Time and Being

From guest blogger, Shao.

What is the definition of timelessness? How can something be out of time? It seems that when we talk about God, we assume that God is out of time because God always has to exist and seems not under the influence of time. But Abrahamic religion seems to suggest that God was also in time. 

I think in order to determine if God is in time or outside of time, we need to understand what is time. Is time a matter? A property? Truly we understand the temporal relationship between things. Like I did my homework yesterday and I go to school today, and I will do certain things tomorrow. But when I really  think about time it seems that time is not a particular thing, although it influences everything in the physical world. 

The only way that we know that time exists, is that we developed a way to measure it. We look at clocks and recognize that time is moving forward, and such deduction is based on days and nights on earth. Also, we can see that things grow old and die or break and become something else and we deduce that there are temporal relationship between things. However, are we right about that? I mean first of all, if all matters are never created or destroyed, but simply become something else, then how can we say that because a creature is getting old, it is because of time? Or how can we say that because there are days and nights on earth, then we have experienced time? Could it be the case that time is simply the measure of change in the universe? In other words, we develop the concept of time because we observe changes, and we use time to measure the sequences of such changes. And besides that, there is actually no such thing as time. So for God, because he does not change at all, he is not measurable by time. 

Also, people may argue that we can certainly understand that there are past and present and future. And we cannot go back to ancient Greece because it was in the past. However, as we might also know that time is not absolute in the universe, that if things travel fast enough, as close to light speed, time becomes slower. Could there be a case that when an entity travels fast enough, maybe millions or billions time faster than light, then time becomes infinitely slow and eventually such entity is out of time? So a thousand years for such entity is less than a billionth of a second. And if this could be the case, time seems does not matter to such entity. Whether is future, or present or past, no matter how long the time is, it is shrink to the point that the variation of time just does not matter. If that is the case, then it seems that God could be such an entity. 

Overall, I think that maybe time is purely a delusion of human beings that we only understand it because we can see such representation from natural world without actually see what is "time". And if under the scope of universe or even beyond, time is not as absolute as we think it is on earth. And it might be the case that an entity arrives at a point that time just does not apply to it. 

Life After Death

From guest blogger, Maham. 

One worry I encountered after reading Davis’s paper on death ending it all is one I have frequently on the subject of an afterlife. I am not denying the weight of the philosophical arguments made against a life after death, however I am merely questioning how those of us who are alive can be so sure of a state we have never experienced.


If we were asked to describe the state of what we were or what was (or even wasn’t) before we were born, all accounts would be rejected on the basis that we simply can not know. We did not exist; science proves that better and above anyone else. And so we will cease to exist after dying as well and will never know of it just we did not know of the period before our birth. But how can alive and mortal beings truly and irrevocably know of states that we have yet to experience and know of no mortal being who has experienced such a thing that can be shared with us.


Isn’t much of the debate as to God’s existence inspired by a lack of empirical evidence for his existence and the fact that no one has truly experienced God. No mortal and alive being around
us at least. Why can the time after death not possibly be given the same treatment where we simply are ill equipped to empirically define something that it outside the grasp of mortal human beings, since the prerequisite for it is death and we can not speak beyond death.

Petitionary Prayer

From guest blogger, Maham.

What is used as an argument against the effectiveness of petitionary prayer is that God just isn’t listening to them, if he was then why aren’t all our prayers being answered? Such an argument is not too different from the one about there being less evil in the world. We seem to demand about acquiescence of God and from God, or we believe him to be either in effective or simply uninterested in mortal life and its woes.


We refuse to consider that God may be accepting prayers based on the balance of natural and moral evil that he must keep with the good in the world. Most prayer is against the existence of some kind of evil and the misery it causes, is it not? Thus the same arguments that apply and argue for the existence of evil would apply here as well. It is not that prayer is ineffective, God isn’t listening or a few unanswered prayers are a reason to reject the premise of prayer. We have to allow that sometimes many prayers will be rejected in lieu of a greater utilitarian good that God can view for the world but we simply cannot.

How Pascal Continues to Lead Us Wrong

From guest blogger, Maham. 

The largest worry we usually associate with Pascal’s wager is one of cynical faith. It seems unlikely and presumptuous to think God is simply playing a numbers game where he wants us all on a subscription list for the free reward associated with signing on. It is much more plausible that God instead is looking for genuine faith in his existence, and everything associated with it. This genuine faith then also calls in order to follow God’s set of doctrine and rules, to live life as he deems it fit for us, thus not ending the story at simply giving a stamp of agreement to his existence as Pascal would have us believe. In such a scenario, we’re much more likely to have lost even more than Pascal would predict. We lose the pleasure of living life through our own set of rules, and we also end up garnering God’s displeasure (if he ends up existing) for a false belief in him that buys us an eternity in hell.

