Simulapsarianism as an Apologetic

The apologetic advantage for a radical paradigm shift cannot be understated, but we will try, to keep it as brief as posisble. Following are some natural conclusions and apologetics that follow from the supposition that God exists beside not before time.

1.) Open Theism - Open theism claims that God does not know the future, or that prophecy is contingent. This need not be the case. The concept of God not knowing the future is simply non-sensical, because God is not temporally bound. He is not "before time" trying to understand what "will come to pass" rather he is beside time and co-existant with it. Prophecy is absolute (as what exists eternally in the nature of God just is, and CANNOT change) and yet this is working out simultaniously in time, so God can truly relent in scripture.

2.) Theodicy - the question of possible worlds becomes non-sensical - one might ask "could God not have made the world differently, so that there was no evil (or perhaps less evil)? This is a category fallacy! God does not exist before time, with a series of known possible future states of creation. God exists beside time, and what "is" as God exists is what "is" worked out in time, what "is" worked out in time "is" how God exists. Its a paradox. Hence the world could not have been done differently (at a future state) but it simply is what it is, and we can never move beyond that. A point of clarification, this theodicy is not going to be horribly convincing outside of a change in pre-suppositions. Hence one must first change the pre-supposition and then inject the theodicy, not the other way around.

3.) Incarnational Heresies - all the heresies that deal with the person of Christ come into focus, because the incarnational necessity of the hypostatic union is shown more clearly. Jesus can't begin human and be adopted, nor can he be only human or only God, because this dichotomizes and fundamentally seperates man and God in a deeper sense than the traditional understanding of God before time.

4.) Islam - If God is not bound by time, then he is not "before" time; and almost every religous system would want to affirm that God is not bound by time. Hence to have any sort of non-deistic system God must be incarnated and participate somehow in time. The Islamic fatalism states that God exists before time, and ultimately plans everything from the beginning, so the entire world is "the will of allah" fatalistically. If God is not before or part of time, then he must make himself part of time, and to do with he must become temporal, e.g. incarnated.

More to come later...