God, Time, and the Defence of Contingency: Aquinas and His Critics

John Marenbon

Jump to Content

Chapter 6 God, Time, and the Defence of Contingency

Aquinas and His Critics

In: Time, Tense, and Modality

Author:

John Marenbon

John Marenbon
Search for other papers by John Marenbon in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed

Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 131–149

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004747166_008

Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):

€42.00€35.00 excl. VAT

Add to Cart

Redeem Access Token

Abstract

If God knows everything, as Christian doctrine requires, how can anything be contingent, even the future, given that nothing can turn out otherwise from how God knows it will be? According to many historians, a way of answering this problem of prescience championed by Boethius and Aquinas is to claim that God, by his very nature as existing timelessly in eternity, is simultaneous with everything, past, present, and future. God does not, therefore, know the future (or the past). Rather, for him everything is present, and so the problem of prescience does not arise. The paper argues (briefly, because the author has done so elsewhere) that neither Boethius nor Aquinas held this view. Then it is shown how the view came to be attributed to Aquinas, in the course of the controversy between Franciscans and his Dominican defenders over the orthodoxy of his ideas.

Citation Info

Save
Cite
Email this content

Share link with colleague or librarian

You can email a link to this page to a colleague or librarian:
Email this content
or copy the link directly:

https://brill.edhh.ma/abstract/book/9789004747166/BP000007.xml
The link was not copied. Your current browser may not support copying via this button.

Link copied successfully

Collapse
Expand

Time, Tense, and Modality

Proceedings of the XXIII European Symposium on Medieval Logic and Semantics

Series: Investigating Medieval Philosophy, Volume: 26

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004747166

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 04 Nov 2025

Subjects

Front Matter

Back Matter

Metrics

	All Time	Past 365 days	Past 30 Days
Abstract Views	162	162	5
Full Text Views	1	1	0
PDF Views & Downloads	2	2	0

African Studies	Education	Media Studies
American Studies	History	Middle East and Islamic Studies
Ancient Near East and Egypt	Human Rights and Humanitarian Law	Musicology
Art History	International Law	Philosophy
Asian Studies	International Relations	Religious Studies
Biblical Studies	Jewish Studies	Slavic and Eurasian Studies
Biology	Languages and Linguistics	Social Sciences
Book History and Cartography	Life Sciences	Theology and World Christianity
Classical Studies	Literature and Cultural Studies

Subjects

Authors

Open Access

Product Information

Company

Contact

Chapter 6 God, Time, and the Defence of Contingency

Aquinas and His Critics

Abstract

Citation Info

Share link with colleague or librarian

Time, Tense, and Modality

Proceedings of the XXIII European Symposium on Medieval Logic and Semantics

Table of Contents

Metrics

Metrics