Ordering the infinite time November 15, 2009
Posted by Alexandre Borovik in Uncategorized.trackback
Here is an example of a wonderfully consistent theological perspective on time:
In his Systematic Theology, Vol. III, Wolfhart Pannenberg argues that God as eternal comprehends the different moments of time simultaneously and orders them to constitute a whole or totality. The author contends that this approach to time and eternity might solve the logical tension between the classical notion of divine sovereignty and the common sense belief in creaturely spontaneity/human freedom. For, if the existence of the events constituting a temporal sequence is primarily due to the spontaneous decisions of creatures, and if their being ordered into a totality or meaningful whole is primarily due to the superordinate activity of God, then both God and creatures play indispensable but nevertheless distinct roles in the cosmic process.
[J. A. Bracken, A new look at time and eternity, Theology and Science, 2 no. 1 (2004), 77—88. DOI: 10.1080/1474670042000196621.]
Could you elaborate on how this is supposed to be different from, for instance, Aquinas?
But this guy seems to give us no objectively meaningful improvement over Spinoza. He just uses different words to get to the same convlusion.
Hi, I am from Australia.
How painful—seriously!
And yet this big-time talker is supposed to be an expert on religion.
By contrast please check out these related references.
http://www.dabase.org/spacetim.htm
http://www.dabase.org/christmc2.htm
http://www.adidam.org/teaching/aletheon/truth-religion.aspx
I don’t understand why this is so wonderful. Seems to me that the concept of free will is already contingent upon time being ordered beforehand. (e.g., I see an apple, THEN I decide I want it)