This dual-language book is a translation of John Pecham’s De aeternitate mundi (On the Eternity of the World), written probably in 1270. Pecham was born in England around 1230. He pursued studies in Paris, where he may have been a student of Roger Bacon’s, and at Oxford. He returned to Paris some time between 1257 and 1259 to study theology and in 1269-1270 became magister theologiae. It was at this time that he presumably wrote the essay translated here, and (...) presented it as part of his inception, the equivalent of a doctrinal defense, in 1271, when he sought to become a magister regens, a member of the theological faculty. While Pecham was studying in Paris, two controversial theological "innovations" were being debated. The first issue involved the founding of the mendicant orders (Franciscans and Dominicans) in the first decade of the thirteenth century. Their active moving about, preaching and teaching, represented a departure from the established Rule of St. Benedict in which Orders were largely confined to monasteries. The second debate was over the introduction of the "new" philosophy of Aristotle. The Dominicans and Franciscans found themselves allied against the Latin Averroists (or Radical Aristotelians) on such issues as the unicity of the intellect and the assertion of the world’s eternity in the sense that is was not created. The two Orders disagreed, however, on the truth of other Aristotelian theses such as the unicity of substantial form and the demonstrability of the world’s having a beginning in time. On another front, having to do with the legitimacy of the Dominicans and Franciscans interpretation of religious life, the two Orders united under attacks from the secular clergy. Pecham, a Franciscan, witnessed his Order allied with the Dominicans against Averroists and secular clergy, and at odds with them over Aristotelianism in orthodox theology. During this tumultuous time Pecham met, and probably discussed his inception with Thomas, and his position on the eternity of the world can be compared to the treatment of the topic found in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure. In 1279, Pecham was named the Archbishop of Canterbury by Pope Nicolas III, in this position it was expected that he carry out reforms mandated by the Council of Lyons. The ruling of that council included the eradication of the Averroists radical departures from theological philosophy and some of the theses held by the Thomists. Pecham died in 1291, no doubt in disappointment that the reforms for which he had strived never came to pass. (shrink)
He was always before me in reaching the solution of any difficult passage, and I was con stantly impressed by the readiness with which he brought to our aid ...
This paper addresses three issues. In the first part the relation between consciousness and time is being discussed as it developed in the history of philosophy and theology. This covers Plato, Plotinus and St. Augustine. It continues in the second part to describe that time is being perceived in the mystical consciousness as eternity which means in this context timelessness. Examples from world religions are offered. The question is asked if this eternity in mystical experience can be understood (...) as relating to the eternity of God or as a mere self-experience. In order to settle this question mystical experiences are being interpreted from the angle of modern neuroscience as the result of self-organizing processes of meditation that can be described as attractors. In the final third part it is suggested to discern the eternity of mystical states of mind as timelessness from eternity as an attribute of the triune God. (shrink)
I use Jonathan Bennett’s, Gilles Deleuze’s and Pierre Macherey’s interpretations of Spinoza to extract a theory of time and duration from Spinoza. I argue that although time can be considered a product of the imagination, duration is a real property of existing things and corresponds to their essence, taking essence (as Deleuze does) as a degree of power of existing. The article then explores the relations among time, duration, essence and eternity, arguing against the idea that Spinoza’s essences or (...) Spinoza’s eternity are atemporal. Essences and eternity both involve necessary references to time, but the time involved is not that of the “fortuitous sequence of events” apprehended through sensory experience. Rather, the “time” is that implicit in the necessity of God’s self-determination through God’s differentiation into natura naturans and natura naturata, which is involved in the production and differentiation of eternal essences. (shrink)
According to an important set of medieval arguments, it is impossible to make a distinction between creation and conservation on the assumption of a beginningless universe. The argument is that, on such an assumption, either God is never causally sufficient for the existence of the universe, or, if He is at one time causally sufficient for the existence of the universe, He is at all times causally sufficient for the universe, and occasionalism is true. I defend the claim that these (...) arguments are successful. Since Christian theology requires a distinction between creation and conservation, arguments in favour of the possible eternity of the world fail. (shrink)
According to a widespread tradition in philosophical theology, God is necessarily simple and eternal. One objection to this view of God’s nature is that it would rule out God having foreknowledge of non-determined, free human actions insofar as simplicity and eternity are incompatible with God’s knowledge being causally dependent on those actions. According to this view, either (a) God must causally determine the free actions of human agents, thus leading to a theological version of compatibilism, or (b) God cannot (...) know, and thus cannot respond to, the free actions of human agents. In the present paper, I argue that one can consistently maintain that God is not causally dependent on anything, even for His knowledge, without being committed to either (a) or (b). In other words, an eternal God can know the free actions of agents even if libertarianism is true. (shrink)
Their contributions range from analyzing and defending classical conceptions of eternity (Boethius's and Aquinas's) to vindicating everlastingness accounts, and ...
