Elixir of immortality illustration series#

This became a particular focus of dispute in the 13 th Century, when many of the works of Aristotle were rediscovered in Europe. In the Middle Ages, scholastic Christian, Muslim and Jewish philosophers started to argue against the widely-held early view that time and the universe as a whole is eternal, having realized that it militates against the idea of God as the all-powerful Creator of the universe, an important plank of thought in the Abrahamic religions. Less than a century later, the early Christian theologist John Philoponus systematically argued against every one of Proclus’ propositions. In support of this view, the Neo-Platonist philosopher Proclus in the 5 th Century CE presented no less than eighteen proofs for the eternity of the world, largely resting on the divinity of its Creator. From these contradictions, Aristotle concluded that time must be eternal. Therefore, any “first moment” or beginning to time must have ended a moment before it, which is also contradictory.

Elixir of immortality illustration series#

Also, to Aristotle, time was a series of beginnings and ends, or moments, with each moment ending the one before it. Aristotle argued that, if time had a beginning, then one could refer to a time before that beginning (because something must precede a beginning), which is contradictory to the premise. The great Greek philosopher Aristotle saw the cosmos as finite in spatial extent but eternal in time, stretching back to the infinite past and forward into the infinite future. Eternity is an important concept in many different religions, and indeed it is quite difficult to find opinions on eternity that do NOT spring from, or are at least influenced by, religion in some way. Such a belief seem to presuppose an overall linear ordering, in some sort of “ hyper-time”, of all the cycles. Many ancient civilizations, from Hindus and Buddhists to the ancient Greek Orphics and Pythagoreans, believed in a cyclic view of time, the “ wheel of time” or Kalachakra, in which there are repeating ages over the infinite life of the universe. Augustine), and even the Early Modern philosopher John Locke.Įternity is a prominent feature of some early views of the universe. Such a view was held by Aristotle, as well as many early Christians (before St. Eternity as never-ending time, without beginning or end, but nevertheless time as we normally think of it, with duration and succession from the past towards the future.Augustine and, before him, of Plato and the Neo-Platonists. This was the view of the early Christian theologian St.

In this view, there is no “before” or “after”, and the past, present and future as we think of them all exist together in an eternal “Now”.

Eternity as a timeless realm, without succession, duration or sequence.

In philosophy, there are two main views of eternity: It has much in common with the idea of infinity (an abstract concept describing something without any limit), and with immortality (eternal or unending life or youth). Symbols of eternity include ouroboros, the endless knot, the annulus (ring) and the lemniscate (infinity)Įternity means endless or infinite time, a duration without beginning or end.