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Newton, Einstein and Barth on time and eternity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 October 2014
Abstract
For two hundred years after 1687, Newton's notion of absolute time dominated the world of physics. However, Newtonian metaphysical absolute time is so ideal that it may only be realised and actualised by God. In the early twentieth century, Einstein breaks this dominant understanding of time fundamentally by his Special Theory of Relativity and General Theory of Relativity. In the Einsteinian paradigm, we are forced to think no longer of space and time but rather to look at a four-dimensional space-time continuum, in which time appears to be more space-like than temporal. The Newtonian theory implies that there is an absolute, dominant point from which the universe can be observed, whereas Einstein argues for the opposite: there can be no vantage perspective and no universal present by which God can divide past and future.
Barth takes a trinitarian approach to interpret the concept of time. For Barth, the Father is coeternal with the Son and the Holy Spirit. The eternal immanent Trinity acts concretely as the temporal economic Trinity, thus the triune God is pre-, supra- and post- to us. In actual temporality, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit transcend time concretely in our history and penetrate time absolutely from divine eternity. God's eternity is both transcendent and immanent to human time.
Such a trinitarian temporality might serve as a ‘dynamic privileged perspective’ since time, energy and movement are all created by God from eternity. On the one hand, the triune Creator transcends his creature and its creaturely form – time absolutely; on the other hand, even when God enters time and moves together with the time ‘uniformly’ in the Son and the Holy Spirit, he becomes concretely simultaneous with all time. Also the Barthian perspective might provide something which is lacking in Einstein's relative time, i.e. the direction of time from the past to the future. Since every historical event in Einsteinian four-dimensional continuum is posited as a static space-time slice and Einstein equations are time-reversible, there is no ontological difference between time dimensions at all. However, in Barth's trinitarian opinion, such extraordinary events as the creation, resurrection and Pentecost are ontologically superior to other events in human history because they do change our temporality in an absolute way. Penetrated by the trinitarian eternity, those discrete space-time slices also become communicable and hence take genuine temporal characteristics, i.e. the past, present and future.
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- Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2014
References
1 For Newtonian opinions of time, with special reference to its influence on philosophy and theology, see Achtner, Wolfgang, Kunz, Stefan and Walter, Thomas, Dimensions of Time, trans. Williams, Arthur H. Jr., (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2002), pp. 110–14Google Scholar; Luscombe, Philip, Groundwork of Science and Religion (Peterborough: Epworth Press, 2000), pp. 30–2, 130–2Google Scholar; Osborn, Lawrence, ‘Theology and the New Physics’, in Southgate, Christopher (ed.), God, Humanity and the Cosmos (London and New York: T & T Clark International, 2005), pp. 119–28Google Scholar; Hodgson, Peter E., ‘Relativity and Religion: The Abuse of Einstein's Theory’, Zygon 38/2 (June 2003), pp. 393–409CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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9 ‘What Einstein did’, Craig points out, ‘in fact, was to shave away Newton's absolute time and space, and along with them the aether, thus leaving behind only their empirical measures. Since these are relativized to inertial frames, one ends up with the relativity of simultaneity and of length.’ See Craig, William Lane, Time and Eternity (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001), p. 47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the philosophical and theological significance of Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and General Theory of Relativity, see Barbour, Ian G., Religion and Science (London: SCM Press, 1998), pp. 177–81Google Scholar; Craig, ‘The Special Theory of Relativity and Theories of Divine Eternity’, Faith and Philosophy 11/1 (Jan. 1994), pp. 19–37; Craig, ‘Relativity and the “Elimination” of Absolute Time’, in Øhrstrøm, Peter (ed.), Time, Reality, and Transcendence in Rational Perspective (Aalborg: Aalborg University Press, 2002), pp. 91–128Google Scholar; DeWeese, Garrett J., God and the Nature of Time (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), pp. 65–84Google Scholar; Fagg, Lawrence W., The Becoming of Time (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1995), pp. 29–42Google Scholar; Hodgson, ‘Relativity and Religion’, pp. 393–409; Russell, Robert John, ‘Time in Eternity: Special Relativity and Eschatology’, Dialogue: A Journal of Theology 39/1 (2000), pp. 46–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Torretti, Roberto, ‘On Relativity, Time Reckoning and the Topology of Time Series’, in Butterfield, Jeremy (ed.), The Arguments of Time (New York: OUP, 1999), pp. 65–82Google Scholar.
