Jabberwock replied, and my replies are below each of his:
Jabberwock replies:
If you agree with the definition, then your view supports eternalism and not presentism (which is required, as Craig wrote, for Kalam). If the timeblock is essentially eternal, then it is, as Craig points out, meaningless to state that the universe ‘came into being’. The tape measure does not ‘come into being’ at its beginning, it is simply a dimensional edge/direction.
I replied:
@Jabberwock I think it’s probably both, but eternalism is God’s being, whereas presentism is ours in God’s. So there IS a beginning to the physical—but ontologically prior to (before/after) that the omnitemporal is essential (not present to us). The temporal becomes in the sense of an act(action) in which we are all participating, to which we are witness, although not all of us know it yet (revelation of the unchanging essence or nature of God.
Jabberwock replied:
It cannot be both, it is logically contradictory, as both options concern the ontic status of time.
I replied:
How is it a contradiction that there is both a dot (many) and a line (one)? That we can only see (be shown) one at a time (unless he shows us more) doesn’t limit God against seeing/being present in all of them. Why would being completely without them make more sense than being completely within them, and them in God? We’re talking time, not merely the physical sequence, which is not completely sequential, because prophecy is impossible unless information out of sequence is part of the whole.