WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.080 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are taking 00:00:03.080 --> 00:00:08.140 on a concept that is, well, it's just so vast, 00:00:08.339 --> 00:00:11.660 so fundamental, it underpins, you know, the entire 00:00:11.660 --> 00:00:13.439 structure of monotheistic thought. It really 00:00:13.439 --> 00:00:15.019 does. We're going to be plunging into the nature 00:00:15.019 --> 00:00:17.039 of eternity. And it sounds simple, right? When 00:00:17.039 --> 00:00:19.179 we say it, it's just the idea that God always 00:00:19.179 --> 00:00:21.460 was and always will be. But, and this is the 00:00:21.460 --> 00:00:23.780 key, when philosophers and theologians start 00:00:23.780 --> 00:00:26.839 trying to fit that infinite reality into our 00:00:26.839 --> 00:00:31.359 finite human concepts of time, well, the contradictions 00:00:31.359 --> 00:00:33.759 start to pop up. And they're not just minor footnotes, 00:00:33.759 --> 00:00:35.759 are they? Oh, not at all. They become these huge 00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:38.939 foundational structural problems. Exactly. So 00:00:38.939 --> 00:00:42.140 our mission today is to unpack this core attribute 00:00:42.140 --> 00:00:44.159 of God eternity, which, you know, it's always 00:00:44.159 --> 00:00:46.560 listed right up there with omnipotence being 00:00:46.560 --> 00:00:48.579 all powerful and omniscience being all knowing. 00:00:48.700 --> 00:00:51.000 The big three. The big three. But the problem 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:54.130 is this. How we define eternity dictates everything 00:00:54.130 --> 00:00:57.329 about how God relates to the universe. And crucially, 00:00:57.429 --> 00:00:59.469 it determines whether those other attributes, 00:00:59.630 --> 00:01:02.350 like being all -knowing or even relational, can 00:01:02.350 --> 00:01:05.719 logically exist. That's the absolute core tension 00:01:05.719 --> 00:01:07.840 we found running through all the source material. 00:01:08.099 --> 00:01:11.819 We have to immediately set up this foundational 00:01:11.819 --> 00:01:15.159 dichotomy that scholars like William Rowe and 00:01:15.159 --> 00:01:17.819 Nelson Pike identified. Because we are not dealing 00:01:17.819 --> 00:01:20.659 with a single, simple idea of existence without 00:01:20.659 --> 00:01:23.939 end. We are dealing with two really distinct 00:01:23.939 --> 00:01:28.400 and often totally irreconcilable realities of 00:01:28.400 --> 00:01:30.980 what infinite existence actually means. Okay, 00:01:31.040 --> 00:01:33.379 let's get right into it then. define those two 00:01:33.379 --> 00:01:36.019 realities in detail for us. What is the fundamental 00:01:36.019 --> 00:01:38.939 difference in how God relates to time itself? 00:01:39.530 --> 00:01:42.030 So the first one, and this one has the longest 00:01:42.030 --> 00:01:44.209 and deepest philosophical pedigree, is what's 00:01:44.209 --> 00:01:46.650 called timelessness. Or the more technical term 00:01:46.650 --> 00:01:49.290 is a temporality. A temporality. Right. And you 00:01:49.290 --> 00:01:51.069 should think of this as an absolute existence 00:01:51.069 --> 00:01:53.489 completely outside of the bounds of time. So 00:01:53.489 --> 00:01:55.670 not just a long time. Not a long time. Not even 00:01:55.670 --> 00:01:56.930 an infinite amount of time. It's a different 00:01:56.930 --> 00:01:59.890 category altogether. For a truly timeless being, 00:02:00.129 --> 00:02:03.629 the concepts we live by, past, present, and future, 00:02:03.810 --> 00:02:06.049 they're not just irrelevant. They literally do 00:02:06.049 --> 00:02:08.229 not apply. They just don't exist for that being. 00:02:08.389 --> 00:02:10.729 Exactly. Exactly. They are human categories and 00:02:10.729 --> 00:02:12.870 they're tied to succession and change. Things 00:02:12.870 --> 00:02:16.530 a perfect being wouldn't experience. So let me 00:02:16.530 --> 00:02:19.229 see if I get this. If God is timeless in this 00:02:19.229 --> 00:02:22.610 sense, he is not like remembering what happened 00:02:22.610 --> 00:02:25.289 last Tuesday. And he is certainly not waiting 00:02:25.289 --> 00:02:28.069 around for tomorrow morning to happen. All events, 00:02:28.330 --> 00:02:30.449 all of creation, all of history and all future 00:02:30.449 --> 00:02:34.599 possibilities. They just are. They are all simultaneously 00:02:34.599 --> 00:02:38.360 present to him in a single, static, unending 00:02:38.360 --> 00:02:40.599 moment. That's a great way to put it. So there's 00:02:40.599 --> 00:02:44.270 no succession. No, before or after in his experience 00:02:44.270 --> 00:02:47.169 of reality. Precisely. That emphasis on a non 00:02:47.169 --> 00:02:50.129 -successive existence is the absolute key characteristic 00:02:50.129 --> 00:02:52.810 of timelessness. Okay. So what's the second definition? 00:02:53.030 --> 00:02:54.909 The second definition, which is, I think, much 00:02:54.909 --> 00:02:57.449 more intuitive for most of us, is everlastingness. 00:02:57.810 --> 00:03:01.110 It's often called sempaternity or a more modern 00:03:01.110 --> 00:03:03.949 term, omnitemporality. Omnitemporality. I like 00:03:03.949 --> 00:03:06.009 that one. It's very descriptive. And this is 00:03:06.009 --> 00:03:08.810 existence in time. Meaning God exists on our 00:03:08.810 --> 00:03:10.530 timeline. He's on the same clock as us, just 00:03:10.530 --> 00:03:12.919 infinite. Infinite version of it. Exactly. He 00:03:12.919 --> 00:03:15.580 exists on the timeline, but it extends infinitely 00:03:15.580 --> 00:03:19.120 in both directions for him. So under this view, 00:03:19.400 --> 00:03:22.460 God has already existed for an infinite amount 00:03:22.460 --> 00:03:25.439 of time in the past. He exists right now in the 00:03:25.439 --> 00:03:27.620 present with us, and he will continue to exist 00:03:27.620 --> 00:03:29.520 for an infinite amount of time into the future. 