Eternity, Time and Timelessness

Faith and Philosophy 5 (1):72-86 (1988)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In this paper I argue that the classic concept of eternity, as it is presented in Boethius, Anselm and Aquinas, must be understood to involve not only the claim that all temporal things are epistemically present to God, but also the claim that all temporal things areexistentially present to God insofar as they coexist timelessly in the eternal present. I further argue that the concept of eternity requires a tenseless view of time. If this is correct then the existence of an eternal God logically depends on the truth of the tenseless account of time. I conclude by suggesting that the Christian theologian ought to reject a tenseless ontology.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,672

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Duns Scotus on Eternity and Timelessness.Richard Cross - 1997 - Faith and Philosophy 14 (1):3-25.
God Inside Time and Before Creation.Dean Zimmerman - 2002 - In Gregory E. Ganssle & David M. Woodruff (eds.), God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature. Oxford Up. pp. 75--94.
Anselm and His Islamic Contempories on Divine Necessity and Eternity.Katherin Rogers - 2007 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 81 (3):373-393.
Eternity and the Time of Education.Robert Cummings Neville - 1999 - The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 2:237-243.
Time, Duration and Eternity in Spinoza.Bruce Baugh - 2010 - Comparative and Continental Philosophy 2 (2):211-233.
God and time.Gregory E. Ganssle - 2007 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion.
Omniscience, Tensed Facts, and Divine Eternity.William Lane Craig - 2000 - Faith and Philosophy 17 (2):227--228.
Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time.Paul Helm - 1988 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
God, Eternity, and Time.C. Tapp (ed.) - 2011 - Ashgate.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-01-09

Downloads
88 (#192,337)

6 months
8 (#352,539)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

On the Co-Nowness of Time and Eternity: A Scotistic Perspective.Liran Shia Gordon - 2016 - International Journal of Philosophy and Theology 77 (1-2):30-44.
Aquinas on the Existence of the Future: A Response to Gili.Damiano Costa - 2020 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 12 (3):225-235.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Eternity.Eleonore Stump & Norman Kretzmann - 1981 - Journal of Philosophy 78 (8):429-458.
Seeing the present.Jeremy Butterfield - 1984 - Mind 93 (370):161-176.
Plato and Parmenides on the Timeless Present.G. E. L. Owen - 1974 - In Alexander P. D. Mourelatos (ed.), The pre-Socratics: a collection of critical essays. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. pp. 271-292.
Seeing the Present.Jeremy Butterfield - 1998 - In Robin Le Poidevin (ed.), Questions of time and tense. New York: Oxford University Press.

View all 6 references / Add more references