A difficulty for a view of divine eternity as timelessness is that if time is tensed, then God, in virtue of His omniscience, must know tensed facts. But tensed facts, such as It is now t, can only be known by a temporally located being.Defenders of divine atemporality may attempt to escape the force of this argument by contending either that a timeless being can know tensed facts or else that ignorance of tensed facts is compatible with divine omniscience. (...) Kvanvig, Wierenga, and Leftow adopt both of these strategies in their various defenses of divine timelessness. Their respective solutions are analyzed in detail and shown to be untenable.Thus, if the theist holds to a tensed view of time, he should construe divine eternity in terms of omnitemporality. (shrink)
Max Jammer has recently proposed a model of God's eternity based on the special theory of relativity, offering it as an example of how theologians should take into account what physicists say about the world. I start evaluating this proposal by a quick look at the classic Boethius-Aquinas model of divine eternity. The major objection I advance against Jammer refers to Einstein's subtle kind of realism. I offer various reasons to show that Einstein's realism was minimal. Moreover, even (...) this minimal realism has been undermined by recent experimental work. If Jammer is suggesting that theologians should take Einstein's physics seriously because it describes the world, his argument is unconvincing because it doesn't address the crucial question of Einstein's realism, which makes all the difference. /// O artigo toma em consideração o modelo acerca da eternidade de Deus baseado na teoria especial da relatividade de Einstein recentemente proposto por Max Jammer, autor que considera ser este um exemplo de como os teólogos deveriam tomar em consideração aquilo que os físicos dizem acerca do mundo. O autor do artigo começa por fazer uma avaliação desta proposta mediante uma breve referência ao modelo clássico de Boécio e S. Tomás acerca da eternidade divina. A principal objecção levantada pelo artigo contra Jammer tem a ver com a forma subtil de realismo de Einstein. Segundo o autor do artigo, o realismo de Einstein era mínimo. Mais ainda, mesmo este realismo mínimo foi minado por trabalhos experimentais mais recentes. Com efeito, se Jammer sugere que os teólogos devem tomar a sério a física de Einstein baseados na presunção de que esta descreve o mundo, então o seu argumento, diz o autor do artigo, não convence na medida em que não trata da questão crucial acerca do realismo de Einstein, questão esta que sem dúvida faz toda a diferença. (shrink)
Proclus composed 18 arguments for the eternity of the world and they survive only because Philoponus, intending to refute Proclus' arguments one by one, quotes each; one copy of Philoponus' work -- and so Proclus' arguments too -- survives. Because of their odd history, these arguments have received little attention either in themselves or in relation to Proclus' other works, even though they are intrinsically interesting and reflect his larger philosophical enterprise. I first examine Argument XVIII, in which Proclus (...) calls on "perpetuity", "eternity", and "time" to argue that the cosmos must be eternal. This argument leaves unanswered two important questions. The cosmos is caused by god and is itself a god; how can a cause and its effect both be gods? Proclus concludes that the cosmos is "a copy of the perpetuity of the eternal"; but what does this phrase -- and the conclusion that it expresses -- mean? To answer these questions, I turn to "The Elements of Theology," a systematic progression of 211 propositions disclosing the causal structure of all reality. "Eternity" and "time", along with "being perpetual", also appear here, particularly in propositions 40-55, to which I turn in the second part of this paper. They are conjoined with what Proclus calls "the Self-Constituted". I argue that by understanding the relation of the Self-Constituted as a cause to its effect, what depends upon another, we can also understand the causal relation between god and the cosmos. The cosmos can be called divine because, via the cause/effect relation between them, god and the cosmos are both eternal; the cosmos is "a copy of the perpetuity of the eternal" because via its relation to god, the cosmos becomes what its cause is, and in this precise sense an effect "imitates" its cause. (shrink)
This paper develops a detailed reading of Deleuze's philosophical study of Bacon's triptychs in Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. It examines his claims regarding their apparent non-narrative status, and explores the capacity of the triptychs to embody and express a spiritual sensation of the eternity of time.
