The belief that an eternal-atemporal God is present to temporal beings is at the heart of Christian doctrine. The problem with such belief is that there seems to be a metaphysical barrier between them. Therefore, the doctrine of divine timelessness is incompatible with divine presence. This essay will show that such a contention is false, given that His awareness of the temporal beings will be sufficient to account for His presence. Furthermore, this is also consistent with the view (...) about the existence of deep interaction between God and human beings and of human free will. This philosophical analysis is pertinent to the proper understanding of the doctrine of divine eternity and divine presence. It also has a significant bearing on the provision for the basis of a meaningful conversation with other theological traditions, such as those living in Indonesia. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the eternity solution to the problem of human freedom and divine foreknowledge. After motivating the problem, I sketch the basic contours of the eternity solution. I then consider several objections which contend that the eternity solution falsely implies that we have various powers (e.g., to change God’s beliefs, or to affect the past) which, according to the objector, we do not in fact have.

The recent trend among many philosophers of religion has been to interpret divine eternity as an everlasting temporality in which an omnitemporal God exists in and throughout the whole of time. This is in contrast to the classical account of divine eternity as atemporal, immutable existence. In this paper, Aquinas' use of Boethius's definition of eternity as “the whole, perfect, and simultaneous possession of endless life” is analyzed and explained in contradistinction to Aristotle's definition of (...) time. This analysis is then used to respond to Nicholas Wolterstroff's argument in "God Everlasting" that God's knowledge of temporal events infects God with temporality and mutability. The argument concludes by introducing an important distinction between absolute simultaneity and temporal simultaneity, which allows us to hold God is omniscient because he is absolutely simultaneous with all events but is not temporally simultaneous with any event. (shrink)

Boethius and Augustine of Hippo are two of the fountainheads from which the long tradition of regarding God’s existence as timelessly eternal has flowed, a tradition which has influenced not only Christianity, but Judaism and Islam, too. But though the two have divine eternality in common, I shall argue that in other respects, in certain crucial respects, they differ significantly over how they articulate that notion.

Max Jammer has recently proposed a model of God’s eternity based on the special theory of relativity, offering it as an example of how theologians should take into account what physicists say about the world. I start evaluating this proposal by a quick look at the classic Boethius-Aquinas model of divine eternity. The major objec-tion I advance against Jammer refers to Einstein’s subtle kind of realism. I offer var-ious reasons to show that Einstein’s realism was minimal. Moreover, (...) even this min-imal realism has been undermined by recent experimental work. If Jammer is sug-gesting that theologians should take Einstein’s physics seriously because it de-scribes the world, his argument is unconvincing because it doesn’t address the cru-cial question of Einstein’s realism, which makes all the difference. (shrink)

Are the laws of nature among the eternal truths that, according to Descartes, are created by God? The basis of those laws is the immutability of the divine will, which is not an eternal truth, but a divine attribute. On the other hand, the realization of those laws, and in particular, the quantitative consequences to be drawn from them, depend upon the eternal truths insofar as those truths include the foundations of geometry and arithmetic.

An eternal society with the abilities of ordinary humans in each year of its existence would have had the ability to actualize a logical contradiction. This fact casts doubt on the metaphysical possibility of an infinite past. In addition to using this paradox in an argument against an infinite past, one can also use the paradox mutatis mutandis as a decisive argument against the sempiternality of God.

Open theists argue that God's relationship to time, as conceived in classical theism, is erroneous. They explain that it is contradictory for an atemporal being to act in a temporal universe, including experiencing its temporal successions. Contrary to the atemporalists, redemptive history has shown that God interacts with humans in time. This relational nature of God nullifies the classical notion of God as timelessly eternal. Therefore, it lacks a philosophical and theological basis. Because God is in time, He does not (...) know all future contingencies and, therefore, changes. This study examines open theism's appropriation of the A and B theories of time to the divine-human relationship. The study argues that divine temporality does not solve the tension of divine-human relationships, especially in relation to the future. Further, historical divine temporality does not negate the fact of divine atemporality. It mainly stems from God's choice to create temporal creatures and His relationship with them. Furthermore, if it is not logically and metaphysically contradictory for an omnipresent being to act in space, then it follows that an atemporal being can act in time. Whether time is understood from the metric or psychological point of view, it does not transcend God, and therefore, the limitation it places on human creatures with respect to the future does not apply to God. Lastly, although a few philosophers reject the notion of eternity as timelessly eternal, the doctrine has a philosophical and theological basis in the Scripture. (shrink)

In this brief dialogue I consider the humanity and morality of the doctrine of eternal punishment.

God is thought to be eternal. Does this mean that he is timeless? Or is he, rather, omnitemporal? In this paper we want to show that God cannot be omnitemporal. Our starting point, which we take from Bernard Williams’ article on the Makropulos Case, is the intuition that it is inappropriate for persons not to become bored after a sufficiently long sequence of time has passed. If God were omnitemporal, he would suffer from boredom. But God is the greatest possible (...) being and therefore cannot be bored. God, hence, is not omnitemporal. After the presentation of our argument, we address several objections by examining possible differences between human and divine persons. (shrink)

