How does time work in the afterlife?

[rossifier]

I have always wondered how time works in the afterlife. I am educated enough to know that God is outside of time and therefore the afterlife must also be outside of time but that is where I get confused. Purgatory is supposed to be a temporary state of punishment and once ‘time’ is up, you go to heaven, but if there is no time in the afterlife, doesn’t that mean everyone who has ever lived, is currently alive, and will live in the future is already in either heaven or hell and always has been without a startpoint? The two permanent realms of the afterlife? I 100 % believe in purgatory and believe sinners who have not been forgiven by God go there for a period of cleansing and purification but if you think about it the afterlife is eternity, that means we are there for like 99.99999… % of the time and here for less than 0.00000001 % of the time. I would be very grateful if someone could give me an answer that at least gives me a better understanding of how time works in the afterlife without boggling my mind even more.

Thank you and may God bless you.

 

[phil19034]

My uneducated guess is that being in Heaven would would be very similar to traveling near the speed of light.

For example: If a person was traveling near the speed of light, they would experience time no differently from their perspective as they do on Earth. However, time on Earth would be moving very fast.

So perhaps, time moves much faster on earth than it does in Heaven, meaning that people who died 50 years ago feel like they just got there.

This would also explain how praying today for someone who died 50 years ago can be used to limit their time in purgatory.

So I would say time in Heaven is either like moving near the speed of light (or even moving at the speed of light) or Heaven is completely outside of space-time. But my uneducated guess is that Heaven is inside space-time, but moving at light speed or close to it.

Anyway, while thinking about these questions is fun, it’s more important for us to focus on getting to Heaven. We will enter the afterlife sooner than we think.

God Bless.

 

[GEddie]

There is no time **as we understand it **in the “afterlife.”

Time is physical, and so requires a material substrate (like the human body). There can be no waiting in a bodiless state.

However, there may be more than one temporal dimension, of which we see only one, driven along it by the entropy in our bodies; while we have no way to be certain, it could be alternate “time tracks” that enable an “afterlife” in solid-body to coexist with the time track of our human life.

ICXC NIKA!

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Unfortunately, this is something we just don’t know. God hasn’t revealed it to us, and we don’t have any experience that could even be considered analogous to God’s timeless existence.

As for the question of purgatory and “time,” keep in mind that God created time as part of our universe. If He believes that some conception of time is necessary for our purification (i.e. an understanding that we have lost “time” with God which we will never get back), then He could certainly allow us to perceive something akin to time.

I believe that in Heaven we will still experience a “sequence of events,” such as our loved ones passing and being judged. We also know from Revelation that the Saints wait with anticipation for God’s final judgment. This would seem to indicate that the Saints do understand / experience the passing of time in the created universe.

Just because God exists without time doesn’t mean that that’s how we will experience everlasting life.

I hope this helps. Sadly, we won’t know until we’re there.

---

*The following is a personal reflection on time in the afterlife, and is neither supported nor refuted by any Church teachings that I’m aware of.

Also, please note that when I use “time” in these reflections, I’m not talking about time as we understand it, but rather some other potential method by which we will comprehend and order our afterlife.*

Personally, I believe that a person’s experience of time in Heaven is similar to how we experience time on Earth when we’re really having a good time. We won’t really be aware of it’s passing. It’s there, and we understand that it is passing, but it’s not important. If I’m right, this effect would be even more pronounced in Heaven because not only do we not care about time at that precise moment, we also know that we will never need to worry about the passing of time again.

Conversely, I believe that those people in Hell are extremely aware of the passing of time. Like a student constantly watching the clock, waiting for the seconds and minutes to tick down so they can leave school. Time stretches and wraps around itself, becoming more and more of a burden with each passing second. For the students, this feeling disperses once the bell rings and school lets out. For those in Hell, there will be no such reprieve; the burden of passing time will grow larger and larger with each passing “second.”

Please keep in mind, this is just a personal reflection I’ve had on the subject. As far as I know, there’s nothing in Church teaching which either supports or refutes this, it’s just something I consider from time to time.

 

[pianistclare]

No one knows.
It’s all speculation .
But if God exists outside of time, then I would say it’s not like time as we know it, since we will be with Him.

 

[phil19034]

*The following is a personal reflection on time in the afterlife, and is neither supported nor refuted by any Church teachings that I’m aware of.

Also, please note that when I use “time” in these reflections, I’m not talking about time as we understand it, but rather some other potential method by which we will comprehend and order our afterlife.*

Personally, I believe that a person’s experience of time in Heaven is similar to how we experience time on Earth when we’re really having a good time. We won’t really be aware of it’s passing. It’s there, and we understand that it is passing, but it’s not important. If I’m right, this effect would be even more pronounced in Heaven because not only do we not care about time at that precise moment, we also know that we will never need to worry about the passing of time again.

