Attributes of God- Time/omnisciense Flashcards
Boethius
idea of god’s eternal omnisciense
-God is eternal, beyond time
-Exists atemporal
- God sees all time (past, present and future) simultaneously in the ‘eternal present’.
- does not interfere with our free will – he simply sees the results of our free choices in our future in his eternal present.
eg) gives the analogy of a chariot, it passes me at a partuclar time. I do not make it move faster/slower, my knowledge of its motion is contingent
–Same ways Gods knowledge of our actions is contingent, based on us freely making them
Calvin
Look to divine foreknowledge and predestination
“For he does not create everyone in the same condition, but ordains eternal life for
some and eternal damnation for others.” Calvin
¨Biblical support: “In love He predestined us…” Ephesians 1:5
¨Predestination = before creation God determined the fate of the universe throughout all of time and space
No injustice as we do not deserve salvation
Boethius - Simple and conditional necessity
Simple necessity
A necessity that is inherent in the nature of things. For example, humans are mortal by nature.
Conditional necessity
A necessity that is not simply necessary, but rather happens because of choice. For example, a human who takes their own life is making a choice.
Thus our actions are conditionally neccessary- the neccesity of them happening in God eternal present is based on us freely choosing to do x
Swinburne - Everlasting view
-God exists within time
-is temporal
-Once the universe had been created then time began to unfold moment by moment – both for creation and for God.
Omniscinese
-God only knows past and present
-regarding the future he knows what logically possible choices we could make
Strong as- This resolves the apparent conflict between omniscience with free will.
Also supports Plantinga’s free will defense, defending gods omnibenevolence in the face of evil
swinburnes crticims of boethius
1) Boethuis god is radically different to that of traditional theism
Swinburne argues that an eternal God could not respond to people’s prayers, since that would require acting within time, not truly ombnibenevolent, but a ‘pretty lifeless thing’
2) boethius’ god learns
God learns our future actions by being with them in eternity. God doesn’t know our future actions through predicting them since genuinely free choices are unpredictable.
-Imply he is not truly omniscient
Aquinas on prayer
-Idea prayers are not timely requests
-Prayers aren’t responded to by God in real-time,
- “We do not pray to change divine decree, but only to obtain what God has decided will be obtained through prayer, dynamic relationship, moving towards and away from god
Swinbrune -Swinburne argued that a relationship with God based on love is a two-way process which requires an ability for God to respond to us, and vice versa. This could only work if God was within time.
Dummet
Supports Boethius
he goes further to say that “when we speak of god’s knowledge, we are using the tense of timelessness”.
this makes sense for historical events such as the sinking of the titanic. it is true and always will be true even if it was a future event to us, god would have known it in eternal present
wolterstoff criticms of boethius
How god acts in time
Wolterstorff argued that God being omniscient doesn’t include knowledge of the future. The future doesn’t yet exist, therefore knowledge of it would be illogical, he responds in time
the 10 plagues of Egypt. God sent the first plague, waited to see if the Pharaoh would let the Jews go. He didn’t, so God sent the second plague, and so on until plague number 10
Counter-examples. Jesus also knows that Judas will betray him and that peter would betray him three times before the cockerel crowed. So it seems that Jesus/God does know future human actions.
Nagels Criticisms of Boethius
Criticizes all understandings of omniscience
1)Some knowedlge is not timeless but specific to a time or place -Indexical statements – rely upon time and space, ‘i am behind you’, is fleeting and true in time
2)knowing what it is like to be something: we cannot know what it is like to be a bat, so how can god know what it is like to be ignorant? if god knows everything, how can he know what being ignorant is like?
3)knowing how to do something: you can only gain this knowledge through practice. there is a difference between knowing how i bicycle is ridden and how to ride a bike
the same as omnipotence needs conditions, so does omniscience
Response – Swinburne, god knows logically possible only
God is incorporeal
God is omnipotent knowing all that is possible
Thus is a logical impossibility for god to learn a bodily skill or be ignorant
Anselms 4 dimensions
Anselm does not think that God is radically disconnected from time, as Boethius seems to suggest. Anselm wants to reconcile the eternal view with God’s action within time,
The fourth dimension is time, which involves duration and change of spatial things.
In space, objects can be extended through the three spatial dimensions, meaning they take up particular physical coordinates in space. F
–Four dimensionalism is the view that we can understand time as an object’s extension through the fourth dimension
“That he is not in place or time, but all times and places are in him” – Anselm.
Anselm argues that although God is not in time, God still has some relationship to time. All of time is in God. For us, time unfolds moment by moment. For God, all the moments of time, whether in our past, present or future, are equally and eternally present. All of time always exists in divine eternity.
Rogers
identifies Anselm as the “first coherent four dimensionalist”.
-as all of space is in a moment of time, all of time is in eternity
- Eternity is thus the totality (whole of) of the fourth dimension.
-Rogers identifies this as an almost 5th dimensions, contaning all time and space of the lower 4 within it
- This is how God’s whole being is with all places and all times
-Our future actions do not yet exist within time, but in eternity they always exist.
Kelly’s Critcisms of Anselm
1)God learns our future actions by being with them in eternity. God doesn’t know our future actions through predicting them since genuinely free choices are unpredictable.
-Imply he is not truly omniscient
2)Undermines casual connection of events in time
all events in history are happening at the same time for God, e.g. the battle of Hastings and the fire of Rome are happening at the same time as Kenny is writing his book. Kenny rejects that as ‘radically incoherent’. There a causal relation and sequence between events within time.
The fire of Rome necessarily happened before Kenny wrote his paper.
Anselms defense - Temporal and eternal simultaneity
1) not temporal idea of changing/learning
-God’s learning of our future actions is not an event within time. In eternity, God always learns of our future actions which always exist.
eg) alike to the trinity -Yet it is also important that the son has always existed (since he is God). So, if Christ is eternally begotten by the Father, then there was no time when Christ did not exist,
2)“eternity has its own unique simultaneity in which exist all the things that exist at the same place or time, and whatever exists in the different places and times.” – Anselm.
We could call these two types temporal simultaneity (within time) and eternal simultaneity (within eternity).
All events are simultaneous in eternity because they are equally present to God. Within time, many events will be non-simultaneous with each other. Anselm’s point is that two events could be temporally non-simultaneous and yet eternally simultaneous.
Davies
Swinburne is too simplistic (reductionist)
-Anthromporhosies god to exist in our conept of time
-need to look to apophatic language
‘the idea seems to be that god is good because he manages…to be well behaved’.
god is actively and positively good. god is perfectly good because he never contradicts his own nature. - Maintains covenant with humanity
Has Aquinian view; Do not see god as a moral person/agent
