A feature of temporality that we either downplay or resist is the profound contingency of our existence.10 When we say something is “contingent,” we simply mean that it might not have been, doesn’t have to be, and could have been otherwise. And that is true of the entirety of the created cosmos, brought into existence by the free act of a bountiful, loving God. All of creation might not have been. That doesn’t make creation random or arbitrary, only contingent.
