God and Time

How Does He Authentically Relate to Time?

Introduction

Divine eternity, as classically understood within Christian theology, describes God as existing outside of all temporal sequence; that is, perfectly timeless, unchanging, and transcending past, present, and future entirely[1]. This conception posits that God is not subject to temporal succession or change, existing in an eternally present-like act of pure existence. However, this classical understanding raises a central problem: How can a timeless God meaningfully interact with temporal creation? If God is timelessly eternal, immutable, and simple, it seems difficult to explain how He could engage dynamically and relationally with a temporal world marked by change and succession without compromising divine perfection.

To address this issue, I have developed the Self-Standing Givenness Ontology (SSGO), which integrates divine simplicity, immutability, and relationality. (For clarity and ease of editing, I will refer to myself in the third person from this point forward.) Dryer articulates this ontology as follows:

“Each divine Person is a ‘self-standing givenness’ of the one divine essence—meaning the Father, Son, and Spirit each fully possess and give the one simple divine being from their unique relational vantage.” (Robert M. Dryer, “Self-Standing Givenness Ontology,” unpublished manuscripts, RobertDryer.com, 2025.)

Dryer’s ontology explicitly integrates philosophical insights from Jiri Benovsky and Jean-Luc Marion. Benovsky develops the concept of metaphysical primitives—foundational explanatory realities that are irreducibly relational (Jiri Benovsky, “Primitives,” in The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics, ed. Ricki Bliss and J.T.M. Miller [New York: Routledge, 2020], 227–237). Marion’s phenomenology of givenness highlights how phenomena fully manifest themselves from within their own intrinsic givenness without external causation (Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky [Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002]). Dryer’s SSGO synthesizes these insights into a unique theological ontology in which relationality is not accidental or compositional, but primitive and intrinsic to divine simplicity itself. The very nature of ultimate transmundane reality, therefore, is constitutively relational through and through—and primitively so.

Through the lens of Dryer’s SSGO, explicitly informed by Jiri Benovsky’s metaphysics of irreducible relational primitives and Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, God’s timeless eternity is understood not as static isolation but as perfect relational fullness and donation, such that each divine Person primitively, fully, and timelessly possesses and expresses the one simple divine essence from their distinct relational vantage. This ontology coherently communicates the classical affirmation of divine timelessness, while simultaneously providing meaningful terms to confidently affirm that the Christian God dynamically interacts with temporal creation in a deeply relational sense.

I. Divine Eternity in Classical Christian Theology

A. Catholic Tradition

Within Catholic theological tradition, divine eternity is consistently articulated as timeless existence, completely transcending temporal categories like past, present, and future. The central claim is that God’s mode of existence differs categorically from created realities, which are always bound by time and change. This classical understanding is deeply rooted in theological reflections of key Church Fathers and Doctors—particularly Augustine, Boethius, and Thomas Aquinas—and is continually reaffirmed by official Church teachings.

Augustine’s insights profoundly shape this tradition. In his Confessions, Augustine explicitly contrasts God’s eternal nature with the transient experience of temporal creatures, emphasizing divine eternity as a permanent “now,” stable and unchanging:

“In eternity nothing passeth away… the whole is present; but no time is wholly present.”
(Augustine, Confessions, Book XI)

Here Augustine indicates a form of existence qualitatively distinct from temporal becoming. God’s eternity is not merely infinite duration but complete actuality surpassing temporal succession entirely. Augustine grounds this perspective firmly in the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, emphasizing that all temporal beings depend upon God’s timeless creative act:

“For Thou wast, and besides Thee, nothing was; and yet, from Thee, was everything created.”
(Augustine, Confessions, Book I, Chapter IV)

Thus, Augustine views God’s timelessness as an active, creative fullness that produces and sustains all temporal reality.

Building upon Augustine’s foundation, Boethius offers an influential philosophical definition of eternity in The Consolation of Philosophy:

“Eternity is the complete and simultaneous possession of illimitable life all at once.”
(Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, Book V)

Boethius anticipates the difficulty inherent in employing temporally tensed language (like “simultaneous”). He explicitly clarifies that such terms are used analogically to convey a timeless totality, distinct from temporal succession:

“It is one thing to progress like the world in Plato’s theory through everlasting life, and another thing to have embraced the whole of everlasting life in one simultaneous present.”
(Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, Book V)

By shifting from temporal succession toward a holistic metaphor of completeness, Boethius effectively communicates divine eternity as a comprehensive, timeless vantage:

“An eternal God has all of time spread before Him as a man atop a hill has all of a road before his gaze; both have knowledge just by seeing what is there to be seen.”

Thus, Boethius articulates divine eternity as timelessly comprehensive, fully actualized, and devoid of succession or change.

