ETERNITY
With respect to God, is a duration without beginning or end. As it is the attribute of human nature, it is a duration that has a beginning, but will never have an end. “It is a duration, ” says a lively writer, “that excludes all number and computation: days, and months, and years, yea, and ages, are lost in it, like drops in the ocean! Millions of millions of years, as many years as there are sands on the sea-shore, or particles of dust in the globe of the earth, and those multiplied to the highest reach of number, all these are nothing to eternity. They do not bear the least imaginable proportion to it; for these will come to an end, as certainly as a day; but eternity will never, never, never, come to an end! It is a line without end! It is an ocean without a shore! Alas! what shall I say of it! it is an infinite, unknown something, that neither human thought can grasp, nor human language describe!” Orton on Eternity; Shower on ditto: Davis’s Sermons, ser. 11; Saurin’s Sermons, vol. 3: p. 370.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
eternity
Attribute of God expressing that He had no beginning and will have no end, i.e., He always was and always will be. The very essence of God demands His existence, and that there never was a possibility of His not being. Boetius defines eternity as the perennial, interminable, perfect possession of life in its fullest totality, always without beginning and without end. There is no succession of anything, succession belongs to time. God alone is eternal, there is in Him no past, no future, everything is the never beginning and never ending present.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Eternity
(aeternum, originally aeviternum, aionion, aeon — long).
Eternity is defined by Boetius (De Consol. Phil., V, vi) as “possession, without succession and perfect, of interminable life” (interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio). The definition, which was adopted by the Schoolmen, at least as applying to eternity properly so called, that of God, implies four things: that eternity is a life, without beginning or end, or succession, and of the most perfect kind. God not only is or exists, but lives. The notion of life, like all notions however abstract or spiritual, is, when applied to God, but analogous. He not only does not live precisely as anything else with which we are acquainted lives; He does not even exist as anything else exists. Our notions of life and existence are derived from creatures, in which life implies change, and existence is something added to essence, thus involving composition. In God there can be no composition or change or imperfection of any kind, but all is pure act or being. The agnostic, however, is not thereby justified in saying that we can know nothing and should predicate nothing of God. It is true that, however we conceive Him or in whatever terms we speak of Him, our ideas and terminology are utterly beneath and unworthy of Him. Yet, even while arguing in this way, the agnostic thinks and speaks of Him as really as we do; nor can he or we do otherwise, compelled as we are to trace things back to their first cause. Yielding to this necessity, we can but think and speak of Him in the highest and most spiritual terms known to us; not merely as existing, for instance, but as living; correcting at once, as far as we can, the form of our thought and predication, by adding that the Divine life is perfect, free from the least trace of defect. That is how and why we represent the Divine existence as a life. It is a life, moreover, not only without beginning or end but also without succession — tota simul, that is without past or future; a never-changing instant or “now”. It is not so difficult to form some faint notion of a duration which never began and shall never end. We hope that our own life shall be endless; and materialists have accustomed us to the notion of a series stretching backward without limit in time, to the notion of a material universe that never came into being but was always there. The Divine existence is that and much more; excluding all succession, past and future time-indeed all time, which is succession-and to be conceived as an ever-enduring and unchanging “now”.
In forming this notion of eternity it is well to think of the Divine immensity in its relation to space and extended things. One may conceive first a broken straight line — a line of separate dots; then a continuous line within two limits, beginning and end. The line can be, but is not, divided into parts, shorter lines or dots, and the whole is finite both ways. It is like and yet unlike a finite spirit; like, since it has no actual parts of divisions and is limited; yet unlike since it may be divided, whereas a spirit cannot be divided. Spirit exists whole and entire wherever it exists at all; and though it may fill the space occupied by a human body, let us say, it is whole and entire in every possible part of it; not quite unlike the continuous line. If we further think of the end or limits of the line as removed, of the earth’s axis, for instance, as extending indefinitely into space, the line is not only continuous or unbroken but infinite, without end or beginning, yet still divisible; like, but so unlike, the immensity of God. For God is a spirit, and as the human soul fills the space occupied by the body to which it is united, yet is whole and entire in every possible part of that space, so God fills all space whatsoever, extending without limit in all directions, and yet is whole and entire everywhere, in the smallest conceivable point, in the very loose or improper sense in which we may think of speak of God as being “whole.” Even the spatial relations of the soul to the body are coarse as compared to those which God’s existence bears to that of creatures and the spaces in which they exist or may exist. For however free from extension created spirits may be, they are not incapable of real internal change, real motion of some kind within themselves; whereas God, filling all space, is incapable of the least change or motion, but is so truly the same throughout that He is best conceived as an infinitely extended point, the same here, there, everywhere.
