What is the nature of Eternity?

[cheddarsox]

I have occasionaly had experiences of deja vu, but this is the only time I recall it in a “dream” form. My dream was not any type of warning nor did it concern anything significant. I was just standing in a yarn shop while my friend looked at yarn.

I have had many experiences of the Divine “speaking” or reaching out to me, but not through this type of experience.

I met someone who claims to regularly experience time irregularity, very much like “Groundhog Day”. This person cannot control it, but keeps being returned to a certain point in their life, and then they relive their life from there, with the memories of the other times they lived those dates. It is driving them sort of crazy, but it has given them some interesting theories of how time operates.

cheddar

 

[JimG]

For example, entropy always increases and we never see dropped eggs spontaneously reform themselves.

Entropy always increases. The question is, how might entropy be reversed? That question is addressed in a short story written by Isaac Asimov some decades ago, called “The Last Question.” You can read it here. (Don’t cheat by reading the short version; the real story is already short.) I suppose it proposes the sort of god that even a pantheist might like.

Sorry to get off topic.

 

[Sixtus]

It seems to me that the intense heat from the Big Bang created the Big Inflation, described by cosmologists as like blowing up a balloon.

That suggests to me that space does not exist until matter enters it.

Eternity however one assumes exists outside from the Universe. It no doubt too is governed by rules and laws of physics about which we know nothing.

What is certain is that when Christ ascended, He did not suddenly travel zillions of miles to some other part of the universe but actually, did not ‘ascend’ very far before crossing into some other dimension.

Existence may therefore be multi-dimensional. The physical universe may be only one of many such dimensions.

 

[spauline]

I’m no expert on this, but from what I understand, I think cheddarsox seems closer to the truth when she says that time does not exist, and I will say this, ONTOLOGICALLY. For neither do the numbers 4 or PI exist ONTOLOGICALLY. The chair I am sitting in, my hands, the statue of Mary on my mantle, all these things exist ONTOLOGICALLY. But “numbers” or mathematical theorems do not exist in this sense. They are IDEAS, not things. I think time is like this as well. Time does not exist in the sense that this rock on my desk exists. It is just a measurement of succesive instants of existence. For example, if the square root of two exists ontologically, where is it? Can you go to a party and meet the “square root of 2”? Can you meet 2.78, or 22/7? No! They don’t exist positively, like material objects. Yes, here are 2 oranges, here are two women. But “2” does not exist. It’s just a qualifier. I would think that this is why animals cannot learn how to count, because counting is based on ideas, and animals cannot comprehend ideas. A gorilla cannot learn to comprehend the fundamental theorom of calculus, because the fundamental theorem of calculus does not exist in a materialistic sense. It does not even exist in a spiritual sense. It is only and IDEA.

And, so, as far as I know, that is all that time is: a quantifier of successive instants of existence, like I can say, here we have 25 pears in a basket. So, like, there have transpired 700^10^9000000 instants of existence. But this is just how I see it, but I’m no expert in this regard. Maybe someone who has philosophy degree can correct me?

 

[RobedWithLight]

I’m no expert on this, but from what I understand, I think cheddarsox seems closer to the truth when she says that time does not exist, and I will say this, ONTOLOGICALLY. For neither do the numbers 4 or PI exist ONTOLOGICALLY. The chair I am sitting in, my hands, the statue of Mary on my mantle, all these things exist ONTOLOGICALLY. But “numbers” or mathematical theorems do not exist in this sense. They are IDEAS, not things. I think time is like this as well. Time does not exist in the sense that this rock on my desk exists. It is just a measurement of succesive instants of existence. For example, if the square root of two exists ontologically, where is it? Can you go to a party and meet the “square root of 2”? Can you meet 2.78, or 22/7? No! They don’t exist positively, like material objects. Yes, here are 2 oranges, here are two women. But “2” does not exist. It’s just a qualifier. I would think that this is why animals cannot learn how to count, because counting is based on ideas, and animals cannot comprehend ideas. A gorilla cannot learn to comprehend the fundamental theorom of calculus, because the fundamental theorem of calculus does not exist in a materialistic sense. It does not even exist in a spiritual sense. It is only and IDEA.

