Eternity as Uninterrupted Flow: A Reflection on Heaven, Ecstasy and the Difficult Work of Being-in-Time

  

Abstract

In Western philosophy and theology it is traditional to think of movement as an imperfection, as a sign that something lacks being (ousia). There is movement in time and only in time. In eternity, which is timeless duration, there is no movement. In the following this formula is inverted and an alternative sense of “movement” explored. Time impedes movement; eternity is unimpeded flow. In time it is possible to step back, to hold oneself in reserve, to change one’s mind, to have a charge of heart. To renew one’s devotion to God. To initiate once more one’s love for God. To build a character. To add merit upon merit. But when our time is over and we enter into eternity, our real movement begins. From this point on there is an unending movement in which what we are manifests itself continually and necessarily. If by “movement” we mean change or process then there is no movement in eternity. But “movement” can also mean flow. In time alone it is possible for things to have stasis—for things to hold themselves back, for the natural flow of things to be impeded. Stasis is an imperfection, a lack of ek-stasis. Eternity is uninterrupted movement/flow.

 

Eternity as Uninterrupted Flow

In the next life our fundamental orientation cannot be altered. The trajectory of our will remains fixed; we are unable to veer further up or down, further to the left or to the right. The condition in which we find ourselves after death determines the direction we go. We soar or sink toward our heart’s treasure. Such, at least, is the majority Christian view.[1]

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Mt 6:21, NIV)

In the next life there is no such thing as “movement”, if by that we mean a change of heart—either conversion to the light or a falling away. Nonetheless, in heaven there is a continual unfolding of who we are in relation to God and others. (Is there some sort of dynamic “unfolding” of things in hell? I don’t know. I’m not interested in that here). The unfolding of things in heaven is never exhausted. Manifestation follows upon manifestation for all eternity, in an ending act of parousia (the full presence of God and His Truth).

In heaven there is uninhibited dynamism and activity. How could it be otherwise, given that, in the words of Hans Urs von Balthasar, the triune God is eternal Ereignis, unending Event of Love? In heaven we orbit around God. Or rather, we spiral ever-inward into the infinitesimal centre of God. We plummet forever into God the absolute vortex, God the thrice-holy “white hole” at the centre of everything. As flames of love we fall into God helplessly, and our helplessness is beatitude, ecstasy, unspeakable joy.

But in time our movement into the Good (or into sin) is discontinuous. It is broken up into discrete, accumulated moments of decision. Time thrusts us forward, again and again, into the next test, the next situation. What will I choose? Will I accept this grace or reject it? Will I continue in this fashion or change course? Will I succumb to this temptation or will I resist? Will I take the path of least resistance, following my weaker nature? Or will I obey the promptings of grace? Only on rare occasions in this life does a person completely “lose herself” in ecstasy—and when she does, it is only for a while. The ecstatic “loss of oneself” is never perfect in this life, as it is for those in the full presence of God.

We do not want to be annihilated. But we do want to lose ourselves in love. Our fundamental desire to “let ourselves go” in response to the ultimate Good defines us as persons made in the image of God. The state of holding ourselves in reserve, in distrust, in existential uncertainty, or in regimented self-control—that is not our destiny. The condition of having to choose to give oneself over, again and again each moment, in a renewed expression of our commitment to love, over-against whatever resistance remains in our nature—that is not our final destiny either.

Is this the predicament that lovers are attempting to overcome in their erotic love—the predicament of being-in-time? Is this the motivation for the various addictions and other attempts to achieve some form of ecstasy or state of complete rest? Our desire to be immersed in the flow of eternity, no longer journeying through time as a pilgrim? We tire from walking. Constantly overcoming gravity and friction can be gruelling work. We want to let go and stop fighting. We want to fall and glide. The alcoholic reaches for a bottle of wine. The porn addict falls into a moving image. And so on. We are looking for uninterrupted flow; we want to fall into a single object or experience and let everything go. We need consolation for the struggle of being-in-time. There is pain and tension in not being able (yet) to lose oneself.

