A question about the philosophy of time and implications for the cosmological argument
Hello Rabbi,
As is known, there are 2 main theories regarding the philosophy of time – A-theory & B-theory, with the first claiming that the present is the only one that exists, while the second claims that time is static and its perception as it is perceived in our heads is a conceptual phenomenon and different from reality (in other words, the past, present, and future all exist together).
- I would love to know which of the concepts you hold and why you think one is better than the other.
- I came across an argument that view B greatly weakens assumption A of the cosmological argument – that everything must have a cause. For if time is closed within itself, then causality, a concept that supposedly only takes on meaning within time, is irrelevant. From the source (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument#Theories_of_time):
“From start to finish, the Kalam cosmological argument is predicated upon the A-Theory of time. On a B-Theory of time, the universe does not in fact come into being or become actual at the Big Bang; it just exists tenselessly as a four-dimensional space-time block that is finitely extended in the earlier than direction. If time is tenseless, then the universe never really comes into being, and, therefore, the quest for a cause of its coming into being is misconceived.”
What do you think about the above? Is it inevitable for those who advocate Viewpoint B to reject the cosmological argument?
Thank you in advance.
Discover more from הרב מיכאל אברהם
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Discover more from הרב מיכאל אברהם
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
My knowledge is at best a drop in the ocean of your knowledge, but thanks, I guess…
Anyway, according to Theory A, the only thing that ’exists’ is the present. The past exists only in our memory, the future is a fiction of the imagination.
According to Theory B, time itself is a ‘fourth dimension’ and being in the present is an illusion of consciousness. The past, present, and future all exist together statically as part of the being of the universe.
I feel like I've repeated my previous explanation a bit. I would really appreciate it if you could take a look at Wikipedia, they probably explain it better than I can. There's the previous link I sent, and also:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-theory_of_time
Thank you very much for your reply, and good evening 🙂
As I wrote, these are meaningless sentences. It is clear that the future does not exist in the present. It looks like a mental confusion, although very typical of philosophers. I looked there and indeed it seemed like a mental confusion to me.
Only the city philosophers who support the cosmological argument claim that the argument is agnostic to the theory of time. See Craig ibid., ibid. and his long book on this speculative question
Leave a Reply
Please login or Register to submit your answer
