A Tale of Two Timelessness by Jimmy Stephens

Two Key Points:

1. Platonic Timelessness vs. the Living God

Platonic timelessness is devoid of personal exchange; it is “dead.” This concept contradicts the depiction of Yahweh as a living God, often symbolized by fire.

God is alive and Triune. The Trinity represents a community of infinite love, characterized by experience without change and exchange without moments. In this eternal relationship, God’s space is Himself, and His vision is perpetually new.

2. The Presupposition of Time in Platonic Timelessness

Platonic timelessness inherently presupposes time, making it purely negative. It is defined as an abstract precondition for temporality, existing solely to explain temporality, and thus is intrinsically linked to temporal objects within the world.

Consider “the Force” in the Star Wars universe: a luminous field of spiritual life that binds all living things and guides them morally. This concept is understood only within the context of the Star Wars cosmos – without it, there is no “Force.”

In contrast, God’s timelessness is not an abstract negation or an underlying feature. It serves to differentiate His life from the life experienced in creation. Even if the universe ceased to exist, God’s timelessness remains unaffected because it is a term that signifies His pure livingness.

The Pitfall of Apophatic Theology

A significant error in some classical theism is the reliance on apophatic theology, where all statements about God are abstract negations. This approach renders God indescribable if we rely solely on what He is not.

Every negation implies a profound positive aspect:

• God is immutable because He possesses all knowledge, power, and interaction within Himself.
• God is impassible because He embodies full Triune joy within Himself.
• God is omnipresent because physical space analogizes God’s inherent presentness to Himself.

Thus, negations presuppose the majesty of God. He transcends these negations, which, in turn, require His existence to provide a basis for differentiation from Him in the first place.