Conversely, I believe that those people in Hell are extremely aware of the passing of time. Like a student constantly watching the clock, waiting for the seconds and minutes to tick down so they can leave school. Time stretches and wraps around itself, becoming more and more of a burden with each passing second. For the students, this feeling disperses once the bell rings and school lets out. For those in Hell, there will be no such reprieve; the burden of passing time will grow larger and larger with each passing “second.”

Please keep in mind, this is just a personal reflection I’ve had on the subject. As far as I know, there’s nothing in Church teaching which either supports or refutes this, it’s just something I consider from time to time.

I like it!

 

[porthos11]

We don’t really know.

Maybe it’s like what God is, all moments present to us, but given that we’re limited creatures, we may not be able to perceive that fully.

Or maybe we’re like The Doctor, able to access all times at will, but still with a linear perception of time.

It’s really all just guesswork. This has not been revealed to us.

 

[po18guy]

There is an aspect of time involved in purgatory, or else it would be a permanent state. Time itself is a construct related to this world, and which processes us naturally toward timelessness.

 

[GEddie]

There is an aspect of time involved in purgatory, or else it would be a permanent state. Time itself is a construct related to this world, and which processes us naturally toward timelessness.

Maybe, but still not collinear time which is physical.

An idea of what it might be could relate to “dream time.” Dreams are not time true; a great deal of “events” can occur in the mind while the dreamer’s body lives through only a few inhales.

ICXC NIKA!

 

[Gorgias]

There is an aspect of time involved in purgatory, or else it would be a permanent state.

So, it would be more accurate to say that “there is an aspect of impermanence involved in purgation.” Time – in a philosophical sense – exists only in the material universe. Those in purgation are souls without bodies. ‘Time’, as we know it, doesn’t exist for them.

With that in mind, the Church’s current teaching on indulgences makes sense: they’re only either ‘plenary’ (i.e., ‘full’) or ‘partial.’ The prior teaching – which tended to describe things in terms of ‘time’ and ‘place’ – seem to be analogues which aid in understanding by virtue of explaining things in terms with which we can easily identify.

 

[TK421]

Phil gave a good Earthly analogy. If one were to travel at nearly the speed of light, there would be such a severe time dilation between yourself and the passing of time on Earth, that five minutes of perceived time by you would be the equivalent to a far longer period of time on Earth. We wouldn’t experience those passing of events the same because of the conditions in which we exist in. In the case of Heaven and Hell, with Purgatory being a distinct state among those who are saved, those conditions would also be radically different, though not in a way which any of us will understand until we arrive. We can’t apply the physics of this universe to the true life to come, except as analogies.

St Padre Pio is noted to have prayed for the soul of one of his deceased ancestors, when it was revealed to the saint that this ancestor was in Purgatory. St Padre Pio was asked about this, since it seemed peculiar. The mystic said that even though that person died before he was ever born, that time difference on Earth held no meaning in the hereafter.

Our awareness & consciousness will also be radically expanded when in Heaven. We will - all at once - be able to bathe in the blessed company of God, while also being entirely in the company of each other, and our joy from being with even a single other soul will exceed the deepest love between an earthly husband and wife, or parent and child, beyond our understanding, and this joy from just a single other soul in Heaven will be experienced among and with every soul in Heaven, a host that “no one can count”, so that our love towards each soul will be incomprehensibly deeper than our deepest love towards a spouse or child.

 

[Timothy524]

St. Augustine said it well “How can the past and future be, when the past no longer is, and the future is not yet? As for the present, if it were always present and never moved on to become the past, it would not be time, but eternity.”

The afterlife is eternity. You remain in an ever present state where time ceases to exist.

 

[Vouthon]

There is an aspect of time involved in purgatory, or else it would be a permanent state. Time itself is a construct related to this world, and which processes us naturally toward timelessness.

Terrestrial “time” is not part of the doctrine of Purgatory. Here is what Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in 1988 (before he became Pope Benedict XVI):

“…The transforming ‘moment’ of this encounter [Purgatory] cannot be quantified by the measurements of earthly time. It is, indeed, not eternal but a transition, and yet trying to qualify it as of ‘short’ or ‘long’ duration on the basis of temporal measurements derived from physics would be naive and unproductive. The ‘temporal measure’ of this encounter lies in the unsoundable depths of existence, in a passing-over where we are burned ere we are transformed. To measure such Existenzzeit, such an ‘existential time,’ in terms of the time of this world would be to ignore the specificity of the human spirit in its simultaneous relationship with, and differentation from, the world…”

(Ratzinger, Eschatology, p. 230)

His Holiness reiterated the same point in his encyclical Spe Salvi:

**Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire of Purgatory which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away…

It is clear that we cannot calculate the “duration” of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. The transforming “moment” of this encounter eludes earthly time-reckoning**—it is the heart’s time, it is the time of “passage” to communion with God in the Body of Christ. The judgement of God is hope, both because it is justice and because it is grace…

In terms of Heaven itself, by which I mean the Beatific Vision, this state of existence is traditionally called “aeviternity” by theologians. It denotes a mode of existence experienced only by angels and by the saints in heaven, which is a form of “participated eternity,” to the extent that we share through Grace in the Divine Eternity or “timelessness”. This state lies between the eternity (timelessness) of God and the temporal experience of material beings - to us, for all intents and purposes, it is experienced as “no-time”.

