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Full Idea
Is God within, or outside time? How can God causally interact with the universe? How are 'all times present to God'? If the future is not real, can God not know the future? How would he then be omniscient? Does God know the truth of tensed assertions?
Gist of Idea
God being inside or outside of time both raise a group of difficult problems
Source
Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], 6)
Book Ref
'Questions of Time and Tense', ed/tr. Le Poidevin,R [OUP 2002], p.9
A Reaction
This lot constitutes one of the main reasons why I cannot believe in God. In brief, the concept is incoherent. The metaphysical convolutions needed to reconcile these problems smack of the absurd aspects of medieval theology.
| 15186 | In the tenseless view, all times are equally real, so statements of the future have truth-values [Le Poidevin] |
| 15187 | It is claimed that the tense view entails the unreality of both future and past [Le Poidevin] |
| 15188 | If things don't persist through time, then change makes no sense [Le Poidevin] |
| 15189 | Things which have ceased change their A-series position; things that persist change their B-series position [Le Poidevin] |
| 15191 | At the very least, minds themselves seem to be tensed [Le Poidevin] |
| 15190 | Evil can't be an illusion, because then the illusion that there is evil would be evil [Le Poidevin] |
| 15192 | We share a common now, but not a common here [Le Poidevin] |
| 15193 | The new tenseless theory offers indexical truth-conditions, instead of a reductive analysis [Le Poidevin] |
| 15195 | If the future is not real, we don't seem to have any obligation to future individuals [Le Poidevin] |
| 15196 | God being inside or outside of time both raise a group of difficult problems [Le Poidevin] |
| 15197 | Fiction seems to lack a tensed perspective, and offers an example of tenseless language [Le Poidevin] |