God & Time: Four Views

Spectrum Multiview

by Gregory E. Ganssle (Editor), William Lane Craig (Contributor), Paul Helm (Contributor)

The eternal God has created the universe. And that universe is time-bound. How can we best understand God's relationship with our time-bound universe? For example, does God experience each moment of time in succession or are all times present to God? How we think of God and time has implications for our understanding of the nature of time, the creation of the universe, God's knowledge of the future, God's interaction with his creation and the fullness of God's life. In this book, four notable philosophers skillfully take on this difficult topic--all writing from within a Christian framework yet contending for different views. Paul Helm argues that divine eternity should be construed as a state of absolute timelessness. Alan G. Padgett maintains that God's eternity is more plausibly to be understood as relative timelessness. William Lane Craig presents a hybrid view that combines timelessness with omnitemporality. And Nicholas Wolterstorff advocates a doctrine of unqualified divine temporality. Each essay is followed by responses from the other three contributors and a final counter-response from the original essayist, making for a lively exchange of ideas. Editor Gregory E. Ganssle provides a helpful introduction to the debate and its significance. Together these five scholars conduct readers on a stimulating and mind-stretching journey into one of the most controversial and challenging areas of theology today.

Genres: Theology, Philosophy, Christianity, Christian, Nonfiction

247 pages, Paperback

First published August 13, 2002

About the author

Greg Ganssle (PhD, Syracuse) is professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. He is the author of several books, including A Reasonable God: Engaging the New Face of Atheism and Thinking About God, and he is the editor of God and Time.

Reviews

[Randall Pratt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quoting from Greg Ganssle's introduction: "The Christian church has always believed that God himself invites us to explore his nature. These brief descriptions of the essays in this book highlight the varied considerations that are important in thinking out God's relation to time. There is no better place to start this investigation than with the following essays."



I heartily concur! It certainly is not -- and does not purport to be -- the final word on God and time, but it is a great place to start.



I'll admit that I wasn't as ready for the philosophical presentations as I thought I was. But my education began quickly with Greg's introduction. He summarized five important issues that various of the authors would be addressing -- the nature of time (a description of the competing A- and B- theories of time), God and creation, God's knowledge of the future, God's interaction with his people, and the fullness of God's being.



Paul Helm then began with a defense of the classic Christian position of God as timeless. Alan Padgett argues that God is "relatively timeless" -- relative to (created) physical time, He is timeless. But relative to some "metaphysical" time, He is temporal. William Lane Craig explains a view that God is outside of time without creation, but since the creation of the world he has been temporal. Finally, Nicholas Wolterstorff argues that among the attributes of God is that his is always in time.



I didn't really finally understand the two theories of time until I was about half-way through the book. Some of the other "important issues" didn't quite sink in until I was nearly finished with the last essay. It just took some time to really "get" it! When I finished, I read through Greg's introduction again, and this time it all made sense! Some time down the line I will be picking up this book again, to read through the arguments with a clearer foundational base.



Despite its difficulty for this amateur philosopher, I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a great deal along the way. I heartily recommend this book.

[Neil Kruger · Rating 5 out of 5]

A refreshing discussion on a topic that becomes complicated very quickly.

There are many thorny issues to work through when contemplating God's relationship to time and the contributors to this volume do an excellent job of highlighting these and also by discussing their implications.

Some of these issues are:
- Biblical revelation
- Anthropomorphic language
- God changing His mind
- God having a history
- Tensed vs tenseless theories of time
- The tradition of classical theism
- Divine immutability
- Omniscience
- Tensed facts
- The importance of the incarnation
- Temporal becoming

Paul Helm argues for Divine Timelessness - the traditional view
Alan Padgett argues for relative timelessness - though time is a dimension of God's existence, He created our time and therefore we cannot measure His time
William Lane Craig argues for timelessness independent from creation and omnitemporality since creation
Nicholas Wolterstorff argues for everlasting time

The contributors while being strong in their rebuttals still maintain charitable attitude.

All-in-all, for those wishing to wrestle with this issue, this volume will provide a great introduction and overview of the debate.

[John Benzing · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was way out of depth here, but the authors took their time (some better than others) to explain terms and give the reader a shot at following the argument. I can’t say I follow one of the views, but I do know better what the questions are and that, in the end, we can only go as far as scripture will take us. One day we will know and, I believe, be surprised how far off we were but yet how simple the truth is.

[Ben Holloway · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does God exist outside or inside time? It turns out that a lot rides on one's answer to this question. The arguments against God's timelessness are essentially a series of supposed consequences that a theist would likely reject. Paul Helm, a proponent of divine timelessness, shoulders the bulk of the work and attempts to defend his view from the charge that divine timelessness entails God's lack of knowledge, emotion, ability to relate to and act within creation, and the problem that if God exists outside time, then everything happens all at once. A further problem, that of divine timelessness entailing a "static" view of time itself, Helm takes on the chin.