And, so, as far as I know, that is all that time is: a quantifier of successive instants of existence, like I can say, here we have 25 pears in a basket. So, like, there have transpired 700^10^9000000 instants of existence. But this is just how I see it, but I’m no expert in this regard. Maybe someone who has philosophy degree can correct me?

My take is that successive instants of existence do exist, and time, which you conceive to be a quantifier of this successive states of existence, is merely our attempt to provide this succession of events some semblance of meaning. If we have a quantifier, what then is that which is being quantified? Time, as I remember St. Thomas stating it, is merely the measure of motion.

 

[spauline]

My take is that successive instants of existence do exist, and time, which you conceive to be a quantifier of this successive states of existence, is merely our attempt to provide this succession of events some semblance of meaning. If we have a quantifier, what then is that which is being quantified? Time, as I remember St. Thomas stating it, is merely the measure of motion.

Well, no, I don’t think I’m fully arguing with you. Of course, the instants of existence themselves DO exist. But it is the quantifier that does not exist as they do. If I give you two oranges, the oranges themselves do exist ontologically, but the number two does not exist in the same sense. The number two is but an idea, like advanced calculus theorem. I agree, the numbers measure the instants. I don’t know, maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m a mathematician, not a philosopher.

 

[RobedWithLight]

Well, no, I don’t think I’m fully arguing with you. Of course, the instants of existence themselves DO exist. But it is the quantifier that does not exist as they do. If I give you two oranges, the oranges themselves do exist ontologically, but the number two does not exist in the same sense. The number two is but an idea, like advanced calculus theorem. I agree, the numbers measure the instants. I don’t know, maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m a mathematician, not a philosopher.

Same here. We are in fact practically saying the same thing, that quantifiers have no actual, independent existence of their own, just as five oranges existing, but not fiveness, or ten balls existing, but not ten-ness.

In any case you are probably referring to what are known as accidents, which by themselves cannot exist apart from or without a grounding subject through which they can have meaning. Shape, height, roundness or size for instance.

 

[spauline]

Same here. We are in fact practically saying the same thing, that quantifiers have no actual, independent existence of their own, just as five oranges existing, but not fiveness, or ten balls existing, but not ten-ness.

In any case you are probably referring to what are known as accidents, which by themselves cannot exist apart from or without a grounding subject through which they can have meaning. Shape, height, roundness or size for instance.

Yes, that’s exactly what I thought. We’re really saying the same thing!

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

Maybe you are both right. And yet faith is the substance of things hoped for.

So while they are definitly spiritual to us, I would suggest that these qualities exist tangibly to God in a way that he can shape and form. In other words, I think to God these things have a concrete and maleable reality even if they appear to be spiritual and/or ethereal to us.

For example, if one talks about shape, height, roundness or size for instance, then we may be inferring an order of angels specifically created by God to maintain these innate qualities within the universe. Just as God embodies certain traits that manifest within nature in order to reveal his Godly glory on the most basic level, certain angelic orders may likewise embody certain traits which are manifested as qualities within the material world.

I know, for example, that the scholastics sometimes equated the laws of nature with heavenly orders for example. To us, these would just appear to be ‘qualities’ that cannot be manipulated.

But to God it may be that these qualities are certainly capable of being manipulated on the spritual level, much like how the the potter could manipulate clay, shaping and molding it into a certain shape and forms prior to it being hardened within the kiln of reality.

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

Mr.Ex_Nihilo:
And now the rest of the story…

In discussing the solid-state metaphysics of God, theologians are fond of saying that God is not far from us, or that God put everything under him so that God may be all in all, or that he is self-existent and not bound by the physical contraints of the known universe.

Whatever are they talking about?

Let us imagine we inhabit an antediluvian country where everyone is in perfect health. Following Enoch, the seventh from Adam, we call it antediluiva.

