“Those who think about time are thinking deeply. Those who think about God are thinking even more deeply still. Those who try to think about God and time are pressing the very limits of human understanding” (Craig 2001a: 4). Indeed. I can speak from experience now: William Lane Craig’s statement is true. I have been on a learning journey for several months, reading and thinking about these issues, and now it is time to report.
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Craig goes on to say: “Undaunted, this is precisely the project which we have set for ourselves in this study: to try to grasp the nature of divine eternity, to understand what is meant by the affirmation that God is eternal, to formulate a coherent doctrine of God’s relationship with time” (ibid.).
Different from Craig, I am daunted, and I hasten to add that my goal is much more modest than his. I would like to map out the basic options together with the most important issues we need to consider. Next month, I hope to write about foreknowledge: does God foreknow the future? This controversial question is what made me think about time to begin with. It hardly makes sense to write about foreknowledge without first thinking about time and God’s relationship with time.
What I write this month, therefore, is meant as a foundation for next month’s issue, although it is also a topic in its own right. It makes for a long issue, but I am quite excited about what I am learning (so I am not going to cut it short). Here we go.
What Is Eternity?
The basic question is: what does it mean to say that God is eternal? There are at least two possible answers. One is that God exists for an infinite duration of time; he has no end, and neither did he have a beginning. On this understanding, eternity simply means endless duration: God is everlasting. The alternative answer claims that eternity is something more or something else. Eternity is not about quantity so much as it is about quality; there is a qualitative difference between time and eternity.
A different way to put the question is, therefore: does God exist in time (so that he is temporal)? Or is God timeless (or atemporal)? And if the latter, what does that mean?
Obviously, this also brings up the question of time: what is it?
The Bible on Time
No doubt you expect me to turn to the Bible now in search of an answer. Unfortunately, the relevant material is somewhat inconclusive (as both Craig 2001b: 14-20 and Feinberg 2006: 258-64, 379 conclude). In part, the problem has to do with our nature as humans and therefore temporal beings. We always experience God’s actions as taking place within time. But does that mean that God himself is in time and therefore temporal? Not necessarily. There is simply no other way for us to experience him. Since we are temporal (and there is no other mode of existence open to us), God always appears temporal to us as well. But this does not suffice as an argument that God is indeed temporal.
Obviously, in the Bible, God is eternal in the sense that he has neither beginning nor end. Is there more we can say? Craig (2001b: 17-20) discusses several Bible verses that may hint at God’s existence ‘before’ time. Genesis 1:1 and Proverbs 8:22f can be taken to mean that time had a beginning; there was a first moment – for time, but not for God.
Jude 25 ascribes glory and authority to God “before all time and now and forever”. This is as clear as it gets; it suggests God existed ‘before’ time and therefore is not in time. Notice, by the way, how difficult it is for us to get away from temporal language; if time had a beginning, there is no ‘before time’. There may be something beyond time, but not before it. Titus 1:23, 2 Timothy 1:9, and 1 Corinthians 2:7 also imply there is something before or beyond the beginning of time.
However, for those of us who are already convinced that God exists in time and is temporal, these verses will hardly suffice to make us change our mind. We hold such beliefs as part of a larger system of ideas and arguments together with biblical interpretations, not as a single, independent belief. This is true for many larger controversial issues ranging from child baptism and predestination or free will to women in leadership and the correct understanding of the millennium in Revelation 20, to mention a few. In those contexts, it never works to quote a few Bible verses to settle the issue. If there are any ‘problem verses’ for a position, answers and explanations have been developed and long since been integrated into the system to maintain its coherence. Our opponent is unlikely to be swayed or impressed by an array of Bible verses. It’s the same here.
If we want to progress in our understanding of God and time, therefore, we need to venture beyond the Bible into the realm of philosophy and, to a lesser extent, physics.