The question of cosmic beginning has always attracted considerable attention from serious thinkers past and present. Among many contesting theories that have emerged, that of emanation was appropriated by Muslim philosophers like Ibn Sînâ in order to reconcile the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of matter with the teaching of al-Qur’ân on the One Creator-God. According to this theory, the universe, which comprises a multitude of entities, is generated from a transcendent Being, the One, that is unitary, through the (...) medium of a hierarchy of immaterial substances. While the ultimate source is undiminished, the beings which are emanated are progressively less perfect as they are further removed from the first principle. The process is conceived as being atemporal and often compared to the efflux of light from a luminous body, or to water flowing from a spring. This metaphysical theory has enabled Ibn Sînâ to solve the vexed problem: given an eternally existing world and one eternally existing God, how can the two necessarily co-exist without having the perfect, simple unity of God destroyed by contact with the multiplicity of material things? The following essay delineates and evaluates both Ibn Sînâ’s arguments as well as the counter-arguments of his critics. (shrink)

The understanding of God’s mode of existence as eternal makes a significant difference to a variety of issues in contemporary philosophy of religion, including, for instance, the apparent incompatibility of divine omniscience with human freedom. But the concept has come under attack in current philosophical discussion as inefficacious to solve the philosophical puzzles for which it seems so promising. Although Boethius in the early 6th century thought that the concept could resolve the apparent incompatibility between divine foreknowledge and (...) human free will, some contemporary philosophers, such as William Hasker, have argued that whatever help the concept of eternity may give with that puzzle is more than vitiated by the religiously pernicious implications of the concept for notions of God’s providence and action in time. In this paper, I will examine and respond to Hasker’s arguments against the doctrine of God’s eternity. (shrink)

The paper will explore a key tension between eternity and temporality that comes to the fore in the seeming contradiction between freedom of the human will and divine foreknowledge of future contingents. It will be claimed that Duns Scotus’s adaptation of Thomas Aquinas’s view reduces the tension between a human being’s freedom and divine foreknowledge of future contingents to the question of how to conflate the now of eternity and our experience of the instantaneous now. Scotus’s (...) account of the matter is unfortunately not satisfying and it is the purpose of this paper to develop this insight further in a speculative manner. In order to make such co-nowness possible, it will be asked how the eternal and the temporal can co-cause together. This problem will be tackled through a development of Scotus’s doctrine of the will taken elsewhere, in order to examine how the divine and the human wills can occur together. It will be claimed that such co-willing produces a co-nowness of the eternal and the instantaneous ‘nows’ which generates a logical temporal movement. (shrink)

In this paper, I first discuss Augustine’s description of time and relate this to Boethius’ explanation of the distinction between time and eternity. I then connect this distinction to Augustine’s understanding of memory as an image of eternity, showing that the analogy between God and the human with reference to time involves a comparison not between eternity and time, but rather, between eternity and a limited experience of eternity within the mind and its distension: time (...) is not the image of eternity, the human mind is, particularly its power of memory (memoria). The accounts of time and eternity of both thinkers provide further evidence for Augustine’s influence on and importance for the thought of Boethius. Both figures describe the past and future as united in the present under the divine purview of God. (shrink)

This paper discusses some views defended by Brian Leftow in his book *Time and Eternity*. There is a revised version of this paper that is incorporated into my later book *Describing Gods: An Investigation of Divine Attributes* (CUP, 2014).

Thus Spoke Zarathustra expresses a revolt against the quest for “afterworlds.” Nietzsche is seen transferring rationality to the body, welcoming the many in akingdom of the un-unified multiple, with a burst of enthusiasm at the figure of recurrence. At first, he values an acceptation of suffering through reconciliation with time, and puts the onus on the divine to refute the dismembering of the oneness of meaning and unity of the soul’s quest for joy in eternity. Then confrontingChristianity, he (...) sees its refusal to sacrifice anyone, at the cost of making all sick with a unique healer, and rejects it as incompatible with his ideal of plenitude. Inthe absence of an ontology of the person, the affirmation of the individual and his value, opposed to the antagonistic affirmation of the many put in front of theone God and destroyed by him, ends up dislocating the reality of the self. The Nietzschean option resisted any leveling down—this is its merit—yet the mysteryof the Trinity needs to be brought into the reflection to respect Nietzsche’s own terms in defining the final problem which is also the one option: Dionysus orthe Crucified? (shrink)

Within contemporary evangelical theology, a peculiar controversy has been brewing over the past few decades with regard to the doctrine of the Trinity. A good number of prominent evangelical theologians and philosophers are rejecting the doctrine of divine processions within the eternal life of the Trinity. In William Hasker’s recent Metaphysics and the Tri-Personal God, Hasker laments this rejection and seeks to offer a defense of this doctrine. This paper shall seek to accomplish a few things. In section I, (...) I shall first set the stage for a proper understanding of the discussion. Section II will articulate the basic Trinitarian desiderata that must be satisfied by any model of the doctrine of the Trinity. This will help one understand the debate between Hasker and the procession deniers. Section III will offer an articulation of what the doctrine of divine processions teaches. Section IV will examine Hasker’s defense of the doctrine point by point. I shall argue that his defense of the doctrine of the divine processions fails. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the theory of divine ideas of Walter Burley. The medieval common theory of divine ideas, developed by Augustine, was intended to provide an answer to the question of the order and intelligibility of the world. The world is rationally organized since God created it according to the models existing eternally in his mind. Augustine's theory, however, left open problems such as reconciling the principle of God's unity with the plurality of ideas, the way in (...) which ideas can or cannot be said to be eternal, their ontological status. Medieval authors discussed such questions until at least the late 14th century. By resorting to the semantic tool of connotation, Burley explains both in what way ‘idea' can signify the divine essence as much as the creatures, and in what sense we can say that God has thought them from eternity, without slipping into a necessitarian view that undermines the principle of divine freedom. Moreover, by envisaging the objective mode of being as the only mode of being of ideas, he explains in what way they truly differ from one another on the basis of their different conceptual contents. (shrink)

