Gregory E. Ganssle – författare

Throughout the history of philosophical theology, scholars have reflected on the relationship between God and time. In the Western religious tradition, God has been thought to be eternal, in the sense that God is outside time. But many thinkers today hold that while God is everlasting, in that there was no beginning to God''s existence nor will he ever cease existing, God exists within Time. In God and Time, Gregory E. Ganssle and David Woodruff have brought together 12 previously unpublished essays from leading philosophers on God''s relation to time. Including work from today''s most prominent thinkers in this fascinating field, God and Time represents the current state of the discussion between those who believe God to be atemporal (experiencing everything in the "eternal now") and those who believe God to be temporal (experiencing events sequentially, somewhat as we do). This collection highlights such issues as how the nature of time is relevant to the question of whether God is temporal and how God''s other attributes are compatible with his mode of temporal being. By focusing on the metaphysical aspects of time and temporal existence, God and Time makes a unique contribution to the current resurgence of interest in philosophical theology in the analytic tradition.

God and Time is a collection of previously unpublished essays written by leading philosophers about God's relation to time. The essays have been selected to represent current debates written between those who believe God to be atemporal and those who do not. The essays highlight issues such as how the nature of time is relevant to whether God is temporal and how God's other attributes are compatible with his mode of temporal being. By focusing on the metaphysical aspects of time and temporal existence, God and Time will make a unique contribution to the current resurgence of interest in philosophical theology within the analytic tradition.

Throughout the history of philosophical theology, scholars have reflected on the relationship between God and time. In the Western religious tradition, God has been thought to be eternal, in the sense that God is outside time. But many thinkers today hold that while God is everlasting, in that there was no beginning to God''s existence nor will he ever cease existing, God exists within Time. In God and Time, Gregory E. Ganssle and David Woodruff have brought together 12 previously unpublished essays from leading philosophers on God''s relation to time. Including work from today''s most prominent thinkers in this fascinating field, God and Time represents the current state of the discussion between those who believe God to be atemporal (experiencing everything in the "eternal now") and those who believe God to be temporal (experiencing events sequentially, somewhat as we do). This collection highlights such issues as how the nature of time is relevant to the question of whether God is temporal and how God''s other attributes are compatible with his mode of temporal being. By focusing on the metaphysical aspects of time and temporal existence, God and Time makes a unique contribution to the current resurgence of interest in philosophical theology in the analytic tradition.

Calmly engaging the philosophical arguments posed by best-selling authors Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, and to a lesser extent, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, Gregory Ganssle's A Reasonable God is a nuanced, charitable, and philosophically well-informed defense of the existence of God. Eschewing the rhetoric and provocative purposes of the New Atheists, Ganssle instead lucidly and objectively analyzes each argument on its own philosophical merits, to see how persuasive they prove to be. Surveying topics including the relationship between faith and reason, moral arguments for the existence of God, the Darwinian theories of the origin of religion, he pays particular attention to, and ultimately rejects, what he determines is the strongest logical argument against the existence of god posed by the new atheists, put forth by Dawkins: that our universe resembles more of what an atheistic universe would be like than it does with what a theistic universe would be like.

The eternal God has created the universe. And that universe is time-bound. How can we best understand God''s relationship with our time-bound universe? For example, does God experience each moment of time in succession or are all times present to God?How we think of God and time has implications for our understanding of the nature of time, the creation of the universe, God''s knowledge of the future, God''s interaction with his creation and the fullness of God''s life.In this Spectrum Multiview volume, four notable philosophers skillfully take on this difficult topic--all writing from within a Christian framework yet contending for different views. Paul Helm argues that divine eternity should be construed as astate of absolute timelessness. Alan G. Padgett maintains that God''s eternity is more plausibly to be understood as relative timelessness. William Lane Craig presents a hybrid view that combines timelessness with omnitemporality. And Nicholas Wolterstorff advocates a doctrine of unqualified divine temporality.Each essay is followed by responses from the other three contributors and a final counter-response from the original essayist, making for a lively exchange of ideas. Editor Gregory E. Ganssle provides a helpful introduction to the debate and its significance. Together these five scholars conduct readers on a stimulating and mind-stretching journey into one of the most controversial and challenging areas of theology today.Spectrum Multiview Books offer a range of viewpoints on contested topics within Christianity, giving contributors the opportunity to present their position and also respond to others in this dynamic publishing format.