Some of us are non-believers; some are believers ; some have more complex faith based systems. We scurry about, in and out of our temples, occupied with our health and well-being.

Everyone in antediluvia has emotions, but no concept of goodness whatever. We know about life and death, but have no hint, not a trace of comprehension, about good and evil - except for antediluvian prophets.

They say, ‘Listen, it’s really very easy.

Imagine happy.

Imagine sad.

Okay, so far?

Now imagine another dimension, at right angles to the other two.’

And they say, ‘What are you talking about? “At right angles to the other two!” There are only two dimensions. Point to that third dimension. Where is it?’

So the people stone the prophets to death, saw them in half, and otherwise spill their blood in order to end the message which they consider stupid and blasphemous.

Nobody listens to the prophets.

Every person in antediluvia sees another person as merely a being of flesh and blood with certain biological functions, with the emotions of the person currently happening being manifested based on nothing more than the outside events he is reacting too. He can get to know the other emotions of the person only by talking to him. But the inside soul of the of a person is forever mysterious, unless some terrible demonic entity breaches the soul and exposes their interior in order to feast on their very essense.

One day a spiritual being - The Angel of the Lord, say - comes upon antediluvia, hovering above it. Observing a particularly holy and blessed person entering its temple, the The Angel of the Lord decides, in a gesture of heavenly love, to say hello.

‘Hail Enoch.’ says the Angel of the Lord. ‘I am an messenger from the creator of heaven and earth.’

Enoch looks about his closed temple and sees no one. What is worse, to him it appears that the greeting, entering from above, is emanating from his own consciousness, a voice from within.

Adam said that there would be events like this happneing, he perhaps encourages himself gently, since he is of the the bloodline of the promised messiah.

Excited at realizing that Enoch’s spirit is not closed to the Holy Spirit, the Angel of the Lord descends into antediluvia.

Now, unless special circumstances permit it, the Angel of the Lord can exist, in antediluvia, only partially; only the virtuous gifts of the spirit can be understood, only the points which mirror the heavenly realm within the interior of Enoch’s soul. The Angel of the Lord manifesting within antediluvia would be understood at first as a mrely thought and then as progressively larger fully developed cardinal virtue.

Enoch understands that something has revealed himself to him from within-- a motion of the Holy Spirit leading him toward ever greater standards of holiness. Something is alive and well here in antediluvia even though it currently has no flesh and blood to speak of.

Walking with God, called by God, distraught at the sinfulnnes of the souls of the antediluvian world, the Angel of the Lord translates Enoch and brings him aloft by the Spirit, transcending flesh and blood as he moves along that mysterious heavenly realm.

At first Enoch can make no sense of what is happening; it is utterly outside his own spirit. But eventually he realizes that he is viewing antedilvuia from a peculiar vantage point: ‘good’.

He can see into the souls of other people. He can understand that there is more to life than emotions such as happy and sad, an that the actions we do most certainly do have eternal consequences beyond the present emotions we may feel. He is viewing the universe from a unique and devastating perspective-- God’s perspective. Traveling through these heavenly realms provides, as an incidental benefit, a kind of prophetic vision.

Eventually, like a dove, Enoch slowly descends to the surface of the antediluvian world. From the point of view of his fellow antediluvians, he has unaccountably revealed prophetic insight, remembering something which he did not actually experience, and he distressingly materialized from nowhere to announce the end of days.

‘For heaven’s sake,’ they say, ‘what’s happened to you?’

‘I know,’ he finds himself replying, ‘that God is “good.” ’

They praise the Lord and begin to call upon his name, becoming the generation that seeks the face of the Lord.

Enoch is, after all, of the messianic line. So he should know a thing or two about God.

 

[rmcmullan]

You might want to consider the Mormon teaching (as I understand it at least):

All intelligences are eternal. They exist apart from matter. They progress until they reach perfection and then they increase in glory. I can’t understand how intelligences are eternal anymore than I can understand how matter is.