Human Aspiration is the first chapter of the magnum opus book "Life Divine". Here in in this chapter Sri Aurobindo one of the most modern prolific philosophers of Renaissance India has highlighted his focal points as to what Man's eternal aspiration has been, that is, God, Light , Freedom & Eternity. Despite technological and scientific advancements, Mans is still thirsty, it is because he aspires for a Divine Life. The article talks about the "Human aspiration" of (...) class='Hi'>eternity in details. (shrink)

Within contemporary philosophical theology the doctrine of divine simplicity has regained attention. There are several new defenses of simplicity in the literature. One of the more surprising, and troubling, aspects of the contemporary defenses amongst Christian philosophers and theologians is a seeming lack of understanding about how radical the doctrine of divine simplicity truly is. As such, I wish to do a few things in this paper. First, systematically articulate the doctrine of divine simplicity. Second, argue that (...) divine simplicity is not a possible perfection. Third, offer some concluding remarks and remaining issues that will need to be sorted out for the debate over simplicity to continue. (shrink)

I argue against a prevailing view that the essence of Godis identical with the attributes. I show that given what Spinoza says in 2d2 – Spinoza'spurported definition of the essence of a thing – the attributes cannot be identical withthe essence of God (whether the essence of God is understood as the distinct attributesor as a totality of indistinct attributes). I argue that while the attributes do notsatisfy the stipulations of 2d2 relative to God, absolutely infinite and eternal power does (...) satisfythose stipulations. Hence, I conclude that absolutely infinite and eternal power is God'sessence and that the attributes are expressions of that power. (shrink)

I raise the following six moral objections to the way God evaluates us. (i) He violates the human right to free thought. (ii) He makes the dubious assumption that it is praiseworthy and blameworthy, respectively, to believe and disbelieve that he exists. (iii) He excessively rewards believers and excessively punishes disbelievers. (iv) He only assigns to his evaluatees the two extreme grades: eternal bliss and eternal damnation. (v) He overlooks diverse factors related to the belief of God. (vi) He is (...) silent on the issue of whether to evaluate animals. Therefore, God, who is allegedly omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, does not exist. (shrink)

In this edition are presented the works by Alex Listengort, written in a period of time from autumn-2008 to may 2013. Here the reader may see a circulation of different topics, of questions and answers, embodied in Poems. These Pieces of Arts do Bless and Fill Up with a Special Energy that is familiar to every living creature, and that brings peace, eternity, divine presence and Miracle of life in all its forms. Searches for a meaning of life (...) and its integrating into the life itself, eternal existencional questions, for which the author dares to give an answer in his poems. Themes of love and beguines, motherland, nature, time and something they call the God: all that finds its reflections in authors’ poems, but the main here are the questions of enlightenment, spiritual awakening of a human being, gaining happiness, abundance and awareness: of everything, that each of us insists to find on the line, of everything, that, as author says, no one had ever really lost, and what Is just temporarily hidden under a tricky veil, that is a part of a global plan, that is a special condition of this Game. Today in our hands we all keep a totally blessed possibility to get the needed truth, to open a stream that does fill up and gives us new power to go further: with a good will, conscioused goal, bright mind and an awakened soul. Many people that have known Alex’s creativity do mark a special energy of his poems, that truly gifts them peacefulness, joy, bliss, energy and a new knowledge. The Author itself sincerely looks forward for his works to complete their mission by revealing in a right way to the people beautiful secrets of all the world around and will bring happiness, peace and awakening into this world. Besides this edition are published «Okean Bozhestvennosty» - a complete book with Alex Listengorts’ poems, notes and prosaic miniatures, and also – «A New Stage of Awakening», a book, where reader finds a new way of looking on humans spiritual awakening and on the esoteric knowledge that leads to such revelations. In prospect there Is a novel “The Return”. -/- DISCOVER A NEW (WELL FORGOTTEN) WORLD: A WORLD OF YOURSELF. AN ENERGY, LIVING IN EVERYTHING. A DIVINE CHARGE, OF WHICH YOU ARE AN ETERNAL GUIDE . (shrink)

