Time And Timelessness

The forward progression of time is an assumption that human beings have always made - and there is scarcely a society on God’s good earth that does not plan for the years and months and days ahead without this assumption. By forward progression of course, I mean that on a linear scale, the present stands after the past and before the future, that the year 2026 will follow after the year 2025 - and so on.

This working assumption of forward progression enables us to order society in ways that would be impossible if our rational minds would conceive of time as fluid and without boundaries. Many such working assumptions occur in daily life and science, with proofs that are derived from within those assumptions.

For example, we now assume that within each individual human cell, there are dozens of “organelles” which normally work in miraculous harmony with each other. The organelle in turn, is assumed to be the smallest possible unit of cellular structure. These assumptions are in fact quite new - and for centuries, scientists believed that the entire cell as a whole, with its nucleus was the smallest possible human structure. We now know that within each cell are systems more complex than the solar system, each working with other similarly complex systems. And these assumptions may change too - if further structures and organization within the smallest organelles are discovered with higher degrees of magnification and more complex detection systems.

As some of my readers will know, the special theory of relativity of Lorentz, Max Planck and Einstein applied a series of assumptions to time itself (assumptions that may change in the future!). The special theory of relativity showed for the first time, that the passage of time depends on one’s frame of reference - and this in turn spawned novels and movies based on what became known as “time travel.” Although not directly related to the speed of light and the special theory of relativity, the now ubiquitous phenomenon of air travel and the ability to arrive at a “tomorrow” destination from a “yesterday” point of departure, while it is still “yesterday” at the latter, challenges historical assumptions surrounding time, before the advent of air travel.

A few weeks ago, whilst watching and participating in a recorded Andre Rieu concert, time did seem to stand still for me and I felt sure that the beauty of the moment was meant for all time - past, present and future. And if as Keats proclaims, ‘beauty is truth, truth beauty,” both truth and beauty must live forever, outside the constraints of time and space. The poet, the musician, the sculptor, the artist, is tasked with preserving these eternal moments for mankind and reminding us of the impossibility of beauty and truth being subject to the linear passage of time, notwithstanding our own mortality.

The birth of a baby and its growth to youth and maturity is obviously a linear process with a past, a present and a future. And the painful separation of death is a constant reminder of our own mortality. Indeed it was said that the Roman emperor Augustus (and subsequently many other Roman generals) would have a servant stand behind him in his chariot during triumphal processions whispering in his ear, “remember you are a human being. Remember that you are mortal.” “Hominem te esse memento! Memento mori!”

But the essential me, the essential you, what we call the “soul” does not need to be bound by time. And if the essential me lives outside the bounds of time, so will all that makes up the essential me, including love and joy and beauty. Perhaps this is the signal we get from our souls when we love someone with what we know to be an everlasting love; or are moved by a “timeless” work of art or music or poetry - a clarion call to the cosmic aeons that proclaims the soul’s immortality.

If “am” denotes a time in the present and “was,” denotes a time in the past, it would seem that to use these words interchangeably would defy the very notion of the passage of time. When Jesus was challenged by some of the Jews of His time, they invoked their own descent from Abraham and asked him: “Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?”

Jesus’ reply and the reaction of these Jews is recorded in holy Scripture:

“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.”

Then said the Jews unto him, “Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?”

Jesus said unto them, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.”

“Before Abraham was, I am” is probably the clearest indication we have from any written text that time as we know it, does not apply to God and that God exists outside of time itself. In turn, the Cross of Christ and the Resurrection of Christ are also for all time - historical events that transcend time and provide for human beings, for me, for you, the chance of a new beginning, a new creation, a new and eternal destiny, in which we will live forever with God, together with all that proclaims the soul’s immortality.

And on that happy, happy note, and with due acknowledgement of the passage of time, I wish each of you, my readers, a very happy new year 2025 - God bless you all.