Right on Time
My father recently wrote a very thoughtful, if characteristically obtuse, post about the non-existence of time. One of the things I admire most about my father is that he is a very careful, precise thinker, who does not draw any unwarranted inferences out of an emotional need to believe a particular proposition. It is difficult to quarrel with his logic in this post, where he contends that time has only conceptual, and not actual, reality. While I respect Daniel Bakken for fighting the good fight in the comments section, my father's arguments ultimately prevail. There are essentially three responses to the argument against the existence of time, and none of them are meritorious.
1. If there is no time, then God doesn't know the future, which would mean He wouldn't be omnipotent and omniscient, and therefore could not be God.
As an initial matter, this objection begs the question, for the very matter at issue is whether there exists a future that can be known. If no actual future exists (because such a thing would be nonsense), then God is not made any less powerful by not knowing a thing that cannot exist. He is no less powerful than for the fact that He cannot make a round square. Second, we do not owe God the duty of imagining the existence of additional realms for Him to govern - the mere fact that people can state "the future exists and God knows it" should not lead us to believe that the future does in fact exist, or that we are any less pious for disbelieving it.
2. These things are simply a mystery beyond our understanding, for who are we to question God's ability to reconcile this apparent contradiction?
This argument is most commonly made by someone who has been caught in a very obvious "A is not-A." Ironically, they usually bring this point up after arguing at length about the necessary rational inferences we must draw from this or that passage of Scripture, but when pressed on something their systematic cannot explain, they suddenly gain great humility. At bottom, however, this argument must be rejected when someone does come up with a way to reconcile the contradiction. The picture I get here is of a man who, after working for years to reach the answer to a math problem, declares it insoluble, only to have the whole thing reduced to simple terms by another thinker a couple weeks later. Even if the solution is elegant and compelling, the man who declared it insoluble must stick by his guns, because now his pride is on the line.
3. Everyone's always believed this - indeed, it is the orthodox position.
Everyone's always believed a lot of things, but while majority vote has force in our American democracy, it has no epistemic authority. This argument is truly a last-ditch effort. What does have authority? Is it not reason and the Scriptures? If our view of the existence of time, while confirmed by Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, and Sproul, is contrary to reason and the Scriptures, can we still justify ourselves in believing it? I should hope not.
If any of you have a better, rational rebuttal than these to the argument for the non-existence of time, I would love to hear it.
posted by Lincoln Davis at 1:06 AM
24 Comments:
I'm not sure you'll listen to me as my comments were not like any of those arguments against your father's arguments, but here's my position.
I'll get at this a few ways. First, there is the question of burden of proof. Does the burden of proof belong to the orthodox, or to your father. It seems to me that the answer to this is quite easy. Though your father may be quite correct, the burden of proof lies against him. He must prove the orthodox wrong.
On that point, he really hasn't interacted with the orthodox at all. He may have interacted with pop evangelical theology, but he simply has not interacted with Augustine or Aquinas or Dionysius at all. This is obvious for several reasons. Most notably, in his interaction with Daniel, he admitted that his argument depends on a point directly denied by Aquinas. Likewise his first premise is denied by Aquinas.
His argument claims to be a refutation of the orthodox position, but it does not even begin to interact with the orthodox position. He is like the person in Mere Christianity who is content to refute a silly easy understanding of the Trinity, and mocks more inteligent formulations of the Trinity as too complicated. If he wishes to have answers not fit for boys, he must listen to the people who speak as to men.
That he has no idea what he's talking about is evidenced by the fact that he says "the category [atemporality] exists as an 'all bets are off' convenience to the problems created by classical theism and temporality." This is almost on par with saying "the notion of the Trinity exists as an 'all bets are off' convenience to all the problems created by classical theism." In fact, atemporality not a convenience created to fix problems, but nearly the foundation.
Second, it seems to me that any claim that God can change, in any way, implies that God refers upwards to something outside Himself. He is not the absolute, but is like us, conditioned. I've written on that here and here and here and here.
I suppose none of those deal with time directly, but with whether change is sensibly attributed to God.
Finally, the Bible clearly says that our understanding of God must begin and end in Christ. Any other beginning, any other end, and we are creating empty philosophies and vain conceit. And it is quite true that Christ is in time. But "God in Himself is in time" is a statement about God which about God apart from Christ, and thus nonsense.
Someone like Matt or the other Matt or Nolan could probably come up with a good example here, but what about science. The lower-case t is used as a real quantity yielding concrete solutions. I wonder which side of the argument Einstein would land on.