00:03:29.680 --> 00:03:32.860 So he exists in all time dimensions. He is omnitemporal. 00:03:32.860 --> 00:03:35.199 Yes. All of them. Past, present, and future. 00:03:35.710 --> 00:03:37.569 And the sources are really careful to point out 00:03:37.569 --> 00:03:40.169 there's one single point of agreement here, right? 00:03:40.289 --> 00:03:43.889 Yes, and it's an important one. Both conceptions, 00:03:43.889 --> 00:03:46.969 both timelessness and everlastingness, agree 00:03:46.969 --> 00:03:49.949 that God's existence never terminates. It never 00:03:49.949 --> 00:03:53.210 ends. Okay. The entire philosophical fight rests 00:03:53.210 --> 00:03:55.330 completely on whether God experiences sequence, 00:03:55.389 --> 00:03:58.129 duration, and change alongside his creation or 00:03:58.129 --> 00:04:00.229 whether he stands utterly completely outside 00:04:00.229 --> 00:04:03.530 of it. So is God in time or is God outside of 00:04:03.530 --> 00:04:06.270 time? that one question and that question immediately 00:04:06.270 --> 00:04:08.990 pulls us into some of the most famous most difficult 00:04:08.990 --> 00:04:10.849 philosophical debates concerning god's nature 00:04:10.849 --> 00:04:13.310 because it forces us to re -examine what it even 00:04:13.310 --> 00:04:15.710 means to be all -knowing okay let's unpack this 00:04:15.710 --> 00:04:17.449 this brings us to section two the philosophical 00:04:17.449 --> 00:04:21.069 conflict what happens to god's traditional attributes 00:04:22.379 --> 00:04:24.680 particularly on missions, if we commit to that 00:04:24.680 --> 00:04:27.319 first definition to timelessness, this is, you 00:04:27.319 --> 00:04:29.639 know, the battleground staked out by thinkers 00:04:29.639 --> 00:04:32.800 like Nelson Pike, William Rowe, and Stuart Sutherland. 00:04:32.860 --> 00:04:35.579 Right. And Nelson Pike, he kind of introduces 00:04:35.579 --> 00:04:38.060 the challenge by asking a very pointed question. 00:04:38.519 --> 00:04:43.019 Can God logically be both timeless and all -knowing? 00:04:43.060 --> 00:04:44.759 So he sees an immediate contradiction there. 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:47.920 A potential one, yes. And he hooks this question 00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:51.879 to the age -old philosophical problem of foreknowledge 00:04:51.879 --> 00:04:53.959 and human freedom. This is sometimes called the 00:04:53.959 --> 00:04:56.300 problem of fatalism. Right, the classic paradox. 00:04:56.560 --> 00:04:59.259 If God is truly all -knowing, then he must possess 00:04:59.259 --> 00:05:02.379 foreknowledge. So God knows right now with absolute 00:05:02.379 --> 00:05:05.620 certainty what specific action I will take next 00:05:05.620 --> 00:05:08.300 Tuesday at 3 p .m. That's right. And Pike argues 00:05:08.300 --> 00:05:10.379 that if God has that total knowledge of that 00:05:10.379 --> 00:05:12.800 future action, then that knowledge is a necessary, 00:05:13.019 --> 00:05:15.819 eternally true fact. It has to be true. Because 00:05:15.819 --> 00:05:18.360 God can't be wrong. God's knowledge cannot be 00:05:18.360 --> 00:05:21.060 mistaken. So the action you will take next Tuesday 00:05:21.060 --> 00:05:24.339 is, in reality, the only thing you can do. It's 00:05:24.339 --> 00:05:26.920 a settled fact, almost as if it's in the past. 00:05:27.449 --> 00:05:29.790 The past of God's knowledge anyway. Which means 00:05:29.790 --> 00:05:33.750 my ability to choose freely to do something different 00:05:33.750 --> 00:05:37.550 is what's severely limited. Or outright eliminated. 00:05:37.589 --> 00:05:40.689 It's a huge problem for free will. So that knowledge. 00:05:41.319 --> 00:05:44.319 Having been known eternally makes my future action 00:05:44.319 --> 00:05:47.000 necessary, which basically eliminates my freedom 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:49.220 of choice. And that's a challenge to free will, 00:05:49.360 --> 00:05:51.699 it seems, regardless of whether God is in time 00:05:51.699 --> 00:05:53.920 or outside it, as long as he knows the future 00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:56.319 perfectly. Exactly. That problem exists on its 00:05:56.319 --> 00:05:58.899 own. But William Rowe, he introduces a fruitful 00:05:58.899 --> 00:06:01.800 twist by linking this philosophical problem specifically 00:06:01.800 --> 00:06:04.720 to the definition of timelessness. OK. Rowe challenges 00:06:04.720 --> 00:06:07.540 the very coherence of a timeless, all -knowing 00:06:07.540 --> 00:06:09.379 being. What's the mechanism of that challenge? 00:06:09.480 --> 00:06:11.920 Why does being outside time prevent knowledge? 00:06:12.220 --> 00:06:14.480 It feels like it should do the opposite. It does 00:06:14.480 --> 00:06:16.600 feel that way, but Rowe points out that if God 00:06:16.600 --> 00:06:19.139 is truly timeless and temporal, then God would 00:06:19.139 --> 00:06:21.040 not know what a person is planning to do before 00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:23.279 they do it. Wait, unpack that. That sounds like 00:06:23.279 --> 00:06:25.660 just wordplay. It's not, I promise. The very 00:06:25.660 --> 00:06:29.420 concepts of before, after, planning, and doing 00:06:29.420 --> 00:06:33.149 rely entirely on succession. On a sequence of 00:06:33.149 --> 00:06:35.930 events, a timeless being by definition does not 00:06:35.930 --> 00:06:38.490 experience succession. So if I visualize the 00:06:38.490 --> 00:06:41.470 entire timeline as like a single tapestry, God 00:06:41.470 --> 00:06:43.689 sees the whole pattern at once, I get that. Yeah. 00:06:43.750 --> 00:06:46.889 But if he is truly outside of sequence, how can 00:06:46.889 --> 00:06:49.910 he know where on that tapestry I am right now? 00:06:50.050 --> 00:06:52.189 That's the question. I always thought omniscience 00:06:52.189 --> 00:06:54.350 meant knowing everything, including the flow 00:06:54.350 --> 00:06:56.769 of events from beginning to end, even if he sees 00:06:56.769 --> 00:06:58.449 it all at once. And that's where the philosophical 00:06:58.449 --> 00:07:01.779 nuance really hits hard. The problem arises because 00:07:01.779 --> 00:07:05.259 a key component of omniscience must be knowing 00:07:05.259 --> 00:07:07.560 the world as it is experienced by temporal beings 00:07:07.560 --> 00:07:11.000 like us. Okay. And we experience the world using 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:13.560 what philosophers call temporal indexicals. They're 00:07:13.560 --> 00:07:16.740 words like now, yesterday, soon, and present. 