Freedom: a problem for presentism and growing block

A number of people have told me that they have the intuition that a four-dimensional picture of reality like that in the B-theory undercuts free will.

I want to suggest that there is one way in which it is a presentist picture of temporal reality that undercuts free will. (A similar argument applies to growing block, but curiously enough not to shrinking block.)

Assume that open future views are false: there are always determinate facts about contingent future events. (If your reason for thinking that four-dimensional theories undercut free will is because you are an open futurist, then you won’t be impressed by what I say.) Suppose it is a fact that tomorrow morning I will have oatmeal for breakfast. On presentism, this fact can only be grounded in what is present, since on presentism, what is present is all there is. Maybe it’s grounded in the present existence of a future-tensed fact or maybe it’s grounded in my having a future-tensed property of being such that I will eat oatmeal in nine hours. But in any case, things right now are already such as to ground and guarantee that I will have oatmeal for breakfast. Moreover, this was already true five minutes ago—five minutes ago, things were also already such as to ground and guarantee that I will have oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow. This sure feels like it should undercut free will! It seems pretty intuitive that freedom isn’t compatible with there existing grounds that guarantee the action prior to the choice.

On the other hand, on a four-dimensional view while it is a fact that I will eat oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow, the grounds of this fact are not located in the present—and were never located in the past. Rather, the grounds of this fact are where they should be—at tomorrow morning. How things are on the present slice of reality, or on past slices, does not determine (assuming indeterminism) what I will have for breakfast tomorrow. That’s left for tomorrow.

The neatest way out for the presentist is to deny with Merricks that contingent truths about the future and past have any grounds. But that’s also costly.

After writing the above, I came across this related paper by Hunt. No time to revise right now to see what similarities or differences there are.

Existing and existing at a time

If we accept growing block or eternalism as our theory of temporal reality, we have to make a distinction between existing simpliciter (i.e., being in the domain of unrestricted quantifiers) and existing-at-a-time (including tensed existence at the present). To exist at time t is not the same as its being the case at t that one exists simpliciter.

Suppose, for instance, closed-future growing block. Then we can say the following about Bucephalus (circa 355 BC–326 BC):

1. In 330 BC: Bucephalus exists-in-330-BC.

2. In 330 BC: Bucephalus exists simpliciter.

3. In 2025: Bucephalus exists simpliciter.

4. In 2025: It’s not the case that Bucephalus exists-in-2025.

5. In 3000 BC: Bucephalus does not exist simpliciter.

6. In 3000 BC: Bucephalus exists-in-330-BC.

Existence-at-a-time is not really existence—it is just spatiotemporal locatedness. (Of course, we have a grounding problem about how on closed-future growing block facts about the future are grounded, but bracket that.)

Now, on both growing block and eternalism, if something exists-now it exists simpliciter. Could one have a theory on which this inference is denied?

Perhaps Platonism denies it. Only timeless and unchanging things really are. Changing things in time become rather than really are. Similarly, it is said that God said to St Catherine of Siena: “I am he who is and you are she who is not.”

But is there a theory of time on which the inference is denied? I once explored a version of B-theory like that. Now I want to consider a version of A-theory like that.

Consider pastism, on which to exist simpliciter is to exist pastly, and take a version of pastism on which there are moments of time (probably the best version of pastism on offer is one where there are no moments). Suppose t₁ is the first moment of Bucephalus’ life. Then on pastism, at t₁ Bucephalus doesn’t exist, but Bucephalus exists-at-t₁. Is this coherent? It does have this odd consequence. Suppose t₁ is also the last moment of time (so Bucephalus exists at exactly one moment). Then Bucephalus exists-at-t₁, but it is never the case that Bucephalus exists simpliciter. Still, it’s not clear that a logical contradiction has occurred.

Nonetheless, it does seem absurd to suppose that something exists-now but doesn’t exist, even if it’s not strictly contradictory.

Some odd theories of temporal reality, with eschatological applications

The three major theories of temporal reality are presentism (reality includes only the present), growing block (reality includes the present and past) and eternalism (reality includes past, present and future).

A recent option that has been considered is thick presentism on which reality includes a short segment of time including the present. This lets one have some of the intuitive advantages of presentism (dinosaurs and Martian settlements don’t exist) while at the same time neatly solving the problem of diachronic causation. Moreover, it raises an interesting explanatory problem: why does our world have the kind of temporal reality it does.

I think that if thick presentism is metaphysically possible, likely so are a number of other views:

1. Very thick presentism

2. Time-variable thickness thick presentism

3. Growing block

4. Space-variable thickness thick presentism

5. Swiss-cheese temporal reality.

On very thick presentism, the band of reality in thick presentism becomes extremely thick, say a million years. For there seems to be no compelling reason why the band of reality posited by thick presentists would have to be thin.