This is why hope is necessary. Without the supernatural virtue of hope, could any of us delay the spiritual gratification of total release? Could any of us resist the temptation to lose ourselves prematurely and plummet into some inner-worldly object?

Perfect freedom is being so possessed by the divine Beloved that one no longer has free-will. To be sure, volition remains in the next life. Acts of the will shall continue in eternity. We repeat our loving “yes” to God and to everything He loves, over and over, forever. But this “yes” is not a free-will decision against a possible “no”. In heaven, “no” is no longer possible. The “yes” emerges from us necessarily; it is a wave surging through us unstoppably. It is indeed our yes—we put our personal stamp on the love that flows through us. We do the agreeing, the affirming, the loving, the consenting (though it is God who does all this in first place—we add our names in second place). But in heaven there is nothing left in us by which we could possibly resist the incessant waves of love surging through our being. In that state of perfection (perfect holiness), what could possibly impede the flow of love into us and through us? What could halt the flow of our praise?

In heaven we can no longer “stand back” and choose between various options. We cannot hold some calculating mind or self-determining liberty in reserve. The time for decision-making between good and evil—or between stronger and weaker correspondence to grace—is over. Everything we do and say in heaven is ours (this “doing” is not work, for there is nothing left to overcome within or without ourselves). To be sure, all of our doing and saying in heaven is, in the first place, the doing and the saying of God—God acting in us, God passing through us and back to Himself. God loving Himself, God uttering Himself in and through His beloved creatures. Even so, everything that happens to us and in us and through us—all of this is willed by us. It happens freely. We allow it to happen. But our allowing happens necessarily—we cannot do otherwise. And this is our joy, this is our true freedom—that we cannot do otherwise than love, for all eternity.

This is consummate union with the Beloved: having neither the slightest impurity nor the slightest capacity to hesitate or swerve in our love for Him. Finally, a person now is a lover of God—she has been given ousia, confirmed in unchanging being. Whereas in time, the person had to choose again and again to love God, merely imitating the eternal form, the ousia of the lover. In time, the eternal flow of love—the unending, continuous, ecstatic and necessary movement of love—is merely hinted at in and between the moments. We touch upon that flow and begin to be drawn into its movement whenever we behold someone beautiful or participate in something glorious; our soul then sprouts wings (as in Plato’s Phaedrus); we recall the ecstatic flow for which each of us is destined. Perfect flow is the absence of hesitation, the absence of self-reserve, the ecstatic inability to hold anything of oneself back. It is the total involvement of oneself—the ecstatic breaking-forth releasing every last drop of the mystery of our being—in the unending Now of Love. A perfectly fluid yielding of oneself, a maximal fluidity that is impossible as long as we are in time. In time we choose and shape our final condition in step-wise fashion; in eternity our final condition unfolds and we plummet helplessly into our heart’s treasure.

Moments in time are divided from each other, thus breaking up the flow of eternity. Eternity still manages to break into time; even now we can begin to participate in its flow. By grace—and what grace!—we are allowed to “practice” that flow for ourselves, as apprentice saints. Yet free-choice remains, and the glory of eternity is shrouded (these two facts are connected). We enter into the flow but we can also drop out of that flow again in some way. The flow of the Holy descends into our midst—but then withdraws. Mundane realities and practical necessities impose themselves again. Perhaps the grace was only given to us for a certain time. Or perhaps we begin to reflect too much on ourselves, or on peripheral things—or worse, we begin the descent into sin. In any case, to be wholly and continually immersed in—and completely unable to withdraw from—the perfect flow of eternity is our final destination. It is not our experience of being-in-time.

There is a sense, then, in which time interrupts movement. In time it is possible to step back, to hold oneself in reserve, to change one’s mind, to have a charge of heart. To renew, time and again, one’s devotion to God. To initiate once more (in response to God’s prevenient grace) one’s love for God. To build a character. To add merit upon merit—or to heap coals upon our heads.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. (Mt 6:19-20, NIV).

