God's timelessness, the A-theory of time, and two kinds of Cambridge change

Classical theism holds that God is timeless and knows all objective truths. According to A-theories of time, objective truths change (e.g., what exists simpliciter changes on presentism, and on other A-theories at least what time is objectively present changes). There is a prima facie conflict here, which leads some classical theists to reject the A-theory of time.

But there is also a widely accepted reply. Classical theism also holds that God is simple. One of the consequences of divine simplicity is that if God had created a different world, he wouldn’t have been any different intrinsically—and yet he would know something different, namely that he created that world rather than this one. Seemingly the only good solution to this problem is to suppose that God’s knowledge is in part extrinsically constituted—that facts about what God knows about contingent things are partly constituted by these contingent things.

But the same move seems to save timelessness and the A-theory. For if God’s knowledge is partly extrinsically constituted, then as the created world objectively changes, as the A-theory holds, God’s knowledge can change without any intrinsic change in God. Basically, the change of God’s knowledge is only a Cambridge change in God—a purely relational change.

I have always been pulled two ways here. Since I accepted divine simplicity, the response seemed right. But it also seemed right to think there is a tension between God’s timelessness and the A-theory of time, thereby yielding an argument against the A-theory.

I haven’t settled this entirely to my satisfaction, but I now think there may well be an argument from classical theism against the A-theory.

First, note that the extrinsic constitution move is aimed not specifically at a tension between God’s timelessness and the A-theory, but at a tension between God’s immutability and the A-theory. The move shows how an immutable being could have changing knowledge, because of extrinsic constitution. But while any timeless being is immutable, the other implication need not hold: timelessness is a stronger condition than immutability, and hence there could be a tension between divine timelessness and the A-theory even if there isn’t a tension between immutability and the A-theory.

Here is why I see a tension. The crucial concept here is of a merely relational change, a Cambridge change. The most common example of a Cambridge change is something like:

1. Bob became shorter than his daughter Alice.

Here, we’re not supposed to think that Bob changed intrinsically, but simply that Alice got taller!

But there is another kind of change that I used to lump in with (1):

2. Dinosaurs became beloved of children around the world.

Both are, I suppose, Cambridge changes. But they are crucially different. The difference comes from the fact that in (1), the change is between the slightly younger Bob being taller than Alice was then and the slightly older bob being sorter than Alice was then. While the change was due to Alice’s growth, rather than Bob’s shrinkage, nonetheless it is crucial to this kind of Cambridge change that we be comparing the subject at t₁, considered relationally, with the subject at t₂, again considered relationally. It is, say, the 2018 Bob who is taller than Alice, while it is the 2023 Bob who is shorter than Alice. I will call this kind of thing strong Cambridge change.

But when dinosaurs become beloved of children around the world, as they did over the course of the 20th century, this wasn’t a change between earlier and later dinosaurs. Indeed, the dinosaurs were no longer around when this Cambridge change happened. I will call this kind of thing weak Cambridge change.

Strong Cambridge change requires an object to at least persist through time: to be one way (relationally) at one time and another way (again, relationally) at another. Weak Cambridge change does not require even that. One can have weak Cambridge change of an object that exists only for an instant (think of an instantaneous event that becomes notorious).

A timeless being can “undergo” weak Cambridge change, but not strong Cambridge change. And I suspect that change in knowledge, even when the knowledge is extrinsically constituted, is strong Cambridge change.

Here is a piece of evidence for this thesis. Knowledge for us is partly extrinsically constituted—if only because (I am grateful to Christopher Tomaszewski for this decisive point) what we know has to be true, and truths is typically extrinsic to us! But now suppose that I have a case where the only thing lacking to knowledge is truth—I have a belief that is justified in the right way, but it just happens not to be true. Now suppose that at noon the thing I believe comes to be true (here we are assuming the A-theory). If we set up the case right, I come to know the thing at noon, though the change is a strong Cambridge change. But suppose that at noon I also cease to exist. Then I don’t come to know the thing! To come to know something, I would have to persist from not knowing to knowing. Prior to noon I was such that if the thing were true, I’d know it, but the thing isn’t true. After noon, I don’t know the thing, even though it isn’t true, because I don’t exist after noon. Change in extrinsically constituted knowledge seems to be at least strong Cambridge change.

Further, think about this. When God knows p in one world and not-p in another, this transworld difference is a difference between how God is in the one world and how God is in the other world, even if it is a relational difference. Similarly, we would expect that if God changes from knowing p at t₁ to knowing not-p at t₂, God exists t₁ and also at t₂. And this does not seem to fit with God’s timelessness. (But don’t classical theists say God is omnipresent, and shouldn’t that include omnitemporal presence? Yes, but omnitemporal presence is not omnitemporal existence.)

