Replies

Thank you so much for your question, dear brother in Christ, and for your encouragements!

Since your line of inquiry is related to AU72's earlier reply and hosepipe's usual interest (and yours too, MHGinTN) - I decided to ping all of you.

In post 21 I said:

I view eternity as time without limitation.
The absence of time would be timelessness.

And somewhere between those two would be "a time of no more counting."

And you asked:

"And somewhere between those two would be "a time of no more counting." "

Dear Sister, I can only guess (and hope) that you have some jewels of your thoughtful, prayerful, inspired consideration of all things clothed within that remarkable statement. :-)

Are you ready (and willing) to share those thoughts/revelations with us?

Leaning on geometry to visualize it, here goes:

"Eternity" is a line, an arrow of time, that goes on without limitation. The present is a point on that line and it only moves in one direction. What is past is past, it cannot be again. The future lies ahead, it has not yet occurred.

Events happen serial/sequentially on the arrow of time. Aristotle illustrated this concept of time by simply counting 1, 2, 3 ...

The "Time of no more counting" is not linear therefore although time exists it is irrelevant.

There is not a serial/sequential relationship between points in the volume of time. And the real "present" is the sum of it all - all points at once like a quantum field.

An individual observer's sense of "present" could be any point - any when in the volume of time.

Only God, because He is the Creator, can see the sum of it, the real present - "all that there is" all at once.

He sees it altogether in what some people might call an "eternal now" though I would stumble over the word "eternal" being used with the word "now."

And that brings up "Timelessness" which is no time at all. No points of time or space. Indeed, no thing at all. But God is not thingly. Only God the Creator IS.

Thus His Name is I AM and YHwH (which means He IS), Alpha and Omega, the God and the Creator.

After all, space and time are part of the Creation ex nihilo, not a property or restriction on the Creator of it.

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. - Revelation 1:8

"Only God, because He is the Creator, can see the sum of it, the real present - "all that there is" all at once.

He sees it altogether in what some people might call an "eternal now" though I would stumble over the word "eternal" being used with the word "now.""

~~~~~~~

AHA!! I thought that was where you might be headed!

Remember a couple of years or so ago when I was working a multidimensional graphic to illustrate what we then called, "God's Universal NOW"? It appears that we are back there again...

God -- who is unlimited and unconstrained by either time or space -- can see, at any instant -- the true state of anywhere and everywhere in His entire created universe at that same instant.

We, on the other hand, are constrained to see only the energy (usually radiation of various wavelengths traveling at 'C') that impinges on our spatial location from any given direction.

We see a star or other astronomical scene at some distance (N light years) -- as it existed N years ago. God knows, right [universal] NOW that that object may no longer exist -- but that only when light has reached us (N years later) will we know of its disappearance.

Curiously (or providentially?) today's APOD ("Astronomy Picture of the Day") addresses that very issue!!

M16: the "Pillars of Creation"

At the bottom of the page we find:

"The pillars of creation were imaged again in 2007 by the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope in infrared light, leading to the conjecture that the pillars may already have been destroyed by a local supernova, but light from that event has yet to reach the Earth."

Because God (His Name is "I AM") is (if He chooses to be) in the "Universal NOW", He knows the answer to the above -- right NOW!

What an awesome and majestic God we worship!!!

About this subject “time”.. and eternity, past, present, future..

It seems to me “time” would only be important to creatures that “DIED”...
For if entities lived forever, time would not be so important a thing..
Because there would be few time limits..
and no lineal time.. being replaced by “timing”...

Timing would be important even in eternity.. as in a waveform..