First I would say that (1) could be habitual, practical, or myopic. For example, it could be practical in the same sense that a preacher writes a sermon for next Sunday before writing his sermons for October.
Good point. I just think it's pretty much the norm. Yes, we take the future in consideration (maybe I have retirement, change my oil, and work out for long term health). But, generally speaking, our focus is close to the present and diminishes as we go further out. Most of the things I did today have relevance in the near future. I don't mean that as a virtue or vice, but just how it is. When I say we are myopic, I just mean that the usual mode of operation is to focus on the relevant present.
The sense I got from the OP was that there is a vice of procrastination or myopia that prevents us from living for goals that are far in the future.
To some extent it depends on the person. I don't want to say it's a moral failing, so much as a natural state. Unavoidable, perhaps?
This is not completely related, but as a whole, we really don't think much further out than a couple generations. I do think it's an interesting question if we are morally responsible for what we do that adversely effects five generations from now. But, that wasn't really what I was getting at.
The example of saving for retirement comes to mind: someone might fixate on instant gratification, live paycheck to paycheck, and never save for retirement. When retirement age arrives they will be disappointed that they did not sacrifice short term goals for long term goals.
Right, good example. I do think that is a problem. But it was not quite what I was after. Apparently, my OP was not all that clear, haha!
Honestly, I was reading Mary Midgley's
Are You an Illusion? saw the phrase, had a thought, and within ten minutes was writing this OP. So...
I'm not sure we have the ability to set aside a part of our monthly paycheck in order to save for the retirement of heaven.
I agree. I'm not trying to say we should save for heaven.
One reservation I have is this: in saying that it is a temporal goal you are apparently committed to the position that the achievement of this goal requires a certain number of resources, and that the person who lives only for the present isn't properly allocating their resources towards the future goal (much like retirement). Well, what are those resources?
The goal is temporal only in the sense that it is not yet. It is future, but we don't know if it's in the next five seconds or five decades. You intimated earlier that it is both now and not yet (as some often put it). I agree.
But what does it mean to say that the future telos overrides whatever is happening right now?
Take some morally significant situation in the present in which one must choose. The person who believes there is a future telos might respond/choose differently than the one who does not hold that there is a future telos. For the Christian, that future telos is going to be significant in how they make moral decisions in the present. Presumably, the prospect of being face-to-face with the Lord matters in how we live now (Hebrews 12:14).
Now, add to that the natural experience of caring more about the present than the future. The cares of the present can override the main determining factor, i.e. the final end, because so long as we still wait that telos is still in the future. I take this to be common Christian experience, but maybe I'm not explaining it well. Or, maybe I'm confused, haha!
It wouldn't be the first time.
To put it slightly differently, isn't every point of our life equidistant from eternity, and equidistant from beatitude?
Yes it is equidistant, metaphysically speaking, but not in terms of our experience. We experience it in the present as a future event, just like any other future event. Even if we get glimpses of it (e.g. the mutual vision Augustine and Monica experienced at Ostia), we still think of it as future event.
Why would beatitude favor the future? How does worry or concern about the future get me nearer beatitude?
Beatitude doesn't favor the future, but it remains the future for us until it is fully realized.
Worry doesn't get me any closer, but indifference or everyday concerns can take precedence in such a way that I neglect my obligations as someone who has a telos.
Probably.
I would tell them that they need to have more concern for God, or beatitude, or holiness, and that's not the same thing as concern for the future.
It's not the same, but it's not altogether different. As I have been saying there is always a temporal aspect so long as we are in time.
"Keep watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming," strikes me as a rather different admonition than, "Make provision for the far-off future."
Only if you think of "make provision" in grossly material terms. In spiritual terms, aren't we living for a future life? Not earning, but living now on the basis of what will be? Let me put it differently. Shouldn't the prospect of a future beatitude have some bearing on what I do today? And if it does, won't that look different than if I had no future beatitude informing my decisions?
A very concise question is this, does living for the present necessarily mean not-living for God?
Not necessarily, but it can. It can if, practically speaking, I live in the present as if there is no future beatitude. If my day to day transactions and decisions are in no way based on a future end, then am I living for God?
Are we not to be pitied if for this life, and this life only, we have lived in hope? What is "the present" in relation to "this life only"?