Introduction
This Unit continues the conversations begun in Unit 2. The relationship between “time” and “eternity,” including the relationship between the timelessness of God (if, or in what way, God is “outside” time) and the arrow of time within creation, has been debated for thousands of years. In the era of Newtonian physics, it seemed that a kind of mechanistic determinism had displaced a personal God. Quantum physics and contemporary scientific and philosophical debates about causality, the arrow of time, and the “laws of nature” belie Newtonian determinism, but raise further questions about God’s presence in a probabilistic universe. As in Unit 2, our discussion will draw on resources deep within the Christian tradition, which help us place the contemporary conversation into a broader context.
Reading
McGrath, Chapter 4
Oliver, Chapter 2-3
Science Matters, Chapters 6, 12