The End of the Timeless God (Oxford Studies in Analytic Theology) 9780198755180, 019875518X

Table of contents :
Cover
The End of the Timeless God
Copyright
Dedication
Preface: Why Bother Thinking About God and Time?
WHY BOTHER THINKING ABOUT GOD AND TIME?
THE NEED FOR DOCTRINAL CLARITY: AN ESCHATOLOGICAL CASE STUDY
DEEP PROBLEMS IN THE CURRENT STATE OF THEOLOGY ON GOD AND TIME
Theological Confusion #1: God is Temporal and Timeless, or Something in Between
Theological Confusion #2: The Barthian Blunder
Theological Confusion #3: The Trinity Entails a Particular Understanding of Eternality
Theological Confusion #4: Placing God in the Future
THE AIM OF THIS BOOK
Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
1: Introduction
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
A CHRISTIAN RESEARCH PROGRAM
THE DIVINE TIMELESS RESEARCH PROGRAM
TESTING THE RESEARCH PROGRAM
2: What is Time?
THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME
Relational and Absolute Theories of Time
BEGINNING TO TALK ABOUT TIME
A-Theory of Time
B-Theory of Time
The A-Theory and the B-Theory: An Unhelpful Debate
GETTING METAPHYSICAL
The Ontology of Time, and Persistence Through Time
AN EXCURSUS ON TIME AND DIVINE TEMPORALITY
Physical Time
Metaphysical Time
3: What is Eternity?
PRELIMINARY REMARKS
WHAT IS TIMELESS ETERNITY?
DIVINE IMMUTABILITY
DIVINE SIMPLICITY
BEHOLD THE HAPPY WRATH OF GOD: DIVINE IMPASSIBILITY
DOES ETERNITY HAVE DURATION?
CAN WE TALK ABOUT ETERNITY?
CONCLUDING REMARKS
4: Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God
PRESENTISM AND CLASSICAL THEOLOGY
PRESENTISM, OMNISCIENCE, AND ALL OF TIME EXISTING IN ETERNITY
DOES GOD’S KNOWLEDGE CHANGE WITH CREATION?
The Augustinian Option
The Thomist Option
5: Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God
THE TIMELESS CREATOR
THE PROBLEM OF CREATION EX NIHILO INITIALLY STATED
THE PROBLEM OF DIVINE SUSTAINING INITIALLY STATED
JOHN PHILOPONUS TO THE RESCUE?
A Proclus-Inspired Dilemma
Philoponus against Proclus
CAN A TIMELESS GOD BE CALLED CREATOR, REDEEMER, AND LORD?
IS GOD REALLY RELATED TO CREATION?
IS GOD REALLY RELATED TO CREATION?
CHRISTIANITY CANNOT DENY THAT GOD IS REALLY RELATED TO CREATION
CONCLUSION
6: Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism
KATHERIN ROGERS INTO THE FIFTH DIMENSION
REAPING THE BENEFITS OF FOUR-DIMENSIONAL ETERNALISM
LEAVING THE FIFTH DIMENSION BEHIND
Proclus’ Dilemma and Creation Out of Nothing
Divine Simplicity Entails a Modal Collapse
Begotten Not Made?
The Threat of Pantheism
What Perfections Can Be Derived From Four-Dimensionalism?
FOUR-DIMENSIONAL ETERNALISM DOES NOT SAVE DIVINE TIMELESSNESS
The Timeless God Exists at Every Time
The Arguments against Timelessness Work on Eternalism
CONCLUDING REMARKS
7: The Incarnation of the Timeless God
THE INITIAL OBJECTION
CHRISTOLOGICAL MODELS
The Two-Minds View: The Basics
Is the Two-Minds View Nestorian?
What is the Unique Relationship between the Son and His Humanity?
THE REDUPLICATIVE STRATEGY AND CONTRADICTORY PROPERTIES
The Reduplicative Strategy, Presentism, and Endurantism
The Reduplicative Strategy and Four-Dimensional Eternalism
FOUR-DIMENSIONALISM AND SUBORDINATION
CAN A TIMELESS GOD BE EMBODIED?
TWO-MINDS AND KNOWLEDGE DE SE
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Conclusion
SCIENCE AND TIME
THE BIBLE ON TIME AND ETERNITY
TRUTHMAKER THEORY
THE TRINITY
THE REAL CONCLUSION
Bibliography
Index

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OXFORD STUDIES IN ANALYTIC THEOLOGY Series Editors Michael C. Rea Oliver D. Crisp

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OXFORD STUDIES IN ANALYTIC THEOLOGY Analytic Theology utilizes the tools and methods of contemporary analytic philosophy for the purposes of constructive Christian theology, paying attention to the Christian tradition and development of doctrine. This innovative series of studies showcases high-quality, cutting-edge research in this area, in monographs and symposia. Titles in the series include: Metaphysics and the Tri-Personal God William Hasker The Theological Project of Modernism Faith and the Conditions of Mineness Kevin W. Hector In Defense of Conciliar Christology A Philosophical Essay Timothy Pawl Ritualized Faith Essays on the Philosophy of Liturgy Terence Cuneo

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The End of the Timeless God R. T. MULLINS

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries # R. T. Mullins 2016 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2016 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2015940449 ISBN 978–0–19–875518–0 Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

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For those who stayed

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Preface: Why Bother Thinking About God and Time? In English class, junior year of high school, we were asked to read C. S. Lewis’ classic Mere Christianity. It was a rather exciting time for me as I was beginning to understand some of the basics of Christian thought. I had grown up in the church, but Sunday morning messages consisted of a dozen or so ways of saying that Christ died for our sins. There was rarely a mention of the resurrection, the Trinity, or any of the divine attributes. Finally hearing these great doctrines explained by someone as eloquent as Lewis opened my eyes to how amazing God is. What changed everything for me was the chapter in Mere Christianity where Lewis discusses God’s relation to time. It had never occurred to me that God might exist outside of time, as Lewis claimed. I can recall the class discussion on this chapter. The teacher, Mrs Fields, explained the concept of God existing outside of time to us. It was quite obvious that none of the students had really understood the idea—that is assuming they had read the chapter. As she talked we stared at her dimly. Recognizing the lackluster look in our eyes she boldly proclaimed, “If this isn’t blowing your mind, you have not truly understood what is meant by God existing outside of time!” There was silence in the classroom. No one knew what to say. Then the most amazing thing happened, the kind of thing that teachers long for. It was almost as if little light bulbs went off above every student’s head. As I looked around the room I could see the expressions on the faces of my fellow classmates change. For some, their jaws slowly dropped as the idea of eternity started to sink in. For others, their eyes light up with amazement. For a few, a faint grin started to appear. One by one the majority of the class caught a glimpse of God’s eternal nature. For me, it was one of the first moments in my life where I felt moved to worship God.

WHY B OTHER T HINKING ABO UT GOD AND TIME? Before entering into discussions on the metaphysics of time and the divine nature there is an appropriate question that ought to be asked. “Why bother thinking about God and time?” It is a fair question, and it is one that the average man in the pew will most likely ask when presented with the topic at hand. Such things are very difficult to grasp, and many may wonder whether

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or not it is even possible—and in some cases moral—to discuss such abstract philosophical topics. It is not hard to imagine, or remember, how such conversations can go. “Isn’t that sort of thing just for academics that have nothing better to do in their ivory towers than think about nonsense that does not affect the real world? Isn’t trying to think about God and time an intellectual game? Or worse, isn’t it merely intellectual masturbation— something so-called scholars do for self-gratification that offers nothing of value to the world at large? What does any of this have to do with my faith? What difference would it make if I believed that God is atemporal instead of temporal?” There are several reasons for thinking that one ought to think about God and time. To start, kids ask the most amazing metaphysical questions. Parents, elementary school teachers, and the like can testify to this fact. There are classic questions like “What was God doing before He created the world?” and “Does God have a birthday, and does She like to eat birthday cake?” Far too often adults find themselves at a loss for words in the face of such questions. Unfortunately, it is also far too often that kids continue to have their questions go unanswered until their imaginations become dull, their child-like faith withers, and they stop asking questions altogether. In many cases, unanswered questions can lead one to leave the Church. For the sake of not looking foolish in front of children, and for the sake of cultivating a child-like imagination and faith, one ought to think about God and time. Second, time is a basic feature of reality and human experience. As human creatures we are constantly thinking about time in various ways and have multiple metaphors for capturing the many aspects of it. We wear time on our wrists and use it to decorate our rooms. We experience the ebb and flow of time’s passage every conscious moment of our existence. We thank God for time when a horrible event ends, or when an anticipated event arrives. We mourn when great moments in our lives pass us by or cease to be. Time is a fundamental feature of our lives and we cannot help but think about it. Perhaps we should think about it more clearly than we presently do. There is a third reason for thinking about God and time that directly relates to a whole host of issues in Christian faith and practice. If there is anything worth thinking about it is the God whom we love and worship. This is because every moment during which the mind contemplates the nature of God is sacred. It would be rather bizarre to claim to be in a relationship with God and not have a desire to know more about Him. Thinking about the eternal nature of God is one of the many ways we can try to gain a better understanding of the author of salvation. We contemplate and encounter the divine through various mediums such as scripture and corporate worship. Let us first look at scripture. Scripture tells us a great deal about the God whom we love and worship. At times the claims of the Bible are rather breathtaking in its portrait of God. For instance Isaiah

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57:15 says that God “inhabits eternity.” Psalms 90:2 states, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” The author of Hebrews makes an even more astounding remark about the nature of God. Hebrews 1:10–12 says, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands; they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years have no end.” Clearly the God whom we worship is an awesome God. It may seem difficult to try to sort out what concepts like “eternity” and “everlasting” mean, but it is important that we do so in order to stay in touch with a biblical worldview. As the Christian devotional writer A. W. Tozer says, The concept of everlastingness runs like a lofty mountain range throughout the entire Bible and looms large in orthodox Hebrew and Christian thought. Were we to reject the concept, it would be altogether impossible for us to think again the thoughts of prophets and apostles, so full were they of the long dreams of eternity.1

Even further, the concept of everlastingness is intricately related to other important Christian doctrines. Tozer is so bold to claim that “the concept of everlastingness is necessary to give meaning to any Christian doctrine.”2 For instance, the apostle Paul draws a close relation between God’s eternal nature and other important doctrines like God’s omniscience, providential guidance, and human salvation. In Ephesians 1:3–10 Paul says that God chose to save humanity through Christ before the foundations of the world had even been created. In Romans 1:18–20 Paul states that God’s eternal power and nature are clearly displayed in creation such that men are without excuse in the face of God’s wrath. Ever since creation began men have been able to know God through what has been revealed in creation. The claims in scripture about God’s everlasting nature and eternal plan of salvation ought to instill in us a desire to worship God. God deserves eternal praise and glory. As Jude 24–25 says, “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time [ages] and now and forever. Amen.”3

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A. W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy (New York: Harper Collins, 1961), 38. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy, 38. 3 It should be noted that the ESV—along with many English translations—translates the Greek aionos here as “time.” A more literal translation would be “ages.” This is preferable as it avoids inserting an obvious incoherence into the text. To say “before all time” is to talk about time before time, which is nonsense. Instead the passage is saying “before ages” or “before this 2

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Passages such as these from Scripture would indicate that the set of issues related to God and time are important for Christian faith. If that were not enough, we already incorporate these ideas into our communal worship through song. In “How Great is Our God” one verse contains the lines, “Age to age He stands/and time is in His hands/the beginning and the end.”4 The classic hymn “Amazing Grace” offers interesting theological and philosophical insights into the issue at hand. “When we’ve been there ten thousand years/ bright shining as the sun./We’ve no less days/to sing God’s praise/then when we first begun.” Paul Baloche’s contemporary worship song “Here and Now” has us sing “What majesty/what mystery/the God of all eternity/stepped into time/and gave His life for me.”5 Here is what it all boils down to. We are already involved in thinking about God and time. It is already a part of our basic experience as humans, our theological reflection on scripture, and our corporate worship through song. The question “Why bother thinking about God and time?” may be appropriate, but I think upon further reflection a better set of questions arises. Since we are already involved in thinking about God and time, are we doing it well? Are we doing it in a way that is glorifying to the God whom we love and worship? I think for many the answer to these questions will be no. Hence, a book like this is important.

THE NEED FOR DOC TRINAL CLARITY: AN ESCHATOLOGICAL CASE S TUDY Since we are already engaged in thinking about God and time, we should make an effort to think about God and time more clearly. This is important because the way one understands God’s eternality impacts the overall shape of one’s theology and practice. In later chapters, I shall draw out the ways in which God’s eternality has profoundly influenced the development of Christian doctrine throughout Church history. In particular, it has greatly shaped the doctrines of creation, incarnation, and Trinity. Here, I wish to note the way it can influence eschatology, and why it is important to get clear in our understanding of time and eternity. age” which would mean that God had glory even before He created the universe. This would also fit with the intent of the doxology to speak of the pre-existence of Jesus. The Son pre-existed creation with the Father and shares in the eternal glory. I suspect that most translators render this to be “time” instead of “ages” because many assume that the Bible teaches that God created time. This assumption will be called into question in later chapters. 4 Chris Tomlin, “How Great is Our God,” Arriving, Six Step Records. 5 Paul Baloche, “Here and Now,” A Greater Song, Columbia Records.

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One reason that it is necessary to get clear on time is this—a lack of understanding of these matters can result in theological obscurities and confusions that can prevent believers from seeing the hope we have in Christ. Sometimes philosophers and theologians make bizarre claims about time and eternity, many of which stem from a fundamental lack of understanding on the basic issues within the philosophy of time. For instance, one can find theologians saying that God is trying to save us from time, or help us overcome time.6 Once one gets a better understanding of the nature of time one will see that this claim is false. Part of time involves having a before and an after. If a temporal creature is pulled out of time—whatever that means—she will have a part of her life after her previous mode of existence.7 Thus, she has not truly escaped time. So whatever one thinks God is seeking to accomplish in bringing salvation history to completion at the eschaton, it certainly does not involve helping temporal creatures overcome time. It is not hard to see where this confusion comes from. With regard to eschatology, we often speak about the forthcoming “end of time.” This phrase is unfortunate because it obscures the meaning of the message. The phrase derives from older translations of Revelation 10:6. For instance, the King James Version translates the passage as saying “time shall be no more.” Modern translations have corrected this error and render the passage as saying something like “no more delay,” (NIV and ESV) “there should be delay no longer,” (NKJV) or, “You won’t have to wait any longer,” (CEV). The eschatology of the Bible is best understood as “the end of an era” and not the end of time simpliciter. As George Ladd explains, “Biblically, eternity is unending time. The future life has its setting in a new redeemed earth (Rom. 8:21; II Pet. 3:13) with resurrection bodies in the age to come. It is not deliverance from the realm of time and space but from sin and corruption. Rev. 10:6 does not mean that time is to end.”8 The Bible is concerned with the end of the age of evil, and establishing a new everlasting kingdom ruled by God where evil has no say anymore.9 The prophetic and apocalyptic authors in scripture are best understood as speaking of God’s everlasting kingdom—a kingdom that endures forever and ever amen—and not as making metaphysical assertions to the affect that time itself will end.

6 Edward Epsen, “Eternity is a Present, Time is Its Unwrapping,” The Heythrop Journal 51 (2010), 417. Cf. Maximus the Confessor, Chapters on Knowledge, 1.68–70. 7 Keith Ward, Science and Religion: The Big Questions (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Foundation Press, 2008), 115. 8 G. E. Ladd, “Age, Ages,” in ed. Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1984), 21. 9 Antje Jackelen, “A Relativistic Eschatology: Time, Eternity, and Eschatology in Light of the Physics of Relativity,” Zygon 41 (2006), 962.

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It would be best if one could avoid confusions of this sort because the anticipation of this future kingdom is meant to shape how we live in the here and now. Antje Jackelen makes an interesting point in this regard. “If detemporalization is the goal of life, questions regarding the concrete shaping of life in time lose their urgency.”10 In other words, how we think about the importance of temporal life, and God’s gift of everlasting life, will influence our actions. If temporal life will ultimately be done away with, then it seems that temporal life has little value. Thankfully, this is not what scripture teaches. Jesus grants an everlasting life, not a timeless life. Jesus does not seek to abandon temporal life, but instead seeks to redeem it. The ways of this world shall pass away, and along with it our negative emotions and shame. The eschaton will be a time of acceptance and peace of mind.11 Temporal life has value in the eyes of God. A failure to get clear on the nature of eternity obscures this aspect of the gospel message. So it is important that we seek clarity on the theological matters of time and eternity. Unfortunately, however, such clarity is hard to come by these days.

DEEP PROBLEMS IN THE CURRENT STATE OF THEOLOGY O N GOD AND TIME While much great work is being done in modern theology and philosophy of religion, it must be noted that many major players on the contemporary scene have not helped advance our thinking on God and time. In an effort to do some much needed innovative theology, several mistakes have been made. Here, I shall point out some of the common and widespread problems that plague contemporary theological reflection on God and time. Since World War II there has been a continual and sustained debate over the nature of God. Diverse groups of theologians have rejected the so-called classical theism of the Christian tradition, and have set forth new visions of God.12 Some of the criticisms of classical theism have been rather crass, often involve crude caricatures of classical doctrines, and put forth fallacious Jackelen, “A Relativistic Eschatology,” 966. Also, Emil Brunner, “The Christian Understanding of Time,” The Scottish Journal of Theology 4 (1951), 8–9. Henri Blocher, “Yesterday, Today, Forever: Time, Times, Eternity in Biblical Perspective,” Tyndale Bulletin 52 (2001), 199. 11 Shai Hulud, “A Profound Hatred of Man,” Hearts Once Nourished with Hope and Compassion, Crisis Records. 12 Classical theism was originally a pejorative term used to denote the widespread understanding of God from Aristotle to the nineteenth century. Today it is no longer a pejorative as many seek to articulate and defend it. A full articulation of classical theism shall be given in later chapters. For now it can be summarized as the view of God as timeless, strongly immutable, impassible, and simple. 10

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arguments. One common fallacious argument within discussions of divine eternality is the Hellenization thesis of Christian theology. In its more unrefined forms, the Hellenization thesis can be the most extreme sort of genetic fallacy. In an unfortunately large number of writings, theologians reject classical Christian theism purely on the grounds that it derives its doctrine of God from Greek metaphysics instead of the Bible. The problem with the Hellenization thesis—apart from its historical inaccuracy—is that discerning the provenance of a particular Christian doctrine of God does not show that it is false. That would be to commit the genetic fallacy. In order to show that a particular Christian doctrine of God is false, one must show that it is incoherent, and that it conflicts with biblical teaching. One must not only engage in careful biblical exegesis, one must also engage in careful metaphysics. Unfortunately, things like the Hellenization thesis have sullied the discipline of metaphysics for many modern theologians. It offers a false understanding of the discipline and methods of metaphysics. In some contemporary theological circles, metaphysics is a bad word, a boogey man that must be avoided at all costs as theologians seek to put forth new understandings of God. Wolfhart Pannenberg agrees with these modern theologians that classical Christian theism must be rejected, and that a new vision of God must be put forth. However, he argues that one cannot successfully do this unless one has critically engaged the classical tradition of philosophical theology and its metaphysics. The mere assertion of the Hellenization thesis, or some similar polemical device, will not suffice. Yet Pannenberg laments the fact that contemporary philosophers have abandoned the task of metaphysics. Without rigorous work being done in metaphysics, he thinks that the task of the theologian becomes increasingly difficult when attempting to critically examine classical philosophical theology.13 Many contemporary theologians seem to be under the belief that metaphysics is dead, and that we need to figure out ways of doing theology after metaphysics. For some contemporary theologians, this is a good thing because they think of metaphysics as that discipline which seeks to violently impose its concepts onto the world.14 For others, the substance metaphysics of the Greeks is cold and static, and we need to replace these with relational and dynamic categories.15 These are rather unfortunate things for contemporary theologians to say. I shall note three reasons why this is. First, when Pannenberg was doing his 13 Wolfhart Pannenberg, An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1991), 23–4. 14 Kevin W. Hector, Theology Without Metaphysics: God, Language, and the Spirit of Recognition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 15 F. Leron Shults, Reforming the Doctrine of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B. Eerdmans, 2005). What terms like “cold,” “static,” “relational,” and “dynamic” mean, however, is never made clear.

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doctoral work, it certainly would have been true that many European philosophers had given up on the task of metaphysics. But Anglo-American analytic philosophy was just beginning to take off at the time. Since the death of positivism, metaphysics has undergone a major renaissance. Far from being the whipping boy of positivist philosophy, metaphysics was alive and well by the time Pannenberg published his lament in 1991. Second, contemporary theologians who assert that metaphysics is a violent discipline, or who seek relational categories, show little awareness of classical and contemporary metaphysics. Metaphysics is not a discipline that seeks to impose its categories onto the world. Instead, metaphysicians attempt to continually revise their conceptual categories as they reflect upon the world. The metaphysician wishes to allow reality to force her mind to conform to it, and not the other way around. It is the case that metaphysicians fail at this goal, and do impose their categories on reality. However, this is nothing unique to the discipline of metaphysics. Theologians, scientists, artists— humanity as a whole—unintentionally impose their categories on reality. The cure for this imposition is not to shy away from metaphysics. The cure is to continually seek to challenge our beliefs and categories as we learn more about reality. In other words, the cure is to engage in careful metaphysics. Third, substance metaphysics is not cold, static, or anti-relational— whatever that means. As any standard textbook on metaphysics today will explain, substances are the very things that stand in relations and persist through time. That is as dynamic and relational as one can get. The abandonment of “substance” for more “relational categories” has caused an unnecessary amount of confusion in contemporary theology. This could easily be avoided by engaging in a bit of metaphysics. Contemporary theology needs to take up Pannenberg’s call to engage in a critical examination of classical philosophical theology and its metaphysics. However, contemporary theology needs to recognize that metaphysics is very much alive. We need not lament with Pannenberg. Instead, the time is ripe for such a deep metaphysical engagement with classical Christian theism. Before moving forward, I must make it clear that some theologians and philosophers of religion have offered careful critiques of classical theism before moving on to posit other models of God. Contemporary analytic philosophy of religion has been one of several major attempts at this project, and the results have been quite fruitful.16 As I shall make clear, the hope is that analytic theology can further this project. I should also note that there have been several rigorous and powerful defenses of classical Christian theism in recent years, especially from certain analytic philosophers of religion. I will

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Nicholas Wolterstorff, Inquiring about God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

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discuss these theologians and philosophers at length throughout this book. For now, I wish to point out some major problem areas in contemporary theology that make clear why a book like this needs to be written. Theological obscurities and confusions abound in the contemporary literature, and I cannot state the need for clarity strongly enough.

Theological Confusion #1: God is Temporal and Timeless, or Something in Between One major problem area in contemporary theology is a complete lack of conceptual clarity with regard to divine eternality. It is important to get clear on what the debate between divine timelessness and divine temporality amounts to. Unfortunately, this is not always achieved. An alarming number of contemporary evangelical theologians continue to propagate the notion that God is timeless and temporal as He relates to creation and the unfolding of the plan of redemption. These views are rarely explicated in any meaningful and coherent way.17 Usually there is a bit of nuance to such statements, but ultimately they reduce to a contradiction. One example comes from Bruce Ware. “Amazingly, then, at creation God became both omnipresent and omnitemporal while remaining, in himself apart from creation, fully nonspatial and timelessly eternal.”18 It appears as if God is simultaneously temporal and atemporal. That is a straightforward contradiction. Ware tries to avoid this contradiction by saying that God is timeless qua Himself, but temporal qua related to creation. The move he is attempting to make is intended to be analogous to a move made in the incarnation. This will be discussed at length in Chapter 7 which focuses on the incarnation. For now, it is worth pointing out why the move Ware makes is not analogous to the incarnation. In the incarnation the “qua move” is intended to predicate the contradictory properties to different, numerically distinct natures. For instance, only the human nature of Christ suffers whilst the divine nature does not suffer. With God’s relation to creation, there are not numerically distinct natures for Ware to appeal to. There is simply the divine nature. The divine nature, it appears, is timeless and temporal on Ware’s account. That is incoherent. Further, it is not clear to me that Ware actually understands what divine timelessness and divine temporality means. This is a persistent problem in contemporary theology. 17 John M. Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Co., 2013), 367. Rob Lister, God is Impassible and Impassioned (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 226–30. 18 Bruce Ware, “A Modified Calvinist Doctrine of God,” in ed. Bruce Ware Perspectives on the Doctrine of God: 4 Views (Nashville, TN: B & H Publishing, 2008), 89.

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Closely related to the claim that God is timeless and temporal, one can find theologians saying that the atemporal God experiences time.19 Perhaps, one might say, God experiences time differently than we do. This is a mistake, however, because an atemporal God cannot experience time. To truly have an experience of time takes time, and this is not something a timeless God can do. Another common confusion that is touted about is to find a third way. We need to get beyond the divide between timelessness or temporality, one might say, and find a third way between the two positions.20 Trying to find a third way is like hunting for snipe and haggis: it is a futile hunt because it is nothing more than a trick perpetrated on the uninformed. When it comes to whether God is temporal or atemporal, there simply is no third way. The two positions are logically contradictory. If they were logically contrary—like your pet is either a dog or a cat—we could find another option. With logically contradictory properties—either God exists or does not exist—there are no other options. In order to fully understand where these theological claims go awry, one must understand what divine timelessness and divine temporality each mean. These will be given an extensive treatment in Chapters 2 and 3, but for now a few quick definitions can be given. God is timeless if and only if God exists (i) without beginning, (ii) without end, and (iii) without succession. To say that God exists without succession means that God does not do one thing, and then another. The life of a timeless God is not characterized by a succession of moments like temporal beings are. God is temporal if and only if God exists (i) without beginning, (ii) without end, and (iii) with succession. The life of a temporal God is characterized by a succession of moments. In other words, a temporal God has a before and after in His life. He experiences one moment of time after another, just like we do. A timeless God does not experience one moment of time after another. Instead, a timeless God experiences His life all at once. With these basic definitions before us, we can see that the claim that God is timeless and temporal is false. God cannot have succession in His life and lack succession in His life. That is a straightforward contradiction. Further, we can see that there is not a third way between having succession and lacking succession.

Epsen also makes this claim in, “Eternity is a Present,” 427. F. LeRon Shults asserts this without any suggestions as to what such a view would look like. Shults, Reforming the Doctrine of God, 267–73. Eunsoo Kim makes a suggestion, but it ends up looking virtually identical to the divine temporality proposed by Richard Swinburne, so it is not a third way. See Kim, Time, Eternity, and the Trinity: A Trinitarian Analogical Understanding of Time and Eternity (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2010). 19 20

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Theological Confusion #2: The Barthian Blunder There appear to be an unfortunate number of systematic theologians who commit what I shall call the Barthian Blunder. The Barthian Blunder involves two steps. Step one—explicitly reject the doctrine of divine timelessness. Step two—affirm a doctrine of divine eternality that is indistinguishable from divine timelessness. Regarding step one, the Barthian might say that classical theism was invaded, or corrupted, by the static categories of Greek metaphysics. She might say that contemporary theologians must reject these static categories and replace them with the dynamic categories of the biblical witness, which portrays a God who is not foreign to time. This might be persuasive reasoning for some theologians, but things go awry when Barthians go on to articulate the doctrine of divine eternality. In step two, they replace the doctrine of divine timelessness in the most unfortunate way. Consider Karl Barth’s articulation of divine eternality. Barth affirms that God exists without beginning and without end, and without succession. He has just affirmed the heart of divine timelessness. Recall from earlier that this is the definition of divine timelessness. If this were not enough of a blunder, Barth goes on to praise and affirm Boethius’ definition of God’s eternality.21 He wishes to affirm, with Boethius, that God’s life is one eternal moment that lacks a before and after such that there is no second moment in the life of God.22 Boethius’ definition of divine eternality is the classical statement of divine timelessness, and it is unfortunate that some systematic theologians wish to affirm this definition whilst trying to be divine temporalists. Barth seems to be unaware of the fact that he has just reasserted the doctrine of divine timelessness because he continually says that God is not foreign to time, but exists in His own time. God’s time, as Barth defines it, is without succession yet present to all of time. This is exactly what divine timelessness says, so Barth’s doctrine of divine eternality is indistinguishable from divine timelessness. A more recent Barthian Blunder comes from Kevin Vanhoozer. Vanhoozer says that God is outside time and omnitemporal. (This goes back to the first theological confusion.) He claims that God’s life is temporal because of God’s 21 Barth, Church Dogmatics III, 2, 438–9. Cf. Christophe Chalamet, “No Timelessness in God. On Differing Interpretations of Karl Barth’s Theology of Eternity, Time, and Election,” Zeitschrift für Dialektische Theologie 4 (2010), 25–31. Adrian Langdon, “God the Eternal Contemporary: Trinity, Eternity, and Time in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics” (McGill University, PhD thesis, 2008). Langdon explains that Barth’s view is a dynamic eternity because of the eternal movement and succession of the Trinitarian persons. However, this movement is simultaneous, or all at once, in the eternal now such that there is no before and after in the life of God. Langdon does not seem to be aware that this is simply divine timelessness. Adding the word “dynamic” to it does not change this fact. 22 Stephen R. Holmes, The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History and Modernity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 16.

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dynamic three-personed life. (This will be theological confusion number three.) However, he says that God does not have a before and after in His life. The triune God simultaneously possesses succession such that there is no before and after in His life.23 This is unfortunate for it commits the Barthian Blunder. Further, the claim that God simultaneously possesses succession such that there is no before or after in the divine life is not entailed by the doctrine of the Trinity. Instead, it is simply incoherent. Succession involves a before and after, so nothing can simultaneously possess succession.

Theological Confusion #3: The Trinity Entails a Particular Understanding of Eternality The discussion of Vanhoozer raised a popular, and unfortunately widespread, confusion worth mentioning. There are divine temporalists who claim that the doctrine of the Trinity entails that God is in time. Contrary to the claims of these theologians, nothing about God being triune entails that God is temporal. Various contemporary theologians have attempted to argue that the eternal processions of the Son and Holy Spirit from the Father entail that God is temporal. Sometimes the claim is that the intra-trinitarian relations of the divine Persons entail that God is temporal. Other times the claim is that the doctrine of the Trinity was developed by the early Church fathers in reaction to, and in resistance against, divine timelessness.24 It is hard to figure out what the argument is from these theologians, and the historical accuracy of such claims is dubious at best. Certainly nothing on the surface of the doctrine of eternal processions and relations entails divine temporality. The traditional doctrine of the eternal processions proclaims that the Father timelessly causes the Son and Spirit to timelessly exist. The traditional doctrine of the eternal relations is that the Father, Son, and Spirit are timelessly related to one another through this ineffably mysterious procession. I fail to see how such a doctrine could push one in the direction of divine temporality. On the other side, some claim that a Trinitarian understanding of God can save divine timelessness.25 It is not clear, however, that the doctrine of the Trinity makes a difference to the question at hand.26 The doctrine of 23 Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 255, 319–23, 454. A further difficulty is that denying a before and after in God’s life would completely undermine Vanhoozer’s theodrama because a God with no moments in His life cannot be an actor in the temporal world. 24 Richard Rice, “Trinity, Temporality, and Open Theism,” in eds. Jeanine Diller and Asa Kasher, Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities (New York: Springer, 2013). 25 Epsen’s, “Eternity is a Present” is an example of this. 26 Antje Jackelen, Time and Eternity: The Question of Time in Church, Science, and Theology (London: Templeton Foundation Press, 2006), 98–109 and 190–7.

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the Trinity is certainly essential for Christians, but nothing about God being three persons and one essence sheds light on the coherence of divine timelessness. In fact, I am only aware of one forceful and clear argument in the literature that attempts to argue that only divine timelessness can accommodate the doctrine of the Trinity. Paul Helm has argued that divine temporality, in conjunction with the doctrine of the processions, entails Arianism.27 However, as I have elsewhere argued, the problem is not divine temporality. The problem is that the doctrine of the eternal processions entails Arianism.28 In more recent writings, Helm recognizes this as well.29 I suggest that theologians cease to make appeals to the doctrine of the Trinity to settle the dispute over God’s eternal status. Instead, theologians should focus on God’s relationship to the created universe.

Theological Confusion #4: Placing God in the Future There is one, final confusion that I wish to point out before moving forward with this book. Far too many discussions of God and time do not articulate what time is. This prevents us from fully understanding God’s relation to time. A clear understanding of time is necessary for such conversations. Fortunately, a growing number of theologians are beginning to see the importance of engaging in the philosophy of time. In particular, thinkers involved in the science-religion dialogue are aware of how significant the nature of time is for our thinking about the God–world relationship. Some of these theologians have offered coherent theories of time, but the results have been somewhat unfortunate. Some have articulated temporal understandings of God where God somehow exists in the non-existent future drawing the world closer to Himself. God causes things from the non-existent future.30 It is rather unfortunate to place God in a non-existent time. As Thomas Schärtl points out, to place God in the non-existent future is to place God in a temporal location that is, in principle, out of reach.31 A God who exists in the future is not a God who is present with us. I’m not even certain if a God who exists in the non-existent 27 Paul Helm, “Time and Trinity,” in ed. Robin Le Poidevin, Questions of Time and Tense (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998). 28 R. T. Mullins, “Divine Temporality and the Charge of Arianism,” Journal of Analytic Theology (Forthcoming). 29 Helm, Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time, 2nd Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 286. 30 Ted Peters, God—The World’s Future—Systematic Theology for a New Era, 2nd Edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), 142–6. 31 Thomas Schärtl, “Why We Need God’s Eternity: Some Remarks to Support a Classic Notion,” in eds. Christian Tapp and Edmund Runggaldier, God, Eternity, and Time (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 55.

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future in fact exists. This seems like an unintended form of atheism to locate God entirely in a non-existent time. To be clear, the intent behind such statements is well meaning. The provenance of such thinking comes from Pannenberg’s account of prolepsis. Prolepsis is the doctrine of the in-breaking kingdom of God and the hope that arises from this. The idea is that in Christ we see the future here and now. Pannenberg, and those who follow him, have taken this concept of prolepsis too far. It is one thing to say that we presently see the promises of God in Christ. In the ministry of Jesus we get a glimpse of what God’s kingdom will look like in the future. To be sure, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ grounds our eschatological hope. However, it is quite another thing to say that the future is literally breaking into our present, or that God exists in the future causing things to occur in the present. If the future is literally in our present moment of time, the future is no longer future. It is simply present. If a time exists at the present, it is present. Further, if God exists in the future, and is somehow causing things from the future, His actions are too late. Light comes into existence, and then God says, “Let there be light.” In light of all of these theological confusions, I cannot help but be reminded of Pannenberg’s call noted earlier. There is a need for a deep, critical engagement with metaphysics and the classical tradition of philosophical theology. If there is any hope of advancing our understanding of God’s eternality and the nature of time, one must engage in metaphysics, and come to a deeper understanding of the classical Christian conception of God. It is time to go on a search for the timeless God that Christians have believed in for almost 2,000 years.

THE AIM OF THIS BOOK This is a work in analytic theology. This new, and developing, field faces several challenges. In many theological circles today, analytic philosophy of religion is accused of being unbiblical, ahistorical, unsystematic, and downright idolatrous. According to these groups of theologians, the new project of analytic theology is assumed to follow suit. The idolatry claim, whilst prevalent, is an ad hominem attack that does not deserve a response, so I shall not address it.32 With regard to the other charges, it is certainly true that some analytic philosophers of religion show little understanding of biblical studies, are quite uninformed in matters of historical theology, and often approach topics in an unsystematic and piecemeal way. What is rarely pointed out, however, is that the same is true of many other groups of theologians as well. For a response to the charge of idolatry, see Marilyn McCord Adams, “What’s Wrong with the Ontotheological Error?” Journal of Analytic Theology 2 (2014), 1–12. 32

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Just think of certain Barthian theologians who proceed as if theology begins and ends with Karl Barth. Or turn your attention to certain dogmatic Thomistic scholars who seem to think that nothing of great theological importance has transpired since the death of Thomas Aquinas because the angelic doctor has solved everything. These groups of theologians appear to be rather ahistorical. To make matters worse, biblical theologians often accuse systematic theologians of not reading their Bibles, whilst systematic theologians often accuse biblical theologians of being unsystematic. In kind, the analytic philosophers of religion can easily accuse theologians of not reading their philosophy of religion.33 In the midst of such infighting, what is the analytic theologian to do? Will analytic theology be unbiblical, ahistorical, and unsystematic? My hope is that the answer will be no, but only time will tell. The task set before analytic theology is one of serious interdisciplinary work. As it seeks to draw upon the rich resources of contemporary analytic philosophy, it must also draw upon the resources of biblical studies, systematic theology, as well as offer a deep engagement with the Christian tradition. In an effort to do this sort of interdisciplinary work, the analytic theologian will never be able to make everyone happy. For instance, the average analytic philosopher will have little patience for the amount of time I spend engaging the tradition, whilst the average theologian will claim that I have not engaged the tradition enough. Finding a happy balance that will please all sides may be a pipe dream, but it is still a dream that I wish to pursue. The project of analytic theology is still rather young, and much work needs to be done if it is to accomplish this interdisciplinary task. My goal is to continue this project by addressing a central issue of the Christian faith—the nature of God and the God-world relationship. My aim in this book is to assess the doctrine of God that has captured the Christian imagination for almost 2,000 years. I am not interested in views about divine timelessness that merely exist in logical space. Instead, I am interested in examining the vision of God that has profoundly shaped the development of Christian thought from the early apologists to the present day. The understanding of God that I have in mind is the doctrine of God that stands behind the early Christological and Trinitarian debates. This is the doctrine of God that is contained in, and stands behind, the ecumenical creeds, as well as in many confessions that span the denominational divide. It is an understanding of God as timeless that becomes a part of the doctrinal deposit of the early Church fathers, and is taken up by

33 A clear example of this comes from N. T. Wright’s book, Evil and the Justice of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006). Wright claims that philosophy can do nothing to solve the problem of evil. Wright has chided Christian philosophers for not having read their Bibles. Wright, however, has been criticized repeatedly by Christian philosophers for showing no awareness of the contemporary philosophical discussions on the problem of evil in his book.

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subsequent generations of Christian thinkers in their attempts to flesh out the whole scope of Christian theology. The doctrine of divine timelessness is not a solitary doctrine, and as such it cannot be examined in isolation from other Christian doctrines. The vision of the timeless God that has so enamored the Church is one that is systematically connected to a particular set of divine attributes. These divine attributes are simplicity, immutability, and impassibility. As one shall see throughout the argument of this book, these divine attributes form a very tight package in Christian thinking. Any assessment of divine timelessness must involve an assessment of these attributes as well. These attributes are used to justify, defend, and articulate God’s timeless eternality. For many classical Christian theologians and philosophers, these attributes are seen as not only mutually entailing, but identical. It is this robust classical vision of God that I shall be examining.

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Acknowledgments Thanks go out to my family. My parents, Tom and Jan, and sister Kelli have been supportive throughout my entire graduate education. Knowing that I make them proud makes it easier to carry on with my research. A great deal of gratitude goes to the youth group at Northside Christian Church in Columbus, GA. Their endless questions prompted me to deeper study, and their teenage minds pushed me to greater clarity. My students at Covenant Christian High School in Indianapolis, IN, were kind enough to listen to my thoughts on God and time, and offered an absurd amount of enthusiasm as well as helpful comments. I am in debt to Jason Smith who was kind enough to chase down a worship song for me based on one line from the song that I could remember. Brandon and Jennifer Craft have not only been wonderful friends throughout my education, but they also encouraged me to apply to the University of St Andrews for my PhD. This project would look completely different if it were not for them. Thanks go to the following people for helpful comments on earlier versions of this material, and in some cases lengthy conversation. Shawn Bawulski, Oliver Crisp, Harm J. M. J. Goris, Paul Helm, Thomas McCall, Alan Padgett, Katherin Rogers, J. T. Turner, Nick Wackerhagen, Keith Yandell, and the anonymous reviewers through Oxford University Press. Thanks go to the following people for conversations on the topics of this thesis. Katherine Hawley, Joanna Leidenhag, Robert Pasnau, Robert John Russell, William Simpson, David Torrance, Peter van Inwagen, the Metaphysics Reading Group at St Andrews, the Physics and Philosophy Society at St Andrews, the Theology Research Seminar at St Andrews, and the 2012 St Thomas Summer Seminar in Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology. Special thanks go to the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame for offering me the Analytic Theology fellowship. This fellowship allowed me the time to refine and expand the content of this book. The Philosophy of Religion seminar, and the Metaphysics Reading group at Notre Dame provided many careful and thorough critiques of earlier versions of this manuscript. In particular, the following people at Notre Dame offered me a great amount of help: William J. Abraham, Natalja Deng, Evan Fales, Kate Finley, Douglas Hedley, Ross Inman, Sam Lebens, Carl Mosser, Michael Rea, Amy Seymour, Meghan Sullivan, Philip Swenson, and Stephen Wykstra. Much gratitude is directed toward Alan Torrance. His enthusiasm for my research was a much needed source of encouragement. He insisted that this project be a work in Christian philosophical theology, and not merely

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philosophy of religion. His guidance and many questions prompted me to continually keep Christian commitments in mind when thinking about the nature of ultimate reality. Special thanks go to Brian Hutchinson for many lengthy conversations on the topic of God and time. He helped me see the relevance of this topic for systematic theology as a whole by pushing me to draw out the implications for the doctrines of creation, incarnation, atonement, and eschatology. I am deeply indebted to Lucy Badger, Sarah Langley, Lins McRobie, Jerry Watssman, and all of the other wonderful people of Edinburgh who know how to heal a broken heart. Their love and friendship means the world to me. If not for their help in my time of need, I would have given up on this project entirely. Most acknowledgment sections overlook a group of people that are crucial to any research project. I should like to correct this. There are many artists who helped me stay motivated to carry on throughout this writing project. Their music provided the soundtrack to my research, the muse to my creativity, and the glimmer of hope that one day the writing would be complete. In particular, the following artists gave me much inspiration throughout the evolution of this book: The Black Dahlia Murder, Bring Me the Horizon, The Builders and the Butchers, Every Time I Die, Fear Before the March of Flames, Hey Rosetta!, Make Them Suffer, Metric, Mother Mother, Murder by Death, Shai Hulud, Stars, The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, You Say Party! We Say Die!, and Zao. Much gratitude is directed toward several editors and journals for offering me permission to reprint previously published material. Earlier versions of some of this material can be found in the following: “Simply Impossible: A Case Against Divine Simplicity,” Journal of Reformed Theology 7 (2013). “Four-Dimensionalism, Evil, and Christian Belief,” Philosophia Christi 16 (2014). “Divine Perfection and Creation,” The Heythrop Journal (2015). Last, but not least, I would like to thank Gary Carr. Metaphysically speaking, it is quite easy to be wholly present. All one has to do is exist. Phenomenologically speaking, however, being wholly present can be quite difficult. It is not easy to live fully in the moment. Gary has gone to great lengths to help me remain fully in the moment, as well as help me connect my mind and my heart. For that I am eternally grateful.

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Table of Contents 1. Introduction

1

2. What is Time?

13

3. What is Eternity?

41

4. Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God

74

5. Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God

99

6. Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism

127

7. The Incarnation of the Timeless God

156

Conclusion Bibliography Index

195 211 247

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1 Introduction This is a work on God’s relationship to time. I originally entitled it In Search of a Timeless God because that is precisely what I intend to do—embark on a genuine search for a timeless deity. However, as I finished my search, I could not find a timeless God that looked remotely like the Christian God. Instead, I found a conception of God that is at odds with the Christian faith. I came to the conclusion that the doctrine of divine timelessness was something that needed to be dispensed with. “Put it to death and bury it!” became my battlecry. Yet such brash proclamations about putting to death the timeless God will be hard to accept for many Christian theists. As such, I hope to demonstrate to the reader why I have come to this conclusion. One question guides this study: Is there a way for the Christian God to be timeless? In order to answer this question several issues will need to be considered. Who is the Christian God? What are Christians committed to with regard to God’s relationship with creation? What is time? What is eternity? How do the two relate to one another? All these questions will be taken up throughout this work. What concerns us at this point is how one goes about assessing the answers. I propose that we can take the doctrine of divine timelessness as a research program and judge it accordingly. First, we will need to know what a research program is, and then we can start to discuss what will be involved in a Christian research program that promotes divine timelessness.

RESEARCH PROGRAMS Within philosophy of science the concept of a research program has been of great importance in the past few decades. One element of research programs is that they are “maximal sets of methodological dispositions.”1 The basic idea is 1

Michael C. Rea, World Without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 3.

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that a research program contains a set of theories about a particular facet of reality, a corresponding set of relevant data, and a set of methodological dispositions for assessing the data.2 Each program will have a hard core theory or set of theories that are not open to revision.3 It will also contain a set of auxiliary theories that are subject to revision and confirmation. The auxiliary theories can serve to confirm the hard core theory. If a particular auxiliary theory continually lacks confirmation it can be discarded without necessitating that the whole research program be discarded.4 In this way it is possible to revise various aspects of one’s program as new evidence comes along. In order to begin rational inquiry into any subject one must already be working from a particular research program. This is because one cannot consider evidence prior to having methodological dispositions.5 It is not possible to weigh evidence unless one has some idea of what would count as evidence for or against a particular theory. In other words, evidence is useless without a research program. The claim of contemporary philosophy of science is that all theories are underdetermined by the evidence.6 There can never be enough definitive evidence (100 percent proof ) so that one could answer as to whether or not a particular research program is true or false with absolute, incorrigible certainty. That is, of course, assuming the particular research program is logically coherent. Something that is logically incoherent cannot possibly be true. Since logically coherent research programs are underdetermined by the evidence it can be difficult to know which research program one ought to adopt. Research programs can be either progressive or degenerating. In order to tell the difference between a progressive or degenerate research program one will need to be aware of several criteria. First, it will need to have internal coherence—the research program is not fraught with internal difficulties. Second, there is explanatory power—the ability of a theory to explain the phenomena under consideration. Third, epistemic fit—the plausibility of the theory with other beliefs we take to be true. Fourth, there is fruitfulness—the ability of a theory to advance our understanding of the world by developing useful connections with other theories, helping us better grasp other things we know to be true, and making the phenomena more likely to be true.7 Fifth,

2

Nancey Murphy, Anglo-American Postmodernity: Philosophical Perspectives on Science, Religion, and Ethics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), 52. 3 Murphy, Anglo-American Postmodernity, 52. 4 Murphy, Anglo-American Postmodernity, 52. 5 Rea, World Without Design, 2. 6 Del Ratzsch, Science and Its Limits: The Natural Sciences in Christian Perspective (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 18–19. 7 Robin Collins, “The Connection-Building Theodicy,” in eds. Justin P. McBrayer and Daniel Howard-Snyder, The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil (Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, 2013), 232.

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simplicity—a theory that has the least unnecessarily complex claims is more likely to be true.8 A progressive research program will be one that has greater internal coherence than any rival. It can explain all the phenomena better than any other. Perhaps it can explain more things than its rival, or even be able to incorporate all the claims of its rival. It will make the observed phenomena more likely to be true. Next, it will also have a better epistemic fit than any rival. Further, it will not simply fit nicely with other things we know to be true, but will advance our understanding of those things, and much more. In some scenarios there are several competing progressive research programs that can account for a body of phenomena. In such cases each research program has great internal coherence, explanatory power, epistemic fit, and fruitfulness. When this occurs the criterion of simplicity comes into play. The hypothesis that has the least unnecessary complex claims is held to be more likely true than its rivals.

A CHRISTIAN RESEARCH PROGRAM Anyone wishing to examine God’s relationship to time will need to have some basic Christian commitments in mind. The hard core of any Christian research program will contain several hypotheses that are not revisable. The hard core hypotheses cannot be given up if one wishes to continue working on a Christian research program. I take the following hypotheses to be included in any Christian research program. This is by no means an exhaustive list of the hard core commitments of Christian belief. Instead, this is a list of the relevant hard core commitments. (1) The triune God created the universe ex nihilo and continually sustains it in existence moment by moment. The entire universe depends for its existence on the will of God. At minimum, God providentially guides history toward its ultimate goal in some general mediated way. The ultimate goal of creation is the reconciliation of all things with God (Col. 1:15–20). How God goes about providentially guiding history is going to be a part of one’s auxiliary hypotheses, but the hard core will contain the hypothesis that the triune God does act in some providential way as He sustains creation in existence. (2) The hard core will also include the claim that God is directly involved in history through personal revelatory acts. As Bruce Ware explains, “Distinctive of the biblical witness of God as over and against both Near Eastern and Greek 8

Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God, 2nd Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), chs. 2–4.

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conceptions is this fundamental conviction that the one and only true God has involved himself personally at every level of his created order.”9 Bruce C. Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terence E. Fretheim, and David L. Petersen concur. The God of the opening chapters of Genesis is portrayed as a relational God. Most basically, God is present and active in the world, enters into a relationship of integrity with the world, and does so in such a way that both world and God are affected by that interaction. God has chosen not to remain aloof from the creation but to get caught up with the creatures in moving towards the divine purposes for the world.10

How one understands God’s involvement in history and divine action will be a part of one’s auxiliary hypotheses. These acts could be understood as interventions or violations of the laws of nature. Or they could be understood in a non-interventionist way.11 Either way, the Christian is committed to the claim that God acts in special ways in history. For instance, God brought about the exodus of the Israelites. This story involves God acting in special ways at specific times, and any Christian research program will need to be able to account for this epoch of history and many others like it. (3) The hard core of any Christian research program will also include an account of covenants. The God of the Bible is a God who freely establishes covenants with human persons. God was under no obligation to enter into a covenant with Abram, but freely established a covenant with Abram. In so doing God took on a set of obligations.12 He made promises to Abram and his descendents. God promised to bless the entire world through Abram’s descendents. There are various ways to understand the covenants, and there are debates about whether or not certain covenants are conditional, unconditional, everlasting, or temporally limited. These will be a part of the auxiliary hypotheses, but a commitment to a covenantal God is a hard core hypothesis. (4) Another hard core hypothesis is the doctrine of the incarnation. The second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, became incarnate at a particular point in history. I admit that the phrase “became incarnate” is question Bruce Ware, “A Modified Calvinist Doctrine of God,” in ed. Bruce Ware, Perspectives on the Doctrine of God: 4 Views (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing, 2008), 81. 10 Bruce C. Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terence E. Fretheim, and David L. Petersen, A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1999), 42. 11 Nancey Murphy, “Divine Action in the Natural Order: Buridan’s Ass and Schrodinger’s Cat,” in eds. Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, and Arthur Peacocke, Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action (Notre Dame, IN: Vatican Press, 1995). Also, Robert John Russell, “Quantum Physics and the Theology of Non-Interventionist Objective Divine Action,” in eds. Philip Clayton and Zachary Simpson, The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). 12 Many thinkers like Marilyn McCord Adams will deny that God has obligations. I am not persuaded that this is compatible with a God who makes covenantal promises. Adams, Christ and Horrors: The Coherence of Christology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 43. 9

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begging. It sounds as if there is an earlier state of affairs where God is not incarnate, and then a temporally later state of affairs where God is incarnate. In fact this is how the Patristics explain the incarnation and the Son’s preexistence. One example is found in Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate 9.6. “There is a distinction between the three states: God, before his human life; then Godand-man; and thereafter wholly God and wholly man.” Stating things in this manner makes the incarnation of a timeless God seem impossible from the start. God cannot possibly be timeless since He has temporal moments— before and after—in His life. It would be better to state the doctrine of the incarnation in a way that doesn’t automatically favor divine temporality. Whether or not this is possible will be taken up in Chapter 7. For now it is sufficient to point out that any Christian research program will include the doctrine of the incarnation. There are various models of the incarnation that will make up part of the auxiliary hypotheses. For instance, one might hold to a three-part composite Christology. This is where the incarnation involves the second divine Person assuming a human soul and body. Perhaps one might add that Christ had a divine will and a human will. Someone else might deny that Christ had two wills, or even that Christ had two minds and argue that such a view looks like Nestorianism.13 Instead one will posit that God the Son took on a human body and limited the exercise of His powers such that He constitutes a human person. Either way, the hard core will include a doctrine of the incarnation. The incarnation will have several entailments for the hard core. First, the incarnation reaffirms what God declared at the beginning of creation: it is very good. The material world is not inherently evil or deficient. Second, creation can and does reveal the divine nature. It is not as if the world is inherently diametrically opposed to the very being of God. Third, God can and does reveal Himself in history, in time. Time is not diametrically opposed to the very being of God either. (5) A doctrine of the Holy Spirit will also be included. Like everything else there are many ways to spell out the economic role of the Holy Spirit. A minimal claim will include something about the Holy Spirit being poured out on all flesh (Acts 2), or that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5). The Holy Spirit is actively working in the lives of every person in order to bring about the reconciliation of all things to God. The Holy Spirit cannot act in someone’s life until that person exists. Once she exists the Holy Spirit will work in particular ways in her life to bring her to salvation and everlasting joy. Any Christian research program must be able to account for this.

13

Colin Gunton, Being and Act: Towards a Theology of the Divine Attributes (London: SCM Press, 2002), 29.

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(6) The Christian hard core must include an account of religious language that is compatible with the fact that God has meaningfully revealed Himself to us, and that human persons can engage in meaningful discourse about God. The God of the Bible is a God who reveals Himself to us. He is a God who wants us to know Him intimately. He calls us to pray to Him, worship Him, and interact with Him. This entails being able to stand in real relations with God and being able to accurately refer to God. It does not mean that we will fully comprehend God, but it does mean that we can have some knowledge of God. The divine act of revelation through prophets and ultimately through Christ entails that we can have knowledge of God. If we could not have any knowledge of God, it would be useless for God to try to reveal Himself to us. It would leave us saying, “Jesus, I know you are supposed to be the exact representation of God, the fullness of deity and all that, but . . .” The “but” here is intolerable to the gospel. This entails that the doctrine of ineffability, or unknowability, of God is false. Some might see this as a departure from the Christian tradition, but I see it as a happy departure, something worth celebrating. As the apostle Paul makes clear, Christians do not worship an unknown God. Instead, they worship a God who has made Himself known (Acts 17). Ineffability is an ill-judged metaphysical compliment given to God. It is a misplaced piety that attempts to express the transcendence of God by noting the limits of human language and reason, but ultimately lands in nonsense because it teaches that “God is unknown and unknowable.”14 As Colin Gunton explains, “what might appear to be a proper human modesty before the divine can turn into the supreme blasphemy of denying revelation.”15 To say that God is unknown and unknowable is to say that God has not, and cannot, reveal Himself. That cuts against the heart of the Christian faith. In my opinion no Christian theologian actually believes in the doctrine of ineffability. It is something that Christian theologians may pay lip service to, but it is not something one can actually believe.16 There are two reasons for thinking this to be true. The first is due in part to the fact that the doctrine is self-referentially incoherent. It cannot even be stated in a meaningful way.17 To say that God is unknowable is to know something about God. One can 14 Stephen R. Holmes, The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History and Modernity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 117. 15 Gunton, Being and Act, 36. 16 Dale Tuggy, “The Unfinished Business of Trinitarian Theorizing,” Religious Studies 39 (2003), 176. 17 John Hick, “Ineffability,” Religious Studies 36, 2000. Keith Yandell, “The Ineffability Theme,” in International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4 (1975). Also, Yandell, The Epistemology of Religious Experience (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), ch. 3. R. T. Mullins, “An Analytic Response to Stephen R. Holmes, with a Special Treatment of His Doctrine of Divine Simplicity,” in eds. Tom Nobel and Jason Sexton, The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity Revisited: Essays in Response to Stephen R. Holmes (London: Paternoster, 2015).

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easily maintain the limits of human reason and language to capture God without holding to something that is self-contradictory like ineffability. One can say that God cannot be fully comprehended by human minds, but that humans can have some significant knowledge of God. This can be maintained without having to say that God is ineffable, unknowable, and incomprehensible.18 These latter claims cannot be formulated without falling into contradiction. Augustine’s attempt is as good as any other to state the doctrine of ineffability, and he is forced to admit that it entails a contradiction. If I have said anything [about God], it is not what I desired to say. How do I know this, except from the fact that God is unspeakable? But what I have said, if it had been unspeakable, could not have been spoken. And so God is not even to be called “unspeakable,” because to say even this is to speak of Him. Thus there arises a curious contradiction of words, because if the unspeakable is what cannot be spoken of, it is not unspeakable if it can be called unspeakable. And this opposition of words is rather to be avoided by silence than to be explained away by speech. And yet God, although nothing worthy of His greatness can be said of Him, has condescended to accept the worship of men’s mouths, and has desired us through the medium of our own words to rejoice in His praise.19

If one notes that a position entails a contradiction, one cannot rationally hold it. I do not have in mind apparent contradictions like light sometimes acting like a particle and other times acting like a wave. What I have in mind is strict contradiction like speakable or unspeakable. No one can actually believe this. The second reason to think that no Christian theologian actually believes in the doctrine of ineffability is derived from the simple fact that every major Christian theologian has completely ignored it in practice. Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, John of Damascus, and Pseudo-Dionysius are great examples of people who pay lip service to ineffability, and then go on to write large treatises on the divine nature.20 If they really thought that God is ineffable they would not continue to speak about what God is like at such great lengths. Nor would 18 Jonathan D. Jacobs’ recent defense of ineffability seems to me to be incoherent. His defense of ineffability states that “Every true proposition about how God is intrinsically is nonfundamental. There are no true, fundamental propositions about how God is intrinsically”: Jacobs, “The Ineffable, Inconceivable, and Incomprehensible God: Fundamentality and Apophatic Theology,” in ed. Jonathan L. Kvanvig, Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), vol. 6, 165. Jacobs maintains that ineffability is grounded in the nature of God, and not grounded in the limits of the human mind. So it sure looks like ineffability is a statement about how God is intrinsically. But if that is the case, then it is not fundamentally true to say that God is ineffable. So the doctrine is once again incoherent. Further, as Jacobs makes explicit, this doctrine entails that God is not fundamentally, intrinsically triune. This is antithetical to Christian theology. 19 Augustine, On Christian Doctrine I.6. 20 A contemporary example is David B. Burrell, Knowing the Unknowable God (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986).

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they so staunchly defend the doctrine of the Trinity if God were truly ineffable. If God were truly ineffable, no one could know that God is triune. It is time to get rid of ineffability in order to have an adequate account of religious language. What is involved in an adequate account of religious language? An adequate account of religious language will include being able to make literal and determinate claims about God.21 This does not exclude making indeterminate claims about God, nor does it exclude using metaphor, analogy, simile, hyperbole, and all the great riches of human language to talk about God.22 Metaphorical statements about God can offer deep cognitive and emotional insights into the divine nature. However, in order to make metaphorical statements about God such as “God is my rock,” one will need to have an underlying literal claim about God that the metaphor is pointing toward.23 Metaphors have an aboutness, they convey a literal truth, so some metaphors are apt or not apt for speaking about God.24 In order to know which metaphors are apt for speaking about God, one will need to know literal statements about God. For instance, consider two metaphors: “God is a terrorist” and “God is a shepherd.” Which metaphor is apt for speaking of God? It depends what determinate properties God has. Without knowing this we have no way of discerning which metaphor is apt. If God is perfectly good, then any metaphor that suggests otherwise would not be apt. The aptness of the metaphor depends upon the determinate properties God possesses. The Christian theologian’s ability to use apt metaphors depends upon having some knowledge of these determinate properties. What is a determinate property? Everything that exists has at least one property that is essential to it—a property that makes it the kind of thing that it is. Some properties are determinate while others are indeterminate.25 Determinate properties are captured by predicates that offer precise descriptions of what the subject is. For instance weighing 8 pounds is a determinate property of a particular bowling ball. Indeterminate properties are captured by predicates that offer more vague descriptions of a subject that are dependent upon determinate predicates. A bowling ball that weighs 8 pounds will have several indeterminate properties such as having weight, having mass, and being spatially located. According to Keith Yandell, “one cannot have an indeterminate concept without also having some more 21 William P. Alston, “Religious Language,” in ed. William J. Wainwright, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 238. 22 David K. Clark, To Know and Love God: Method for Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003), ch. 12. 23 Michael Scott, Religious Language (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), ch. 13. 24 Terence E. Fretheim, The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984), 5–12. 25 Yandell, The Epistemology of Religious Experience, 86.

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determinate concept that falls under it.”26 One could not know that a bowling ball has weight without knowing that it has spatial extension. With regard to religious language a proper Christian account will include all this. For instance, the Christian must be able to say that God is triune. To say that God is triune is a literal and determinate description of God. A Christian will also need to be able to say that God is the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. If a research program cannot accommodate such things, it cannot be considered Christian. How one goes about articulating religious language will vary, but the end goal is to have a meaningful description of the God who created us, sustains us, and redeems us. One possible account of religious language is the via triplex. This is the method used by Pseudo-Dionysius in the Divine Names and it involves a three-step process in order to make determinate claims about God.27 The first step in the via triplex is the via positiva. At this step one looks for a perfection or communicable attribute that God and creatures have in common like goodness. We thus positively predicate it of God by saying that “God is good.” Yet, say Dionysian thinkers, God is not good in the same way that we are good for we participate in goodness, and surely God does not participate in goodness (i.e., His goodness does not depend on something external to Himself ). Thus, in the second step we remove a particular understanding of goodness from God—namely, participated goodness. I say “remove” and not “negate” because Pseudo-Dionysius typically uses aphaeresis which means “removal” instead of apophasis which means “negation.”28 So the second step, commonly called the via negativa, contrasts the way God and creatures have various properties without denying the predicates simpliciter of God. Which brings us to the third step: the via causalitatis. At this step a Dionysian will affirm that God has goodness in some superabundant way because He is the cause or source of all goodness. This brings us to a determinate claim about God, but it is not the only way to develop an account of religious language. Many thinkers prior and posterior to the late Middle Ages held to a doctrine of univocity. This is where predicates like good and being are said of God and creatures in the same sense. Others will follow Thomas Aquinas and hold that good is being used in an analogical sense. This is where good when predicated of God and creatures has a similar and relevant sense, but the predicate is not used univocally.29 Which theory one holds will be part of one’s auxiliary 26

Yandell, The Epistemology of Religious Experience, 87. Pseudo-Dionysius’ method is often abused and misused in certain circles within contemporary theology. See Timothy Knepper, “Three Misuses of Dionysius for Comparative Theology,” Religious Studies 45 (2009). 28 Knepper, “Three Misuses of Dionysius for Comparative Theology,” 209. 29 See E. Jennifer Ashwort, “Medieval Theories of Analogy,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (May 14, 2011). Also, Katherin Rogers, Perfect Being Theology (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 17. William 27

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hypotheses, but an account of religious language that gives meaningful and determinate descriptions of God will be a part of the hard core of any Christian research program. (7) Finally, any Christian research program will hold that God cannot actualize a world that is fundamentally at odds with who He is. God cannot actualize a state of affairs that is not compossible. For instance, when one is working on a theodicy she will argue that God cannot actualize a world where evil has the ultimate say. God is necessarily perfectly good. He cannot actualize a world that is on the whole evil because this would be at odds with who God is. Scripture seems quite clear on this point. The Bible portrays a God who is radically confronting evil and promises to rid the world of evil. With regard to the topic of this book, what must be understood is that the Christian God has created the temporal universe with the intent of having an intimate loving relationship with His temporal creatures. He has created a universe that He can interact with.30 If a particular research program cannot account for God’s actions in creation, it cannot be considered a Christian research program.