Reaching perfection is part trials (this time on Earth), part education (accepting God’s law).

SO, whaddya think?

 

[Nan_S]

You might want to consider the Mormon teaching (as I understand it at least):

All intelligences are eternal. They exist apart from matter. They progress until they reach perfection and then they increase in glory. I can’t understand how intelligences are eternal anymore than I can understand how matter is.

Reaching perfection is part trials (this time on Earth), part education (accepting God’s law).

SO, whaddya think?

The Catholic way of phrasing this would be:

All souls are immortal. They exist apart from matter, but are bound to mortal human intelligence. They progress until they reach the end of the mortal life to which they are bound. If they have achieved salvation they are perfected by God and then they increase in glory.

Reaching salvation is part trials (this time on Earth), part education (accepting God’s grace).

Matter is apparently eternal, but only within the bounds of Linear Time.

The soul is eternal because it infused in mortal man by the breath of God. Although the earth is filled with living beings, only man received his life from the breath of God.

Gen 2:7 The LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

I think there are a few things we need to keep in mind here:

1: We should not be so cavalier as to think that God is just any other “thing”. Or even that God is a “thing” at all. I believe it’s St. Dionysius the Areopagite who writes that we cannot say that God exists, nor can we say that God does not exist: God transcends both existence and non-existence. Anything that we predicate re: God must be taken with a huge grain of salt: what we are actually talking about is not God in Godself, but God as an object of knowledge. It is for this reason, I would argue, that many saints warn against talking too much of God–the temptation to objectify (and the subsequent temptation to idolize the object) may be too great.

2: Is a true distinction being made between atemporality/eternity (non-existence of time) and a mere indefinite advance of time (an infinity of time, a time without end)? Time finds it’s meaning in Eternity, which is the End of Time. Eternity has no past and no future. Eternity is fully Now. Past and future are the unfortunate consequences of failing to live in what Meister Eckhart called the Eternal Present in which God dwells. There is an argument to be made for an identification of time with death.

3: Is there honest conjecture here that heaven is spatial as opposed to (or in addition to) existential? Theologically speaking, distance is a measurement of (or perhaps a metaphor for) likeness: if we are unlike God, we are far from God; if we are like God, we are near to God. I think that heaven is a quality of being, not just another place in which one happens to be. I think to introduce space, which is a measurement in some ways of distance and separation, into heaven is a bit sinister.

Random thoughts…

Under the Mercy,
Mark

Deo Gratias!

 

[Nan_S]

Grace & Peace!

I think there are a few things we need to keep in mind here:

1: We should not be so cavalier as to think that God is just any other “thing”. Or even that God is a “thing” at all. I believe it’s St. Dionysius the Areopagite who writes that we cannot say that God exists, nor can we say that God does not exist: God transcends both existence and non-existence. Anything that we predicate re: God must be taken with a huge grain of salt: what we are actually talking about is not God in Godself, but God as an object of knowledge. It is for this reason, I would argue, that many saints warn against talking too much of God–the temptation to objectify (and the subsequent temptation to idolize the object) may be too great.

We cannot say whether or not God truly exists? That’s an argument - a dodge, really - from atheism.

It is believed that after his conversion Dionysius was ordained and consecrated the first bishop of Athens, and that he suffered martyrdom under Domitian. For some time it was thought that certain important and influential theological writings were the work of the Areopagite, but critical study of these makes it clear that they do not go back to apostolic times but rather to the end of the fifth century. The actual author is unknown and is referred to as Pseudo-Dionysius.

2: Is a true distinction being made between atemporality/eternity (non-existence of time) and a mere indefinite advance of time (an infinity of time, a time without end)? Time finds it’s meaning in Eternity, which is the End of Time. Eternity has no past and no future. Eternity is fully Now. Past and future are the unfortunate consequences of failing to live in what Meister Eckhart called the Eternal Present in which God dwells. There is an argument to be made for an identification of time with death.

Regarding the non-existence of time, see my post #4 above.