All the other authors defend a variety of opposing positions and form a somewhat splinter-like discussion of issues related to accepting that, at least as far as creation is concerned, God is inside time. The issues for Wolterstorff, Padgett, and Craig revolve around compatibility of various theses on the nature of time, God's relationship to time prior to creation, and the nature of measurements for time within creation.

The discussion is interesting and covers most bases related to the issue. At times, the authors focus on one another to the exclusion of the potential reader. For example, the authors assume a certain level of prior knowledge in the reader because they assume it in their interlocutor, though Ganssle, the editor, picks up most of the missed strands in the introduction.

This is a fine discussion carried out cordially (all the authors are on a first name basis) but vigorously.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The introduction states that the topic of God's relationship to time goes beyond the Bible, and all of the contributors agree. To me, though, that puts it in the realm of speculation, so it's not helpful. Whereas most books of this type focus on Biblical argumentation, this one is exclusively philosophical. However, it did succeed in convincing me that the topic of God and time goes beyond the Bible. So I no longer need to be confused when someone explains away a theological question by saying "obviously the answer is that it's because God is outside of time." That's not true, because those who hold that view hold that it is not Biblical, so it is not definite. Instead, the best we can say is "one possible explanation is that God may be outside of time."

[Bfleegs · Rating 3 out of 5]

All in all, a helpful book for determining some of the primary positions on God and time. There was little scripture cited, but that is no surprise considering the fact that scripture gives us neither clear statements on God and time nor a theology of time itself. As a result, the book is highly speculative and philosophical in nature, and is difficult to wade through at times.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was interesting and helpful for getting a bigger picture of the issue. I'm not sure where I land in my own thinking. There is some good discussion on God's Lordship over time and how best to interpret what scripture says.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been waiting to read this one for a couple of years and finally got it done. Grateful for the opportunity to get a thorough explanation of each of the four main views on the subject. The "four views" format can get a bit frustrating at times, but it is helpful to get the dialogue between the views. As a non-philosopher I'm afraid some of this is over my head, or else the various authors simply didn't make their ideas sufficiently clear (probably a bit of both). This subject is crucially related to a number of Christian doctrines, so for the careful thinker it is important to wrestle with. I do wish the classical position (God is "outside" of time) would have been presented by a scholar who holds to the A Theory of time (I understand there are some), or at least in addition to Paul Helm's presentation which was based on B-Theory. I finished the book without a clear idea of precisely where my own thinking should be on the matter, but it has been helpful to assemble more of the data I need to continue my own processing of the questions involved.

[Joey Kaching · Rating 2 out of 5]

Incredibly technical and assumed an academic background in the philosophy of time and space that I do not possess.

Very interesting topic but this book is very inaccessible to the average reader.

[Daniel Mann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting perspectives

[E · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book wasn't nearly as interesting as I was hoping. The simple question is this: does God exist in time, or does he stand outside of it? I believe that he stands outside of it, for it is part of his space-time creation. However, the writer who argues for this view--Paul Helm--then argues that this means creation is eternal, for how could God have existed before it (since "before" suggests an element of temporality). I disagree, but I wasn't asked to pen a chapter in this book!

I did like the other things Helm had to say, particularly concerning how, for all intents and purposes, the future has already happened (from God's perspective). This ought to effect our faith and hope.

[Blake · Rating 4 out of 5]

It might be true that talks of God's relation to time are guesswork or, if not guesswork, irrelevant to any substantive issues in theology. If so, then the authors represented must go wrong somewhere, since each offers reasons to believe that the nature God's relation to time stands in important logical relations to truths about the divine nature. This allegation itself merits philosophical investigation, at least for those who regard (parts of) the divine nature as both understandable and important to understand.

[Zach Waldis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like philosophy, but I didn't like this book. The jargon was pretty thick and I have to say that I resonated the most with Wolterstorff and his more straightforward, Biblical thoughts (though abstract reflections on time were present even there). If you're interested in the topic I guess it's worth a read, but for the vast majority it won't be.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The editor definitely picked the right people to contribute to this book. It was very well put-together. My own views on the subject haven't changed much, but I feel like I have a clearer picture of the contemporary debate on God and time.

[Guillaume Bourin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful volume on this very complex topic. Some contributions are better than others. Sadly, I don't think Paul Helm is at his best on his defense of timeless eternity. However, it seems to me the only viable approach.

[Michael Ulrich · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deeper