At the 2008 conference...

At the 2008 conference, held from 2—5 June 2008, 71 philosophers from over 20countries (including, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iran, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, The Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, United Kingdom and the USA) met and talked with one another about the human condition in the shadow of the Parthenon. We have chosen to organize the volume along traditional lines.

This should not, however, mislead a reader into supposing that the topics or approaches to problems fall neatly into traditional categories. The selection of papers chosen for inclusion here gives some sense of the variety of topics addressed at the conference.

However, it would be impossible in an edited volume to ensure coverage of the full breadth and variety of subject matter or the issues brought to the conference itself by the participants, some of whom could not travel to one another's home countries without enormous difficulty.

Chapter Thirteen: Craig and His Concept of Eternity: A Critique from the Standpoint of the Kālām Engin Erdem The issue of divine eternity which was dominant in medieval philosophy and theology also has a very important place in the debates of modern philosophy of religion. Looking at the views of the medieval philosophers and theologians such as Ibn Sina (d. 1037), St Anselm (d. 1109), and St Thomas Aquinas (d.

1274), we see that they interpret divine eternity as timelessness, being outside of time. According to these philosophers there is a sharp distinction between God’s mode of being and that of the creatures. A created being has its life in a succession; past, present and future are real parts of its life. However, because of the fact that God is a perfect, simple, necessary and an immutable being, there is no change and succession in His life. So Boethius (d.

524.defines eternity, as having an illimitable life all at once. (1981, 430) Here the term ‘all at once’ means not a moment of time but the absence of temporal succession. (Helm, 2007) Also, Anselm depicts God’s relation to time as follows: Thou wast not, then, yesterday, nor wilt thou be to-morrow; but yesterday and to-day and to-morrow thou art; or, rather, neither yesterday nor to-day nor to-morrow thou art; but simply, thou art, outside all time.

✦ ✦ ✦