultaneity’ – the simultaneity of events within time – and ‘e-simultaneity’ – the simultaneity of events within eternity. Two events like my birth and my parents birth can be t-nonsimultaneous, but e-simultaneous on Anselm’s view.

• So, the compatibility of omniscience and free will has been successfully defended by Anselm.

• For Boethius, God was seeing all of time at once – which was incorrect as Kenny points out.

• However for Anselm, it actually is both correct that temporal events can be non-simultaneous within time, but also simultaneously within eternity. So when God sees all of time in one moment, that is not incorrect – in the sense that events are within eternity, they are simultaneous – even if non-simultaneous in time.

• For Boethius eternity is like a perspective, whereas for Anselm it’s more like an actual thing

Swinburne

• Swinburne proposes a very different solution to this question and problem.

• He thinks an eternal God would be a ‘lifeless’ thing, which we couldn’t have a loving relationship with. Relationships require a two-way interaction between beings within time.

• So, he claims God is everlasting – within time. This seems most compatible with omnibenevolence.

• To preserve our free will, Swinburne argues God must engage in cognitive self-limitation.

• God could know our actions if he wanted to, but chooses to limit his knowledge of the future to only that which is physically determined. This would not include actions that are free.

• So, God doesn’t know what we’re going to do next

• This might make it seem that God is not omniscient. But Swinburne insists that the future actions of genuinely free creatures cannot be known. If they could, they would be necessary and then not free.

Against Swinburne

• The bible involves God knowing our future actions – e.g. Jesus knew Judas would betray him and knew that Peter would deny him three times before the cockerel crowed.

• Plus Anselm’s arguments – that if God were within time he would be confined and limited which contradicts his omnipotence.

• Swinburne tries to explain this by saying God knows us as a parent knows a child – so he knows us very well and can have a good prediction about what we’re going to do next, but he doesn’t know it for absolutely certain because that’s unknowable.

• However – this just doesn’t credibly align with the way the Bible presents Jesus’ and God’s knowledge of the future, especially when it comes to biblical prophecy. The Bible presents God as knowing our future actions for certain, so Swinburne’s interpretation is invalid.

Can both a timeless and everlasting God exist?

Biblical texts can be used to suggest both a timeless and an everlasting God: ‘I, the Lord, do not change' (Malachi 3:6) and ‘As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of a multitude of nations’ (Genesis 17:4).

Eternal as timeless

·For Boethius (and Aquinas) God is outside of time and sees all events in an eternal present.

·‘Eternity is the simultaneous possession of boundless life which is made clearer by comparison with temporal things.’ For Boethius, an eternal God is timeless, outside of time and surveys the whole of time in an eternal present (as seeing a whole film at once rather than frame by frame). All of what we call time is 'now' to God. He cannot be subject to time; to be in the eternal is to be outside of past, present and future.

·Aquinas (using Boethius) says, ‘He who goes along the road does not see those who come after him; whereas he who sees the whole road from a height sees at once all those traveling on it’.

·Anselm rejects Boethius’ ideas of an eternal, simultaneous present in favour of Four-Dimensionalism. God is neither spatial nor temporal. God is eternity and so encompasses all of time. Descriptions of time (past, present, future) depend on your perspective (much like ‘over here’ or ‘over there’ are dependent on your perspective, God’s view of time is different to ours). Every moment is equally real and equally present to God, it has a unique simultaneity in God.

Anthony Kenny against eternity as timeless

Anthony Kenny notes that the idea of all of time being equally present to God is incoherent (the great fire of Rome is happening now; while I type these words, Nero fiddles heartlessly on). Although it may be that we as human beings cannot comprehend timelessness.

Bible against eternity as timeless

The idea of time not applying to God seems to contradict scripture. The Bible speaks of God promising and remembering, although it may be possible to understand these texts metaphorically instead.

Problem with immutability of God

There are problems with the immutability of God. If God is outside of time, it is easier to affirm that he cannot change, although it is difficult to understand how God can have knowledge of what is occurring in time. Might this knowledge compromise the immutability of God?

Nelson Pike as a criticism of eternity as ‘timeless.’

) “a timeless being could not be affected by another…responses are located in time after that to which they are responses…to be emotionally involved, one must be able to respond in some way to the actions or inactions of others. A timeless individual could not respond.” How can a timeless God interact with his creation, forming relationships and answering prayer? In particular, how could a timeless God become incarnate in Jesus Christ – it seems that much Christian theology would need to be reinterpreted. Prayer may become more of a communion with the divine rather than a request for God to intervene, help or guide.

