RE: Actual Infinity in Reality?
February 15, 2018 at 12:29 pm
(This post was last modified: February 15, 2018 at 12:40 pm by Angrboda.)
(February 15, 2018 at 12:14 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: As another member noted - eternal and infinite are not synonymous. Eternal is a quality; infinite is a quantity. Eternal is the quality of something for which time has no meaning, like the Principle of Non-Contradiction. The PNC is universally true independent of time or even if there wasn't any time/space at all. Infinite describes the quantity of something, like the amount of patience it takes to read posts by Little Rik.
I'm not sure I agree with you here. Regardless, using eternal in the sense of time having no meaning for something is common in theological discussion of God, I'm just not sure that one can come up with a sensible metaphysics in which to ground such a notion. Failing that, the notion of eternal that you are promoting here seems little more than empty words.
Oxford English Dictionary Wrote:eternal,
A. adj.
1.
a. Infinite in past and future duration; without beginning or end; that always has existed and always will exist: esp. of the Divine Being.
b. By those who hold that time, i.e. the relation of succession, pertains merely to things as viewed by finite intelligence, and not to absolute reality, the word as used of God or His actions is interpreted in the sense: Not conditioned by time; not subject to time relations.
Phrases in which the word has properly this sense are, however, often used in religious language without any definite recognition of the metaphysical theory which they imply, being taken as figurative expressions of the divine omniscience.