The Conception of Eternity As mentioned previously, theologians throughout history have disagreed over how one should understand God. The content of God's characteristics has been controversial and one has often had to compromise to create an official image of God. One of the most disputed qualities is how one should interpret the assertion that God is eternal. 1.One understanding has been that God exists in time in the same manner as we humans, but the difference is that God's existence has no beginning nor end. God exists eternally. This concept of God existing in time can seem strange if one considers the meaning of something having neither a beginning nor an end. If something has no beginning, how is it possible that it exists at all? One can even pose the question of how this sort of eternity fits with theism's linear view of time. In theism, the begining of time starts with creation. Before creation, time did not exist. But if God exists in time, doesn't it mean that God began to exist only when time was created? If one should suppose that, then one can reasonably question how something that doesn't exist can create time at all? The concept that God exists in time becomes problematic when one reflects upon theism's assertion that everything that exists in time is changeable. That is a thought that even Aristotles embraced when he understood that time is a measurement of changeableness. If God exists in time, then he therefore is also changeable. But this conflicts with theism's founding perception that God is unchangeable. Some theologians have been thought to have solved this problem by placing God outside of time, which leads us to the other perception of eternity or the eternal. 2. The other perception is that God is timeless, and exists outside of time. What this means is that there is no past, present or future in relation to God. There is only the present; all time is experienced at the same time. One can speak of the eternal present. This opinion becomes problematic if one considers the implication that something exists outside of time. There supposedly is somewhere in the universe, or outside of the universe, where neither the past, present or future exists. A place that is devoid of time. A place where nothing can change since time doesn't exist. Can such a place exist? If such a place should exist somewhere, then this leads to certain problems with the thought that everything exists in relation to other places. The distance between these places is made up of space in which these things exist, and in space exists time. But how is it possible that something exists in space, inside or outside of the universe when time is a part of space? In order to understand the suggestion that God is outside of time, one must also place God outside of space. But if God is outside of space, can he really exist?