Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 3:23 pm
Given the fact that you agree that ‘atemporal’ and ‘temporal’ are contradictory [and so by definition incompatible] modes of being
I do not accept the proposition that temporal and atemporal are any more mutually exclussive modes of being than is being one and being three (or conscious and unconscious.)
given your understanding of Zimmerman’s psychological time (etc.)—would you say Zimmerman is promoting the view that God is ‘atemporal’ or ‘temporal’? In other words, this ‘psychological’ or ‘amorphous’ time that Zimmerman (and I think Padget) promotes—is it in your opinion essentially ‘temporal’ or ‘atemporal’ existence?
I would say that any non-metric "quasi-time," having no objective length but what God consciously experienced (and not necessarily infinite) is so different from what we normally mean by temporal time, that some qualification is in order (and Zimmerman seemed to think so too, otherwise he wouldn't have found it necessary to explain himself more fully than you did.)
It's at least traditionally believed that angels as immaterial beings were created prior to the pysical world. It's conceivable at least. But this would mean a genuine temporal before and after prior to there being ANY physical laws. So "temporal passage" doesn't by definition require a physical world at all (if angels are immaterial spirits and precede the creation of matter).
I know of no reason to believe angelic being were created before time, space, energy, and matter (though I think it's quite possible that they were created before the stars, planets, and galaxies.)