The influential medieval theologian Augustine read widely in philosophy, including the works of Aristotle, the Neoplatonists (e.g., Plotinus, Porphyry), the Stoics, and others. Many scholars note the influence these philosophies had on his theology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adolf Harnack (1851-1930) is often cited as the first to decry Greek philosophy\u2019s influence upon Augustine and Christian theology. Harnack called it \u201cthe Hellenic spirit\u201d and many today call this the \u201cHellenization\u201d of Christian thought.[1]<\/a> These philosophical traditions still influence Christian theologians and philosophers today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many today use the label \u201cclassical theism\u201d to describe ideas endorsed by Augustine and theologians he influenced, such as Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, and Martin Luther. \u201cClassical\u201d doesn\u2019t necessarily mean old. Nor do only theologians who lived long ago embrace these ideas; some scholars embrace them today.[2]<\/a> And not every theologian of yesteryear embraced so-called classical theism. Theological diversity existed then as it does now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Augustine and classical theism affirm at least four unique ideas about God, ideas intricately connected to Platonic and Neo-Platonic views about the superiority of what is changeless. They say God is 1) timeless, 2) immutable, 3) impassible, and 4) simple.[3]<\/a> To a great extent, these four ideas are mutually reinforcing, and each has implications for a theology of love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this essay, I explore a problem that comes when believing God is timeless. In my book Pluriform Love, <\/em>I explore the other three aspects of classical theism’s particular view of God. And in the book, I offer alternative philosophical ideas meant to replace the ones in classical theism I find inadequate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just about every Christian believes God had no beginning and will have no end. But classical theism understands this belief in a particular way. It says God experiences no succession of moments. God is timeless. There is no \u201cbefore\u201d or \u201cafter\u201d in God because God is nontemporal. Deity does not experience moment by moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Augustine affirms this divine timelessness view.[4]<\/sup><\/a> \u201cIn the sublimity of an eternity which is always in the present,\u201d he says, God is \u201cbefore all things past and transcends all things future.\u201d[5]<\/a> In fact, God created time, according to Augustine. \u201cWhat time could there be that you had not created?\u201d he asks rhetorically of God. \u201cYou are the Maker of all times\u2026 No time is co-eternal with you.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Because time had a beginning, Augustine says, we should not ask what God was doing before creating.[7]<\/a> That question is nonsensical, because there was no time before God created it. In fact, Augustine admits he can\u2019t really talk about time at all. \u201cIf I wish to explain it to one who asks,\u201d Augustine says, \u201cI know not [how].\u201d[8]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Scholars propose various ways God might relate to time. Two proposals dominate. The divine timelessness view we find in Augustine says God experiences no succession of moments. God has no experience. Many use the word \u201ceternal\u201d to identify this view, although in popular vernacular, some say God is \u201coutside time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other dominant way to think about God and time is often called the \u201ceverlasting\u201d view.[9]<\/a> It says God experiences a succession of moments, and this succession had no beginning and will have no end. But God experiences the ongoing flow of time. Past moments preceded each moment of God\u2019s everlasting life, and God will experience moment by moment everlastingly into the future. The everlasting God is the \u201cliving God,\u201d to use a common biblical phrase, in the sense of experiencing time\u2019s ongoing succession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, to say God is \u201ceternal\u201d means God is timeless or nontemporal. To say God is \u201ceverlasting\u201d means God continually experiences and is pantemporal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is difficult to align the dominant portrait of God in scripture with Augustine\u2019s and classical theism\u2019s portrait. The God described in the Old and New Testaments interacts with creatures, moment by moment. This involves time sequences. The living God of interactive love has \u201cbefores\u201d and \u201cafters,\u201d making promises about what God will do and responding to what creatures have done. In the Bible, God plans for the future, talks about past events, and acts alongside creatures in the present. Biblical writers typically describe God as one who experiences time\u2019s flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Old Testament writers use the word olam<\/em> to describe God\u2019s relation to time. This Hebrew word connotes long duration, antiquity, and futurity rather than timelessness. Olam<\/em> describes the remote past or future, but also the notion of perpetuity.[10]<\/sup><\/a> When used with reference to God, olam<\/em> better describes God as everlastingly experiencing rather than as timelessly not experiencing. Many scholars also say the timeless view of God is absent in the New Testament.[11]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n According to this reasoning, passages that appear to support divine timelessness are better interpreted as identifying God\u2019s faithfulness. God is lovingly faithful through<\/em> time, not outside it. C. R. Schoonhoven states the case bluntly: \u201cIn the understanding of the writers of the Old Testament and New Testament, eternity is not timelessness but endless time.\u201d[12]<\/sup><\/a> <\/em>The God of the Bible \u201clives in time,\u201d says John Goldingay.