Eternity truly and properly so called is in God alone, because eternity follows on immutability but through the Beatific Vision we participate in that Eternity by Grace and not by Nature.

St. Thomas Aquinas explained it all thus in his Summa Theologica:

newadvent.org/summa/1010.htm#article3

In this way time has “before” and “after”; aeviternity in itself has no “before” and “after,” which can, however, be annexed to it; while eternity has neither “before” nor “after,” nor is it compatible with such at all.

There is no succession of moments in aeveternity. Here is how a Church approved mystic, Blessed Henry Suso, described this state of being from direct experience (a foretaste of eternity):

"…**Eternity is life that is beyond time but includes within itself all time but without a before or after. And whoever is taken into the Eternal Nothing possesses all in all and has no ‘before or after’.

Indeed a person taken within today would not have been there for a shorter period from the point of view of eternity than someone who had been taken within a thousand years ago…

Now these people who are taken within, because of their boundless immanent oneness with God, see themselves as always and eternally existing**…"

- Blessed Henry Suso (c. 1296-1366), German Catholic mystic & Dominican priest (The Little Book of Truth). p320

 

[Vouthon]

Read this:

**Fr Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (1877 - 1964)
Life Everlasting
Heaven

…

That which the blessed see in God they do not see successively but simultaneously. The beatific vision, measured by participated eternity, does not tolerate succession. Things which the blessed see successively they see extra Verbum, by a knowledge inferior to the beatific vision and hence called the vision of evening whereas the beatific vision itself is like an eternal morning**.

Heavenly joy has a newness which cannot pass away. The first instant of the beatific vision lasts forever, like eternal morning, eternal spring, eternal youth. It resembles the eternal beatitude of God. God’s life is one unique instant of immutable eternity. He cannot grow old. He is not past or future, but eternally present. He contains eminently all successive events, as the summit of a pyramid contains all points at its base, as the view of a man placed on a mountain embraces the entire valley. Simultaneous totality: that is the definition of eternity.

As illustration, we may point to Mozart, who heard instantaneously and completely the melody he set out to compose. Similarly, great minds embrace their entire science with one sole glance.

**The beatific vision of the saints is measured by the unique instant of immovable eternity. The joy of that instant will never pass away. Its newness, its freshness, will be eternally present. As the vision will be always new, so likewise the joy which flows from the vision. **

The expression “eternal life,” everlasting life, means much more than future life. Future is only a part of time, which passes, which bears within itself a succession of moments. But eternal life is not measured by time, neither by solar time nor by spiritual time. Eternal life is measured by the unique instant of immovable eternity, an instant which cannot pass, which is like an eternal sunrise.

Theologians say that the eternal life of the blessed is measured by participated eternity. This participated eternity differs, without doubt, from that essential eternity which is proper to God. It differs, because it had a commencement at the moment of entry into heaven. But it will not end, and has not within itself any succession. It is truly the unique instant of immovable eternity. This instant is not dead, but sovereignly alive, because it fuses perfect intelligence and perfect love…

The blessed souls live above the reach of our hours and days and years. They live in one unique instant which does not pass. This instant, when we enter heaven, when we receive the light of glory and begin to see God forever, must be prepared for. In this preparation three other instants of life have pre-eminent importance: that of receiving justification by baptism, that of reconciliation with God if we have offended Him gravely, that of a happy death, that is, final perseverance. Beatific love, we know, corresponds to the intensity of our merits. Not in heaven do we learn to love God, but here on earth. The degree of our life in eternity depends on the degree of our merits at the moment of death. There are many mansions in the Father’s house, corresponding to varied merits. [596] “He who soweth sparingly shall also reap sparingly; and he who soweth in blessings shall also reap blessings.” [597]

Christian life on earth is eternal life already begun. Sanctifying grace and charity endure eternally. St. John of the Cross speaks thus: “In the evening of our life we shall be judged by our love for God and neighbor.”

Eternal joy, beatific love, is ineffable. If here on earth we are enchanted by the reflection of divine perfection in creatures, by the enchantments of the visible world, by the harmony of colors and sounds, by the immensity of the ocean, by the splendor of the starry heavens, and still more by the spiritual splendors revealed in the lives of the saints, what joy shall we feel when we see God, this creative center of life and of love, this infinite plenitude, eternally self-existent, from whom proceeds the life of creation!

 

[Nelka]

There is an aspect of time involved in purgatory, or else it would be a permanent state.

A giant clock where the seconds hand moves slower than our hour hand?