once upon a time, i was reading Sophie's World.
the discussion was comparing the indo-european cyclical view of history, with the arab-semitic linear view of history.
the issue seems to be the view makind has of the beginning and end of history, as clearly seen in the Bible, and the way that view is intertwined with the rather futile cyclical view of the world in, for example, Hinduism, where the point is to escape this stupid cycle.
there are obvious cycles seen in the Bible, however, in the 'rebellion-> punishment-> repentance-> redemption' whirlpool.
this seems in contrast to the idea of us getting our perspective in life from where we are in the timeline, from creation to judgement day.
7 comments:
Hey Doug, welcome to blogland! You can get lost here for hours...
Hey - what happened to my comment on your photo. You deleted it!?
Anyway, I forgive you. Welcome on board mate!
sorry mark, was only posting it so i could get my photo up! didn't expect you to have nothing better to do than non-stop blogging!
Hey Doug,
welcome to cyber space.
Interesting thoughts on history - would love to hear more!
Drew
this is all your fault by the way drew!
thanks.
Augustine has some interesting things to say about TIME (Confessions, XI) and its relationship to God. What does it mean that God created heaven and earth "in the beginning"? Is God bound by time or outside of time? Is there time in eternity or is time actually created along with the rest of the universe?
Augustine concludes that time was created by God and so is bound within the order of creation, whereas God exists outside of time in eternity (Conf. 11.13). He states that there is no time before or after God: ‘In the eminence of thy ever-present eternity, thou precedest all times past, and extendest beyond all future times.’ (Conf. 11.13).
Augustine seeks therefore to demonstrate that God’s action of creation does not involve His changing nature and therefore His imperfection – as purported by the Neoplatonists.
For God exists outside of time and so is not bound by it, and where there is no time there accordingly can be no change. In doing so, Augustine rejects the Neoplatonist view that the world is eternal and that history is an everlasting cosmic cycle (Conf. 11.10).
Augustine rather saw time as beginning in creation and driving forward to the prize of his ‘heavenly calling’ in Christ (Conf. 11.29).
Cyclical vs linear: see Augustine's City of God Bk XII, chapter 14.
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