My question: What ‘changed’ so that the uncreated energy inactive at time T–n became active at time T? Either God changed it (the energy) or some other energy changed it. But if God changed it, then God can effect something that (from the perspective of imaginary time) he had not been effecting before. (That is to say, more accurately, that there was a first moment from which time begins in the order of creation, as it were. That is, if we were to “rewind” the videotape of creation, we would come to a frame before which there was no frame of creation. And yet, there could have been a frame. That “could have been” is what I mean by imaginary time. It was an order of existence in which God obtained but nothing created obtained.)
Now, this claim, this very simple claim, is that God exists without flux but that the flux (flow of time) did have a first “instant” before which it was not. This claim is what Thomas Aquinas claims. It is evident that this claim destroys the need for this putative uncreated energy. Why? Because it is a claim that God can exist without the world at T-n and the world can begin at T and that God does not change. If Gregory asserts this, this argument of his for the uncreated energy is destroyed.
OR God did not effect the activation of the uncreated energy. So, some other uncreated energy effected the change. But why did this other energy effect it at this very time? Either God made it effect it from not having made it effect it, or some other energy made it effect it from not having made it effect it. And why did this other energy do this at Time T–n? Because of some other energy? Or because of God?
Very clearly, Gregory’s argument is no argument at all. It implies an infinite regress in the upward direction, a regress not of movers related sequentially in time but of movers related simultaneously. And such a regress does not allow for any causal account of the change. Therefore, Gregory has solved nothing.
But he could simply claim, with Aquinas, that God effects something from not having effected it (the ‘not having’ being taken from the perspective of the flux of imaginary time) while not changing. This is indeed a very difficulty thing to fathom. But it is not a false solution.