Refuting Phillip Dennis’s Errors in Physics, ASC, and Philosophy – Part 7
We have been examining the philosophy of presentism – the claim that “only present things exist.” In its strong form, presentism would insist that “only present things exist, have existed, or will exist.” Of course, biblically, presentism is false because past things and future things are real according to Scripture (and are known by God). Thus, the Bible endorses eternalism – the claim that past, present, and future are equally real. But Phil Dennis has criticized eternalism and insists that presentism is true. Yet nearly all of his arguments are strawman fallacies – criticizing a misrepresentation of eternalism as if it claims that past, present, and future all exist now – in the present. Sometimes a presentist will retreat to a trivial claim that “only present things exist now – in the present.” But no one would disagree with this. Eternalists accept that only present things exist in the present. But we maintain that the past and future are just as real (true to the mind of God) as the present. Let’s continue to analyze Dennis’s claims.