hathawayj

“The fact that God is the Lord of time I have interpreted to mean that he has a plan or design for history, that nothing takes place outside of the divine will; that he is not limited or changed in any fundamental way by the passage of time, and that God is a metaphysically necessary Being who lives forever and ever. To this I would add the metaphysical properties of relative timelessness. By “relative timelessness” I mean that God is the Creator of our (physical, measured) time; that in contrast to our time, God’s eternity is infinite and immeasurable; and finally that God’s time is dependent on God’s Being, not the other way around.

. In G. E. Ganssle (Ed.), . Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.”

God & Time: Four Views (p. 236)

Wolterstorff, N. (2001). Response to Critics

“Temporal duration is a dimension of God’s own life; in that absolutely fundamental way God is not “outside” of time. God nonetheless “transcends” time in the sense that God created those cyclic processes that make possible the measurement of time, and in the sense that temporal duration is a dimension of God’s life rather than God’s life being somehow a dimension of time.

Setting off to the side for a moment the assumption that temporal duration is indeed a dimension of God’s own life, I agree with all this. I agree that God transcends time in at least those ways. Even if temporal duration is a dimension of the divine existence, God nonetheless creates the cyclic processes that make possible the measurement of time, and temporal duration is nonetheless not itself the divine substance but “merely” a dimension of the divine life.”

God & Time: Four Views (pp. 235–236)

Wolterstorff, N. (2001). Response to Critics

“Not being able to make out this notion of two different sorts of time, I conclude that if time is an intrinsic feature of God’s own life, then the thing to say is not that God created time but that God created the cyclic processes that enable us to measure time—along, indeed, with everything else that is a creature of God.”

God & Time: Four Views (p. 235)

Wolterstorff, N. (2001). Response to Critics

“The really important shortcoming in Nick’s essay lies not what he says but in what he leaves out: the implications of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo for God’s relationship to time. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) codified the Christian doctrine of creation by declaring God to be “Creator of all things, visible and invisible, … who, by His almighty power, from the beginning of time has created both orders in the same way out of nothing.” This remarkable statement affirms not only creatio ex nihilo in a temporal sense but even a beginning of time itself. What is Nick’s view of the matter? Were there events prior to the moment of creation? If not, did time exist in the absence of any events? Could time have had a beginning? If it did, then how should we construe divine eternity and God’s relationship to time? I invite Nick to reflect further for us on these questions.”

God & Time: Four Views (p. 224)

Craig, W. L. (2001). Response to Nicholas Wolterstorff

“While I agree with Nick that God has a history, I deny that God’s time can be measured by our space-time. Instead space-time is created by God. This implies that God is beyond the space-time of our universe. So Nick is wrong to suggest that theologians are interested in a timeless God simply because they believe God cannot change in any way. Just as important, I believe, is the idea of time as a created category of existence. I am seeking here to honor the intuition, shared by many if not most traditional theologians over the centuries, that God must in some sense transcend time since he created time.”

God & Time: Four Views (p. 220)

Padgett, A. G. (2001). Response to Nicholas Wolterstorff

“As all Christians, eternalist or not, will agree that in the incarnation the Son of God did not cease to have the property of immensity (say)—he did not become wholly localized in Palestine—so the eternalist claims that in the incarnation the Son of God did not cease to be timelessly eternal.”

God & Time: Four Views (p. 217)

Helm, P. (2001). Response to Nicholas Wolterstorff

“Time but No Space?

Rather often it is objected to those who hold that God’s actions have temporal locations that, given the similarities between time and space, they must also hold that God has a spatial location; if one holds that God has a history, then consistency requires that God has a location. I hold that God does not have a spatial location; so what do I say in answer to the charge of inconsistency?”

God & Time: Four Views (p. 208)

Wolterstorff, N. (2001). Unqualified Divine Temporality

“Those who hold that God is timeless agree, of course, that Scripture offers us this narrative. They deny, nevertheless, that God has a history. Not only does God not come into or go out of existence, there are also no changes in God: no alterations in action, response or knowledge. The biblical narrative is not to be interpreted as presenting items in God’s history; it’s to be interpreted as presenting items in human history. The analogue to numbers is helpful: what appears at first sight to be a history of numbers is in fact a history of human beings dealing with numbers.
Everybody in the orthodox Christian tradition would agree, however, that for the purposes at hand there are some absolutely decisive differences between God and numbers. For our purposes the most important differences to note are that whereas God acts, numbers do not; and whereas God has knowledge, numbers do not.

If one concedes that God acts, how can one nevertheless hold that God has no history, and that the narrative of God’s actions presented to us in Scripture cannot be interpreted as a narrative of God’s history?”

God & Time: Four Views (pp. 203–204)

Wolterstorff, N. (2001). Unqualified Divine Temporality

“But there’s no story to be told about numbers, no narrative to be composed. That’s because numbers have no history. They neither come into existence nor go out; nor do they change. For some numbers it happens that they are discovered at a certain time; but the event of a number’s discovery is an item in the history of its discoverer, not in the history of the number. Its discovery makes no difference to the number; it represents no change in it.