My two principal aims in this essay are interconnected. One aim is to provide a new interpretation of the ‘infinite modes’ in Spinoza’s Ethics. I argue that for Spinoza, God, conceived as the one infinite and eternal substance, is not to be understood as causing two kinds of modes, some infinite and eternal and the rest finite and non-eternal. That there cannot be such a bifurcation of divine effects is what I take the ‘infinite mode’ propositions, E1p21–23, to establish; (...) E1p21–23 show that each and every one of the immanent effects of an infinite and eternal God is an infinite and eternal mode. The other aim is to show that these propositions can be understood as part of an extended critical response to Descartes’s infamous doctrine that God creates eternal truths and true and immutable natures. If we have the correct (Spinozan) conceptions of what God is and how God works, we see that an eternal and infinite God can only be understood to cause ‘eternal truths,’ and that these eternal truths are infinite and eternal modes of God. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that adjusting Stump and Kretzmann’s “atemporal duration” with la durée, a key concept in the philosophy of Henri Bergson, can respond to the most significant objections aimed at Stump and Kretzmann’s re-interpretation of Boethian eternity. This paper deals with three of these objections: the incoherence of the notion of “atemporal duration,” the impossibility of this duration being time-like, and the problems involved in conceiving it as being related to temporal duration by (...) a relation of analogy. I conclude that “atemporal duration” — when combined with Bergson’s durée to become an “atemporal durée” — is a coherent understanding of divine eternity. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to clarify Spinoza’s views on some of the most fundamental issues of his metaphysics: the nature of God’s attributes, the nature of existence and eternity, and the relation between essence and existence in God. While there is an extensive literature on each of these topics, it seems that the following question was hardly raised so far: What is, for Spinoza, the relation between God’s existence and the divine attributes? Given Spinoza’s claims that (...) there are intimate connections between God’s essence and his existence – “God’s essence and his existence are one and the same”(E1p20) – and between God’s essence and the attributes – “By attribute I understand what the intellect perceives of substance, as constituting its essence” (E1d4), we would naturally expect that by transitivity, there is a significant relation between God’s existence and the attributes. Yet, as far as I know, there is little, if any, attempt in the existing literature to explicate such a relation, and it is one of my aims of this study to both raise the question and answer it. Eventually, I will argue that for Spinoza God is nothing but existence, and that the divine attributes are just fundamental kinds of existence, or, what is the same, as I will later argue, the intellect’s most fundamental and adequate conceptions of existence. In the first part of the paper I provide some background for Spinoza’s brief discussion in the TTP of God’s name and essence by studying the claims of Maimonides in the Guide of the Perplexed that God’s true essence is necessary existence, and that this essence is denoted by the ineffable Hebrew name of God, the Tetragrammaton (YHVH). In the second part of the paper I point out similar claims Spinoza presents in the TTP, and show how they respond to and echo Maimonides’ discussion in the Guide. In the third part, I examine Spinoza’s apparently conflicting claims in the Ethics about the relationship between God’s essence and existence. In some places Spinoza claims that God’s essence and existence are strictly identical (E1p10: “God’s essence his existence are one and the same”), but in other passages he makes the apparently much more modest claim that God’s essence involves existence (E1d1, E1p7d and E1p11d), which may lead one to believe that there is more to God’s essence than mere existence. I show that Spinoza’s understanding of the relation denoted by the Latin ‘involvit’ is consistent with the strict identification of essence and existence in God, and that Spinoza identifies God’s essence with self-necessitated existence, or eternity. Indeed, Spinoza’s understanding of eternity [aeternitas] as self-necessitated existence (E1d8) is one of the very few Spinozistic concepts that has no trace in Descartes. In this part I will also solve the long-standing problem of the sense in which the infinite modes can be called ‘eternal.’ In the fourth part I turn to the relation between the divine attributes and God’s existence and argue that, for Spinoza, the attributes are self-sufficient and adequate conceptions of existence. Finally, I will attempt to explain what brought Spinoza to deify existence. -/- Part I: “In that Day shall God be One, and his Name One”- Maimonides on God’s Name and Essence. -/- 1.1 Before we delve into the texts, let me suggest a few distinctions between various views on the issue of the relation between essence and existence in God. The view I suspect both Maimonides and Spinoza subscribe to can be termed the divine essence-existence Identity Thesis. -/- Identity Thesis (IT): God’s essence is existence and nothing but existence. We should distinguish the Identity Thesis from the much more common view according to which God’s essence contains existence, or (which I take to be roughly the same) that existence is one of the properties or perfections which constitute God’s essence. The latter view allows for the possibility (though it does not demand) that there is more to God’s essence than bare existence (e.g., God’s essence may include omniscience, omnipotence, etc.). I will term this view the divine essence-existence Containment Thesis. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a new argument against the compatibility of human free will and divine timelessness when conceiving of eternity in terms of an additional dimension as presented by brian leftow. The paper is organized as follows: After giving a brief sketch of leftow’s model, I argue that assuming libertarianism, free will presupposes presentism, since metaphysical indeterminism is only compatible with a presentist A-theory of physical time. Given this result, I make a case for the incompatibility (...) of presentism and divine eternity modelled as a frame of reference, implying the incompatibility of the latter with human free will. (shrink)

Peter Damian’s letter 119 De divina omnipotentia is characterized by two main issues: the dilemma about the God’s capacity to restore virginity to a woman and the question about the possibility of undoing the past. Despite the interweaving between these topics, they have to be distinguished in several respects. Aim of the paper will be, firstly, to isolate the two questions, starting with their textual loci; secondly, to focus on the dilemma about the divine capacity to undoing the past, (...) showing that the key of Peter Damian’s argument is the concept of eternity as an epistemic principle, that allows him to define the omnipotence, in the case of the action on temporal necessity, as a sort of second level property of God; finally, to compare the Damian’s solution with some contemporary theories, developed during the debate on omnipotence in the second half of the 20th century, in order to find continuity and discontinuity factors that can help to better understand the coherence and effectiveness of medieval and contemporary arguments. (shrink)

In contrast to the most common view, I argue that one can consistently affirm that fundamental moral principles are objective and invariable, and yet are dependent on God. I explore and reject appealing to divine simplicity as a basis for affirming this conjunction. Rather, I develop the thesis that God is identical to the Good (the Identity View or IV) and argue that the IV does not fall to the criticisms of simplicity. I then consider a divine will (...) theory (DWT) that claims moral principles are grounded in God’s will. When the IV is conjoined with a DWT, there is reason to affirm an objective, theistically based ethics. The IV and DWT proposed here are models and while I attempt to increase their plausibility, I do not argue for their truth. The IV conjoined with a moral theory such as DWT explains the dependence of moral principles on God, while allowing for objectivity since morality is rooted in the eternal unchanging standard of the Good. (shrink)