00:07:16.879 --> 00:07:19.379 And the timeless God cannot know what now means. 00:07:19.699 --> 00:07:22.560 How could he? Because now is constantly changing. 00:07:22.620 --> 00:07:24.660 It's a moving target. That's the crux of it. 00:07:25.100 --> 00:07:28.480 If God is truly outside of time, he cannot say, 00:07:28.600 --> 00:07:31.759 it is raining now. If he said that, it would 00:07:31.759 --> 00:07:33.980 imply that that moment is somehow distinguishable 00:07:33.980 --> 00:07:36.000 and different from the moments before and after 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:38.620 it in his experience. But his experience is non 00:07:38.620 --> 00:07:41.120 -successive. It's all one moment. It's all one 00:07:41.120 --> 00:07:43.600 moment. He would know the fact of the rain, and 00:07:43.600 --> 00:07:45.379 he'd know the fact that humans call that period 00:07:45.379 --> 00:07:48.480 of time now, but he couldn't genuinely know the 00:07:48.480 --> 00:07:51.120 experience of now in a temporal sense. He can't 00:07:51.120 --> 00:07:54.060 feel the nowness of now. That distinction between 00:07:54.060 --> 00:07:55.899 knowing all the facts about a thing and knowing 00:07:55.899 --> 00:07:57.759 the experience of a thing, that seems absolutely 00:07:57.759 --> 00:08:00.860 vital here. So if I say, help me in this present 00:08:00.860 --> 00:08:04.199 moment, and a timeless God receives that prayer, 00:08:04.439 --> 00:08:07.759 the concept of present moment only exists for 00:08:07.759 --> 00:08:10.540 me, the temporal being. If the recipient of my 00:08:10.540 --> 00:08:13.079 prayer can't truly grasp the essence of present, 00:08:13.379 --> 00:08:16.199 then our whole interaction is based on fundamentally 00:08:16.199 --> 00:08:18.079 different realities. It's like we're speaking 00:08:18.079 --> 00:08:21.029 different languages. And Stuart Sutherland. He 00:08:21.029 --> 00:08:23.870 agrees with Pike's whole dichotomy, and he really 00:08:23.870 --> 00:08:27.129 amplifies this difficulty. He argues that the 00:08:27.129 --> 00:08:30.269 logical consequences of timelessness are, well, 00:08:30.389 --> 00:08:32.929 severe for the concept of omniscience. How severe? 00:08:33.389 --> 00:08:37.049 Sutherland argues that if God is timeless, there 00:08:37.049 --> 00:08:39.850 are entire categories of temporal knowledge that 00:08:39.850 --> 00:08:42.330 are simply inaccessible to him. Okay, tell us 00:08:42.330 --> 00:08:45.319 what those inaccessible categories are. What 00:08:45.319 --> 00:08:48.600 can't a timeless God know? Specifically, Sutherland 00:08:48.600 --> 00:08:51.639 concludes that a timeless God cannot know what 00:08:51.639 --> 00:08:53.299 is happening now, what will happen tomorrow, 00:08:53.460 --> 00:08:55.080 or what happened yesterday. Because all of those 00:08:55.080 --> 00:08:57.340 are relative terms. They are entirely dependent 00:08:57.340 --> 00:08:59.799 on a temporal location relative to the observer. 00:09:00.019 --> 00:09:02.039 If God is not located in time, those locations 00:09:02.039 --> 00:09:04.820 are meaningless. It would be like asking a map 00:09:04.820 --> 00:09:06.940 to tell you where you are right now without telling 00:09:06.940 --> 00:09:09.080 the map where you started. The map has all the 00:09:09.080 --> 00:09:11.200 data, but it doesn't know you're here and now. 00:09:11.460 --> 00:09:14.519 Wow. Okay, if that argument holds up... It means 00:09:14.519 --> 00:09:16.840 that the classical definition of divine perfection, 00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:21.200 absolute timelessness, It fundamentally limits 00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:24.519 what God can know about the sequential moment 00:09:24.519 --> 00:09:27.200 -to -moment reality of his own creation. That 00:09:27.200 --> 00:09:30.120 is a profound trade -off. It is. And this limitation, 00:09:30.299 --> 00:09:32.720 ironically, it actually solves the initial problem 00:09:32.720 --> 00:09:35.200 that Pike raised about free will. How so? Well, 00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:37.940 if God's knowledge is non -sequential and non 00:09:37.940 --> 00:09:40.340 -foreknowing in that deterministic sense, if 00:09:40.340 --> 00:09:42.779 he doesn't know my tomorrow as a settled, immutable 00:09:42.779 --> 00:09:45.720 fact, then I am truly free to choose my actions. 00:09:45.860 --> 00:09:49.000 I see. The necessary consequence of timelessness, 00:09:49.080 --> 00:09:51.980 not knowing the temporal now or tomorrow, eliminates 00:09:51.980 --> 00:09:55.159 the idea of God's traditional deterministic foreknowledge. 00:09:55.279 --> 00:09:57.480 It completely sidesteps the problem. So to save 00:09:57.480 --> 00:10:00.360 human free will, we sacrifice a portion of omniscience 00:10:00.360 --> 00:10:02.279 as we've traditionally understood it. Or at the 00:10:02.279 --> 00:10:04.019 very least, we have to redefine God's knowledge 00:10:04.019 --> 00:10:07.320 to be purely non -temporal, purely factual and 00:10:07.320 --> 00:10:10.039 non -experiential. This is a massive theological 00:10:10.039 --> 00:10:12.379 tradeoff. And it just highlights why that one 00:10:12.379 --> 00:10:14.679 definition of eternity is the absolute linchpin. 