Multidimensionality of time, space, paradise, eternity and heaven

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Kusanagi wrote:



I thought paradise does not have time or it is outside time so Adam wouldn't have an age nor is it important.

Time is an aspect of all that is created including Adam & Eve before the Fall.

Except that time in paradise and in the renewed creation is free of corruption; ie it does not measure the degeneration of things towards their death and destruction which is an aspect of time as we now know it.

After all, as they say of the renewed state: 'from glory to glory.' ie all things are moving towards their fulfillment in Christ. Which suggests time but of a renewed kind.

As long as there is movement- and all created things do and will especially in the renewed state have movement- there is time of a sort.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Father David Moser]

I thought paradise does not have time or it is outside time so Adam wouldn't have an age nor is it important.

Time is part of creation - as is paradise, therefore, time does exist in paradise and paradise exists in time. However, we have no way of knowing how time flowed in paradise - fast, slow, forward backward, upside down or inside out. With the observations and predictions of the theory of relativity, we can see that the rate at which time flows can be variable thus opening the door to such a possibility. OTOH, the fall is a catastrophic event which created a discontinuity between the present state of the universe and the prefall universe. In the prefall universe, corruption, as we know it, did not exist, nor, i think, could we say that all things tended towards chaos (as the laws of thermodynamics predict). Our only scientific and cultural and historical observations are post fall and all of our generalizations about the way the universe interacts (including the way time flows) is the result of post-fall data. I think it would be a mistake to assume that our observations about the post-fall universe can extend backwards past the fall to inform assumptions about the pre-fall universe.

Thus, while I am certain that paradise and time coexist in each other, I am not at all certain that we can know or define what their relationship might be.

Fr David Moser

[Peter S.]

Time is part of creation - as is paradise, therefore, time does exist in paradise and paradise exists in time. However, we have no way of knowing how time flowed in paradise - fast, slow, forward backward, upside down or inside out. With the observations and predictions of the theory of relativity, we can see that the rate at which time flows can be variable thus opening the door to such a possibility. OTOH, the fall is a catastrophic event which created a discontinuity between the present state of the universe and the prefall universe. In the prefall universe, corruption, as we know it, did not exist, nor, i think, could we say that all things tended towards chaos (as the laws of thermodynamics predict). Our only scientific and cultural and historical observations are post fall and all of our generalizations about the way the universe interacts (including the way time flows) is the result of post-fall data. I think it would be a mistake to assume that our observations about the post-fall universe can extend backwards past the fall to inform assumptions about the pre-fall universe.

Thus, while I am certain that paradise and time coexist in each other, I am not at all certain that we can know or define what their relationship might be.

Fr David Moser

I thought paradise was in another dimesion. As heaven/eternity is in another dimension, but without time.
But paradise and time might have coexisted with time as a dimension in it. Time is a dimension isnt it? (Space is another. No time without space.)
I have heard that here on earth "there is only now", actually, and that time does not exist, if I understood this correctly. What have been and what comes after do not exist. There is only now. What have existed we only know about.

I believe in heaven there is only "now", but that is something different than paradise and this world.

Peter

[Father David Moser]

I thought paradise was in another dimesion. As heaven/eternity is in another dimension, but without time.

Possibly, but I really don't have any evidence to say one way or the other. Paradise in "another dimension" really doesn't make much sense in a mathematical or physical term for a couple of reasons. "Another dimension" would be without length, breadth or depth or time - so of what then would it consist. In all the models that I've read about, there is no such thing as an "isolated" dimension - one without the others. The dimensions all interact with one another even though we cannot necessarily directly perceive those dimensions. It just doesn't work for me at all, but then my knowledge of multidimensional math is pretty limited (mostly to the 4 dimensions that we directly perceive) and my awareness of other postulated dimensions is garnered from reading popular articles about quantum physics (which depends on their existence to explain the extreme phenomena observed.)

I would have a hard time saying that "heaven/eternity is in another dimension" since that would imply that eternity is created. I do not know that "eternity" is a place or that it is created or uncreated. To make any such statement about "heaven/eternity" goes far far beyond any even remote basis in either patristics or science.

If you have some patristic or scriptural evidence to support this speculation, I would be glad to listen.

Fr David Moser

[Anna Stickles]

Michael and I were talking the other day about the fact that Heidegger postulated that time is a result of self-reflective consciousness.

Fr Raphael has gotten out of the question of 'time' as something that in itself exists and simply seems to be saying that change occurs. Either the change toward death and decay or the change toward deification.

What then is time? Is it something that merely exists in our imagination because we view our own lives like a movie on TV from a third person perspective rather then simply living in the Now that exists? Or is it a real something, a dimension that has some physical existence or meaning outside our mind?

This definition from the Philokalia (http://www.monachos.net/forum/showpost.php?p=72144&postcount=11)brings up a lot of questions I think.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Anna Stickles wrote:


What then is time? Is it something that merely exists in our imagination because we view our own lives like a movie on TV from a third person perspective rather then simply living in the Now that exists? Or is it a real something, a dimension that has some physical existence or meaning outside our mind?


