Read Book XI
text available at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.xiv.html
guidance questions
1. How can we perceive past, present and future?
2. Why is it difficult to describe time?
3. What's the relationship between God and time?
Journals due on March 15.
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In this text, Augustine attempts to determine the existence of time, and it’s relation to God. According to the book of Genesis, God created the heavens and the earth; but this could not be simply because there was no previous mention of God creating space and the universe before he created the earth and heavens. The idea that helped me understand this further was that outer space and the universe were the blank canvas. And the earth and heavens are made within. You cannot have one without having the other. But I was contemplating further and thought that “heavens” could possibly refer to the universe and space.
ReplyDeleteAnother point, in Genesis, it states that God created the world in one spoken word. But how is that possible? How could he speak? For God to speak, there must be some sort of established language or words that have meaning to them. Some kind of communication…how useless would it be if only God knew this all for himself. Therefore if God created “creation” with one word, that word (or the idea of language) must have came from before creation, but when exactly in time? It is then said that God has no time. God is eternal which equals no time.
Now Augustine tries to come up with an idea of the meaning of beginning. He finds that the closest meaning to beginning would be Jesus. So then the comparison is made: Christ equals then the beginning (since he is the living word of God) and since Christ is wisdom (we learn what he taught, and he considered to be very wise) So then we have that the beginning = wisdom. From this information we have that there was wisdom from the beginning of time; which I disagree with entirely because when Adam and Eve were put on earth, they possessed no wisdom and it was something that was not given to them by God. (We know this because they did not realize they were naked until they ate the fruit from the tree that gave them wisdom…they then did realize they were in fact nude and they were embarrassed)
But through this whole text I wish they would have discussed who God is? Where did he come from and who made him in charge anyway?
The next idea is focused primarily on time and its existence. Augustine says that time is non existent. Time is made up out of the past, present and future. The past does not exist because it is not happening now (like a human that has died, he is not in existence, but nonexistent even though he used to live) and the future is nonexistent also because it is not happening now (like a human that has not been conceived yet, is not existent). I don’t agree with him because time does exist because it is evident when we age. The aging process is caused by time, as something gets older. If time did not exist, we wouldn’t age, because we would not be getting older, we would stay the same.
augustine tries to inquire how god created the earth.he examines if anything existed before god created the earth or where god got inspiration to create.he the says if nothing existed before god created the world then what would only exist would be time,but he contemplates that god also created time so time would not have existed.agustine groups time into three different parts,past,present and future.he starts by defining time as things passing away,things present and things to come.agustine goes on to say that time depends on the past and future which are things that do not exist and even if the present existed it would be very hard to call a particular moment the present since its always passing.so if the past,present and future do not exist how is it possible that time is real since we are always measuring time and talking about it so it must be real.he says if time existed it would be the present.the past he said would be unreal since it only relies on memories we have in the present.the future he also says is unreal since things present are used in predicting the future.he then goes on to examine how we can measure time which is something that has no end or duration.he then goes on to examine how people measure time with motion of bodies and proves that somethings may come to a stand still,move early or late and still would not affect time which makes the claim inaccurate.agustine could not really understand the concept of time so he compares time to god who is eternal and timeless,which is a complex subject.
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ReplyDeleteBook 11 focuses on God and time; the eternal Creator and the Creation in time. Augustine combines his memory of his past life, his present experience, and his desire to understand the mystery of creation. This leads him to the questions of the time of creation. He ponders creation and shows that it was de nihilo and involved no alteration in the being of God. Augustine devotes a brilliant analysis of the substance of time and the relation of all temporal process to the abiding eternity of God. From this, he turns to a detailed interpretation of Gen. 1:1, 2. Augustine considers the meaning of the first words of Genesis: "In the beginning, God created heaven and earth." Augustine asks how he can know that this is true. It is obvious that all things were created, because they are subject to change. God created them through the Word, Jesus Christ. The Word is co-eternal with God and not created. Some ask what God was doing in the time before he created the world. Augustine replies that there was no time, because God created time itself. Augustine considers the nature of time. One can speak of past, present, and future time, but the past has ceased to be, the future is not yet, and only the present exists, but the present moment cannot have any duration. But if this is true, how can one speak of history, or how can prophets foresee future events? The human memory retains images of past events. Perhaps some can predict the future by reading likely signs of what will happen. How do people measure time? The movement of the sun and planets is not time, as many believe. Augustine concludes that time is a "distension" of the mind; what human beings measure is the impression that things or events make on them. Augustine is divided by time, but God alone is eternal and unchanging
ReplyDelete1. How can we perceive past, present and future?