Physics and Time
Is it an illusion? Some argue that time is an illusion, a mere subjective experience, and not a real feature. What is real, in this view, is change; there exists a sequence with underlying cause and effect relationships. This leaves us with the impression of something we humans call time.
I don’t think this is likely to be true. Already the physics of motion seems to imply that time is a real feature of the universe. Albert Einstein’s famous formula, E = mc2, is as foundational as it gets, and it includes c, the speed of light, which implies time: distance covered per second.
Did it have a beginning (t = 0)? Time may well be an inherent feature of the physical universe. If so, it began with creation. According to the Big Bang theory, space, matter, and time came into existence simultaneously; this is t = 0. It suggests that God is not in time, for he precedes it. However, it might also be that time is absolute after all (for this to be true, Einstein would have to be proven wrong about the relativity of time), meaning it preceded the Big Bang; in that case, God may have been in time all along as well.
Is there a space-time continuum? Some physicists speak of a space-time continuum, in which time is treated as a fourth dimension. It is different from length, breadth, and width in that it moves in only one direction and cannot be traversed back and forth, the way we move through space. Still, for certain purposes, it is a useful model in physics. However, it is only that: a model. Physicists use it to ‘play’, that is, to think about the universe. Most do not believe that it describes the way the universe really is (Craig 2001b: 95, 180).
Philosophy and Time
So, physics tells us that time may have had a beginning and that nothing in physics precludes God from being timeless, but it does not prove this.
Does philosophy have more to offer? Christian and other philosophers have written much about time and eternity. Interestingly, a significant shift took place in the late 20th century. Up until the 1970s, a clear majority of Christian thinkers understood God’s eternity as timelessness; this is no longer the case. The majority now argues that eternal means everlasting and indicates a duration of time (Ganssle and Helm 2001: 13, esp. footnote 3). More on this in the next section; I will first deal with some philosophical reflections on the nature of time itself.
A distinction is made between, on the one hand, a dynamic or process view of time also called tensed view or A-theory, and on the other hand, a static or stasis view of time also called tenseless view or B-theory.
Dynamic view. In the dynamic view, time is understood as consisting of past, present, and future. However, of these three, only the present is real. The past no longer exists; it can only be remembered. The future does not yet exist. Therefore, only the present moment has real existence. Humans experience time in this way; it is therefore not hard to grasp.
Of course, if the future is non-existent, the question arises if and how God could possibly foreknow it, a question to which I will return in the next issue.
Static view. The static view holds that events are related to each other in terms of ‘before’, ‘after’, and ‘simultaneous’; there is no ‘now’ or present moment, and therefore no movement from past to future. All moments exist simultaneously. The past still exists. The future already exists.
This is a little harder to grasp. The static view is extremely counterintuitive because we do not experience time like this. It shows a certain similarity to the space-time continuum model mentioned in the previous section; there, too, all of time appears to exist simultaneously in the form of a fourth dimension.
For all its strangeness, it may offer at least one advantage: in this model, it becomes more understandable that God might know the future. After all, it already exists. And if God himself is outside of time, he may be in a perfect position to oversee all of time.
There are disadvantages too, beyond it being strange. How does one avoid determinism or establish free will in this model? And does it imply that time and therefore the universe are co-eternal with God, seeing all of it simply exists and does not come into being? Or did God bring all of it into being in an instant – but then what would be the sense of it?
God and Time
It is time to bring these strings together and turn to the big question. What can we say about God and time? Which views exist? I will start with what is often called classical theism, a view that found its first clear expression in the writings of church fathers like Augustine and Boethius. It dominated the Middle Ages; its most profound articulation is found in the writings of Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas of Aquinas. It was by and large preserved by the Reformers and continued to dominate until well into the 20th century. I think this justifies making it my point of departure. Afterwards, I will look at alternatives.
