JBTM_10-2_Fall_2013

JBTM
R. Larry Overstreet
29
Relating Time to Eternity. Four basic positions are held by Christian theologians and philosophers
concerning how time relates to eternity. 65 These are: (a) Divine timeless eternity—God is outside
of time; (b) unqualified Divine temporality—God is temporal and everlasting; (c) eternity as
relative timelessness—God is relatively timeless; and (d) timelessness and omnitemporality—
God was timeless before creation and always temporal after it.
Divine Timeless Eternity. Helm forcefully advocates the view of an absolute timeless eternity of
God. 66 This position advocates that God exists “outside time,” rather than “in time.” Although
this view “is the ‘mainstream’ view represented by Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Calvin and a host
of others—there is reason to think that it is very much the minority view among contemporary
theologians and philosophers of religion.” 67 Helm admits that the idea of absolute timeless divine
eternality is difficult to show from Scripture. He finds some inferences for it (cf. Ps 90:12; Isa
57:15; 1 Cor 2:7; 2 Tim 1:9; Heb 1:10–12), and suggests that the reason for the lack of clear
support is “that the issues of temporalism and eternalism as we have sketched them were not
before the minds of the writers as they wrote.” 68 A weakness in this view concerns how an
absolutely timeless God can interact with the temporal world after He created it. “The difficult
question for him is: does God necessarily need to change in His mode of existence from timeless
to temporal because of His creation of the temporal world?” 69
Unqualified Divine Temporality. Wolterstorff takes a position the virtual opposite of Helm.
He asserts that God is not eternal in the timeless sense. Rather, God is temporal and everlasting.
He affirms that in Scripture God “has a history, and in this history there are changes in God’s
actions, responses and knowledge. The God of Scripture is One of whom a narrative can be
told; we know that not because Scripture tells us that but because it offers such a narrative.” 70
He argues, for instance, that Ps 90:1–4 does not state “that God is timeless but that God existed
before creation, indeed from everlasting to everlasting. How could God exist before creation
and yet be timeless?” 71 He argues similarly concerning 2 Pet 3:8 and John 8:58. His conclusion
65 These are provided in detail in Ganssle, God & Time: Four Views. They are also concisely summarized
in Kim, Time, Eternity, and the Trinity. A comprehensive philosophical approach to this subject is given by
Brian Leftow, Time and Eternity, Cornell Studies in the Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991).
66 Paul Helm, “Divine Timeless Eternity,” God & Time: Four Views, 28–91.
67 Ibid., 28. For examples, see Augustine, Confessions, 11.13 in A Select Library of the Nicene and-Post-
Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, rpt. 1979), 167–68;
and City of God, 11.21 in Post-Nicene Fathers, 216; Anselm, “Proslogium,” 19–20, in Saint Anselm: Basic
Writings, 2nd ed., trans. S. N. Deane (LaSalle, IL: Open Court Pub., 1962), 25; Charles Hodge held that
God is in the “eternal now.” See Hodge, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, rpt. 1979), 25; William
Shedd said God’s eternity can be viewed as the “eternal now,” or the “universal present,” see Shedd,
Dogmatic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971), 1:342–50.
68 Ibid., 31.
69 Kim, Time, Eternity and the Trinity, 151.
70 Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Unqualified Divine Temporality,” God & Time: Four Views, 188.
71 Ibid., 190. Italics his.