McTaggart's Paradox and Time

I recently read John McTaggart’s The Unreality of Time (link), a paper true to its name in that the author argues time is unreal. While very few philosophers agree with his conclusion, McTaggart’s arguments are not so easy to refute. He is exceptionally clear – clearer than most of his expositors, in my experience – and his influence on the metaphysics of time can be compared to and perhaps even surpasses that of Zeno’s influence on the metaphysics of motion. Even philosophers who disagree with McTaggart usually accept his basic distinctions and definitions between different ways in which people often attempt to relate events:

A-series: Past, present, future (tensed)

B-series: earlier than, simultaneous with, later than (tenseless)

C-series: an ordered set of events without direction (atemporal)

McTaggart summarizes the most obvious difference between the A-series from the B-series:

Positions in time, as time appears to us prima facie, are distinguished in two ways. Each position is Earlier than some, and Later than some, of the other positions. And each position is either Past, Present, or Future. The distinctions of the former class are permanent, while those of the latter are not. If M is ever earlier than N, it is always earlier. But an event, which is now present, was future and will be past.

Thus, B-series accounts of temporal facts don’t change. A-series accounts of temporal facts change. “Event X is earlier than (later than/simultaneous with) event Y” can, if it is a fact, be truly said by anyone at any time. On the other hand, the truth value of “event X is in the future” allegedly changes, if ‘future’ be taken as an irreducibly tensed fact. I say “allegedly” because McTaggart doesn’t believe there is a way one can consistently state such a change, which I will get to in a moment.

For McTaggart, the essential feature of time is unidirectional change. The C-series implies change, but not unidirectional change:

If the C series runs M, N, O, P, then the B series from earlier to later cannot run M, O, N, P, or M, P, O, N, or in any way but two. But it can run either M, N, O, P (so that M is earliest and P latest) or else P, O, N, M (so that P is earliest and M latest). And there is nothing either in the C series or in the fact of change to determine which it will be.

A series which is not temporal has no direction of its own, though it has an order. If we keep to the series of the natural numbers, we cannot put 17 between 21 and 26. But we keep to the series, whether we go from 17, through 21, to 26, or whether we go from 26, through 21, to 17. The first direction seems the more natural to us, because this series has only one end, and it is generally more convenient to have that end as a beginning than as a termination. But we equally keep to the series in counting backward.

In order to account for the possibility of real, unidirectional change (i.e. time), then, McTaggart argues the C-series must be combined with the A-series. Why not the B-series? Only A-series facts change, so only an A-theorist can account for change. This point is disputed by B-theorists, a point I may address in a future post since I would consider myself a B-theorist, but for now it is sufficient to note that McTaggart believed the A-series to be more fundamental than the B-series in that while we require the ability to temporally relate events by mean of both series (assuming time is real), the combination of the A-series and C-series can give us the B-series whereas a combination of a B-series and a C-series wouldn’t be able to give us the A-series.

With this groundwork, McTaggart has set up all the elements needed in order to prove that time is unreal: time is unidirectional change, and the A-series in which events objectively flow from the future to the present to the past is necessary in order for time to be real rather than a fictional creation of consciousness. Enter McTaggart’s Paradox:

Past, present, and future are incompatible determinations. Every event must be one or the other, but no event can be more than one. This is essential to the meaning of the terms. And, if it were not so, the A series would be insufficient to give us, in combination with the C series, the result of time. For time, as we have seen, involves change, and the only change we can get is from future to present, and from present to past.

The characteristics, therefore, are incompatible. But every event has them all. If M is past, it has been present and future. If it is future, it will be present and past. If it is present, it has been future and will be past. Thus all the three incompatible terms are predicable of each event which is obviously inconsistent with their being incompatible, and inconsistent with their producing change.

It may seem that this can easily be explained. Indeed it has been impossible to state the difficulty without almost giving the explanation, since our language has verb-forms for the past, present, and future, but no form that is common to all three. It is never true, the answer will run, that M is present, past and future. It is present, will be past, and has been future. Or it is past, and has been future and present, or again is future and will be present and past. The characteristics are only incompatible when they are simultaneous, and there is no contradiction to this in the fact that each term has all of them successively.

