溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Is Time a Moving Image of Eternity?
Does time flow as a shadow of eternity, toward it — or is it complete in itself?
A moving image of eternity.
Plato's picture of time as a "moving image of eternity" opened a long tradition dividing time and eternity into two tiers. Augustine took it up, dividing God's eternity from creatures' time; Boethius defined eternity as "the whole, simultaneous, and perfect possession of unending life," setting it against flowing time. This hierarchy was overturned in the modern age — Newton set time not as eternity's shadow but as an absolute coordinate real in itself, and thereafter time became a neutral vessel holding events, not a longing that flows toward something. Whether time flows yearning for something, Plato's question, was quietly forgotten and revived within secularized views of time.
In an age quick to see time as mere flowing resource, this question — that the flow may be a movement longing for something whole — makes us see a day differently.
Plato tells of time's birth.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Plato tells of time's birth. The maker of the world, modeling it on eternal perfection yet unable to hold that eternity whole, made a "moving image" of it — and that is time. Day and night, month and year flowing by number are eternity's imitation. I sense this lovely metaphor paints time as both lack and longing. Flowing time, unable to abide, yearns for eternity. Upon the passing days, I too feel the grain of that moving shadow.
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