If, now, we apply to the time-line what we have been attempting in that of space, the infinite, unchangeable point which was immensity becomes eternity; not a real succession of separate acts or changes (which is known as “time”); nor even the continuous duration of a being which is changeless in its substance, however it may vary in its actions (which is what St. Thomas understands by an aevum); but an endless line of existence and action which not only is not actually interrupted, but is incapable of interruption or of the least change or movement whatsoever. And as, if one instant should pass away and another succeed, the present becoming past and the future present, there is necessarily a change or movement of instants; so, if we are not to be irreverent in our concept of God, but to represent Him as best we can, we must try to conceive Him as excluding all, even the least, change or succession; and his duration, consequently, as being without even a possible past or future, but a never beginning and a never-ending, absolutely unchangeable “now.” This is how eternity is presented in Catholic philosophy and theology. The notion is of special interest in helping us to realize, however, faintly, the relations of God to created things, especially with regard to His foreknowledge. In Him there is no before or after, and therefore no foreknowledge, objectively; the distinction which we are wont to draw between His knowledge of intelligence or science or prescience and His knowledge of vision is merely our way of representing things, natural enough to us, but not by any means objective or real in Him. There is no real objective difference between His intelligence and His vision, not between either of these and the Divine substance in which there is no possibility of difference or change. That infinitely perfect substantial intelligence, immense as it is eternal, and withal existing entire and immutable as an indivisible point in space and as an indivisible instant in time, is coextensive, in the sense of being intimately present, with the space-extension and the time-succession of all creatures; not beside them, nor parallel with them, nor before or after them; but present in and with them, sustaining them, co-operating with them, and therefore seeing — not foreseeing — what they may do at any particular point of the space-extension, or at any instant of the time-extension, in which they may exist or operate. God may be considered as an immovable point in the centre of a world which, whether as a more or less closely connected group of granulated individuals, or as an absolutely continuous ether mass, turns round Him as a sphere may be supposed to turn in all directions round its centre (St. Thomas, Cont. Gent., I, c. lxvi). The imagery, however, must be corrected by noting that while in the time-line God’s duration is an ever-enduring point or “now”, his immensity in the space-line is not at all like the centre of a circle or sphere; but is a point, rather, which is coextensive with, in the sense of being intimately present to, every other point, actual or possible, in the continuous or discontinuous mass that is supposed to move around Him.
Bearing this correcting notion well in mind, we may conceive Him as this immovable point in the centre of an ever-moving, though here and there continuous, circle or sphere. The space and time relations are constantly changing between Him and the moving things around Him, not through any change in Him, but only by reason of the constant change in them. In them there is before and after, but not in Him, Who is equally present to them all, no matter how or when they may have come into being, or how they may succeed one another in time or in space. Some of them are free acts; and almost from the time the human mind began to speculate on these questions, and wherever still there are any even rudimentary speculations, the question has arisen and does arise as to how an act can be free not to happen if, as we suppose, God’s absolutely infallible foresight saw from all eternity that it was to be. To this Catholic philosophy supplies the only answer which can be given; that it is not true to say that God either saw or foresaw anything, or that He will see it, but only that He sees it. And as my seeing you act does not interfere with your freedom of action, but I see you acting freely or necessarily, as the case may be, so God sees all finite things, quiescent or active, acting of necessity or freely, according to what may be objectively real, without in the least interfering thereby with the mode or equality of their existence or of their action. Here again, however, care must be taken not to conceive the Divine knowledge as being determined by what the finite may be or do; somewhat as we see things because the knowledge is borne in upon us from what we see. It is not from the infinite that God gets His knowledge, but from His own Divine essence, in which all things are represented or mirrored as they are, existing or merely possible, necessary or free. On this aspect of the question see GOD. When, therefore, one is asked or tempted to ask, what God did or where He was before time and place began, with the creation of the world, the answer must be a denial of the legitimacy of the supposition that He was “before”. It is only in relation to the finite and mutable that there can be a before and after. And when we say, that, as faith teaches, the world was created in time and was not from eternity, our meaning should not be that the existence of the Creator stretched back infinitely before He brought the world into being; but rather that while His existence remains an unchangeable present, without possibility of before or after, of change or succession, as regards itself, the succession outside the Divine existence, to each instant of which it corresponds as the centre does to any point in the circumference, had a beginning, and might have extended indefinitely further backward, without, however, escaping the omnipresence of the eternal “now” (See Billot, De Deo Uno et Trino, q. 10, p. 122).
