Eternity and Time's Flow

Robert Cummings Neville is Dean of the School of Theology and a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Boston University. He was President of the Metaphysical Society of America in 1989, of the American Academy of Religion in 1992, and of the International Society for Chinese Philosophy in 1992. He is the editor of New Essays in Metaphysics and he is the author of The Tao and the Daimon: Segments of a Religious Inquiry; The Puritan Smile: A Look Toward Moral Reflection; A Theology Primer; God the Creator: On the Transcendence and Presence of God; Recovery of the Measure: Interpretation and Nature; Reconstruction of Thinking; Behind the Masks of God: An Essay Toward Comparative Theology; and The Highroad Around Modernism, all published by SUNY Press.

"Neville's opening claim is simply indisputable, that nothing in ancient mythical cosmology, no matter how fantastic, rivals the sort of sweepingly imaginative cosmological claims issuing from the pens of today's most prominent theoretical physicists. Neville writes with the same easy, fluent, and (most of all) authoritative command of ideas and of relevant details employed by Hawking, Feynman, and Bohm. The difference, in Neville's favor, is that he has a comprehensive grasp of the broad philosophical context for the discussion of time, together with a perspective informed by knowledge of major, non-Western contributions toward representing and understanding the problem." — George R. Lucas, Jr."This book deals with the deepest and most complex problems from the broadest perspective (science, philosophy, and the world religions) and produces an answer that is sophisticated, clear, consistent in its argumentation, and relevant to everyday life. The solution to the problem of time and eternity is set within Christian theology yet it is argued throughout within the hearing of the teachings of the other world religions and the challenges of secular modernity." — Harold Coward, University of Victoria, Canada

• Author's Preface Artist's Preface by Beth Neville Part One. Eternity and the Time Passion of the Modern World 1. A Time to Rethink Eternity ScienceReligionMetaphysicsThe Argument2. The Fall from Eternity to Immortality Temporal ObsessionAncient SophisticationImmortality and AntireligionSkepticsm and Anxiety3. The Philosophical Passion for Present Time Subjectivism and ExperienceKant and the Transcendental Definition of WorldModern KantiansWhitehead and Process Philosophy4. No Time without Eternity Personal IdentitySelf and NonselfPast and Future in Present TimeMoral IdentityPart Two. Time's Flow within Eternity 5. A Metaphysics of Time and Eternity AntimetaphysicsRelation as ConnectionThe Integrity of RelataHarmony6. Time's Relations of Otherness The Present's Rebellion against Time as PastThe Differences between Past, Present, and FutureValue and TimeThe Equal Necessity of the Temporal Modes7. Time's Flow Before and After, Earlier and Later, and WhenTemporally Biased Representations of TimeThe Necessary Mutual Conditioning of Time's ModesHow Time Flows8. Eternal Togetherness of the Temporal Modes TogethernessThe Ontological Contort of Mutual RelevanceTime in Things, Things in EternityThings in Time, Time in EternityPart Three. Divine Eternity 9. Eternity and God's Being God as a QuestionFalse.Images of EternityGod Not an IndividualTheistc Themes10. Eternal Creation Theological Ideas of GodConceptions of the World: ClosureProcess TheologyCreation ex Nihilo11. Creation of All Times The Analysis of ''Proper Dates""Two Authors" TheoryThe Temporality of the Creative ActThe Nontemporality of the Creative Act12. God's Eternal Life Time's Flow sub Specie EternitatisImages of TimeThe Singularity of Creation: GodDivine Responsiveness: God as Living CreatorPart Four. Eternal Life 13. The Eternal Identity of Persons Immortality and Eternal LifeTemporal and Eternal IdentityDeath's AllureJudgment: Standing in Eternity14. The Divine Identity of Persons Participation in the Divine LifeThe Religious Significance of Natural EternityThe Covenant Conception of the Human ContextSalvation: Redeeming the Time15. God with Us The Otherness of GodPrivation of the HumanSpecial GraceProvidence: The Infinite in the Finite16. God beyond Us Resurrection: Salvation and DamnationConquering Natural Death of Finitude and FragmentationConquering Spiritual Death of Sin, Ignorance, and DisharmonyGlory: The Finite in the InfiniteNotes Bibliography Index