On the time-variable thick presentism, we have a thick presentism where the thickness varies with time. This is likely something that the thick presentist has to countenance. For, plausibly, some moment within the thick present has to be distinguished as “very present” to avoid violating the law of non-contradictions (since objects will have contradictory properties within the thick present). Suppose that that moment happens to be at the middle of the thick present. Then when the very present gets closer and closer to the beginning or end of time, the band of reality must get thinner and thinner. Or suppose the moment happens to be at the end of the thick present (I think that may be the better theory). Then when the very present gets closer to the beginning of time, the band of reality gets thinner and thinner. We also get time-variable thick presentism by applying patchwork principles to recombine worlds with thick presentisms of different thicknesses.

Growing-block with a finite past is just a time-variable thickness thick presentism where the very present is at the end of the thick present and the thickness of the thick present at t is equal to the duration from the beginning of time to t. And if we allow it with a finite past, why not with an infinite one—assuming an infinite past is possible?

Applying patchwork principles to thick presentisms with different thicknesses, we can get a space-variable thick presentism—here, the present may be ten minutes thick, but there it may be ten years thick.

Once we allow that, why not go all the way and allow a swiss-cheese temporal reality, where at any given time various chunks of the four-dimensional manifold are included or left out in a pretty arbitrary fashion (perhaps subject to some restrictions to make causation work)?

Now, here’s a fun theological speculation. Some thinkers are worried about eternalism and growing block on theological grounds: they worry that these theories imply that horrendously evil events like the Holocaust will eternally be a part of reality, and that this is inappropriate. But once we have expanded the range of options as we have, we can have some interesting theological theories.

For instance, perhaps, growing block is true between now and the Second Coming. Then at the Second Coming the band of reality gets very thin, so that after the Second Coming, the band of reality includes only the times from the Second Coming to the then-present. We can think of this as giving a surprising reading of the “Behond, I make all things new” of Revelation 21:5—the past events and object suddenly get wiped out of reality. Or, as a variant, perhaps partial eternalism becomes true after the Second Coming: reality now includes all times from the Second Coming on.

But one may worry that that wipes out too much—for instance, it wipes out the glory of the Cross (I am grateful to a graduate student for this worry). Very well. Then we go for a swiss cheese version where we have selective removal from reality—the Holocaust goes but the Cross stays, say.

All this has a certain resemblance to Hud Hudson’s hypertime story. But it’s different in two ways. First, it doesn’t need hypertime. Second, I am assuming here a variant of a standard presentist picture on which there are tensed truths, and the tensed truths function according to standard temporal logics. Thus, if it is true that p, it will always be true that it was true that p. What changes is what events and substances fall within the domain of restricted quantifiers—quantifiers do not commute with “at t” and other temporal operators.

For instance, on the “I make all things new” theories, right now all three of these are true:

1. There exists an x such that at 327 BC: x is a horse named “Bucephalus”

2. At 327 BC: there exists an x such that x is a horse named “Bucephalus”.

3. At 2000 AD: there exists an x such that at 327 BC: x is a horse named “Bucephalus”.

After the second coming, when the past objects and events are wiped out, we still have (b) and (c) holding, but (a) does not hold.

On a hypertime variant of “I make all things new”, once the past was wiped out, we would have none of (a)–(c).

I do not endorse any of these odd possibilities, because I am a die-hard B-theorist.

Temporal purism

Say that a fact is temporally pure about an instantaneous time t provided that it holds solely in virtue of how things are at t. (The term is due to Richard Gale, but I am not sure he would have wanted the “instantaneous” restriction.) Thus, that Alice is swallowed the fatal poison at noon is not temporally pure because a part of why it holds is that she died after noon. The concept of a temporally pure fact is intuitively related to the Ockhamist notion of a hard fact: any fact that’s temporally pure about the past or present is a hard fact.

I will allow two ways of filling out “instantaneous time t” in the definition of temporal purity: the time t can be a B-theoretic time like “12:08 GMT on January 2, 2084 AD” and it can be an A-theoretic time like “exactly three hours ago” or “now”.

We can now define a theory:

• Temporal purism: Necessarily, all temporal facts are grounded in the temporally pure facts and/or facts about the existence (including past and future existence) of instantaneous times and of their temporal relationships.

Presentists, open futurists and eternalists can all embrace temporal purism.

Probably the best way to deny temporal purism is to hold that there are fundamental truths about temporal reality that irreducibly hold over an interval of times—this is the temporal equivalent of holding that there are fundamental distributional properties.