I think that time is an intrinsic aspect of created being.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Peter S.]

Possibly, but I really don't have any evidence to say one way or the other. Paradise in "another dimension" really doesn't make much sense in a mathematical or physical term for a couple of reasons. "Another dimension" would be without length, breadth or depth or time - so of what then would it consist. In all the models that I've read about, there is no such thing as an "isolated" dimension - one without the others. The dimensions all interact with one another even though we cannot necessarily directly perceive those dimensions. It just doesn't work for me at all, but then my knowledge of multidimensional math is pretty limited (mostly to the 4 dimensions that we directly perceive) and my awareness of other postulated dimensions is garnered from reading popular articles about quantum physics (which depends on their existence to explain the extreme phenomena observed.)

I would have a hard time saying that "heaven/eternity is in another dimension" since that would imply that eternity is created. I do not know that "eternity" is a place or that it is created or uncreated. To make any such statement about "heaven/eternity" goes far far beyond any even remote basis in either patristics or science.

If you have some patristic or scriptural evidence to support this speculation, I would be glad to listen.

Fr David Moser

Sorry, I only rely of what I have heard from clergy, (not in sermons). Maybe he didnt meant dimension as science understand it.

I dont know what spirit is, but Jesus said that we shall be as the "angels in heaven" Matt22:29-31 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=47&chapter=22&verse=29&end_verse=31&version=31&context=context). And angels are spiritual beings.

(That there is only "now", I heard at St. Tikhons.)

Peter

[Owen Jones]

By is this discussion "heavy!"

This is the key phrase from the definition in the Philokalia:

certain texts, especially in St Maximos the Confessor, also use the term aeon in a connected but more specific way, to denote a level intermediate between eternity in the full sense and time as known to us in our present experience....

The key word is "intermediate." Man is an intermediate being. Another translation would be in between. I am assuming that the Greek word here is metaxy. Man exists in a realm in between world and heaven, time and eternity, mortality and immortality, imperfection and perfection, etc. This is never drawn out doctrinally or definitionally so far as I know in Maximos or elsewhere. One has to go to a brief description in Plato's Symposium. Understanding this experiential reality, experiencing it, is key to understanding our faith, our liturgical doctrine and experience, and so on. It is helpful in avoiding a whole number of misconceptions, even heresies that can creep in that usually involve some form of objectivizing of spiritual reality on the one hand or subjectivizing on the other. Man is neither a subject nor an object. Nor is God.

As for an "eternal now," this strikes me as a kind of mish mash of pop Buddhism, New Ageism, and pop psychology. One can have an experience of serenity in which all of the senses are utterly focused on God's grace in the present moment, but that is different.

I think a related key concept from the definition in the Philokalia is that the Fall is equated with a corruption of sense perception. Which means that salvation involves the restoration of our sense perception to its true, healthy, ordered function. So that we can see God, both in things, and in the processes and events that occur relationally in between, and the participation of all of these "things" as part and parcel of the whole.

Time, for the Christian, is the passing away of things, or the experience of the passing quality of existence in tension with the experience of lasting. There is much in St. Maximos on this tension in between the lasting and passing away of existence, expressed in the symbol "eighth day."

[Paul Cowan]

Understanding this experiential reality, experiencing it, is key to understanding our faith, our liturgical doctrine and experience, and so on.

Dr. McCoy: Perhaps Spock, we could discuss your experience of death?
Mr. Spock: It would be impossible to discuss this with you Doctor without a common frame of reference.
Dr. McCoy: You mean I have to die before we could talk about life and death?

from Star Trek IV The voyage Home


By is this discussion "heavy!"

Or not.

[Anna Stickles]

a kind of mish mash of pop Buddhism, New Ageism, and pop psychology.


Maybe just too much existentialism and Zen.

[Robert Hegwood]

It was mentioned a bit earlier in this thread that the effects of the fall constituted a catastrophic break/change in the universe before and after. We have some sense of what the fall did to us and to life here with us on little old earth. But what about out there amongst all that vast beyond imagining creation outside of earth and its immediate precincts. Did the fall also have some effect on stars and galaxies hundreds of millions, even billions of lightyears away from us? In short did the fall impact all material creation no matter how far removed from us? And if so what might the nature of that be?

[Andreas Moran]

We can sympathise with St Augustine when he said, ‘I know what time is until someone asks me to explain what it is, and then I don’t know what it is’ (Confessions, XI.14.17).

We presumably wish to concern ourselves with time in relation to our Orthodox faith. Therefore, we should not (even if we could) focus on the science and philosophy of time. In any case, the philosophers cannot agree what time is. That said, we should consider views of time in so far as these bear on our concern. The ancient Greek philosophers (so I have read) did not generally consider that time was linear; they thought that time was circular, without beginning or end (though Plato talked about time being created as a moving image of eternity: see his Timmaeus). Aristotle agreed though with Plato (see Physics). For the Christian, the circular view of time could not be correct because it does not admit eschatology, nor does it match the assertion that God created everything, including time.