Past, present, and future are not unfortunate consequences. There were created so that man could have Free Will. Past, present, and future were created so that man could weigh his options and decide whether to live eternally with God or without God.

3: Is there honest conjecture here that heaven is spatial as opposed to (or in addition to) existential? Theologically speaking, distance is a measurement of (or perhaps a metaphor for) likeness: if we are unlike God, we are far from God; if we are like God, we are near to God. I think that heaven is a quality of being, not just another place in which one happens to be. I think to introduce space, which is a measurement in some ways of distance and separation, into heaven is a bit sinister.
Random thoughts…
Under the Mercy,
Mark
Deo Gratias!

Regarding space, see my post #15 above.

If heaven is a quality of being, what would that make hell?

Hell is separation from God, which IS sinister. That’s the whole point.

CCC Para 1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: “He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.”

Nan

 

[RobedWithLight]

You might want to consider the Mormon teaching (as I understand it at least):

All intelligences are eternal. They exist apart from matter. They progress until they reach perfection and then they increase in glory. I can’t understand how intelligences are eternal anymore than I can understand how matter is.

Reaching perfection is part trials (this time on Earth), part education (accepting God’s law).

SO, whaddya think?

Progression from less perfection towards more perfection is not eternity, because the very act of progression implies change and movement. Change and movement cannot hence be applied to God, but only to the soul.

As NanS stated it earlier, it would be better to refer to intelligence as soul. I would however like to point out that while the soul may be immortal, it isn’t eternal, simply because immortality and eternity, strictly speaking, are not the same. Immortality might be proper to the human soul (which is created but never ends) but eternity is proper to God alone (who is uncreated and never ends).

 

[rmcmullan]

Then if the soul is immortal but not eternal there must have been a time of creation.

I’m using a mathematical construct here: a point, a ray and a number line. A number line has no beginning or end and a ray has a beginning but no end. If our lives are not number lines, then they would be rays.

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

We cannot say whether or not God truly exists? That’s an argument - a dodge, really - from atheism.

Nan S, I’m not quite convinced that you understand my argument, here, and given what you wrote in post 4 here, I’m sort of stumped as to why you wouldn’t.

My argument is that God is not a known quantity like any other known quantity. Can God be known? Yes. In part. Through revelation. But can we know God in God’s totality? No. We cannot. Not now at any rate, not here where we “see through a glass darkly” and where what waits for us on the other side of this life is something that eye has not seen nor ear heard.

But the temptation is there to reduce God to a mere object of knowledge. To reduce God to just another thing that must be dealt with in the universe. A fascinating thing, sure. A marvelous thing, sure. But a thing nonetheless.

But God is not a mere thing. God is known completely only by God, through the Word of God, which is God. And given that God is One, the knowing of God and what God knows are not separate from each other. This is not discursive knowledge that God has, here. This is a deep Knowing in which the act of knowing, the knower, and what is known are One.

It could be argued that God does not know anything but God. Origen applies this notion to sin when he writes that through sin, man removes himself from God’s knowledge, because sin is not-God, and therefore has no part in God. The act of sinning is an act of self-destruction, therefore. Because to be and to be known by God (because God is the source of being) are, in some ways, the same thing. (This is consonant with Augustine’s theodicy.) Or, in the words of Catholic apologist Stratford Caldecott, “we are what God knows us to be.” And what God knows us to be is found in Jesus Christ. To the extent that we are not Jesus, God does not know us. Is it not for this reason that the church is called the mystical body of Christ?

Our own knowing does not quite work in the same way, however. Our knowing does not unite subject and object. To treat God as a known quantity, therefore, is to keep God at a distance, identify him to be far far away from what we are, and to limit him to limits of our knowing.

To say that God exists, then, without qualifying it somehow or placing it within a paticular context, is a lie. God being the well-spring of existence, to say or to imply that God exists in the same way that I exist is simply untrue. God exists in a different way entirely and in a way that I am unable to completely understand. In fact, God exists more than I do. God is more real than I am. Being the only self-existent One, God is necessarily more real than the contingent beings to whom he gives existence–and what is more, the beingness that we have is not ours by nature (there was a time when we were not), but comes fom God!