Thomas Aquinas further systematizes these reflections into a coherent theological synthesis. For Aquinas, divine eternity directly follows from God’s complete actuality and simplicity:

“God is pure actuality, without any admixture of potentiality. Therefore, He is wholly simple and unchangeable, possessing all perfections infinitely and supremely.”
(Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q. 3, A. 2)

Aquinas argues rigorously that timelessness precisely means the absence of any potential for change or development. God’s eternal simplicity, being devoid of composition, makes Him absolutely immutable and timeless, entirely distinct from temporal and material existence:

“Since therefore God is pure act without any potentiality, He is the most noble of beings, and infinitely removed from matter.”
(I, Q. 3, A. 1)

Aquinas explicitly links simplicity with divine unity and immutability:

“God is altogether simple, and therefore altogether one.” (I, Q. 3, A. 7)
“It is impossible for God to change in any way; for God is altogether immutable.” (I, Q. 9, A. 1)

This logic culminates in affirming God’s infinite perfection and plenitude of being, timelessly containing all perfections:

“God is infinite, comprehending in Himself all the plenitude of perfection of all being.” (I, Q. 7, A. 1)

Furthermore, God’s cognition is radically distinct from temporal knowledge, fully comprehensive rather than successive:

“God knows all things together and not successively, as we do.” (I, Q. 14, A. 7)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church succinctly endorses this classical synthesis, emphasizing God’s eternal act of creation as an expression of absolute goodness and relationality:

“God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life.”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph 1)

Finally, John Scotus Eriugena, in his seminal work Periphyseon, integrates and elegantly summarizes these classical insights through his fourfold division of nature, offering a comprehensive framework to understand divine eternity in relation to creation:

“It is my opinion that the division of Nature by means of four differences results in four species, (being divided) first into that which creates and is not created, secondly into that which is created and also creates, thirdly into that which is created and does not create, while the fourth neither creates nor is created.”
(Eriugena, Periphyseon, trans. John J. O’Meara and I. P. Sheldon-Williams [Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University], 442A)

In this synthesis, Eriugena explicitly affirms God’s timeless eternity as both radically transcendent and deeply relational. God’s eternity, far from isolated abstraction, actively grounds and sustains creation and ultimately draws creation back into its eternal source. Thus, the classical tradition collectively affirms divine eternity as timeless perfection actively and freely communicated to temporal beings, inviting them into intimate, participatory communion with eternal fullness.

This intimate relationality of divine eternity, implicitly present throughout classical tradition and clearly articulated by the Catechism, will find its explicit metaphysical clarification and contemporary articulation through Robert Dryer’s Self-Standing Givenness Ontology (SSGO). SSGO, as will be thoroughly explored in subsequent sections, integrates classical tradition by explicitly grounding divine eternity in relational self-givenness—affirming that each divine Person timelessly communicates the entirety of the divine essence. Through this integration, SSGO explicitly articulates and deepens the classical affirmation that divine eternity is not static isolation but active, intimate relational fullness.

I. Divine Eternity in Classical Christian Theology

B. Reformed Tradition

The Reformed tradition, while distinct from Catholic theology in certain theological emphases, strongly affirms and reiterates the classical Christian understanding of divine eternity as timeless and immutable, at least as I understand it. This section will be brief as I’m Catholic and this domain is strictly to reinforce the idea that God’s timelessness is a consensus idea historically; also too, I just don’t feel comfortable in these waters and should leave this to specialists…However, it’s pretty well known that Reformed theologians articulated the timelessness of God just as well as classical theologians. Here we’ll briefly peer into John Calvin and Francis Turretin, to show how this tradition emphasizes that God’s timelessness excludes all succession, change, or temporal differentiation.

John Calvin, in his influential Institutes of the Christian Religion, stresses God’s timeless cognition, explicitly teaching that divine knowledge surpasses temporal distinctions of past, present, and future. He states clearly:

“To His knowledge nothing is future or past, but all things are present.”
(John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, III.21.5)

Calvin here underscores that God’s knowledge transcends temporal succession. For Calvin, God’s eternity entails that He perceives all temporal events in a single, unified, timeless act. This timeless cognition, far from making God remote or detached, establishes the ground for His providential and relational interaction with the temporal order, precisely because God comprehends temporal events wholly and immediately rather than partially and successively.

Francis Turretin, further developing the Reformed affirmation of divine timelessness, systematically argues against any conception of God’s eternity that admits succession or temporal differentiation. In his comprehensive theological work, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Turretin explicitly rejects any notion that would subject God to temporal categories such as past, present, and future, asserting clearly that divine eternity encompasses three essential aspects: “(1) that it is without beginning; (2) without end; (3) without succession.” He explains:

“Nothing flows away with time from the life of God as from ours… His life remains always the same and immutable.”
(Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Topic III, Question 10)

Turretin carefully distinguishes between improper and proper uses of the term “eternal.” He explicitly rejects any concept of eternity understood merely as indefinite temporal extension. Instead, he emphasizes that true eternity, properly conceived, involves absolute timelessness, the complete absence of succession or temporal change. Echoing classical Christian metaphysics, Turretin defines genuine eternity as the Scholastics did, an “interminable possession of life—complete, perfect and at once.” Thus, God’s eternity must be understood as an entirely stable and fully actualized existence, a perfect “now,” unchanging and indivisible, contrasted sharply with temporal creatures who experience life only through successive moments.

Turretin grounds his theological position biblically, citing Scripture passages that explicitly describe God as eternal in this proper sense, for example, Psalm 102:25-27, which highlights God’s changelessness and perpetual sameness despite the mutability of creation:

“The heavens shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.” (Ps. 102:25-27)

He likewise emphasizes James 1:17, noting God’s absolute freedom from any variability or succession:

“With God is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (James 1:17)

For Turretin, these biblical affirmations provide a decisive theological foundation for asserting divine eternity as entirely transcendent of temporal distinctions.