[13]<\/sup><\/a> \u201cNeither timelessness nor the simultaneity of past, present, and future,\u201d says Terence Fretheim, \u201cwould represent the view of any biblical tradition.\u201d[14]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n An everlastingly time-full God interacts with time-full creatures in a time-full universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The timeless view presents problems for a theology of love. From everything we know, love requires time-full giving and receiving. Love is interactive and experiential, which implies influencing and being influenced moment by moment. The love of a timeless God would be nondurational, which makes no sense with love as we know it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the divine timelessness view is true, many biblical passages would be meaningless. John\u2019s claim that we love because God first<\/em> loved us (1 Jn. 4:19), for instance, would be incomprehensible. A timeless God doesn\u2019t act prior to our actions. If God is nontemporal, John should have said we and God love simultaneously. Creatures would not need a timeless God to act first on their behalf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or take the biblical view that God redeems.[15]<\/a> To say God, in love, redemptively responds to sin makes no sense if God is timeless. A timeless God has no time to redeem, because an eternal God does not respond to what occurs in time\u2019s flow. Nicholas Wolterstorff puts it nicely: \u201cGod the Redeemer cannot be a God eternal.\u201d[16]<\/sup><\/a> A redeeming God must be everlasting, which means responding moment-by-moment to creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the most profound expressions of divine love is forgiveness. God responds to sin by forgiving the offender. \u201cIf we confess our sins,\u201d writes John, \u201che who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins\u201d (1 Jn. 1:9). But forgiving love makes no sense if God is timeless, because a nontemporal God cannot respond. Forgiveness is a time-oriented form of love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Love requires time, and Augustine\u2019s God doesn\u2019t have any.<\/p>\n\n\n Love requires time, and Augustine\u2019s God doesn\u2019t have any. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n [1]<\/a> Adolf Harnack, History of Dogma<\/em>, Neil Buchanan, trans. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1897). Many others have made this argument. See Hubertus R. Drobner, \u201cChristian Philosophy,\u201d in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies<\/em> (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 672\u201390; Helmut Koester, History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age<\/em> <\/em>in Introduction to the New Testament<\/em>, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995). Sometimes the Hellenism thesis is taken too broadly, as Paul Gavrilyuk has argued (The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought<\/em>[Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004]).<\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/a> For examples, see James E. Dolezal, God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God\u2019s Absoluteness<\/em> (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011);H. J. McCann, Creation and the Sovereignty of <\/em>God (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 20212).<\/p>\n\n\n\n [3]<\/a> On this designation for classical theism, see Ryan T. Mullins, \u201cClassical Theism,\u201d in T & T Clark Handbook of Analytic Theology<\/em>, James M. Arcadi and James T. Turner, Jr., eds. (London: Bloomsbury, 2021), 85-100; T. Williams, \u201cIntroduction to Classical Theism,\u201d in J. Dillerand A. Kasher, eds., Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities<\/em> (New York: Springer, 2013), 95\u20137.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [4]<\/sup><\/a> Augustine, On the Trinity<\/em>, 5, 17; Confessions<\/em>, 13, 38, 53; City of God<\/em>, 11, 8; 22, 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [5]<\/a> Augustine, Confessions<\/em>, XI. xiii (16).<\/p>\n\n\n\n [6]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [7]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [8]<\/sup><\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [9]<\/a> Translations of scripture rarely indicate what view of time the writer holds. Biblical translators sometimes use the word \u201ceternal\u201d to describe what is likely the \u201ceverlasting\u201d view and vice versa. Note, for instance, various translations of the conclusion to John 3:16. Some say God gives \u201ceternal\u201d life and other say \u201ceverlasting\u201d life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [10]<\/sup><\/a> F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon<\/em> (London: Oxford University Press, 1906), 761.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [11]<\/sup><\/a> Oscar Cullmann, Christ and Time<\/em>, F. V. Filson, trans. (London:SCM, 1951[rev. ed. 1962]), 69-80. This is the conclusion of many New Testament scholars, including Eldon G. Ladd (A Theology of the New Testament<\/em> [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1974], 47).<\/p>\n\n\n\n [12]<\/sup><\/a> C.R. Schoonhoven, \u201cEternity\u201d International Standard Bible Encyclopedia<\/em>, vol. 2, ed. G. W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1982), 162-164.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [13]<\/sup><\/a> John Goldingay, Israel\u2019s Gospel<\/em>, Vol. 1 of Old Testament Theology <\/em>(Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity, 2003), 64.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [14]<\/sup><\/a> Terence E. Fretheim, God and the World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation <\/em>(Nashville: Abingdon, 2005), 303.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/tjoord-_pluriform_6x9-2-200x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nGod and Time <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
My Response to a Timeless God<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Divine Timelessness and Love<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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