So far for the strict or proper notion of eternity, as applying solely to the Divine existence. There is a wide or improper sense in which we are wont to represent as eternal what is merely endless succession in time, and this even though the time in question should have had a beginning, as when we speak of the reward of the good and the punishment of the wicked as eternal, meaning by eternity only time or succession without end or limit in the future. In the Apocalypse there is a well-known passage in which a great angel is represented as standing with one foot on sea and one on land, and swearing by Him that liveth forever that time shall be no more. Whatever the meaning of the oath may be, it has found an echo in our religious terminology, and we are wont to think and say that with death, and especially with the Last Judgment, time shall cease. The meaning is not that there will be no more succession of any kind; but that there will be not substantial change or corruption in what survives death, the soul; or in the body that shall have been raised from the dead; or in the heavens and earth as they shall be renewed after Christ’s second coming. There is, moreover, an implication or connotation of the doctrine that in the future life of souls, whether in heaven or in hell, succession will be accidental, the act in which their essential happiness or misery will consist being continuous and unbroken vision and love, or blinded wrong vision and hatred, of God. This kind of duration is in our ordinary language spoken of as life or death eternal, by a kind of participation, in a wide or improper sense, in the character of the Divine eternity (Billot, op. cit., 119). Questions of the greatest importance have been raised as to the possibility of an eternal world, in the sense of a world of matter, such as we know, having never had a beginning and therefore not needing a first cause; also as to the possibility of eternal creation, in the sense of a being, with or without succession, having had no beginning of existence and yet having been created by God (see CREATION). For other questions as to eternity see HEAVEN, HELL. “Eternal life” is a term sometimes applied to the state and life of grace, even before death; this being the initial stage or seed, as it were, or the never-ending life of bliss in heaven, which, by a species of metonymy, is regarded as being present in its first stage, that of grace. This, if we are true to ourselves and to God, is sure to pass into the second stage, the life eternal.
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The basis of all later treatment of the question of eternity is that of ST. THOMAS, I, Q. x. For a fuller exposition see SUAREZ, De Deo, I, iv; IDEM, Metaphysica, disp. l, ss. 4 sq.; LESSIUS, De perfectionibus divinis, IV. For the teaching of early non-Christian philosophers (PLATO, ARISTOTLE, and the NEO-PLATONISTS), as also of the FATHERS, see PETAVIUS, De Deo, III, iii, iv. In the same chapters he discusses the meaning of the term aevum. For the testimony of the FATHERS as to the possibility of creation from eternity, see PETAVIUS, op. cit., vi. Briefer expositions may be found in the ordinary handbooks of philosophy, on ontology and natural theology; also in the various treatises De Deo Uno.
WALTER MCDONALD Transcribed by Thomas M. Barrett Dedicated to Rev. Dale T. Waddill
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VCopyright © 1909 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, May 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
ETERNITY
Most people find it difficult to imagine eternity. This is largely because the only kind of existence they have so far experienced is that of a world where everything happens within a framework of time and distance that can be measured. God alone understands eternity fully, because he alone is eternal (1Ti 1:17). Human beings lives in a created order of which time is a part (Heb 1:2). Even the words they use to speak of eternity come from a world governed by time.
The meanings of words
When the Bible writers referred to eternity, they usually used the word for age. This was a word that denoted a length of time, without specifying its beginning or end. The writers used the word in relation to things that were very old or that would last for a very long time (Psa 24:7; Psa 125:1; Hab 3:6; Rom 16:25). Concerning the past, the word could mean a long time ago (Jos 24:2; Luk 1:70); concerning the future, it could mean endlessness (Dan 2:44; 2Pe 1:11). When they referred to immeasurable time, the writers may have used such expressions as to all ages or from age to age, which have been translated as from everlasting to everlasting and for ever and ever (Neh 9:5; Psa 21:4; Rom 1:25; Eph 3:21; Jud 1:25).
The writers used similar expressions when they spoke of God as the eternal one (1Ch 16:36; Psa 90:2; Psa 106:48). Divine actions are called eternal, or everlasting, because of the character of the eternal God from whom they originate. This applies to both salvation and judgment (Isa 45:17; Jud 1:7), to life and destruction (Joh 17:2; 2Th 1:9).
From a human standpoint, eternity is the age to come, in contrast to the present age (Mar 10:30; Eph 1:21). Eternal life, being the life of the age to come, is endless, because the age to come is endless. More importantly, it is life of a particular quality. It is a life that shares in some way the nature of God and that God gives through Jesus Christ (Joh 1:4; Joh 5:21; Joh 5:24; Joh 8:51; Joh 17:2-3; see LIFE, sub-heading Eternal life). Even in the present age, believers in Jesus Christ have the life of the age to come eternal life, the life of the kingdom of God (Mat 19:16; Mat 19:24; Joh 3:3; Joh 3:5; Joh 3:15; Col 1:13; see KINGDOM OF GOD).
Divine and human viewpoints
Jesus teaching concerning the nature of eternal life showed that it was more than merely life stretched out for ever. It was life of an entirely different order from the normal life of this world (Joh 4:14; Joh 6:51; Joh 6:63; Joh 17:3). Likewise eternity is not time stretched out for ever, but is something of an entirely different order. The realization of this helps to ease the difficulties that may arise in understanding Gods foreknowledge. God is not limited by time, and therefore he sees time differently from the way human beings see it (2Pe 3:8).
An illustration that may help is that of a rod suspended horizontally in mid-air in a room. The rod has a beginning and an end, and represents time. The room represents eternity (assuming now that its floor, ceiling and walls are removed and it extends endlessly in all directions). From any point in the room (i.e. eternity), a person can see the whole rod (i.e. time). Human beings, who live in time, might be likened to an ant moving along the rod. They have a record of what is past, they are conscious of what is present, but they do not know what lies ahead. God, from the viewpoint of eternity, sees the whole of time as eternally present before him. (See also TIME.)
