Abstract
In Part I I argued on the basis of the tensed theory of time that God is temporal rather than timeless. But many questions remain unanswered. How does God’s time relate to ours? How shall we understand divine temporality in light of what contemporary physics, particularly Relativity Theory, has to say about the nature of time? How shall we conceive of God’s relationship to time if, as modern cosmology teaches, time had a beginning?
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Reference
Paul Davies, The Mind of God (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), p. 38.
Charles Hartshorne, “A Reply to My Critics,” in The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne, ed. Lewis Edwin Hahn, Library of Living Philosophers 20 (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1991), p. 616. Musing that “relating the divine becoming to the problem of simultaneity in physics exceeds my capacity,” Hartshorne confessed, “I feel incapable of solving the problem¡” (Ibid., p. 642). Elsewhere he reports that “For decades I suffered philosophically from this [problem],” before the tests on Bell’s Theorem showed an exuberant Hartshorne the solution (Charles Hartshorne, “Bell’s Theorem and Stapp’s Revised View of Space-Time,” Process Studies 7 [1977]: 185). Unfortunately, Hartshorne misguidedly thinks that temporal order should and can be decoupled from the absolute order of things’ coming into existence (cf. Henry Pierce Stapp, “Quantum Mechanics, Local Causality, and Process Philosophy,” Process Studies 7 [1977]: 177). We shall see in the sequel why this move is misconceived. Cf. William B. Jones, “Bell’s Theorem, H. P. Stapp, and Process Theism,” Process Studies 7 (1977): 251.
Isaac Newton, The Principia, trans. I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman, with a Guide by I. Bernard Cohen (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 408–415.
Ibid., p. 408. “vulgus quantitates hasce nonaliter quam ex relatione ad sensibilia concipiat.” (The critical edition of the Principia is Isaac Newton, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, 3d ed. [1726], ed. Alexandre Koyr¨¦ and I. Bernard Cohen, 2 vols. [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972]; for the Scholium on time and space see vol. 1, p. 46.)
Ibid. “I. Tempus absolutum, verum, & mathematicum, in se & natura sua, sine relatione ad externum quodvis, aequabiliter fluit, alioque nomine dicitur Duratio: Relativum, apparens, & vulgare est sensibilis & extema quaevis durationis per motum mensura (seu accurata seu inaequabilis) qua vulgus vice veri temporis utitur, ut hora, dies, mensis, annus.
II. Spatium Absolutum, natura sua sine relatione ad externum quodvis, semper manet similare & immobile: Relativum est Spatii hujus mensura, seu dimensio quaelibet mobilis, quae a sensibus nostris per situm suum ad corpora defrnitur, & ¨¤ vulgo pro spatio immobili usurpatur: uti dimensio spatii subterranei, aerii vel coelestis definita per situm suum ad terram. Idem sunt spatium absolutum & relativum, specie & magnitudine; sed non permanent idem semper numero. Nam si terra, verbi gratia, moveatur, spatium aeris nostri, quod relative & respectu tense semper manet idem, nunc erit una pars spatii absoluti in quam aer transit, nunc alia pars ejus; & sic absolute mutabitur perpetuo.“
With respect to the opprobrium heaped upon Newton at this point, John Earman remarks, “What I find especially disturbing about such condemnations of Newton is not the injustice they do to Newton but rather the fact that they are possible only after an abdication of philosophical responsibility. In all the philosophical literature with which I am acquainted, there is precious little attempt to give reasonably clear and precise answers to the questions which are central to the cluster of philosophical issues which revolve around Newton’s conception of space and time¡. ¡ it seems to me that Newton demonstrated a much deeper understanding of the nature of space and time than Berkeley, Leibniz, and Mach. And so far as I can see, neither modem philosophers of science¡ nor the people identified by modem philosophers as major philosophical figures of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, have succeeded in raising any compelling philosophical objections to absolute space, absolute time, or absolute spacetime¡” (John Earman, “Who’s Afraid of Absolute Space?” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 48 [1970): 288, 317).
