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Doing Hard Time: Is God the Prisoner of the Oldest Dimension?

2014; Volume: 2; Linguagem: Inglês

10.12978/jat.2014-1.17-51-51122018a

2330-2380

R. T. Mullins,

Religion and Society Interactions

In this paper I shall consider an objection to divine temporality called Prisoner of objection. I shall begin by distinguishing divine timelessness from divine temporality in order to clear up common misunderstandings and caricatures of divine temporality. From there I shall examine the prisoner of time objection and explain why the prisoner of time objection fails to be a problem for the Christian divine temporalist. During the 20 th Century, various Christian philosophers and theologians have rejected divine timelessness. This is not an entirely new phenomena; one can find philosophers and theologians from the Reformation on rejecting divine timelessness. Thinkers like Pierre Gassendi, Isaac Newton, Samuel Clarke, and John Tillotson all rejected the doctrine of divine timelessness long ago for philosophical, theological, scientific, and biblical reasons. 1 For these thinkers, time is a necessary concomitant of God's eternal nature. Despite the efforts of these thinkers, the doctrine of divine timelessness continued to play a central role in Christian theology until the 20 th Century. During the 20 th Century, and the beginning of this century, one can find a more wide spread rejection of divine timelessness amongst Christian philosophers and systematic theologians. Some of these rejections have been quite rigorous, while others have been misguided. The more recent widespread rejection of the atemporal God has led many into the loving arms of the temporal God. However, divine temporality is not without its critics. Divine atemporality refuses to lay down and die. Various criticisms against divine temporality have been offered to the effect that it destroys Christian doctrine and practice. Replies to these critiques have been put forth, yet some objections do not seem to be so easy to bury. One objection in particular seems to keep coming up giving the impression that divine temporalists have not offered a thorough reply. This objection is known as The Prisoner of Time objection. Before examining and refuting this objection it will be helpful to get clear on what the differences are between divine timelessness and divine temporality. It is important to get clear on these differences because many contemporary critics offer 1 (Charleton 1654) (Alexander 1956) (Clarke 1998, 122-3) (Tillotson 1700, 355-60) The Socinians seem to have rejected divine timelessness as well. The Racovian Catechism says that God's eternity consists only in existing without beginning and without end. (Socinus, et al. 1652, 16) (Gorham 2009,