Events: Temporal and Eternal (in preparation)

This monograph develops a theory of events which provides the foundation for a plausible and coherent account of God’s relation to time, and which has independent appeal (independent, that is, of theological considerations). The book is divided into three parts. The first part involves an investigation of those fundamental aspects of time which have important implications for the nature of events, such as whether time is substantival or relational, and whether time is continuous, dense, or discrete. This part also includes a chapter on how these issues relate to different interpretations of the special theory of relativity. The second part involves a defense of the fundamentality of events, and the development of a theory of events in time. The third part considers ways in which we might plausibly conceive of events as eternal entities. This involves an investigation of different ways of characterizing divine eternity, and then an analysis of the possible relations these ways bear to the antecedently developed theory of temporal events. The thought here is that there are certain characteristics of temporal events which can be assimilated to eternity, and that by evaluating the extent to which different theories of divine eternity allow for this assimilation, we will be able to determine which of those theories is most plausible, and therefore which conception of God’s relation to time is most plausible. The basis of this evaluation will be the theory’s ability to coherently account for God’s knowledge of, and interaction with, the created temporal world. One specific issue here is how to account for God’s knowledge of the future free actions of humans (an issue that I address in 'Eternity, Knowledge, and Freedom'), but there are many other difficulties associated with God’s relation to time, such as God’s creation of contingent time, God’s knowledge of what is happening now, God’s dialogue with humans, and God’s causally interacting with the temporal world in general. A successful theory of eternal events, and, in particular, divine events, will provide a framework for dealing with these difficulties.

I have not yet sough a publisher for this work, but intend to do so in 2013, with a target publication date of 2014.