Will We Exist Outside Of Time After Death?

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We all know that God exists outside of time. For him there is no passage of time. All events of past, present, and future occur in Gods consciousness as a single event. Does the Church have any teachings on how this will manifest in our eternal life? Will we also exist outside of time, or will God continue to provide us with a passage of time? Perhaps our consciousness is incapable of existing outside of time? If we can exist outside of time, what would that be like? Would we still have thoughts, as thoughts occur in a sequential manner which necessitates time.

The idea just came to me and I’d like some feedback as I mull this over.:hmmm:
 
I’m not sure there is any way we can even comprehend existence without time, as we have never experienced it. I know I can’t wrap my brain around it! (Be nice! :tsktsk: )
 
Seperated from our bodies, we will not strictly speaking live in time…but niether will we be truly “eternal”…

We will live in what is known as “aeviternity” which has a sequencing of logically dependent “events” but no smoothly flowing “time” (ie, if we interceed for a prayer on earth…it will come after our intercession for prayers that were earlier on earth…we won’t effect our lives before our deaths or anything out of logical order like that…etc)
 
I’m no theologian, so I’m on shaky ground talking at all about this. But the subject has fascinated me for years.

Seems to me that if we are joined to the Person of God, we become linked to eternity, not in the sense God is, but in the sense of participating in it by way of never-ending infusion of a knowledge so complete that we may well lose our linear sense of time. As to cause/effect relationships, I would hesitate to say that God is bound by them temporally. If, say, God knows (as He does) what prayer I may say in the future, can it truly be beyond His power to apply its merit to the benefit of someone today? Does not seem likely to me. Clearly, people were redeemed after the fact by the Cruxifixion; e.g., Moses, Elijah. So the Cruxifixion had redemptive power before the event in time. I think I am right in saying God intended the redemption of mankind by the Crucifixion from all eternity and into all eternity. His intention is His act, so the sacrifice always was and always will be.

If, indeed, God is beyond time, so that the Crucifixion always is, then, if we are in union with God, might we not “view” the Crucifixion as a present event? I suspect we might.
 
Hello psteichen,

Before Jesus’ death and ressurection, Jesus tells us that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are not dead waiting to rise but alive in heaven. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob can only go to heaven through the death of Jesus, which in physical time, had not happened yet. Jesus is answering your question when He is explaining to the Pharisees just how powerful God really is. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob die, enter into heaven through Jesus death and ressurrection and then live for all eternity before and after Jesus’ ressurection (eternal life). You could be looking down from heaven at yourself right now. Will it not be awesome to see creation come into existance from a position of (outside of physical time) eternal life?

NAB MAR 12:18

Then some **Sadducees who hold there is no resurrection **came to him with a question …\…12:24 Jesus said: “You are badly misled, because you fail to understand the Scriptures or the power of God. When people rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage but live like angels in heaven. As to the raising of the dead, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God told him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob’? He is the God of the living not of the dead, You are very much mistaken.” **NAB LUK 20:37 **

Moses in the passage about the bush showed that the dead rise again when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead but of the living. All are alive for him.
 
Steven Merten-

There is also a passage written by St. Paul about us being already seated in heavenly places. I don’t have the reference, but it has always been a mystery to me as to what that could mean, and now I’m starting to have just a glimpse into what St. Paul was trying to give us insight into.

I have always tried to imagine my spiritual self seated somewhere while my physical self is living out it’s life here. That may be a little too simplistic, but it’s something to chew on again!
 
Fascinating topic…but isn’t there a significance to temporal order–even for the divine? Is it not meaningful that we are still “waiting” for the 2d coming of Christ. That souls still labour in purgatory? That the Church and faith have endured for 2000 years? It seems that all these things maintain their importance to the mortal as well as immortal.
 
It is hard for me to fathom. The most convincing explanation is that to God, all times are Now.

What is the most mind-blowing to me is that when we are at Mass, we enter into that eternal sphere. The Pascal Mystery is there with us, in that moment, the Risen Christ is there with us, in that moment. Wow.
 
