| Reformed Perspectives Magazine, Volume 8, Number 37, September 10 to September 16, 2006 |
Submitted to Dr. John Frame
In Partial Completion of a Degree Program at
Reformed Theological Seminary
Hall of Frame Paper
A long-standing tradition has existed in the church of understanding God’s relationship to the temporal order as one of creator and Lord. In fact, one could also say that God’s relationship to time has been understood on a master-servant model. Uniformly, when discussed with relation of God, Christians hardly fail to mention that God created time, just as He created all things
The clearest exposition of this position can be traced back to Augustine (354- 430 AD), bishop of Hippo, and Boethius (480- 524 AD). 1 In the writings of Augustine, we find God’s lordship over time defined in terms of atemporal existence. While many have accused Augustine here of leaning too heavily upon his former neo-Platonist background, a fair reading of Augustine demonstrates a serious wrestling with the issues of God’s perfect knowledge of all things, and the unchanging character of His nature. Yet, while his position has reigned for the majority of Christian history, and still does among lay-Christians, it does not seem to be the majority view held any longer by Christians in the academy.
A heightened desire to move away from Augustine’s atemporalist model has increased especially in the last one hundred years. Ronald Nash comments:
The debate as to which interpretation of God’s eternity is best, is thought to hold significant implications for the doctrine of human free will and other aspects of Christian theology. It is often assumed that, for example, that the timelessness doctrine makes it easier for the theist to reconcile divine foreknowledge and human freedom. Advocates of the timelessness doctrine have been put on the defensive in recent years and their position has come under attack from several directions. 2
One could easily say that this trend stems from several roots, so tracing it back to a single source is nearly impossible. But, there are some influences that are notable:
1) A move toward pan(en)theism in which the divine and the world are identified
2) A desire to preserve the notion of libertarian freedom.
3) A desire to preserve God’s genuine relationality to His creation
The first tendency makes God and the temporal order mutually dependent. The second tendency can be found in the movement known as Open Theism. This movement, partially as an outgrowth of its Arminian theological heritage, has jettisoned the notion of God’s existence as one of timelessness in order to avoid His all-determining decrees and foreknowledge.
The last motivation noted here is a serious concern for any evangelical thinker. Surely, Scripture does teach that not only is God personal, but also relational. If the atemporalist3 position does indeed strip God of His relational character, it is a serious blow to the tradition of the atemporalist position. Speaking to this shift in philosophical perspective, John Frame notes, “…at present we may speak of consensus among theistic philosophers that God is in time.” 4
Before we address and evaluate the contemporary critiques of the eternalist position, it will be helpful if rather than assume an understanding of the position we actually summarily sketch it out. 5 The Bible uses both the language of everlasting, as well as eternal when referring to God. In the course of Christian theology this two terms have come to have differing connotations, and one result of this is the debate we currently find ourselves in. The term eternal has come to be closely associated with the eternalist position, and normally is used by those who believe God is “outside” of time. The other term, everlasting, has been adopted by those who oppose the atemporal position, and instead insist that God’s life consists of never-ending temporal sequence, i.e. that God is “in” time. 6
The atemporalist model of the God/time dynamic has a long standing Christian tradition. The lead classical thinker in this tradition is Aurelius Augustine, bishop of Hippo. He discussed his well known views of God and time in his classic work, The Confessions. To update this approach, we now turn to a contemporary defender of the eternalist position, namely Paul Helm. In fact, Helm stands out as one of the few contemporary Christian philosophers to remain true to this position. His name is often associated with the eternalist model. His most notable work on the subject is titled Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time. As a result, for the remainder of this paper, I’ll be referring the atemporalist/eternalist/supratemporalist position as the “A/H” model (Augustine/Helm) of divine transcendence.
A strong theological concern of the eternalist is that God remain a se. This is what Boethius was referring to in an earlier footnote. God has complete possession of His entire life, as a single unit. He does not lose any part of it to the past, nor does He anticipate it for the future. Secondly, the eternalist position builds off of the biblical teaching that God does not change. Third, this position rightly insists on maintaining the creator/creature distinction so basic to Christian orthodoxy. And lastly, at least for this summary, the atemporal position is more so than not a negative position. Augustine, Aquinas, Boethius, as well as Helm cannot explain or expound what God’s life experience is like. They can only deny what they find to be philosophically unpersuasive and theologically untenable.