Based on all of this, then, I would argue that wondering whether or not God truly exists is painfully oxymoronic, and assertions one way or the other are both false unless properly contextualized. And even then, you have to wonder…

Certainly our thoughts about God exist. But is God our thoughts? Does God exist in the way you think he does?

Our thoughts and our language only approximate reality. But we have a marvelous tendency to identify reality with our thoughts and our language.

It is believed that after his conversion Dionysius was ordained and consecrated the first bishop of Athens, and that he suffered martyrdom under Domitian. For some time it was thought that certain important and influential theological writings were the work of the Areopagite, but critical study of these makes it clear that they do not go back to apostolic times but rather to the end of the fifth century. The actual author is unknown and is referred to as Pseudo-Dionysius.

Indeed. But is your point that I just chose not to refer to him as Pseudo-Dionysius (which appears to be your preferred appellation), or that because he is referred to as Pseudo-Dionysius, his writings lack authority in your eyes despite the fact that his writings (whoever he may have been) have been authoritative for centuries and influential in the development of Christian theology and apophatic mysticism?

(CONTINUED…)

 

[Deo_Volente]

(…CONTINUED AND COMPLETED)

Regarding the non-existence of time, see my post #4 above.

Past, present, and future are not unfortunate consequences. There were created so that man could have Free Will. Past, present, and future were created so that man could weigh his options and decide whether to live eternally with God or without God.

I never said the present was an unfortunate consequence. Just past and future.

And I’m not sure, based on what you wrote in post 4, if I can agree that time is necessary for free will. Is not God perfectly free? And is not God perfectly unbound by time?

And are we really free NOW, in the Present, if what and who we think we are is conditioned by the past? Is not the ego, the self, informed by who we think we are? And are not our thoughts based on what we observed ourselves doing and thinking in the past, even if only a moment ago? And if we truly are what God knows us to be, and if God knows only God, and if we know that what we think we are is NOT God, then is not this ego-consciousness (based on the past) synonymous with Paul’s “body of death”? Is not this ego the Old Man who must be put to death so that I live not I but Christ in me? Is not the choice, then, not between past and future, but between time and eternity? Is not our Christian hope in Christ not some “future” event, but an “event” that occurs outside time, and is therefore accessible in the Eternal Present in which God dwells and from which God calls to us?

Again, I do not see how free will necessitates time. I can see, however, that in the exercise of free will, time (as we know it) was a consequence–that in the eating of the fruit of the tree, a distinction between the temporal and the eternal was made, as was the choice to make ourselves (our selves) our gods in the field of time, death, and decay.

Regarding space, see my post #15 above.

Similarly, I don’t see how space is necessary in eternity. Space, too, is created. Space is not eternal.

If heaven is a quality of being, what would that make hell?

A quality of being in which that being is always rejected. A quality of being in which one seeks to destroy one’s being, perhaps because it is not your own and reminds you of the Loving God from whom it came. It is a state of perpetual self-destruction, a perpetual fall into the abyss of non-being. Without ever reaching the bottom.

Hell is separation from God, which IS sinister. That’s the whole point. Nan

That is indeed the point. But this separation is not spacial, but existential.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

Deo Gratias!

 

[Nan_S]

Grace & Peace!
Nan S, I’m not quite convinced that you understand my argument, here, and given what you wrote in post 4 here, I’m sort of stumped as to why you wouldn’t.

OK, please permit me to break it down a little further:

…we cannot say that God exists, nor can we say that God does not exist: God transcends both existence and non-existence. Anything that we predicate re: God must be taken with a huge grain of salt: what we are actually talking about is not God in Godself, but God as an object of knowledge.

How much of that last was written by Dionysius or whomever, and how much of that is yours?

The statement “God transcends both existence and non-existence” can not be disputed. But to infer that, because we can not understand everything about God, therefore God’s very existence also can not be proven, is the dodge of atheism, and I dispute it.

