Is time a creation of God? How can God be considered eternal, if he is responsible for the existence of time? Is God temporal or is he timeless? The relationship between God and time has been an object of inquiry in philosophical and theological traditions around the world for centuries. This volume takes up these and other questions, presenting a range of answers not only as brought forth in European philosophical traditions and in early Christianity, Judaism and Islam, but also positions taken by mediaeval Indian theologians and in the influential traditions of early Buddhism.

Traditionally, discussions have focused on questions such as whether time is a necessary concomitant of God’s existence, or whether time should be identified with God. But there is a further question: did these traditions develop their own unrelated and independent view of God and time? Or are there similarities in their reflections? This volume, with contributions of scholars from various relevant fields, offers a novel approach to these inquiries. When taken as a whole, it provides new momentum to contemplation on an age-old enigma.

• Preface 6
• Contents 8
• Introduction 10
• Temporal and timeless deity 18
• From divine timemaker to divine watchmaker 42
• Time’s arrow, relativity and God’s eternity: From the limitedness of creatures to the asymmetric structure of the worldline 66
• God, the grandfather of time: Time and the absolute in the thought of Philo of Alexandria 80
• The Muslim theologian Ibn Taymiyyah on God, creation and time 98
• Historical eternity: The approaches of Wolfhart Pannenberg and Hans Urs von Balthasar 114
• On the relation between God and time in the later theistic Vedānta of Madhva, Jayatīrtha and Veṅkaṭanātha 132
• Analytic philosophy of time in Early Modern India 170
• Non-persistence in time: A Buddhist account of intrinsic nature 200
• Contributors 218
• Authors/Persons 220
• Works 222