The Nature of Time -- William Lane Craig

[naturphilosophie1]

The C-Series!

[chrisbowman777]

lol 4:09 ALLLLL!!!! moments in time! William Lane Craig is beast! Poor little Dawkins is scared of him! He knows his crackpot opinions and criticisms don't stand up to Craig's philosophical, epistemological, logical arguments. Dawkins just expresses how much he hates God, doesn't attempt to elaborate on his existence.

[GRAVEROTT]

@chrisbowman777 Dawkins won't debate with him because Craig fancy words to cover up the fact that he is an idiot. He doesn't hate God. Hatred for something means it exists. And God does not.

[bitphr3ak]

@GRAVEROTT - Not to mention that WLC has said that even if evidence were to be presented that disproved his Christian God, he would still believe.

He is willfully blind to evidence, and has complete faith in his ability to just know that god exists.

I think he's a robot! :)

/watch?v=6JQD6uVVqf0

[emailpobox666]

@bitphr3ak If you want to really see Craig put his foot in his mouth. Google Quentin Smith vs Craig 1996 and check out Dr Craig s rebuttal it's the 5th link. He basically destroys his own cosmological argument. Funny thing is he is still using it as a proof of god 15 years later

[AntiCitizenX]

Dude, the A-theory as Craig describes it is DEMONSTRABLY FALSE! He is arguing for something is experimentally wrong. Those pesky physicists are not morons.

[SASSJMSCBC]

@AntiCitizenX Could you please tell me where can I get this proof?

[AntiCitizenX]

@SASSJMSCBC

Read any book on Modern Physics that includes relativity. Time is not the linear construct that Craig thinks it is.

[JohananRaatz]

@AntiCitizenX I agree. I don't know where he gets this idea from. I'm a B-theorist on time, and I have a physics background, and I also happen to be a Christian. I don't see why WLC holds the A-theory, it's certainly not necessary.

[cycophile]

when did a professor of philosophy become an expert on physics. go watch a video on quantum mechanics or string theory if you want to learn something besides happy words.

[TheisticThinker]

Really interesting, love Craigs work.

[SuccubusMagician]

Is it just me or does the interviewer talk like Agent Smith from the matrix?

[notnilccm]

WOW finally a Craig video that has not disabled comments! Why is this guy such a chicken shit to allow anyone to make a comment on his idiotic babbling.

[CarlosMarti123]

@notnilccm This isn't even Craig's channel, retard. XD

[duces02]

Perhaps time is dependent on who is viewing and not so much as generalizing time as a whole.

[ArcadianGenesis]

If you want a truly mind-expanding philosophy of time, see Philosophy in the Flesh by Lakoff & Johnson and Biocentrism by Lanza. What Craig calls the "B Theory" is close, but it's still naive in the sense that it assumes that space and time are real physical entities. They are not. Space and time are both mechanisms of animal sense-perception. What Craig said was all metaphor. We cannot conceive of reality without space and time because they are features of our embodied brain-minds.

[browncoat3000]

Lame. Craig tries to seek an objective vantage point for his god to sit on, but it simply doesn't exist. Quantum physics has changed our understanding of time & McTaggart's ideas are 100 years out of date. Evidence from Wheeler's delayed choice experiment supports Feynman/Stenger's quantum time ideas & eliminates the possibility of an objective viewpoint.

[sirdelrio]

@browncoat3000 agree. The problem for william lame craig is that, still, he doesnt get that his personal elucubrations and fantasies are not evidence. If experimental evidence supports that time is bound to reference frame, and in the same space two observers can percieve different time lapse, then time is not absolute. Scientists are not suporting 'b-theory' to comprehend a diagram, but because experimental evidence supports it.

[FatalKnight]

I can't believe that there are only around 4,000 views here, but millions of views of Charlie getting his finger bit and double rainbows. I hope the people of American society become more curious minded, though I fear this to be unlikely.

[PaulthePhil]

It's worth noting that these are not W.L.Craig's own ideas that he's representing but J.M.E.McTaggart's whom published these two notions of time in 1908 in his essay "The Unreality of Time". The mention of 'God' is aside the point, it's simply to show that if there were an omniscient being that they would be able to see all events across the B-Series.

[sirdelrio]

A doctor in mombo jombo.

