eternity

Boethius on God’s eternity

  • divine foreknowledge:

    • God is changeless (impassable).

    • God does not exist in time.

    • Eternity is “the whole, simultaneous and perfect possession of unending life” – this means that life is not only endless but that it is not like physical life as it does not involve change and as it does not involve experiencing life as a series of events one following another.

    • God’s life is limitless and possesses the whole of His/Her life eternally without end.

    • For God there is no past, present and future – instead God exists eternally and all of time is present to God at the same time. God does not see history as it happens; instead all time is present to God ‘simultaneously’.

    • God is simple, i.e. He does not learn new things and time does not pass for God.

  • raises questions about free will » if our choices are inevitable and fixed

  • also raises questions about God’s benevolence

    • if He knows about evil choices and does not intervene, can he be omnibenevolent?

Aquinas on God’s eternity

  • heavily influenced by Boethius’ ideas:

    • God exists unendingly without a beginning or conclusion.

    • Hence God must exist outside of time, because time consists of parts and the notion of time involves beginning and ends. For example, all humans are born, live their lives and die.

    • God is the Creator of the universe and all life, who always exists without end.

    • Time does not pass for God.

    • Time involves living life ‘successively’ i.e. one event follows another, but for God this is not the case. God exists outside time and the nature of God is to exist

  • avoids problem of Divine Foreknowledge and allows free will and God’s omniscience to be compatible

Swinburne & Wolterstorff

  • both Swinburne n Wolterstorff reject Boethius’ idea that God is timeless and views of all of time simultaneously or in one glance

  • this concept makes no sense for them

  • they argue that the Bible implies God exists in time n reacts and responds to the actions of humans

  • it is God’s reaction to human action that shows they must they have free will - the Bible implies that God reacts to human actions

Swinburne’s ideas

  • if we believe God has limited omniscience then judgement is just