Classical Theism
In classical theism, God is understood to be outside of time and therefore timeless. He has no succession of moments. His mode of existence is entirely different from ours. Often, reference is made to an ‘Eternal Now’, in which all of time, past, present, and future, is present to God, and in which he experiences his entire being and existence. An early expression of this understanding puts it thus:
Accordingly, that which includes and possesses the whole fulness of unending life at once, from which nothing future is absent, from which nothing past has escaped, this is rightly called eternal; this must of necessity be ever present to itself in full self-possession, and hold the infinity of movable time in an abiding present. (Boethius 1900: 198)
And Anselm wrote:
Thou wast not, then, yesterday, nor wilt thou be to-morrow; but yesterday and to-day and to-morrow thou art; or, rather, neither yesterday nor to-day nor to-morrow thou art; but simply, thou art, outside all time. For yesterday and to-day and to-morrow have no existence, except in time; but thou, although nothing exists without thee, nevertheless dost not exist in space or time, but all things exist in thee. For nothing contains thee, but thou containest all. (Anselm 1903: 25)
Before we move on and look at its problematic sides, I suggest you take a moment to re-read these statements and reflect on the beauty of its vision of God. Classical theism presents us with an immeasurably great supreme and exalted being – greater than whom no being can be conceived. I can understand that this kind of vision inspired the building of cathedrals.
There are different ways to arrive at such an understanding of God. As we will see, classical theism is based on a generous dose of logic and deductive reasoning. (But then, so are the other views; because of the relative silence of Scripture, this is all we have.)
One approach starts with the idea of God’s perfection. Since he is perfect, he cannot change. Any change would not be an improvement but a loss. Therefore, God does not experience time; he does not change and there is no succession of differentiated moments.
After all, if God were in time, his past would be irretrievably lost to him. We all know the regret of things and people that are gone; surely God as a perfect being does not live with such regrets clouding his perfect joy. And if God were in time, he would have a future not yet in existence and would therefore be incomplete; he would continue to obtain new knowledge, and he would therefore as yet be imperfect.
Problems with Classical Theism
No emotions? Logically, classical theism entails the immutability and impassibility of God. The latter means God cannot be affected by anything other than himself. He may not even have emotions, some argue, because this would imply change. Needless to say, this latter claim sits uneasy with the way the Bible portrays God as responsive, relational, and full of emotion. Such portrayals have to be explained as anthropomorphisms: speaking about God in human terms.
One way – perhaps – to explain this is to think of God as such eternally burning and intense love that nothing can diminish this love. It does not depend on anything outside of God. All his love and all he wills only flows from himself; it has no other cause. And God does not change in relating to changing humans. Those who resist him experience his burning love as judgement and rejection; those who repent experience the same, unchanged love as forgiveness. In this view, it is not God who changes his mind, but the sinner who changes.
Timeless moment? This is not the only problem. It is difficult to grasp what eternal existence in a timeless sense means. That its defenders use phrases like “a single eternal instant” (Robinson 1995: 216) and “the single moment of eternity”, (ibid.:217) does not help. Is it not a contradiction to speak of the moment or instant of eternity? On the other hand, we should recognize we are trying to describe and define something that may be beyond our ability to comprehend.
Personal? There is some debate about what a timeless God is and is not capable of. Obviously, a timeless God cannot deliberate with himself, think something through and come to a conclusion, or truly remember or forget something. He is able to know and will things. He could therefore still be a person.
Ignorant of time? However, even if he knows everything about the past and the future, he won’t know, assuming a dynamic view of time, which moment it is now. What of all he knows is to happen is presently happening? In different words: God does not know what time it is or what day is today. The reason is this. Time and ‘now’ are constantly changing. If God knows what time it is, his knowledge, and therefore God himself, would be constantly changing as well. He knows at 10:00 AM that it is 10:00 AM, and at 10:01 AM that it is 10:01 AM. There would be a sequence, a succession of moments in God’s knowledge. And therefore, God would be in time. But if God is not in time and does not know which moment it is now, God would not be omniscient.