00:10:14.940 --> 00:10:17.100 It's the highest philosophical cost you can imagine. 00:10:17.779 --> 00:10:20.419 But the discussion doesn't stop at just intellectual 00:10:20.419 --> 00:10:22.980 coherence. We have to move into the religious 00:10:22.980 --> 00:10:25.120 consequences, you know, the practical side of 00:10:25.120 --> 00:10:27.500 relationship, worship, and prayer. Which brings 00:10:27.500 --> 00:10:29.440 us into section three, the conflict of relevance. 00:10:29.980 --> 00:10:32.179 And for this, we're using the really powerful 00:10:32.179 --> 00:10:34.340 arguments put forward by Lawrence LeFleur in 00:10:34.340 --> 00:10:37.480 his essay, If God Were Eternal. Right. LeFleur 00:10:37.480 --> 00:10:39.820 takes the philosophical conclusions we just discussed, 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:42.360 and he applies them directly to the experience 00:10:42.360 --> 00:10:45.019 of faith. He does. LeFleur confronts the idea 00:10:45.019 --> 00:10:47.580 of a timeless God head on, specifically regarding 00:10:47.580 --> 00:10:50.440 human interaction and relationality. He actually 00:10:50.440 --> 00:10:52.980 accepts the philosophical conclusion that if 00:10:52.980 --> 00:10:56.659 God were truly eternal, meaning timeless, he 00:10:56.659 --> 00:10:59.320 must be entirely outside of time. He cannot participate 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:02.320 in succession. And this outside status for LeFleur 00:11:02.320 --> 00:11:05.639 completely severs the link for interaction. But 00:11:05.639 --> 00:11:08.460 why? Why is time so crucial for interaction? 00:11:08.639 --> 00:11:11.679 Why can't a timeless God reach across the void? 00:11:11.860 --> 00:11:15.399 Because interaction requires causality and sequence. 00:11:15.820 --> 00:11:17.639 I mean, think about it. When we talk about God 00:11:17.639 --> 00:11:19.799 interacting, we mean God responds to a prayer 00:11:19.799 --> 00:11:23.399 or God intervenes in a war or God acts to heal 00:11:23.399 --> 00:11:27.120 someone. Right. All of these verbs respond. intervenes 00:11:27.120 --> 00:11:30.440 acts they require a change in state or a sequential 00:11:30.440 --> 00:11:33.100 relationship they require a before the action 00:11:33.100 --> 00:11:36.120 and an after the action of course if i pray now 00:11:36.120 --> 00:11:38.980 i expect god to hear and then respond at some 00:11:38.980 --> 00:11:41.379 point in my future that's a sequence a then b 00:11:41.379 --> 00:11:44.519 exactly and if god is entirely a temporal his 00:11:44.519 --> 00:11:47.759 nature is static and immutable he cannot in principle 00:11:47.759 --> 00:11:50.519 change or become anything he's not subject to 00:11:50.519 --> 00:11:53.399 succession which means he cannot enter our stream 00:11:53.399 --> 00:11:55.980 of existence at a specific now moment to respond 00:11:55.980 --> 00:11:58.159 to a prayer or perform an action. Why not? Because 00:11:58.159 --> 00:12:00.139 that would imply a change in his state. He would 00:12:00.139 --> 00:12:02.019 go from not acting to acting. That's a change. 00:12:02.080 --> 00:12:05.200 And a timeless being can't change. So LeFleur 00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:07.399 argues that this crucial consequence means a 00:12:07.399 --> 00:12:10.159 timeless God cannot actively interact with humanity. 00:12:10.580 --> 00:12:12.899 This challenges, I mean, the fundamental premise 00:12:12.899 --> 00:12:16.259 of so many faiths, that God is actively working 00:12:16.259 --> 00:12:19.460 in the world, intervening, listening. If God 00:12:19.460 --> 00:12:22.399 is entirely static and intemporal, how can he 00:12:22.399 --> 00:12:25.120 hear and respond to the pleas of a temporal being? 00:12:25.899 --> 00:12:29.679 It implies that the phone line is dead. Or maybe 00:12:29.679 --> 00:12:32.059 that the communication channel only works one 00:12:32.059 --> 00:12:34.879 way from us to a static reality that just is. 00:12:35.179 --> 00:12:37.360 Right. And Le Fleur pushes this even further, 00:12:37.460 --> 00:12:40.039 doesn't he? Into the realm of religious significance. 00:12:40.519 --> 00:12:43.620 He does. He argues that if God is outside time. 00:12:44.269 --> 00:12:46.710 and cannot interact with us, cannot change, and 00:12:46.710 --> 00:12:48.789 therefore cannot have a hand in our current fate, 00:12:49.009 --> 00:12:51.289 then God would have no religious significance 00:12:51.289 --> 00:12:54.269 to us. None at all. That's a huge claim. It is. 00:12:54.409 --> 00:12:56.850 But he argues that the essential quality of a 00:12:56.850 --> 00:12:59.049 deity relevance to the human condition, providence, 00:12:59.190 --> 00:13:01.610 judgment, love, it's all dissolved by the timeless 00:13:01.610 --> 00:13:04.190 definition. That is a direct attack on the foundations 00:13:04.190 --> 00:13:06.830 of worship. He's essentially saying that a perfectly 00:13:06.830 --> 00:13:09.590 timeless God is a perfectly irrelevant God. It 00:13:09.590 --> 00:13:12.009 prioritizes the utility of the deity over its 00:13:12.009 --> 00:13:14.940 philosophical perfection. And he reinforces this 00:13:14.940 --> 00:13:17.419 with a second powerful argument, one that's directly 00:13:17.419 --> 00:13:19.899 connected to our earlier discussion of omniscience. 00:13:20.909 --> 00:13:23.590 LeFleur posits that if God is all -knowing and 00:13:23.590 --> 00:13:25.809 has already conceived the entire world and all 00:13:25.809 --> 00:13:28.250 its inhabitants, every choice, every prayer, 00:13:28.409 --> 00:13:31.570 every response, every outcome, as a single static 00:13:31.570 --> 00:13:34.169 reality. Then what's the point of praying? Exactly. 00:13:34.269 --> 00:13:36.990 Then praying and worship are rendered pointless. 