Theological glossary · FaithLogic

Eternity (of God)

God has no beginning and no end and is not measured or bound by time as creatures are.

Latin aeternitas; Boethius's classic definition: 'the complete possession all at once of illimitable life' (interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio).

Psalm 90:2, 4; 102:12, 24–27; Isaiah 40:28; 57:15; John 8:58; 1 Timothy 1:17; 2 Peter 3:8; Revelation 1:8.

The dominant classical view is divine timelessness — God's eternity is not endless time but a mode of existence transcending temporal succession, in which all times are present to him at once (Boethius, Anselm, Aquinas). A significant modern alternative holds that God is 'omnitemporal' — everlasting through time, without beginning or end.

Timeless eternity undergirds immutability and exhaustive foreknowledge (God sees all history in one 'now'); Boethius uses it to reconcile foreknowledge and freedom.

Timelessness (classical) vs. omnitemporality (many analytic theists, e.g. Wolterstorff, Craig); how God's eternity relates to his real action in history and (for some) his experience of the incarnation.

Open in the glossary for related terms and the doctrines this concept appears in.