The Old Testament has a radically different view of time which is essentially linear. The Children of Israel moved from Egypt to the Promised Land, a figure for all humanity and for the spiritual life of each individual. Instead of events being determined by time, time was determined by events; events were the constituents of time. (Such is still the view in African societies).

The coming of Christ into the world caused a radical amendment to the Old Testament view of time. This is closely linked with our view of Theophany and the other epiphanic events such as the Transfiguration. Eschatology is not only of the future but is ever-present: the kingdom of God has come and is here now within us (if we admit it). St Basil the Great linked time and space and considered there to be not only past present and future but also a degree of circularity. But this circularity is repetition along linear time (see On the Holy Spirit). This is physical time, what we may term chronos. But there is also eternity which we may say has a sense of kairos. This is the spiritual dimension to time. Pre-eminently, it allows us to know that the Eucharist is not repeated afresh but is the one, bloodless sacrifice made present whenever and wherever the Divine Liturgy is served. The lack of this aspect of time in Protestant thinking is a hindrance to Protestants who cannot accept that Christ gave His Body and Blood to His disciples before the Crucifixion and Resurrection so that the Eucharist cannot be really the Body and Blood of the Lord. The Divine Liturgy takes place both in chronos and kairos or eternity. How else could we account for the presence of angels and saints at the Divine Liturgy? It is in this spiritual time that we can talk of Sunday as both the first and the eighth day (St Basil). It also is why we can say at the feasts, such as Theophany, ‘Today Christ has come to be baptized in Jordan; today John touches the head of the Master’ (Feast of Theophany, Matins). It is why we can feel affinity with saints of greatly different times. It is also why in icons, for instance in the usual Deisis icon, we see Christ is with His Mother, the Archangels, St John the Baptist, and, say, St Nicholas and St Sergius of Radonezh. It is noteworthy that the offices of the days and weeks are not determined by dates but by the diurnal cycle. They refer to time in this way, not by clock time. The Divine Liturgy, however, does not mention this cycle of time since it is of eternal as well as physical time.

There is also the concept of the everlasting. Physical time and eternity are created. But everlasting is uncreated, and of it we can know nothing (St Basil). Thus we can only say that the Son of God was ‘begotten of the Father before all ages’ without knowing what that means. God is beyond time and eternity.

[Herman Blaydoe]

It was mentioned a bit earlier in this thread that the effects of the fall constituted a catastrophic break/change in the universe before and after. We have some sense of what the fall did to us and to life here with us on little old earth. But what about out there amongst all that vast beyond imagining creation outside of earth and its immediate precincts. Did the fall also have some effect on stars and galaxies hundreds of millions, even billions of lightyears away from us? In short did the fall impact all material creation no matter how far removed from us? And if so what might the nature of that be?

I think the best we can come up with can only be conjecture and speculate. The hymnody of the Church often sings that "all of Creation groans...". Are there any conditionals put on "all"? As in all-inclusive of absolutely everything or merely including that which we are aware of? How can we really know? Conversely, C. S. Lewis, in his "Space Trilogy" conjectures that perhaps the damage was localized to the "silent planet" (earth) and did not necessarily affect God's plans elsewhere. Hard to say on "this" side of that "great divide". An interesting idea, but we certainly should not confuse the fictional work of a popular writer meant to entertain with the theological writings of the Fathers meant to illuminate. I doubt we will come to any all-convincing conclusions here.

Herman the hypothetical Pooh

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Robert Hegwood


Did the fall also have some effect on stars and galaxies hundreds of millions, even billions of lightyears away from us? In short did the fall impact all material creation no matter how far removed from us? And if so what might the nature of that be?

Well I suppose the most immediate effect of the Fall has been death and destruction.

If when astronauts reach the farthest reaches of space they discover that they never die there and nothing ever degenerates; and sinful passion plays no part either; then in this part of space the Fall would have had no effect.

More likely though no matter where we go in the universe the effects of the Fall will be evident.

Unless we live in Christ.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Paul Cowan]

More likely though no matter where we go in the universe the effects of the Fall will be evident.


This goes without saying Fr. Because by the time we get there, we will have brought the result of the Fall with us there. As the saying goes, where ever you go, there you are.

[Ryan]

Maybe just too much existentialism and Zen.

Actually, authentic Zen Buddhism also rejects a reduction to the "eternal now"... of course, it's hard to find any authentic Zen in the West.

[Andreas Moran]

certain texts, especially in St Maximos the Confessor, also use the term aeon in a connected but more specific way, to denote a level intermediate between eternity in the full sense and time as known to us in our present experience....

The term 'aeon' is to be identified with 'eternity'. 'Aidion' is used to denote 'everlasting'.

