Abstract

In chapter 6 of God and Timelessness , Nelson Pike cites Schleiermacher as saying that ‘eternity is an “inactive attribute”’.1 An inactive attribute is an attribute that God has by virtue of being what he is, as opposed to an attribute which he has by virtue of what he does. Omnipotence is an active attribute, as Pike says, because, ‘To think of God as omnipotent is to think of Him as vital and effective’ . Roughly, then, an inactive attribute is one which God has by virtue of what he is in himself, while an active attribute is one which God has by virtue of his relation to something else, e.g. his creation