As noted earlier, Christian thinkers in both Reformed and Arminian traditions have posed challenges to the A/H model of God’s temporal transcendence. Some examples of detractors are John Feinberg, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Richard Swinburne, and William Lane Craig. While there are nearly scores of arguments against divine atemporality, for the purposes of presenting a general overview of the counterarguments I will introduce my reader to three philosophical points of contention as well as two theological. These contentions fall under these heading, 1) if God is atemporal than he cannot know that X is happening “now,” 2) If God is supratemporal, then time is illusory, 3) timelessness is incoherent, for if distinct events are both perceived by God in His ever-present experience, then both event A and event B occur at the same time, which they do not. Now, with this “road map” in view we can evaluate the arguments.
If God is atemporal He cannot know what is happening at this moment. Proponents of the “everlasting” view see the A/H model as introducing various difficulties in our doctrine of God. The late British philosopher Arthur Prior as written:
God could not, on the view I am considering, know that the 1960 final examinations at Manchester are now over; for this isn’t something that He or anyone could know timelessly, because it just isn’t true timelessly…So far as I can see all that can be said on this subject timelessly is that the finishing-date of the 1960 final examinations is an earlier one than 29th August, and this is not the thing we know when we that know those examinations are over. 7
Thus, according to this objection, since God does not experience temporal succession, He has no awareness of things happening “now.” But, essentially this argument reduces to one of rhetoric, because an atemporal being could just the same know the proposition, “event X happens at Y time.” Thus, at best, this objection asserts that God cannot make temporally indexed statements. The same knowledge is had whether I say that my drink just fell off the table “now,” or whether someone says, “On May 9, 2006, at 10:02 pm Joseph’s drink fell off of his table.” Commenting on Prior’s point is Paul Helm:
The proposition expressed by Prior by “the examination is now over” when uttered on a particular occasion can be expressed in various other ways…But if the expressing of the same proposition in other ways is allowed, then there seems to be no reason why indexicals should not be replaced by names and dates. 8
Nash provides a helpful summary of Helm’s argument, “Helm’s point is that though a timeless being may be precluded from expressing what he knows in sentences identical to those a temporal being would use, 9 still the timeless being can affirm the same proposition or meaning in different language.” 10
If God does not actually inhabit time, then it is not real. This objection concedes, for arguments sake, that the A/H model is correct, and in effect seeks to reduce the position to absurdity. Clark Pinnock has argued in this fashion, 11 as has Christian Philosopher Stephen T. Davis. While this is perhaps the weakest of all arguments against the A/H model, we must familiarize ourselves with it because it seems to be the underlying assumption for various other arguments. Davis presents his case in this fashion:
Thus if God is a timeless being, the following sentences are either meaningless or necessarily false:
Does this imply that time as we understand it is unreal, a kind of illusion? If the timeless being in question is God, the ultimate reality of the universe, the creator of the heavens and the earth, one might well push the argument in this way: if from God’s point of view there is no past, present and future, and no before and after, then-it might well be argued- there is no ultimately real relationship of before and after. Thus time as we experience it is unreal. 12
Davis’ own words represent this position well. But, this objection is deeply flawed. Many examples of realities not ontologically rooted in God (i.e. qualities created by God that He Himself does not possess) could be cited as counter evidence against Davis’ claim. For instance, matter is created by God, but God is immaterial. There is nothing in Scripture that would even begin to hint that matter is not “real,” or an “illusion.” Just as God is nonspatial He is not temporal (both being qualities of God’s creation). Likewise, John Frame notes,
But surely this does not follow. God is Creator; the world is his creature. The creature is radically different from the Creator. But it is not thereby unreal. God’s handiwork is as real as it can be. If God is atemporal, but made time as part of his creation, then time is very much part of the creaturely reality, though not part of the eternal divine reality. 13
Divine timelessness is incoherent. Another common objection to the A/H model is that this position is simply incoherent. Now, hopefully the reader will notice the interrelatedness of these objections. Together they mount up a case against the coherence of eternalist theism. This incoherence, according to this view, is due to, on the one hand, affirming certain key doctrines (more on this under “Theological Arguments”), while on the other hand affirming an eternalist perspective, which seems to undermine these very doctrines.
But what is also seems to be incoherent in the supratemporalist approach is that God’s timelessness is said to consist in his existing at all moments of human time-simultaneously. Thus he is said to be simultaneously present at (and a witness of) what I did yesterday, what I am doing today, and what I will do tomorrow. But if t1 is simultaneous with t2 and t2 with t3, then t1 is simultaneous with t3…So yesterday would be the same day as today and as tomorrow-which is clearly absurd. 14
A more colorful presentation of this argument is presented by Anthony Kenny, “[On the A/H model] my typing of this paper is simultaneous with the whole of eternity. Again, on this view, the great fire of Rome is simultaneous with the whole of eternity. Therefore, while I type these very words, Nero fiddles heartlessly on.” 15
Yet this objection fails to distinguish between human and divine perspectives. Even if it is true that God timelessly perceives t1 and t2, it does not follow that they happen within the temporal order at the same time. God not only knows that t1 is distinguished from t2, but He also knows which precedes the other, and all other temporal, and logical connections and dependencies between the two. Likewise, divine eternality is not a type of time, thus to say that the 2 events happen simultaneously from the divine perspective- “simultaneously” being another temporal term- misses the point.