Matt,
Even if we grant that the challenger of the orthodox position has the burden of proof (as if there were some theological court of law), I would say that burden is pretty well satisfied when the orthodox is quickly reduced to self-contradiction. If he's met the burden of showing the self-contradiction in orthodoxy, your case would be better made by coming forward with a well-reasoned argument in support of orthodoxy than by chiding him for his failure to read Aquinas. If such an argument can by found in orthodoxy, again, I would love to hear it.
Tim,
I don't think science can prove the actual existence of time, but only the conceptual existence of it. This is the essence of a concept: it exists only as an idea in the mind of a thinker, but has the capability of explaining and predicting how things function in the actual world. For instance, that Science has explained energy in terms of Joules does not mean that a thing such as Joules have actual existnce. More on point, that Descartes posited that the world could be conceived of in three dimensions does not mean that length, width, and height have actuality. Similarly, while science conceives of time as the fourth dimension, and manages to explain many important things about the universe by so doing, that does not mean that time is actual. Indeed, we rely on the conceptual existence of time every day by making appointments, setting our watches, and remembering anniversaries, but the fact that we can do so does not mean that time exists in actuality as some infinite number line inscribed with the whole of human history, upon which one could move in either direction.
Davis,
I think you missed my point.
You say "the orthodox is quickly reduced to self-contradiction." But my point is precisely that it hasn't been. The street theology has been. The orthodox theology hasn't even been touched. Your father is expecting (theologically) shallow understandings to stand up to scrutiny, and ridicules (theologically) substantitive theologies for being too complicated.
His post masquerates as deep because it poses controversial solutions, and asks challenging questions. But ultimately it is trivial because he refuses to ask serious questions of serious people.
He has no more reduced the orthodox to contradictions than Christopher Hitchens reduces Christians to contradictions. Hitchens may well confute run-a-day Christians. Likewise your father may confute run-a-day Christians. But neither is dealing with the real thing.
As for arguments, I'd advise you to read the rest of my post. Perhaps follow the links I provided that argue for what you challenge me to argue for.
We should just have a seperate blog for this topic because its constant discussion.
Maybe we're talking past each other. When I read your comment it makes me wonder if you got past my first paragraph and decided to reply to my post based solely on it. But perhaps you think I am saying "Look at Aquinas, he can answer your questions." I'm really saying "Though Aquinas (and Augustine and Dionysius et al.) affirm some of the same points as pop-evangelical theology--namely, the omniscience of God--they come at the whole topic from an entirely different direction. And whereas your father's criticisms actually apply to pop-evangelicalism, they don't even begin to interact with Aquinas or the fathers. The presuppositions your father makes are roundly denied by the fathers. For Aquinas the following statement is nothing but garbled nonsense, literally: "If we are not pantheists (in which all is god) than God is discrete from that which is not God. He knows that which is Himself and that which is not. And given those two realms of that which is (God and not-God), the referent of a point of knowledge which God possesses can be spoken of as being either Actual or Conceptual." This statement is, on Aquinas' (and the father's) theology no better than P and not P. It is nothing but garbled nonsense.
Matt,
I didn't read your links because you noted that they didn't deal with time directly. Having read them now, I must confess that I am no more clear on what the orthodox position is on the existence of time. As near as I can gather, it does not address the issue, but instead simply reasons at a different angle from a number of unsupported premises through a series of non sequiturs to a dubious conclusion. If the orthodox view has a direct, rational, and careful explanation for the existence of time, again, I am all ears.
Also, my replies to your comments are often brief because answering you line-for-line, thought-for-thought would take quite some time, and would then provoke from you a further volley of replies, which would leave me exhausted. If you can distill your position into a couple paragraphs, that's always helpful.
Ok: my main point is that your dad isn't dealing with his real opponents. He decides that Oakley doesn't make good sunglasses because the Oakleys he bought in Tiajuana fell apart right away.
It's just silly (and insulting) to, after I said that to say "the orthodox is quickly reduced to self-contradiction." No, it isn't. Yes, the imitation is fake. Agreed. The real question is whether the real thing is fake. A question your father hasn't addressed.
This really is a simple argument. I'm confused why you tell me it's too long for you to reply to.
Regarding the links, take the second one:
When something changes, there is a certian base, and different qualities or attributes change to that base. We can say "Davis got a law degree" because 1) there is something constant (Davis) and something is added to you (the law degree). A property that was not there is now there.
