Distinguishing Eternity

22 February 2023

Distinguishing Eternity

“He [Plato] was also the first to develop the notion of eternity, for whereas his predecessors understood by eternity endless time, Plato showed that endless time is different from eternity.”

(Anonymous, Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy, translated by L.G. Westerink, The Prometheus Trust, Wiltshire, UK, 2011, page 12)

1.  The ultimate source of all in Platonism is usually referred to as the One, or the Good, sometimes as the Beautiful.  In reality this ultimacy is beyond name and form, beyond predication, beyond affirmation or negation.  I think of names like the Good and the One and the Beautiful as a kind of first manifestation from this ultimacy.  Strictly speaking you cannot say anything positive or negative about the ultimate; on the other hand, speaking about the ultimate has its virtues and purposes and is not inherently misleading.

2.  In my own journey I have tended to configure the Platonic ultimate as the Eternal (hence the name of this blog).  As the quote above suggests, it seems to me that Platonism has a subtle and deep understanding of eternity; it is one of the things that drew me to Platonism.  The ultimate is eternal as such, just as for the ultimate oneness is unity as such.  Things are things because they are descended from this Oneness, and things endure through time because of their participation in the Eternal.  And because they are metaphysically distant from the ultimate, their unity is deficient and unsustainable, and their capacity to endure is limited by time.

3.  From the perspective of eternity the ultimate is eternity as such.  In the first emanation (nous) things are eternal by participation; this is why, for example, numbers are eternal.  In the second emanation, the realm of soul, the metaphysical distance from the Eternal introduces time, through the presence of number.  It is here that we observe everlasting things, what the quote refers to as ‘endless time’.  The world soul and the cosmos as a whole are examples of this enduring through time.  And it is here that Plato speaks of ‘time as the moving image of eternity’ in the Timaeus.  The appearance of ephemerality emerges as the world soul differentiates into a individual consciousnesses that endure only for a measurable amount of time; they lack the nature of everlastingness.  This is the realm of deities, humans, and other living beings.  This is the realm of materiality, the lowest realm which is the farthest from the ultimate.

4.  By following the traces of eternity we can ascend, step by step, to that which is eternal by nature.  The first step is to contemplate impermanence; that all sensory things, and all mental constructions, are impermanent.  In some cases this is not difficult; for example, we have no problem accepting the impermanence of the sound of a bell.  In other cases there can be deep resistance to impermanence; for example, many people think that a nation or religion are permanent, and some think that their ephemeral opinions are permanent.  This is why serious study of impermanence is so helpful, because it leads us away from relying on the ephemeral domain of sensation; it is a process of distinguishing eternity from that which is ephemeral.  This is just the first step in the long journey to the eternal.  Plotinus is the great guide for this journey which takes us beyond the realms of sensation, beyond the realms of the everlasting, to a return to the truly Eternal.

5.  The presence of eternity is found within; it lies at the center of the soul.  It is like a ray of sunlight that can, if we pay attention, lead us back to the sun, the spiritual sun.  Though that which is eternal as such is metaphysically distant, it is spiritually close.  When we turn within, entering silence and stillness, we find this inner light and, with patience, the source of that inner light, which is the Good, the One, and the Eternal.