eternity

   Christian thinkers have traditionally described God as 'eternal', but what precisely does this mean? There are two main schools of thought: the traditional, 'atemporalist', school, which thinks that God is outside time, and the more innovative, 'temporalist', school, which thinks that God is everlasting within time. Stump, Kretzmann, Leftow and Helm are representatives of the first school; Pike, Wolterstorff and the 'open theists' are representatives of the second school. There are also hybrid views, such as Craig's view that God is in time with creation and outside time sans creation, and Swinburne and Padgett's that God is in his own, unmetricated, time. The issue of God's relationship to time is of great importance to Christian philosophers since it is closely connected with other issues: many atemporalists claim that if God is omniscient he must be timeless, whereas many temporalists claim that if God is a person that relates to us humans then he must be in time. The doctrine of the incarnation also raises questions here, since it seems that Christians are committed to the claim that Jesus was divine and the claim that he was (and is) in time.

   See Helm, Paul; Leftow, Brian; time; Wolterstorff, Nicholas Paul

   Further reading: Hasker 1989; Helm 1988; Leftow 1991