THE DIVINE TIMELESS RESEARCH P ROGRAM Now that we have the generic hard core Christian research program on the table it is time to look at the particular research program under consideration. The defender of divine timelessness will have to include all the above in her hard core, but she will also include the following four hypotheses in her hard core: divine timelessness, simplicity, strong immutability, and strong impassibility. These doctrines will be examined at length in the chapters that follow. For now I will offer a brief definition of each. To say that God is timeless is to say that He exists without beginning, without end, without succession or moments in His life, and without temporal extension or location. Divine simplicity is the thesis that God lacks all physical and metaphysical composition. God has no parts or diversity in His essence. A strong doctrine of immutability states that God does not undergo any kind of change. Otherwise, God would not be timeless. Typically this is taken to be that God cannot change with regard to intrinsic and extrinsic properties. Of course, strictly speaking, a simple God has no properties. This is closely connected with a strong doctrine of impassibility whereby God cannot suffer, nor be affected by E. Mann, “Duns Scotus on Natural and Supernatural Knowledge of God,” in ed. Thomas Williams, The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Clark, To Know and Love God, ch. 12. 30 Fretheim, The Suffering of God, ch. 3.

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anything outside of Himself. God is perfect joy, and nothing outside of Himself can diminish that joy, nor affect Him in any way, shape, or form. These are the hard core hypotheses of this research program. They are not open to revision. If one were to revise any of these hypotheses she would be adopting a new research program. This is the research program that I shall examine in this book. However, this research program can have several different sets of auxiliary hypotheses, so I shall need to examine these variations as well. What are the auxiliary hypotheses that need to be examined? There are three that I shall primarily focus on in this thesis. To start, one will need a theory of time. What is time? This question will be taken up in Chapter 2. For now a few preliminary remarks are in order. There are several theories of time that the defender of divine timelessness can adopt. As we shall see, several Christian thinkers argue that certain theories of time are incompatible with divine timelessness. A successful research program will hold to a theory of time that is compatible with the hard core of divine timelessness. A sure and quick way to have an unsuccessful research program is to fail to articulate a theory of time. Throughout this book I shall be interacting with a diverse group of Christian thinkers. My dialogue partners do not exhaust the number of people who have weighed in on this topic. I do, however, think that the dialogue partners I have chosen are the best representatives of divine timelessness. I have intentionally excluded from dialogue various thinkers who have weighed in on this topic because they have failed, and in some instances refused, to articulate a theory of time. One of my working assumptions is this: no research program that seeks to explain God’s relation to time can even hope to be successful without articulating a coherent theory of time. The second relevant auxiliary hypothesis is divine action. This has been a difficult issue for defenders of divine timelessness in the past. Part of the hard core is that God acts in time in various ways. It seems that if God acts in time, He must be temporal. What is needed is a model of divine action where a timeless God can interact with a temporal creation. This is a tall order. The third relevant auxiliary hypothesis that I shall examine in this project is the incarnation. There are various models of the incarnation, so perhaps there is a model where a timeless God can be incarnate. This would involve the humanity of the Son having temporality, whilst the divinity of the Son remains atemporal.

TESTING THE RESEARCH PROGRAM There are two basic ways to test the divine timeless research program. The first is the test of internal coherence. This involves examining how the hard core

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and auxiliary hypotheses fit together, how they explain the relevant data, and how they fit with other background beliefs. If the research program is internally incoherent, cannot coherently explain the relevant data, and fails to cohere with our background beliefs, it is not a successful research program. For instance, if a version of divine timelessness entails that God cannot be the creator of the world, become incarnate, or that human persons cannot refer to God at all, it is unsuccessful. A successful research program must be internally coherent to even be considered a viable contender. If a research program can pass the first test it can move on to the second test. The second test involves examining arguments and evidence for and against it. This will involve looking at arguments for divine timelessness— are there any good reasons to think that God is timeless? The second test will also involve examining the evidence for the auxiliary hypotheses. It is the contention of many today that divine timelessness is only compatible with a theory of time called eternalism. A common strategy amongst divine temporalists is to argue that eternalism is false. Since divine timelessness needs eternalism, it falls with eternalism. A successful Christian research program committed to divine timelessness will need to offer reasons for thinking that God is timeless, as well as defend the truth of her particular theory of time. My strategy throughout this work is to see if the divine timeless research program can pass the first test. I shall examine the internal coherence of various models and argue that divine timelessness is not compatible with a presentist ontology of time. Unlike other temporalists, I shall also argue that eternalism is not compatible with divine timelessness. The main thrust of my book is that there are no successful Christian research programs that promote divine timelessness because divine timelessness is not compatible with any existent theory of time. Perhaps others will be forthcoming as discussions within the philosophy of time progress, but as of now the prospects for divine timelessness look bleak with regard to internal coherence.

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2 What is Time? Among these we have just cause to account TIME; since if we keep to the popular and familiar use of the word, nothing can be more easily understood: but if we range abroad to those vast Wildernesses, the Dialectical Paraphrases of Philosophers thereupon, and hunt after an adequate Definition, beating its peculiar Genus, and essential Difference; nothing can be more obscure and controversial. —Pierre Gassendi1

In this chapter the focus of the discussion shall be on the metaphysics and ontology of time. There are multiple issues and theories that must be put on the table and sorted out in order to properly deal with the question of God’s relation to time. However, I must first defend my approach. Some contemporary theologians and philosophers will question whether or not it is appropriate to start a discussion on God’s relation to time with an examination on the nature of time. Atemporalists like Katherin Rogers and T. J. Mawson will argue that one should start with the doctrine of God and allow that to determine one’s metaphysic on time. Other atemporalists like Eleonore Stump, Norman Kretzmann, and Brian Leftow have tried to remain agnostic on many issues regarding the metaphysics of time whilst articulating their doctrines of divine eternality. So why start with the metaphysics of time instead of delving straight into eternality? The reason is quite simple. It makes no sense to ask what God’s relationship to x is if one does not have a clue what x in fact is. The answer will be different depending upon the content of x. The answer to “What is God’s relationship to mathematical entities?” will be different from “What is God’s relationship to a watermelon?” The question “What is God’s relationship to sinners?” would receive a different answer than “What is God’s relationship to the redeemed?” Knowing what x is has a significant impact upon the work that must be done. It is ill advised to ignore the relevant issues involved in any given project. Just 1 Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana, or, A Fabrick of Science Natural, Upon the Hypothesis of Atoms founded by Epicurus, Repaired by Petrus Gassendus, Augmented by Walter Charleton (London: Tho. Newcomb, 1654), 72.

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imagine a theologian working on the doctrine of atonement whilst trying to remain agnostic on what the human predicament is. The theologian will make no progress at all. In such cases agnosticism is a hindrance if not an absurdity. The situation is the same with God and time. If the project is trying to discern God’s relationship to time one can make no progress unless the doctrine of God and the metaphysics of time are both discussed. Which topic one wishes to discuss first may appear to be a matter of taste, but this is misguided. It is necessary to deal with time before asking whether or not God is temporal or atemporal. If one does not know what time is, she cannot meaningfully say that God is timeless. To say that God is timeless or atemporal is to deny of God any and all aspects of time. If one does not know what time is, one cannot deny it of God. It is intellectually irresponsible—if not outright impossible—to say that God is timeless without first having some idea of what time is. The concept of timelessness is dependent upon the concept of time, so time must be discussed first.

THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

Relational and Absolute Theories of Time What is time? One might say that time is what we use to measure change.2 If there is a change there is a time. Or one might say that if there is a change there is a time, but contend that time is not identical to change. Perhaps time could exist without change.3 There is disagreement over whether or not time can exist without change, but everyone agrees that if there is a change there is a time. (That is, unless one is an anti-realist about time.) On a relational view of time, time exists if and only if change exists. If there is a change there is a time. If no change ever occurred, then time would never occur. What must be understood is that any kind of change will get the job done, be it intrinsic or extrinsic.4 From the most boring and mundane changes

2 This is Aristotle’s claim. For discussion see E. J. Lowe, A Survey of Metaphysics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 310ff. 3 Robin Le Poidevin, “Time Without Change (In Three Steps),” American Philosophical Quarterly 47 (2010). 4 For more on the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic change see Ross P. Cameron, “Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties,” in eds. Robin Le Poidevin, Peter Simons, Andrew McGonigal, and Ross P. Cameron, The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics (New York: Routledge, 2009).

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to the most exciting and dramatic changes, if there is a change there is a time. This view is fairly intuitive, and it is hard to find any serious objections to it. The reason one might deny it is that she finds it more intuitive that time can exist without change. On an absolute view of time, time can exist without change or movement. The relational view of time dominated throughout most of Western Christendom. However, a few dissidents can be found, such as the fourteenthcentury philosopher Nicole Oresme. As scholasticism drew to an end and the Reformation began, a more widespread dissent can be observed. The old Aristotelian philosophy of science started to give way to a new scientific revolution. Several theologians, philosophers, and scientists began to argue that time could exist without change, or at least without the motion of the celestial bodies. For instance, a common thought experiment during this time period imagines that God could pause the movements of the heavens if He wanted to, and then unpause them. The argument is that time would continue during the pause.5 Such speculations led some to a rejection of the relational theory of time. This also led several thinkers like Nicole Oresme, Pierre Gassendi, Isaac Newton, and Samuel Clarke to equate God’s immensity and eternity with absolute space and time. This move, however, led to a flight away from divine timelessness toward divine temporality.6 This flight was also due to the recognition that God not only causally sustains the universe in existence, but that the laws of nature are a manifestation of God’s continual operation in creation.7 These thinkers did not see divine temporality as a problem for theology. In fact, Newton thought equating God’s immensity and eternity with absolute space and time was closer to the biblical conception of God. He often invoked Acts 17:28, “in Him we live, and move and have our being.”8 Leibniz, however, disagreed. He thought Newton’s ideas were detrimental to religion, and made this known in a letter, which eventually sparked the 5 Nicole Oresme and Pierre Gassendi offer this type of argument by focusing on the story of God stopping the sun in Joshua 10. Oresme, Le Livre du Ciel et du Monde (London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1968), 375–7. Gassendi, Physiologia, 76. 6 Nicole Oresme espouses an absolute theory of time and space, but he continues to hold to divine timelessness. See Nicole Oresme and the Medieval Geometry of Qualities and Motions (London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1968) trans. Marshall Clagett, 299. Also, Le Livre, 165, where he says that God “is without beginning or end and without succession, but is at once complete as a whole.” 7 For example, John Tillotson, The Remaining Discourses on the Attributes of God (London: Rofe and Crown, 1700), 355–60. The Socinians seem to have rejected divine timelessness as well. The Racovian Catechism says that God’s eternity consists only in existing without beginning and without end. Faustus Socinus, Valentin Smalcius, Hieronim Moskorzewski, and Johannes Volker, The Racovian Catechisme (Amsteredam: Brooer Janz, 1652), 16. 8 For discussion of this see Geoffrey Gorham, “God and the Natural World in the Seventeenth Century: Space, Time, and Causality,” Philosophy Compass 4 (2009), 861–70. See also Robert Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1689 (London: Oxford University Press, 2011), ch. 18.

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famous correspondence between Leibniz and Clarke.9 Part of their debate circled around relational and absolute theories of time. One issue that arose from this correspondence was how to understand absolute time. For Newton, absolute time flows from God’s necessary and eternal existence. Absolute time always exists because God always exists.10 It is not that time is a property or attribute of God’s, but rather that it necessarily exists because of God. In some writings Samuel Clarke seems to hold that absolute time is an attribute of God. However, in several letters he attempts to make his position clear by claiming that absolute time, or eternity, is a mode of existence.11 In our own day absolute time has been articulated in several ways as it relates to God. For instance, J. R. Lucas argues that time and change are not analytically linked. “Even when nothing happens, we have some subjective sense of the passage of time, and that is enough to show that the concepts not only are distinct, but might be applied differently in some conceivable situation.” Just like those before him, Lucas holds that absolute time depends on the personal God. Time exists because God exists. As he sees it, to “deny that God is temporal is to deny that he is personal in any sense in which we understand personality. To be a person is to be capable of being conscious, and to be conscious is to be aware of the passage of time.”12 Alan Padgett has offered a slightly different articulation of absolute time reminiscent of Isaac Barrow’s view.13 For him, “time is the dimension of the possibility of change. Change does not have to occur in order for time to occur, but the possibility of change follows from the reality of time.” With regard to God, Padgett holds that even before creation, “if it is possible for God to change, then God must in some weak sense be temporal.” According to this articulation of the absolute theory of time, time exists if and only if some object exists, and this object could possibly undergo a change. On Padgett’s understanding, God can possibly change, so time exists because God exists. God exists without beginning, and without end, so time exists without beginning and without end. The idea that it is possible for God to change is, in Padgett’s mind, crucial for theology. “If change was not possible, God could

9 H. G. Alexander, The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956). 10 William Lane Craig, God, Time, and Eternity: The Coherence of Theism II: Eternity (London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 148–58. 11 Clarke, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God and Other Writings. Edited by Ezio Vailati. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 122–3. 12 Lucas, “The Temporality of God,” in eds. Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, and C. J. Isham, Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, 2nd Edition (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), 235–7. 13 J. M. Child, The Geometrical Lectures of Isaac Barrow (London: The Open Court Company, 1916), Lecture I.

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never create the world!”14 According to Christian theology, God did not have to create the universe. It is possible that God did not create the universe. On Padgett’s understanding of creation, there is a state of affairs where God exists without the universe. God was not always creating the universe, but began to create the universe. If God cannot possibly change, then, according to Padgett, God could not create the universe. God could not begin to do anything that He is not timelessly, and immutably doing. These issues related to creation will be discussed further throughout the rest of this book. For now, they can be set aside. There seems to be a possible perplexity in the notion of absolute time. On some articulations of absolute time it is said that time exists regardless of the things contained within it, and regardless of what happens in it.15 Yet theistic defenders of absolute time hold that God is temporal—God exists in time. So, one might object to these divine temporalists by arguing that absolute time could exist without God since absolute time exists regardless of the things contained within it. In other words, it seems as if absolute time is more fundamental than the temporalist God since the temporalist God exists in time. If absolute time can exist regardless of the things contained within it, and God exists within time, then absolute time can exist without God. The objector might complain that the temporalist God is no God at all. God, it is typically held, is ultimate in reality. All of reality depends upon God in some way for its existence. So the objector might argue that a God who exists in time is not ultimate since absolute time does not depend upon God.16 Absolute time, according to the objector, can exist completely independent of God. The divine temporalist who holds to absolute time can say that this objection rests on a confusion. This is not what the divine temporalist means by absolute time, nor what she means by the claim that God exists in time. Samuel Clarke clarifies the issue by pointing out that saying, “God exists in time” is a rather loose way of talking. This loose way of talking can be paraphrased away, and one can reach an understanding of what the divine temporalist really means. When the divine temporalist says that God exists in time, she means to say that God is eternal as understood on divine temporalism. God does not exist in space, and in time; but his existence causes space and time. And when, according to the analogy of vulgar speech, we say that he exists in all

14 Padgett, “Response to William Lane Craig,” in ed. Gregory E. Ganssle, God & Time: Four Views (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 168–9. 15 Robin Le Poidevin, Travels in Four Dimensions: Enigmas of Space and Time (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 27. 16 This is one form of the so-called “prisoner of time objection” to divine temporality. For my refutation of this objection see my “Doing Hard Time: Is God the Prisoner of the Oldest Dimension?” Journal of Analytic Theology 2 (2014).

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space and in all time; the words mean only that he is omnipresent and eternal, that is, that boundless space and time are necessary consequences of his existence; and not, that space and time are beings distinct from him, and IN which he exists.17

The claim of divine temporalists who hold to absolute time should be something like the following. Time exists necessarily because an endurant God exists necessarily. Time cannot exist without necessary beings, but time can exist regardless of what contingent beings exist within it.18 This distinguishes the theistic version of absolute time from a substantival theory of time where time is an independent being or substance. On substantivalism, time is a set of spacetime points that contains the rest of reality.19 After Einstein, the absolute theory of time has typically become conflated with substantivalist views on spacetime.20 This has led to some unfortunate misreadings of the debate between Clarke and Leibniz, as well as false interpretations of Newton’s theistic metaphysics.21 Absolute time, theistically understood, does not say that time is an independent being.22 Instead, time is the dimension of possible change, and it exists because God exists. This issue will be taken up further below in the excursus on divine temporality. A quick summary seems in order. On the one hand, there are those who say that time exists if there is change; while on the other there are those who hold that time can exist without change. But such discussions, important as they are, only get us so far at this juncture. Though I think that time can exist without change, my arguments in this work shall not depend upon that doctrine since defenders of divine timelessness overwhelmingly hold to a relational view of time.23 I shall set aside that issue, and assume that at the very least, if there is a change there is time.

BEG INNING TO TALK ABOUT TIME The debates between the A-theory and the B-theory of time have held the center of attention for many analytic philosophers of religion engaged in 17

Clarke, The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, 104. Thanks to Katherine Hawley for discussing this with me. 19 Barry Dainton, Time and Space (Chesham: Acumen Publishing Limited, 2001), 2–4. 20 The absolute theory of time is also often conflated with absolute simultaneity. This is an issue within relativity theory, and space does not permit a discussion of such things here. 21 William Lane Craig, Time and the Metaphysics of Relativity (Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), ch. 6. 22 However, a theist could easily maintain that God creates a substantival spacetime. 23 Rory Fox, Time and Eternity in Mid-Thirteenth-Century Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 134ff. 18

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discussions on divine eternality. Anyone familiar with the literature on God and time will have come across the terms A-theory, tensed time, and dynamic time. These terms are often used interchangeably in the literature, though perhaps they ought not to be. One will also have come across the terms B-theory, tenseless time, and static time. These terms are also often used interchangeably in the literature, though, again, perhaps they ought not to be. In the next two sections I shall tell the typical story about the A- and B-theories of time in order to familiarize readers who are not acquainted with the previous literature on God and time. Then I shall go on to critique the standard story, and argue that the ontology of time is what is of the utmost importance for debating God’s relationship to time.

A-Theory of Time In order to get a better handle on the nature of time, the philosopher J. M. E. McTaggart proposed two main theories of time and gave them the most creative names in the history of philosophy: the A- and B-theories of time.24 The A-theory often goes by several names. In the literature one may come across terms like dynamic time, process time, and the tensed theory of time. Often in the literature, these are considered to fall within the family of the A-theory.25 On this account, time is held to be dynamic in the sense that it is constantly moving forward. All series of events can be described in terms of having the properties past, present, or future.26 However, only the present can be spoken of as existing “now.” The “now” is treated as having some type of privileged status compared with the past and the future.27 Every moment is relative to the present. One reason often appealed to for holding this theory of time is that our language typically entails this theory of time.28 When we speak we often use the present as a reference point for all other moments of time. “Yesterday I ran into Mrs Jones.” “Tomorrow I am going to the movies.” “It is raining outside right now.” This is because all other moments are relative to the present on

24 J. M. E. McTaggart, “Time,” in ed. Michael J. Loux, Metaphysics: Contemporary Readings (London: Routledge, 2001). Charles Taliaferro, Contemporary Philosophy of Religion (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1998), 149. 25 Adrian Bardon, A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 80–3. 26 Michael Rea, Metaphysics: The Basics (New York: Routledge, 2014), 72. 27 Gregory E. Ganssle, “Direct Awareness and God’s Experience of a Temporal Now” in eds. Gregory E. Ganssle and David M. Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 173–80. 28 A. N. Prior, “Thank Goodness That’s Over,” in ed. Michael Tooley, Analytical Metaphysics: A Collection of Essays Volume 2: Time and Causation (New York: Garland Publishing, 1999).

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this theory.29 In our everyday language we typically predicate A-properties and B-relations of events. A-properties are things that we predicate of moments that have pastness, presentness, and futurity.30 For instance, the sentence, “Yesterday I ran into Mrs Jones” contains an A-property because it is speaking about the past. B-relations work in a similar way. These are predicated of moments that stand in earlier than, simultaneous with, or later than relations.31 The following sentences demonstrate this idea. “The death of Socrates is earlier than the death of Christ.” “Whilst Ryan is typing his paper, there is street theater going on outside.” “The birth is later than the conception.” The A-theory will use both A-properties and B-relations in describing the temporal aspects of reality. However, the A-theorist will maintain that Aproperties are more fundamental than B-relations because B-relations are derivative of A-properties.32 One of the main contentions of the A-theory is that the world contains propositions that can objectively change their truth-value.33 Tensed propositions such as change their truthvalue over time. This proposition, says the A-theorist, is true now, but will be false at a later time. Once Sally is eating the delectable cheeseburger, a new proposition will become true: . However, this proposition, says the A-theorist, will become false once the cheeseburger has been eaten. At that point, it will be false that Sally is now eating a cheeseburger, because Sally has finished eating. The A-theorist maintains that the world is filled with tensed propositions of this sort, and that such propositions objectively change their truth-value over time.

B-Theory of Time In the literature, the B-theory can also go by several names. It may also be called static time, and the tenseless theory of time.34 The contention of the

29 Ganssle, “Direct Awareness and God’s Experience of a Temporal Now,” in Ganssle and Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 173–80. 30 Garrett DeWesse, “Atemporal, Sempiternal, or Omnitemporal: God’s Temporal Mode of Being,” in Ganssle and Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 50. 31 Rea, Metaphysics, 72. 32 Dean Zimmerman, “The Privileged Present: Defending an ‘A-Theory’ of Time,” in eds. Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne, and Dean W. Zimmerman, Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), 212. 33 Dean Zimmerman, “The A-Theory of Time, Presentism, and Open Theism,” in ed. Melville Y. Stewart, Science and Religion in Dialogue (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2010), 800. 34 Bardon, A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time, 82–3.

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B-theorist is that B-relations are more fundamental than A-properties.35 However, there is disagreement amongst B-theorists over whether or not tensed propositions are a part of the world. In order to understand this disagreement, it must be first understood that many will argue that the Btheory entails a particular ontology of time called eternalism. On this account all instances of time have equal ontological existence. This will be further discussed below. On this understanding of the B-theory the difference between A- and B-theorists is not merely over which properties and relations are more fundamental. Where the A-theory treated the present as having some objective privileged status, the B-theory holds that the past, present, and future are all objectively real. Technically speaking, there is no such thing as the past, present, or future because such terms are subjective to an individual’s reference point and as such have no objective purchase on reality. All moments of time exist. None of them pass out of existence. Events are in earlier than, simultaneous with, and later than relations.36 However, the experience of change from one moment to the next is merely subjective human perception.37 The common sense intuition that we as humans experience a passage of time is merely an illusion. With this in mind, we can begin to understand the dispute amongst B-theorists over tensed propositions. Once upon a time a defender of the B-theory would reject the technical use of A-properties and tensed propositions, and seek to translate everything into B-relations and tenseless propositions. The old B-theorist would acknowledge that A-properties are a part of common speech, but deny that such properties adequately describe reality. For many years B-theorists were engaged in the detenser project. This involved translating away tense from our language about time. For instance, one might say, . This proposition contains an A-property, and the A-theorist would say that it objectively changes its truth-value over time. The old B-theorist would try to offer an alternative tenseless proposition that contained the same propositional content as the tensed proposition. She might offer something like . A-theorists argued that this proposition does not express the same proposition as and contended that tense was not something that could be eliminated from language about reality. In light of these debates a rare phenomenon took place in philosophy; the kind of event that is only spoken of in fairy tales. A consensus arose amongst the philosophers. By the 1980s philosophers realized that there is not a tenseless

35 Zimmerman, “The Privileged Present: Defending an ‘A-Theory’ of Time,” Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics, 212. 36 Rea, Metaphysics, 72. 37 J. J. C. Smart, “The Tenseless Theory of Time,” in Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics, 226–7.

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translation for every tensed statement.38 Most B-theorists abandoned the detenser project and headed off into new territory. The new B-theory takes a different strategy. Instead of trying to eliminate tense from our language it seeks to offer tenseless truth conditions for tensed statements. Eric Olson lays out two basic rules for accomplishing this task. 1) “To say, at a time t, that x is present (or past, or future) is to say something that is true if and only if x is located at (or before, or after) t.” 2) “To say, at a time t, that x is now F (or was F, or will be F) is to say something that is true if and only if x is F at (or before, or after) t.”39 Whether or not this B-theory makes sense, or if it is fruitful, is not my concern here. At this point, I am merely concerned with laying out the typical story of the A-theory and B-theory debate so as to catch up readers who are unfamiliar with the literature on God and time. Now that the typical story has been told, I shall point out problems in the typical story that cause confusion for debates over divine eternality.

The A-Theory and the B-Theory: An Unhelpful Debate As I have noted already, these debates have played a central role in contemporary discussions of divine eternality. Many defenses of divine timelessness are made by invoking the B-theory or the tenseless theory of time. Atemporalists, however, typically shy away from talking about the static theory of time because “static” is often used as a pejorative in contemporary theology. Process theists, panentheists, open theists, and relational theologians often reject divine timelessness because it offers a static, inert, and aloof God who in no way resembles the dynamic, personal God of the Bible. In light of such rhetoric, it makes sense why atemporalists wish to refrain from using the word “static.”40 The assumption in much of the contemporary literature seems to be that “tenseless” is equivalent to “timeless.”41 This is true not just of theologians and philosophers of religion, but also of metaphysicians. Many philosophers of 38 Michael Loux, “Time: The A-Theory and the B-Theory,” in ed. Michael Loux, Metaphysics: Contemporary Readings, 257–8. Also, Nathan Oaklander, The Ontology of Time (New York: Prometheus Books, 2004). 39 Eric T. Olson, “The Passage of Time,” in eds. Le Poidevin et al., The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics, 443. 40 It is quite difficult to figure out what “static” and “dynamic” refer to in many contemporary theological discussions. One cannot help but get the impression that these terms should be defined as follows. Static=def those theological views that I disagree with. Dynamic=def those theological views that I favor. 41 Robert John Russell, Time in Eternity: Pannenberg, Physics, and Eschatology in Creative Mutual Interaction (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2012), 125.

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time speak of the B-theory as timeless or atemporal.42 This is unfortunate as it causes unnecessary confusion. This fails to account for the fact that the tenseless theory of time is a theory of time. It is a theory about what is true at particular times. The use of “timeless” by philosophers of time in these discussions is a loose way of talking. It is meant to denote that the B-theory of time understands change differently than the A-theory does. This is important to note since many contemporary atemporalists have not understood this point when seeking to use the B-theory in their defense of divine timelessness. As Nathan Oaklander explains, “The rock-bottom feature of time that must be accepted on all sides is that there is change, and the different views concerning the nature of change constitute the difference between A- and Btheories of time.”43 One of the ways to cash out the difference in change is with regard to the truth-value of propositions. Recall that the A-theorist holds that tensed propositions are features of reality that change their truth-value over time, whereas the B-theorist may deny this. Another way to cash out the different accounts of change is over the nature of persistence through time. This shall be discussed below. For now, it must be emphasized that both theories of time hold that the temporal world involves change. The failure to realize this has caused much unnecessary confusion in contemporary theology. There is another reason why the debate between the A-theorist and Btheorist is unhelpful and confusing for contemporary theology. It should be recalled that I mentioned earlier that the B-theory does not necessarily entail a particular ontology of time as some contend. In fact, it is not obvious that the A-theory entails a particular ontology of time either. The recent debates between A- and B-theorists are actually quite confusing, and are not as clear cut as they were when the debates over God and time became reinvigorated in the 1990s and early 2000s.44 Debates over tensed propositions, change, dynamic vs. static time, and ontology are now quite complex, and do not fit the neat story told above. For instance, one can put five A-theorists in a room. All five will be committed to the notion that the present has a privileged ontological status, and that time is essentially tensed, yet all five could disagree about the ontology of time. The first might say that only the present moment of time exists, while the second holds that the past and the present exist. The third might say that the past, present, and future all exist, but the now acts as a 42 For instance, Bardon, A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time, 87. Katherine Hawley, How Things Persist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), ch. 1. 43 Oaklander, The Ontology of Time, 39. Emphasis in the original. 44 When I discussed an earlier version of this chapter with the Metaphysics Reading Group at the University of Notre Dame, there was much debate in the room over the meaning of the A-theory and the B-theory. No consensus on the meaning of these theories was reached amongst the metaphysicians.

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spotlight indicating which moment is present. The fourth person might claim that the present moment of time has the fullest degree of existence, but that other times have lesser degrees of existence relative to the present. The fifth person will say that all moments of time exist, yet the entire spacetime manifold counts as present.45 All agree that time is tensed, and that the Atheory is true, but they do not agree on the ontology of time. The same seems to be true for the B-theory of time. We can find individuals with radically different ontologies of time holding to the new B-theory. Individuals who hold that only the present exists, or that the past and present exist, or that the past, present, and future all exist, can all hold to the B-theory of time.46 For far too long the debates over the A-theory and B-theory of time have obscured the discussions over the metaphysics of time. This, in turn, has obscured the discussions over God’s relation to time. As Storrs McCall points out, “Strictly speaking it is sentences and propositions, not time or truth or events, that are either tensed or tenseless.”47 The issues that are discussed in the A- and B-theories of time are important, but they simply do not tell us about the ontology of time. “To give linguistic issues priority, and try to draw physical and ontological conclusions from them, is to put the cart before the horse.”48 In other words, if we are going to make any progress in our understanding of God’s relationship to time, we need to stop talking about how to talk about time, and begin to do metaphysics. Here is how this is relevant to debates over divine eternality. Many contemporary arguments against divine timelessness will say that a timeless God cannot know what time it is now. The argument is usually stated by saying that a timeless God cannot know tensed propositions because tensed propositions change their truth-value. If God had knowledge of tensed propositions, the content of His knowledge would change, and thus He would change and be temporal. One popular atemporalist strategy is to detense all tensed propositions such that there are no tensed propositions for God to know.49

45 Cian Dorr, “The A-Theory, the B-Theory, and Temporal Counterpart Theory,” presented at the University of St. Andrews, February 2012. 46 A few examples would be Craig Bourne, Joshua Rasmussen, and Michael Tooley. See Bourne, A Future for Presentism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Rasmussen, “Presentists May Say Goodbye to A-Properties,” Analysis 72 (2012). Tooley, Time, Tense, and Causation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Also, for a related discussion, see Dean Zimmerman, “The A-Theory of Time, The B-Theory of Time, and ‘Taking Tense Seriously’,” in Dialectica 59 (2005), 401–57. 47 Storrs McCall, “Tooley on Time,” in ed. L. Nathan Oaklander, The Importance of Time: Proceedings of the Philosophy of Time Society, 1995–2000 (Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 13. 48 McCall, “Time Flow,” in Oaklander, The Importance of Time, 146. 49 Paul Helm, Eternal God: A Study of God without Time, 2nd Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), ch. 5.

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The assumption underlying this dialectic is that the tensed and tenseless theories of time entail a particular ontology of time. Without this assumption it is not clear if the dialect makes any sense.50 As we shall see throughout the rest of this book, it is the ontology of time that is driving the arguments. Further, without the assumption that the tenseless theory of time is a timeless world without change, it is not clear that the atemporalist move makes any sense. This will be discussed in later chapters, so I shall not belabor the point here. I shall end this section by noting one final reason that the A-theory and Btheory debate is unhelpful for discussions on divine eternality. The debate between A-theorists and B-theorists is relatively new in the history of ideas. The distinction that McTaggart made was not a common distinction in earlier eras. The medievals, for instance, were not sensitive to such a distinction, so it will not be helpful to use these distinctions in assessing their thoughts.51 What we need are metaphysical ideas that have been widely held in the past and today in order to properly assess different accounts of God’s relation to time.

GETTING METAPHYSICAL Knowing the basic distinction between the A-theory and B-theory of time is no longer helpful in doing philosophical theology. What will help us is looking at different ontologies of time and their complementary theories on persistence through time and change.

The Ontology of Time, and Persistence Through Time Presentism, the growing block, and eternalism are theories about the ontology of time, or about what moments of time exist. Each is typically linked with a theory of change and persistence through time. Presentism is usually held 50 Cf. Hugh J. McCann’s defense of divine timelessness in Creation and the Sovereignty of God (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012), ch. 3. McCann holds that tensed propositions cannot be eliminated from reality, but neither can tenseless propositions. Nowhere does he articulate which ontology of time he is working with, and at times it appears as if he has two completely different ontologies of time in view. When he discusses the arguments for and against divine timelessness, it is difficult to figure out how the dialectic is going. He will make appeals to the tensed theory of time when it suits him, and then appeal to the tenseless theory of time when the reality of tense seems to be working against him. For instance, God can know tensed propositions, yet somehow God does not change in knowing these propositions. Ultimately, it is not clear what sort of temporal world McCann has in mind. 51 Fox, Time and Eternity, 180.

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alongside endurantism, whereas the growing block and eternalism typically hold to some form of four-dimensionalism. Allow me to elaborate. Presentism is the thesis that only the present, the now, exists. The past no longer exists and the future does not yet exist.52 Time involves temporal becoming, or absolute generation, as well as real passage from one moment to the next. New things that did not formerly exist come into existence, and other things pass out of or cease to exist.53 For the presentist, it simply is the case that the only objects that exist are the ones that presently exist. As Trenton Merricks says of presentism, “an object has only those properties it has at the present time. The difference between past, present, and future is metaphysical, not perspectival.”54 On presentism, an object endures through time by existing as a whole, or all at once. To say that an object endures through time is to say that an object is wholly present at each moment of its existence. Numerically one and the same object exists at each time that it exists, and it does not have parts laying about at other times. Further, the presentist and endurantist explain change in terms of an object gaining and losing accidental properties over time. Let us say that some object O begins to exist at time t1 and persists all the way through to time t3. On this account O exists entirely at each instant of time. Given presentism, as t2 comes into existence t1 ceases to exist and t3 does not yet exist. So O exists entirely at each instant only when that instant is the present. It is not as if O exists wholly at all of the instants of t1 through t3 simultaneously because all of those instances do not have equal ontological existence. As O endures through time it will gain and lose various accidental, or non-essential, properties. Let us say that O is an armchair. At t1 the armchair is blue, and then at t2 someone paints the armchair such that at t3 the armchair is red. The armchair has retained all of its essential properties, but it has lost one accidental property—that of being blue—and gained a new accidental property—that of being red. Eternalism and the growing block have several differences, but both have the same basic feature of seeing time as a four-dimensional spacetime manifold.55 On eternalism all moments of time have equal ontological existence. To put it roughly the past, present, and the future all exist, they are all equally real. To put it more technically there is no real distinction between past, present, 52 Thomas M. Crisp, “Presentism,” in ed. Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman, The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 212. 53 St. Augustine, Confessions XI.20. Anselm, Monologion 21, 22, and 24. Also, Proslogion 13, 19, and 22. Robert Pasnau, “On Existing All at Once,” in eds. Christian Tapp and Edmund Runggaldier, God, Eternity, and Time (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011). 54 Trenton Merricks, “Goodbye Growing Block,” in ed. Dean W. Zimmerman, Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, vol. 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 103. 55 Michael Rea, “Four-Dimensionalism,” in eds. Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman, The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, 247.

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and future. There just is the four-dimensional spacetime manifold with no privileged moment that marks the present.56 On this account there is no real passage of time because all moments of time exist. Nothing ever comes into existence nor ceases to exist because everything simply does exist in the spacetime manifold. As such, the experience of temporal passage is illusory. Growing block theorists hold that spacetime is a four-dimensional manifold, but they maintain that only the past and the present are real whereas the future is not. Time, they say, is dynamic in the sense that new things really do come into existence as new time slices are added to the four-dimensional spacetime manifold. Time slices are merely instants of time that can stand in earlier than and later than relations. They are much like points on a map. In fact most eternalists and growing blockers see a close connection between being located in space and being located at a time, whereas presentists reject the similarity between being located in space and located at a time.57 For the growing block theorist new time slices are constantly being added to spacetime. The eternalist holds that all time slices simply exist in the spacetime manifold. None ever come into nor pass out of existence. It has already been noted that presentists typically hold that objects endure through time. Growing blockers and eternalists typically hold to a version of four-dimensionalism. Four-dimensionalism says that objects persist by having temporal parts. Four-dimensionalism is a family of views about the nature of temporal parts, the most common of which is perdurantism or worm theory. According to Michael Rea endurantists hold that objects “last over time by being wholly present at every moment at which they exist,” whereas perdurantists hold that objects “last over time without being wholly present at every moment at which they exist.”58 As Sally Haslanger explains, “On the perdurantist’s conception of persistence, an object persists through time in a way analogous to how an object is extended through space.”59 The perdurantist sees an object as being spread out across the four-dimensional spacetime manifold, and that object is made up of temporal parts. Each temporal part exists at a particular time slice in spacetime and together they constitute the object. The object does not exist as a whole throughout time, but instead parts of the object exist at different times. On endurantism there simply is no such thing as temporal parts. Perdurantism, or worm theory, is not the only version of fourdimensionalism. There is a second version of four-dimensionalism called J. J. C. Smart, “The Tenseless Theory of Time,” Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics, 227. Trenton Merricks, Truth and Ontology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 121–5. Also, Theodore Sider, “Four-Dimensionalism,” The Philosophical Review 106 (1997), 197 and 204. 58 Michael Rea, “Four-Dimensionalism,” The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, 247. 59 Sally Haslanger, “Persistence Through Time,” The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, 318. 56 57

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stage theory. Both versions of four-dimensionalism involve an object having temporal parts at times, and both explain change in terms of different temporal parts having different properties at different times. On worm theory objects “stretch out through time just as (we all agree) earthworms stretch out through space.”60 When referring to an object we speak of the entire spacetime worm. On stage theory “the world is full of four-dimensional objects with temporal parts, but when we talk about ordinary objects like boats and people, we talk about brief temporal parts or ‘stages’ of four-dimensional objects.”61 Perhaps an illustration will help. Imagine that we ask Tony Bennett to sing “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” The endurantist would say that Tony Bennett is entirely present throughout the 2 minutes and 46 seconds of his performance. There is numerically only one thing, Tony Bennett, which endures through the song. The four-dimensionalist would see things differently. For each second of the song there is a temporal part of Tony Bennett. According to the perdurantist or worm theorist, when one puts all of the temporal parts together one gets Tony Bennett. Tony is not identical to any of the temporal parts, but somehow the temporal parts together constitute the spacetime worm that is Tony. (In calling Tony a worm this is not to say anything of his moral character. I’m sure he is a fine gentleman.) The stage theorist will say that each temporal part is a Tony Bennett. There is the Tony Bennett that exists at t1 and the Tony Bennett that exists at t2. Perdurantism and stage theory have the same underlying fourdimensionalist ontology. The difference between the two is over where the proper name goes. The perdurantist holds that the proper name applies to the spacetime worm, whereas the stage theorist says the proper name applies to each temporal counterpart or stage.62 It is sometimes held that endurantism could be compatible with the growing block, or with eternalism. Yet most think that a problem arises from intrinsic properties and change if endurantism is combined with either of these ontologies of time.63 This is because the same object would have contradictory intrinsic properties. Say eternalism is true, and that every moment of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” is on the same ontological par. If Tony were an endurant being, he would exist as a whole at every moment of the song. As such he would simultaneously have the properties of singing I left my heart at time t1 and on a hill it calls to me at t3. He would have the properties standing at t2 and sitting at the piano at t4. How can Tony be

60 Katherine Hawley, “Temporal Parts,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (accessed January 10, 2011). 61 Hawley, “Temporal Parts.” 62 Thanks to Katherine Hawley for discussion on this point. 63 Crisp, “Presentism,” The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, 220. Theodore Sider, FourDimensionalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), ch. 4.

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sitting and standing? Aren’t these contradictory intrinsic properties? Since Tony exists as a whole at each moment of the song, and since each moment of the song is equally real, all of the properties are within Tony’s domain of discourse. How do we remove the contradiction? There are two moves that might seem obvious at first, but they are widely rejected by philosophers today. First, it might seem as if one could say that Tony only has the property of standing at t2 and the property of sitting at t4. However, this move will not work since both properties are intrinsic to Tony, and as such this entails that Tony is sitting and standing. The reference to time here does not remove the contradiction since Tony is wholly located at both times. A second move might try to say that the intrinsic properties are really relations to times. So the property sitting is really a relation that Tony instantiates to time t4. This move has the unfortunate consequence of making all intrinsic properties relational properties. It removes the problem of temporary intrinsic properties by removing intrinsic properties, hence, why this move is typically rejected today.64 The standard move for the eternalist is to adopt the four-dimensionalist doctrine of temporal parts. Tony Bennett does not have the contradictory properties that arise from Tony changing. Instead, only the temporal part of Tony that exists at t2 has the property standing and only the temporal part that exists at t4 has the property sitting at the piano. The endurantist can remove the contradiction by adopting presentism. On this scheme, Tony had the property standing but that moment no longer exists, so Tony no longer has that property. He only exemplifies the properties that exist at the present moment. There are more differences between endurantism and four-dimensionalism worth discussing. Four-dimensionalism is often held to come with certain metaphysical commitments that a presentist and endurantist would most likely not accept. One such commitment is universalism. This should not be confused with the theological doctrine of universalism which is usually taken to mean something like all human persons go to heaven. The metaphysical doctrine of “universalism is the view that any collection of objects whatsoever has a sum, an object they compose.” This is sometimes called unrestricted mereology. “Any combination of temporal parts of any objects from any times, no matter how scattered and disparate, composes an object.”65 It could be possible for a four-dimensionalist to reject this metaphysical

64 Ross P. Cameron, “Truthmaking for Presentists,” in eds. Karen Bennett and Dean W. Zimmerman, Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, vol. 6 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 62–3. Katherine Hawley, “Why Temporary Properties are not Relations between Physical Objects and Times,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 93/2 (1998), 211–16. 65 Katherine Hawley, “Temporal Parts.” See also Sider, Four-Dimensionalism, 7. Hud Hudson, The Metaphysics of Hyperspace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 5–9.

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doctrine, though that will depend on other metaphysical and theological commitments she holds. For instance, she might hold to universalism because she takes objects like bicycles and persons to be mere conventions.66 Or she might adopt something close to universalism in order to argue that Christ’s atonement involves fallen human persons becoming part of a larger fourdimensional object with Christ.67 Another metaphysical commitment that four-dimensionalists typically hold, and that presentists typically reject, is Humean supervenience. Katherine Hawley describes this as the view that “facts about which intrinsic properties are instantiated at which points determine all the facts there are. There are no irreducibly holistic facts. In conjunction with perdurantism, this entails that all the facts about a given persisting object supervene upon intrinsic facts about its briefest temporal parts.”68 Again, a four-dimensionalist may reject this depending on her other metaphysical and theological commitments. At this point one might wonder which theory is correct. It seems that presentism and endurantism go nicely together, whereas the growing block and eternalism go hand-in-hand with some form of four-dimensionalism. Which set of theories is correct? What time is it: presentism, the growing block, or eternalism? These are important questions, but space does not allow me to offer an answer. Further, my strategy for assessing divine timelessness does not depend upon such a discussion. Most contemporary discussions on God and time hold that presentism is incompatible with divine timelessness, whereas eternalism is compatible with timelessness. The next move in such discussions is to argue for the truth of either presentism or eternalism.69 This is not my strategy. Instead, I shall be arguing that divine timelessness is incompatible with both accounts of time. While I am a presentist, I do not seek to make my rejection of divine timelessness rest solely on this ontological commitment.

66 Hawley, “Temporal Parts.” Also, Mark Heller, “Temporal Parts of Four-Dimensional Objects,” in ed. Loux, Metaphysics: Contemporary Readings, 343–8. 67 Though Oliver Crisp does not explicitly endorse metaphysical universalism, it seems to me that is what is needed in order to make sense of his doctrine of the atonement. Oliver Crisp, “Non-Penal Substitution,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 9 (2007). Also, Crisp, “Original Sin and Atonement,” in eds. Thomas Flint and Michael Rea, Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). I have my doubts, however, that such a position is coherent. It is not clear to me how one can maintain the claim that Jesus Christ is sinless. If I, a sinner, am literally a temporal part of the spacetime worm that is Christ, Christ will literally have sinful temporal parts. I take it as obvious that no person can be sinless and have sinful temporal parts. 68 Hawley, “Temporal Parts.” 69 Elsewhere I argue against four-dimensional eternalism. See my “Four-Dimensionalism, Evil, and Christian Belief,” Philosophia Christi 16 (2014).

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A N E X C U R S U S O N T I M E A N D DI V I N E TE M P O R A L I T Y I am convinced that the profound truth of the temporality of God is something that we as theologians are all sooner or later going to have to learn. —Schubert M. Ogden70

In the next chapter the question “what does divine timelessness mean?” will be given a full treatment. A related question naturally arises. “What does it mean to say that God is temporal?” Divine temporality is a position that can be a bit difficult to grasp since there are many theologians today who hold to it, but lack sufficient conceptual clarity with regard to the philosophy of time. Also, there are an assortment of philosophical and theological issues that divine temporalists disagree over. In this excursus I shall develop the broad outline of divine temporality, and note various disagreements amongst divine temporalists, as well as problems that temporalists need to sort out in future discussions. One of the best ways to understand divine temporality is to contrast it with divine timelessness. To say that God is timeless is to affirm at least three things: necessarily, God exists without beginning, without end, and without succession. The divine temporalist will say that God exists without beginning and without end, but she will believe that God does have succession in His life. The divine life contains distinct moments. For instance, T. F. Torrance exclaims, “the creation of the world out of nothing is something new even for God.”71 Torrance also explains that the incarnation was not just a new event for the world, but was also a new event for God. In order to understand this Torrance posits a distinction between the created time of the universe and the uncreated time of God.72 This is a common move amongst divine temporalists. The final distinction in this chapter to be considered is to distinguish physical time from metaphysical time. Since most, though not all, divine temporalists are presentists, the following should be understood in terms of presentism and endurantism. God is a temporal being who endures through time. His eternal now is not some static 70 Schubert M. Ogden, The Reality of God and Other Essays (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1964), 163. 71 T. F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 208. Cf. Bruce C. Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terence E. Fretheim, and David L. Petersen, A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1999), 35. “God was there ‘in the beginning,’ but this is a new day for God, too. Given the divine commitment to relationships with the creation, God will never be the same again.” 72 See Torrance, Theological and Natural Science (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005), 50–1. Various theologians make similar claims. For instance, Robert W. Jenson, “Aspects of a Doctrine of Creation,” in ed. Colin E. Gunton, The Doctrine of Creation: Essays in Dogmatics, History, and Philosophy (London: T&T Clark, 1997).

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present that lacks a before and after. He exists in the ever-fleeting present just like we do.73 God does have a before and after in His life.

Physical Time Often it is claimed that the beginning of the universe was the beginning of all of space and time. One might also say that time cannot exist apart from the universe. This is far from obvious. If the absolute theory of time is true, there is no need for the universe to exist in order for time to exist. All that is needed is some being with duration, and a necessarily existent God fits the bill. J. R. Lucas would think differently. He thinks that time is “a necessary concomitant of the existence of a personal being.”74 Not any endurant object will do. Time stems from God because God is conscious and a free agent. Time exists because of who God is, and not any act that God performs. The existence of time without physical objects is not only true of the absolute theory of time. It is also true of the relational theory of time. If the relational theory of time is true, all one needs is some sort of change in order to have time, and change can occur without physical objects. For instance, a common view in medieval theology is that the angels have their own time that is not associated with physical objects. Yet, even the existence of angels is unnecessary for the existence of time. All that is really needed is for God to do one thing and then another in order to generate time on a relational view. Someone might ask about the doctrine of creation out of nothing. Doesn’t the Bible clearly teach that time came into existence with creation? No, it simply teaches that the universe came into existence out of no pre-existing material a finite amount of time ago, and that the universe is dependent upon God. As Alan Padgett points out, “The doctrine of creation out of nothing does not necessarily imply a beginning to time. Rather, it points to the radical dependence of all other beings on the Being of God.”75 John of Damascus 73 J. R. Lucas, The Future: An Essay on God, Temporality and Truth (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell Inc., 1989), 217. 74 Lucas, The Future, 213. 75 Alan Padgett, Science and the Study of God: A Mutuality Model for Theology and Science (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2003), 129. C.f. John H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible (Nottingham: Apollos, 2007), 180–90 and 222. Walton explains that the Ancient Near-Eastern (ANE) ontology is one of function. A thing exists when it has a function. So a thing, like water, might exist simpliciter before it exists in terms of having a function. Walton, however, doesn’t flesh out the full implications of this. He says that Genesis 1 does not clearly teach creatio ex nihilo because the objects of creation might have existed simpliciter before God gave them a function. Yet, Walton also says that the passage teaches that God created time. However, it seems that if one were to be consistent with the functional ontology of the ANE world, Walton cannot say that Genesis 1 teaches that time began to exist simpliciter. Instead, the passage teaches that time began to have a function in the created order.

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seems to agree. Unlike Padgett, John holds that God is timeless, but much like Padgett, he posits that there was time before creation that could not be measured or divided.76 It is not, nor has it always been, obvious to Christian theologians that time came into existence with creation. In fact, the Bible clearly speaks of time before creation. Psalm 90:2 says, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” The from/to formula in this passage is a common formula in scripture used to denote a span of time. In this instance, the Hebrew word olam—sometimes translated as eternity depending on context—is used twice here to refer to the span of God’s life.77 It quite literally means from perpetual duration in the indefinite past to perpetual duration in the indefinite future. This is a deeply temporal portrayal of God. Psalm 90 not only portrays God in temporal terms, it also speaks of God existing alone before creation. One would be hard pressed to say that this is not a temporal before since the language employed is explicitly temporal. As Gershom Brin points out, “The earliest time mentioned [in scripture] is that of the reality prior to the Creation.”78 The idea that God existed temporally before creation is an important biblical theme which looks strikingly like what the temporalist wishes to say about God.79 One could, if she wants, hold that physical time came into existence with creation. She could argue that this is perfectly compatible with the biblical teaching even though it is not necessitated by Scripture. Various contemporary philosophical and systematic theologians today will say that Scripture implies that physical time came into existence with creation, but it does not necessarily entail that metaphysical time came into existence. In order to understand this we will need to get clear on the difference between metaphysical and physical time. Physical time is what is typically associated with our universe and it is said to have the following three features. First, physical time began to exist, or it came to be. Second, physical time can be measured. Third, the physical time of one universe cannot relate to a separate physical universe and its time series. (1) Physical time began to exist. When creation began spacetime came into existence. This means that it has not always existed because it has a definite starting point. Physical time began when the universe began.80 76

John of Damascus, Orthodox Faith, II.1. For Padgett’s account see his God, Eternity, and the Nature of Time (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1992). 77 Gershom Brin, The Concept of Time in the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 95–103. 78 Brin, The Concept of Time in the Bible, 179. See also, Bruce K. Waltke with Cathi J. Fredricks, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 58. 79 Mt 13:35, Mt 24:21, Mt 25:34, Lk 11:50, Jn 17:24, Eph 1:4, 1 Pet 1:20, Tit 1:2, 2 Tim 1:9, Heb 9:6, Jude 25, Ps 90:2, Rev 13:8, and Rev 17:8. 80 Gregory E. Ganssle, Thinking About God: First Steps in Philosophy (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 61.

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What is Time? (2) Physical time can be measured. It can be measured because of a localized internal clock.81 The way physical time is measured in a particular universe depends on the laws of nature that are intrinsic to that world.82 For instance, on earth we measure time based on our local intrinsic clock. That clock is based on the duration of the earth’s rotation around the sun. This constant revolution serves as a local clock for those of us on earth. A planet on the other side of the universe would not measure time by our local clock because it does not revolve around our sun. That planet would measure time according to its own local clock. Yet, these clocks can be synchronized because the universe has its own cosmic time as determined by the universe’s background space, or the frame of reference of the universe at rest with respect to the cosmic background radiation.83 The laws of nature are not localized, but are held to be consistent across the universe making it possible to have a cosmic time. (3) The physical time of one universe cannot relate well to other universes and their physical time. For instance, think of C. S. Lewis’ classic The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The children in this story leave London and enter into another world called Narnia through a magical wardrobe. They reside in Narnia for many years, but when they return to London only a few minutes have passed by in London. This is because the local clock in Narnia is not based on the same clock that we on earth use. The claim is that there is no way for our measurement of earth time to apply to Narnian time because both universes have separate physical clocks based on the laws of nature that are intrinsic to each universe.84

I am not suggesting that there is an actual Narnia. I am using it to illustrate an idea that is quite popular in physics today: the multiverse.85 It is quite

81 Ganssle, Thinking About God, 61. Richard Swinburne’s The Christian God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), ch. 4. 82 Garrett DeWesse, “Atemporal, Sempiternal, or Omnitemporal,” in Ganssle and Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 50. 83 Quentin Smith, “A New Typology of Temporal and Atemporal Permanence,” Nous 23 (1989), 311. See also, Craig, “The Elimination of Absolute Time by the Special Theory of Relativity,” in Ganssle and Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 139–47. John Polkinghorne, “The Nature of Time,” in eds. Alain Connes, Michael Heller, Shahn Majid, Roger Penrose, John Polkinghorne, and Andrew Taylor, On Space and Time (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 280. 84 For more on this theme see Michael and Adam Peterson, “Time Keeps on Ticking, Or Does It? The Significance of Time in The Chronicles of Narnia”, in eds. Gregory Bassham and Jerry L. Walls, The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy: The Lion, The Witch, and The Worldview (Peru, IL: Carus, 2005). 85 It should also be noted that the notion of multiple universes is an ancient concept. Aristotle, for instance, argued that there could not be more than one universe. Various Christian theologians rejected Aristotle’s arguments and held that God could create multiple universes if

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popular today to posit a multiverse that generates an infinite number of distinct universes, each with its own discrete time series. If there are multiple universes, each with its own intrinsic natural laws distinct from our own, it will not be possible for us to use our metrics to measure the time in those universes. Or so the story typically goes.86 There is a further point to be made from this. This feature is also said to apply to worlds that lack physical objects and laws of nature as well. We cannot use our metrics based on our laws of nature to measure the life of angels, or so the story typically goes.87 Nor would we be able to use them to measure the souls that reside in the intermediate state awaiting resurrection.

Metaphysical Time Metaphysical time is often associated with God’s eternal, everlasting nature. In contrast to physical time, metaphysical time never came into existence. God resides in eternity. Eternity for the divine temporalist means that God has no beginning and no end. God’s eternal now is fleeting in that God has moments that slough off into the non-existent past, and He has not-yet existing future moments. The difference between our now and God’s eternal now is that God never came into existence. The now of physical time had a beginning, and it need not exist, whereas God necessarily exists. Another difference that some divine temporalists draw out is that, unlike physical time, metaphysical time cannot be measured because it lacks an intrinsic metric.88 Typically, it is said to be amorphous: there is no constant metric by which one could neatly divide up the duration of moments.89 Prior to the creation of the world God exists without beginning and end in an unmetricated time. One might say this looks like a timeless existence since He so desired. For instance, the fourteenth-century theologian and philosopher Nicole Oresme, Le Livre, 149–79. In the seventeenth century Gassendi used the concept of multiple universes and their separate time streams to argue against Aristotle’s theory of time. See his Physiologia, 74–5. 86 In Gassendi’s discussion he argues that the proponent of a relational theory of time cannot offer a way to relate the distinct universes together since they lack a time that is external to all of the universes based on some general motion that the universes have in common. But this seems to be a problem only for the relationalist, and not the absolutist. Perhaps the absolutist can appeal to Gassendi’s distinction between the internal time of each universe, and an external time that they all belong to. Of course, this would entail that the multiple universes are in fact temporally related to each other in which case we no longer have multiple time series. For an argument that multiple time series are impossible see Richard Swinburne, Space and Time: Second Edition (London: Macmillan, 1981), ch. 10. 87 Garrett DeWeese, God and the Nature of Time (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), 243. 88 Ganssle, Thinking About God, 61. 89 This is the view of contemporary temporalists like Dean Zimmerman, Richard Swinburne, Alan Padgett, and Garrett DeWeese. Newton and Gassendi seem to disagree and say that metaphysical time does have an intrinsic metric.

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God’s life lacks a beginning, end, and succession. However, this is false. As I shall explain in the next chapter, in order to be timeless God must necessarily exist without succession and have no before or after. A temporal God contingently exists without succession for He can create moments in a variety of ways, many of which need not be creating physical objects. The claim often made is that in this unmetricated state prior to the act of creation there is no way to measure God’s metaphysical time, or what Dean Zimmerman calls “dead time.” According to Zimmerman, in order to measure a temporal series one will need temporal intervals “consisting of a nondenumerable set of durationless instants.” Further, one will need to have a set of coordinates that have the same “betweenness relations” or same length. Without an intrinsic metric this will be an arbitrary convention. The problem is that any such conventional metric could be devised to measure God’s life, and there is no way in principle to say which one is wrong because every instant of dead time is intrinsically alike and is the same number of instants away from each other.90 Yet this is an epistemological problem. One might counter by saying, “Just because we cannot know which conventional metric to apply to God’s metaphysical time prior to the act of creation does not mean that there is no right answer. Verificationist considerations like these simply will not do.” The rejoinder from Zimmerman is to contend that without laws of nature “nothing could ground counterfactuals concerning what various kinds of clocks would or would not do throughout a given interval of pseudo-time.”91 In other words, there is simply no way to measure metaphysical time since it necessarily lacks an intrinsic metric. Nevertheless, Zimmerman’s move is too quick. Just because metaphysical time lacks an intrinsic metric does not obviously entail that it is unmeasurable since we can come up with conventional metrics. Perhaps the idea is that we cannot come up with any non-arbitrary objective measurements. It should be noted that not every temporalist agrees that the metric of time is a convention absent uniform laws of nature. Some hold that metaphysical time does have an intrinsic metric, and as such it is measurable. This is a point of contention amongst divine temporalists that has yet to be sorted out. Of course, the above considerations are with regard to God’s life prior to the act of creation. In the act of creation God freely creates a universe with intrinsic laws of nature that serve as a metric for the physical time of that universe. In the act of creation God takes on succession in His life. Neil MacDonald refers to this as God getting Himself into our time. God freely 90 Dean Zimmerman, “God Inside Time and Before Creation,” in Ganssle and Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 82–4. 91 Zimmerman, “God Inside Time,” in Ganssle and Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 84.

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takes on succession in His life so that He will be related to the creatures that He has made.92 This statement is a bit misleading since—as we shall see later in this chapter—metaphysical time contains physical time. It would be more accurate to say that God brings creation into His time than to say that God gets Himself into our time. Another claim amongst some divine temporalists is that any metric in the physical universe will fail to apply to metaphysical time.93 According to these temporalists, it would make no sense to try to use physical time to measure God’s eternal time. Physical time has a beginning, and metaphysical time does not. Where would one start their measurement of God’s time? As Sir Isaac Newton once said, metaphysical time “exists regardless of the sensible and external measurements we try . . . to make of it.”94 It is the case that the cosmic present marks a boundary for God because God cannot exist at our universe’s past or future. Further, God’s eternal now and our temporal now stand in a one-to-one correspondence. The very fact that we exist is due to the sustaining presence of God, so we always exist in God’s eternal present. (In Chapter 5, we shall see that the atemporalist is deeply committed to this claim as well.) However, several divine temporalists claim that this does not entail that our temporal metrics apply to God. DeWeese says, “As it is possible that there might not be an intrinsic metric to metaphysical time, it is possible that no quantitative temporal relations hold for [God]. What this means is that, although moments of a temporal world can be placed in a one-to-one correspondence with moments of metaphysical time, one could give no sense to the statement that a certain duration of metaphysical time lasted a certain number of seconds (days, years, and so on).”95 DeWeese’s claim might strike one as rather odd. DeWeese gives us little by way of argument for thinking his claim to be true, nor does he fully explicate what he means by this statement. Other divine temporalists agree that it would certainly be the case that one could not use the metrics of physical time to measure the life of God prior to the act of creation, but argue that it is possible to do so subsequent to creation. Especially since God’s metaphysical time stands in a one-to-one correspondence with our temporal universe. It is the contention of William Lane Craig that cosmic time sets the boundaries for God’s time as He relates to our universe. Craig argues that since cosmic time is in a one-to-one correspondence with God’s metaphysical time we can measure

92 Neil B. MacDonald, Metaphysics and the God of Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 79. 93 DeWeese, God and the Nature of Time, 50. 94 As quoted in William Lane Craig, Time and the Metaphysics of Relativity (Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 107. 95 DeWeese, God and the Nature of Time, 253.

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the life of God subsequent to creation.96 If certain divine temporalists wish to continue making claims like DeWeese’s it must be articulated why it is the case that the metric of this universe does not apply to God as He continually sustains this universe. Alan Padgett argues that a one-to-one correspondence does not entail the same metric. Objects must be in the same inertial reference frame in order to share the same metric. God, according to Padgett, is not in any inertial reference frame, so God’s metaphysical time cannot be measured.97 Padgett, it seems to me, has a weak notion of omnipresence at play here. He holds that he is following the traditional claim that God is aspatial, and so not actually located in space. However, this is not the traditional doctrine of omnipresence. Traditionally, omnipresence holds that the entire being of God is wholly located in every point or region of space. According to Robert Pasnau, “Medieval Christian authors, despite being generally misread on this point, are in complete agreement that God is literally present, spatially, throughout the universe. One simply does not find anyone wanting to remove God from space, all the way through to the end of the seventeenth century.”98 Ultimately, though, whether or not Padgett holds to a traditional doctrine of omnipresence is somewhat beside the point. Grant that God is aspatial. I don’t find it obvious that an aspatial being cannot be temporally measured. Simultaneously co-existing with a clock seems to be sufficient to be measured. Consider a similar case with the soul. There is debate about whether or not souls exist in space, but say that they do not. Do we really want to say that the soul of Socrates cannot be temporally measured because it is not in an inertial reference frame? That would strike me as rather odd. Perhaps there is a better way to argue that God’s metaphysical time cannot be measured subsequent to creation. One possible avenue to take could come from the multiverse.99 If there are other universes with their own unique time series, God will be temporally related to those universes as well.100 As Keith Ward explains, God will stand at every leading edge of every process, moving with it toward its own open future. God will not be confined to a particular time but will move forward with many nontemporally related times . . . [He] will enter into all processive times and will, thus, not be reducible to one linear temporal series into which they are all put.101

96 97 98 99 100 101

Craig, God, Time, and Eternity, ch. 7. Padgett, God, Eternity, and the Nature of Time, 128–9, and personal correspondence. Pasnau, “On Existing All at Once,” 19. Padgett, God, Eternity, and the Nature of Time, 128. DeWeese, God and the Nature of Time, 243. Keith Ward, The Big Questions in Science and Religion, 126.

