溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Is Eternity the Whole, Simultaneous Possession of Unending Life?
Is eternity time endlessly prolonged, or a standing outside time, seeing all times at once?
The whole, simultaneous, and perfect possession of unending life.
Boethius's definition of eternity took up Plato's insight that time is "a moving image of eternity" and became the decisive formula dividing time and eternity qualitatively. With it he sought to resolve an old theological crux — if God foreknows the future, is human freedom lost? Boethius answers: God does not know the future "in advance" but sees all times as one now from outside time, so foreknowledge and freedom do not collide. Aquinas took up and refined this solution. Whether eternity is prolonged time or a now outside time still operates at the root of debates over God and freedom.
For us, quick to imagine eternity only as time endlessly stretched, this question — that eternity is qualitatively other than flow — makes us imagine the outside of time.
Writing this book in prison awaiting execution, Boethius redefines eternity.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Writing this book in prison awaiting execution, Boethius redefines eternity. Eternity is not time prolonged without limit. It is the whole, simultaneous, perfect possession of unending life — a gaze that sees all times as now, with no past or future. It is something qualitatively other than our flowing time. I sense this question points to a horizon hard for us, within finite time, even to imagine. For me, who cannot grasp the passing nows as one, that whole possession is simply vast and far.
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