God and Timelessness - Paperback

by Nelson C. Pike (Author)

Christian theologians are agreed that God is eternal. However, disagreement arises within the Christian tradition over the precise interpretation to be given to the word 'eternal'. Professor Nelson Pike examines one way of understanding the doctrine of divine eternity that has had considerable prominence in the writings of both Catholic and Protestant theologians. On this interpretation, to say that God is eternal is to say that God exists 'outside of time'; in other words, that God is 'timeless'. Professor Pike undertakes to expose both the strengths and shortcomings of this analysis of God's eternity. In addition to his discussion of divine eternity, Professor Pike treats a wide range of other theological and philosophical topics. These include the medieval doctrine of essential prediction, the syntactical status of the term 'God', the problem of divine foreknowledge, the notion of God's omnipotence, the doctrine of divine immutability, and the general methodological issues connected with traditional ways of determining the adequacy of statements ascribing specific attributes to God.

Author Biography

Nelson Pike was Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. He holds a bachelor's degree from Carroll College in Waukesha Wisconsin, a master's degree from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. This book was written during the late 1960s when Dr. Pike was an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Prior to his appointment at Cornell, he had held teaching positions at the University of California, Los Angeles and at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Professor Pike has written three other books, viz. God and Evil: Readings on the Theological Problem of Evil (Prentice-Hall, 1964), Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Bobbs-Merrill, 1970) and Mystic Union (Cornell University Press, 1992). He has also published many articles in prominent English as well as American philosophical journals.