From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other senses of the word "eternity", see eternity (disambiguation).

While in the popular mind, eternity often simply means existing for an infinite, i.e., limitless, amount of time, many have used it to refer to a timeless existence altogether outside of time. There are a number of arguments for eternity, by which proponents of the concept, principally Aristotle, purported to prove that matter, motion, and time must have existed eternally.

Contents 1 Eternity as a timeless existence 2 God and eternity 3 Science and eternity 4 Symbolism and eternity 5 See also

Augustine of Hippo wrote that time exists only within the created universe, so that God exists outside of time; for God there is no past or future, but only an eternal present. And one need not believe in God in order to hold this concept of eternity: an atheist mathematician can maintain the philosophical tenet that numbers and the relationships among them exist outside of time, and so are in that sense eternal.

Near-death experience testimonies typically speak of eternity as a timeless existence by stating that portions of experiences in the eternal world lasted, say, "an hour or a month, I don't know. There was no time."

Another facet of eternity is that it is permanent in some aspects. Supposing we are in a state of eternity; a person could not break a pencil in two, or walk from a place to another since those actions have a before and an after: a time in which the pencil was whole and a time in which it no longer was. These changes correspond to time. Basically nothing can happen in eternity in the sense we understand it. In order for actions to happen, there must be a tense that corresponds to a continuing action: a tense in which past, present, and future are combined to form a continual action. One doesn't break the pencil, but one broke the pencil, breaks the pencil, and will break the pencil all at the same instant.

Such tenses of the verb are used in the Bible.

Theists say that God is eternally existent. How this is understood depends on which definition of eternity is used. On the one hand, God may exist in eternity, a timeless existence where categories of past, present, and future just do not apply. On the other hand, God may exist for or through eternity, or at all times, having already existed for an infinite amount of time and being expected to continue to exist for an infinite amount of time.

Whichever definition of eternity is understood, it is common to observe that finite human beings cannot fully understand eternity, since it is either an infinite amount of the time we know or something other than the time and space we know. For the infinite definition, there are parallels that give some notion of an infinity -- of at least a potential infinity, or a series that begins and has not ended. A series of moments that has begun and not ended is however, not potentially eternal by that definition. A series of moments that has begun and not ended cannot be eternal, because even if it were to continue for the rest of (infinite) time, there would still be time prior to the initial moment in the series. The series of moments could not ever exist for all eternity because no matter what happened during the series of moments, nothing would ever cause the series of moments to have existed since the beginning of "eternity", and thus could never achieve the status of eternal or even potentially eternal.

Related to the notion of eternal existence in the concept of God as Creator, as a being completely independent of "everything else" that exists because he created everything else. (Contrast this with panentheism.) If this premise is true, then it follows that God is independent of both space and time, since these are properties of the universe. So according to this notion, God exists before time began, exists during all moments in time, and would continue to exist if somehow the universe and time itself were to cease to exist.

Related to 'eternal life', the biblical revelation first indicated that Man as a special created being is able to grasp the abstract concept in contrast with the lower animal world which did not have the ability to understand the concept of "eternity". See book of Ecclesiastes 3:11 "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men .." (from Bible translation in the N.I.V.). Contrast this with the timeless existence definition, which would imply animals are blessed with eternal life from birth (because of their inability to grasp the concept of eternity or even time) , which is something mankind gave up when he was cast out of the "Garden of Eden". It is commonly believed among theists that although mankind can grasp the abstract concept of "eternity", one may only obtain "eternal life" once returned to God.

See also the nature of God in monotheistic religions.

The modern theory of relativity provides a physical description of the universe in which the past and future may exist alongside the present. Some scientific theories of consciousness such as space-time theories of consciousness propose that the space-time continuum permits consciousness.

The physics taught in most schools describes the universe in terms of Galilean relativity in which only the durationless present exists. This concept is known as presentism and is widely believed.

The modern theory of relativity provides a physical description of the universe which began at the Big Bang. NASA has been able to verify the time of the origin of the universe using the background radiation left over from the big bang. Time, space, and matter began 13.7 billion years plus or minus 1%.Nasa WMAP AGE Since the discovery of the Big Bang scientists consider time to have moved in a uni-direction forward direction. In this model the past precedes the present which precedes the future.

Eternity is often symbolized by the image of a snake swallowing its own tail, known as Ouroboros (or Uroboros), though the symbol can also carry a number of other connotations.

The circle is also commonly used as a symbol for eternity. The related concept, infinity, is symbolized by .

• Eternal return
• Pantheism
• Presentism
• Steady-state universe
• Block time
• Theory of everything
• Theory of everything (philosophy)
• Teleology
• Perennial philosophy
• Eternalist