It is therefore inadequate to think of Gods eternity solely as everlasting existence. God is not limited in any way. His characteristics and qualities are immeasurable in every aspect of his being (Deu 33:27; Psa 103:17; Psa 145:13; Isa 54:8; Rom 1:20; 1Ti 1:17; see GOD).
Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
Eternity
ETERNITY.There is no word either in OT Hebrew or in NT Greek corresponding to the abstract idea of eternity.
In Isa 57:15 both Authorized Version and Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 have the phrase the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity. Massoretic Text has , lit. dwelling for everthe thought of the writer being evidently the unchangeableness of God. probably comes nearest of all Hebrew words to express permanence. Originally it was a substantive connected with Assyr. [Note: Assyrian.] ad, meaning time, passing time, the present. But in OT it is used adverbially to express indefinite duration of time generally in the future. Its use is mainly poetical: of God (Isa 57:15), His law (Psa 19:9), His attributes (Psa 111:3; Psa 111:10). But it is found also in connexion with things whose existence in Hebrew thought would be limited, e.g. a kings life (Psa 21:6, Pro 29:14), the lip of truth (Pro 12:19).
A word of wider meaning and more general application is , connected with Assyr. [Note: Assyrian.] ullnu, meaning remote time. is frequently used of the fast-days (Isa 63:9; Isa 63:11, Mic 5:1; Mic 7:14 etc.), people (Isa 44:7, Jer 5:15), hills (Gen 49:26, Hab 3:6). It is also used, like , of God or His attributes as existing from the remote past (Psa 93:2; Psa 119:52, Isa 63:16; Isa 63:19) to the remote future (Psa 138:8, Jer 31:3, 1Ki 10:9), specially in the phrase from everlasting to everlasting (Psa 90:2; Psa 103:17, Neh 9:5 etc.). But in the case of also there are many places in OT where its meaning is obviously limited to the affairs and lives of human beings, e.g. of a slave (Deu 15:7, 1Sa 27:12), of careless dwellers (Psa 73:12), and in the familiar phrase, May the king live for ever (1Ki 1:31, Neh 2:3). Often, however, the word is used to indicate the writers hope or belief that a certain state of good [e.g. Gods covenant (Gen 9:16), or His promises (Isa 40:8), or His relations to His people (Psa 45:17; Psa 85:8, etc.)], may continue indefinitely. Particularly is this true of the Messianic hope (Isa 9:6, Psa 110:4; Psa 45:3). Sometimes this thought of permanence is emphasized by the use of the plural (Isa 26:4; Isa 45:17, Dan 9:24). In Ecc 3:11, a very difficult passage, (Revised Version margin) gives as an alternative rendering of eternity.
The other Hebrew phrases worthy of note are perpetuity in the frequent phrase for ever (Isa 13:20; Isa 25:8, Amo 8:7, Hab 1:4 etc.), and length of days, Deu 30:20, Job 12:12, Psa 21:4, and in the well-known passage Psa 23:6 I shall dwell in the house of the Lord ever. Here the meaning is disputed, but the probability is that the highest anticipation of the Psalmist was to have the joy of spending an indefinite period in the Temple in prayer and meditation. Similar to is the phrase , lit. to age and age, .e. to future ages (Exo 3:15, Psa 10:6; Psa 33:11; Psa 49:11). It is mainly poetical.
The idea of eternity, like the idea of immortality, was probably beyond the range of early Jewish thought. It arose after the Exile, partly through a natural development of the Hebrew conception of God, and partly through the force of circumstances. (1) The pious Jew, turning away more and more from the anthropomorphism of cruder religions, strove to differentiate the infinite God from finite man. God is transcendentabove the limitations of earthly existence. Hence He is eternal, from everlasting to everlasting. A thousand years in His sight are but as yesterday. (2) With the Exile came a decay of national ideals, and the Jew began to consider more his own personality and its relation to this eternal God. This thought developed slowly, and was mixed with various elements. The Jew found himself in an evil world. His own nation was oppressed, almost blotted out. Good men suffered; wicked men seemed to prosper. If the eternal, omnipotent God ruled the world, then all this must surely end. The Day of the Lord would come for oppressed Israel, for the oppressors, for the whole world, and (in Apocalyptic literature, Ps-Sol 3:16, 13:9 etc.) for the Jew himself. Then the present evil world ( ) would give place to a new and glorious era ( , see Generation). Whether this would be endless the Jew did not at first stop to inquire. Sufficient for him that it would come with countless blessings in the end of the days ( , cf. Mat 13:39; Mat 24:3). In the Book of Enoch, however, Time is followed by Eternity in the . Later Judaism developed the idea, probably borrowed from the Zend religion, of a series of world epochs (cf. the world empires of Daniels vision), followed by the Messianic age.