So, through theologians like Calvin and Turretin, there is a strong affirmation of the classical doctrine of God, and if anything, it only helps deepen the classical understanding of divine eternity as timeless, immutable, and completely devoid of temporal succession. In these brief examples, God’s eternal life is portrayed not as isolated abstraction but as a timeless fullness, actively and comprehensively engaged with temporal creation precisely because of its timeless and perfect completeness. This foundational theological insight complements and confirms the broader classical consensus articulated by Augustine, Boethius, Aquinas, Eriugena and also affirmed by the Catholic tradition overall.

C. An Eastern Orthodox Perspective

Again, I’m Catholic so I tread lightly here. But for the sake of the piece…In Eastern Orthodox theology, the understanding of divine eternity is deeply intertwined with the doctrines of the Trinity and divine simplicity. The Cappadocian Fathers, particularly Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa, laid foundational perspectives on these matters. Gregory of Nazianzus emphasized the incomprehensible and timeless nature of the Trinity, underscoring how divine transcendence surpasses all human comprehension. He writes:

“Our minds and our human condition are such that a knowledge of the relationship and disposition of these members with regard to one another is reserved for the Holy Trinity itself alone and those purified souls to whom the Trinity may make revelation either now or in the future. We, on the other hand, may know that the nature of divinity is one and the same, characterized by lack of source, generation, and procession (these correspond to mind, word, and spirit in humans, at least insofar as one can compare things spiritual with things perceptible and things that are very great with those that are small, for no comparison ever represents the true picture exactly); a nature that is in internal agreement with itself, is ever the same, ever perfect, without quality or quantity, independent of time, uncreated, incomprehensible, never self-deficient, nor ever so to be, lives and life, lights and light, goods and good, glories and glory, true and the truth, and Spirit of truth, holies and holiness itself; each one God, if contemplated separately, because the mind can divide the indivisible; the three God, if contemplated collectively, because their activity and nature are the same; which neither rejected anything in the past as superfluous to itself nor asserted superiority over any other thing for there has been none; nor shall leave anything to survive it or will assert superiority over anything in the future, for there will be none such; nor admits to its presence anything of equal honor since no created or servile thing, nothing which participates or is circumscribed can attain to its nature, which is both uncreated and sovereign, participated in and infinite. For some things are remote from it in every respect; others come close to it with varying success and will continue to do so, and this not by nature, but as a result of participation, and precisely when, by serving the Trinity properly, they rise above servitude, unless in fact freedom and dominion consist of this very thing, attaining a proper knowledge of sovereignty and refusing to confound things that are distinct because of a poverty of intellect. If to serve is so great an office, how great must be the sovereignty of those whom one serves? And if knowledge is blessedness, how great must be that which is known?” (Gregory of Nazianzus, Select Orations, trans. Martha Vinson [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003].)

Nazianzus’s intricate reflection communicates that divine eternity, while entirely transcendent and timeless, is also profoundly relational. The timeless perfection of the Trinity does not isolate God but rather establishes a dynamic order of participatory relationship wherein creatures, precisely through participation and proper service to God, enter into communion with this timeless sovereignty.

Gregory of Nyssa similarly underscores the boundless nature of divine goodness and infinity, explicitly tying these concepts to divine simplicity and eternity. He writes:

“But if the Divine and unalterable nature is incapable of degeneracy, as even our foes allow, we must regard it as absolutely unlimited in its goodness: and the unlimited is the same as the infinite.” (Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, Book I.)

John of Damascus further clarifies the Orthodox understanding of God’s timeless, unchanging nature, emphasizing that the divine life of the Trinity, particularly the eternal generation within God, occurs without beginning or end and thus involves no temporal succession or change:

“Generation in Him is without beginning and everlasting, being the work of nature and producing out of His own essence, that the Begetter may not undergo change, and that He may not be God first and God last, nor receive any accession.” (John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 9, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994].)

Damascene’s explanation underscores the timeless relationality intrinsic to the very life of the Trinity. Eternal generation is not an event occurring in time, nor is it a temporal sequence that alters or divides the divine essence; rather, it is an eternal relational act constitutive of divine simplicity and perfection.

This perspective aligns with contemporary Orthodox theologians such as Vladimir Lossky and Dumitru Stăniloae, who further articulate these classical themes within Orthodox tradition. Lossky emphasizes the inherently relational unity and simplicity within the Trinity, transcending numerical divisions:

“Two is the number which separates, three the number which transcends all separation: the one and the many find themselves gathered and circumscribed in the Trinity.” (Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, trans. Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius [Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1957], 47.)

Dumitru Stăniloae similarly emphasizes relationality as intrinsic to divine eternity, portraying the Trinity as the foundation of eternal communion between God and humanity:

“It is within the perfect and eternal communion of the three persons, in whom the unique supraessence of the Godhead subsists, that the infinity and perfection which mark the loving life of the Trinity and of each divine person are given.” (Dumitru Stăniloae, The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, vol. 1, Revelation and Knowledge of the Triune God, trans. Ioan Ionita and Robert Barringer [Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1994], 248.)

Thus, the Eastern Orthodox tradition, from Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa through John of Damascus to contemporary theologians such as Lossky and Stăniloae, consistently affirms that the divine eternity of the Triune God is not static isolation but a timeless fullness characterized by infinite, active relationality. God’s timelessness is therefore intimately connected to the dynamic and participatory reality of divine-human communion, revealing a Trinity whose eternal simplicity precisely enables an infinitely generous and relational communication with creation.

