The Timelessness of God

This book explains the classical Christian doctrine of God's timelessness and defends it against contemporary philosophical criticism. The historical background and discussion of this concept is reviewed from Parmenides to the present, and particular note is made that the doctrine cannot be detached from the various metaphysical systems in which it is embedded. The full range of recent major attempts from Karl Barth through process philosophy to the work of Stump and Kretzmann are examined and rejected as inadequate to deal with this problem. A breakthrough is found in the concept of a non-temporal causation by which God simultaneously creates and preserves the full course of finite space-time existence. Contents: The Classical Concept of Divine Eternity; The Nature of Time; Some Contemporary Attempts to Solve the Time-Eternity Problem; Eternity as Continuous Creation; The Personal Redeemer; The Problem of Foreknowledge; The Divine Eternity and Human Freedom; and Providence and Perfection.