eternity is arrived at from our idea of time. We are conscious of existence in space, and we are conscious of protracted or continu- ous existence. The ideas of space and duration are necessarily- given in the consciousness of continuous existence. We see also that events succeed each other, that their occurrence is separated by a longer or shorter period of duration, just as bodies .are separated by a greater or less interval in space. We therefore know, from con- sciousness or from experience, of no kind of duration which is not successive. Instead of saying, as is commonly done, that time is du- ration measured by succession, which supposes that duration is ante- cedent to that by which it is measured, and independent of it, it is maintained by some that duration without succession is inconceiva- ble and impossible. As space is defined to be " negation betwixt the boundary-lines of form," so time is said to be " the negation betwixt the boundary-points of motion." Or, in other words, time is " the interval which a body in motion marks in its transit from one point of space to another."^ Hence, if there be no bodies having form, there is no space ; and if there is no motion, there is no time. " If all things were annihilated, time as well as space must be annihilated ; for time is dependent on space. If all things were annihilated, there could be no transition, no succession of one object with respect to another ; for there would be no object in being, — all would be perfect emptiness, nothingness, non-being-ness. Under an entire annihilation, there could be neither space nor time."^ The same writer ^ elsewhere says, " Were the earth, as well as the other globes of space, annihilated, much more would time be annihilated therewith." * All this, however, is to be understood, it is said, of "objective time, that is, of time as dependent upon created material conditions." ^ As objective timelessness follows from the annihilation of material existences, so timelessness as regards thinking personalities is conceivable only on the destruction of thought. " We have seen that there can be a state of timeless- ness for material creation, only by destroying its operation, that is, its attribute of motion : precisely in analogy therewith, there can be a state of timelessness for intellectual creation, only by destroy- ing the laws of intellect, that is, its operation of thinking." ^ If, thei-efore, God be a person, or a thinking Being, He cannot be
1 Jamieson, p. 199. 2 JMd. p. 163.
8 Rev George Jamieson, M. A., one. of the ministers of the parish of Old Machar, Aber- deen. The Essentials of Philosophy, wherein its constituent Principles are tractd throughout the various Departments of Science with analytical Striciures on the Views of some of our leading Philosophers.
4 Ibid. p. 200. 6 Ibid. « Ibid.
388 PART I.— THEOLOGY. [Cn. V. — Divine Attributes.
timeless ; there must be succession ; one thought or state must fol- low another. To deny this, it is said, is to deny the personality of God. The dictum, therefore, of the schoolmen, and of the theo- logians, that eternity precludes succession — that it is a persistent, unmoving Now — is according to this repudiated.
There are, however, two senses in which succession is denied to God. The first has reference to external events. They are ever present to'the'Thind of God. "He views~tKenrTn all their relations, whether causal or chronological. He sees how they succeed each other in time, as we see a passing pageant, all of which we may take in in one view. In this there is perhaps nothing which abso- lutely transcends our comprehension. The second aspect of the subject concerns the relation of succession to^the_thoughts_and_acts of God. When we are ignoraiiT,'Tt~ls wise to be silent. We have no~ right to affirm or deny, when we cannot know what our affirmation or denial may involve or imply. We know that God is constantly producing new effects, effects which succeed each other in time ; but we do not know that these effects are due to successive exercises of the divine efficiency. It is, indeed, incom- prehensible to us how it should be otherwise. The miracles of Christ were due to the immediate exercise of the divine efficiency. We utter words to which we can attach no meaning, when we say that these effects were due, not to a contemporaneous act or voli- tion of the divine mind, but to an eternal act, if such a phrase be not a solecism. In like manner we are confounded when we are told that our prayers are not heard and answered in time — that God is timeless — that what He does in hearing and answering prayer, and in his daily providence. He does from eternity. It is certain that God is subject to all the limitations of personality, if there be any. But as such limitations are the conditions of his being a person and not a mere involuntary force, they are the con- ditions of his infinite perfection. As constant thought and activ- ity are involved in the very natui'e of a spirit, these must belong to God ; and so far as thinking and acting involve succession, succession must belong to God. There are mysteries connected with chronological succession, in our nature, which we cannot explain. We know that in dreams months may be compressed into moments, and moments extended to months, so far as our con- sciousness is concerned. We know that it often happens to those near death, that ail the past becomes instantly present. Had God so constituted us that memory was as vivid as present conscious- ness, there would to us be no past, so far as our personal exist-