ReplyDeleteAugustine said, “Yet I say with confidence that I know that if nothing passed away, there would be no past time; and if nothing were still coming, there would be no future time; and if there were nothing at all, there would be no present time.” in Confessions.
He described time very abstract way, but time is time. If there were nothing at all, time would exist; we can perceive past, present and future by using our eyes, ears, noses, tongues, hands, brains and so on. And also we can perceive by observing people or creatures on the earth because everything on the earth changes with time. For example, humans grow up, get old and die same as other creatures. Therefore, we have to start and end our lives. We can finish our lives whenever we want, but we have to restart our lives again and again and again. We cannot get rid of time...
Though Plato usually receives the highest of praise for his writing skill among philosophers, I have to hand it to Augustine; his work is displayed in a very pleasing manner, and it has a very keen ingenuity. Upon finishing the intense piece, I took a closer look at the form and realized the theme of past, present, and future was prevalent even in the development of the argument itself: Augustine begins speaking of the creation of earth (past), moves on to discuss our perceptions of time (present), and finally showcases his own argument, questioning it too in the process (future). While it is certainly no Republic, Augustine's writing is slightly more than just systematic; it conveys powerful, arduous thought in a manner that is simultaneously calming and urgent.
ReplyDeleteThis brings us to the subject at hand: how we perceive the past, present, and future. In the text, Augustine argues against the past and future as measures of time, saying that the past is no longer and the future does not yet exist. He then searches for a present time, but ends up with the smallest of moments, for time is always passing and continuing forward. Finally, he cautiously approaches a conclusion in which he theorizes that time is not a function of the earth or any "heavenly bodies," but is rather one of the mind; the past does not exist but we recognize it in our memory, and the future does not (yet) exist but we have expectations of it. This is how we are able to measure it.
I find myself agreeing with most of the argument, though I noticed that it completely ignores the more instinctual perceptions of time possessed by animals and more primitive humans (i.e a tribe that prays to the sun or a species that migrates in expectation), perspectives that I believe should be considered in this type of argument. However, if time is truly just perception, is it possible to break this perception? We as humans are inevitably affected by time physically of course, but we are also very affected mentally, almost as if it was an innate burden; if time is not a function of the earth but of perception and the mind, could one theoretically break their perception of time and be free? Or would they, as the sun worshiping tribesmen, obtain an even greater, more primal fear and reverence?
Let start by the center point of Augustine which is to tie his memory of the past life, his present experience, and his ardent desire to comprehend the mystery of creation together. This set of memory of past life, the present experience,and the ardent desire to comprehend the mystery of creation is very complexe and somehow difficult to deal with. Because time is difficult to describe Augustine speaks out about its relative existence.For instance in chapiterXV Augustine questions himself:...."Is a hundred years when present a long time? But, first, see whether a hundred years can be present at once. For if the first year in the century is current, then it is present time, and the other ninety and nine are still future". ...Here we notice that the first year is the present time. then after the first year Augustine argues that the second year will be the present and the first which already past is the past,then the rest would be the future. He will do the same beak down for one year, one day, even for an hour to show that present, past and future have a relative existence in the span of life. God incarns the etrnity and time is what God incorporeted in us to ease our life as mortel being.I am somehow agree with him in a sens that time is subjective and its existence is also relative.
ReplyDeleteHere I notice that Augustine raises the question of the time related to the eternity of God. he needs answer from God to clearify his mind about either or not time exists as present,past,and future.All our comments point out one way another this complexe question of time and its relationship with God. Did we catch the point? I will eager to see it.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Augustine time are measurements of things, which no longer exist. Augustine did not believe in the idea we had time since is made out of past, present and future.
ReplyDeleteTime is the measure of movement with every movement there is a created a before and an after that movement if you go to the movies you can measure things by what you have done before and after your trip to the movies. But lets look at an object because there isn’t any type of movement then there is no way we can tell time. The same if a human being is in a common.
Throughout century we have describe god as being a force of supernatural we describe god as no movement where there is any time. God is above and outside time because he is the first mover who is unmoved. Since god is known to be the creator of the universe. Many people believe that nothing exists with out him and can’t be moved and each human in this earth is being move by the power of god. But wasn’t there life before Christ? So many contradictions…
While describing time is a little more complicated since everybody has there own opinion. Time to scientist is a period in time where any events take place. While others might believe is what you do with it or simply the body’s motion. Time is still undefined we can all give a brief explanation of time but not fully its definition.
Augustine has a lot of contradictions with himself and what he believes. He believes in God as his creator and ask him to solve his doubts. He is a strong believer, he says that everything that surrounds him, is nothing compare to what created it, which in his believes was God. Whether or not to believe in God is something that has been going on for ages. What i get from this book is that even tho he believes in God, he still has its questions about it, as almost everybody who has the capability to think and reason.