In the time of Christ, Jewish thought on the future had developed very much, and had assumed many forms (see Eschatology). Jesus must have sifted the various elements. He retained and perhaps developed the view of a new age ( ) about to dawn on the world as opposed to the present ( ; Mat 12:32, cf. Mat 13:39; Mat 28:20). the kingdom of heaven ( ) would be established. Jesus endeavoured to concentrate the thoughts of His hearers on their relation to this kingdom, and the desirability of sharing it (see Life, Eternal Life). Doubtless this kingdom would be for ever and its members live for ever (cf. Dan 12:2 eternal life). The vexed question of the absolute endlessness of this kingdom, with its rewards and punishments, would probably never be raised in the minds of Jesus hearers. At the same time, there is no evidence in the teaching of Jesus of any limit to the , and while the frequent adjective , eternal, must be taken in the Gospels as referring in the first place to this coming kingdom, it may, so far as we know, be taken as implying also that quality of absolute permanence with which that kingdom has always been associated in the minds of men.
Literature.The subject is practically part of the larger topic Eschatology, and all books dealing with this latter subject refer more or less to Eternity. On the OT and Apocalyptic views see Stade, Dic Alttest. Vorstellungen vom Zustand nach dem Tode; Schwally, Das Leben nach dem Tode; Schultz, OT Theology, vol. ii. pp. 364398; Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality; Orelli, Die hebr. Synonyma der Zeit und Ewigkeit; Marti, Geschichte der Israel. Religion, pp. 270310. On the NT see the various NT theologies, especially those of Beyschlag and H. Holtzmann. Ct. also Samuel Davidson, Doctrine of the Last Things; Toy, Judaism and Christianity; A. Beet, Last Things2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] ; Dalman, The Words of Jesus.
G. Gordon Stott.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Eternity
See Eternal
Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures
Eternity
e-turni-ti (, olam; Greek equivalent, , aion):
1.Contrast with Time
2.In the Old Testament
3.In the New Testament
4.The Eternal Now
5.Defect of This View
6.Philosophical Views
7.Time Conceptions Inadequate
8.All Succession Present in One Act to Divine Consciousness
9.Yet Connection Between Eternity and Time
10.The Religious Attitude to Eternity
Literature
1. Contrast with Time
Eternity is best conceived, not in the merely negative form of the non-temporal, or immeasurable time, but positively, as the mode of the timeless self-existence of the Absolute Ground of the universe. The flux of time grows first intelligible to us, only when we take in the thought of God as eternal – exalted above time. Timeless existence – being or entity without change – is what we here mean by eternity, and not mere everlastingness or permanence through time. God, in His internal being, is raised above time; in His eternal absoluteness, He is throned above temporal development, and knows, as the Scriptures say, no changeableness. The conception of eternity, as without beginning or ending, leaves us with but a negation badly in need of filling out with reality. Eternity is not a mere negative idea; to make of eternity merely a blank and irrelevant negation of temporality would not satisfy any proper theory of being; it functions as the positive relation to time of that eternal God, who is King of all the eons.
2. In the Old Testament
In the Old Testament, God’s eternity is only negatively expressed, as implying merely indefinitely extended time (Gen 21:33; Deu 33:27), though Isa 40:28 takes more absolute form. Better is the view of eternity, objectively considered, as a mode of being of God in relation to Himself. For He was eternal, while as yet the world and time were not. But even in the New Testament, the negative form of expression prevails.
3. In the New Testament
Time, with its succession of events, helps to fill out such idea as we can form of the eternal, conceived as an endless progress. But, as finite beings, we can form no positive idea of eternity. Time is less contradictory of eternity, than helpful in revealing what we know of it. Plato, in his Timaeus, says that time is the moving image of eternity, and we may allow that it is its type or revelation. Not as the annulment of time, though it might be held to be in itself exclusive of time, is eternity to be taken, but rather as the ground of its reality.
4. The Eternal Now
Eternity might, no doubt, be taken as just time no longer measured by the succession of events, as in the finite universe. But, on a strict view, there is something absurd in an eternity that includes time, and an eternity apart from time is a vain and impossible conception. Eternity, as a discharge from all time limits, is purely negative, though not without importance. Eternity, absolutely taken, must be pronounced incommensurable with time; as Aquinas said, non sunt mensurae unius generis. Eternity, that is to say, would lose its character as eternal in the very entering into relations with the changeful or becoming. Eternity, as in God, has, since the time of Augustine and the Middle Ages, been frequently conceived as an eternal Now. The Schoolmen were wont to adopt as a maxim that in eternity is one only instant always present and persistent. This is but a way of describing eternity in a manner characteristic of succession in time; but eternal Deity, rather than an eternal Now, is a conception far more full of meaning for us.
5. Defect of This View
To speak of God’s eternity as an eternal Now – a present in the time-sense – involves a contradiction. For the eternal existence is no more described by the notion of a present than by a past or a future. Such a Now or present presupposes a not-now, and raises afresh the old time-troubles, in relation to eternity. Time is certainly not the form of God’s life, His eternity meaning freedom from time. Hence, it was extremely troublesome to theology of the Middle Ages to have a God who was not in time at all, supposed to create the world at a particular moment in time.