Preface, by F. L. Windolph.--A modern concept of God, by A. H. Compton.--The immortality of man, by J. Maritain.--The idea of God in the mind of man, by M. Royden.--Psychical research and the life beyond death, by H. Hart.--Religion and modern knowledge, by R. Niebuhr.--Immortality in the light of science and philosophy, by W. E. Hocking.--"To whom shall ye liken God?" By C. E. Park.--Man's destiny in eternity, by W. L. Sperry.--The idea of God as affected by modern knowledge, (...) by F. S. C. Northrop. (shrink)
Rory Fox challenges the traditional understanding that Thomas Aquinas believed that God exists totally outside of time. His study investigates the work of several mid-thirteenth-century writers, including Albert the Great and Bonaventure as well as Aquinas, examining their understanding of the topological and metrical properties of time. Fox thus provides access to a wealth of material on medieval concepts of time and eternity, while using the conceptual tools of modern analytic philosophy to express his conclusions.
In this paper I argue that the classic concept of eternity, as it is presented in Boethius, Anselm and Aquinas, must be understood to involve not only the claim that all temporal things are epistemically present to God, but also the claim that all temporal things areexistentially present to God insofar as they coexist timelessly in the eternal present. I further argue that the concept of eternity requires a tenseless view of time. If this is correct then the (...) existence of an eternal God logically depends on the truth of the tenseless account of time. I conclude by suggesting that the Christian theologian ought to reject a tenseless ontology. (shrink)
Scotus consistently holds that eternity is to be understood as timelessness. In his early Lectura, he criticizes Aquinas’ account of eternity on the grounds that (1) it entails collapsing past and future into the present, and (2) it entails a B-theory of time, according to which past, present and future are all ontologically on a par with each other. Scotus later comes to accept something like Aquinas’ account of God’s timelessness and the B-theory of time which it entails. (...) Scotus also offers a refutation of his earlier argument that Aquinas’ account of eternity entails collapsing past and future into the present. (shrink)
The book Time and Eternity , the English version of Zeit und Ewigkeit , by Antje Jackelén, contains scientific and theological treatments of these two topics, starting with the usage of such ideas in German, Swedish, and English hymns. This essay describes her work and explains how the scientific ideas provide a coherent framework for understanding the place of time.
