Is Time Real?

[Leonhard]

Space. If you remove all physical objects from it, it is still there.

Time is like a 4th dimension of space. Just like you can move through space, you move through time. The difference is that there is only one direction you can move in time, and you can't stop moving in it. But the rate at which you move through time does vary, depending on the amount of mass around you, or your speed through space. The closer you are moving to the speed of light, the faster you move through time from your subjective view, but slower from everyone else's view. You would see the outside universe speed up, and the outside universe would see you slow down.

This assumes the block-universe idea of looking at time, where the past exists but is merely displaced from present. I personally disagree with this view for metaphysical reasons, as it denies the reality of change, and makes it impossible to explain varies metaphysical realities we know are real.

[Sparko]

This assumes the block-universe idea of looking at time, where the past exists but is merely displaced from present. I personally disagree with this view for metaphysical reasons, as it denies the reality of change, and makes it impossible to explain varies metaphysical realities we know are real.

But it explains how God can know the future. If there is no future, there is no way for him to know it.

From our viewpoint, the past is over. So we know that Booth assassinated Lincoln. That can't be changed. Yet at the same time, we know that the decision to do it was a free will decision on Booth's part. His decision is what "fixed" his future we know as the past.

[Paprika]

Definitional chaos.

[Boxing Pythagoras]

This assumes the block-universe idea of looking at time, where the past exists but is merely displaced from present. I personally disagree with this view for metaphysical reasons, as it denies the reality of change, and makes it impossible to explain varies metaphysical realities we know are real.

Which metaphysical realities?

But it explains how God can know the future. If there is no future, there is no way for him to know it.

Incidentally, when I was a Christian, I held to this view for explaining God's omniscience, as well.

[Leonhard]

But it explains how God can know the future. If there is no future, there is no way for him to know it.

From our viewpoint, the past is over. So we know that Booth assassinated Lincoln. That can't be changed. Yet at the same time, we know that the decision to do it was a free will decision on Booth's part. His decision is what "fixed" his future we know as the past.

I think it provides the wrong kind of explanation for how God can know the future: "He can see it, he just looks into the past, or into the future to see what's coming." I think its a nice cartoon model for how God experiences the world, but I don't think it captures it. For one simple problem:

God has no sensations. He can't them, because He can't undergo change, and he doesn't need them because He's omniscient.

Also His knowledge of the world, is not dependent on the world, but here you seem to be saying that God only knows about the future because He can see it somehow.

Do you agree?

[Sparko]

I think it provides the wrong kind of explanation for how God can know the future: "He can see it, he just looks into the past, or into the future to see what's coming." I think its a nice cartoon model for how God experiences the world, but I don't think it captures it. For one simple problem:

God has no sensations. He can't them, because He can't undergo change, and he doesn't need them because He's omniscient.

Also His knowledge of the world, is not dependent on the world, but here you seem to be saying that God only knows about the future because He can see it somehow.

Do you agree?

Of course I don't agree.

If there is no future, there is nothing for God to know past now other than what he makes happen by fiat which does take away all free will. Merely pooh-poohing my view as "a cartoon model" is just a way to avoid dealing with the issue entirely. And "God can't undergo change" doesn't mean he is some static force out there, frozen in place. He makes decisions, interacts with his creation, and has even taken upon himself a human nature (Jesus).

[37818]

The big problem with saying that things are changing for a theist, is that we assert both that God is changeless, and that God is omniscient.

The question is then, can God know what the present moment is?

I know the way scholastic metaphysics have solved this issue, and I might give it later, but I'm curious if anyone has some other opinions on this.

Mind you this issue was severe enough that it forced William Lane Craig to say that God entered time after He created the universe, though I'm not sure if Dr Craig would say that God underwent change during this.

God is omniscient. And God is omnipresent (everywhere). God is transcendent (both in time and out of time).

God does not change. But His Logos can and did change. And is how and why of creation (Genesis 1:1; John 1:3; Colossians 1:16, 17).

[seer]

Time is not "made of" anything. It is a measure of displacement between events.

So time has no physical substance. Like I asked, is there anything else in the universe that is real but does not have physical substance?

[seer]

That's a bit like asking what distance is made of.

But distance is just an abstract.

[Carrikature]

In Heaven we won't have time, but there'd still be successive states of being.

