She said there were two prevailing theories, eternalism and presentism. Eternalism is the belief that everything that is, has been, and will be exists right now and forever, all at once. Presentism is the belief that only what exists in the present exists at all. Nothing before and nothing after. No exceptions. As we were walking off stage I asked her which she believed, and she told me she could make a strong case for either, but recently she was leaning toward presentism. I didn’t understand why she would lean toward presentism, why she would choose only the present moment—no past, no
...more