ReplyDeleteHe also tries to connect past,present and future with God. " Even if I could do this sufficiently, the drops of time are very precious to me and i have for a long time been burning with desire to meditate on thy law.." As he says himself, he was curious to know why there such a thing a present past and future. E
Even though he had his problems in trying to understand why and how this like present, past and future happen, he never lost faith and even though many of his questions were not answer he was still believing in God, which is something that not many people do after finding that they are no answer to many of those kind of questions.
In this book, Augustine talks about the nature of time and how it relates to God's eternity. he writes this to try to get a better understanding of God and time. He finds that trying to define time is pretty hard. His faith is tested because in Genesis 1:3. He explains that all human speech is in time but what God says is always being quoted so it has no beginning and no end. He believes God is in his own time and that God decided outside of time how he was going to create the world. He believes there is no time for God and the creation happened in a moment and everything else is happening eternally. He states that its difficult to define time on earth because human beings exist in the world that is bound by time. He doesnt agree that time can be measured throught he movement of the plantes and stars. He suggests that time is actually an "distention of the soul." He also suggests the possibility of time is something that we measure within our own memory, that time is not a feature or property of the world but it is in our minds.
ReplyDeleteIn the words of st.Augustine, there is great faith to god. He is a devoted christian. Althought his religous views seem to come to a spot of fanatism sometimes, there are several thoughts about time and exitance that have a deep meaning.
ReplyDeleteAugustine makes reference to these parts of time. Past, present and future. The past is no longer, the present is now and the future is not yet. We should experience all of them practicallty, so we must have a good sense of time itself. If not, our body and mind could come to be misplaced, hence we might get lost in present universe. Past are the footprints of time. They exist on this moment as memories. Present it is what me do and perceive in physically. Future then would be a mixture of the things we see and the memories we have lived to build hope. This hope rises the structure of future. Nothwithstanding out clear perception of time relays more on our own life and it's components.
Even if were able to percieve the three times of moments, we are only measuring time. There is a great difference in what beings perceive as time. Becuase it is not an universal thruth, because time was before anything on this world. Time is not something we have seen, touched or destroyed even created. Therefore is beyond the human control. It makes it tough to be articulated into common explanations, becuase it is more bigger than it seems. We might only formulate parts of moments of time. But cannot describe it as a whole because we do not have any clue, of how it came to be in existance.
Time it has been misunderstood verbally throughout history. We were told that, even our own words can be put into pas, present and future. We then follow a pattern and obbey this thought. Time might be seen as a universal doctrine and "God" as a resignation of our unability to come with something more acurate than measures and articulations. Augustine tries to make "God" a supreme judge, and time it is minister in human affairs. so then we might be seen as a result of this relationship, time and "God" are the protagonist and we are the readers.
In this book Augustine goes on to explain his thoughts on how the past, present, and future are measurements which are inaccurate. Augustine considered the past to be non existent due to the fact that its has occurred and cant be grasp. the past is only relived in ones mind. for example a person cannot grasp when he or she was 12 years old, but they mind always them to remember the period in which they were 12.Augustine also relate to the future as something that hasn't occurred and cannot be measured do to the fact that it has yet to come.Augustine also stated that to say the day was long was illogical cause how can a day have been long if it passed already and no longer exist. Augustine also contemplate the theory of the creation of heaven and earth. Augustine talks about how eternity is constant and for god to create the heaven and earth from silence is perplexing. he contemplates on how nothing can create something.Augustine was a deep thinker who pondered on time and prayed to god that his prayers be answered.but from reading this i gained a sense that Augustine was contradicting himself and in all respects didn't believe in god
ReplyDelete"Augustine was a deep thinker who pondered on time and prayed to god that his prayers be answered.but from reading this i gained a sense that Augustine was contradicting himself and in all respects didn't believe in god" -Kwasi
ReplyDeleteI almost have to agree with Kwasi in what he said (above). Though Augustine is contemplating what is considered time and did God create time and what is past, present, future; I think the underlying contemplation is if God even exist. However, i dont think he doesn't believe in God at all, but he definitely is questioning Gods existence. You get the sense of his questioning when he asks things like what the purpose of prayer is. He wonders if god sees him all the time, on time, and if so why is he praying to him. Yet, Augustine explains things as though God controls time. You can see how the passage becomes confusing because his ideas were contradicting each other.