[florgum89]

Time doesnt really exist at all. Check out this this article: google "unplanned insights" and click on the first link, a wordpress blog

[matthewjhaywood]

Hmmm this isn't really a philosopher's business to talk about in the modern day- this is the domain of physics. He misrepresents the physicists understanding by saying they require theory B to understand gen relativity- it's actually the converse; gen relativity implies theory B. He also seems to forget about imaginary time from quantum mechanics. This is considered extremely unprofessional in professional circles- don't steal ideas from other subjects and pretend you have expertise on them.

[TauntYouA2ndTime]

@matthewjhaywood Hey I wanted to give you a thumbs up but apparently only 16 were allowed and all went people who like WLC. Go figure. Isn't it funny though how WLC always uses the appeal to authority when its the biblical scholars that he says "overwhelmingly" accept his 5 "facts" of the bible and to dispute them makes you a 'loon' (paraphrased) but here when the authority is against his view, the authority then becomes the loon. Wow

[Zaphenath4]

Very interesting...

[purpleleach1]

I think about time all the time! Can there be time without change? I believe so, because it's an abstract concept, but can there be time without change? How would you explain time then?

[LMOH1]

I just realized that Craig is a Christian philosopher. Does that make me weird?

[Zaphenath4]

@LMOH1 Yes, slightly. Not with the multitude of videos on youtube with William Craig debating Atheists (;

[coppens]

Leave time to the phycisists, so we don't have to listen to so much crap from William Lane Craig!

[Zaphenath4]

@coppens How is it "crap"?

[coppens]

@Zaphenath4 "Crap" means nonsense!

[Zaphenath4]

@coppens I said *how* is it crap? Not what the definition of "crap" is. Go back to pre-school and learn how to answer questions properly.

[coppens]

@Zaphenath4 You are not worth talking to!

[Zaphenath4]

@coppens Yes, you're right. You are not worthy of my attention :) Be gone!

[ialvarez357]

wouldn't a physicist be better at explaining time?

...theyre the ones who study it

[mojorhythm]

@ialvarez357 touche.

[pedroamaralcouto]

A-Time theory or B-Time theory? The common man view or today scientists view? Was Einstein wrong?

[LMOH1]

@pedroamaralcouto Apparently, some accept both, Craig being one of them....

[mojorhythm]

Craig explains the competing theories of time very well, but he endorses the bullshit one.

[hexusziggurat]

@mojorhythm odd that he favors the A view point, when the B viewpoint is from a "divinity perspective".

[mojorhythm]

@hexusziggurat

If time is tenseless, that means we don't have Libertarian free will. If we don't have Libertarian free will Craig can't use the Free Will Defense for the problem of evil in his debates about God. Moreover, his favorite argument, the Kalam, presupposes an A-theory of time from start to finish. That is why he defends the A-theory of time so vociferously in his written work. He doesn't think A-theory is inherently more plausible- he needs it to be because he is an evangelist.

[hexusziggurat]

@mojorhythm I personally don't agree that free will is omitted simply b/c God would have the capacity to view everything. It may seem that way but God could know by seeing further along the time stream. This had never stopped anyone from actually choosing what they wanted to do via "free will" but simply created a "film spool" that God can check out at any scene.

A group of actors is told to act with no script,they "choose" what to do, are filmed & can be viewed over&over..they have freewill.

[mojorhythm]

@hexusziggurat

I agree with you. However, if a B-theory of time is correct, a Libertarian account of free will is necessarily false. Only one view of free will is compatible with a B-theory of time, and that is compatibilism. The only Christians who accept compatibilism are Calvinists, and Craig hates Calvinism with a passion.

If compatibilism is true, that means the free will defense for suffering is entirely moot, and that's why many Christians defend Libertarian free will.

[hexusziggurat]

@mojorhythm i am not schooled too much on compatibilism nor Libertarian free will, though i can easily see how one can most definately have free will (just the standard home grown version) in the case of B-theory.

[mojorhythm]

@hexusziggurat agreed, but determinism is also necessarily true on a B-theory of time, so it would have to be voluntaristic free will, not contra-causal.

[huntmatuk]

I really don't think that he is familier with the idea of causal topology, things like future null infinity and achoronal sets. This is the language of science which he should first become familier with.

