I meant ‘you’ in a generic sense. The comment wasn’t directed at anyone. I just noticed and felt the need to remark at the irony of how on one hand an infinite number of past events are considered possible, and on the other “forever and ever” isn’t supposed to be in reference to eternity. I didn’t plan on the conversation to come to a head like this, but here it is.
The eternity of “forever and ever” and the impossibility of snapping your fingers an infinite number of times.
So … to the point of the discussion at hand … are you agreeing then that the English phrase “forever and ever” as used in our translations does not necessarily imply what so often gets packed into that in these modern times?
(to the part of your comment you removed) Before we were talking about Revelation we were talking about that. So it is an appropriate comparison.
What difference does it make? You are so thoroughly convinced of what it doesn’t mean, I don’t think any NT scholar could convince you otherwise.
I’m not an NT scholar. So this was my way of giving you a chance to inform me about any NT scholars you may know of who say it does. If you don’t have any names to offer, that’s fine. I might still be wrong about my suspicions, and would be glad to be corrected. I’m only suspicious because I can see other places in the Bible where that same phrase meant something like an eternity (to the perspective of the speakers or audience) but would seem nonetheless not to reliably refer to a literal eternity such as what so many modern people think of. Or it might literally mean that but still be hyperbole. Such as when I say … “this sermon is going on forever!” - I do literally mean an eternity as far as plain word meaning, but am not meaning with my observation to suggest that it is an actually unending sermon.
I really would be curious what such as N.T. Wright would say about this.
In this and much else in the Bible it seems like an obvious mistake to import a modern notion of precision. The language specific to mathematics and science doesn’t belong to that time.
Take at look at how “forever and ever” occurs in Revelation, that is the point I see Osbourne highlighting. It’s easy to say it can’t apply to eternity when it applies to judgement, but it then applies to eternity when it’s applied to the Lord.
N.T. Wright, while not speaking directly to this issue, or maybe he is indirectly, in his book Surprised by Hope, wrote about when a person is so identified with sin, and has so become that which they worshipped, that in the final analysis or judgement (I am paraphrasing from memory) they pass into a state of being beyond all pity. This is how I see Wright combining annihilation and eternal torment.
More often than not, it is the the Spirit of God that convicts a person of their need for a Savior. Not Bible scholars who have spent their lives understanding the language and culture, as important as that is.
On second thought, the Spirit is essential, whether it be with the sermon of a country preacher who stirred the soul of a young Billy Graham or the countless other encounters with the Holy Spirit, that God’s Saints have stumbled upon.
Aaah, though!
“Precisely. Doesn’t that make more sense?” I thought to my ignorant self.
No way out of that one.
As a librarian, I resemble a crow. I am an information scavenger, because it’s everywhere. In and out of contexts. Sometimes there is something worth digging into and digesting; other times it is a fleeting, shiny object. Often it’s useful but not yet. Stick it in the nest, and pull it out again, if I can remember where I hid it.
I love learning about new things; some of the most interesting ones have come from some of the brilliant patrons I work with at the state library.
I never love having someone tell me that a different view of a topic is so wrong that no one else should be allowed to be aware of or consider it, that no one should have access to a fairly standard understanding of biblical interpretation in a well-written book, so that they can think through the pros and cons, because it disagrees with the doctrinal statement on a matter that is way down the list of doctrinal priorities.
Good thing I had bought the book with my own money. No ethical questions about bringing it home.
Never ever cared for them myself
Careful there. Some go full preterist, and that is another error, and far worse than believing Jesus will return before the end of the evening.
Which is why his threats of being cutoff from the tree of life are no joke.
I never thought that much about that.
I have a near mint first edition of David Chilton’s Days of Vengeance and wouldn’t sell it for $500… maybe for a $1000.
I think I paid about 5 bucks for my first edition of Kraybill. I’d sell it for $20 (+S&H). I know where I can get an alternate copy! : )
No, I don’t think that was it. But he’ll have to speak for himself.
If you hung out with the people I do/did, you would. This stuff is a BIG DEAL for them. And a lot of my relatives. O h, m y.
As Athanasius noted, where begetting among humans happens in time, begetting with God is eternal.
There’s a really ancient hymn built around this; it starts out “I bind unto myself today / the strong Name of the Trinity”.