When it comes to nonevents I propose that we take whether or not something has a history as the determinant of whether or not it is in time. What brings it about that you and I are in time? The fact that we each have a history; about each of us there’s a story that can be told, a narrative that can be composed. What brings it about that numbers are not in time—that they are timeless? The fact that none has a history.”

God & Time: Four Views (pp. 202–203)

Wolterstorff, N. (2001). Unqualified Divine Temporality

“Consider the spatial concepts of here and there. Nobody supposes that these mark a distinction in objective space; nobody supposes that some areas of space have hereness and the others have thereness. The fact that for each of us, at any time, some areas of space are here and the others are there is merely a consequence of the fact that each of us has a location in space, by virtue of having bodies. Here is simply where I am. For bodiless angels there’s no here and no there.
Perhaps past, present, and future are like that. Just as each of us has a location in space, by virtue of each having a body and those bodies having a location, so also each of our actions and responses has a location in time—that is, in the B-series. Perhaps the present is simply the location in time of my act of writing down these words, and of whatever else is simultaneous with that. The past would then be whatever precedes that, and the future whatever succeeds it. It’s only because there are selves having bodies with spatial locations that the concepts of here and there have applicability; perhaps it’s only because there are agents whose actions and reactions have locations in the B-series that the concepts of past, present, and future have applicability.”

God & Time: Four Views (p. 195)

Wolterstorff, N. (2001). Unqualified Divine Temporality

“the arguments of those of us who hold that God is temporal boil down to two: we hold that a proper understanding of God’s action vis-à-vis the creation implies that God is temporal, and we hold that a proper understanding of God’s knowledge implies that God is temporal. In fact I think God’s temporality is also implied by the fact that God exists now, and existed yesterday, and will exist tomorrow; but in my experience, defenders of divine timelessness are not impressed with this argument—though why not has never been clear to me.”

God & Time: Four Views (p. 171)

Wolterstorff, N. (2001). Response to William Lane Craig

“Given that time began to exist, the most plausible view of God’s relationship to time is that he is timeless without creation and temporal subsequent to creation.”

God & Time: Four Views (p. 160)

Craig, W. L. (2001). Timelessness & Omnitemporality

“Perhaps this realization ought to prompt us to reconsider the alternative that God is simply timeless without creation and temporal subsequent to creation. Detractors of this position simply assume that if God’s life lacks earlier and later parts, then it has no phases. But why could there not be two phases of God’s life, one timeless and one temporal, which are not related to each other as earlier and later? Critics have perhaps too quickly assumed that if any phase of God’s life is timeless, the whole must be timeless.”

God & Time: Four Views (p. 159)

Craig, W. L. (2001). Timelessness & Omnitemporality

“It is plausible to believe that time began to exist and that therefore God has not existed for infinite time. But now we are confronted with an extremely bizarre situation. God exists in time. Time had a beginning. God did not have a beginning. How can these three statements be reconciled? If time began to exist—say, for simplicity’s sake, at the big bang—then in some difficult to articulate sense God must exist beyond the big bang, alone without the universe. He must be changeless in such a state; otherwise time would exist. And yet this state, strictly speaking, cannot exist before the big bang in a temporal sense, since time had a beginning. God must be causally, but not temporally, prior to the big bang. With the creation of the universe, time began, and God entered into time at the moment of creation in virtue of his real relations with the created order. It follows that God must therefore be timeless without the universe and temporal with the universe.”

God & Time: Four Views (p. 156)

Craig, W. L. (2001). Timelessness & Omnitemporality

“The defender of divine timelessness therefore has a way out: he can adopt a static theory of time and deny the reality of tensed facts and temporal becoming. But this represents a very unpalatable route of escape, for the static theory of time faces formidable philosophical and theological objections, not to mention the arguments that can be offered on behalf of a dynamic theory of time. I therefore prefer to cast my lot with the dynamic theory. And it is noteworthy that almost no defender of divine timelessness has taken this route. Virtually the only person who appears to have done so is Paul Helm. On his view there is no ontological difference between the past, present and future: “Do the times which are at present future to us exist, or not? Answer: they exist for God … and they exist for those creatures contemporaneous with that future moment, for that moment is present to them, but it is not now present to us.” In the same way, “the past event … belongs in its own time, and is therefore real, belonging to the ordered series of times which comprise the creation and which are … eternally present to God.”32 Thus Paul affirms what he takes to be Augustine’s view that “God created the temporal order, by an eternal act, as a B-series.” He explains, “In creation God brings into being (timelessly) the whole temporal matrix,” and “God knows at a glance the whole of his temporally ordered creation.” Similarly, tense is but an ephemeral feature of language; the truth conditions of tensed sentences are given by tenseless facts, facts that are known to God.35 Paul thus appears to be the one advocate of divine timelessness who has seen and taken the way out. But it is a hard and lonely road.”

