ABSTRACT
This chapter considers two questions about time and existence. The first concerns whether a timeless God could create a universe of temporally ordered events. William Lane Craig has argued for the conclusion that it does not make sense to suppose that he could. In response, it is contended that the B-series of time enables one to think of God as occupying a timeless standpoint outside that series, rather than supposing, as Craig does, that in creating the universe God becomes contemporaneous with the first moment of creation.
The second question concerns our own non-existence, and Robin Le Poidevin’s argument that the fear of death is due to a mistaken assumption about time. It is responded that even on Le Poidevin’s preferred view of time, the suggested symmetry between birth and death could equally well be a symmetry of concern as of unconcern, and the asymmetry of our causal powers that Le Poidevin identifies in fact gives us good reason to be fearful about our death in ways in which it would be irrational to be about our birth.
