Rory Fox has set three goals for this book: first, to give the doctrine of Bonaventure, Albert, and Thomas on the topics of time and eternity; second, to present mediaeval thought on its own terms and not through the anachronistic and distorting concepts of 20th century philosophy; third, to show that, although outside of time, God is not strictly timeless, for he exists with temporal creatures. The goals for this book are reasonably set, and many important texts are helpfully discussed, but Fox does not succeed, in my judgement, in achieving the goals he has set for himself.
Fox has chosen to focus his study on the thought of the three most important 13th century thinkers, but he has not restricted himself to these three, discussing as well other contemporaries such as Alexander of Hales, Philip the Chancellor, Robert Kilwardby, and John Pecham. He has also chosen not to present any one thinker in a systematic or historical way, but to discuss some or all of the thinkers according to certain themes, such as the meanings of temporal terms, the problem of the unity of time, the reality of time, and so forth. This method, however, has produced most unsatisfactory results. In the end, we get a collection of opinions but not a consistent position to which all thinkers subscribed. For example, on the question on what it is that unifies time (discussed in Chapter 2), we find four different positions: (1) that number itself is the basis of the unity of time, for there is only one system of numbers that applies to all motions (a position refuted by Thomas but not attributed to any identifiable author); (2) that God is the basis of the unity of time, for he is the cause of all time (Alexander of Hales); (3) that matter, which in some sense is one for all creatures, is the basis of the unity of time (Bonaventure); (4) that the primary subject of time – that upon which all temporal measurements based, the primum mobile– is the basis of the unity of time (Averroes and Thomas). The contrast between the third and fourth positions is interesting, because, whereas Bonaventure's position would allow, for example, that the same time could continue after the destruction of the heavens, Thomas's position would require after such an event a different time, or at least a different measure of time. My criticism is that we do not learn much about any mediaeval doctrines from such a presentation of different positions with regard to this topic. We need instead to know that Bonaventure's position arises from a prior metaphysical doctrine, namely, universal hylomorphism, which Thomas rejects. To see Bonaventure's position on time, as contrasted with Thomas's, we should see how both positions develop naturally from the differing metaphysical and physical principles. But that would require a systematic presentation of each thinker's position, with an account of any historical development, and not the mere presentation of individual positions on various selected topics.
Fox has promised to present mediaeval doctrines without forcing them into our terms and concepts. In numerous places, however, Fox does precisely what he sets out to avoid. Thus, in chapter three Fox explores whether mediaeval accounts of time could have accommodated modern views of causality; in chapter five, he tries to explain the problem of the reality of time in terms of McTaggart's distinction between A-Theories of time and B-Theories; in several chapters, Fox introduces the modern distinction between the topology of time and the metric of time, only to complain that the mediaevals were confused about this distinction (p. 224), and never with an explanation of just what this distinction is; and in chapter 8, a modern distinction, given in terms of sets of instants, between ‘everlastingness’ and ‘timelessness’ is used to explain the difference between time and eternity. I don't want to claim that modern terms cannot be used profitably to discuss mediaeval doctrines, but in all of the cases I have listed above the modern terms do force a certain distortion on the 13th century doctrines, and none of them are needed for clarification.
Fox promises to show that the usual interpretation that the mediaevals thought of God as timeless is misleading. Fox argues that, because Thomas and Albert say that God operates in and with temporal creatures, they are committed, or should be committed, to granting some sort of temporality to God. The point seems to be that if we grant that God causes effects that are in time, we must also concede that God is not timeless, although Fox does not want to say simply that God is in time. On the one hand, God is not in time; on the other hand, he is not timeless. It is hard to know what to make of such a claim, and Fox himself admits that the position he attributes to Thomas and Albert is hard to grasp. ‘It seems to me that mid-thirteenth-century accounts of God's relationship to time are trying to affirm something that simply does not fall within the ambit of the concepts and thought patterns that contemporary philosophers use.’ (p. 329) But the difficulty is not just one of modern concepts. God is not in time or temporal because he does not move or change in any way, and time is the measure of motion or change. Given that understanding, affirmed by both Albert and Thomas, it makes no sense to say that God is somehow in time. It is, however, true to say that God causes effects in time, but the understanding of that fact requires an analysis in metaphysics and causality that has not been given in this book.
This is a book about the understanding of time in the period of scholastic philosophy and theology. No text on this topic is as important as Physics. 4.10-14, where Aristotle discusses the many problems of time and defines time. Fox mentions the importance of Aristotle, but gives no systematic discussion of this fundamental text and does not discuss it at all until mid-way through the book (chapter 5). The lack of a clear understanding of what Aristotle meant by time, and the natural philosophy underlying Aristotle's discussion, is a failure that pervades this whole book. The scholastic discussions of time simply make no sense without a basic understanding of Aristotle's text.
Let me illustrate this with one example. Fox several times (chapters 3, 4) says that time is composed of instants: ‘… we saw that for medieval thinkers time was composed of instants and periods which were temporally related to each other.’ (p. 95) If ‘periods’ are divisible segments of time, then time can be composed of periods, but it is impossible that time be composed of instants, for as Aristotle makes clear, no continuum can be composed of indivisibles (Physics 6.1, 231a25). Aristotle recognizes an irreducible division between two species of quantity, the discrete and the continuous, on the basis of which there is a fundamental and irreducible difference between an instant, which has no measure and is not continuous, and time, which is measurable and is continuous. No composition of measureless instants could result in the continuous reality that is time, and no continuum can be reduced to that which is non-continuously discrete. This book represents a great scholarly effort, and it brings together a wealth of material and texts relevant to the topic, but it does not succeed in presenting a reliable account of the way in which Bonaventure, Albert, or Thomas understood time.