00:13:37.450 --> 00:13:39.809 Because if the whole world is just a closed, 00:13:40.049 --> 00:13:42.490 pre -written book, a fixed script that exists 00:13:42.490 --> 00:13:45.470 simultaneously, then my petitionary prayer cannot 00:13:45.470 --> 00:13:47.769 possibly change the sequence of events. It's 00:13:47.769 --> 00:13:50.210 already written. Absolutely. If God's knowledge 00:13:50.210 --> 00:13:53.549 is total and settled and his reality is non -successive, 00:13:53.590 --> 00:13:56.210 what function does a petitionary prayer serve? 00:13:56.590 --> 00:13:58.870 The timeless God knows your needs before you 00:13:58.870 --> 00:14:00.610 ask, and the response is already part of the 00:14:00.610 --> 00:14:03.110 total static reality that he observes. It's all 00:14:03.110 --> 00:14:06.470 one seamless fact. So prayer becomes what, at 00:14:06.470 --> 00:14:10.110 best, a form of self -contemplation, not an interactive 00:14:10.110 --> 00:14:12.610 appeal to a responsive being. That's his argument. 00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:16.799 So Le Fleur arrives at this very practical, almost 00:14:16.799 --> 00:14:20.059 semantic conclusion. He suggests that when religious 00:14:20.059 --> 00:14:22.159 people use the term eternal, what they really 00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:24.559 mean, what they must mean, if they want God to 00:14:24.559 --> 00:14:27.580 be active, relational, and responsive, is everlasting. 00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:31.159 Semp Eternity. They're using one word but intending 00:14:31.159 --> 00:14:34.039 the other definition? Yes. For Le Fleur, only 00:14:34.039 --> 00:14:36.740 by being everlasting, existing in time alongside 00:14:36.740 --> 00:14:40.120 us yet infinitely, can God be everything we think 00:14:40.120 --> 00:14:43.320 of him as. both all -knowing in a sequential 00:14:43.320 --> 00:14:45.639 sense and possessing the qualities necessary 00:14:45.639 --> 00:14:48.220 for relationship and intervention. So for Le 00:14:48.220 --> 00:14:50.659 Fleur, it's the only definition that maintains 00:14:50.659 --> 00:14:52.980 religious utility and coherence with the narratives 00:14:52.980 --> 00:14:55.840 of scripture. It is. This shifts the entire debate 00:14:55.840 --> 00:14:58.320 from a purely academic battle over philosophical 00:14:58.320 --> 00:15:01.200 purity to a choice based on theological functionality. 00:15:02.039 --> 00:15:05.980 Do we prioritize God's perfect, simple, non -changing 00:15:05.980 --> 00:15:08.419 nature, even if it makes him distant and potentially 00:15:08.419 --> 00:15:10.759 irrelevant? It's timelessness. Right. Or do we 00:15:10.759 --> 00:15:13.019 prioritize God's relational intervening nature, 00:15:13.200 --> 00:15:15.779 even if it implies some form of change or succession 00:15:15.779 --> 00:15:18.580 to the divine thought life? That's everlastingness. 00:15:18.799 --> 00:15:21.419 That's the critical choice. And this leads us 00:15:21.419 --> 00:15:23.759 perfectly into section four, where we can look 00:15:23.759 --> 00:15:26.279 at how Christian theology has attempted to synthesize 00:15:26.279 --> 00:15:29.139 these ideas, or in some cases, definitively choose 00:15:29.139 --> 00:15:31.659 between these options, recognizing the massive 00:15:31.659 --> 00:15:34.519 cost inherent in either decision. Okay, so first 00:15:34.519 --> 00:15:36.299 we have to acknowledge the difficulty inherent 00:15:36.299 --> 00:15:38.620 in looking to the foundational religious texts 00:15:38.620 --> 00:15:42.509 themselves. The ambiguity of scripture on this 00:15:42.509 --> 00:15:46.009 is immense. It's huge. The Bible is much less 00:15:46.009 --> 00:15:47.970 clear than we might hope on which of the two 00:15:47.970 --> 00:15:50.809 senses, timeless or everlasting, is actually 00:15:50.809 --> 00:15:53.580 the true one. Scripture provides compelling data 00:15:53.580 --> 00:15:55.740 points for both sides, which is honestly why 00:15:55.740 --> 00:15:58.379 the debate persists. You have passages that emphasize 00:15:58.379 --> 00:16:00.720 God's absolute immutability, his simplicity, 00:16:01.019 --> 00:16:03.259 his transcendence, you know, I the Lord do not 00:16:03.259 --> 00:16:06.399 change. And those all strongly support the timeless, 00:16:06.519 --> 00:16:09.980 a temporal view. That view emphasizes God's majestic 00:16:09.980 --> 00:16:13.159 separation from the, let's say, temporal messiness 00:16:13.159 --> 00:16:15.259 of creation. Perfectly put. But then you have 00:16:15.259 --> 00:16:17.360 countless narrative accounts of God reacting, 00:16:17.419 --> 00:16:19.759 responding, even repenting using language that 00:16:19.759 --> 00:16:22.690 seems fundamentally temporal. God speaks to Abraham 00:16:22.690 --> 00:16:25.789 at a specific time. God regrets making Saul king 00:16:25.789 --> 00:16:28.389 at a specific time. These are sequential events 00:16:28.389 --> 00:16:31.990 in a story. Exactly. The fact that God interacts 00:16:31.990 --> 00:16:34.929 with humans at a specific now moment and that 00:16:34.929 --> 00:16:37.230 he initiates sequential covenants and actions 00:16:37.230 --> 00:16:40.870 strongly supports the second notion. God being 00:16:40.870 --> 00:16:44.629 in time but everlasting. Sempaternity. So the 00:16:44.629 --> 00:16:46.169 scriptures don't provide a clean theological 00:16:46.169 --> 00:16:50.000 answer. Not at all. which forces systematic theologians 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:52.179 to make a choice, usually based on which model 00:16:52.179 --> 00:16:55.220 they find more philosophically coherent. So let's 00:16:55.220 --> 00:16:57.330 look at that choice in the modern context. We 00:16:57.330 --> 00:16:59.389 turn to scholars like John Feinberg, who makes 00:16:59.389 --> 00:17:02.450 a specific, very strong case for omni -temporality, 00:17:02.549 --> 00:17:05.269 that everlasting existence in time over strict 00:17:05.269 --> 00:17:08.130 timelessness. Right. Feinberg, in his excellent 00:17:08.130 --> 00:17:11.289 work No One Like