J. R. Lucas, A Treatise on Time and Space (London: Methuen, 1973), p. 62–64, 69.
Ibid., p. 64. He concludes, “The fact that we have a rational theory of clocks vindicates Newton’s doctrine of absolute time. If we really regarded time simply as the measure of process, we should have no warrant for regarding some processes as regular and others as irregular¡. Even our best clocks are subject to correction. So long as we are prepared to assess the time-keeping qualities of a clock, and are prepared in principle to replace it by a more regular one, if it could be obtained, we are committed to an idea of absolute time which is not simply what the clocks actually say” (Ibid., p. 91).
Cf. the judgement of Richard Swinbume, Space and Time, 2d ed. (London: Macmillan, 1981), p. 202, who agrees that Newton was correct: “there is a true time which might or might not be recorded by actual measuring instruments.”
Peter Kroes, Time: Its Structure and Role in Physical Theories, Synth¨¨se Library 179 (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985), p. 49. Cf John Earman, World Enough and Spacetime (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989), p. 8.
Thus Sklar observes that Newton is on to something “of vital importance” in drawing his distinction (Lawrence Sklar, “Real Quantities and their Sensible Measures,” in Philosophical Perspectives on Newtonian Science, ed. Phillip Bricker and R. I. G. Hughes [Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990], p. 61). Sklar notes that there are natural measures of time which yield simple, elegant laws of nature and that a wide variety of clocks will not only agree with each other in their metric of time but will measure time in a way that approximates the natural measure. If, on the other hand, time itself is not distinguished from its measures, then any process has equal right to the status of the standard measure, regardless of how sporadic it might be relative to the concordant “natural” measures. See further J. R. Lucas and P. E. Hodgson, Spactime and Electromagnetism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p. 239.
David Park seems oblivious to the vicious circularity of his reasoning when he says, “Time is what is measured by a clock. What is a clock? A clock is a device whose law of motion is known¡. How is it that we can define time in terms of clocks and clocks in terms of time without running into trouble? There is an assumption of regularity in the world that underlies the definition. We assume, in fact, that there is a universal time that governs all motion¡. And the basis for the assumption is our knowledge of the world. It might have been otherwise¡ªat least one can easily imagine it otherwise¡ªbut it is not” (David Park, The Image of Eternity [Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 1980], p. 40).
Newton, Principia, p. 416. “Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiesciendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus illud a viribus impressis cogitur statum suum mutare.”
Max Jammer, Concepts of Space (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954), pp. 99–103. Cf Einstein’s verdict that this realization was “one of Newton’s greatest achievements” (Albert Einstein, “Foreword” to Concepts of Space, by Max Jammer, p. xiv). See also Fritz Rohrlich, From Paradox to Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), chap. 5.
John D. Norton, “Philosophy of Space and Time,” in Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, ed. Merrilee Salmon (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1992), p. 181.
Jammer, Concepts of Space, pp. 100–101.
Newton, Principia, pp. 412–414.
Sklar, “Real Quantities,” p. 61.
Newton, Principia, p. 410. “Verum quoniam hae Spatii partes videri nequeunt, & ab invicem per sensus nostros distingui; earum vice adhibemus mensuras sensibilis. Ex positionibus enim & distantiis rerum a corpore aliquo, quod spectamus ut immobile, definimus loca universa.”
Ibid. “in Philosophicis autem abstrahendum est a sensibus.”
For a compelling demonstration of just how indigestible metric conventionalism is see Graham Nerlich, The Shape of Space, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
David Ray Griffin, “Introduction: Time and the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness,” in Physics and the Ultimate Significance of Time, ed. David R. Griffin (Albany, N. Y.: State University of New York Press, 1986), pp. 6–7. See also W.-H. Newton-Smith, “Space, Time, and Spacetime: A Philosopher’s View,” in The Nature of Time,ed. Raymond Flood and Michael Lockwood (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), p. 27, who errs, however, in saying that space and time are aspects of God, rather than concomitants of God.
