The traditional Christian view of eternity and God is that they are both timeless. Just like propositional truth and the laws of logic, they transcend time and space. They are therefore unchanging in their natures. If people who freely reject Christ in this lifetime go to this timeless hell then they become just as unchanging in their nature as God. Just as it is impossible for God to sin it will be impossible for sinners in hell to do true good. They will become fixed in their sinful natures forever and be tormented by their sins themselves. They stay evil forever and therefore hell becomes just. That is, if the afterlife is timeless.
I’ve looked for this in scripture, Cole – this timelessness – and I can’t find it anywhere. Revelation 10:6 says (in the KJV):
But there appears to be quite a lot of ambiguity in translating this, as the different versions relate it as ‘no more delay,’ ‘no more interval of time,’ ‘the time is not yet,’ and various other nuances. Here’s the Concordant Literal Version:
Beyond this one verse I can find no others, and this one verse appears to be in debate as to its exact meaning. Time itself might be something quite ‘other’ than we think it to be (I’m reading a book about time just now), but as for a complete dismissal of time, I don’t think that scripture supports it. I’m not sure humans, even glorified humans, were created to live in a time-free environment. It could be that time is destroyed, but that’s just speculation born of our tradition and as far as I can tell, unsupported by scripture.
I hope this helps, Cole. 
Blessings, Cindy
Hey Cindy!
Yes I think the passages of scripture on this issue are unclear. But if time and space had a beginning as science and philosophy seem to indicate then God could be a timeless Being. Moreover, if God is the foundation of necessary moral truths then He becomes timeless and unchanging in His character. The reason why is because necessary moral truths are unchanging. God is love right? This never changes. Everything within time changes. But we also know from scripture that it is impossible for God to sin. How do you understand this?
I think you’re right about God, Cole. Certainly God must be other than this nature (though He fills all in all).
I just don’t think there’s any reason (from scripture) to posit that time will come to an end – or at least that it will come to an end and not begin again in some sense. I realize RevJohn is an apocalypse, making any kind of literal interpretation problematic, but when Jesus says, “Behold I make all things new,” I think that’s a good candidate for a more or less literal interpretation. So, while this universe (with its intrinsic time-space characteristics) passes away, it sure looks like God intends to replace it with a new (or renewed) heaven and earth. If that’s the case, it has to include time unless it’s to be very, very different from this one – because time is, according to the scientists, inextricably woven in with the stuff of the world we live in.
You might say that to include time would be to include entropy, which would also seem problematic – but entropy happens because the expenditure of energy/organization exceeds the input of energy/organization. Hmm . . . I wonder if that might have some bearing on God’s saying to Adam: “In the day ye eat of it ye shall surely die.” Had early mankind chosen to eat from the ToL (figuratively speaking), would we have had access then to the life-giving energies of God to apply to this poor, sad planet? And if God literally recreates or restores this nature we live in, will He not prevent entropy by supplying it from His own inexhaustible supply of life?
Of course, that’s all speculation. But assuming the new heaven and earth will not involve time is speculation too. As we are creatures of time, it seems more likely the new (or renewed – I’m told the original language is ambivalent) heaven and earth should also include time. What do you think?
Of course! I wasn’t thinking of the New Creation. Glad you brought that to my attention. Do you think the Lake Of Fire is part of the New Creation though?
I think that probably the LoF is God – as He is experienced by anyone who still clings stubbornly to sin. I’ve also learned that this is the EoX view of the LoF – our God is a consuming fire.
In that sense, the LoF will always be with us, but we will not be forever burned (if that makes sense) because the wickedness will be destroyed from us as we let go of it – so there’s nothing for the fire to burn up. As to whether that happens in the old or new creation, or both, I’m not quite clear. The time-line of RevJohn is very difficult to follow, but if I remember correctly, one of the last things we read of is the Spirit and the bride saying, “Come and drink freely of the water of life, anyone who is thirsty.” If that happens following the new creation (which is what it looks like), then there must still be thirsty people there. Since anyone who drinks from the well/river of the water of life never thirsts again, that could only signify that some “living” in the new creation are still caught up in sin – that is, they have never drunk that water. It would also signify that they would still be able to repent and drink from the water of life though, or else why should they be offered the invitation?
Thinking of the LoF in a positive sense is intriguing. Death and hell are swallowed up in the LoF. Satan and his demons, being tormented in the LoF are in fact tormented by the very all-encompassing presence of God that has become the delight of the ones made holy (by virtue of having washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and drunk the water of life). And eventually – in “time,” in fact – even these demons must be purged of the wickedness that has infested them, and when they are purified, enter into the holiness of God. What a wonderful God we all belong to, and whose love we all enjoy!
Great topic, Cole.
Hey Cindy!
Good points. I also was looking up that scripture:
This seems to say that the everlasting fire was created. If so, it couldn’t be timelessly eternal. Would you agree?
Absolutely, Cole. One interpretation of this is that the fire is called “aionios” because it’s from the aionios God. We know from other scriptures that God had no beginning and has no end. A subset of that is that He is also aionios – or age-during, as Youngs Literal translates aionios. Have you seen my posts on this parable? Here’s a link to the first one, in case you’re interested: The Sheep and the Kids.
