Time&Eternity

180 chapter 3
bility required. Due to a common history and to the common tasks of the
present, theology is an indispensable interlocutor in this discussion. 337
Finally, what does physics contribute to the topic of “time”? It tells us
that time is that which one measures with clocks. It also tells us that one
second does not simply make up 1/86,400 of a day, but rather, 9,192,631,770
oscillations of a special caesium atom. It shows that time measurement
functions even if we do not have a uniform theory and cannot say anything
definitive about the beginning and the end of time. And, eventually, it also
shows that the understanding of time has a fruitful history in the center of
the formulation of scientific theory. More recent theories signal an openness
in the understanding of what is generally called time. An adequate understanding
of time cannot be satisfied with the analysis of individual elements;
it must include structures and relations, being and becoming. It
must also reckon with the fact that genuinely new things are possible. This
openness encourages interpretations that go far beyond physics.
Have the expectations in this chapter thus been fulfilled? No, if we expected
a definition package that needs “only” to be applied theologically.
Yes, if we sought confirmation that time is a relational and multiple phenomenon.
Yes, also, if we considered the fact that in physics, one is dealing
with a description of functions that cannot be transferred directly to other
areas.
In this third chapter of our study, it has been shown repeatedly that scientific
theories and theological models do not exist in isolation from each
other. The understanding of the theories of relativity in contrast to the absolute
time in Newton is especially significant for the assessment of theological
concepts of time. Newton’s concept of absoluteness included theological
assumptions, and Einstein was not the only one to be troubled by the
consequences of quantum physics with regard to worldview and the understanding
of God. For this reason, Dilthey’s distinction between explanatory
natural sciences, on the one hand, and the arts and humanities that are concerned
with understanding, on the other hand, proves to be untenable.
The idea of the openness of time is meaningful from a theological perspective.
Precisely at this point, however, physics has difficulties; discussion
of an open future does not fall into its domain. This discussion belongs to
the “central area from which we ourselves shape reality,” which, however,
“constitutes the infinitely remote singularity for the scientific language that
indeed means something decisive for the ordering within the finite, but
which can never be attained.” 338 In this sense, physics suffers from an eschatological
deficit. It must do so if it wishes to remain true to its nature.
At the end of this third chapter, the path to an adequate understanding
of the concept of “time” therefore still appears to be a long way off. 339 Nei-