Newton, Principia, p. 941. “Aetemus est & Infinitus,¡ id est, durat ab aeterno in aetemum, & adest ab infinito in infinitum¡. Non est aetemitas & infinitas, sed aetemus & infinitus; non est duratio & spatium, sed durat & adest. Durat semper, & adest ubique; & existendo semper & ubique, durationem & spatium constituit. Cum unaquaeque spatii particula sit semper, & unumquodque durationis indivisibile momentum ubique,certe rerum omnium Fabricator ac Dominus non erit nunquam,nusquam.”
According to Earman, by “without relation to anything external,” Newton meant without relation to material bodies (Earman, “Absolute Space,” p. 289). It is worth drawing attention to the fact that while the absolute-relational distinction implies the absolute-measured distinction, the converse is not the case. That is to say, if time is absolute in the non-relational sense, then it is also absolute in the sense that its metric is the standard for isochronous intervals; but it is not obviously the case that if time transcends our attempts to measure it then time exists non-relationally, wholly independently of all events. One could quite consistently maintain, as Leibniz did, that time would not exist in the utter absence of events but is in some sense constituted by the fact of change (perhaps in God’s actions or thoughts), and also maintain that there is a true time (God’s time) which our physical clocks approximate. Similarly, one could maintain that space is absolute in the sense that it is approximated but not constituted by our measurements of it without holding that it is absolute in the sense of either “non-relational” or “non-dynamical.” Newton never provides any argument, so far as I can determine, as to why God’s existence must be spatial. Contra Newton, one could consistently hold that in the absence of physical objects space would not exist and also that the metaphysical space which does exist is non-Euclidean globally and locally and yet maintain that it is absolute in the sense that it constitutes a privileged fundamental frame which provides the background for local reference frames (relative spaces), against which absolute motion or rest is determined.
For interesting discussion see George N. Schlesinger, “What Does the Denial of Absolute Space Mean?” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 45 (1967): 44–60; Adolf Gr¨¹nbaum, “The Denial of Absolute Space and the Hypothesis of a Universal Nocturnal Expansion: A Rejoinder to George Schlesinger,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 45 (1967): 61–91.
E. W. Strong, “Newton and God,” Journal of the History of Ideas 13 (1952): 154.
Jammer, Concepts of Space, p. 108.
Howard Stein, “Newtonian Spacetime,” Texas Quarterly 10 (1967): 198. Cf. the emotional reactions in L. A. Whitt, “Absolute Space: Did Newton Take Leave of His (Classical) Empirical Senses?” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 12 (1982): 709–710, to Newton’s giving theological reasons for absolute space (which the author mislocates as being in the Scholium to the Definitions!). Whitt huffs: “Newton has given way (or perhaps vent) to his theological scruples and has, for the brief space of this scholium, gone off the (empirical) rails” (Ibid., p. 711).
Zev Bechler, “Introduction: Some Issues of Newtonian Historiography,” in Contemporary Newtonian Research, ed. Zev Bechler, Studies in the History of Modem Science 9 (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1982), p. 13. Cf. Alan Gabbey, “Newton and Natural Philosophy,” in Companion to the History of Modern Science, ed. R. C. Olby, G. N. Cantor, J. R. R. Christie, and M. J. S. Lodge (London: Routledge, 1990).
Newton, Principia, E I {405.35}, p. 383.
I. Bernard Cohen, Introduction to Newton’s ‘Principia’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 156.
Isaac Newton to Richard Bentley, December 10, 1692, in Isaac Newton’s Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy, 2d ed., ed. with a General Introduction by 1. Bernard Cohen (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978), p. 280.
See Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 647.
See Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 749.
Isaac Newton, “On the Gravity and Equilibrium of Fluids,” [De gravitatione et aequipondio fluidorum] in Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), pp. 89–156.
Manuscript Add. 3965, section 13, folios 541r-542r; 545r-546r. See J. E. McGuire, “Newton on Place, Time, and God: An Unpublished Source,” British Journal for the History of Science 11 (1978): 114–129.
