The Ephesian teaches us that time does not exist and that on the great curve
of eternity the past is the same as the future.
And this despite his professed belief in metaphysical timelessness: «Time does not exist,» he wrote to Apollinaire in July 1916, «and on the great curve
of eternity the past is the same as the future.»
Any concept
of eternity past with GOD without beginning is tough.
Not exact matches
You'll almost certainly dodge that question by claiming he has always existed, so if that's the case, what suddenly prompted God to create a universe filled with over 100 billion galaxies containing a trillion trillion stars after spending an
eternity extending into the
past existing alone in an absolute void
of nothingness?
@Vic: For the sake
of argument, let's suppose the universe was created by an all powerful being who had existed for an
eternity extending into the
past in emptiness
of the nothingness that was before he got bored and created the universe with its 170 billion or more galaxies and trillion trillion stars.
God imagined the entirety
of creation in
eternity past before He ever spoke the first «Let there be...»
of His epic story, creating every micro and macro part
of His infinitely complex, undeniably beautiful and «good» creation.
The whole story about some god punishing a person for all
of eternity for not believing in your particular brand
of religion might scare a child enought to believe but most adults are way
past such a silly concept.
In this debate, Calvinists say that God hardened Pharaoh's heart first from
eternity past because God needed a vessel
of destruction through whom to reveal His wrath.
Yes, that is one possible ramification
of believing that God hardened Pharaoh's heart in
eternity past.
People have rejected theism because they held untenable the idea
of a mind not subject to change or to interaction with other beings, or a mind omnipotent in the sense that its power was all the power in existence, or a mind having precise knowledge
of details
of the future (or
of all times from the standpoint
of eternity), or a mind creating a first state
of the cosmos at a finite time in the
past, or knowing all suffering although it did not itself suffer, or an all - embracing mind which in no sense could be identified with the universe, or one which could in every sense be identified with it.
First, it is important to note that in the surrounding context, there is nothing anywhere about some sovereign decree
of God regarding whom He has chosen from
eternity past to redeem and reconcile to Himself in
eternity future.
He knew and saw this sin from
eternity past and forgave it anyway out
of His grace.
In Romans 8:29 - 30, Paul looks at our future glorification in
eternity from the perspective
of God in
eternity past.
As with therapy, the first step in moving forward in
eternity is to make sense
of the
past.
Except I'll add that the thing doing the determining is the sovereign will
of God, determined in His own councils in
eternity past.
To fully generalize the foregoing view, even the laws
of nature, so far as contingent, are to be attributed to divine decisions made, not in
eternity or for all time, but at a finite time in the
past.
For if, as Calvinists teach, God, in
eternity past, chose some people to be the beneficiaries
of His grace so that they, out
of all the people
of the world, might alone receive eternal life from Him, then Israel, as God's elect people, should all unconditionally receive eternal life from God.
Everytime I try to conceive
of God in
eternity past, I hit a stumbling block.
Where for
eternity past there had been warm fellowship and a loving relationship, there was now only broken fellowship, a sense
of deep and agonizing loss, a hopeless despair, and the blackness
of depravity.
Few contemporary theologians have yet understood how, for Aquinas, the simplicity
of God's
eternity embraces as presence all the spatiotemporal events
of past, present, and future in the transcendent, noncoercive presence
of Infinite Consciousness.
It was an event in the history
of salvation, in the realm
of eternity..., in an analogous way, history comes to an end in the religious experience
of any Christian «who is in Christ»... For although the advent
of Christ is an historical event which happened «once» in the
past, it is, at the same time, an eternal event which occurs again and again in the soul
of any Christian.»
Alas the time
of opportunity for choice is now
past and they must for
eternity live with the decision they made in those few short years
of temporal living.
50) who took over Plato's concept
of eternity in which there is neither
past nor future but only present.
For to judge by the outcome (whereby an attempt is made to unite a judgment
of temporal existence and
of eternity into a judgment that comes after the event is
past) is not humanly possible in the instant that a man himself acts, nor is it possible in the instant when others act.
So this choice took place in
eternity past, before the foundation
of the world.
In Romans 8:28 - 30, Paul is not talking about an eternal decree from
eternity past about to whom He would give eternal life, but rather, God's plan from
eternity past to bring those who believe in Jesus into conformity to the image
of Jesus Christ, which does not fully occur until glorification (cf. Eph 1:4; 4:1; 5:27; Col 1:22 - 23).
(Isaiah 40:17, Daniel 4:35, Isaiah 42:1, Matthew 3:17, 17:5, Ephesians 5:2) And in order that He might demonstrate His love, and to bring glory and honor, and praise to Himself, and in order to demonstrate His relative attributes
of mercy, grace, justice, and loving - kindness, He devised a plan in
eternity past to create a universe where His creation would rebel against Him, and He would send forth His Son to the world to be born
of a virgin, to live a perfect and sinless life, and to die a subst.itutionary death on a cross, shedding His blood for the forgiveness
of sins.
