An angel (nor any other creature) in World B could indeed not have an effect on a person in world A apart from “special commission” as it were.

For now, I leave it as an open question whether the biblical angels are in our world. I can anticipate arguments in either direction.

“If there can be no free access or transitivity then how do you ever bring them together?” You don’t; that’s just the point. But God can slide them around and pinch them together at an access point; like picking the point on each sphere that two bubbles will attach and merge for a time. The argument here is that the times can also be selected. (x, y, z, t) (world A) is attached to (x’, y’, z’, t’) of world B, for a specific purpose. But the attachment is not part of the “nature” of either world, nor is the access free to creatures on either side.

The purpose of the Narnia illustration in the first place is to show that the thesis of classical orthodoxy is intuitively acceptable. It never occurs to children reading those stories, “wait a minute, you can’t have two worlds that are not time-synchronized.” On the contrary, it is accepted naturally.

Everyone, even the modern philosophers, accepts the analogous intuition about God and space. No one says,
1. God is fully present here (pointing to spot A).
2. God is also fully present there (pointing to spot B).
3. Therefore, spot A must be the same as spot B.
4. But that is not the case, therefore (1) and (2) cannot both be true.

So my first salvo is that Narnia shows that we have an analogous intuition re the temporal situation.

Furthermore, what is the relationship between God and the world in this sense? God has free acess to us and we (Christians at least) have acess to God (in some sense)… The only thing that keeps God from being in the world is the “creature” part of your definition. But what is the point of this limit?

Consider that a speed is a ratio of a (spatial) length and a time. Thus, to measure a speed, you must be able to measure two things: space and time. To measure time requires that time be measurable. What does it mean, and what kind of universe is presupposed, for time to be measurable? It is at that point that my discussion enters.

Missler fails to engage this discussion at a deep level. Instead, like most popular apologists, he actually takes the natural order as a given, then tries to backfit it to the Bible. Thus, the speed of light slowing down will be taken as a new discoverable “law” of light, which can then be worked backwards to show, say, young universe. But all of this still treats the law-like character of the universe as a given that is more basic than the word of God; something that God has to “work with” so to speak. His conscious goal may be commendable, but methodologically he is still enmeshed in natural law worldview. Anyhow, so it seems to me based on a few hours of audio and video tapes and scanning a few printed lectures of his. But perhaps I have misread him?

Creation (and Providence) was certainly free - no one is more free than the Potter. It was necessitated by the Divine Decree, but the Divine Decree was itself free, and, thus, with those caveats, I think we can agree that Creation is free.

Time, like all creation, subsides in God. It rests on Him for its existence both original (think Creation) and continuing (think Providence). Without God’s presence, there could be no present (nor past nor future).

As for whether God is “in time” in the sense of being subject to an external inexorability of succession, all the Orthodox would reject such an idea.

We can reject it just as we reject the idea that God’s being “wherever two or three are gathered together” would imply that God is subject to an external inexorability of extension.

God is not subject to any external inexorability. God is Holy.

Nevertheless, it is God Who produces the inexorable succession of events, and who can suspend (Joshua 10:13) or reverse them (2 Kings 20:9-10), as He sovereignly sees fit. The law of time is, like all natural laws, the result of, and subject to, the divine decree. Thus, just as God decrees space, and mankind, God also decrees time, and the history of mankind.

I think that places us in agreement, even if I have some small quibble over your phrasing.

-Turretinfan

How interesting that John Calvin has internet access, spends his time on this blog, and is…alive. I wonder how he came to learn about symbolic logic…hmmm.

You did not use “knows that…” consistently throughout your argument so I did not know that you intended it to mean knowledge of propositions only.

But I don’t think that this rescues the argument anyway.

Consider, that John knows that Cheryl likes chocolate and that Larry knows that John knows that Cheryl likes chocolate. It doesn’t necessarily follow that Larry knows that Cheryl likes chocolate.

Perhaps Larry suffers from some cognitive defect that prevents him from knowing what John knows but not from knowing that John knows that Cheryl likes chocolate. Perhaps there is a reliable belief producing process that gives Larry knowledge that John knows that Cheryl likes chocolate but does not give him knowledge that Cheryl likes chocolate.

I realize that your argument is in the context of God’s knowledge and that therefore God does not suffer from cognitive defects making my counterexample irrelevant. But on an atemporalist view he lacks the indexical awareness that temporal creatures possess, and in this way he could suffer from some sort of indexical defect. So it’s possible that because God is timeless he could know that John knows that it is now 2:15pm but not know that it is now 2:15pm because of an indexical inability (or defect if you so choose).

But I’m curious, even if God knows that P because I know that P, how do you escape the problem that God’s knowledge of temporality is limited to my knowledge of it and dependent upon my knowledge of it? It seems that this would threaten his aseity.

Furthermore, humans are not aware of all temporal events. Does this mean that God’s knowledge of temporality is limited to only those temporal events that humans know?

Lastly, you restricted your argument to propositional knowledge. What about knowledge of temporal non-propositional realities? Do you think that God can know them, and if so, how does he know them?

Let’s clean it up:

If S knows that it is 12pm and I *know* that S knows that it is 12pm, then I know that it is 12pm.

Thermodynamics is ambiguous. So, let’s get “particular:”

If S knows that entropy is increasing, and I know that S knows that entropy is increasing, then I know that entropy is increasing.

You say, “By this account If only this were true. I’d know botany, latin, chinese, who shot JFK (so long as I knew the person who knows who shot JFK). I’d know how Lost will end, and above all my education would be a lot easier since I’d know everything my profs know simply because I know that they know it.”

I said “knows that.”

So, if S knows that “et tu” means “and you,” and if S1 knows that S knows that “et tu” means “and you,” then S1 knows that “et tu” means “and you.”

I never said that if S knows how to play chess, then is S1 klnows that S knows how to play chess, then S1 knows how to play chess.

Rather, it would run thus:

If S knows that the king can castle to either his side or the queen’s, and if S1 knows that S knows that the king can castle to either his side or the queen’s, then S1 knows that the king can castle to either his side or the queen’s.

Likewise, if S knows that 說文解字/说文解字 means that Hector-Neri Castañeda was right, and if S1 knows that S knows that 說文解字/说文解字 means that Hector-Neri Castañeda was right, then S1 knows that 說文解字/说文解字 means that Hector-Neri Castañeda was right.

best,

John Calvin