There are two ways in which Ghazali contributes to the discussion of whether God exists: by arguing for the existence of God, and by arguing against certain views which, in his opinion, stand in the way of truly believing that God exists. In this paper I examine Ghazali’s argument from creation and his refutation or the philosophers’ second proof for the eternity or the world. My purpose will be to argue that: firstly, Ghazali’s argument and his refutation are based (...) on incompatible views of time, and cannot, therefore, both be maintained. Secondly, Ghazali fails to establish the one interesting premiss which he employs in his argument from creation. (shrink)
Antje Jackelén's Time and Eternity successfully employs the method of correlation and a close study of the question of time to enter the dialogue between science and theology. Hermeneutical attention to language is a central element of this dialogue, but we must be aware that much science is untranslatable into ordinary language; it is when we get to the bigger metaphysical assumptions of science that true dialogue begins to happen. Thus, although the method of correlation is a useful way (...) to approach this dialogue, there is not a strict equivalence in this relationship. Theology needs science more than science needs theology. In speaking of time and God we must keep in mind the relational nature of classical Christian theism, even in its most austere forms. We should not read Enlightenment ideas of God back into the classical Christian tradition or neglect the apophatic emphasis in Christian theism, which warned against assuming knowledge of the divine nature. God's relation to time always lies beyond our understanding. Studying the effects of either the Newtonian or Einsteinian concepts of time on our theological concepts should not detract our attention from the "lived time" that characterizes human experience. Consideration of the notion of time in the Madhyamaka Buddhist tradition reminds us that we cannot control the inner reality of time and that for humans time is something to be considered pragmatically. (shrink)
Spinoza’s ideas on the eternity of the human mind have sparked much controversy. As opposed to most commentators, I argue that since substance is eternal, and the human mind can only be conceived in substance, the human mind must also be eternal. Only from a finite and partial view can the human mind be conceived of as having duration.
Anselm holds that God is simple, eternal, and immutable, and that He creates “necessarily”—He “must” create this world. Avicenna and Averroes made the same claims, and derived as entailments that God neither knows singulars nor interacts with the spatio-temporal universe. I argue that Anselm avoids these unpalatableconsequences by being the first philosopher to adopt, clearly and consciously, a four-dimensionalist understanding of time, in which all of time is genuinely present to divine eternity. This enables him to defend the divine (...) perfections in question, and the claim that God creates “necessarily,” while still maintaining the position that God knows singulars and acts in the physical world—in one, immutable, and eternal act. (shrink)
Proclus composed 18 arguments for the eternity of the world and they survive only because Philoponus, intending to refute Proclus' arguments one by one, quotes each; one copy of Philoponus' work -- and so Proclus' arguments too -- survives. Because of their odd history, these arguments have received little attention either in themselves or in relation to Proclus' other works, even though they are intrinsically interesting and reflect his larger philosophical enterprise. I first examine Argument XVIII, in which Proclus (...) calls on "perpetuity", "eternity", and "time" to argue that the cosmos must be eternal. This argument leaves unanswered two important questions. The cosmos is caused by god and is itself a god; how can a cause and its effect both be gods? Proclus concludes that the cosmos is "a copy of the perpetuity of the eternal"; but what does this phrase -- and the conclusion that it expresses -- mean? To answer these questions, I turn to "The Elements of Theology," a systematic progression of 211 propositions disclosing the causal structure of all reality. "Eternity" and "time", along with "being perpetual", also appear here, particularly in propositions 40-55, to which I turn in the second part of this paper. They are conjoined with what Proclus calls "the Self-Constituted". I argue that by understanding the relation of the Self-Constituted as a cause to its effect, what depends upon another, we can also understand the causal relation between god and the cosmos. The cosmos can be called divine because, via the cause/effect relation between them, god and the cosmos are both eternal; the cosmos is "a copy of the perpetuity of the eternal" because via its relation to god, the cosmos becomes what its cause is, and in this precise sense an effect "imitates" its cause. (shrink)
Antje Jackelén's book Time and Eternity is a thorough and carefully presented theology of time and, by its very essence, an incomplete and open thought model because time will always be dynamic and relational. This approach is an excellent example for the dialogue between science and religion because it uses resources not tapped in the dialogue so far: hymn-books stemming from Germany, Sweden, and the English-speaking world published between 1975 and 1995. They are taken as resources for a critical (...) investigation on the meaning and importance of the notion of eternity for the interdisciplinary dialogue, which is characterized not as a synthesis but as holding a beneficial tension, or "eutonia." I suggest that this approach can be taken even further by merging it with a model of time developed by the German mathematician A. M. Klaus Müller: The crossing over of time modes in a relational matrix of time also gives clear insights into the time of God not only as futurum —time as extrapolation of the past and present—but also as adventus —time which is to come. (shrink)