But when our time is over, and we enter into eternity, our real movement begins. It is an unending movement in which what we are (in relation to God and others) manifests itself continually and necessarily.

The continual unfolding of oneself before God and with others cannot be stopped. All the same, it is the person who wills it. A person wills this manifestation necessarily, forever, on the basis of who and what he is. This manifestation of oneself does not take any glory away from God. For the creature who speaks and acts on the basis of holiness—the dignity of every citizen of heaven—glorifies God in everything.

If by “movement” we mean change or process (including the process of maturing) then there is no movement in eternity. But “movement” can also mean flow. And this precisely is what eternity is: uninterrupted flow.

 

 

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[1] For a Catholic articulation see the Catechism of the Catholic Church §§393, 1023-1029, 1033-1037. For the view of Thomas Aquinas, refer to Summa Contra Gentiles Book 4, §95 or this useful commentary by Edward Feser.

 

Dialogue on Guilt and Hell: Part 1

Skulls of victims tortured and killed at the S21 (Tuol Sleng) concentration camp in Phnom Penh, Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge.

 

Part 1 of the Dialogue

Luka: It’s just not possible for someone to become so evil that he deserves hell. Not if ‘hell’ means unending extreme torture (the traditional view of hell).

Thomas: Why do you say that?

Luka: The only way that someone could deserve to go to hell forever, is by freely choosing unending separation from God over unending union with God. But in order for a choice to be genuinely free, the person choosing must be intellectually intact (not incapacitated), have a clear understanding of the consequences of the alternatives, and not be coerced to act one way or another. However, no person in their right mind would choose unending separation from God as long as he has a clear understanding—full, clear, and actual knowledge—that this would mean unending torture, whereas unending union with God would mean unending bliss. Only a person who is out of his mind would choose such a thing. But if someone is out of his mind, he cannot be held responsible for the choices that he makes. Since he is incapable of moral evil, he cannot do anything that might make him deserve hell.

Thomas: I’m not sure I agree with your understanding of what justice is and how punishment works. (Your understanding of insanity and freedom is also questionable, but I will skip over that for now). Suppose a man commits atrocious war crimes, or an act of genocide, or some other ‘crime against humanity’. Suppose he is supremely confident that these deeds will never be brought to light. Or perhaps he firmly believes that, because his position of power is forever secure, he will never be put on trial and punished for his deeds, even if they do come to light. He is so emboldened by his political or military success and by the extent of his worldly power that he thinks he will never be brought to judgement, either by man or by God. He does not realise, or he does not consider, the fact that his hour is merely an hour. He may even be so proud as to believe that God or history is on his side.

What would you say about this man? He does not do these deeds in full knowledge that he will be punished for them. On the contrary, he is emboldened to do what he does precisely because he denies that there is some law (human or divine) that will eventually bring his power to an end and him to judgement. In his diabolical pride he thinks he is untouchable, especially favoured by God or by history. He acts as someone who (in his own mind, and in the minds of his followers) exists either outside law and justice or as the supreme embodiment of law and justice—in either case as someone whose will is not answerable to some higher law. He laughs at the notion that he objectively deserves to be brought to justice and humbled. He even laughs at the notion that he nonetheless might be overcome by an opposing power and brought before a court of law that does not honour him as his followers do.

Now suppose this man is eventually overcome and brought before (say) an international court of law for his crimes against humanity. Suppose that in his defence, he says, “But your honour, never for one moment did I believe that I would be punished for any of the deeds brought to light here. It was never my intention to have to suffer any negative consequences for my actions. I never chose this for myself, either directly or indirectly. Nor did I accept a possible future punishment as a cost that I might have to pay for my glory and power.” He continues: “So it would be unjust if I were to be severely punished for my deeds. At the very least, justice demands that you take into consideration what I have said when you determine my sentence.” Now, Luka, do you think the judge ought to declare this man innocent?

Luka: No.