But this explanation involves a vicious circle. For it assumes the existence of time in order to account for the way in which moments are past, present and future. Time then must be pre-supposed to account for the A series. But we have already seen that the A series has to be assumed in order to account for time. Accordingly the A series has to be pre-supposed in order to account for the A series. And this is clearly a vicious circle.

What we have done is this -- to meet the difficulty that my writing of this article has the characteristics of past, present and future, we say that it is present, has been future, and will be past. But "has been" is only distinguished from "is" by being existence in the past and not in the present, and "will be" is only distinguished from both by being existence in the future. Thus our statement comes to this -- that the event in question is present in the present, future in the past, past in the future. And it is clear that there is a vicious circle if we endeavour to assign the characteristics of present, future and past by the criterion of the characteristics of present, past and future.

The difficulty may be put in another way, in which the fallacy will exhibit itself rather as a vicious infinite series than as a vicious circle. If we avoid the incompatibility of the three characteristics by asserting that M is present, has been future, and will be past, we are constructing a second A series, within which the first falls, in the same way in which events fall within the first. It may be doubted whether any intelligible meaning can be given to the assertion that time is in time. But, in any case, the second A series will suffer from the same difficulty as the first, which can only be removed by placing it inside a third A series. The same principle will place the third inside a fourth, and so on without end. You can never get rid of the contradiction, for, by the act of removing it from what is to be explained, you produce it over again in the explanation. And so the explanation is invalid.

Thus a contradiction arises if the A series is asserted of reality when the A series is taken as a series of relations. Could it be taken as a series of qualities, and would this give us a better result? Are there three qualities -- futurity, presentness, and pastness, and are events continually changing the first for the second, and the second for the third?

It seems to me that there is very little to be said for the view that the changes of the A series are changes of qualities. No doubt my anticipation of an experience M, the experience itself, and the memory of the experience are three states which have different qualities. But it is not the future M, the present M, and the past M, which have these three different qualities. The qualities are possessed by three distinct events -- the anticipation of M, the experience M itself, and the memory of M, each of which is in turn future, present, and past. Thus this gives no support to the view that the changes of the A series are changes of qualities.

But we need not go further into this question. If the characteristics of the A series were qualities, the same difficulty would arise as if they were relations. For, as before, they are not compatible, and, as before, every event has all of them. This can only be explained, as before, by saying that each event has them successively. And thus the same fallacy would have been committed as in the previous case.

We have come then to the conclusion that the application of the A series to reality involves a contradiction, and that consequently the A series cannot be true of reality. And, since time involves the A series, it follows that time cannot be true of reality. Whenever we judge anything to exist in time, we are in error. And whenever we perceive anything as existing in time -- which is the only way in which we ever do perceive things -- we are perceiving it more or less as it really is not.

Andrew Turner summarizes McTaggart’s reasons for stating the A-theorist cannot consistently parry the charge that any event which has one temporal property like “past,” “present,” or “future” must have the other two (unless that event is the first or last moment in time, in which case it would still have two incompatible properties):

The ‘vicious circle’ argument: time is assumed to explain why ‘past,’ ‘present,’ and ‘future’ do not apply simultaneously.

The vicious series argument: a second time series has been introduced to separate these terms; but to separate these terms within this second series we need to introduce a third time series and so on. (link)

I found vicious circle argument is easier to follow than the vicious series argument (see McTaggart’s paragraphs 3-4 above). Recall that the A-series is supposed to explain how time is possible. But when the A-theorist is accused of saying that events are past, present, and future – which is inconsistent – he resorts to saying that no event is past, present, and future at the same time. The problem is that one cannot benignly appeal to time in order to account for the alleged A-series inconsistency if A-series is itself what is supposed to account for time.

