In Christian theology we point out that questions like: "Where is God?" as if He is located in some "(super)space" and "When is God?" (as if He is contained within time) are meaningless. This is summarized in the "Aseity of God." The "aseity" (meaning "from himself" or "self-existent") of God is shorthand for the absolute independence of God's existence from anything external to him. It is the expression of God's absolute self-sufficiency, absolute independence and autonomy.
Parallel to this in the eternalist philosophy of (a mythical) spacetime are questions like: "Where is spacetime?" as if it is located in some "(super)space" and "When is spacetime?" (as if it is contained within time). The eternalist will say these are meaningless.
Thus the eternalist attributes aseity to spacetime. As we have said, both sides in the debate of atheism versus Christian theism have an ultimate. This is reflected here in the parallel of eternalism and presentism. (Presentism is the philosophical view that only the present "exists" and that three-dimensional space and objects therein persist through time. Yesterday's gone, and the future is not yet.) Only the Christian ultimate of the triune God with all of his attributes is the foundation of all of human experience. The mindless, materialist, self-existent and eternal spacetime of eternalism is incoherent and accounts for nothing.
We conclude with the observation that most modern treatments of relativistic physics uncritically "buy into" the eternalist philosophy of spacetime as an unchanging four-dimensional continuum in which past, present and future are equally real. It is a "block house" universe in which there is no actual "flow of time" and nothing "ever happens." Spacetime is a self-existent, an eternally "completed object" -- "a done deal." Thus time is an illusion. Such was the opinions of Einstein -- a dedicated idealist. Because of this pervasive view of "spacetime" (a daily dose of which can be found on the "Science channel") some Christians have uncritically adopted the myth of spacetime and also give lip service to the possibility of time travel(!). Time travel is "theoretically possible"
1 in an eternalist spacetime since the past, present and future are persistent "places" within spacetime that can be journeyed to and visited similar to the way one journeys to spatials locations in a car -- of course time travel requires a fictional "time machine" rather than a car (or maybe a time machine in a car, a la Marty McFly!) However, eternalism is not a necessary consequence of the experimental and theoretical basis of relativistic physics. It is an assumed part of antitheistic philosophy. However, it has been observed by some physicists that presentism is thoroughly consistent with relativity. Based on these observations, eternalism is not an option for a Christian theist. Tipping one's hat to the "theoretical possibility" of time travel is to believe in the eternal "block house" spacetime. It is a view that embraces two coeternal entities - God and spacetime. Consistent Christians should examine their views of "spacetime" and abandon eternalism.
1 Young earth creationist Jason Lisle succumbed to the eternalist view of special relativity in his book “The Physics of Einstein.” Examples from chapter 10 “How to Build a Time Machine” of that book are:(1) that he gives lip service to time travel which is impossible in presentism; (2) his claim that time travel is provable using the Lorentz transformation.
The second claim is a false conclusion that is based on an unstated and uncritically examined presupposition of eternalism – i.e. the presupposition that the past still exists and is a place that can be visited. Rejecting that unproven presupposition and adopting presentism (as Christian theism requires) shows that time travel is not provable from the Lorentz transformation. The mathematics of Special Relativity do not prove the possibility of time travel. The possibility of time travel is based on a commitment to a philosophical presupposition.
Here is an extended quote of Lisle:
“As we saw in the previous chapter the theory of relativity allows for the possibility of traveling backward in time if it is also possible to travel faster than the speed of light. That's the good news. The bad news is that there are some compelling reasons to think that faster than light travel is not possible, at least not for information bearing systems. We have seen hints of that in previous chapters, and we will go into greater depth in later chapters. Nonetheless, hypothetically if faster than light travel were possible, then time travel into the past would also be possible. This is provable from the Lorentz transformation, and gives us a much more profound understanding of the nature of space and time. " (emph. added)
The Lorentz transform alone does not prove time travel. It requires the extra commitment to an eternalist Minkowski spacetime as it requires the past to exist in order to be “revisited.” That is the notion that “time is a place,” which is part-and-parcel of Minkowski’s eternal block house universe as espoused by Einstein ("time is an illusion"). Lisle's "profound understanding of the nature of space and time" is infected by eternalism as his inference requires that the past is a place, sitting there waiting to be revisited, if only, we could travel faster than the speed of light. This idea is what has infected and influenced the views of “conventionality” of simultaneity, synchronization and Lisle's “Anisotropic Synchrony Convention” model.↩
