# Philosophy of Time



## Claudiu (Mar 13, 2012)

I'm currently taking Metaphysics and we're covering the topic of time. We went over presentism vs eternalism, the tensed view vs the tenseless view, and the A-theory vs the B-theory. I'm having a hard time figuring out which is most consistent with Christianity. It seems like both the A-theory and the B-theory come up short, but I find myself leaning a little more on the B-theory side. I've looked across the web for material on this subject from a Christian worldview and but didn't find much. I did find some articles by William Lane Craig, but they weren't all that helpful. For those that are familiar with philosophy of time, do you have a resources you could guide me to or say why you hold to one position over another?


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## J. Dean (Mar 13, 2012)

Time is one of those areas that we may never fully understand. I did a philosophy of Time Travel class at the University of Michigan, and while I did see some great science fiction, we were no closer to understanding the concept of time.

For the record, a pastor gave a great analysis of this. He believed that God does not "progress forward" in time in the sense that we do, but rather that He sees time as an unfolded "now," like a person looking at a map, seeing the beginning and the end of the history of all things. In that sense He is "outside" of time, in that He is not bound by it.

Probably does not explain everything, but it's a good analogy.


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## jwright82 (Mar 13, 2012)

I would be careful with taking one philosophical theory of time and making it the christian or the most christian view of time. Each theory has its own strengths and weaknesses, so the truth is that a complete theory will be some mixture of them all. Have they mentioned Hurssel or Heiddeger yet?


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## Philip (Mar 13, 2012)

I wouldn't tie myself to one theory of time. About the only definite positions I have with regard to the philosophy of time are a) God is time-transcendent (ie: He is capable of action in time but is not bound by it) b) time-travel, while cool, is not possible.


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## CatechumenPatrick (Mar 13, 2012)

I would recommend Paul Helm's book_ Eternal God_, which is now in a second edition with more chapters added. Bavinck's discussion of God's relation to time in his Dogmatics is also well worth the read. If you'd like a more introductory place to start, _God and Time: Four Views_ is a good place to start (Amazon.com: God & Time: Four Views (9780830815517): Paul Helm, Alan G. Padgett, William Lane Craig, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Gregory E. Ganssle: Books).

The philosophy of time is easily one of the most difficult areas of philosophy/theology, but one thing you will find in recent works in philosophical theology on God's relation to time (e.g., in Wolterstorff, in W.L. Craig's hybrid theory, etc) is that the classical view of eternalism is rejected in favor of forms of temporalism and usually for main motivations like securing libertarian free will, limiting God's knowledge of future choices and actions, altering God's immutability, and so on.


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## jwright82 (Mar 13, 2012)

CatechumenPatrick said:


> The philosophy of time is easily one of the most difficult areas of philosophy/theology, but one thing you will find in recent works in philosophical theology on God's relation to time (e.g., in Wolterstorff, in W.L. Craig's hybrid theory, etc) is that the classical view of eternalism is rejected in favor of forms of temporalism and usually for main motivations like securing libertarian free will, limiting God's knowledge of future choices and actions, altering God's immutability, and so on.



Yeah that is where idle speculation takes you. God provides no such explanation of His relation to time. If we maintain the Creator/creature distinction than we cannot take properties of our existance and through pure speculation apply them to Him. Dooyeweerd and Vollehoven both agreed that time is the limit of our speculation. They both, for all their faults, applyed the reformed insistance against speculative metaphysics about God, philosophy could investigate creation only. Dooyeweerd and his followers over did it in rallying against the confession, they insisted that it contained greek metaphysical ideas and should be reformed. I would have responded to them that the confession of faith is a theological document and not a philosophical one. 

Yes they may incorperate some philosophical language but it is always for theological use. Gorden Clark here errs as well in trying to make it philosophical at certian points. For all his brilliance he got that wrong. On the otherhand I would argue for a confessional philosophy in that we take the theology of the confession and work out its philosophical implications.


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## Philip (Mar 13, 2012)

jwright82 said:


> Yes they may incorperate some philosophical language but it is always for theological use. Gorden Clark here errs as well in trying to make it philosophical at certian points. For all his brilliance he got that wrong. On the otherhand I would argue for a confessional philosophy in that we take the theology of the confession and work out its philosophical implications.



I think too that when we talk about the confession and the implications of its teaching in philosophy, we can't go about it abstractly. When the confession and Scripture talk, for instance, about impassibility and immutability, it is always in the context of God's interactions with His people. What I don't think it's trying to say is that God is a kind of abstract Parmenidean kind of being. Clearly God wills things and creates, so very clearly there is motion (in the metaphysical sense) in God. We have to look at things like immutability in the context of God's covenant self-revelation and in the context of the incarnation. The Bible doesn't talk abstract metaphysics and so neither should our theology. What this means is that there will be a greater degree of difference among reformed philosophers than some would like to admit. While certain things are certainly ruled out by Scripture and the confessions, there's a whole lot that isn't addressed.