Newton, De gravitatione, p. 132. “Non est substantia tum quia non absolute per se, sed tanquam Dei effectus emanativus, et omnis entis affectio quaedam subsistit; tum quia non substat ejusmodi proprijs affectionibus quae substantiam denominant, hoc est actionibus, quales Bunt cogitationes in mente et motus in corpore.”
Henry More, “The Immortality of the Soul,” in Philosophical Writings of Henry More, ed. with an Introduction and Notes by Flora Isabel MacKinnon, Wellesley Semi-Centennial Series (New York: Oxford University Press, 1925), p. 74.
Ibid.
Newton, De gravitatione, pp. 136–137. “Spatium est entis quaetenus ens affectio. Nullum ens existit vel potest existere quod non aliquo modo ad spatium refertur. Deus est ubique, mentes creatae sunt alicubi, et corpus in spatio quod implet, et quicquid nec ubique nec ullibi est id non est. Et hinc sequitur quod spatium sit entis primario existentis effectus emanativus, quia posito quolibet ente ponitur spatium. Deque Duratione similia possunt affirmant scilicet ambae sunt entis affectiones sive attributa secundum quae quantitas existentiae cujuslibet individui quoad amplitudinem praesentiae et perseverationem in suo esse denominatur. Sic quantitas existentiae Dei secundum durationem aeterna fuit, et secundum spatium cui adest, infinita; et quantitas existentiae rei creatae secundum durationem tanta fuit quanta duratio ab finita existentia, et secundum amplitudinem praesentiae tanta ac spatium cui adest.”
See McGuire, “Newton on Place, Time, and God,” p. 119. “Spatium ex aeternitate et infinitate <sua> nec Deus erit nec sapiens nec potens nec vivum sed duratione et magnitudine tantum augebitur, Deus autem ex aeternitate et infinitate spatii sui (id est ex aetema sua omnipraesentia) reddetur ens perfectissimum.”
Ibid., p. 123. “Perfectissima Dei Idea est ut sit substantia una, simplex, indivisibilis, viva et vivifica, ubique semper necessario existens, summe intelligens omnia, libere volens bona, voluntate efficiens possibilia, et substantias omnes alias in se continens tanquam eorum principium substans & locus; substantia quae per praesentiam suam cemit et regit omnia sicut hominis pars cogitans sentit species rerum in cerebrum delatas et illinc regit corpus proprium; quaeque possibilia omnia semper et ubique in actum deducere potest, liberime agit quae optima & rationi maxime consentanea sunt, et errore vel fato caeco adduci non potest ut aliter agat.”
David Gregory MS. 245, fol. 14a, Library of the Royal Society, London, cited in J. E. McGuire, “Force, Active Principles, and Newton’s Invisible Realm,” Ambix 15 (1968): 190.
Cited in Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 647; cf. Alexandre Koyr¨¦ and I. Bernard Cohen, “The Case of the Missing Tanquam,” Isis 52 (1961): 555–556.
Sir Isaac Newton, Opticks,or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light, based on 4th ed., 1730, with a Foreword by Albert Einstein, an Introduction by Sir Edmund Whittaker, and a Preface by I. Bernard Cohen (New York: Dover, 1952), Bk. III, Pt. 1, Q. 28, p. 370.
G. W. Leibniz, “Mr. Leibniz’s First Paper,” [1715] in The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, ed. with an Introduction and Notes by H. G. Alexander (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956), p. 11.
Samuel Clarke, “Dr. Clarke’s First Reply,” in Correspondence, pp. 12–13.
See M. Buckley, “God in the Project of Newtonian Mechanics,” in Newton and the New Direction in Science, ed. G. V. Coyne, M. Heller, and J. Zyncinski (Vatican City State: Specola Vaticana, 1988), pp. 85–105, esp. p. 100 for a similar account. See also the account of Clarke’s views in Ezio Vailati, Leibniz and Clarke: a Study of their Correspondence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 20–27, 3637.
Samuel Clarke, “Dr. Clarke’s Third Reply,” in Correspondence, p. 31.
