Maesoon Faranso wrote: |
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Hi, guys —
- If I have a watch on Earth and a watch in Heaven, will the time be the same in both places or will it be different, and
- Will it be according to the Bible?
Thanks,
Maesoon |
| { If I have a watch on Earth and a watch in Heaven, which time will be right and will it be according to the Bible? } |
Bob replied:
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Dear Maesoon,
They will be different because the one in Heaven will have stopped — there is no time in Heaven; you have entered into eternity.
Bob
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Paul replied:
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Maesoon,
It depends on what you mean by Heaven, i.e., pre or post-Resurrection.
Either way, (Peter) Kreeft speculates we will live by Kairos rather than Chronos. That means time will be measured by events that happen rather than by a clock.
Paul
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John replied:
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Maesoon,
In the afterlife, we always live in the present, and it lasts forever. It's not linear. Scholastics like Aquinas called it "aeviternity". I've provided a definition from Google:
Note: The adjective "aeviternal" is not comparable. (theology)
Aeviternity a state between eternity, which is unchanging and outside of time, and temporality, which is subject to change and to death or annihilation. Things aeviternal are creations, like the temporal, but everlasting, like the eternal. |
So unlike God, who always existed, we once did not but we were always in the mind of God until we were created. Just as Jesus was the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the Universe when God created time but unlike Jesus, we weren't pre-existent. So when we say we enter eternity, but unlike God, we weren't always there.
This is a concept that those of us who live in the dimensions of time and space can't really fully understand. It's a revealed mystery we accept by faith.
Think of it this way. An artist has superpowers to give the characters in her paintings on a canvas life. He can, with these superpowers, communicate with those living characters and reveal certain things to them. They can't see him because he lives in a three-dimensional world; (four, if you count "time"). These characters can only perceive up and down, side to side. But they have no sense of depth. They live on a plane. There is no in and out. So this super empowered artist says to the people in his painting, I'm out here in this different dimension. I made you; I love you. Someday you can join me. Well, these people would have to take it on faith and try their best to imagine the world the artist lives in but they really don't have an experiential reference point.
John
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Paul replied:
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John,
Yes, but keep in mind aeviternity would be experienced considerably differently for bodily creatures (humans) than it would for non-bodily creatures (angels). We will have a physicality to our being forever, albeit glorified and different from that which we have now. And even though saints will share in God's eternal life, God is the only One who is eternal, strictly speaking, i.e., existing outside of time and space. Hence, He's the only One who can go by the name "I Am."
The futility of our imagination with regard to the next life must be appreciated, or we risk becoming the kind of fundamentalists who take such imagery from the Scripture literally.
Paul
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