These are worries commonly addressed in response to Pascal’s wager. What I want here is to draw attention to another moral worry that we, as responsible philosophers especially, should hold in high regard as well.


As philosophers and researchers, we have an epistemological responsibility towards fostering ideas, choices, knowledge and beliefs founded in reason, logic and the very least a justification based on truth. What Pascal is asking of us is to compromise our intellect, when he asks us to disregard a lack of evidence or genuine belief in lieu of pragmatic reasons for believing in God’s existence. How can we look ourselves in the eye and still call ourselves responsible philosophers and researchers if we abandon our believes simply on the basis of a wager that promises us a respite from suffering in hell IF god exists? I for one would find it very troubling to wager on my intellect and my identity as a epistemologically responsible philosopher.

God and Time

From guest blogger, Adam.

Would God lose his perfection if he was under the constraint of time? If God could not control time then it seems that God is not all powerful. However, if God is outside of time then he could not actively help humans, because to do so would require one to be within time. Some suggest that God has the ability to be both in and out of time at the same time? This is something that simply cannot be explained. I would argue that it would be more powerful of God if he were able to act in this universe and affect things within time. If God were not in time then he could not act or perceive humans in time which would make him less powerful. By being outside of time God would not be able to talk to Moses in the desert because time is passing during their conversation and if time passes, God could not be a part of it if he was not in time. Can God then travel throughout time? It seems that a metaphysical all powerful being would be able to move freely throughout time but I am unable to describe how this would be possible. If God were able to go to the past he would be able to change the future. If he were able to constantly change the future then it would be impossible for the future to exist. Paradoxes plague the arguments of time. It is difficult to describe what God would be able to do and even more difficult if not impossible to describe how God would be able to do it. One stance that may work is that of an absolutist that says God can do anything even the logically inconsistent. If one agrees with this view than it would be nearly impossible to argue what God cannot do. If one believes God can do anything logically consistent, then this is when paradoxes of time arise.

Religion vs. Religion

From guest blogger, John.

           Currently, there are twelve classical world religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism and Zoroastrianism. So which one is right? Most of them have a book written by people, typically under the influence of their respective divine being. Take a Muslim and a Christian. Each believe their god to be the true god, the one who created the universe and everything in it. So which one is right? Are they both right? Are the both wrong? Could they simply be talking about the same being, who’s stories were manipulated by humans to better suit their needs? This argument could work for religions such as Christianity and Islam, which are quite similar. But, what about something like Taoism, which is drastically different from either of them.

I realized early on in my life the only reason myself and 90 percent of the town I lived in was Christian was because it was the only religion I was exposed to. Had I been born in the middle east, I’d much more likely have been raised as a Muslim.  It’s no secret that religion runs in the family. Very few people change their religion, as it’s been ingrained in them all through their childhood. So for sake of argument, let’s assume the religion of Christianity to be the one that got it right. Does then a Muslim go to hell because he was raised to worship a false god? I mean the first commandment is “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

If this were truly one of God’s wills, why would he allow false information and prophets? It creates a double standard. This is just one example of the many flaws of religion. In my opinion it is reasonable to believe in a divine god, but to assume one of the gods in the man made religions is the one true god, is asinine.

Some thoughts about the argument for Dualism

From guest blogger, Shiying. 

On a class about life after death, we discussed several arguments for Dualism proposed by Descartes. Dualism views are views about the relationship between the body and the mind that claim that the mind and the body, or the mental and the physical are both real and neither can be assimilated to the other. Here is one of the arguments:

(1)   My mind is essentially thinking.

(2)   My body isn’t essentially thinking.

(3)   Thus, my mind is not my body.

In order to examine this argument, I want to first look at the second premise which says

that bodies are not essentially thinking. One objection non-dualists can raise about this premise is to say that a well functioning body is essentially thinking. In reply to this objection, dualists use the thought experiment of the philosophical zombie to prove that a well functioning body is not essentially thinking. A philosophical zombie is a hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except that it lacks conscious experience. There are several types of philosophical zombies including behavioral zombies, neurological zombies and soulless zombies. But we can come up with a type of zombie that has a well functioning body, including the brain, but is not thinking, because it does not have conscious experience. There are some disputes about whether the zombies are metaphysically possible. Some argues that logical possibility does not entail metaphysical possibility. Thus, the philosophical zombies are either only logically possible or metaphysically possible.

