God and Time
by Gregory E. Ganssle –
God is eternal. This claim is held by every philosopher who discusses the nature of God.
What it means that God is eternal is something about which there is much disagreement. From Augustine through Aquinas, the major thinkers argued that God was not in time at all. They thought of God as eternal in the sense that he is timeless or atemporal. Now, the dominant view among philosophers is that God is temporal. His eternal nature is thought of as being everlasting rather than timeless. He never came into existence and he will never go out of existence but he exists within time.
To say that God is temporal is to hold that God never began to exist, and he will never go out of existence. God does, however, experience temporal succession. That is, God experiences some events (e.g., the first century) before he experiences other events (e.g., the twenty first). If God is temporal, his existence and his thoughts and actions have temporal location. He exists at the present moment (and he has existed at each past moment and he will exist at each future moment). In August, he was thinking about the heat wave in the mid-west. In the thirteenth century, he listened to and answered Aquinas’ prayers for understanding. His dealings, like those of the rest of us, occur at particular times.
The claim that God is timeless is a denial of the claim that God is temporal. First, God exists, but does not exist at any temporal location. Rather than holding that God is everlastingly eternal and, therefore, he exists at each time, this position is that God exists but he does not exist at any time at all. God is beyond time altogether. It could be said that although God does not exist at any time God exists at eternity. That is, eternity can be seen as a non-temporal location as any point within time is a temporal location. Second, it is thought that God does not experience temporal succession. God’s relation to each event in a temporal sequence is the same as his relation to any other event. God does not experience the first century before he experiences the twenty-first. Both of these centuries are experienced by God in one “timeless now.” So, while it is true that in the thirteenth century Aquinas prayed for understanding and received it, God’s response to prayers is not something that also occurred in that century. God, in his timeless state of being, heard Aquinas’ prayers and answered them. He did not first hear them first and then answer them. He heard and answered in one timeless moment—in fact, he did so in the same timeless moment that he hears and answers your prayers.
Some philosophers think that God’s relation to time cannot be captured by either of the categories of temporality or timelessness. Rather, God is in some third kind of relation to time. One in-between position is that God is not within our time, but he is within his own time. Another view is that God is “omnitemporal.” It is true on this view as well that God is not in our time, but he experiences temporal succession in his being. Our time is constituted by physical time. God’s time (metaphysical time) has no intrinsic metric and is constituted purely by the divine life itself.2 If God is omnitemporal, his metaphysical time does map in some way onto his our physical time. So there is a literal sense in which God knows now that I am typing this being sentence now.
Another view is that God became temporal answer when time was created.3God’s existence without creation is a timeless existence but once temporal reality comes into existence, God himself must change. If he changes, then he is, at least in some sense, temporal. Just as it is not quite accurate to talk about what happens before time comes into existence, we should not describe this view as one in which God used to be timeless, but he became temporal. This language would imply that there was a time when God was timeless and then, later, there is another time when he is temporal. On this view, there was not a time when he was timeless. God’s timelessness without creation is precisely due to the fact that time came into existence with creation.
Arguments for Divine Timelessness
Although there are many arguments for the claim that God is timeless, this essay will look at three of the most important. These are arguments concerning God’s knowledge of future free actions, the fullness of God’s life, and God’s creation of the universe. In addition, we will look at some responses to these arguments.
God’s Knowledge of the Future
The most prominent argument for divine timelessness is that this position offers a solution to the problem of God’s foreknowledge of free actions. The challenge of reconciling human freedom and divine omniscience is best seen if we presume for a moment that God is temporal. If God is omniscient and infallible, he knows every truth, and he is never mistaken. If human beings are free in a libertarian sense, then some actions a person performs are up to her in the sense that she can initiate or refrain from initiating the action. The problem arises if it is supposed that someone will (in the future) choose freely some particular action. Suppose Jeanie will decide tomorrow to make a cup of tea at 4:00 pm. If this is a free act on her part, it must be within her power to make the cup of tea or to refrain from making it. If God is in time and knows everything, then hundreds of years ago, he already knew that Jeanie would make the cup of tea. When tomorrow comes, can Jeanie refrain from making the cup of tea? It seems that she can do so only if it is within her power to change what it was that God believed from the beginning of time. So, although God has always believed that she would make the tea, she must have the power to change what it was that God believed. She has to be able to make it the case that God always believed that she would not make the cup of tea. Many philosophers have argued that no one has this kind of power over the past, so human freedom is not compatible with divine foreknowledge.
If God is timeless, however, it seems that this problem does not arise. God does not believe things at points in time and Jeanie does not, therefore, have to have power over God’s past beliefs. She does need power over his timeless beliefs. This power is not seen to be problematic because God’s timeless knowledge of an event is thought to be strongly analogous to our present knowledge of an event. It is the occurring of the event that determines the content of our knowledge of the event. So too, it is the occurring of the event that determines the content of God’s knowledge. If Jeanie makes a cup of tea, God knows it timelessly. If she refrains, he knows that she refrains. God’s knowledge is not past but it is timeless.
