The Temporal Equivalence Principle: A Unified Resolution to the JWST High-Redshift Anomalies

JWST has revealed a set of high-redshift anomalies that appear disparate in detail but share a common structure: star formation efficiencies exceeding LambdaCDM limits, overmassive black holes, and anomalous stellar-to-dynamical mass ratios all appear preferentially in the deepest gravitational potentials. This work tests whether that common pattern can arise from a single violation of the isochrony axiom. In the Temporal Equivalence Principle (TEP), a chameleon-screened scalar-tensor theory, proper time depends on environment in unscreened halos. Using the external Cepheid prior alpha₀ = 0. 58 +/- 0. 16 with no JWST retuning, the framework fully resolves the Red Monster efficiency excess and provides a physical route to differential black-hole growth in Little Red Dots. The strongest current direct test is a kinematic comparison using the JWST-SUSPENSE survey of massive quiescent galaxies at z = 1. 2-2. 3 (N = 15). A fundamental vulnerability of evaluating TEP photometrically is mass-proxy circularity, as Gammaₜ depends on the gravitational potential. By employing dynamically measured masses (Mdyn) from stellar velocity dispersions and spectral ages derived from absorption features, the SUSPENSE analysis tests a dynamical-potential predictor and photometric stellar mass side by side. The central comparison shows that Gammaₜ predicts spectral age more strongly than stellar mass, yielding rho (Age, Gammaₜ | z) = +0. 733 (p = 1. 9 x 10^-3) compared to rho (Age, M_* | z) = +0. 493 (p = 0. 062). Under joint control of the competing predictor and redshift, Gammaₜ retains a residual association with age, rho (Age, Gammaₜ | M_*, z) = +0. 624 (p = 0. 0129), whereas stellar mass contributes no residual signal once Gammaₜ is controlled, rho (Age, M_* | Gammaₜ, z) = -0. 036 (p = 0. 898). Propagating the published asymmetric uncertainties for all 15 galaxies preserves a positive Gammaₜ residual in 99. 7 percent of Monte Carlo draws. This one-sided residual structure supports the interpretation that galaxy evolution scales more closely with gravitational potential depth than with baryonic mass alone, and it materially narrows the photometric circularity objection. The primary large-sample JWST evidence comes from the photometric anomalies that motivated the theory, treated here as two primary empirical lines across three surveys (N = 4, 726). A key model-discriminating result is the Uniformity Paradox: dust and accelerated evolution switch on selectively with potential depth (rho = +0. 62 at z > 8). Any standard-physics explanation that adjusts a time-uniform ingredient, such as enhanced AGB yields, would predict dust to become broadly ubiquitous or to follow star formation, rather than tracking gravitational depth. The effective-time coordinate organizes this dust signal better than raw cosmic time, passing a dedicated validation battery with rho (tₑff, AV | tcosmic) = +0. 600 (p = 5. 0 x 10^-29). Similarly, the mass-sSFR relation at z > 7 shows a strong partial correlation with Gammaₜ (rho = -0. 49, p = 10^-18). The same mapping also relieves the benchmark stellar-mass-function and cosmic-SFRD excesses. Full CAMB Boltzmann integration remains consistent with Planck constraints (sigma₈ within 0. 1 sigma). The combination of the large-sample photometric lines, the direct kinematic comparison, and the structural necessity of the Uniformity Paradox supports TEP as the most coherent presently available explanation for the early-universe anomalies considered here. Website: https: //matthewsmawfield. github. io/TEP-JWST/Code Availability: https: //github. com/matthewsmawfield/TEP-JWST Keywords: Cosmology: early universe – Galaxies: high-redshift – Galaxies: evolution – Gravitation – Scalar-tensor theories – Infrared: galaxies