Change, the Arrow of Time, and Divine Eternity in Light of Relativity Theory (Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion)

Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
1: Introduction
Part I: Relativity Theory and the Passage of Time
	2: Models of Time: A Brief Survey
		2.1	 Models of Time’s Ontological Status
		2.2	 Models of Time’s Structure
			2.2.1	 General Characteristics of A- and B-Models of Time
			2.2.2	 A-Models
			2.2.3	 B-Models
			2.2.4	 A Brief Assessment of A- and B-Models
			2.2.5	 The Instant Moment
	3: The Impact of the Special Theory of Relativity on the Philosophy of Time
		3.1	 Immediate Consequences of SR for the Philosophy of Time
			3.1.1	 Loss of the Worldwide Instant
			3.1.2	 Invariant K-relation
		3.2	 Arguing from SR to Temporal Determinism
		3.3	 Objections Against Relativistic Temporal Determinism
		3.4	 Carving up Spacetime
		3.5	 World Lines, Light Cones, and Endurance
	4: Cosmic Time
		4.1	 Defining Cosmic Time
		4.2	 Scope and Limits of Cosmic Time Functions
		4.3	 Assessing the Significance of Cosmic Time Functions for the Philosophy of Time
		4.4	 Does Quantum Mechanics Save Cosmic Simultaneity?
	5: Worldwide Becoming, Block Universe, or Some Tertium? Contemporary Answers to the Problem of Time and Relativity Theory
		5.1	 Cosmic A-theory—in Search of the True Present Hypersurface
		5.2	 The Block Universe
		5.3	 Why Neither Cosmic A-theory nor the Block Universe Works
		5.4	 A Third Way?
	6: Against Substantival Passage
		6.1	 Passage of Time and Causation
		6.2	 Passage of Time and the Laws of Nature
	7: Understanding How Change Relates to Time
		7.1	 Help from the Ancients: Aristotle, Suárez, and Augustine
		7.2	 “Spanning” Time: The Leibniz Principle and its Converse
		7.3	 Two Objections to Explaining Time in Terms of Change
	8: Duration of Processes of Change According to a Causal Theory
		8.1	 Faster and Slower Change
		8.2	 Why are Causal Processes Extended in Time?
		8.3	 Countable Change and the Aevum
	9: The Arrow of Time: The Full Derivation
		9.1	 Constructing Local Time
			9.1.1	 Defining “Before” Non-circularly
			9.1.2	 Change
			9.1.3	 Local Time
		9.2	 Epistemological Realism
		9.3	 The Asymmetry of the Local Arrow of Time
			9.3.1	 The Fixed Past and the Open Future
			9.3.2	 How Increase in Entropy and the Passage of Time are Linked
			9.3.3	 The “Now”
			9.3.4	 Is Local Time Discrete or Continuous?
	10: Objections and Comparisons
		10.1	 Charges of Circularity
		10.2	 The Proposed Causal Theory does not Rely on Causal Asymmetry
		10.3	 The Charge of Subjectivism
		10.4	 The Objection from General Relativity
		10.5	 Comparison with Janich’s Protophysics of Time
		10.6	 Comparison with the IGUS Model of Temporal Asymmetry
	11: Our Changing World
		11.1	 Beyond A-theory and the Block Universe
		11.2	 Fixing the K-relation
		11.3	 Local Time and the Gödel Universe
Part II: God, Change, and Time
	12: Does God Change?
		12.1	 The Ground of Being as Limitless Being
		12.2	 Divine Action
	13: God’s Relations to Temporal Being
		13.1	 Are God’s Relations to Creatures Real?
		13.2	 God’s Relation to the Passage of Time and to Present, Future, and Past
	14: The Unlimited, the Limited, and the World
Appendix A: Outline of Special Relativity
Appendix B: Sketch of General Relativity
	From the Equivalence Principle to Spacetime Curvature
	A Bit of Tensor Calculus
	Covariant Derivative
	Intrinsic Curvature of a Space
	The Einstein Field Equation
	Application to Cosmology
Bibliography
Author Index
Subject Index