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One could argue that this would make it impossible to use our metrics to measure the divine life of God since God is related to multiple universes and their time series. There are many interpretations of the multiverse in contemporary philosophy and cosmology. For instance, one interpretation is that the universe is bigger than what we can observe. That isn’t really interesting for our current conversation as it does not seem to be what Ward is gesturing toward. Further, this doesn’t really seem to be an actual multiverse. On another understanding of the multiverse, each universe is causally, spatially, and temporally isolated from other universes. What distinguishes some universe A from some universe B is the fact that they are causally, spatially, and temporally unrelated to one another. This seems to be what Ward is talking about. However, one might wonder if God’s eternal now would serve as a way to make each universe related to one another. Perhaps it is the case that the now of each universe is related because each now exists in the eternal now of God’s metaphysical time. The now of each universe is simultaneous with God’s eternal now, and thus simultaneous with each other. It would still be the case that each time series “flows” according to its own intrinsic metric, and it would still be the case that each instant of time exists in God’s now only when that instant in fact exists as the presentist sees things. On this model it would appear that God’s eternal now serves as the boundary for each universe’s cosmic time. This would be to reverse Craig’s claim mentioned earlier. What this would do is undermine Ward’s claim that God would be related to several different temporally unrelated universes because each universe would be temporally related via God’s eternal now. This is a very difficult topic, and the very existence of the multiverse is an issue of great debate. The cosmologist George Ellis claims that the multiverse is not even a scientific hypothesis because it is not the sort of thing that is even possibly open to scientific investigation. One simply cannot do any empirical research on universes that are causally, spatially, and temporally unrelated to our own.102 However, as noted before, there are other definitions of the multiverse. Max Tegmark maintains that some of these other definitions might be open to scientific investigation.103 These are issues that temporalists will need to consider in order to flesh out the concept of divine temporality. This last point of contention brings us to the final theme that some divine temporalists articulate. Metaphysical time, so they say, can relate to other universes and their times. This is because metaphysical time is the grounds of Ellis, “Does the Multiverse Really Exist?” Scientific American (August, 2011). Tegmark, “Many Worlds in Context,” in eds. Simon Saunders, Jonathan Barrett, Adrian Kent, and David Wallace, Many Worlds? Everett, Quantum Theory, and Reality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). 102 103

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ordering relations of physical time.104 Physical time’s existence and structure are completely dependent on metaphysical time. It is God’s causal act of sustaining the universe that not only keeps that universe in existence, but also makes time flow in that universe. As such, God can easily relate to other universes with various physical time structures because His eternal time is what keeps those time structures in order. Perhaps an illustration will help bring out this last point. Consider a comic book. The panels of a comic book could be thought of as periods of time standing in a successive temporal order. The order of these periods is due to the work of the author of the comic book. Yet, there is no flow of time in a comic book unless someone is reading it. In the very act of reading the reader creates a flow of time for the comic book. The reader’s actions are what sustain the time of the comic book, yet the reader’s time is not identical to it. The reader can slow down or speed up his reading pace. He could even take a break from reading only to pick up the comic at a later date. In a similar way, God’s act of sustaining the world in existence creates the flow of time in our physical universe, and the same goes for any other universe that God may have created. Yet, one might contend that God’s time is not identical to ours because He could slow down or speed up the processes of the universe, or even cease to sustain the universe in existence.

104 DeWeese, “Atemporal, Sempiternal, or Omnitemporal,” God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 50.

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3 What is Eternity? When you intend to know God . . . consider as you can the things about him, for example his eternity, immensity, infinity, his goodness, wisdom, and power which creates, governs, and judges creatures. For that person among others is a great theologian if he searches out the principles of these things, however much or little. —Maximus the Confessor1

In this chapter I shall articulate the doctrine of divine timelessness and its systematic connections with divine immutability, simplicity, and impassibility. I shall also look at questions about eternal duration, and how to talk about timeless eternity. In passing, I shall briefly note the role that these doctrines play in classical Christian theology. This will set the stage for the critical assessment of the divine timeless research program in subsequent chapters. The discussion will also help clear up many common confusions that appear in contemporary theology and philosophy on divine eternality.

PREL IMINARY REMARKS A few preliminary remarks are in order before moving forward. First, as noted in the previous chapter, most classical theologians have tended to hold to a relational theory of time where time exists if and only if change or motion exists. It was also noted that there are philosophers and theologians who think that time can exist without change. However, everyone seems to agree that if there is a change, there is time. As we shall see, the relational theory of time played an important role in the articulation of divine timelessness and immutability. Along the way we shall also see the role that presentism and endurantism played in the articulation of divine eternality. 1

Maximus the Confessor, 400 Chapters on Love, 2.27.

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Second, in reading this chapter, one must be aware of the peculiar, and technical, use of temporal terms to describe timeless eternity. The concept of eternity was something developed over time throughout Greek philosophy and Christian theology. As the concept was developed, theologians and philosophers were forced to use temporal words to describe timeless eternity. One early Christian statement of this sort on divine eternity can be found in Clement of Alexandria. “Eternity, for instance, presents in an instant the future and the present, also the past of time” (Stromateis, 1.13). Elsewhere he speaks of “the true to-day, the never-ending day of God, [which] extends over eternity” (Stromateis, 9). The use of temporal words to describe eternity can cause confusion in contemporary reconstructions of divine eternality. For instance, some will argue that classical Christian theology did not hold to a strict account of divine atemporality because they used temporal terms to describe God’s eternity.2 This, however, is a mistake. Even though classical Christians continually use temporal properties to describe God, they also continually claim that these should be understood in non-temporal ways when predicated of God.3 Going back at least to Plato, theists have held that it is best to speak of God in the present tense because it is the easiest to give a non-temporal reading. The move from classical theists is to offer non-temporal readings of temporal terms like “present,” “is,” “always,” and “now.”4 One example of this comes from Peter Lombard. In Sentences I, Distinction VIII.1, he says that it is permissible to speak of God using various tensed verbs, but the best way to understand God is to use “is.” The “is” is best because it does not “distinguish temporal movements” in God. Instead, it denotes that God “simply exists.” Christian theologians have long held that inconsistency and difficulties in Christian doctrine naturally arise when one lets one’s pen slip into temporal phrases without qualifying their non-temporal sense. This was an important issue in early Christian theology. Offering non-temporal readings of temporal terms played a major role in explaining the eternal generation of the Son and eternal spiration of the Holy Spirit.5 The early Church was at pains to explain this in a way that avoided the Arian claim that there was a time when the Son did not exist. The concepts of eternal generation and spiration are causal 2 Brian Leftow, “The Eternal Present,” in eds. Gregory Ganssle and David Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 25. 3 Rory Fox, Time and Eternity in Mid-Thirteenth-Century Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), ch. 1. 4 Maximus the Confessor is somewhat different in that he speaks of time as “beginning, middle, and end.” He says that God is our beginning, middle, and end in that God created us, sustains us, and is our goal. However, God is infinitely beyond beginning, middle, and end. We speak of God only by “fully excluding the notion of time” from Him. See his Chapters on Knowledge, 1.1–10. 5 Christopher A. Beeley, The Unity of Christ: Continuity and Conflict in Patristic Tradition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 90–2.

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notions.6 As Gregory of Nyssa explains in On Not Three Gods, “The principle of causality distinguishes, then, the Persons of the holy Trinity. It affirms that the one is uncaused, while the other depends on the cause.” Depending on how one views the filioque, there are two ways to understand this. If one denies the filioque, she will say that God the Father causes the Son and Holy Spirit to exist. If one affirms the filioque, she will say that the Father causes the Son to exist, and the Father and the Son together cause the Holy Spirit to exist. The causal claims at play in this doctrine gave rise to various problems throughout Church history, but I shall focus on the Arian controversy. It is a quite natural idea that causes are temporally prior to their effects. In this instance that would mean that God the Father exists prior to the Son and Holy Spirit. Hence the Arian question, “How can Christ be a Son, without being younger than the Father: for anything which derives its being must be later than its source?”7 Early Christian theologians sought to avoid this in several ways. The first step was to say that the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit take place in the Father’s eternal present. This is often captured by the phrase, “The Son was begotten before all ages.”8 The second step involved appealing to the non-temporal reading of the eternal present.9 One example comes from Origen of Alexandria. In On First Principles 2.2, he claims that all three of the divine persons lack a before and after in their life. When it comes to speaking about God we are forced to use temporal expressions, but Origen explains that “the statements made regarding Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are to be understood as transcending all time, all ages, and all eternity” (On First Principles 4.28).10 The big idea behind moves of this sort is to say that not all causes are temporally prior to their effects. In the case of the Trinity, the Father causes the Son to exist, but it is a timeless cause with a timeless effect such that the Father never exists without the Son.11 Of course, this did not automatically end the debate, for all of the heterodox theologians of the day believed that God was timeless, impassible, immutable, and simple as well. This doctrine of God was an unquestioned assumption by 6 Also, Alasdair I. C. Heron, “Homoousios with the Father,” in ed. Thomas F. Torrance, The Incarnation: Ecumenical Studies in Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed A.D. 381 (Edinburgh: Handsel, 1981), 60–1. Kevin Giles, The Eternal Generation of the Son: Maintaining Orthodoxy in Trinitarian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), chs. 4–5. 7 John Chrysostom deals with this question by appealing to God’s timeless eternity. See Chrysostom in ed. Henry Bettenson, The Later Christian Fathers (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), 170. 8 Giles, The Eternal Generation of the Son, 108. 9 Gregory of Nazianzus, The Theological Orations, 3.3. 10 For more on Origen’s articulation of divine timelessness see P. Tzamalikos, Origen: Cosmology and Ontology of Time (Leiden: Brill, 2006). 11 Beeley, Unity of Christ, 23.

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all parties involved after Nicaea.12 For instance, in his Apology, Eunomius developed an argument against the doctrine of homoousios as well as against the homoian theologians on the basis of these classical divine attributes. Just like Origen and other Church fathers, Eunomius was adamant that one must be careful to use the terms applied to God in a way that excludes all time. One of the things that Eunomius, and other later Arians, found implausible was the notion of a timeless cause with a timeless effect. How can an act of God generate a timeless effect? How can God the Father timelessly communicate His essence to the Son in a generative act such that the Son is also timeless, immutable, impassible, and simple? The continued orthodox response to this question is unanimous—eternal generation is an ineffable mystery that one cannot pry into.13 I shall set aside the issue of eternal generation for now. What is important at the moment is that classical orthodox Christianity made great use of the following three themes when articulating theological doctrines: (i) the connection between time and change, (ii) presentism and endurantism, and (iii) the non-temporal usage of temporal terms. It will be important to keep these in mind when reading the rest of this chapter.

W H A T I S T I M E LE S S E TE RNI TY? The Protestant Scholastic Benedict Pictet states the doctrine as follows. “Eternity, properly so called, such as belongs to God, denotes three things: to be without beginning, without end, without succession. In this eternity we cannot conceive of anything prior or posterior, anything past, present, or future, since God is without beginning or end.”14 The understanding of the atemporal God, then, means at least the following three propositions. (1) God exists without beginning. (2) God exists without end. (3) God exists without succession, or successive moments, in His life.

12 Frances M. Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon, 2nd Edition, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010), 241. 13 Stephen R. Holmes, The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History and Modernity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), chs. 4–5. 14 Benedict Pictet, Christian Theology (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1834), Book II.viii. Cf. Richard Stock, A Stock of Divine Knowledge, 91. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1 (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1992), 202. Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology Volume 1: The Doctrine of God (Philadelphia, PA: American Baptist Publication Society, 1907), 275.

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The divine temporalist will affirm (1) and (2). Indeed, most agree that this is the clear teaching of scripture. However, the temporalist will call into question (3). This is because (3) is what distinguishes divine temporality from divine timelessness. As Rory Fox explains, succession was the fundamental basis in the Middle Ages for determining whether or not something was temporal or non-temporal.15 If something undergoes succession, or has intervals in its life, that thing is temporal. So (3) is explicitly denying temporality of God. Before calling into question (3) we will need to get a better picture of what Christians have held about God’s eternity. As we shall see, the ideas presented in Pictet carry a lot of theological and philosophical baggage. In particular, they are deeply connected with the doctrines of divine simplicity, impassibility, and immutability, as well as a relational view of time. (1)–(3) carry wide assent throughout Church history. In discussing the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit, Gregory of Nyssa states, “Extensions in time find no admittance in the Eternal Life.” (Against Eunomius I.42) In his answer to Eunomius, Gregory claims that creatures are circumscribed by time and place. Creatures have intervals in their lives because they undergo a succession of moments. God, however, transcends all intervals.16 Augustine makes similar statements about the triune God. “In their own proper substance by which they are, the three are one, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, without any temporal movement, without any intervals of time or space, one and the same over all creation, one and the same all together from eternity to eternity” (The Trinity IV.30). But (1)–(3) does not constitute the whole story. John Philoponus explains that eternity, as pertains to God, “has neither temporal position, nor priority and posteriority, nor any extension at all.”17 The idea that God’s life does not have a before and after is a common theme in many Christian writers. Philoponus makes it quite clear that the idea of divine eternity must also include a lack of temporal position and extension. If something has a temporal position or extension it is in time. Anselm follows suit by proclaiming of God, “You exist neither yesterday nor today nor tomorrow but are absolutely outside all time” (Proslogion 19). So in addition to (1)–(3), we also need: (4) God exists without temporal position and extension. 15

Fox, Time and Eternity, 226–7. See also, David Bradshaw, “Time and Eternity in the Greek Fathers,” Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review 70 (2006), 311–66. Bradshaw claims that Gregory and other Greek theologians do not have divine timelessness in mind since they do not hold to the Western doctrine of divine simplicity, but Bradshaw is mistaken. According to Bradshaw the Greek Fathers, going back to Athanasius, distinguish between things that begin and have intervals, and God who does not begin and has no intervals. But Gregory of Nyssa clearly has timelessness in mind since he thinks God exists without beginning, without end, and without temporal intervals, succession, or moments in His life. 17 John Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 12–18, trans. James Wilberding (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 2006), 65. 16

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The idea behind (4) is that God cannot be located in, nor circumscribed by, time. For many Christian thinkers like Anselm, (4) is a way of expressing God’s aseity and sovereignty over creation. The notion that God lacks succession, temporal extension, and location causes problems when it comes to articulating God’s omnipresence and conservation of creation. Christian theologians and philosophers in the past have been aware of this and have offered ways around this problem. A common strategy is to make a clear distinction between God’s eternal present and our temporal present. “Present” when used of God is given a non-temporal reading on this strategy. Boethius gives us a clear example of this move. In The Trinity is One God Not Three Gods IV Boethius says, “He is everywhere” does not mean that He is in every place, for He cannot be in any place at all—but that every place is present to Him for Him to occupy, although He Himself can be received by no place, and therefore He cannot anywhere be in a place, since He is everywhere but in no place. It is the same with the category of time, as, “A man came yesterday; God is ever.” Here again the predicate of “coming yesterday” denotes not something substantial, but something happening in terms of time. But the expression “God is ever” denotes a single Present, summing up His continual presence in all the past, in all the present—however that term be used—and in all the future. Philosophers say that “ever” may be applied to the life of the heavens and other immortal bodies. But as applied to God it has a different meaning. He is ever, because “ever” is with Him a term of present time, and there is this great difference between “now,” which is our present, and the divine present. Our present connotes changing time and sempiternity; God’s present, abiding, unmoved, and immoveable, connotes eternity. Add semper to eternity and you get the constant, incessant and thereby perpetual course of our present time, that is to say, sempiternity.18

Does giving God’s present a non-temporal reading solve the problem? Does it assuage the tension of a timeless God sustaining a temporal world? We will have to wait and see. For now we must content ourselves with exploring the basic concept of timeless eternity. One of the most quoted statements on divine timelessness comes from another work by Boethius. Eternity is the simultaneous and complete possession of infinite life. This will appear more clearly if we compare it with temporal things. All that lives under the conditions of time moves through the present from the past to the future; there is nothing set in time which can at one moment grasp the whole space of its lifetime. It cannot yet comprehend to-morrow; yesterday it has already lost. And in this life of to-day your life is no more than a changing, passing moment . . . What we

18

Author’s emphasis.

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should rightly call eternal is that which grasps and possesses wholly and simultaneously the fullness of unending life, which lacks naught of the future, and has lost naught of the fleeting past; and such an existence must be ever present in itself to control and aid itself, and also must keep present with itself the infinity of changing time. (Consolation of Philosophy V)

Note that this statement also contains a clear distinction between our present and God’s eternal present. Brian Leftow suggests that Boethius’ use of “present” is a literal predication of God.19 Perhaps the idea is that “present” denotes what exists. Our present is fleeting because it stands between the non-existent past and the yet-to-exist future. God’s timeless present does not have a before and after. It simply exists. This is part of Gregory of Nyssa’s conception of God’s eternity. “He is always to be apprehended as in existence; He admits not a time when He was not, and when He will not be” (Against Eunomius I.42).20 Anselm makes a similar statement. In Proslogion 22 he praises God by saying, “[You have] neither past nor future existence but only present existence; nor can You be thought not to exist at any time.” In De Concordia I.5 he continues this idea. In “time things move from past to future” and only the present moment of time exists. God’s eternal present is different in that it has no movement from past to future. In “eternity there is only a present, nevertheless it is not a temporal present as ours is.”21 The non-temporal reading of “present” as applied to God seems to be a way of capturing the content of (1)–(4). It appears that, for classical theologians, certain predicates like “present” can be applied literally to God because they can be given a non-temporal meaning that overlaps with the temporal meaning of “present.” Other predicates, however, cannot be applied to God because He is timeless, immutable, impassible, and simple. At this point it will be helpful to see the systematic connections between divine timelessness, immutability, impassibility, and simplicity.

DIVINE IMMUTABILITY The classical doctrine of divine immutability declares that God does not undergo any kind of change whatsoever.22 Before fully delving into Leftow, “The Eternal Present,” in God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 24. Cf. John Duns Scotus, God and Creatures, 6.32. 21 Sren Kierkegaard agrees. God is “eternally changeless, everything is for him eternally present, eternally equally present, no shifting shadow either of morning or evening, of youth or of old age, of forgetfulness or of excuse, no shifting shadow shifts him—no for him there is no shadow.” See eds. Howard and Edna Hong, The Essential Kierkegaard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 489. 22 Antonie Vos, “Always on Time: On God’s Immutability,” in eds. Gijsbert van den Brink and Marcel Sarot, Understanding the Attributes of God (New York: Peter Lang, 1999), 53. 19 20

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immutability it should be noted that there are two pre-Christian assumptions at play in the development of this Christian doctrine: a Platonic and an Aristotelian assumption. These assumptions are vital for understanding classical Christian theology, and the systematic connections between the divine attributes. The first is the Platonic assumption about change and perfection. The Platonic assumption is that there are no value-neutral changes. All changes are for the better or worse. With this Platonic assumption, Christian theologians and philosophers argue as follows. A perfect being is one that cannot get any better for it is the best of all beings. Further, a perfect being cannot become worse, for if it did, it would not truly be perfect. A truly perfect being cannot lose its perfection. God is a perfect being. If God is perfect, God must be changeless. For if God underwent a change, God would either become a better being, or a worse being, and such a thing is incompatible with perfection.23 Second, there is an Aristotelian assumption with regard to modality that plays a major role in the development of divine timelessness. It is an assumption that hardly any contemporary metaphysician holds any longer, thus making it somewhat difficult for modern thinkers to understand the argumentative moves made by classical theologians. The presupposition of the classical theologians is that immutability and necessity are equivalent, or at least mutually entailing. Also, mutability and contingency are equivalent, or at least mutually entailing.24 Any being that undergoes change cannot be a necessary being. Since God is a necessary being, He must be immutable. It is also the case that necessity and eternity are taken to be equivalent, or at least mutually entailing.25 A necessary being cannot begin or cease to exist. This is important for understanding several of the moves that Christians make in their articulation of eternity. For instance, John Duns Scotus argues that “Thou art a necessary being; and therefore Thou art eternal, because Thou 23 Katherin A. Rogers, Perfect Being Theology (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 47–50. 24 See the introduction to John Duns Scotus: Contingency and Freedom: Lectura I 39, trans. A. Vos Jaczn, H. Veldhuis, A. H. Looman-Graaskamp, E. Dekker, and N. W. Den Bok (London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994), 20. Jaczn et al. explain how Scotus’ modality marks a clear break from this tradition that was not previously seen in Western Christian theology. 25 Samuel Clarke does not hold that eternity and necessity are equivalent since he denies divine simplicity. However, he still sees the close connection between the two ideas. “The ideas of eternity and self-existence are so closely connected, that because something must of necessity be eternal independently and without any outward cause of its being, therefore it must necessarily be self-existent.” Further, “[t]hat being, therefore, which has no other cause of its existence but the absolute necessity of its own nature must of necessity have existed from everlasting, without beginning, and must of necessity exist to everlasting without end.” A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God and Other Writings, ed. Ezio Vailati (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), Section V. Descartes also links eternity and necessary existence. Like Clarke, he does not link it with timelessness. See Geoffrey Gorham, “Descartes on God’s Relation to Time,” Religious Studies 44 (2008), 422–3.

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hast at once an interminability of duration without a potency to succession. For there can be no succession except in that which is continuously caused, or at least in that which has its being dependent upon another; and this dependence is far from that which is necessary of itself in being.”26 These two assumptions play a major role in the sixth-century debate between Proclus and John Philoponus. Part of Proclus’ argument is that the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo conflicts with divine perfection, timelessness, immutability, and simplicity. If God were to create the universe out of nothing, He would undergo a change. As such, the Christian God would not be immutable. If the Christian God is mutable, He must be contingent. As such, the Christian God would be the creature of a genuinely perfect God.27 This will be given a full treatment in Chapter 5. For now it is important to note the strong connection between perfection, necessity, timelessness, and immutability with these Platonic and Aristotelian assumptions. Pseudo-Dionysius clearly links the notion of immutability with divine eternity. This is a common theme throughout Christian history. The assumption is that time involves change or motion, so God must be changeless in order to be timeless.28 The way Pseudo-Dionysius expresses divine timelessness picks up on the themes discussed in this chapter as well as the connection with immutability. He writes, “Ancient of Days” is a title given to God because He is the Eternity of all things and their Time, and is anterior to Days and anterior to Eternity and Time. And the titles “Time,” “Day,” “Season,” and “Eternity” must be applied to Him in a Divine sense, to mean One Who is utterly incapable of all change and movement and, in His eternal motion, remains at rest; He transcends both Rest and Motion; and Who is the Cause whence Eternity, Time, and Days are derived. (The Divine Names, 10.2)

In speaking of God’s beauty, he explains that God is beautiful in and of Himself. He was not beautiful at one time and then not at another, because God is eternally beautiful (The Divine Names, 4.7). Pseudo-Dionysius speaks in a similar way with regard to God’s actions. God cannot act at one time and not at another. If God did, He would suffer change, and thus not be eternal (The Divine Names, 4.21). Augustine makes the same connection between timelessness and immutability. Like Pseudo-Dionysius, he also connects time with change. “Since the flight of time involves change, it cannot be co-eternal with changeless eternity” 26 Evan Roche, The De Primo Principio of John Duns Scotus: A Revised Text and a Translation (Washington, D.C.: The Franciscan Institute, 1949), 143–5. 27 John Philoponus, Against Proclus On the Eternity of the World 1–5, trans. Michael Share (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., 2004), 42, 50, and 64. 28 In The Divine Names 4.4, Pseudo-Dionysius claims that the constant change and movement of the heavenly bodies is the basis for time and our measurement of time.

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(City of God XII).29 In The Trinity IV he says, “For God’s essence, by which he is, has absolutely nothing changeable about its eternity or its truth or its will.” Later on he says God should be understood as “wholly everywhere without place, everlasting without time, without any change in himself making changeable things, and undergoing nothing” (The Trinity V.2). Thomas Aquinas also makes the connections between time and change, as well as necessity, timelessness, and immutability. In Summa Contra Gentiles I.99 Aquinas argues as follows. “God is utterly unchangeable . . . that which begins or ceases to live, or is subject in living, is changeable . . . Therefore God neither began to be, or will cease to be, nor is subject to succession in living. Therefore His life is eternal.” In later chapters there will be a lengthy discussion of how a timeless and immutable God relates to an ever-changing universe. For now it will be helpful to begin to see the connections between relational and accidental properties that arise from interacting with a temporal universe, and divine timelessness and immutability. In The Trinity V, Boethius turns his attention to the topic of relations. Relational predicates denote a substance’s relation to other objects. “It cannot therefore be affirmed that a category of relation increases, decreases, or alters in any way the substance of the thing to which it is applied.” He offers an illustration. Say a man is standing in front of you. You walk up to him and stand to his left. Then you stand to his right. The man has different relational properties depending upon your position in relation to him, but his essence has undergone no intrinsic change. Such “predicates which do not denote the essential property of a thing cannot alter, change, or disturb its nature in any way.” One might think that such predicates can be appropriately used of God since this would not change His essential nature. However, that does not seem to be the view of Boethius and other classical theologians. In Sentences I, Distinction XXXVII.7, Peter Lombard explains how things change according to time. But to change through time is to become different according to their interior or exterior qualities which are in the very thing that is changed, as when it undergoes a vicissitude of joy, suffering, knowledge, forgetfulness, or a change of form or of some other exterior quality. For this change which happens according to time is a change of qualities which happens in the bodily or spiritual creature, and so it is called time.

Any kind of change, intrinsic or extrinsic, will make an object temporal. Lombard holds that God is simple and immutable, and as such He cannot undergo any intrinsic changes (Dist. VIII). Further, he holds that God Aquinas in On the Eternity of the World 11 says “nothing can be co-eternal with God, because nothing can be immutable save God alone.” 29

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cannot undergo any extrinsic change.30 For instance, when temporal creatures refer to God it would seem that God would undergo an extrinsic change and thus Himself be temporal.31 When a human worships God and says, “You are my Creator and Redeemer” she begins to predicate an accidental property of God. God, so it seems, begins to have this accidental property, and thus undergoes a succession and a change. Lombard understands this problem, so he follows Augustine by holding that the accidental properties that creatures predicate of God do not apply to God (Dist. XXII, XXX, and XXXIX).32 What can be taken away from this is that to be in time is to undergo intrinsic and extrinsic change. To be timeless is to undergo no changes whatsoever.33 As such, we must add the following to (1)–(4): (5) God cannot undergo any intrinsic or extrinsic change. At this point it will be helpful to sum up the discussion before moving on to other issues. So far we can see that divine eternity involves existing without beginning, without end, without succession, without intrinsic or extrinsic change, and without temporal location or position. Now we can turn to the topic of divine simplicity to see how it fits with timelessness and immutability.

DIVINE SIMPLICITY What does it mean to say that God is simple? Peter Lombard offers the following definition of divine simplicity: “The same substance alone is properly and truly simple in which there is no diversity or change or multiplicity of parts, or accidents, or of any other forms” (Sentences I, Dist. VIII.3). The

30 Paul Helm, Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time, 2nd Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 19. John Sanders, “Response to Ware,” in ed. Bruce Ware, Perspectives on the Doctrine of God: 4 Views (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing, 2008), 140. 31 Nicholas Wolterstorff, Inquiring About God: Selected Essays (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 153. 32 Aquinas offers a similar treatment in Summa Contra Gentiles II.12. 33 Anselm agrees that God cannot undergo any change, but he seems to allow for some accidental predicates to be said of God. He does not think that all accidental predicates would change God. Monologion 25. Yet, he is assuming that such accidents are not really properties at all since they do not really bring about a change. Brian Leftow concurs in “Eternity and Immutability” in ed. William E. Mann, The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005). Leftow and Anselm both have in mind Cambridge change, and both deny that Cambridge changes are in fact changes. Francis Turretin makes a similar claim in Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 205. I disagree, for a Cambridge change marks a before and after in the life of the subject.

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standard account of divine simplicity in the contemporary literature looks as follows, but I shall note some deficiencies with it later in this chapter.34 (6) God cannot have any spatial or temporal parts. (7) God cannot have any intrinsic accidental properties. (8) There cannot be any real distinction between one essential property and another in God’s nature. (9) There cannot be a real distinction between essence and existence in God. Before delving into these theses it would be good to have an understanding of real distinction. Within the Middle Ages it was common to hold that things can be really distinct or conceptually distinct. To say that there is a real distinction between some thing A and some thing B is to say that there is an extramental feature in reality that makes them distinct. For instance, there is a real distinction between a glass and the water it contains. A real distinction is contrasted with a conceptual distinction. To say that two things are conceptually distinct is to say that there is no extramental feature in reality that makes them distinct. The distinction exists in our minds only. For instance, one might say that Clark Kent and Superman are distinct, but in reality this distinction exists in our minds only since Clark Kent is the same person as Superman. In other words, Clark Kent is identical to Superman. Toward the end of the Middle Ages, John Duns Scotus introduced a formal distinction that lies between real and conceptual distinctions. To say that two things are formally distinct is to say that there is some extramental feature in reality that makes them distinct, yet they are coextensive and inseparable.35 With this in mind we can return to the set of theses noted earlier. The big idea behind (6) is that God does not have any physical or metaphysical complexity. The assumption is that in order to be spatial a thing must have physical parts. God is immaterial, so God does not have any physical parts. What about temporal parts? The concept of temporal parts is tricky here. What we would call temporal parts in our day is not the same concept. During the Middle Ages it was common to distinguish between an endurant object and the life of the object. The object endures through time and can be properly said to exist as a whole, or all at once, in the present. The present is the only moment that exists, so an endurant object does not have parts lying about at other times. Yet, we can draw a conceptual distinction and say that 34 Brian Davies, “Simplicity”, in eds. Charles Taliaferro and Chad Meister, The Cambridge Companion to Christian Philosophical Theology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 37–40. 35 Richard Cross, Duns Scotus on God (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 108–9. John F. Wipple, “Metaphysics,” in eds. Norman Kreztmann and Eleonore Stump, The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Scott MacDonald, “The Divine Nature,” in eds. Eleonore Stump and Norman Kreztmann, The Cambridge Companion to Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

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the endurant object has a before and after in its life. Its life can be conceptually divided up into parts.36 Yet even conceptual distinctions are repugnant to divine simplicity. As Anselm explains, “what either actually or conceptually has parts can be divided into parts, and this is altogether foreign to God” (Incarnation of the Word VII). James Arminius agrees. “Simplicity is a preeminent mode of the Essence of God, by which he is void of all composition, and of component parts whether they belong to the senses or to the understanding.”37 When classical theologians deny that God has temporal parts, what they have in mind is the life of God being conceptually divided up into parts of before and after. They are asserting that God has no before and after in His life because He has no distinct moments in His life at all. There is just the one timeless present. On their understanding, this makes God a truly permanent entity. So, in addition to the previous propositions, one must add (10) The divine nature lacks conceptual distinctions. It might seem odd to say that the divine nature lacks conceptual distinctions. What must be understood is that theologians like Anselm are drawing upon an ancient principle about division. This is a principle that philosophers and theologians continued to hold well into the scholastic era. Even modern philosophers, such as René Descartes, held to this principle that whatever can be divided in the mind can be divided in reality.38 This principle not only played a role in thinking about the divine nature, but it also played a role in arguments for the existence of the soul, among other things. Despite the support that (10) gives for divine timelessness, it has some unfortunate consequences for theology. If conceptual distinctions cannot even be applied to a simple God, it would seem that Christian theology is a nonstarter. This can be seen in the way theologians are forced to talk when trying to be consistent with the doctrine of divine simplicity. Say one has a theological puzzle, any theological puzzle that comes to mind. In order to remove the puzzle one must offer a careful distinction in God. Perhaps one will need to distinguish between God’s act and thought. Or maybe one needs to distinguish between God’s permissive and active will. It does not really matter. In practice divine simplicity forces the theologian to say something rather embarrassing. After the theologian has spent dozens of pages making careful distinctions in

36 See Robert Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1689 (London: Oxford University Press, 2011), ch. 18. Also, Richard Cross, Duns Scotus on God, 122. 37 James Arminius, 25 Public Disputations, Disputation IV.XI. James Nichols trans. The Works of James Arminius: The London Edition, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1986), 115. Avicenna concurs that even conceptual distinctions are foreign to the simple God. Jon McGinnis, “Avicenna (Ibn Sina)”, in eds. Graham Oppy and Nick Trakakis, The History of Western Philosophy of Religion Volume 2: Medieval Philosophy of Religion (Durham, NC: Acumen Publishing, 2009), 64. 38 Descartes, Meditation VI.

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God to remove the paradox she must admit that her distinctions exist in her mind only. They do not apply to God at all because there is nothing in God that could ground the conceptual distinctions.39 In other words, she has just committed all of her work to the flames. But set aside this problem for the moment. (9) comes from Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae I.Q3.a4, and similar statements can be found in Anselm and Augustine. It is taken to be part of what makes God unique from creatures. Of course, one might wonder what this means. This will become clear when one reflects on (10), and understands a deficiency in (8). (8) is close to the classical doctrine of divine simplicity, but it is missing an additional claim—God does not have any properties. The reason that there can be no real distinction in God’s properties is not merely because the divine properties are all identical to each other and identical to God, as (8) is often understood. The reason is because the simple God does not, in fact, have any properties. Instead of (8), divine simplicity should be seen as involving (8*) There cannot be any real distinction between one essential property and another in God’s nature because God does not have any properties. Divine simplicity is often criticized on the basis of (8) in the contemporary literature. Thinkers, like Alvin Plantinga, argue that (8) entails that God is a property.40 If God’s properties are identical to each other, then it seems there is really only one divine property. If God is identical to this property, it would seem that God is a property. Properties, traditionally understood, cannot think or act. So if God is a property, He doesn’t seem to be anything like the Christian God. Various contemporary thinkers, wishing to avoid Plantingastyle objections, take divine simplicity to be the weaker claim that all of the essential divine attributes are mutually entailing, and not that the divine attributes are identical. As such, one might wonder if (8*) is an accurate portrayal of divine simplicity. Is divine simplicity really (8*), or is it (8)? Or is divine simplicity really a weaker claim?41 39 For moves of this sort see John Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, trans. Michael Share (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., 2004), 62. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate QII.14. James Arminius, Disputation IV.XI. Katherin Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 31–8. Nicholas of Cusa uses simplicity and infinity to argue that there is no difference between Christian belief in the Trinity and the Jewish and Islamic denial of the Trinity. See Jasper Hopkins, “Nicholas of Cusa”, in Oppy and Trakakis (eds) The History of Western Philosophy of Religion Volume 2, 243. 40 Alvin Plantinga, Does God Have a Nature? (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1980). 41 It is said that the Eastern Orthodox theologians have a different version of divine simplicity whereby the attributes of God are not identical to God. Why? Because the attributes of God are God’s energy, and not God’s essence. We do not know anything about the unknowable essence of God. Cf. Gavin Ortlund, “Divine Simplicity in Historical Perspective: Resourcing a Contemporary Discussion,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 16 (2014) . I am skeptical that this can be

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Augustine, among others, makes it clear that divine simplicity involves (8*). In The Trinity XV.7, Augustine argues that God is genuinely immortal since He never started to exist, and never can cease to exist. So, genuine immortality is unchanging. “But that is also genuine eternity by which God is unchangeable, without beginning, without end, and consequently incorruptible. Therefore one and the same thing is being said, whether you say God is eternal or immortal or incorruptible or unchangeable.” Whether you say that God is wise, powerful, living, understanding, or beautiful, “the same thing is being said.” Divine simplicity is a much stronger claim than mutual entailment. Divine simplicity involves the claim that the divine attributes are identical to each other like (8) and (8*) both assume. Again, Augustine makes this clear. “But for God it is the same thing to be as to be powerful or just or wise or anything else that can be said about his simple multiplicity or multiple simplicity to signify his substance.” (The Trinity VI.6). Even John Duns Scotus makes this claim about divine simplicity. Though Scotus is known for introducing the formal distinction that was discussed earlier in this chapter, he seems to claim that on a higher level of logic, all of the divine attributes are identical.42 “There is nothing in the divine that is not the same thing as the divine essence and also the same as anything essential, so that considering such in the abstract, one can say simply ‘This is this’” (God and Creatures Q5.34). Maximus the Confessor agrees. “In the multiple there is diversity, unlikeness, and difference. But in God, who is eminently one and unique, there is only identity, simplicity, and sameness” (Knowledge of God, 1.83). Elsewhere Augustine makes it even clearer that divine simplicity involves the identity of the attributes. God however is indeed called in multiple ways great, good, wise, blessed, true, and anything else that seems not to be unworthy of him; but his greatness is identical with his wisdom (he is not great in mass but in might), and his goodness is identical with his wisdom and greatness, and his truth is identical with them all; and with him being blessed is not one thing, and being great or wise or true or good, or just simply being, another. (The Trinity VI.8)

This is the way Christians throughout history have understood divine simplicity.43 For instance, the seventeenth-century English theologian Richard Stock notes that

regarded as a genuine doctrine of divine simplicity because the claim is that the essence of God is unknown and unknowable. An ineffable mystery cannot be an alternative account of a doctrine. Further, in my own reading of the Cappadocian reply to Eunomius, I cannot find an outright rejection of Eunomius’ fairly traditional doctrine of divine simplicity. In fact, Young maintains that Eunomius and Gregory of Nyssa hold the same doctrine. Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon, 157. 42 Roche, The De Primo Principio of John Duns Scotus, 77. 43 Boethius follows Augustine on the doctrine of divine simplicity. See The Trinity is One God Not Three Gods IV. See also Anselm, Monologion 16–17. Aquinas does the same throughout

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it appeares, that however these things are attributed to God, that he is love, mercy, favour, and anger, howsoever they are spoken, as though they were many and different, yet in God they are but one, and the same. True it is, that we are of a compounded understanding, they are as severall things to us; because we cannot conceive God as he is, yet by faith, we are brought to beleeve that there is no such difference between them in God: that which is the love of God, is the hatred of God; and that which is his wisdome, is his power also; because there is but one and the same Essence. [sic]44

Stock, like so many others throughout church history, is following Augustine’s moves in The Trinity. Augustine continually argues throughout The Trinity that all of God’s essential divine attributes are identical to each other. It is at this point where one can see Augustine affirm (8*) instead of (8). On divine simplicity, anything that one might properly predicate of God should be understood as signifying the divine substance. One could say that God is eternal, immortal, incorruptible, unchangeable, living, wise, powerful, beautiful, and so forth. Yet all of those terms signify the divine substance. They are not qualities or properties that God has because they are identical to God (The Trinity XV.8). Creatures have properties by participating in goodness, wisdom, life, and so on. God, who is the greatest being, does not have goodness by participating in something else. Goodness is identical to His essence, and God is identical to His essence. So God is the Good (The Trinity V.11). Other things have an essence and subsist, or underlie, the properties they have. Not so with the simple God. “It is impious to say that God subsists to and underlies his goodness, and that goodness is not his own substance” (The Trinity VII.10). As Katherin Rogers points out, the traditional doctrine of divine simplicity denies that God has any properties. “With God we do not hypothesize any unity underlying the diversity because there is no diversity.”45 Rogers claims that Plantinga-style arguments against simplicity fail because they neglect this point by treating God as if He has properties, or is a property. The simple God does not have any properties.46 These types of objections fail to see how truly radical divine simplicity is.47 Summa Contra Gentiles I. Arminius follows Augustine, but suggests that it might be possible to allow the formal distinction. See his Disputation IV.XI. Cf. Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics vol 3: The Divine Essence and Attributes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 273–82. 44 Stock, A Stock of Divine Knowledge, 88. 45 Katherin Rogers, “The Traditional Doctrine of Divine Simplicity,” Religious Studies 32 (1996), 166, see also 173. Also, Henry Church, Miscellanea Philo-Theologica (London: I.N. for John Rothwell, 1638), 23. 46 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 27. 47 However these arguments do bring out a relevant objection that John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham both noticed and criticized Aquinas for failing to answer. Our concepts are clearly not identical to each other, and yet they are supposed to be identical in God. What do our

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I have put off discussing (7) until now so that a particular deficiency can be seen in this proposition as well. (7) would appear to allow God to undergo extrinsic change, but as noted in (5), classical theologians have already denied this possibility of God in the doctrine of divine timelessness and immutability. This is important to note since several contemporary defenders of divine simplicity have not acknowledged this. For instance, Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann claim that a simple God cannot be exempt from having extrinsic accidental properties.48 What they have in mind are properties like being referred to. This is completely contrary to the doctrine of God as spelled out by classical theologians. Augustine, Boethius, Lombard, and Aquinas all deny extrinsic accidental properties of God. Standard examples are things like Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. James Arminius adds Judge of all men to the list as well. For these theologians God cannot have these accidental predicates because that would entail that God came to, or began to, have them, and thus He would be mutable, temporal, and not simple. As will be discussed further in Chapter 5, classical theologians held that we can refer to God, but that we must realize that our accidental predicates only befall us and not God.49 In allowing extrinsic accidental properties to apply to God, Stump and Kretzmann have failed to see the systematic connections between simplicity, immutability, and timelessness. Of course, they admit that they are weakening the claims of divine simplicity.50 Rogers points out that this weakening of divine simplicity is unsatisfactory for anyone committed to classical theology.51 What Rogers understands, and what Stump and Kretzmann seem to have missed, is that divine simplicity is a determinate concept that cannot be weakened without destroying all of the other elements of the doctrine. As noted by Rogers, God not only lacks accidental properties, God does not have any properties at all. If we allow for God to have an accidental property we have (i) said that God has properties, (ii) said that God has accidental properties, (iii) introduced diversity in God, and (iv) introduced potential into God since there are other ways He can be. In other words, we have abandoned the basic claims of divine simplicity, as well as undermined timelessness and immutability. Instead of (7), divine simplicity holds to

concepts hang on? They can’t apply to the simple God for there is no diversity in Him. See Richard Cross, “John Dun Scotus” and Gyula Kilma, “William of Ockham”, in Oppy and Trakakis, The History of Western Philosophy of Religion Volume 2. 48 Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann, “Absolute Simplicity,” Faith and Philosophy 2 (1985), 354. 49 Augustine, The Trinity V.17. Boethius, The Trinity Is One God Not Three Gods IV. Peter Lombard, Sentences I Dist. XXX.1. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles II.12. Arminius, Disputation IV.XIV. 50 See, “Absolute Simplicity,” 369, and their “Simplicity Made Plainer,” Faith and Philosophy 4 (1987). 51 Katherin Rogers, “The Traditional Doctrine of Divine Simplicity.”

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What is Eternity? (7*) God cannot have any accidental properties.

One additional claim is needed to flesh out divine simplicity. There is one final aspect of simplicity that is sometimes overlooked in contemporary discussions: God is pure act.52 The claim that God is pure act can be found in Eastern and Western theologians, but the most famous exposition of this notion is found in Thomas Aquinas.53 As Aquinas explains, composite things have potential. They move from potential to actual. But God is simple, so He must lack potentiality and be pure act (Summa Contra Gentiles I.16–18). One example of this idea is that God just is His act of existence (Summa Contra Gentiles I.22). God is not something that underlies His properties because He does not have any properties. God does not go from potential to actual for He is pure act. God’s act is identical to God, and not something distinct. “His action is His being . . . God’s action is His substance” (Summa Contra Gentiles II.9). “The manifold actions ascribed to God, as intelligence, volition, the production of things, and the like, are not so many different things, since each of these actions in God is His own very being, which is one and the same thing” (Summa Contra Gentiles II.10). So, divine simplicity must also include (11) God is pure act such that God lacks all potential. Now that we have a better understanding of divine simplicity, we can ask an important question. How does simplicity connect with timelessness and immutability? As Augustine explains, “Nothing simple is changeable; everything created is changeable” (The Trinity VI.8). Again, on a relational understanding of time, time just is change. If God is unchanging, He is timeless. A simple God has no properties. “So there is no modification in God because there is nothing in him that can be changed or lost” (The Trinity V.5). Divine simplicity would seem to make it metaphysically impossible for God to change, thus entailing timelessness and immutability. Further, a being who is pure act does all that He does in one timeless present. He simply is His act of thinking, willing, creating, and so on. If God went from potential to act, He would have accidental properties and undergo a change. But as pure act, He has no accidental properties and undergoes no change from potential to act. Since He has no accidental properties, or any properties at all, there is no worry of Him changing or persisting through time. 52 See Rogers, “The Traditional Doctrine of Divine Simplicity”, for more on this. James E. Dolezal, God Without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God’s Absoluteness (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011). 53 Two examples are John Philoponus and John of Scythopolis. John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus: Annotating the Areopagite, trans. Paul Rorem and John C. Lamoreaux (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 220. Philoponus’ views will be discussed at length in Chapter 5.

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Objects that persist through time are constantly gaining and losing accidental properties. God has no accidental properties, so—the argument goes—He is timeless.

BEHOLD THE HAPPY WRATH OF GOD: D I V I N E I M P A S S IBI L ITY “IMPASSIBILITY is a pre-eminent mode of the Essence of God, according to which it is devoid of all suffering or feeling; not only because nothing can act against this Essence, for it is of infinite Being and devoid of external cause; but likewise because it cannot receive the act of any thing, for it is of simple Entity.—Therefore, Christ has not suffered according to the Essence of his Deity.” –James Arminius54

The attributes of God discussed so far entail that God is impassible. As John of Damascus explains, God is passionless because God lacks a body, and is without flux or change, and is simple and uncompounded (On the Orthodox Faith I.8). The big idea of impassibility seems to be that God cannot undergo a change or alteration of His emotional state.55 This is an important component in the divine timeless research program as it played a central role in the classical Christian doctrines of God, incarnation, and salvation. With a better understanding of this doctrine, and its systematic connections to the divine attributes discussed earlier in this chapter, one should be able to better grasp the types of theological problems and proposed solutions that will be discussed in later chapters. There is a tendency within contemporary theology to caricature divine impassibility by saying that it portrays God as lacking all emotion. The quote from Arminius at the start of this section might lend credence to such a view. Many contemporary theologians reject divine impassibility on the grounds that a God without emotions would be a moral monster, an impersonal deity that in no way resembles the God of the Bible. Divine impassibility, however, has more nuance then this caricature allows. It is not the claim that God has no emotions. This is true, in part, because “emotion” is a modern category that does not neatly map onto ancient discussions. Instead it is the claim that God lacks certain types of passions, or is void of all passions. What counts as a passion is, however, a matter of dispute amongst the ancient and 54

Arminius, Disputation IV.XVII. Thomas G. Weinandy, Does God Suffer? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), 99–100. 55

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medieval Christians.56 The Christian tradition shows an interesting variety of opinion on what counts as a passion. There are theologians who wish to say that mercy does not count as a passion, so God is merciful, whilst others hold that mercy is a passion and as such God cannot literally be said to be merciful.57 Even when modern defenders of impassibility do have the concept of emotion, they are not willing to deny all emotion of God. For instance, the nineteenth-century theologian William Shedd denies that God has any passions, but holds that God has two emotions: love and wrath. Shedd says that these two emotions are in fact one and the same moral attribute of God— holiness.58 How does one go about deciding which emotions or passions can truly be literally attributed to God? This is a bit difficult because the early Church fathers are quite unsystematic in their doctrine of divine impassibility.59 Unlike later Christian thinkers, the early fathers’ comments on impassibility are more like scattered sayings than a robust doctrine.60 Despite this, I believe one can discern some core theses for answering this question. These core theses are part of what later Christian theologians use to develop a clearer account of impassibility. To start, most accounts have some sort of inconsistency criterion. If some passion is inconsistent with the divine nature, it must not be attributed to God. Some early Church fathers held that all passions are of a sinful nature or sinful disposition. God, according to Christian thought, is morally perfect. So one criterion is inconsistency with God’s moral perfection. Any passion—like lust, greed, or pride—must be ruled out from being literally attributed to the morally perfect God. Other fathers held that the passions are inherently irrational. Anyone who acts out of a passion must be doing so irrationally. The passionate person does not have her emotions lined up with reason. Such a person is out of control, and ruled by emotions instead of sober reason. God, however, is perfectly rational. His actions are always in line with, in fact identical to, His wisdom given divine simplicity. So another criterion is inconsistency with God’s perfect rationality. Any passion that entails irrationality must not be literally attributed to God. Other Church fathers held that not all passions are of a sinful disposition, nor are all passions inherently irrational. Some passions are neutral, and others are even positive. For these theologians, God can have the positive passions, like love, but cannot have the

56 Anastasia Philippa Scrutton, Thinking Through Feeling: God, Emotion and Passibility (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011), ch. 1. 57 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1.Q21.a3. 58 W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, vol. 1. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1888), 174. 59 Rob Lister, God is Impassible and Impassioned (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 65. 60 Paul L. Gavrilyuk, The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 47.

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negative passions that imply sin or irrationality.61 Even though there is a disagreement here over what counts as a passion, a clear picture seems to emerge. As Paul Gavrilyuk explains, “The divine impassibility meant first of all that God is in total control of his actions and that morally objectionable emotions are alien to him.”62 This is a good start to understanding impassibility, but it is not the whole story. More is at play in figuring out which emotions can be attributed to God and which cannot. Drawing on the church tradition, Shedd offers the following criterion of blessedness to sort out which emotions can be attributed to God.63 “The criterion for determining which form of feeling is literally, and which is metaphorically attributable to God, is the divine blessedness. God cannot be the subject of any emotion that is intrinsically and necessarily an unhappy one.”64 In order to understand Shedd’s criterion of blessedness, and the early fathers’ criteria of moral perfection and rationality, one must have a better understanding of some of the background assumptions underlying divine impassibility. One of the core claims underlying the doctrine of divine impassibility is that God cannot be moved, or affected, by an outside force.65 What must be understood is that, for most of Church history, passions have been seen as the result of something external to the agent. Something outside of the agent causes the agent to act in certain ways, or serves as the object of the agent’s desire to act in certain ways.66 The pagan gods that the early Christians wished to disavow were dependent upon the universe to satisfy their passions of happiness, lust, pride, rage, revenge, and so on. The events that transpire in history affect a movement, or action, from the gods. It is interesting to note that many early Church fathers, and later theologians like Shedd, continually speak of God’s impassibility within the context of God’s self-sufficiency.67 The Christian God, in contrast to the pagan gods, is in no way dependent upon 61 For discussion see Lister, God is Impassible and Impassioned, ch. 3. Scrutton, Thinking Through Feeling, chs. 1 and 2. 62 Gavrilyuk, The Suffering of the Impassible God, 51. 63 Scrutton, Thinking Through Feeling, 17. “[T]he early church tended to see apatheia and/or blissfulness as an ideal on a ‘metaphysical’ as well as on a specifically moral level. Because passions were thought to be involuntary and to overcome reason, the experience of passions would disturb God’s existence and bliss.” 64 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 174. Cf. Gavrilyuk, The Suffering of the Impassible God, 51–62, for a discussion on divine anger and wrath. 65 Richard E. Creel, Divine Impassibility: An Essay in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 11. 66 This thesis is something that Scrutton wishes to overturn in her work. Thinking Through Feeling, 27–32. 67 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 178–9. Cf. Bruce D. Marshall, “The Dereliction of Christ and the Impassibility of God,” in eds. James F. Keating and Thomas Joseph White, Divine Impassibility and the Mystery of Human Suffering (Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009), 293. Scrutton, Thinking Through Feeling, 17–19.

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creation for His perfection. God is already perfect in Himself. Given simplicity, God is identical to His perfection. God is completely independent, for His being and nature are in no way dependent upon anything outside of Himself. Further, God’s act, which is identical to God Himself, is in no way dependent upon anything outside of Himself. God does not create the universe out of some lack in His nature since God is eternally perfect without the universe. As the early apologist, Athenagoras, explains, “the world was not created because God needed it; for God is Himself everything to Himself ” (A Plea for the Christians, 16). In Chapter 5, this theme will be discussed in more depth. There one shall see the classical claim that God always wills Himself in His action because He is the highest good. So even when God creates the universe, on classical theism God’s will is in fact directed toward Himself.68 In Chapter 4, we shall see that classical Christian theology also held that God’s knowledge is in no way dependent upon creation. God’s knowledge is only of Himself. It is by having a perfect knowledge of Himself that God is able to know all true propositions. For now, it is worth noting that classical Christian theology is deeply committed to a strong doctrine of divine self-sufficiency such that the perfection of God’s nature and action are in no way dependent upon anything outside of Himself.69 There are two different concepts at play here that are sometimes collapsed into each other: aseity and self-sufficiency. These attributes were alluded to earlier in this chapter, and play a pivotal role in how classical Christians think through the God–world relationship, and the Creator–creature distinction. As such it will be important to include them in the divine timeless research program. (12) God exists a se in that His existence does not depend upon anything outside of Himself. (13) God is self-sufficient in that the perfection of His nature and action are in no way dependent upon anything outside of Himself. It is in light of (12) and (13) that one can begin to understand the concept of impassibility. The impassible God does not suffer any change from outside of Himself. The events that transpire in the world do not affect God in any way. The world cannot cause God to suffer; it cannot diminish God’s blessedness or happiness. When one considers this claim in light of God’s immutability one can see why later classical Christian theologians say that the impassible God experiences nothing but a timeless, uninterrupted, state of pure happiness. An immutable God cannot change in anyway, so God cannot possibly change 68

Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles I.80–88. Philoponus, Against Proclus 1–5, 66–8. Bonaventure concurs in Il Sent. d.1, a.1,q.2. See also Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles I.86. 69

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from His state of eternal happiness. For instance, Aquinas argues that God is not, strictly speaking, merciful since mercy follows from feeling sorrowful. God cannot feel sorrow over the misery of things. The effects of God, according to Aquinas, may be said to be merciful, but God Himself is not literally merciful (Summa Theologiae, 1.Q21.a3.). If God felt sorrow, this would diminish and disrupt His eternal happiness. Sorrow and pain are not befitting of God because the object of sorrow and pain are evil things outside of God. Sorrow and pain denote a lack of goodness. God is sufficient in Himself for His goodness because He is goodness itself. God supremely delights in Himself as the object of His will, and as such, God is perfectly happy (Summa Contra Gentiles I.89–90). Traditionally, the notion that God is an immutable, and unperturbed, happiness was taken to be a good thing for Christian thought and practice.70 Given divine simplicity, God just is happiness itself, and is the source of all our happiness.71 If we want to be happy, we must draw closer to the source of all happiness. Further, given divine timelessness and immutability, nothing could cause God’s happiness to change. Our happiness is based on a sure and solid foundation of absolute immutability.72 So part of the timeless research program includes impassibility. (14) God cannot suffer in any way that would deprive Him of pure, uninterrupted happiness. Of course, a question naturally arises. How could this timeless wrath of God not conflict with God’s timeless happiness? Shedd, like most classical theologians, wishes to maintain divine wrath, but in a way that does not conflict with God’s happiness. Otherwise, one must say that God is eternally unhappy. It would seem a rather unfortunate state of affairs if, in the eschaton when the world has been completely cleansed of evil, God were eternally unhappy.73 Classical theologians like Shedd think there is a way out of this unfortunate state of affairs. True, God is eternally wrathful, but it is a kind of wrath that does not conflict with divine happiness. It is a happy wrath. Shedd argues that happiness is a pleasurable emotion that arises from the harmony of the emotion with its proper object. In the case of the self-sufficient God, the object of God’s happiness is Himself. With wrath, there is also a harmony of the emotion with its proper object. So there is a kind of pleasure that comes from the harmony of the emotion of wrath with its object. Shedd goes on to say that in the human sphere of sin, wrath brings a displeasure

70 Trent Pomplun, “Impassibility in St. Hilary of Poitiers’s De Trinitate,” in Keating and White, Divine Impassibility and the Mystery of Human Suffering, 187–8. 71 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II.Q3.a1. 72 This is a continual theme throughout Augustine’s City of God. 73 Scrutton, Thinking Through Feeling, 47.

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because sinners hate what is morally perfect. Human wrath typically, though not always, interrupts happiness because sin brings about a disharmony of wrath and its proper object. Based on Ephesians 4:26, Shedd thinks that humans can exhibit a righteous wrath, free of sin, that does not bring about displeasure. This type of wrath, according to Shedd, is analogous with divine wrath.74 Several things about this might seem odd. First, Shedd, like any classical defender of divine impassibility, claims that God is not passively affected by the universe. The things that transpire in the universe cannot cause God to suffer and be moved. God is always self-moved because God is self-sufficient. However, it seems like the sin of human persons is affecting God. Consider again God’s happiness. Given divine simplicity, God is happiness. The object of God’s happiness is Himself. As such, God’s happiness is not dependent, nor affected, nor brought about by something outside of God. When it comes to God’s wrath, however, the object clearly seems to be something outside of God, for God cannot be the object of wrath. Shedd claims that God does have wrath that is directed toward the unrighteous. Surely this wrath demonstrates that God is affected by the world such that God would unleash His wrath on the unrepentant. That seems to directly conflict with the notion that God is self-sufficient. Given this, it seems that God’s self-sufficiency, impassibility, and the principle of blessedness, should lead us to deny that wrath is literally attributed to God. A second thing that seems odd about this is the coherence of God’s happy wrath. Shedd wishes to say that wrath is literally applied to God, but that this wrath in no way disrupts God’s pure, timeless happiness. It seems a bit much to swallow that there is a kind of happy wrath. In fact, several early Church fathers like Clement, Origen, John Cassian, and Augustine deny that God literally experiences wrath. Instead, divine wrath is really a subjective human experience of God’s love. Unrepentant sinners experience God’s love as if it were wrath, but wrath is not actually an attribute of God. Theologians like Shedd, Tertullian, and Cyril of Alexandria will disagree, and continue to maintain that there is a sense of divine wrath that does not conflict with God’s blissful state.75 I shall set this issue aside for now, and point out one further concern that arises from impassibility, and that is of crucial importance for Christian theology. The heart of the Christian gospel involves a suffering servant. The early Church underwent great ridicule for worshipping a crucified God.76 An impassible God cannot suffer, but the Son of God became incarnate and suffered on the cross. The obvious tension in this claim gave rise to all sorts 74 75 76

Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 176–7. Gavrilyuk, The Suffering of the Impassible God, 55–8. Gavrilyuk, The Suffering of the Impassible God, 65–78.

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of views that the early Church later condemned as heresy. For instance, the Arians held fast to the claim that Christ suffered, and that God is impassible. Within Arian theology, the Son of God is a lesser divine being, and as such is capable of change and suffering. The Father and the Son are not homoousios, but have similar natures. Both are divine beings, but each is a different sort of divine being. The Father is the high God, or the greatest divine being. He is the source, or fount, of all other divine and non-divine beings. The Father is uncreated and impassible, whilst the Son is created and passible. For the Arians, the tension disappeared since God the Father remains impassible, whilst the Son undergoes change and suffering.77 What eventually became orthodoxy, however, wished to maintain the full divinity of the Son such that the Son is impassible alongside the Father. As will be discussed in Chapter 7 on the incarnation, the typical patristic move was to say that the Son suffered in His human nature, but not in His divine nature.78 Much more could be said about impassibility, but for my purposes in this chapter, the important thing to note is that an impassible God cannot suffer a change in His emotional state. God is timelessly, and immutably, happy such that nothing can disturb His happiness.

DOES ETERNITY HAVE DURATIO N? With a better understanding of the divine timeless research program before us, several other questions can now be addressed. A point of contention in contemporary debates is over eternal duration. Can the timeless God really be said to have duration? Brian Leftow, Eleonore Stump, and Norman Kretzmann hold some version of atemporal duration.79 It is not difficult for them to maintain that Christians have traditionally believed in atemporal duration since one could easily find statements from Christians in the past that speak of atemporal duration.80 In the Middle Ages duration is predicated of anything 77

Lister, God is Impassible and Impassioned, 82–3. Gregory of Nazianzus, The Theological Orations, 3.18. Cf. Scrutton, Thinking Through Feeling, 9. 79 Stump, Eleanore and Norman Kretzmann, “Eternity” Journal of Philosophy 78 (1981): 429–58. Brian Leftow, Time and Eternity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991). 80 Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles II.35. Luis de Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge: Part IV of the Concordia, Disp. 48. Also, the Post-reformation protestant theologians were insistent on God’s eternal duration. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, 345–64. The dialogue partners in Nicholas Malebranches’ Dialogues on Metaphysics, dialogue 8 hold to eternal duration. John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, XV, 12. Stephen Charnocke, Several Discourses Upon the Existence and Attributes of God (London: Newman, 1682), 181ff. One can even find similar statements about God’s duration in Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology, vol. 1, V.6. Also, Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology, 276: “Time 78

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that has existence, be it temporal or non-temporal.81 In fact, one of the main reasons for thinking that God is timeless is by arguing that endurance in creatures is a perfection to be predicated of God.82 To endure is to exist as a whole through time. The perfection that is said to be derived is that of existing as a whole or all at once. Yet, when applied to God it is given a non-temporal reading. For Anselm, a man can exist as a whole throughout time. A man exists as a whole at each time when that time is present. Since the present is the only moment that exists, the man exists as a whole at the present and does not have parts at other times. Yet, the man’s life can be conceptually divided into parts because he has a before and after in his life. He no longer enjoys the past and does not yet enjoy the future (Monologion 21). Anselm wishes to say that God also exists as a whole, but in a non-temporal way. Eternity lacks a before and after. Unlike the temporal present, eternity does not have moments that slip into the non-existent past, nor does it have future moments that do not yet exist. The duration of a temporal object can be measured by time, whereas the duration of eternity cannot be measured by time because it transcends time. Anselm makes it clear that the predicate involved—existing as a whole—can be literally said of God and creatures. Creatures exist as a whole at a time and place, and so does God. The difference is that creatures are bound by, or contained in, time and place, whereas God is not (Monologion 22). For Anselm, to say that God has duration is to say that God exists as a whole at all times and places. Many theologians in the past agree that God exists as a whole at all times and places, and that this is the proper understanding of eternal duration.83 For instance, the fourteenth-century philosopher Nicole Oresme notes that there are different kinds of duration. One kind of duration is appropriate to things that endure through the successions of time. Another kind of “duration is not successive, but refers to the continuity of everything together and to the things which cannot be altered; it is called eternity.” Further, “of necessity, [this] type is without beginning or end and without succession, but is at once complete as a whole; and this is the duration of God.” This eternal duration of God’s is “without past or future, completely in the present: Because neither any moment of past time is lost nor any anticipation of the future. And this is called the moment of eternity.”84 At this point one might ask, “is this a legitimate use of duration?” is duration measured by successions. Duration without succession would still be duration, though it would be immeasurable.” 81 Fox, Time and Eternity, 36–8. 82 Robert Pasnau alludes to this move in his Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1689 (London: Oxford University Press, 2011), 397. 83 For instance, Luis de Molina, Concordia IV, Disp. 48. 84 Nicole Oresme, Le Livre du Ciel et du Monde (London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1968), 163–5. Also, Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 204. “Time and eternity are not

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Samuel Clarke says no. He claims that the schoolmen see eternity not as a real duration, but as a point or instant, “wherein all things are really coexistent at once.” This, he says, is unintelligible and of no use to religion.85 “The true notion of divine eternity does not consist in making past things to be still present and things future to be already come, which is an express contradiction.” By Clarke’s day there was a particular misinterpretation of Thomas Aquinas that said all things exist simultaneously in eternity. This will be discussed in the Chapter 4. For now, what must be understood is that Clarke is here offering a standard rejection of this view. He then goes on to make a common, and much needed, clarification. Not all moments of time exist in God’s eternal duration. Only the present moment of time co-exists with eternity. Instead, God has a perfect knowledge of all things such that they are “represented to him in one single thought or view, and all things present and future be as absolutely under his power and direction as if there were really no succession at all, and as if all things had been (not that they really are) actually present at once.”86 Clarke’s complaint is not against predicating “duration” of God’s eternity. His complaint seems to be twofold. First, God’s eternal duration is being abused in order to posit an absurd notion that all of time is literally and concretely simultaneous with eternity. However, as we shall see in the next chapter, it is dubious that any classical theologian before Clarke’s day actually defended such a view. Clarke’s second complaint is that “duration” is not being used accurately. Clarke, as one might recall, is a defender of the absolute theory of time. Time can exist without change. Time, for Clarke, just is duration. For Clarke, eternal duration just is that which makes time exist; God is the ground of time. His complaint is not over whether or not God has duration, but over how time and duration are to be properly understood. As he sees it, when people deny absolute time—duration—and say that God is a point, they are basically denying that God exists.87 Of course, Clarke is not a defender of divine timelessness for he believes that God does undergo succession and is temporally extended. Perhaps one might complain that Clarke

related to each other as part and whole, but as species of duration mutually opposed. Eternity always was and will be. However, time neither always was nor always will be, but will cease with the world.” 85 John Tillotson concurs with Clarke. See his, The Remaining Discourses on the Attributes of God (London: Rofe and Crown, 1700), 359–68. As does Pierre Gassendi, Physiologia EpicuroGassendo-Charltoniana, or, A Fabrick of Science Natural, Upon the Hypothesis of Atoms founded by Epicurus, Repaired by Petrus Gassendus, Augmented by Walter Charleton (London: Tho. Newcomb, 1654), 80. 86 Samuel Clarke, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God and Other Writings, 138. 87 Clarke, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, 114–16.