Thomas: Do you think the judge ought to lessen the sentence given all that this criminal said in his defence?

Luka: No. Even if everything that the criminal said in the first part of his speech (up to “glory and power”) is true and is held to be true by the judge, the judge should not lessen his sentence on that account.

Thomas: And why not?

Luka: Because a person is not less guilty for denying in his mind, and in his actions, that he will ever be punished for what he is doing. Nor he is less guilty for denying that he should be punished. If anything he is more guilty (in both cases), because his hubris is so much the greater. Nor is a person less guilty for not wanting to be punished, or for not aiming for punishment in his actions.

Thomas: I agree. Now the way you’ve framed the ‘free choice’ between heaven and hell is problematic in a number of ways. In light of the conclusion we just came to, one problematic aspect of your framing comes into view. God does not judge souls according to whether they want to be punished or not. Nobody wants to be punished, and nobody aims at punishment per se as if it were their aim or goal. Nor does anyone choose misery or pain for its own sake. Does that mean that nobody is morally guilty? Of course not! When it comes to moral character, the fact that a person doesn’t aim for punishment or unhappiness in his actions is neither here nor there. Guilt comes from transgressing divine law.

Luka: I don’t deny that people become morally guilty to some extent, by virtue of their transgressions against divine law. My point is that nobody is able to become ‘supremely’ guilty: so guilty that he or she deserves unending torture in the afterlife. The only way someone might, in theory, become supremely guilty is by freely rejecting God’s love with full, clear and actual knowledge of what that rejection means and what it entails. But nobody could freely reject the love of God in that way.

Thomas: But what if someone chooses to ignore the truth? What if someone wilfully resists the Word in light of which the moral and spiritual significance of his actions would become clear? What if a person voluntarily prefers not to consider reason, his conscience, and the law of God? In that case he does not have ‘actual’ knowledge of what his rejection of God means and what it leads to. Suppose that God in his mercy gives this person plenty of grace and opportunity to actually receive the light and consider the truth. And yet he voluntarily prefers to remain in his sinful ways rather than receive the light or consider the truth. For a while, he experiences pangs of conscience. He is haunted by a gnawing sense of guilt. Perhaps he becomes habitually desensitised to his sense of guilt. Perhaps he is able to ‘disarm’ his conscience through distraction or rationalisation. In any case, he never actually considers the truth of his situation before God, even though—at certain stages of his life, at least—he is genuinely able to. Now is this person less guilty on account of not actually considering the truth? Of course not. His wilful refusal to consider the truth or even to seek it out when it matters, his tenacious rejection of the gift of light—the light which, if received, would have led to his transformation—none of this amounts to an ‘ignorance’ that would reduce his guilt, let alone an ‘ignorance’ that would render him innocent.

You claim that nobody is able to freely reject God’s love with full, clear and actual knowledge of what that rejection means and what it entails. Maybe you’re right. But so what? Suppose that in order to commit a certain sin, it is necessary for Alice to shun the light. In order to sin, she has to withhold her attention from those truths—and those promptings of God—which, if dwelt upon, might restrain her. In other words, she has to withhold herself from the light that is offered to her as a gift, otherwise she will find herself unable to refuse the call to truth and obedience. By withholding herself she effectively says to the light (the Word of God), “I am not yours; I do not belong to you.” In short, she hardens her heart against the Word of God, and this hardening is a necessary condition for (1) her committing a certain sin and (2) her wilful perseverance in that sin. She commits the sin in a position of ‘darkness’. But this darkness is chosen. She does not treasure the truth (to treasure the truth is first to contemplate the truth and then to be habitually attuned to the truth). She does not sin while treasuring the truth; she sins as someone who has abandoned it. She wants to act without being informed and restrained by the truth. She remains in (or descends into) a space of darkness in order to live and move ‘more freely’.