What would that be like?

It would mean being able to make it to the company Christmas party, the church social, and square dance that are all scheduled on the same evening.
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BLB_Oregon said:
It is hard for me to fathom. The most convincing explanation is that to God, all times are Now.

What is the most mind-blowing to me is that when we are at Mass, we enter into that eternal sphere. The Pascal Mystery is there with us, in that moment, the Risen Christ is there with us, in that moment. Wow.
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It has struck me too, Oregon, going up to Communion. Becoming one with God in that way puts us simultaneously in His presence and that of the Communion of Saints. Sometimes I really do lose my sense of time for a bit. It’s like there is only one eternity and, amazingly, we are invited to be a part of it. It truly is mind-blowing.
 
Jeanette_L said:
Steven Merten-

There is also a passage written by St. Paul about us being already seated in heavenly places. I don’t have the reference, but it has always been a mystery to me as to what that could mean, and now I’m starting to have just a glimpse into what St. Paul was trying to give us insight into.

I have always tried to imagine my spiritual self seated somewhere while my physical self is living out it’s life here. That may be a little too simplistic, but it’s something to chew on again!
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Hello Jeanette,

We Catholics believe that Jesus is the second person of the Triune God for all eternity from before creation to beyond the end of physical time.

The Church also beleives that Jesus as man had human free will with which He could choose whether or not He obeyed the Father.

The Church believes this to be a crux. A crux is something that is believed to be true but cannot be explained.

Scriptures tell us that Jesus is begotten of God upon His death and resurrection. Understanding that Jesus is begotten of God into Spiritual Omni-Presence to the whole of physical time, upon completion of His human free willed choices to obey the Father, could clear up many cruxes including your own.

Please visit Jesus Loves God

NAB PSA 2:4

He who is throned in heaven laughs; the LORD derides them; Then in anger he speaks to them; he terrifies them in his wrath: “I myself have set up my king on Zion, my holy mountain. I will proclaim the decree of the LORD: The LORD said to me, 'You are my son; this day I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will give you the nations for an inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall rule them with an iron rod: you shall shatter them like an earthen dish.’” NAB ACT 13:32

“We ourselves announce to you the good news that what God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, in raising up Jesus, according to what is written in the second psalm, You are my son; this day I have begotten you.” NAB JOH 17:4

(Jesus is speaking after his death and resurrection.)
“I have given you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. Do you now, Father, give me glory at your side, a glory I had with you before the world began.”

NAB REV 3:21

(Jesus is speaking after His resurrection and ascension.)

“I will give the victor the right to sit with me on my throne, as I myself won the victory and took my seat beside my Father on his throne.” NAB REV 1:17

" . . . I am the First and the Last and the One who lives. Once I was dead but now I live forever and ever. . . ." NAB 1PE 3:18

He was put to death insofar as fleshly existence goes, but was given life in the realm of the spirit.NAB HEB 1:5 Messianic Enthronement.

To which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my son; today I have begotten you”? Or again, “I will be his father, and he shall be my son”? And again, when he leads his first-born into the world, he says, “Let all the angels of God worship him.”
 
psteichen said:
We all know that God exists outside of time. For him there is no passage of time. All events of past, present, and future occur in Gods consciousness as a single event. Does the Church have any teachings on how this will manifest in our eternal life? Will we also exist outside of time, or will God continue to provide us with a passage of time? Perhaps our consciousness is incapable of existing outside of time? If we can exist outside of time, what would that be like? Would we still have thoughts, as thoughts occur in a sequential manner which necessitates time.

The idea just came to me and I’d like some feedback as I mull this over.:hmmm:
Click to expand...
I have wondered this myself. I would think that only God could see human history outside of time, but then how could Mary respond to the millions of prayers to her. In revelation, it says that the angels and saints in heaven are presenting the prayers of those on earth to God. So I am not sure exactly how we experience human events.

I have thought that if we were outside of time in heaven, and we can see what is going on here on earth, then we are right now watching ourselves.:eek:
Better wash your hands after the restroom, and not sin if that us the case.
 
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