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12 Cf. Achtner et al., Dimensions of Time, p. 126; Fagg, Becoming of Time, p. 36.
13 Cf. Barbour, Religion and Science, p. 179.
14 Robert John Russell calls it the ‘downfall of the present’: ‘There is no physically significant way of determining a universally agreed upon present according to SR. The inevitable implication is that there is no universal, unique “present”—only “present” defined by each moving observer in an equivalent way. SR invites us to look at the union of space and time in “spacetime”.’ See Russell, ‘Time in Eternity’, p. 50.
15 ‘The dependence of time’, Hodgson argues, ‘on the spatial coordinates and on the relative velocity of the two frames implies that the absolute simultaneity of events cannot be established. This does not imply, however, that temporal simultaneity has been disproved, since it does not exclude the possibility that absolute space and time can be established in some other way, as may be possible in the context of the Big Bang theory.’ See Hodgson, ‘Relativity and Religion’, p. 403; Barbour puts it in a simpler way: ‘Different observers “project” spatial and temporal dimensions of the four-dimensional spatiotemporal interval in different ways, but each can calculate what the other will be observing. There are rules for translating into equivalent relationships in another frame of reference’. See Barbour, Religion and Science, p. 178.
16 ‘We can draw graphs showing time as if it were another spatial dimension. It is sometimes said that we can present the cosmos as a static spatiotemporal block that different observers “project” as spatial and temporal dimensions in differing ways.’ See Barbour, Religion and Science, p. 179. Hawking, Cf. Stephen, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (New York: Bantam Books, 1998), pp. 21–2Google Scholar; Lameter, Christoph, Divine Action in the Framework of Scientific Thinking: From Quantum Theory to Divine Action (La Grange, IL: Christianity in 21st Century, 2005), p. 47.Google Scholar
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21 Cf. Craig, Time and Eternity, p. 180.
22 ‘Scotus argued that,’ Leftow points out, ‘if events are not yet present time, they are not yet present to God in eternity. William Lane Craig, Bowman Clarke, Richard Creel, and Delmas Lewis have in effect revived Scotus’ argument. They contend that if it is now true to say that events exist in eternity, it is also now true to say that these events exist in time.’ See Leftow, Time and Eternity, pp. 230–1; Cf. also Rea, Michael C., ‘Four-Dimensionalism’, in Loux, Michael J. and Zimmerman, Dean W. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics (New York: OUP, 2003), pp. 174–6Google Scholar.
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29 As Hunsinger puts it: ‘When God humbles himself in Jesus Christ by entering time, he becomes one of us, like us in all things’. See Hunsinger, ‘Mysterium Trinitatis: Karl Barth's Conception of Eternity’, in Disruptive Grace: Studies in Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 203.
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39 According to Busch, the concept of ‘absolute time’ is rooted theologically in an ‘absolute’ eternity, eternity cut loose from creaturely time. Cf. Busch, Great Passion, p. 268.
40 Lucas thus argues: ‘Einstein formulated the principle that there are no privileged observers and elevated it from a truth about electromagnetism to a general metaphysical principle; whereas Newton, more cautiously, did not.’ See Lucas, John, ‘The Special Theory and Absolute Simultaneity’, in Craig, William Lane and Smith, Quentin (eds), Einstein, Relativity and Absolute Simultaneity (London and New York: Routledge, 2008), p. 280Google Scholar.
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