Eternal & Everlasting

• Nicholas Wolsterstorff in ‘God Everlasting’ states that the eternity of God has appealed to people not just because of the influence of classical Greek philosophy but also because the eternal God is different from human’s experience of life in the physical world
• Eternity in the Bible – “For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy” – Isaiah 57: 1
• Different thinkers suggest that God is:

(a) Timeless: past, present and future are all alike to him – he is atemporal

• God is outside time and sees all events
• Augustine – “thy years neither come nor go; whereas ours both come and go”
• Our entire life is visible to God immediately
• Time is bound up in creation but does not affect God
• Link with Greek thought – the world of the forms where the forms are eternal and unchanging
• God is unchanging and timeless, he is not bound by space and can be everywhere at once
• Time is something introduced by God and he is not subject to it
• Aquinas and Anselm – God exists outside time – he cannot change so cannot be in time

Strengths

• God would be subject to change in He was within time
• Shows that God is not limited
• It suggests that God is immutable (incapable of change) which is argued by some to be necessary if God is also perfect
• God is not a physical being like us so is not subject to change

Objections

• Contradicts scripture  - the Bible speaks of God promising and remembering
• A timeless God would not be able to love as He is immutable so is not affected by anything
• God is beyond human understanding so we are limited by language – Aquinas stated that we cannot fully talk about God as he is beyond our limited comprehension
• Swinburne – it does not ‘make much sense’ to talk of all events in a person’s life being simultaneously presented to God

(b) God is everlasting within time

• He has always existed and always will exist
• God exists without end at all points in time

Strengths

• Swinburne -  “There was no time at which he did not exist”

Objections

• It is difficult to see how God could be in time and not be affected by creation and hence change
• Is there any point in praying?

(c) God moves through time with his creation but changes with it (process theology)

• Everlasting but not timeless
• Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000) – God is affected by interaction with creation. God changes with us – he is involved in his creation