God’s timelessness and mystery are not barriers to relationality, but rather the very condition of perfect relational fullness. The divine eternity, as Gregory explains, is inherently beyond human comprehension, yet paradoxically communicates itself actively through participation. Lossky underscores this by grounding the relational depth of Orthodox spirituality explicitly in the timeless Trinity, whose mystery itself constitutes the source of authentic communion. Stăniloae further clarifies this by articulating that divine simplicity and relationality coexist seamlessly—God eternally communicates His personal being through uncreated energies, thus bridging timeless mystery with intimate relationship. Together, these theologians affirm that divine timelessness and mysterious simplicity are precisely the conditions under which relational fullness is perfectly actualized, eternally expressed, and freely offered to temporal creation. In other words, these Eastern Orthodox theological insights exemplify precisely the theological paradigm Dryer’s SSGO aims to clarify—affirming that divine eternity and simplicity, far from entailing isolation, constitute the very foundation enabling God’s dynamic, timelessly relational engagement with temporal creation.

II. Divine Eternity in the Self-Standing Givenness Ontology (Dryer, Benovsky, Marion)

Given the robust classical affirmation of God’s timeless eternity, an essential question naturally emerges at this juncture: “How can a genuinely timeless, immutable God enter into authentic, reciprocal, and responsive relationships with temporal beings without experiencing succession, change, or compromise of divine simplicity?” This central theological question directly motivates Dryer’s formulation of the Self-Standing Givenness Ontology (SSGO), providing a coherent answer precisely through a synthesis of classical theology, relational metaphysics, and phenomenology.

Dryer explicitly addresses this question by clarifying divine eternity as fundamentally relational rather than statically isolated, affirming3:

“What God is eternally is an act of self-giving; each Person is the complete self-expression of God’s essence in relational terms.”
—Robert M. Dryer, Self-Standing Givenness Ontology, unpublished manuscripts, RobertDryer.com, 2025.

Here, divine eternity is reconceived as perfect relational fullness. Rather than implying isolation or abstract immobility, God’s timelessness involves the active, primitive, and fully actualized relational self-expression of each divine Person—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each Person timelessly communicates the entire divine essence from their unique relational vantage, such that relationality is intrinsic and irreducible to God’s simplicity. Thus, Dryer provides a conceptual framework in which relational dynamism does not depend upon succession or temporal change but instead exists eternally as primitive relational givenness.

Dryer further elucidates how divine timelessness inherently includes meaningful interaction with creation:

“God’s eternal resolve of love includes all the particular ways He will interact with creatures.”
—Robert M. Dryer, Self-Standing Givenness Ontology, unpublished manuscripts, RobertDryer.com, 2025.

This formulation directly answers the posed question: God’s engagement with temporal beings does not require successive reactions or temporal modifications in God. Instead, all divine interactions with creation are eternally and comprehensively contained within the timeless relational act of divine self-giving itself. God’s responsiveness is thus fully actualized within the eternal simplicity and relational perfection of the divine essence. There is no need for subsequent additions or changes, as God’s relational intentions and responses are primitively contained within His timeless relational essence.

To strengthen this theological explanation, Dryer explicitly leverages Jiri Benovsky’s metaphysics of irreducible relational primitives. Benovsky provides a robust metaphysical basis for understanding relational distinctions within simplicity without temporal succession or compositional complexity:

“Relational modes represent the full divine essence viewed from distinct, irreducible vantages.”
—Robert M. Dryer, influenced by Jiri Benovsky, Self-Standing Givenness Ontology, unpublished manuscripts, RobertDryer.com, 2025.

Benovsky’s concept of metaphysical primitives clarifies that relationality can be foundational, irreducible, and explanatory without necessitating temporal or compositional implications:

“Primitives in metaphysics function precisely as problem-solvers, foundational elements that provide explanatory depth by irreducibly grounding reality in fundamental relational stances.”
—Jiri Benovsky, “Primitives,” in The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics, ed. Ricki Bliss and J.T.M. Miller (New York: Routledge, 2020), 227–237.

Incorporating Benovsky’s insight, Dryer ensures that relational distinctions within the Trinity are eternally primitive, not compositional or temporal. Each divine Person fully and irreducibly expresses the simple divine essence relationally, maintaining immutability, simplicity, and timelessness, yet simultaneously allowing authentic relational diversity.

Further deepening this synthesis, Dryer explicitly integrates Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, emphasizing the self-sufficiency and intrinsic relational autonomy of divine manifestation:

“Givenness is accomplished in itself, from itself, and by itself; it manifests itself absolutely and independently of all causality external to it.”
—Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).

Dryer appropriates this principle explicitly, framing each divine Person as a fully autonomous “saturated phenomenon,” relationally and timelessly manifesting the complete divine essence from within:

“God as self-standing givenness resonates with Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, particularly the idea that phenomena manifest themselves from themselves in radical autonomy, requiring no external metaphysical grounding beyond their own intrinsic relational self-expression.”
—Robert M. Dryer, explicitly integrating Jean-Luc Marion, Self-Standing Givenness Ontology, unpublished manuscripts, RobertDryer.com, 2025.

