hathawayj has 37 favorites
“The incarnation is the “projection” of the eternal God. There is therefore no sense in talking of the eternal Son of God apart from the incarnation except to make the point that the incarnation was logically contingent. That is, there is no point to it if by this we mean there was a time when the eternal Son of God existed unincarnated. It is of course possible for us to think of the eternal Son of God as unincarnated, by an abstraction of thought, but that is a different matter. The point is, as Herbert McCabe says, there is no preexistent Christ with a life history independent of and prior to the incarnation. There was no time when the eternal God was not Jesus of Nazareth. There is no other life story—story in time—of God than the story of the incarnation. There was no time when the Son of God was not willing himself to be incarnate, but only decided at a particular time to become incarnate in our history. God did not exist and then at some later point decide to become incarnate, for there is no change or succession possible in the timeless eternity of God’s life.” — Helm, P. (2001). Divine Timeless Eternity
Source:God & Time: Four Views (p. 54)
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“According to Aquinas, though the universe is really related to God, God is not really related to the created universe.
Whenever two things are related to each other in such a way that one depends upon the other but the other does not depend upon it, there is a real relation in the dependent member, but in the independent member the relation is merely one of reason—simply because one thing cannot be understood as being related to it. The notion of such a relation becomes clear if we consider knowledge, which depends on what is known, although the latter does not depend on it.
Consequently, since all creatures depend on God, but he does not depend on them, there are real relations in creatures referring them to God. The opposite relations in God to creatures, however, are merely conceptual relations; but, because names are signs of concepts, certain names we use for God imply a relation to creatures, even though, as we said, this relation is merely conceptual.
Thomas Aquinas De Veritate 4.5, quoted by Craig, “Tensed vs. Tenseless,” p. 225.” — Helm, P. (2001). Divine Timeless Eternity
Whenever two things are related to each other in such a way that one depends upon the other but the other does not depend upon it, there is a real relation in the dependent member, but in the independent member the relation is merely one of reason—simply because one thing cannot be understood as being related to it. The notion of such a relation becomes clear if we consider knowledge, which depends on what is known, although the latter does not depend on it.
Consequently, since all creatures depend on God, but he does not depend on them, there are real relations in creatures referring them to God. The opposite relations in God to creatures, however, are merely conceptual relations; but, because names are signs of concepts, certain names we use for God imply a relation to creatures, even though, as we said, this relation is merely conceptual.
Thomas Aquinas De Veritate 4.5, quoted by Craig, “Tensed vs. Tenseless,” p. 225.” — Helm, P. (2001). Divine Timeless Eternity
Source:God & Time: Four Views (p. 48)
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“The fundamental point is that such language is not dispensable but necessary, not necessary only for the plowman but necessary for us all, in view of our moral and metaphysical position vis-à-vis God. If a timelessly eternal God is to communicate to embodied intelligent creatures who exist in space and time and to bring about his purposes through them, and particularly to gain certain kinds of responses from them, then he must do so by representing himself to them in ways that are not literally true. How could God put Moses to the test, apart from testing him step by step and so appearing to change his mind? So the impression we may form, reading the biblical narrative, that God changes is an illusion that arises because we learn of God’s purposes for the actors in the narrative (and perhaps for others) only bit by bit.
On the theory of divine accommodation, statements such as “God repented” are false if taken literally, because God does not literally repent and cannot do so. But although they are literally false, some truth about God may nevertheless be conveyed by them.
. In G. E. Ganssle (Ed.), God & Time: Four Views (pp. 45–46). Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.” — Helm, P. (2001). Divine Timeless Eternity
On the theory of divine accommodation, statements such as “God repented” are false if taken literally, because God does not literally repent and cannot do so. But although they are literally false, some truth about God may nevertheless be conveyed by them.
. In G. E. Ganssle (Ed.), God & Time: Four Views (pp. 45–46). Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.” — Helm, P. (2001). Divine Timeless Eternity
Source:God & Time: Four Views (pp. 45–46)
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“Aquinas is emphatic that God’s will is unchangeable. And so words ascribing change to God, or words ascribed to God which entail change:
have a metaphorical turn according to a human figure of speech. When we regret what we have made we throw it away. Yet this does not always argue second thoughts or a change of will, for we may intend in the first place to make a thing and scrap it afterwards. By similitude with such a procedure we refer to God having regrets, for instance in the account of the Flood, when he washed off the face of the earth the men whom he had made; to speak of God as repenting is to use the language of metaphor.… The conclusion to this argument is not that God’s will changes, but that he wills change.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Thomas Gilby (London: Spottiswoode, 1966), 1a.19.7.” — Helm, P. (2001). Divine Timeless Eternity
have a metaphorical turn according to a human figure of speech. When we regret what we have made we throw it away. Yet this does not always argue second thoughts or a change of will, for we may intend in the first place to make a thing and scrap it afterwards. By similitude with such a procedure we refer to God having regrets, for instance in the account of the Flood, when he washed off the face of the earth the men whom he had made; to speak of God as repenting is to use the language of metaphor.… The conclusion to this argument is not that God’s will changes, but that he wills change.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Thomas Gilby (London: Spottiswoode, 1966), 1a.19.7.” — Helm, P. (2001). Divine Timeless Eternity
Source:God & Time: Four Views (p. 44)
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“Nothing of his life is past, and nothing of it is future. God possesses his life “all at once.” Boethius’s famous definition of eternity captures this idea. “Eternity, then, is the whole, simultaneous and perfect possession of boundless life.”