The A/H model makes nonsense of salvation. Another type of argument, a theological argument, is that if God is timeless then much of what Christians speak of in terms of redemption is made unintelligible. Indeed this is the chief argument against the A/H model of divine transcendence. 16 Any model of divine transcendence that makes nonsense of the chief theme in Scripture, redemption itself, is surely not a live option for Christians.
Developing this objection, Davis asserts, “God seems to act in temporal sequences-first he rescues the children of Israel from Egypt and later he gives them the law; first he sends his son to be born of a virgin and later he raises him from the dead.” 17 Likewise, when referring to the forgiveness of sins, he says, “to forgive someone is to restore a past relationship that was damaged by an offense.” 18 And finally, “…mid-twentieth-century Presbyterian theologian James Oliver Buswell argued that if God is timeless, it is meaningless to say that the elect are predestined before the foundation of the world, and that if the past is not past for God, we are yet in our sins. 19 Thus, the objection here is that the A/H model does not do justice to redemptive history, and history in general.
What is odd about this objection is that orthodox Christian theology has addressed this issue, i.e. God’s relation to his creation and the importance of history. But, interestingly, normally the issue of God’s relation to time isn’t brought to the fore in this discussion. 20 In fact, the Reformed understanding of the relation between God and man has always taught that time is important. First, time is important simply because God created it, if time were unimportant, or unnecessary, to His overall redemptive plan, there would have been no need to create it. 21 Secondly, the historia salutis, that process by which God displays His goodness, love, mercy, justice, and holiness to the spiritual powers in the heavenly realms is the unfolding plan of God to be worked out in time. Thus, strengthening the first point, time is essential to God’s plan.
This plan is worked out in covenants with mankind, and each covenant builds upon, expands, and transforms the covenants that came before. So much of the core of the Christian message, the gospel itself, is eschatological. But, this teaching is nothing new, but rather imbedded in the traditional understanding of God’s dealings with humanity. God need not be a temporal being for redemption, and forgiveness to be “real.” In fact, this objection, falls back about the philosophical objection mentioned earlier, namely that if God is eternal than time doesn’t exist.
The A/H position leads to a form of deism. Some further clarifications on this objection need to be addressed. The assertion being made by those who argue this point is that, essentially, a timelessly eternal God is a deistic God, a God that doesn’t act within His creation. 22 In contrast, so it is said, the living God of Scripture, acts, saves, relents, pursues, and sustains His creation. But, does the A/H model leave us with deism of some sort?
Here the defender of the A/H model has deep theological resources to draw from. The Augustinian and Reformed teaching regarding God’s eternal decrees (or “decree” singular to emphasis their unity) is certain appropriate here. God’s rule is administered by His overarching, all-encompassing plan for His creation. These decrees are eternal (since they reflect the mind of the eternal God), yet they unfold in time. Helm provides a simplified example, “the most helpful way to think of God’s eternally willing something in time is to think of one eternal act of will with numerous temporally scattered effects.” He also provides a helpful illustration of a central heating system that is once programmed, yet fires several times during the day. 23 Yet, not all of God’s decrees relate to temporal, finite creation. In fact, “[God] may also eternally will his own reactions in time to some human actions.” 24
This doesn’t necessitate that God changed His mind (in the sense that He had to take into account things He hadn’t thought of before25 ), rather, as Aquinas stated so well, “…to change your will is one matter, and to will a change in some thing is another.” 26
But so much more could be said. Some temporalists have decried the eternalists method of seemingly explaining difficulties away by showing that this or that explanation is “compatible” or “fits with” or “doesn’t contradict” the A/H model. But many in the traditional camp have noticed that something has to be done with God’s covenant relation to His creation. Something more, not less, is needed to accommodate the whole council of God.
E. L. Mascall, in his work, The Openness of Being, began to scratch the surface of this reworking. He spoke of God having two poles, an objective (eternal) pole and a subjective (temporal) pole. 27 A significant move forward in this direction has come from Christian theologians John Frame and Bruce Ware. For instance, Frame comments, “Too little attention has been paid to God’s temporal omnipresence in the discussion of his relationship to time.” 28 I agree with this assessment and find their expansions on the tradition quite useful.
