I'm glad that God melted your heart of stone.

My tentative inclination is to suspect that if X is a necessary effect of Y and Y had no beginning, then neither did X. But let’s suppose that you are right: e.g., if God necessarily exists and necessarily creates Adam, it could be that God necessarily creates Adom at a particular time. In that case, we’d say that Adam had a beginning despite his being necessarily existent. That’s a nice case, but I don’t see how it’s incompatible with my account of “begins to exist”, for that account allows that Adam began to exist due to his existence not being included in a state that isn’t part of a time. I suppose that’s your point–it’s the timelessness that makes the difference.

This leads us to the worry that no person could be timeless–a worry I’m sympathetic with, depending upon how “timelessness” is understood. I have two reply thoughts:

1. If a timeless person is not possible, then any uncreated necessarily existing person (e.g., God) would be sempiternal (eternal but essentially temporal). Thus, if a necessary divine person is possible, then (assuming S5) no possible world is equiped with a first moment. This goes back to the point that one might well consider the initial feeling that a beginning to all persons is possible to be epistemically cancelled by an initial feeling that a necessary divine person is possible. But perhaps it strikes you as more obvious that there could be a first moment than that there could be a necessary divine person.

2. I think of “timelessness” as a changeless state that isn’t moving toward or from another state (to put it loosely). (Perhaps it would be better to talk in terms of dynamic verses static states rather than “temporal” verses “atemporal” states.) In the Adam case, his very first state counts as “temporal” because it comes from a prior state in which he does not exist. The first state of the universe counts as temporal if it started out in transition to another state. But imagine a world in which there is just a single red ball that has no dymanic properties at all (such as expanding, moving, etc.). We might call it “timeless.” Suppose that it can spontaneously split into two pieces and that it in fact does so. I would say that this splitting event marks the beginning of “time” (or at least change) and so the ball now exists in time, though we may call its first state “timeless.” (Note: the ball itself didn’t begin to exist even though there is an earliest moment of time at which it exists.) This situation doesn’t strike me as problematic “time”-wise. Would things be problematic if instead of the ball, there was a divine person who spontaneously decided to create things, thereby marking the beginning of time? It’s difficult for me to see a problem with that, but these are murcky matters and others may see things differently (which is why the argument is, in principle, defeasible.)

My tentative inclination is to suspect that if X is a necessary effect of Y and Y had no beginning, then neither did X. But let’s suppose that you are right: e.g., if God necessarily exists and necessarily creates Adam, it could be that God necessarily creates Adom at a particular time. In that case, we’d say that Adam had a beginning despite his being necessarily existent. That’s a nice case, but I don’t see how it’s incompatible with my account of “begins to exist”, for that account allows that Adam began to exist due to his existence not being included in a state that isn’t part of a time. I suppose that’s your point–it’s the timelessness that makes the difference.

This leads us to the worry that no person could be timeless–a worry I’m sympathetic with, depending upon how “timelessness” is understood. I have two reply thoughts:

1. If a timeless person is not possible, then any uncreated necessarily existing person (e.g., God) would be sempiternal (eternal but essentially temporal). Thus, if a necessary divine person is possible, then (assuming S5) no possible world is equiped with a first moment. This goes back to the point that one might well consider the initial feeling that a beginning to all persons is possible to be epistemically cancelled by an initial feeling that a necessary divine person is possible. But perhaps it strikes you as more obvious that there could be a first moment than that there could be a necessary divine person.

2. I think of “timelessness” as a changeless state that isn’t moving toward or from another state (to put it loosely). (Perhaps it would be better to talk in terms of dynamic verses static states rather than “temporal” verses “atemporal” states.) In the Adam case, his very first state counts as “temporal” because it comes from a prior state in which he does not exist. The first state of the universe counts as temporal if it started out in transition to another state. But imagine a world in which there is just a single red ball that has no dymanic properties at all (such as expanding, moving, etc.). We might call it “timeless.” Suppose that it can spontaneously split into two pieces and that it in fact does so. I would say that this splitting event marks the beginning of “time” (or at least change) and so the ball now exists in time, though we may call its first state “timeless.” (Note: the ball itself didn’t begin to exist even though there is an earliest moment of time at which it exists.) This situation doesn’t strike me as problematic “time”-wise. Would things be problematic if instead of the ball, there was a divine person who spontaneously decided to create things, thereby marking the beginning of time? It’s difficult for me to see a problem with that, but these are murcky matters and others may see things differently (which is why the argument is, in principle, defeasible.)

Regardless, I find accounts on which God is able to act within time but is not himself temporally located difficult to understand. Indeed, I find it difficult to understand how any sort of person could possibly exist outside of time. So I don't have an intuition that there's a non-temporal state that God belongs to even possibly. So I don't feel I have a defeater to my intuition that God (or any other person) could begin to exist. Therefore, I could run the property "is a person" through (1) to get something capable of causing persons (including God) to begin to exist. Maybe your intuitions diverge from mine, though. Hence it seems this argument turns on the metaphysics of persons.

Regardless, I find accounts on which God is able to act within time but is not himself temporally located difficult to understand. Indeed, I find it difficult to understand how any sort of person could possibly exist outside of time. So I don't have an intuition that there's a non-temporal state that God belongs to even possibly. So I don't feel I have a defeater to my intuition that God (or any other person) could begin to exist. Therefore, I could run the property "is a person" through (1) to get something capable of causing persons (including God) to begin to exist. Maybe your intuitions diverge from mine, though. Hence it seems this argument turns on the metaphysics of persons.

I actually don't have an analysis of 'begins to be' in terms of times, as I prefer to analyze times in terms of 'begins to be' (or 'comes to be'). If pressed, though, I might offer this translation: 'x began to be exemplified' = 'there is a time t, such that (i) t "includes" x's being exemplified; (ii) t is the earliest time; (iii) there is no state S, such that S "includes" x's being exemplified and S is not part of a time. This account falls out of my present understanding of times as transitions between states. Thus, I can say that being the number 5 didn't begin to be exemplified (if it is necessarily existent) because its being exemplified is included in a state that isn't itself part of a time.

But even if we stick with your definition, that only suggests, I think, that we need to adjust the language of the causal principle so that it doesn't imply that necessary things, like the number 5, could have a cause if time were finite. Does that seem right?

I actually don't have an analysis of 'begins to be' in terms of times, as I prefer to analyze times in terms of 'begins to be' (or 'comes to be'). If pressed, though, I might offer this translation: 'x began to be exemplified' = 'there is a time t, such that (i) t "includes" x's being exemplified; (ii) t is the earliest time; (iii) there is no state S, such that S "includes" x's being exemplified and S is not part of a time. This account falls out of my present understanding of times as transitions between states. Thus, I can say that being the number 5 didn't begin to be exemplified (if it is necessarily existent) because its being exemplified is included in a state that isn't itself part of a time.

But even if we stick with your definition, that only suggests, I think, that we need to adjust the language of the causal principle so that it doesn't imply that necessary things, like the number 5, could have a cause if time were finite. Does that seem right?