And just as is true of certain quantum phenomena, these interpretations manage to exist and not exist at the same time. 
Often in college chemistry we were required to identify any assumptions.
And assuming that we had none was not legit.
The first would mean that Star Trek style transporters might be possible; the latter that they aren’t.
Okay, I just realized it’s past time for bed – I can’t stop giggling at “ion Jesus Christ”!
There’s a really ancient hymn built around this; it starts out “I bind unto myself today / the strong Name of the Trinity”.
A lovely, contemporary version of The Lorica:
Not to be picky, but “effects” means “brings about”; the word for “having an influence on” is “affects”.
The two words used to be pronounced differently but lazy human speakers, especially in the U.S., trend everything towards a blah sameness.
My older brother the mathematician once said that in terms of there being divine entities any number between one and infinity was ridiculous. I wish I could remember the argument for that!
I can’t think of the slightest difference that would make for doing science. God cannot have any place in science unless we have a divine-o-meter that can detect divine action.
No, but then you would hardly be a scientist, and if you were you’d almost certainly be a bad one.
That depends on the nature of the universe. It may be that there is an infinity of things, or it may be that the number of things is arbitrarily large but finite. Math can handle either of these, and so far hasn’t helped decide between them.
If the universe did not start out infinite then it cannot reach infinity; if it started out infinite then it contains all sorts of infinities. It all depends on how things started out.
ChatGPT is incorrect: an infinity of events can refer to all the happenings in a given instant in a universe that is infinite in extent.
Oh, if only my older brother was still around – I would love to see the two of them go at it.
[He wasn’t just a mathematician, he tutored PhD candidates.]
When I took university physics it was stated that only free neutrons have a half-life. Has that changed?
My physics professors would all have disagreed with this!
That is just an overly simplistic way of explaining things, which only considers them in comparison to neutrons in atoms which are stable. Are the neutrons in the tritium atom stable? They are more stable than the free neutron with a half-life over 12 years (quite a bit longer than the 10.3 minutes for free neutrons), but no they are not. Thus it pays to go into more detail ask why are the neutrons in atomic nuclei more stable? One explanation is the neutrons in a stable atom like deuterium just don’t live that long because the force which binds them in the nucleus (to the proton) involve meson (or quark) exchanges which changes them into protons (while changing the proton into a neutron to replace the old one). Though… that is a simplistic explanation in its own right, to be honest.
That is exactly Ernst Mach’s position. The Logical Positivists followed him on it.
I don’t disagree that it’s bad science, but is=t is also the result of regarding one aspect of creation as the origin of everything else. And that is a divinity belief.
Oh, what a rabbit trail into first- and second-century Gnosticism this could launch!
That all depends on starting conditions. There is no problem with a universe that began with an infinite number of things and so would continue to have an infinite number of things – but if the universe did not start that way then it can never have an infinite number of things.
I differ on the matter of math: most PhD work in math begins with proposing postulates no one thinks are real, demonstrating that the only thing presupposed in math is the particular set
of postulates being worked with.
Oh, that would have been fun to drop into our informal intelligent design club!
I think it would come down to the definition of “believe”. If it refers to a conviction that there is a God (Designer), then I think we all would have agreed that it could be “the conclusion of a line of argument”. If meant in the scriptural sense of “trust”, then we would have agreed.
More accurately, it makes Christians honorary sons of Abraham.
= - = + = - = † = - = + = - =
Interesting – being convicted of my sin is one of the stronger influences that has made me lean towards universalism.
I’ll note that “forever” here is once again “(in)to the age”, which tends to mean until something is complete.
There are suggestions from writers all the way from the Fathers to the present that speak of perhaps millions of years of punishment – whatever it takes for someone to surrender.
Between some things a Jesuit said to me and my older brother the mathematician, I think that if universalism is true and the above idea is how it works, that there will be “sideways time” that the punishment takes place on so that all end up entering the Kingdom together with no stragglers.
It’s also much easier to reconcile with believers having memories of loved ones who “didn’t make it”.
Again there’s that pesky “unto ages of ages” concept – that’s ultimately what everything hinges on.
= - = + = - = † = - = + = - =
And therefore that Allah is a self-declared deceiver.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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