I think this is probably an issue for anyone who thinks that premotion is required for any being to move from potency to act, which seems to be very plausible. It isn't so much an issue for Christianity, as for the concept of Classical Theism in itself. Unless one wants to say that God is simply the final cause of creation, this probably arises. What I would say is that that yes, God's single immutable act comprises his action on the world, and yet these would be the distinct principles of something like fire, bringing about effects in such a manner that while they appear as successive principles, they are simply like the fire in actually being simple and only virtually containing multiple principles to bring about different effects (I use this vaguely and won't explain further until I find Feser's post on Maimonides). Now God, being unrelated to His creation, doesn't exist in the present time, and yet I don't think this is an issue, so long as you don't predicate propositional knowledge of God. Plus, as you mentioned, you can adopt a B theory and solve this even easier, while still retaining the Aristolean principles which are not essentially temporal. One could even adopt a propositional account on this view. A way I could see grounding this would be on a fictionalist view, with these now propositions merely arising within changeable agents. This might work even in a presentist theory. A way to do this could be with Angels who perhaps exist from the beginning points of time, assuming you adopt an angelology that permits this changability within them. Overall, there are options available in a wide many regards.

Edit: here is the link: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/03/dharmakirti-and-maimonides-on-divine.html?m=1

Last edited by Camoden (7/09/2017 4:19 pm)

Callum wrote:

Jason, I don't think I'd say the medievals weren't classical theists but rather there was a conflict with their Christianity, at least on the assumption of A theory. Augustine may be best read in light of B theory?

Well I disagree I do not think that there was or is a conflict. A theory of time is more a "common sense" approach to time which entails that only the present is all there is and that is only from our perspective but not from God's perspective since He can see all of time in His now. I do not see how God acting in time effects his immutability but if it does can you please explain how?

Callum wrote:

Jason wrote:

Callum wrote:

Jason, I don't think I'd say the medievals weren't classical theists but rather there was a conflict with their Christianity, at least on the assumption of A theory. Augustine may be best read in light of B theory?

Well I disagree I do not think that there was or is a conflict. A theory of time is more a "common sense" approach to time which entails that only the present is all there is and that is only from our perspective but not from God's perspective since He can see all of time in His now. I do not see how God acting in time effects his immutability but if it does can you please explain how?

Well on A theory only the present exists, right? The past and future don't. So how can God see all of time if it doesn't exist yet? He can't 'experience' the future because it hasn't happened yet, even though He transcends time?

The future does not exist for us in A theory of time but that is not true for God. He can see all of time that ever was and ever will be in His now. As an imperfect analogy if we look at mayflies (also known as one-day insects) their entire lifespan is equal to our one day and hence our entire lifetime would seem eternity to them, but if a human being survives for more than one day than we can see all of mayfly's existence in our one day even though the future from mayfly perspective did not exist at any point in time during that day. Now I know that analogy has both of us in time but if we take the same principle and apply it to God who is outside time and hence in eternity we can see that all of time is in God's now.  

Callum wrote:

If all that exists is the present, then God would have acted more than once (resurrection, the existence of all our souls). Acting more than once is contrary to an immutable God?

Immutability of God means that God cannot have a potential and that He is pure actuality. If He chooses to act one or more times then that has nothing to do with His having a potential that needs to be actualized. The one act that Augustine talks about is due to God being outside time and it would make no sense to say that God acted at time t1 and then afterwards acted at time t2 since there is no before and after in eternity there is only one now and hence only one act.