Is God timeless or eternal?
The cosmological argument.
The fourth century philosopher, St Augustine made this statement concerning time: ‘what is time? When no-one asks me I know. But when I am asked to explain it I can’t.’
Time is a human construction, the twenty four time zones were established in 1884 because of the innovation of the railway system. The calendar itself is also a human invention devised to coincide with the movements of the planets. The modern world seems to be obsessed with time and the immediate future and this has lost us the opportunity to reflect on the past. This, according to Paul Davies, is an important part of a person’s character as memories and past experiences create personality. The human being’s lifespan is totally inconsequential relative to the history of the universe and although we are insignificant on a cosmic scale a person’s memories can shape their influences. Immanuel Kant puts forward these ideas and argues that time is simply the way in which we order and structure reality and is not a necessity or divine creation. This leads us to consider whether time is ‘real’ in that it exists, and that time and space are a human convention of naming them, or whether time is merely how we experience life and that it does not exist in its own right. Aristotle claimed that time was composed of non-existence. It is the no longer and not yet. He said the past does not exist, the future does not exist and the present is nothing. However, William Craig argued that only the present exists as one unique moment.