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cannot be called upon to help us gain clarity on the notion of atemporal duration. Several contemporary philosophers also find the notion of atemporal duration otiose. Katherin Rogers maintains that the medieval philosophers held that God’s eternity does not involve duration. Instead, they see eternity as unextended—much like the point in the center of a circle. Putting historical considerations aside, she argues that eternity simply cannot have duration. “Since ‘duration’ ordinarily means ‘extension in time’, a ‘timeless duration’ is, prima facie, quite a puzzling notion.”88 William Lane Craig notes that duration is “not even applicable to a timeless being in any literal sense . . . [because a] timeless being does not literally endure at all.”89 If divine eternity lacks temporal extension, as previously stated, it is difficult to understand what eternal duration could mean. “Eternity as duration can be described only so long as ‘duration’ is stripped of any meaning by which to distinguish duration from the lack of it.”90 One would have to strip duration of all of its meaning if she wishes to apply it to a timeless being. Otherwise a direct contradiction follows. Quentin Smith explains. This notion of atemporal duration strikes me as self-contradictory. A duration by definition is an extension and an extension by definition has parts. If this be denied, then one is using ‘duration’ to mean its opposite, and an unextended and simple instant. Now the parts of a duration, by definition, are sequentially ordered as earlier or later. If this be denied, and it is asserted instead that its parts are simultaneous, then one is again using ‘duration’ to mean its opposite, an unextended instant . . . Thus to affirm unblushingly of the divine being that it not only has an infinitely extended duration but also is such that there is no earlier or later within its life is to embrace a straightforward contradiction.91

Anselm would disagree. He thinks there is a literal usage of “duration” that applies to God and creatures—existing as a whole. Need we say that “existing as a whole” is equivalent to duration? A classical theologian wishes to say that God exists as a whole because God is simple, and because God exists at every time and place by causally sustaining every time and place in existence. One could say that a simple God exists as a whole without also saying that God has atemporal duration. What about divine sustaining? I will argue later that a timeless God cannot causally sustain a presentist world. Rogers, Craig, and Smith all agree on this point. Perhaps that is one reason why they Katherin Rogers, “Eternity Has No Duration,” Religious Studies 30 (1994), 6. William Lane Craig, God, Time, and Eternity: The Coherence of Theism II (London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 11–12. 90 Rogers, “Eternity Has No Duration,” 12. 91 Quentin Smith, “A New Typology of Temporal and Atemporal Permanence,” Nous 23 (1989), 323. 88 89

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reject atemporal duration. When one reads thinkers like Anselm, Molina, or Malebranche, they use eternal duration to speak of God existing at all times by sustaining all times. They are quick to say we should not think of this in a temporal way, but they keep the concept of duration directly connected to existing as a whole at all times. As such, they have not given it an adequate non-temporal reading which brings us back to the main reason for rejecting eternal duration. The notion of duration involves temporal extension, and this is the very thing classical theologians wish to deny of God. It seems that duration has not been stripped of all its temporal meaning.92 As such, to say that God has atemporal duration involves a contradiction. At this point one might try to avoid the contradiction by adopting the doctrine of analogy—a thesis on religious language. Perhaps one might say that “duration” is not being used univocally when predicated of God and creatures. Instead it is being used analogically. The difficulty with this is that analogical predication only works when one has an idea of the determinate predicate that applies to God and the different but closely related determinate predicate that applies to creatures. For instance, a standard example is the predicate “wise.” One can say that “God is wise” and “Socrates is wise.” Someone who believes in the doctrine of analogy will then say that “wise” is not being used univocally of God and Socrates here because God is wise in a different way. Socrates has wisdom contingently by participating in it. Given divine simplicity, God has wisdom necessarily by being identical to wisdom and being the source of all wisdom.93 In this example we have a clear understanding of how “wise” is being used in each instance. We can also see how each usage is related or similar. If there were no similarity between the usages, we could not say they are analogical because they would be equivocal. It is not clear how this similarity avoids univocity, but I shall set that issue aside.94 The type of similarity needed for analogy does not seem to be available with “duration.” If one has to strip duration of all its meaning in order to predicate it of the divine, she will have no content left in the predication. She will be left with an empty predicate for God and a determinate predicate for creatures. That would not be analogical predication. Instead it would be equivocation or

92

John Marenbon discusses how the medievals struggle to hold divine timelessness and eternal duration. See his “Eternity,” in ed. A. S. McGrade, The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 93 It is difficult to motivate the doctrine of analogy without divine simplicity. In Summa Contra Gentiles I.31–5 Aquinas’ justification for analogy is explicitly dependent on divine simplicity. Elsewhere, I have offered a refutation of divine simplicity, and as such I can find no motivation for holding the doctrine of analogy. See my, “Simply Impossible: A Case Against Divine Simplicity,” Journal of Reformed Theology 7 (2013). 94 Thomas Williams, “The Doctrine of Univocity is True and Salutary,” Modern Theology 24 (2005), 578–80.

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simply unintelligibility. As such there would be no reason to predicate it of God. There seem to be four options left for predicating “duration” of God. First, keep duration’s temporal baggage and predicate it of God. This would make God temporal, so a defender of divine timelessness will not be able to make this move. Second, give up the notion of atemporal duration. Third, try to offer a legitimate non-temporal account of duration. That appears to be a tall order. Fourth, continue to predicate “duration” of God, but when asked what this means simply say that it is an ineffable mystery that one cannot pry into. The fourth option may be attractive for some, but I would not recommend it for it leaves us with no positive understanding of God’s eternality. As Rogers explains, “Knowing what God is not like is insufficient. We are supposed to love God, and as Augustine always says, you cannot love what you do not know. Some attempt to grasp the nature of divine eternity ought to be made, even if the understanding of the temporal creature must fall far short of the reality of God.”95 Further, if “duration” is an ineffable mystery when predicated of God, this would not give us analogical predication. It would be equivocation at best, but more likely mere unintelligible jargon. The best option for divine timelessness is to give up any notion of duration.96 To sum up the discussion thus far we can start to see what divine eternality looks like. It has no beginning and no end. It lacks any kind of succession and change, and contains no before and after. It lacks temporal extension, location, and duration. One might wonder how someone like Augustine and Rogers can believe in divine timelessness since they hold that we cannot love what we do not know. The doctrine of divine eternality appears to be a list of negations. What must be understood is that not all negative statements about God are created equal. Some negative statements about God give us a determinate predication while others do not. For instance, to say that “God is not wicked” is indeterminate. It does not give us much of a clue what God is actually like for God could be “morally ambiguous” or “a pretty good guy who has made a few mistakes in the past” or “contingently good” or “necessarily good.” To say that “God is immutable” is determinate. It narrows the field of other possible predicates considerably. The same seems to be the case with “God is timeless.” The predicate involved is a negation but it gives us a determinate predicate, and thus has positive content. This notion that negative statements can have positive content is not novel, and seems to be the best way of interpreting classical theism. As William Mann points out, most theologians from Augustine’s day and after take

95

Rogers, “Eternity Has No Duration,” 14.

96

Helm, Eternal God, 36–40.

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predicates like incorruptible to be positive attributes.97 The nineteenth-century theologian Augustus Strong concurs—some negative divine predicates are also positive like infinite.98 I think it best that one understand the divine timeless research program to be making positive statements because the claims being put forth by classical theists have a determinate content despite the fact that they appear, at first glance, to be a list of negations.

CAN WE TALK ABOUT E TERNITY? This might seem to be a bizarre question at first. Haven’t I been talking about eternity this entire time? Obviously yes. The question that I am getting at is with regard to our ability to predicate things of God and talk about His actions. My intent at this point is not to criticize, but simply to articulate what seems to be the best account available to divine timelessness. Christian theologians constantly make claims about God’s eternal decrees, will, action, and self-determination. For instance, God eternally willed salvation through Christ. When did God will this? One could say, “before time,” but that would be a rather unfortunate and confusing statement since the “before” implies a before and after relation. A timeless God cannot have a before and after in His life. Instead, one must answer that eternity itself is when God willed. How is this to be understood? Brian Leftow offers the following account. The eternal present functions logically as a date in that one can index propositions to it.99 “It seems to me that a term x functions literally as a date-term if a sentence is true which has the form ‘proposition p tenselessly-is true at x, and due to this, at t, p was already true.’”100 This is meant to help us understand predications of God, divine actions, and so on. It is also supposed to help us answer a question: when does God exist? A common objection to divine timelessness is to ask when God exists. It seems obvious to say that God exists now. Yet, if one were to respond this way she would be relegating God to time. If God exists now, He is temporal. If God exists at a time, He is in time. God would have temporal location, and such a thing is inconsistent with (4).101 Leftow’s treatment of eternity as a date is intended, in part, to circumvent objections like these. The idea is that we 97 Mann, “Duns Scotus on Natural and Supernatural Knowledge of God,” in ed. Thomas Williams, The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 249. 98 Strong, Systematic Theology, 9. 99 Leftow, Time and Eternity, 54. 100 Leftow, “The Eternal Present,” in God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 41. 101 Nicholas Wolterstorff, “God and Time,” Philosophia Christi 2 (2000), 8.

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should treat eternity like a time that is discrete from our own.102 This discrete time would serve as the truthmaker for our claims about God.103 One can say that God exists in eternity, or at eternity, or simply that God exists. She can say that from eternity God willed to save humanity through Jesus, or that God eternally decreed the defeat of evil. Again, it would be good to sum up what we have covered so far. Necessarily, God’s timeless eternity means that God exists without beginning, without end, and without succession. It lacks any before and after. It is not temporally extended, nor does it have temporal location. Eternity does not have duration. A timeless God cannot undergo any intrinsic or extrinsic changes. Nor can anything disrupt God’s changeless state of pure happiness. Further, as simple God is pure act, and has no properties, nor is He subject to any distinctions be they real or conceptual. Finally, eternity logically functions as a date or “time” that is discrete from our own time-series.

C ONCLUDING REMARKS Divine timelessness, immutability, simplicity, and impassibility have traditionally been justified on the basis of perfect being theology. Unfortunately space does not allow for a detailed discussion of the method of perfect being theology. For now it will suffice to say that the end result of perfect being theology is to predicate of God perfections that He has necessarily.104 For instance, it is better to be good necessarily than contingently. Further, one should recall the discussion in this chapter on the Aristotelian assumption about necessity. When it comes to understanding God’s eternality it must be noted that Christians who hold to the divine timeless research program see timelessness, immutability, simplicity, and impassibility as perfections that God is necessarily. As such, God is held to be necessarily timeless, immutable, simple, and impassible. Necessarily God exists without beginning, without end, without succession, without temporal location and extension. Necessarily God can suffer no change. Necessarily God is pure act and has no potential and no properties. These are strong statements, and their strength is not always appreciated in contemporary discussions. This may be why some theologians and philosophers continue to look for a third way between divine atemporality and temporality. The method of perfect being theology, however, 102 Leftow, “Eternity and Immutability” in ed. William E. Mann, The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 59. 103 Leftow, “The Eternal Present,” in God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 42. 104 Thomas V. Morris, Our Idea of God: An Introduction to Philosophical Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991).

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brings us to the conclusion that either temporality or atemporality are perfections. As such, there is little sense in claims that God is timeless sans creation but temporal with creation. If God is timeless, He is necessarily timeless. It is not possible for Him to become temporal for that would involve the possibility of change in God, and this is not something that timelessness allows for. God must either be necessarily timeless or necessarily temporal. The traditional understanding is that God is necessarily timeless.

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4 Presentism, Omniscience, and the Timeless God In this chapter I shall attempt to do several things. First, I shall argue that classical theists are presentists. This is important to know when it comes to properly critiquing their research program on God and time. The classical tradition’s temporal ontology has been widely misrepresented in the contemporary literature, and a correction to this error is in order. One cannot understand the objections that classical theists themselves sought to refute if one does not see the classical theists’ commitment to presentism. Second, I will look at one particular objection to divine timelessness from presentism that classical theists sought to refute: divine timelessness is incompatible with omniscience.

PRESENTISM AND CLASSICAL THEOLOGY Presentism and endurantism are the traditional views amongst Christian theologians throughout Church history.1 In fact, one of the main reasons given for thinking that God is timeless, based upon the incompleteness of temporal life, assumes both presentism and endurantism. Yet, there are a few issues that have come to the fore in contemporary debates. Does an eternalist ontology of time need to be true in order for God to be omniscient? Is eternalism needed in order to make sense of the claim that all times are present for God in eternity? These are interesting questions that one will need to address in her research program. For now I want to focus on a question that sometimes arises out of these two previous questions. Is 1 One possible exception could be John Wycliffe who appears to have posited the existence of the past and the future along with the present. See Robert Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1689 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 388–90. Pasnau notes that, unlike most in the tradition, Wycliffe believes that God’s omniscience and eternality entail that past, present, and future are all on an ontological par.

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eternalism the view that classical theologians meant to, or did in fact, articulate? The answer is no. Far too many contemporary theologians and philosophers either accuse or praise classical theologians for holding to eternalism, but this is anachronistic.2 Presentism “was believed by everyone, both the philosophers and the folk, until at least the nineteenth century; it is written into the grammar of every natural language; and it is still assumed in everyday life, even by philosophers who officially deny it.”3 In Chapter 3 I noted the tight connection between presentism, endurantism, and the doctrine of divine timelessness—that is, God exists all at once in a timeless present that lacks a before and after. In this section and the next I will further show that presentism is the classical Christian position. This will become even clearer in Chapter 6 on presentism, creation, and divine timelessness, but before we can delve into those issues it will be helpful to see how deeply ingrained presentism is in Christian thought. One example comes from Gregory of Nyssa. In a rather poetic fashion he says, “time’s lapse sweeps away with it all existence in the past, whereas expected existence gains substance from our hope” (Against Eunomius I.42). Another example of a deeply ingrained commitment to presentism comes from Augustine. In Confessions XI.15, Augustine deals with a puzzle about the measurement of time. Part of the puzzle is about how to measure past moments of time because once a moment “becomes past, it ceases to exist.” The same applies to future moments, which “do not yet exist.” Though Augustine examines several hypotheses, he maintains his commitment to presentism throughout his entire investigation into the question of how to measure time. In XI.20, he says, “It is now, however, perfectly clear that neither the future nor the past are in existence.” Statements like these from Gregory and Augustine only make sense on presentism. From Augustine’s Confessions to Duns Scotus’ Lectura, presentism and endurantism have been widely held. For the medieval theologians, both God and creatures are endurant beings that exist wholly and entirely at the

A sampling of such claims can be found in the following. Katherin Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: The Presence of a Timeless God.” Faith and Philosophy 24 (January 2007). Christopher Conn, “Anselmian Spacetime: Omnipresence and the Created Order,” The Heythrop Journal 52 (2011). Richard Cross, “Duns Scotus on Eternity and Timelessness,” Faith and Philosophy 14 (1997). However, Cross recants his claim in Duns Scotus on God (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), ch. 8. Paul Helm, Eternal God: A Study of God without Time, 2nd Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), ch. 14. Hans Kraml, “Eternity in Process Philosophies,” in eds. Christian Tapp and Edmund Runggaldier, God, Eternity, and Time (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011). William Lane Craig, “Time and Eternity,” in ed. Melville Y. Stewart, Science and Religion in Dialogue (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2010), 686. 3 John Bigelow, “Presentism and Properties,” Nous 30 (1996), 35. See also, Dean Zimmerman, “The A-Theory of Time, Presentism, and Open Theism,” in ed. Melville Y. Stewart, Science and Religion in Dialogue, 793. 2

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present.4 The assumption of presentism is at work in their descriptions of God’s timeless eternity and how it relates to our temporal present. It should be recalled, however, that medieval thinkers claim that God’s eternal present is different from the creaturely present (as discussed in Chapter 3). Yet they think God’s present is similar enough to our present to warrant the predication present. The Catholic and Protestant scholastics agreed with the medievals that God is an endurant being who exists in a timeless present. The scholastics also propounded a common classical claim that eternity co-exists with all times.5 Their view, however, is not that all created times eternally co-exist with God as the eternalist sees it. As the Protestant scholastic Francis Turretin explains, all times co-exist with eternity without being co-existent with each other. “Thus the past, while it was, coexisted with eternity, the present now coexists with it, and the future will coexist with it.”6 Turretin is clearly holding to presentism here. This clarification from Turretin is important to note. The common and widespread statement that “all moments of time exist in God’s eternity” has led to a great deal of confusion in the past and today. It has distorted the classical tradition’s commitment to presentism, and led to many unfortunate interpretations of classical Christian theology. Several misreadings and misinterpretations of classical texts need to be dispelled before we can begin to critique the classical position on divine timelessness. Their commitment to presentism must be acknowledged in order for contemporary thinkers to properly engage the classical philosophical landscape.

PRESENTISM, O MNISCIENCE, AND ALL OF TIME EXISTING IN ETERNITY As noted earlier in this chapter, there are theologians who are often called upon by the eternalist, or who are accused of holding to eternalism. There are passages in Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, and Aquinas that appear to point in the direction of eternalism. I think it is a mistake to interpret these thinkers as See Robert Pasnau, “On Existing All at Once,” in God, Eternity, and Time. Also, Anselm, Proslogion 13. Augustine, Confessions XI. 5 See Pasnau, “On Existing All at Once,” in God, Eternity, and Time. Richard A. Muller, PostReformation Reformed Dogmatics vol. 3: The Divine Essence and Attributes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 345–64. One can even find similar statements about God’s duration in Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1940), V.6. 6 Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1 (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1992), 203. See also Stephen Charnocke, Several Dischourses Upon the Existence and Attributes of God (London: Newman, 1682), 186. 4

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eternalists because they are committed to presentism. The contemporary confusion seems to derive from the claim that all moments of time are present to God in eternity.7 Some think that this statement shows that classical theologians are committed to eternalism. However, when properly understood, this statement shows no such commitment. The phrase “all moments of time are present to God” can, and has, caused confusion, but such confusion can be cleared up. What must be understood is that the classical theologians from Aristotle to the Catholic and Protestant scholastics believe that God’s knowledge is not dependent upon creatures—i.e. God’s knowledge of the universe is not perceptual or observational. As we shall see in Chapter 6, atemporalists who hold to an eternalist ontology of time maintain that God’s knowledge of the created order is based on something like perception. All moments of time eternally co-exist with God, and fall under the divine gaze. This, however, is what classical theologians explicitly deny. For classical theologians, God’s knowledge is not based upon perception, but rather is based upon a perfect understanding, or complete comprehension, of Himself.8 For some, God having a complete understanding of His own essence is sufficient for God to know all things. For others, God having a complete understanding of His will—the cause of all things—is sufficient for God to know all things. Given divine simplicity, God’s will is identical to the divine essence, so one ends up with the same claim. Regardless, for classical theism, the mode of God’s knowledge is through a complete understanding of the divine essence and is not based upon a perception of the created universe. This understanding of God’s mode of knowledge is deeply entrenched in the history of Christian thought, as I shall now demonstrate. In demonstrating this, I shall also show that classical theists were committed to presentism and not eternalism. Once one has a proper understanding of the classical doctrine of omniscience, one will gain a better understanding of what classical theologians intended to convey with phrases like “all of time is present to God’s eternity.” They are intending to say something about God’s mode of knowledge. They are not intending to say anything about the ontology of time with this phrase. I shall start this investigation with Augustine since he is the source of much subsequent theological thought on this matter of presentism and God’s mode

7 Another source of confusion that seems to be present during the 1980s and 1990s is over the tensed vs. tenseless theory of time debate. It seems that some have confused medieval claims about eternal truths with the tenseless theory of time and its alleged ontological entailments. Others seem to have mistakenly assumed that since a particular medieval thinker clearly held to a tensed theory of time (e.g. Scotus), then he must hold to divine temporalism since timelessness is not compatible with tensed time. This is one reason why I do not find the tensed vs. tenseless debate to be helpful for discussing God and time. 8 Thomas Williams, “Introduction to Classical Theism,” in eds. Jeanine Diller and Asa Kasher, Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities (New York: Springer, 2013), 95.

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of knowledge. In Confessions XI.17, Augustine is trying to figure out how a human person could see the future in order to prophesy since the future does not yet exist. In XI.18 he claims the future itself is not seen, but perhaps the signs or causes of presently existing objects are seen. Ultimately he leaves it as a mystery in XI.19, and prays for further guidance from God. In other writings Augustine continues his commitment to presentism as he investigates questions related to God’s omniscience and foreknowledge. One such question is about God’s knowledge of the created universe. Is God’s knowledge of the created universe dependent upon the existence of the created universe? Augustine says no. In On the Trinity 6.11 he says, “created things are not known by God because they have been made; it is rather the case that they have been made because they are immutably known by him.” In On Genesis 5.6 he says that God knows all things before He creates them, “they were in God’s knowledge, they were not in their own nature.” Peter Lombard adds to this that this is the way God knows things even after He creates them (Sentences I Dist. XXXV 9.1–2). In City of God XI.21, Augustine explains that God’s cognition is not like ours in that God does not “look forward to the future, see the present, and look back upon the past.” Instead, God’s mind does not pass from one thought to another. His vision is utterly unchangeable. Thus, He comprehends all that takes place in time—the not-yetexisting future, the existing present, and the no-longer-existing past—in an immutable and eternal present . . . His knowledge of what happens in time, like His movement of what changes in time, is completely independent of time.9

What we see here is not that all times are literally present to God in eternity since some times no longer exist, and other times do not yet exist. Instead, the truths about all times are present to God in His eternal mode of knowing. This is sometimes referred to as the eternality of truth. For Augustine, these eternal truths are ultimately grounded in the essence of God, and God knows these truths by having a perfect comprehension of His own essence (The Trinity XV.13.22). In Chapter 3, I showed Boethius’ commitment to presentism in his argument for, and articulation of, divine timelessness. However, Boethius’ claim that all of time is present to God has caused confusion over his ontology of time. What must be understood is that Boethius is working out the Augustinian claims about the mode of God’s knowledge and the eternality of truth. Just like Augustine, Boethius holds that God’s knowledge is not based upon the temporal universe. In the Consolations of Philosophy he makes this clear. “How absurd it is that we should say that the result of temporal affairs is the cause of eternal foreknowledge!” (V.147).

9

Author’s emphasis.

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Like Augustine, Boethius is committed to presentism. He writes that, “All that lives under the conditions of time moves through the present from the past to the future” (V.161). Elsewhere he speaks of the “now that flows away” that makes time.10 Yet Boethius continually makes the claim that all moments of time exist for God in His eternal now, which is why some think that he is committed to eternalism. What is often missed, however, is that he makes this claim with a careful qualification. “Since then all judgment apprehends the subjects of its thought according to its own nature, and God has a condition of ever-present eternity, His knowledge, which passes over every change of time, embracing infinite lengths of past and future, views in its own direct comprehension everything as though it were taking place in the present” (V.163).11 What is Boethius saying here? As John Marenbon explains, Boethius is making a claim about the mode of God’s knowledge.12 Everything has a mode of knowledge appropriate to its own nature. The mode of God’s knowledge is not based on a perception of created things. Instead, it is based on a perfect knowledge of the divine nature. To say that all of time exists in the eternal present is to make an epistemic claim about God, and not a claim about the ontology of time. It is not a claim that all times are literally present in eternity. God cannot “see” the future, since Boethius says that the future does not exist. Instead, God knows the future truths by having a perfect knowledge of Himself. So again, we see a commitment to the eternality of truth and the mode of God’s knowledge as selfknowledge. What we do not see is a commitment to an eternalist ontology of time. Allow me to skip ahead in history to Anselm since several contemporary thinkers claim that Anselm is an eternalist. Sandra Visser and Thomas Williams disagree with this eternalist interpretation of Anselm. They boldly proclaim that “Anselm is clearly and unequivocally a presentist.”13 Anselm certainly speaks in multiple places like a presentist. He speaks of “what has had a past existence but does not now exist, and a future existence but does not yet exist” (Proslogion 22). Yet in Proslogion 20 through 21 Anselm says things that sound like eternalism. It would be anachronistic, however, to read this passage as a commitment to eternalism. Anselm is working with a distinction in medieval philosophy between permanent and successive entities, and this distinction assumes presentism and endurantism. Permanent entities endure through time, but their lives can be conceptually divided into successive states/entities or temporal parts. These temporal parts are not extramental 10

As quoted by Aquinas in Summa Theologiae I.Q10.objection 1. Author’s emphasis. 12 Marenbon, “Boethius,” in eds. Graham Oppy and Nick Trakakis, The History of Western Philosophy of Religion Volume 2: Medieval Philosophy of Religion (Durham, NC: Acumen Publishing Limited, 2009), 22–30. 13 Sandra Visser and Thomas Williams, Anselm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 102. 11

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four-dimensional objects. They are conceptual divisions. (One may recall this discussion from Chapter 3, and the role it played in articulating divine timelessness.) The basic thrust of his argument is that existing as a whole, or all at once (endurance), is a perfection found in creatures. Thus, God must have this perfection and be an endurant permanent being. Another source of confusion in Anselm comes from De Concordia I.5. Here Anselm uses his presentism to articulate his doctrine of eternity. Eternity has “no past or future but only a present.” If Anselm were an eternalist, it would make little sense to continually make comparisons between our temporal present and God’s eternal present as he does. But the passage goes on to say that although in eternity there is only a present, nevertheless it is not a temporal present as ours is, only an eternal one in which all periods of time are contained. Indeed, just as our present time envelops every place and whatever is in every place, so in the eternal present all time is encompassed along with whatever exists at any time.

Anselm even says that all times “exist simultaneously in an eternal present” which is why some think that Anselm is an eternalist.14 However, I believe this to be a mistake because it ignores the context of the passage where Anselm continually expresses a commitment to presentism. He is talking about God’s knowledge and foreknowledge when he makes this claim. One of the problems for God’s foreknowledge that Anselm is trying to address here is that our actions and behaviors themselves are not everlasting because they do not always exist. How does God foreknow them if they do not always exist? This problem arises on presentism and not on eternalism. If Anselm were an eternalist he would not have this problem because the actions and behaviors of creatures would be co-eternal with God. (For more on this, see Chapter 6.) The problem of future actions not existing is consistent with a commitment to presentism since the future actions do not yet exist, but it is not consistent with eternalism. Anselm’s solution to the problem in De Concordia is consistent with the presentism that he explicitly endorses elsewhere. Anselm’s move in this chapter is that all truths about the past, present, and future exist in eternity immutably. It does not matter that the actions themselves do not exist in eternity. All that matters is that the truths exist. This is not a commitment to eternalism. It is a throwback to an Augustinian commitment to the eternality of truth.15

Rogers, “Back to Eternalism,” 324. Lesley-Anne Dyer, “Transcendent and Immanent Eternity in Anselm’s Monologion,” Filosofia Unisinos 11 (2010), 269–73. 14 15

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Thomas Aquinas has been accused by process theists of holding to eternalism in order to condemn his doctrine of the God–world relationship.16 Again, this is a mistake. Aquinas clearly speaks of the movable now which suggests presentism (Summa Theologiae I.Q10.a4). Yet, Aquinas also uses the metaphor of a man in a watchtower to explain God’s foreknowledge. The metaphor seems to indicate that God sees all moments of time simultaneously just as a man in a watchtower sees the whole of the land simultaneously. However, Aquinas does not intend this to imply that the past, present, and future are on an ontological par, though some have claimed this of Aquinas in order to condemn him or put him on the side of eternalism. Aquinas is a presentist.17 In Quaestiones Disputatae De Veritate QII.12 he writes of future contingents coming into existence. “Although a contingent is not determined as long as it is, future, yet, as soon as it is produced in the realm of nature, it has a determinate truth. It is in this way that the gaze of divine knowledge is brought upon it.” And a little later on he says, “Although a contingent does not exercise an act of existence as long as it is a future, as soon as it is present it has both existence and truth, and in this condition stands under the divine vision.” The idea in both of these statements is that future things do not exist as concrete objects until they become present. Aquinas goes on to say of God’s omniscience in De Veritate QII.12.ad4: although God’s knowledge does not change but always remains the same, the condition according to which a thing is referred to His knowledge does not always remain the same with respect to that knowledge. For a thing is related to God’s knowledge as it is in its own present existence, yet present existence does not always belong to it. Hence, we can consider the thing either together with its condition of being present or without it, and, consequently, we can consider it either in the manner in which it is referred to God’s knowledge or in some other manner.

Aquinas is endorsing presentism here. Even further, in QII.7–13 he considers several objections to God’s omniscience and immutability. Several of the objections assume presentism. For instance, one objection goes like this: Is it not the case that God’s knowledge changes from past, to present, to future? At one time, God knew that , but now God no longer knows this. Instead, God knows that . Another objection looks like this: A thing exists, then no longer exists. Can God know when something exists now? God’s knowledge of Himself cannot deliver knowledge of what currently exists.

Hans Kraml, “Eternity in Process Philosophies,” in God, Eternity, and Time. Kevin Staley, “Omniscience, Time, and Eternity: Is Aquinas Inconsistent?” Saint Anselm Journal 3 (2006), 9. 16 17

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Aquinas’ response is telling. He never rejects presentism, but instead assumes it as do the objections. In fact, he assumes presentism throughout the rest of the treatise to explicate various issues. (The same is true in Summa Contra Gentiles I.63 and following.) What Aquinas contends is that God’s knowledge does not change because of the divine mode of knowing. God’s knowledge is based upon a perfect knowledge of His own essence. It is not that God looks upon the world and sees what is presently occurring, and thus has something added to His knowledge. God already knows everything perfectly through knowledge of Himself. All truths are thus represented to God through His own essence. (De Veritate QII.13, 1.) In De Veritate QII.14 he makes this explicit. “It cannot be said, however, that what is known by God is the cause of His knowledge; for things are temporal and His knowledge is eternal, and what is temporal cannot be the cause of anything eternal.” Aquinas’ defense is that God’s knowledge is not based on the ever-changing temporal world. In considering these objections, Aquinas concedes that if this were the case, God’s knowledge would in fact change. Yet he denies that this is the case because God’s knowledge is based on His own immutable essence, so it cannot change. Another objection that Aquinas considers will further help make this issue come into focus. In De Veritate QII.3 he considers the following objection. “Whatever God knows He knows from eternity, since His knowledge does not vary. Now, whatever He knows is a being, for knowledge is only of being. Hence, whatever He knows existed from eternity. But no creature existed from eternity. Consequently, He knows no creature.” If Aquinas is an eternalist, he could respond by saying that all concrete objects exist eternally in the fourdimensional spacetime manifold. As we shall see in Chapter 6, Aquinas could agree with contemporary atemporalists and say that the universe is co-eternal with God. There is never a state of affairs where God exists without the eternalist universe. But Aquinas is not an eternalist. His response instead is that the objects do not have to exist in order for God to know them. “Although knowledge has only being for its object, it is not necessary that what is known should be a real being at the time in which it is known; for, just as we know things that are distant in place, we also know things distant in time, as is evident from our knowledge of things past. Hence, it is not inconsistent to affirm a knowledge of God that is about things that are not eternal” (De Veritate QII.3.12). A contemporary eternalist would most likely see this response from Aquinas and say that Aquinas has a grounding problem like every other presentist does with regard to truths about the past and the future. It is not clear to me that the Augustinian move that Aquinas makes here—which grounds these truths in the essence of God—is unable to meet the grounding objection to presentism. However, arguing this is beyond the scope of this book. It is merely worth pointing out that the medieval theologians might have resources

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for dealing with the grounding objection to presentism from within their own research program. Back to the present argument. Earlier I noted that process theists accuse Aquinas of holding to eternalism. Interestingly this criticism is not new. Around the time of Aquinas several theologians critical of his work falsely accused him of holding that eternity was simultaneous with past, present, and future as if all times were equally real. Shortly after Aquinas’ death, certain theologians, like William de la Mare, would argue that Aquinas held this so that they could condemn his views. A few seem to have taken up this line of interpretation and ran with it, but it faced obvious objections early on.18 The influence of de la Mare’s interpretation of Aquinas gained wide acceptance by Dominican and Franciscan theologians all the way up to the fourteenth century. Many theologians felt the need to refute this Thomistic position because of its obvious incoherence with the faith.19 For instance, John Duns Scotus felt the need to reject this Thomistic school of thought. The refutation was quite simple. God cannot co-exist, or stand in a causal relation, with nonexistent things. The present is the only moment of time that exists, so God’s eternal now cannot be simultaneously present with the non-existent past and the not-yet existent future.20 Scotus—like most prior to the nineteenth century—thinks that presentism is obviously true and formulates his theology accordingly. Further, Scotus continues to affirm the Augustinian line with regard to God’s knowledge. God’s knowledge is not based on created things, but is based on a perfect understanding of His own essence.21 This alleged Thomistic confusion persisted throughout the Reformation and Enlightenment. I am not certain how many people—if any—actually held the view that God’s eternity literally contains the past, present, and future. My uncertainty that anyone actually held this view is due to a particular interpretation of this claim within Thomistic thought. Luis de Molina in Concordia IV, Disp. 48, follows one Thomistic tradition that holds that objects exist eternally and temporally. Everything exists in eternity, and in time. There is the concrete Adam that exists in eternity, and the concrete Adam that exists in time. Molina goes on to say that this is the view of not only Aquinas, but also Anselm, Boethius, and Augustine. This particular interpretation goes

18 See John Marenbon, “Medieval Metaphysics II: Things, non-things, God and Time,” in eds. Robin le Poidevin, Peter Simons, Andrew McGonigal, and Ross P. Cameron, The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics (New York: Routledge, 2009), 65. 19 Harm J.M.J. Goris, Free Creatures of an Eternal God: Thomas Aquinas on God’s Infallible Foreknowledge and Irresistible Will (Utrecht: Thomas Instituut te Utrecht, 1996), 242. 20 John Duns Scotus, Contingency and Freedom: Lectura I 39, trans. A. Vos Jaczn, H. Veldhuis, A. H. Looman-Graaskamp, E. Dekker, and N. W. Den Bok (London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994), 82–6 and 174–8. 21 Scotus, Contingency and Freedom, 142ff, and 188.

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back to the sixteenth-century Thomistic commentator Cajetan.22 The claim would not be that eternalism is true of time. Instead the claim would be that somehow there are concrete counterparts of ourselves that exist in God’s eternal present. This is a bizarre claim, but it does not lend support to eternalism. The theologians who held this view still thought that a presentist ontology of the temporal order is true. Again, it is not clear that anyone prior to the nineteenth century actually held the view that all times are literally present to God.23 At the very least, theologians and philosophers felt the need to mention it in order to refute the notion. For instance, in Henry More’s Divine Dialogues from 1668 a group of individuals are engaged in a dialogue about theology. Hylobares objects to the notion of divine eternity since it entails a contradiction. That it is an essential presence of all things with God, as well of things past, present, as to come; and that the Duration of God is all of it, as it were, in one steddy [sic] and permanent . . . Instant at once . . . For what can be more contradictious, then that all things should have been really and essentially with God from all Eternity at once, and yet be born in time and succession?24

Hylobares’ dialogue partner Philotheus quickly rebukes Hylobares for being uncharitable. Then Philotheus responds in a similar fashion to that of Scotus. That the whole Evolution of Times and Ages from everlasting to everlasting is so collectedly and presentifickly [sic] represented to God at once, as if all things and Actions which ever were, are, or shall be, were at this very Instant, and so always, really present and existent before him . . . [The divine mind comprehends] the Ideas of all Things and Ages at once in the Intellect of God.25

The claim is that God comprehends all things in eternity because all things in time are “represented” to God at once. The things themselves do not exist in eternity, just a representation of them in the divine intellect. It should also be noted that the representation of things in time maintains the proper temporal topology even though it exists eternally in the mind of God. In other words, from all eternity God knows the order of events that take place in time.26 After hearing all of this Hylobares concedes that his objection has been refuted and says, “I am half ashamed I ever propounded it.”27 In the quote from Philotheus, I emphasized the “as if ” clause. The “as if ” clause is an important point for clarity on this issue, and it can be found in 22 Cf. John Marenbon, “Medieval Metaphysics II: Things, non-things, God and Time,” in The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics, 65. 23 Accept, possibly, John Wycliffe. See footnote 1. 24 Henry More, Divine Dialogues (London: James Flesher, 1668), 57–8. 25 More, Divine Dialogues, 60. Author’s emphasis. 26 More, Divine Dialogues, 61–70. Cf. James Arminius, 25 Public Disputations, Disputation IV.XXXIII–XXXIV. 27 More, Divine Dialogues, 72.

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several other theologians from this time period. Earlier I noted that Boethius uses a similar qualifying clause, but it does not seem that many subsequent theologians felt the need to emphasize this qualification until de la Mare. It appears that de la Mare emphasized this qualifying clause in order to show that Aquinas was clearly in the wrong. However, some Thomistic commentators contend that Aquinas also made this qualification.28 Regardless, various theologians and philosophers after Aquinas go to greater lengths to emphasize this “as if ” clause so as to avoid any confusion about the nature of time, eternity, and omniscience. A contemporary of Henry More, Stephen Charnocke, stresses the same point. Charnocke, like the dialogue partners in More, holds that God exists without beginning, without end, and without succession. In God’s eternity there is neither flux nor change.29 The things of the world are in time and thus undergo change and succession. This succession does not cause a change in God’s knowledge because God does not see things in time. God’s knowledge is not based on what occurs in time. Instead, God knows all that occurs in time by having a perfect knowledge of Himself. “He doth not know one thing now, and another anon; He sees all things at once.” God still knows the true temporal order of things even though He knows all of this at once. God knows time, he knows all things as they are in time; He doth not know all things to be at once, though he knows at once what is, has been, and will be. All things are past, present, and to come in regard of their Existence; but there is not past, present and to come in regard to God’s Knowledge of them; because he sees and knows not by any other, but by himself; He is his own Light by which he sees, his own Glass wherein he sees; beholding himself, he beholds all things.30

If one were still uncertain about this, Charnocke drives home the point again. If God be eternal, he knows all things as present. All things are present to him in his Eternity; for this is the notion of Eternity, to be without succession. If Eternity be one indivisible point, and is not diffused into preceding and succeeding parts, then that which is known in it or by it, is perceived without any succession; For knowledge is as the substance of the person knowing; if that hath various actions and distinct from itself, then it understands things in differences of time as time presents them to view: But, since Gods Being depends not upon the revolutions of time, so neither doth his Knowledge; it exceeds all motions of years and days, comprehends infinite spaces of past and future. God considers all things in his Eternity in one simple knowledge, as if they were now acted before him.31

28 29 30 31

Goris, Free Creatures of an Eternal God, 242–6. Charnocke, Attributes of God, 182ff. Charnocke, Attributes of God, 186. Charnocke, Attributes of God, 192. Author’s emphasis.

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Charnocke’s claims here echo those of the medieval theologians, and yet it also contains the “as if ” clause that is an important point of clarification strongly emphasized in this time period. In the eighteenth century Samuel Clarke also felt the need to address this confusion about the claim that all moments of time exist in eternity, even though he denies divine timelessness. The true notion of divine eternity does not consist in making past things to be still present and things future to be already come, which is an express contradiction. But it consists in this (and in this it infinitely transcends the manner of existence of all created beings, even of those which shall continue for ever): that whereas their finite minds can by no means comprehend all that is past or understand perfectly the things that are present, much less know or have in their power the things that are to come (but their thoughts and knowledge and power, must of necessity have degrees and periods, and be successive and transient as the things themselves); the eternal, supreme cause, on the contrary, has such a perfect, independent, and unchangeable comprehension of all things that in every point or instant of his eternal duration all things past, present, and to come must be, not indeed themselves present at once (for that is a manifest contradiction), but they must be as entirely known and represented to him in one single thought or view, and all things present and future be as absolutely under his power and direction as if there were really no succession at all, and as if all things had been (not that they really are) actually present at once.32

Clarke’s statement here exemplifies the clarity that theologians had been striving for with regard to this issue. A quick summary is in order before moving on. When the Christian tradition says that all moments are present to God in eternity—at least with regard to God’s omniscience—it is not meant to say something about the ontology of time. Rather it is saying something about God’s mode of cognition. Namely, that God knows the eternal truths, or the divine ideas, from all eternity.33 God’s mode of cognition is not based upon His perception of times and events, but rather based on His direct apprehension of His own essence. As the medievals would say, God has a perfect knowledge of Himself and thus knows all things. In this way one can say that all times are present to God in eternity because it is true that from all eternity God knows all eternal truths. Thus, the tradition did not have eternalism in view, nor would a classical theologian think eternalism necessary in order to make sense of God’s omniscience. 32 Samuel Clarke, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God and Other Writings (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 138, author’s emphasis. Cf. one of Clarke’s influences, Pierre Gassendi, Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana, or, A Fabrick of Science Natural, Upon the Hypothesis of Atoms founded by Epicurus, Repaired by Petrus Gassendus, Augmented by Walter Charleton (London: Tho. Newcomb, 1654), 81–2. 33 Garrett J. DeWeese, God and the Nature of Time (Burlington, VY: Ashgate, 2004), 132–3.

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None of this demonstrates that God’s knowledge of the future is in fact possible on presentism. It merely shows that the majority of Christians in the past saw no reason to posit the existence of the future in order to explain God’s foreknowledge. If one wishes to argue that classical Christians should have held to eternalism in order to maintain divine omniscience, one is free to do so. It would be anachronistic to say that classical Christians did believe in eternalism. This is because the majority of Christians in the past were presentists and used presentism to articulate their theological doctrines. They never made statements like, “It only appears from our perspective that the present is the only moment that exists, but from the divine perspective all of time exists.” Instead they make direct inferences from the fact of presentism to claims about God’s eternal present.

DOES GOD’ S KNOWLEDGE CHANGE WITH CREATION? As discussed earlier, there is an obvious objection that arises from the combination of presentism, timelessness, and omniscience, and the objection remains today. In our day it is often argued that a timeless God cannot know what time it is now if presentism is true.34 The idea is that a timeless God cannot know when it is now since that would require a constant change in God’s knowledge. This objection only works if the research program in view has a particular understanding of omniscience and a commitment to presentism. It seems that most in the classical Christian tradition would not find this argument to be a serious threat to their research program since it assumes that God’s knowledge is based upon, or dependent upon, the existence of the concrete particulars of creation. Certain classical theologians would see this as a mistake. God, they say, has a perfect knowledge of Himself. His knowledge is in no way dependent upon creatures. There is no knowledge to be gained from the concrete particulars of creation other than the knowledge that God already eternally possesses. I will call this the Augustinian Option. Another strand of classical thought takes this argument differently because it holds that there is knowledge to be gained from the concrete particulars of creation. I will call this the Thomist Option. In what follows, I shall examine each option, and 34 William Lane Craig, “Divine Eternity,” in eds. Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 159–60. John Philoponus seems to have offered this argument against Proclus. See his Against Proclus On the Eternity of the World 12–18, trans. James Wilberding (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 2006), 74–81. Interestingly, divine temporalists from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, like Samuel Clarke, Pierre Gassendi, and Thomas Hobbes, did not offer this objection. They seem to agree with what I shall call the Augustinian position.

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seek to demonstrate the difficulties that arise from presentism for the divine timeless research program.

The Augustinian Option As stated earlier, this group of theologians holds that God knows all things that occur in time, but His knowledge is not based upon the temporal objects.35 According to Augustine, human persons gain knowledge when new events occur in time. Not so with God. “God does not see in time, nor does anything new happen in his sight or his knowledge when some temporal and transitory action is performed” (The Trinity XII.10). Human persons can only experience things one moment at a time. The divine persons of the Trinity, however, see everything “all at once, not bit by bit” (The Trinity XV.23). God’s cognition is not like ours in that God does not “look forward to the future, see the present, and look back upon the past.” As mentioned earlier, God’s mind does not pass from one thought to another. His vision is utterly unchangeable. Thus, He comprehends all that takes place in time—the not-yetexisting future, the existing present, and the no-longer-existing past—in an immutable and eternal present . . . His knowledge of what happens in time, like His movement of what changes in time, is completely independent of time. (City of God XI.21)36

In order to properly understand the Augustinian option, one must note a distinction made between divine and human modes of cognition. Augustine distinguishes divine and human ways of knowing as follows. He holds that human persons acquire beliefs in three basic ways. First, we can know things through self-perception or knowing ourselves. We can reflect on ourselves, our own consciousness, and come to know a whole host of things like and . Second, we come to know things through bodily sensations or bodily perceptions. We can look around and see trees and thus know that . Third, we come to know things by testimony. Augustine points out that most of our beliefs are dependent upon the testimony of others. Through testimony we come to know that other places and people exist, we learn history and daily news, and we learn about our birth and parents (The Trinity XV.3.21). When it comes to God’s knowledge, Augustine says that we do not hold that God knows things through the testimony of others or through bodily perception. Instead God knows all

35 36

Cf. Nicholas Malebranche’s Dialogues on Metaphysics, dialogue 8. Author’s emphasis.

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things through self-perception—by having a perfect knowledge of Himself. God is simple so His knowledge is His substance (The Trinity XV.13.22). How does this shed light on our question? Does God’s knowledge change with creation? The Augustinian wishes to maintain that since God’s knowledge is not dependent upon changeable created things, God’s knowledge is not changeable. The object of God’s knowledge is God’s own immutable essence, so His knowledge is also immutable. Yet the temporalist will say that the issue has not been fully resolved. It still seems that a timeless God cannot know when it is now, nor what presently exists without undergoing some sort of change of knowledge. Grant the Augustinian the claim that God’s knowledge is not dependent upon the created universe, but is instead based upon a perfect comprehension of the divine essence. The temporalist might push back and say that God’s knowledge must surely grow as time unfolds. As new things come into existence, it would seem that God’s knowledge must increase as He becomes acquainted with His newly existent creatures. For instance, the proposition was not always true, but became true when Socrates came into existence. The Augustinian will be quick to remind us that God’s knowledge is not based upon created objects. The temporalist can happily concede this at this point in the dialectic. The temporalist can grant that God’s knowledge is not based upon Socrates, but is instead based upon God’s action of sustaining Socrates in existence. Given divine simplicity, God’s sustaining action is identical to His substance, so God’s knowledge is once again based upon Himself. The temporalist will once again press upon the Augustinian. Even if God’s knowledge is not dependent upon the creature itself, it still seems like some new knowledge is to be gained as God comes to sustain Socrates in existence. As omniscient, God must know all true propositions. It seems to follow that God should know the proposition as well as , but these are not propositions that have always been true. Propositions like these change their truth-value over time, and an omniscient God must surely know such things. But this would entail God’s knowledge changing as certain propositions become true. God’s knowledge would increase as He comes to know true propositions that He did not formerly know. When there is new knowledge to gain, God must surely come to know it. If God’s knowledge increases in this way, God cannot be timeless. Augustine would not find this as a reason for rejecting divine timelessness because He thinks that there is no new knowledge to be gained as time unfolds, and new created concrete particulars come into existence. God’s knowledge thus remains immutable as time unfolds. According to Augustine, God’s knowledge does not increase as creatures come into existence. He does not “become acquainted with them, so as to know them, at any definite time” because He has eternally and immutably known them before they came to be. God does not know created things “because they are, but that they are because

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he knows them. He was not ignorant of what he was going to create. Nor did he know them as created otherwise than as to be created; nothing accrued to his wisdom from them, but when they came into existence as required, it remained just as it had been” (The Trinity XV.13.22). The move from Augustine seems to be an appeal to the eternal truths or divine ideas. The eternal forms or ideas exist in the mind of God. Since God is simple, His mind is identical to Himself. God has a perfect knowledge of Himself and all that He can create and will create. Augustine in The Trinity VI.11 claims that the almighty and wise God [is] full of all the living and unchanging ideas, which are all one in it, as it is one from the one with whom it is one. In this art God knows all things that he has made through it, and so when times come and go, nothing comes and goes for God’s knowledge. For all these created things around us are not known by God because they have been made; it is rather, surely, that even changeable things have been made because they are unchangeably known by him.

The claim is that creation adds nothing to God’s knowledge for He already had, or rather eternally has, a perfect knowledge of everything through the divine ideas (Lombard, Sentences I Dist. XXXIX).37 The way that God knows things that do not yet exist, is the exact same way that He knows things that do exist—that is, through a perfect knowledge of the divine ideas/Himself (Lombard, Sentences I Dist. XXXV). When things that do not exist come to exist, there is no new knowledge to be gained. So, according to the Augustinian, the temporalist argument that God’s knowledge will increase as time unfolds is a failure. There is no new knowledge to be gained by God for He eternally knows it all. The temporalist will not find this persuasive because she will say that there is new knowledge to be gained when created concrete particulars come into existence. This is so for several reasons. First, the proposition changes its truth-value when Socrates comes into existence. That is certainly something new to know. God cannot eternally know if presentism is true because Socrates began to exist at a particular point in time. Socrates does not share co-eternal existence with God. However, there is a possible rejoinder to this temporalist worry. Perhaps the Augustinian can say that it is enough that God knows the tenseless truth . God need not know the tensed propositions related to the existence of Socrates because the truth-conditions for the tensed propositions are grounded in tenseless propositions. A temporalist might complain that this is incompatible with the classical theist’s commitment 37

Cf. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1984), 66.

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to presentism, but that is not obvious. A presentist can hold to an ersatz B-theory where tensed propositions are dealt with in a similar way as the B-theorist would, but without adopting an eternalist ontology.38 Yet this will not be enough to convince the divine temporalist for the temporalist can claim that there is still new knowledge to be gained. On a presentist ersatz B-theory, times are treated as abstract, proposition-like objects that stand in earlier than and later than relations. On this version of presentism, all abstract times exist, but only one time is actual or concrete. Propositions that are true at the present are true simpliciter, and propositions that are not are true-at-a-time tx.39 This theory has lots of interesting implications, but one is relevant for our present discussion. There is a truth of the matter as to which time is present/concrete. Which time is concrete is constantly changing, and this is not something that can be explained away by appeal to an ersatz B-theory. The proposition changes its truth-value over time. If God is going to be omniscient, God will need to know which times are concrete and which are abstract. That will require God’s knowledge constantly changing. It is not something that God can immutably know. Perhaps God can immutably know that , but that is not the same as knowing that simpliciter. There is new knowledge to be gained as time unfolds, and so it would seem that the Augustinian has not properly dispelled the problem. The Thomistic option adds some conceptual machinery, so perhaps it can better handle the objection than the Augustinian.

The Thomist Option Aquinas’ position seems to be somewhat different than the Augustinian position according to standard interpretations of this school of thought.40 Just like the Augustinians, Aquinas agrees in certain places that God’s knowledge is not based upon temporal things. In De Veritate QII.14 he writes, “It cannot be said, however, that what is known by God is the cause of His knowledge; for things are temporal and His knowledge is eternal, and what is temporal cannot be the cause of anything eternal.” He agrees that God’s knowledge is first and per se of Himself. God knows all things by having a perfect timeless knowledge of Himself (Summa Contra Gentiles, I.45–54).41 Joshua Rasmussen, “Presentists May Say Goodbye to A-Properties,” Analysis 72 (2012). Craig Bourne, A Future for Presentism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 52–69. 40 Harm Goris, “Divine Foreknowledge, Providence, Predestination, and Human Freedom,” in eds. Rik Van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow, The Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 111. 41 Cf. Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names VII. 38 39

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Aquinas adds an extra caveat to explain God’s perfect and complete knowledge. For Aquinas, if one has a perfect knowledge of a cause, one will have a perfect knowledge of its effect. God is the cause of all things, so He has a perfect knowledge of all things by knowing the cause of all things—that is, Himself.42 Since God’s power is His essence, given divine simplicity, He has a perfect knowledge of all that He can produce. Further, God is pure act, so He has a perfect knowledge of what He does in fact produce. All truths are thus represented to God through His own essence (De Veritate QII.13, 1). This is what the Thomists call natural or simple knowledge.43 Apart from this caveat, there seems to be another Thomistic departure from the Augustinians. Aquinas seems to disagree with the Augustinians over God’s knowledge of concrete particulars. The Augustinians seem to hold that God does not have knowledge of concrete particulars as they are in themselves because such knowledge would not add anything to God’s eternal knowledge. Aquinas disagrees and argues that God in fact does have knowledge of concrete particulars as they are in themselves in time. Why? One reason is that humans have knowledge of concrete particulars that occur in time. God’s cognitive power is greater than humans, so He must have this knowledge too. If God is perfect in knowledge, He must have knowledge of these things. Otherwise He would be foolish (Summa Contra Gentiles I.65). In several places Aquinas deals with an objection to God’s omniscience from concrete particulars, or as he would say, singulars. Earlier I noted an objection in De Veritate QII.7 that looks like this. A thing exists, then no longer exists. Can God know when something exists now? God’s knowledge of Himself cannot deliver knowledge of what currently exists. In Summa Contra Gentiles I.63 one of the objections goes as follows. “Singulars are not always. Either therefore they are always known by God, or they are known at one time and unknown at another. The first is impossible, since about what is not there can be no knowledge, which is always about true things, and things which are not cannot be true. The second is also impossible, because the knowledge of the divine intellect is altogether unchangeable.” The problem underlying both of these objections is that concrete particulars only exist at the present. In the first objection, the difficulty is whether God can know what currently exists without undergoing change. In the second, the difficulty is against the very possibility of an immutable God knowing concrete particulars because they only exist at the present.

42 W. J. Hankey, God in Himself: Aquinas’ Doctrine of God as Expounded in the Summa Theologiae (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 97. 43 Thomas P. Flint, “Two Accounts of Providence,” in ed. Michael C. Rea, Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology Volume II: Providence, Scripture, and Resurrection (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 21.

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Aquinas could affirm, like most before him, that God’s knowledge consists only of Himself and the representations of things in the divine ideas, and not of the concrete particulars themselves. Thus, God’s immutable knowledge would not need to undergo any change by knowing the concrete particulars. But Aquinas is not content with this in some of his writings. He wishes to go further and say that “the divine knowledge extends to singulars as existing in themselves” (Summa Contra Gentiles I.66). How can he do this? The strategy seems to be an appeal to God’s knowledge of vision. By knowledge of vision God knows what has existed, currently or presently exists, and what will exist.44 One of the issues Aquinas tackles is about God’s knowledge of non-existent things. For instance, the future does not yet exist. Can God’s natural knowledge deliver knowledge of non-existents? Aquinas says yes. An astronomer can know a future eclipse before it happens. A craftsman can know what he will make even before he has made it because the craftsman has knowledge of what he—the cause—will do. The idea is that God too has this knowledge, but in a perfect way. God is the cause of all, so by knowing the cause/Himself, He has a perfect knowledge of every effect (Summa Contra Gentiles I.66). Yet, the temporalist will complain that this is not sufficient to give God knowledge of what presently exists in such a way that God will remain immutable. How can God have a timeless knowledge of the concrete particulars that exist in time? As stated earlier, God’s knowledge of vision gives God knowledge of what has existed, currently exists, and will exist. Aquinas’ answer is that the present moment of time syncs up with eternity such that God’s knowledge of vision provides God knowledge of what currently exists.45 Aquinas explains as follows. “There is no succession in God’s act of understanding, any more than there is in His existence. Hence it is all at once everlasting, which belongs to the essence of eternity, whereas the duration of time is drawn out by the succession of before and after.” Now “since the being of the eternal never fails, eternity synchronizes with every time or instant of time,” much like the point of the circumference of a circle. Accordingly whatever exists in any part of time, is coexistent with the eternal as though present thereto, although in relation to another part of time it is present or future. Now a thing cannot be present to, and coexistent with, the eternal, except with the whole eternal, since this has no successive duration. Therefore whatever happens throughout the whole course of time is seen as present by the divine intellect in its eternity. And yet that which is done in some part of time was not always in existence. It remains therefore that God has knowledge of those

44 Joseph P. Wawrykow, The Westminster Handbook to Thomas Aquinas (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), 82–3. 45 Cf. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology III.xi.8–9.

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things which are not as yet in relation to the course of time. (Summa Contra Gentiles I.66)46

A quick comment is in order before proceeding with Aquinas’ solution. Some might misinterpret this passage as a commitment to eternalism because it states that God has knowledge of all moments of time. In fact, Harm J. M. J. Goris notes that it is passages like this that led de la Mare and others to misinterpret Aquinas. Goris insists that Aquinas is a presentist, but concedes that Aquinas’ language is ambiguous at times.47 What must be understood is that this statement above from Aquinas is made in the middle of a chapter called “That God Knows the Things That Are Not.” One of the main issues is how God can know non-existent things like the past and the future. After Aquinas states the argument from which the quote is taken, he concludes that God knows “not-beings” or non-existent things. Further, in his next chapter, 67, he states, “the vision of the divine intellect from eternity sees each thing that happens in time as though it were present, as we have shown above.”48 This being the case, it would not be wise to interpret Aquinas as holding that the past and future are on the same ontological par with the present. With that in mind, we can proceed with Aquinas’ strategy. Aquinas, and others, hold that the present is co-existent with eternity.49 As the Protestant scholastic Francis Turretin explains, all times co-exist with eternity without being co-existent with each other. “Thus the past, while it was, coexisted in eternity, the present now coexists with it, and the future will coexist with it.”50 How does this help with God’s knowledge of the present? Aquinas continues his argument in Summa Contra Gentiles I.66 as follows. On the other hand things which to us are present, past, or future, are known to God as being not only in His power, but also in their respective causes, and in themselves. Of such things God is said to have knowledge of vision, because God sees the existence of things which, in relation to us, are not as yet, not only in their causes but also in themselves, in as much as His eternity is by its indivisibility present to all time.51

This is not clear, but the argument seems to be this. God knows things that are past, present, and future as they are represented in His power. He also knows them by knowing the cause of all things, which is God Himself. Yet, when it comes to knowing the concrete particulars in themselves He knows them when they are present because He is the cause of their existence. Further, Aquinas adds that God knows the concrete particulars in themselves in

46

47 Author’s emphasis. Goris, Free Creatures of an Eternal God, 244. Author’s emphasis. 49 Rory Fox, Time and Eternity in Mid-Thirteenth-Century Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 89–91. 50 51 Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology III.xi.8–9. Author’s emphasis. 48

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addition to knowing their cause. Again, God knows things “not only in His power, but also in their respective causes, and in themselves” (Summa Theologiae I.Q14.a11). A problem arises here for the Thomist. The present co-exists with eternity, and God knows the present by knowledge of vision. One may wonder how Thomists can maintain that God is immutable. Since the present is constantly changing, new moments of time are constantly coming into being and coexisting with eternity, then no longer co-existing with eternity as they cease to exist. Further, God’s knowledge of vision will constantly be changing since He will constantly be aware of new concrete particulars. Recall from earlier in this chapter Aquinas’ discussion in De Veritate QII.12, where he writes of future contingents coming into existence. “Although a contingent is not determined as long as it is, future, yet, as soon as it is produced in the realm of nature, it has a determinate truth. It is in this way that the gaze of divine knowledge is brought upon it.” And a little later on he says, “Although a contingent does not exercise an act of existence as long as it is a future, as soon as it is present it has both existence and truth, and in this condition stands under the divine vision.” The idea in both of these statements is that future things do not exist as concrete objects until they become present. When they become present, a proposition about them becomes true. Consider again the case of Socrates. In Thomistic terms, when Socrates becomes present he begins to exist, and the proposition begins to be true. When this occurs, it comes under the gaze of God’s knowledge of vision. The knowledge of vision seems to clearly imply succession, though Thomists will deny this. In order to see that knowledge of vision implies succession, consider the way Aquinas deals with God’s knowledge of infinite things. In Summa Contra Gentiles I.69, Aquinas argues that God knows infinite things. One difficulty is that the infinite cannot be counted or traversed. God, says Aquinas, lacks succession, so He can know the infinite without having to traverse the infinite. God knows infinite things all at once from all eternity. “God does not know infinite things by His knowledge of vision, to use the expression employed by others, because the infinite neither is, nor was, nor will be actual.” The knowledge of vision here is about temporal succession, and one cannot reach actual infinity through succession. Instead, God “knows the infinite number by His knowledge of simple intelligence. For God knows the infinite number of things that neither are, nor will be, nor have been, and nevertheless are in the power of a creature. He knows also the infinite things that are in His power, that neither are, nor have been, nor shall be.” God’s simple, or natural, knowledge deals with knowledge of all that is possible, whereas God’s knowledge of vision deals with things that have been, are, and will be. The contrast clearly seems to be between knowledge that involves temporally successive things and knowledge that does not.

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I take it that the Thomist will continue to insist that God’s perfect knowledge of Himself is not increased in any way by God’s knowledge of vision of temporally successive things. But that seems less than obvious, for Aquinas asserts that by knowledge of vision God knows the concrete particulars as they are in themselves. If God has a knowledge of concrete particulars as they are in themselves, His knowledge will constantly be increasing as new concrete particulars come into existence for God to know. This is something a timeless God cannot do. How is the Thomist to respond? There is an unfortunate ambiguity and tension in Aquinas’ thought here. W. J. Hankey points out that in some places Aquinas says that God only has a knowledge of Himself. For instance, in Summa Theologiae I.Q14.a15, he deals with the objection that God’s knowledge must be variable since God knows what occurs in time. Thomas does not mention God’s knowledge of vision here, but says that all of God’s knowledge is knowledge of His own substance. As Hankey explains, on this account the existence of a thing has a truer existence in the divine intellect, so God’s knowledge is perfect by knowing His own intellect. God would somehow know things as they are in themselves by knowing the divine ideas. This would be the Augustinian claim articulated earlier where the existence of created concrete particulars does not add anything new to God’s knowledge. However, Hankey also points out that in other places Aquinas says that things have a truer existence outside of the divine intellect.52 Hence, as noted earlier, for God to be omniscient, He would have to know things as they are in themselves through knowledge of vision. That type of knowledge would certainly add to God’s natural knowledge. It seems, then, that God’s knowledge of concrete particulars in themselves causes problems for divine timelessness because God’s knowledge of vision is in constant flux as new concrete particulars come into existence. An Augustinian might claim that she does not have this problem for she denies that things have a truer existence outside of the divine intellect. However, this seems implausible. A created thing cannot have a truer existence in the divine intellect for the simple fact that a created thing is not identical to a divine idea. I am identical to myself and no other. I am not a divine idea. The divine ideas exist necessarily, and I exist contingently. So I am not identical to a divine idea. However great God’s knowledge and understanding of a divine idea is, it is not the same as knowledge of me. There is a distinction between knowledge de dicto and knowledge de re that is relevant here. Knowledge de dicto is propositional knowledge, or knowledge that. Knowledge de re is first-hand knowledge, or experiential knowledge, of a thing. Allow me to illustrate this distinction. I have some de dicto knowledge

52

Hankey, God in Himself, 97–106.

