| Abstrakt: |
The discussion of eternity and time in the Christian tradition has been structurally controlled by the delineation of the issue as found in Greek philosophy. Plato in his Timaeus described the creation of time by the demiurge as the moving image of the eternal forms: "he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the heavens, he made this image eternal but moving according to number, while eternity itself rests in unity, and this image we call time" (Timaeus, 37 d). In the beginning there was the eternal, immovable and immutable, and time is a part of that which is created movable and changing, imitating the eternal. Clearly, the relationship between that which is eternal and that which is in time is asymmetrical. Yet the eternal is defined by what it is not, by the via negative: time is moving; therefore, the eternal must be unmoving. This procedure of juxtaposing and contrasting the immovable, immutable and eternal to that which is in time became the standard approach to the God and time problem in Christian theology as well. Major Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Boethius and Aquinas adopted it. Opposing eternity to time led to the odd idea that the living God is timeless. Contemporary theologians have asserted that it seems incoherent to claim that a timeless God acts in time, even becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ. The problem arises from the refusal of traditional discussions to define eternity with reference to the particular life and movement of the triune God. |