In other words, I think for God to change in knowledge in lockstep with the objective facts changing, God has to exist in lockstep with these objective facts. To change from knowing to not knowing some fact due to the change in these facts, one needs to be a contemporary of these changing facts. And a timeless being is not (except should there be an Incarnation) a contemporary of anything.

In summary: A timeless being can only undergo weak Cambridge change, while it is strong Cambridge change that would be needed to maintain knowledge through a change in objective truths, even if that change is extrinsically constituted. One can uphold the A-theory with a changeless God, but not, I think, a timeless God.

Or so I suspect, but I am far from sure, because the distinction between weak and strong Cambridge change is still a bit vague for me.

And even if my specific arguments about God aren't right, I think the weak/strong Cambridge change distinction is worth thinking about.

Why isn't a timeless being evanescent?

I think God is timeless. For a long time I’ve been vaguely worried by the thought that on a B-theory of time, a timeless being is like a being that exists at only one instant of time. But the latter being is really evanescent, while a timeless being is the opposite of evanescent. What’s the difference?

We can say: well, a being that exists at only one instant will cease to be when a new instant comes, but a timeless being won’t cease to be. But now imagine a being that exists at only one instant, but that instant is the very last instant of time. It’s no longer true that that being will cease to be, because to cease to be there has to be a future time at which one does not exist, and at the last instant of time there is no future at all. Yet the being that exists at the last instant of time is still evanescent.

If one believes in a “flow of time”, one can say that a timeless being is like a being at an instant of “time” in a “time” sequence that doesn’t flow (so it’s not really time, but only “time”). But a “flow of time” is hard to make sense of.

Here are two alternative stories. First, we might suppose that instants of time can have a “duration weight”. Thus, while one might think that the duration of n instants of time is always (in the most natural units) precisely n, one might think that instants have a duration which measures how long they endure. It’s not that they are exactly intervals. It’s still going to be the case that no change is possible during an instant. But perhaps duration is possible. Then on a discrete theory of time, a sequence of instants has a duration equal to the sum of the durations of the instants. And on a continuous theory of time, the temporal length of a segment of intervals is equal to the integral of the durations.

We can then say that a timeless being is like one that exists on an instant of infinite duration, an instant that has nothing before it or after it. On a discrete theory, this is straightforwardly just an infinite duration. On a continuous theory, it would be like a Dirac delta.

Second, we might hypothesize that what yields the subjective experience of “moving on” from one instant to another is the poverty of our experiences contained in the instant. But mystics talks of being caught up to eternity in their experiences of the infinite: time appears to slow down for them. But the experiences of mystics do not, after all, comprehend the infinite. However, perhaps, an experience that did comprehend the infinite would slow one down to the point that an instant would literally last subjectively for eternity. And this subjective time could then be an accurate reflection of the internal time of the being. If so, then only a being that comprehends the infinite, like an infinite God contemplating himself, could be timeless.

(Note that there may be some difficulty in fitting the above to the common observation that time flies when you’re having fun. But it has been hypothesized that the latter is due to the fact that when you’re having fun, you fail to notice every tick of your internal clock. Thus the fact that time flies when you’re having fun isn’t merely due to the richness of the experience when you’re having fun. It may be that what we have is a kind of phenomenon where modest finite fun makes subjective time go by faster, but then once we transcend fun into a mystical experience, the opposite happens.)

The Incarnation and timelessness

Consider the standard argument against the Incarnation:

1. Everything that is God is F (omnipotent, omniscient, impassible, etc.).

2. Everything that is human is non-F.

3. Christ is God and human.

4. So, Christ is F and non-F.

5. Contradiction!

But it is only a contradiction to be F and non-F at the same time: we’ve known this since Aristotle.
Thus the kenotic theologian gets out of the argument by holding that Christ was F prior to the Incarnation and wasn’t F after the Incarnation. (A difficult question for the kenoticist: is he now F?) But that’s contrary to the teaching of the Councils.

However, the “at the same time” observation does not need to lead to kenoticism. In fact, the Christian who is a classical theist should deny that Christ is F and non-F at the same time. For it is strictly false to say that Christ is F at t for any divine attribute F and any time time t, since God has the divine attributes timelessly rather than at a time.

This is not kenoticism. Rather, the view is that Christ is F timelessly eternally and non-F at t (for any t after the beginning of the Incarnation). Kenoticism on this view is metaphysically absurd, because God cannot cease to be F: one can only cease to be something that one used to be, and there is no “used to be” where there is no temporality.

But we sometimes say things like:

• While he was suffering on the cross, Christ was upholding the existence of the universe.