Samuel Clarke, “Dr. Clarke’s Fourth Reply,” in Correspondence, p. 47.
Samuel Clarke, “Dr. Clarke’s Fifth Reply,” in Correspondence, p. 121.nsion in three dimensions. As such, it is¡ an individual fully actual at all time, and endowed with a rich inherent structure.55
Samuel Clarke, A Discourse Concerning the Being and Attributes of God, the Obligations of Natural Religion and the Truth and Certainty of the Christian Revelation [1704–05], in The Works of Samuel Clarke, vol. 2: Sermons on Several Subjects (London: John & Paul Knapton, 1738), 530.
Cited in H. G. Alexander, “Introduction,” in Correspondence, p. xxix. For discussion, see John Carriero, “Newton on Space and Time: Comments on J. E. McGuire,” in Perspectives on Newtonian Science, pp. 122–124.
Alexandre Koyr¨¦ and I. Bernard Cohen, “Newton and the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence,” Archives internationales d’histoires des sciences 15 (1962): 63–126.
Draft A, cited in Koyr¨¦ and Cohen, “Newton,” Cf. the French text: “1 ‘Espace & la Dur¨¦e sont des Modes d’existence dans tous les Etres; & des Modes infinis, & des Cons¨¦quences, de l’existence de la Substance qui est r¨¦ellement, n¨¦cessairement, & substantiellement toute presente, & ¨¦ternelle” (Ibid., p. 83).
J. E. McGuire, “Space, Infinity and Indivisibility: Newton on the Creation of Matter,” in Contemporary Newton Research, p. 163.
Westfall states, Composed virtually at the end of his active life, the General Scholium contained a vigorous reassertion of those principles which Newton had adopted in his rebellion against the perceived dangers of Cartesian mechanical philosophy. The same principles had continued to govern his scientific career as he followed the consequences of his rebellion into a new natural philosophy and a new conception of science“ (Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 749).
James E. Force, “Newton’s God of Dominion: The Unity of Newton’s Theological, Scientific, and Political Thought,” in Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac Newton’s Theology, ed. James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin, International Archives of the History of Ideas 128 (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990), p. 90. Cf Bechler’s comment, “The view of physics and metaphysics as one indivisible block was inevitable to him, for physics was the inquiry into the nature of bodies in space and time, but since space and time were the abode of God, there was no possible way to demonstrate separate compartments of inquiry within all this” (Bechler, “Introduction,” p. 14); similarly McGuire: “¡ his ontology of space and time cannot be understood without fully appreciating how it relates to the nature of divine existence” (J. E. McGuire, “Existence, Actuality, and Necessity: Newton on Space and Time,” Annals of Science 35 [1978]: 463); and Brooke, “Newton himself provides one of the most spectacular examples of the integration of scientific and religious interests in one and the same mind” (John Hedley Brooke, “Science and Religion,” in Companion to the History of Modern Science, p. 775). Elsewhere Brooke observes, “If theistic discourse constitutes part of natural philosophy, it becomes anachronistic to ask how Newton reconciled his science with his religion. The right question is more likely to be: how did his distinctive view of God’s dominion, in both nature and history, affect his interpretation of nature?” (John Brooke, “The God of Isaac Newton,” in Let Newton Be, ed. John Fauvel, Raymond Flood, Michael Shortland, and Robin Wilson [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988], pp. 171–172). So also Ivor Leclerc, “The Relation between Natural Science and Metaphysics,” in The World View of Contemporary Physics, ed. with an Introduction by Richard F. Kitchener (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), pp. 26–27.
Cited in J. E. McGuire, “Predicates of Pure Existence: Newton on God’s Space and Time,” in Philosophical Perspectives on Newtonian Science, ed. Phillip Bricker and R. I. G. Hughes (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990), p. 93.
Newton to Des Maiseaux, in Unpublished Papers, p. 357. See also his rejection of God’s existing totum simul in “Place, Time, and God” (ms. add. 3965, sect. 13, f. 545r-546r, in McGuire, “Newton on Place, Time, and God,” p. 121).
