[Alex] So anticipating this reply, I was thinking about the concept of the afterlife
and how the reason why it's not problematic to say that the afterlife is infinite is because that
seems to be a potential infinite, right, because it kind of it starts at a certain point and tends
towards infinity [That's right.] But there isn't already an existing kind of infinite set of days
or something in heaven in the afterlife. The problem I see is reconciling that with what you've
just said, which is that God exists not kind of infinitely for an infinite amount of time
but outside of time itself. My understanding of the afterlife is somehow being with God,
right? And so if the afterlife is being with God in an infinite kind of way,
doesn't that mean that the afterlife is a kind of actual infinite? Or is it kind of rather a
potential infinite? [Craig] I think what it implies Alex rather is that God is in time.
The view that I defend is a rather novel, hybrid view, but I think it's the best view,
and that is that when God creates time, he enters into time
in virtue of his real causal relationship with temporal changing things, and in virtue of his
knowledge of tensed facts, like what time it is now. So on the view I defend God is timeless
sans creation, but in time from creation going forward on into the afterlife. [Alex] Sure, and
it's important that you say "sans creation" rather than "before creation" because that doesn't make
much sense. It's like talking about before the Big Bang or something like that. Someone has said that
that's like asking what's north of the north pole, right, it's a contradictory
notion. But does that imply that in order to accept all of the assumptions that you're making,
or the arguments that you're making I should say, that although the afterlife is a kind of being
with God, it's not being with God in in his kind of timeless state? You are still confined to time in
the afterlife in some way, so there's still... how would we understand it? Is this like a part of God
that's outside of the afterlife? No no, I don't think so; I think God enters into time. He takes
on a temporal mode of existence at the creation of the world so that when God creates the first
moment of time, he enters into time and thereafter has the temporal mode of existence. So I think God
exists right now, I think that in the incarnation God entered into human history in the person of
Christ, and that in the afterlife we will enjoy what the Bible calls everlasting life with God
and with his Son Jesus Christ. [Alex] Which implies potential infinity because everlasting
is a kind of ongoing process. So does that mean that when we say God is timeless, as I've heard
you say a number of times, we kind of mean that he was timeless, a part of him is timeless,
but now is a temporal being, something like that? Well here it's so easy to be tricked by language,
[right] and I think what we have to say is that God is timeless sans creation and
in time subsequent to creation. And that is a non-contradictory way of stating it.