[Peter S.]

Dr. McCoy: Perhaps Spock, we could discuss your experience of death?
Mr. Spock: It would be impossible to discuss this with you Doctor without a common frame of reference.
Dr. McCoy: You mean I have to die before we could talk about life and death?

from Star Trek IV The voyage Home



Or not.

Jesus was taken up into the third heaven. 2.Cor12,2 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians%2012,2%20;&version=50;). And as I know there are at least nine heavens. How do we know that? By experience I think.

Elder Cleopa tells (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOGXdLoNl2w)that St. Paul was taken up in to the third heaven in contemplative prayer/godly vision. He didnt know wether he was in the body or not. How can elder Cleopa be so sure of that? By experience. Dr. McCoy didnt experience anything like these.

I think this is relevant for these themes, but unless you experience something it is speculation.

Peter

[Vasiliki D.]

Elder Cleopa tells (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOGXdLoNl2w)that St. Paul was taken up in to the third heaven in contemplative prayer/godly vision. He didnt know wether he was in the body or not. How can elder Cleopa be so sure of that? By experience. Dr. McCoy didnt experience anything like these. I think this is relevant for these themes, but unless you experience something it is speculation.

We also have proof of the "likeness" of heaven through a very rare and not much circulated vita of Saint Andrew the Fool-for-Christ that is in Constantinople. They have an English translation of this available online via the Harvard University Library but it is an explanation by a non-Orthodox postgraduate so should be read with that awareness.

In Saint Andrews vita, he too is taken up and whether he was in the body or not he could not be sure ... some people speculate whether Saint Andrew is real or whether he is merely a literary creation. To all those who doubt, I will personally put my opinion forward and say, from experience, he is real ... and therefore these writings to me are also very real. Saint Andrew intercede with our foolishness!

[Owen Jones]

The passage of time is actually an experience of the tension in between that which is lasting and that which is passing away. Without that experience, time is just repetition. Not really the same as circularity. Then there is history, which is something quite different. History imposes meaning on the passage of time. And there are all kinds of different experiences relating to the idea of history. One idea is that history culminates in the present. This is the idea behind King lists.

One of the problems I think for many Orthodox Christians is that there is a conflict between our faith, and our experience of time and history in the "modern" secular sense, which has immanentized the Christian experience of making spiritual progress from this world to the next. In the secularized "world view," if one is not experiencing progress in one's mundane existence, it creates a crisis. One prays, go to Church, but nothing really happens. Nothing is getting "better!" Things are supposed to get better! That crisis in thinking is the result of the secular ideology of history imposing itself on our consciousness.

Unfortunately, preachers do not address such things. Their sermons are quite pedestrian for the most part. Make sure you go to Church frequently. Attend to the sacraments of the Church, etc. But the intellectual conflicts arise and cause problems that are not addressed. Christianity is an intellectual religion, in the sense that it provides the intellect with an ordered vision of reality as a whole in which each of us plays a vital role. In fact, the least of us plays an even more vital role than the people who "make" history.

We are told from childhood that we must make a difference. But this is something counter to the Christian vision. It means we are supposed to work to make the world a better place, which is a gnostic inversion of the Christian vision. Then, when things don't get better, no matter how hard we have tried, it leads to all kinds of spiritual disorder.

[Andreas Moran]

The problem lies in the fact that the world, and many Christians, think that physical time (chronos) is all there is. Rational modern man accepts only what his rational mind and senses can perceive. But our natural paradisal state knew of eternity (aeon) which is spiritual. Because of the Fall, we, even many Christians, find it hard to engage with eternity. As a result we can only see things in their physical , material aspects. Worse still, we so identify ourselves with physical time that we consider our existence in it to be completely our natural state. So we lose all sense of the spiritual and eternal in things. Yes, as Owen says, we go to church, we cross ourselves, we drink holy water, we make the sign of the cross over our meals, and so forth. But are we really engaging with the eternal? Or are we going through the motions and hoping the while that our concrete circumstances and our experience of life in physical time will not get very trying?

[Ryan]

The term 'aeon' is to be identified with 'eternity'. 'Aidion' is used to denote 'everlasting'.

I have seen the term "aeon" used both in the sense of eternity and in the sense of an intermediate unit between eternity and time.

"The aeon is outside of time, but having, like time, a beginning, it is commensurable to it. The divine eternity alone is incommensurable: in relation both to time and to the aeon." - Lossky, "The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church," p. 102

[Andreas Moran]

What Lossky says is right. As I said above, time and eternity are created, everlasting is not. But I think aeon equals eternity and not something in between eternity and time. So we have time, eternity and everlasting. The patristic authority for this threefold classification is quite ample: St Basil the Great On the Holy Spirit, St Gregory of Nyssa Against Eunomios, St Maximos the Confessor Various Texts and De Ambiguis. True, St John Damascene attributes a variety of meanings to aeon but the simpler classification seems to me to avoid confusion.