Does her dwelling in darkness make her any less guilty? As someone who dwells in darkness, her mind is not flooded with the light. Does this mean she is not guilty of rejecting the light? In both cases, the answer is no. If you think that the only way to reject the light culpably is to reject it while it is actually present in the mind, you are mistaken. The light is offered as a gift to the person, before it is accepted into the person. To accept the gift of light is to let go of the false identity (the self-sufficient ego) whose horizon is darkness, and to step into a new (and nascent) identity whose horizon is the Truth. But a person might choose not to let go of her false ego-identity. A person might choose to remain in darkness, where she is ‘free’ from the constraining force of the light (in truth, of course, this ‘constraining’ gives true freedom). She may prefer that (actual) version of herself that can endure and grow in the darkness, over that (potential) version of herself that would live in the light. More precisely, she might freely sanction the corrupt preference for self-sufficient ego and darkness. And she might do this even in the presence of grace—or (in other words) as the light and love of God are being offered to her. Light does not have to become actual understanding before it is rejected. In many cases, light is first offered to the person as potential understanding—as a gift that may or may not be accepted and transformed (by appropriation and enactment) into actual understanding. And in that situation of being-offered, the light may be rejected—and rejected culpably—by anyone who actively prefers to remain in darkness.

Luka: But how could somebody reject the light freely without some clear understanding of the light? A person needs to have determinate knowledge of X in order freely to take a certain position in relation to X, otherwise the stance is not about X, but about some other object, real or imagined. It is impossible to take a personal stance in relation to the light if one is ignorant of the light or if one misunderstands the light.

Thomas: As I explained already, a person can (and often does) reject the light just because he prefers to remain in sin. He can harden his heart against the Word of God just because he prefers conservation of the false ego over both dying to self and radical transformation in Christ. The person who rejects the light knows very well why he needs to reject it. He knows that the light calls him into a new way of being and challenges him to die to his current way of being. If he did not know this, why does he reject the light? Why does he hate it? Why does he harden his heart? He would not put up a fight against the light—against the claim of God over his existence—unless he knew instinctively that the light, unresisted, would cast him down from his throne and annihilate his self-made existence. In practice he knows that darkness—the shadowy realm which the light would overcome—is the horizon for his current power and identity, though he probably doesn’t think of this horizon (his dwelling) as darkness. In practice he thinks of himself (the corrupt version of himself) as a city, and the light as the supreme enemy at the gates. It does not matter that the light is not understood for what it is in itself. What matters is how the person positions himself in response to the light as it approaches him as a destructively transforming power.

The existential significance of the light is known as soon as it appears in his horizon. The existential significance of the light is that it is transformative and therefore destructive of the self. If that light prevails, then this horizon of darkness will vanish, and this citadel—this identity that lives in darkness—will crumble into nothingness. Therefore, that light is an object of hatred. More precisely, the light becomes an object of hatred if the person defiantly holds onto his position in the darkness, preferring to remain where he is and as he is. If he chooses to identity himself more strongly with this self-sufficient mode of being—if he chooses to root himself more firmly in the darkness, where he can continue to ‘enjoy’ (as it were) a certain corrupt form of ‘freedom’—then by virtue of this choice, the light becomes an existential threat and an object of hatred.

But it is not necessary for things to go this way. If the light is experienced as a threat to the false ego, this means that it comes as a power that will overcome the false ego if it is not resisted. And this overcoming, when it occurs, is the work of grace in the soul. The light comes as a threat just because it comes as an offer of grace—as a positively transforming power with which it is possible to co-operate. In order to yield to this grace, one does not need any more grace than the grace that is offered—the same grace that, once offered, can be accepted or refused. The gift itself comes with the possibility of its being received. It is false to say that sometimes a person necessarily hardens his heart against the Word. It is false because the act of hardening counteracts an influence which, if yielded to, would lead to repentance and new life. A person resists the Word in order not to die to himself. But his act of resistance is already proof that the Word is (or at least was) present to him in such a way that he would have been transformed (destroyed and remade) if he had not resisted. To resist is to set oneself against a possibility that threatens to materialise. Given that the act of resistance works against the realisation of a genuine possibility, it is freely chosen (in the libertarian sense). That is to say, the same grace (sufficient but not yet infused) that was resisted, might have been received instead, and the fact that it was resisted proves that, in the very same circumstances, it might have been received. (In my mind, this is enough to disprove the theory, proposed by certain Thomists, that efficient grace is something over and above sufficient grace. And to disprove the Calvinist theory that it is possible to reject the Word of God hatefully without, in that moment, having sufficient grace to accept it).