I think there are reasons to deny temporal purism. First, it is plausible that (a) some states of our consciousness are fundamental features of reality and (b) they irreducibly occur over an interval of time of some positive length. Claim (a) is pretty standard among dualists. Claim (b) seems to follow from the plausibility that no state of consciousness shorter than, say, a nanosecond can be felt by us, but of course there are no unfelt states of consciousness.

Second, temporal purism pushes one pretty hard to an at-at analysis of change, and many people don’t like that.

Eternalists can deny temporal purism. This is pretty clear: eternalists have no difficulty with temporally distributional properties.

I think it is difficult for open futurists to deny temporal purism. For suppose that some fundamental feature F of our temporal reality occurs over an interval from t₁ to t₂, and cannot occur over a much shorter interval. Then at some time very shortly after t₁, but well before t₂, the feature is already present. But its being present seems to depend on a future that is open. So open futurism plus temporal impurism pushes one to a view on which the present and even the near past is open, because it depends on what will happen in the future.

Closed-future presentists can deny temporal purism. However, this feels uncomfortable to me. There is something odd on presentism about the idea that a present reality depends on the near past and/or the near future. At the same time, many odd things are actually true.

I think the denial of temporal purism pushes one somewhat towards eternalism.

Improving the Epicurean argument for the harmlessness of death

The famous Epicurean argument that death (considered as leading to nonexistence) is not a harm is that death doesn’t harm one when one is alive and it doesn’t harm one when one is dead, since the nonexistent cannot be harmed.

However, the thesis that the nonexistent cannot be harmed is questionable: posthumous infamy seems to be a harm.

But there’s a neat way to fix this gap in the Epicurean argument. Suppose Bob lives 30 years in an ordinary world, and Alice lives a very similar 30 years, except that in her world time started with her existence and ended with her death. Thus, literally, Alice is always alive—she is alive at every time. But notice that the fact that the existence of everything else ends with Alice does not make Alice any better off than Bob! Thus, if death is a harm to Bob, it is a harm to Alice. But even if it is possible for the nonexistent to be harmed, Alice cannot be harmed at a time at which she doesn’t exist—because there is no time at which Alice doesn’t exist.

Hence, we can run a version of the Epicurean argument without the assumption that the nonexistent cannot be harmed.

I am inclined to think that the only satisfactory way out of the argument, especially in the case of Alice, is to adopt eternalism and say that death is a harm without being a harm at any particular time. What is a harm to Alice is that her life has an untimely shortness to it—a fact that is not tied to any particular time.

The Epicurean argument on death

The Epicurean argument is that death considered as cessation of existence does us no harm, since it doesn’t harm us when we are alive (as we are not dead then) and it doesn’t harm us when we are dead (since we don’t exist then to be harmed).

Consider a parallel argument: It is not a harm to occupy too little space—i.e., to be too small. For the harm of occupying too little space doesn’t occur where we exist (since that is space we occupy) and it doesn’t occur where we don’t exist (since we’re not there). The obvious response is that if I am too small, then the whole of me is harmed by not occupying more space. Similarly, then, if death is cessation of existence, and I die, then the whole of me is harmed by not occupying more time.

Here’s another case. Suppose that a flourishing life for humans contains at least ten years of conversation while Alice only has five years of conversation over her 80-year span of life. When has Alice been harmed? Nowhen! She obviously isn’t harmed by the lack of conversation during the five years of conversation. But neither is she harmed at any given time during the 75 years that she is not conversing. For if she is harmed by the lack of conversation at any given time during those 75 years, she is harmed by the lack of conversation during all of them—they are all on par, except maybe infancy which I will ignore for simplicity. But she’s only missing five years of conversation, not 75. She isn’t harmed over all of the 75 years.

There are temporal distribution goods, like having at least ten years of conversation, or having a broad variety of experiences, or falling in love at least once. These distribution goods are not located at times—they are goods attached to the whole of the person’s life. And there are distribution bads, which are the opposites of the temporal distribution goods. If death is the cessation of existence, it is one of these.

I wonder, though, whether it is possible for a presentist to believe in temporal distribution goods. Maybe. If not, then that’s too bad for the presentist.

Wacky reality dynamics

The dynamics of reality over time vary between theories of time. On growing block, at each moment a new present slice is added to reality. On presentism, at each moment the formerly present slice is subtracted from reality and a new present slice is added to replace it.

But once we admit that there are at least these two such “reality dynamics”, other possibilities show up.