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about Augustine. I have read many of his works, and various secondary sources about his life. However, I do not have de re knowledge of Augustine. I have never met the guy. If, Lord willing, I am able to meet Augustine after the resurrection of the dead, I will gain new knowledge about him. I will have experienced him first-hand. Here is where this is relevant to the present conversation. Perhaps the Augustinian can maintain that the divine ideas give God perfect knowledge de dicto about me, but she cannot plausibly maintain that this will give God a perfect knowledge de re of me. Knowing a divine idea is not the same as knowing me because a divine idea is not me. So whatever “truer existence” this divine idea might have, it is not me, and thus cannot deliver a perfect knowledge of me. So it seems the Thomist has good reason to part ways with the Augustinian here. If the Thomist does say that created concrete particulars have a truer existence outside of the divine intellect, it would seem that God would be lacking a particular kind of knowledge until concrete particulars come into existence. The divine temporalist would agree with the Thomist on this point. However, the temporalist maintains that God’s knowledge would then grow as time unfolds. For instance, it would seem that God would come to have knowledge de dicto that when Socrates comes into existence. Further, God would come to have knowledge de re as things come into existence. It is one thing to know the divine ideas perfectly, but it is altogether something different to know a created concrete particular as it is in itself. If God is maximally cognitively excellent, He will have knowledge of concrete particulars as they are in themselves. Granting God this type of knowledge, however, makes God temporal for what concrete particulars presently exist is in constant flux, and God cannot know concrete particulars as they are in themselves unless they exist. There are two possible ways that I am aware of for the Thomist to avoid this problem. First, the Thomist could simply deny that created concrete particulars have a truer existence outside of the divine intellect. All God needs to know is the cause of created things (Himself) in order to have a perfect knowledge of created things. The Thomist will have to argue that there is no new knowledge to gain when a created thing comes into existence. However, it certainly seems like there is a difference between knowing a divine idea, and knowing a concrete particular in itself. It certainly seems like there is a difference between knowing the cause of a concrete particular, and knowing the concrete particular as it is in itself. The Thomist will have to explain away these seemings. There is a second possible way for the Thomist to remove this problem. One could deny presentism and adopt eternalism. On this theory of time there is no objective present for all moments of time are on an ontological par. Thus, God’s knowledge of temporal things would not be in constant flux. This will be

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discussed at length in Chapter 6. For now it is worth noting that those who are not willing to get rid of presentism from their research program will not be able to make this move. As it stands, any Christian research program that holds to divine timelessness and presentism has a serious conflict between omniscience and knowledge of the present. An atemporalist will most likely have to defend some version of the Augustinian option in order to assuage this difficulty. In other words, God’s mode of knowledge is such that it is completely independent, and not subject to the vicissitudes, of time. In Chapter 5, however, I shall argue that this will be of little help. For some, the Augustinian option may appear to avoid this difficulty, but it only does so by setting aside the systematic connections between omniscience, omnipresence, and divine sustaining. As we shall see in Chapter 5, once those systematic connections are brought into view, the problems for divine timelessness become more difficult to avoid.

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5 Presentism, Creation, and the Timeless God In Chapter 4 I argued that the classical tradition was, historically, committed to presentism. There I looked at the difficulties that arise for timelessness, omniscience, and presentism. In this chapter I shall examine the problems that arise for the divine timeless research program from presentism and creation. As we shall see, classical Christian thinkers in the past were aware of these issues. What I shall do in this chapter is examine the ways that classical Christians in the past have dealt with the problems that arise from presentism and divine timelessness with regard to creation. I shall argue that their solutions to the problems are not successful, and that presentism is not compatible with the divine timeless research program. This is an important task because many contemporary Christian thinkers have not properly understood what they are getting involved in when they seek to defend or deny the classical Christian doctrine of God and the God–world relationship. Further, understanding the problems discussed in this chapter will help one understand the pitfalls that contemporary proponents of the classical Christian tradition wish to avoid by adopting four-dimensional eternalism. The two main problems to be discussed in this chapter are as follows. First, the timeless God cannot create a presentist temporal universe out of nothing. Second, the timeless God cannot sustain a presentist universe in existence. I shall first lay out some of the initial worries that arise from creation ex nihilo and sustaining. Then I shall offer an examination of John Philoponus’ attempt to solve these problems. I shall argue that Philoponus has failed to solve the problems. From there I shall consider one prominent proposal from classical theology that seeks to circumvent these problems. The proposal is that God is not really related to creation.1 I shall argue that this is a proposal that Christians cannot accept. 1 It should be noted that a good number of contemporary theologians continue to affirm that God is not really related to creation. However, there has been very little work done to advance the discussion beyond that offered by Aquinas. Cf. Thomas G. Weinandy, Does God Suffer? (Notre

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THE TIMELESS CREATOR In On the Catholic Faith, Boethius proclaims, “this our religion which is called Christian and Catholic is founded chiefly on the following assertions. From all eternity, that is, before the world was established, and so before all that is meant by time began, there has existed one divine substance of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in such wise that we confess the Father God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God, and yet not three Gods but one God.” He goes on to say, “The divine nature then, abiding from all eternity and unto all eternity without any change, by the exercise of a will known only to Himself, determined of Himself to form the world, and brought it into being when it was absolutely naught.” John Philoponus agrees. “God, since he is the creator of time, must create timelessly.” If God is immutable, simple, and timeless, His creative action cannot cause a change in God. “The creative activity of God is instantaneous.”2 John of Damascus concurs as well. “For the creation, even though it originated later, is nevertheless not derived from the essence of God, but brought into existence out of nothing by His will and power, and change does not touch God’s nature” (Orthodox Faith I.7). As noted, most Christians have traditionally held the relational theory of time. If there is a change, there is a time. Since God cannot undergo any change, He must be timeless. In City of God XI.6, Augustine explains as follows: there could have been no time had not a creature been made whose movement would effect some change. It is because the parts of this motion and change cannot be simultaneous, since one part must follow another, that, in these shorter or longer intervals of duration, time begins. Now, since God, in whose eternity there is absolutely no change, is the Creator and Ruler of time, I do not see how we can say that He created the world after a space of time had elapsed unless we admit, also, that previously some creature had existed whose movements would mark the course of time.

Augustine is here expressing a commitment to the relational theory of time and divine immutability. He is also expressing his commitment to the notion that time began with creation. This is something Augustine explores further in Confessions XI, and many subsequent Christian thinkers follow suit. However, as noted in Chapter 2, John of Damascus disagrees with Augustine on this

Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000). James E. Dolezal, God Without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God’s Absoluteness (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011). 2 John Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 9–11, trans. Michael Share (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 2010), 46.

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point. So then, not everyone in the Christian tradition affirms that time began with creation. The doctrine of creation ex nihilo raises difficulties for immutability, timelessness, and simplicity. This is because the classical tradition holds that the universe is not co-eternal with God. According to John of Damascus “it is not natural that that which is brought into existence out of nothing should be co-eternal with what is without beginning and everlasting” (Orthodox Faith I.7). Aquinas in On the Eternity of the World 11 says “nothing can be co-eternal with God, because nothing can be immutable save God alone.” Augustine in City of God XII concurs. “Since the flight of time involves change, it cannot be co-eternal with changeless eternity.” On this view there is a state of affairs where God does not exist with creation. There is also a state of affairs where God does exist with creation. This is a view that has widespread assent in the Christian tradition, and much ink has been spilt trying to solve the problems that arise from it.3 The main difficulty is explaining how this does not create a change—a before and after—in the life of God. As Thomas F. Torrance puts it, “God was always Father, but not always Creator.”4 God has always existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but creation has not always existed. God cannot be the Creator until He causally brings the universe into existence. It seems, for all the world, that when the universe came into existence out of nothing God began to stand in a new causal relation that He did not previously stand in. As we shall see, there are many related problems that stem from this difficulty.

THE P ROBLEM OF CREATION EX NIHILO I N I TI A L L Y S T A T E D There are several objections to the Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing based on divine timelessness, simplicity, immutability, and impassibility. Many of the arguments try to conclude that the world must be eternal since God is eternal. This will be taken up at length in the section on John Philoponus, but for now it would be good to see how others have attempted to address the issue. Aquinas addresses this objection in several works. One form of the objection can go like this.5 Temporal causes produce temporal effects. 3 Alexander Broadie, “Scotistic Metaphysics and Creation Ex Nihilo,” in eds. David B. Burrell, Carlo Cogliati, Janet M. Soskice, and William R. Stoeger, Creation and the God of Abraham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 53. 4 T. F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God (New York: T & T Clark, 1996), 237. 5 This is my own variant from the objections that Aquinas considers in Summa Contra Gentiles II.32.

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Eternal causes produce eternal effects. God is eternal. God willed that creation exist. God’s will causes creation to exist. God’s will is eternal, so creation must be eternal. The problem is that the biblical doctrine of creation ex nihilo clearly entails that the universe is not eternal, but is finite in the past. The Christian who holds to divine timelessness has to explain why God’s eternal will to create does not entail the eternality of the universe. Perhaps one can respond by pointing out that God is a voluntary agent. His act of creation is said to be free. When an agent voluntarily wills to produce something she can delay for various reasons. Perhaps the agent needs to wait for the right time. Say Molly has a bill to pay, but she does not get paid until Friday. She must wait until Friday to pay the bill due to a current lack of funds. She wills to pay the bill, but her action must wait. This cannot be the case with the simple, immutable, and timeless God. Necessarily, a timeless God cannot wait. Necessarily, a God who is strongly immutable cannot begin to perform a new action. Necessarily, a God who is pure act cannot delay His action. His eternal acts must produce eternal effects. So, God’s eternal act of creation must produce an eternal universe. How can the atemporalist respond? Aquinas’ responses are, unfortunately, underwhelming. One response is simply to deny that eternal acts necessarily produce eternal effects. Aquinas does have to say that eternal acts sometimes, though not always, produce eternal effects. This is because he believes in the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit. In this instance Aquinas must surely hold that God’s eternal act does produce an eternal effect. Otherwise there would be a time when the Son and Holy Spirit were not, and Aquinas would fall into Arianism. Despite the fact that eternal generation and procession are an ineffable mystery, and that I find ineffable mysteries to be incoherent and repugnant to Christian theology, I will grant for the sake of argument that it gives us a clear example of an eternal cause with an eternal effect.6 What Aquinas needs to do is offer a clear example of an eternal cause with a temporal effect. This is precisely what Aquinas does not do. He says that God’s “act of understanding and willing must be His act of making. Now the effect follows from the intellect and the will according to the determination of the intellect and the command of the will. And just as every other condition of the thing made is determined by the intellect, so is time appointed to it.” Just as God “wills this thing to be such and such, so does [He] will it to be at such and such a time” (Summa Contra Gentiles II.35). The idea seems to be this. When an agent wills or decrees that such and such take place, she wills or decrees that it take place at a certain time. Her will or decree need not immediately produce the intended effect. Perhaps an example 6

Lombard, Sentences I Dist. IX.1. He states that eternal generation is an ineffable mystery. I have no problem with mysteries of the faith. I object to ineffable mysteries.

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might help. I get motion sickness very easily. One day I decide to go to Edinburgh. I know that I must take medicine before I get on the train in order to prevent illness. However, the medicine has clear directions that it should be taken 20 minutes before travel. About a week before my trip I will that I take the medicine 20 minutes before travel. My will never changes throughout the week, but I do not act until the right time. If I take the medicine immediately following my will it shall be of no use to me. I must wait to act until 20 minutes prior to travel. My will in this instance does not produce an immediate effect. The problem is that this in no way helps Aquinas explain how the will of an eternal God does not produce an eternal effect. The reason my will did not produce an immediate effect is because my will and act are distinct. For Aquinas, God is simple. God’s will, intellect, act, and so on are all identical to God. The scenario describes something that God cannot do if He is simple, immutable, and timeless. Aquinas has failed to defeat the objection. What makes this failure even more serious is that several of Aquinas’ later rejoinders to other objections of this sort assume the success of this one.

THE P ROBLEM OF DIVINE SUSTA INING I N ITI A L L Y S T A T E D Another problem for the timelessness research program is related to God’s act of sustaining the universe in existence. This will be treated fully in the section on John Philoponus, but for now I wish to lay out some of the initial difficulties. In Chapter 4 I discussed the common belief that eternity and the present are synced. The notion that God’s eternity syncs up with the present is essential for Christian thought because eternity is said to contain time or sustain the universe in existence. God’s sustaining of the universe in existence has traditionally been tied up in the doctrine of divine omnipresence. It will be illuminating to see the way previous thinkers have tried to deal with the problems that arise from a commitment to divine timelessness, omnipresence, divine sustaining, and presentism. This will help us to see where exactly the problems are, and why the proposed solutions fail. I will begin with Anselm’s discussion on these matters. Throughout Monologion and Proslogion Anselm claims that God exists at every place and time. Then he is quick to qualify this by saying that God does not exist in any place or time. What is Anselm trying to say? He says of God, “You exist neither yesterday nor today nor tomorrow but are absolutely outside all time” (Proslogion 19). Yet, he also says that God has “neither past nor future existence but only present existence; nor can You be

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thought not to exist at any time” (Proslogion 22). God must exist at all times and places, but somehow he is absolutely outside time. This sounds rather confusing, but what must be understood is that Anselm is attempting to distinguish God’s eternity from time as well as establish the fact that God sustains each moment of time in existence.7 For Anselm, God’s eternity contains all of time so that he can say that God does not exist in any place or time, but that God exists wholly at all times and all places.8 Anselm wishes to deny that God is contained in time and place because that would limit God. “It would seem that only things that are limited to the time and place they are in are bound by the law of time and place” (Monologion 22). For creatures that are limited by time and place can only exist wholly at the times and places that they are bound to. God, who transcends time and place, is not bound by time and place and so can exist wholly at all times and places. “The creator of all substances, the supreme substance, is necessarily free from the natures and laws of everything it has created from nothing. It is not subject to them” (Monologion 22). Anselm proclaims of God that “nothing is greater than You, no place or time confines You but You exist everywhere and always. And because this can be said of You alone, You alone are unlimited and eternal” (Proslogion 13). God is not contained nor constrained by the universe, therefore “it is necessary that [He] be present as a whole simultaneously to all places and times, and to each individual place and time” (Monologion 22).9 God cannot be contained in time and place, and yet He exists at every time and place. God “exists everywhere, in everything and through everything” (Monologion 20). God must exist as a whole at everywhere and everywhen because “nothing ever, or anywhere, exists without God” (Monologion 21). Creatures can exist as a whole in time because they endure through time. God exists as a whole outside of time, and yet Anselm wishes to say that He exists at every time. We have a clear tension. God exists timelessly. Yet, in order for anything other than God to exist “it is necessary that [God] be present as a whole simultaneously to all places and times, and to each individual place and time” (Monologion 22). How can this be understood? As discussed in Chapter 4, some will try to argue that Anselm is a four-dimensional eternalist. These thinkers would say that God can be wholly present to the entire spacetime manifold. But “Anselm is clearly and unequivocally a presentist.”10 When comparing God’s eternal 7

Brian Leftow, Time and Eternity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 185–6. See Anselm, Proslogion, 19–21. 9 Aquinas makes a similar statement in Summa Contra Gentiles III.68. “The mover and the thing moved must be simultaneous.” And later, “The active cause must needs be joined together with its proximate and immediate effect. Now in each thing there is a proximate and immediate effect of God . . . Accordingly God must be present in all things at the same time: especially since those things He called into being from non-being, are continually preserved in being by him.” 10 Sandra Visser and Thomas Williams, Anselm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 102. 8

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present to our temporal present he makes this very clear. “Nor does part of [God’s] eternity leak away with the past into non-existence, or fly past, like the scarcely existing momentary present, or, with the future, wait, pending, in notyet existence” (Monologion 22). A clearer proclamation of presentism cannot be found. To say that Anselm is a four-dimensional eternalist is to ignore the many statements like this that Anselm makes. He does not say that the past and future appear to be non-existent from our perspective. Instead, he is making a direct move from the way the world actually is—presentism—to the way eternity actually is. Anselm’s comparison would be completely undermined if he were an eternalist. On presentism, the present moment is the only moment of time that exists. All that exists exists at the present. In order to flesh out God’s sustaining of the universe, Anselm makes a direct comparison between God’s eternal present and our temporal present. “Indeed, just as our present time envelops every place and whatever is in every place, so in the eternal present all time is encompassed along with whatever exists at any time” (De Concordia I.5). God’s eternal present “sustains everything other than itself, preventing everything from falling into nothingness” (Monologion 22). Fair enough. God’s eternal present syncs up with our temporal present by sustaining it, and all that it contains, in existence. Yet, wouldn’t this mean that God is constantly undergoing change? He sustains one moment of time in existence, and then as that moment ceases to exist, He causally sustains another moment. Anselm never addresses this problem as far as I know. Peter Lombard struggles with similar difficulties. God who is “existing ever unchangeably in himself, by presence, power, and essence is in every nature or essence without limitation of himself, and in every place without being bounded, and in every time without change.” One of the issues that Lombard attempts to answer has to do with how God is more present in the lives of the saints than in the lives of others. This is related to God’s grace, and would take us off topic. Another issue is this: Where was God, or where did God dwell, before there was a creature? The saints of God are His temple. Earth is His footstool. Where did He dwell before these things came into existence? In Himself. The “saints are not the house of God in such a way that, if the house is taken away, God falls. Instead, God dwells in the saints in such a way that, if he should depart, they fall.” Much like Anselm, Lombard is saying that God’s presence sustains all created things in existence. Yet Lombard thinks more is contained in this idea. What more is contained in this idea? I don’t know, and neither does Lombard. He leaves it as a mystery. A final issue that is directly relevant is whether or not God’s presence makes Him subject to change and time. Lombard considers the following objection. “Every day, creatures are made which do not exist before, and God is in them, but he was not in them before; it follows that he is where he was not before, and so he seems to be mutable.” This argument has some serious teeth.

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Unfortunately Lombard’s rejoinder does not. “But although every day he begins to be in creatures in which he was not before, because they did not exist, yet this happens without change on his part, just as he began to be in the world which he made, and yet without change. Similarly, without change on his part, he also ceases to be in things in which he was before; he does not at that time cease to be in the place, but the place ceases to be” (Sentences I Dist. XXXVII). I might be mistaken, but this rejoinder looks like little more than “I know it looks as if God changes, but He doesn’t.” God’s continual causal activity of sustaining creation in existence is a serious difficulty for the divine timeless research program. Much more is needed to remove the problem than simply saying, “nope.” Aquinas and his contemporaries have a standard reply to this type of objection that goes as follows.11 God’s will never changes. Given God’s selfsufficiency, God always wills His own good. Given divine simplicity, God’s good is Himself. Whether or not God wills that something other than Himself exist, He always wills His good, Himself, as the final end (Summa Contra Gentiles II.31). This is a woefully unhelpful reply. God could eternally will that some thing x come to exist at time t1, but God cannot eternally act at t1 because that time does not always exist. God cannot act at non-existent times, nor is God eternally sustaining yet-to-exist future times. So one can easily grant the Thomist the claim that God’s eternal will never changes, but this does nothing to assuage the problem. God still has to wait to sustain future moments of time, and God still has to wait to perform certain actions until those future moments become present. This is not something that a timeless God can do. A timeless God cannot wait to perform actions. A timeless God cannot wait to be present to, and sustain, yet-to-exist moments of time. This would involve God changing from one moment to the next. The difficulty becomes even worse when one recalls that, given divine simplicity, God’s will is identical to His act. So the idea of eternally willing to bring about something at a particular time seems impossible since that time is not co-eternal with God’s one, simple, timeless act. The atemporalist will quickly assert that God can perform timeless causes with temporal effects. One can appeal to timeless acts with temporal effects if she so wishes. All she needs to do is to offer a plausible model of timeless acts that bring about temporal effects in a presentist world. At the moment there

11 Richard Sorabji, Time, Creation, and the Continuum (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2006), 238–42. Michael Dodds offers the same response. The Unchanging God of Love: Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Theology on Divine Immutability, 2nd Edition (Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University Press, 2008), 181.

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are no plausible models.12 In fact, every model that I know of is based on analogies involving temporal agents and temporal effects. For instance, one common analogy is as follows. “I set my heater to turn on at 5:00.”13 Another common analogy is based upon the game Mousetrap where an agent performs just one action that starts off an elaborate causal chain that eventually ends with a cage falling on top of a mouse.14 It is true that the agents in these analogies have a determinate will that never changes, but these are temporal agents who will a thing at one time and act at another time. This simply cannot help us understand an atemporal agent’s acts that have temporal effects. Further, these analogies are dependent upon agents with distinct wills and acts. This cannot shed any light on a simple God whose act and will are identical. Analogies are meant to illuminate aspects of models. Analogies fail to illuminate if they break down at the precise point that they are meant to illuminate. These common analogies for timeless causes with temporal effects break down at the point at which they are meant to illuminate. We already know that temporal agents who are not simple and immutable can bring about effects that are spread throughout time. In fact, the problem for timeless agents bringing about temporal effects arises from our deep familiarity with temporal agents and their temporal effects. What we want to know is how a timeless God could bring about temporal effects because this is not familiar to us, and seems quite implausible. If anything, the analogies offered here further bring home the point that timeless causes with temporal effects is implausible. It is so implausible that one cannot even offer an illuminating analogy. One thing that these analogies are meant to illuminate is the claim that the effects of an agent do not have to immediately follow the agent’s act. For instance, it needs to illuminate why it is that God’s eternal act does not immediately produce a co-eternal universe. A timeless God only performs one simple, changeless act. So the analogy needs to illuminate how the effects of this one eternal act are not also eternal. It must illuminate how the effects of God’s act do not immediately produce effects. Yet these analogies fail to illuminate this. Consider the agent who sets the timer on his heater. The act 12 Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann once offered the ET-Simultaneity model, but it is widely regarded as explanatorily vacuous. It simply does not illuminate how time and eternity are related. Brian Leftow and Paul Helm—both atemporalists—have rejected it in several writings. Just about every divine temporalist has taken their turn refuting it. Katherin Rogers, T. J. Mawson, and Don Lodzinski all hold to atemporalism and eternalism. Thus, they have no need for ET-Simultaneity, and never make an appeal to it. As the atemporalist Hugh J. McCann says, ET-Simultaneity “is both unnecessary and misguided.” McCann, Creation and the Sovereignty of God (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012), 53. 13 This example comes from Paul Helm, “Divine Timeless Eternity,” in ed. Gregory E. Ganssle, God and Time: Four Views (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 53. 14 Nicholas Wolterstorff, Inquiring About God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 174.

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of setting the timer has the immediate effect of the timer being set to turn the heat on at 5:00. The action immediately produces a causal chain that will eventually terminate in the heat being turned on at 5:00. So the ultimate goal of the agent’s act does not immediately follow on this story, but a particular effect does immediately follow that leads to the agent’s ultimate goal. So the analogy does not illuminate actions that do not have immediate effects. Further, the analogies do nothing to illuminate the problem of divine sustaining and omnipresence. The problem under consideration is not simply that the effects of God are temporally spread about. The problem is that God must be present to each moment of time in order to sustain it. These analogies are attempts to illuminate how an agent can act at one time, and the agent’s effect not arise until a much later time. This does nothing to illuminate how a timeless agent can causally sustain each moment of time, and be wholly present to each moment of time. In fact, the analogies seem to point in the other direction. Consider again the case of the heater. The reason the agent sets the timer on the heater is so that the heat will come on without the agent being present. This is simply disanalogous to an omnipresent God. What is needed is a working model of how a timeless God can sustain a presentist world. Without a working model of this, one cannot develop an analogy to illuminate it. There seems to be no model to illuminate. There is simply an inchoate idea that somehow a timeless God can causally sustain, and be wholly present to, the ever-fleeting present moment of time. In the seventeenth century, Pierre Gassendi offered a similar complaint. He expresses a dissatisfaction with the fact that no defender of divine timelessness has explained how eternity could be co-existent with the successions of time, and states they will continue in this failure until the second coming. Atemporalists, he says, have not bestowed “one serious thought upon the consideration of it; for had they, doubtless they must have found their Wit a loss in the Labyrinth of Fancy, and perceived themselves reduced to this Exigent: either that they had fooled themselves in trifling with words not well understood; or that they had praecariously usurped the Quaestion.”15

JO HN PHILO P ONUS TO THE RESCUE? One might find Gassendi’s claim to be a bit premature given the fact that so many in the Christian tradition have reflected on these sorts of problems. Thankfully, for atemporalists, John Philoponus has offered a thorough 15 Gassendi, Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana, or, A Fabrick of Science Natural, Upon the Hypothesis of Atoms founded by Epicurus, Repaired by Petrus Gassendus, Augmented by Walter Charleton (London: Tho. Newcomb, 1654), 80.

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treatment of these related problems. Perhaps he can sort things out and save the divine timeless research program.

A Proclus-Inspired Dilemma In the sixth century John Philoponus examined an argument from Proclus that he took to be an objection to the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo based on divine perfection.16 Before laying out the argument, there are two assumptions that Proclus and Philoponus hold about time. First, they both seem to hold a relational view of time where time is change or movement. This is clear from their statements on God’s immutability. Second, they both accept presentism.17 With these two assumptions we can begin Proclus’ dilemma. Proclus’ argument goes a little something like this.18 Assume that God is simple. God lacks physical and metaphysical composition. God’s wisdom, power, goodness, thoughts, will, and so forth are all identical to each other and identical to God. Further, God is purely actual; He contains no potentiality. Divine simplicity is part of a package that includes a strong doctrine of immutability and timelessness, and Proclus and Philoponus take these attributes to be mutually entailing. As immutable, God undergoes no intrinsic or extrinsic change. As simple, He has no accidental properties, and is pure actuality. As timeless, God exists without beginning, without end, and without succession or moments in His life. A timeless God lacks temporal extension and location.19 16 It is a matter of debate as to whether or not Proclus’ work on the eternity of the world was intended as an attack on Christian theology. It is also a matter of debate as to whether or not Philoponus’ response is written from his Christian perspective or as a Platonic philosopher. See Dirk Baltzly, “Proclus,” in eds. Graham Oppy and Nick Trakakis, The History of Western Philosophy of Religion Volume 1: Ancient Philosophy of Religion (Durham, NC: Acumen Publishing Limited, 2009), 265. Also, Proclus, On the Eternity of the World, introduction, translation, and commentary by Helen S. Lang and A. D. Macro (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 1–16. Regardless, Christians followed the moves Philoponus made thereafter. See G. R. Evans, Philosophy and Theology in the Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 1993), 69. 17 There are several clear statements on presentism in Philoponus’ treatise against Proclus. For instance, “all things have their existence in the present.” John Philoponus, Against Proclus On the Eternity of the World 12–18, trans. James Wilberding (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd, 2006), 79. This is in the midst of a discussion where Philoponus is arguing that God must have knowledge of the present. God “will not even know whether He Himself exists, if He does not know the present. For He too, exists.” 18 Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 42, 50, and 64. As Philoponus portrays Proclus’ argument, there are actually a few different subtleties. The second horn of the dilemma is not simply that God is not perfect. Proclus goes on to argue that this less than perfect god must have been created by an actual perfect God. Within Aristotelian thought, immutability and necessity are seen as equivalent, as are contingency and mutability. The assumption, then, is that if the Christian God suffers any change, He must be contingent. For those of us living after John Duns Scotus it is hard to see how necessity and immutability are equivalent. Cf. Chapter 3. 19 Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 12–18, 65.

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Assume further that the act of creation is brought about by the thoughts and will of God. God’s thoughts are what directly bring creation into existence. Since God’s thoughts are identical to God Himself, and since God is eternal, God’s thoughts are eternal (without beginning, without end, and without succession). So creation must also be eternal (not timeless, but existing without beginning and without end). God is always thinking the thoughts that bring creation into existence. Classical Christians will not like this conclusion since they hold that God freely created the universe ex nihilo at some point in the finite past. As Philoponus explains, God always possesses the principles and Forms of creation within Himself. God is actual and perfect for He always has the capacity to create, “but God brings each thing into existence and gives it being when he so wishes . . . and he so wishes at the time when coming into existence is good for the things to come into existence.”20 Proclus does not see this as a viable option for a perfect God. In order to make his conclusion stick, he offers what appears to him to be the only alternative account for God and creation. It is an account that classical Christians will find unsatisfactory. One could say that God does not always create or produce the universe. Instead God comes to produce the universe. But, argues Proclus, God would then not be purely actual for He goes from a state of not creating to creating. He has some potential that becomes actual. Hence, we have destroyed divine simplicity. Further, God is undergoing change in this act. He brings new moments into existence. So God is not immutable nor is He timeless. According to Proclus, a God who undergoes change, and is not purely actual is not perfect. As Philoponus examines this argument he looks at one further line of attack that strengthens the dilemma. It would seem that if God does not eternally will creation into existence, He must will that some objects exist and then not exist. Say that God wills Socrates to exist and then no longer wills that Socrates exist. Socrates comes into existence then ceases to exist. It would seem that we have three moments in the life of God: existing without Socrates, existing with Socrates, and then again existing without Socrates. God’s life is undergoing constant alteration through this process of willing things into existence and no longer willing them in existence. Also, God’s will is divided in this process for He wills one thing and then another. So God cannot be timeless, immutable, or simple, and such a being is not perfect. The dilemma seems to be this. Either God is perfect (simple, immutable, and timeless) and creation is eternal, or creation is not eternal and God is not perfect.

20

Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 64.

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Philoponus against Proclus Philoponus offers several arguments against Proclus’ critique of Christian belief. Many of them depend on offering a proper interpretation of Plato and Aristotle’s philosophy and science since Proclus and Philoponus are both working within these philosophical traditions. For instance, Philoponus’ first line of attack is to argue that the universe cannot be infinite in the past since, following Aristotle, it is impossible to traverse the infinite. Since Proclus is an Aristotelian, Philoponus thinks that Proclus must accept this.21 What Philoponus offers is an early version of the Kalam argument that is often discussed in contemporary philosophy of religion. Another line of reasoning is to turn Proclus’ argument on himself. Philoponus is here willing to grant Proclus the claim that the cosmos is without beginning or end, that it is infinite in the past and the future. Philoponus points out that Proclus suffers from the same problems as the Christian. Since the present is the only moment that exists, God is only sustaining the present moment in existence. God is not the actual creator of the future since the future does not yet exist. God is only the actual creator of the present moment. So even on Proclus’ account of God and creation it is the case that God is not purely actual and thus not perfect since He has not yet created the future.22 However, Philoponus’ main argument is that this understanding of pure act and perfection is mistaken, as we shall see in the next argument. A third line of reasoning from Philoponus is to argue that the world is a pattern of the Forms, but that the Forms can exist without the world. God possesses the Forms, and it is possible for them to “pre-exist all created things. And so, even if the Forms and patterns of things are certain ideas and principles of the creator, in accordance with which he has brought the world into existence, it is certainly not necessary that the world itself should coexist from everlasting with God’s knowledge about the world.”23 To quote Philoponus at length, he says But just because he brings all things into existence by thought alone and always possesses the concepts and principles of all things in exactly the same way, it is not therefore at once necessary that things should have coexisted with the thoughts of God from everlasting . . . For God does not bring his creations into existence willy-nilly by a necessity, for which reason it is not at all necessary that whatever is thought by God should automatically exist simultaneously with the thought. For it is agreed that God knows even future things that have not yet

21 22 23

Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 19–41. Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 69–78. Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 42.

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come to pass . . . even future time is already present through foreknowledge to the creator of time himself.24

One might wonder how this is possible. How could an eternal action not create an eternal effect? Following Proclus one might argue as follows. “If the creator is the creator of something, either he will always be an actual creator, or sometimes only a potential one and not always be creating.”25 From here Philoponus sets out to defend God’s perfection in light of His temporal creation. His defense starts with a careful examination of potential and actual in Aristotle, and then argues that Proclus’ use of “potential” and “actual” are ambiguous. With a proper understanding of these terms he thinks Proclus’ argument fails to go through. Philoponus distinguishes two types of potential and two types of actual. The first sense of potential is what one might call “natural fitness” like when a child is naturally gifted at grammar. The child has the potential to become a great grammarian and make her parents proud. The second sense of potential is capacity. This is when the child has developed all of the skills of grammar and possesses all of the grammatical theorems in her mind. This second potentiality is the first sense of actuality. The child actually possesses the attributes to be considered a grammarian. But say that she is not currently practicing grammar. Perhaps she is asleep and not dreaming about grammatical theorems. She has the capacity to practice grammar since she is a grammarian, but she is not actively participating in that fast-paced cut-throat discipline. Thus she is not actual in the second sense of actual which involves actively using her capacities.26 Philoponus wishes to say that God is actual in the first sense of actual. God is not a potential creator since He possesses all of the attributes for being the creator. Proclus is assuming the second sense of actual in his argument. Philoponus thinks that this assumption is fallacious, so Proclus’ argument fails.27 Does this distinction really help Philoponus? Grant that God is actual in the first sense: God has the capacity to create. It would seem that for God to actively use His capacities to create would involve Him undergoing some kind of change. He would go from a state of not actualizing His capacity to create,

24

Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 63. Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 42. 26 Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 44–6. 27 Bonaventure makes a similar move in his In Il Sent. d.1, a.1, q.2. Aquinas makes a different move to this objection in Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate QII.14. Instead of drawing the distinction in actuality, Aquinas says that the divine act of knowing is perfect in itself and is distinct from the act of willing. Only the willing brings things into existence. His move then becomes very similar to Philoponus’. But he then goes on to note that since God is simple, there is no real distinction between God’s knowing and willing. Further, he even says that God’s thoughts bring things into existence. As I shall discuss shortly, this commitment to simplicity undermines the rejoinder. 25

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to a state of actively creating. Both Proclus and Philoponus think that a perfect God cannot change. Could Proclus not just reassert the point that the Christian God cannot be perfect because the Christian God undergoes change? Philoponus thinks not. To move from a capacity to an activity “is instantaneous. The end of not producing and the beginning of producing occur at the same instant . . . Therefore no time elapses between not producing and producing and, more generally, between the mere possession of any capacity and the activity that flows from the capacity.” Since change involves time, and there is no change in activating a capacity, there is no time involved in God creating.28 What can be taken away from this, says Philoponus, is that God can create and remain changeless and timeless. In order to avoid confusion, it should be understood that Philoponus’ argument here depends on time being continuous. Time is continuous if and only if it is dense: between any two instants of time, there is a third instant of time. This is to be contrasted with discrete time where there are no instants, but instead time is composed of temporal atoms or periods of a shortest interval that cannot be further divided.29 Philoponus argues that there is no third instant between God’s not producing and producing. They are the same instant.30 Typically thinkers who hold that time is continuous or dense also hold that change is dense. This commitment to the density of change rules out the possibility of discrete changes like the passage from existence to nonexistence.31 This seems to be what Philoponus is articulating. His argument looks as follows. Producing and not producing are contradictories. If there were a third instant between these two contradictories one would have a time when a contradiction obtained. Since contradictions cannot obtain, there is no third intermediate instant between these two contradictory instants.32 Therefore, no time has elapsed between not producing and producing. Activity out of a capacity involves no change and thus no time. Several quick comments on this argument are in order before moving on to my main objection. First, say that p obtains at time t1 and p obtains at a later time t2. Further say that time is continuous so that there is an instant between t1 and t2, namely t1.5. If it is truly between these two contradictory instants, then it would not be the occurrence of a contradiction. So we do have an interval of time between p and p. Second, I do not find it obvious that discrete changes cannot take place. It seems to me that the best example of a 28

Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 54. Quentin Smith and L. Nathan Oaklander, Time, Change and Freedom: An Introduction to Metaphysics (London: Routledge, 1995), 21. 30 Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 54. 31 Robin Le Poidevin, Travels Four Dimensions: The Enigmas of Space and Time (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 114–15. 32 Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 54. 29

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discrete change is the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, but I digress. The crucial issue is whether or not an activity out of a capacity involves a change. It is not clear that an activity out of a capacity involves no change or time. Philoponus thinks that this principle applies to God and everything else, so perhaps he can provide a concrete example from everyday life to make things clear. One of his examples is that of a builder and a building. Say that the builder has the perfect capacity to build. He is an actual builder. According to Philoponus, when the builder decides to build a house out of timber and stone his mind undergoes no change whatsoever, but his body and the building materials do. Somehow the movement and change befall the builder’s body and the materials, but not the builder’s mind. Philoponus takes this to be an actual example of the principle he has in mind: “someone who possesses a perfected capacity and then acts in accordances with it has not become different in any respect from his former self.”33 Given this, Philoponus thinks he can employ this principle to explain God’s creative activity of objects that exist at one time and not at another. He explains as follows. [God] everlastingly possesses the concepts and principles of things, through which indeed he is a creator, in exactly the same way, and does not become different in any respect whether he produces or does not produce. For, speaking generally, it is not even proper to say that capacity and activity are different things in the case of God; the two are one and the same thing and difference arises in the sphere of that which shares in them.34

In other words, God’s activity of creation does not change Him but changes everything else. God’s creative activity brings things into existence that did not previously exist. God actively sustains certain things in existence, like Socrates, and then ceases to sustain them in existence. Though it appears that this would involve God in a continual process of change, and hence God would be temporal, somehow God is not changed at all. This is utterly baffling. It seems quite clear that the builder who decides to start building does in fact undergo change. It also seems that a God who is not creating and then creates does undergo a change. He is not standing in a causal relation to anything, and then He is standing in a causal relation to creation. Activity out of a capacity involves change and time, for it at least creates a before and after in the life of the agent. As J. R. Lucas explains, “Time is the passage from possibility through actuality to unalterable necessity. The present is the unique and essential link between the possible and the unalterably necessary.”35 “To be an agent is to be crystallizing potentiality into actuality,

33

Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 62. Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 1–5, 62. 35 J. R. Lucas, The Future: An Essay on God, Temporality and Truth (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 8. 34

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thereby making it unalterable thereafter. No unalterability, no agency.”36 To put this in Philoponus’ terminology, for an agent to go from first sense actual to second sense actual is a temporal change. Philoponus has failed to rebut Proclus’ dilemma. If this were not enough, Philoponus’ rejoinder to Proclus fails for another reason. Note what he says in the last sentence from the quote. “For, speaking generally, it is not even proper to say that capacity and activity are different things in the case of God; the two are one and the same thing.” Philoponus is demonstrating a commitment to divine simplicity: there is no composition in God. The distinction between first and second actuality does not apply to God since God is simple. This commitment to simplicity undercuts one of Philoponus’ rejoinders to Proclus. Recall earlier that Philoponus rejected Proclus’ argument because Proclus failed to make this distinction about first and second actuality. Proclus was assuming that God must be actual in the second sense, but Philoponus pointed out that God was actual in the first sense so Proclus’ argument does not go through. Yet, if God is simple, there is no meaningful distinction between first and second actuality in God. So Philoponus has not defeated Proclus’ argument. The dilemma still stands. To make matters worse, it would seem that a commitment to divine simplicity prevents one from solving any theological puzzle. What we have just seen in Philoponus is instructive. As discussed in Chapter 3, one can take any theological puzzle where the strategy involves making clear distinctions in God. A theologian can write dozens of pages making careful distinctions in order to solve the puzzle. If she is committed to divine simplicity she is forced to say that none of her distinctions apply to God at all. They are only conceptual distinctions that exist in her mind, and do not apply at all to reality. Her labor is in vain. It would seem that divine simplicity makes Christian theology a non-starter. Philoponus has failed to defeat Proclus’ dilemma on multiple accounts. Where is the atemporalist to go from here? How can she refute Proclus’ dilemma? There is a very prominent proposal developed throughout Church history that seeks to circumvent this dilemma. The proposal is that God is not really related to creation. This proposal seems to have been initially developed to deal with scripture predicating accidental properties of God such as Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. This proposal is eventually used to solve the problems of creation ex nihilo and divine sustaining. Perhaps this proposal can save the divine timeless research program.

36

Lucas, The Future, 213.

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CAN A TIMELESS GOD BE CALLED CREATOR, R E D E E M E R , AN D L O R D ? In The Trinity Augustine articulates an account of divine timelessness, simplicity, and immutability. He holds that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are timelessly co-eternal (The Trinity I.9). The three divine persons are one in substance, and this divine substance does not undergo any passage of time or change (The Trinity I.3 and V.2). “In their own proper substance by which they are, the three are one, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, without any temporal movement, without any intervals of time or space, one and the same over all creation, one and the same all together from eternity to eternity, like eternity itself which is never without verity and charity” (The Trinity IV.30). Further, the Godhead is immutable. “There is no modification in God because there is nothing in him that can be changed or lost . . . he remains absolutely unchangeable” (The Trinity V.5). Yet, he allows for Trinitarian relational predicates to be made of God that do not modify the divine substance such as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for all three are eternally related to each other (The Trinity V.6). Also, the Godhead is simple in substance (The Trinity V.9). Other substances participate in attributes like greatness, and so are distinct from greatness. The greatness in which they participate is something greater than them. Yet, this cannot be the case with God since “there is nothing greater than God. So he is great with a greatness by which he is himself the same greatness.” In other words, “God is the same thing to be as to be great.” And the same is true of all the other attributes we typically predicate of God like goodness, eternity, and omnipotence (The Trinity V.11). The doctrines of divine timelessness, immutability, and simplicity have been criticized throughout Church history as being in direct conflict with Scripture. Scripture proclaims that God does things in time. It predicates contingent temporal properties of God like Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. Major Christian thinkers in the past sought to answer this problem. Typically the claim is that scripture is speaking anthropomorphically due to the weakness of our finite minds.37 How might we understand this? Augustine has a hermeneutical principle that can be deployed to deal with troublesome passages of this sort. “Whatever there is in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative. Purity of life has reference to the love of God and one’s neighbour; soundness of doctrine to the knowledge of God and one’s 37 Pseudo-Dionysius, Divine Names 10.3.2. C.f. John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus: Annotating the Areopagite, trans. Paul Rorem and John C. Lamoreaux (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 233–8. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1 (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1992), 203. Stephen Charnocke, Several Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God (London: Newman, 1682), 181 and 186.

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neighbour” (On Christian Doctrine III.10. Also, cf. III.15). Working from this principle Augustine asserts that when scripture predicates of God “position, possession times, and places, they are not stated properly about God but by way of metaphor and simile” (The Trinity V.9). Since Augustine thinks that it is proper to refer to God as timeless, any passage of scripture that says otherwise must be taken as speaking in some non-literal way. Augustine is not out of the woods yet. He does not quickly dismiss all passages that ascribe temporal properties to God. Instead, He considers various issues that arise from scripture itself. One such issue that he deals with comes from creation. God is lord of creation; He created the universe out of nothing. Yet, creation has not always existed—it is not co-eternal with God. Can we predicate Creator and Lord of a timeless God? Augustine lays out the problem in detail. But what about “lord”? If a man is not called a lord except from the moment he begins to have a slave, then this relationship title too belongs to God from a point of time, since the creation he is lord of is not from everlasting. But then how will we be able to maintain that relationship terms are not modifications with God, since nothing happens to him in time because he is not changeable, as we established at the beginning of this discussion? (The Trinity V.17)

To put the problem a bit differently, God “cannot be everlastingly lord, or we would be compelled to say that creation is everlasting, because he would only be everlastingly lord if creation were everlastingly serving him” (The Trinity V.17). We thus have a tension with the Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing and divine timelessness. The universe has not always existed. It began to exist a finite amount of time ago. God is said to exist timelessly and without any modification. It seems that God must undergo some kind of modification when creation comes into existence. God would become the Creator in the act of creating the universe. This Creator–creature relation would be accidental to God since God is not essentially and eternally creating the universe. As we saw before, it would seem that God would come to have the accidental property Creator. Augustine understands that accidental relational properties of this sort would make God temporal. Since God is simple, He can have no accidental properties. Recall again that, for Augustine, all accidental properties entail a modification in the subject who possesses them. “How then are we going to be able to maintain that nothing is said of God by way of modification?” Augustine answers as follows: Well, we say that nothing happens to his nature to change it, and so these are not relationship modifications which happen with some change in the things they are predicated of . . . Thus when he is called something with reference to creation, while indeed he begins to be called it in time, we should understand that this does not involve anything happening to God’s own substance, but only to the created thing to which the relationship predicated of him refers.

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The move that Augustine is trying to make is a bit difficult to grasp at first. The idea is that God does not change essentially or relationally when creation comes into existence. Instead, only the things created undergo change. This is because God is not related to creation, though creation is related to God such that the accidental properties from the relationship only fall on the creature and not God. “So it is clear that anything that can begin to be said about God in time which was not said about him before is said by way of relationship, and yet not by way of a modification of God, as though something has modified him” (The Trinity V.17). Again, this is a difficult concept to grasp, but this is a theme developed throughout the Middle Ages. Perhaps understanding the development of this theme will help us understand the move Augustine is gesturing toward. Following Augustine, Boethius in The Trinity is One God Not Three Gods IV says, There are in all ten categories which can be universally predicated of things, namely, Substance, Quality, Quantity, Relation, Place, Time, Condition, Situation, Activity, Passivity. Their meaning is determined by the contingent subject; for some of them denote real substantive attributes of created things, others belong to the class of accidental attributes. But when these categories are applied to God they change their meaning entirely. Relation, for instance, cannot be predicated at all of God; for substance in Him is not really substantial but supersubstantial. So with quality and the other possible tributes, of which we must add examples for the sake of clearness.

It should be noted that Boethius and Augustine allow for relations when one is talking about the eternal relation between the divine persons of the Trinity. In most instances of relations, a relation is something that relates two or more substances. This relation involves the substances having accidental properties in virtue of standing in a relation to the other. Since a relation involves two or more substances, a substance cannot itself be a relation. However, Christians allowed an exception to be made in the case of the Trinity. In this special case, Christians said that a substance could be a relation. When Boethius and Augustine deny relations of God it is with regard to God and anything ad extra to God. Peter Lombard further develops Augustine’s idea that the relational property befalls the creature and not God. “For there are some things which are said of God in time and which are fitting for him in time without any change on his part. These are said relatively, according to an accident which does not befall God, but which befalls the creatures, such as creator, lord, refuge, giver or granted, and suchlike” (Sentences I Dist. XXX.1). A bit further on Lombard summarizes Augustine’s thoughts from The Trinity V. “From these comments, it is plainly shown that some things are said of God in time relative to creatures, without change of the deity but not without change of the

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creature; and so the accident is in the creature, not in the Creator. And the name by which the creature is called relative to the Creator is relative, and it denotes the relation which is in the creature itself; the name by which the Creator is called relative to the creature is also relative, but it denotes no relation which is in the Creator” (Sentences I Dist. XXX.1). How is this supposed to help with the problem of God having the accidental properties from His relation with creation? The idea is that when we come to passages like Psalm 90:1 where God is said to be our dwelling place or refuge, we interpret this to mean that we have changed and that God remains the same. This is because God is not related to the creature, though the creature is related to God. The same can be true when it comes to passages that describe God as Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. These are accidental relational properties that do not really apply to God, but instead denote some kind of change in us. We have a bizarre claim on our hands: accidental relational properties cannot be predicated of the simple, immutable, and timeless God. However, one minimal claim of Christianity is that creation would not exist if God did not sustain it in existence.38 God must stand in a causal relationship to the universe. Yet Christianity claims more than this minimal divine sustaining. Christians are also committed to the notion that God is deeply and intimately related to creatures. Not just merely related, but intimately related in such a way that the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh, and that we are His children. God, according to Christian theology, truly is our Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. When Augustine, Boethius, and Lombard argue that God is not related to creation, and that these accidental properties don’t really fall upon God, they seem to be in direct conflict with the basic claims of Christianity. How is the classical theologian to assuage this problem? Aquinas further develops the idea that God cannot have any relational properties because God is not really related to creation. Perhaps Aquinas’ development of this claim can help solve this problem.

IS GOD REALLY RELATED TO CREATION? The problem, again, is this—it seems perfectly appropriate to say that God is my Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. Since God has not always been these things, this must surely involve some kind of change. Aquinas agrees that this would involve change. “Whatever receives something anew, must needs be changed, either essentially or accidentally. Now certain relations are said of 38

Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names 5.

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God anew: for instance that He is Lord or governor of a thing which begins anew to exist. Wherefore if a relation were predicated of God as really existing in Him, it would follow that something accrues to God anew, and consequently that He is changed either essentially or accidentally” (Summa Contra Gentiles II.12). But Aquinas thinks that God cannot undergo any essential change, and a simple God does not have any accidental properties. So how can Aquinas explain God’s relationship to the universe whilst avoiding change and accidental properties in God? The answer, thinks Aquinas, lies in a proper analysis of relations. For Aquinas, relations cannot be in God as an accident since a simple God has no accidental properties. In most instances of relations, the relata are accidentally related such that their existence does not depend upon each other. In these cases, each relatum has an appropriate accidental property from standing in the relation. It would seem that this is going on with God and creation. God eternally exists, and does not depend upon creation for His existence. The existence of the universe is contingent upon the free act of God, so it is accidental to God that He create. A simple God, however, cannot stand in such a relationship because a simple God cannot have any accidental properties. So what other options does Aquinas have for explaining God’s relationship to the universe? Another option is to say that the relationship between God and the universe is essential, and not accidental. This would seem to get around the problem of God having accidental properties like Creator and Lord, because those properties would be essential to God. Though this avoids God having accidental properties, it would raise worries about the Christian claim that God’s act of creation is free and gracious. It would also land us on one horn of Proclus’ dilemma. Aquinas, however, rejects this possibility. With essential relationships the relata depend upon each other for their essence and existence. Given God’s aseity and self-sufficiency, God depends upon nothing outside of Himself for His existence and essence. He cannot stand in an essential relation to anything outside of Himself because “it would follow that God’s substance is essentially referred to another, depends in some way thereon, since it can neither exist nor be understood without it. Hence it would follow that God’s substance is dependent on something else outside it: and thus it would not be of itself necessary being” (Summa Contra Gentiles II.12). If Aquinas will not allow for God to be accidentally related to creation, nor essentially related to creation, what other options are left? Aquinas wishes to maintain the Augustinian claim that creatures are related to God, but God is not really related to creatures. Aquinas defends this idea by developing a modified Aristotelian theory of relations.39 Matthew R. McWhorter, “Aquinas on God’s Relation to the World,” New Blackfriars 94 (2013). 39

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On this Aristotelian account there are three modes of relations. First-mode relations are relations of reason. These are logical relations that exist in the mind only and do not involve any substances possessing accidental properties. Second-mode relations are real relations. These are founded on an absolute category and entail that each substance in the relation has an appropriate accidental property. Third-mode relations are sometimes called mixed relations because they involve both a relation of reason and a real relation. In the case of a mixed relation, one of the relata has an accidental property, whilst the other does not. Mixed relations can be founded on any of the categories mentioned by Boethius, and examples include things like the relation between measurable and measured, or knower and known.40 When Aquinas denies that God is really related to creation, he is saying that a second-mode relation does not obtain between God and creatures because God cannot have any accidental properties. It is third-mode relations that Aquinas has in mind here when thinking about the God–world relationship. Creatures are really related to God because they depend upon Him for their existence, and have an appropriate accidental relational property. God, however, is not really related to creation, but only exists in a relation of reason to creation. How is this to be understood? Perhaps a few illustrations will help shed light on this issue. In medieval philosophy real relations were held to obtain between extramental things.41 For instance, the properties slave and master are grounded in a real relation between two persons. Yet, medieval philosophers also held that there are non-paradigmatic cases of relations where two accidental properties are not involved. These non-paradigmatic cases are the third-mode mixed relations where one of the relata stands in a real relation whilst the other stands in a relation of reason. By way of example, say that Peter begins to think about Socrates. The accidental property, they would say, belongs to Peter only. No accidental property befalls Socrates since Socrates, they say, is not actually related to Peter in this instance. Peter clearly has the extramental property thinking about Socrates. What corresponds to our concept being thought Peter King, “Scotus on Metaphysics,” in ed. Thomas Williams, The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 36. Dodds, The Unchanging God of Love, 165–9. 41 There are many views on relations in medieval philosophy, yet one agreement seems to be that polyadic properties and relations cannot exist outside of the mind. For instance, one might say there is a relation between a father and a son. Yet, medieval philosophers would maintain that this relationship does not exist outside of the mind. The relation expresses something between two subjects, but nothing in the subjects. There is, however, an accidental monadic property that the son has (i.e. being the son), but it cannot be the same property that the father has. The father cannot be the son in this relation, but he does have the property being the father because of this relation. See Jeffrey Brower, “Medieval Theories of Relations,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, , 3 (accessed June 2, 2012). 40

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about? One might be tempted to say that Socrates has this accidental property, but medieval thinkers argued that this is a concept that has no extramental reality. It exists in our minds only. Examples like this of mixed relations, says Aquinas, are able to help us answer the problem of God’s relationship to creation. Creatures are really related to God, but God is not really related to creation. A simple God can have no accidental properties, so God cannot stand in a real relation with creation. God’s relation to creation is a relation of reason. Accidental properties like Creator and Lord are conceptual, they only exist in our minds, so they cannot cause any real change in God.42 The claim is that the relational properties that we predicate of God are not in Him, nor are they extrinsic to Him. Yet we refer to God all the time in worship and in theology—both natural and revealed—and predicate all sorts of relationships of Him like Redeemer, Refuge, Savior, and so forth. The solution to the problem, again, is this. These relations, says Aquinas, “are not really in Him, and yet are predicated of Him, it remains that they are ascribed to Him according only to our way of understanding.” Other predicates, like wisdom, are appropriately said of God because they denote His essence. These types of predicates are extramental. When it comes to relational predicates this is not the case. They exist in our mind only and do not apply to God, as is the case with all third-mode relations. Aquinas maintains that our understanding is not false when we refer to God as our redeemer and lord. We can predicate relations of God because “the divine effects terminate in God Himself ” (Summa Contra Gentiles II.13–14).

CHRISTIANITY CANNOT DENY THAT GOD I S REALLY RELATED TO CREATION The denial that God is really related to creation brings about severe incoherence within Christian theology and practice. If our relational predicates do not apply to God at all, but only exist in our minds, what are we doing in a worship service? I would imagine that the average person in the pew thinks that she is singing about God. When she sings, “Lord my Savior” she is intending to 42 Brower, “Medieval Theories of Relations,” 5.1. It is not entirely clear that Aquinas always wishes to say that predicates like Creator and Lord are relations of reason that only exist in the minds of creatures. In De Potentia Q7, a.11, Aquinas says that if there were no created intellect in existence, God would still be Lord because Lord expresses a relation of reason. Brower notes that this is a move away from the Aristotelian understanding of relations that is motivated in part by theological considerations. Brower points out that “this shift away from the traditional Aristotelian conception has the awkward consequence that things can be related even if their relations do not exist.”

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actually refer to God. But on the picture that we have from Aquinas, this is not the case. When singing “Lord my Savior” she is not referring to God. The phrase from the song does not apply to any extramental reality. Instead it is only stating something that belongs to the creature’s mind. Grant that the accidental relational properties only fall upon creatures and not God. When a man cries out in prayer, “God my Creator and Savior,” is he offering up proper praise to God? To be sure, Augustine, Lombard, and Aquinas will say yes. They maintain that it is perfectly appropriate to predicate of God the titles Creator and Savior just as long as we remember that the accidental property really befalls us and not God. Yet, if the property Creator does not really apply to God but instead expresses a property in our minds, how can it be said that it is appropriate to predicate of God? It does not actually express anything at all about God. When we cry out in praise we are really saying things about ourselves. This looks like a clear case of religious subjectivism. “According to the religious subjectivist, religious sentences are about the states of minds of religious believers.”43 In offering up various speech acts with the intent of praising God we are in fact doing no such thing. We are only expressing things about ourselves and not anything about extramental reality. Surely Augustine, Lombard, and Aquinas would find religious subjectivism repugnant. In fact, I think it obvious that they would consider themselves to be engaged in serious theological work that does in fact say true things about God. Of course they would be modest and say that they do not perfectly comprehend God, but there should be little doubt that they are realists about theological language. They articulate accounts of predicates that can be said of God’s essence: properties like goodness, wisdom, and so on. It is hard to see how anyone who is a Christian theological realist could actually believe this notion that the accidental predicates like Creator and Redeemer are not true of the biblical God but only true of ourselves. Further, if it is only true about ourselves, then why should we think that it is appropriate to say we are speaking about God? Either we are speaking about God, or we are not. It seems that this is another doctrine that someone can only pay lip service to but not actually believe because the Christian God is really related to the universe and is truly the Creator and Redeemer. This puts Christian theology in direct conflict with this proposal of the divine timeless research program. To be clear, my argument in this section is not that Augustine, Lombard, and Aquinas deny that God is in fact the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. My argument is that this claim is not coherent with other things they hold about accidental properties and relations. This is important to note because contemporary defenses of classical theology sometimes proceed by merely

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Michael Scott, “Religious Language,” Philosophy Compass 5 (2010), 508.

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pointing out that someone like Aquinas held both that God is not really related to creation and that God is the Creator. The idea in such defenses seems to be that modern critics of classical theism are failing to realize that Aquinas held both doctrines. Other times, the idea in such defenses seems to be that critics are being most uncharitable because surely someone as brilliant as Aquinas would have noticed the incoherence if there is one. Defenses of this sort, so say I, are woefully inadequate. Merely pointing out that a thinker held two different doctrines is not sufficient to show that the two doctrines cohere with one another. Arguments of the sort that I am articulating here are pointing out that the different doctrines held by classical theists do not cohere with one another. There is nothing uncharitable about this sort of argument because theologians and philosophers say incoherent things all the time. Even the most brilliant among us are still all too human. Of course we should all seek to give charitable interpretations of others, but there is nothing in principle uncharitable about pointing out incoherence. With that clarification in mind, consider another consequence of the proposal that God is not really related to creation. When it comes to God’s relationship to sinners and saints, the divine timeless research program forces us into an awkward position. It would seem that when sinners repent, God would change in His relationship to them and would come to have an accidental relational property. Bruce Ware refers to this as God’s relational mutability since the New Testament clearly describes God as changing His attitude toward persons who are in Christ.44 The divine timeless research program cannot account for this sort of change in God’s attitude toward repentant creatures because this sort of change assumes that God stands in deep, intimate relations with His creatures. Like many of the previously discussed problems, classical theists were aware of this difficulty. Augustine and Lombard consider the following case, and argue that God would not change in the midst of dealing with repent sinners. Say that Peter is unrepentant in his sins. He stands in God’s wrath. Yet, God’s wrath against sin has always been the same, so Augustine and Lombard say no change has occurred in God. Say that Peter then becomes repentant and begins to enjoy the grace and love of God. Augustine and Lombard maintain that God has not changed; only Peter has. God is love; He always has been and always will be eternally without time. Is this satisfactory to prevent God from having accidental properties and remaining timeless, immutable, and simple? Surely not. Grant that God is eternally and necessarily love. It still seems that God undergoes a change in bestowing grace and love on the repentant Peter since Peter does not become repentant until a particular time. Augustine and Lombard’s claim that the Bruce Ware, “A Modified Calvinist Doctrine of God,” in ed. Bruce Ware, Perspectives on the Doctrine of God: 4 Views (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing, 2008), 91. 44

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accidental properties befall the creature and not God looks like nothing more than a linguistic game, and does nothing to assuage the problem. Further, it seems quite incredible to claim that God is not really related to the repentant sinner in order to avoid the problem. Christian theology wishes to say that God is in an actual loving relationship with the repentant Peter. God is actually forgiving Peter. This forgiving relationship does not just exist in the mind of Peter, but has an extramental foundation in God Himself. Forgiving is something that God does in reality, and not just in the minds of believers. Augustine and Lombard will quickly appeal to the doctrine of predestination at this point to avoid any change in God. God has, from eternity, decreed to love Peter, they will say, so God has undergone no change in His decree. Does this really solve anything? Not at all. God’s eternal decree to bestow grace upon Peter is not identical to the actual manifestation of that grace upon Peter for Peter does not eternally exist. God cannot bestow grace on Peter or express His love toward Peter until the actual concrete particular that is Peter comes into existence. God can express all sorts of loving gestures toward Peter before Peter comes to exist (e.g. eternally decree to send the Son and temporally send the Son), but certain expressions of love simply cannot occur until Peter in fact exists. This involves God activating a potential that He did not previously actualize: bestowing grace on Peter. It also involves God coming to have an accidental property: the bestower of grace on Peter. God has undergone a change, and Augustine and Lombard have failed to rebut this difficulty. They might try to appeal to the denial of real relations again, but it seems difficult for any Christian to seriously maintain that God only stands in a relation of reason to creation in the economy of salvation. Consider one more problem that arises from the denial of real relations for natural theology. The problem is that a real relation involves an extramental foundation, and Aquinas, in Summa Contra Gentiles and Summa Theologiae, is denying that relations in God are extramental. This claim is too strong and undermines what Aquinas wishes to say in his natural theology and in his doctrine of omnipresence. Aquinas’ five ways depend on God’s causal activity. If God is not really in a causal relation with the universe, but only in our minds, natural theology faces a serious challenge. The atheist will be happy to say that the universe’s causal dependence upon God exists in the minds of believers only. The Christian cannot be sanguine about this. Many of the arguments from natural theology rest upon the notion that God is causally related to the universe. It is not clear how one might construct a cosmological argument for the existence of God that includes a premise expressing that God only stands in a relation of reason to the universe. The same problem arises for God’s omnipresence. For Aquinas, God is omnipresent through His power which sustains all of creation in existence. An incorporeal thing like God “stands in relation to being somewhere by its

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power” (Summa Contra Gentiles III.68). This looks like a clear example of second-mode relations, but we are forbidden from saying this in light of simplicity, immutability, and timelessness. If we deny real relations of God, then we must say that . God does not stand in a relation to creation by His power. God only stands in a relation of reason to creation. Perhaps we can say that as long as we admit that this is strictly false and give it a different interpretation because this relation exists only in our minds. Again, the atheist will be happy to accept this, but the Christian cannot. So the Christian should reject Aquinas’ denial of real relations in God. Of course, if we reject this claim it would seem to allow for God to have accidental properties as creatures continually refer to God in worship, and as God continually causally sustains all things in existence. In rejecting this proposal, we have lost the solution to Proclus’ dilemma. Proclus’ objections still stand. The Christian God cannot be timeless, strongly immutable, and simple.

CONCLUSIO N Throughout this chapter I have done my best to show that divine timelessness, simplicity, and strong immutability bring serious difficulties for Christian theology when combined with presentism. If one is a presentist and a Christian, she should not believe that God is timeless, simple, or strongly immutable. This is because the divine timeless research program that accepts presentism is not compatible with creation ex nihilo and divine sustaining. Perhaps a Christian can abandon presentism in favor of four-dimensional eternalism in order to save the classical account of the divine perfections. This move is gaining popularity in contemporary discussions, and will be the subject of Chapter 6. There I shall argue that four-dimensional eternalism is also incompatible with divine timelessness.

