Aristotle had a famous argument that time had no beginning or end. In the case of beginnings, this argument caused immense philosophical suffering in the middle ages, since combined with the idea that time requires change it implies that the universe was eternal, contrary to the Jewish, Muslim and Christian that God created the universe a finite amount of time ago.
The argument is a reductio ad absurdum and can be put for instance like this:
Suppose t0 is the beginning of time.
Before t0 there is no time.
It is a contradiction to talk of what happened before the the beginning of time.
But if (1) is true, then (2) talks of what is before the beginning of time.
Contradiction!
It’s pretty easy to see what’s wrong with the argument. Claim (2) should be charitably read as:
- Not (before t0 there is time).
Seen that way, (2) doesn’t talk about what happened before t0, but is just a denial that there was any such thing as time-before-t0.
It just struck me that a similar argument could be used to establish something that Aristotle himself rejects. Aristotle famously believed that time was discrete. But now argue:
Suppose t0 and t1 are two successive instants of time.
After t0 and before t1 there is no time.
It is a contradiction of what happened when there is no time.
But if (7) is true, then (7) talks of what is when there is no time.
Contradiction!
Again, the problem is the same. We should take (7) to deny that there is any such thing as time-after-t0-and-before-t1.
So Aristotle needed to choose between his preference for the discreteness of time and his argument for an infinite past.
7 comments:
P1: If Gods will is indeterminate then his will does not describe the contingent facts about the actual world
P2: Gods will is indeterminate
C1: Therefore, Gods will does not describe the contingent facts about the actual world
P3: If God knows contingent facts about the actual world it is through a descriptive content in his will
C2: Therefore, God does not know contingent facts about the actual world [C1, P3]
Hey Alex I know this is completely irrelevant but I was wondering how you'd solve this argument?
Deny P3?
What's wrong with P3? Why wouldn't you hold to it?
What would you say God knows contingent things via?
I think God knows contingent things by direct vision. His knowledge of a contingent item C is constituted by God and C. There is no internal state in God that represents C: God just knows C.
Could you possibly explain how it solves the problem?
You might have to define knowledge. In my view knowledge is internal. If it’s internal than Gods knowledge of x and not x can’t be identical (yet of course that entails change)
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