This phenomenological clarification emphasizes that divine relationality is perfectly autonomous and self-contained within God’s timeless being. Thus, God’s dynamic relational interaction with creation arises not from external temporal processes or changes but from God’s intrinsically relational and timeless self-giving essence.

Finally, Dryer pastorally synthesizes these philosophical insights, decisively resolving the central question:

“In SSGO’s vision, informed by Benovsky’s relational metaphysics and Marion’s givenness phenomenology, God’s eternity is not an abstract emptiness of time, but the perfect integration of relational life—the infinite fullness of love that no change can augment or diminish.”
—Robert M. Dryer, summarizing Self-Standing Givenness Ontology, unpublished manuscripts, RobertDryer.com, 2025.

To further clarify this relational integration, Dryer employs a rich and meaningful analogy:

Imagine God as an eternal embrace-an ongoing, perpetual act of self-giving love among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This divine embrace is not static, but relationally vibrant and dynamically complete, eternally encompassing all possibilities of interaction with creation. Within this eternal embrace, the universe can be envisioned analogically as humanity’s womb, the sacred space wherein temporal beings are nurtured, sustained, and brought into existence precisely through participation in God’s relational fullness. Just as a womb provides the necessary environment for growth and development without changing its fundamental nature, so God’s relational perfection provides the metaphysical grounding and nourishment for creation’s existence, development, and ultimate flourishing.

This analogy vividly illustrates that God’s timelessness and simplicity are not impediments to relationality, but precisely the conditions that enable it. Temporal beings, existing within this divine embrace, participate authentically in the eternal fullness of divine relationality without imposing any succession, change, or limitation upon God’s timeless being. The timeless, immutable divine embrace, therefore, serves as the very foundation and condition for genuinely reciprocal and responsive interactions with creation. Thus, Dryer’s Self-Standing Givenness Ontology coherently synthesizes classical affirmations of divine simplicity and eternity with the rich phenomenological and metaphysical insights of Benovsky and Marion, clearly and meaningfully resolving the central theological question posed at this juncture: a genuinely timeless, immutable God dynamically interacts with temporal beings not through successive change, but through the eternally relational fullness of His simple, self-giving essence.

The insights from the Catholic, Reformed, and Eastern Orthodox traditions further drive this analogy home by collectively affirming that God’s timeless eternity is inherently relational and actively communicative, rather than isolated or inert. Augustine and Aquinas emphasize that God’s timeless fullness is precisely what grounds His creative, sustaining presence in the temporal order, akin to a womb nurturing creation within God’s eternal act of love. Turretin similarly underscores that God’s immutable life does not diminish His relational engagement but perfects it, eternally encompassing all moments of temporal reality without succession. Gregory of Nazianzus, Lossky, and Stăniloae enrich this vision by affirming that God’s mysterious simplicity and infinite relational communion intrinsically provide the ontological foundation for creation’s authentic participation, vividly captured by the analogy of creation nestled within God’s eternal embrace.

Question: How can a genuinely timeless, immutable God enter into authentic, reciprocal, and responsive relationships with temporal beings without experiencing succession, change, or compromise of divine simplicity?

Answer: God’s timeless relationality is neither an emanation nor a form of monism but a fully actualized and intrinsically free self-expression—a total donation—because God is love. Each  divine Person eternally gives and receives the whole divine essence in perfect relational fullness, without succession, alteration, or arbitrary voluntarism, ensuring authentic and reciprocal interaction with creation rooted in the essential perfection of divine self-donation itself. Thus, this embrace enables participation in the infinite, because the total self-ordering principle of God is the ultimate transmundane reality-unbounded, unconditioned, and the epitome of grace-within which the mystery of conversion is realized in time.

B. Contemporaneously Reformulated

We have asked the classical question and answered it classically just in relational terms. It may seem we have not in fact said anything different than the classical question. So this leads to asking some questions to show how SSGO is in fact contemporary and not just saying the classical tradition in artful words.


How is SSGO genuinely contemporary, distinct, and innovative, rather than merely a restatement or reformulation of classical theology?

The Self-Standing Givenness Ontology (SSGO) is genuinely contemporary, distinct, and innovative because it explicitly grounds divine relationality within metaphysical primitives and phenomenological givenness, concepts developed by Jiri Benovsky and Jean-Luc Marion, respectively. Unlike classical theology, which often implicitly acknowledges relationality without systematically articulating it, SSGO explicitly presents relationality as primitive, foundational, and intrinsic to divine simplicity itself. By doing so, it provides a coherent philosophical framework that preserves classical affirmations of timelessness and immutability while clearly demonstrating how a timeless God dynamically engages with temporal creation. Thus, SSGO’s novelty lies precisely in its methodological rigor and conceptual clarity, explicitly integrating contemporary metaphysics and phenomenology to articulate classical doctrines in genuinely new, meaningful, and pastorally fruitful terms.

SSGO is a theory about the actuality of God and the dynamism of God in terms of primitives. What is more primitive than the ultimate? What I want to say is that the relations of origin (unbegotten, begetting, proceeding) are not external attributes but are identical with the divine essence itself. In SSGO, these relations are reinterpreted as “self‑standing relational modes” – the distinctive ways in which the one, indivisible divine nature is dynamically expressed. The Father exists as the source of the divine life, the Son as its mediator (being begotten and returning the divine gift), and the Spirit as the bond that unites and perfects this mutual self‑donation. This reading reinforces the Church’s teaching that each Person is the complete divine essence lived out in its own distinctive relational expression.

