AOG: ETERNITY (NEW) Flashcards
What does Isiah state about God as eternal?
“who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy”.
What is Wolterstorff’s view of a timeless God?
Has to be different from human experience of life in the physical world.
What does Wolterstorff state for humans?
“The gnawing of time bites all”.
What is eternity for Boethius?
“the whole, simultaneous and perfect possession of unending life.”
How is time present to God according to Boethius?
‘Simultaneously’.
How can God see all according to Boethius?
In ‘one glance’.
What is the issue that Augustine attempts to resolve?
What was God doing before he made the world in a particular point in time?
What does the Bible indicate about God according to Augustine?
A timeless God, there was no ‘before’ for God, as time does not work in the same way for God.
How do we speak of God according to Aquinas?
Using analogical language.
What does Aquinas believe about God and humans?
God is not like humans, we have no words to describe how God experiences ‘time’.
What quotation does Aquinas state that agrees with Boethius?
“eternity exists as a simultaneous whole and time does not.”
What are the four dimensions of Anselm’s approach?
Height, width, depth and time.
What is presentism?
Only focuses on the present moment, past is gone, future has not yet happened, reality is this moment.
What does Anselm believe about past tense language such as ‘yesterday’?
Subjective to the person perceiving that moment.
Where does Anselm believe God can be at the same time?
Past, present and future.
What is in God according to Anselm?
Every space and time.
What does Anselm mean by saying that every space and time is in God?
We do still have free will, God can see the free choices we made in the past and what we will do in the future.
What does Boethius describe God’s position of viewing our free actions as?
“as though from a lofty peak”.
What does Wolterstorff believe God is freed from?
“freed from the bondage of temporarily”.
What does Swinburne argue is the issue with the timeless view?
The notion of time being simultaneously present to God is incoherent.
What is the issue with love and the timeless view?
Love involves a two way process and ability to respond.
What is the issue with a timeless God and prayer?
How can a timeless God respond to our prayers?
How does Paul Helm defend God’s timeless view?
“God, considered as timeless, cannot have temporal relations with any of his creation.”
What does Willis argue about a timeless God in the world?
God does not literally act in the world.
How does Aquinas resolve the issue of a timeless God and prayer?
Prayers should not be for requests.
What is the issue with Boethius’ depiction of God? What does his view contradict?
Boethius ends up defining a God that is intrinsically different from the God of Classical Theism (contradicts theism).
What is the view of God as everlasting?
God always exists and will always.
What does Swinburne say about his preference of understanding God?
“I prefer that understanding of God being eternal as his being everlasting rather than his being timeless.”
How does Wolterstorff explain an understanding of God’s actions?
God’s actions in the Bible are responses to human free choices, e.g. 10 plagues.
What does the timeless view support?
God’s omniscience, omnipotence, immutable and perfect nature.
What does the everlasting view support?
God’s omnibenevolence and personal.
What is Deuteronomy 33:27?
“The eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms.”
What are the three interpretations of Deuteronomy 33:27?
God is both timeless and everlasting.
God is eternal = timeless.
God is eternal = everlasting - inside of time.