I think there are two ways of make sense of such statements. First, maybe, things that happen timelessly count honorifically as holding at all times. (Compare David Lewis’s idea that abstract objects count as existing in all his worlds.) Second, the statement can be understood as follows:

• While he was suffering on the cross, the following proposition was true: Christ is upholding the existence of the universe.

So, orthodox Christians do not actually need to talk of natures to get out of (1)-(5). Of course, if we want to allow—as I think we should—for the logical possibility of multiple simultaneous incarnations, then the temporal qualification way out won’t help. (Nor will the kenotic solution help in that case, either.)

Note, by the way, that once we realize that there can be timelessly eternal existence, we need to modify Aristotle’s temporal qualification to the law of non-contradiction:

• it is impossible to be F and non-F in the same respect at the same time or both eternally.

God and the B-theory of time

1. All reality is such that it can be known perfectly from the point of view of God.

2. The point of view of God is eternal and timeless.

3. Thus, all reality is such that it can be known perfectly from an eternal and timeless point of view.

4. If all reality is such that it can be known perfectly from an eternal and timeless point of view, then the B-theory of time is true.

5. So, the B-theory of time is true.

I am not sure of premise (4), however.

Presentism and classical theism

1. If presentism is true, then everything that exists, exists presently.

2. Anything that exists presently is temporal.

3. God exists.

4. So, if presentism is true, then God is temporal.

5. But God is not temporal.

6. So, presentism is not true.

Some presentists will be happy to embrace the thesis that God is temporal. But what about presentist classical theists? I suppose they will have to deny (1). Maybe they can replace it with:

7. If presentism is true, then everything temporal that exists, exists presently.

Presentism is now longer an elegant thesis about the nature of existence, though.

Maybe a better move for the presentist is to deny (2)? There is some reason to do that. God while not being spatial is everywhere. Similarly God is everywhen, and hence he is in the present, too. But I am not sure if being in the present is the same as existing presently.

Presentism and the contingency of time

1. (Premise) If presentism is correct, it is impossible that something has a timeless existence.
2. (Premise) Possibly, there is no time.
3. (Premise) Necessarily, something exists.
4. (Premise) Necessarily, if there is no time, everything has a timeless existence.
5. There is a world w where there is no time and yet something exists. (2 and 3)
6. In w, something has a timeless existence. (4 and 5)
7. Presentism is not correct.

Premise 3 is pretty plausible. It's accepted by theists (who think God necessarily exists), Platonists (who think abstracta do) and by Bergsonians who think it is a necessary truth that there is at least one contingent being. Presentists thus have to deny 1 or 2 or both.

Here is an intuition in favor of 1. A timeless mode of being is an intrinsic characteristic of a being. Now it should be possible to combine beings with all sorts of possible intrinsic characteristics. Thus, if a timeless mode of being is possible, then it should be possible to have a world much like ours but where there is also a timeless being. But that would be a world where presentism is false, since then existence of timeless beings is incompatible with presentism, as presentness would no longer be coextensive with existence. Now, we make this move: as soon as it is admitted that such a world is possible, what reason do we have to think it's not actual? We are in no position to know there aren't any such timeless beings, given that they could coexist with beings like us. And now, while presentism could be true, we have little reason to think it is. So presentists should accept 1.

Maybe, though, presentists should make this move: Timelessness is just presentness in the absence of anything past or future. In that case, 1 may be false. Timelessness is no longer an intrinsic characteristic of a being, and there could be worlds where all there is is a present. However, it seems to me that it is essential to a present to be evanescent. But timelessness is opposed to evanescence. On this analysis of timelessness, some instantaneous event would be timeless if nothing came before it and after it. But surely that would make it no less evanescent.

So, perhaps, presentists should deny 2. But, the following seems quite possible: there is a time than which there is no earlier. It is also imaginable that there is a time than which there is no later. And there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to combine the two, and have a time than which there is no earlier or later. In such a world, there would still be a time—a single present—but there would be no past or future, no flow of time. Everything in such a world would be maximally evanescent, if there were no timeless beings. But, plausibly, neither God nor Platonic abstracta could be maximally evanescent.

Talking of God brings us to another argument, or, actually, a pair of arguments (it's up to you which version you find more plausible):

8. (Premise) Possibly, time has a beginning (respectively, an ending).
9. (Premise) God can have no beginning (an ending).
10. (Premise) God exists necessarily.
11. (Premise) If presentism is true in a world, everything in that world is a temporal being.
12. (Premise) If there is a world where time has a beginning (ending) and if presentism is actually true, there is a world where time has a beginning (ending) and presentism is true.
13. (Premise) In a world where time has a beginning (an ending), every temporal being has a beginning (an ending).
14. If presentism is true, possibly God has a beginning (an ending). (8, 10, 11, 12)
15. Presentism is not true. (9, 14)