Now let’s look at the first premise, saying the mind is essentially thinking. I think whether this statement is true largely depends on the definitions of the “mind”, and of “thinking”. If we use definitions of the “mind” and “thinking” so that the mind is not essentially thinking, then premise is not true and the argument fails. However, if we use definitions of the “mind” and “thinking” that enables the mind to be essentially thinking, then it is logically impossible for the mind to stop thinking. Therefore, the difference between the mind and the body is that it is logically impossible for the mind to stop thinking, but it is logically possible for the body to stop thinking, or it is metaphysically possible for the body to stop thinking. These are different properties and if Leibniz’s Law applies to these properties, the mind and the body are distinct entities that cannot be assimilated to each other. However, I think there can be disputes about whether these properties are important properties that we really care about and if Leibniz’s Law can be applied to these properties.

Some Thoughts About the Cosmological Argument

From guest blogger, Shanni.

The cosmological argument wants to assert that based on our observations we are able to conclude that there is no thing that moves without an initial mover. By applying this to god and nature we are able to conclude that the universe could not have begun or been “put into motion” without having something start the process (i.e. god). This leads one to the problem of having an infinite regress of movers/creators. If nothing can move without something causing the moving, and by analogy, nothing can therefore be created without a creator than who created god? Not only who created god, but who created gods creator and so on and so forth? I would like to claim that the problem of infinite regress is not a serious problem for a theist for the following two reasons. Firstly, regress is not a problem to the theist since the main objective is to come to the conclusion that there is a god. Meaning, if there is an infinite regress of intelligent designers as long as at some point there was a designer who made the most intelligent being that we now define as god than it doesn’t matter that our god wasn’t the initial being. While this may change some theological arguments for how the universe came to be regress doesn’t undermine the actual argument that there is a god and that he exists. This leads to the second reason regress isn’t a problem. There seems to be a notion that if god’s creators went back infinitely than god would never have been created since he would be the final product. I would like to argue against this because god creators and his creations go on an infinite scale ranging both directions both in the past and the future. If the creators do in fact go back infinitely, like time does, than it would still serve true that all of the things that god has put in motion will go on infinitely in the opposite direction. Therefore, god isn’t the end of the line of infinite progression. Rather, god and everything created after him are simply ticks on the infinite scale of time and creation. 

Gratuitous Evils

From guest blogger, Adam.

Some people disagree that there is evil in the world, so there would be no argument to oppose God if someone held firm with this belief. I would say that most people agree that there is evil in this world. Evil can be both necessary (ie evil that brings about greater good) and gratuitous (ie innocent fawn suffers in the woods for no human to witness). I argue that for God to be all-PKG he would not allow so much of these gratuitous and natural evils to exist. Either God does not possess the power to change and/or alter the physical laws he is said to have created, or God is not all good. These types of gratuitous evils (fawn) serve no purpose to make humans or the world a better place. It is not part of human free will to chose whether the fawn suffers or not, it is simply natural evil. Some people could object that there is no such thing as gratuitous evil, and the things that we do not cause or did not witness, we could have witnessed had we made other choices in exerting our free will. To this I would say that this amount of natural evil is too much. I agree that some compassion and good may come from evil, but there is no reason for there to be this amount of it, if there exists an all-Powerful, all-Knowing, and especially all-Good God.

In Defense of Evil

From guest blogger, Maham.

God’s existence is most often called into question with the problem of evil: “If God exists, and he is good, then how can he allow all the terrible things to happen in the world that happen?” From this it is ultimately concluded that either God does not exist or God is not good. The arguments that we raise in defense of this attack then, all entail some of the following usually:

1. God created the best possible world
2. Evil is not something inherently “bad” but simply the absence of good
3. God does not support the existence of evil, he simply allows it to exist
4. Satan is largely responsible for most evil etc.

All these positions further raise questions about the extent of God’s power, God’s freedom, God’s “sense” in creating Satan, what “grand” plan is God taking us towards that we can not see, etc. Wherein the end of that attack will simply result in someone raising the question of the seven-year-old child drowning or getting cancer and dying; where no explanation from God’s end or any end helps justify the need for such an event to ever happen. Silver linings is not going to suffice for the people who have been directly affected by the evil, attackers will gleefully spout.


In the midst of this, I want to consider perhaps a radically foolish position. One that I feel is necessary for us to be able to have the world that we do have and appreciate it; rather than advocating for better worlds that are well and good in theory but will always be impossible to achieve.