Newton, “Place, Time, and God,” in McGuire, `Newton on Place, Time, and God,“ p. 123.
Dennis Dieks, “Newton’s Conception of Time in Modem Physics and Philosophy,” in Newton ‘s Scientific and Philosophical Legacy, ed. P. B. Scheurer and G. Debrock (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988), pp. 156–157.
Newton, Principia, pp. 410–411.“Verum quoniam hae Spatii partes videri nequeunt, & ab invicem per sensus nostros distingui; earum vice abhibemus mensuras sensibilis¡. Sic vice locorum & motuum absolutorum relativis utimur; nec incommode in rebus humanis: in philosophicis autem abstrahendum est a sensibus.”
Ibid., pp. 413–414.“Quantitates relativ& non sunt igitur eæ ipsæ quantitates, quarum nomina præ se serunt, sed sunt earum mensuræ i11æ sensibiles (veræ an errantes) quibus vulgus loco quantitatum mensuratarum utitur. At si ex usu definiendæ sunt verborum significationes; per nomina ilia Temporis, Spatii, Loci & Motûs proprie intelligendæ erunt hæ mensuræ sensibilis; & senno erit insolens & pure mathematicus, si quantitates mensuratæ hic intelligantur. Proinde vim inferunt sacris literis, qui voces hasce de quantitatibus mensuratis ibi interpretantur. Neque minus contaminant Mathesin & Philosophiam, qui quantitates veras cum ipsarum relationibus & vulgaribus mensuris confudunt.”
Ibid., p. 411
Ibid., p. 415.“Motus autem veros ex eorum causis, effectibus, & apparentibus differentiis colligere, & contra ex motibus seu veris seu apparentibus eorum causas & effectus, docebitur fusius in sequentibus. Hunc enim in finem tractatum sequentem composui.”
For an exposition of Einstein’s theory and its implication for the time concept see my Time and the Metaphysics of Relativity (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001).
Ibid., p. 410.“Tempus Absolutum a Relativo distinguitur in Astronomia per mquationem temporis vulgi. Inmquales enim sunt dies naturales, qui vulgo tanquam mquales pro mensura temporis habentur. Hanc inmqualitatem corrigunt Astronomi, ut ex veriore tempore mensurent motus coelestes. Possibile est, ut nullus sit motus mquabilis, quo tempus accurate mensuretur. Accelerari & retardari possunt motus omnes, sed fluxus temporis absoluti mutari nequit. Eadem est duratio seu perseverantia existentim rerum, sive motus snit celeres, sive tardi, sive nulli: proinde hmc a mensuris suis sensibilibus merito distinguitur, & ex iisdem colligitur per mquationem astronomicam.”
Lucas, Treatise,pp. 197–98. Later he adds, “The relativity that Newton rejected is not the relativity that Einstein propounded; and although the Special Theory of Relativity has shown Newton to be wrong in some respects,¡ it has not shown that time is relative in Newton’s sense, and merely some numerical measure of process”(Ibid., p. 90).
C. Misner, K. S. Thorne, and J. A. Wheeler, Gravitation (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1973), p. 19.
Isaac Barrow, The Geometrical Lectures of Isaac Barrow, trans. with Notes by J. M. Child (Chicago: Open Court, 1916), p. 36.
Lucas, Treatise, p. 143.
Ibid.
Gerald Holton, “On the Origin of the Special Theory of Relativity,” in Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein by Gerald Holton (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 171. Cf. Capek’s remark that it was the “alliance of theology and cosmology” from the Middle Ages through the nineteenth century that provided the basis for the concept of an absolute frame of reference¡ªan alliance broken in the twentieth century (Milic Capek, “Introduction,” in The Concepts of Space and Time, ed. M. Capek, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 22 [Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1976], p. xxii).
Newton, Principia, p. 943. “Et haec de Deo; de quo utique ex Phaenomenis disserere, ad Philosophiam Naturalem pertinet.”
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Craig, W.L. (2001). The Classical Concept of Time. In: God, Time, and Eternity. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1715-1_5
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