The central debate of natural theology among medieval Muslims and Jews concerned whether or not the world was eternal. Opinions divided sharply on this issue because the outcome bore directly on God's relationship with the world: eternity implies a deity bereft of will, while a world with a beginning leads to the contrasting picture of a deity possessed of will. In this exhaustive study of medieval Islamic and Jewish arguments for eternity, creation, and the existence of God, Herbert (...) Davidson provides a systematic classification of the proofs, analyzes and explains them, and traces their sources in Greek philosophy. Throughout the study, Davidson tries to take into account every argument of a philosophical character, disregarding only those arguments that rest entirely on religious faith or which fall below a minimal level of plausibility. (shrink)
Part of the recent neglect of eternity comes from a poor definition of it as static abstraction, as mere form, or even robust form that is not so mere. This, of course, could not be what the ancients such as Origin or Plotinus must have meant when they claimed that God is eternal, and thus more real than things that change. Therefore, my first task here is to develop a contemporary theory of eternity that is worth being an (...) orientation point for time in education. I argue that the importance of eternity for education lies in the fact that true human identity—and the identity of such human affairs as might exhibit the obligations of responsibility—are eternal as well as temporal. Temporally we live day by day, with the date of the present determining the past that is actual and fixed and the future that is open in various structured ways. The temporal structure of life as such is insufficient to account for moral identity with any sense of responsibility for acting through time. In the following, I will illustrate this point and then draw a lesson about eternity from it. (shrink)
In this paper I defend the eternity solution to the problem of human freedom and divine foreknowledge. After motivating the problem, I sketch the basic contours of the eternity solution. I then consider several objections which contend that the eternity solution falsely implies that we have various powers (e.g., to change God’s beliefs, or to affect the past) which, according to the objector, we do not in fact have.
Many people still believe in life after death, but modern institutions operate as though this were the only world - eternity is now eclipsed from view in society and even in the church. This book carefully observes the eclipse - what caused it, how full is it, what are its consequences, will it last? How significant is recent interest in near-death experiences and reincarnation?
Hegel and Nietzsche stood opposed to the monastic tradition which they saw as based upon a denial of the intrinsic value of this life. Both sought to install eternity in this life and not seek for it in an afterlife. Central to both, and contrary to common caricatures of Hegel, is the notion of the heart, the aspect of total subjective participation, which is the locus of a fully concrete reason understood in Hegel’s sense. It is also central to (...) Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov where the heart of Fr. Zosima, while yet rooted in the encompassing eternality of God, overcomes the contempt for the earth of Fr. Ferapont and leads Alyosha to embrace his vocation in the world. Hegel developed the fundamental categories that allows us to comprehend the situation. (shrink)
[I] Introduction The Western religions all claim that God is eternal. This claim finds strong expression in the Old Testament, which is common property of ...
A number of authors, including contributors to this journal, have argued that the only consistent interpretation of God's eternal existence attributes to God an atemporal existence. Their argument seeks to show that it would be self-contradictory to adopt the opposing interpretation that God exists in time, and has indeed existed for an infinite past time. This paper argues that their objections to infinite past existence all turn on a misunderstanding of what that concept involves. The theist is therefore not compelled (...) to adopt the atemporal interpretation, but can instead adopt the more intuitively intelligible thesis that God is in time. (shrink)
This article addresses the problem of divine foreknowledge and human freedom by developing a modified version of Boethius' solution to the problem – one that is meant to cohere with a dynamic theory of time and a conception of God as temporal. I begin the article by discussing the traditional Boethian solution, and a defence of it due to Kretzmann and Stump. After canvassing a few of the objections to this view, I then go on to offer my own modified (...) Boethian solution, according to which temporal reality is fundamentally dynamic, but truth is not. My claim is that there are eternally existing, tenseless propositions, with determinate truth values, but that these are made true by events that come into existence, and are not themselves eternal. (shrink)
Boethius and Augustine of Hippo are two of the fountainheads from which the long tradition of regarding God’s existence as timelessly eternal has flowed, a tradition which has influenced not only Christianity, but Judaism and Islam, too. But though the two have divine eternality in common, I shall argue that in other respects, in certain crucial respects, they differ significantly over how they articulate that notion.