[Owen Jones]

I always thought aeon meant age and/or world. Unto the ages of ages means a duration of immeasurable time. But it strikes me it still refers to time. Especially since it also means world, or cosmos. But I will hardly argue with St. Basil and ST. Maximos if they use it to mean beyond time.

[Vasiliki D.]

I wish to follow in Paul Cowens posting footsteps, a beautiful poem by Saint N.:


Once I bound myself to You, my love, all other bonds broke.

I see a swallow distraught over its demolished nest, and I say: "I am not bound to my nest."

I see a son mourning for his father, and I say: "I am not bound to my parents."

I see a fish expiring as soon as it is taken out of the water, and I say: "That is me! If they take me out of Your embrace, I shall die in seconds—like a fish tossed onto the sand."

Yet how could I have plunged so far into You, with no way back, and lived, if I had not been in You before? Truly, I was in You from Your first awakening, because I sense that You are my home.

Eternity exists in eternity just as duration exists in time. In one eternity, O Lord, You were in ineffable sameness and Your vesperal blessedness. At that time Your hypostases were the truth within You, for it was impossible for them not to be in You. But they did not recognize one another, for they were unconscious of their diversity. In a second eternity You were in Your matinal blessedness, and the three hypostases recognized themselves as such.

The Father was not before the Son, nor was the Son before the Father, nor was the All-Holy Spirit before or after the Father and the Son. As a man while waking suddenly opens both eyes at the same time, so did the three hypostases within You suddenly open at the same time. There is no Father without the Son and no Son without the Holy Spirit.

When I lie beside my lake and sleep unconsciously, neither the power of consciousness, nor desire, nor action, die within me — rather they all flow into one blessed, nirvana-like, indistinguishable unity.

When the sun pours out its gold over the lake, I awaken not as a nirvana-like unity but as a triunity of consciousness, desire, and action.

This is Your history in my soul, O Lord, interpreter of my life. Is not the history of my soul the interpreter of the history of everything created, everything divided and everything united? And of You as well, my Homeland, my soul is—forgive me, O Lord — the interpreter of You.

O my Homeland, save me from the assaults of foreigners upon me.
O my Light, chase the darkness out of my blood.
O my Life, burn up all the larvae of death in my soul and my body.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

I always thought aeon meant age and/or world. Unto the ages of ages means a duration of immeasurable time. But it strikes me it still refers to time. Especially since it also means world, or cosmos. But I will hardly argue with St. Basil and ST. Maximos if they use it to mean beyond time.

I strongly suspect that at least in overall context this is a more correct understanding of St Maxmus' understanding of time.

I have read through the passage from Lossky and it seems confused.

Here for example is a quote from St Maximus:


I have tried to show by arguments from reason, from the Scriptures and from the Fathers, that none of the created things that move has ever come to rest, nor obtained the prize laid up in God's plan. It is impossible that those who have found the stability that comes from having their dwelling place in God will turn away from God. (Ambiguum 7- III)

In other words in terms of its telos, created being always has movement towards God Who is the fulfillment of its nature.

The stability of which St Maximus speaks then does not mean that this movement ceases. Rather it refers to how this movement is anchored in the undistracted focus of created being on its fulfillment which is God. In other words the movement of created being finds its stability- its 'rest'- in relation to God. Otherwise its movement is necessarily chaotic and destructive.

Thus:


for those who enjoy fellowship with God who is infinite and beautiful, desire becomes more intense and has no limit.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Peter S.]

Thus:


for those who enjoy fellowship with God who is infinite and beautiful, desire becomes more intense and has no limit.


I have read something similar, if it wasnt just that sentence. It seems that in heaven we grow in sanctity and always develops. But it never loses "focus" so it is another kind of development than in this world it seems. Maybe it is the way theosis is. But theosis is also possible before death, and I dont know about the ways of theosis. Love is always interrupted here it seems. Maybe Jesus is the only exception.

Peter

[Andreas Moran]

I infer from what I have read that theosis take place in the everlasting and so transcends both created time and created eternity. It cannot be otherwise if theosis is union with God, that is, partaking of His nature by grace, since His nature is obviously beyond His creations of time and eternity.

I confess that what I have never quite understood is the liturgical meaning of 'now and ever, and unto the ages of ages'.

[Paul Cowan]

I infer from what I have read that theosis take place in the everlasting and so transcends both created time and created eternity. It cannot be otherwise if theosis is union with God, that is, partaking of His nature by grace, since His nature is obviously beyond His creations of time and eternity.

I confess that what I have never quite understood is the liturgical meaning of 'now and ever, and unto the ages of ages'.

I understand it to mean (present, past and forever and ever.) God is the same yesterday, Today and forever. So why should we not acknowledge this in our verbage?

[Herman Blaydoe]

I confess that what I have never quite understood is the liturgical meaning of 'now and ever, and unto the ages of ages'.