6. Philosophical Views
Spinoza, in later times, made the eternity of God consist in His infinite – which, to Spinoza, meant His necessary – existence. For contingent or durational existence would not, in Spinoza’s view, be eternal, though it lasted always. The illusoriness or unreality of time, in respect of man’s spiritual life, is not always very firmly grasped. This wavering or uncertain hold of the illusiveness of time, or of higher reality as timeless, is still very prevalent; even so strong-souled a poet as Browning projects the shadow of time into eternity, with rarely a definite conception of the higher life as an eternal and timeless essence; and although Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer may have held to such a timeless view, it has by no means become a generally adopted doctrine so far, either of theologians or of philosophers. If time be so taken as unreal, then eternity must not be thought of as future, as is done by Dr. Ellis McTaggart and some other metaphysicians today. For nothing could, in that case, be properly future, and eternity could not be said to begin, as is often done in everyday life.
The importance of the eternity conception is seen in the fact that neo-Kantian and neo-Hegelian thinkers alike have shown a general tendency to regard time-conceptions as unfit, in metaphysics, for the ultimate explanation of the universe.
7. Time-Conceptions Inadequate
Eternity, one may surely hold, must span or include, for God’s eternal consciousness, the whole of what happens in time, with all of past, present or future, that lies within the temporal succession. But we are by no means entitled to say, as does Royce, that such wholeness or totality of the temporal constitutes the eternal, for the eternal belongs to quite another order, that, namely, of timeless reality. Eternity is not to be defined in terms of time at all. For God is to us the supra-temporal ens perfectissimum, but One whose timeless self-sufficiency and impassable aloofness are not such as to keep Him from being strength and helper of our temporal striving. Our metaphysical convictions must not here be of barren and unfruitful sort for ethical results and purposes.
8. All Succession Present in One Act to Divine Consciousness
Eternity is, in our view, the form of an eternal existence, to which, in the unity of a single insight, the infinite series of varying aspects or processes are, together-wise, as a totum simul, present. But this, as we have already shown, does not imply that the eternal order is nowise different, essentially, from the temporal; time is not to be treated as a segment of eternity, nor eternity regarded as interminable duration; the eternal cannot pass over into the temporal; for, an eternal Being, who should think all things as present, and yet view the time-series as a succession, must be a rather self-contradictory conception. For the Absolute Consciousness, time does not exist; the future cannot, for it, be thought of as beginning to be, nor the past as having ceased to be.
9. Yet Connection Between Eternity and Time
After all that has been said, however, eternity and time are not to be thought of as without connection. For the temporal presupposes the eternal, which is, in fact, its positive ground and its perpetual possibility. These things are so, if only for the reason that the Divine mode of existence does not contradict or exclude the human mode of existence. The continuity of the latter – of the temporal – has its guaranty in the eternal. The unconditioned eternity of God brings into harmony with itself the limitations and conditions of the temporal. For time is purely relative, which eternity is not. No distinctions of before and after are admissible in the eternity conception, hence, we have no right to speak of time as a portion of eternity. Thus, while we maintain the essential difference between eternity and time, we at the same time affirm what may perhaps be called the affinity between them. The metaphysics of eternity and its time-relations continue to be matter of proverbial difficulty, and both orders – the eternal and the temporal – had better be treated as concrete, and not left merely to abstract reflection. Our idea of the eternal will best be developed, in this concrete fashion, by the growth of our God-idea, as we more completely apprehend God, as actualized for us in His incarnate Son.
10. The Religious Attitude to Eternity
Thus, then, it is eternity, not as immeasurable time, but rather as a mode of being of the immutable God, who is yet progressively revealing Himself in time, which we have here set forth. This is not to say that the religious consciousness has not its own need of the conception of God as being from everlasting to everlasting, as in Psa 90:2, and of His kingdom as an everlasting kingdom (Dan 4:3). Nor is it to make us suppose that the absolute and self-existent God, who so transcends all time-dependence, is thereby removed far from us, while, on the contrary, His very greatness makes Him the more able to draw near unto us, in all the plenitude of His being. Hence, it is so truly spoken in Isa 57:15, Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite. Hence, also the profound truthfulness of sayings like that in Act 17:27, Act 17:28, He is not far from each one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being. After all that has been said, our best knowledge of eternity, as it exists in God, is not developed in any metaphysical fashion, but after the positive and timeless modes of the spiritual life – the modes of trust and love.
Literature
H. Cremer, Lexicon of New Testament Greek, English edition, 1880; G. B. Winer, Grammar of New Testament Greek, 3rd edition, 1882; R. C. French, Synonyms of the New Testament, 9th edition, 1880; E. H. Plumptre, The Spirits in Prison, 3rd edition, 1885; J. Orr, Christian View of God and the World, lst edition, 1893; I. A. Dorner, System of Christian Doctrine, English edition, 1885; J. H. Stirling, Philosophy and Theology, 1890; J. Lindsay, Studies in European Philosophy, 1909; The Fundamental Problems of Metaphysics, 1910.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Eternity
God inhabits
Isa 57:15; Mic 5:2
God rules
Jer 10:10 God, Eternity of; Life, Everlasting; Punishment, Eternal
Unclassified scriptures relating to
Psa 30:12; Psa 41:13; Psa 72:17; Psa 90:2; Psa 110:4; Psa 119:142; Mat 6:13; Mat 18:8; 2Co 9:9; Jud 1:6
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Eternity
An infinite extent of time, in which every event is future at one time, present at another, past at another. As everlastingness, it was formerly divided into two eternities, eternitv a parte ante, an infinite extent of time before the present, and eternity a parte post, an infinite extent of time after the present. Anything can be called “eternal” which is not subject to change, f.i. laws of nature, or which transcends all time. See Timeless. — R.B.W.