I think the vicious series objection to the A-series is best presented by Michael Dummett (link). If we suppose that every event has more complex A-times than ‘past,’ ‘present,’ and ‘future’ which supposedly resolve the paradox, because each phase of complex A-times has two or more mutually exclusive properties which are applicable to the event, there is no stage at which the A-theorist can escape the paradox. For example, if we say that an event ‘will be past,’ ‘is present,’ and ‘was future,’ there is no contradiction. Here we have constructed a sort of second-level A-series. But this complex A-series implies other complex A-times such as ‘has been past,’ ‘has been present,’ ‘is past,’ ‘is future,’ ‘will be present,’ and ‘will be future.’ And McTaggart will argue that as in the first level, any event that has one of these properties has all of them. That is, any event is {past, present, future} in the {past, present, future}. Instead of three A-times, there are now nine; but some of these A-times are contradictory, so that these are predicated of events does not resolve the paradox but just pushes it to another stage. Obviously, an event cannot consistently be referred to as, for example, ‘is [now] present,’ ‘is [now] past,’ and ‘is [now] future.’ The A-theorist will say these are not properties possessed at the same time. But in so doing, he will merely be generating 27 complex A-times instead of 9 or 3. And since at no stage will the paradox be resolved – since several of these A-times would be contradictory if predicated of any single event – a vicious infinite regress is the result.

Prominent A-theorists have recognized that this paradox presents a real challenge and responded accordingly; viz. by denying that the past and future are real. William Lane Craig and Quentin Smith, among others, have accepted presentism in part to attempt to block the thrust of McTaggart’s Paradox. Presentism denies the reality or existence of the ‘past’ and ‘future.’ A-theorists like Craig find experiences of an objective ‘present’ to be plausible and intuitive, warranting the defense of the A-series to such a purist extremity. But sometimes our intuitions, upon more rigorous examination, contradict one another. Paul Helm, in Time and time again: two volumes by William Lane Craig, finds this to be the case with the implications of accepting the “purist” A-theorist’s account of time:

By contrast Craig believes that A-theory presentism can handle change, since it takes the notion of having a property to be a present-tense notion. Any object only exists in the present, so the question of its possessing different properties at different times does not arise. Lewis claims that this proposed solution rejects the very idea of persistence (B, 192), but Craig, in responding that on the A-theory an object can be said to exist at times other than the present, appears to concede what is distinctive about presentism. If the A-theorist affirms chronal realism, it concedes its position. If it does not, where is persistence through time? On responsibility, one might ask about the reasonableness of holding someone responsible for what a person who no longer exists did. Is this not counterintuitive too? Why should I be responsible for the debts arising from spendthrift actions which no longer exist, whether these are the actions of my great-grandfather or of an earlier present me?

Furthermore, B-theorists have argued that presentist ontology either fails to provide truthmakers for past and future tense events or wind up caught in McTaggart’s paradox (link, pg. 101ff. and 160ff.); link, pg. 66ff.). Essentially, if the past and future aren’t real, how can we truly speak about them? Or if we can truly speak about them and in light of the idea that temporal becoming requires something other than the present from which a thing has become, how is it that they aren’t real and thus can avoid McTaggart’s Paradox? Especially in Craig’s case, these questions seem similar to those presented in the grounding objection to Molinism.

As for the theistic implications of a B-theory of time, which I would not push has been demonstrated in this modest post – though I believe it does at least put the onus on the A-theorist to explain how his position could be consistent – what it would do is establish that God’s knowledge is unchanging. It would not mean that God is Himself necessarily outside time. A B-theoretic would be a necessary but insufficient condition for divine timelessness. For instance, several B-theorists like Helm and Mellor believe causation is what can account for uni-directional change along the B-series. Causes are earlier than effects. But God is a cause of all things, in which case God could be in time – He or His creative activity would be the earliest of all events – unless further qualified in some respect such as by distinguishing between ultimate and secondary causation (cf. here).

