The experience of eternity

[Mr. Bultitude]

Alan Gomes wrote a critical review of D. B. Hart's book on universalism in Credo magazine. Gomes said the following comparing God's and the creature's experience of eternity:

Eternity, for the finite creature, is not a different species, duration-wise, from our present frame of reference. Creaturely eternity, as Hart in one place observed (and as I would have expected him to), is not a kind of eternal now as could be proper only for God, lacking succession and complete in itself, as it were. The eternal state is a continuation of time. It is not a different class of sequential existence from our present state in that respect.

Before I read this, I thought that the human experience of eternity was a bit of a mystery, and that we don't know if we will experience it as "a continuation of time" or as "a kind of eternal now." But Gomes seems confident that it's the former. I don't know his confessional background, but is that conclusion standard among reformed thinkers?

 

[Pergamum]

Doesn't Scripture say that time will be no more?

There are 2 views of time and space: (1) The substance view (time and space are substances), or (2) The Relational View (time and space are merely names to describe the relations between things).

You could ask yourself questions such as: "Could God have created the universe 3 more feet to the right instead of in its present location?" Or, "Could God have created the universe 3 minutes before He did so?" Or ask "Is space a thing, or the absence of a thing?" To sort of tease out your intuitions about how you think of time and space. But it is all confusing.

I believe that time and space are substances that God created when He created the Universe. They are needed for creatures to exist, but were not needed "before" that. Thus after Judgment Day, these things may be altered and we may speak of the Eternal State. It is not a mere infinite succession of minutes, but something entirely different. But my puny mind can go no further and so I will stop there.