Him, he acknowledges the philosophical 00:17:11.289 --> 00:17:14.250 difficulties on both sides. He actually agrees 00:17:14.250 --> 00:17:16.650 with William Lane Craig, who is a major proponent 00:17:16.650 --> 00:17:19.150 of timelessness, that the biblical data is compatible 00:17:19.150 --> 00:17:21.750 with both views, provided you interpret those 00:17:21.750 --> 00:17:23.950 narrative passages non -literally. So you can 00:17:23.950 --> 00:17:26.130 make the Bible fit either model if you try hard 00:17:26.130 --> 00:17:28.700 enough. Pretty much. However, Feinberg still 00:17:28.700 --> 00:17:31.380 finds the notion of omni -temporality simply 00:17:31.380 --> 00:17:34.599 easier to make sense of, both logically and religiously, 00:17:34.640 --> 00:17:38.019 than a temporal eternity. Okay, easier in terms 00:17:38.019 --> 00:17:40.779 of logic. That means addressing the pike and 00:17:40.779 --> 00:17:43.740 roe issue head on. How does Feinberg approach 00:17:43.740 --> 00:17:47.779 that logic problem? So, logic first. Feinberg 00:17:47.779 --> 00:17:51.200 finds it incredibly hard to believe that an omniscient, 00:17:51.220 --> 00:17:54.039 supremely rational being could know everything 00:17:54.039 --> 00:17:56.660 there is to know without being temporal in some 00:17:56.660 --> 00:17:59.279 sense. Why? He points out that our knowledge 00:17:59.279 --> 00:18:02.000 of actions and events is inherently tied to sequence 00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:04.920 and succession. Right. If I know that the prayer 00:18:04.920 --> 00:18:06.880 happened and then the healing happened, that... 00:18:07.099 --> 00:18:10.279 and then is a temporal concept if god is timeless 00:18:10.279 --> 00:18:13.039 he knows the prayer and the healing simultaneously 00:18:13.039 --> 00:18:15.759 and the and then just vanishes from his perspective 00:18:15.759 --> 00:18:18.319 correct but if the and then vanishes you lose 00:18:18.319 --> 00:18:20.200 the essence of causation which is fundamental 00:18:20.200 --> 00:18:23.380 to how we understand reality feinberg asserts 00:18:23.380 --> 00:18:25.660 that in order for god to truly know reality as 00:18:25.660 --> 00:18:28.119 it is he must in some way be aware of sequence 00:18:28.119 --> 00:18:31.390 so if god has a thought life That thought life 00:18:31.390 --> 00:18:34.690 must have some form of temporal sequence, even 00:18:34.690 --> 00:18:36.529 if that sequence is vastly different and more 00:18:36.529 --> 00:18:38.589 complex than our own. That's his conclusion. 00:18:38.910 --> 00:18:41.329 But wait a minute. If we say God's thought life 00:18:41.329 --> 00:18:44.029 has a temporal sequence, doesn't that imply God 00:18:44.029 --> 00:18:46.869 is changing or learning? That seems to immediately 00:18:46.869 --> 00:18:50.309 violate the classical definition of divine immutability. 00:18:50.750 --> 00:18:52.910 It feels like we're heading down a risky theological 00:18:52.910 --> 00:18:55.849 path. That is the danger. And it's a real one. 00:18:55.930 --> 00:18:58.490 But Feinberg counters that the coherence of God's 00:18:58.490 --> 00:19:00.589 relational dynamic outweighs that philosophical 00:19:00.589 --> 00:19:03.890 risk. Which brings us to his second point. utility, 00:19:04.089 --> 00:19:07.089 and relationship. Feinberg strongly believes 00:19:07.089 --> 00:19:09.309 the concept of fellowship is dramatically easier 00:19:09.309 --> 00:19:12.349 to understand on the omnitemporal model. Scripture 00:19:12.349 --> 00:19:14.789 repeatedly points to God interacting with humans 00:19:14.789 --> 00:19:17.730 at various specific successive points. Abraham, 00:19:17.910 --> 00:19:20.789 Moses, the prophets. So if God has a temporal 00:19:20.789 --> 00:19:23.250 sequence in his thought life, it means he can 00:19:23.250 --> 00:19:25.529 genuinely respond to a prayer that happens now 00:19:25.529 --> 00:19:28.430 in our present moment because he is also experiencing 00:19:28.430 --> 00:19:31.779 a now alongside us. It makes the relational elements 00:19:31.779 --> 00:19:34.500 of faith coherent. It allows for genuine dialogue, 00:19:34.619 --> 00:19:37.660 reaction, and interaction, the exact religious 00:19:37.660 --> 00:19:41.119 utility that Le Fleur argued was essential. The 00:19:41.119 --> 00:19:43.700 omnitemporal view, while it might complicate 00:19:43.700 --> 00:19:45.940 God's absolute simplicity, retains the essential 00:19:45.940 --> 00:19:48.059 relational dynamic that you see all through the 00:19:48.059 --> 00:19:52.440 sources. So, the choice is functional. Pick the 00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:54.700 definition that makes the most sense of the biblical 00:19:54.700 --> 00:19:57.079 narrative of God's active involvement in human 00:19:57.079 --> 00:19:59.369 history. That's Feinberg's preference. However, 00:19:59.609 --> 00:20:01.990 he is very quick to add a crucial theological 00:20:01.990 --> 00:20:04.789 safety net, which we absolutely must emphasize 00:20:04.789 --> 00:20:07.849 for you, the listener. He affirms that both the 00:20:07.849 --> 00:20:10.470 timeless and the omnitemporal views are fully 00:20:10.470 --> 00:20:13.109 theologically orthodox. That is a critical distinction. 00:20:13.349 --> 00:20:15.750 This is not about heresy. Not at all. The debate 00:20:15.750 --> 00:20:18.089 is about refining attributes, about finding the 00:20:18.089 --> 00:20:20.269 most coherent philosophical description, not 00:20:20.269 --> 00:20:22.569 choosing between core Christian tenets. But what 00:20:22.569 --> 00:20:25.130 about that risk you mentioned? If omnitemporality 00:20:25.130 --> 00:20:27.809 implies sequencing God's thoughts, doesn't that 00:20:27.809 --> 00:20:31.049 risk the charge of heresy? It risks sliding into 00:20:31.049 --> 00:20:33.410 a specific heresy known as process theology. 