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James924
Guest
What’s the difference between infinity and eternity.
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Tonitz
Guest
Pardon my ignorance James, but what is “extraordinary form?”
FWIW: Both words you ask about have dictionary meanings, and some overlap in usage. A search in an etymological dictionary and a thesaurus would be productive. Both have in common the idea of extension, with infinity referring mostly to space and numbers, while eternity often is taken to refer to time. There is a useful argument that eternity in the theological or metaphysical sense does NOT include the element of duration despite popular usage that seems to include that.
FWIW: Both words you ask about have dictionary meanings, and some overlap in usage. A search in an etymological dictionary and a thesaurus would be productive. Both have in common the idea of extension, with infinity referring mostly to space and numbers, while eternity often is taken to refer to time. There is a useful argument that eternity in the theological or metaphysical sense does NOT include the element of duration despite popular usage that seems to include that.
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James924
Guest
Thanks for the info.
Extraordinary Form is the word Pope Benedict has asked us to start using to refer to the Tridentine Mass and sacraments. He introduced the term in recent years to avoid confusion caused by some people mistakenly refering to the “Old” mass and the “New” mass as seperate rites although they are actually just two forms within the same Latin Rite. It simply means my wife and I belong to a Traditional Latin Parish (in our case, an FSSP parish.
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mangy_dog
Guest
One has a beginning and no end - and the other had no beginning nor ending.
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MindOverMatter2
Guest
Words are funny things; and the fact is both of these words have been used interchangeably as meaning the same thing. However, eternity can mean something very different to infinity. It can mean timelessness. To be eternal is to simply have being with out time or potentiality. God, in having the fullness of being, is without time, and this is because the act of proceeding into time is synonymous to the act of gaining more potential reality or being, which would essentially contradict the nature of any being that has the fullness of existence. Change is the gaining of something that it did not have before. God is completely outside of time as we understand it; and this is referred to as eternal.
Infinity can either be an actually infinite duration that has no beginning or end, or it can be a duration that has no end to it but had a beginning; and this is a potential infinite.
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ConstantineTG
Guest
This is what I was thinking. Something infinite has a beginning but no ending. Like numbers. It starts at 1 and can go infinitely.
Eternal is something that has no beginning and no end, which God is.
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Joe_Kelley
Guest
That was my thought. [You beat me to it
]
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JDaniel
Guest
CnstantineTG:
Can’t be: the human soul is Eternal - it has a beginning. God is Infinite - He does not have a beginning. Nevertheless, it is true that the words are often used interchangeably.
God bless,
jd
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ConstantineTG
Guest
Good point. Perhaps more pondering and research is warranted. I replied out of gist, from what was off the top of my head.
Its possible that infinite is just more forward looking. Meaning one has no end, without any regard if there is a beginning or not.
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mangy_dog
Guest
In-finite - no end. It does not imply infinity in both directions. It simply states “without end”.
Eternal on the other hand is not subject to time in either direction. This is only true of God. This is His realm. No beginning, no middle, no end. Just an eternal Now.
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R3VAN
Guest
I was going to get to that. Infinity doesnt start anywhere. Numbers go from 0 to either direction on the numberline forever.
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mangy_dog
Guest
I knew you were.
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JDaniel
Guest
MD:
It is wrong to conceive of infinity as merely meaning, ‘no end’. Infinity means ‘no limits’. The word is from the Latin, infinitus. In = ‘not’ and finitus = ‘finished, finite’ - (from the Oxford Dictionary). Today, it is usually used in the following sense:
limitless or endless in space, extent, or size; impossible to measure or calculate: (such as)
the infinite mercy of God - the Oxford (etymological) Dictionary
On the other hand, the ‘soul’ is always referred to as ‘eternal’, not ‘infinite’. So, unless the ‘soul’ is not a new creation of God’s, but, has always existed, the soul has a beginning.
I think that ‘infinity’ has more to do with continuous quantity, such as number, length, surface, or solid. ‘Eternity’ is, I think, more related to ‘time’, but, in the sense that it is infinite or unending ‘time’. In fact, that is its definition in the Oxford Dictionary online.