Between Schelling’s Über Dante in philosophischer Beziehung (1803) and the Dantean drafts of die Weltalter (1811-1815) stand the transitional texts of his middle period, the Philosophie und Religion (1804) and Freiheitsschrift (1809). His short essay on Dante contrasts an ancient conception of the closed cosmos with the modern universe as dynamic and expanding, then claims to extract from the Divine Comedy its eternal, threefold form. This article considers these schemata as they relate to the Philosophie und Religion and the (...) Freiheitsschrift, disclosing an enduring Dantean influence which first predicts, then persists throughout this stage of Schelling’s philosophical development. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss the theory of exemplary causality of Peter Auriol (1280-1322). Until at least the late 13th century, medieval authors claim that the world is orderly and intelligible because God created it according to the models existing eternally in his mind (i.e. divine ideas). Auriol challenges the view of his predecessors and contemporaries. He argues that assuming divine ideas amounts to assuming multiplicity in God and therefore questioning the principle of his absolute (...) simplicity. To avoid this problem, he develops a system that enables him to account for God’s knowledge of creatures (both as individuals and as species) and hence to preserve the theological principle of providence, but at the same time allows him to reject divine ideas as intermediaries for creation. In Auriol’s theory of exemplary causality, divine essence is the only object of God’s knowledge and thus the only exemplar for creation. God’s cognitive act is directed exclusively towards his own essence. However, he knows creatures through multiple connotations, i.e. the multiple ways divine essence is connotated when God knows himself. But these connotations play no role in creation, because imitability is only proper to divine essence. To explain how an object can be the only exemplar for the creation of many different creatures, Auriol has to rethink the concept of imitability and develop a new model of exemplary causality enabling him to account for the relationship between God and his creatures. The traditional model was that of analogy: a cause produces an effect which is partly similar and partly different from it. Auriol relies on the concept of equivocity. He argues that it is unnecessary to assume a particular similarity between a cause and its effect. Quite the contrary: for an object to be the exemplar of multiple different things, it is necessary that it should not be similar to any of them. The concept of aequivocatio allows Auriol to reject the traditional model of creation. Aequivocatio does not entail a resemblance between idea and ideatum. There is no contradiction, then, in claiming that a single object (divine essence) is in an equivocal way (aequivoce) the exemplary cause of multiple different objects. This is Auriol’s new theory of divine exemplarism: the theory of similitudo aequivoca. (shrink)

According to Marinus of Samaria, Proclus was the author of many philosophical doctrines. In particular he was the first to assert the existence of a kind of souls that are capable of simultaneously seeing several ideas and situated between the divine Intellect which embraces all things together by a single intuition, and the souls whose thoughts pass from one idea to another. In the following we are going to answer the question, what kind of souls did Proclus discover and (...) why did he thought it to be necessary to introduce them in his metaphysical system. To solve this problem it seems reasonable to clarify the mechanism of horizontal-vertical progression in Proclus’ philosophy, as well as to describe the general structure of the psychic level of reality embracing the so called Monad of “unparticipated” Soul and the multiplicity if its “participated” products: divine, demonic and human souls. Unlike some previous scholars, who alleged that souls discovered by Proclus were demonic or intelligent ones, I affirm that Marinus could have in mind hypercosmic participated souls, situated between the unparticipated monad of the psychic level of reality and the multiplicity of participated souls within the material cosmos. In support of this assumption I cite some relevant passages from Proclus’ Commentary on “Timaeus” and demonstrate that he named “hypercosmic” not only the unparticipated monad of Soul, but also souls of the so called “absolute” gods, which are both in touch with the sensible cosmos and above it because of animating eternal immaterial bodies consisting of supra-celestial light. In conclusion I try to establish the genuine authorship of the doctrine of hypercosmic souls and to answer the question, why did Marinus attribute it to Proclus. (shrink)

My article began as a very short 250 words inspired by astrophysicist Jeff Hester's (pro-evolution) pages on entropy (Astronomy magazine - Oct. and Nov. 2017 - http://www.astronomy.com/magazine/jeff-hester/2017/09/entropys-rainbow and http://www.astronomy.com/magazine/jeff-hester/2017/10/entropy-redux). The letter I wrote pointed out evolution's pluses (eg adaptations) and minuses (regarding origins). It went on to speak of a human, scientific, entirely natural explanation for what is called God. It proposes that the true human condition after death and before birth is as a member of the Elohim - a (...) name used for God in the Old Testament which, according to World Book Encyclopedia, means the PLURAL MAJESTY OF THE ONE GOD. This led to a few hundred more words about why some people call an entirely natural process "supernatural". I speculate that it must be because of the applications in thousands of years of finding a successful theory of quantum gravity (union of quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of gravity - general relativity). Like quantum mechanics and gravitation, those apps would include all space and all time, and would undoubtedly be as mysterious to us as our technology would initially be to the builders of Egypt's first pyramids. In years past, the denial of divine beings by science may have been logical. But times sometimes change radically. Such a paradigm shift seems to be upon us now, with the recent discovery of gravitational waves and the anticipation of quantum gravity. In changing times, scientists and philosophers and everyone must always keep open minds. Of course, proposing that the human condition after death and before birth is as a member of the Elohim means that humans of the far distant future must be capable of the creation attributed to God by many people throughout the centuries. Therefore, a subsection entitled "Creation Of The Infinite, Eternal Cosmos Using Electronic BITS, Pi And Imaginary Time" has been added to the end of this article. -/- . (shrink)

