God Is Not Eternal, Nor Are We: On the Blessedness of Being in Time

The association of God with eternity, and eternity with timelessness, harms Christian spiritual life. If eternity is superior to time, then God's placement of human beings within time is ungenerous. Fortunately, the Christian concept of God as triune commends divine becoming through time. In pa...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Sydnor, Jon Paul (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: University of Illinois Press [2018]
In: Process studies
Year: 2018, Volume: 47, Issue: 1/2, Pages: 172-190
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B God / Trinity / Time / Eternity
IxTheo Classification:NBC Doctrine of God
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:The association of God with eternity, and eternity with timelessness, harms Christian spiritual life. If eternity is superior to time, then God's placement of human beings within time is ungenerous. Fortunately, the Christian concept of God as triune commends divine becoming through time. In particular, the social Trinitarian view that God is three persons united through love demands divine temporality. Relationality relies on change for its content. So, for God to be internally related, God must be internally timeful. Moreover, to assert that the Trinitarian persons relate through time places a high value on human relationships. Created in the image of God, we are called to create ever-closer community through time. This effort sanctifies time, rendering kairos of chronos. Kairos is the experience of time as sacred, whereas chronos is the experience of time as purposeless. For the three persons of the Trinity, all time is kairos. For us, every moment contains the potential for kairos because God sustains the universe continually. Through faith, the moment-by-moment progression of time can become the grace-by-grace gift of God.
ISSN:2154-3682
Contains:Enthalten in: Process studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.5840/process2018471/210