While I haven’t satisfactorily related the philosophy of time to issues of divine timelessness, eternal generation and procession, the incarnation, and our own experience, then, I believe I’ve made some headway in understanding what time itself is and how it can accurately be modeled.

Temporal Indexicals

In my recent post discussing time, I mentioned the difference between the A-series view of time and B-series view of time is essentially that the former think tensed sentences cannot mean the same thing as tenseless sentences.

But if one is a B-series theorist, why even retain tensed sentences? Suppose the B-series theorist is correct in asserting that, say, present-tensed sentences are true only if when they are uttered, they mean to describe an event which occurs simultaneous with their utterance. Why not simply utter tenseless statements?

Another of Helm's chapters in Eternal God, The Two Standpoints, is summarized in God and Time: Four Views (cf. pgs. 55-59, 79-84, 89-91), can be read here. In it, he provides an explanation by showing that

...the events of the created world are creased as a B-series for God, but are capable of being identified indexically for those who are in time, and who need to negotiate efficiently through the temporal series... (Eternal God, pg. 284)

Helm on Divine Freedom

Every so often, I come across a book that confirms an idea I arrived at independently, which is probably why I enjoyed Helm’s chapter on Divine Freedom in his Eternal God as much as I did. When I wrote this post several months ago, I wasn’t aware that Helm had written such strikingly similar arguments. Since he answers a few objections to the idea God’s choice to instantiate this world was necessary which, at the time, I had not considered, I thought I would post them. But firstly, here is how he frames the discussion:

Granted that no one or nothing could coerce such a choice, and that all such choices would be the product of God’s supremely excellent nature, is an eternal God free to choose between or among alternative possible outcomes? And if he is not free to choose between such outcomes does this matter? …does it make sense to suppose that there are alternative equally optimific (or equally reasonable in some other way) outcomes between which God may choose? If not, does this matter? (pg. 172)

Why are these questions important? Well, how one answers them will indicate what position he would hold on divine timelessness, determinism, omniscience, and, by extension, broader topics like epistemology and soteriology. Throughout his chapter, Helm chiefly relies on the first reason I provided in my post for believing that God’s instantiation of this world was necessary (or as Helm will put it, that God “had to” choose what He did); viz. that any reason for God’s choosing to instantiate a possible world implies it:

If God is supremely good then he could only choose those possible outcomes, instantiate those possible worlds, which are consistent with his having this character, since to act inconsistently is a defect which God could not have. And since God is supremely good it must be supposed that God chooses from all possible worlds that world which is the best, the best of all possible worlds, since to suppose that he might choose a world which was less than the best is to suppose that he might do something which was inconsistent with his supremely good nature. (pg. 172)

So God’s choice of the universe may be contingent in the sense that there are coherent alternative universes which God is powerful enough to have instantiated had he possessed an adequate reason to do so. This argument does not depend on the idea of God choosing between equally optimific outcomes, which would appear to make God’s instantiation of any universe an act of pure reasonless will. Rather the argument is that God’s freedom consists in the rationality of his choice, in his having a good reason for what he instantiates, not in his having no reason. (pg. 178)

Elsewhere, Helm states God can also be said to be free “because he acts in accordance with his supremely excellent nature without coercion or hindrance” (pg. 174). On the same page, he knocks down the following argument:

…the further objection that in choosing God is somehow constricted or constrained in his freedom is a curious one. There seems to be a species of metaphysical delusion at work in the advancing of such an objection. For the objection supposes that it would be some sort of disability to have a supremely wise and good nature and to ‘have to’ act in accordance with it. How much finer and freer, the objection implies, to have a nature which would allow the choosing of what is vile and wretched!

