The fourth century philosopher, St Augustine made this statement concerning time: 'what is time? When no-one asks me I know. But when I am asked to explain it I can't. ' Time is a human construction, the twenty four time zones were established in 1884 because of the innovation of the railway system.
The calendar itself is also a human invention devised to coincide with the movements of the planets. The modern world seems to be obsessed with time and the immediate future and this has lost us the opportunity to reflect on the past.This, according to Paul Davies, is an important part of a person's character as memories and past experiences create personality. The human being's lifespan is totally inconsequential relative to the history of the universe and although we are insignificant on a cosmic scale a person's memories can shape their influences.
Immanuel Kant puts forward these ideas and argues that time is simply the way in which we order and structure reality and is not a necessity or divine creation.This leads us to consider whether time is 'real' in that it exists, and that time and space are a human convention of naming them, or whether time is merely how we experience life and that it does not exist in its own right. Aristotle claimed that time was composed of non-existence. It is the no longer and not yet. He said the past does not exist, the future does not exist and the present is nothing. However, William Craig argued that only the present exists as one unique moment.
All learning occurs in time and space.Human beings are finite and are therefore bound up with potentiality for change. Everything that moves does so in temporality and spatiality and so only a finite being can develop and acquire more knowledge. However, we understand God to be omniscient and so he cannot have the potential to learn more.
Aquinas uses this logic to conclude that God is timeless in that he exists outside of time as we understand it. This also suggests that God is immutable. This is because to move would require time and space and God lives outside of these.All matter and finite beings have the potential to move and improve and because God lives outside of time God must be completely unchanging and never anything but God.
The cosmological argument is an a posteriori argument and is defined by Aquinas in three ways. The first puts forward the idea that all objects in the world move and there therefore must have been a prime mover, someone to make the first movement which sets off the chain reaction in the same way that the first in a line of dominos is knocked over to cause the rest to fall.The second is a similar idea, that nothing can be caused by itself so all events must have been caused by one key action when traced back through the ages and this 'first cause' is called God. The third is the argument for contingency, everything that exists will eventually cease to exist and logically there must have been a time where nothing existed. Thus, something or someone must have made the first thing exist. This 'necessary being' must always have existed, and we call this 'necessary being' God.
God must have existed, and will exist, for eternity. He is infinite. The cosmological brings about other philosophical problems such as that of infinity. Thoughts about infinity are divided into two definitions. A potential infinite exists if it is always possible to add one to a number, for example the days in the future as more events are constantly being added.
The actual infinite is complete at all times. It is simply the biggest number possible so half of the number equals the number itself as both are the largest possible.This is illogical and hard to comprehend but is a set mathematical concept. The Kalam version of the cosmological argument is based on the concept of infinity.
The past cannot be infinite because that would mean it was possible to constantly add another yesterday which would mean today would never arrive. The present does exist and so the past is not infinite. It must therefore have had a beginning and since nothing can cause itself it must have had a cause. This cause was God.
