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Some, if not most, theists assert that time exists in heaven. How can this be?

If time is at all based on physical laws (spacetime, emergence, etc.), it won't be able to exist as it does currently in heaven, as the laws of physics would presumably not exist in heaven (it brings up problems such as heat death, particle decay, etc.) Instead, another form of time must exist. This raises two problems.

First, could time even exist in any sort of other way than it does now? What about McTaggart's attack against the A-theory of time, for example? Is the way we experience time not simply a byproduct of our physical brain?

Second, how could one "transition" into this state? Many accounts of a resurrection like this (some are here in section 7, others here in sections 2 and 3) rely on the fact that some part of us remain the same (whether physical or non-physical). Since whatever this is - your brain, some non-physical soul, etc. - change with time (otherwise, it'd be like dying and returning to your state when you were just born), how can they transition into a different time? If whatever this "soul" is just appears in a new timeline, it isn't really the same thing; it is a copy. So, how could this transition between two different forms of time take place, given that the self must exist within time?

How would a theist answer these arguments? Of course, one could reject the idea that time exists in heaven. While some theists do this, others maintain that time exists in heaven. For example, the SEP, in section 5.2, talks about the "supposed tedium of immortality." In this section, the author very much assumes that time exists in heaven, and presents arguments within that framework. So, for a theist who asserts that time exists in heaven, how would these problems be addressed?

user40443
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    Hi, welcome to Phil.SE :) Unfortunately you involve too many questions from different fields for your post to have meaningful answers. What is time? What is the relation between time and mind? What is the mind-body problem? What does theism tell us about soul? What is the after-life, and reincarnation? Does a "recreation" of one's body/soul means a "copy"? Can there be multiple times? Etc. – Yechiam Weiss Jul 20 '19 at 19:22
  • @yechiamweiss Sorry if I was being too broad. I'm sort of asking this from a Christian concept of heaven. In terms of the question what is time, would I be wrong to say that there is mostly a consensus among philosophers and scientists about what time is (eternalism, from what I understand)? While certainty there is no agreed upon definition on souls and such, I don't really think that's important for the question, as all definitions (whether it be purely material, substance dualistic, or something in between) require the soul to continually exist in time. Does that help clear anything up? – user40443 Jul 20 '19 at 19:38
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    There is no consensus on time, modern physics tends towards the view that time is emergent, and both A and B models are moot. The relationship between the atemporal states and temporal world has some analogies to the relation between "eternal" God and created world, see Hartle–Hawking state and On the Emergence of Time in Quantum Gravity by Isham-Butterfield, p.52ff. But the post overall is too broad. You should split it into separate questions, and ask some of them on Christianity SE. – Conifold Jul 22 '19 at 05:25
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    How are you defining "heaven"? Are you sure theists define it the same? – curiousdannii Jul 22 '19 at 06:26
  • Is Open Theism an acceptable response to your query? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_theism) – Donate to the Edhi Foundation Jul 22 '19 at 19:40
  • Take a look at, God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God. – Donate to the Edhi Foundation Jul 22 '19 at 20:21
  • @Conifold Thank you for the links. Maybe I phrased my question too broadly, as I didn't intend for it to be as broad as it is. My questions, more specifically, are 1) is time, or the perception of time, possible in any way other than what it currently is in our universe? Essentially, is the way time exists now (emergent?) necessary for time to exist at all? 2) Are any accounts of resurrection (as present in the SEP link in my question) affected by this view of time (a primarily physical property)? Does this clarification make my question more specific? – user40443 Jul 22 '19 at 20:51
  • I do not think that "possible in any way other than what it currently is" or "the way time exists now" make much sense if time is emergent, you can not apply tensed words to tenseless relations. Accounts of resurrection typically assume classical view of time, although there is an atemporal view of God that goes back to Boethius, see Eternity in Christian Thought. In that school of thought "resurrection" might be more like Oriental release from the illusion of time. – Conifold Jul 22 '19 at 21:46
  • @Conifold Why do (even modern) accounts of resurrection assume a classical view of time, if it seems that this classical view is false? Also, why do those phrases not make sense if time is emergent? As the IEP says, "[the majority of experts agree that] time is real regardless of whether it is emergent." Essentially, do modern views on time disprove a classical account of resurrection? If so, why is there still so much philosophical debate regarding resurrection like this? – user40443 Jul 22 '19 at 21:58
  • @Conifold Also, why do views of God's atemporality affect the way we might perceive resurrection? Under these views, God is atemporal while we are "within" time, and I don't see how that cannot still be the case after resurrection. – user40443 Jul 22 '19 at 23:53
  • Time is real just as heat is real, it just has limited domain of applicability. Talking about certain behaviors of matter in thermal terms is nonsensical, and so is talking about certain aspects of reality in temporal terms. Kingdom come and resurrection might be such aspects. Quantum gravity is unsettled, what the final theory might look like is murky, so there is little point to speculating based on it at the moment. "We" might be transformed into something indescribable in classical terms, or describable only metaphorically, and we do not have adequate technical terms as of yet. – Conifold Jul 23 '19 at 01:29
  • @Conifold I see, thank you. When you say "Talking about certain behaviors of matter in thermal terms is nonsensical, and so is talking about certain aspects of reality in temporal terms. Kingdom come and resurrection might be such aspects," you mean that temporality (at least, the sort of subjective experience we have of temporality) could exist in resurrection, even including a "no-time" sort of quantum gravity theory, correct? Sorry for the confusion, I'm just not completely sure what is necessary and what is contingent here. – user40443 Jul 23 '19 at 02:00
  • Who knows. A traditional view (Boethius, Aquinas) was that atemporal God still experiences "duration", whatever that means, perhaps so will the resurrected when they are with him. Even non-theist philosophers separate experience of duration from external "mechanical" time, e.g. early Bergson and Husserl. – Conifold Jul 23 '19 at 02:11
  • @Conifold But is "external 'mechanical time" possible here? Again, sorry if it seems like I'm asking the same question, but I'm still not sure why exactly any sort of "objective" change is impossible outside of our universe. As the IEP article I linked earlier says, true, objective time like this is not impossible. Why couldn't our "current" time be a subset of a more "real" time, which we transition over to, maintaining this same feeling of temporality? – user40443 Jul 23 '19 at 02:41
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    Current time as a "subset" of a more real time is too naive a metaphor, heat isn't a subset of Brownian motion in any reasonable sense, one has to switch to more fundamental descriptions we don't yet have. Again, this is in the realm of pointless speculation. – Conifold Jul 23 '19 at 03:01
  • @Conifold I don't think I explained my metaphor enough. If we stick with the heat analogy, it'd be more like saying there is another form of "heat" in which the source is different, but it would still be experienced as heat for us, and that this other type of heat is more "real" in a sense. – user40443 Jul 23 '19 at 03:16
  • @Conifold In other words, time as we experience it is a type, or subset, of "real" time, which we would exist in more fully after "this" time we experience ends. – user40443 Jul 23 '19 at 03:25
  • @Conifold Do you find this analogy to be less naive? Also, if you have the patience, would you care to give your take as to why philosophical literature like this generally "ignores" the philosophy of time? Everyone, except for the philosophers of time, seem to take time in the classical sense. – user40443 Jul 23 '19 at 20:40
  • i find it amazing that someone thinks it's an argument to suggest that, because we now know what physical time is, so our previous conceptions of it are metaphysically incoherent -1 –  Feb 02 '20 at 09:14

