The mystery of eternity.

[escapee]

There will be a new heaven and a new earth. But is the soul eternal? And then, isn't everything possible during an infinitely long time? Even the most impossible thing will find a chance to happen if you give it infinite time to try, right?

How does theology interpret eternity.

Can you be in eternal pain, for example?

Or is eternity more like a subjective observation, like for example every day is an eternity because you can't observe how you are falling asleep at night to put the finish marker on your day?

 

[Blade]

No sin enters heaven..no sickness no sadness no pain no suffering. All the things that are because of the fall will not be there. Your looking at this through the eyes of man. There is no TIME there. Nothing dies.. grows old. Everything God says..does is LIFE! He told us.. a day is like a thousand years.. a thousand years as one day.

As you look at this world.. take all the EVIL out.. you see it through a very cloudy muddy glass so to speak.

 

[Greengardener]

Welcome, Escapee. I think Blade nailed it there. Would that we could see it, how motivated we would be! But if our eyes could stand to see the world as it exists at the moment afterwards is another story altogether. Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, what God has planned for those who love Him.

 

[St_Worm2]

Here are a couple of passages that may prove to be useful.

1 Corinthians 15
26 The last enemy that will be abolished is death.

39 All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish.
40 There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another.
41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised can imperishable body;
43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;
44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
45 So also it is written, “The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual.
47 The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.
48 As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly.
49 Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.

50 Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,
52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory.
55 “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law;
57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

Revelation 21
1 I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.
2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,
4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”​

--David

 

[nonaeroterraqueous]

Even the most impossible thing will find a chance to happen if you give it infinite time to try, right?

I've seen that assumption, before. It's not necessarily true, at least by mathematical models. Parabolic and hyperbolic expressions go on forever but do not cross all possible values (for Y, the dependent variable). In other words, if we start as sinners, are redeemed, and spend forever falling into the holiness of God, then our worst point is right here, and things only get much better from here. More time does not make sin in Heaven inevitable. Rather, more time makes us even less likely to sin.

You get a lot of that inevitability thinking with gamblers. It's this idea that if they play enough times, then they'll eventually win the big one. Yet, the truth is, the more they play, the less likely they are to come out ahead, even if they win the big one. Over time, probability becomes a law of averages. It's no longer a matter of chance but of certainty.

It's similar to the principle of a bottle of air that contains numerous air molecules all traveling in random directions, but when the bottle is uncorked the air only travels one way: given enough molecules the chance of them moving in any random direction becomes a certainty of moving in only one direction. Had the bottle been in outer space and contained only a handful of molecules, then their direction of travel would have been more random, and they would not have rushed out when the bottle was opened.

Essentially, more time does not guarantee that everything will happen, but it does sometimes do quite the opposite. In theory, a dead dog could get one lucky moment when its molecules just happen to come together by pure chance, and the dog springs to life. By the notion of eventuality we might assume that given enough time the odds of it happening would improve. Given eternity it might even seem inevitable. However, time is not on the dead dog's side. More time makes the dead dog's resuscitation less likely, and an eternity makes it impossible.

 

[Eloy Craft]

Eternal first means changeless. God is the same yesterday today and tomorrow.It just so happens that in our current temporal state (state of change) changelessness is also forever. There are two eternal realities in the temporal realm that we can know and observe. Death and...guess. Death dips into our world and we taste eternity. The bible touches on the concept of eternity in revelation when it uses the term 'half a time'. What's half a second? half of that? and so on and so on. How far can time be cut in half and still have duration? So eternity has no duration. No beginning no end. It's half a time. Right here right now. There exists an eternal now or it can be described as an eternal moment...half a time. A paradox for us to be sure.