What is timeless action? What is especially hard to see is how a timeless God would interact with the created world. How could a timeless God have a real relationship with people and respond to them? There are elaborate attempts to answer such questions (see for instance Robinson 1995), but critics have generally rebuffed the answers as incoherent or even meaningless. How can a timelessly eternal God do or accomplish anything? Doesn’t every form of action have a beginning, a process of execution, and an end? If so, it takes time.
We may argue that God timelessly initiates his actions and responses, based on what he timelessly knows. These actions are then actualised (take place, become real) in the course of time, so the argument would go. But God does not himself act in time, in a timely fashion; he does all his actions eternally, without beginning or end, and in a sense all at once (cf. Feinberg 2006: 402).
I am not sure if this makes sense. It remains hard to see how time and eternity could intersect. Perhaps this is easier if the static view of time is adopted. In that case, all of time exists simultaneously; besides, there is no ‘now’, so God’s omniscience is not diminished by not knowing what time it is. To borrow an illustration from C. S. Lewis (1977: 143), imagine a reader (or author) and his book. In the book, time is linear, and its characters experience the events one sentence at a time. But the reader is outside of the book. He is not bound by the linear order of the book, and all its content may be present to him simultaneously.
However, this presupposes that the future already exists, which is far from obvious. And it appears to lead to strong determinism. The characters in the book may not be aware of it, but there is only one way the story can go.
In conclusion, it seems classical theism is struggling to prove its coherence. Still, although the classic view has lost ground in recent decades, it was the overwhelmingly dominant view of the church for almost its entire existence and is still held by significant numbers of philosophers and theologians. It is in many ways the starting point for the alternatives.
Softer Attributes
One more thing before we move on. In response to these difficulties, many supporters of classical theism, especially evangelical ones, argue for a softer version of certain attributes of God:
Omniscience. It hardly diminishes God’s omniscience if the only thing he does not know is which moment is now. We consider God omnipotent but don’t expect him to be able to do things that are logically absurd, such as creating a square triangle. So why would we expect God to be able to know something which by his very nature it would not make sense for him to know?
Immutability and impassibility. Alternatively, for God to know what time it is, introduces only minimal change. This leaves his omniscience intact by holding a softer version of immutability. We could also argue that God is immutable in his essence and character but is able to experience emotion and respond to people (although it is still difficult to see how this could be timelessly true). Since God is always consistent and his response is always in line with his character, this would be minimal change. Let’s look at a concrete example: God’s response to Nineveh’s repentance.
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. (Jonah 3:10 ESV)
Is this a real change in God or a consistent response to a change in situation, a response that expresses his justice, holiness, and mercy? Perhaps there is indeed change, but it certainly is not substantial. If God has perfect foreknowledge of the future, the change would be even less. In that case, he knows the Ninevites will repent and also foreknows or has predetermined what his response will be. Such a ‘soft’ form of immutability looks more persuasive than the hard one.
Alternatives to Classical Theism
The obvious alternative is that God exists in time and experiences time; eternal means everlasting. I don’t think this is hard to understand. Time did not begin with the universe or with creation; time begins with God. This does not mean that time has a beginning. It means that time exists because God exists.
One option at this point is to argue that God exists in his own time or that he exists in “relative timelessness”. Such a view is presented by Alan Padgett and critiqued by the other contributors in chapter 3 of Ganssle and Helms 2001: 92ff. God is relatively timeless in relation to our time, which has clear metrics, that is, it is measurable. God’s time does not have such metrics; it is amorphous. Before creation, there was time, but this time is not measurable. There was no amount of time.
I doubt this approach solves anything. Since we end up with two different kinds of time, the question becomes, as with time and eternity, how the two relate to each other. And if this time is amorphous and does not have an amount, is it really time or is it a different way of speaking of timeless eternity and its endless duration?
There is one more variant of the God-in-time position to discuss: the openness of God.