With all this said, I would like to make one clarification to something Helm says about the implications of multiple “optimific” worlds:

If we suppose that [God’s actualizing one of a number of co-optimific goals] makes sense, on what grounds could God decide in favour of one rather than another? Clearly, not by reference to their character. There seem to be two alternatives; either he chooses on the basis of some accidental feature of one alternative lacked by all the others, a feature not related to optimificity, or he chooses as a result of pure whimsy. Neither of these alternatives is very appealing. (pg. 180)

While it is to Helm’s credit that he finds neither appealing, I would and have argued they are not really alternatives at all; in both cases God would choose “as a result of pure whimsy.” What I mean is that if the “accidental feature” according to which God chose to instantiate this world is appealed to as a reason for God’s choice, then the feature turns out to be not so accidental after all. It’s essential, as, in fact, it would set this world apart as that so-called possible world which is most optimific. But in this case, we are back to the supposition that there is only one optimific world, a world which God “had to” instantiate. On the other hand, if the “accidental feature” does not function as a reason for God’s choice – that is, if it wasn’t necessary for God to have chosen this world for the reason that said feature was exclusive to it – then actually, this is no different than the position that God’s choice was arbitrary.

Helm summarizes the chapter thus far very well when he writes:

So far I have defended the contingency of the universe on the grounds that it is the outcome of God’s reasonable choice, against the view of Aquinas, recently endorsed by Stump and Kretzmann, that contingency results from choice among equally optimific outcomes.

But did not God have to choose reasonably? And if he did does this not put paid to his freedom and to the universe’s contingency? In a sense, yes. But the language ofhaving to does not imply constraint in this case. God had to because of who he is and that he did choose is the ultimate explanation of what takes place. Thus to say that God had to is to say that no further explanation of what takes place is possible than that it seemed good to the eternal God that these things should be so. (pg. 181)

Helm notes that this position is not Spinozan, because Spinoza would have said that what exists is “not as the outcome of a divine choice…” (pg. 183), essentially because “Spinoza denies both intelligence and will to God…” (pg. 182). Helm also denies Spinoza’s “metaphysical monism” (cf. pgs. 180, 185-186) and then provides another quick summary of where we stand at this point in the chapter:

The power that creatures have is derived from God, but it is not immediately from God. According to theism I write these words as a result of physical and mental powers given and maintained by God. But this does not imply that it is God who is writing these words…

So far we have maintained that the actual universe is contingent; that God chooses it in accordance with his own nature, and not because it is one of a number of equally optimific alternatives; and that this is a markedly different position from that of Spinoza. (pg. 186)

Now, in the comment section of my post on the necessity of this world, it was argued that such would make creation consubstantial with God. Helm replies:

Certainly the idea of the universe is in the mind of God. But to suppose that the creation is a whole or a part of God would be to suppose that to talk about creation is to talk about God. But this is manifestly unsatisfactory. If Jones disobeys God there are two individuals related. To suppose that in such a situation God really disobeys himself, or that the disobedience is only apparent, would be to maintain something altogether different.

So there is a sense in which a theist (as opposed to a Spinozist) holds that the universe is necessary in only a qualified sense. For according to theism the universe comes about as a result of God’s will, the will of an agent, though an agent who is not, and necessarily not, ever undecided what to do. God is necessarily good, but he is not necessarily good as a result of a decision or an act. The necessary goodness of God is not the result of God’s agency. (pg. 187)

The reply to this objection also affords Helm to finish his chapter with a fine answer to the objection that God is not self-sufficient if he “had to” create as He did:

If God is self-sufficient does he need to create? In one sense, obviously not. If a country is self-sufficient it does not need to import goods. But an individual may be self-sufficient in the sense that nothing else is necessary for that individual’s existence and yet he may wish to act or communicate himself, though not because he has a psychological need or deficiency, or some other defect of existence or character such that he has to communicate or create. To want to do something may be a sign not of weakness by of strength, not of deficiency but of fullness. So that it seems perfectly consistent with the fact that God does not need anything that he nevertheless wishes to have other beings and creates in accordance with these wishes. And it would be a perverse piece of argumentation which attempted to qualify this by saying, ‘Ah, yes, but this means that God needs to wish to create.’ This is rather like the claim that all human actions are selfish. There is a sense, a perfectly trivial sense, in which all human actions are selfish, in the sense that all such action is the action of the self who performs it. But there is a non-trivial sense in which what a person does is selfish because it is at the expense of the legitimate interests of others. In the same way there is a trivial sense in which it might be said, from the very fact that God has created the universe and you and me in it, that God needs you and me. Otherwise why would he have created us? But there is another sense in which he clearly did not need you and me, in the sense in which neither you nor I are necessary for God’s being God. We may be pretty important people but it would be taking things a bit too far to suppose that our non-existence would result in God’s non-existence as well. Although the language may seem rather extravagant to our ears, Jonathan Edwards is expressing a perfectly consistent and intelligible position when he writes that ‘a disposition in God, as an original property of his nature, to an emanation of his own infinite fullness, was what excited him to create the world’. (pgs. 193-194)

