Neville returns eternity to the center of consideration by analyzing the obsessive culture that attempts to get along denying it; and he analyzes the nature of time's flow itself, the nature of divine eternity, and the subtle problems of personal immortality. He argues that time and eternity constitute one topic and that, therefore, time itself is beyond understanding, beyond personal grasp, and beyond civilized orientation without a proper comprehension of eternity.
Robert Cummings Neville (born May 1, 1939 in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.) is an American systematic philosopher and theologian, author of numerous books and papers, and ex-Dean of the Boston University School of Theology. J. Harley Chapman and Nancy Frankenberry, editors of a festchrift—a collection of critical essays written in Neville's honor—entitled Interpreting Neville, consider him to be "one of the most significant philosophers and theologians of our time". Neville was Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and has taught at Yale, Fordham, and the State University of New York Purchase. He is now a professor at Boston University He was granted a Doctorate honoris causa by the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Far Eastern Studies in 1996.