Openness Theology
The furthest removed from classical theism is the view named after its belief in the openness of God. It is a new view, first appearing in the 1980s. Three of its best-known representatives are Gregory Boyd, John Sanders, and Clark Pinnock. Openness in this context refers to God’s stance towards the future: he neither determines it nor does he know it. In other words, Openness Theology denies that God foreknows the future. Since the future does not exist, it cannot be known. Of course, certain things can be foreknown, such as the movement of planets or when a meteorite will hit the earth. When free agents are involved, however, it is not possible for God to know in advance what they will do.
This is quite a departure from the historical norm. None of the other views deny God’s foreknowledge. In fact, since the very beginning of the church, virtually no one in the church has ever expressed such a denial. I will return to this topic in the next issue of Create a Learning Site.
One crucial consequence of such openness is that God becomes more like us than in the other views. He has to grapple with new and sometimes unexpected situations, even though God can do this with infinite wisdom and resourcefulness. But he is, in a sense, making it up as he goes, since to a large extent, he does not know what will happen next.
Because of this, he may do things he later regrets. He may be taken by surprise. He does not know for certain what the weather will be one year from now because free human actions (think climate change or large-scale war) can affect the weather. He does not know who will be born before a person is conceived because this, too, is affected by human freedom. And even after we were conceived, he could not be fully certain that we would indeed be born (accidents, murder, abortion, to mention a few, are all within the realm of free human choice and influence). But at least from that point on he would know that it would be you and I who would or would not be born.
I think it is fair to say that this God is more ‘in time’ (and more human?) than God in the other views we looked at.
Problems with a Temporal God
The view that God is in time has a great advantage: it is not hard to see how a temporal God could be actively involved in the universe and able to relate and respond. What are its downsides?
Its problems are the counter-image of the arguments supporting God’s timelessness. We are now confronted with a changing God. This may be countered by pointing out that God only changes in limited ways and that his essence and character remain unchanged (a ‘soft’ version of immutability).
In addition, God now has an incomplete life. His future is still future, and the past is irretrievably gone. Even perfect memory is only memory, not reality.
We would expect God to transcend time in some way. After all, God is present and active in space but nevertheless not contained in space; he transcends space, existing beyond it. So why does he not transcend time?
Neither Temporal nor Timeless?
There is one more argument against a temporal understanding of God. It is not an easy one, but I find it persuasive and consider it fatal for the idea that God has always existed in time. In part, it is based on mathematics. The short form is this (for a more extensive introduction, see Craig 2001b: 220-32; it is also part of the kalam cosmological argument):
An actual infinite cannot exist. Therefore, time must have a beginning.
Let me explain. It is possible to think of an infinite number of something, for instance moments, in the abstract. It is also possible to have an actual array of items or moments to which one keeps adding forever so that it is in the process of becoming infinite. This is a potential infinite. But it is not possible to have an actual, existing collection or sequence that contains an infinite number, that is, an actual infinite. This leads to such absurdities that the idea must be considered untenable; it makes no sense. If you’d like a taste and you don’t have access to Craig’s book, I refer to the Wikipedia article on the paradoxes of Hilbert’s Hotel.
It is therefore one thing to say that time and creation had a beginning but will continue forever. This is a potential infinite. We start at t = 0 and we keep adding moments forever. At any point, we are in principle able to say how many years (a finite number) the universe has existed, even though it will continue to exist for an infinite duration of time.
It is an entirely different thing to say that time existed before creation and reaches back endlessly into the past. This would be an infinite duration of time preceding creation. It would be an actual, real, existing infinite. And if God is in time and does not have a beginning, this would have to be the case. He has existed for all eternity in the sense of an infinite length of time. The past would be infinite. But such an infinite is mathematically not possible. Time must have had a beginning.
Here is a different approach to bring out the problem of an infinite length of past time. Why did God create the universe at the moment (t = x) that he did? Why did he wait so long (namely, an eternity)? What made him choose t = x?