Well, I believes it means the same as "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end" which would be the Anglican equivalent, yes?

World without end is, IIRC, a Cranmerian construction. The Latin would be as et in saecula saeculorum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeculum), which is "and unto the world of worlds" or "and unto the ages of ages". It carries a sense of the world beyond worlds, and the age beyond ages. World without end or the ages of ages means that realm outside space and time, which is why, in the Gloria Patri and in the majority our prayers, praise is offered to God and affirmed both in the realm of created space and time, as well as in the realm outside of space and time.

There are some interesting thoughts on Saeculum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeculum) at Wikipedia.

Herman the Pooh

[Ryan]

To clarify things (or maybe just confuse them more), here's Saint John Damascene (whom Andreas mentioned earlier), in Book II, Chapter 1 of his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith:


He created the ages Who Himself was before the ages, Whom the divine David thus addresses, From age to age You are . The divine apostle also says, Through Whom He created the ages Hebrews 1:2 .

It must then be understood that the word age has various meanings, for it denotes many things. The life of each man is called an age. Again, a period of a thousand years is called anage . Again, the whole course of the present life is called an age: also the future life, the immortal life after the resurrection , is spoken of as an age. Again, the word age is used to denote, not time nor yet a part of time as measured by the movement and course of the sun, that is to say, composed of days and nights, but the sort of temporal motion and interval that isco-extensive with eternity . For age is to things eternal just what time is to things temporal.

Seven ages of this world are spoken of, that is, from the creation of the heaven and earth till the general consummation and resurrection of men. For there is a partial consummation, viz., the death of each man: but there is also a general and complete consummation, when the generalresurrection of men will come to pass. And the eighth age is the age to come.

Before the world was formed, when there was as yet no sun dividing day from night, there was not an age such as could be measured , but there was the sort of temporal motion and interval that is co-extensive with eternity. And in this sense there is but one age, and God is spoken of as αἰ& 240·νιος and προαιώνιος, for the age or æon itself is His creation. For God, Who alone is without beginning, is Himself the Creator of all things, whether age or any other existing thing. And when I say God, it is evident that I mean the Father and His Only begotten Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, and His all-holy Spirit, our one God.

But we speak also of ages of ages, inasmuch as the seven ages of the present world include many ages in the sense of lives of men, and the one age embraces all the ages, and the present and the future are spoken of as age of age. Further, everlasting (i.e. αἰ& 240·νιος) life and everlasting punishment prove that the age or æon to come is unending . For time will not be counted by days and nights even after the resurrection, but there will rather be one day with no evening, wherein the Sun of Justice will shine brightly on the just, but for the sinful there will be night profound and limitless. In what way then will the period of one thousand years be counted which, according to Origen , is required for the complete restoration? Of all the ages, therefore, the sole creator is God Who has also created the universe and Who was before the ages.

[M.C. Steenberg]

There seems to be some confused verbiage in the above track of discussion. 'The everlasting' is a theological non-starter: I'm very curious as to where this usage has come about?

[Ryan]

I'm curious about that as well; I've seen 'aidion' translated as 'eternity,' and not 'everlasting'. 'Aeon' is usually retained as 'aeon' or translated as 'age', not as 'eternity'. I'm pretty sure the Latins used 'aeternitas' to translate 'aidion.'

[Andreas Moran]

M.C. Steenberg There seems to be some confused verbiage in the above track of discussion. 'The everlasting' is a theological non-starter: I'm very curious as to where this usage has come about?

I was basing myself on what I had read - this, for example, from Prof. Georgios Mantzarides:

'The superiority of the everlasting over the eternal is incomparably greater than that of the eternal over the temporal. And this is only natural, since time and eternity are associated with the created world, whether sensible or supersensible, while the everlasting belongs to the uncreated and pre-eternal God. The everlasting, says, St Basil, is that which is "older than all time and eternity in its being".' [FN to Against Eunomios, 2, 17]

[Ilaria]

What then is time? Fr Staniloaie said : "Time is the distance between God calling and man response"

in this respect, we may only witness what the saints and elders disclose to us; they live it and they can only "translate" to us in our language
it seems to me that, even created, time is losing its determination and value when man reaches God;
another elder, fr. Arsenie Boca, in the same manner " Time is the distance between ear and heart"

that's why probably neither st Paul nor St Andrew the Fool could specify whether they were in body or not;
that's why fr Sophrony witnesses that after long hours of deep prayer, the man falls down on earth and feels as dead...

only us, from "time" to "time", in a discreet manner,check the clock during Liturgy services...

[Andreas Moran]

Quite apart from our subjective perceptions of time, is there any objective sense in which time suffered from the Fall?

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Quite apart from our subjective perceptions of time, is there any objective sense in which time suffered from the Fall?

I would have to say yes since time is intrinsic to the movement of created nature.