Who or what is “I”? Does “I” refer to the soul, body, or something else? This paper aims to clarify the Iranian Sufi Maḥmūd Shabistarī’s metaphysical account of the self in The Rose Garden of Mystery (Gulshan-i Rāz). Some of Shabistarī’s commentators-for example, Lāhījī-argue that the “self is the determined Real” without offering a full account. This paper presents Shabistarī’s self by examining Gulshan in the context of commentaries, secondary sources, and Islamic thought and by presenting opposing interpretations and reasons (...) for the most prominent interpreta￾tions. In Gulshan, the self is neither the soul nor the body. It is the Real’s determination, a face among the eternally manifesting, unrepeated faces of the Real. This paper argues that the self is the human’s fixed entity (quiddity, ʿayn-i thābitah), whose aptitudes are perpetually unfolding; it is an eternal becoming of the Perfect Man. The self is not reified (i.e., it is of no definite content or form) or fully known; it changes every moment; it is the ever-changing “I” of the moment. Shabistarī’s metaphysics helps the modern person realize that her self is divine; it teaches her that because the world-including humans, animals, and the environment-is God’s manifesta￾tion, it deserves care. (shrink)

Against an interpretation of Saint Thomas Aquinas’s thought that understands the divine motion of the created will only providing a generic impulse to it, in this article is defended that God moves specifically for every good choice. This motion doesn’t prevent at all the contingency of creatures and neither freedom of choice. Is also shown how Báñez’s thought is quite faithful to Saint Thomas in this and doesn’t intend anything else but simply to make it known and defend it (...) from molinists misinterpretations. That’s why is shown that the divine motion of the will doesnt's make God responsible for sin, especially since that would only be possible if divine causality were not the action of the eternal God, who is outside the created causality. (shrink)

Truth (sach), a fundamental concept in Sikhism, has different meanings depending on its context. Truth stands for God, the Eternal Existence. It also means virtue and includes qualities such as humility, compassion, honesty, righteousness, justice, equality. Another meaning of Truth is something pure, holy, sacred, correct, and appropriate. It also means eternal happiness or bliss. Guru Nanak, in his hymns, enunciates about the Truth and the way to live a truthful life in harmony with the hukam (Divine Will). He (...) declares that a holy congregation is a place for the realization of Truth. A disciple realizes the Truth by leading a virtuous life in the community’s service. The Guru articulates that the Truth cures all maladies and washes all sins from the disciple’s mind. The embellishment of Truth reveals itself in the excellent character and personality of the disciple. Such a person is called Sachiara (Truthful being) in Gurbani. Thus, Sachiara is a person who is imbued with the Eternal Truth (God). After achieving the Eternal Truth’s realization through reflection, contemplation, intuition and action, such a person ultimately merges in it. In this article, the concept of Sachiara, its various representations in Gurbani, its role in the Global Context and the way to be a Sachiara (Truthful being) is described. (shrink)

Xenophanes of Colophon was a philosophically-minded poet who lived in various parts of the ancient Greek world during the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC. He is best remembered for a novel critique of anthropomorphism in religion, a partial advance toward monotheism, and some pioneering reflections on the conditions of knowledge. Many later writers, perhaps influenced by two brief characterizations of Xenophanes by Plato (Sophist 242c-d) and Aristotle (Metaphysics 986b18-27) identified him as the founder of Eleatic philosophy (the view (...) that despite appearances, what there is is a changeless, motionless, and eternal ‘one’. In fact, the Xenophanes who emerges from the surviving fragments defies simple classification. He was a traveling rhapsode who criticized the stories about the gods told by the poets, and he defended a novel conception of the divine nature. But he was also a reflective observer of the human condition, a practitioner of the special form of inquiry introduced by the Milesians philosopher-scientists, and a civic counselor who encouraged his fellow citizens to respect the gods and work to safeguard the well-being of their city. (shrink)

An old question in Spinoza scholarship is how finite, non-eternal things transitively caused by other finite, non-eternal things (i. e., the entities described in propositions like E1p28) are caused by the infinite, eternal substance, given that what follows either directly or indirectly from the divine nature is infinite and eternal (E1p21–23). In “Spinoza’s Monism I,” “Spinoza’s Monism I,” in the previous issue of this journal. I pointed out that most commentators answer this question by invoking entities that are indefinite (...) and sempiternal, but argued that perhaps we should not be so quick to assume that in Spinoza’s system, an infinite and eternal substance could cause such indefinite, sempiternal entities. But if such eternal-durational causation is denied, then it seems harder to see how Spinoza’s system could be coherent: if Spinoza holds that the infinite, eternal substance cannot cause anything that is not infinite and not eternal, then how can he also hold that all things are modes immanently caused by substance (E1p15, E1p18, E1p25)? In this essay, I explain how Spinoza’s system could be understood in light of a denial of eternal-durational causation. On the interpretation I offer, God is the cause of all things and all things are modes because the essences of all things follow from the divine nature and all essences enjoy infinite, eternal reality as modes immanently caused by the infinite, eternal substance. The same non-substantial essences can also be conceived as enjoying non-infinite, non-eternal reality, but so conceived, they are enduring, finite (or sempiternal, indefinite) entities that cannot be conceived as modes caused by and inhering in the one infinite, eternal substance. I conclude by pointing out that if we take this interpretive route, we do have to understand Spinoza as committed to acosmism, or a denial of the reality of the world – at least the world of enduring, finite things. (shrink)

