I find two theses compelling which are somewhat at odds with each other. The first regards the nature of human activity and the second regards the nature of time.
First, let us consider my view of time. I hold a block theory of time. This theory holds that all times are equally real. It is difficult to articulate the theory in English since English does not permit us to speak without designating time. When I say that all times "are" equally real, this can be misheard as saying that they are all real at the same time. They clearly are not at the same time. They are at different times. Each moment of time is equally determinate, equally specified as being as it was, is, or will be. I thus reject the view that any time possesses the real property "is present" or "is future" or "is past." Rather, on my view, these must be what one might call "pseudo-properties" or "secondary properties." They are properties which hold of phenomena only perspectivally, that is, from a certain point of view. In this case, a time is past only with respect to other times which are future with respect to it.
Let us now turn to the view of human activity. The view is the expressivist one which we considered a few days ago. This is the view that a human's action determines that human more specifically. The view is that an action specifies and clarifies what one is more determinately. The view thus holds that how one is is more indeterminate further in the past, and becomes more determinate as one acts. From this point of view, my future is indeterminate until I act and thereby specify it.
This view of human action also seems to conflict with another view of human activity which I hold, that is, a compatibilist account of human freedom. I hold that our actions may be fully responsible, fully expressive even, whether or not our actions are determined by facts prior to and independent of them. Thus, I am committed to a view on which the expressivity of human action, if it holds, is independent of whether or not those actions are fully determined by the past together with the laws of nature or by divine decree.
Thus, I have a view on which our future is both indeterminate and determinate. In traditional philosophical fashion, I propose to resolve this dilemma with a distinction. The distinction is between an immanent and a transcendent frame, or two different perspectives on human activity.
The transcendent frame is the perspective from which we see things from eternity, as it were. It is the perspective which grants all reality equal being, and registers properties as they appear in their place in the whole. In this point of view, it is fully determinate that George Washington would be president, and it is fully determinate at his birth that he would be so, because we are observing all of these moments together, relating them together. In this frame, everything is as it occurs in its full development throughout time.
The immanent frame, on the other hand, is the perspective of beings in time, agents acting responsively to events. This perspective acts in relation to a determinate present, a less determinate past, and an even less determinate future. It is the perspective of agent-perceivers, and thus the perspective of situated beings who negotiate an environment.
The challenge, then, is to show that these two perspectives are not at odds with each other, but compatible. In fact, it is necessary for me, as someone who holds that God views the world through both frames at once, to argue that the two frames can be used together, that they provide complementary, rather than opposed, views on the world.
Because I am arguing that God views the world through both frames, it is not open to me to hold that the immanent frame is one of ignorance. In our case, it is an ignorant frame. In our case, the immanent frame's perspective of the past is indeterminate because we are forgetful, and the future is indeterminate because we do not yet know what it holds, but my claim is that these degrees of indeterminacy hold when God views the world through the immanent frame, too. Yet God knows what the past held and what the future holds, so how can this be so?
The crucial distinction between the two frames is that the immanent frame is the frame of agents. Agents perform actions which impact the development of the future and the interpretation of the past. So the difference between the immanent and transcendent frames is the difference between being part of the course of events and being a mere observer, respectively. It is the fact that the immanent frame necessarily observes the flow as one in which one can intervene, whereas the transcendent frame observes the flow as completed. One decides, the other observes the results of the decisions.
God decides in full knowledge of what he will decide, but this is not a problem for his use of the immanent frame since he is perfectly good and takes it all in together. The indeterminacy of the immanent frame for God is strangely ambivalent. It is one which is hardly there, since there is no space in which he has not already determined what he will do, yet it is a supposition of his decision--his decision determines the future as much, if not more so, in his case as in ours. It thus fills in what "was" indeterminate, what would otherwise be determined differently.
This is not a synthesis or a pair of frames which it is easy to hold together. It is easy to view them as incompatible, and it mirrors the difficulty others have in melding a scientific and ordinary view of the world. One of the challenges of philosophy in general is melding together, in some coherent way, the world as revealed by science and the world we seem to find ourselves, the world of quarks and E=mc^2 and the world of ordinary clocks, chairs, and trees. The division into two perspectives is a frequent way of trying to solve this problem, but often has the result of opposing the two views. My hope that my pair of perspectives are more clearly compatible than others.
By temperament, I am opposed to dualisms, and this pair of views is close to being yet another dualism. Ideally, we can locate a unity beneath the difference which would support and motivate the difference. I am not sure. Alternatively, perhaps there is a point of view from which both perspectives can be united in ordinary life, not just in the life of God. It is a benefit of my view, however, that it is required to permit the two views to occur alongside one another in at least the case of God.
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