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6 Divine Timelessness and Four-Dimensional Eternalism It is often held today, amongst analytic philosophers of religion, that divine timelessness is not compatible with presentism, but that it is compatible with four-dimensional eternalism. Unfortunately most of the proposals are underdeveloped. There have been many suggestions that divine timelessness is compatible with four-dimensional eternalism, but few have actually articulated robust models that can be adequately assessed. One common problem is that some of the models that have been put forward do not actually have a clear cut account of divine timelessness. Another common problem is a failure to understand all of the entailments of four-dimensional eternalism. It is almost as if people forget that four-dimensional eternalism is a theory about time and change. (Recall the discussion in Chapter 2.) Thankfully at least one person, Katherin Rogers, has put forward a robust model that more fully understands the doctrine of divine timelessness and four-dimensional eternalism.1 In this chapter I will examine Rogers’ model. Along the way I will note similarities and differences with others in this camp as a way to fill in some gaps in Rogers’ account. First, I wish to note the difficulties that eternalism is said to help divine timelessness overcome. In Chapters 4 and 5 I laid out various arguments that need to be dealt with. These can be summed up as four broad problems for divine timelessness. (1) As simple, God cannot have accidental properties like Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. (2) The doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Again, this was traditionally understood as there being a state of affairs where God exists alone and a state of affairs where God exists with creation.2 The dilemma from Proclus brought out various difficulties, one of which is that if God is eternal, then creation must be eternal. (3) God’s knowledge of the ever changing world 1 It should be noted that Rogers does not like the qualifier “eternalism” since eternal is traditionally reserved for God. She would prefer to use “isotemporalism” instead. Since the term “four-dimensional eternalism” is widespread in the literature I will continue to use it so as not to cause confusion. 2 Maximus the Confessor, Chapters on Knowledge, 1.48.

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should entail that God’s knowledge changes. In contemporary discussions this falls under the question “Can God know what time it is now?” (4) Divine sustaining. God is sustaining an ever changing world and it is hard to see how He could be immutable, pure act, and timeless. As we shall see, abandoning presentism and adopting four-dimensional eternalism does help solve some of these problems. However, I will argue that it brings up other difficulties that make the doctrine of divine timelessness untenable for Christian belief. Ultimately, I will argue that four-dimensional eternalism does not save the divine timeless research program. Instead, if fourdimensional eternalism is true, God is temporal as understood on fourdimensionalism.

KATHERIN ROGERS INTO THE F IFTH DIMENSION For Katherin Rogers it is no surprise that presentism is incompatible with divine timelessness. For her, atemporality entails four-dimensional eternalism.3 Though she claims to be doing Anselmian perfect being theology, she thinks that one ought to derive her metaphysics of time from the divine perfections.4 One starts with the nature of a perfect God, and then can discern the true nature of time. T. J. Mawson agrees. He claims that one can be agnostic at first as to which ontology of time is correct. One should reflect on the idea of God as a perfect being, and then from there one can decide if presentism or eternalism is correct. Whichever account gives God the greatest possible perfection, whichever one is more power-granting, is the one we should go with.5 As Mawson sees it, God would know more if four-dimensional eternalism were true, than He would if presentism were true.6 Mawson, unlike classical theism, thinks that God’s knowledge of the future depends on the future actually existing. Further, if all of time exists, then God can act directly upon it.7 This is completely contrary to the method of perfect being theology as discussed in Chapter 3. On perfect being theology, one must start with the actual perfections found in creatures and then move to discern what the pure 3 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 59. Also, see her “Anselm on Eternity as the Fifth Dimension,” in The Saint Anselm Journal 32 (2006), 1–8. 4 Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: The Presence of a Timeless God,” in Faith and Philosophy 24 (2007), 5. 5 T. J. Mawson, “Divine Eternity,” International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 64 (2008), 41. 6 T. J. Mawson, Belief in God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 43–5. 7 T. J. Mawson, “God’s Body,” Heythrop Journal 47 (2006), 179.

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perfections are that God possesses.8 On this method the nature of reality sets the limits on possible perfections. The intuition is that God cannot create a world that is incompatible with who He is. Mawson’s method is not helpful in this regard. For instance, it would be more power-granting if God could defy the law of non-contradiction. Thus, we should affirm that God can do such a thing. It would be more power-granting to affirm that God can change the past, thus we should affirm that the past is such that it can be altered. Someone who follows the method of perfect being theology will find such claims implausible because of the way the world is. The world is not such that the law of non-contradiction can be broken, nor is the world such that the past is alterable. These are not metaphysical possibilities and as such they are not power-granting. Mawson would agree with this, but his method does not help one get there. I will set this issue aside for the time being. On Rogers’ account God’s eternality fits together with divine simplicity, immutability, omniscience, and creation. The divine attributes are mutually entailing, though it seems to me that simplicity is the driving force in Rogers’ account.9 Allow me to briefly sketch each attribute as Rogers sees it in order to help illuminate her account of divine eternality. In saying that God is simple Rogers means that God is pure act. She takes the standard sovereignty-aseity move in order to get to the claim that God is a simple being who is not composed of parts, nor is God dependent upon anything for His existence or essential nature. God is identical to His nature and each divine attribute is identical to the others and to God.10 In response to contemporary criticisms of divine simplicity à la Alvin Plantinga, she says, “strictly speaking God neither has properties nor is He a property . . . God is simply act.”11 There are no potentialities in God for God is eternally doing all that He is. God is His existence as well as “His act of knowing and doing and being perfectly good” because “these are all one act.”12 Further, one ought not to “hypothesize any unity underlying the diversity in God because there is no diversity. There is just the one, perfect act which is God.”13 From simplicity Rogers moves into immutability and atemporal eternality. Since God is pure act, and whatever He does He does in one single eternal act, God is unchanging. Thus God is immutable and timeless.14 From here she notes that within early Islamic theology God was held to be temporal and 8 Brian Leftow, “Why Perfect Being Theology?” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 69 (2011). Edward Wierenga, “Augustinian Perfect Being Theology and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 69 (2011). 9 In Rogers, Perfect Being Theology and The Anselmian Approach to God and Creation (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1997) she begins her discussion of the divine attributes with divine simplicity. 10 11 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 24–6. Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 27. 12 13 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 29. Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 30. 14 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 32.

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immutable, but this caused problems for immutability. It “is only by postulating divine [atemporal] eternity that God’s immutability can be preserved, and with it His simplicity. If God does first one thing and then another He cannot be simple because His essence must stay the same over time, and thus be something other than the part that does the changing.”15 To further bolster atemporal eternality she considers the argument from the radical incompleteness of life. The argument from the radical incompleteness of temporal life is often mentioned in passing in the ancient and contemporary literature, and is seldom given a full articulation.16 The Anselmian form of the argument was mentioned in Chapter 3, and this will be discussed again later in this chapter. The other form of the argument—call it the Boethian form of the argument—that Rogers appears to have in mind at this point seems to go as follows. Creatures who live in time lose moments of their life into the irretrievable past. Temporal creatures can only remember the past, they can no longer directly experience it. Further, temporal creatures must wait in anticipation for future moments to come into existence. Such beings cannot directly experience the future until those moments become present. However, once those moments become present, they quickly slip into the irretrievable past. Such a life, so the argument goes, is radically incomplete and transitory compared to a God who enjoys all of His life in one timeless present that lacks a before and after. A timeless God never has to wait for future moments of His life to come into existence, nor lose moments of His life into the irretrievable past. However, Rogers seems to notice that the argument loses its force when one accepts four-dimensional eternalism. “One might point out that the very reason which the medievals gave for introducing the distinction between eternity and time was to insist upon the radical transitoriness of creaturely existence in comparison to the perfection of God’s immutable mode of being, and yet if [four-dimensional] eternalism is correct and we are fourdimensional beings ever present to God, then we are not as transitory as we seem to ourselves.”17 Yet, despite the diminished force, she seems to think that the argument still goes through. “By comparison with God who ‘possesses’ His unlimited life ‘at once’, we lead a dreadfully ‘disconnected’ life in that at each

15

Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 55–6. William Lane Craig, “On the Argument for Divine Timelessness from the Incompleteness of Temporal Life,” Heythrop Journal 38 (1997). Paul Helm, “Is God Bound by Time?” in eds. Douglas S. Huffman and Eric L. Johnson, God Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents God (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002). Hugh J. McCann, Creation and the Sovereignty of God (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012), 62. Thomas G. Weinandy, “Suffering and the Sovereign Love of God: A Conclusion to God’s Sovereignty and Evangelical Theology,” in eds. D. Stephen Long and George Kalantzis, The Sovereignty of God Debate (Cambridge, MA: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2009), 143–5. 17 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 62. 16

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present instant we have little access to or power over all the other instants of our lives.”18 Surely she is right that perdurant beings would live an incredibly disconnected life. As she notes, “I seem to myself to exist only at the present instant, but in fact the ‘I’ of an instant ago really exists and perceives an instant ago as the present instant, and the ‘I’ of an instant hence really exists and perceives an instant hence as the present instant. And these successive time-slices of ‘me’ do not have access to one another.”19 This is a radically disconnected life, and surely the life of a perfect God would not suffer from such a defect. Hence, she thinks that God must be atemporal and exist all at once. As discussed in Chapter 2, God can exist all at once on divine temporality. God is an endurant being. So the atemporalist cannot assert that existing all at once straightforwardly entails atemporality. As I argue elsewhere, only the temporalist can make sense of the claim that God exists all at once.20 However, that discussion must be set aside so that we can continue to investigate Rogers’ model of God. To flesh out her doctrine of eternality it will be helpful to look at her account of omniscience and creation. She takes the traditional claim about all moments of time existing in eternity for God differently than the classical tradition. On her account this claim does not amount to God knowing propositions or abstract states of affairs through a perfect knowledge of Himself. She makes it very clear that God’s omniscience is not based on propositions or divine intentions. Instead, “the things and events themselves exist in divine eternity.”21 This is because God’s eternity acts as a fifth dimension in which the four-dimensional spacetime world exists. “Time is a fourth dimension containing all of space, and divine eternity is a sort of fifth dimension containing all of time and space.”22 The notion of a fifth dimension sounds a bit odd. Perhaps any literal talk of a fifth dimension here should be avoided since dimensions do not contain other dimensions.23 I do not believe that Rogers is positing God’s eternity as literally a dimension. Perhaps she is speaking metaphorically. What Rogers is trying to express is that “all of time is equally present to God’s eternity since it is God’s eternal activity which causes it all to be.”24 “God is the source of each temporal 18

Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 62. Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: the Presence of a Timeless God,” 7. R. T. Mullins, “Doing Hard Time: Is God the Prisoner of the Oldest Dimension?” Journal of Analytic Theology 2 (2014). 21 Rogers, “Anselm on Eternity as the Fifth Dimension,” The Saint Anselm Journal 32 (2006), 7. 22 Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: the Presence of a Timeless God,” 6. 23 Evan Fales has pointed out to me that “odd” is not strong enough. The notion of a fifth dimension here is incoherent. First, a dimension does not contain other dimensions. Second, dimensions typically have a metrical topology. A timeless God does not have a metric. Third, given divine simplicity, one would have to say that this fifth dimension is a point in order to avoid God having parts. But a point cannot be a dimension. 24 Rogers, “Anselm on Eternity as the Fifth Dimension,” 2. 19 20

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instant. He is not contained in any of the temporal instants, but is directly, causally, and cognitively related to each and every one of them equally.” God’s eternity is a fifth dimension in the sense that it contains all of space and time since “God knows and acts causally upon all of space-time in one, eternal, act.”25 She explains that this is a form of theistic idealism. “All of space is within God’s omnipresence in that it is all immediately cognitively and causally present to and absolutely dependent upon God.”26 “Whatever has creaturely existence in any way at all is kept in being in all its aspects from moment to moment by the power of God. God is simple and His power is His thought. For a creature to be, then, is to be thought by God. There is nothing more to a creature than what God is thinking.”27 All things depend for their existence on God. Since God is simple and immutable all of His actions take place at once. The divine choice to create, along with simplicity, immutability, and timelessness entail that “the created world is always present to God’s eternity. There is no point before creation at which God exists alone and then a later point at which He exists with creation.”28 On her account if “God eternally wills to create this world, then necessarily He eternally wills to create this world . . . There was never a point at which He chose to create rather than not. From eternity He chooses to create.”29 For a simple God “being” and “act” are identical. Thus, “given God’s nature He could not do other than He does . . . God does not have literal options, but since He exists a se this is no limitation on Him.”30 It is the case that there “are other imaginable worlds, but the actual world, from God’s perspective in eternity, and allowing for the input of free creaturely choice, is the only really possible world.”31 For Rogers, in order to maintain omniscience and timelessness, fourdimensional eternalism must be true. God sustains the entire spacetime manifold by His one eternal thought or act. The so-called “fifth dimension” that Rogers posits is merely a way of expressing that God eternally sustains all times and places in one eternal act.

REAPING THE BENEFITS OF FOUR-DIMENSIONAL ETERNALISM A few benefits for this model of the God–world relationship are worthy of note before proceeding. First, Rogers rejects the classical claim that God is not really 25 26 27 28 29 30

Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: the Presence of a Timeless God,” 8. Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: the Presence of a Timeless God,” 9. Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 109. Rogers, “Anselm on Eternity as the Fifth Dimension,” 3. Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 33. 31 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 34–5. Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 36.

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related to creation.32 She finds it to be an incredibly difficult doctrine to hold, so she escapes all of the incoherence that arises from this. Second, Rogers’ proposal avoids the common objection to divine timelessness from creation ex nihilo. If there is a state of affairs where God exists without creation and another where God exists with creation, God has a before and after in His life. Rogers’ avoids this by making the fourdimensional universe in a sense co-eternal with God. There is no state of affairs where God exists without creation, so no worry of a before and after in His life. Third, by adopting four-dimensional eternalism she avoids the problem of divine sustaining as the world unfolds through time. On presentism God sustains a moment, then ceases to sustain it, and sustains another. God would constantly be doing something different and thus not be immutable, simple, and timeless.33 On eternalism this is not the case. Moments of time do not slough off into the non-existent past and there are no yet-to-exist future moments. All of time exists and is sustained by God in one timeless immutable act. It seems that God can exist all at once instead of having to lose moments of His life as He would on presentism. Fourth, she also avoids the problem of God’s knowledge growing as the world unfolds through time. Strictly speaking, there is no unfolding through time—there is no temporal becoming. From God’s perspective, the best perspective, the whole four-dimensional universe simply exists. There is no knowledge for God to gain. Can God know what time it is now? No, because there is no now with a unique ontological status. Granted, from the perspective of temporal creatures things appear as if the present is unique and that the past no longer exists and the future does not yet exist. This, however, is not the way reality is. Terms like “past,” “present,” and “future” are relative from the perspective of temporal parts or person stages. From God’s perspective, the best perspective, He sees the world as it actually is. From His perspective there is no “now,” there is just the entire four-dimensional spacetime universe.34 It seems that four-dimensional eternalism helps avoid these common problems for divine timelessness. Does it help solve Proclus’ dilemma? Also, does it avoid the problem from accidental predication? In other words, can Creator be predicated of the simple God? Are there any other problems that might arise by adopting four-dimensional eternalism?

32 Rogers, “Back to Eternalism: A Response to Leftow’s Anselmian Presentism,” Faith and Philosophy 26 (2009), 336. 33 Rogers, “Back to Eternalism,” 331. 34 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 60–4. “Anselm on Eternity as the Fifth Dimension,” 2–7.

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LEAVING THE FIFTH DIMENSION BEHIND There are several difficulties that I see with Rogers’ account, and I will now spell them out. It should be noted that if four-dimensional eternalism is false, Rogers’ account does not work. The standard move in contemporary philosophical theology is to argue that four-dimensional eternalism is false so divine timelessness cannot appeal to it.35 Elsewhere, I have offered an argument against four-dimensional eternalism as well.36 Here, however, I shall not take this well-trodden path. Instead, I shall argue that Rogers’ account suffers from internal incoherence. I will also argue that she offers us no good reason for thinking that God is timeless. The main reasons she offers for God being timeless are from divine simplicity and the radical incompleteness of life. She also thinks that four-dimensional eternalism must be true in order to preserve divine atemporality.37 I argue that divine simplicity and eternalism both bring about severe incoherence within the Christian divine timeless research program. Further, in adopting four-dimensional eternalism Rogers cuts herself off from the argument from the radical incompleteness of life. Finally, I will argue that eternalism is not compatible with divine timelessness regardless of what many contemporary thinkers say.

Proclus’ Dilemma and Creation Out of Nothing It looks as if Rogers’ view falls prey to Proclus’ dilemma. Creation is the result of God’s thoughts. God eternally has the thoughts that bring creation into existence. So creation is co-eternal with God. For Proclus this means that creation is infinite in the past and future. This is not the case on Rogers’ proposal. Her account has some subtle differences. For Rogers, it certainly is the case that “God’s thought causes things immediately and directly . . . There is no intermediary cause between God’s thought and the created existent.” Yet, unlike Proclus, Rogers does not hold to presentism. Proclus himself is subject to the criticism that God’s eternal acts cannot produce temporal effects since many of the effects do not yet exist and 35

E.g. Alan G. Padgett, God, Eternity, and the Nature of Time (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1992). William Lane Craig, Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to Time (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001). Garrett J. DeWeese, God and the Nature of Time (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004). 36 R. T. Mullins, “Four-Dimensionalism, Evil, and Christian Belief,” Philosophia Christi 16 (2014). 37 She also claims that eternalism helps reconcile divine foreknowledge and free will. I am skeptical, and shall ignore this issue due to space limitations. Cf. Alan Rhoda, “Foreknowledge and Fatalism: Why Divine Timelessness Doesn’t Help,” in ed. L. Nathan Oaklander, Debates in the Metaphysics of Time (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014).

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others no longer exist. By adopting eternalism Rogers avoids this. All of time simply does exist, and all of the temporal parts simply do exist at their respective times. “If something exists at time t, then the causal efficacy of God’s thought is acting at time t. This most fundamental sort of cause does not precede its effect, but is contemporaneous with it.”38 The entire fourdimensional universe is contemporaneous with the timeless God who exists all at once. This makes the universe co-eternal with God for there is no state of affairs where God exists without the universe. God is eternal, and God always exists with the four-dimensional universe. Is this a problem? Perhaps not. When looking at the four-dimensional spacetime manifold one must consider it from two perspectives. From one perspective we can see that the universe is temporally bounded in that it has a finite past, and that moments of time are chronologically ordered in earlier than, simultaneous with, and later than relations. Also, objects persist through time by having temporal parts that exist at each moment of time. Yet from an atemporal perspective there just is the spacetime manifold with all of its various temporal parts. The temporal parts do not persist through time, but are eternally existent at the times at which they exist. The universe is co-eternal with God in the sense that there is never a state of affairs when God exists and the universe does not exist. The universe is still temporally bounded, and dependent upon God. In light of this it seems that Rogers could argue that she does not fall victim to Proclus’ dilemma in any damaging way. However, one could complain that she has destroyed the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. God never exists without creation. It is co-eternal with God. God eternally exists with the four-dimensional spacetime manifold. John of Damascus will not like this one bit. “For it is not natural that that which is brought into existence out of nothing should be co-eternal with what is without beginning and everlasting” (Orthodox Faith I.7). Maximus the Confessor thinks it impossible that anything created could be coeternal with God. He further wonders “how are they really creatures if they are coeternal with the Creator?” (400 Chapters on Love 4.6). For John and Maximus, like most classical theologians, creation out of nothing entails that God has not always existed with the universe. They agree with Rogers that creation is brought about by divine thought, but they hold that there is a state of affairs in which God exists alone.39 William Lane Craig notes that adopting four-dimensional eternalism completely destroys the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. This “emasculated doctrine of creatio ex nihilo does not do justice to the biblical data, which give us clearly to Rogers, “Back to Eternalism,” 328. Cf. John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus: Annotating the Areopagite, trans. Paul Rorem and John C. Lamoreaux (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 190–1, 220–1, and 238. 38 39

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understand that God and the universe do not timelessly co-exist, but that the actual world includes a state of affairs which is God’s existing alone without the universe.”40 This is a problem, and the only move I can see for someone like Rogers is to say that the Bible does not clearly teach that creation out of nothing entails that there is a state of affairs where God exists without creation. A common stance for contemporary defenders of divine timelessness is to say that the doctrine only entails that creation is contingent upon God.41 Rogers doesn’t think that the doctrine tells us whether or not the universe has always existed. What it does tell us, she says, is that the universe is a unique act of God and that everything other than God is kept in existence from moment to moment by His will.42 However, this does not satisfy the biblical data. The Bible is very comfortable talking about God existing before, and hence without, creation.43 The typical move from atemporalists is to interpret these “before the world began” passages as a logical priority and not a temporal priority, but this is an implausible interpretation.44 There is nothing within the biblical texts themselves that warrants one in taking these “before the world began” passages as logical priority instead of temporal priority.45 The terms used in these passages are explicitly temporal. One must impose divine timelessness onto the text in order to interpret these passages as God existing logically prior to the beginning of the world, and that is not a solid exegetical practice. Adopting eternalism conflicts with the biblical teaching on creation, and this is a strike against this position on God and time.46 40 William Lane Craig, God, Time, and Eternity: The Coherence of Theism II (London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 254. 41 Paul Helm, Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time, 2nd Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 234–6. 42 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 107–8. 43 Mt 13:35, 24:21, 25:34; Lk 11:50; Jn 17:5, 17:24; Eph 1:4; 1 Pet 1:20; Tit 1:2; 2 Tim 1:9; Heb 9:6; Jude 25; Ps 90:2; Rev 13:8, 17:8. One might point out that the Jude passage is often translated as saying “before all time.” True, several English translations do this, but this is not a good translation for several reasons. First, the Greek word here is aionos, not chronos or kairos. This word is typically translated as “ages” depending on the context. Second, if the text really did mean “before all time” this would be incoherent. To talk about a state of affairs before time is to talk about time before time, which is nonsense. The passage in Jude should instead be translated as “before the ages” or “before this age.” In this case it would mean something like God had glory even before He created the universe and began this present epoch of time. Third, translating this as “age” fits better within the eschatology of the New Testament which often speaks in terms of “this age,” “the present age,” and “the age to come.” Further, it fits better with the eschatological tone of Jude. 44 Helm, Eternal God, 234–6. 45 Henri Blocher, “Yesterday, Today, Forever: Time, Times, Eternity in Biblical Perspective.” Tyndale Bulletin 52 (2001). 46 It should be noted that biblical scholars have varying opinions on the biblical status of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. There was a time when many doubted if it is even a biblical doctrine at all, but instead is the invention of various second-century theologians. I can only note

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Divine Simplicity Entails a Modal Collapse The divine timeless research program suffers from a deep incoherence because it entails a modal collapse as well as the demise of aseity and self-sufficiency. In this section I shall first articulate what a modal collapse is, and explain why this is detrimental to Christian theology. Then I shall argue that the divine timeless research program entails a modal collapse that ends up destroying the doctrines of aseity, self-sufficiency, and creation. What is a modal collapse? To answer this question, one must first know what modality is. Modality is a topic in philosophy that examines issues related to necessity, contingency, and possibility. Substances and propositions can have varying modal statuses. For instance, the proposition is typically taken to be necessarily true. It cannot possibly be false. It is true in all possible worlds. The proposition is contingently true. It could be false. It was not always true, and did not have to be true. With regard to substances, theists typically say that God is a necessary being because God cannot fail to exist. God exists in all possible worlds. Creatures, however, are contingent beings. They do not have to exist. There are possible worlds in which creatures fail to exist. Different schemas for modality will typically say that there are different kinds of necessity. One example is conditional necessity. A state of affairs is conditionally necessary given prior states of affairs. Say I have two apples, then you give me two more apples. It necessarily follows that I have four apples. The state of affairs is necessary given certain prior conditions. It necessarily follows from these prior conditions that I have four apples. However, the prior conditions did not have to obtain. The prior conditions are contingent. This is why philosophers will distinguish conditional necessity from absolute necessity. Absolute necessity is not dependent upon some prior state of affairs. Instead, something is absolutely necessary if it cannot be any other way. Examples of absolute necessity would be the existence of God or mathematical propositions. With this in mind, we can now state what a modal collapse is. A modal collapse obtains when all modal statuses are collapsed into absolute necessity.

two things here. First, I believe that much confusion has taken place in biblical studies due to the fact that many assume that God is timeless, and that God created time. This, I posit, has obscured the discussions within biblical studies over issues like creation. Second, a significant literature is building that argues that the ideas of creation ex nihilo can be traced back to biblical and second temple literature. Cf. Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, Creation Out of Nothing: A Biblical, Philosophical, and Scientific Exploration (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004). David B. Burrell, Carlo Cogliati, Janet M. Soskice, and William R. Stoeger, Creation and the God of Abraham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Markus Bockmuehl, “Creatio Ex Nihilo in Palestinian Judaism and Early Christianity,” Scottish Journal of Theology 65 (2012). Janet Martin Soskice, “Creation and the Glory of Creatures,” Modern Theology 29 (2013).

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If a modal collapse occurs, there is no contingency for everything is absolutely necessary. The way things are is the way they must be. It is not possible that things be any other way. Another way to state a modal collapse is that there is only one possible world. The entire way the world is is the only way the world can be. For example, you reading this sentence at this time is absolutely necessary. There is no other way history could have played out. It is not possible that you fail to read this sentence at this time. What makes a modal collapse so terrible? There are many reasons for thinking that a modal collapse is contrary to Christian theology, but I shall only note three. First, contingency and freedom completely vanish. Everything becomes necessary, so there is no such thing as free will. Second, it denies that God is free over creation. He cannot exist without it. He must create it. Third, any concept of divine grace is gutted of the very meaning of grace. Grace is supposed to be a free gift from God that He did not have to give. On a modal collapse, there is no such thing as grace because everything must happen as it does in fact happen. There are no other possibilities. Does divine simplicity entail a modal collapse? Yes. There are multiple ways to set up the modal collapse argument, and elsewhere I have defended several ways to do this.47 Here, I shall articulate two ways. The simplest way is as follows. On divine simplicity God’s essence is identical to His existence. Also, God’s one simple act is identical to His essence/existence. God’s act of creation is identical to this one simple act, and so identical to God’s essence/existence. God exists of absolute necessity. So His act of creation is of absolute necessity since it is identical to His essence/existence.48 Thomists will be quick to respond by saying that creation only exists of conditional necessity, but this is false. If God’s act of creation is of conditional necessity, His act is not identical to His essence. This is so because conditional necessity is not identical to absolute necessity. So if the Thomist makes this move, she will be abandoning divine simplicity because she will be forced to say that God’s act is not identical to God’s essence. Since simplicity is part of the hard core of the timeless research program, this is not a move open to the atemporalist. Reformed theologians will reply to this modal collapse argument by saying that God has distinct decrees with regard to creation. When one considers the decrees of God from the perspective of eternity, the decrees are actually identical to each other and so identical to God. However, when one considers the decrees from the perspective of creation, the decrees are distinct.49 The

47 R. T. Mullins, “Simply Impossible: A Case Against Divine Simplicity,” Journal of Reformed Theology 7 (2013). 48 Thanks to Perry Robinson for pointing this argument out to me. 49 Steven J. Duby, “Divine Simplicity, Divine Freedom, and the Contingency of Creation: Dogmatic Responses to Some Analytic Questions,” Journal of Reformed Theology 6 (2012).

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decrees are not identical to each other, and so can have different modal statuses. Since we have different modal statuses, we do not have a modal collapse. This reformed reply, however, fails. One can talk about God under the perspective of eternity and under the perspective of creation, but all such talk is a red herring because the eternal perspective is the true description of reality on the divine timeless research program. God’s perspective, the eternal perspective, is what really matters because it is what describes the way the world actually is. From God’s perspective, divine decrees are divine actions. Given divine simplicity, all of God’s actions are identical to each other such that there is one divine act. So there are no distinct divine decrees for they are identical to each other and identical to the one divine act. This one divine act is identical to the divine essence. The divine essence is absolutely necessary, so anything identical to it will be absolutely necessary. So the divine decree/one simple act is absolutely necessary. Thus, we have a modal collapse. There is a second way to set up the modal collapse argument that shows a deeper incoherence within the divine timeless research program. It shows that simplicity is incompatible with God’s freedom, aseity, and self-sufficiency. This is not a good position to be in since these are all essential components of the timeless research program. How does this argument go? First, it should be recalled what aseity and self-sufficiency are. God exists a se if and only if His existence is not dependent upon, nor derived from, anything ad extra. God is self-sufficient if and only if the perfection of His nature and action are not dependent upon, nor derived from, anything ad extra. Next, we need to understand a commitment within Christian thought with regard to God’s freedom and creation. As discussed in the previous section, the Christian tradition holds that God and creation are not co-eternal. The Christian tradition also holds that God did not have to create the universe. God was free to create or not create. As John Webster explains, “the triune God could be without the world; no perfection of God would be lost, no triune bliss compromised, were the world not to exist; no enhancement of God is achieved by the world’s existence.”50 Note the connection here with self-sufficiency—God’s perfect essence is not dependent upon His act of creation. God is perfect in and of Himself. Philoponus claims that it would be impious to say that God’s perfections depend upon creation in any way. Philoponus takes it as a general principle that things are perfect in themselves because of the powers that they necessarily possess, and not by external relations things stand in, nor the activities that they perform. With regard to God, Philoponus explains that “if God cannot be perfect unless created things also exist, then his products will be John Webster, “Trinity and Creation,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 12 (2010), 12. 50

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perfective of the producer himself. Such, then is the situation if perfection has come to God not from his own substance but from outside.”51 This, says, Philoponus, is most impious because God’s perfection cannot be dependent upon creation, or any divine acts for that matter. This is an entailment from self-sufficiency. Call this the Creation Principle (CP). (CP) can be stated as follows. (CP) (i) God is free to create or not create, and (ii) God’s essence is not dependent upon His act of creation. With this in mind, we can run a modal collapse argument that shows that divine simplicity entails that (CP), aseity, and self-sufficiency are false. Given divine simplicity, God is pure actuality. God has no unactualized potential. This entails that there is no other way that God can be. Otherwise, God would have unactualized potential. This entails that condition (i) of (CP) is false. If God is free to create or not create, then He has unactualized potential. So God must create in order to be purely actual. Divine simplicity not only entails that God must create some universe of some sort, it entails that God must create this universe. If God could create this universe, but chose not to, God would have unactualized potential. So in order to be pure act, God must create this universe. The same is true of any other potential universes that God might be able to create. Say it is possible to create a multiverse. Then God must create the multiverse. Otherwise, God will have unactualized potential and not be pure act. For any possible universe that God can create, He must create. Otherwise, God will have unactualized potential. It is at this point that we have a modal collapse. Anything that God might possibly be able to create or bring about, God must create or bring about. Otherwise, God has unactualized potential. This entails that there is only one way that the world can be—God actualizing all possible states of affairs. In other words, there is only one possible world. It is the case that Christian theists have long maintained that God does not have to perform all of the actions that He can possibly perform. Merely pointing this out does nothing to assuage the problem. Pointing this out only shows that there is a deep inconsistency in the history of Christian thought since Christians held (CP) and the divine timeless research program. It is the divine timeless research program that entails this modal collapse. However, I have only argued that this entails a modal collapse and the falsity of condition (i) of (CP). I still need to argue that the timeless research program entails the falsity of condition (ii) of (CP), aseity, and self-sufficiency. It is to this that I turn next.

51

Philoponus, Against Proclus 1–5, 66–8. Cf. Bonaventure, Il Sent. d.1, a.1,q.2. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles I.86.

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As Rogers explains, God must create this world in order to be perfect.52 Otherwise God would not be pure act, immutable, simple, or timeless. What we have here in Rogers is a modal collapse. There is only one possible world. “From the divine point of view things cannot be other than they in fact are. It is only the temporal and limited point of view which allows discussion of other possible worlds.” Since God’s perspective is the best perspective, it is the right perspective.53 Things simply could not be any other way. In fact, she holds this as an entailment of divine omniscience. “The only actualizable world is the one which God eternally chooses . . . from the point of view of divine creativity, taking into account that God responds to our free actions, the world which God does make must always be known to Him as the only world He ‘can’ make.”54 In other words, from all eternity there is God and the fourdimensional universe. We limited creatures could imagine different scenarios and conceive of things differently, but these are not real possibilities from God’s perspective, the best perspective. Again, this is a straightforward modal collapse. Yet Rogers does not seem to think that this is a problem for God’s aseity. Rogers holds that if “God eternally wills to create this world, then necessarily He eternally wills to create this world . . . There was never a point at which He chose to create rather than not. From eternity He chooses to create.”55 For a simple God “being” and “act” are identical. Thus, “given God’s nature He could not do other than He does . . . God does not have literal options, but since He exists a se this is no limitation on Him.”56 It is the case that there “are other imaginable worlds, but the actual world, from God’s perspective in eternity, and allowing for the input of free creaturely choice, is the only really possible world.”57 Is God’s aseity intact? No. In order to see this, we need to consider the fact that God’s perfection is dependent upon His act of creation. Rogers seems to be somewhat aware of the entailment. She writes, From God’s perspective, if His essence is His eternal and immutable act in this the actual and only really possible world then He could not fail to have any of His attributes and still be Himself. They are equally necessary. That means that we are forced to conclude that creatures do have some effect on God’s very essence. This seems shocking since a major motivation for insisting on simplicity is the absolute aseity of God. And now we have apparently arrived at the conclusion that He is dependent on creatures!58

52

53 Rogers, The Anselmian Approach, 48. Rogers, The Anselmian Approach, 54. Rogers, The Anselmian Approach, 68–9. Cf. Hugh J. McCann, Creation and the Sovereignty of God (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012), 170. 55 56 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 33. Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 34–5. 57 58 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 36. Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 37. 54

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Why is God dependent on creatures? Rogers specifically has in mind the libertarian freedom of created human persons.59 Which possible world is actualized is in part dependent on human acts. Ultimately which possible world is actual is dependent upon God’s one act which is identical to God. Part of that act includes the acts of human persons, so in this sense she says God is dependent on creatures. This may not be that terrible an entailment if God desires to create human persons with free will. Most temporalists would agree. If God desires to create persons with libertarian free will that in no way diminishes God’s selfsufficiency or aseity. Of course, temporalists are also willing to say that God is contingently the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. These are contingent and accidental attributes that God freely takes on, and as such are not part of God’s essential nature. On divine temporality, creation does have a contingent effect on God, but it does not affect His essential nature. So His self-sufficiency and aseity are intact. Rogers cannot make the same move. Given divine simplicity God cannot have any accidental properties. Can she say that God is contingently the Creator? She cannot, given the atemporalist understanding of perfection. “If originally He was not creating, and then He became a creator, He would become better. And there’s a difference between intending to create and creating, so if God goes from being someone who intends to create to being someone who creates He’s changed for the better. But then He does not possess perfection as a necessity of His nature.”60 This entails that God is essentially the Creator. Since God is pure act, and all He does is done in one timeless act, He never becomes the Creator for He is eternally the Creator. If Creator is an essential—not a contingent—divine attribute, God must create something in order to be who He is.61 On the type of perfect being theology that Rogers is working with there are no valueneutral potentialities or changes. All change is for the better or worse. If it is possible for God to create, He must create. Otherwise He would not be pure act because He would have unactualized potential. So, as pure act, God must create in order to be who He is. His perfection is dependent upon His act of creation. This violates condition (ii) of (CP). (CP) is entailed by self-sufficiency. If (CP) is false, self-sufficiency is false. The atemporalist says that God must be pure actuality in order to be perfect. God is dependent upon creation in order to be pure actuality. So God’s essential nature is dependent upon creation. If He did not create, He would

59

Rogers, The Anselmian Approach, 48. Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: the Presence of a Timeless God,” 10. 61 Rogers has pointed out to me that those of a Platonic bent will see this “must create” as inevitably following from God’s perfect goodness and love. This seems to me to gut the Christian claim that creation is a gracious act of God. 60

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not be God—that is, He would not be pure act. That is not compatible with God’s self-sufficiency. From here, it is a quick step to show that this is not compatible with aseity as well. Given divine simplicity, God’s self-sufficiency is identical to His aseity. So this is incompatible with God’s aseity.

Begotten Not Made? As already noted, on eternalism creation is co-eternal with God. One might wonder what distinguishes the created universe from the only begotten Son. The Father eternally causes the Son to exist and both are co-eternal. As Gregory of Nyssa puts it in On Not Three Gods, “The principle of causality distinguishes, then, the Persons of the holy Trinity. It affirms that the one is uncaused, while the other depends on the cause.” The Father is uncaused, and the Son is caused. As such, the Son depends upon the Father. Yet both are coeternal. On eternalism God eternally causes the universe to exist. As such, the universe depends upon God. Yet both are co-eternal. What is the difference between the two? Historically, the pro-Nicene theologians distinguished between “begotten” and “made.” The term “begotten” was intended to denote “that which has a cause or source outside itself.” This causal source could be a something, or in the case of the Trinity, someone. This need not involve the begotten thing coming into existence. The term “created” or “made,” however, was intended to denote “that which has come into being.”62 The difference between begotten and made, then, is supposed to be that the Son never came into existence. The Son is caused to exist, but He never began to exist. The universe is caused to exist, but it did begin to exist. The Son has always existed, but the universe has not always existed. As I have argued in earlier chapters, classical Christian theology was committed to presentism. The difference between things that are begotten and made is that things that are made are subject to temporal becoming. They did not exist, and then they come into existence. On eternalism there is no temporal becoming. Nothing comes into existence because everything eternally exists at the times at which they exist. We now have nothing to distinguish begotten and made. This is not a good position to be in if one holds to the eternal generation of the Son. Things are even worse when one considers the modal collapse. God the Father must cause the Son and the universe to exist in order to be who He is. So there seems to be no difference between generating the Son and creating the universe. 62 Alasdair I. C. Heron, “Homoousios with the Father,” in ed. Thomas F. Torrance, The Incarnation: Ecumenical Studies in Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed A.D. 381 (Edinburgh: Handsel, 1981), 60–1.

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There is a possible rejoinder. One could reject the doctrine of eternal generation. The temporalist John Feinberg has argued that eternal generation is not a biblical doctrine.63 One does not need it in order to be a Trinitarian. It seems obvious to me that an atemporalist could make the same move. In fact, the atemporalist Paul Helm suggests this move as a way of avoiding Arianism.64 So the difficulty that I have laid out is only a problem for those who wish to affirm the doctrine of eternal generation as it is stated in the Nicene Creed.

The Threat of Pantheism The nominalistic notion that God is a being of absolute simplicity, and that in his nature there is no internal distinction of qualities or powers, tends directly to pantheism; denies all reality of the divine perfections; or, if these in any sense still exist, precludes all knowledge of them on the part of finite beings. To say that knowledge and power, eternity, and holiness, are identical with the essence of God and with each other, is to deny that we know God at all. —Augustus Hopkins Strong65

One might have noticed that there is more polemical bite to Strong’s statement than a substantive argument. However, there is a long tradition of pantheist arguments that seek to establish that classical theism entails pantheism.66 In light of this, it is interesting to note that Rogers’ account of simplicity and creation looks strikingly like a form of pantheism when one considers her stance on theistic idealism. Rogers does not want to align herself with pantheism given her commitment to perfect being theology. Creation, she says, does not add anything to the being of God.67 She makes claims that try to distinguish creatures from the Creator. In articulating her form of theistic idealism she says, To be an idea of God’s is not to be God or ‘part of ’ God. As long as we maintain a distinction between the act of thinking and the object thought, we can hold that created things just are what God thinks and wills to exist in His one, perfect act which is identical to His nature, and yet that the objects of divine thought are not identical to that thought itself and hence are not God.68

63 Feinberg, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2006), 489–92. 64 Paul Helm, The Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time, 2nd Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 286. 65 Strong, Systematic Theology Volume 1: The Doctrine of God (Philadelphia, PA: American Baptist Publication Society, 1907), 244. 66 William J. Mander, “Omniscience and Pantheism,” The Heythrop Journal 41 (2000), 199. 67 68 Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 113. Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 111.

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Perhaps it is coherent to maintain the distinction between Creator and creature, but I find it difficult to do so given her account of simplicity and idealism. If “there is nothing more to a creature than what God is thinking” and God’s thoughts are identical to His nature,69 how is it not the case that creatures are identical to God’s nature? Further, if God’s nature is identical to God Himself, how is it not the case that creatures are identical to God? It is illuminating to see Don Lodzinski’s defense of divine timelessness, immutability, and simplicity.70 He concurs with Rogers that four-dimensional eternalism is needed to maintain timelessness. Also, he agrees that creation is co-eternal with God, and that creation is the product of God’s one eternal thought. Yet he thinks that all of this clearly entails pantheism. What is the difference between Rogers and Lodzinski? Why does one deny pantheism and the other willingly embrace it? There is a move that Rogers makes that Lodzinski does not. Rogers attempts to avoid pantheism by placing God on a different ontological level. In earlier writings she holds that there are three ontological levels, yet in later writings the third one seems to have disappeared. The big idea is that God is on one ontological level. Everything that exists apart from God are divine ideas, or reflects the divine ideas, and are thus on a second ontological level. As created beings our ideas are copies of the divine ideas and are thus inferior. They exist on a third ontological level.71 I must confess that I do not understand the notion of different ontological levels. It seems to me that existence does not admit of degrees. Granted, God exists necessarily and creatures exist contingently. The modality of each is different, but existence is basic and univocal. Existence is not the sort of thing that could admit of degrees. Any claims to the effect that some thing X has “more existence” than some thing Y is built upon a more fundamental assumption that each in fact exists simpliciter. So the notion of “more existence” seems to me to be nothing but a poor choice of words, or an unintuitive concept. However, I don’t think Rogers needs this notion of different ontological levels to ward off pantheism. She just needs to be able to distinguish divine thoughts from the divine mind. In order to make her position clear she asks us to consider our own minds. In our own minds we can distinguish between our mind and our thoughts. In an analogous way, she says, we can distinguish between the divine mind and His thought (which is creation). “We must distinguish the ontological level of the mind where the thinking goes on, and the ontological level of the ideas sustained by the thinking. The process 69

Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 109. Don Lodzinski, “The Eternal Act,” Religious Studies 34 (1998), 325–52. Cf. John Leslie, Infinite Minds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 71 Rogers, The Anselmian Approach, 230 and 238. 70

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of thinking is not exactly the same thing as the idea which exists as the object of thought. . . . The mind is not just the same thing as its ideas and vice versa.”72 This move does appear to be intuitive. Our minds are not identical to our thoughts. Say I am at a restaurant and have to figure out how much to tip the server. This puts me in the awkward position of having to do math in my head. My mind clearly exists before I engage in the mathematical thought process, and it continues to exist once I have ceased to think about the tip. My mind is not identical to my thought about the tip. Is this a good analogy for thinking about God’s mind? Not if God is simple. My thoughts are not identical to who I am. They are things I do, but not things I am. With the simple God, His thought is identical to His essence. God just is His act of thinking. If God were not simple, immutable, and timeless this analogy would be apt, but it cannot help Rogers. She will need to come up with something else to defend her notion of different ontological levels. As it stands, it is not clear how her theistic idealism avoids pantheism.

What Perfections Can Be Derived From Four-Dimensionalism? Earlier I noted that Rogers and Mawson wished to move from divine perfections to the metaphysics of time. For them, the correct metaphysics of time is four-dimensional eternalism. Earlier, I also noted that this is going about perfect being theology in the wrong order. As discussed in Chapter 3, the method of perfect being theology starts with the assumption that God can be known from the perfections found in creatures. If the universe is a fourdimensional spacetime manifold and creatures are perdurant objects, what perfections can be derived from this? It does not appear to be anything like divine atemporality, simplicity, or immutability. If creatures are perdurant beings it would seem that the perfection to be derived would be divine perdurantism. One certainly cannot derive the perfection of infinite endurance from perdurant creatures. The argument from the radical incompleteness of life assumes that creatures are endurant beings— they exist as a whole or all at once. It further assumes that enduring through time is better than not. The next move is to predicate that endurance through time can be had to an infinite degree. Hence, God has infinite duration, or endures without beginning or end. The next step is to try to argue that it is better to be without a before and after than to have a before and after in one’s life. As noted in previous chapters, this is where divine simplicity comes into play. In particular, the claim that conceptual distinctions do not apply to God. 72

Rogers, The Anselmian Approach, 239–40.

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This is the point where the argument gets a bit fuzzy and makes some odd jumps, but the end result is supposed to be a God who exists all at once in a timeless present that lacks a before and after. If human persons are perdurant beings, the argument will look different. It will have to assume that perduring through time is better than not. The question will then be, can perdurance through time be had to an infinite degree? Let us say that it can be. In that case God would have an infinite perdurance which means that He would have an infinite number of temporal parts or stages. If God has temporal parts, He is not simple, immutable, or timeless. No defender of the traditional view of God will take delight in this entailment. Assuming eternalism and perdurantism does not lead to divine timelessness. It leads to a perdurant God, and a perdurant God is a temporal God. There is a further problem in assuming four-dimensional eternalism. The argument from the radical incompleteness of life not only assumes endurantism, it also assumes presentism. The life of creatures is transitory precisely because creatures lose moments of their lives as the present moment slips into the non-existent past, and they do not yet possess the non-existent future moments of their lives. The argument hinges on presentism and endurantism. If one rejects these metaphysical doctrines, she is cutting herself off from one of the main arguments for divine timelessness. Four-dimensional eternalism will not get the job done. On Rogers’ account God is eternally creating and sustaining the four-dimensional spacetime manifold. There never was a moment when God existed and the universe did not. The universe simply is not transitory on this view. Setting aside the modal collapse, one can say that the universe is contingent because its’ existence depends upon God, but it is co-eternal with God. So there is nothing transitory about creation. Bringing the modal collapse back into consideration, the universe is not possibly transitory for it exists necessarily. It would seem that Rogers has cut herself off from one of the main arguments for divine timelessness.

FOUR-DIMENSIONAL E TERNALISM DOES NOT SAVE DIVINE TIMELESSNESS Many defenders of divine temporality have claimed that the only way to maintain divine timelessness is to hold to four-dimensional eternalism. Atemporalists like Paul Helm, Mawson, and Rogers agree. However, I must disagree for it seems that God would still be temporal even if four-dimensional eternalism were true. God would be temporal in the way that a four-dimensionalist understands time. It seems to me that the reason that contemporary philosophical theologians have claimed that four-dimensional eternalism is compatible with divine

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atemporality stems from the notion that this view of time involves an unchanging reality. On presentism it is obvious that the world is constantly changing. If God is sustaining this constantly changing world He cannot be immutable for He can only sustain objects that exist at the ever changing present moment. On four-dimensional eternalism it might appear that the world is unchanging since all moments of space and time have equal ontological existence, and the flow of time is said to be illusory. As such, God can sustain the universe in one eternal and immutable act. The problem is that this is a false understanding of this theory of time. As Nathan Oaklander explains, “The rock-bottom feature of time that must be accepted on all sides is that there is change, and the different views concerning the nature of change constitute the difference between A- and B-theories of time.”73 One will recall from Chapter 2 that philosophers used to think that the A-theory corresponded to presentism, and that the B-theory corresponded to eternalism. In Chapter 2 I pointed out that this is no longer the case. What matters for my purpose here is that Oaklander is stating that presentism and eternalism both agree that the temporal world involves change. As the fourdimensional eternalist, Theodore Sider, puts it, “What is certain is that things persist, somehow, that things change, somehow, and that things have properties at times, somehow.”74 The eternalist does not deny that the world involves change. Instead, she holds to a different understanding of change—that is, the four-dimensionalist doctrine of temporal parts. Things change by having different successive temporal parts with different properties at different successive times.75 The world involves change from one moment of time to the next. Perdurantism is the way eternalists typically explain how an object changes over time without having contradictory temporary intrinsic properties. Though, others adopt stage theory instead. Either way, on four-dimensional eternalism, God is sustaining a changing universe. To hold to four-dimensional eternalism is not to hold to a changeless universe. In this section I wish to lay out several reasons for thinking that fourdimensional eternalism does not save divine timelessness.

The Timeless God Exists at Every Time Mawson’s account of divine timelessness falls into divine temporality. God, on his construal, is temporal as understood on four-dimensionalism. This is not 73 Nathan Oaklander, The Ontology of Time (New York: Prometheus Books, 2004), 39. Emphasis in the original. 74 Theodore Sider, Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 215. 75 Sider, Four-Dimensionalism, 2–5.

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intentional. He does attempt to distinguish his account from divine temporality. I will argue that he does not succeed. On his model, much like Anselm’s, God’s relation to time is directly parallel to God’s relation to space. “God is not located at any particular point in time, in the sense that he exists then but not at other times. Rather, he transcends time. Despite his temporal transcendence, he is not absent from any time.”76 He notes that the temporalist will agree with this assessment, and as such he has not clearly distinguished timelessness from temporality. What distinguishes the two positions? “The answer is that the atemporalist believes that if God had not created a universe, he would have existed at no time for there wouldn’t have been time, whereas the temporalist believes that even if God had not created the universe, he would have existed at times, indeed at all times, for there would still have been time.”77 At this point, the divine temporalist will argue that to exist at a time is sufficient to be in time.78 Thus, Mawson’s account does not give us divine timelessness. If God exists at any time, He must be temporal. An Anselmian will say that God exists at all times and places.79 On the Anselmian view this means that God is causally related to each moment of time. He exists at those times. If He did not, those times would not exist. This, says Mawson, is sufficient for God to exist at every time. “It is a sufficient condition of one’s being at a particular time that one knows what is going on at that time directly, without first needing to do something at some other time, and that one can act directly at that time, that is without first needing to do something at some other time.”80 The temporalist will argue that this is also a sufficient condition for existing in time. Mawson will disagree for three reasons. First, his appeal, again, is that if God had not created the temporal world He would not exist at any time.81 This fails to distinguish Mawson’s divine atemporalism from William Lane Craig’s divine temporality. On Craig’s view, God is timeless sans creation, but temporal with creation. So no advancement has been made toward distinguishing Mawson’s view from divine temporality. Second, this is irrelevant since God has in fact created a temporal world and exists at every time. On the picture of the God–world relationship under examination here, God and the universe are co-eternal. There is never a state of affairs where God exists without creation. Further, divine simplicity forces the atemporalist to say that this is the only possible world. If this is right, there is no possible world where God exists without the temporal universe. 76

77 Mawson, Belief in God, 49. Mawson, Belief in God, 49. Nicholas Wolterstorff, “God and Time,” Philosophia Christi 2, (2000), 8. This is why Paul Helm, in his defense of timelessness, claims that God cannot stand in any temporal relations, not even simultaneity. Helm, The Eternal God, 27. 79 80 Anselm, Monologion, 22. Mawson, Belief in God, 50. 81 Mawson, Belief in God, 50. Also, “God’s Body,” 180. 78

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There is no possible world where God does not exist at all times. Recall again that Mawson’s claim is that God is atemporal because God could possibly exist without time. It seems that the divine timeless research program cannot say that God could possibly exist without time. So, again, no advancement has been made to distinguish divine timelessness from divine temporality. Third, Mawson claims, like Anselm, that existing at every time is not sufficient for existing in time.82 He gives us no hint as to how this is the case. Thus, we have no reason to think this claim is true. In fact, this is a general problem for atemporalists. There is a widespread assumption amongst atemporalists that there is a clear distinction between existing at a time and existing in time, or between existing with a time and in time. As Rory Fox points out, this distinction was taken to be obvious throughout the Middle Ages, but was left vague and largely unexplored. For instance, Fox notes that Aquinas was willing to concede that angels who exist with time must be in time. However, Aquinas was not willing to concede this with respect to God.83 If the at time and in time distinction fails with regard to angels, why does it succeed with regard to God? The answer seems to be that the distinction is obvious with regard to God. However, I do not find this distinction obvious. I dare say it is empty. To exist at a time is to have temporal location. To exist in time is to have temporal location. Having temporal location makes one temporal. What is the difference between at and in? The atemporalist wants to draw the distinction by saying that eternity contains time in that “God is the source of each temporal instant. He is not contained in any of the temporal instants, but is directly, causally and cognitively related to each and every one of them equally.”84 The temporalist agrees, but she understands eternity as metaphysical time as outlined in Chapter 2. So, once again, the atemporalist has failed to distinguish herself from divine temporality. How can the atemporalist distinguish herself from the temporalist? What metaphysic of time makes this distinction between at and in time intelligible? I don’t know. If the absolute theory of time is true, time can exist without change. There is no distinction between existing at a time and existing in time. Nothing can be timeless if the absolute theory of time is true for it is a necessary concomitant of God’s existence. Several divine temporalists will be happy with this, but it will not help divine timelessness. If a relational theory of time is true, time is just change. There is no meaningful sense in which an object exists at a change but not in a change. An object persists through change by either enduring or perduring. An object either does or does not 82

Mawson, Belief in God, 50. Rory Fox, Time and Eternity in Mid-Thirteenth-Century Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 311 and 324–7. 84 Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: the Presence of a Timeless God,” 8. 83

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change. The atemporalist will say that God does not change intrinsically or extrinsically. Later in this chapter I will argue that this is not possible. For now I will simply note that this does not make the at-in distinction intelligible. What seems to be going on with the at-in distinction is a strong analogy between space and time. Yet even an ardent four-dimensional eternalist, like Theodore Sider, will note that space and time have clear distinct qualities despite being strongly analogous. “Unlike time, space has three dimensions and lacks a distinguished direction; unlike space, time seems to be specially connected with causation.”85 The at-in distinction assumes that time is like a container, but time just is not the sort of thing that could be a container.86 It is not enough like a physical object to be described literally in this manner.87 Granted, temporalists do speak of God existing in time, but as I pointed out in Chapter 2 this is a non-literal way of saying that God is temporal. One way that might make the at-in distinction work is to say that time is created by God. God cannot be bound by created things. Does this help? No, and for two reasons. First, it isn’t obvious that time was created. For instance, John of Damascus held to the notion of a period of indivisible time prior to creation. The atemporalist needs to offer a reason for thinking that time was created. As discussed in Chapter 2, the Bible will be of no help here, so the atemporalist will have to look elsewhere for reasons. Augustine posits that God created time to avoid the question, “Why did God not create sooner?”88 It is an ad hoc move that one need not accept.89 One will need independent justification for making this claim. One could offer a kalam argument to the conclusion that time had a beginning. However, this would get us to the conclusion that there was a first change, or first event, which is consistent with John of Damascus’ position. It cannot get us to the conclusion that time began. One will need another argument for that conclusion. Second, say that time is created. Time is either relational or absolute. No progress has been made over the previously mentioned difficulties by making time a created thing. The atemporalist needs to explain, without appealing to

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Sider, Four-Dimensionalism, 87. Lesley-Anne Dyer, “Transcendent and Immanent Eternity in Anselm’s Monologion,” Filosophia Unisinos 11 (2010), 275–8. Dyer notes the difficulties surrounding the metaphor of time as a container. 87 On the absolute theory of time one can describe time as a container in a very loose sense. As already noted, this does not help the atemporalist. 88 Augustine, Confessions XI.13. Maximus the Confessor simply declares that we are not allowed to ask that question. 400 Chapters on Love 4.3–5. 89 If the temporalist is bothered by the question she has several moves she can make. See Thomas Senor, “Divine Temporality and Creation ex Nihilo” Faith and Philosophy 10 (1993). Also, Dean Zimmerman, “God Inside Time and Before Creation,” in eds. Gregory E. Ganssle and David M. Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). 86

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excessive metaphors and ineffable mysteries, why time being created helps make the at-in distinction intelligible. So where does this leave us? Recall from Chapter 3 that one of the conditions for divine timelessness is that God does not have temporal location. As it stands, the timeless God under consideration here exists at every time and thus has temporal location. That is sufficient for God to be temporal.

The Arguments against Timelessness Work on Eternalism To bolster this conclusion it is worthy of note that some of the arguments against divine timelessness work on presentism and four-dimensional eternalism. John Duns Scotus argued against Thomism that God cannot be co-present, or immense, with an event unless that event exists.90 In other words, God cannot be equally co-present with all moments of time because moments of time only exist at the times at which they do. Scotus was assuming presentism, so his claim is that God can only be co-present with the present moment. God cannot be co-present with any other moments because those other moments simply do not exist on presentism. However, Brian Leftow suggests that the same argument could work on eternalism.91 On four-dimensional eternalism, objects are constituted of temporal parts or stages. Stages only exist at the moments at which they exist. Some object O has stages at times t1 through tn. It simply is the case that those stages exist at those times and no others. The whole notion of perdurant objects and stages arises because endurant objects cannot exist at multiple times as the fourdimensionalist sees it. Since all moments of time have equal ontological existence an endurant object would exist wholly at several times and would thus have contradictory properties. Say O exists as a whole at t1 through t2. At t1 O is blue all over and at t2 O is red all over. Since O exists as a whole at both times the properties of each time fall within O’s quantifier domain. O has the properties blue all over and red all over. O has contradictory properties. The adoption of temporal parts removes the contradictory properties. What does this have to do with God and time? If God is immense, or equally present, to all moments of time as the eternalist sees it, God will have contradictory properties. From all eternity God is incarnate and not incarnate. From all eternity God is initiating the Mosaic Covenant and He is not. Since God is equally and wholly present to each moment of time, and since each moment of time has equal ontological existence, all of these properties are within the quantifier domain in that all of these properties can be predicated of 90 Scotus, Contingency and Freedom: Lectura I 39 (London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994), 174. 91 Brian Leftow, Time and Eternity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 229.

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God. In order to remove the contradiction one would have to adopt divine temporal parts so that she could say that and . Again, no defender of divine simplicity will accept that for God literally has temporal parts. If God has temporal parts, He is not timeless. Rogers may have a rejoinder. In one place she writes, “Although God is ‘timeless’ in that His life is not stretched out four-dimensionally across time as our lives are, it does not follow that He is incapable of being related to the temporal universe . . . God knows and acts causally upon all of space-time in one, eternal, act.” Here she is clearly denying that God is spread out through the spacetime manifold. Yet God is still causally related to each moment of time. He is “the source of each temporal instant.”92 God is the source of each instant by being cognitively and causally related to each instant. Does this help? No. A simple God is identical to His cognition and His cognition is temporally spread out. Thus, God is temporally spread out. His act of causing t1 to exist only exists at t1 and not at t2. There is one way to avoid this conclusion, but the atemporalist will not like it.93 The atemporalist could appeal to a claim that she is already committed to: all of time is simultaneously present to God. All of time is simultaneous with eternity. Time t1 is simultaneous with eternity. Time t2 is simultaneous with eternity. Thus, t1 is simultaneous with t2. This has the advantage of clearly making God’s causal activity one single act. Of course, it has the high price of collapsing the chronology of time and thus destroying eternalism. As I said before, this avoids the problem, but the atemporalist will not like it. There is another argument worth considering that comes from Dean Zimmerman and Roderick M. Chisholm. Their argument explicitly endorses presentism, but I believe that it works on eternalism as well. One of the starting points for the argument is that God stands in real relations to creation. As noted before, Rogers has no taste for the medieval denial of God’s real relation to creation. Zimmerman and Chisholm argue that if God stands in a relation with temporal entities He too must be temporal. “If anything changes, then everything changes. If you change from the state of sitting to the state of standing, then each of us becomes such that you change from the state of sitting to the state of standing. And so does God.”94 Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: The Presence of a Timeless God,” 8. Leftow suggests another option in Time and Eternity, 230–5. Drawing on an analogy from STR he says that times are co-present to God in His eternal reference frame. On one interpretation of this he will be subject to the aforementioned argument. God’s reference frame will be the preferred reference frame, and thus the one that defines absolute simultaneity. On another interpretation this amounts to the claim that all objects have two modes of existence: an eternal and a temporal mode. I am in agreement with Rogers in that I cannot make sense of this. See Rogers, “Back to Eternalism,” 324. 94 Roderick M. Chisholm and Dean Zimmerman, “Theology and Tense,” Nous 31:2 (1997): 264. 92 93

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What Zimmerman and Chisholm are describing are Cambridge changes. A Cambridge change is a relational, or extrinsic, change. It is not the same thing as an intrinsic change. If person P decides to perform some action a, and then performs a, P will have undergone an intrinsic change. If a red apple turns brown it has undergone an intrinsic change. A Cambridge change is different because it does not involve a change in something intrinsic to the subject. Allow me to illustrate. At the moment I am typing this from my flat which is south of the Cambridge Faculty of Divinity. Say that I later walk north of the faculty building. The Faculty of Divinity building has not undergone an intrinsic change throughout this process. It has only undergone a mere Cambridge change. It has gone from being “North of Ryan” to being “South of Ryan.” What does this have to do with God and time? Zimmerman and Chisholm are arguing that a subject that has undergone a Cambridge change is in time. The building was standing in a relation to me at t1 and then was standing in a new relation at t2. God is eternally sustaining both of those times. He stands in a real relation to this Cambridge change. It would seem that God would be subject to a Cambridge change as well since He is really related to both times. If God undergoes a mere Cambridge change, He is temporal. One could try to get out of this by denying that Cambridge changes should even count as changes at all.95 I find this less than persuasive since Cambridge changes are enough to change the truth-value of propositions about other subjects. One will need to offer an argument as to why they are not legitimate changes. Ultimately, that does not matter since Christian theology proclaims that God stands in several types of relations with creation that are far more significant than mere Cambridge change. He created and sustains the world. The world is causally dependent upon Him, so the world is in a dependency relation with God at each moment of its existence. Also, God through Christ and the Holy Spirit stands in an intimate loving relationship with human persons. These are not mere Cambridge changes. Anything related to a time is in time. Anything related to a change is also changed. Four-dimensional eternalism is a theory about time and change. Time and change are part of the furniture of the world. God is really related to a temporal and changing world, as understood on four-dimensional eternalism, so God is temporal as understood on four-dimensional eternalism. This brings us back to a God with temporal parts. Thinkers like Rogers and Mawson could avoid this by denying that God is really related to creation, but then they would run into all of the problems discussed in Chapter 5. As already noted, Rogers thinks that the denial of real relations is untenable, so it is best to look for another way out. Leftow, “Eternity and Immutability” in ed. William E. Mann, The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005). 95

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In Chapter 2 it was noted that the problem of temporary intrinsics motivates the doctrine of temporal parts. The idea is that endurantism is not compatible with eternalism. What I did not discuss in detail is that there are philosophers who hold that endurantism is compatible with eternalism. In other words, they think that the problem of temporary intrinsics does not motivate the doctrine of temporal parts. The atemporalist might be tempted to say that whatever solution the endurantist uses to avoid temporal parts can be invoked to avoid God having temporal parts. The timeless God can exist as a whole, all at once. As tempting as this might be, I doubt that it will be a fruitful endeavor. This is because the solutions assume that the endurant object is temporal, and has temporal properties. The typical ways of removing the problem of temporary intrinsics whilst maintaining endurantism involve modifying the temporal properties that the endurant object possesses. If the atemporalist tries to do the same, she will still have a God with temporal properties that is temporally located. That is a temporal God, and not a timeless God.

CONC LUDING REMARKS In Chapter 5 I argued that the traditional view of divine atemporality is not possible given presentism. Here I examined a contemporary account of divine timelessness that assumes eternalism. I have argued that this account fails to maintain divine timelessness as well. Katherin Rogers has said that unless divine timelessness “entails some logical or metaphysical impossibility” Christians ought to hold to this doctrine since it expresses “the most ontologically perfect way to exist.”96 What I am positing is that divine timelessness is metaphysically impossible given that God has created a temporal universe.97 It does not matter which theory of time one holds. We know that God has created a temporal universe and that He causally sustains this universe and interacts in it, and as such God must be temporal.