God & Time: Four Views (pp. 152–153)

Craig, W. L. (2001). Timelessness & Omnitemporality

“The crucial difference between them is that Wierenga makes presentness a feature of the individual essence of every moment of time. Wierenga’s analysis thus entails the metaphysical doctrine of presentism, according to which the only time that exists is the present time. According to presentism, future times do not yet exist and past times no longer exist. Therefore there literally are no times that have the property of pastness or futurity. When a time becomes past, it does not exchange the property of presentness for the property of pastness; rather it just ceases to exist altogether. Times exist when and only when they are present. They come into existence successively and are present just as long as they exist. No time exists which is not present.”

God & Time: Four Views (pp. 148–149)

Craig, W. L. (2001). Timelessness & Omnitemporality

“The argument of the advocate of divine temporality can be summarized as follows:

1. God is creatively active in the temporal world.

2. If God is creatively active in the temporal world, God is really related to the temporal world.

3. If God is really related to the temporal world, God is temporal.

4. Therefore God is temporal.

This argument, if successful, does not prove that God is essentially temporal, but that if he is Creator of a temporal world—as he in fact is—then he is temporal.”

God & Time: Four Views (p. 141)

Craig, W. L. (2001). Timelessness & Omnitemporality

“The impossibility of atemporal personhood. Could God exist timelessly? Is there no logically conceivable world in which God exists and time does not? According to the Christian doctrine of creation, God’s decision to create a universe was a freely willed decision from which God could have refrained. We can conceive, then, of a possible world in which God does refrain from creation, a world that is empty except for God. Would time exist in such a world? Certainly it would if God were changing, experiencing a stream of consciousness. But suppose God were altogether changeless. Suppose that he did not experience a succession of thoughts but grasped all truth in a single, changeless intuition. Would time exist?

An adherent of a relational view of time would say no, for there are no events to generate a relation of earlier than or later than. There is just a single, timeless state. Substantivalists of a Newtonian stripe would disagree, of course. For Newton timeless existence was a logical impossibility. But there is no reason why we should side with Newton on this score. In the utter absence of change it seems plausible to think that time would not exist. Why, then, should we think that God could not exist timelessly in such an empty world?

“Because God is personal!” is the answer given by certain advocates of divine temporality. They contend that the idea of a timeless person is incoherent and therefore God must be temporal. They argue that in order to be a person, one must possess certain properties that inherently involve time. Since God is essentially personal, he cannot be timeless.”

God & Time: Four Views (pp. 136–137)

Craig, W. L. (2001). Timelessness & Omnitemporality

“Thus, although scriptural authors speak of God as temporal and everlasting, there is some evidence, at least, that when God is considered in relation to creation he must be thought of as the transcendent Creator of time and the ages and therefore as existing beyond time. It may well be the case that in the context of the doctrine of creation the biblical writers were led to reflect on God’s relationship to time and chose to affirm his transcendence. Still the evidence is not clear, and we seem forced to conclude with James Barr that “if such a thing as a Christian doctrine of time has to be developed, the work of discussing it and developing it must belong not to biblical but to philosophical theology.””

God & Time: Four Views (p. 132)

Craig, W. L. (2001). Timelessness & Omnitemporality

“Is God temporal or timeless? Oftimes laypeople, anxious to affirm both God’s transcendence and God’s immanence, assert that God is both timeless and temporal. But in the absence of some sort of model or explanation of how this can be the case, this assertion is flatly self-contradictory and so cannot be true. One cannot affirm both.”

God & Time: Four Views (p. 129)

Craig, W. L. (2001). Timelessness & Omnitemporality

“That measure is different for different “observers” moving at high speeds relative to each other, in the world that God has in fact created. The measure of time is created along with the physical universe and is just as stable as the other principles and laws of nature that God upholds moment by moment. But temporal measure does not apply to God any more than the laws and principles of nature do. God’s own infinite, pure eternity is not measured by physical reality.”

God & Time: Four Views (pp. 127–128)

Padgett, A. G. (2001). Response to Critics

“But “our time,” which is physical time or measured time, exists only with physical things. And so “our time” has a beginning, even though every moment of our time is simultaneous with a moment of God’s time.”

God & Time: Four Views (pp. 125–126)

Padgett, A. G. (2001). Response to Critics

“I think the best interpretation of [Alan G. Padgett's] view is that time, the one and only time there is, is likewise not a merely created category but characterizes the very life of God.”

God & Time: Four Views (p. 123)

Wolterstorff, N. (2001). Response to Alan G. Padgett

“God is immutable relative to essential divine attributes, those powers and properties that constitute a perfect Being. God changes only in relational ways, in order to create and care for that creation. The ability to change in response to others is part of what makes God a perfect Being.”

God & Time: Four Views (p. 109)

Padgett, A. G. (2001). Eternity as Relative Timelessness