Time

What if I told you time does not exist? Maybe I should explain before you call the men in white jackets. Time as you understand it, does not exist... Okay, that is probably not much better but bear with me. We often think of time as an absolute, something that has always existed and is other than the created world. But isn't God the only eternal; is God subject to time? Scripture has something to say here: "In the Beginning". So, time's beginning is the beginning of the world, or at least it belongs to the created world. So, if time belongs not to an absolute construct but as a part of the created order then does the "past" or "future" exist? They are ways of talking about events or people, yet we cannot access them in any way, if we could it would be the present. This philosophical view is called a tenseless or untensed theory of time.

      A tenseless view of time is best understood as a framework where “one ‘thing’ (event, object) stands ‘in relation’ to another thing in some determined… order.” [1] The order of one object's relation to another is identified as “before” or after;” however, the objects exist “independent of some absolute temporal container that marks past, present, and future.”[2] Time then is a perceived construct of relationship between objects. On the one hand, this relationship can be spoken of in time as they are ordered to one another. On the other hand, the common conception of a tensed-framework of time does not exist. St. Augustine, in his Confessions, goes on at length describing the fleetingness of time. Within Augustine’s thinking the past and future do not exist for the past has ended and the future has not yet been made real, the only thing that exists is the present.[3]

     In creation, God ordered all objects to himself as a “singular whole” and he created “all things... at once, yet, in their inner structure... are the divine orderings for their appearance in time.”[4] As humanity looks upon this ordering, reality is presented in the “unrolling” of the tapestry of time, intricate and interwoven: “This unrolling of what is a singular network of created reality’s aspects provides the character of temporal existence, as well as defining what is meant by God’s ‘providence.’”[5]

      This is why Augustine and other Church Fathers read "In the Beginning" not as a temporal marker but as a Name. Christ says "I am the Beginning and the End" (Rev. 22:13). So, "In the Beginning, God created" might also be read as "In Christ, God created." This is echoed in John 1 when it says "All things were created through him" and again in Colossians 1: "For by him all things were created." Time is not a container of events but one thing's relationship to another. However, time itself begins to take on a Christological shape. If Christ is the beginning and the end, and the basis of being begins and ends in creation's proper relation to Christ, then all time and all of creation are identified and ordered to and by Christ. In other words, in a tenseless view of time, you may have never known your great-great-great Grandmother, but that does not mean she does not exist. Events and past people, though they are no longer in direct relationship to you, in as much as they are joined to Christ, are present and real.

      Does any of this matter? Yes and No. A tenseless theory of time does not necessarily affect how you live your life. Even if time is understood as your relationship to an event/person/object and, therefore, the present is the only thing that is “exists,” it does not change the fact that you have been formed by your "past" encounters and life events. And you are still going to use proper English grammar with the correct tenses (at least, if you want anyone to understand you). However, a tenseless theory of time does matter in how we understand reality.

      Case and point, did you know that the celebration of Epiphany pre-dates the celebration of Christmas? In fact, on Epiphany, especially in the East, the Nativity, the Wisemen, the baptism of our Lord, and the Wedding at Cana were all celebrated on the same day. In the West, the two became separate feasts in some Dioceses, and at the Council of Tours in 567 AD the Church officially put Christmas on Dec. 25th and Epiphany on January 6th and the 12 days between them as Christmastide. In part, the two days were celebrated together because Epiphany means the manifestation, and on Christmas, Christ is made manifest to us. And this is my point in this little sidebar, in the events of Christ’s life, he is truly made manifest to us.

     In the Christmas homily from St. John Chrysostom, he continually says "This day", as in today. Even our Collect read: "Almighty God, who hast given thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a Virgin." Again, in the post-Communion proper it says, "...thy Son, born this day the Saviour of the world." Proper-tensed English would say "that day" or maybe "this day two thousand years ago." I think the Fathers and the authors of the collects meant "this day." These spiritually significant and historical moments are made present realities because they are joined to the eternal Christ. Christ is truly made manifest to us. The past, insomuch as it participates in Christ is made present. This is what we celebrate in Christmas and Epiphany, that the eternal God who stands outside of time, took on our temporal and corruptible bodies, and that "... beholding the Godhead here on earth, and man in heaven. He Who is above, now for our redemption dwells here below; and He that was lowly is by divine mercy raised." [6]

Merry Christmas,

Fr. Aaron

[1] Radner, Time and the Word, 84.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Augustine, Confessions, 296.

[4] Radner, Time and the Word, 85.

[5] Ibid.

[6] John Chrysostom's Homily on Christmas Morning