Rogers, “Anselmian Eternalism: the Presence of a Timeless God,” 11–12. At the very least, one could posit that we currently do not know how divine timelessness could be metaphysically possible given that God has created a temporal world. 96 97

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7 The Incarnation of the Timeless God Formerly he was not man, but only God the Son, before all ages, unconnected with a body or anything corporeal; but at last he became man also, assuming manhood for our salvation; passible in the flesh, impassible in the Godhead; limited in the body, unconfined in the spirit; on the earth and at the same time in heaven; belonging to the visible world, and also to the intelligible order of being; comprehensible and also incomprehensible; so that man as a whole, since he had fallen into sin, might be fashioned afresh by one who was wholly man and at the same time God. —Gregory of Nazianzus1

It is often said that the incarnation conflicts with divine timelessness, though this is seldom fleshed out in the contemporary discussions. The intent of this chapter is to find a way for the incarnation to be compatible with divine timelessness. I shall argue that the traditional doctrine of the incarnation is not compatible with the divine timeless research program. First, we need to get a clear statement of the conflict. Then we need to find a model that is possibly compatible with timelessness. I shall examine Christological models that arise out of the ecumenical councils of the Church, as well as the so-called Christological deposit. The ecumenical councils do not arise in a vacuum, and are not intended to be interpreted in whichever way the contemporary Christian theologian or philosopher desires. The Christological deposit, as I shall call it, comprises the teachings of the councils, the official creeds and formulas that develop out of these councils, the documents that are attached to the creeds by the councils, and the theological doctrines that the early Church fathers argue are standing behind, in, and with the creeds. Throughout this chapter I shall refer to the ecumenical councils and the Christological deposit as “ecumenical Christology” or “classical Christian Christology.” The upshot for the divine timeless research program is that ecumenical Christology assumed the divine timeless research program as it developed the classical Christian doctrine of the incarnation. On the face of it, this seems favorable for 1

Epistle 101.4–7, 10.

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the atemporalist. However, I shall argue that there are no existent incarnational models that are compatible with the divine timeless research program and an ecumenical Christology. Since the incarnation is part of the hardcore of every Christian research program, it is a non-negotiable doctrine. Divine timelessness does not have the same status as the doctrine of the incarnation. As such, Christians should give up the divine timeless research program in order to maintain the incarnation.

THE I NITIAL OBJECTION It should be recalled that all one needs is a change, any kind of change, in order to have time. Any kind of change that a being undergoes will be sufficient for that being to be temporal as it will create a before and after in the life of that being. The incarnation seems to be a clear example of God the Son undergoing a change, and thus being temporal. As Colin Gunton puts it, in the incarnation “the eternal love of God locates itself in time and space, and so becomes datable.”2 T. F. Torrance puts the matter even more boldly. the assumptio carnis also means that the eternal God, without ceasing to be eternal, has taken temporal form, as well as creaturely existence. God has assumed our time into union with himself, without abrogating it. He the eternal has become temporal for us in the form of our own temporal and historical existence, not simply by embracing our time and historical existence and ruling it, but by permitting time and our historical existence to be the form of his eternal deity. Thus he is not only accessible to us in time and history, but we in time and history are free to approach the eternal and to live with him.3

As provocative as Torrance’s claim is, Christians have traditionally wished to resist the notion that the incarnation entails that God is temporal. In speaking of the incarnate Christ, Pope Leo I says that “while continuing to be beyond time, he begins to exist from a point in time.”4 This appears to be, at best, highly paradoxical, and at worst, a complete contradiction. It is not surprising that the doctrine of the incarnation was theologically offensive in the ancient world. The notion that the immutable God could change was an offense against His perfection. The suggestion that the timeless

2

Colin E. Gunton, Yesterday and Today, 2nd Edition (London: SPCK, 1997), 134. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 66. 4 Pope Leo I in ed. Richard Norris, The Christological Controversy (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1980), 149. 3

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God could enter into time—let alone be aware of what is happening in time— was taken as an assault on the most exalted being. It was an uphill struggle for early Christians to establish the intellectual credibility of the incarnation because it suggested that the impassible God suffered death on a cross. In fact, many of the early Christological heresies were motivated by the prima facie incompatibility of divine timelessness, immutability, impassibility, and the incarnation.5 As Christianity became the dominant religion in the West, the critics did not go away. Christian theologians continued to feel compelled to answer objections against the compatibility of God’s perfection and the incarnation.6 A common objection was that it is unfitting for God to become anything which He was not eternally. The incarnation is a new event in history, it is not eternal. As such, God cannot have become incarnate at some point in history.7 These objections were common because it was assumed that God is atemporal. The incarnation was on trial before the bar of the classical understanding of divine perfection. In our own day the objections usually run in the other direction. The classical understanding of the divine perfections is placed on trial before the bar of God incarnate. This is as it should be if we truly believe that the incarnation is the ultimate revelation of God to human persons.8 The incarnation should force us to reconsider what God is like.9 There are several ways of articulating the objection in the contemporary literature. Thomas Senor puts it like this.10 (1) (2) (3) (∴4)

Jesus Christ was the bearer of temporal properties. No bearer of temporal properties is atemporal. Jesus Christ=God the Son (a divine person). God the Son is not atemporal.

5 David Bentley Hart, “No Shadow of Turning: On Divine Impassibility,” Pro Ecclesia 11 (2002). See also the “Deposition of Arius” in ed. Philip Schaff, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, Volume 4: Athanasius: Select Works and Letters (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), 271–9. 6 E.g. Origen, Against Celsus. Athanasius, Against the Pagans: On the Incarnation. Gregory of Nyssa, On Religious Instruction. Anselm, Cur Deus Homo. 7 G. R. Evans, Philosophy and Theology in the Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 1993), 97. 8 Richard A. Holland Jr., God, Time, and the Incarnation (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2012), ch. 2. 9 Alan Torrance, “Does God Suffer? Incarnation and Impassibility,” in eds. Trevor A. Hart and Daniel P. Thimell, Christ in Our Place: The Humanity of God in Christ for the Reconciliation of the World (Exeter: The Paternoster Press, 1989), 352. 10 Thomas D. Senor, “Incarnation, Timelessness, and Leibniz’s Law Problems,” in eds. Gregory E. Ganssle and David M. Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 220.

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Brian Leftow strengthens Senor’s argument as follows, displaying a clear understanding of the role change plays in the argument:11 (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (∴12)

Jesus Christ existed in time. Jesus Christ=God the Son. God the Son existed in time. God the Son began to be human. Whatever begins to be human changes intrinsically. God the Son changed intrinsically. Whatever changes intrinsically exists in time. God the Son exists in time.

Senor notes that his argument does not necessarily entail that the entire Godhead is temporal. “It does follow, however, that there exists a temporal divine being and, a fortiori, atemporality is not essential for divinity.”12 Senor’s modesty here ignores some important issues in Trinitarian theology—that is, the doctrine of homoousios. The homoousios doctrine states that all of the divine persons share the same essence. If the Son is temporal whilst the Father and Holy Spirit are atemporal, they will not be homoousios. The temporality of the incarnation is a serious threat to divine timelessness. “If God is timelessly eternal, then there can be no time at which the Word of God can be said to do or become anything.”13 This would seem to make it impossible for a timeless God to become incarnate, but the incarnation is an essential part of any Christian research program. The atemporalist needs to Brian Leftow, “A Timeless God Incarnate,” in eds. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins, The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). One will notice that I do not engage Leftow here. I have chosen not to do so for several reasons. First, on Leftow’s model, God the Son is not identical to Jesus Christ. He denies (6). This is not an adequate account of the incarnation for the early creeds clearly say that the Son is the exact same person as Jesus. Second, I simply do not understand how Leftow’s metaphysical model is supposed to work. It is heavily dependent upon an analogy (that of a diver in a wetsuit), and light on transparent metaphysics. I do not understand how to assign a truth value to the claims that Leftow’s model makes. As it stands the account is underdeveloped and could be subject to two fatal problems: (i) Jesus Christ is not a person, or (ii) Nestorianism. Third, I fail to see how it can account for the communicatio idiomatum. In fact, Leftow never even mentions the communicatio idiomatum. Nor does he offer a detailed discussion of how the two natures are supposed to relate to one another. Fourth, because of the previous reason I fail to see how it is not Nestorianism. If it is not Nestorianism, it does not seem to be an incarnation of any sort. For an extended articulation and defense of this model, see Brian Leftow, “The Humanity of God,” and Oliver D. Crisp, “Compositional Christology Without Nestorianism,” and for a critique see Thomas P. Flint, “Should Concretists Part with Mereological Models of the Incarnation?” and Thomas Senor, “Drawing on Many Traditions: An Ecumenical Kenotic Christology,” in ed. Anna Marmodoro and Jonathan Hill, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Also, Brian Leftow, “Composition and Christology,” Faith and Philosophy 28 (2011). 12 Senor, “Incarnation, Timelessness, and Leibniz’s Law Problems,” 220. 13 Oliver Crisp, “Incarnation,” in eds. John Webster, Kathryn Tanner, and Iain Torrance, The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 168. 11

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offer a model of the incarnation that is compatible with divine timelessness if she is going to have a coherent Christian research program. There might be a way to develop a model where this is possible.

CHRISTOLOGICAL MODELS There are various models of the incarnation at large today, many of which claim to be consistent with ecumenical Christology.14 The dominant strands are composite Christologies.15 This can involve two, three, or four parts of the composite Christ depending on one’s anthropology. For instance, the twominds view is a three-part Christology since it posits that Christ has a divine mind, a human mind, and a human body.16 Someone who is a substance dualist may find this attractive. However, she may also find the two-part Christology of Athanasius equally attractive. This is where the divine mind constitutes a human person by being connected to a human body in the appropriate way, perhaps through some sort of psycho-physical laws.17 A trichotomist will most likely have a four-part Christology since she holds that human persons are comprised of a body, soul, and spirit. In this instance, the divine mind would take on a human body, a human soul, and a human spirit. However, it is not necessary for a trichotomist to hold to a four-part Christology. Apollinarius seems to be a trichotomist who believed that human persons are comprised of a human body, a rational soul, and an animal soul. He had a three-part Christology since, on his view, the Son takes the place of the rational soul. According to Apollinarius, if the Son assumed another rational soul that would involve the Son assuming another person. For Apollinarius, the Son counts as fully human because the Son is a rational soul with an animal soul and a human body.18 Closely related to this discussion of philosophical anthropology is the question of the divine and human will. Monothelites hold that the Son only has one will, whereas dyothelites hold that the Son has two wills—a human 14 I will be following the taxonomy of incarnation models that Oliver Crisp uses in Divinity and Humanity: The Incarnation Reconsidered (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 15 Anna Marmodoro and Jonathan Hill, “Composition Models of the Incarnation: Unity and Unifying Relations,” Religious Studies 46 (2010). 16 Thomas V. Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate (London: Cornell University Press, 1986). 17 William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), ch. 30. Richard Swinburne, The Christian God (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), ch. 9. However, Swinburne offers a variant of the two-minds view by dividing the Word’s consciousness. 18 Apollinarius says, “If, then, a human being is made up of three parts, the Lord is also a human being, for the Lord surely is made up of three parts: spirit and soul and body.” Norris, Christological Controversy, 110.

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and a divine will.19 A monothelite will say that only persons have a will, whereas a dyothelite will maintain that natures have a will.20 A dyothelite will say that since Christ took on a human nature, He must have taken on a human will as well. What might this look like? Say one has a three-part Christology and is a dyothelite. On this view God the Son—a divine mind—assumes a human mind, a human body, and a human will. There are other Christological models available as well. There are two broad kenotic positions that one might hold. These can be compatible with threeand four-part Christologies, though one need not hold them in order to flesh out a kenotic account. A functional kenotic view holds that the Second divine Person limited the exercise of His powers to such an extent that He constitutes a human person.21 The Son does not give up any of His essential attributes in the incarnation. He simply limits the exercise of His attributes. An ontological kenosis view holds that the Son does give up His omni-attributes in the incarnation in order to be considered human.22 This view, at least the plausible versions of it, will also try to maintain that the Son does not give up any of His essential attributes. A proponent of this view will argue that an attribute like omnipotence is not necessary for being divine, but that love is. The Son gives up omnipotence, but does not give up love. Which type of model will help us maintain divine timelessness? The kenotic views will be of no help since the very idea of kenosis involves giving something up. A timeless God cannot give up anything for that would involve change and a new moment in the divine life. On an ontological kenosis the Son loses certain properties at a particular time, and that certainly cannot be compatible with divine timelessness. A functional view holds that for a particular stretch of time the Son does not exercise certain divine powers. Oliver Crisp, “Incarnation,” 162–3. John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith III.14. For John of Damascus, and most classical orthodox Christians, there is only one divine will. This raises a particular problem for any account of the incarnation. How can the actions of Jesus be truly predicated of the Son? It would seem that if there is only one divine will, all of the actions of Jesus can be truly predicated of the entire Godhead. But this cuts against the traditional claim that only the Son is incarnate. I will ignore this problem for the purposes of this chapter, but it seems that what is needed is Social Trinitarianism whereby we have three divine persons, each with a distinct will. For more on this see Richard Cross, “Vehicle Externalism and the Metaphysics of the Incarnation: A Medieval Contribution,” in The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 201–3. 21 Thomas D. Senor, “God, Supernatural Kinds, and the Incarnation,” Religious Studies 27 (1992). Keith E. Yandell, “Some Problems for Tomistic Incarnationists,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 30 (1991). 22 See Stephen T. Davis, Christian Philosophical Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), ch. 10. C. Stephen Evans, “The Self-Empyting of Love: Some Thoughts on Kenotic Christology,” in eds. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins, The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God. Also, Peter Forrest, “The Incarnation: A Philosophical Case for Kenosis,” in ed. Michael Rea, Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology Volume 1: Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 19 20

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Such a view has already given up the idea that God is pure act, and instead holds that God can act or refrain from acting at particular times. This is certainly not congenial with atemporality as it involves real change in God.23 What about a composite model? It is not clear how a two-part monothelite Christology will work. The Son becomes connected to a body through psychophysical laws and the divine will acts at particular times. Many Apollinarians and Arians held to a two-part Christology for two basic reasons. First, a threepart Christology comprised of the Son, a soul, and a body, seemed to them to obviously entail two persons in the incarnation. This is something they wished to avoid. Second, as noted in Chapter 3, the Arians held that the incarnation clearly entailed that the Son was mutable and temporal. Since the Arians did not think that the Son was homoousios with the Father, they had no qualms denying divine timelessness, immutability, and impassibility of the Son. On their understanding, only the Father enjoys these particular divine attributes because only the Father is the one true God, whereas the Son is a lesser divine being. Nestorius and the Cappadocians will have none of this since they affirm the homoousios doctrine. They agreed that Apollinarian and Arian Christology is incompatible with impassibility, immutability, and timelessness because the Son would be directly related to the body. This issue will be taken up at length later in this chapter. For now, it will help to highlight for the reader the problem that is being fought over in the early Church. The Son becomes causally connected to a body at a particular time, and He was not always causally connected to a body, lest we hold that the incarnation is timeless. Ecumenical Christology put forward a three-part dyothelite Christology as the way to preserve the Son’s immutability, impassibility, and atemporality. Classical Christian Christology is quite explicit on this point. For instance, one of the reasons the Third Council of Constantinople affirmed a three-part dyothelite Christology was to maintain that the divine nature did not change or suffer in the incarnation.24 The three-part dyothelite Christology becomes the majority view after the seventh century for all of those who adhere to the seven ecumenical councils.25 As stated earlier, this ecumenical Christology is the view that I shall examine throughout the rest of this chapter. Before doing so, I need to lay out a few preliminary issues. First, one might complain that I am ignoring the trichotomist position and a four-part Christology. In fact, I am doing this for at least two reasons. (1) The trichotomist position has not had many major contenders in Church 23

Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, 121. Gilles Emery, “The Immutability of the God of Love and the Problem of Language Concerning the ‘Suffering of God’,” in eds. James F. Keating and Thomas Joseph White, Divine Impassibility and the Mystery of Human Suffering (Cambridge, MA: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009), 31–2. 25 Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, 49 ff. Also, Crisp, “Incarnation,” The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology, 163. 24

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history. Nor am I aware of any contemporary trichotomists who have sufficiently fleshed out the incarnation in light of divine timelessness. (2) If it is possible for a three-part Christology to maintain divine timelessness, a trichotomist can easily reap the benefits of this view and tack on a human spirit. It is not obvious what the human spirit would do that a human soul cannot do, nor how adding a human spirit would help solve the problem of a timeless God incarnate. Regardless, if a three-part Christology can uphold divine timelessness, so can a four-part Christology. Second, as argued in Chapter 4, an overwhelming majority of Christians have been presentists and endurantists. Very few have been eternalists and four-dimensionalists until recent times. As such, there are not many models of the incarnation cut in terms of four-dimensional eternalism. I will do my best to construct a composite Christology on both accounts, but it will be difficult since there has not been much reflection on the impact of four-dimensionalism on Christology. With that being said, let us begin to construct a composite Christ.

The Two-Minds View: The Basics The three-part Christology under consideration here is widely known as the two-minds view. Before getting into the details it would be good to get a feel for what an adequate ecumenical Christology is trying to capture by positing the two-minds view. The most significant aspects of ecumenical Christology come from the Council of Chalcedon in 451.26 What does Chalcedonian Christology look like? Oliver Crisp summarizes five relevant desiderata from the Chalcedonian creed.27

26 It should be noted that Chalcedon was controversial in its own day. The Monophysite Christians in the East at that time were not happy with “the sickness of Chalcedon” that declared that Christ had two natures. See Sergius the Grammarian in Iain Torrance, Christology After Chalcedon: Severus of Antioch and Sergius the Monophysite (Norwich: The Canterbury Press, 1988), 144. Like Chalcedon, many Monophysites held to a three-part composite Christology, but unlike Chalcedon they held that after the incarnation the two natures became one nature— without confusion—through the composition. I will focus my critique on Chalcedonian Christology for two reasons. First, while one can acknowledge the importance of Monophysite Christology in the past, and acknowledge that it continues to exist today in the Oriental Orthodox Church, it must be admitted that most Christian theologians in the past and today hold to a Chalcedonian Christology. Because of this more time and effort has been spent developing Chalcedonian ideas, and as such it is a better developed theory. Second, the metaphysical differences between Chalcedonian and orthodox Monophysite Christology seem negligible to me. For instance, both hold to the Nicene Creed, a three-part Christology, and the communicatio idiomatum. As such, one could take the arguments I develop later in this chapter and easily tweak them to fit the Monophysite view. 27 Crisp, “Incarnation,” in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology, 161.

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(13) Christ is of one substance (homoousious) with the Father. (14) Christ is eternally begotten of the Father according to his divinity and temporally begotten of the Virgin Mary according to his humanity. (15) Christ is one theanthropic (divine-human) person (hypostasis) subsisting in two natures (phuseis), which are held together in a personal union. (16) Christ’s two natures remain intact in the personal union, without being confused or mingled together to form some sort of hybrid entity or tertium quid. (17) Christ’s two natures are a fully divine nature and a fully human nature, respectively, his human nature consisting of a human body and a “rational” soul. These desiderata naturally raise issues related to personal identity, anthropology, and the doctrine of God. What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be divine? What is personal identity? I have already discussed some of the issues related to personal identity through time in Chapter 2, and will do so in the next section. For now I will stick with answering the first two questions. The two-minds view starts by distinguishing between a kind-essence and an individual-essence.28 A kind-essence is a cluster of properties that are essential for being a part of a particular kind of thing. For instance, there is a kindessence called bovinity that signifies the necessary and essential properties a thing must have in order to be considered a cow. An individual-essence is a cluster of properties that are essential to a particular entity. Each human person has an individual-essence, a haecceity or thisness. An individualessence is what distinguishes one from everyone else in the human race. It distinguishes one from every other person be they human, angelic, divine, or other. One cannot lose an individual-essential property and continue to exist. One can lose a kind-essential property and continue to exist, but one will cease to exist as that kind of thing. The move for the two-minds view is to posit that an individual-essence can have more than one kind-essence. It can only have one kind-essence essentially, but it can contingently have other kind-essences as well.29 In this instance, God the Son can have a human and divine essence. Next, the two-minds view tries to distinguish the properties that make up the kind-essence divinity and the kind-essence humanity. How would one go about doing such a thing? With regard to divinity one could use the method of perfect being theology, though perfect being intuitions vary from person to person. Upon doing so she might come up with a traditional list as follows: necessary existence, aseity, self-sufficiency, omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, omnipresence, perfect freedom, immutability, impassibility, simplicity, and timeless eternality. 28 Thomas Morris, “The Metaphysics of God Incarnate,” in Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology. Also, Our Idea of God: An Introduction to Philosophical Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), ch. 9. 29 Marilyn McCord Adams, “Christ as God-Man, Metaphysically Construed,” in Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology, 241–2.

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Part of the desiderata assumes that to be human is to have a human mind and a human body. Yet there seems to be more entailed. How might one go about discerning the necessary properties of humanity? One strategy is to look around at other human persons. The patristic list that makes up part of the Christological deposit includes the following: contingent existence, created, limited in power, limited in knowledge, limited in goodness, locally and spatially limited, free, mutable, passionate, complex, and temporal.30 Clearly we have a problem. The two lists conflict with each other in a fundamental way. It would seem that the Son would have contradictory properties in the incarnation. There are some possible ways around this problem. One can start to assuage the difficulty by pointing out that not all properties that one finds amongst humans are essential. There are common human properties that are not essential human properties. “Sinful” is an example. G. K. Chesterton once said that the doctrine of original sin was the easiest of Christian doctrines to verify. All one needs to do is look out on the street.31 It is not hard to come to the conclusion that all human persons are sinful. Yet part of the doctrine of the incarnation is that at least one human person, Jesus Christ, was not sinful. One of the things we learn from the incarnation is that “sinful” is not an essential property of humanity. It certainly is a common property, but it is not an essential property. One can be human and not sin. In fact, Christian theology proclaims that one day sin will be no more and that human persons will enjoy everlasting life. Christian theology proclaims that humans flourish best when they are not sinful. If “sinful” is an essential property of humanity this is not even possible. That may be all well and good, but it does not tell us about some of the other incompatible properties. What about necessary existence? Necessary existence is not just an essential property of the divine essence, it is also a part of the Son’s individual-essence. Necessarily, a thing cannot change its modal status. A contingent thing cannot become a necessary thing, nor can a necessary thing become a contingent thing. The Son simply cannot become contingent. Isn’t this a problem? The defender of the two-minds view will say no. The humanity of the Son is contingent, even though the Son Himself is not. As Thomas Morris explains, “For God the Son to become human, he thus had to take on a human body, and a human mind, with all that entails. He did not have to become a created contingent being. He just had to take on a created, contingent body and mind of the right sort.”32

30 Stephen R. Holmes, The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History and Modernity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 96. 31 G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York: Simon and Brown, 1908), 11. 32 Morris, “The Metaphysics of God Incarnate,” 217.

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The defender of the two-minds view will argue that Christ is fully human since He has all of the essential properties that are entailed by having a human mind and a human body. Yet Christ is not merely human. We who are merely human are contingent, limited in power, and so on, but Christ is not merely human. Notwithstanding, the two-minds view still attempts to make room for limitations of power and knowledge by appealing to the human mind. God the Son is a divine mind that is omnipotent and omniscient. In assuming a human mind and body He becomes causally connected to this composite such that He constitutes one person with two natures. The divine mind is fully conscious, and so is the human mind. “The human mind drew its visual imagery from what the eyes of Jesus saw, and its concepts from the languages he learned.” The divine mind does not do this since it is already omniscient. The human mind is limited to the resources of its own consciousness and body, but the divine mind is not so limited. There is an asymmetrical accessing relation between the divine mind and the human mind such that the divine mind has access to all of the contents of the human mind, but the human mind does not have access to the contents of the divine mind.33

Is the Two-Minds View Nestorian? Any adequate ecumenical Christological model must be able to explain, and not merely assert, the doctrine of the hypostatic union. The hypostatic union teaches that the two natures in Christ are united in such a way that there is only one person, God the Son. The heresy of Nestorianism is said to affirm that there are two persons in the incarnation—a human person and a divine person. So an adequate ecumenical Christology must explain how Jesus Christ is God the Son incarnate in human flesh such that there is one person with a fully divine and a fully human nature, and not two persons. I emphasize that it must explain, and not merely assert, because the mere assertion does nothing to distinguish adequate Christological models from heretical Christological models. By way of example, consider the correspondence between Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius. In Cyril’s second letter to Nestorius, Cyril continually asserts the hypostatic union without explanation, and claims that Nestorius has failed to adequately affirm the hypostatic union. He claims that Nestorius’ Christology entails that there are two persons in the incarnation instead of one. Naturally, Nestorius disagrees for he wishes to affirm the hypostatic union as well. So the burden is upon Cyril to explain what the difference is between the two Christological models that renders one orthodox, and the 33

Morris, “The Metaphysics of God Incarnate,” 220–4.

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other heterodox. Unfortunately, this is not what Cyril does. Cyril’s only explanation is that the hypostatic union takes place in some unspeakable, unutterable and incomprehensible way. This appeal to ineffable mysteries does nothing to show the difference between Cyril’s own position and that of Nestorius for it is an unspeakable mystery what the difference really is. Again, merely asserting the hypostatic union will be of little help. One must offer a model that explains how there is only one person in Christ and not two. If the two-minds view cannot explain how there is one person in Jesus Christ, it cannot be a part of a Christian research program. If it cannot be a part of a Christian research program, it cannot be employed in a Christian research program that also holds to divine timelessness. Later in this chapter I shall argue that the divine timelessness research program entails Nestorianism when combined with an ecumenical Christology. For now, I wish to lay out the initial charge of Nestorianism to illuminate the problems that will face the atemporalist. Also, discussing the charge of Nestorianism will help illustrate another component of ecumenical Christology—the distinction between enhypostasia and anhypostasia. The charge of Nestorianism can be put in several ways, and I shall now offer a version of a monophysite argument that later became standard medieval prolegomena. Typically one might think that a person just is a mind with free will, a rational soul, or a self-conscious subject as thinkers like John of Damascus, Tertullian, or Boethius would put it.34 On a two-minds view Christ, naturally enough, has two minds. Further, on dyothelitism Christ has two wills. The Third Council of Constantinople affirmed that each nature has a will of its own. A human person, they said, consists of a human mind, a human will, and a human body. The situation seems to be this. We have two minds each with their own will, so we must have two persons.35 Each has its own set of beliefs. The first mind can believe p and the second mind can believe p. The first mind can intend to will some action a, and the second mind can intend to will a.36 The first 34 Stephen R. Holmes, The Quest for the Trinity, 71. Brian E. Daley, “Nature and the ‘Mode of Union’: Late Patristic Models for the Personal Unity of Christ,” in The Incarnation: Interdisciplinary Symposium, 194. 35 Tim Bayne, “The Inclusion Model of the Incarnation,” Religious Studies 37 (2001). Peter Lombard attempts to answer objections of this sort in Sentences III Dist. V and X. 36 Historically, it is not clear that there is much consensus on this point. It is a point of contention in contemporary theology as well. For instance, Ivor J. Davidson holds that the human will of Jesus “cannot exist in opposition to the will of God.” Davidson, “ ‘Not My Will but Yours be Done’: The Ontological Dynamics of Incarnational Intention,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 7 (2005), 194. Within contemporary philosophy of religion, defenders of the two-minds view typically hold that it must be metaphysically possible for the human nature of Jesus to be able to will differently than the divine mind. One of the motivations that could be developed for this claim is the “without confusion” constraint from the Chalcedonian creed. If it is not possible for Jesus to sin because of His divine nature, there is a confusion of natures. The stated motivation, however, is soteriological. If Jesus cannot possibly sin, then this would seem to

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mind experiences nothing but uninterrupted joy (given divine impassibility). The second mind experiences moments of suffering. The first mind cannot be tempted. The second mind suffers temptations of all sorts. The first mind never experiences change and stands in no temporal relations of any sort (given immutability and timelessness). The second mind does experience change and stands in temporal relations. The first mind cannot be simultaneous with the second mind for simultaneity is a temporal relation and the first mind cannot stand in any temporal relation at all. The first mind is pure act and performs all its actions in one timeless present (given simplicity and timelessness). The second mind has potentiality and its actions are spread out temporally. The first mind does not exercise direct causal control over the second mind, and vice versa. The first mind and the second mind are not identical to one another, can stand in an I–Thou relation, and converse with one another.37 In fact, the second mind has adoration for the first mind, and freely obeys the first mind.38 It would seem that we are clearly referring to two different persons, but the ecumenical doctrine of the incarnation states that there is one person with two natures. As Anselm explains, the Son “assumed another nature, not another person.” (Incarnation of the Word XI) How can the two-minds view escape this problem? It certainly looks like the two-minds view entails Nestorianism. Several contemporary defenders of the two-minds view will concede that normally two minds and two wills means two persons, but in the instance of the God-man two minds and wills come together to function as one person.39 undermine the claim that Jesus was tempted in every way. See David Werther, “Freedom, Temptation, and Incarnation,” in eds. David Werther and Mark D. Linville, Philosophy and the Christian Worldview: Analysis, Assessment and Development (New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc, 2012). Thomas P. Flint, “ ‘A Death He Freely Accepted’: Molinist Reflections on the Incarnation,” Faith and Philosophy 18 (2001), and “The Possibilities of Incarnation: Some Radical Molinist Suggestions,” Religious Studies 37 (2001). 37 Andrew Loke, “On the An-Enhypostasia Distinction and Three-Part Concrete-Nature Christology: The Divine Preconscious Model,” Journal of Analytic Theology 2 (2014), 103–4. Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation: Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 316–22. 38 Karhl Rahner, Theological Investigations: Volume 1 (Baltimore, MD: Helicon Press, 1961), 158. 39 Marmodoro and Hill, “Composition Models of the Incarnation,” 483–6. Marmodoro and Hill argue that the human nature does not count as a person since it is subsumed into a larger whole. Another standard defense of this view is to say that . See Leftow, “The Humanity of God,” and Crisp, “Compositional Christology Without Nestorianism.” The Son took on a human body and soul. Normally we think that a human body and a human soul make a person. However, that cannot be the case since the Son is incarnate and He cannot have a person as a proper part. Yet I find this strategy to be lacking. It does not explain how a human soul and body that thinks, feels, and acts is not a person. It just asserts that this is not a person in the case of the incarnation. It seems that since and , compositional Christologies of this sort have a defeater on their hands. In other words, given their account of a human person, it seems prima facie impossible for the

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Does this escape the charge of Nestorianism? No. This looks suspiciously like the moves of Theodore of Mopsuestia and various other Nestorians where a functional, and not an ontological, unity is offered to bring the two natures together as one person.40 The early Church eventually condemned a merely functional unity as well as a merely semantic unity, so contemporary defenders of the two-minds view cannot appeal to this to escape the charge of Nestorianism.41 The early Church proclaimed that only an ontological unity could account for the hypostatic union. What is needed to escape Nestorianism is an ontological unity that explains how the two-minds are one person in Christ. Unfortunately, it is not clear that an ontological unity was ever articulated by the ecumenical councils. This lack of a clearly articulated ontological unity was even a worry for the Illyrian and Palestinian delegates at the Council of Chalcedon who had to be convinced that Pope Leo was not a Nestorian. The Tome of Leo appears to affirm a merely functional unity between the divine natures. After the Formula of Chalcedon was framed, many in the East remained unconvinced that there was a clear difference between the defenders of Chalcedon and the Nestorians.42 Christopher Beeley explains that the Chalcedonian definition, which was enforced under governmental pressure, “left the basic identity of Christ and the nature of the union disastrously ambiguous from the point of view of the more unitive traditions. It is no wonder that Nestorius reportedly felt vindicated by the result.”43 While many in the East were distraught over the result of Chalcedon, various Nestorian parties felt that they were able to interpret Chalcedon in such a way that they could agree to the Formula. In fact, one of the main motivations for the fifth ecumenical council, Constantinople II (553), was to give a proper interpretation of Chalcedon that fully excluded Nestorianism.44 The Eastern Church made a serious push to get single-nature Christologies included in the scope of

incarnation to happen as the model understands things. Grant that a human person is a mind— or a body–soul composite—that thinks, feels, and acts. If this is the case, the Son cannot become part of a larger whole with anything that meets this description on pain of having a person as a proper part. 40 Norris, Christological Controversies, 113–44. 41 Thomas G. Weinandy, Does God Change? (Still River, MA: St Bede’s Publications, 1985), 36–7. 42 See J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London: Adam and Charles Black Limited, 1958), 340–2. 43 Christopher A. Beeley, The Unity of Christ: Continuity and Conflict in Patristic Tradition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 284. 44 Fred Sanders, “Introduction to Christology: Chalcedonian Categories for the Gospel Narrative,” in eds. Fred Sanders and Klaus Issler, Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2007), 27–35.

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orthodoxy, and the emperor Justinian was keen to make peace with these groups from the East. Hence, the need for the fifth ecumenical council.45 Though some complain that the fifth ecumenical council pushed ecumenical Christology in an Apollinarian direction, many contemporary theologians have remained unconvinced that this move successfully distinguishes ecumenical Christology from Nestorianism. The contemporary Lutheran Robert W. Jenson is one such unconvinced theologian. He writes, According to Leo, “Each nature is the agent of what is proper to it, working in fellowship with the other: the Word doing what is appropriate to the Word and the flesh what is appropriate to the flesh. The one shines forth in the miracles; the other submits to the injuries.” If this is not Nestorianism, it is something rather worse. The Son does the saving, the man Jesus does the suffering. The Son does the self-affirming, Jesus does the victim part.46

Yet a defender of the two-minds view will naturally wish to disagree with Jenson. A defender of the two-minds view might try to avoid the charge of Nestorianism in the following way. Oliver Crisp will say that there never was a time when the human nature of Christ exists apart from God the Son. When the Holy Spirit conceived the human nature of Jesus in Mary’s womb, the Son joined Himself to that human nature. So there never was a moment when the human nature existed without being joined to the Son. The “human nature is never in a position to form a supposit distinct from God the Son.”47 In order to understand what Crisp is up to one must be aware of the anhypostasia and enhypostasia distinction within the classical Christian doctrine of the incarnation. This is a distinction that developed in the aftermath of Chalcedon leading up to the fifth ecumenical council. The distinction was developed in an effort to rid ecumenical Christology of any Nestorian tendencies. T. F. Torrance explains the distinction as follows. Anhypostasia claims that “Christ’s human nature has its existence only in union with God, in God’s existence or personal mode of being (hypostasis). It does not possess it in and for itself—hence an-hypostasis (‘not person’, i.e. no separate person).” Enhypostasia expresses the fact that “the human nature of Christ is given existence in the existence of God, and co-exists in the divine essence or mode of being.”48 The claim is that the Son’s human nature would not have existed if it were not for the incarnation. It did not exist prior to the incarnation. It only

45

Beeley, The Unity of Christ, 294. Jenson, “With No Qualifications: The Christological Maximalism of the Christian East,” in eds. Kenneth Tanner and Christopher Hall, Ancient and Postmodern Christianity: PaleoOrthodoxy in the 21st Century (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 19. Author’s emphasis. 47 Crisp, “Compositional Christology without Nestorianism,” The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 59. Cf. Peter Lombard, Sentences III Dist. II and III. 48 Thomas F. Torrance, Incarnation, 84. 46

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exists because of the incarnation. Further, the human nature is only personal because it is assumed by a divine person—God the Son. The human nature is not a person independent of the Son’s assumption. Fred Sanders explains that this is where the strength of the distinction comes into play in riding ecumenical Christology of Nestorianism. It excludes the very possibility that the human nature of Christ could have formed some person “Adam Davidson Ben-Msriam” from coming into existence if the Son had not assumed this nature.49 The human nature of Christ cannot form a person apart from the incarnation.50 The human nature is only a person because it is assumed by the person of the Logos. With the anhypostasia and enhypostasia distinction on the table, we can return to Crisp’s effort to avoid Nestorianism. What must be understood is that the move that Crisp and others make avoids the charge of adoptionism, but not Nestorianism simpliciter. Adoptionism is one Christological heresy that often falls under the category of Nestorianism. On adoptionism, Jesus exists for a certain stretch of time and is later united to God the Son. In this scenario we clearly have two persons. But what must be understood is that adoptionism isn’t the only way to be a Nestorian. All one needs to do in order to be a Nestorian is to offer a Christological model that entails two persons in Jesus Christ. Even Theodore of Mopsuestia held that Jesus “had union with the Logos straightaway from the beginning when he was formed in his mother’s womb,” and he was still charged with Nestorianism.51 More needs to be said in order to avoid Nestorianism, and the en/anhypostasia distinction is supposed to accomplish this. How does affirming the en/anhypostasia distinction remove the charge of Nestorianism simpliciter? It does not. This distinction, whilst interesting, does not help in understanding how the two-minds view can explain that the God-man is one person and not two. The en/anhypostasia distinction does not give us a Christological model. Instead, it serves as a constraint for developing Christological models that avoid Nestorianism. Affirming a constraint on adequate Christological models does not explain how Christ can be one person with two natures.52 The underlying Sanders, “Chalcedonian Categories,” Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective, 30–5. David Brown, Divine Humanity: Kenosis and the Construction of a Christian Theology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011), 24. 51 Theodore of Mopsuestia, in Norris, Christological Controversies, 117. 52 Perhaps there is another way one might try to explain the unity of the person of Christ. Joseph Jedwab, “The Incarnation and Unity of Consciousness” in The Metaphysics of the Incarnation attempts to explicate how two spheres of consciousness and two wills can be unified. His account is cut in terms of divine temporality and as such will be of no use to divine timelessness. Although, he notes that one could do the same on atemporality, but limits his discussion to temporalism. I am skeptical about the success of this on timelessness for a timeless mental state cannot have a unity of consciousness with a temporal mental state. Jedwab defines unity of consciousness as follows: “a subject has unity of consciousness at some time if and only if all the conscious states she has then are co-conscious with each other.” But a timeless mental 49 50

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intuition of the en/anhypostasia constraint seems to be that persons are necessarily identical to themselves. Necessarily, a person cannot exist apart from, or separate from, herself. If P and P* could possibly exist apart from one another, P and P* are two different persons. What is needed is a model that makes sense of this constraint. Instead of a model that merely asserts this constraint, we need a model that grounds the truth of the en/anhypostasia constraint. To understand my point, consider the following. There is a Christological tradition arising out of the work of Athanasius and his followers that is often called a Logos-sarx Christology. On a Logos-sarx Christology, Christ is composed of the Son and a human body.53 This is a two-part Christology that says that the Son is a divine person who assumed a human body. To be a person is to be a rational soul, a thinking thing with free will. The Logos is a thinking thing with free will, so the Logos is a person. The Logos is also a person with a divine nature because the Logos has all of the properties that are necessary and sufficient for being divine. In order for a person to be a human person, a person must be appropriately related to a human body. (This appropriate relation will be expounded upon in the next section.) A human person is a rational soul and a human body. The Logos, in the incarnation, becomes appropriately related to a human body and thus becomes a human person. On this two-part Christology, the Logos does not become related to another rational soul. The Logos already is a rational soul. This two-part Christology would explain the en/anhypostasia distinction as follows. This particular human nature would not possibly be a person without the incarnation because this particular human nature would not have a rational soul. It would simply be a body. It only has a rational soul because the Logos (a rational soul) is appropriately related to it. So the human nature of Christ, on this model, is only a person in and because of the incarnation. It does not seem that the two-minds view can give the same easy explanation of the en/anhypostasia constraint. The early Church fathers do not do much to develop a model that grounds the truth of this constraint. The scholastics, however, attempt to develop an explanation for this facet of the Christological deposit by appealing to something called the assumption relation. The assumption relation is said to be the relation that obtains between the Son and His human nature such that there is only one person in Christ. So perhaps the two-minds view can escape Nestorianism, and explain the en/anhypostasia constraint by appealing to the assumption relation. state cannot stand in any temporal relations with a temporal mental state. A timeless mind cannot have an experience of something at time t and so cannot be co-conscious with any mind that has an experience of something at time t. For more on this see Richard Swinburne, “The Coherence of the Chalcedonian Definition of the Incarnation,” The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 160. 53 Garrett J. DeWeese, “One Person, Two Natures: Two Metaphysical Models of the Incarnation,” in Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective.

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What is this assumption relation, and how does it work? Thomas Flint says that the assumption relation works as follows. In most cases, a soul and a body is a human person. This is because it is a conscious being that thinks, acts, and feels. However, there are some cases in which a soul and a body is not a human person. All things being equal, a soul and a body would be a human person. If, however, a soul and a body are assumed by a member of the Trinity, the soul and body cease to be a human person.54 The soul does not cease to think, feel, and act, but it ceases to be a person. For instance, say I am walking about town when all of a sudden the Holy Spirit assumes me. The Holy Spirit does not merely indwell me, but actually assumes me. I continue to think, feel and act, but I cease to be a person. Instead, the only person walking about is the Holy Spirit. The case of me being assumed by the Holy Spirit is a case of adoptionism so the defender of the two-minds view will complain that the case I am giving is not directly analogous to the incarnation. So grant the two-minds view the claim that the Son assumes a soul and a body at the very moment the soul and body come into existence. The soul and body of Jesus never existed without being assumed by the Son. I still find it difficult to see how this is one person, and how this explains the an/enhypostasia constraint. The assumed soul and body still thinks, acts, and feels like all other unassumed human persons. Does this really explain the en/anhypostasia constraint? If it cannot, it falls victim to Nestorianism. There are at least three reasons for why the assumption relation does not help the two-minds view explain the an/enhypostasia constraint. First, the assumption relation simply asserts that there is one person in the incarnation, and does nothing to explain how this is the case. The defender of the twominds view might claim that I am being unfair, so I shall focus on the next two problems instead. Second, the assumption relation does not help explain the an/enhypostasia constraint because the human nature of Christ would be a person if not assumed. Third, the assumption relation does not explain the constraint because the human nature of Christ is not only a person because of the incarnation. Take the second problem. The human nature of Christ would be a person if not assumed, and this violates the an/enhypostasia constraint. Again, the constraint says that the human nature of Christ would not be a person without the incarnation. The assumption relation does not help maintain this. If the Son did not assume the soul and body of Jesus, Jesus would have been a human person without the incarnation. On the two-minds view, a soul and a body only fail to be a person when it is not assumed. On Flint’s version of the two-minds view, it is possible that the Son could refrain from assuming the Cf. Thomas P. Flint, “ ‘A Death He Freely Accepted’: Molinist Reflections on the Incarnation,”, and “The Possibilities of Incarnation: Some Radical Molinist Suggestions.” 54

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soul and body of Jesus. In fact, as Flint explains, it is quite possible that the Son could have assumed any one of us instead of Jesus.55 So on Flint’s view, it is possible that the soul and body of Jesus is a person without being incarnated by the Son. Perhaps a defender of the two-minds view will wish to part ways with Flint. Perhaps she will say that, given the virgin birth, the particular soul and body of Jesus would never have come into existence without the incarnation of the Son. She will go on to say that the very coming into existence of this particular soul and body is a miracle performed by the Holy Spirit. Of course, couldn’t the Holy Spirit perform the miracle of a virgin birth without an incarnation? That seems like a metaphysical possibility. If this is a metaphysical possibility, then it is possible that the particular soul and body of Jesus could come into existence without being incarnated by the Son. As such, it is a metaphysical possibility that the particular soul and body of Jesus be a person without the incarnation. So we still have violated the an/enhypostasia constraint. The twominds view needs something stronger than the mere fact that the particular soul and body of Jesus only came into existence with the incarnation of the Son. In order to avoid this, it looks like the two-minds theorist will have to say that it is metaphysically impossible for the particular soul and body of Jesus to come into existence without the incarnation. I am not certain what the twominds theorist can offer to explain this metaphysical impossibility, but perhaps she can come up with some sort of story. Whatever story she comes up with will most likely supplement the assumption relation, so the assumption relation is not doing anything by itself to avoid the charge of Nestorianism. However, she is still not out of the woods because it seems like a metaphysical possibility that the Son could cease to be incarnate. Perhaps at the ascension of Christ (Acts 1), the Son ceased to be incarnate because He no longer has a body. The Son will become incarnate once again upon His return, but in the meantime He is not incarnate. If the Son ceased to be incarnate, then the soul and body of Jesus would become a separate person until the Son reincarnates at His reappearing. This would violate the an/enhypostasia constraint. It should be noted, however, that the Christological deposit denies that the Son ceased to be incarnate at the ascension. Even though no ecumenical council makes a ruling on this issue, the continual incarnation of the Son is affirmed by a majority of the early Church fathers.56 It is a part of the Christological deposit of classical Christian theology. Yet all that is needed for this objection to go through is the metaphysical possibility that the Son “The Possibilities of Incarnation: Some Radical Molinist Suggestions.” Jonathan Hill, “Incarnation, Timelessness, and Exaltation,” Faith and Philosophy 29 (2012), 4. 55 56

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cease to be incarnate. That is all that is needed for a violation of the an/ enhypostasia constraint to occur. It seems like the two-minds theorist will need to assert that it is a metaphysical impossibility for the Son to cease to be incarnate. Again, I don’t know what sort of story the two-minds theorist would tell, but one seems necessary to avoid the charge of Nestorianism. Further, the assumption relation by itself is doing nothing to ward off the charge of Nestorianism. So again, the assumption relation does not help maintain the an/enhypostasia constraint. Say that the two-minds theorist comes up with the appropriate story to give the needed metaphysical impossibilities. The two-minds theorist is still not out of the woods for she has not yet explained how the particular soul and body of Jesus is a person only in the incarnation. Recall that this is the third problem from the an/enhypostasia constraint. If the soul and body of Jesus is not assumed, it is a person. Nothing, as far as I can tell, about the assumption relation makes it the case that this particular soul and body would not be a person without the incarnation. Recall that the two-minds theorist is working with the following principle: a soul and a body is a person in every case unless assumed by a member of the Trinity. Nothing from this principle explains why the soul and body of Jesus is only a person in the incarnation. In fact, the principle explicitly entails the exact opposite. The soul and body only fail to be a person because of the incarnation. Again, I am not certain what sort of story the two-minds theorist can offer to explain this problem away. It is time to summarize the difficulties I have laid out in this section. I cannot see how the two-minds view can avoid Nestorianism at this point. First, on this model we have two conscious beings—God the Son and the human nature—and it seems impossible for a pair of conscious beings to be one conscious being, but I will set this issue aside for now.57 Second, it is not at all clear how the two-minds view can explain the an/enhypostasia constraint. In fact, it looks like it violates this constraint on many levels. As noted before, I will pick up the charge of Nestorianism later in the chapter.

What is the Unique Relationship between the Son and His Humanity? The charge of Nestorianism is a difficult challenge for the two-minds view, but it is not the only challenge it must face. It must also answer the following two issues. First, the two-minds view must explain what the unique relation is that the Son has to this human nature that makes the Son a human person. Second, the two-minds view must also explain how the Son is uniquely related to His David Barnett, “You are Simple,” in eds. Robert C. Koons and George Bealer, The Waning of Materialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 57

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humanity in a way that is different from how He is related to our humanity. The answers to these issues are closely related, and will help one understand the arguments against divine timelessness discussed below. Also, examining these questions will help to illustrate three more components from the Christological deposit that make up an adequate ecumenical Christological model. Those components are said to be perichoresis, the communicatio idiomatum, and embodiment. How can the proponent of the two-minds view explain Christ’s unique relationship to His humanity? She cannot appeal to the asymmetrical accessing relation between the divine mind and the human mind because the asymmetrical accessing relation is not unique to the incarnation. The Son already has an asymmetrical accessing relation to all human minds, and we do not consider any of us to be the incarnation of God. Further, it seems that the commitment to dyothelitism only serves to bolster this point. The divine mind has a distinct will from the human mind. All human minds have wills that are distinct from God. A traditional dyothelite will not be happy with my terminology. She will say that natures, not persons, have wills. But the problem can easily be restated. The divine nature has a distinct will from the human nature. All human natures have wills that are distinct from God. So what is the difference between me and Jesus? The doctrine that is supposed to help us understand the unique relation between the Son and His humanity is the doctrine of perichoresis. Perichoresis is a tricky doctrine because the same term is used in a different way of the Trinity than it is of the incarnation.58 Quite literally perichoresis means interpenetration.59 In Neoplatonic thought, perichoresis was used to describe the relationship between a soul and body.60 In the doctrine of the Trinity the three divine persons stand in a perichoretic relation to one another—they interpenetrate one another such that, necessarily, they cannot exist apart from each other. In the incarnation perichoresis “is the idea that the divine nature of Christ somehow penetrates his human nature, but not conversely, and without compromising the integrity of either of the natures in Christ’s theanthropic person.”61 The idea is that the Son stands in a perichoretic relation to His humanity, and does not stand in a perichoretic relation to the rest of humanity. Perichoresis is supposed to be the unique relation that we have been looking for. But does it distinguish the Son’s relation to His humanity from His relation to the rest of humanity? It is not clear that it does. The doctrine of 58 Though Nestorius suggested that the usage was the same in the case of the Trinity and the incarnation. 59 John Anthony McGuckin, ed., The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 260. 60 McGuckin, Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology, 260. 61 Crisp, “Incarnation,” 170.

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perichoresis within the Trinity can be given a clear modal interpretation— necessarily the divine persons are strongly internally related such that they cannot exist apart from each other.62 The doctrine of perichoresis cannot be given this same interpretation within the context of the incarnation because the Son can exist without the human nature. Further, within the Trinity perichoresis gives us three persons with one nature. Within the incarnation, perichoresis is supposed to give us one person with two natures. So what exactly is being affirmed here with perichoresis in the context of the incarnation? It is hard to say because the doctrine of perichoresis has been used by theologians in the past and today to say all sorts of things about the God-world relation, salvation, and anthropology.63 None of which is easily distinguishable from how it is used within the doctrine of the incarnation. For instance, a panentheist can say that God stands in a perichoretic relation with creation. On some accounts of panentheism God necessarily exists with creation, so it will be hard to distinguish how perichoresis is being used here from how it is used within the Trinity. Others claim to be eschatological panentheists. On this account God will one day bring creation to its completion. On that day God will be all in all. The eschatological panentheist interprets this to mean that God will eventually stand in a perichoretic relation with all of creation, but in such a way that the integrity of the natures of each is maintained.64 Some eschatological panentheists will even say that the perichoretic relation entails that God has divine and creaturely attributes, and that creatures will also have divine and creaturely attributes, yet again, in such a way that the integrity of each nature is maintained.65 This interpretation of perichoresis is indistinguishable from how it is used in the context of the incarnation. Perhaps, then, perichoresis is of little help. The defender of the two-minds view will most likely argue that these panentheists are using perichoresis in a fast and loose way. She might try tightening up the doctrine by connecting it to the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum. Because of the perichoretic relation between the Son and

62

Thomas H. McCall, Which Trinity? Whose Monotheism? Philosophical and Systematic Theologians on the Metaphysics of Trinitarian Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), 170. 63 McCall, Which Trinity?, ch. 5. Randall Otto, “The Use and Abuse of Perichoresis in Recent Theology,” Scottish Journal of Theology 54 (2001). 64 John Polkinghorne, The God of Hope and the End of the World, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 115. John W. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers— From Plato to the Present (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), chs. 10 and 13. Ted Peters, “Models of God,” Philosophia 35 (2007), 285–8. 65 Cooper, Panentheism, 256–7.

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His humanity there is said to be a communication of the attributes from the two natures onto the one person.66 Anselm explains as follows. And we truly predicate everything, whether regarding God or regarding the human being, of him. For we cannot designate or name the divine Son as person apart from the human son, nor the human son as person apart from the divine Son, since the very same one who is the human son is the divine Son, and the combination of proper characteristics of the Word and the assumed human being is the same. (Incarnation of the Word XI)

The idea is that the person who is God the Son is the same person who is Jesus Christ. The council of Chalcedon, following the theology of Cyril of Alexandria, teaches that there is a strict identity relation between the Son and Jesus. They are numerically the same person. The same person who existed with the Father in eternity, is the very same person we encounter in the gospel narrative. The communicatio idiomatum tries to capture this whilst maintaining the soteriological significance of the incarnation. The connection between incarnation and soteriology was one of the driving motivations for rejecting Nestorianism in the early Church. We need to know that God Himself has come to us. Why? We need to know if it is even possible for human persons to be reconciled and united to God. The incarnation is an act of reconciliation.67 In the one person Jesus Christ, humanity and divinity are perfectly united. Not only is it possible for humanity and divinity to be united, they are in fact united and the incarnation is a demonstration of that fact. If the incarnation is to be meaningful we must know that God Himself has become incarnate. Further, as John of Damascus argues, if God has not taken on the fullness of humanity, we are not saved. That which God has not assumed has not been healed (Orthodox Faith III.6). This may be all well and good, but it is still not clear that we have explained how the Son is uniquely related to His humanity such that He (a) counts as a human person, and (b) is differently related to my humanity. Just as with the an/enhypostasia distinction, we do not have a Christological model by appealing to perichoresis and the communicatio idiomatum. The reason the an/ enhypostasia distinction does not help is because it is a constraint on ecumenical Christological models, and not a working model itself. Perichoresis and the communicatio idiomatum do not help for different reasons. I take perichoresis to be an unsuccessful attempt at offering a model. It is too coarsegrained of a concept to be useful. The communicatio, however, is an entailment from an adequate ecumenical Christological model. Any adequate 66 This is to be distinguished from the Lutheran doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum. On the Lutheran version, the attributes of each nature are communicated to one another. On the ecumenical version that I discuss in the body of this chapter, the attributes are only communicated to the one person, and not to each other nature. 67 Torrance, Incarnation, 65.

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Christological model will hold that Jesus Christ is one person with two natures. As such, Jesus will be one suppositum, one ultimate possessor of the properties of each nature. This is not an explanation for how Christ is human, and how His relation to His humanity is different from my own. Instead, the communicatio assumes that there already is an explanation from an adequate Christological model for these issues. We do not have that yet. The answer to these issues does not lie in affirming constraints on models, nor affirming the entailments of an adequate model. The answer lies in actually offering a model that is compatible with these constraints and has the desired entailments. What is needed to answer these questions is an account of embodiment. Earlier, I noted that the Neoplatonists used perichoresis to describe the relationship between the soul and body. In fact, the early Church fathers often say that the Son’s relationship to His humanity is much like the relationship between the soul and the body. Perhaps the best way to interpret perichoresis within the doctrine of the incarnation is to understand it as embodiment. To say that the Son is human is to say that He is appropriately related to a human organism or body. The relation that the Son has to His human body will not be identical to the relation I have to my human body. In order to understand this, we need an account of embodiment. What does it mean to be embodied? There are several accounts of embodiment in the literature, but there appear to be two basic accounts.68 The first is physical realization. This assumes a physicalist anthropology of human persons. This view holds that “a person P is embodied in body B if and only if all the (intrinsic) states of P are wholly realized by (intrinsic) states of B.”69 One way to put this is that all of P’s mental states supervene upon the brain states of B.70 Someone who holds to a materialist Christology will argue for this account of embodiment.71 However, Leftow and Robin Le Poidevin note that such a thing is impossible for the Son—an immaterial thing—cannot become wholly material.72 My inclination is to agree with Leftow and Le Poidevin here,

68 Robin Le Poidevin, “The Incarnation: Divine Embodiment and the Divided Mind.” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 68 (2011). Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 102–4. T. J. Mawson, “God’s Body,” The Heythrop Journal 47 (2006). 69 Le Poidevin, “The Incarnation: Divine Embodiment and the Divided Mind,” 273. 70 For more on supervenience see Jaegwon Kim, Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 71 Trenton Merricks, “The World Made Flesh: Dualism, Physicalism, and the Incarnation,” in eds. Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman, Persons: Human and Divine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). 72 Leftow, “The Humanity of God,” 21–2. Le Poidevin, “The Incarnation: Divine Embodiment and the Divided Mind,” 276.

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but I will not press the point. All that matters for the discussion is that this is not a live option for divine timelessness. It is not a live option since an immaterial person becoming wholly physical involves change, and a timeless person cannot change. Perhaps the second account of embodiment will be of use for divine timelessness. The second broad account is more congenial with immaterial minds and cuts things in terms of a causal connection between the mind and the body. A mind is fully embodied in a physical body if and only if the following five conditions are met. The first condition is that the disturbances of the physical body can cause pain in the mind. Also, the various goings-on in the body can cause pleasure in the mind. If the body stubs a toe, the mind will feel pain. If the body is hugged in the right way, the mind will feel pleasure. Second, the mind can feel the inside of the body. An example would be the feeling of an empty stomach. Third, the mind can move the body through a basic action. A basic action is when an agent can perform an act without having to perform some other action in order to accomplish the first act. For instance, I move my arm by a basic act. I do not move the cup of water on my desk by a basic act. Fourth, the mind can look out from the world from where the body is. The body is the mind’s locus of perception of the world. The mind acquires perceptual knowledge as mediated through the body. Fifth, the thoughts and feelings of the mind can be affected by the things that go on in the body.73 With this understanding of embodiment the proponent of the two-minds view can finally answer the questions of this section. If the second divine person is embodied in a particular human organism, He will be a human person. To be a human person is to be a person, a thinking thing with free will, that is embodied in human flesh. The proponent of the two-minds view can further say that God the Son is only embodied in one human organism. The Son does not stand in the numerically same relation to my body as He does to His own. Thus, we have a way of distinguishing the Son’s relation to His humanity from His relation to the rest of humanity. Even further, the two-minds theorist can now say that she has a Christological model that entails the communicatio idiomatum. The Son being embodied in a particular human organism entails the Son having certain properties from the body. For instance, one can say that the Son walked on water. This cannot be said of God the Son unless the Son is embodied. It is only by having a body that one can predicate this of the Son. This will be discussed further in the next section.

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I follow Swinburne’s account here. Le Poidevin makes some minor revisions to this account, and Mawson’s account lacks several of the conditions.

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THE REDUPLICATIVE S TRATEGY AND CONTRADICTORY P ROPERTIES Now that we have an outline of the ecumenical model of the incarnation to work with, we can start to see how it might answer some problems. One problem is that an adequate Christology entails the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum, and this doctrine entails that the one person with two natures has contradictory properties. The attributes of divinity and humanity are communicated through the interpenetration of one another onto the one divine person.74 For instance, it is because of the communicatio idiomatum that the person of Christ has the contradictory properties timeless and temporal. How do we resolve the contradiction? In this section I will outline the basic strategy that the compositional Christology of the two-minds view uses to remove contradictory properties. In subsequent sections I will discuss specific ontologies of time and argue that this strategy may help with certain properties, but it does not help with the divine timeless research program. The Reduplicative strategy, or the qua move, is the standard way to remove contradictory properties. This strategy has a very early history in Christian thought. Tertullian, Athanasius, Apollinarius, and Gregory of Nazianzus all make this move. Interestingly, they say that they learned this move from the apostle Peter. 1 Peter 4:1 says, “Christ suffered in the flesh.”75 According to Apollinarius, one can say that Christ only suffered in the flesh, but not in His divinity. The idea in the qua move is that we can coherently talk about the properties of Christ’s humanity and divinity as parts of the Son. When we talk about the properties of His divinity we do not ascribe to it the human parts. When we talk about the properties of His humanity we do not ascribe to it the divine part. We can, however, ascribe both sets of properties to the one person. For instance, we can say that the Son was crucified. Yet the divine essence was not crucified.76 It is only in virtue of the Son’s humanity that He is crucified. One might say, qua human, the Son was crucified. How exactly does this work? In order to get a better feel for the qua move we will need to see some examples of how it works. One might say that . Why is the apple red? It is red because its skin is red. The apple is red qua skin, or in virtue of its skin. If one were to peel the apple it would no longer be red. . What makes Socrates wise? Socrates is wise in virtue of having a well trained mind. If Socrates lost his mind, (however you wish to understand that) he would no longer be wise. Imagine you have a ruler and one end is painted 74

John of Damascus, Orthodox Faith III.3. See Norris, Christological Controversy for further discussion, in particular 92. Boethius’ Theological Tractates is another great example of this move. For a discussion of medieval accounts of reduplication see Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, ch. 8. 76 John of Damascus, Orthodox Faith III.3–4. 75

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green while the other end is painted blue. Your ruler is green and blue by virtue of its painted ends. Perhaps the idea is that we can say that . Have we removed the contradiction? We have only if we refuse to consider the communicatio idiomatum.77 It is not the case that we have two unrelated subjects of predication. We have one person, one ultimate bearer of properties, who is said to be atemporal and temporal. Once we bring back in the communicatio idiomatum we have and . This is because sentences of the form entail .78 We could ignore the communicatio idiomatum in an effort to save this position, but we would then face Nestorianism, and thus have abandoned an ecumenical Christology. Of course, the proponent of the two-minds view could say maybe we have not used the qua move in the right way since we still have incompatible properties. So perhaps there is a better way to employ the qua move that will help the two-minds view out. As Le Poidevin points out, “One way in which a single thing can exhibit incompatible properties is by having different parts, each of which exhibits one of the incompatible properties. As long as the properties are not exhibited by one and the same part, contradiction is avoided.”79 How exactly is treating Christ’s humanity and divinity as parts to be understood such that it solves the problem? Douglas Blount points out a possible way to understand this.80 He asks us to consider the following. (18) The Fightin’ Irish qua defensive team played well during time t. (19) The Fightin’ Irish qua offensive team did not play well during t. Blount wants to say that the following inferences are not valid. (20) The Fightin’ Irish simpliciter played well during t. (21) The Fightin’ Irish simpliciter did not play well during t. I take it that the inferences to (20) and (21) are not valid since it is only certain parts of the team that played well or poorly. 77

Unfortunately, most treatments of reduplication by contemporary analytic philosophers of religion do not consider the communicatio idiomatum. For example, Timothy Pawl, “A Solution to the Fundamental Philosophical Problem of Christology,” Journal of Analytic Theology 2 (2014) and Michael Gorman, “Christological Consistency and the Reduplicative Qua,” Journal of Analytic Theology 2 (2014). 78 Thomas D. Senor, “Incarnation, Timelessness, and Leibniz’s Law Problems,” in eds. Gregory E. Ganssle and David M. Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 229. 79 Robin Le Poidevin, “Incarnation: Metaphysical Issues,” Philosophy Compass 4 (2009), 707. Also, see his “Identity and the Composite Christ: An Incarnational Dilemma,” Religious Studies 45 (2009). 80 Douglas K. Blount, “On the Incarnation of a Timeless God,” in Ganssle and Woodruff, God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, 239–40.