The problem is not that we don’t know why God chose to create at t = x, in the sense that surely God had his reason, but we simply don’t know it. The problem is that no such reason is conceivable. Anything that would have led God to create at t = x would have been realised or accomplished at an earlier point – in fact, at an infinitely earlier point.
Where does this leave us? As Craig (2001b: 233) puts it: “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?”
After all our hard thinking, we find ourselves facing a nasty dilemma. Either God is timeless (classical theism) or he is in time (several other views). The problems with classical theism seem impossible to resolve. Now we find that a temporal but everlasting God is an impossibility (unless we ascribe a beginning to him, which hardly anyone wants to argue). Are we left without a solution?
Timeless and Temporal
No. William Lane Craig proposes a workable solution (both in Ganssle and Helms 2001: 153ff and in Craig 2001b: 235f): God was timeless ‘before’ (that is, apart from) creation. He became temporal through creating because he now relates to a temporal creation.
The incarnation offers an analogy. The eternal and infinite God takes on human form and enters creational space and time. On Craig’s view, this was not entirely new or unprecedented. Already in the act of creation, God takes the first step in this direction. By choosing to be in relationship with his creation, he voluntarily opens himself to sequence and change, and thereby enters time. To be sure, as I argued in looking at ‘soft’ immutability, the amount and the depth of change God experiences are minimal, but change it is. This way, God is able to act, relate, and respond. The God who existed timelessly apart from (‘before’) time and space nevertheless freely chooses to be present in time and space. God with us: it is the Christmas miracle prefigured at the beginning of creation.
This strikes me as a real and coherent answer to the question of eternity: God was timeless apart from creation but took on at least a measure of temporal existence when he created the universe.
If God brought time into being, then he existed without time. If he existed without time, even if he is temporal now, he was timeless. (Ganssle and Helms 2001: 11)
Attribution
Kevin Ku. https://unsplash.com/photos/aiyBwbrWWlo. CC0
AbsolutVision. https://pixabay.com/photos/smiley-emoticon-anger-angry-2979107/. CC0
JohnsonMartin. https://pixabay.com/illustrations/wormhole-space-time-light-tunnel-739872/. CC0
OpenClipart-Vectors. https://pixabay.com/vectors/checkerboard-checkered-droste-effect-1297808/. CC0
Vitaly Taranov. https://unsplash.com/photos/J6hE2DTWSEw. CC0
References
All Bible quotations from: The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles)
Anselm. 1903. Proslogium; Monologium; An Appendix in Behalf of the Fool by Gaunilon; and Cur Deus Homo, trans. by Sidney Norton Deane (Chicago: Open Court) <https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1033#StAnselm_0578_142> [accessed 29 October 2019]
Boethius. 1900. The Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius, trans. by Henry Rosher James (London, G. Routledge) <http://archive.org/details/theconsolationof00boetuoft> [accessed 14 October 2019]
Craig, William Lane. 2001a. God, Time, and Eternity: The Coherence of Theism II: Eternity (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers)
———. 2001b. Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to Time (Wheaton, Ill: Crossway)
Feinberg, John S. 2006. No One like Him: The Doctrine of God, Foundations of Evangelical Theology, Rev. ed. (Wheaton. IL: Crossway Books)
Ganssle, Gregory E., and Paul Helm (eds.). 2001. God & Time: Four Views (Downers Grove, Il: InterVarsity Press)
Lewis, C. S. 1977. Mere Christianity: A Revised and Amplified Edition, with a New Introduction, of the Three Books ‘Broadcast Talks’, ‘Christian Behaviour’ and ‘Beyond Personality’, 28th impr. (London: Collins)
Robinson, Michael D. 1995. Eternity and Freedom a Critical Analysis of Divine Timelessness as a Solution to the Foreknowledge/Free Will Debate (Lanham, MD: Univ. Press of America)
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