Centisecondism: At each moment, the slice one millisecond (i.e., 0.01 seconds) in the past (if there is one) is subtracted from reality, while a new present slice is added. As a result, except during an initial one centisecond warmup when reality is just growing, reality is always a one-centisecond thick chunk. Centisecondism is superior to presentism in multiple ways. First, it seems hard to fit consciousness in an infinitesimally long reality, as in presentism, but a centisecond is good enough. Second, a centisecond is long enough for diachronic causal relations to be unproblematic. Third, presentism suffers from the problem that on presentism we never see reality. Because of light-travel times, we always see the past, and the past is not real! On centisecondism, we have a chance to see reality as it is.

Of course, a centisecond is arbitrary. The actual slice thickness could be bigger or smaller. It may seem ad hoc what it is. But it’s no more ad hoc than, say, the fine structure constant or any other constant in the laws of nature. If there is a God, he can decide on the slice thickness, in his wisdom, just as he decides on the fine structure constant. If there is no God, the thickness constant can be brute.

Eschatological growing block: Presentism is true right now: reality is one-moment thick. But then comes an eschaton. At the eschaton, suddenly all those past slices that had disappeared due to presentism pop back into reality, and we stop subtracting from reality, and begin to just add. Now we have growing block. This could give us a kind of transcendent outlook on the past in the eschaton. The eschatological growing block has the interesting consequence that being-real-at is not a symmetric relation. For instance, the time of the eschaton is not real at 2023, but 2023 is real at the time of the eschaton. This may seem strange, but in fact is true on any growing block theory.

Eschatological eternalism: Presentism is true right now. But eternalism starts to be true at the eschaton—at the eschaton not just one moment, and not just the past, but the whole past, present and future pop into reality. This provides a kind of temporalized version of Leftow’s model of a timeless God’s relation to a presentism time—the beings in the eschaton have an eternalist relation to our presentist time.

One might think that these theories require hypertime. That is not true for centisecondism or eschatological growing block, because centisecondism and eschatological growing block have room for defining the present moment without moving to hypertime. The present moment on both theories is just the leading the edge of reality. On eschatological eternalism, if we could get in a moving spotlight, then we could define a present moment. (Or could we have an eschatological eternalism on which “at the eschaton” all the “past, present and future” are actually present?)

I think centisecondism and eschatological growing block are both coherent if standard growing block is coherent. If I were a growing blocker, I think I would think that God could make a world where presentism or centisecondism or eschatological growing block are true, or almost true (by that I mean that in those worlds there wouldn’t be time, but time^*).

But I am B-theorist eternalist, and I am just giving all these stories for fun. I suspect that they are all ultimately impossible, as are presentism (of a standard sort) and growing block.

An Aristotelian argument for presentism

Here is a valid argument:

1. Matter survives substantial change.

2. It is not possible that there exist two substances of the same species with the very same matter.

3. If matter survives substantial change, it is possible to have two substances of the same species existing at different times with the very same matter.

4. So, it is possible to have two substances of the same species existing at different times with the very same matter. (1,3)

5. If presentism is not true, and it is possible to have two substances at different times existing with the very same matter, it is possible to have two substances of the same species existing with the very same matter.

6. So, if presentism is not true, it is possible to have two substances of the same species existing with the very same matter.

7. So, presentism is true. (2, 5)

Let’s think about the premises. I think Aristotle is committed to (1)—it’s essential to his solution to the alleged problem of change. Claim (2) is a famous Aristotelian commitment. Claim (3) is very, very plausible—surely matter moves around in the world, and it is possible to set things up so that I have the same atoms that Henry VIII had at some point in his life. Claim (5) follows when we note that the only two plausible alternatives to presentism are eternalism and growing block, and on both views if two substances of the same species exist at different times with the very same matter, then at the later time it is true that they both exist simpliciter.

However, given that there is excellent Aristotelian reason to deny presentism, the above argument gives some reason for Aristotelians to deny (1) or (2). Or to be more radical, and just deny that there is any such thing as the “matter” of traditional Aristotelianism.

Eternalism and future non-existence

I go back and forth on whether this is a strong argument against eternalism:

1. Given eternalism, it is guaranteed to be eternally the case that one exists simpliciter, even if one’s existence comes to an end.

2. Given eternalism, one’s existence coming to an end is just finitude in the forwards temporal direction.

3. If it is guaranteed to be eternally the case that one exists simpliciter, finitude in the forwards temporal direction would not be something to be dreaded.

4. So, given eternalism, one’s existence coming to an end would not be something to be dreaded. (1–3)

5. One’s existence coming to an end would be something to be dreaded.

6. So, eternalism is false. (4–5)

(As a theist, I think our existence does not come to an end. Hence the hypothetical “would” in (5).)

The intuition behind (3) is that finitude in the forwards temporal direction, given that one exists simpliciter, is akin to finitude in the backwards temporal direction or along a spatial axis, and these are clearly not to be dreaded.