The aim of this paper is to clarify Spinoza’s views on some of the most fundamental issues of his metaphysics: the nature of God’s attributes, the nature of existence and eternity, and the relation between essence and existence in God. While there is an extensive literature on each of these topics, it seems that the following question was hardly raised so far: What is, for Spinoza, the relation between God’s existence and the divine attributes? Given Spinoza’s claims that there (...) are intimate connections between God’s essence and his existence – “God’s essence and his existence are one and the same”(E1p20) – and between God’s essence and the attributes – “By attribute I understand what the intellect perceives of substance, as constituting its essence” (E1d4), we would naturally expect that by transitivity, there is a significant relation between God’s existence and the attributes. Yet, as far as I know, there is little, if any, attempt in the existing literature to explicate such a relation, and it is one of my aims of this study to both raise the question and answer it. Eventually, I will argue that for Spinoza God is nothing but existence, and that the divine attributes are just fundamental kinds of existence, or, what is the same, as I will later argue, the intellect’s most fundamental and adequate conceptions of existence. In the first part of the paper I provide some background for Spinoza’s brief discussion in the TTP of God’s name and essence by studying the claims of Maimonides in the Guide of the Perplexed that God’s true essence is necessary existence, and that this essence is denoted by the ineffable Hebrew name of God, the Tetragrammaton (YHVH). In the second part of the paper I point out similar claims Spinoza presents in the TTP, and show how they respond to and echo Maimonides’ discussion in the Guide. In the third part, I examine Spinoza’s apparently conflicting claims in the Ethics about the relationship between God’s essence and existence. In some places Spinoza claims that God’s essence and existence are strictly identical (E1p10: “God’s essence his existence are one and the same”), but in other passages he makes the apparently much more modest claim that God’s essence involves existence (E1d1, E1p7d and E1p11d), which may lead one to believe that there is more to God’s essence than mere existence. I show that Spinoza’s understanding of the relation denoted by the Latin ‘involvit’ is consistent with the strict identification of essence and existence in God, and that Spinoza identifies God’s essence with self-necessitated existence, or eternity. Indeed, Spinoza’s understanding of eternity [aeternitas] as self-necessitated existence (E1d8) is one of the very few Spinozistic concepts that has no trace in Descartes. In this part I will also solve the long-standing problem of the sense in which the infinite modes can be called ‘eternal.’ In the fourth part I turn to the relation between the divine attributes and God’s existence and argue that, for Spinoza, the attributes are self-sufficient and adequate conceptions of existence. Finally, I will attempt to explain what brought Spinoza to deify existence. -/- Part I: “In that Day shall God be One, and his Name One”- Maimonides on God’s Name and Essence. -/- 1.1 Before we delve into the texts, let me suggest a few distinctions between various views on the issue of the relation between essence and existence in God. The view I suspect both Maimonides and Spinoza subscribe to can be termed the divine essence-existence Identity Thesis. -/- Identity Thesis (IT): God’s essence is existence and nothing but existence. We should distinguish the Identity Thesis from the much more common view according to which God’s essence contains existence, or (which I take to be roughly the same) that existence is one of the properties or perfections which constitute God’s essence. The latter view allows for the possibility (though it does not demand) that there is more to God’s essence than bare existence (e.g., God’s essence may include omniscience, omnipotence, etc.). I will term this view the divine essence-existence Containment Thesis. (shrink)
