Abstract
Having spelt out the relationship between change, time, and relativity theory, we can now investigate the relationship between God, change, and time in the following chapters. This chapter argues that God as the foundation of being cannot be an entity which is limited or lacking in perfection in any way. On this basis, it is shown that it is impossible that God change. At first sight, this would seem to lead to the consequence that divine action is likewise impossible. However, arguments are given that, while limited beings undergo change as they act, this does not apply to God.
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Notes
- 1.
See, for example, A. Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (2000), ch. 6.
- 2.
For a systematic overview, see, for example, W. Löffler, Einführung in die Religionsphilosophie, 2nd edn (2013), ch. 3.
- 3.
W. Norris Clarke, “Is a natural theology still possible today?”, in R. J. Russell, W. R. Stoeger, G. V. Coyne (eds.) Physics, Philosophy and Theology (1988).
- 4.
Nick Bostrom argues that this hypothesis is likely to be true in “Are you living in a computer simulation”, Philosophical Quarterly (2003).
- 5.
A fine survey of similar proposals is given by P. C. W. Davies in The Goldilocks Enigma (2006). See especially pp. 295–303.
- 6.
The notion of “positive property” which I am employing here plays a key role in Gödel’s ontological argument for the existence of God. However, the contingency argument presented here is not an ontological one like Gödel’s, since it starts from the existence of limited beings as an explanandum, rather than with the notion of a perfect being, a notion which, according to the proponents of ontological arguments, implies the actual existence of such a being.
- 7.
Clarke (1998), pp. 114–115, emphases in the original.
- 8.
J. Lucas, The Future: An Essay on God, Temporality, and Truth (1989), pp. 214–216.
- 9.
God, Time, and Eternity (2001), p. 69; and Time and the Metaphysics of Relativity (2001), p. 237.
- 10.
Cf. the explication of change in Sect. 7.2. The argument that God as a perfect being cannot be subject to change was developed by Plato in Republic, 381.
- 11.
In an interesting way, the situation is very different for events: if event A causally affects B, event B in general does not causally affect A (cf. Sect. 11.2). This is always true if the events have point-like extension in time, whereas it is not true of all temporally extended events or processes.
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Saudek, D. (2020). Does God Change?. In: Change, the Arrow of Time, and Divine Eternity in Light of Relativity Theory. Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38411-1_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38411-1_12
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