God is his own self‑ordering principle and holds himself in perfect Spiritual unity. Thus, God’s self‑donation, as the complete expression of His undivided unity, manifests in the Trinity as the harmonious interplay of distinct Persons—expressing both “Trinity in Unity” and “Unity in Trinity” in a fully realized perfection of love and grace. For example, in the Eucharist, the bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, enabling the faithful to experience the full, living presence of the divine Person while maintaining the distinction between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This sacramental participation mirrors the relational dynamics of the Godhead—where each Person fully shares in the one divine nature, yet preserves its unique relational identity. Thus, sacraments mediate an intimate union with God, embodying the mystery of divine simplicity and triune relationality by conveying God’s self‑donation in a manner that is both concrete and transcendent. In doing so, they offer a model for human participation that reflects how the divine grace is communicated without mixing or diminishing the distinct natures within the Trinity because God’s standard is to hold himself to consubstantiality, or self‑standing givenness if you will.[2]

Finally, by framing the Trinity as an eternal, self‑giving communion, SSGO provides a robust ontological explanation for the classic theological formula: “All in God is God.” This means that the unity of the Godhead is realized in the dynamic, self‑communicative life of the Persons-a life in which each act of self‑givenness is both the source of divine energy and the guarantee of undivided being. There is no “fourth thing” beyond the three Persons; the only reality is the one, simple essence expressed in three eternal modes of self‑donation. SSGO’s framework can be described as a relational ontology grounded in the doctrine of the Trinity: being-as-communion elevated to the first principle without abandoning the classical notion of the plenitude of being.

In sum, SSGO drives home a powerful conclusion: Divine Simplicity and Trinitarian Relationality are not opposing truths but two facets of the same divine reality-an infinite act of self‑giving love. The one God subsists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not by partitioning the divine essence but by expressing it in three irreducible relational modes. This synthesis not only preserves the Church’s traditional affirmations but also provides a compelling, philosophically rigorous account of the mystery of the Trinity. This allows us to incorporate the personalist and patristic intuition that “God is love” (1 John 4:8) into a more powerful theological and spiritual context-love inherently implies lover, beloved, and the love between them, yet true love makes the many one. The Father eternally imparts everything to the Son (and, by extension, the Holy Spirit), so that lover, beloved, and the love between them exist in perfect unity. This mutual indwelling and sharing means that the three divine Persons are “one” God not by a solitary metaphysical essence alone, but by the communion of love in which they give and receive the entirety of divine life.

The SSGO may be a theological turn of Marion beyond what he’s comfortable endorsing and in some sense would be allergic to, and it may creatively appropriate Benovsky’s primities as problems solvers, but it only reads and sounds like an incremental step from Classical theism. In point of fact it specifically goes beyond Platonism or Aristotelianism in the Christian tradition, and through it we can see in being not a divine substance but the vary reality of God that is constitutive of relationality through and through. And this innovation allows us to appropriate the tradition in familiar tones and be accommodating as needed.  

C. Contemporary Questions Proper

We already asked a relevant contemporary question, but the tradition has asked that question too. I think we need to see a contemporary question proper. Here Paul Helm can help. Helm is known for asking questions like, “How can we coherently understand and defend the classical claim that God exists entirely outside of time, without succession or change, while still affirming a meaningful relationship between this timeless God and temporal creation?” Sucha  question and the like challenges theologians to reconcile divine timelessness with God’s active engagement in a temporal world. This inquiry probes the coherence of asserting that God is immutable and eternal, yet interacts dynamically with creation.

Paul Helm addresses this issue by emphasizing the concept of eternal simultaneity, arguing that God’s timelessness does not exclude genuine, meaningful interaction with creation. Helm maintains that God’s eternal will and knowledge encompass all temporal events simultaneously, allowing God to initiate and sustain changes in creation without undergoing any internal change Himself. He succinctly states, “God is able from his eternal vantage point to bring about changes without himself changing. The changes are in the created cosmos, not in God” (Paul Helm, “Can God Be Both Outside Time and In Time? Part 1,” Credo Magazine, August 27, 2013). Thus, Helm illustrates how the classical understanding of timeless eternity coherently supports a robust, active divine engagement with the temporal order.

How would Dryer’s SSGO approach a Helmian coherence question?

The SSGO answers this question by explicitly framing divine eternity as intrinsically relational, primitive, and perfectly actualized self-givenness (or donation). According to SSGO, God’s timeless existence is not a static abstraction, but rather a fully actualized relational fullness in which each divine Person eternally and primitively expresses the entire divine essence from their unique relational vantage. Thus, God’s timelessness intrinsically contains all relational dynamics necessary for authentic interaction with temporal creation, not as successive reactions or changes, but as eternally realized relational intentions rooted in divine simplicity itself. Through the analogy of God’s act of existence towards creation as within and, in some sense, as an eternal embrace, SSGO tries to illustrate that divine timelessness and simplicity are precisely what enable authentic, reciprocal, and meaningful relational engagement with temporal beings. God’s immutable and timeless relational perfection provides both the metaphysical grounding and the intimate relational context in which temporal creation authentically participates, ensuring genuine divine-human communion without temporal succession or alteration in God.

