Eternal is a difficult, ambiguous word.
In the past, I used it to describe Beings, which I assume have no beginning and no end.
Unfortunately, this led some to believe that such Beings must also exist entirely outside time. Or that they never change.
However, I regard time as a necessary aspect of Beings and cannot imagine any Being existing outside time.
Which means I assume all Beings change.
Yeah, but how can Beings that have no beginning and no end be “in” time? Where does that time start? What kind of time is it?
More on that in another post, perhaps.
Back to eternal. I do my best to work around it to avoid confusion about timelessness.
But what else is there?
Unfortunately, other words are rarely helpful.
Everlasting? Misunderstandable.
Neverending? Also implies a beginning.
Forever? Okay, but from when?
Perpetual?
Primordial?
Of course, my problem is not novel. It has affected and continues to affect others.
For example, for some thinkers, eternal means both timeless and temporal, as in the assumption that God is timeless without Creation and temporal after He created time.
Others describe God as everlasting but temporal, and use it to mean that God never began to exist and will never go out of existence, but experiences temporal succession.
That kind of lines up with what I assume, but whenever I use the word everlasting, it is misinterpreted as having a beginning but no end.
Eternal is not a straightforward word.
Unfortunately, most of the other words aren’t much better.
We need to coin some new words, tout de suite.
Note: Toute de suite is French for “immediately” (just in case Dr. Charlton reads this).
In the past, I used it to describe Beings, which I assume have no beginning and no end.
Unfortunately, this led some to believe that such Beings must also exist entirely outside time. Or that they never change.
However, I regard time as a necessary aspect of Beings and cannot imagine any Being existing outside time.
Which means I assume all Beings change.
Yeah, but how can Beings that have no beginning and no end be “in” time? Where does that time start? What kind of time is it?
More on that in another post, perhaps.
Back to eternal. I do my best to work around it to avoid confusion about timelessness.
But what else is there?
Unfortunately, other words are rarely helpful.
Everlasting? Misunderstandable.
Neverending? Also implies a beginning.
Forever? Okay, but from when?
Perpetual?
Primordial?
Of course, my problem is not novel. It has affected and continues to affect others.
For example, for some thinkers, eternal means both timeless and temporal, as in the assumption that God is timeless without Creation and temporal after He created time.
Others describe God as everlasting but temporal, and use it to mean that God never began to exist and will never go out of existence, but experiences temporal succession.
That kind of lines up with what I assume, but whenever I use the word everlasting, it is misinterpreted as having a beginning but no end.
Eternal is not a straightforward word.
Unfortunately, most of the other words aren’t much better.
We need to coin some new words, tout de suite.
Note: Toute de suite is French for “immediately” (just in case Dr. Charlton reads this).
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