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Of course, two points can be made. First, there is a sense in which these inferences go through. Say Notre Dame won the game. It would seem that a fan could assert (20) without any shame. The team as a whole pulled it off in the end. But say Notre Dame lost the game. A fan would have to shamefully concede that (21) was true. Any denial of (21) would be the sort of post-game bull that one expects to hear on a sports talk show. It is sheer bluster trying to cover up the fact that they did not bring it together, did not give it their best, and did not play well as a team. We can only deny the inferences to (20) and (21) when we ignore the fact that there is a team out on the field. What this illustrates is that not all cases of the reduplicative strategy can be treated the same.81 This is because there are certain cases where one property trumps another.82 For instance, a human person has various non-thinking parts like a nose or an arm. She is not intelligent qua arm. She is intelligent qua mind since the mind is the thing that does the thinking. If Notre Dame loses the game the property played poorly trumps its contrary, and if Notre Dame wins the property played well trumps. Assuming, of course, a fair game was played by all. Second, this seems to be a poor analogy for the incarnation. Surely the mereology of Jesus is nothing like the mereology of a football team, despite what Notre Dame fans might say to the contrary. The divine nature and the human nature are not loosely related parts. They stand in a very close relation, a perichoretic relation through embodiment. As Le Poidevin explains, “The human and divine parts are parts of a single substance—that is, an object that persists through time, enjoys a certain independence from other objects, and is a single individual. The properties of the parts can carry over to the whole.”83 The contradictory properties come back in full force because of the unity of the person of Christ. Maybe there is a way to successfully maneuver through all of this. It seems some reduplicative strategies work. A two-minds view is typically committed to substance dualism.84 Human persons are a composite of an immaterial soul and a material body. On substance dualism a person is an immaterial soul, and has a material body—the “is” being the “is of identity.” A human person has material properties because she has a body, but this does not entail a contradiction because the dualist is not saying that she is entirely physical. With regard to this set of contradictory properties one can say that God the Son is an immaterial being who possesses a human body. The Son has material properties by having a body. A proponent of the two-minds view is not 81 Richard Cross, “Incarnation,” in eds. Thomas Flint and Michael Rea, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 456. 82 Le Poidevin, “Identity and the Composite Christ,” 173. 83 Le Poidevin, “Identity and the Composite Christ,” 173. 84 Thomists will disagree, but I must confess that I find hylomorphism mysterious. So I will stick with the substance dualism of the patristics for this discussion.

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committed to saying that the Son is entirely physical. All she is committed to is saying that Christ has physical and non-physical parts. What about necessary and contingent existence? The Son is a necessary being, but His humanity only exists contingently. The person of Christ exists necessarily, but His humanity exists contingently. The two-minds view proponent can argue that persons who are merely human exist contingently, whereas a person who is fully human but not merely human can exist necessarily. In the case of the Son incarnate, the necessity of the Son trumps the contingency of His humanity. So only the necessity carries over to the person. Of course, a particular problem for the divine timeless research program arises here. It would seem that the Son is only contingently related to His humanity. If He were necessarily related to His humanity, His humanity would not be contingent. This means that the Son’s human nature is accidental to Him.85 But, recall from Chapter 3, that accidental properties are repugnant to divine simplicity.86 The Son, being simple, cannot have accidental properties. The communicatio idiomatum entails that the Son has accidental properties. So divine simplicity is incompatible with the communicatio idiomatum. So much the worse for divine simplicity and the divine timeless research program. There might be a way to get around this. Perhaps one could say that only the divine nature is simple, and not the Son. Of course, that would seem to destroy the doctrine of divine simplicity since, as one will recall from Chapter 3, a simple God has no metaphysical diversity or complexity at all. A multiplicity of persons in God is diverse and complex, despite the protests of defenders of divine simplicity.87 Further, it would seem to call into question whether or not 85 Blount, “On the Incarnation of a Timeless God,” 243. The traditional “language is intended to emphasize the fact that, while the Son possesses a human nature, such a nature is accidental to him (and, perhaps, that he has it voluntarily).” In Summa Theologiae III, Q2, Aquinas denies that the humanity is accidental to Christ. He offers several nuanced distinctions in an attempt to make this work. I find this baffling. 86 John Duns Scotus, De Primo Principio (Washington, D. C.: The Franciscan Institute, 1949), 143. 87 James E. Dolezal, “Trinity, Simplicity and the Status of God’s Personal Relations,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 16 (2014). Dolezal says that there are no real distinctions in the simple God, yet the three divine persons are really distinct. Further, the three really distinct persons just are God. This is prima facie incoherent. Three distinct persons in God is not compatible with the claim that God has no distinctions. Dolezal tries to hide behind the doctrine of analogy as well as the claim that the divine persons just are subsisting relations. This fails to be compatible with divine simplicity for the following reasons. (1) A multiplicity of distinct relations in God is still to introduce distinction into a God who supposedly lacks all metaphysical distinctions. Dolezal tries to escape this problem by stating that the divine relations are identical to the essence of God, but this is to give up the claim that there are three distinct persons. If F is identical to G, and S is identical to G, then F is identical to S. (2) The subsistent relations are all identical to the one simple divine act, which in turn is identical to the essence of God. So the relations end up being identical to each other. Each divine person just is identical to an act of

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the Son is divine since classical theology is committed to the claim that to be divine is to be simple. Another possible way to get out of this is to deny the communicatio idiomatum, but then one would be left with an inadequate Christology. One might deny that the Son has His humanity accidentally, and insist that the Son has it necessarily. Apart from being prima facie implausible, this would seem to lead to immanent subordinationism and not economic subordinationism for the Son would not be homoousios with the Father and Holy Spirit. Divine simplicity, it would seem, is incompatible with the Incarnation. So much the worse for the divine timeless research program. One might try to ditch divine simplicity in order to save the timeless research program. As noted in previous chapters, this move would undermine the justification of the timeless research program since one of the reasons often given in support of divine timelessness is divine simplicity. Say one bites the bullet and gives up this source of justification for divine timelessness in an attempt to make the timeless research program compatible with the incarnation. She will still need to answer several questions. Is it possible for the reduplicative strategy to solve the apparent contradiction of the Son being atemporal and temporal? Is it possible for the Son to have a timeless part and a temporal part? Or is this a case where one of the properties trumps the other? That may depend on which theory of time she adopts.

The Reduplicative Strategy, Presentism, and Endurantism There appears to be a very serious difficulty with presentism and the incarnation even if one does concede that the humanity is a part of Christ. The New Testament witness, the early Church creeds, and the orthodox theologians all affirm (a) that the Son pre-existed His incarnate state, and (b) that the human nature of Christ came into existence at a particular point in time.88 The humanity of Christ simply did not exist until sometime around 4 BC. At that time it came into existence. The Son could not have been embodied with His humanity prior to that time because there is nothing in existence for the Son to be embodied in. God may have timelessly decreed that the Son be embodied with His humanity at 4 BC, but that does not alter the situation. Embodiment is an extremely intimate relation that the Son stands in with regard to His humanity, and it is impossible for Him to stand in this relation until His procession, and all of God’s acts are identical to each other such that there is only one simple act. A simple God is identical to His act. So, again, Dolezal has given up any distinction between the persons. (3) A person cannot be a relation. A person is a thing that stands in relations. The Thomistic notion of divine persons as subsisting relations is a category mistake that needs to be put to rest. Hiding behind the doctrine of analogy and the doctrine of divine ineffability or incomprehensibility does nothing to remove the category mistake. 88 Holland, God, Time, and the Incarnation, ch. 2.

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humanity comes into existence. This is a real change in the Son since the Son is deeply and intimately related to His humanity. There is no way to remove the temporal implications of this. One might say that and , but this does nothing to relieve the fact that at a particular time in history the Son began to be embodied in a particular human nature. The human nature is accidental to Him. The human nature is not itself timelessly eternal. It simply did not exist prior to 4 BC. The divine nature itself undergoes a change in the incarnation by becoming embodied in an endurant human nature. There are two ways that I can see to avoid this. First, one can give up the doctrine of embodiment. Maybe she will go medieval and say that the Son is not really related to His humanity. If she does this she will have given up any adequate notion of the incarnation. Embodiment is what distinguishes the Son’s humanity from everyone else’s humanity. If we abandon embodiment there is no legitimate sense in which we can say that the Son assumes humanity, nor any way for us to distinguish the relationship between the Son and His humanity from the Son and our humanity (i.e. how are we not incarnated by the Son as well?).This first option is not a very good move to make. The second possible way to avoid this is to adopt four-dimensional eternalism.

The Reduplicative Strategy and Four-Dimensional Eternalism Instead of treating Christ’s human nature as an endurant object that objectively came into existence with the flow of time, one could say that Christ’s human nature is a four-dimensional object. On four-dimensional eternalism Christ’s human nature is eternally located at a particular stretch of time. The human nature will either be a spacetime worm or a series of person stages (temporal counterparts). On this theory of time there is no worry about the human nature not existing and then coming to exist. The temporal parts that make up the humanity of Christ are co-eternal with God. There is never a state of affairs in which God exists alone without the universe. There is never a state of affairs at which God exists without the humanity of Christ. This may look attractive at first, but an entailment must be brought out. In adopting perdurantism or stage theory one has given up the numerical identity of God the Son with Jesus Christ. This is because perdurantism and stage theory are not numerical identity through time. Le Poidevin explains that “the result is a view of Christ and God the Son as overlapping series of temporal parts.”89 On perdurantism, Jesus Christ is a collection of temporal parts. On stage theory, there are many different Jesus Christs—one for each instant at which the career of Jesus spans. Cyril and those at the council of Chalcedon 89

Le Poidevin, “Incarnation: Metaphysical Issues,” 713.

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will not be happy with such a position. Again, it should be recalled that the Christological deposit is resolutely committed to the numerical identity of the Son and Jesus. It is clear that we do not have numerical identity between the Son and Jesus on perdurantism or stage theory. Perhaps the four-dimensional eternalist will insist that things are not as bad as they sound. One will recall from Chapter 2 that perdurantism and stage theory are considered to be identity through time, just not numerical identity through time. On perdurantism an object persists through time by having temporal parts at different times. On stage theory, an object persists by having temporal counter parts. On both accounts, the temporal parts are supposed to be in the right sort of intimate spatiotemporal and causal relations to each other in order for identity to obtain. A four-dimensionalist might say that surely an omnipotent being like God could ensure that the humanity of Christ has the appropriate relations necessary for identity through time even though it is not numerical identity. I fail to see how this is compatible with an ecumenical Christology, but I shall rest my case for now. Instead, I shall point out a deeper problem for this position. What we have is a model where God the Son is eternally related to a fourdimensional object. The object in question is a human nature. Does this save divine timelessness? Le Poidevin says no since the Son is causally joined with a collection of temporal parts.90 The Son acts at particular times so temporality trumps atemporality. As was argued throughout Chapters 5 and 6, to act at a time is sufficient to be in time. Perhaps a dyothelite can get around this. She could assert that the Son eternally decrees that the human nature will certain actions at particular times. The human will acts in time, whereas the divine will acts timelessly. This may sound promising, but we have not yet considered embodiment or the communicatio idiomatum. If the Son is embodied in a fourdimensional humanity He will assume the properties of that humanity. That means that the Son will literally have temporal parts. Such a thing is odious to divine timelessness and divine simplicity since, as discussed in Chapter 3, no timeless or simple being can have temporal parts. One could avoid this by saying that it is only the human nature that has temporal parts, but the success of this move depends on denying embodiment and the communicatio idiomatum.

FOUR-DIMEN SIONALISM AND S UBORDINATION Another problem arises for four-dimensional eternalism and the incarnation. There is a very real sense in which the Son is eternally incarnate. Typically a 90

Le Poidevin, “Identity and the Composite Christ,” 183.

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Christian theologian will want to say that there is a distinction between the immanent and the economic Trinity. The immanent Trinity distinguishes the necessary and essential properties of the divine persons as they are in themselves. The economic Trinity distinguishes the contingent properties and roles of the divine persons in the economy of creation and salvation. The immanent Trinity is about God in Himself, and the economic Trinity is about God in relation to creation. In the economy of salvation the Son is subordinate to the Father by being obedient in the incarnation. This is said to be a non-essential role that the Son freely takes in the economy of salvation. (Of course, divine simplicity makes this impossible since God cannot have any accidental properties or any properties at all.) In what sense can we maintain the immanent and economic distinction on four-dimensional eternalism? The Son is eternally incarnate, and thus would seem to be eternally subordinate. If the Son is eternally subordinate it is hard to see how He is equal to the Father. The defender of divine timelessness cannot say that the Son is only subordinate to the Father from 4 BC on. That would make the Son temporal, and on four-dimensionalism that would entail that the Son has temporal parts. As such, one has abandoned timelessness, simplicity, and immutability. A possible move is to distinguish between absolute necessity and conditional necessity. Absolute necessity applies to the essence of a thing, whereas conditional necessity applies to a particular supposition.91 A triangle has three sides of absolute necessity. The proposition is conditionally necessary. If it is true, it is impossible for to be true. With this modal distinction in hand one might say that the Son is subordinate of conditional necessity. It could have been the case that God did not create a world at all. It could have been the case that the Father or the Holy Spirit had become incarnate instead of the Son.92 However, God has eternally/timelessly decreed the subordination of the Son. There never was a time when the Son was not subordinate to the Father. We may have a modal collapse on our hands since it appears that things could not have in fact been otherwise given divine timelessness, immutability, and simplicity. Modal collapse can be avoided if it were actually possible for God to have willed differently. Of course, as discussed in Chapter 6, this will be of little help. If God could have done otherwise, He would have been different in several respects. First, His will would have been different. Instead of actualizing world A where the Son becomes incarnate, God would have actualized world B where the Holy Spirit becomes incarnate. Second, the contents of God’s beliefs would have been different. Instead of believing God would have the belief . The reason this is of little help is that it undermines divine simplicity. Again, it should be recalled that a simple God cannot have any potential. He is pure act. If God could have done otherwise, these possibilities represent potential acts that God could perform but did not. As such, God has unactualized potential, so He isn’t pure act and thus not simple. Further, it undermines immutability. His act of creation does effect His essence in a meaningful way. God is the creator of world A, and not the creator of world B. If it is actually possible for God to create a different world, then God is not immutable in the sense necessary to preserve divine timelessness. The type of immutability needed is one where it is impossible for God to undergo any change or be different in any respect. Modal collapse can be avoided by getting rid of divine simplicity and immutability, but those doctrines are reasons for holding to atemporality. If those doctrines go, we have no reason to think that God is timeless. Further, these doctrines play an integral role in the atemporalist’s research program. Abandoning these doctrines destroys the integrity of her research program.

CAN A TIMELESS GOD BE EMBODIED? This is an important question for part of the meaning of incarnation is that the Son became embodied in human flesh (John 1). If a timeless God cannot become embodied, the incarnation is impossible. In this section I shall argue that a timeless God cannot become incarnate. Can a timeless person be embodied on the account discussed earlier? It seems the answer is no for a timeless mind can, at best, only satisfy one of the four conditions for embodiment. Le Poidevin points out that the “conclusion must be that on the composite model, only Christ’s human mind is embodied, not the divine mind.”93 I will take each condition in turn. The first condition holds that the disturbances and goings-on of the physical body will cause pain or pleasure in the mind. The human mind of the Son can meet this condition, but the divine mind cannot. The human mind felt pleasure as the body was warmed by the sun. The human mind felt pain as the body was nailed to the cross. The divine mind felt none of this for several reasons. First, these are temporal—successive—experiences and a timeless mind cannot have such experiences. Second, a timeless mind is also impassible. It does not receive joy from anything ad extra, nor can its joy be interrupted. The Christological deposit holds that the divine nature did not 93

Le Poidevin, “The Incarnation: Divine Embodiment and the Divided Mind,” 278.

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suffer on the cross, but that only the human nature did. It would appear that, on a two-minds view, the divine mind does not meet this first condition. The second condition holds that the mind can feel the inside of the body. The human mind of Jesus experienced the feeling of an empty stomach during the temptation in the desert. I gather that the resurrected body of Jesus also experienced hunger. In Luke 24:36–43 Jesus appears to the disciples. Naturally they are startled and suspect He may be a ghost. Jesus offers several signs that He is not a ghost. He points out that He has a body that can be touched. Then He asks if there is anything to eat. I would assume that the broiled fish He was given gave Him the feeling of a full stomach. It seems that the human mind of Jesus can experience the body’s full stomach, but that the divine mind cannot. First, these bodily sensations are successive, and a timeless mind cannot experience succession. Second, an embodied mind would acquire knowledge through the body about this feeling, and a timeless mind cannot acquire knowledge. Third, a timeless mind is also impassible, and an impassible mind cannot suffer the pangs of an empty stomach. The third condition is that a mind can move a body through a basic action. This seems to be the only condition that a timeless mind could satisfy, but it satisfies this condition in a rather unsatisfactory way. The doctrines of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence entail that God can move any material object through a basic action. There is nothing that distinguishes God’s ability to perform basic actions on the entire universe from His ability to perform basic actions on a particular body. (Since I have already argued in Chapters 5 and 6 that there is no account of atemporal action with temporal effects, I will not rehash that here. For the sake of argument I will assume that there is some working model of this.) There is another problem as well. On the two-minds view under consideration the God-man has two wills. The human mind wills that the body perform some action a through a basic action. The divine mind also (timelessly) wills that the body perform some action a through a basic action. We have overdetermination. It appears that one of the wills is completely unnecessary and superfluous. How can this overdetermination be avoided? One could posit that the human mind actively wills a whereas the divine mind passively or permissively wills a. This would be a similar move to that which is made in various accounts of divine providence.94 This move, however, is open 94 What I have in mind are reformed accounts of divine providence, but the same applies to medieval accounts as well. Thomas Aquinas seems to cut the operations of the two wills of Christ in terms of primary and secondary causation just like he does in his account of divine providence. He explicitly compares the relation between the divine and human wills in Christ to that of the divine will and the saints. “Whatever was in the human nature of Christ was moved at the bidding of the Divine will; yet it does not follow that in Christ there was no movement of the will proper to human nature, for the good wills of other saints are moved by God’s will, ‘Who worketh’ in them ‘both to will and to accomplish,’ as is written Phil. 2:13.” A little later he says,

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to the charge of Nestorianism since it is indistinguishable from the way God interacts with other human agents. Further, it appears to only give us a functional unity of the two natures, and not an ontic unity. In short, it is not clear how one can avoid having to bite the bullet on overdetermination. Regardless of this, if a defender of atemporality can solve these problems she has only succeeded in satisfying one of the conditions for embodiment. Yet not all models of the incarnation can even come this close to satisfying this condition. The Christological deposit seems to explicitly deny that the divine mind interacts directly with the body. As such, the divine mind does not move the body by a basic act. Instead, the divine mind works through the human mind in order to interact with the body. Thinkers like Origen, Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, Gregory of Nazianzus, Augustine, and Peter Lombard claim that the human mind acts as a mediator between the Son and the body. The idea is that the human soul serves as a wall to protect the Son from the “grossness” of human flesh.95 It also somehow prevents the Son from suffering any change. This aspect of ecumenical Christology is widespread in the ancient and medieval Church. This prevents the Son from satisfying the third condition for embodiment. Condition four holds that a mind’s locus of perception on the world is from the perspective of the body. The mind acquires perceptual knowledge from the body. As noted, on a two-minds view the divine mind does not acquire knowledge through the body. Only the human mind does.96 The divine mind as timeless and omniscient cannot acquire any knowledge. Further, a timeless mind cannot look out from the perspective of a body for that would require having succession. An embodied mind perceives one thing, then another, then another, and so on. A timeless mind cannot have any succession. The final condition holds that the thoughts and feelings of the mind are affected by the body. The human mind of Jesus can easily satisfy this condition for reasons noted earlier, but the divine mind cannot satisfy this condition. The divine mind is timeless, immutable, and impassible. It cannot be affected by anything ad extra nor change in any way. If the human body suffers, the divine mind will remain in a timeless state of uninterrupted joy. As the human body grows weak and tired, the human mind feels it and thinks “I should get some sleep.” The divine mind has no knowledge of what it is like to feel tired, nor can the divine mind entertain the belief “I should get some sleep” in any “the human will of Christ had a determinate mode from the fact of being in a Divine hypostasis, i.e. it was always moved in accordance with the bidding of the Divine will.” ST III, Q18. 95 Gregory of Nazianzus in ed. Henry Bettenson, The Later Christian Fathers: A Selection from the Writings of the Fathers from St. Cyril of Jerusalem to St. Leo the Great (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), 108. Marmodoro and Hill, “Compositional Models of the Incarnation,” 475–9. Origen in Norris, Christological Controversy, 76. Peter Lombard, Sentences III Dist. II, XXI, and XXII. 96 Morris, “The Metaphysics of God Incarnate,” 220–4.

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meaningful way. This is because a timeless, immutable, and impassible mind cannot possibly experience the sensation of growing tired and weak. As it stands divine timelessness cannot meet the conditions for embodiment. Since all five conditions must be met for embodiment to take place one may reasonably conclude that the divine mind is not embodied. Sure the human mind is embodied, but so what? God the Son is a divine mind. If a timeless divine mind cannot become embodied, and God the Son is a divine mind, God the Son cannot become embodied. It looks like we do not have an incarnation on our hands, and that is repugnant to Christian belief. At best we have a divine mind that is generically related to all physical objects in virtue of being omnipresent (and I have already laid out the problems this causes for divine timelessness). Omnipresence does not provide one with enough resources to satisfy embodiment. The relationship of God’s omnipresence to the world is far too loose for an adequate ecumenical Christology. If a timeless divine mind cannot be incarnate, Christians must give up belief in timeless divine minds.

TWO -MINDS AN D KNOWLEDGE D E S E God’s knowledge is so peculiarly his own, as to be impossible to be communicated to any thing created, not even to the soul of Christ; though we gladly confess, that Christ knows all those things which are required for the discharge of his office and for his perfect blessedness. —James Arminius97

Some may find my last point about embodiment contentious. Perhaps one might object that the relation thus described is not too loose to be considered an adequately ecumenical account of the incarnation. What makes it “too” loose? The fact that the divine mind is not embodied. No embodiment, no incarnation. Incarnation means taking on flesh. Further, the fact that the divine mind bears the same basic generic relation to the human mind and 97 Disputation IV.XLVI from “25 Public Disputations” in ed. James Nichols and William Nichols, The Works of James Arminius: The London Edition, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1986). Peter Lombard would disagree with Arminius. For him, the human soul of Christ knows all that God knows. However, the human soul does not comprehend all things as clearly and perfectly as God does. See Sentences III Dist. XIII and XIV. Francis Turretin points out that this is a theological difference between Catholic scholastics and Protestants. Catholics and Protestants agree, he says, that the human soul of Christ knows all things after the ascension. They disagree over the human soul’s knowledge during Christ’s earthly sojourn. See Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2 (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1994), 348–50. Cf. Timothy Pawl, “The Freedom of Christ and the Problem of Deliberation,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 75 (2014).

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body of Jesus that He does to all other human minds and bodies makes the relation far too loose to count as an incarnation.98 But the point can be pressed even further when we consider de se beliefs. Knowledge de dicto is knowledge about propositions. There is also knowledge by acquaintance or first-hand knowledge. Knowledge de se is personal knowledge, or knowledge from a firstperson perspective.99 Allow me to illustrate. Say there is a bachelor named Bill. Bill has heard on more than one occasion that . After receiving an overwhelming amount of testimonial evidence to this effect he develops the de dicto belief that . However, he has not yet experienced it himself at first hand. At this point Bill’s belief is merely propositional. Now say that Bill finds a wonderful girl and he marries her. After Bill’s wedding night he acquires a new type of knowledge: knowledge by acquaintance. He can now entertain the belief that in a different way. He has a first-hand knowledge of sex that he did not previously have. He can also entertain a de se belief, or a first-person belief that no one else can entertain: . Other people can entertain a similar belief, but it will not be the exact same de se belief as Bill’s since this de se belief is about Bill. One cannot entertain this de se belief unless he is in fact Bill. Other people can entertain the de se belief , but it will be a unique de se belief about them and no one else. The “I” will pick out someone different, and thus be a different proposition. What does this have to do with the incarnation? In the incarnation there is supposed to be one person with two natures. There is supposed to be one “I” and not two, one subject of predication and not two. To put it in patristic language, there is supposed to be one Son and not two Sons. Given the nature of de se beliefs—that they pertain to unique individual persons—it seems that a timeless God cannot be incarnate since a timeless God cannot entertain the same de se beliefs as Jesus. Consider the following. (22) If God the Son cannot entertain the same de se beliefs as Jesus, God the Son is not the same person as Jesus. (23) If God the Son is timeless, immutable, and impassible, He cannot entertain the same de se beliefs as Jesus. (24) God the Son is timeless, immutable, and impassible. (25) Thus, God the Son cannot entertain the same de se beliefs as Jesus. (26) Thus, God the Son is not the same person as Jesus. (22) follows from the nature of de se beliefs. They are beliefs that can only be entertained by a unique person. Two different persons cannot share the same de se belief. They may have a belief that takes the same form like but the propositional content is different for each person. The “I” in the 98 John Hick offers a similar argument against the two-minds view. “The Logic of God Incarnate,” Religious Studies 25 (1989). 99 It should be noted that the exact nature of de se knowledge is controversial.

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proposition picks out a different person. (24) is the assumed premise as it is the divine timeless research program. (23) is the contentious premise and will need some defense. Say that Jesus has the following de se beliefs. (27) (28) (29) (30)

I am suffering on the cross. I begin to feel hungry at 11:00 a.m. on 3 March, 28. I begin to feel full at 12:00 p.m. on 3 March, 28. I am ignorant of the second coming.

Can God the Son entertain (27)–(30)? No. As impassible the Son cannot entertain the belief . As timeless and immutable the Son cannot begin to feel hungry or full. As omniscient the Son cannot be ignorant. Jesus has these de se beliefs, but the Son does not. Maybe the proponent of divine timelessness can try to find beliefs that the Son has that would make it the case that He counts as the same person as Jesus. What kind of beliefs could the Son entertain? Perhaps one will say that the Son has the tenseless belief that . Surely this is not good enough. This simply is not the same de se belief that the human mind of Jesus holds. It should be noted that the atemporalist cannot say that the Son holds the tenseless belief for that would entail the Son beginning to have an experience and a belief at a time. Nor can the atemporalist say that the Son holds the tenseless belief for that would fall subject to the problems noted earlier for reduplication: it would entail (28). The de se beliefs of the human mind of Jesus captured in (27)–(30) are temporal beliefs that involve change, succession, variation of emotion, ignorance of the future, and an interruption of pure joy. These simply are not de se beliefs that any timeless, immutable, or impassible divine mind could entertain. (23) is true, and (25) and (26) follow. If the Son is not the same person as Jesus, we have a clear cut case of Nestorianism.

C ONCLUDING REMARKS In this chapter I have argued that divine timelessness is not compatible with the ecumenical model of the incarnation. One must pick either divine timelessness or the incarnation. Christians cannot give up the incarnation. It is essential to Christian belief and is at the heart of the gospel. Atemporality is not at the heart of the gospel, nor is it essential to Christian belief. Divine timelessness is not even taught in the Bible, and as such Christians should feel no worries about giving up divine timelessness in order to be faithful to the explicit teachings of scripture.

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Conclusion In this book I have argued that the Christian God cannot be timeless. Given the existent theories of time, and the models of God’s relation to time, the prospects for a Christian research program that includes divine timelessness seem bleak. At this point, however, there may be some remaining questions from the reader. Perhaps the reader might like to know why I did not discuss certain issues. For instance, one might ask about my commitment to presentism, or my take on particular biblical material. Clearly, given the limitations of space and the focus of this research, certain questions must be left aside for future work. Here, I have done my best to discuss all of the essential issues, but there are other remaining issues that I would like to have gone into. In this conclusion I wish to note briefly some of these issues, and how they might impact the debate concerning God’s relation to time. A full treatment would need to be offered in a sequel to this book.

SCIENCE AND TIME First, it might seem quite obvious that I did not delve deeply into scientific issues as they relate to time. For example, one might ask how I can square my presentism with contemporary physics. It should be noted that many others have done this better than I can, and as such I am quite happy to leave it in their capable hands.1 There are fascinating debates in the current literature 1 Dean Zimmerman, “Presentism and the Space-Time Manifold,” in ed. Craig Callender, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). William Lane Craig, God, Time and Eternity (London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001) chs. 6–7. Michael Tooley, Time, Tense, and Causation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), ch. 11. C. J. Isham and John Polkinghorne, “The Debate Over the Block Universe,” in eds. Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, and C. J. Isham, Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, 2nd Edition (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999). Craig Bourne, A Future for Presentism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), chs. 5–7.

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between presentists and eternalists over the implications of relativity theory and quantum mechanics. Ultimately, this debate is not relevant for the argument of my work. As I have argued, even if eternalism is the correct theory of time, God cannot be regarded as timeless. However, my current and future publications develop an account of God’s temporality from a presentist ontology of time, and not from an eternalist ontology. Further, my account of divine temporality holds that time never began to exist. As such, a few brief comments seem appropriate at this point, but it must be stressed that these comments are brief. A thorough discussion would delve into the structure of scientific theories, the ways that theories are open to metaphysical interpretation, and what one thinks mature scientific theories are accomplishing.2 This task clearly goes beyond the bounds of this current project. So what can be said briefly? Two things. First, there is no clear difficulty from physics for presentism. Second, science does not clearly teach that time began with the universe. I will look at physics and presentism first before discussing the beginning of time. First, it should be noted that with the Special Theory of Relativity (STR), there is nothing within the theory itself to give us a preferred reference frame. In other words, there is nothing within the theory itself that picks out the present moment of time.3 An eternalist can argue that STR refutes presentism and confirms her theory of time. Christopher J. Isham and John Polkinghorne explain this understanding of STR as follows. In the common parlance, within the theory of relativity there is no unequivocal meaning to the simultaneity of events, and thus no unequivocal concept of “time.” Consequently, no meaning can be ascribed to the notion of the future or past . . . The most that can be affirmed in special relativity is the existence of an infinite family of possible definitions of time that are related to inertial reference frames.4

Since there are an infinite number of inertial frames an eternalist will contend that there is no justification for the presentist to pick one inertial frame as privileged over any other to be the cosmic present.5 Robert John Russell, Time in Eternity: Pannenberg, Physics, and Eschatology in Creative Mutual Interaction (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012), ch. 5. 2 Katherine Hawley, “Science as a Guide to Metaphysics?” Synthese 149 (2006). Tim Maudlin, “Distilling Metaphysics From Quantum Physics,” in eds. Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman, The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics (New York: Oxford, 2003). Jeffrey Koperski, “Metatheoretic Shaping Principles: Where Science Meets Theology,” in eds. William Hasker, Thomas Jay Oord, and Dean Zimmerman, God in an Open Universe: Science, Metaphysics, and Open Theism (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2011). 3 Smart, “The Tenseless Theory of Time,” in eds. Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne, and Dean W. Zimmerman, Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), 232. 4 Isham and Polkinghorne, “The Debate Over the Block Universe,” 141. 5 Robert John Russell, “Time in Eternity: Special Relativity and Eschatology,” Dialog: A Journal of Theology 39 (2000), 50.

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This might seem like an interesting fact of STR that should inform our philosophy of time. However, should we give up our deep seated beliefs about the present just because nothing within STR can pick out the present? Polkinghorne cautions us against doing so. “As for the present moment, so much the worse for physics if it finds no representation of such a basic human experience—only the most crassly physical reductionist could try to turn this deficiency of science into a source of metaphysical insight.”6 Why think Polkinghorne is right about this? To begin, it should be noted that STR, and physics in general, does not give us all there is to know about the world. For instance, fundamental physics does not account for causation, and that is not a good reason for giving up our belief that causation is a fundamental feature of reality.7 Just because STR fails to account for certain features of reality, does not mean that we should give up our belief in those features of reality. Ultimately, the presentist should not give up her position in light of STR because STR is, strictly speaking, false. This is why physicists continue to work on the General Theory of Relativity (GTR) and Quantum Theory (QT). Bradley Monton explains as follows. [STR] is a false theory, and prima facie it’s not a good idea to derive metaphysical lessons for our world on the basis of a theory that doesn’t correctly describe our world. The reason special relativity is false is that it makes predictions at variance with reality. For example, according to special relativity, a clock at the base of a building will run at the same rate as a clock at the top of the building (assuming that the building is in an inertial frame of reference), but in fact the clock at the base runs slower. This fact about clocks is one piece of evidence for general relativity—according to general relativity, a clock in a stronger gravitational field runs more slowly than a clock in a weaker gravitational field.8

STR is still quite useful in contemporary science, just as Newtonian physics is, but it does not give us a full and accurate picture of fundamental reality. GTR tries to account for things that STR does not. However, the eternalist could try to say that GTR is incompatible with presentism since GTR does not give us a preferred way to pick out the present either. But this is not entirely obvious since there are some models of GTR that do allow us to develop a way of picking out the present. What must be understood is that fundamental physics does not give us the whole story of reality. As noted earlier, just because one scientific discipline fails to account for a particular facet of reality does not Polkinghorne, “Space, Time, and Causality,” Zygon 41 (2006), 977. Bradley Monton, Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2009), 91–2. Also, Paul Humphreys, “Causation,” in ed. W. H. NewtonSmith, A Companion to the Philosophy of Science (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 36–9. 8 Monton, “Prolegomena to Any Future Physics-Based Metaphysics,” in ed. Jonathan Kvanvig, Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion, vol. 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 145. 6 7

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entail that other disciplines fail to do so as well. When one investigates reality she will want to draw upon as many disciplines as possible because each discipline focuses on a particular facet of reality. In order to figure out which model of GTR best describes the universe that we actually live in, one will need to draw upon knowledge gained from other disciplines. As Polkinghorne explains, “when one moves from physics to cosmology and considers the Universe as a whole, there is indeed a natural meaning of cosmic time (and so a cosmic ‘now’), which is defined by the frame of reference at rest with respect to the cosmic background radiation.”9 These considerations from cosmology are how we come up with the calculation that the universe is about 13 billion years old. When one considers scientific disciplines other than fundamental physics, the privileged present comes back with vengeance. So GTR does not appear to be a problem for the presentist either. However, it should be pointed out that GTR, as it is currently stated, is most likely false since it conflicts with QT. As noted, GTR says that clocks run faster or slower depending upon the influence of the gravitational field they are in. QT says that ideal clocks run the same rate regardless of the gravitational field. Does QT conflict with presentism? Again, the answer is that it does not obviously do so. It is the case that many physicists maintain that the relativity of simultaneity is a lesson learned from STR, and they hope that this will carry over into QT, but it is also the case that there are interpretations of QT that do have a privileged present.10 What must be made clear is that we have no idea what time will ultimately look like in later, more refined versions of QT.11 It is quite possible for a version of QT that is compatible with presentism to turn out to be true, but we simply do not know at this time which version, if any, will turn out to be the true description of reality. What about the beginning of time? Doesn’t contemporary science teach us that time began with the Big Bang? As noted in Chapter 2, this is far from obvious. Contemporary physicists appear to be working with something like a relational theory of time, but it is not quite as fundamental as the relational theory. The physicist concerns herself with measurable physical changes, and as such is methodologically unconcerned with the possibility of non-physical changes. Further, she will be methodologically unconcerned with whether or not the absolute theory of time is true.12 For the physicist, if there is no way to 9 John Polkinghorne, “The Nature of Time,” in eds. Alain Comes, Michael Heller, Shahn Majid, Roger Penrose, John Polkinghorne, and Andrew Taylor, On Space and Time (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 280. 10 Bradley Monton, “Presentism and Quantum Gravity,” in ed. Dennis Dieks, The Ontology of Spacetime (Oxford: Elsevier, 2006). 11 Zimmerman, “Presentism and the Space-Time Manifold,” Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Time, 178. 12 Thanks to the Physics and Philosophy Society at the University of St Andrews for much discussion and clarity on this issue.

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develop a clock, then there is no time even if events can still be in a chronological order of before and after.13 This is why one will see physicists say things like “time began at the Big Bang,” but then see physicists ask the question, “What came before the Big Bang?” The same physicists who say that time began at the Big Bang will also posit a universe or a multiverse generator that exists prior to our universe to explain what caused the Big Bang. This is an unfortunate way of talking. It would be better for physicists to say that measured time as we know it began shortly after the Big Bang (to account for the Planck era), instead of saying that time simpliciter began at the Big Bang. Quite clearly they are talking about time before the Big Bang when they posit prior universes with their own measured time series.

TH E BIBLE ON TIME AND E TERNITY One might complain that I did not delve too deeply into the biblical literature. I had developed a full chapter that offered a detailed discussion of the biblical material on God, time, and eternity, as well as a companion chapter that developed the method of perfect being theology and how to use it to interpret scripture and use scripture to interpret perfect being theology. But space limitations did not allow me to include these chapters. Basically, what I would suggest is that there is no hint of divine timelessness in the Christian scriptures. One can easily find the claim that God exists without beginning and without end in the Bible, but one cannot find anything that implicitly or explicitly resembles a “without succession” clause anywhere in scripture. More importantly, the Bible describes eternity in temporal terms. As G. E. Ladd puts it, “Biblically, eternity is unending time.”14 As Ted Peters explains, The biblical words that come into English as eternity refer to an age that lasts a long time, perhaps forever. Isaiah uses the Hebrew word olam when writing, ‘I will make you majestic forever, a joy from age to age’ (Isaiah 60:15 NRSV). In the New Testament the principal term for eternity is aion, which comes into English also as aeon, meaning literally an age that lasts for a long time. This is the term used in John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life (zoen aionion).’15

13 George Musser, “Could Time End?” Scientific American 21 (2012). Roger Penrose, Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe (London: Vintage Books, 2010). 14 G. E. Ladd, “Age, Ages,” in ed. Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1984), 21. 15 Peters, “Eschatology: Eternal Now or Cosmic Future?” Zygon 36 (2001), 352.

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Whenever the Bible talks about eternity it uses temporal terms. Despite this fact, most of classical Christian theology ignores this. Most thinkers throughout Church history in the East and the West simply assume divine timelessness and offer proof-texts like Exodus 3:14, Numbers 23:19, Malachi 3:6, Psalm 90, Psalm 139, Isaiah 46, James 1:17, 2 Peter 3, Hebrews 13:8, and Revelation 1:4. None of these passages, however, give us the without succession clause. In fact, many of them directly, or indirectly, suggest that God does have succession in His life. Further, the passages noted here that say that “God does not change” have a limited scope of the ways in which God does not change. They do not teach that God does not change in any way, shape, or form. Instead, they speak of God not changing with regard to keeping His promises, or never ceasing to be good and loving. Elsewhere I have delved into these issues a bit more, but space limitations do not permit me to discuss this fully here.16 If one were to hazard a guess as to why so many theologians overlooked the fact that the Bible speaks of eternity in temporal terms, one should recall the discussion of Chapter 3. There I discussed how classical theologians and philosophers were in the practice of providing non-temporal readings of temporal terms when speaking about God. Theologians admitted the weakness of using terms like “present” to speak of God, but they felt that they had given a sufficiently non-temporal meaning to such terms in these particular contexts. One example comes from the Dionysian mystical tradition in the East. Theologians in this tradition struggled with the fact that the Bible uses temporal terms to describe eternity. They note that sometimes the Bible uses terms that are not worthy of God, and that these things can be interpreted to say something that is truly worthy of God.17 The idea seems to be that even though the Bible describes eternity in temporal terms, we should not let this deter us from believing that God is timeless and that He existed before, and without, creation. In other words, one can give these temporal statements in the Bible a non-temporal interpretation. This is better than the kind of prooftexting that has characterized classical Christian theology, but it still does not help to ground divine timelessness biblically because there is nothing within scripture to suggest that we should give these passages a non-temporal reading.18 By way of example, consider the common proof text for divine timelessness, Revelation 1:4, which speaks of God as the one “who is and who was and who 16 See my “Divine Temporality and the Charge of Arianism” Journal of Analytic Theology (Forthcoming), and “Divine Perfection and Creation,” The Heythrop Journal (Forthcoming). 17 Pseudo-Dionysius, Divine Names 10.3.2. C.f. John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus: Annotating the Areopagite, trans. Paul Rorem and John C. Lamoreaux (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 233–8. 18 Henri Blocher, “Yesterday, Today, Forever: Time, Times, Eternity in Biblical Perspective.” Tyndale Bulletin 52 (2001).

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is to come.” This phrase, and variations of it, is repeated throughout the book of Revelation. It might strike one as an odd proof-text for divine timelessness since it clearly speaks of God having a past and a future. The same God who came to us in the past is the same God who is with us now, and is the same God who will come again. This phrase does imply God’s eternality, but it also implies succession in the life of God. An atemporalist, like the seventeenthcentury theologian Francis Turretin, will quickly point out that this passage speaks anthropopathically, so in actuality it does not imply succession in God.19 Why think a thing like that? Since the time of Plato, philosophers have thought it proper to speak of the timeless God in the present tense only. As noted in Chapter 3, the present tense “is” is given a non-temporal reading when applied to the timeless God. As such, they say it is not strictly speaking proper to refer to God with the past tense “was” and the future tense “will be.” Should we take Revelation to be speaking anthropopathically here? Surely not! This is so for at least two reasons. First, if we say “yes,” we cannot use this passage as a proof-text for atemporality. Why? Because it does not explicitly teach that God exists without succession. One must presuppose that God exists without succession in order to argue that this passage must be taken in an anthropomorphic or poetic way. A proof-text is of little use if one must explain away what it actually says. Second, taking this passage to be anthropomorphic prevents one from seeing how unique this phrase is in Revelation. One of the striking features of Revelation is that it continually speaks of God as being the one who “was, is, and is to come.” Despite the fact that the timeless “is” was widespread by the time Revelation was written, the author does not take up this way of speaking about God. The conceptual machinery needed to speak about God as timeless was available to the author of Revelation, and yet the author does not use it. As David E. Aune points out, the predicate “the One who is” was often used in Greco-Jewish texts to denote a non-temporal existent God. The author of Revelation, instead, modifies the common language and speaks of “the One who is to come.” The formula of the One who was, is, and is to come is unique to Revelation, and does not occur elsewhere in Jewish and Christian texts before the third century.20 The author of Revelation seems to have a particular purpose in speaking of God as the one who “was, is, and is to come.” It is not an unreasonable interpretation to say that the author wishes to emphasize that this God has a past. Even further, this God has made promises about the future. Given what

19 Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1992), 203. 20 David E. Aune, “God and Time in the Apocalypse of John,” in eds. A. Andrew Das and Frank J. Matera, The Forgotten God: Perspectives in Biblical Theology (London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 230–2.

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we know about God from what He has done in the past, and is currently doing in the present, we can be confident that He will keep His promises. In short, the portrayal of God advanced by the author of Revelation is deeply temporal. As such, it cannot be a proof-text for divine timelessness. This exposition of Revelation fits nicely with another common proof-text for divine timelessness—Exodus 3:14. This passage has long been, and still is, used as a proof-text for divine timelessness, aseity, immutability, impassibility, and simplicity.21 In this famous passage, God reveals Himself to Moses as “I AM WHO I AM.” The reason this is a common proof-text is because it is translated in the present tense. Atemporalists contend that the “I AM” should be read as the timeless present tense. This, however, is a poor interpretation of the text because the passage implies divine temporality. It portrays a God who will be forever divine regardless of what transpires in the future. As Wolfhart Pannenberg points out, most exegetes prefer to translate this passage as “I shall be who I shall be.” This implies that God has a future.22 Henri Blocher draws another important point from this passage. “I AM, in itself, does not exclude ‘I was’.”23 This implies that God has a past. This passage simply does not indicate that God exists in a timeless present that lacks a before and after. It cannot justify divine timelessness. To make this point more clear, consider the meaning of the divine name that is given to Moses. Bruce C. Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terrence E. Fretheim, and David L. Petersen concur with Pannenberg that the passage is better translated as “I will be who I will be” or “I will cause to be what I cause to be.” What this divine name conveys is that God is the Creator. As they explain, this name in part points back to God’s past. This name also points toward God’s future. God will be Israel’s savior. What God is trying to convey to Moses in this divine name is that Moses will know who God is by what God is about to do— that is, deliver the Israelites out of slavery. Further, in giving His name to Moses, God is entering into an intimate relationship that implies a type of vulnerability. In Exodus 3, God is freely choosing to identify with the suffering of the Hebrew people in order to redeem them and the world.24 This is not an impassible God who exists in a timeless present. This is a God with a history and a future. This is a God who is active in the present, and willing to suffer with His beloved children.

21 Hugh J. McCann, Creation and the Sovereignty of God (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012), 48. 22 Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Eternity, Time, and the Trinitarian God,” in ed. Colin E. Gunton, Trinity, Time, and Church: A Response to the Theology of Robert W. Jenson (Cambridge, MA: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000), 64. 23 Henri Blocher, “Yesterday, Today, Forever,” 194. 24 Bruce C. Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terrence E. Fretheim, and David L. Petersen, A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1999), 112–14.

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In spite of the long history of proof-texting from atemporalists, it should be noted that not all proponents of divine timelessness think that the Bible clearly teaches the doctrine. Paul Helm, for one, thinks that the doctrine is underdetermined by the biblical evidence.25 Others are even less confident than this about the biblical teaching. The seventeenth-century theologian Stephen Charnocke notes that the Bible does not teach that God exists without succession. However he does offer a reason as to why the Bible does not teach this—because of the weakness of our concepts the Holy Spirit describes eternity in the Bible simply as without beginning and without end.26 John Tillotson, a contemporary of Charnocke’s, finds this reasoning implausible. Tillotson thinks that timelessness is inconsistent with a God who is co-existent with succession. So he says we should instead stick with the plain meaning of the biblical text when it says that God exists without beginning and without end. We need to believe what the Bible says, and not the “unintelligible notions of the schoolmen.”27 The twentieth-century theologian Louis Berkhof makes a similar move to Charnocke’s. He notes that Scripture teaches that God’s eternity is duration throughout endless ages, but comments that this is merely a popular way of speaking. Scripture, he says, does not give us the strict philosophical sense of eternity (i.e. without succession), though he suggests that 2 Peter 3:8 might allude to it.28 This is an unfortunate suggestion from Berkhof because 2 Peter 3:8 makes no such allusion. 2 Peter 3:8 alludes to Psalm 90, and as discussed in Chapter 2, Psalm 90 teaches that God exists from perpetual duration in the indefinite past to perpetual duration in the indefinite future. It is hard to get a more temporal description of God than this. But this is not the only reason that Berkhof ’s suggestion is unfortunate. It is unfortunate because reading 2 Peter in terms of divine timelessness completely obscures the message of the passage. It is at this point that I wish to mention the unfortunate pastoral consequences of the divine timeless research program. In Chapters 3 and 5, and elsewhere, I showed that the divine timeless research program explicitly entails that God is not the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord because of divine simplicity.29 To say that this undermines the basic claims of the Bible would be an understatement. But the destructive effects of the timeless research program

25 Helm, Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time, 2nd Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 11. 26 Charnocke, Several Dischourses Upon the Existence and Attributes of God (London: Newman, 1682), 181 and 186. 27 Tillotson, The Remaining Discourses on the Attributes of God (London: Rofe and Crown, 1700), 359–68. 28 Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1984), 60. 29 See my “Simply Impossible: A Case Against Divine Simplicity,” The Journal of Reformed Theology 7 (2013).

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to the gospel do not stop there. Divine timelessness prevents us from affirming the loving patience of God since a timeless God cannot be patient. Let us take a closer look at 2 Peter 3. The context of the passage involves Peter considering an objection to the eschatological claims of the gospel.30 Peter comments on the fact that some scoff at Christians for proclaiming that Christ will come again and judge creation. The scoffers point out that things appear to be the way that they have always been with no signs of a coming judgment. Peter rebukes such claims as impatient and invokes the simile of “a thousand years as one day” as a way to demonstrate God’s patience as compared to ours. The everlasting God does not count slowness as the scoffers do. A thousand years is a long time for us, but not for a God who exists from “everlasting to everlasting.” The main thrust of Peter’s claims is to call the believer to be patient and rest assured that God has His reasons for waiting to return. God, according to Peter, has a very good reason for waiting. God is patient toward us so that all might reach repentance since He does not wish for anyone to perish. That is a very patient God for, it seems to me, God will have to wait a very long time for all to reach repentance. This passage, like Psalm 90, is profoundly temporal in its description of God. God is described as patiently waiting to return at a time that He decreed for a specific purpose, and this is something a timeless God cannot do. A timeless God cannot patiently wait. As Richard Bauckham makes clear, “the intended contrast between man’s perception of time and God’s is not a reference to God’s eternity in the sense of atemporality . . . The point is rather that God’s perspective on time is not limited by a human life span.”31 To read 2 Peter 3 in terms of divine timelessness is to completely gut the passage of any meaning. Ultimately, it robs the hope of the gospel from the believer since it entails a denial of what the passage teaches. A timeless God cannot be patient, and the passage teaches that God is extremely patient. So much the worse for divine timelessness!

TRUTHMAKER THEORY Another issue that space in this volume did not allow for is truthmaker theory. This issue is relevant to debates about the ontology of time as well as about the doctrine of omniscience. Is presentism compatible with truthmaker theory? Is truthmaker theory coherent? Can God know the future? There are extensive and ongoing discussions of these questions, but a full examination is beyond 30 J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Epistles of Peter and of Jude (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1969), 360–2. Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (Waco, TX: Word Books Publisher, 1983), 304. 31 Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 310.

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the bounds of this project. In this section I shall note some of the relevant issues for the philosophy of time and theology. The intuition behind truthmaker theory is that every truth claim or proposition has a truthmaker—something that makes the proposition true. This is called Truthmaker Maximalism. Another intuition is called Truthmaker Necessitarianism which is the thesis that the truthmakers must necessitate the truths that they make true.32 The big idea, then, is that there is something about the world that makes every truth claim true. In other words, truth is grounded in the way the world is, or truth supervenes on being. What makes true? The fact that there is in the world grass that instantiates the property green, makes the proposition true. Any patch of grass can serve as the truthmaker for this. There is not a one-to-one correspondence between all propositions and truthmakers. The relationship between propositions and truthmakers is one-to-many in most instances. The eternalist will say that truthmaker theory entails eternalism and is in direct conflict with presentism. Truthmaker theory is said to conflict with presentism in the following way. There are truths about the past, but on presentism the past no longer exists. What makes it true that ? The times at which Caesar existed no longer exist on presentism.33 To put a theological spin on the objection, what makes it true that ? On presentism the significance of Christ’s death seems to be swept away with the flow of time. How can the work of Christ have any meaning for our lives if that state of affairs no longer exists?34 Presentists respond to objections like this in many different ways. One option advocated by Trenton Merricks is to say that truthmaker theory is false.35 Not all propositions need a truthmaker. For instance, necessary propositions, like those of mathematics and logic, are necessarily true. Nothing makes these propositions true. They simply are true. So truthmaker theory is false. Further, truthmaker theory cannot seem to handle negative existential propositions like . Within the confines of standard truthmaker theory, there is nothing that can serve as the truthmaker for this proposition, and yet we know it is true. So, again, truthmaker theory is false. Other presentists take a different option. Instead of rejecting truthmaker theory, many opt for a modified version of truthmaker theory.36 In fact, most 32 D. M. Armstrong, Truth and Truthmakers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 5–7. 33 Armstrong, Truth and Truthmakers, ch. 11. 34 Thanks to Alan Torrance and Jeremy Tudor for pushing me on this. 35 Trenton Merricks, Truth and Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 36 Thomas Crisp, “Presentism and the Grounding Objection,” Nous 41 (2007). Brian Kierland and Bradley Monton, “Presentism and the Objection From Being-Supervenience,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (2007). Craig Bourne, A Future for Presentism, 52–69. Alan Rhoda,

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truthmaker theorists in general agree that truthmaker needs to be revised. However, there is no consensus on what this revised version looks like.37 Some wish to ground truths about the past in an ersatz B-theory of time where tenseless propositions about the past serve as the truthmakers. Others seek to ground truths about the past in the infallible knowledge of God. Another option is to ground truths about the past in properties that the world currently possesses. For instance, what makes it true that ? The fact that God the Son exists now and currently exemplifies certain properties serves as the truthmaker. It is true that the Son was crucified. Being the one who was crucified is an enduring property of the Son. It is something that will forever be true about Him. This is a fascinating area of ongoing research, but again, a full discussion cannot be had here. What is relevant for the argument of this project is that, even if truthmaker theory does entail an eternalist ontology of time, God cannot be regarded as timeless. However, it is not clear that truthmaker theory entails an eternalist ontology of time since truthmaker theory is currently being revised or outright rejected. How one responds to truthmaker theory will have an impact on one’s theology. What is relevant for future work in theology with regard to truthmaker theory is whether or not God can know the future. Most divine temporalists today are presentists, but they disagree about whether or not God knows the future. Divine temporalists will claim that the presentist can account for truths about the past, but not all agree that the presentist can account for truths about the future. Calvinists and Molinists who are divine temporalists will say that there are determinate truths about the future, and God has an exhaustive knowledge of these truths.38 Open theists, however, disagree. There is some debate amongst Open theists about whether or not there are truths about the future, but the more sophisticated versions of contemporary Open theism hold that most propositions about the future do not have a determinate truthvalue of true or false.39 In particular, the Open theist says that propositions about what creatures will freely do in the future do not have a determinate truth-value. “Presentism, Truthmakers, and God,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 90 (2009). Jonathan Tallant, “Presentism and Truth-Making,” Erkenntnis 71 (2009). Alex Baia, “Presentism and the Grounding of Truth,” Philosophical Studies 159 (2012). John Bigelow and Neil McKinnon. “Presentism, and Speaking of the Dead.” Philosophical Studies 160 (2012). 37 Gonzalo Rodriquez-Pereyra, “Truthmakers,” Philosophy Compass 1 (2006), 187. 38 For a Calvinist perspective see John Feinberg, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001). For a Molinist perspective see William Lane Craig in eds. James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy, Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001). 39 Dean Zimmerman, “The A-Theory of Time, Presentism, and Open Theism,” in ed. Melville Y. Stewart, Science and Religion in Dialogue (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2010). Rhoda, “The Fivefold Openness of the Future.”

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Here is where truths about the future connect with omniscience. As discussed in Chapter 4, omniscience is traditionally defined as God knowing all truths and no falsehoods. For every true proposition, God knows that it is true, and for every false proposition God knows that it is false. Take the proposition . A Calvinist and a Molinist will say that this proposition has a determinate truth-value, and God, being omniscient, knows what that truth-value is. The Open theist, however, will say that this proposition does not have a determinate truth-value. It is neither true nor false. Since an omniscient God knows all truths and no falsehoods, and this proposition is neither true nor false, there is nothing for God to know. So, an omniscient God does not have exhaustive knowledge of the future. This is a topic of much debate in the contemporary literature, but I suggest that future work needs to be done in the following areas. First, the actual implications of truthmaker theory for the status of propositions about the future need to be established. Since it is not clear which version of truthmaker theory, if any, will ultimately be deemed to be true, it is not clear what the entailments of truthmaker theory are for propositions about the future. So, theologians should be cautious when articulating theories of omniscience in light of truthmaker theory. Second, the biblical material seems to testify to the fact that God knows a great deal more about the future than the average Open theist will allow for. It also seems to present a God who is engaged in meticulous divine providence, and not the risk taking God of Open theism. It is the case that some Open theists have tried to rebut this challenge by abandoning a risky God, and offering accounts of God’s providence that appear to be quite meticulous.40 It is even claimed that God can, if necessary, override our freedom to bring about certain states of affairs that He desires to bring about.41 If Open theists make these claims, it needs to be made clear what the difference is between them and Calvinists. Third, when one says that propositions about the future do not have a determinate truth-value of true or false, one has to rewrite certain fundamental laws of logic, like, say, abandon the principle of bivalence.42 That is not a desirable to situation to say the least. Suffice it to say, theologians should be cautious when fleshing out the supposed philosophical and theological implications of truthmaker theory.43 40 Alan R. Rhoda, “Beyond the Chess Master Analogy: Game Theory and Divine Providence,” in, ed. Thomas Jay Oord, Creation Made Free: Open Theology Engaging Science (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2009). 41 Zimmerman, “The A-Theory of Time, Presentism, and Open Theism,” in Science and Religion in Dialogue, 792. 42 Craig Bourne, “Fatalism and the Future,” in Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time, 46–60. 43 Amy Seymour has told me that her version of Open theism does not abandon the principle of bivalence. She says that all propositions about the future have a determinate truth-value, and

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THE TRINITY Another issue that one might raise is whether there might not have been further discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity. As noted in the Preface, within some theological circles the doctrine of the Trinity has been used to argue that God must be temporal, or must be timeless. It is not clear what the argument is from the Trinity to divine temporality, despite the fact that several have suggested there is one. Further, some of these so-called Trinitarian divine temporalists end up saying the most bizarre things like the Father is timeless, the Son transcends time but is also simultaneous with all of time, and the Holy Spirit experiences time according to presentism.44 It is not clear what this means, nor is there any good reason for projecting these types of distinctions into the doctrine of the Trinity.45 Further, this clearly destroys the homoousious of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit since each has different essential properties. I do, however, feel some of the force of the argument from the Trinity to divine timelessness. Paul Helm, for instance, once argued that divine timelessness is needed to avoid Arianism. He has softened this argument in recent years, and I have offered a refutation elsewhere.46 The problem, however, is not divine timelessness or temporality. The problem is with the traditional doctrine of the Trinity. The way the traditional doctrine is articulated simply entails Arianism. In order to avoid Arianism, one must get rid of the claim that the Son and Holy Spirit are eternally caused to exist by the Father. The Christian theologian should not be concerned about giving up this claim since it is not biblically grounded.

THE RE AL CONCL US IO N In this book I argue and conclude that the Christian God cannot be timeless. I also argue and conclude that there is no such thing as a third way between atemporality and temporality. My arguments leave us with the conclusion that all the values are false. I’m assuming she has some nuance to allow for things that God has determined about the future like the defeat of evil such that the proposition is true. I await the details of her account before I can properly assess it. 44 Reinhold Bernhardt, “Timeless Action? Temporality and/or Eternity in God’s Being and Acting,” in eds. Christian Tapp and Edmund Runggaldier, God, Eternity, and Time (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 131–3. 45 Antje Jackelen, Time and Eternity: The Question of Time in Church, Science, and Theology (London: Templeton Foundation Press, 2005), 190–7. 46 “Divine Temporality and the Charge of Arianism,” Journal of Analytic Theology (Forthcoming).

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God is temporal. My suggestion is that theologians and philosophers should abandon the divine timeless research program because it is unworkable and devastating to Christian theology. Instead, they should devote their attention to developing models of divine temporality and the implications that it has for the rest of Christian theology. Divine timelessness has had a long run in Church history, but it is time to bury it and move on. We should not mourn its passing. It shall not be missed.

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Index Anselm 45–7, 53–5, 66, 68–9, 76, 79–81, 83, 103–5, 149, 150, 168, 178 Apollinarius/Apollinarians 160, 162, 170, 181 Aquinas, Thomas xxi, 9, 50, 54, 57, 58, 63, 67, 76, 81–5, 91–6, 101–4, 106, 119–26, 150 Arminius, James 53, 57, 59, 192 Athanasius of Alexandria 160, 172, 181 Augustine 7, 45, 49, 51, 54–8, 64, 70, 75–9, 83, 88–91, 97, 100, 101, 116–20, 123–6, 151, 191 Barth, Karl xvii–xviii, xxi Boethius xvii, 46–7, 50, 57, 76, 78–9, 83, 85, 100, 118–19, 121, 167 Clarke, Samuel 15–18, 67, 86 Clement of Alexandria 42, 64 Covenant 4, 152 Craig, William Lane 37, 39, 68, 135, 149 Creation ix, x, xv, xxiv, 1, 3–5, 10–11, 15–17, 35–8, 45–6, 62, 73, 75, 87, 89–90, 99, 119–22, 122–6, 136–42, 144–7, 149, 153–4, 177, 188, 189, 200, 204 creation ex nihilo 31–3, 99–107, 110–15, 116–19, 127, 129–36 multiverse 34–5, 38–9, 140, 199 Crisp, Oliver 163, 170–1 Cyril of Alexandria 64, 166–7, 178, 186 Eschatology, eschatological x–xii, xx, xxiv, 63, 177, 204 prolepsis xx Eunomius 44–5, 47 Gassendi, Pierre 13, 15, 108 God aseity 46, 62, 120, 129, 137, 139–43, 164, 202 divine ideas/forms 84, 86, 90, 93, 96–7, 111, 145 eternal duration 65–71 Immutable (definition) 47–51 Impassible (definition) 59–65 omnipotent 116, 161, 164, 166, 187, 190 omnipresent xv, 18, 38, 46, 98, 103, 108, 125–6, 132, 164, 190, 192 omniscient 74–98, 129, 131–2, 141, 164, 166, 190, 191, 194, 204, 207 self-sufficiency 61–4, 106, 120, 137, 139–43, 164

Simple (definition) 51–9 temporal (definition) 31–40 timeless (definition) 44–7 Gregory of Nazianzus 156, 181, 191 Gregory of Nyssa 7, 43, 45, 47, 75, 143 Helm, Paul xix, 144, 147, 203, 208 Incarnation Adoptionism 171, 173 anhypostasia/enhypostasia 167, 170–3 communicatio idiomatum 176–80, 181–2, 184, 185, 187 Dyothelitism 160–2, 167, 176, 187 Kenosis 161 Logos-Sarx Christology 172 Monothelitism 160–2 Nestorianism 5, 166–75, 178, 182, 191, 194 perichoresis 176–9, 183 qua move, reduplicative strategy 181–7 John of Damascus 7, 32, 59, 100, 101, 135, 151, 167, 178, 191 Leftow, Brian 13, 47, 65, 71, 152, 159, 179 Leibniz, G. W. 15–16, 18 Lombard, Peter 42, 50–1, 57, 78, 90, 105–6, 118–19, 123–4, 191 Mawson, T. J. 13, 128–9, 146–50, 154 Maximus the Confessor 41, 55, 135, 191 Merricks, Trenton 26, 205 Modality 137 Necessity 48–50, 72, 188 Modal collapse 137–43, 188–9 More, Henry 84–5 Newton, Isaac 15, 16, 18, 37, 197 Oresme, Nicole 15, 66 Origen of Alexandria 43, 44, 64, 191 Padgett, Alan 16–17, 32–3, 38 Panentheism 22, 177 Pannenberg, Wolfhart xiii-xiv, xx, 202 Pantheism 144–6 Persistence through time 25–30

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Philoponus, John 45, 49, 99–100, 101, 103, 108–15, 139–40 Polkinghorne, John 196–8 Pseudo-Dionysius 7, 9, 49 Religious Language 6–10 Analogy 8, 69 Ineffability xviii, 6–8, 44, 70, 102, 152, 167 Subjectivism 123 Univocity 9, 69, 145 Rogers, Katherin 13, 56, 57, 68, 70, 127, 128–34, 134–6, 141–2, 144–7, 153–6 Scotus, John Duns 48, 52, 55, 75, 83, 84, 152 Shedd, William 60–4 Strong, Augustus 71, 144 Stump, Eleonore 13, 57, 65 Time Absolute 14–18, 32, 67, 150–1, 198 A-theory vs B-theory 18–25

Eternalism, Presentism, and Growing Block (definition) 25–30 Identity, see Persistence Metaphysical time 35–40 Physical time 32–5 Relational 14–18, 32, 150–1 Relativity 196–9 Synced with eternity 93, 103, 105 Theodore of Mopsuestia 169, 171 Torrance, T. F. 31, 101, 157, 170 Trinity vii, x, xviii–xix, xxi, 4, 8, 116, 118, 173, 175, 176–7, 188, 208 Arianism 42–3, 44, 65, 102, 162, 208 homoousios 44, 65, 159, 162, 164, 185, 208 Processions, generation 42–5, 102, 143–4 Turretin, Francis 76, 94, 201 Ward, Keith 38–9 Zimmerman, Dean 36, 153–4