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## jwright82 (Mar 13, 2012)

P. F. Pugh said:


> I think too that when we talk about the confession and the implications of its teaching in philosophy, we can't go about it abstractly. When the confession and Scripture talk, for instance, about impassibility and immutability, it is always in the context of God's interactions with His people. What I don't think it's trying to say is that God is a kind of abstract Parmenidean kind of being. Clearly God wills things and creates, so very clearly there is motion (in the metaphysical sense) in God. We have to look at things like immutability in the context of God's covenant self-revelation and in the context of the incarnation. The Bible doesn't talk abstract metaphysics and so neither should our theology. What this means is that there will be a greater degree of difference among reformed philosophers than some would like to admit. While certain things are certainly ruled out by Scripture and the confessions, there's a whole lot that isn't addressed.



Amen brother, I couldn't agree more. I am studying the differences and philosophies of the Amsterdam school (Dooyeweerd, Vollenhoven, Stoker, etc..) now. Avoiding their errors but at least they represent attempts at making a truly christian philosophy. Here is the website Home -. The first obstacle is their unique language. I have never figured out why continental thinkers seem to like to make up their own vocabularies. It is like everytime you need a translation of the translation. Maybe it is just the language barrier. Anyone thinking about studying him though ought to read this critique by John Frame 
THE AMSTERDAM PHILOSOPHY:

And Van Til's response to Dooyeweerd this book is good too
Amazon.com: Jerusalem & Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til (9780875524894): E. R. Geehan: Books

Enjoy!


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## FenderPriest (Mar 13, 2012)

Related to a philosophy of time is the philosophy of memory - both are related since neither can be addressed by us outside human mind and nature. Augustine's _Confessions_ has a bit to say about this at the end of it. 

btw, here's the Paul Helm book: Eternal God: A Study of God without Time. And another resource I found at WTS - God and Cosmos: A Christian View of Time, Space, and the Universe.


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## Claudiu (Mar 17, 2012)

jwright82 said:


> I would be careful with taking one philosophical theory of time and making it the christian or the most christian view of time. Each theory has its own strengths and weaknesses, so the truth is that a complete theory will be some mixture of them all. Have they mentioned Hurssel or Heiddeger yet?



No, they haven't covered Hurssel or Heiddeger.

---------- Post added at 12:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:36 PM ----------




CatechumenPatrick said:


> I would recommend Paul Helm's book_ Eternal God_, which is now in a second edition with more chapters added. Bavinck's discussion of God's relation to time in his Dogmatics is also well worth the read. If you'd like a more introductory place to start, _God and Time: Four Views_ is a good place to start (Amazon.com: God & Time: Four Views (9780830815517): Paul Helm, Alan G. Padgett, William Lane Craig, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Gregory E. Ganssle: Books).
> 
> The philosophy of time is easily one of the most difficult areas of philosophy/theology, but one thing you will find in recent works in philosophical theology on God's relation to time (e.g., in Wolterstorff, in W.L. Craig's hybrid theory, etc) is that the classical view of eternalism is rejected in favor of forms of temporalism and usually for main motivations like securing libertarian free will, limiting God's knowledge of future choices and actions, altering God's immutability, and so on.



Thank you for the recommendations.

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jwright82 said:


> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> > I think too that when we talk about the confession and the implications of its teaching in philosophy, we can't go about it abstractly. When the confession and Scripture talk, for instance, about impassibility and immutability, it is always in the context of God's interactions with His people. What I don't think it's trying to say is that God is a kind of abstract Parmenidean kind of being. Clearly God wills things and creates, so very clearly there is motion (in the metaphysical sense) in God. We have to look at things like immutability in the context of God's covenant self-revelation and in the context of the incarnation. The Bible doesn't talk abstract metaphysics and so neither should our theology. What this means is that there will be a greater degree of difference among reformed philosophers than some would like to admit. While certain things are certainly ruled out by Scripture and the confessions, there's a whole lot that isn't addressed.
> ...



I just recently got interested in the Amsterdam school, thanks for bringing this up!

---------- Post added at 12:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:38 PM ----------

I should have been more careful when I asked my questions. What I meant to say is that if you were forced to pick one position over another (not that you necessarily agree with it), which would it be? I know both positions are wrong, but it seems that the B-theory, since it holds to eternalism, has more merits. The best thing going for the A-theory is that it insists on there actually being a "flow of time," while B-theory denies this. In the end, I too think that time is too difficult for humans to understand, and we should not speculate too much about it.


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