You said that “the only way someone might become supremely guilty [so as to deserve hell] is by freely rejecting God’s love with full, clear and actual knowledge of what that rejection means and what it entails”. I believe I have shown why that claim of yours is false. It is possible to freely reject the love of God without considering (in ‘actual’ knowledge) what that rejection means and what it entails. A person can become so proud that he convinces himself that he is invincible. Such a person actively supresses the important truths; in his pride he dismisses the possibility that God might cast him down from his self-appointed throne. In his hubris he casts aside any thought of the last things, especially divine judgement. Let me add here that diabolical malice is not the only species of foolishness. Reckless lack of consideration for the last things can be rooted in an inordinate attachment to things that are passing. While such concupiscence is certainly an expression of false identity (the self-sufficient ego) it need not be malicious, properly speaking. Not all sin is an expression of malice. For a culpable failure to overcome the flesh is not yet a calculated decision, stemming from the will unaffected by emotional weakness (though perhaps conditioned by habits of the will), in favour of something sinful. Indeed, not all mortal sin involves malice. In any case, in order to be ‘free’ in one’s sinful way of life, in order to maintain one’s false identity (separation from God), it is necessary to remain in darkness. And this requires suppressing (turning away from, hardening oneself against) the most important truths (note that apathetic indifference and spiritual laziness count as hardening oneself against the truth). These ‘most important truths’ include especially (1) that God is holy and absolutely sovereign, (2) God’s love and mercy and (3) the last things. Granted, sometimes a person is invincibly ignorant of these things, at least to a large degree (everyone still has a conscience). But we are not interested in that scenario here.

Guilt is not proportional to a person’s actual knowledge (i.e., consideration) of the divine law against which one transgresses. If guilt were proportional to actual knowledge of the divine law, then a person would not be culpable for proudly and recklessly dismissing (failing to consider) the sovereign claim of God over his life—which is absurd. It is not even true to say that recklessly failing to consider the sovereign claim of God over one’s life is an extenuating circumstance that somewhat reduces one’s culpability. No—there is nothing extenuating or ‘guilt-reducing’ at all about the fact that I fail to consider a truth which, in my acting or decision-making, I ought to consider, and in relation to which I ought to regulate myself. If in the moment of action or decision it is factually impossible for one to consider the truth and regulate oneself in relation to it, then one might not be guilty for the practical disorder that results, as long as said impossibility is not due to negligence. But that is another matter. My point is simply that voluntary non-consideration of the truth does nothing to reduce guilt. Indeed, it is ridiculous to propose such a thing, given that voluntary non-consideration of the truth (when one ought to be considering the truth) is the sine qua non for committing sin. A person spurns the truth (reason and divine law/wisdom) in order to sin. The spurning of truth is the very ‘way’ of sinning. How could a voluntary act that clears the way for sin thereby reduce guilt? It would just as absurd to say that, because I cleared a space for sin in my life by voluntarily shielding that space from the light of truth, I am somehow less guilty for the sin that arises in that space—the sin that I myself enact.

For the same reason, guilt is not proportional to a person’s actual knowledge of the (present or future) consequences of transgressing against divine law either. These consequences include future judgement and punishment (as already mentioned); they also include being (presently) in a state of sin, which means guilt, habitual disorder, separation from God, and being divided from others. These consequences are included in the truth whose spurning is the very ‘way’ of sinning.

© Brendan Triffett 2021 

Photo by Sigmankatie - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25728679