ABSTRACT
This chapter responds to two arguments against the view that God exists outside time. The chapter does not attempt to defend the idea of divine timelessness but argues that the considerations used to cast doubt on it have parallels that cast equal doubt on the idea of divine spacelessness. Since the arguments used to show that God is in time in effect support the view that God is finite, anyone wishing to maintain that God is infinite will either have to find other arguments for the view that God is in time or eschew the idea of God being in time altogether.
One argument, the argument from indexicals, put forward by A. N. Prior and by Nicholas Wolterstorff among others, argues that if God exists outside time then he cannot know certain true indexical propositions such as that expressed by ‘it is raining now’. The chapter contends, in response, that if God is spacelessly present in his creation, as orthodox theism assumes, then there are, equally, spatial matters that he cannot know. Accordingly it is concluded that if the earlier argument established the presence of God in time a parallel argument establishes the presence of God in space.
The other argument, the argument from personality, put forward by William Kneale and by J. R. Lucas among others, is that if God exists outside time then he is not a person. Kneale’s version rests on the assertion that to act purposefully is to act with thought of what will come about after the beginning of the action. It is responded that this does not imply that, in order to act purposefully, one must be in time. Lucas’s version of the argument rests on the assertion that minds are necessarily in time but only contingently in space. It is responded that Lucas has to show not merely that minds are contingently in space, and that therefore it is possible that God is spaceless, but that minds that bring about changes in the states of things in space are possibly not in space themselves. Lucas’s argument for this conclusion can then be adapted to show that God can bring about changes in the states of things in time while still not being in time himself.
The chapter concludes by exploring some of the consequences of saying that God is in space.
