Time, Space, and Purgatory

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I was wondering…

Heaven and Hell are eternal. This means, they are independent of space and time, as is God, His angels, and His saints. But what about Purgatory? Is it also independent of space and time? If so, then what is the purpose of our praying for the souls in purgatory if they were “out of time” (meaning we could not expedite or “speed up” their purification)? Is our praying meant to ease their sufferings, or what? Indeed, I understand purgatory as a means by which the saved souls are purged and that this purification process takes time. If it takes time then, are they present in the material world or somewhere between heaven and earth? Please answer 🙂

Ave Maria! Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!
 
Heaven and Hell may be eternal but are not without time, if we understand the definition of the word “time” (A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future) then time exists there. Think of them as rays, they had a beginning or point A but no end or no point B and will continue to infinite, but this infinity is different then a timeless infinity which has no point a or point b, the only thing in existence that possesses that trait is God. All of these dimensional planes (heaven, purgatory, physical world, hell) are operating at the same timeline. So if praying for souls in purgatory speeds up their process of purification, then time exist there.

I do not know where people got the idea that heaven and hell are timeless because their eternal, but it’s without explanation. I think it’s a misunderstanding what “timeless” actually means or perhaps a misunderstanding what “time” means.
 
I have never heard of heaven or hell as being outside of time; only God has been defined as outside of time. I have only known heaven and hell, as well as our placement there, to be defined as eternal.
 
Wikipedia puts for this definition of “eternal” or “eternity” →

-an infinite amount of time, or;
-a timeless state

Which to use? If heaven and hell are eternal, hence “timeless” or “infinite in time”, then why can’t the same be said about purgatory (Scrap the infinite in time thing; I know purgatory is only temporary. So let’s use timeless). Care to shed some light? I’m curious and confused :)) :confused:
 
Time, as we know it, is a side effect of physical entropy. What we measure as time is an index of physical entropy in the world (via such things as electrical resistance in clocks); what we sense as time is the chemical entropy cooking off inside our human bodies.

So time, as we understand it, would not be present in the “eternal worlds.”

That doesn’t mean that a process couldn’t go on that we would call “instantaneous.”

ICXC NIKA.
 
I think about it this way: The soul has a sense of time in purgatory. It is unlike our psychological and emotional sense of time in this life. There’s no need to explain entropy. Christ’s birth broke every law of conservation and of entropy. Most miracles do, too. The realm of the spirit is of a different time. Not governed by relativity but strictly by the nature of that which is spirit. One cannot say that time slows down for an Angel when it moves throughout this universe at the speed of thought. It just does because it is of the spirit. One day in Purgatory can feel as though one year has passed. The soul has a different sense…a spiritual sense and this cannot be fully understood by a human mind. Only spirit can understand it. The best we can do is explain how this realm manifests itself in our understandings. Time does not exist in Hell or Heaven…as we know time to be! We do not, connot, fully understand what these places are like. When the Blessed Virgin tells us to pray for the poor souls in Purgatory it is to end their sufferings sooner rather than later. As they feel that passage of time to be.
 
The Church teaches that God does not change. Since time is a measure of change, God is not subject to time, is outside of time.

I believe the idea was first forumlated by St. Augustine but could be wrong. I know he discusses the idea of God being outside of time in his Confessions which were written at the end of the fourth century as well as in City of God.

I would say that since the purgation of the soul in purgatory does eventually cease, it is therefor subject to change and so subject to time.

I’m not too sure about Heaven though.

-Tim-
 
Again, my take on it…but first I agree; God is not subject to time. He can however subject any of his creations to any form of a realization of a passage from then to now. Or an ESSENCE of time. Souls in Purgatory are subjected to a sense of time as part of their punishment. Im not stating this as fact, we can only take an abstract stance on these things. Otherwise it would only be a succession of now’s and the subject would be without knowledge of the past. Frankly, same goes for Heaven. I would want to feel as though I’ve been in total paradise for what has felt like 100 years when only 1 minute has passed. No pun intended but at the same time, time does not exist in Heaven or at least as we know it. Time is of this universe. We cannot attribute the principles of this universe to that of the supernatural. One with a higher status and more treasures in heaven may have the ability to feel a sense of time so that they can gaze upon God for what seems longer than they’ve been there. Who knows. To come to an absolute conclusion with things such as these is like saying an Apple seed can one day become an Orange because they are both trees. The essence of time as we know it may not be so similar when in spirit. Is it Illogical to say its crowded in Heaven? Of course! What are the measurements of Heaven? In an Einstein coordinate system? But can it feel as though its crowded with perfect company? Of course! Hell can feel like one crowded place, with a feeling of limited space to increase the feeling of a crowdedness of bad company. 😃 you get the point.
 
The Church does not teach earthly “time” in Purgatory:*"The transforming ‘moment’ of [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. *(Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), Eschatology, p. 230-231)**A dimension of “time” has never been a part of the definition of purgatory. When in history a saint mentioned “time” in purgatory, it’s purpose was to show the magnitude of necessary purification from the sin. This is similar to language in the Old Testament which equated sin to “weight” or to an “unclean” mark or to “debt” that demands removal or satisfaction. Yet these Scriptural figures do not mean that sin has actual kilograms, dirt, or financial connotations. This is also the same with when it is said heaven “above” as if there is a geographic coordinate where heaven is “located.” So too, “time” should not be viewed as a literal part of the dogma.
 
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