[Msjrward]

I think this is interesting because the B Thoery he was speaking of is exactly how my parents taught me that time works based purely on how they understood the Bible.

[manutdfan4321]

this is when WLC is at his best, not when he\s being so arrogant to the athiests

[huntmatuk]

Philosophers has no business into looking at these questions on tax payers money. Physicists however, it IS their business to consider these questions as only physicists can give a rigourous definition of what we call time.

He has forgotten that people consider multiple time dimensions. He should leave the physics to the physicists.

[Nyarl3]

@huntmatuk It's the philosopher's job to wrestle with the most fundamental questions of life. If those questions don't include Time, Space, etc., then what should they talk about? Just Ethics, and nothing else, perhaps? Please, be serious. By the way, Craig works for a private institution. How, exactly, is he wasting tax payer money?

[huntmatuk]

@Nyarl3 Perhaps it once was the philosophers job to do this but with our current understanding of the nature of spacetime they really have to be conversent with modern physics, so they may as well just do physics. Having listened to some of the rubbish that WLC comes out with, he really has no idea about the current state of physics. I think that this is a topic left to the experts, i.e. the physicists.

[Nyarl3]

@huntmatuk Check out his Templeton Foundation lecture, if you think he's unfamiliar with where modern physics is.

[huntmatuk]

@Nyarl3 He is pretty unfamilier with physics, just look at any of his debates, he has very limited understanding of modern field theory.

[aj44379]

Why is earlier/later any more or less expressive of time than before/after, past/future, etc..? Seems like that would be relying on semantics yes--not where they've stripped the meaning of past and future, but rather that they've just created or adapted a self-serving meaning to earlier and later...? Greater-than and less-than still suggest an insertion of numerical value--so why would earlier and later be any different....hmm, conundrum lol...I give up.

[cifa2510]

were week is based on genesis is not? you know what i find funny in the song imagine john Lennon say's no hell below us. but hell is right next to the heavens (plural) .what if atheist's were right what would they do? they would not know what to do. humans are always subject to flaw none of us are prefect. it says that in the bible. it's as simple as that. i mean this is madness why is there a huge atheists movement.

[bigguitar22]

How can Lane Craig argue that he understands the nature of time? Time is a physical expression of the universe which is ultimately measurable - he reduces this property to the conjectural with not one shred of evidence. Nonsense - and he knows it cannot be proived or disproved with our current level of enquiry. He expresses this daft view with the same confidence of his religious prognostications. Eloquence does not equal truth!

[agnostaxian]

jr4, great vid. thanks 4 posting!

[noodles321321]

This is wonderful...real brain food.

[kalsolarUK]

Brain food? I see no point or sense in this at all. Its just philosopical B.S. I understand what he's saying... but its just meaningless waffle of no use to anyone.

[regelemihai]

What topic of discussion would be rendered to be of use to anyone?

It's just a discussion. All you garner from it is information.

[kalsolarUK]

There's nothing wrong with discussing such things...what I'm saying is that its not really "information". It is just ideas that have no possibly way of being varified or tested. Fun to discuss but with no real "information" that you could put in an encyclopedia of fact.

[geoffreyefloyd]

This has been on closer to truth for a while ;) Nice to have easy access to it on YT.

[Gentle135]

Is there more to this? We are left with just two thoughts on how time works without an explaination on thew value and faults of either side.

[Christianjr4]

Yes there is more of it. The rest will be uploaded when it is made available by the closertotruth website.

[xtrashed]

Wow!

[grits011]

Interesting stuff.

[S7VIIN]

William Lane Craig is a genius! I love this subject and the way Craig deals with it.

-Seven

[95TurboSol]

Heck yeah, I love learning about time. Probably because its so hard to comprehend!

[kalsolarUK]

you're not really learning about time...you're just learning about what one guy thinks he may have learned about time through philosophy...should his philosophy be accurate...but there's simply no way of knowing it.

[abrimestome]

Are you saying that the only way to "know" something is through scientific knowledge?

[DiminishedStudios]

There is a significant difference in saying that there is no way of knowing something, and saying that it is false. By your own standard how do you know that we are not learning about time? What your claiming is that we can't know it to be true, but how can we know that very statement is in fact true?