3 Answers3

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Is the way we experience time not simply a byproduct of our physical brain?

Second, how could one "transition" into this state?

I don't see what this has got to be with 'time' -- at all. You just seem to be asserting that everything is physical, and so there can't be anything non-physical, which you've defined as "heaven".

What are the prospects for survival on a materialistic view of persons? One possible reason for thinking that materialism is not hostile to the prospects of an afterlife is that, historically, the standard view of the afterlife in the major theistic traditions is that it involves the resurrection of bodies. While there is a longstanding theological tradition that links belief in bodily resurrection with dualism, many theologians and some philosophers argue that dualism is a Platonic import into theistic traditions (Cullman 1955), and that it is more in keeping with the Hebrew, Christian, and Islamic stress on bodily life to understand the afterlife in materialist rather than dualist terms.

You may want to bear in mind that God is -- for Theists -- in control of physical process.

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A classic Christian response adapts the ancient Greek concepts of chronos (ordinary, sequential time) and kairos ("proper moment") which, in Christian theology, can be described as "God's time." The idea is that there are certain moments we experience as "timeless," as existing, in some way, outside of ordinary sequential time. Platonically, we could say we are experiencing a glimpse of a deeper reality in those moments. Heaven, therefore, would exist in kairos and Earth in chronos.

Chris Sunami
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There are many different kinds of theists... So there would have to be many different answers to this, with none more correct than another.

The broadest scope of answers though based on my experience with many theists, would simply be that God makes it work... When one has crafted or inherited the idea of a plane of existence that has no empirical data indicating it's qualities, and one has further decided that this plane of existence is not subject to analysis based on evidence or data about our own experience, then one is simply deciding the qualities of that plane of existence based on internal belief. As such, no argument or explanation is either needed or possible.

HumanJHawkins
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