00:20:33.809 --> 00:20:36.710 And this is where the advantage of divine timelessness, 00:20:36.769 --> 00:20:39.170 the temporal view, becomes a really compelling 00:20:39.170 --> 00:20:41.900 safeguard. Okay, so we have to clarify what process 00:20:41.900 --> 00:20:45.299 theology is and why it's such a threat to classical 00:20:45.299 --> 00:20:48.220 orthodoxy. Let's define it clearly. Process theology 00:20:48.220 --> 00:20:50.779 suggests that God is not static, not unchanging, 00:20:50.920 --> 00:20:54.119 not perfect in all time. Instead, it posits that 00:20:54.119 --> 00:20:56.940 God is mutable, temporal, and actually changes 00:20:56.940 --> 00:20:59.619 and evolves over time with the universe. So God 00:20:59.619 --> 00:21:02.059 is the work in progress. In a sense, yes. In 00:21:02.059 --> 00:21:04.799 this view, God is incomplete. He is constantly 00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:07.019 realizing his full potential in relationship 00:21:07.019 --> 00:21:09.690 with the universe. So God needs creation. To 00:21:09.690 --> 00:21:12.430 become fully God. Precisely. And this view is 00:21:12.430 --> 00:21:15.170 considered heretical by classical theology because 00:21:15.170 --> 00:21:17.609 it completely challenges the doctrine of divine 00:21:17.609 --> 00:21:20.630 immutability, God's unchangeable nature, and 00:21:20.630 --> 00:21:23.390 divine simplicity, the idea that God is not composed 00:21:23.390 --> 00:21:26.089 of parts or subject to change. I see. If God 00:21:26.089 --> 00:21:28.609 is defined as purely temporal, existing in time, 00:21:28.609 --> 00:21:31.190 and reacting in sequence, the risk of implying 00:21:31.190 --> 00:21:33.450 changeability or imperfection in God, which is 00:21:33.450 --> 00:21:36.369 the core claim of process theology, it increases 00:21:36.369 --> 00:21:39.470 dramatically. So timelessness, by its very definition, 00:21:39.650 --> 00:21:42.549 insists upon God's changeless nature and ultimate 00:21:42.549 --> 00:21:45.589 simplicity. Those are ancient tenets of classical 00:21:45.589 --> 00:21:49.130 theology. To be outside time is to be immutable. 00:21:49.250 --> 00:21:52.390 It's like a doctrinal guardrail. It is a guardrail 00:21:52.390 --> 00:21:55.509 against the worst theological outcomes of embracing 00:21:55.509 --> 00:21:58.210 temporality, but it provides that theological 00:21:58.210 --> 00:22:01.549 safety at a very high philosophical cost. The 00:22:01.549 --> 00:22:04.210 cost being the loss of coherence regarding knowledge 00:22:04.210 --> 00:22:06.970 of now and relationality, as detailed by Rowe 00:22:06.970 --> 00:22:09.710 and LeFleur. Exactly. Now, despite these modern 00:22:09.710 --> 00:22:12.170 preferences, we have to acknowledge the immense 00:22:12.170 --> 00:22:14.970 weight of historical Christian thought, which 00:22:14.970 --> 00:22:17.609 tried to achieve the ultimate synthesis, retaining 00:22:17.609 --> 00:22:20.559 the benefits of both sides. Right. DP Walker's 00:22:20.559 --> 00:22:23.140 research highlights this historic Christian doctrine, 00:22:23.339 --> 00:22:25.779 which was formulated by towering figures like 00:22:25.779 --> 00:22:28.279 Augustine of Hippo, Boethius, and Thomas Aquinas. 00:22:28.460 --> 00:22:31.119 These thinkers were fully aware of this dichotomy. 00:22:31.279 --> 00:22:32.500 They saw the same problems we're discussing. 00:22:32.700 --> 00:22:35.380 They absolutely did. And they attempted to combine 00:22:35.380 --> 00:22:38.400 the best of both worlds into a single comprehensive 00:22:38.400 --> 00:22:41.279 definition of eternity. How on earth did they 00:22:41.279 --> 00:22:44.240 manage to synthesize two seemingly contradictory 00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:48.480 concepts? Static timelessness and infinite duration. 00:22:48.910 --> 00:22:52.059 They did it by combining two notions. Non -successive 00:22:52.059 --> 00:22:54.839 experience, that's the static atemporal element, 00:22:55.019 --> 00:22:57.839 which ensures immutability. Okay. And infinite 00:22:57.839 --> 00:23:00.000 duration, that's the everlasting sempiternal 00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:03.220 element, which ensures God never ends. So God 00:23:03.220 --> 00:23:06.400 is timeless in his experience of reality, but 00:23:06.400 --> 00:23:08.579 everlasting in the span of that reality. Yes. 00:23:08.720 --> 00:23:11.559 Boethius, he famously defined eternity as the 00:23:11.559 --> 00:23:14.839 perfect simultaneous possession of unending life. 00:23:15.140 --> 00:23:17.240 Simultaneous possession. Think of it this way, 00:23:17.299 --> 00:23:19.619 and this is a classic analogy. If time is a line, 00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:22.109 we are traveling. along a single point on that 00:23:22.109 --> 00:23:25.509 line experiencing one moment after another succession 00:23:25.509 --> 00:23:28.490 right god in this classical synthesis is not 00:23:28.490 --> 00:23:30.829 just one coin on the line he is the infinite 00:23:30.829 --> 00:23:33.890 circle that encompasses the entire line so we 00:23:33.890 --> 00:23:35.809 are the travelers experiencing one second at 00:23:35.809 --> 00:23:38.369 a time but god sees the entire journey the beginning 00:23:38.369 --> 00:23:41.269 the middle and the end all at once exactly he's 00:23:41.269 --> 00:23:43.470 like the center of the circle from which the 00:23:43.470 --> 00:23:46.029 entire infinite circumference is viewed simultaneously 00:23:47.080 --> 00:23:49.920 This classic synthesis attempts to solve the 00:23:49.920 --> 00:23:52.420 pychro problem by saying God knows everything 00:23:52.420 --> 00:23:55.119 simultaneously, but that everything includes 00:23:55.119 --> 00:23:57.859 the past, present, and future sequence, which 00:23:57.859 --> 00:24:00.000 he sees all at once without having to wait for 00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:02.660 the future or recall the past. But wait a second. 