Those who think that God is in some way temporal do not want to attribute weakness or inadequacy to God. Nor do they hold that God’s life is less than maximally full. They will deny, rather, that God cannot experience a maximally full life if he is temporal.” — GREGORY E. GANSSLE, Thinking About God & Time
Those who think that God is in some way temporal do not want to attribute weakness or inadequacy to God. Nor do they hold that God’s life is less than maximally full. They will deny, rather, that God cannot experience a maximally full life if he is temporal.” — GREGORY E. GANSSLE, Thinking About God & Time
Source:God & Time: Four Views (p. 23)
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“What is the Now? The A-theorist says that the Now exists in a way that the past and the future do not. The Now is a privileged temporal location. The B-theorist holds that the Now is dependent on the psychological states of knowing minds. In other words, it is part of how we are conscious of the world. If there were no minds, there would be no Now. It is part of our subjective take on the world. Each moment of time, according to the B-theory, is as real as any other moment.
Take some particular event, such as the event of a particular elephant taking a drink of water 141 years ago. Most A-theorists will hold that this event does not exist. It is not real. It did exist (141 years ago), but it no longer does. The B-theorist will believe that the event in question is real. It does exist. It exists now even if it is not occurring now. It occurred 141 years ago.
These theories are important to our topic because many philosophers think that if the A-theory of time is true, then God must be a temporal being. God can be atemporal only if the B-theory is true. Not every philosopher thinks there is this connection between the atemporality of God and the B-theory, but many, including some of our authors, do. Why do some philosophers make this connection? There are two reasons. First, they believe that, if the A-theory is true, God must change (and therefore he must be temporal). Second, they also think that if the A-theory is true, an atemporal God could not be omniscient. The claim that God knows everything that can be known is a claim with strong scriptural support.
God must change, it is held, because he stands in relation to a changing reality. For example, if God sustains a changing world in existence, he sustains Caesar’s existence before he sustains the existence of the Caesar salad. On the A-theory, the existence of Caesar is most fundamentally past. So God no longer sustains Caesar’s existence. Now he is sustaining the existence of the Caesar salad. God is doing different things at different times. He is changing.” — GREGORY E. GANSSLE, Thinking About God & Time
Take some particular event, such as the event of a particular elephant taking a drink of water 141 years ago. Most A-theorists will hold that this event does not exist. It is not real. It did exist (141 years ago), but it no longer does. The B-theorist will believe that the event in question is real. It does exist. It exists now even if it is not occurring now. It occurred 141 years ago.
These theories are important to our topic because many philosophers think that if the A-theory of time is true, then God must be a temporal being. God can be atemporal only if the B-theory is true. Not every philosopher thinks there is this connection between the atemporality of God and the B-theory, but many, including some of our authors, do. Why do some philosophers make this connection? There are two reasons. First, they believe that, if the A-theory is true, God must change (and therefore he must be temporal). Second, they also think that if the A-theory is true, an atemporal God could not be omniscient. The claim that God knows everything that can be known is a claim with strong scriptural support.
God must change, it is held, because he stands in relation to a changing reality. For example, if God sustains a changing world in existence, he sustains Caesar’s existence before he sustains the existence of the Caesar salad. On the A-theory, the existence of Caesar is most fundamentally past. So God no longer sustains Caesar’s existence. Now he is sustaining the existence of the Caesar salad. God is doing different things at different times. He is changing.” — GREGORY E. GANSSLE, Thinking About God & Time
Source:Time: Four Views (pp. 14–15)
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“Most philosophers today disagree. While agreeing that God is eternal, they understand his eternality as his being temporally everlasting. He exists at all times and through all times.3 God never began to exist, and he will never go out of existence, but he is in time. God experiences temporal succession. God experiences the birth of Caesar before he experiences the making of the Caesar salad. God, on this view, exists at all times. He exists at the present moment, he has existed at each past moment, and he will exist at each future moment.” — GREGORY E. GANSSLE, Thinking About God & Time
Source:God & Time: Four Views
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