John Lucas’ The Future

Upon my last trip to my local book store, I ran across a book whose title caught my eye: John Lucas’ The Future: An Essay on God, Temporality, and Truth. Obviously, this is a philosophy book, mostly dealing with issues involving God’s will and presence, and its relationship to time as we understand it. Let me just say, Lucas gets into some very heavy material, and I can’t give a worthy description of his arguments without actually writing a summary paper. I CAN give you an idea of what you are in for, though. Let’s look at the issue of God’s status as a creator. If God is perfect, and is a creator, then the attribute of “creator” is essentially part of God’s nature. This means that there was never a time when God was not a creator, logically. However, we run into a problem here. This understanding of God implies that our universe has always existed, because it is necessary in order for God to maintain his status of causality. But wait, to be a creator means that one actualized something that was not there before. If the universe necessarily has always existed, then it can’t have been created, as there was not a time before an origin-less entity. This is not necessarily the argument of The Future, but it is an important issue discussed by Lucas, and represents the type of material you will find. So, does Lucas make sense of all of these temporal dilemmas? If you want to find out, pick up a copy of John Lucas’ The Future: An Essay on God, Temporality, and Truth. It might not be the easiest book to find, but with just a little effort, it shouldn’t be hard at all to have your own copy, be it physical or digital. If you have an interest in some of the deeper philosophical/theological issues, then you owe it to yourself to give Lucas a chance.