I don’t think so. Let me explain.<\/p>\n
To say that God freely creates is to say that he could have refrained from creating and that he could have created a different sort of world, one with different initial and boundary conditions.<\/p>\n
To say that God is timeless is to say that he undergoes no change in any respects whatsoever. In other words, it is to say that God is absolutely immutable.<\/p>\n
Given these two assumptions (and assuming, of course, that there is a God who has in fact freely created), we can derive a contradiction:<\/p>\n
But (8) contradicts (1), and since (8) follows from (2), it follows that (2) contradicts (1). Hence, God cannot both be absolutely immutable (and timeless) and freely create.<\/p>\n
The only way to avoid the conclusion is to challenge the logic at some point or reject one of the independent premises, namely, (3) or (5). As far as I can see, the argument is valid, so the logic seems to check out. One might, however, try rejecting premise (3) by arguing that a free act need not proceed from a free decision. Perhaps God never decided <\/span>to create. Perhaps he has just immutably willed<\/span> to create. Okay, but what makes this “willing” free<\/span>? That God has immutably willed to create could just as easily be said of a God who had no freedom, who had to create precisely the sort of world that we find ourselves in. Perhaps one could say that God’s immutably willing to create is free because nothing about God’s nature constrains God to will as he does. But if that’s so, then why does God will as he does? Why does he immutably will to create precisely this <\/span>type of world and not another or no world at all? It’s not clear that any answer can be given unless it’s along the lines of “because that’s what he decided<\/span> to do,” in which case premise (3) is conceded. On the current proposal, therefore, it is just a brute fact<\/span> that God wills as he does. He didn’t choose<\/span> to will as he does; he just does will as he does. I think it’s safe to say that that’s a rather lame explanation.<\/p>\n What’s more, how is a denial of (3) to be squared with divine providence (i.e., God’s manner of ruling creation)? Every <\/span>theory of providence that I am aware of – Calvinism, Molinism, open theism, etc. – makes explicit<\/span> reference to God’s ‘deciding’ on or ‘choosing’ one possibility from among several others. The Biblical writers talk that way as well (for example, the nation of Israel is said to be “chosen” of God).<\/p>\n As for premise (5) it too seems to be highly plausible. Certainly when we<\/span> make decisions we move from a state of indecision to a state of decision and a clear change in our intentional stance vis-a-vis our deliberative options takes place. Does this have to be the case for a timeless God? Perhaps not. Perhaps God’s deliberative process can be understood in terms of distinct logical<\/span> moments, rather than distinct temporal<\/span> moments. An example of this distinction is the order of the steps in the proof of a mathematical theorem. It takes a human mathematician time to trace through the logical steps in performing the proof. That’s a temporal sequence. But in the proof itself, considered abstractly as an ordered set of propositions connected by logical rules, there is only a logical sequence. The axioms from which the proof sets out are logically prior<\/span> to the conclusion, but not temporally prior to it. Could God’s decision to create be understood along similar lines? In other words could we say that God’s contemplation of possibilities and his deciding to actualize one of them occur simultaneously, as it were, with the “change” in God’s intentional stance reflecting a mere logical sequence and not a temporal one?<\/p>\n I don’t think this will work because the relation between (1) God’s contemplation of a set of creative possibilities and (2) his selecting one of those is not<\/span> a logical sequence. In other words, no purely logical relation is going to get you from a proposition describing a set of possibilities (“Either A or B or C …”) to a proposition affirming just one of those possibilities (“A”). The latter just doesn’t follow from the former. What we need is not a logical rule, but something substantive, namely, the exclusion of the other possibilities (“Neither B nor C …”). This exclusion is due to a volitional act on God’s part, an act that effects a transition from volitional indeterminacy (“Either A or B or C …”) to volitional determinacy (“A”). And it is simply incoherent to suppose that God (or anyone else) could be in both states at once<\/span>. There are two distinct intentional stances here, and they are incompatible. Hence a free decision to create involves a qualitative change <\/span>in God’s mental life. And qualitative changes are temporal<\/span>, not logical.<\/p>\n I conclude, then, that the above argument is sound. A timeless God could not freely create. On the assumption that God has freely created, therefore, it follows that God is not timeless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I don’t think so. Let me explain. To say that God freely creates is to say that he could have refrained from creating and that he could have created a different sort of world, one with different initial and boundary conditions. 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