Time is something that has always baffled me. When I was a little kid, I remember a summer day could seem to go on for what felt like ages. You could spend most of the day outside and it felt so long, as if hardly anytime had passed. And then as we grow older, time seems to slip away ever so quicker. Before you realize it, you've celebrated your 25th birthday and then your 30th.. and just this past June I celebrated my 35th. I look back and I'm like, "Where the heck did it all go?"
Better question would be.. what the hell have I accomplished in my 35 yrs on this planet? It's kind of mind blowing when you think about it. Time now goes by so quickly, before I know it, I am preparing for bed.. just when I remember waking up. What happened to my day?! It's kind of frightening to be honest with you. =)
When I was in the Seminary, I loved studying the great philosophers, one of my favorites was Soren Kierkegaard. One of his quotes that I loved was:
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
That one quote just says it all. Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards! Amazing! You could spend ages on that one just contemplating all the wonderful mysteries of life. Much in the same way is how we view time. We remember backwards, but live time forwards, desiring to find fulfillment in the future whereas we didn't in the past, perhaps in some ways we did, but it was on a limited level and so we seek enlightenment in the future and what it holds for us.
That last thought on hoping for the future, begs the question, is the future already written for us? Do we truly have free will? Some of the great philosophers chimed in on this, Plato spoke about what was and what will be, stating that they are inaccurate modes of expression, but that time imitates eternity and revolves around the law of number. Plato also identified time as part of the motion of the heavenly bodies and space as a place in which things come to be.
St. Augustine stated in his confessions that the knowledge of time depends on the knowledge of how things move and therefore time as we know it, cannot where there aren't creatures or creation to measure it's passing. I remember also another quote by St. Augustine that had a similar thing to do with time, in a sense (smiles), when he wrote
"Lord, make me chaste, just not yet"
LOL! It wasn't his time I guess for a full conversion. =D
There are so many different thoughts on time, Eternalism, Thermodynamics, Causation, Relativity, Invariance, ect.. I tend to be a bit of an Eternalist, believing in a certain sense that everything is actually going on at this very moment in the world. The Past, Present, & Future. Now in the world as we know it, time is being calculated and tracked. Today is today, yesterday was yesterday and we cannot change, today we have choices, and tomorrow.. that has yet to be written. That said, I believe that God is outside of time, therefore his worldview on our planet, universe, creation as he and we know it.. is all happening at this very moment. I believe that time itself is flat instead of rounded, that we are just part of a reality of time. One of my favorite past times is playing old 'god' pc games. The games that you play from the top down, which I call 'god' mode. Like so:
And I like to think that our world is being viewed in such a way, it starts out in the beginning and everything is happening on a level playing field. As time ticks away for those in the present, it is actually all happening at the same time.
What do you think? Chime in below.