God bless,
jd
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Tonitz
Guest
JDaniel, these are astute observations.
However, they as well reveal the source of some questions aimed at the Church from non Catholic sources. Without comment but one observation I will simply indicate what those are as well as I understand them.
First and foremost is the idea of an Eternal God. As you define the idea, which I understand to be an accurate definition, we must take that NOW as being distinct from the “now” that we as humans experience. In other words the NOW of God isn’t the now of humans, that being defined generally as the moment of experience which undergoes seeming change by movement from a past into a future. This movement is also finite in many ways in the the body, at least, has a birth, maturation, and death. Such a duration is not a part of the NOW of God, as it is contingent on change. So the question arises for non believers as to how a changeless God acts in a changing Universe without changing Himself as an act in time requires duration.
The second is the eternal nature of the soul. If the soul is indeed eternal, as you correctly indicated is always said, then it is perforce sans duration in at least a sense similar to the NOW of God.This begs the question of how then does eternal adoration take place, as that would imply separation by perception and action involving an object, and as the catechism in my day at least said "happy WITH God IN heaven. It is easy to see how that is, linguistically at least, a description of a situation with time/space elements, and not eternality in the NOW sense you correctly state.
Observation: I have several friends who are non duaists; their logic surrounding this dynamic is difficult to refute. I won’t go into that here, as it no easy matter to present despite its consistency, and it requires some knowledge of that system, which I had by association over some time with their teacher by dint of friendship. That system is not an easy matter of intellectual comprehension. Given my experience with its proponents I am sorry to say that imho even the Catholic Encyclopedia doesn’t have it quite right.
So my distillation of my observation is this: That while we believe the solution of these seeming discrepancies as Mysteries of Faith, some take them as reason for disbelief altogether (agnostics and atheists) while a small number have an experience based logic as to how these are non contradictory in fact and practice (non dualists). Unfortunately, while from my point of view based on my associations, the dynamics they propose are not contrary to my understanding of the Mystic ideas put forth by some great Catholic Saints, they seem, baldly stated, as contrary to the Church’s teachings on some matters. For me, that is a lot of food for thought.
However, they as well reveal the source of some questions aimed at the Church from non Catholic sources. Without comment but one observation I will simply indicate what those are as well as I understand them.
First and foremost is the idea of an Eternal God. As you define the idea, which I understand to be an accurate definition, we must take that NOW as being distinct from the “now” that we as humans experience. In other words the NOW of God isn’t the now of humans, that being defined generally as the moment of experience which undergoes seeming change by movement from a past into a future. This movement is also finite in many ways in the the body, at least, has a birth, maturation, and death. Such a duration is not a part of the NOW of God, as it is contingent on change. So the question arises for non believers as to how a changeless God acts in a changing Universe without changing Himself as an act in time requires duration.
The second is the eternal nature of the soul. If the soul is indeed eternal, as you correctly indicated is always said, then it is perforce sans duration in at least a sense similar to the NOW of God.This begs the question of how then does eternal adoration take place, as that would imply separation by perception and action involving an object, and as the catechism in my day at least said "happy WITH God IN heaven. It is easy to see how that is, linguistically at least, a description of a situation with time/space elements, and not eternality in the NOW sense you correctly state.
Observation: I have several friends who are non duaists; their logic surrounding this dynamic is difficult to refute. I won’t go into that here, as it no easy matter to present despite its consistency, and it requires some knowledge of that system, which I had by association over some time with their teacher by dint of friendship. That system is not an easy matter of intellectual comprehension. Given my experience with its proponents I am sorry to say that imho even the Catholic Encyclopedia doesn’t have it quite right.
So my distillation of my observation is this: That while we believe the solution of these seeming discrepancies as Mysteries of Faith, some take them as reason for disbelief altogether (agnostics and atheists) while a small number have an experience based logic as to how these are non contradictory in fact and practice (non dualists). Unfortunately, while from my point of view based on my associations, the dynamics they propose are not contrary to my understanding of the Mystic ideas put forth by some great Catholic Saints, they seem, baldly stated, as contrary to the Church’s teachings on some matters. For me, that is a lot of food for thought.
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