Criticism of Anselm

·However, Anselm may have solved the problem of eternity and immanence. The four-dimensionalist approach means since that God encompasses all of time, every part of a person’s life is equally real and present to God so God is with them at each and every moment. Although a criticism of Anselm’s view is that can God know what is ‘now’?

Who believes that eternal means everlasting?

·Richard Swinburne (1934-) states that: ‘…there was no time at which he did not exist... He is backwardly eternal. He also exists at any other nameable time... will go on existing forever... he is forwardly eternal’.

·Oscar Cullman (1902-99) argues the most logical translation of eternal is to mean 'endless duration' not outside of time.

·Despite the difficulties, some thinkers argue that this is the only alternative that allows us to preserve God's omnipotence and his action within the world.

Criticisms of eternity

·If God is in time, as those who believe God is everlasting would claim, then God may be subject to change. For example, his knowledge that England will win the World Cup in 1966 changed to knowledge that they had won it after the event.

·One criticism of the belief that God is everlasting is that it is difficult to see how God could be in time and not be affected to some extent by creation and hence change. After all, we are changed by our interactions with others as time progresses.

Other ideas on eternity

·Process theology accepts that God moves through time with his creation and is affected by this interaction. God is in the process of becoming and changes with us. Although he is powerful, he is in no sense omnipotent.

·D. Z. Phillips (1934-2006) suggested the idea of eternity is not related to the notion of time but expresses something of a qualitative nature. God is a completely different being that cannot be comprehended.

God as omniscient - what this means for different scholars

·For Aquinas, as God is timeless, God’s knowledge is completely different to inferior human knowledge and is not based on the physical senses. Knowledge is immaterial and God has complete self-knowledge of the creation he made and sustains.

·For Boethius, God has a completely different kind of knowledge than humans. Humans cannot understand God’s knowledge which is of a simultaneous present.

·Anselm goes a step further by arguing that God’s knowledge is simply a matter of perspective. God knows what happened yesterday, what is happening today and what will happen tomorrow because each moment is equally present in God.

Swinburne and Flew/Mackie on God as not completely omniscient

·Swinburne defines omniscience as not knowing everything, but knowledge of everything that it is logically possible to know. As the future has not yet happened, it cannot logically be known.

·The Bible seems clear that God has knowledge of the future, ‘Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.’ (Psalm 139:16).

·One area where this causes problems is when we look at God's omniscience in the light of his omnipotence. Thinkers such as Anthony Flew (1923-) and John Mackie (1917-81) have argued that, given God could have foreseen the consequences of creation, it ought to have been possible to create free creatures who always chose to do the right thing.

Swinburne against omniscience/free will paradox

·God's knowledge may include all future events that are predictable by physical laws but leaves aside free will choices. Swinburne suggests that omniscience may even leave room for God's free choices; e.g., to respond to people's prayers. However, this view weakens the definition of omniscience, and it may appear like process theology, which is rejected by traditional Christianity.

·The timelessness of God is offered as a solution. Because God is outside of time, he knows but does not cause our actions:

Anselm - preceding and following necessity

·Anselm asks, ‘does God know whether I am going to sin or not going to sin?’. God knows the sun will rise tomorrow because it is a preceding necessity, dependent on natural laws and so is part of God’s knowledge. God also knows there will be an uprising tomorrow because he is alongside each individual as they make their choice – a following necessity. It is the actual choice that is the source of God’s knowledge, a following necessity – it follows from the fact of the event; it does not cause or determine the event.

·God has chosen to create free human beings and allow this – a self-imposed limitation.

Other solutions to omniscience and free will

·Middle knowledge: God knows all the possibilities of your free choices. But are the thousands of 'what ifs' in each of our lives genuine facts or not?

·F. Schleiermacher - God’s knowledge is like that of close friends who know us very well; God can predict our future choices but we retain our free will. However, friends may guess our choices but if God’s knowledge is infallible, he cannot be wrong. So, is our free will only apparent?

·Some thinkers concede that free will is not possible. They argue that God is omniscient and that our free will is only apparent. E.g. Calvinist views on predestination (the belief that God chooses some to be saved and the rest to be damned).

·In order to reconcile the idea of omniscience with an everlasting God, Peter Geach offers the analogy of playing chess with a grandmaster. Although you are free to move wherever you like, the grandmaster will undoubtedly win the game.