Evil is necessary. For human beings to understand the world as they currently do, with our un-quenching appreciation and hunt for the “good,” evil and suffering is unimaginably necessary. I fail to see how we can simply have or even recognize good, without an intimate knowledge of evil and suffering.


The appreciation of life stemmed from when the first insult to it was struck by it being taken in cold blood; the appreciation for one’s own freedom was realized when human dignity and honor was indelicately attacked. We assume that these things were present inherently within us from day one, which is an unwise assumption to make. Appreciation for the good was realized only when evil came into existence as stark contrast.


My position doesn’t call for evil to be allowed to run rampant, far from it. It is why we also have accountability, justice systems and moral responsibility as well. They are there to curb human evil, progressive technology to help against natural evil and so on. But my position at least explains why evil necessarily exists, must exist, and why we cannot possibly call on God to have made a world without it. For such a world to exist would not be as we see the world today, or even what we wager the many possible worlds will be, but a utopia difficult to live in.

The Value of Evil Forces

From guest blogger, Daniel.

The obvious question and objection to Satan and his cohorts being the cause of evil in the world, as brought up in Alvin Platinga’s paper "Satan," is why an omnipotent, all-good deity would allow evil forces to exist in the world from the onset. It is even stated that a creature who has more power, even if it is used for evil purposes, is more valuable to their world than a creature who is less powerful but uses its freedom and what power it does have for the good. The term “valuable” is an interesting one with regards to this topic. If a being has more control over the occurrences in their world, for better or for worse, then they are indeed more valuable in that respect. However, we must look at the world valuable as adding value to the whole rather than prescribing it independently based on a creature’s power and freedom first and then gauging how it contributes and uses that power second. Looking at the word valuable from this angle the argument can be made that even the smallest creature with the smallest amount of freedom and power, if used for good, is more valuable than any creature with a greater amount of power and freedom that works against God’s values.

The analogy used to explain the suffering caused to the people of the twentieth century Soviet Union to achieve a Marxist utopia can also be scaled to explain ‘natural evils.’ These maladies, natural disasters, disease etc., cannot be attributed to human action. Perhaps it is likely that God created Satan and his cohorts to do what he cannot, namely the evil acts that must sometimes be inflicted as a means to an end that is only known to God. Take the great flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah or any of the other ‘bad’ natural things that happened in the bible that humans would not know were for the greater good unless God had told us so; the cause for God’s allowing of these events could not possibly be known to humans and as such we perceive unexplained natural disasters as bad things. There is, at least some likelihood, that God created and allows these creatures to operate for reasons we are simply not able to comprehend.

Incompatibility of Omnipotence and Omnibenevolence

From guest blogger, Timothy.

Since our discussion in lecture last Thursday, I’ve been considering how one might reconcile traditional theology with the potential incompatibility between God’s omnipotence and omnibenevolence. No answer I can think of succeeds in making these two concepts compatible. The problem stems from God being all powerful, and thus having the capacity to do evil things, and God being all good, and not ever actually doing anything evil. If we take these two attributes to necessary to God being God, then we run into the modal issues we discussed.

We might say that God is able to do evil, he simply never chooses the evil action. But if God is free to choose the evil action, there must be some possible world where God does take the evil action. However, if God’s omnibenevolence is a necessary property, it must be the case that God never does anything evil in all possible worlds. This creates a contradiction suggests that it cannot be the case that both omnipotence and omnibenevolence are necessary properties of God. Either God is all powerful and can perform evil actions, or God is all good and lacks the capacity to perform evil actions.

Another move that was suggested in lecture was to adopt a Divine Command Theory of morality. I’m not as familiar with modern conceptions of Divine Command Theory, but the basic theory runs into problems of moral arbitrariness, which is what allows it to potentially reconcile the problem of omnipotence and omnibenevolence. However, I feel most religious believers would want to resist a claim that morality is arbitrary. Again, we can either accept that whatever God does in any possible world is what is morally right and there is no necessary moral truths, or we accept that omnipotence and omnibenevolence is not compatible.

