Paul Helm's 'Divine Timeless Eternity'

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Paul Helm in his paper, Divine Timeless Eternity, argues for God’s existence outside of time. While Paul gives many arguments to why God exist outside of time, we will ultimately come to the conclusion that Divine Timeless Eternity is not as rationale or cohesive as a temporal view of God. In this paper we will explore more of Helm’s arguments and the objections against them. Helm starts out his argument for God being outside of time with first giving the reader commonly held beliefs about God’s character. He implies that that the omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omni-etc are a present characteristics God possesses and contributes to His fullness (Helm, 30). However, with God being outside of time Helm runs into some issues about…show more content…
In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word impassibility means to be incapable of suffering and experiencing pain (Merriam- Webster Dictionary). In fairness Helms argument that God is impassible is valid with his argument. If God is not in time, then it would follow that God is not subject to time how we are. We are subject to time and we see transition through time via change. But then the big question about the nature of God and how many view Him as an agent of change in the temporal world are left unanswered. Helm gives us an overarching answer of the fullness of God. The argument is that God is a perfect being and therefore He does not change. Him not changing does not take away from His fullness and his impassibility is not like a human kind of impassibility where He is detached. God becomes fulfilled within himself (Helm, 39). Helm’s theory about an impassible God permeates the rest of his paper. An objection to God and impassibility is God’s…show more content…
Helm makes it a point to show how the Biblical scriptures line up with God’s unchangingness. While he found scriptures that support impassibility there are a lot that do not. For example, Exodus 20:4 “You shall not bow down to them of worship them; for I, the Lord your God is a jealous God…”, John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”, and Revelation 22:20 “He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” (Bible, NIV). All of these verses and scriptures point to God doing an action or having feelings towards other beings. This seems to suggest the opposite of what Helm’s thesis

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