20 ms·
I don't think that a four dimensional view of time is necessary for resolving concerns around the Christian resurrection and how memories/psychology could be ma
by Winsaucerer 4y ago
I don't think that a four dimensional view of time is necessary for resolving concerns around the Christian resurrection and how memories/psychology could be maintained.
There are plenty of views that Christians hold, but one of the most popular views (I would guess among the laity, professional philosophers, and possibly church leaders) is substance dualism. While memories are clearly stored in the brain to a degree, or at least influenced by the brain, the dualist typically thinks those memories are also located in and available to the non-physical substance (a soul/mind/spirit/etc) that survives the death of the body. Since those memories survive the death of those neurons, they are never lost.
Another view that was perhaps more popular, and is perhaps also gaining popularity again, usually called idealism, is that there is no physical stuff that exists on its own. Instead, God creates other souls/minds/spirits, and God imagines a physical world, and then gives experiences to those souls/minds/spirits as though they were in a physical world, even though no such mind-independent physical world exists. On this kind of view, the memories at the time of death are remembered by God, or exist within the soul/mind/spirit who was experiencing being that human in that imagined world (this second option is much like the dualist view). And so in the resurrection, God merely needs to have that soul/mind/spirit again have an experience as of being in such a physical world with a body that now has those memories restored, or, if those memories are already located in that soul/mind/spirit, then no extra work is required. The memories are either remembered by God, or were and continue to be stored in the soul/mind/spirit.
A third view, perhaps even less common than the preceding two among Christians, is a kind of materialism, where we have no immaterial soul/mind/spirit, and we are just our bodies. On that kind of view, I would assume the story is that God knows how the body was constructed (including the memories encoded in the brain) prior to neurons being destroyed, and is therefore able to rebuild the body in the resurrection as it needs to be to ensure the right kind of psychological continuity. These kinds of miracles would be trivial for God as described by Christians.
- throwaway894345 4y agoPretty sure the Bible talks a bit about God existing outside of time (he sees past, present, and future all at once or some such), so I always figured the model was "God exists outside of our universe much like a programmer who exists outside of his simulation, but can step forwards and backwards through time independently of the passage of time in the program itself". Something like that, anyway.
- Winsaucerer 4y agoYou might be right about such a verse, but I'm not sure off the top of my head. I can assure you though that you can find Christian proponents of both A-theory and B-theory of time. This is an active area of disagreement, particularly among philosophers (although it's true that a lot of question are under active disagreement among philosophers!). Example discussion, which I'm not up to date on myself: https://iep.utm.edu/god-time/ https://iep.utm.edu/god-time/
- lisper 4y agoIt is a popular notion that God exists outside of time but this is a modern idea with very sketchy biblical support. Certainly there is nothing in the Bible that directly says anything like this.
- NateEag 4y agoTraditionally people point to 2 Peter 3:8 and Hebrews 13:8 as implying this idea. There are a few other passages that seem to hint at it as well. I'd describe it as a model of God that fits well with the Bible but which the Bible itself does not explicitly present.