Fuente: The Dictionary of Philosophy
Eternity
is an attribute of God. (See God.) The self-existent being, says the learned Dr. Clarke, must of necessity be eternal. The ideas of eternity and self-existence are so closely connected, that because something must of necessity be eternal, independently and without any outward cause of its being therefore it must necessarily be self-existent; and because it is impossible but something must be self-existent, therefore it is necessary that it must likewise be eternal. To be self-existent, is to exist by an absolute necessity in the nature of the thing itself. Now this necessity being absolute, and not depending upon any thing external, must be always unalterably the same; nothing being alterable but what is capable of being affected by somewhat without itself. That being therefore which has no other cause of its existence but the absolute necessity of its own nature, must of necessity have existed from everlasting, without beginning; and must of necessity exist to everlasting, without end.
On the eternal duration of the divine Being, many have held a metaphysical refinement. The eternal existence of God, it is said, is not to be considered as successive; the ideas we gain from time are not to be allowed in our conceptions of his duration. As he fills all space with his immensity, he fills all duration with his eternity; and with him eternity is nunc stans, a permanent now, incapable of the relations of past, present, and future. Such, certainly, is not the view given us of this mysterious subject in the Scriptures; and if it should be said that they speak popularly, and are accommodated to the infirmity of the reason of the body of mankind, we may reply, that philosophy has not, with all its boasting of superior light, carried our views on this attribute of the divine nature at all beyond revelation; and, in attempting it, has only obscured the conceptions of its admirers. Filling duration with his eternity, is a phrase without any meaning: for how can any man conceive a permanent instant, which coexists with a perpetually flowing duration? One might as well apprehend a mathematical point co-extended with a line, a surface, and all dimensions. As this notion has, however, been made the basis of some theological opinions, it may be proper to examine it.
2. Whether we get our idea of time from the motion of bodies without us, or from the consciousness of the succession of our own ideas, or both, is not important to this inquiry. Time in our conceptions, is divisible. The artificial divisions are years, months, days, minutes, seconds, &c. We can conceive of yet smaller portions of duration; and, whether we have given to them artificial names or not, we can conceive no otherwise of duration, than continuance of being, estimated as to degree, by this artificial admeasurement, and therefore as substantially answering to it. It is not denied but that duration is something distinct from these its artificial measures; yet of this every man’s consciousness will assure him, that we can form no idea of duration except in this successive manner. But we are told that the eternity of God is a fixed eternal now, from which all ideas of succession, of past and future, are to be excluded; and we are called upon to conceive of eternal duration without reference to past or future, and to the exclusion of the idea of that flow under which we conceive of time. The proper abstract idea of duration is, however, simple continuance of being, without any reference to the exact degree or extent of it, because in no other way can it be equally applicable to all the substances of which it is the attribute. It may be finite or infinite, momentary or eternal; but that depends upon the substance of which it is the quality, and not upon its own nature. Our own observation and experience teach us how to apply it to ourselves. As to us, duration is dependent and finite; as to God, it is infinite; but in both cases the originality or dependence, the finiteness or infinity of it, arises, not out of the nature of duration itself, but out of other qualities of the subjects respectively.
3. Duration, then, as applied to God, is no more than an extension of the idea as applied to ourselves; and to exhort us to conceive of it as something essentially different, is to require us to conceive what is inconceivable. It is to demand of us to think without ideas. Duration is continuance of existence; continuance of existence is capable of being longer or shorter; and hence necessarily arises the idea of the succession of the minutest points of duration into which we can conceive it divided. Beyond this the mind cannot go, it forms the idea of duration no other way: and if what we call duration be any thing different from this in God, it is not duration, properly so called, according to human ideas; it is something else, for which there is no name among men, because there is no idea, and therefore it is impossible to reason about it. As long as metaphysicians use the term, they must take the idea: if they spurn the idea, they have no right to the term, and ought at once to confess that they can go no farther. Dr. Cudworth defines infinity of duration to be nothing else but perfection, as including in it necessary existence and immutability. This, it is true, is as much a definition of the moon, as of infinity of duration; but it is valuable, as it shows that, in the view of this great man, though an advocate of the nunc stans, the standing now, of eternity: we must abandon the term duration, if we give up the only idea under which it can be conceived.