00:24:02.880 --> 00:24:05.579 If they combine simultaneous experience with 00:24:05.579 --> 00:24:08.099 unending duration, doesn't that just push the 00:24:08.099 --> 00:24:10.299 Le Fleur problem of interaction to the side? 00:24:10.420 --> 00:24:13.559 If God is fundamentally non -successive in experience, 00:24:14.079 --> 00:24:16.900 how is that temporal bridge ever crossed? That 00:24:16.900 --> 00:24:19.380 is the hardest knot to untie in classical theology, 00:24:19.759 --> 00:24:21.859 and critics like Le Fleur would argue it ultimately 00:24:21.859 --> 00:24:25.059 fails. If God is truly static and non -successive, 00:24:25.099 --> 00:24:27.559 then any interaction, any act of providence or 00:24:27.559 --> 00:24:30.059 response, it must be understood as God acting 00:24:30.059 --> 00:24:32.380 through time, but not in time. What does that 00:24:32.380 --> 00:24:34.539 mean? It means that God wills the entirety of 00:24:34.539 --> 00:24:36.440 the timeline, including his response to your 00:24:36.440 --> 00:24:38.460 prayer, all at once from his timeless state. 00:24:38.660 --> 00:24:40.759 So your prayer doesn't change God's mind, because 00:24:40.759 --> 00:24:43.500 God doesn't change, but your prayer is part of 00:24:43.500 --> 00:24:45.890 the sequence that he eternally willed into. being. 00:24:46.029 --> 00:24:48.849 Ah, so that brings us right back to the foreknowledge 00:24:48.849 --> 00:24:51.630 issue. It means my prayer is necessary and my 00:24:51.630 --> 00:24:54.369 freedom is still compromised, even if the definition 00:24:54.369 --> 00:24:56.990 is very elegant. It does. This just shows that 00:24:56.990 --> 00:24:59.150 the philosophical tension isn't simply resolved 00:24:59.150 --> 00:25:03.599 by historical consensus. It's just. It is managed 00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:05.900 with a complex conceptual structure, but the 00:25:05.900 --> 00:25:09.299 core issue of coherence remains. Which model 00:25:09.299 --> 00:25:12.680 makes God's attributes and his recorded actions 00:25:12.680 --> 00:25:15.420 most logically compatible? That's really the 00:25:15.420 --> 00:25:17.220 question that's still on the table. Okay, let's 00:25:17.220 --> 00:25:18.940 pull it all together. Let's synthesize for the 00:25:18.940 --> 00:25:22.000 final time. What is the essential tension for 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:24.700 you, the listener, to take away from this really 00:25:24.700 --> 00:25:27.640 complex deep dive? I think the choice is between 00:25:27.640 --> 00:25:30.700 two profound models of existence. On one side, 00:25:30.740 --> 00:25:34.180 you have timelessness or atemporality. This model 00:25:34.180 --> 00:25:37.579 prioritizes God's utter perfection, his simplicity, 00:25:37.880 --> 00:25:40.559 his immutability, and it acts as that safeguard 00:25:40.559 --> 00:25:43.420 against theological heresy. But the cost is internal. 00:25:43.799 --> 00:25:46.079 A huge internal cost. It creates these severe 00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:48.039 philosophical difficulties regarding knowing 00:25:48.039 --> 00:25:50.799 the temporal now and engaging in genuine relationship 00:25:50.799 --> 00:25:53.000 and interaction with humanity. And then on the 00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:56.359 other side, we have everlastingness or omni -temporality. 00:25:56.400 --> 00:25:59.359 And this one prioritizes God's relational nature. 00:25:59.460 --> 00:26:01.519 It makes sense of the biblical narratives of 00:26:01.519 --> 00:26:03.700 response, interaction, and providence. But the 00:26:03.700 --> 00:26:06.420 cost there is that it skirts dangerously close 00:26:06.420 --> 00:26:09.640 to implying mutability or change in God, which 00:26:09.640 --> 00:26:12.849 risks that slide toward process theology. So 00:26:12.849 --> 00:26:14.690 we've seen the philosophical heavyweights Pike, 00:26:14.849 --> 00:26:17.730 Rowe, Sutherland, highlighting that timelessness 00:26:17.730 --> 00:26:20.950 undermines knowledge of now, which paradoxically 00:26:20.950 --> 00:26:23.869 allows for human freedom. Then we saw Le Fleur 00:26:23.869 --> 00:26:27.450 arguing that this very distance renders God religiously 00:26:27.450 --> 00:26:29.789 irrelevant. And we noted Feinberg's theological 00:26:29.789 --> 00:26:32.410 preference for the relational omnitemporal model, 00:26:32.549 --> 00:26:35.289 even while he confirms that both models are completely 00:26:35.289 --> 00:26:37.769 orthodox. It's a debate where the definition 00:26:37.769 --> 00:26:41.470 of one single word, eternity, has these staggering 00:26:41.470 --> 00:26:44.390 foundational implications for everything from 00:26:44.390 --> 00:26:46.750 free will and the nature of causation to the 00:26:46.750 --> 00:26:49.049 effectiveness of personal prayer. Absolutely. 00:26:49.190 --> 00:26:51.549 Yeah. And if you consider Feinberg's final caveat, 00:26:51.869 --> 00:26:54.329 that the only definitive advantage of embracing 00:26:54.329 --> 00:26:57.369 the timeless model is avoiding the external consequence 00:26:57.369 --> 00:26:59.670 of sliding into the heresy of process theology, 00:27:00.109 --> 00:27:02.750 this raises a really important final question 00:27:02.750 --> 00:27:04.890 for you to mull over or explore on your own. 00:27:04.970 --> 00:27:07.230 It does. So what's that final provocative thought? 00:27:22.889 --> 00:27:26.589 In other words. If the only way to protect God's 00:27:26.589 --> 00:27:28.769 perfect nature makes God seemingly incapable 00:27:28.769 --> 00:27:31.190 of knowing our now or responding to our pleas, 00:27:31.369 --> 00:27:34.369 is that external benefit worth the internal cost 00:27:34.369 --> 00:27:37.170 to our theology of relationship? So you need 00:27:37.170 --> 00:27:39.869 to think about how you define the infinite and 00:27:39.869 --> 00:27:41.849 what costs you're willing to accept for that 00:27:41.849 --> 00:27:42.109 definition.