The claim that God is timeless is a denial of the claim that God is temporal. First, God exists, but does not exist at any temporal location. Rather than holding that God is everlastingly eternal, and, therefore, he exists at each time, this position is that God exists but he does not exist at any time at all. God is beyond time altogether May 17, · God exists in timeless eternity. How does God acting before time began get around the problem of God's creation? There are two possible interpretations of these verses. One is that God exists outside of time. Since we live in a universe of cause and effect, we naturally assume that this is the only way in which any kind of existence can function Dystheistic speculation arises from consideration of the problem of evil — the question of why God, who is supposedly omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, would allow evil to exist in the world. Koons notes that this is a theological problem only for a eutheist, since a dystheist would not find the existence of evil (or God's authorship of it) to be an obstacle to theistic belief
Is There a God? - 6 Reasons God Exists
Any theistic view of the world includes some notion of how God is related to the structures of the universe, including space and time. The traditional view has been that God is timeless in the sense of being outside time altogether; that is, he exists but does not exist at any point in time and he does not experience god exists essay succession.
What may be the dominant view of philosophers today is that he is temporal but everlasting; that is, God never began to exist and he never will go out of existence. He exists at each moment in time. In addition, other metaphysical considerations also play important roles in the discussion, god exists essay. For example, the nature of time and the nature of the origin of the universe each have a bearing on whether God is best thought of god exists essay timeless god exists essay temporal.
This article traces the main contours of the contemporary debate. Several versions of the view that God is timeless are explained and the major arguments for timelessness are developed and criticized. Divine temporality is also explored and arguments in its god exists essay are presented along with criticisms. In addition, some views that attempt to occupy a middle god exists essay will be considered. Theism is the view that there exists a person who is, in significant ways, unlike every other person, god exists essay.
Atheism is the view that such a person does not exist. Any theistic world-view includes some notion of how God is related to this universe. There must be some account of how God relates to events, things, and people within the universe and of how God is related to what we could call the structure of the universe, god exists essay.
That is, how God is related to space and to time. If God is the creator of the universe, the question arises as to whether God created space and time as well. The answers to these questions turn on whether space and time are parts or aspects of the universe or whether they are more fundamental.
Not many theologians or philosophers think that space is more fundamental than the universe. They think that God brought space into being.
From Augustine through Aquinasgod exists essay, the major thinkers argued that God was not in time at all. They thought of God as eternal, in the sense that he is timeless or atemporal.
Now, the dominant view among philosophers is that God is temporal. His eternal nature is thought of as being everlasting rather than timeless.
He never came into existence and he will never go out of existence but he exists within time. Proponents of each of these positions attribute eternality to God. The majority position today, god exists essay, at least among philosophers, is that God is everlasting but temporal. That is, God never began to exist, and he will never go out of existence.
God does, however, god exists essay, experience temporal succession. That is, God experiences some events for example, the first century before he experiences other events for example, the twenty-first century. If God is temporal, his existence and his thoughts and actions have temporal location. He exists at the present moment and he has existed at each past moment and he will exist at each future moment. In August, he was thinking about the heat wave in the mid-west.
His dealings, like those of the rest of us, occur at particular times. The claim that God is timeless is a denial of the claim that God is temporal, god exists essay. First, God exists, but does not exist at any temporal location. Rather than holding that God is everlastingly eternal, and, therefore, he exists at each time, this position is that God exists but he does not exist at any time at all.
God is beyond time altogether. It could be said that although God does not exist at any time God exists at eternity. That is, eternity can be seen as a non-temporal location as any point within time is a god exists essay location.
Second, it is thought that God does not experience temporal succession. God does not experience the first century before he experiences the twenty-first. He did not first hear them and then answer them. He heard and answered in one timeless moment — in fact, god exists essay, he did so in the same timeless moment that he hears and answers prayers offered in the twenty-first century. Rather, God is in some third kind of relation to time.
One in-between position is that God is not within our time, but he is within his own time. He is not located at any point in our time line. His time is completely distinct from ours. Our time is constituted by physical time. If God is omnitemporal, his metaphysical time does map in some way onto our physical time.
So there is a literal sense in which God knows now that I am typing this sentence now. Another view Craig, a, b is that God became temporal when time was created. If he changes, then he is, at least in some sense, temporal. Just as it is not quite accurate to talk about what happens before time comes into existence, we should not describe this view as one in which God used to be timeless, god exists essay, but he became temporal.
This language would imply that there was a time when God was timeless and then, later, there is another time when he is temporal.
On this view, there was not a time when he was timeless. Many philosophers god exists essay religion think that the Scriptures do not teach definitively any one view concerning God and time Craig a, b; for a differing view, see Padgett, For example, they teach that God never began to exist and he will never go out of existence, god exists essay. They also teach that God interacts with the world.
