Across Chronologies: The Trinity and Time Travel

God is either beyond time and its creator, or God is a temporal being—a being that experiences change. If God is beyond time, the question arises: How can a being that is timeless and changeless know what it is like to change and experience the passage of time? If God's consciousness does experience temporal change, then how can such a being know what it is like to be beyond time and experience no change whatsoever? In whichever way we answer this question, it seems that we are forced to admit that God doesn't know everything and is therefore not omniscient.

Students will learn about one application of a logical exploration of the concept of a perfect being (God): the relationship between God, time and omniscience. I will explain a model of the Trinity that resolves this dilemma and explains how the same conscious being could exist as three distinct persons.

Troy Catterson, Ph.D., is the director of the Ph.D. program in Humanities and Technology at Salve Regina University. He is also an associate professor of philosophy. He has published numerous articles in top academic journals on logic, metaphysics, ethics and the concept of God.