Time&Eternity

266 notes to chapter 2
153. Ibid., 158f.
154. “Die Fülle der apokalyptischen Bilder ist vom christologischen Bekenntnis umklammert.
Damit aber haben die apokalyptischen Stoffe eine Bindung an die Geschichte
erfahren, die ihren Charakter grundlegend verändert, so daß sie nunmehr dazu dienen, die
Universalität des Christusgeschehens zu veranschaulichen.” Ibid., 160.
155. I agree with Fagg (The Becoming of Time, 10, 156f.) that, when speaking of time, it
is not always possible to avoid spatial expressions. When they are used, however, they
should always be used with care.
156. Even if, e.g., Cullmann changes his linear representation, found in Christ and
Time, into a concept of time as a wavy line—with reference to the charming Portuguese
proverb brought to his attention by Yves Congar, “God writes straight, but with crooked
lines” [Gott schreibt geradeaus, aber in Wellenlinien] (Cullmann, Heil als Geschichte, 107;
trans., 125; cf. also ix; trans., 14. When translated from the French, however, the proverb
says: “Even on crooked lines, God writes straight”)—and believes that by doing so he has
enabled a connection between God’s plan of salvation and historical contingency, his model
is characterized by a profoundly inadequate spatialization of time.
157. See above, pp. 37–41.
158. Cf., e.g., Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, ia.10.1–5, and Schleiermacher, Der
christliche Glaube, 267ff., § 52; The Christian Faith, 203ff. Aquinas gives two marks of eternity:
Everything existing in eternity is without end (interminabilis); eternity itself exists as
a simultaneous whole (tota simul). God is identical with God’s own eternity. Of course, in
the truest sense (vere et proprie), God alone is eternal; but God grants certain things a share
in divine immutability and, thus, in divine eternity. This, however, does not eliminate the
fundamental difference between time and eternity. Eternity is and remains the measure of
being itself, whereas time is the correct measure for change and motion. Between time and
eternity lies the aevum, which, unlike time, does not have a before and after, but can be accompanied
by it, whereas eternity has no before and after and cannot exist together with
such qualities. Schleiermacher understands the eternity of God to be “the absolutely timeless
causality of God, which conditions not only all that is temporal, but time itself as well”
(203) [die mit allem Zeitlichen auch die Zeit selbst bedingende schlechthin zeitlose
Ursächlichkeit Gottes (312)]. In contrast to time, eternity is pure timelessness. So that this
timelessness does not remain a completely empty concept, Schleiermacher links it to the
notion of divine omnipotence and permits an analogous link in the relationship between
causal and finite being and that which is thereby caused.
159. The early Karl Barth is frequently mentioned as a classic representative of such a
position. In the foreword to the 2nd ed. of The Epistle to the Romans, Barth says openly
that, if he has a system of inner dialectics, then it “is limited to a recognition of what
Kierkegaard called the ‘infinite, qualitative distinction’ between time and eternity.” He is
hereby less concerned, however, with a conceptual dialectic than with the distinction of
two related spheres: “The relation of this God to this human being and the relation of this
human being to this God is, for me, the subject of the Bible and the sum of philosophy in
one” [Die Beziehung dieses Gottes zu diesem Menschen, die Beziehung dieses Menschen zu
diesem Gott ist für mich das Thema der Bibel und die Summe der Philosophie in Einem],
ibid. Although designated as a system, strangely enough, the concepts of time and eternity
do not occur a single time as key words in the index. The book deals more with the distinction
between, rather than the separation of, the spheres of heaven/earth, God/human,
invisible/invisible. That Barth was concerned not only with the negative but also with the
positive meaning of the distinction is frequently overlooked by the criticism that accuses
Barth of a metaphysical or ontological dualism (on this, see the work by Ola Sigurdson on
the reception of Barth in Sweden, Sigurdson, Karl Barth, e.g., 46ff., 53f., 70, 284, etc.).