Is God atemporal (existing outside of time altogether) or everlasting (existing at every moment within time)? If God is outside of time, how can He interact with a temporal universe and "act" in history?
Anonymous
8/23/2025, 1:39:08 AM
No.24661442
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>>24660548 (OP)
You might find Book XI of Augustine's Confessions of particular interest. It offers an perspective which could be considered a sort of a middle way between your proposals.
>Let them therefore see that there could be no time without a created world, and let them cease to speak vanity of this kind. Let them also be stretched out to those things which are before them, and understand that thou, the eternal Creator of all times, art before all times and that no times are coeternal with thee; nor is any creature, even if there is a creature “above time.”
Which would make him atemporal.
>Else thou wouldst not precede all periods of time. In the eminence of thy ever-present eternity, thou precedest all times past, and extendest beyond all future times, for they are still to come--and when they have come, they will be past [...] Thy “today” yields not to tomorrow and does not follow yesterday. Thy “today” is eternity.
Which seems to make him everlasting.
Anonymous
8/23/2025, 1:42:34 AM
No.24661448
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>>24660548 (OP)
an atemporal God acts on temporal reality in an analogous way as the sun acts on what's on the surface of the earth. If the sun imparts heat, then God imparts being, existence, as an efficient cause of every temporal moment of finite reality.
Anonymous
8/23/2025, 1:47:30 AM
No.24661459
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>>24661801
>>24660548 (OP)
God is not atemporal. Read up on Open Theism.
What difference does it make?
Anonymous
8/23/2025, 1:52:10 AM
No.24661469
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>>24661461
NTA, but it makes a good deal of difference when it comes to different views of God's predestination and foreknowledge. Atemporality is compatible with a Calvinist view, but not with Open Theism.
Anonymous
8/23/2025, 1:55:02 AM
No.24661475
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Here's an excerpt from Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy. Sorry it's shitty, I'm phoneposting. Boethius is following Augustine and Plotinus: for God, there is only the eternal 'now' which contains everything we experience as past, present, and future. Everything God does, he does all at once, forever. What we experience as past, present, and future is all part of God's eternal present. This is the classical doctrine of eternity.
From that, it should be clear how God can act in history.
Anonymous
8/23/2025, 4:06:12 AM
No.24661762
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>>24663451
>>24661461
Exploring the concept of God, or a higher power, can expand one's consciousness by challenging and broadening our understanding of reality, purpose, and gives us a better direction in life.
Anonymous
8/23/2025, 7:58:48 PM
No.24663447
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>>24660548 (OP)
If you have a category of "things that exist", then yes, God is outside of that.
Anonymous
8/23/2025, 8:00:09 PM
No.24663451
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>>24665054
>>24661762
>>24662397
"God" is a Freudian cope for death anxiety and a product of human weakness
Anonymous
8/24/2025, 4:28:08 AM
No.24665122
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>>24660548 (OP)
By using prophets probably
