Bradley Schneider sent me the following argument and would like my opinion. I am happy to accommodate him. (I have edited his argument for the sake of brevity, the soul of blog. I have also given it a title.)
PRESENTISM FALSE? THEN GOD DOES NOT EXIST!
1) An all-good, omniscient, omnipotent God should not allow any horrendous evil.
2) If there is a solution to the problem of evil, it must entail that God eventually defeats evil and, to defeat evil, God must not only compensate the victims of evil but destroy evil's existence.
3) If presentism is not true, however, it means that past events still exist, even if they do not exist now.4) But this implies that a horrendous evil that occurred in, say, 1994 (the Rwandan genocide, for example) still exists. Not only that, it will always exist. As will every other horrendous evil throughout human history.
5) God may be able to vanquish evil at the eschaton, but all of the horrendous evils will persist throughout all eternity. Even while the blessed are enjoying heaven, the horrendous evils will continue to exist. All of the past evils will remain real and hence undefeated, even if God can assure that no further evil will occur post-eschaton.6) So God ultimately cannot vanquish evil if presentism is false.7) Therefore, God doesn't exist if presentism is false.
The problem is with (3). If presentism is not true, then presumably eternalism is true. Presentism is the view that only temporally present items (times, events, . . .) exist. That is, everything that exists exists at present. On eternalism, this is not the case: past and future items also exist. Now for these two views to be contradictory, 'exist(s)' must be used in the same sense. But what sense is that? It cannot be the present-tensed sense because that would reduce presentism to a tautology and eternalism to a contradiction. How so?
Well, 'Everything that exists (present tense) exists at present' is a trivial logical truth devoid of metaphysical import. On the other hand, 'Past, present, and future items all exist (present tense)' is logically contradictory since wholly past and wholly future items are not temporally present. Presentism and eternalism are substantive metaphysical theses that contradict each other only if 'exist(s)' is taken tenselessly.
Now glance back at (3). It reads, in part, "If presentism is not true, however, it means that past events still exist . . . " This is arguably a presentist misunderstanding of what the eternalist is saying. 'Still exists' means 'existed and exists (present tense).' That is not what the eternalist is saying. He is not saying, for example, that the gladiatorial combat in the Coliseum is still going on. He is saying that past events, i.e., events earlier than his speaking, exist simpliciter, i. e., tenselessly, whatever that comes to.
Note also that if past events still exist, then they do exist now, which contradicts the rest of (3): " . . . even if they do not exist now."
So Schneider's argument needs some work.
My view is that both eternalism and presentism are fraught with insuperable difficulties. Using either for theological purposes is not likely to get us anywhere.
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