So apply the same sort of logic to God. "God planned to kill Hezekiah. God decided not to kill Hezekiah." Consider those properties (in this case "planned to kill Hezekiah" and "decided not to kill Hezekiah"). Are they created, or are they uncreated. If they are created, they aren't the Uncreated God, and so the Uncreated God hasn't changed. If they are uncreated then either they are God Himself, or God did not create all things (namely, those properties). If the first, the two properties are different, and so each property is a different God. As the thing which separates them is time, the old has gone, the new has come. And the second is manifestly nonsense. God created all things.
Therefore, God cannot change. But if God cannot change, the question of sequence through time really doesn't make sense. As I travel through time, either I am changing, or things around me are changing. But if things around me are changing, I am changing, because I stand in relation to them, and also my knowledge of them changes.
Or the other argument, which was all along, only a quick paragraph: we cannot conceptualize God. He is beyond all human thought. But your father's arguments rely on a presupposition that we can know God, in Himself, and not only as Christ. And therefore are but empty philosophy and vain deceit.
I didn't object to the brevity of your responses, but to their inanity. If I say "he isn't addressing what the orthodox believe" and you reply "look how quickly he tied them in knots" you are just insulting me. And it's further insulting to pretend the fault is mine.
I agree that the fact that God has changed his intentions does not mean that His character has changed, and your argument proves that nicely. But there is no way of denying in the case of Hezekiah that His intentions changed, which creates serious problemw with our traditional notion of time. And in any event, I have yet to hear a rational argument for the existence of time.
Regarding whether the passage about Hezekiah proves God can, in Himself change:
Does the fact that God at one time was unable to speak, and then later able to speak prove that God in Himself, grows up and learns?
No, of course not. Likewise the fact that God in his condescension changes His mind proves nothing about He in Himself. Christ changed His mind when He was talking to Hezekiah, Christ changed His mind when He was decided whether he wanted to eat peas or bread.
I don't think you followed my argument. I didn't say anything about the character of God, but about God Himself. When I say "there is a certian base" I'm not talking about the character of God. I'm merely saying that for change there must be something (whatever that is) which remains constant, otherwise we don't have change, but novelty. "Lincoln was unmarried, Jay is married" doesn't imply change. The noun which receives a predicate has to be the same in both cases.
My point about time is that the question is moot. God changes in no way, knowing He can't sense passing through time, because that's change. He doesn't relate differently to those in time, because that's change. Those in time relate differently to Him, but His relation to them never changes. He changes in no way.
If it's true that God changes in no way, what do we mean by "God is in time" or "God is outside time." Neither statement really makes sense.
There's an extra "knowing" in my last comment. It should be "changes in no way. He can't sense..." (or more accurately "He doesn't sense..."
I guess my thought would be. If God called everything into existence out of nothing. why couldnt there be time. Why couldnt god move through time. And how do we know we fully understand the limitations of time. I have a child. He cant yet figure out how to fold a paper airplane or tie a shoe, such simple tasks compared to making a rocket we send into space. We could be just like my son in the extent we can understand time. We think we can argue for or against it, but we cant even tie our shoes.
Jason,
That's kinda my point. "Cannot" was a poor word. I used it more in a sense that perhaps a little kid whose just being potty trained might say "Daddy can't go in his pants."
Davis,
Do you read my posts or just skim them? It's fine if you don't have time, and just skim them. But if you do, don't pertend you can interact intelligently with them. And don't insult me by calling me out for poor arguments. Just say "thanks for the thoughtful post, I don't have time to really do it justice."
On the other hand, if you really have been reading and not just skimming, stop your nonsense. I don't appreciate it at all. I did mention that something must remain constant, but I did not anywhere say that was God's character, nor did I reason from it at all.
On a previous post I quoted Lewis to try and illustrate my point--we were doing analogous things--and you attacked me because his point didn't prove mine. Really? You think that's why I quoted him as an analogy, not a proof?
Earier in this thread, I said (more or less) "because your father has not interacted with any serious theology, he has not satisfied the burden of proof." You replied (more or less) "of course he's satisfied the burden of proof, look at how quickly he reduces his foes to contradictions." Uh...did you read my point, or are you just insulting me?
You can't get through law school being such a poor reader. Knock it off. Either start actually interacting with my points, or stop pertending to.
Perhaps your interactions need to be short. That's perfectly fine. But make them on point. Don't pertend you've listened when you haven't.
I reckon everyone could get by with less pertendin', y'all.
Matt (Gaither),
Good to see you on here again. Congrats on that marriage of yours. My regards to the wife.