But, on reflection, I think the eternalist can make very good sense of the appropriate attitudes to an end of existence. Consider this: If I were threatened with amputation of the part of me below the head—i.e., with being reduced to a head in a life-support tank—that would be something to be dreaded. It would be something to be dreaded, because the kind of functioning that is natural to human beings requires the below-the-head portion of the body. On the other hand, we could imagine sessile aliens that are very much like human heads, and there is nothing dreadful about the life of these aliens. These aliens’ lack of the below-the-head functioning normal humans enjoy would not be a deprivation.

Thus, human flourishing has spatial requirements: we require all of our body to fully flourish. Similarly, human flourishing has a robust temporal requirement: it requires an eternal future. This is because of the nature of human flourishing. Plausibly, human flourishing has a drive to infinity, requiring endless growth knowledge of reality and relationship with others. (This is probably not the whole story, but it will do for this post.) But our flourishing does not require spatial unlimitedness—on the contrary, there is a maximum size along each spatial axis such that a human being that is too big along that axis is not a fully flourishing human being.

We are four-dimensional beings, and we require a specific four-dimensional shape to flourish: a shape that is not too small and not too large in the three spatial directions and that is infinite in the forwards temporal direction. A finite future is a terrible truncation.

Now not every animal is like humans. Brute animals do not require an eternal future to be fully flourishing: they can achieve complete flourishing in a finite life, say because the lack the drive to the infinite that humans have. If we were like that, it would not be appropriate for us to dread future non-existence. Not being inclined to dread future non-existence is hard for us to imagine, because the drive to the infinite arises from such deep features of our nature. But philosophically, it makes perfect sense to think that there could be beings that can complete their flourishing in a finite compass.

The eternalist’s seeing a future end of existence of a human as a terrible truncation, but as not necessarily a terrible truncation in a non-human, seems very compelling. On the other hand, I think it is harder for a presentist to make sense of the difference here. Future non-existence seems really bad, because future non-existence on presentism would imply that eventually one will not exist simpliciter, and that seems dreadful. But the dreadfulness of this seems to have to do with the value of existence simpliciter, and not with our nature. Thus, we may have a story as to why it would make sense for a presentist to dread an end to existence, but that story proves too much: for that story would apply even if the presentist were the kind of non-human that doesn’t need an infinite future for flourishing.

Temporary intrinsics and internal time

The main problem the literature presents for eternalist theories is the problem of temporary intrinsics: how an object can have an intrinsic property at one time and lack it at another.

The most common solution is perdurantism: four-dimensional objects have ordinary properties derivatively from their instantaneous temporal parts or slices having them, and since the slices only exist at one time, the properties can be as intrinsic as one likes.

Another solution that has found some purchase is a view on which the properties that we previously thought were intrinsic, such as shape and charge, are in fact fundamentally relational, defined by a relation to a time. Thus, to be square is to be square at some time or other. This results in a more commonsense ontology than perdurantism, but it has the problem of just denying that there are temporary intrinsic properties.

This morning it’s occurred to me that if we say that substances carry with them an internal time sequence that is intrinsic to them, then relationalism can admit temporary intrinsic properties. A property of a substance, after all, can be intrinsic even if the property is relational, as long as the relations that the possession of the property is grounded in are intrinsic to the object, say by being relations between parts or other metaphysical components of that object. After all, shape is seen as the paradigmatic case of an intrinsic property, and yet it is often seen as grounded in the relations between the particles making up an object. But on a view on which substances carry an internal time sequence, the internal times can be taken to be intrinsic aspects of the substance, and then ordinary properties can be seen as relational to the these internal times. Thus, to be square is more fundamentally to be square at some internal time or other.

What kinds of intrinsic aspects of the substance are the internal times? Here, there are multiple options. They could be sui generis aspects of the substance. They could be tropes—for instance, if substances all have beginnings, one could identify a time with the trope of having survived for a temporal duration D.

Internal times could even be time slices of the substance. This last option may seem to take us back to perdurantism, but it does not. For it is one thing to say that I am in pain because my temporal part ARP_t is in pain—it sure seems implausible to say that I am in pain derivatively from something else being in pain—and another to say that my being in pain is constituted by a relation to ARP_t, which part is in no pain at all. (That pain is constituted by a relation between the aspects of a substance is not at all strange and unfamiliar as a view: a materialist may well say that pain is constituted by relations between neuronal activities.)

Note, too, a view on which intrinsics are relational to internal times also solves another problem with views on which ordinary properties are relational to times: if those times are external, then time travel to a time at which one “already” exists is ruled out.

