What’s so great about eternity?

What’s so great about eternity?

For all its importance in Christian thought, the concept of eternity in the Bible is remarkably unclear.  The two most important Christian thinkers, Augustine and Aquinas, place God outside of time, in what is called the nunc stansNunc stans is the opposite of the way we ordinarily think of eternity as time going on forever.  In the nunc stans, you experience all of time in a single moment.  Or you would if you were God. 

As Augustine put it, we pass through God’s today.  The experience would be something like seeing time as though it were space, a plane spread out before you.  You might focus on one part of the plane or another, but all time is there to be experienced in a moment.  The term is Latin (no surprise).  Nunc means now, and stans refers to stand.  In the nunc stans, all of time stands before you.

Not in the Bible

Trouble is, that this way of thinking about time is nowhere in the Bible (I’ll confine myself to the New Testament, but the problem is found in the Old Testament as well.).  The Greek term aeonios, for which so many translations mistakenly use the word “eternal” is derived from the noun “aeon.” “Aeon” means “age” or “ages.”  Thus, the word translated as eternal really refers to an aeon or age, not forever.  When Jesus says “I am with you always, to the end of the age (αἰῶνος), he does not mean forever, but until the end of the present age—that is, until the eschaton.  Aidios (αιδιος) is the ancient Greek term for eternal, and it is used only once in the Bible in reference to God (Romans 1:20). *

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C. S. Lewis is popular but wrong; we are not little Christs

C. S. Lewis is popular but wrong; we are not little Christs.

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) was one of the most popular Christian writers of the twentieth century, and our century as well. Though he would have disliked being called a theologian, that is exactly what he was, even as he had no formal theological training. In fact, this is exactly what makes his works on Christianity so popular.  Mere Christianity, begun as a series of radio lectures during World War Two, is almost conversational in tone.  It is still taught in adult Christian education groups (Urban).  By the way, the fact that Lewis had no formal theological training does not imply that he lacked intellectual standing, having taught medieval history at both Oxford and Cambridge.  He also wrote the fictional Chronicles of Narnia.  Unless noted, all pages numbers refer to Mere Christianity.

Most critics of Lewis as theologian are Christian evangelicals, and others, who believe he was too loose with doctrine, such as saying that other religions might contain a portion of truth about God.  My take is somewhat the opposite.  He is too literal about what it means to follow Christ.  For Lewis it means to become “little Christs,” which to me makes no sense at all.  Nevertheless, there is a charm and simplicity to his religious writing which has no equal, though perhaps G. K. Chesterton comes close.

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