Yesterday I posted something on N.T. Wright’s take on timeless truths, and here is one additional thought on that subject. Relativism wants to localize all values, decentering everything. This is what lies behind the postmodern shift from virtues to values. The virtue of honesty is the same in every culture, time and place. But values fluctuate, and lots of people like it that way.
Now some who want to resist the follies of relativism have done so by retreating into a kind of atemporal Platonism. In order to “not fluctuate” it has to be “infinitely static.” And thus all the virtues are frozen in the sky somehow, and this pretends to be a barrier against relativism. But timelessness in this sense will not rescue us from anything; it is an idol. All the constant virtues based on atemporality in this sense are really counterfeit virtues, service offered to a false god.
We Christians confess that the triune God is not eternally static. The Son is eternally begotten by the Father, and begotten is a verb with a tense. And the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and Son, another verb. Now this does not make God temporal in our sense. But it does mean that temporality in our experience answers to something in the divine nature. God is trans-temporal, and this means that He is unchangingly faithful in history, through history, and over history. In short, Trinitarian theology is not Platonist.
The infinite, unchanging Father is eternally begetting the Son, and they together love each other infinitely, and that Spirit of love is Himself a person, proceeding from the Father and the Son. Because of this, form and freedom are possible in our created world. Because of this, we have the possibility of unity and diversity. Because of this, in our created world, some things must change and other things cannot change.
And so this is why honesty is a timeless virtue. This is also why neckties change their width and color over time. This is why courage is timeless, and haircuts are not. But courage, honesty, and all the other virtues are never atemporal.