God, Time, and Eternity IX

Analogy of God as Spaceless
We have touched on God and analogy several times in Sunday School and I think that we are all pretty familiar with analogies so I don't think I need to go over this too much, but if this portion becomes confusing (which I can't imagine happening :) please post a question concerning analogies. God's relationship to space has often been considered by theologians analogously and so has God's relationship to time. Now, Feinberg considers some examinations on the subject from Schleiermacher who explains that God has a lack of spacial extension or he does not fill space with height, weight and so forth. A corollary position must then be considered; God has no contrasts within space. He is not above or below an object at a particular measurement. In the same vein as his relationship to space so also is his relationship to time, both temporal extension and temporal location. To be more clear, he lacks extension in time and location in time. The assumption of this proposition is that time and space are related in a similar manner so much so that what is true for the spacial proposition is true for the temporal proposition. Feinberg only offers a summery of a bigger argument. Essentially if God is proven to be timeless then he is spaceless, however those who oppose Atemporalism are attempting to prove that God is in time and therefore in space which is against traditional Christian doctrine.

This is an intriguing argument and I am disappointed that Feinberg didn't cover it in more detail. I will leave it up to you to determine the strength or weakness of this position. In my personal opinion it seems a bit flimsy. It may even come a bit close to violating the excluded middle which says that because two things are similar it does not follow that they are the same. I think that time and space are very closely linked (although I have friends who are persuading me to rethink this position) but for this argument to be effective it needs more assurance in this regard.

Temporal God Leads to Process Theism
This argument is used to demonstrate the consequences of adopting an alternative position. If God is temporal then he may not be immutable and if he is not immutable than he may not be impassible. He could experience reactionary emotions and suffer just like any human. If God is in time then he can not know all of time at once. One could say that God knows the future while in time, but this would be a strict determinism (I think Feinberg is a determinist of some kind and it should be interesting seeing how he deals with this because he does favor the atemporal position). Because Indeterminists hold to their position so strongly it has led some to deny that God has any foreknowledge at all. If the stakes are this high should not one be careful about adopting a position that would lead to heresy? Due to the fact that the other attributes of God are so clearly stated in scripture then this argument carries a lot of weight.

Next time we will begin Feinberg's session on arguments against timeless eternity. Some of these arguments are very long and may take several sessions just to cover one so your feedback could be helpful. I don't mind the arguments being difficult and wading through them but I don't want you to have to wade through formatting issues so keep me informed as to how I can help.