Augustine about time

[SIZE=medium]There’s a wonderful Libri-Vox recording of Augustine’s “Confessiones” on YouTube that some of you might find just as enjoyable to listen to as I did. Here’s just Book XI with ponderings about time and eternity. Such meditative love for God and reason![/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVQBO3Fxz0M[/SIZE]

Hi there kerwin,

sorry to hear you perceive this as spamming. I just wanted to share an uplifting experience and easy-access resource with you. If you don’t like audio-books or aren’t interested in Augustine, just don’t click the link. Should people click the link, Augustine certainly won’t get any royalties for it anymore: The guy has been dead for about 1600 years.

His theology is still very much alive though. It’s not as if I personally agree with him in every single point, in fact there are some points in which I sharply disagree with him. But many Western Christians - Catholics and Protestants alike - have internalized his teachings so much that they accept his doctrines almost without question: Believe in the Trinity, original sin, free will, just war, eternal punishment … ? All of this is stuff that Augustine came up with. As for his reflections about time: even many secular philosophers still see them as groundbreaking. So why should this not be discussed here?

kerwin said:

junobet,

I prefer to hear what his readers have learned from such writings and videos and what Scriptural reasons they have for agreeing or disagreeing.

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[SIZE=medium]Oh, I see. You are right, maybe the Praise Forum would have been a better place for this.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]What I’m impressed with here is how beautifully Augustine expresses his deep piety and thirst for knowledge, that makes him implore God to give him an understanding for the mere sake of praising God by such understanding. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Having studied neither philosophy nor mathematics, I can’t say I can give a qualified opinion on Augustine’s views on time as opposed to other views, other than that - for laymen like me - Augustine still keeps mercifully connected to common human experience of time. But if I assume with Augustine, that God created time, that time involves constant change whereas God Himself is unchangeable, and that thus God must be out of time Himself, the conclusion is mind-boggling: God experiences everything – the fall of the Roman empire and me drinking a cup of coffee while I'm typing this - at the same timeless eternal “now”. Wow! [/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]As for scriptural evidence: He quotes scripture all the time, but I think what we all can learn from Augustine is to approach it with humility: Quite often scripture is indeed not plainly saying something, but too “mysterious” for us to fully grasp its meaning. [/SIZE]