Matt (Petersen),
Actually, I spent a good deal of time reading your comments and tried to thoughtfully distill my response into a short, "on point" paragraph in the manner that I learned in law school, but apparently I failed your expectations to the point of insulting you. You seem to suggest that if I neither buy into the assumptions and constraints of your argument nor compliment you for your insight, then I must not have even read your posts. Since I am unable meet your expectations of response, and I certainly cannot agree with you, my future policy will be not to respond to your comments, though I will certainly be happy to post them.
Davis,
This too is insulting. "You seem to suggest that if I neither buy into the assumptions and constraints of your argument nor compliment you for your insight, then I must not have even read your posts." I said nothing of the sort. And I have absolutely no idea how "please give thoughtful, on point comments" can become "please flatter me."
Or perhaps we're talking past each other.
I can see how distilling your response to something to a paragraph that doesn't really interact with it can be helpful for note-taking. But it doesn't work with interpersonal relations. "Without argument or interaction with your point at all, I'm going to tell you that this is what's wrong with you." I'm not then allowed to interact at all, but become nothing but a butterfly nailed to a table for experimentation.
I can follow the form too, but it's nonsense: "Your responses demonstrate a fundamental lack of ability to follow an argument, or to understand simple points. You cannot understand "The criticism is only of the imitators, and doesn't interact with the real thing at all." You cannot understand examples. And you cannot understand that an argument against attributes of God as distinct from He Himself is not an argument for an unchanging character of God."
But this is just worthless hot air. People talk, they don't pontificate about each other. And when someone says "your responses aren't dealing with what I said in the slightest" they don't reply "You evidentially just want to be flattered."
Maybe we could resolve this a little if we could talk. My phone number is 208-596-9226
Davis, read the matt's comments and expose him when hes a sophist.
Matt, quit being a girl.
Gaither, hit a homerun tonight.
To make a note similar to Matt's but with more direct bearing on the question of time (already posted to Evan's response section).
Evan makes much of the idea that if God is "atemporal" then "Christ is both forever on the cross separated from the Father and forever united with Him." This he (apparently) takes issue with both on theological and logical grounds.
On theological grounds I note that if time does not exist then Christ being seperated from the Father would imply that the metaphysical makeup of reality must have changed during that interval in a way at least as significant as the laws of logic ceasing to work. How, if we are to believe that the very nature of the Godhead can change? (Heb 13:8, John 8:58, Ja 1:17) If indeed God exists transcendentally outside of time then the nature of that separation must indeed be an eternal aspect of the Godhead but losing 1 dimension from an infinite dimensional space is more reasonable an idea than that the very core and nature of God may change.
On the point of logic, the apparent contradiction in your Evan's postulate "both separated and united forever" comes from a sloppy use of definition in characterizing the atemporal position related to the unfamiliarity with higher dimensional spaces. By analogy, I ask the question "How many degrees are in a triangle." If you said 180 you are correct... but only in Euclidean space, in higher dimensional non-Euclidean situations the answer can be much larger or much smaller depending on the characteristic of the space involved.
NN
Hi Nolan,
Thanks for your comments, and sorry for my late reply. You argue that the fact of Christ being separated from the Father at the moment of crucifixion is at least as significant as the laws of logic ceasing to work, but isn't that just what the Jews thought? We rob the moment of its significance if we say, "well, yeah, they were separated at that time, but not REALLY separated." Moreover, because the fact of the separation is clearly portrayed in the Scriptures, it should inform our view of God's immutability. Specific passages control the general. We cannot let our theological abstractions about Him lead us to deny the significance of what He has done.
As for the second point, I think you could use a bit of Occam's Razor. It is always possible to suggest that there really is some way of comprehending how this contradiction makes sense, but that we cannot conceive it. This approach invites analogy (God has some kind of super-logic; it's two sides of the same coin) but rarely explanation. More important, when the contrary view, that there is no time and the future is not set, can explain the whole matter simply while being fully in accord with the Scriptures, shouldn't we just opt for that?
Davis,
If time exists as a physical dimension; and God's existence is omnipresent in this dimension (and therefore atemporal) then there are two possible solutions to believing the separation expressed by Christ on the cross to be real.
1- God exists in many (possibly infinite) dimensionality and the separation exists as an innate aspect of the trinity as a loss of at least one dimension of time-like union. That is, the loss/separation was infinite in 1-dimension and unaffected in other dimensionality; Christ felt it most acutely on the cross due to his temporal existence at the time.
{Note - this is the explanation which I lean most toward}
2- The separation of Christ on the Cross from the other two members of the Trinity represented a singularity in the existence of the Trinity in space-time (however many dimensions that happens to be).
In neither of these postulated cases is the work of Christ at all diminished in our understanding.
