I have edited out the name of my interlocutor since this was a private correspondence.

From: Michael Sudduth <msudduth@ix.netcom.com>

To: Mr X

Subject: Re: Calvin on timelessness

Date: Saturday, April 01, 2000 9:11 PM

Mr X,

*********************

By the end of my response, I am convinced that we have actually both been misreading the passage in

II Peter. :-) So take my first comments as preliminary.

[Mr X wrote]

>Well, it seems to me that nearly everyone who wants to argue that God is in

>time (Wolterstorff, Pike, Swinburne, Kenny) does so because of some

>relation God is supposed to bear *to the creation*. That is, he must be

>able to know what time it is now, he must be able to act in our history, to

>become incarnated, to coexist with us, to sustain the world, etc. That

>being said, isn't it the case that advocates of God everlasting will hold

>that God's time strand has a topology *and a metric*?

Yes, that's right, though a topology of time is supposed to be absolute and exists prior to creation. God

willingly submits himself to a metric of time in the act of creation. That's how it is supposed to go with

Swinburne and others.

[Mr X wrote]

>Indeed, it seems that most will hold with Swinburne that when God created

>the universe, a metric was established for his time strand. And that metric

>is identical to ours. God is our contemporary. He knows the time, can act

>in history, and can sustain the creation.

Right. That would be the view of most temporalists.

[Mr X wrote]

>Now, if this is the claim, then Peter's assertion seems to pose a direct

>challenge to this. It's not just that God's metric is 'different' from

>ours, so that one of his days is equal to one of our millenniums. The claim

>is rather that one of God's days is equal to one of our millenniums *and*

>that one of God's millenniums is equal to one of our days.

O.K.

[T] Given any divine person G and human person H, one day for G = 1000 years for H and 1000

years for G = 1 day for H.

From this I admit that it follows that there is a radical incommensurability between God and humans

with respect to the terms in question, namely "1 day"and "1 thousand years." But since each of the

terms is a temporal notion, all that follows is an incommensurability between God's time and ours. God's

time is not ours. God does not measure time as we do. And this is all the Peter passage is interested in

proving. I see no way at all to deduce from this passage that God is *timeless,* lacking all temporal

extension. After all, even if the passage entails that there is no metrical time for God and there is metrical

time for us, it would not follow that God is timeless. To be timeless is also be outside a temporal topology.

There is no way, I repeat no way, you can deduce this from the Peter passage. The passage

simply undermines this issue of whether God is outside or time or within time.

[Mr X wrote]

>The conjunction

>is crucial. Peter not only repeats the Mosaic ratio (millennium=day) but

>reverses it (day=millennium). But in that case it's not true that a

>thousand years seems like a day to God in proportion to his everlasting

>duration, for Peter also states the converse. But in real time, a day and a

>millennium are not interchangeable.

How does this establish this God lacks time altogether? It sounds more like a being in a mere topology

of time. Read Richard's account of that if you haven't already. It would be equivalent I suspect to

what Aquinas thought the angels experience.

[Mr X wrote]

>Given the uncontroversial thesis that our (human) time strand *has* a

>metric, Peter's claim seems to be an implicit reduction to absurdity of the

>notion that God's time strand has any metric at all. For if it did have a

>metric, then Peter's claims couldn't *both* be true at the same time.

Well, I'm not convinced of that since the very terms entail (if taken literally) metrical time. But even

if you are correct, timelessness does not follow.

>At

>most only one of them could, for Peter makes contradictory claims about

>the relation of God's metric to ours; if one is true, the other cannot be.

Well, that depends on a certain reading of the text. I don't think this conclusion is obvious.

Here is where I want to sing a different tune.

Let's note what Scripture actually says first.

"But beloved be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and

a thousand years is as one day."

Now we have been assuming thus far that the phrase "with the Lord" refers to God's actual experience,

so that we deduce one divine day is as a thousand human years. But on what basis do we make such a

deduction. The phrase "with the Lord" could simply mean "as far as God is concerned." Hence the

meaning of the passage would be, "as far as God is concerned a human day is like a thousand human years,

and moreover, a thousand human years are like a single human day." In this case, what is being compared

is not God's actual experience with ours, but God's perspective of our experience of a day vs. a thousand years.

I'm sure there are other possibilities. But this is one of them. And it underminds any attempt to derive a

contradiction as you have. There is no contradiction in saying that from God's viewpoint, what we regard as

one human day is like a thousand human years and what we regard as a thousand years is like a human day.

Why say this? Because contextually thepassage is concerned with addressing the tendency of Christians to

Become disappointed as time passes and divine promises are not fulfilled. Peter's point could simply be,

"Look, God has his time own table regarding what will happen. Hence he does measure our days as we do."

Note the following verse, "the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as men count slackness, but

is longsuffering toward us ward."