We can’t ask and answer every possible contemporary question here but hopefully asking a Paul Helm like question, and the more classic “How can a genuinely timeless, immutable God enter into authentic, reciprocal, and responsive relationships with temporal beings without experiencing succession, change, or compromise of divine simplicity?” question demonstrates there’s plenty of explanatory power to answer questions around God and time without having to ditch the tradition while answering modern models with modern insights.

III. Spiritual and Pastoral Implications

The theological insights presented thus far have profound spiritual and pastoral implications, particularly when viewed through the lens of Dryer’s Self-Standing Givenness Ontology (SSGO). Classical theological affirmations, enriched and clarified by Dryer’s relational framework, yield transformative insights for personal spirituality, vocation, and mystical union with God.

John Henry Newman offers a profoundly personal perspective on divine providence and vocational purpose, writing:

“God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.”
(John Henry Newman, Meditations and Devotions, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1893.)

Newman’s reflection highlights that each human life manifests a unique providential calling, directly ordained by God. Within Dryer’s SSGO, such vocational particularity is explicitly understood as a genuine participation in the timeless relational self-giving of the Triune God. Each person’s life mission is neither arbitrary nor merely incidental, but eternally and primitively contained within God’s perfect relational fullness. Human existence is thus intrinsically oriented toward realizing, in a temporal and concrete manner, the eternal relational resolve of God’s love. In pastoral terms, this means that every vocation—no matter how seemingly ordinary—is a personal manifestation of the eternal relational self-expression of the divine Persons. Human lives thereby gain profound significance and dignity, intimately bound to God’s timeless intentionality and relational dynamism.

St. John of the Cross complements this insight by outlining the conditions required for authentic spiritual union with the eternal God:

“In order to be united with him, the will must consequently be emptied of and detached from all disordered appetite and satisfaction with respect to every particular thing in which it can rejoice, whether earthly or heavenly, temporal or spiritual, so that purged and cleansed of all inordinate satisfactions, joys, and appetites it might be wholly occupied in loving God with its affections.”
(St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel.)

St. John’s teaching emphasizes the necessity of detachment from temporal attachments, enabling the soul to enter into a deeper, transformative participation in the divine life. Interpreted through Dryer’s ontology, this detachment is not simply a negative act of renunciation but rather a positive entry into the relational fullness of God’s timeless self-giving. The purified soul, emptied of lesser attachments, becomes fully receptive to the divine Persons’ eternal act of relational self-expression. Thus, spiritual union is the soul’s active, conscious participation in the timeless divine embrace—the eternal relational life of the Trinity. Pastorally, this underscores the transformative potential of spiritual discipline and ascetic practice, precisely as means of deeper integration into the timeless relational dynamic of God’s love.

St. Teresa of Ávila offers yet another rich spiritual metaphor, vividly depicting the soul’s progressive participation in divine relationality:

“It is that we consider our soul to be like a castle made entirely out of a diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in heaven there are many dwelling places.”
(St. Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle.)

Teresa’s castle metaphor beautifully expresses the soul’s inherent relational capacity and openness to divine self-communication. Seen through the SSGO framework, each “room” symbolizes progressively deeper dimensions of relational participation in God’s timeless self-giving. As the soul moves inward, it does not simply discover increasing levels of personal spirituality but actively and relationally participates more fully in the eternal relational embrace of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Thus, spiritual growth is not a linear or purely temporal progression, but rather a continuous, deepening participation in the timeless divine fullness. This pastoral insight encourages spiritual directors and theologians alike to envision the spiritual journey as ever-deepening relational communion, grounded fundamentally in God’s timeless relational perfection.

Taken together, Newman, St. John of the Cross, and St. Teresa of Ávila illustrate powerfully how Dryer’s Self-Standing Givenness Ontology provides rich spiritual and pastoral resources. These traditions emphasize personal vocation, spiritual purification, and mystical communion precisely as expressions of participation in the divine relational fullness. Within SSGO, spirituality is thereby understood as the temporal actualization of timeless relational participation in the very life of the Triune God.

Conclusion

In classical theology, divine eternity is consistently affirmed as timeless, perfect, and immutable. Robert Dryer’s innovative integration, articulated through the Self-Standing Givenness Ontology, explicitly preserves these traditional affirmations while profoundly enriching the relational dimension of God’s timelessness. By explicitly drawing upon Jiri Benovsky’s metaphysics of irreducible relational primitives and Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, Dryer’s SSGO coherently reconciles divine simplicity and relational multiplicity, clearly demonstrating that divine timelessness does not exclude, but rather intrinsically includes dynamic relational engagement.

Dryer’s ontology does not negate the classical theological tradition but rather deepens and clarifies its inherent relational richness. The explicit synthesis provided by SSGO meaningfully affirms that God’s eternal relational self-giving dynamically and genuinely interacts with temporal creation, without necessitating temporal succession, alteration, or compromise of divine simplicity. The result is a compelling theological vision in which the timeless, immutable God authentically and reciprocally relates to temporal beings precisely through the eternally actualized fullness of divine relationality itself.

Thus, I think my SSGO theology advances classical theology both conceptually and pastorally well, and offers theologians, pastors, and spiritual seekers alike a coherent, meaningful, and pastorally fruitful framework. It enables a renewed confidence in the classical affirmation that divine eternity and simplicity are the very conditions that ground God’s authentic relational engagement with creation, empowering believers to recognize and embrace their lives as genuine participations in the eternal embrace of the Triune God’s self-donation in his self-revelation.