As a result, we are totally dependent upon God to initiate salvation for us, which He did in
eternity past by choosing to save some, without any condition or merit on the part
of those whom He chose (Unconditional Election).
Here I agree with Robert Neville in his book
Eternity and Time's Flow that eternity or the divine act of being is «the togetherness of the modes of time — past, present, and future — so that each can be its temporal self&raqu
Eternity and Time's Flow that
eternity or the divine act of being is «the togetherness of the modes of time — past, present, and future — so that each can be its temporal self&raqu
eternity or the divine act
of being is «the togetherness
of the modes
of time —
past, present, and future — so that each can be its temporal self» (60).
But the fact that it has happened is on the other hand the ground
of an uncertainty, by which the apprehension will always be prevented from assimilating the
past as if it had been thus from all
eternity.
The basic explanation
of Unconditional Election is that God, in
eternity past, had an eternal decree by which He predetermined all things that would happen.
Yes, we know that our existence (Heidegger's Dasein and Sartre's pour soi) is chaos, nothingness and despair; but we must not flee it either by clinging to a lost moment
of the
past or by leaping to a hopelessly transcendent
eternity.
It has always bothered me that preachers would teach that Jesus was weak enough to back out
of a plan He knew
of since
eternity past.
Or, phrased differently, being was experienced as the passage
of all things from future possibility into the nothingness
of the
past through the narrow juncture
of the always disappearing present; and so the thought
of being had not yet been separated into a stark opposition between temporality and
eternity.
His development inside his mother was the same as yours or mine, with one very important distinction, no human s.p.e.r.m. Jesus was with or part
of God in
eternity past, the only difference is that when he walked the earth, he wore a human body.
But evangelicalism asks us to believe that God (from whom we get the concept
of being courteous, gentle and forgiving) can not get
past those offences and will ultimately get payback by consigning the person to final damnation for
eternity (regardless if hell is full
of flames or just empty loneliness).
In
eternity past, God did not choose who He would unconditionally and irresistibly bring into His church, but rather, decided that all those who believed in Jesus and in so doing became members
of His church, to them He would give the task
of being a blessing to the world by sharing serving one another, declaring God's grace, and loving others just as He has loved us.
Pillars
of Eternity is a masterclass in role - playing game development, recapturing the essence
of the genre's
past triumphs and repackaging them for a universal audience.
Here are some huge games that I would love to have played, but did not manage to even touch over the
past year or two: Pillars
of Eternity, Shadow
of Mordor, Assassin's Creed Unity or Rogue, Wasteland 2, Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Project
Eternity (working title) pays homage to the great Infinity Engine games
of years
past: Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment.
On its lowest settings, Pillars
of Eternity is far from easy and if you crank up the difficulty you will likely soon be struggling to get
past even the simplest enemies.
Solve the mystery
of its
past, or become a fixture in its halls for all
eternity!
Rings symbolize
eternity, so here more than anywhere, you're bound to find an artist who can craft the perfect symbol
of what your relationship is truly about:
past, present, and future.
RealClimate is wonderful, and an excellent source
of reliable information.As I've said before, methane is an extremely dangerous component to global warming.Comment # 20 is correct.There is a sharp melting point to frozen methane.A huge increase in the release
of methane could happen within the next 50 years.At what point in the Earth's temperature rise and the rise
of co2 would a huge methane melt occur?No one has answered that definitive issue.If I ask you all at what point would huge amounts
of extra methane start melting, i.e at what temperature rise
of the ocean near the Artic methane ice deposits would the methane melt, or at what point in the rise
of co2 concentrations in the atmosphere would the methane melt, I believe that no one could currently tell me the actual answer as to where the sharp melting point exists.
Of course, once that tipping point has been reached, and billions
of tons
of methane outgass from what had been locked stores
of methane, locked away for an
eternity, it is exactly the same as the burning
of stored fossil fuels which have been stored for an
eternity as well.And even though methane does not have as long a life as co2, while it is around in the air it can cause other tipping points, i.e. permafrost melting, to arrive much sooner.I will reiterate what I've said before on this and other sites.Methane is a hugely underreported, underestimated risk.How about RealClimate attempts to model exactly what would happen to other tipping points, such as the melting permafrost, if indeed a huge increase in the melting
of the methal hydrate ice WERE to occur within the next 50 years.My amateur guess is that the huge, albeit temporary, increase in methane over even three or four decades might push other relevent tipping points to arrive much, much, sooner than they normally would, thereby vastly incresing negative feedback mechanisms.We KNOW that quick, huge, changes occured in the Earth's climate in the
past.See other relevent posts in the
past from Realclimate.Climate often does not change slowly, but undergoes huge, quick, changes periodically, due to negative feedbacks accumulating, and tipping the climate to a quick change.Why should the danger from huge potential methane releases be vievwed with any less trepidation?