Man was attracted towards evil- his sense of time was immediately altered.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

One thing I keep forgetting to mention is that our understanding of time has been altered by modern methods of measuring it. We need to keep in mind how recent an innovation this is and especially of how most every aspect of our lives has been geared to this. In terms of this discussion this modern way of measuring time gives us the sense that it is an object separate from ourselves. Probably this comes both from how we look to the mechanical devices which measure the time and also how this then focuses us on a standard external to ourselves.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Peter S.]

Fr Staniloaie said : "Time is the distance between God calling and man response"

in this respect, we may only witness what the saints and elders disclose to us; they live it and they can only "translate" to us in our language
it seems to me that, even created, time is losing its determination and value when man reaches God;
another elder, fr. Arsenie Boca, in the same manner " Time is the distance between ear and heart"

that's why probably neither st Paul nor St Andrew the Fool could specify whether they were in body or not;
that's why fr Sophrony witnesses that after long hours of deep prayer, the man falls down on earth and feels as dead...

only us, from "time" to "time", in a discreet manner,check the clock during Liturgy services...

Dear Ilaria,

Thank you for posting this.

I learned about time and space at a philosophy course at the University, and heard some sayings of it at St. Tikhons the short period I was there

That time loses its determination and value when man meets God seems very plausible, more plausible than travelling in time-machines in causality, as one certain Lewis told was possible, as I learned at my philosophy course. : ) (btw I have sometimes a problem with living in the "now", thinking back, as if "fixing" what I have done/forgot to think, as an obsession. Its a kind of "temptation of time" or what I shall call it. Its demonic I think.)

One nice young altarboy in church is sometimes is checking the clock at liturgy, and I dont like that, but he is young. And I m checking too. That is worse. I have heard about liturgies that went on so fast that visitors didnt recognize the different parts of the divine liturgy. Maybe a problem of this age. I am luckily not used to that. Its a matter of right timing in celebrating the liturgy. Reading too fast or slow a.s.o.

I have an attraction to Dimitru Staniloaie, but I cant say I have read him. I know he died in 1993.

God is the object, and objective. Is there any writings about what God meant time to be? Is it only our different (fallen) subjective experience of time that is relevant for this? Was time part of the Fall at all? Was st Paul experiencing time as it should be in his prayer as written of above? I have read about desert fathers (and mothers) in "ecstacy of prayer" for hours, experiencing it as moments of blinks of an eye, ie. one story of abba Zacharias witnessing abba Silvanos in ecstasy. Abba Silvanos said he had slept btw.

Peter

[Andreas Moran]

One thing I keep forgetting to mention is that our understanding of time has been altered by modern methods of measuring it. We need to keep in mind how recent an innovation this is and especially of how most every aspect of our lives has been geared to this. In terms of this discussion this modern way of measuring time gives us the sense that it is an object separate from ourselves. Probably this comes both from how we look to the mechanical devices which measure the time and also how this then focuses us on a standard external to ourselves.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

This prompts me to think that modern time measurement is counter to a spiritual way of arranging the days, weeks and years. It's true, I suppose, that longitude was discovered and not invented, and time cannot unify us exactly - Pascha is bound to be celebrated in Adelaide before it is in Anchorage. The structure of the cycle of services is supposed to fit a different way of thinking about time than secular time. As we all know, the liturgical day begins in the evening near the end of the secular day. The diurnal round of services does not depend on dates. Sunday is the first day of the week and also the 'eighth day' but the European Union had decreed that Monday is the first day of the week - an obviously anti-Christian decision. The daily services refer to daily time but - significally - the Divine Liturgy does not. The Church year begins in September. (In England, this ancient custom is still reflected in some institutions: thus, both the legal and educational years begin in September.)

[Anthony]

Sunday is the first day of the week and also the 'eighth day' but the European Union had decreed that Monday is the first day of the week - an obviously anti-Christian decision.

Not disagreeing with this, I think it is interesting that the problem goes back much further. Schmemann, if I remember rightly, attributes it to a misunderstanding in parts of Christendom, from the Constantinian era when Sunday was established in place of the Sabbath. I have always found it curious that this is reflected in Slavic languages, whereas Greek (and Georgian) retain the earlier and more correct numbering for days of the week.

[Kusanagi]

I have a document on time and space by Fr Dumitru Stanilaoe in English if I can find it and post it here

[Owen Jones]

Surely Sunday became the Christian sabbath in the Apostolic period. Or am I missing something?????

[Anthony]

I think "yes and no". Fr Schmemann's point was that it represents something distinct from the sabbath - the eighth day, not the seventh, in the week's numbering. At another level, I guess it replaced the sabbath for Christians. But I leave that to people who know more.

(PS - by "established" in my earlier post, I meant enshrined in law.)

[Andreas Moran]

Surely Sunday became the Christian sabbath in the Apostolic period. Or am I missing something?????