The Fullness of God’s Being
In thinking about God’s nature, we notice that whatever God is, he is to the greatest degree possible. He knows everything that it is possible to know. He can do anything that it is possible to do. He is maximally merciful. This “maximal property idea” can be applied as well to the nature of God’s life. God is a living being. He is not an abstract object like a number. He is not inanimate like a magnetic force. He is alive. If whatever is true of him is true of him to the greatest degree possible, then his life is the fullest life possible. Whatever God’s life is like, he surely has it to the fullest degree.
Some philosophers have argued that this fact about God’s life requires that he be timeless. No being that experiences its life sequentially can have the fullest life possible. Temporal beings experience their lives one moment at a time. The past is gone and the future is not yet. The past part of a person’s life is gone forever. He can remember it, but he cannot experience it directly. The future part of his life is not yet here. He can anticipate it and worry about it, but he cannot yet experience it. He only experiences a brief slice of his life at any one time. The life of a temporal thing, then, is spread out and diffuse.
God and the Creation of the Universe
Another argument for God’s timelessness begins with the idea that time itself is contingent. If God created time as part of his creation of the universe, then it is important whether or not the universe had a beginning at all. If the past is infinite, then it is metaphysical time and not physical time that is everlasting. Arguments such as the Kalam Cosmological Argument aim to show that it is not possible that the past is infinite. Suppose time came into existence with the universe so that the universe has only a finite past.4 This means that physical time was created by God. It may be the case that metaphysical time is infinite or that God created “pure duration” (metaphysical time) also. In the latter case, God had to be timeless.
Arguments for Temporality
Divine Action in the World
God acts in the world. He created the universe and he sustains it in existence. God’s sustaining the universe in its existence at each moment is what keeps the universe existing from moment to moment. If, at any instant, it were not sustained, it would cease to exist. If God sustains the universe by performing different actions at different moments of time, then he changes from moment to moment. If God changes, then, at least in some sense, he is temporal.
God’s interventions in the world are often interactions with human beings. He redeems his people, answers their prayers, and forgives their sins. He also comes to their aid and comforts and strengthens them. Can a proponent of divine timelessness make sense of God interacting in these ways? It all depends, of course, on what the necessary conditions for interaction turn out to be. If it is not possible to answer a prayer unless the action is performed after the request, then the fact that God answers prayer will guarantee that he is temporal. Some thinkers have thought that an answer can be initiated only after a request. Others have argued that, although answers to requests normally come after the request, it is not necessary that they do so. The thought that God’s interaction with his people can be analyzed in terms of the unfolding of his timeless knowledge of each step in the interaction strikes some thinkers as a case that cannot be called genuine interaction.
Divine Knowledge of the Present
Although God’s knowledge of the future is thought by many to be a strong support for divine timelessness, many philosophers think that God’s knowledge of the present strongly supports his temporality. If God knows everything, he must know what day it is today. If God is timeless, so the argument goes, he cannot know what day it is today. Therefore, he must be temporal.5
To get at the claim that a timeless God cannot know what day it is, we can start with the facts that a timeless God cannot change and that God knows everything it is possible to know. If God knows that today is February 24, 2010, tomorrow he will know something else. He will know that yesterday it was February 24, 2010 and that today is February 25, 2010. So God must know different things at different times. If the contents of God’s knowledge changes, he changes. If he changes, he is temporal and not timeless.
The quick answer to this concern is to deny that God knows something different at different times. First, it is obvious that someone who holds that God is timeless does not think that God knows things at times at all. God’s knowings are not temporally located even if what he knows is temporally located. It is not true, it will be insisted, that God knows something today. He knows things today but He knows these things timelessly.
God knows that today is February 24 in that he knows that the day I refer to when I use the word “today” in writing this introduction is February 24. When we raise the question again tomorrow (“Can a timeless God know what day it is today?”), God knows that this second use of “today” refers to February 25. Temporal indexical terms such as “today,” “tomorrow,” and “now” refer to different temporal locations with different uses. In this way they are similar to terms such as “here,” “you,” and “me.” The point is that the meaning of any sentence involving an indexical term depends upon the context of its use.
Since indexical terms may refer to different items with different uses, we can make such sentences more clear by replacing the indexical term with a term whose reference is fixed. The sentence, “I am now typing this sentence” can be clarified by replacing the indexical terms with other terms that make the indexicals explicit. For example, “I type this sentence at 3:28 PM (EST) on February 24, 2010.” Even better is, “Ganssle types this sentence at 3:28 PM (EST) on February 24, 2010.” These sentences, it can be claimed, express the same proposition.