Bibliography

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  • Augustine of Hippo. Confessions. Translated by Edward B. Pusey. New York: Modern Library, 1949.
  • Balthasar, Hans Urs von. Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory. Vol. 5, The Last Act. Translated by Graham Harrison. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998.
  • Basil of Caesarea. Hexaemeron (The Six Days of Creation). In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 8, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994. (Didn’t use in this paper because I wanted to stay under 8000 words, but easily could have incorporated his contribution and got all 3 Cappadocians in the paper.)
  • Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics. Vol. 2, God and Creation. Edited by John Bolt. Translated by John Vriend. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004. (Again, like Basil, ran out of room, and since this tradition is my weakest I was brief strategically.)
  • Benovsky, Jiri. “Primitives.” In The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics, edited by Ricki Bliss and J. T. M. Miller, 227–237. New York: Routledge, 2020.
  • Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. Translated by Victor Watts. London: Penguin Books, 1999.
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  • Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997.
  • Charnock, Stephen. The Existence and Attributes of God. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1996. (If I ever do a fuller piece this book will be mentioned)
  • Craig, William Lane. Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to Time. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001. (Craig was supposed to make the modern questions section, but ran out of words.)
  • Dryer, Robert M. “Divine Givenness and Divine Attributes in Catholic Theology.” RobertDryer.com, 2025.
  • Dryer, Robert M. “Divine Simplicity and the Trinity Explained.” RobertDryer.com, 2025.
  • Dryer, Robert M. “Harmonizing Simplicity and Trinity by Analogy.” RobertDryer.com, 2025.
  • Dryer, Robert M. “Self-Standing Givenness Ontology.” Unpublished manuscripts and blog posts, 2024–2025. RobertDryer.com, accessed February 28, 2025.
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  • Gregory of Nyssa. Against Eunomius. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994.
  • Helm, Paul. “God and Time: A Defense of Divine Timeless Eternity.” Credo Magazine, October 15, 2020.
  • Helm, Paul. Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
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Ultimately, God is all about time; in fact, time is fully within His embrace—and, in a very real sense, He embraces it because He is love (John 3:16–17).

[1] Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler, Dictionary of Theology, 2nd ed. (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1981), s.v. “Eternity.” Rahner and Vorgrimler define divine eternity explicitly as “continuance without any kind of succession, which not only has no beginning and no end but is a present that has always been in absolute possession of itself and for which, subsisting in itself, there is no such thing as ‘before’ or ‘after’.” They further explain that eternity signifies “the plenitude of being,” distinct from temporal created existence marked by succession and change. The authors reference key doctrinal statements compiled in Heinrich Denzinger’s Enchiridion Symbolorum: Denzinger 75 (The Athanasian Creed), emphasizing the co-eternity and co-equality of the Persons of the Trinity; Denzinger 800 (The Fourth Lateran Council, 1215), affirming God’s eternity and clear distinction from creation; and Denzinger 3001 (The First Vatican Council, 1869–1870), which formally defined attributes of God, including His eternity. Complete texts of these doctrinal references are accessible online in English translation at patristica.net/denzinger.

[2]  Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo‑Drama IV: The Action, section III, C, 1 (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1980): “It follows that the Son, for his part, cannot be and possess the absolute nature of God except in the mode of receptivity: he receives this unity of omnipotence and powerlessness from the Father. This receptivity simultaneously includes the Son’s self-givenness… and his filial thanksgiving (Eucharist) for the gift of consubstantial divinity.” This was originally sourced and accessed from here: Life of the Trinity: Self-Giving Love – Lucas Hattenberger (Blog Post). Retrieved from: https://lucashatt.wordpress.com/2015/04/06/life-of-the-trinity-self-giving-love/. Hattenberger is helpful here.

[3] Within the framework of the Self-Standing Givenness Ontology (SSGO), time would be defined as the relational context of creation’s participatory unfolding within God’s eternal, relational act of self-giving. In other words, time is not an independent or absolute reality, nor merely a sequence of moments, but rather the created order’s intrinsic, ongoing reception and manifestation of God’s timeless relational self-expression. From the perspective of SSGO, time emerges as the created mode of participation in divine relationality. It is the medium through which finite beings progressively realize their potential and relational fulfillment within the eternal embrace of God. Thus, time is understood relationally, not as something that constrains or limits God, but as the experiential dimension through which temporal creatures authentically engage, respond to, and are drawn ever more deeply into the timeless relational fullness of the Triune God.

Time, therefore, is creation’s dynamic participation in God’s eternal relational self-gift, which itself remains timeless, fully actualized, and immutably simple.

Scriptures to ponder:

  • Psalm 90:2
  • 2 Peter 3:8
  • Isaiah 57:15
  • Malachi 3:6
  • James 1:17
  • Hebrews 13:8
  • Deuteronomy 6:4
  • John 10:30
  • Psalm 139:4, 16
  • Isaiah 46:9–10
  • John 17:5, 24
  • 1 John 4:8, 16
  • John 3:16–17
  • Philippians 2:5–7
  • 2 Peter 1:4
  • John 17:21–23
  • Acts 17:28
  • Colossians 1:17