Agustine explores the relationship between existence and time and what time is. he makes a good point when wondering if "present" exist at all because time continues to move, so when is there really ever a present, maybe a present moment. I dont agree with him in saying that the past doesnt exist. The past still exist even though it has gone away from us because it happened, whether we were there or not and regardless of the pasts many interpretations, time still existed then. As to how time originated, no one is certain. I do agree with Agustines idea that the furture doesnt exist yet because it hasnt happened, the future is unpredictable and ones existence in it is not guaranteed. And is time guarenteed for the future? And if one does not exist anymore, does time still exist?
Augustine states the nature of time and how it relates to God. We can perceive past, present and future according to Augustine as God's creations such as heaven and the earth and through his own understandings augustine realizes how hard it is to determine this factor. It is difficult to describe time according to Augustine because he stated that "nothing can be seen except what exist" and what exist isn't the past but the future. The relationship between god and time is with time I believe a man grows more and tend to become wiser due to past experience one shall encounter within their life.
ReplyDeleteSamantha Jones
ReplyDelete(Sorry i was stuck in nj and didn't have any internet)
To preceive time is to have a clock imprinted within your body and mind, some may see the upcoming events or past events from a memory that can store in the human mind. creation is made in due time where the lives of new things are givin a choice in a hunt for the enternal creator of the living answer. Most have a record of having a past life and what i the reason that one lives today with new expience within new creation and time for it to happen. The new generation and the idea of what is the alteration and god, he dosn't touch time though he does create in the eternity of time not to touch him but his subjects and those he does create. Can god be ingnorant for making us so fradgile with the life we do have as he watches as the time witch is ever changing in every second and min as we are born grow and die? A past life can bring the essence of time and collect fragments of god in its creation of endless space where the idea of death is non existant for their time is endless and have the idea in response a creation of the organisms of waht we are now. but can we ever be free of this time wich makes up age in more then one, ways to wise us or to melt awer knoledge into one big melting pot so the knowledge of god altered in ways where his past lives and his futre lives can be inbeded in us. Time is sacred and can be used for many different things, such as what activities we induldge in such as art, gymnastics,horse riding and ect.Time is allways changing and never to stand in one place, it is ever changing and numbers are allways being interpeted in time of mathmatics.
An abstract idea is of the time, time can be of the now and the past, to portal time from the future hasen't been written so it is impossible to travel of time to the plain white. God, time is what he has and what we dont have, for what we have is a timed life and he the immortal, all the immortal have is time, or of death takes us in and we see time as we grow to wise and state of the relization of what life and death is. If god made time he would not be able to create, the esesnce of creation and the endless time it takes to have the past of things and the future yet to be written. thye future is blank space and hasent been touched by pen yet or the hands of the mighty himself.
1. How can we perceive past, present and future? Augustine talks about time as though it were a concept that can bemeasured and sensed. Thus when he talks about time he is talking aboutsomething that exists. The present exists in some sense that the pastand future do not. The past is gone and the future exists only inpotential. Augustine believes that time intervals do not exist.Rather, that we understand time through memory (past), attention(present), and expectation (future). This is his answer to how we canunderstand time, although he is not too convinced about it. 2. Why is it difficult to describe time? Augustine poses arguments that show that understanding time is not soeasy. He does his best to try to solve problems yet he poses problemsand offers no conclusive solutions. Augustine discusses a peculiaraspect of time, how (and whether) we can measure time. He demonstratesthat time is grounded in subjectivity. While there is an objectivequality of motion that is duration, which can be measured and comparedand asserted as a universal among us and guide our actions without thecapacity of the mind to remember or anticipate, there is no room forduration. Things which exist in time, like a melody, or anyapprehension of change, exist in the mind. That's why it is difficultto describe time because past has already passed and future has notyet become. 3. What's the relationship between God and time? Augustine seeks to answer the question: If God is eternal, how can helive exist in a time bound universe? Augustine solved this problem bystating that God does not exist in time. He argues that God createdtime when he created the world, and that only humans can conceive oftime. There was no time before the Universe, so the question “what wasGod doing before he created the universe?” is based on a falseassumption. The question makes no sense if God created time. Thus,according to Augustine, God lives in a different world where time doesnot exist.
ReplyDeleteAugustine: Confessions, We can perceive the 3 changes past, present, and future. When you think of the past and what it was, it means the memories you once had and the things you did before. The present is what we are doing in the time we live in today, whether its going to school or working at a job. It all connects from things you have done in the past, leads into the present moment, and then grows into a future. When you think of the future you think of all things you did and what you want to change or maintain in the future.
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to describe time because there are so many things happening that you cannot put it into words. Time is constantly changing, in order to describe time, you have to describe a moment in which it happen, whether its past, present or what the future holds.
The relationship between God and time is that time is eternal because it is not changing, just like God. He is not changing and will never change.