There are many philosophers who reject this quick answer on the grounds that God can know all of the non-indexical propositions and still not know what is happening now. This kind of objection raises the second approach to the question of a timeless God’s knowledge of the present. This approach is not through change but through omniscience. I can know that you type a sentence at some date (call the date, t1) without knowing whether or not you are typing the sentence now. I might fail to know that t1 is now. A timeless God can know all propositions expressed by sentences of the form “event e occurs at t2.” Sentences of the form, “event e occurs now,” so the objection goes, express different propositions. In order for God to be omniscient, he must know all propositions. If some sentences are essentially indexical (if they do not express the same propositions as sentences of the form “event e occurs at tn”), he cannot know them. If a timeless God cannot know this kind of proposition, he is not omniscient.
Some In-Between Views
Padgett and DeWeese: God as Relatively Timeless
Alan Padgett and Gary DeWeese have each argued that God is not in physical time although is everlastingly temporal. God’s time is metaphysical time. Padgett and DeWeese, as is to be expected, emphasize different things in the details. For example, Padgett allows for the coherence of a timeless God while DeWeese would endorse the view that any timeless entity is causally inert. No person, then, can be timeless. Only abstract objects such as numbers and properties can exist outside time. Still, their positions are similar enough to treat them together. The claim that God is “relatively timeless” or “omnitemporal” allows its proponents to endorse some of the criticisms of divine timelessness and, at the same time, affirm some of the arguments for timelessness. They each affirm that God created time (physical time) as he created the physical universe.
It is with these latter claims that they make the distinction between physical and metaphysical time. Physical time is metric time. In other words, it is time that has an intrinsic metric due to regularities in the physical universe. Events such as the earth revolving around the sun are regular enough to mark off units of time. Metaphysical time involves no metric or measured temporal intervals. God, in himself, is immune from temporal measure. These temporal items depend upon the physical he measure of time. This measure is a function of the regular processes that follow physical laws. Since God is not subject to the laws of nature, he is not subject to measured time. He does experience a temporal now, somewhat as we do, but his intrinsic experience is not measured by regular, law-like intervals. He experiences temporal succession, but this succession is that of the progression of his own consciousness and actions rather than that of any external constraints. Now that God has created a universe that unfolds according to regular laws, there is a metric within created time. So while God’s now coincides with the now of physical time, the measured intervals do not belong to his divine life.
Craig: God as Timeless Without Creation and Temporal With Creation
William Lane Craig’s position includes another variation. He holds that God is temporal in that he is within metaphysical time. This feature of God’s life is due to the creation of time. Once God created the universe, he became temporal. Prior to creation, God was timeless. Of course, it is not right to say, “prior to creation” in any literal sense. The way Craig describes his view is that God without creation is timeless. God with creation is temporal.
Craig’s position raises an interesting question. Is it possible for a timeless being to become temporal or for a temporal being to become timeless? Philosophers will disagree about the answer to this question. Some thinkers do not think such a change possible. Their view of divine timelessness is deeply connected with divine simplicity which, in turn, is seen to be part of God’s essential nature. Others have argued that no timeless being can be a person or stand in any causal relations on his view. Craig thinks these objections are not strong and that a timeless person is possible.
Various Views on God’s Relation to Time
Timelessness View
God transcends time and exists in an eternal present.
Contemporary Proponents: Paul Helm, Brian Leftow, Hugh McCann
In-Between Views
A. Relative Timelessness.
God exists in time but in a time different from our time.
Contemporary Proponents: Alan Padgett, Garrett DeWeese
B . Accidental Temporality.
God is timeless without creation, temporal with creation.
Contemporary Proponent: William Lane Craig
Temporal View
God exists in time but is everlasting.
Contemporary Proponents: Nicholas Wolterstorff, Richard Swinburne
Conclusion
Questions about God’s relation to time involve many of the most perplexing topics in metaphysics. These include the nature of the fundamental structures of the universe as well as the nature of God’s own life. It is not surprising that the questions are still open even after over two millennia of careful inquiry. While many philosophers often come to conclusions that are reasonably settled in their mind, they are wise to hold such conclusions with an open hand. God invites us to explore his grandeur through using the minds he has given us. Contemplating his nature in this way, might be called philosophical worship!
Gregory E. Ganssle (Ph.D.) is on staff with the Rivendell Institute (www.rivendellinstitute.org) and is a lecturer in philosophy at Yale University. He has written numerous articles and books in philosophy of religion and is editor of God and Time: Four Views (Inter Varsity Press, 2001).
notes
1This article is adapted and considerably shortened from my “God and Time,” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/, February 24, 2010.
2See Alan G. Padgett, God, Eternity and the Nature of Time (London: Macmillan, 1992); and Garrett J. DeWeese, God and the Nature of Time(Hampshire UK: Ashgate, 2004).
3William Lane Craig, Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to Time (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001).
4William Lane Craig and Quentin Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
(First published in Areopagus Journal Vol. 11 No. 1 – Questions on the Divine Attributes)