My own preferred view is that a nested trope ontology. I have a trope of being human. That trope then has an infinite number of temporal existence tropes, corresponding to all the different internal times at which I exist. These temporal existence tropes—or maybe even temporal human existence tropes—are then the internal times. And I can even say what the relation that makes a temporary intrinsic obtain at a temporal existence tropes t is: that temporary intrinsic obtains at t provided that it is a trope of t.

Heaven, the goods of others and the defeat of evil

There is a delight in competing athletically with one’s child: if they win, it feels good, and if one wins, it feels good, too. (The hedonic ideal is achieved when the child wins about 60% of the time; then one feels proud of their superiority, but not rarely one has the pleasure of beating a stronger opponent.)

Parental love makes it easy to love another as oneself (to paraphrase what C. S. Lewis says about Eros). It thus gives us an image of what it is like to be in heaven: we will greatly enjoy the goods had by others. This gives us an attractive picture of how the joy of heaven could fit with enduring differences in personal characteristics. Perhaps being an extrovert would not be true to my self and to God’s vocation for me, and so maybe even over an eternity in heaven I won’t be extroverted. But if so, I will still be fully happy for the joy of the heavenly extroverts, without any regret that I am not one of them, while they will be fully happy for me introverted joys, also without any regret that they are not like me.

Here are two controversial (for very different reasons) applications of this. First, there is a genuine and distinctive good in being a woman and there is a genuine and distinctive good in being a man, and it seems to make sense for a person to desire the goods of the other sex, regardless of whether it is possible to have them oneself. In heaven, however, Joseph can enjoy Mary’s good in being a woman and Mary can enjoy Joseph’s good in being a man, without Joseph regretting that he personally “only” has the good of manhood and Mary regretting that she personally “only” has the good of womanhood. That is what total love is like.

Second, given an eternalist or moving block theory of time, the past will always be fully real. This in turn gives us a solution to the problem that various important goods, such as marriage and self-sacrifice, will not be available in heaven. For we will be able to rejoice in others’ past possession of these goods, without regret for the fact that they aren’t ours and now.

The second point, however, raises the following problem: Won’t we also grieve for others’ past—and even present, if hell is a reality (as I think it is)—subjection to great evils? Maybe, but in God’s plan there is a crucial asymmetry between good and evil. Evils are defeated. How this defeat happens is deeply mysterious. But because of this defeat, I suspect the grief for a defeated evil will not hurt, precisely because of the evil’s being defeated, while goods remain undefeated and hence the joy for them will always delight.

In fact, the last point suggests something to me. A lot of philosophers of religion have said that it’s not enough for theodicy if evils are justly compensated for or their permission is in some way justified. We need these evils to be defeated. I think this is mistaken if all we are after is a response to the problem of evil. But we also need a response to the problem of why the past and present suffering of others doesn’t cause the saints pain in heaven. And it is here that we need the defeat of evil.

Presentism, promises and privation

It appears that the presentist (and maybe even growing blocker) may not be able to accept either the privation theory of evil, which says that every evil is the lack of a due good, nor the privation theory of evilmaking, which says that every evil either is the lack of a due good or is made evil by the lack of a due good.

For suppose I promise you that one unspecified day I will do A for you. But it turns out that I never do it. That’s an evil, and intuitively it is an evil because of the lack of fulfillment of the promise, which sure sounds like a privation. But when do we have this evil? Either when I make the promise or at some later time. The nonexistence of future promise fulfillment isn’t the lack of a due good given presentism or growing block. For the nonexistence of future action A is automatic given presentism or growing block, and something automatic like that can’t be an evil. Another way to put the point is that something that would have to be future can’t be such as to be due to exist. Suppose, now, the evil is at some later time. But no later time is such that I ought on that day to do A, since the day for doing A was not specified, so on no day is my failure to do A a lack of a due good.

The growing blocker might at least say that at the last moment of my life the nonexistence of A during the present and past is the lack of a due good—but even that won’t work if I live forever and never do A.

The eternalist, on the other hand, can say that the non-existence of A throughout a finite or infinite interval of times can count as the lack of a due good, regardless of whether these times are past, present or future.

A new argument for presentism

Here’s an interesting argument favoring presentism that I’ve never seen before:

1. Obviously, a being that fails to exist at some time t is not a necessary being.

2. If presentism is true, we have an elegant explanation of (1): If x fails to exist at t₁, then at t₁ it is true that x does not exist simpliciter, and whatever is true at any time is possibly true, so it is possible that x does not exist simpliciter, and hence x is not a necessary being.