I don't know whether 'Christian sabbath' is the right term, but Acts 20:7, 1 Cor. 16:2, Didache 14 and comments from St Justin and Tertullian certainly indicate Sunday worship. Presumably St Constantine made Sunday the first day of the week and a day of rest to unify existing practice; his decree was made in 321. I don't know why English continued to use the name 'Sunday' (or indeed pagan names for all the days of the week) instead of some name such as the Greeks or Russians use for Sunday.

[Peter S.]

This prompts me to think that modern time measurement is counter to a spiritual way of arranging the days, weeks and years. It's true, I suppose, that longitude was discovered and not invented, and time cannot unify us exactly - Pascha is bound to be celebrated in Adelaide before it is in Anchorage. The structure of the cycle of services is supposed to fit a different way of thinking about time than secular time. As we all know, the liturgical day begins in the evening near the end of the secular day. The diurnal round of services does not depend on dates. Sunday is the first day of the week and also the 'eighth day' but the European Union had decreed that Monday is the first day of the week - an obviously anti-Christian decision. The daily services refer to daily time but - significally - the Divine Liturgy does not. The Church year begins in September. (In England, this ancient custom is still reflected in some institutions: thus, both the legal and educational years begin in September.)

Talking about experiencing time: Today I celebrated liturgy and slava for St. Sava in church and this tuesday felt like a sunday, a "little Pascha"... It is often like that and I know it is the same for many people in church.

Peter

[Anna Stickles]

Actually, authentic Zen Buddhism also rejects a reduction to the "eternal now"... of course, it's hard to find any authentic Zen in the West.

When someone like Mother Gavrilia talks of the 'eternal now', I think she is in no way referring to a reduction of the type mentioned by Peter S.


I have heard that here on earth "there is only now", actually, and that time does not exist, if I understood this correctly. What have been and what comes after do not exist. There is only now.

The definition from the Philokalia states


"Because of this the 'age to come' and it's realities must be thought of, not as non-existent or coming into existence in the future, but as actualities that by grace we can experience here and now." and again what is this reality that by grace can be experienced here and now?
" understood, not as endless time, but as the simultaneous presence of all time." Christ is every-where and every-when present and maybe the saints who live in Christ live in an expanded participation in time. It is this expansion, not a reduction that I think reflects a more Orthodox understanding of the eternal now. . I think this goes back to what Owen said, that
"Man exists in a realm in between world and heaven, time and eternity, mortality and immortality, imperfection and perfection, etc.

It seems to me that the Liturgical hymns and prayers of the Church teach us that all of eternity is wholly present in every moment of time. We say that Christ "is and was and is to come". He is ever-begotten, ever-slain. We say that Mary is ever-virgin and to me at least this has far less to do with whether she had relations with Joseph after marriage and is far more a theological statement that the Incarnation is an eternal event. Christ is ever being united with humanity.

Also in Orthodoxy we do not accept the doctrine of 'salvation at a point' that is typical within PC circles. We say that we are saved, we are being saved and the fulfillment of our salvation is yet to come. And that all these are true for us now simultaneously. St Paul says "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world" Eph 1:4. Very often in Orthodox writings the past, present and future are not separated but seen as coexisting.

In the Church time is not circular as the Greeks imagined it, and yet neither is it simply an impersonal progression of events that are passing away one after the other in a relation of cause and effect which is the modern perception.

Rather time begins in God and ends in God. An analogy that comes to mind is the fact that a fertilized egg contains the whole potential of the body that is to be formed and each cell of that body contains the whole of this genetic information also. And yet it is only as this person lives and grows that what is contained in the genetic material is made manifest. In the same way it seems to me that when we say that God's plan for humanity is eternal we are saying that the whole of it is in God, and yet it must be actualized, it must come to fulfillment in time.

On the seventh day God rested, and yet He is not resting now but rather recreating. I am wondering if there is a kind of simultaneity going on in the Fall and the Incarnation, in our death and recreation. Looking at modern man, externally it may seem we have made progress and yet it seems to me that we are far more fragmented, we are living a life which is far more destructive of our nature, far more lawless, then ever before in history and I am wondering if there is some sense in which although we say Adam fell, that the human race is in fact still falling, and that when we have fully fallen, only then will we be fully raised. What is lawlessness after all except the self-willed rejection of our nature.

Please excuse me if this post is a bit meandering.

[Peter S.]

When someone like Mother Gavrilia talks of the 'eternal now', I think she is in no way referring to a reduction of the type mentioned by Peter S.

I have heard that here on earth "there is only now", actually, and that time does not exist, if I understood this correctly. What have been and what comes after do not exist. There is only now. Then I didnt understand what I heard about that there is only now correctly. The sentence: "What have been and what comes after do not exist." by me, is wrong.


The definition from the Philokalia states

"
"Because of this the 'age to come' and it's realities must be thought of, not as non-existent or coming into existence in the future, but as actualities that by grace we can experience here and now.

and again what is this reality that by grace can be experienced here and now?
" understood, not as endless time, but as the simultaneous presence of all time."
Then this simultaneous presence must be the "now".

In Christ
Peter