We know that time won't exist in Heaven, but we also know that we won't experience the same kind of timelessness that God enjoys, so scholastic philosophers have postulated a state of being they call sempiternity for souls in Heaven. They would go from one state of being to another, again because the Bible reports this, that the souls of righteous run to and fro. However they would do so unconstrained by time, so that there could have number of experiences they cared for during any event. To a soul in Heaven, there could be a thousand years in a single second on Earth.

Also events in Heaven would happen discontinuously in so far as souls in Heaven have no physical bodies, but are pure spirit. So their events would be more similar to our thoughts, their minds moving from one state of being to the next.

They'd get back a continuous sense of time at the Resurrection.

However their experience of God, the Beatific Vision, would be completely changeless, without either growth or diminishment in quality.

God has no sensations. He can't them, because He can't undergo change, and he doesn't need them because He's omniscient.

I like when Christians claim to know what Heaven will be like, as if the picture we're given is in a form remotely solid enough to form such conclusions as 'time won't exist'. In truth, we know no such thing, and most Christians won't even agree with you. There are enough alternative versions, including that glorified bodies have no need to give time a second thought, to leave this "we know" bit far from accurate. It's what you believe. It's not what we know.

More importantly, it's a common enough claim that God's nature is changeless. In that sense, he is different from humans whose experiences over time shape how we think and interact to the world around us. This pretty easily gives him the ability to interact with objects within time without himself changing. That God doesn't change doesn't mean he takes no actions in time, but that God remains the same always and forever.

And "God can't undergo change" doesn't mean he is some static force out there, frozen in place. He makes decisions, interacts with his creation, and has even taken upon himself a human nature (Jesus).

Exactly.

[Boxing Pythagoras]

So time has no physical substance. Like I asked, is there anything else in the universe that is real but does not have physical substance?

The fact that it is not "made of" anything does not mean it has no physical substance.

[Carrikature]

So time has no physical substance. Like I asked, is there anything else in the universe that is real but does not have physical substance?

Let's go with 'force', and you can pick which type. Some things have physical substance. Other things are descriptions of how those physical substances interact. Time would be the latter.

[Leonhard]

But His Logos can and did change. And is how and why of creation (Genesis 1:1; John 1:3; Colossians 1:16, 17).

If by Logos, you mean The Son, then no He didn't undergo change during the Incarnation, but a nature was added to the Divine Essence: the human nature and a human will.

[Leonhard]

Of course I don't agree.

If there is no future, there is nothing for God to know past now...

Do you distinguish between the future existing actually, that is that its merely displaced from us? Or do you consider the future to be something that God knows will happen, but it hasn't been made actually present yet?

...other than what he makes happen by fiat.

I disagree with this, there's nothing again God creating things with their own natures and powers, while remaining the ultimate sustaining cause Himself.

which does take away all free will.

This does not follow either.

Merely pooh-poohing my view as "a cartoon model" is just a way to avoid dealing with the issue entirely.

It depends on whether or not you're serious about God knowing the future, because He sees it. I mean is that how you understand how God is capable of knowing the future? That he's hanging out, outside of spacetime, looking down on it and seen... yup in a few moments Sparko will do such and such? I'm obviously oversimplifying here, but am I capturing the essence of what you're saying at least?

And "God can't undergo change" doesn't mean he is some static force out there, frozen in place. He makes decisions, interacts with his creation, and has even taken upon himself a human nature (Jesus)

Of course, but its also true that He's changeless, and therefore can't experience anything. Neither can The Son's divine essence, one the human nature of The Son can in fact have human experiences, though these cause no change in the divine essence.

[Leonhard]

More importantly, it's a common enough claim that God's nature is changeless. In that sense, he is different from humans whose experiences over time shape how we think and interact to the world around us. This pretty easily gives him the ability to interact with objects within time without himself changing. That God doesn't change doesn't mean he takes no actions in time, but that God remains the same always and forever.

I didn't claim that God can't perform actions, but it remains the case that God Himself does not undergo change during these, and in as much as a sensation requires a change in the one having it, God can't sense anything. Also since God is omniscient on His own, from eternity, even without having created the world, it can't then be the world that is the cause of God's knowledge of the future. Otherwise God would have undergone change, when He caused the universe to exist.