But, what is Frame talking about when he speaks of “temporal omnipresence”? Here Frame is calling us to think about more than merely divine transcendence when speaking of God’s relation to the temporal order. Instead, we need to also focus on how God’s immanence in creation plays a role. On the face of it, this is quite similar to the idea that God has two poles relating to time. Thus, when we consider God’s covenantal presence in the world we find that God is both atemporally Lord over time, and yet He is a personal actor within the temporal sequence. According to Frame, the notion of temporal omnipresence accounts for all of the benefits that temporalists see in their position. “a covenantally present God, like a temporalist God, can know (and assert) temporally indexed expressions like “the sun is rising now.” He can feel with human beings the flow of time from one moment to the next.” 29 The dimension of temporal immanence also takes some of the sting from paradox of the incarnation, “…in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, we see again how the eternal God entered time. In Christ, God entered, not a world that is otherwise strange to him, but a world in which he had been dwelling all along.” 30
Bruce Ware makes a parallel between the incarnation, in which Christ, without divesting Himself of His divine qualities, took on a finite human nature, and the eternal God, who without ridding Himself of His atemporal sovereignty, added the dimension of omnitemporality at creation. 31
Now it is to be noted that those who favor the temporalist position, the theologically orthodox at least, in no way seek to diminish central Christian doctrines. Thus, it is crucial that the dimension of this debate that takes place within Christian circles is not a matter of essentials. In concluding his presentation for the temporalist position, Davis states:
Nor is there any reason to doubt that a temporal God who is “in” time just as we are is everything the Judeo-Christian God is traditionally supposed to be. He can still be en eternal being, i.e. a being without beginning or end. He can still be the creator of the universe. He can still be immutable in the sense of remaining ever true to his promises and purposes and eternally retaining his essential nature. (But he cannot be immutable in other stronger senses.) He can still have complete knowledge of all past, present and future events. (If he “transcends time”, it is only in the sense that he has this power- a power no other being has.) He can still be the loving, omnipotent redeemer Christians worship. 32
Nicholas Wolterstoff also insists,
Though God is within time, yet he is Lord of time. The whole array of contingent temporal events in within his power. He is Lord of what occurs. And that, along with the specific pattern of what he does, grounds all authentically biblical worship of, and obedience to, God. It is not because he is outside of time-eternal, immutable, impassive-that we are to worship and obey God. It is because of what he can and does bring about within time what we mortals are to render him praise and obedience. 33
Thus, those in the temporalist camp do not see their position as threatening Christian orthodoxy in any way, and here I am inclined to agree. We must be careful not to blow the differences between the two positions out of realistic proportion. While open theists may teach divine temporality in service or a greater overall project, thinkers like Wolterstoff are wrestling with this issue from within an overall reformed theological outlook. Indeed, even Helm doesn’t go so far as to say that “…it would be unwise for the eternalist to claim that divine timeless eternity is entailed by the language of Scripture.” 34 This is a point well taken, no need to be overly dogmatic. But, nonetheless, we can say that the A/H does handle the overall significance of God’s Lordship over time better than any other model.
We need to ask ourselves several questions. Frame helps to guide our thought here:
What conclusions follow from [God’s transcendence] over time? Shall we say that God is merely “in” time, or is he in some way “outside of” time? Well, try to imagine what it would be like to have a consciousness without beginning and end, without change, with perfect knowledge of all times, and with complete sovereignty over temporal relationships. What would that feel like?...So it seems to me that God’s experience of time, as Scripture presents it, is more like the atemporalist model than the temporalist one. 35
A summary of what has been presented will refresh the reader with the overall thrust of this paper. This presention has addressed the issue of God’s relations to the temporal order. Among others, two sides have emerged in a debate over this relation, the first is the eternalist model, what has been label the A/H model of divine transcendence, and other the other end is the temporalist model The A/H model asserts that time itself is a creation of God, and, like all of God’s creation, He is distinct and separate from it. God does not experience a succession of moments, but rather He lives in an ever-present “now.” The temporalist model posits that time itself is a necessary reality (like numbers are) and that as a result God Himself has a time strand of His own. Thus God experiences the succession of moments and is everlasting (i.e. ever existing in both past and future time).
We have examined some of the standard temporalist criticisms of the A/H model of transcendence and have categorized them into two types. The first type is the philosophical, and the second types of criticism are theological. The philosophical attacks against the A/H model we have found waiting in that they often bring in temporal categories when criticizing a model that explicitly denies that God’s experience can be spoken of in temporal categories, 36 that is, without some form of divine accommodation.
