eternalism
English edit
Etymology edit
Noun edit
eternalism (uncountable)
- (philosophy) The view that time resembles space and thus past and future events are in some sense coexistent.
- Antonym: presentism
- (philosophy, theology) The view that matter is uncreated and has existed, and will exist, eternally.
- 1986, Martin J. S. Rudwick, “The Shape and Meaning of Earth History”, in David C. Lindberg, Ronald L. Numbers, editors, God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, →ISBN, page 307:
- [The earth’s] history stretched indefinitely or even infinitely into past and future and involved no unique and unexplained events such as the Flood; indeed, earth history was “without vestige of a beginning, without prospect of an end.” […] Most significantly, the virtual eternalism of such theories was extended, often explicitly, to the history of mankind […]. Mankind could thus be claimed as uncreated and therefore not subject to any of the traditional moral and social constraints.
- 1997, Dale C. Lecheminant, “Foreword”, in John A. Widtsoe, Rational Theology: As Taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, →ISBN, page vii:
- The first of these is eternalism, which holds that matter, energy, and intelligence—the components of the universe—are uncreated, indestructible, eternal, and forever fixed.
Translations edit
eternalism
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