One final move we might take is to say that God is not the type of being that can perform evil actions. This seems to be in line with the view of omnipotence that says a being can do anything that is in its power to do. This doesn’t seem to diminish God’s power with regard to any other being. Consider the heavy stone or, as I prefer, a more absurd example: can God cook a chili so spicy that He can’t eat it? It’s relatively uncontroversial that God isn’t the type of being that eats chili. And I think creating a universe makes God a more powerful being than one that cooks chili or lifts heavy stones. However, the problem here is it already seems to remove omnibenevolence as a property of God. If we say God is not the type of being that performs evil actions, it seems we would also be saying that God is not the type of being that performs moral actions. Thus, God we cannot say that God always performs good actions, just as we could not say God never performs evil actions. In this case, God’s actions would be morally neutral. Here we avoid the problem by accepting a conclusion that is not compatible with traditional theology.

The Problem of Evil and the Free Will Defense

From guest blogger, Ezekial. 

When considering the problem of evil, a common answer is that the granting humans the free will and moral agency to make moral choices is necessary to bringing about the greatest good or perfection, and that makes evil a logical necessity of granting humans this freedom. In this view, it must be the case that it is at least possible that the amount of freedom god gives us is just the right amount.

Being in the “sweet spot” might mean that we lack the freedom (of will or action) for gratuitous evil or capacity to cause suffering, but we have enough freedom to do enough damage to make our morally good actions significant.

Consider a world in which god gave us more freedom and power, such that we can cause more pain and suffering than we do now. Perhaps we have the abilities of super-rape, murder, or the power to harm people more so than we do now. It could just be that people are more apt or willing to use the powers to do moral evils than they do in the current world. Certainly we can imagine a world in which there is more suffering as a result of human conduct, and that should be reason enough to believe that god did not give us too much freedom.

Now consider a world in which we have less freedom, such that we either don’t have the capacity for raping, murdering, and other tier 1 moral sins, or we are just predisposed against those actions so much so that it is very unlikely for a person to be moved to such actions. In this world there would be less or little suffering compared to reality, but the argument could be made that lacking the freedom to commit these evils makes the good less meaningful. God allows people into heaven because they are good, more or less. So if people don’t really have to make choices between good and evil because they are always good and have to very much against their nature to commit evil, it doesn’t make sense for god to arbitrate people to heaven or hell, because people lack the sufficient moral agency to be worthy of such a judgement. It would be like God making everyone without the capacity for evil and then rewarding them for not being evil.

There are many other arguments regarding the evil in the world that can be leveled against god, but it should at least seem plausible that god gave humans the right amount of freedom because we can think of possible worlds that are worse as a result of having more or less freedom than our world. 

Some Thoughts About the Cosmological Argument

From guest blogger, Shao.

I think the biggest controversy about the cosmological argument is: Do we have to have an explanation for everything that exists? This question can lead to many small questions, such as do we need an independent being to create all the dependent beings? Or, can all the dependent beings just exist as a group without an independent being? First of all, I think there is nothing wrong to assume that all the things that we know (water bottle, cars, planets and stars.etc) came to existence by the cause of some other things (which I think we can scientifically prove how the water bottle, cars, planets and stars came into existence). I think the problem here is not the causal relationship, but our lack of ability to conceive something that is infinite. Sure, we understand that when we say something is infinite, it means such thing (pi for instance) will go on forever. Then the point is, what is forever? Since we already have proven scientifically that the universe had a beginning and it was the big bang. Then the problem is: what's before the big bang? Is big bang the start? And if it is, then it means the universe has a beginning and thus it is not infinite. So although we can easily understand that every physical thing around us is dependent, which it does not create itself, we cannot perceive that such casual relationship goes on infinitely. I therefore disagree with the argument that "if we've explained the existence of every member of a collection we've explained the existence of the collection-there's nothing left over to be explained." In other words, I think the problem with this argument is that it assumes that all dependent beings can exist as a collection without a first cause. Well, first, we only know that dependent things do not exist in a loop, which means that the grandson does not cause the existence of the grandfather. Therefore, it seems that we can never use logic to find an explanation for the series because this series goes on infinitely. Furthermore, even if things do miraculously cause each other's existence in a loop, do they also require a spark to start the loop? And even if such a loop does not need a start,then is this loop itself an independent being? It seems that our logic does not work perfectly once we arrive at the problem of the first cause, which I think we always need to make exceptions to our premises. Whether we think there is an independent being or not, we just can't make a valid argument. 

Divine Attributes

I'm about to start teaching a philosophy of religion course. Although such courses tend to focus on the question of whether God exists, mine will deal with "divine attributes" or properties that are typically ascribed to God/divine beings.  We'll consider properties like omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, immaterial and eternal.  I'm hoping readers of this blog will suggest other properties--perhaps ones that are less commonly discussed by philosophers--for us to consider in my class.  I'm also hoping to get suggestions about texts that we could use.  Thanks!