The theological objections also do not persuade. God’s faithfulness and redemptive love are not dependant upon his being merely temporal. Instead, the eternal God’s rules through his decrees. Yet, this is not the whole story. God actually does participate in the temporal drama, and this Frame calls God’s temporal omnipresence. Just as God, while not being material, fills the whole earth, while God is not merely temporal, He does covenantally abide within the temporal order.
1. On this subject Boethius states, “it is the common judgment then, of all creatures that live by reason that God is eternal. So let us consider the nature of eternity, for this will make clear to us both the nature of God and his manner of knowing. Eternity, then, is the complete, simultaneous and perfect possession of everlasting life; this will be clear from a comparison with creatures that exist in time.” The Consolation of Philosophy, trans. V. E. Watts (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1969), 5.6.
2. Ronald H. Nash, The Concept of God: An Exploration of Contemporary Difficulties with the Attributes of God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 74.
3. These position is also known by several other names, including, surpratemporalist and eternalist, all of which will be used interchangeably in this work.
4. John M. Frame, No Other God: A Response to Open Theism (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 2001), 146.
5. For a full exposition and defense of this position, see Paul Helm, Eternal God: A Study of God without Time, (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
6. Unfortunately, it has become a staple of the debate to use this spatial “in” and “out” language as a philosophical shorthand for the positions involved. It is unfortunate because both sides agree (at least those within Christian circles) that the chief party under scrutiny, namely God, is non-corporeal, and therefore, strictly speaking, spatial language is misleading. Time, unlike the material world, is not a physical thing that God can “enter” into.
7. Quoted in Nash, The Concept of God, pg.78.
8. Helm, quoted in Nash, pg. 78.
9. In personal correspondence, Frame has noted that this point reinforces the Creator/creature distinction in Christian theology. “Some activities are appropriate only to creatures, similarly some words.”
10. Ibid., pg 79.
11. Clark Pinnock, “God Limits His Knowledge,” in Predestination and Free Will, ed. David Basinger and Randall Basinger (Downers Grove: InterVasity Press, 1986), 156.
12. Stephen T. Davis, “Temporal Eternity,” in Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, ed. Louis Pojman, 3rd Edition (Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing, 1998), 237.
13. Frame, No Other God, pg. 147-148.
14. Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 220-221.
15. Quoted in Nash, pg.74.
16. The matter is also tightly linked with the theological objection that states that the A/H model does not take into account the nature of the incarnation of Christ. Though much more could be said on this, in quick reply, Helm notes, “The mystery and difficulty of the Incarnation is how it is that one person can have two standpoints, divine and human, and yet be one mediator. But this is the general difficulty that bests orthodox Christology of whatever stripe; it is not a special difficulty that only besets only eternalist understandings of God.” Paul Helm, “Is God Bound by Time?” in God Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), pg. 134-135.
17. Stephen T. Davis, “Temporal Eternity,” pg 239.
18. Ibid.
19. John M. Frame, No Other God, pg. 145. Buswell’s comments can be found in James Oliver Buswell, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion (Grand Rapids: Zonderfvan, 1962), 42-47.
20. Perhaps with the exception of Augustine’s City of God.
21. Though, admittedly, what creation would be like without temporal categories is nearly impossible to imagine.
22. For example, William Lane Craig believes that the eternalist position does not reflect a “robust” doctrine of creation ex nihilo. See his essay, “Timelessness and Omnitemporality,” in God and Time: Four Views (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 129-160.
23. Paul Helm, “Is God Bound by Time,” pgs. 132-133.
24. Ibid., 133.
25. Contra Open Theists.
26. Quoted in Helm, 133.
27. For more on Mascall’s position see The Openness of Being, Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971)
28. John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 2002), 558.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., 559
31. See Bruce A. Ware, God’s Greater Glory: The Exalted God of Scripture and the Christian Faith (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004), 136-137. Ware also draws the parallel with God’s omnipresence’ God is immaterial apart from creation, yet nonetheless, He fills all of creation with His presence.
32. Ibid., pg. 241-242.
33. Nicholas Wolterstoff, “God Everlasting,” in God and the Good, ed. Clifton Orlebeke and Lewis Smedes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 203.
34. Paul Helm, “Is God Bound by Time?”,123. Emphasis in original.
35. Frame, No Other God, pg. 156.
36. An example of this, the reader will remember, is the criticism that if God sees (or is aware of) event A and event B as a current experience, then these events happen at the same time. But, as has been argued, the language of “same time” is unhelpful, because while we do not know how to perfectly describe God’s experience of temporal events, nevertheless one thing that the A/H mode has ruled out is that that experience includes a temporal dimension.