In a purely scientific fashion, I can not prove that the man I know as “Dad” really is my father. Even DNA testing is not foolproof; he may have an identical twin I don’t know about. Yet, I have the testimony of the family who raised me that the man I know as “Dad” is my father, that he conceived me together with the woman I know as “Mom”, and I have the testimony of his own actions in loving me and providing for me in a way that only a father provides for his child.

Therefore I can state, with as much certainty as any human can ever state, that the existence and identity of my father have been proven.

Just so, we can be certain about the truth of the existence of God. I agree with you that we can not completely know the fullness of God - no mortal man can - but we can know that God exists, and that He is real and true.

Ps 19:1-4 (2-5 in NAB)
The heavens declare the glory of God;
*the sky proclaims its builder’s craft. *
One day to the next conveys that message;
one night to the next imparts that knowledge.
There is no word or sound; no voice is heard;
Yet their report goes forth through all the earth,
their message, to the ends of the world.

Rom 1:18-22 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.

To the extent that we are not Jesus, God does not know us. Is it not for this reason that the church is called the mystical body of Christ?

This statement denies the omnicience of God. I can not agree with it at all.

You completely misunderstand the term “Mystical Body of Christ” The Church - the community of believers united as family with our God - is the Mystical Body. The not-so-mysterious mystery is not in God’s understanding of us, but in our sense of unity with each other and with our God.

CCC 777 The word “Church” means “convocation.” It designates the assembly of those whom God’s Word “convokes,” i.e., gathers together to form the People of God, and who themselves, nourished with the Body of Christ, become the Body of Christ.

779 The Church is both visible and spiritual, a hierarchical society and the Mystical Body of Christ. She is one, yet formed of two components, human and divine. That is her mystery, which only faith can accept.

 

[Nan_S]

Certainly our thoughts about God exist. But is God our thoughts? Does God exist in the way you think he does?

None of what I was saying was trying to quantify or define the full nature of God’s existence. My point is that God exists. Period.

Furthermore, God’s existence is not dependent on my perception of it, or yours, or anyone elses’. If God had not chosen to create man, He would still exist. And the verse written by the psalmist would still be true.

*The heavens declare the glory of God;
the sky proclaims its builder’s craft.

*His existence can be proven to men through the things that He has made, and through the testimony of those men who have seen Him and His works, testimony carefully preserved and copied by our ancestors who wished us to know the truth they witnessed is reliable.

And I’m not sure, based on what you wrote in post 4, if I can agree that time is necessary for free will. Is not God perfectly free? And is not God perfectly unbound by time?

Re-read post #4. Time is necessary for man to have Free Will.

And are we really free NOW, in the Present, if what and who we think we are is conditioned by the past?

I could blame the man I know as “Dad” for the mistakes I may make today. I could, but I won’t, because I am under no compulsion by him or anyone else to make those mistakes.

Past conditioning does not compel present behavior. Humans are rational, thinking beings, not instinctual ones.

Is not our Christian hope in Christ not some “future” event, but an “event” that occurs outside time, and is therefore accessible in the Eternal Present in which God dwells and from which God calls to us?

Yes to this one, qualified by the explanation that even though we can glimpse that out-of-time existence, we are not there now. And most of us will not be there tomorrow, either.

Therefore, to our still-within-time perspective, our hope is for something yet to come, a future event.

I think that heaven is a quality of being, not just another place in which one happens to be.

Similarly, I don’t see how space is necessary in eternity. Space, too, is created. Space is not eternal…this separation [between heaven and hell] is not spacial, but existential.
OK, that clarifies your position to me. The term “quality of being” threw me off. For my part, I am talking about relationships, with a meaning that I should have clarified by including existential relationships as well.

However the nature of their existence outside of time, whether spatial or existential, heaven and hell are mutually exclusive and there is no movement between them. As Jesus puts it in the parable,

between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.

Does this help?

Blessings,
Nan