Proclus (c.412-485) once offered an argument that Christians took to stand against the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo based on the eternity of the world and God’s perfection. John Philoponus (c.490-570) objected to this on various grounds. Part of this discussion can shed light on contemporary issues in philosophical theology on divine perfection and creation. First I will examine Proclus’ dilemma and John Philoponus’ response. I will argue that Philoponus’ fails to rebut Proclus’ dilemma. The problem is that (...) presentism is incompatible with divine simplicity, timelessness, and a strong doctrine of immutability. From there I will look at how this discussion bears on contemporary understandings of divine perfection and creation, and argue that there are at least two possible ways contemporary philosophical theologians can try to get around the dilemma. One option is to adopt four-dimensional eternalism and maintain the traditional account of the divine perfections. I argue that this option suffers from difficulties that are not compatible with Christian belief. The other option is to keep presentism and modify the divine perfections. I argue that this option is possible and preferable since our understanding of the divine perfections must be modified in light of divine revelation and the incarnation. (shrink)
phers] to be a demonstration of the fact that the human species (and in every case the species of all generable and corruptible individuals) began to exist at a time when previously it had not existed at all, a question is raised: whether, following the Philosopher’s method, the human species (and in every case any given species of generable and corruptible [individuals]) began to exist at a time when previously it had not existed at all.
I argue that Open Theism leads to a retreat from ascribing to God ‘complete omniscience’. Having surrendered this ground, the Open Theist cannot but retreat from ascribing to God complete omnipotence; the Open Theist must admit that God might perform actions which He reasonably expected would meet certain descriptions but which nevertheless do not do so. This then makes whatever goodness (in the sense of beneficence, not just benevolence) God has a matter of luck. Open Theism is committed to a (...) partially ignorant God, one who is subject to the vagaries of luck for the efficacy of at least some of His actions and for His goodness. (shrink)
An examination of time as featured in the General Theory of Relativity, which supercedes Einstein’s Special Theory, serves to rekindle the issue of the existenceof absolute time. In application to cosmology, Einstein’s General Theory yields models of the universe featuring a worldwide time which is the same for all observers in the universe regardless of their relative motion. Such a cosmic time is a rough physical measure of Newton’s absolute time, which is based ontologically in the duration of God’s being (...) and is more or less accurately recorded by physical clocks. (shrink)
In this article, I argue that Nietzsche collapses the rigid dichotomy between nature and culture, as well as body and mind, by insisting on their mutually constitutive nature. This forces him to reconceptualize the role of women, who had traditionally been considered to be wedded to both the natural realm and the body. Nietzsche hails women for their insight that culture can never capture nature, and for being attuned to the interplay between the two realms. He attributes an enormous power (...) to the maternal figure who becomes a symbol for life as a whole. Her power arouses his own resentment, and he redoubles his efforts to exclude her, once again driving a wedge between nature and culture. Key Words: feminism • Nietzsche • subjectivity • Zarathustra. (shrink)
At p.23, Leftow argues that, as a matter of physical necessity, no parcel of matter follows a discontinuous spatial path. He then uses this conclusion as a premise in a further argument to the conclusion that no non-theistic scenarios involving contingently existing entities could yield a sure way to gain evidence that a second time series exists. I think that there may be non-theistic scenarios involving contingently existing entities which yield ways of gaining evidence of other time series -- it (...) could be for example that our best theories about the very early universe entail that there are many disconnected regions of spacetime, each with its own time series -- so I think that the further argument cannot be any good. However, the point I want to insist on here is that his argument for the conclusion that, as a matter of physical necessity no parcel of matter follows a discontinuous spatial path, is seriously flawed. (shrink)
This volume evaluates Thomas Bradwardine's view of time as a mathematical, philosophical and theological concept within the context of ancient and medieval ...