He knows what is going on, he reveals himself to people, he acts in such a way that things happen in time. They also teach that God is the Lord of all creation, god exists essay. Everything is subject to him. Philosophers generally take claims such as these as parameters for their thinking because of their concern either to remain within historical, biblical orthodoxy themselves or, god exists essay, at least, to articulate a position about God and time that is consistent with orthodoxy.
Any departure from the broad outlines of orthodoxy, at least for many Christian philosophers of religion, is made as a last resort. These parameters, as has been noted, allow for a plurality of positions about how God is related to time. God exists essay addition, we will try to fit our theories together with other issues besides what God himself is like.
Some of the most obvious issues include the nature of time, the nature of change and the creation of god exists essay universe. Stump and Kretzmann identify four ingredients that they claim are essential to an eternal timeless being. First, any being that is timeless has life. Second, god exists essay life of a timeless thing is not able to be limited. Third, this life involves a special sort of duration.
Anything that has life must have duration but the duration of a timeless being is not a temporal duration. Last, a timeless being possesses its entire life all at once. It is this last element that implies that the timeless being is outside time because a temporal living thing only possesses one moment of its life at a time. The two aspects of divine timelessness that Stump and Kretzmann emphasize are that a timeless being has life and that this life has a duration, god exists essay, though not a temporal duration.
The duration of the life of a timeless being puts the nature of such a being in stark contrast with the nature of abstract objects such as numbers or properties.
The picture of God that this view leaves us with is of a being whose life is too full to exist only at one moment at a time. The challenge for a defender of a timeless conception of God is to explain how such a God is related to temporal events.
For example, God is directly conscious of each moment of time. The relation of his timeless cognition and the temporal objects of his cognition cannot be captured by using strictly temporal relations such as simultaneity because temporal simultaneity is a transitive relation. God is timelessly aware of the fall of Rome and, in the same timeless now, he is aware of my spilling my coffee.
The fall of Rome is not, however, occurring at the same time that my coffee spills. If x and y are ET-simultaneous, one is timeless and the other temporal. This fact preserves the non-symmetrical and non-transitive nature of the relation. Unfortunately, there are numerous difficulties with ET-simultaneity. There is clearly an analogy with relativity theory at work here. To put an analogy at the core of a technical definition is pedagogically suspect, at the least. It may be that it masks a deeper philosophical problem.
Furthermore, Delmas Lewis has argued that a temporal being can observe something only if that thing is itself temporal and a timeless being can observe only god exists essay is timeless. Therefore, the observation talk, as well as the reference frame talk, must be only analogous or metaphorical, god exists essay. It has also been argued that the notion of atemporal duration, god exists essay, that Stump and Kretzmann hold to be required by the timeless view, is at bottom incoherent.
Fitzgerald argues that if a timeless duration does not have these analogues with temporal or spatial duration, it is hard to think of it as a case of bona fide god exists essay. Stump and Kretzmann attempt to respond to such objections and have revised their analysis of ET-simultaneity accordingly. In their first response to Fitzgerald Stump and Kretzmann,they make much of his analyzing timeless duration in a way that makes it incompatible with the traditional doctrine of divine simplicity.
There are no distinct events or moments at all within the life of a God who is metaphysically simple, god exists essay. Although the two positions are linked throughout medieval thought, there is a cost to holding that a timeless God must be metaphysically simple as well.
Any independent argument against divine simplicity such as in Wolterstorff, will god exists essay against such a view of timelessness.
This version of the principle eliminates the observation difficulties but continues to use the notion of reference frames to describe the timeless and the temporal states. Alan Padgett has argued that Stump and Kretzmann cannot be defending anything more than a loose analogy with relativity theory here.
He points out that they admit that the use of relativity theory is a heuristic device and nothing more.
LOGICAL PROOF THAT GOD EXISTS - Thomas Aquinas Philosophy
, time: 8:49God and Time | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
He said God exists and you're looking at him. Though he talked about his Father in heaven, it was not from the position of separation, but of very close union, unique to all humankind. Jesus said that anyone who had seen Him had seen the Father, anyone who believed in him, believed in the Father May 17, · God exists in timeless eternity. How does God acting before time began get around the problem of God's creation? There are two possible interpretations of these verses. One is that God exists outside of time. Since we live in a universe of cause and effect, we naturally assume that this is the only way in which any kind of existence can function The claim that God is timeless is a denial of the claim that God is temporal. First, God exists, but does not exist at any temporal location. Rather than holding that God is everlastingly eternal, and, therefore, he exists at each time, this position is that God exists but he does not exist at any time at all. God is beyond time altogether
No comments:
Post a Comment