> Now, if anyone is still with me, a comment which might stir up the
> physicists among us. Given that absolute simultaneity is possible under
> a Lorentzian interpretation of STR, and the Lorentz and Einstein
> interpretations are empirically equivalent, is there any real reason to
> reject the notion, which seems the most intuitive, that time is dynamic,
> not static, that the past and present are real but the future is not?
> For if future events are real, then it is very difficult, if not
> impossible, to resist fatalism or determinism.
>
> Garry DeWeese
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Dear Garry:
Thank you for that very mind-bending metaphysical discussion, which expresses
some of the profundity of this subject. A few comments from a physicist:
First of all, we must remember the Creator/creature distinction, so what we
consider time, and the barrier we call the present, may be inapplicable to God,
that is, it may be a semantic or category confusion on our part. If so, this
does not imply that the future is "real", whatever that means sub specie
aeternitatis.
I remember Francis Schaeffer describing the most significant evidence for
succession in God as the crucifixion. Things were different in the relation of
God to mankind before and after that event.
Of course the Incarnation is the biggest mystery, in its intersection of God
and man AND Creator/creature AND time and eternity. I plan to spend my first
100,000 years in heaven thinking about this....
Paul Arveson, Research Physicist
73367.1236@compuserve.com arveson@oasys.dt.navy.mil
(301) 227-3831 (W) (301) 227-1914 (FAX) (301) 816-9459 (H)
Code 724, NSWC, Bethesda, MD 20084