GOD proceed from the past into the future; we have already lost yesterday and we have not yet reached tomorrow But God possesses the whole of his life simultaneously; none of it has Xowed into the past and none of it is still waiting in the wings Boethius’ treatment of freedom, foreknowledge, and eternity became the classical account for much of the Middle Ages But problems remain with his solution of the dilemma he posed with such unparalleled clarity Surely, matters really are as God sees them; so if God sees tomorrow’s seabattle as present, then it really is present already Again, the notion of eternity raises more problems than it solves If Boethius’ imprisonment is simultaneous with God’s eternity, and God’s eternity is simultaneous with the sack of Troy, does that not mean that Boethius was imprisoned while Troy was burning? We cannot say that the imprisonment is simultaneous with one part of eternity, and the sack with another part, because eternity has no parts but, on the Lady Philosophy’s account, happens all at once.2 Negative Theology in Eriugena Scotus Eriugena, two centuries later, returned to the Augustinian problem of predestination,3 but his principal contribution to philosophical theology lay in the extremely restrictive account which he gives of the use of language about God God is not in any of Aristotle’s categories, so all the things that are can be denied of him—that is, negative (‘apophatic’) theology On the other hand, God is the cause of all the things that are, so they can all be aYrmed of him: we can say that God is goodness, light, etc.—that is, positive (‘cataphatic’) theology But all the terms that we apply to God are applied to him only improperly and metaphorically This applies just as much to words like ‘good’ and ‘just’ as to more obviously metaphorical descriptions of God as a rock or a lion We can see this when we reXect that such predicates have an opposite, but God has no opposite Because aYrmative theology is merely metaphorical it is not in conXict with negative theology, which is literally true See my The God of the Philosophers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 38–48 See above, p 282 285