If God Is Timeless, Shouldn’t He Be Frozen?

How do God's timelessness and changelessness work together?

MODERATOR: Now we've all seen the movies where they find a magical watch, and they tap the watch and time stops apart from the person holding the watch. And when time stops, when there is no time, everybody's frozen. Wouldn't God be frozen without time?

DR. CRAIG: Frozen implies that something is unable to move, and timelessness doesn't imply inability to change. It just implies changelessness. There's a difference between being changeless and unable to change. I would say that God certainly has the ability to change if he wants to. He has freedom of the will. He can create a world of finite persons to whom he would be related, and he could change in relation to those persons. But existing alone without the created universe, without time and space, there just isn't any need or room for God's being changing because each person of the Trinity is already omniscient. That is to say he knows everything. There's nothing more to learn. He is morally perfect. There's no improvement to be had. Their will is in complete harmony. There's no chance of discord. So, you see, I think that God can exist changelessly without the world in this timeless state of fellowship among the persons of the Trinity. There's simply no need to change. But that doesn't mean that he's unchangeable. Indeed, I think that God could and has the ability to create a world of changing creatures to whom he would then relate, and so he could enter into time in order to enjoy fellowship and temporal relations with temporal changing persons.

MODERATOR: So are we saying then that when God decides to change or God decides to will an act, that's when time begins?

DR. CRAIG: That's what I would say, yes. In other words, time as I see it is a concomitant of events. Time is a relation of “before” and “after,” and so in the absence of any events, there isn't any “before” and “after.” But if an event occurs, time immediately comes into being as well. So time is a concomitant or an accompaniment of the occurrence of events. This is called a relational view of time which says that events (or the occurrence of events) is fundamental and foundational for the reality of time. That's why I say in the absence of any events there wouldn't be any time.