Creation is metaphysically contingent on God, not the other way around. Who God is is not derived from but is rather the precondition for creation. That God had to create or that God created necessarily is not to be explained in terms external to God but rather in terms of who God is or, equivalently, that it was according to His good pleasure to create. And that is just natural: Jonathan Edwards also correctly noted that individuals choose what which they most strongly desire or please. That such would apply to God as well as men does not suggest God is not meaningfully free, nor is it not a blurring of the Creator-creature distinction: “It is perfectly consistent with the basic theistic distinction between the creator and the creature to suppose that the actual universe should be the only possible universe” (pg. 188). Just the opposite: it is a stamp of reassurance that while rationally independent, God is personal rather than some Spinozan, abstract principle: “What God actualizes in timeless eternal fashion is not by logic but by his own nature” (pg. 187). In our creaturely capacity, we only know what God reveals to us. Hence, it may be that we cannot understand why no other world was possible. But that doesn’t imply there is no answer or that we cannot learn the answer:

About many of such possibilities regarding the future we are now able to say that for all we know they may come to pass. They represent present epistemic possibilities and logical possibilities. But if we were to know everything, or more than we do, then we would see that these possibilities are only abstract. They do not represent real possibilities and never did. The thought that they did was the product of our ignorance. (pgs. 188-189)

I appreciate Helm’s book as a whole, but this chapter was genius. He makes many other observations in it, in particular by relating each of these points to time[lessness]. But that would go beyond the scope of this post.

A tentative philosophy of time

The philosophy of time is a very complex subject. I've put further study of it on hold since I started preparing for a few essay contests on Ayn Rand's philosophy, but a friend recently asked me some questions about it, and I think the following summary I provided is a good indication of where I stand.

While I'm still open to the idea that God is not timeless, the primary problem I have with it is that it seems to be incompatible with even a weak understanding of divine immutability, a doctrine I think is Scripturally supported.

If God is temporal, then an A-series theory of time - which I will explain shortly - is true, and His knowledge literally changes. For example, the proposition "x will occur" would be true until x occurs in time, after which it would be false - so God would know "x will occur" at one point in time but not another. If God's knowledge changes, God changes.

I've tried to construct an argument that God could not be omniscient unless He is timeless, but to be honest, I haven't thought of one which holds. Of course, the meaning of "omniscience" would have to be qualified if God is temporal - it would have to mean something like "knowledge of all propositions which are now true" rather than simply "knowledge of all true propositions[, each of which are unchangingly true]" - but so long as one accepts determinism, God could control under what conditions His knowledge changes.

That's one reason I didn't really like the TF article on time. Parkinson didn't discuss an A-series vs. a B-series view of time, eternal creation, the meaning of omniscience, etc. The discussion is more complicated than "if God's knowledge changes then God is not omniscient," for why couldn't it be the case that God's knowledge changes in accordance with divinely predetermined changes?

Parkinson also doesn't seem to realize omnitemporality traditionally refers to the view that God has an infinitely extended past and future, or at least that He is at all times (contrary to atemporality). He can define omnitemporality in a certain way to make it compatible with Calvinism if he likes, but to me it seems like trying to define free will similarly - it's more likely to confuse than help.

