God and eternal boredom

God is thought to be eternal. Does this mean that he is timeless? Or is he, rather, omnitemporal? In this article we argue that God cannot be omnitemporal. Our starting point, which we take from Bernard Williams's article on the Makropulos Case, is the intuition that it is inappropriate for per...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Andrić, Vuko (Author) ; Tanyi, Attila 1976- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge Univ. Press [2017]
In: Religious studies
Year: 2017, Volume: 53, Issue: 1, Pages: 51-70
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Eternity of God / Temporality / Boredom
IxTheo Classification:NBC Doctrine of God
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
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Summary:God is thought to be eternal. Does this mean that he is timeless? Or is he, rather, omnitemporal? In this article we argue that God cannot be omnitemporal. Our starting point, which we take from Bernard Williams's 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 Williams is right, then it follows that, 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.
ISSN:1469-901X
Contains:Enthalten in: Religious studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0034412515000499