Great discussion, and I’ll get back to you probably tomorrow evening if you post again. I’ll (I hope) be mowing all day tomorrow – unless it rains . . . again . . . not that I’m complaining; it’s certainly better than drought! But the grass is getting SO tall!
Hey Cindy!
Yes that makes sense. I take it to mean long lasting. This fits with it’s other usages where the fire is said to be “eternal” but isn’t still burning on it’s objects.
It makes sense with the rest of the passage too. Just as God creates a new heaven and earth, He also creates the “Lake Of Fire”. If God creates it then it can’t be timelessly eternal.
Hi Cindy… the closest I know of is this:
Heb 7:16 …who has come, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life.
Hi, Davo
Yes, that does have some connection. I don’t think it’s timelessness exactly, though. An endless life can still be lived sequentially – in a realm where time exists, I mean. I can’t really wrap my mind around an existence devoid of time. Presumably it would also be devoid of space, as the two are apparently a kind of a package (unless the physicists are wrong, which has occasionally happened). 
“If the afterlife is timeless, then hell is forever” is logically equivalent to “if hell is not forever, then the afterlife is not timeless.”
The traditional Christian view of eternity and God is that they are both timeless. Just like propositional truth and the laws of logic, they transcend time and space. They are therefore unchanging in their natures. If people who freely reject Christ in this lifetime go to this timeless hell then they become just as unchanging in their nature as God. Just as it is impossible for God to sin it will be impossible for sinners in hell to do true good. They will become fixed in their sinful natures forever and be tormented by their sins themselves. They stay evil forever and therefore hell becomes just. That is, if the afterlife is timeless.
It’s God who calls the shots not a supposed timeless eternity. Hell is a creation of God and whether or not it’s timeless is entirely up to God and even if hell is timeless it doesn’t require that it’s residents stay there eternally.
To me the analogy doesn’t add up because you are saying because the afterlife is timeless everything in it including hell must be timeless. Firstly time is simply a measuring into some kind of units the passage of events or markers, so even if the afterlife is eternal that doesn’t make it timeless. Secondly God has always been eternal yet he creates things which are temporal and that can include hell.
The statement is probably true: “If the afterlife is timeless, then hell is forever.”
A timeless afterlife would mean everything is fixed in it’s current state – nothing could happen. (Or so it seems to me.) I can’t conceive of the afterlife being a timeless state, and I don’t think that passage that Cindy mentioned necessitates that.
Sonia
More to the point, creatures cannot enter the level of God’s self-existent eternity.
A lot of Christian Patristics, including most of the universalists among them, do seem to think that creatures will eventually enter a timeless state where the eons end, but the universalists insist this doesn’t and even cannot happen before all creatures have been led out of their sins into righteousness. Relatedly the patristic universalists (following Origen’s lead if I remember correctly – I don’t remember Dr. Ramelli saying this idea shows up before him) regard the eons as distinguished precisely by various stages of judgment, repentance and salvation.
If so, however, then creaturely time might still always historically continue in a final eon of righteousness after the final ‘shift’ into that eon. Considering the ontological distinctions between creatures and God, and the various systemic necessities for us to properly interact with one another or even to interact with God, I very much expect this to happen: the end of the eons doesn’t mean the end of time but the final transition past judgment, redemption and salvation into a righteousness of history going forward forever – a concept closely connected with the New Creation (new heavens and new earth), though I somewhat suspect those might happen first, leading to a situation rather like that imagined by Lewis in The Great Divorce but with more specific connections to the situation ‘painted’ (for want of a better word) at the end of RevJohn: the new creation constantly testifies to those who are still fondling their sins outside the gates of the New Jerusalem (which, whether literal or not, represents the church in communion), that to appreciate what has happened they must let go of their sins.
Note that (as Lewis describes it) such an existence would be constant torment, and even authoritatively punitive torment, but not in the militantly violent ways many people here are worried about and reject! 
(Not that I think such a final judgment situation is mutually exclusive with more militant and violent judgments from God which may literally happen earlier, but I do think it’s important that the final picture of judgment against sinners in RevJohn is totally missing violent connotations.)
Anyway, Lewis and (if I recall correctly) MacDonald both go with the idea of an ever-continuing history of creation past the end of all evil.
In the last chapter of Perelandra (and touched on in the last paragraph of the Narnia Chronicles), Lewis posits the idea that we haven’t even really started yet, that everything thus far has been a bit of a “false start” that needs to be rectified before a real beginning can be made. Once everyone and everything is finally and thoroughly saved, then, then we can finally get around to starting.
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What can it mean to “enter a timeless state”? If “time” is a word to describe the temporal “distance” between two events, then to “enter a timeless state” would be to enter a state in which there were no events.
The following sentence seems to suggest that there are ages to come, with no hint of an end.
On the other hand, these two sentences state that the ages had already ended at the time of writing:
But if the ages had already ended at that time, mankind has not “entered into a timeless state”; events are still occurring.