4. It follows from this, therefore, that either we must apply the term duration to the divine Being in the same sense in which we apply it to creatures, with the extension of the idea to adoration which has no bounds and limits; or blot it out of our creeds, as a word to which our minds, with all the aid they may derive from the labours of metaphysicians, can attach no meaning. The only objection to successive duration as applied to God, which has any plausibility, is, that it seems to imply change; but this wholly arises from confounding two very distinct things; succession in the duration, and change in the substance. Dr. Cudworth appears to have fallen into this error. He speaks of the duration of an imperfect nature, as sliding from the present to the future, expecting something of itself which is not yet in being; and of a perfect nature being essentially immutable, having a permanent and unchanging duration, never losing any thing of itself once present, nor yet running forward to meet something of itself which is not yet in being. Now, though this is a good description of a perfect and immutable nature, it is no description at all of an eternally-enduring nature. Duration implies no loss in the substance of any being, nor addition to it. A
perfect nature never loses any thing of itself, nor expects more of itself than is possessed; but this does not arise from the attribute of its duration, however that attribute may be conceived of, but from its perfection and consequent immutability. These attributes do not flow from the duration, but the continuance of the duration from them. The argument is clearly good for nothing, unless it could be proved that successive duration necessarily implies a change in the nature; but that is contradicted by the experience of finite beings,their natures are not at all determined by their duration, but their duration by their natures; and they exist for a moment, or for ages, according to the nature which their Maker has impressed upon them. If it be said that, at least, successive duration imports that a being loses past duration, and expects the arrival of future existence, we reply, that this is no imperfection at all. Even finite creatures do not feel it to be an imperfection to have existed, and to look for continued and interminable being. It is true, with the past we lose knowledge and pleasure; and expecting in all future periods increase of knowledge and happiness, we are reminded by that of our present imperfection; but this imperfection does not arise from our successive and flowing duration, and we never refer it to that. It is not the past which takes away our knowledge and pleasure; nor future duration, simply considered, which will confer the increase of both. Our imperfections arise out of the essential nature of our being, not out of the manner in which our being is continued. It is not the flow of our duration, but the flow of our nature, which produces these effects. On the contrary, we think that the idea of our successive duration, that is of continuance, is an advantage, and not a defect. Let all ideas of continuance be banished from the mind, let there be to us a nunc semper stans, during the whole of our being, and we appear to gain nothing,our pleasures surely are not diminished by the idea of successive duration being added to present enjoyment: that they have been, and still remain, and will continue, on the contrary, greatly heightens them. Without the idea of a flowing duration, we could have no such measure of the continuance of our pleasures; and this we should consider an abatement of our happiness. What is so obvious an excellency in the spirit of man, and in angelic natures, can never be thought an imperfection in God, when joined with a nature essentially perfect and immutable.
5. But it may be said, that eternal duration, considered as successive, is only an artificial manner of measuring and conceiving of duration; and is no more eternal duration itself than minutes and moments, the artificial measures of time, are time itself. Were this granted, the question would still be, whether there is any thing in duration considered generally, or in time considered specially, which corresponds to these artificial methods of measuring and conceiving of them. The ocean is measured by leagues; and the extension of the ocean, and the measure of it, are distinct; they, nevertheless, answer to each other. Leagues are the nominal divisions of an extended surface; but there is a real extension, which answers to the artificial conception and admeasurement of it. In like manner, days, and hours, and moments, are the measures of time: but there is either something in time which answers to these measures; or not only the measure, but the thing itself, is artificialan imaginary creation. If any man will contend, that the period of duration which we call time, is nothing, no farther dispute can be held with him; and he may be left to deny also the existence of matter, and to enjoy his philosophic revel in an ideal world.
We apply the same argument to duration generally, whether finite or infinite. Minutes and moments, or smaller portions, for which we have no name, may be artificial things, adopted to aid our conceptions; but conceptions of what? Not of any thing standing still, but of something going on. Of duration we have no other conception; and if there be nothing in nature which answers to this conception, then is duration itself imaginary, and we discourse about nothing. If the duration of the divine Being admits not of past, present, and future, one of these two consequences must follow,that no such attribute as that of eternity belongs to him,or that there is no power in the human mind to conceive of it. In either case, the Scriptures are greatly impugned; for He who was, and is, and is to come, is a revelation of the eternity of God, which is then in no sense true. It is not true, if used literally; and it is as little so, if the language be figurative; for the figure rests on no basis, it illustrates nothing, it misleads. It is, however, to be remembered, that the eternal, supreme cause, must of necessity have such a perfect, independent, unchangeable comprehension of all things, that there can be no one point or instant of his eternal duration, wherein all things that are past, present, and to come, will not be as entirely known and represented to him in one single thought or view, and all things present and future be equally entirely in his power and direction; as if there was really no succession at all, but all things were actually present at once.
6. The Hebrew word for eternity is . This is its proper sense; but, as Gesenius observes, as with us in common life, it is often used in an inaccurate or loose manner to express a very long space of time. So it is applied to the Jewish priesthood; to the Mosaic ordinances; to the possession of the land of Canaan; to the hills and mountains; to the earth, &c. These must, however, be considered as exceptions to predominant and certain usage.