Time&Eternity

228 chapter 4
concept of time in the direction of internal time and multi-temporality is
not considered. Yet, it need not necessarily be the “music of the unamendable”
228 that is found in these verses; it can just as well be the roundelay of
multi-temporality.
In addition to the version of closed determinism, there is also that of
open relationality. The latter could be argued more or less as follows: It
makes complete sense to speak of an internal time of the processes named in
the pericope; and it also makes sense to conceive of “eternity” ( c ôlām) not as
the antithesis of human time, but instead as God’s “proper time,” which is
related to the other times but does not merge into them. In this pericope,
Ecclesiastes does not make a dualistic contrast of time and eternity. The text
speaks of God’s (proper) time with which God has accomplished everything
in a perfect way. It is the gift and mystery of life that God has laid God’s
own (form of ) time—namely, eternity—into everything. God’s proper time
is included in this relational structure, but it assumes a unique position in
this structure. Thus, an understanding of God’s relationship to time that
automatically ascribes to God one and the same relation to all times is also
overcome. 229 From this viewpoint, one can speak of human discernment in
relation to time, as well as of the dependence of world time on God’s proper
time (v. 11); and the overarching dynamic nature of these proper times
can be expressed—the relativizing of present and future, the possibility of
still being able to do something with that which has already hardened into a
necessity (v. 15). Thus, a relational understanding of time contributes to eludicating
those parts of this pericope that several commentators have referred
to as crux interpretum.
“Everything has its time, and everything has its internal dynamic”
would then be a more appropriate paraphrase of the words from Ecclesiastes
than, for example, Paul Gerhardt’s formulation: “Everything has its time,
but God’s love is eternal.” 230 Paul Gerhardt is evidently not the only one
who presupposes the notion of limited intervals of time on a line that is
contrasted to God’s eternity. Rather, it once again seems reasonable to suspect
that, in much of theology, there is still the uncritical assumption that
God is at home in Newton’s time. This attitude is actually understandable,
since Newtonian mechanics functions perfectly in the realm of our everyday
life. Consequently, what is known and what has proved itself to work is
universalized and also carried over into conceptions of God. Understandable,
but nevertheless careless. It is much more astute to recognize the illusory
in the assumption of universal time and, subsequently, also to consider
theological approaches critically. Especially eschatological reflections on
classical themes, such as judgment and the intermediate state, seem to assume
that God measures with Newton’s time and that the only category