Secondly, notice that you are assuming in your argument that the text says or means that a thousand

divine years = one human day and 1 divine day = a thousand human days. Oh that Scripture were so

obvious! :-) The text says no such thing. It says that with the Lord one day is *as* a thousand years

and thousand years is as on day. There is an analogy being drawn here. You then have to ask, in what

sense does the analogy hold. What is meant by these statements individually. This is precisely the point

at issue and many different possibilities present themselves here, especially given the points introduced

above. Perhaps Peter is simply saying, what we regard as a short time is, given God's plans, really to be

viewed in the long run, factoring in all His plans (like the ones mentioned in the passage), and what we

see as far off is very much near, because God's plans for the future factor in what is happening now.

Blah blah. There are lots of other possibilities. But this gives you an idea of the moves that can be made

I think. Incidentally, commentators usually make these sorts of points, so it seems to be the natural reading

of theologians. Much philosophy makes thee mad! :-)

[Mr. X wrote]

>At the very least, this passage seems to challenge the thinking of those

>who say that God must be in time because he must literally be our

>contemporary. He may have been around forever, yet as of creation, his

>time-line is concomitant with ours. On this construal, there is no

>difference between a day for us and a day for him, a year for us and a year

>for him. But this completely subverts the contrast drawn by Peter.

Well, subject to the points I made above. The point of the passage may be more about us than God.

And even if you are correct, the negation of temporal metric does not entail timelessness. Originally

that was the point your friend made about the passage. My original point was that it does not follow

that God is timeless. Although I admit that the passage probably does not teach that God's metric is

different than ours, on further examination it doesn't look like the passage is really interested in discussing

God's experience but rather our experience in relation to God's plans. In this way the passage would be

consistent with God being subject to metrical time, even the same metrical time as our own. My second

argument was that even if the passage entails that God has no termporal metric, it does not follow

that God is timeless. God could still be subject to a topology of time.

[Mr X wrote]

>Does this make any sense? You said there is lack of metrical

>commensurability. But that would be the case if Peter only said 'God's

>millennium=one human day'. But he said more. He said what he said and then

>reversed it. If there's two metrics involved (one on the divine side, and

>the other on the human side), then we seem to have a flat contradiction as

>to the relation of those metrics.

Right, but the passage makes no reference to God's day or millenium anyhow, it says that 'with the Lord",

and one can plausibly take that in different ways. So the contradiction that you are adducing rests on several

interpretative assumptions that everlasting folks will reject.

[Mr X wrote]

>But if, to avoid the contradiction, we

>retreat to saying that there's only one metric involved (mere topology on

>the divine side, but a metric on the human side), then we don't get what

>the advocate of God everlasting wants: a divine metric that begins at

>creation and continues onwards to the present.

Right, but I wasn't interested in getting what the temporalist wants, only in undercutting the claim

(that you introduced) that the passage supports God's timeless eternity. I think not. I was only

suggesting that the passage could be interpreted in a way consistent with the temporalist position. The

point I have consistently expressed for several years now is that the explicit statements of Scripture and

their uncontroversial entailments underdetermine the question of God's eternity, whether is it timelessness

(of one sort of another) or temporality (of one sort or another).

[Mr X wrote]

>It seems to me that the only position that does justice to the magnitude of

>Peter's contrast is the one that underscores God's absolute >transcendence:

>divine timelessness. If we give God a metric, then Peter is contradicting

>himself. If we give God a topology but no metric, then we don't have what

>the temporalist advocates want.

Again, you are assuming many things about the passage itself that I am dubious about. First, you are

assuming that "with the Lord" refers to God actual experience (of days and millennia). Secondly, you

have omitted the analogical dimension to the contrast, namely that one thing (day/millennium)

is said to be *like* another thing (day/millennium). Third, contextually the passage is emphasing how

human's measure time in relation to God's plans (not God's actual experience of the things that take place

in those plans). When these points are introduced, the claim that the passage entails the negation of the

temporalist view (of God in our metric) seems sufficiently undercut in my view. And even if you could

undercut or otherwise refute the notion that God is subject to our metric or any metric of time on the basis

of this passage, God's timeless eternity does not follow. But you say, the option is not want the temporalist

wants, a God is a mere topological time strand. No doubt. But timelessness is not what the temporalist wants

either, so what does that establish. The issue here is not accommodating the temporalist view, which may be

mistaken in some respect, but determining what inference one can draw from Scripture. The issue is whether

Scripture supports timelessness over a topological time strand. I say, no way. It supports neither.

[Mr X wrote]

>I'm not sure I get your point. Why does the conclusion *require* that

>'human metrical time is all the time there is'? I don't see how that

>assumption is part of the reasoning.

Well, this point does not apply to your above argument, as you have given a broad sweep. So I take this

back. :-)

[Mr X wrote]

>Now, you say that 'the only entailment of the Peter passage is that one

>measure of time is not equivalent to another.' But again, that would be the

>case if Peter merely said 'millennium=day'. But if Peter goes on to assert

>precisely the opposite ratio, how can *both* ratios be true of the *same*

>set of metrics?

But he doesn't. He gives no ratios, for he says one thing is like another. Nor does he say that the

things being compared fall into the categories of God's day/human millennium and God's millennium/human

day. Rather he says that "With the Lord," which could simply mean, "as far as God is concerned" one of days is

like a thousand and thousand of our days is like a single day. This is quite true when God's plans and purposes

are in view, and the context is emphasizing this point.

****************

Peace,

Michael