An idea · Late Antiquity · first attested 524 CE
Providence and Eternity
God does not foresee time – He sees all of it at once.
In Book V of the Consolation, Boethius resolves a problem that had tormented theology: if God foreknows my every act, how can it be free? The answer lies in the concept of eternity. God dwells outside time altogether; for Him there is no "before" and no "after." Boethius defines eternity as "the whole, simultaneous, and perfect possession of unbounded life" – totum simul, all at once. God does not foresee the future; He sees the whole of time in a single eternal present, the way someone on a summit sees the entire road below at one glance. His knowing therefore compels nothing, just as your seeing what someone does right now does not compel them to do it. Aquinas will take this definition over word for word.