Time&Eternity

62 chapter 2
relation can in no way establish a doctrine of the Trinity, conceptions of
time marked by Trinitarian differentiation could nevertheless be most appropriate
for developing a dynamic, relational model of time. These
thoughts will be expanded beginning on p. 97.
Finally, these theological investigations will be completed by reflections
on death as the place where, from an anthropological perspective, time and
eternity collide with each other, and relationality thus experiences its deepest
crisis.
“Eternity as the Other of time” constitutes the preliminary summarizing
formula for this second chapter, a formula that is still open in many ways.
The formula should indicate that time is to be conceived primarily as a relational
concept and that a static dualism is as inappropriate as schematic
subject-object relations would be.
On the Theological Understanding of the
Problem of Time
In order to work out a framework for theological reflection on time, I
shall start with Carl Heinz Ratschow’s Anmerkungen zur theologischen Auffassung
des Zeitproblems. 1 Ratschow distinguishes among three different
meanings of the word time. First, he deals with time as temporality and thus
transitoriness; then, he turns to time as the ages, i.e., historical time; finally,
he explores time as the experience of lack of time.
From the human perspective, temporality as transitoriness is seen as a demon,
2 as destiny, or as an a priori concept. 3 Human beings react to this understanding
by postulating eternity: They “free themselves from the terror
of time and jump over the via negationis to the intransitory, the unchangeable
and the invariable.” 4 Thus, humans wish to understand temporality
and transitoriness in light of the antithesis of eternity. Ratschow explains
that this antithesis lends itself at best to a very rudimentary understanding
of what biblical theology is about, however. Instead of understanding transitoriness
from the standpoint of temporality, biblical thought speaks of it
from the perspective of guilt or sin. For this reason, the poles are not temporal/transitory
versus eternal/intransitory, but rather world/human/sin
versus God/“Last Things”/life. 5 Accordingly, in those Old Testament passages
in which one would expect to find mention of an eternal God, one instead
finds the loyal, jealous, or angry God. An antithetical concept of absolute
eternity retreats, giving way to a relation-oriented concept of a God
who, in relation to guilt and faith, influences time and the world. 6 We already
noticed a parallel development when we were examining the hymns