Anyways, for "now," the best argument for divine timelessness I can think of is the argument that it follows from explicit Scriptural testimony of divine immutability. There do appear to be good philosophical arguments against an A-series view of time, however (e.g. McTaggart's paradox), which could also be used as arguments for divine timelessness. I haven't studied those enough to cite them as support for divine timelessness, though.

As for a defense of divine timelessness from counter-arguments, some language used to describe God is anthropomorphic, figures of speech not literally true. This includes words such as "past," "present," "now," and "future." Temporal events are not literally related this way. The A-series view of time says they are and that there is an objective "now." A simple way of thinking about it is to say that the A-series view of time regards some language as irreducibly tensed. So, for instance, a proposition like "I am writing this post now" cannot be reduced to "I write this sentence at 10:51 pm, June 16, 2012." Both may be true, A-series theorists say, but what they each mean is different.

A B-theory view of time, on the other hand, believes events are related by means other than tensed language. Or, at least, any tensed sentence expresses a tenseless meaning (hence, tensed language is non-literal). So in place of words like "past," "present," "now," ""future," yesterday," "today," "tomorrow," "was," will," "did," "had," etc., B-series theorists substitute words like "earlier than," "simultaneous with," and "later than." These substitutes are not tensed phrases. "I write this sentence simultaneous with Jodie driving a car, you sleeping, etc." is not tensed. "I write this sentence later than my reading of your post" is not tensed. No time has a privileged status of "now" or "present" on a B-series view of time. It rather relates events in the direction of logical causation. An event is earlier than another because the earlier event causes the latter event. Events may be caused by other events without its being necessary that they could have been, at some point, modified by the word "now."

If God is timeless and omniscient, a B-series view of time must be true. Otherwise, propositions describing events would be tensed, God would have to know those propositions, and God's knowledge of tensed propositions would necessitate and A-series view of time. This would lead to divine mutability, as shown earlier, which I find problematic.

How does a B-series view of time square with creation? Paul Helm theorizes an "eternal creation." To be eternal is simply to be atemporal or timeless. What does this mean? Well, A and B-series views of time define time in terms of the tensed or tenseless relations events possess (e.g. past/present/future vs. earlier/simultaneous/later). So the point is that God does not acquire [new] relations if He is timeless. What relation[s] God has to the universe, then, must be timeless - that is, on the B-series view of time, these relations cannot be earlier than, simultaneous with, or later than any other events.

Hence, as Helm puts it, God does not will "in" time but rather "with" time; He eternally or timelessly decrees {event A at time t1, B at t2, etc.}. He does not eternally decree {to will event A at time t1, to will B at t2, etc.}. God's will is eternal - it does not occur in time. So the whole temporal order is timeless, though the events in this order are temporal because of their tenseless yet temporal relations with each other (earlier/simultaneous/later).

In my own words, I think of the whole temporal order - the entire B-series - as a set: {A, B, C...}. A is the earliest event (or events) within this order, B is the next, and so on. A causes B, B causes C, and so on. While the entire set is eternally or timelessly created - hence God stands in static relationship to it and the events of the set, none of which possesses the tensed distinction of being "the present" - the set itself is not earlier/simultaneous/later than any other event, for there is no other event to which the creation of the temporal order could stand in [temporal] relation. However, A, B, C, etc. do stand in relation to each other in such a way, which is why we can say such events occur in time. They are earlier/simultaneous/later with respect to each other.

Thus, since there is no earlier event, the creation of the temporal order (the entire B-series set of events) is eternal. The entire created order is metaphysically dependent upon God's will, however (by definition, since created), so that creation would be eternal does not empty the word of its meaning.

If anyone is finding this difficult to understand, don't feel bad. I've read Craig's Time and Eternity (which was very helpful in introducing the material and written by an A-series theorist) Helm's Eternal God, and God and Time: Four Views, and I still have a hard time keeping it straight. I would recommend reading these books. Helm's summary view presented in God and Time: Four Views is viewable on googlebooks. It seems that he updated his views in Eternal God, though (e.g. possible worlds).