- Feb 5, 2002
- 182,772
- 66,247
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Female
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Others
Do our souls leave time when we die and go to be with God in heaven? God is outside of time, right? So do we go outside of time, too?
And—if we are outside of time—are we already saints in heaven, right now? Could you even ask yourself for your intercession?
And what about angels? Are they timeless, too?
Prepare for some surprises!
Two Types of Eternity
A key word in our discussion is eternal, and this word has two meanings.
First, something can be eternal if it lasts through all time. You can picture it as a ray that starts at a particular moment and then proceeds forward through all future moments—like an arrow pointing into the future. There are other ways you could imagine this arrow. It might point backward into the past, or it might point both forward and backward.
But the key thing is that it represents an endless stretch of time, one moment after another, going on infinitely. When you have an unending sequence of time like that, people sometimes say it is eternal. It goes on for eternity. They also sometimes say that it is everlasting.
But there is an even greater type of eternity, which is not being part of time at all.
You could picture this as a single point next to a line or arrow that represents time. Each point on the line is a different moment in time, but there’s also a point that is not part of the line, that is by itself. This moment is also said to be eternal because it is not part of time. It’s non-temporal or atemporal.
We’ll call this Type 1 eternity because it’s the greatest form of eternity—not being part of time at all. And we’ll call the other Type 2 eternity because it’s a lesser form—just an endless stretch of time. Both Type 1 and Type 2 eternity will play a role in our discussion.
God’s Eternity
Continued below.
And—if we are outside of time—are we already saints in heaven, right now? Could you even ask yourself for your intercession?
And what about angels? Are they timeless, too?
Prepare for some surprises!
Two Types of Eternity
A key word in our discussion is eternal, and this word has two meanings.
First, something can be eternal if it lasts through all time. You can picture it as a ray that starts at a particular moment and then proceeds forward through all future moments—like an arrow pointing into the future. There are other ways you could imagine this arrow. It might point backward into the past, or it might point both forward and backward.
But the key thing is that it represents an endless stretch of time, one moment after another, going on infinitely. When you have an unending sequence of time like that, people sometimes say it is eternal. It goes on for eternity. They also sometimes say that it is everlasting.
But there is an even greater type of eternity, which is not being part of time at all.
You could picture this as a single point next to a line or arrow that represents time. Each point on the line is a different moment in time, but there’s also a point that is not part of the line, that is by itself. This moment is also said to be eternal because it is not part of time. It’s non-temporal or atemporal.
We’ll call this Type 1 eternity because it’s the greatest form of eternity—not being part of time at all. And we’ll call the other Type 2 eternity because it’s a lesser form—just an endless stretch of time. Both Type 1 and Type 2 eternity will play a role in our discussion.
God’s Eternity
Continued below.