[kalsolarUK]

You can believe everything WCR tells you if you want to - but there mere act of believing doesn't make it true or not true. It's only true if it is true. And if you can't prove it to be true - then you need to recognise the fact that you have taken a leap of faith and accepted someones opinion on it. Opinions are either true or not true - PROVING whether an opinion something is true or not true is something else. If you choose to believe without proof thats your business.

[DiminishedStudios]

I agree that just believing something doesn't make it true, but I never asserted such an idea. There can also be more reasons to accept a belief without just accepting someone's opinion. Lastly, you seem to be on a big kick about the concept of PROVING things. By what process do you believe that something is proven?

[kalsolarUK]

On the subject of proof: If something can be either demonstrated or determined to be true by strong evidence - then I will usually accept it. For example - I were'nt there at the big bang - but all the evidence from the various sciences point to the same conclusion. I may still have difficulty getting my head around certain parts of it, but based on the evidence I accept that it is the most likely explanation. If you want to talk about objective proof..you need to talk to idiots like Matt Slick.

[jmkora]

@kalsolarUK "Opinions are either true or not true." This is incorrect. The statement "This flower is beautiful." cannot be proven to be objectively true or false.

[MarkLucasTube]

I don't see that Craig warrants such an accolade. What exactly prompted you to say this? Not this clip I hope.

You love this subject - what then is your view on it? Craig gave no opinion in this clip.

[S7VIIN]

MarkLucasTube,

I remember listening to his podcast if I recall correctly, on his website and thought it was absolutely fascinating, what he had to say, and the subject in it's entirety. You can also catch the entire interview at the Closer to Truth site which I enjoyed, after watching the video on God's omniscience. Looking at both subjects together made things very interesting. I subscribe to the A-theory of time. Check all the material Craig has produced on this subject, he is a genius. ~7

[geoffreyefloyd]

totally!

[cifa2510]

@S7VIIN yes sir

[huntmatuk]

@S7VIIN I personally think that WLC just embarreses himself these days, he has no clear grasp of the fundemental theories of physics and this comes across in his debates.

[S7VIIN]

@huntmatuk Well, but when it comes to the philosophy of time, which is the subject here, he's done well in the past. Anyway, have a good one friend.

[notnilccm]

@S7VIIN William Lane Craig is a chicken shit. Look at 90% of his videos. Comments are disabled.

[MrDeppness]

@S7VIIN I have this completely figured out.

We as finite beings of creation view time in the A Theory, being in the present while looking back at the past and moving forward into the future, whereas God being eternal sees all things are equally "Now." To God a B Theory is more adequate. God looks from the outside-in to the timeline of the entire existence of time/space and isn't partial to one moment over the other. God created time & is a being whose existence encompasses and surpasses time.

[MrGluepower]

@MrDeppness I dont understand in B Theory how we "move along our time line". Does this means are lives are forever frozen in that 4 dimension hypercube and passage of time that we are aware is just delusion? Objective NOW does not exist? Its not 2011 now? God can go in my past and change something (for him is not my past, its just "before" this time where I am now) and this version of me just vanish? It is mindblowing idea worthwile of one Star Trek episode with Q playing role of God :)

[MrDeppness]

@MrGluepower It's all a matter of perspective. We are in the year 2011, but then again we are stuck in the boundaries of time. God is not, so He can view all of time together or zone in on one specific time period. I don't see God as changing what already was. Once it happened, it happened. However, we can change the future by controlling the present.

[MrGluepower]

@MrDeppness "We are in the year 2011, but then again we are stuck in the boundaries of time. God is not" So is it objectively now 2011? Or is it that every moment on timeline is current moment from god perspective? As I said I dont understand how we "move along the time". If god is not bound by time then for him there is not "was" or everything already was. Everything he change is the past of something so he effectively change past. In science terms, this model is not elegant :)

[geoffreyefloyd]

@MrGluepower sounds like you do understand it, the b-theory (tenseless) means that all moments in time are equally real in the same way that all the inches of a ruler are equally real. The first inch is just as real as the 5th inch...if you are the 3rd inch then the 1st inch is in the past and the 5th in the future (if inches were time). If you are the 5th inch then the 3rd inch is in the past rather than the present.