One of Leibniz’s more unusual philosophical projects is his presentation (in a series of unpublished drafts) of an argument for the conclusion that a time will necessarily come when “nothing would happen that had not happened before." Leibniz’s presentations of the argument for such a cyclical cosmology are all too brief, and his discussion of its implications is obscure. Moreover, the conclusion itself seems to be at odds with the main thrust of Leibniz’s own metaphysics. Despite this, we can discern (...) a serious and important point to Leibniz’s consideration of the doctrine, namely in what it suggests about the proper boundary between metaphysics and theology, on the one hand, and ordinary history (whether human or natural), on the other. And we can get a better sense of Leibniz purpose in the essays by considering them in the context of Leibniz's response to Thomas Burnet's "Telluris theoria sacra" (1681-89). Leibniz praises Burnet's history of earth for presenting a harmony between the principles of nature and grace, a harmony absent in the cosmogonies of Descartes and the Newtonians. But Leibniz also complains that Burnet misconceives the boundary between natural explanation and reflections on divine wisdom. And Leibniz's essays on cyclical cosmology suggest the alternative to Burnet's account: a natural history of the earth and its inhabitants should be radically autonomous from, even if ultimately harmonious with, theological principles. (shrink)

Drawing primarily upon Dante’s three major philosophical treatises (De vulgari eloquentia, Convivio, and Monarchia), this essay explores how Dante’s ethico-political philosophy operates within the crucial tension between the phenomenology of time as the condition for the possibility of human moral development and yet also as, metaphysically speaking, the privation and imitation of eternity. I begin by showing that, in the De vulgari eloquentia, Dante’s understanding of the poetic and rhetorical function of the illustrious vernacular is tied to his political (...) philosophy in a way that depends upon a rich but ultimately unresolved tension between (a) the demand that only an atemporal, unchanging vernacular would be suitable for the tasks of universal monarchy and (b) the recognition that only a temporal, localized, and changing illustrious vernacular could possibly bring about the existence of the universal monarchy. In the second half of the essay, I will turn to Dante’s treatment of the providential grounding for the independence of spiritual and temporal authority in Convivio and Monarchia. I will argue that Dante’s understanding of divine providence provides common justification for the temporal and spiritual authorities whose independence he otherwise insists upon. Finally, drawing on the letter to Cangrande della Scala (the authorship of which is disputed), I will discuss how, for Dante, the providential ground for the legitimacy of temporal authority can only be discerned through the allegorical interpretation of history itself. In light of my discussion of these themes in Dante’s political philosophy and its dependence on his understanding of divine providence, I will conclude with a brief reflection on how Dante’s understanding of divine providence might help us better appreciate important aspects of the neglected legacy of Renaissance humanism in the history of early modern philosophy. (shrink)

The article deals with the doctrines of Orpheus and Pythagoras about the immortality of the soul in the context of the birth of philosophy in ancient Greece. Orpheus demonstrated the closeness of heavenly (divine) and earthly (human) worlds, and Pythagoras mathematically proved their fundamental identity. Greek philosophy was “an investment in the afterlife future”, being the product of the mystical (Orpheus) and rationalist (Pythagoras) theology.

We discuss the philosophical problems attendant to the justice of eternal punishments in Hell, particularly those portrayed in Dante’s Inferno. We conclude that, under Dante’s description, a unique version of the problem of Hell (and Heaven) can be posed.

This article argues in favor of Open conception of divinity and theology in Islam. In Section 1, I explain the main textual difference between traditional transcendent conception of divinity and the open conception. Then, I will demonstrate the essential elements of this theology according to the various interpretations of the texts. I will then introduce a different meaning of God’s power as freedom bestowment. Next, I will argue that open theology can be supported rationally through its capability to dissolve some (...) philosophical concerns of theism. It will be concluded that since in the modern era, human beings have changed their position in the world consciously, this change in the position of the man-world state definitely affects our epistemic position toward God, which is our theology. Nowadays, after challenging the sociopolitical paternalistic hierarchy of the world, we become more ready to understand the immanence, nearness, and love of God instead of seeing Him as the almighty King who governs the world from an eternal and too transcendent position. In my view, Open theology could be a fruitful avenue for Islamic theology to pursue as it seeks to answer the emerging questions concerning Man–God relationship in our modern world. (shrink)

The main objective of this work was to produce a scientifically reasonable definition of God. The rationale was to generate a definition for filling a small part of the spiritual vacuum of the 21st century and thus initiate a new understanding of the Intelligence that permeates the cosmos with mystery, love, order, direction and morals. This resulted in the following definition: “God may be a-humanly incomprehensible-eternal cosmic existence, intimately related to the endlessness of space, to the nature of the deepest (...) common substance of matter and energy, to this common substance’s unceasing motion responsible for time, and to the basic laws of their allness, letting love transform this allness to an ordered Multiverse with a Soul: the—scientifically approachable—Soul of Multiverse inspired to guard these laws and equip their order with direction and morals while imbuing the cosmos with the potential of lives evolving, at the right spatial and temporal distances, to embrace the sense of the divine, thus justifying the existence of God.” The likely neural circuitry for sensing God in the human brain was identified as a network for spiritual data flow across the conscious and subconscious layers of the association cortical cognitive system exchanging data with the prefrontal cortical Self-Ken and modulated by inputs from the emotional and motivational systems of the brain. To study this mental process, the design of a God-Experience Monitor was also developed: a comfortably wearable combination of EEG and audiovisual-recorders tailored to at least partially capture the individual experiences of God anytime and at the very “genius loci” of such experiences. (shrink)