As far as the contrary view and as I told your father, I find the ramifications of the view unnacceptably inconsistent with a biblical interpretation of culpability and "free-will." And as a quick note on the "God can change front" being the most simple explanation for various biblical passages we are yet left with Numbers 23:19.
As an aside to Matt,
You repeatedly claim that the onus of proof lies on Evan because he is claiming something other than the orthodox position. In this you mistake what sort of authority orthodoxy may legitimately lay claim to. Orthodoxy, may legitimately claim to have answered a variety of questions already to define various ideologies as incorrect and/or heretical. Insofar as it has expounded good reasons for this declaration orthodoxy can be looked to as an authority. It is in this sense much like a mathematical textbook; it is "authoritative" because the reasoning that went into it is well understood. However, unless orthodoxy has directly addressed Evan's specific viewpoint before then orthodoxy has no special claim of authority that lays the burden of proof at Evan's feet. Since it has not dealt with it before; each is on equal footing to debate the issue.
NN
Nolan,
If you mean that the question of whether God can change has never been addressed specifically, it has. And the question of the existence of time flows directly from the fact that God doesn't change.
So here, there is authority. And Evan's question hasn't even raised itself to the level of interacting with orthodoxy. Perhaps he interacts with some modern theology, but he hasn't even begun to interact with Augustine and Aquinas and the other doctors.
On the other hand, if you mean Evan's questions about the crucifiction haven't been raised before. If that's true, there isn't directly any presumption in favor of any answer. But if one particular answer proves inconsistent with orthodoxy, that particular answer has the burden of proof. And, at least so far as I can tell, Evan's answer is inconsistent with orthodoxy--though not with particularly codified orthodoxy.
But I think we have a different approach to orthodoxy that really undergirds our differences, and is more fundamental than that response to you there.
Your analogy for the authority of orthodoxy is to a math text. Orthodoxy has been proven. If you're correct, challenging orthodoxy is kinda like challenging the Fundamental Theory of Algebra. And your point is that Evan is asking whether the real numbers are of the same cardinality as aleph 1. A new question, and not one decided.
But I think a different metaphor should be used. The Bible describes the relation of Christ and the Church as a marriage, and it seems that should be our paradigmn. I think orthodoxy has the same sort of authority as a husband's knowledge of his bride has.
You've been married six years now? There are, I imagine, certian things about Tiffany that you have "codified". You know her favorite music. You know what color her eyes are. This sort of knowledge corresponds to the creeds. If someone challenged this sort of thing you could pull out a picture of her and say "no, that isn't what she's like. She's ..."
But by and large, your knowledge of your wife isn't codified, but is embedded in the ritual of daily life, and is known more or less implicitely. You could draw on this knowledge to answer specific questions, and if someone challenged it, you'd know "no, my Tiffany isn't like that" but you wouldn't have a quick "codified" answer to give back. You couldn't just point to a photograph or to a quick answer. It just wouldn't describe her.
On the other hand, there are some areas that you don't understand particularly well. As you get to know her better, the increased knowledge colors and better defines what you already know, but. The increased knowledge fills out the existing knowledge. But it would take a very very radical event to overthrow your knowledge.
And a quick experience of her "she said she put the keys on the table, but they're not there, that's not like her" wouldn't, and shouldn't, even begin to overthrow your knowledge of her.
From my perspective, things like the simplicity of God, and the unchanging nature of God, are like the second sort of knowledge of God. Not always well defined, but well known nonetheless. And from my perspective, Evan's conclusions, if true, would imply a radical break from this knowledge.
Perhaps Evan can raise a question that overthrows everything. But it would have to be a very very drastic question for it to destroy the general concensus that has gone before. It seems to me that just as you attempt to understand what troubles you in your wife in the light of your general knowledge of her rather than leaving the option open that you have never known her at all, we should likewise try to work out an answer to Evan's questions that fill our the orthodox understanding of God, rather than overthrowing it. This answer from Balthasar perhaps does that.
Also, it seems that however well Evan knows Christ, it is preposterous to suggest that he knows Him better than the collective knowledge of the Church, or indeed that his knowledge is significant size relative to the collective knowledge of the Bride of Christ. Yes, he may raise very important questions. But the answer to those questions shouldn't overthrow our collective knowledge of Christ any more than the answer to "why'd you say the keys were on the table when infact they weren't" should overthrow your knowledge of your wife.
Sorry if that is perhaps a bit long.
Sory about the editing in the last comment. I had to run off and didn't have time to polish it. I hope the jist comes through anyway.
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