3. If presentism is false, we have no equally good explanation of (1).

4. So, (1) is evidence for presentism.

I don’t know how strong this argument is, but it does present an interesting explanatory puzzle for the eternalist:

5. Why is it that non-existence at a time entails not being necessary?

Here’s my best response to the argument. Consider the spatial parallel to (1):

6. Obviously, a being that fails to exist at some location z is not a necessary being.

It may be true that a being that fails to exist at some location is not a necessary being, since in fact the necessary being is God and God is omnipresent. But even if it’s true, it’s not obvious. If Platonism were true, then numbers would be counterexamples to (6), in that they would be necessary beings that aren’t omnipresent.

But numbers seem to be not only aspatial but also atemporal. And if that’s right, then (1) isn’t obvious either. (In fact, if numbers are atemporal, then they are a counterexample to presentism, since they don’t exist presently but still exist simpliciter.)

What if the presentist insists that numbers would exist at every time but would not be spatial? Well, that may be: but it’s far from obvious.

What if we drop the “Obviously” in (1)? Then I think the eternalist theist can give an explanation of (1): The only necessary being is God, and by omnipresence there is no time at which God isn’t present.

Maybe one can use the above considerations to offer some sort of an argument for presentism-or-theism.

Simultaneous actualization of potentiality

I will argue, on Aristotelian grounds, for the following thesis:

• There are cases of actualization of potentials that are simultaneous with the possession of the potentials.

In particular, it follows that Aristotelian arguments against eternalism on the grounds that eternalism makes potentials co-real with their actualities fail, because every Aristotelian has to admit that there are potentials that are co-real with their actualities.

Here is the argument for the thesis.

1. All ordinary substances have first moments of existence.

It follows from Causal Finitism that all temporal substances have a first moment of existence. By “ordinary” substances, I mean things like dogs, cats and oak trees. I am excluding weirder candidates like the wavefunction of the universe or the universe itself, as well as extraordinary substances such as angels.

Now we add this premise:

2. Every ordinary substance always actualizes a potential of itself.

For instance, ordinary substances are always emitting electromagnetic radiation, and on Aristotelian grounds such activity had better be the actualization of a potential.

Now, while time travel and backwards causation might turn out to be possible, they are extraordinary. Thus:

3. An ordinary substance never actualizes a future potential.

Moreover, transsubstantiation is also extraordinary and:

4. Every potential that an ordinary substance has is one that it has at a time at which it exists.

From 1-4, it follows that:

5. An ordinary substance in the first moment of its existence actualizes a potential that it has then.

For suppose Alice is an ordinary substance and it’s now the first moment of her existence (she has such a moment by (1)). Alice actaulizes a potential of herself by (2). That potential which she is actualizing must be had by her in the present or the future by (4), since this is the first moment of her existence. She isn’t actualizing a future potential by (3). So she must be actualizing a present one.

And (5) gives us the thesis about potentiality being sometimes simultaneous with its actuality.

Presentism and the Cross

1. It is important for Christian life that one unite one’s daily sacrifices with Christ’s sufferings on the cross.

2. Uniting one’s sufferings with something non-existent is not important for Christian life.

3. So, Christ’s sufferings on the cross are a part of reality.

4. So, presentism is false.

The present doesn't ground the past

I will run an argument against the thesis that facts about the past are grounded in the present on the basis of the intuition that that would be a problematically backwards explanation.

Suppose for a reductio:

1. Necessarily, facts about the past are fully grounded in facts about the present.

Add the plausible premises:

2. Necessarily, if fact C is fully grounded in some facts, the Bs, and the Bs are fully causally explained by fact A, then fact A causally explains fact C.

As an illustration, suppose that the full causal explanation of why the Nobel committee gave the Nobel prize to Bob is that Alice persuaded them to. Bob’s being a Nobel prize winner is fully grounded in his being awarded the Nobel prize by the Nobel committee. So, Alice’s persuasion fully causally explains why Bob is the Nobel prize winner.

3. It is possible to have a Newtonian world such that:

   1. All the facts about the world at any one time are fully causally explained by the complete state of the universe at any earlier time.

   2. There are no temporally backwards causal explanations.

   3. There are at least three times.

Now, consider such a Newtonian world, and let t₁ < t₂ < t₃ be three times (by (3c)).

Suppose that t₃ is now present. Let U_i be the fact that the complete state of the universe at time t_i is (or will be or was) as it is (or will be or was). Then:

4. Fact U₁ is fully grounded in some facts about the present. (By (1))

Call these facts the Bs.

5. The Bs are fully causally explained by U₂. (As (3a) holds in our assumed world)

Therefore:

6. Fact U₁ is fully causally explained by U₂. (By (1))

7. So, there is backwards causal explanation. (By (6))

8. Contradiction! (By (7) and as (3b) holds in our assumed world)

I think we should reject (1), and either opt for eternalism or for Merricks’ version of presentism on which facts about the past are ungrounded.

