The Ontological Difference Between Time and Eternity
According to Cullmann, the quantitative difference between time and eternity derived from the need to find a comprehensive framework for his concept of salvation history. This resulted in an alienation of time and eternity from time consciousness because of the definition of time and eternity as external categories of the redemptive event. Concurrently, the distinction between time and eternity almost disappeared. The opposing movement, a positioning of the distinction between time and eternity...
Preface to the German Edition
The aim of this book is to explore the possibilities of relationally determined and eschatologically qualified concepts of time and eternity. By doing this, I would like to contribute to the dialogue between theology and science, as well as to an appropriate theology of time. This study is based on a doctoral dissertation which I submitted to the Theological Faculty of the University of Lund, Sweden. I have revised the text for publication. In the course of working with the topic of time, the...
Der du die Zeit in Hnden hast223God and Time
Is God beyond time and not influenced by it If so, then is God's time-lessness a flaw Can God be God without time Or conversely, can a God having time be God at all Does God's divinity not presuppose a transcendence of temporality Is God's eternity an endless temporality or a timeless-ness Hardly any passages can be found in which God's relationship to time and eternity is actually a topic. As already previously observed, the hymns do not deal with a carefully considered dogmatic statement, but...
MotivationWhy Hymns
This study considers the notion that time is accessible to human beings only to the extent that it is articulated in narrative form. My decision has been influenced by the theory of Paul Ricoeur, that appropriate talk of time cannot occur in direct discourse. It must instead be conveyed by the indirect discourse of narrative.1 According to Ricoeur, each attempt to analyze time directly only multiplies the problems that occur anyway. For this reason, there is no conception of time without...
Provisional ResultsEternity as the Other of Time
Before turning to the question of time in the formation of scientific theories, I will provide a summary and interpretation of what has been achieved in this chapter. In the biblical material, we saw that the content gleaned from the non-antithetical relation of time to eternity is more important than the formal definition of time and eternity. Speculations about whether time should be conceived cyclically or linearly and whether eternity should be thought of as endless duration or timelessness...
bis ich dich nach dieser Zeit lob und lieb in Ewigkeit158 Time and Eternity
Nur ein Hauch trennt Zeit von Ewigkeit159 in spite of, or perhaps precisely because of this proximity, the relationship of time to eternity is not entirely simple to describe. One cannot find dogmatically sound definitions of time and eternity and of the relationship of the two to each other in the hymns analyzed and yet, both concepts are used in a variety of ways. Particularly in the German and Swedish hymns, the terms time and eternity occur in both singular and plural forms, but the plural...
A Linear Concept of Time
Let us now look at the question of how the structuring of time appears in the Old Testament world. From the standpoint of cultural history, it would be natural to see a relation between the calendar of festivals and the development of a consciousness of time. The rhythm of festivals and periods without festivals structures people's lives. For this reason, according to Gerhard von Rad, time per se is not an absolute given, but rather the festivals are the conditions of absolute holiness.29 These...