This article examines the subtle interconnection between the sanctity of life and individual autonomy within the context of assisted dying, as seen through the lens of Orthodox Christianity. It seeks to unravel the complex theological, ethical, and pastoral considerations that inform the Orthodox stance on end-of-life issues, particularly the nuanced understanding of suffering, death, and the redemptive potential encapsulated within them. Orthodox theology, with its profound veneration for life as a divine gift, offers a counter-narrative to contemporary discourses that (...) often prioritize personal autonomy and the alleviation of suffering above all. This tradition emphasizes the transformative power of suffering when united with Christ’s own redemptive suffering, proposing a vision of end-of-life care that is rooted in compassion, dignity, and hope for resurrection. The exploration begins with a historical and theological examination of the Orthodox perspective on life’s sanctity, engaging with the teachings of Church Fathers and contemporary theological and bioethical discussions. It highlights the foundational concepts of Orthodox anthropology, which perceives human beings as an indivisible unity of body and soul, reflecting the imago Dei. This anthropological understanding challenges reductionist views of human existence and informs the Orthodox approach to medical ethics, palliative care, and the spiritual accompaniment of the dying. By critically evaluating arguments for and against assisted dying, the article presents a balanced discourse that respects the depth of individual suffering while upholding the intrinsic value of life. It argues that Orthodox Christianity, through its rich theological heritage and pastoral practice, provides a compassionate and ethically nuanced framework for navigating the moral complexities of assisted dying. This framework advocates for an end-of-life care that honors the fullness of the human person, supports the spiritual journey toward eternal life, and fosters a communal embrace of life’s sacred threshold, offering a dignified passage that aligns with the faith’s deepest convictions about human destiny and divine grace. (shrink)

This paper explores two related questions in late Athenian and Alexandrian Neoplatonism. First, how can a philosopher contemplate the eternal Forms while engaging in practical agency in the world? Second, do Neoplatonists provide a consistent account of the philosopher’s progress through the ‘stages of virtue’ (βαθμοί τῶν ἀρετῶν), the conceptual structure that underpins late antique philosophical curricula and hagiography? These questions interact, I suggest, because later Platonists appeal to the stages of virtue and divine maniai (βαθμοί τῶν μανίων) to (...) explain the philosopher’s ability to alternate gracefully between contemplation and embodied agency, and even to engage in both activities at the same moment. I argue that apparently contradictory evidence for the highest stages of virtue can be reconciled satisfactorily, shedding light on two models of ethical and perceptual transformation that are consistent throughout later Neoplatonism. In the first, 'painterly' model, we alternate between a vision of the paradigmatic model and its expression in the media of place and time; in the second, 'dancerly' model, we contemplate in action all at once, like a dancer moving to the music. (shrink)

In this article, I set out Suárez's conception of the demon's obstinacy. For Suárez, the demons’ obstinacy is a divine punishment. It is the result of the free and awful choice to turn away from God that the demons have decided to make, the main consequence of which is the loss of the freedom to will and to do the good. Taking up Aquinas’s conception, Suárez considers that the demonic nature is irredeemably corrupt and obstinate in evil. Demons are (...) provided only with a miserable freedom, consisting of the possibility to choose between different evils. Perpetually sinful and eternally constrained to remain so, they are condemned to wretchedness, to complacency in evil, and to the unremitting torments of hell. (shrink)

We explore a ‘Neo-Cartesian’ account of divine ultimacy that raises the concept of God to its ultimate level of abstraction so that we can do away with even the question of his existence. Our starting point is God’s relation to the logical and metaphysical order of reality and the views of Descartes and Leibniz on this topic. While Descartes held the seemingly bizarre view that the eternal truths are freely created by God, Leibniz stands for the mainstream view that (...) the eternal truths are grounded in God’s nature. We argue that the implausibility of Descartes’ doctrine stems mainly from the assumption that there is a non-epistemic notion of absolute necessity that constitutes the ultimate court of appeal for all modal questions and that this assumption is questionable. We also question the assumption that God’s ultimacy merely requires that all reality be grounded in God in the sense of mere explanation, so that it suffices if the necessary truths are grounded in God’s nature but not in God’s will. This will lead us to a reassessment of Descartes’ position. In the final and main part of the paper, we push Descartes’ doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths to its ‘logical’ conclusion with the aim of getting to a novel conception of ‘God.’. (shrink)

The paper discusses two conceptions of divine freedom. The first, Hugh McCann’s, proposes that God is a timelessly eternal act, whose agency is not deliberative and who, in that act, creates himself and the contents of his will. God is such an act. Following discussion of this view, its costs and benefits, a more traditional account of God’s freedom, in which he possesses vestigial alternativity, the freedom to choose an alternative should there have been a sufficient reason to do (...) so. (shrink)

In the Centuries of Theology I.48–50, Maximus states that there are two kinds of works that belong to God: one which corresponds to beings having a temporal, finite beginning, and one which corresponds to perfections of beings which have no beginning and are therefore eternal. Maximus labels the latter as participated beings (ὄντα μεθεκτά) and the former as participating beings (ὄντα μετέχοντα), with God transcending both as their cause. The structure of God-as-cause, participated beings, and participating beings matches Proclus’ three-fold (...) structure of participation with the ontological categories of unparticipated, participated, and participating. While Maximus borrows the basic language and structure from Proclus, he makes certain minor but significant differences, particularly in how the participated beings both relate to their source in God and in their status of existence. This paper thus sets out to analyze I.48–50 in the general context of the Centuries of Theology, considering how Maximus conceives of the ontological distinctions between God and God’s works. A comparison with Proclus’ understanding of participation follows, particularly from Proclus’ Elements of Theology Prop. 23, which succinctly states the three-term distinction of participation. The resulting comparison shows that Proclus’ framework of participation is flattened for Maximus, where the participated works represent multiple properties distinct in kind from the unparticipated, while God fits analogously in the status of the unparticipated. The underlying ontology supports Maximus’ implicit denial that such participated entities represent distinct divinities, as they do for Proclus, while Maximus’ assertion of God’s transcendence is still secured with the ontological distinction between the participated works and their unparticipated cause. (shrink)