Theories of time and truth-supervenes-on-being

Truth supervenes on being is the thesis that if two worlds have the same entities, they are otherwise the same. I just realized something that should be pretty obvious. One cannot hold on to all three of the following:

• A-theory

• eternalism

• truth supervenes on being.

For according to eternalism, at any two different times, the facts about what exists are the same. So if truth supervenes on being, at any two different times, all facts are the same—and in particular the facts about what time is objectively present will be the same, which contradicts A-theory.

In other words, just as the best version of presentism (that of Trenton Merricks) rejects that truth supervenes on being, so does the best version of the moving spotlight theory. Moreover, closed-future growing blockers—and, in particular, classical theist growing blockers—will also want to reject that truth supervenes on being since substantive truths about the future won’t supervene on being given growing block.

All this suggests that we are left with only two major theories of time available to those who accept that truth supervenes on being:

• B-theoretic eternalism

• growing block with an open future.

Grace and theories of time

1. All grace received is given through Christ’s work of salvation.
2. Christ’s work of salvation happened in the first centuries AD and BC.
3. One cannot give something through something that does not exist.
4. Abraham received grace prior to the first century BC.
5. So, Abraham’s grace was given through Christ’s work of salvation.
6. So, it was true to say that Christ’s work of salvation exists even when it was yet in the future.
7. So, presentism and growing block are false.

Is eternalism compatible with the actualization of potentiality?

Every so often, someone claims to me that there is a difficulty in reconciling the Aristotelian idea of the actualization of potential with eternalism, the view that past, present and future are equally real. I am puzzled by this question, because I can’t see the difficulty. On the contrary, there is a tension between presentism, the view that only present things exist, and this Aristotelian thesis:

1. Some present events are the actualization of a no-longer present potentiality.

2. A non-existent thing is not actualized.

3. Therefore, some no-longer present potentialities exist.

4. Therefore, something that is no longer present exists.

5. Therefore, presentism is false.

One might say: Yes, the potentiality doesn’t exist, but it did exist, and it was actualized. But then:

6. Some present potentialities are actualized in not yet present events.

7. A non-existent thing does not actualize anything.

8. So, there exist some not yet present things.

9. So, presentism is false.

Of course, this is the old problem of transtemporal relations for presentism as applied to the actualization relation.

So, what about the question whether eternalists can have actualization of potentials? Here may be the problem. On eternalism plus Aristotelianism, it seems that the past unactualized potential exists even though it is now actualized. This seems to be a contradiction: how can an unactualized potential be actualized?

A first answer is that a potential is actualized at a time t provided that its actualization exists at t. Thus, the potential is unactualized at t₁ but actualized at a later time t₂, because its actualization exists at t₂ but not at t₁. But, the objector can continue, by eternalism at t₁ isn’t it the case that the actualization exists? Yes: but the eternalist distinguishes:

10. It is true at t₁ that B exists.

11. B exists at t₁.

Claim (11), for spatiotemporal objects, means something like this: the three-dimensional spacetime hypersurface corresponding to t = t₁ intersects B. Claim (10) means that B exists simpliciter, somewhere in spacetime (assuming it’s a spatiotemporal object). There is no contradiction in saying that the actualization doesn’t exist at t₁, even though it is true at t₁ that it exists simpliciter.

The second answer is that Aristotelianism does not need actualizations of unactualized potentials. Causation is the actualization of a potential. But Aristotle and Aquinas both believed in the possibility of simultaneous causation. In simultaneous causation, an event B is the actualization of a simultaneous potential A. At the time of the simultaneous causation, nobody, whether presentist or eternalist, can say that B is the actualization of unactualized potential, since then the potential would be actualized and unactualized at the same time. Thus, one can have causation, and actualization of potential, where the potential and the actualization are simultaneously real, and hence where the actualization is not of an unactualized potential. The eternalist could—but does not have to—say that transtemporal cases are like this, too: they are actualizations of a potential, but not of an unactualized potential.

Presentism and vagueness

If presentism is true, then vagueness about the exact moment of cessation of existence implies vagueness about existence: for if it is vague whether an object has ceased to exist at t, then at time t it was, is or will be vague whether the object exists. But it is plausible that there is vagueness about the exact moment of cessation of existence for typical organisms (horses, trees, etc.). On the other hand, vagueness about existence seems to be a more serious logical problem: it makes unrestricted quantifiers vague.

Of course, the eternalist will have a similar problem with vagueness about existence-at-t. But existence-at-t is not fundamental logical existence on eternalism, so perhaps the problem is less serious.