Religious Conceptions of Time

[Nikkolas]

I first heard of "a cyclical view of history" when reading the works of a rather interesting, if not all that sane or admirable, woman named Savitri Devi. She claimed many religions, not just her preferred religion of Hinduism, believed this. Googling, I found:
Traditional Views of History - Essentials Of Unification Thought

Similarly, when researching Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, I found out about this:
Three Ages of Buddhism - Wikipedia

This is one of the most fascinating theological ideas I've seen, and I have read a lot about all sorts of religions. I was just curious if anyone here has a spiritual view of time? What does your faith say about this, if anything?

 

[Grandliseur]

I first heard of "a cyclical view of history" when reading the works of a rather interesting, if not all that sane or admirable, woman named Savitri Devi. She claimed many religions, not just her preferred religion of Hinduism, believed this. Googling, I found:
Traditional Views of History - Essentials Of Unification Thought

Similarly, when researching Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, I found out about this:
Three Ages of Buddhism - Wikipedia

This is one of the most fascinating theological ideas I've seen, and I have read a lot about all sorts of religions. I was just curious if anyone here has a spiritual view of time? What does your faith say about this, if anything?

I don't have much to add to this subject; except, the Bible says that there is nothing new under the sun and that all things we know and experience, invent, already have been invented.

 

[Sundance]

My view of Time is (eternally) cyclical. What, in the conception of some, seems to be a straight progression is, to me, a never-ending series of recurring cycles. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, seasons, years...it's all the same things happening repetitiously.

 

[sun rise]

My view is as a helix. The cycles repeat but there is also a progression. This puts together the Eastern view of cycles, yugas and the Western linear view of time.

 

[arthra]

I was just curious if anyone here has a spiritual view of time? What does your faith say about this, if anything?

Baha'is have a view of time as cycles as in the following:

TABLE: BAHA'I SACRED HISTORY

I. PREVIOUS UNIVERSAL CYCLES - of which no trace remains

II. PRESENT UNIVERSAL CYCLE

• A. ADAMIC CYCLE, CYCLE OF PROPHECY - lasted approximately 6,000 year

1. Adam 1. Indian religious figures
2. Noah - Krishna
3. Abraham
4. Moses 2. Zoroaster
5. Jesus 3. Buddha
6. Muhammad
+ Other unknown or unspecified prophets

• B. BAHA'I CYCLE, CYCLE OF FULFILLMENT - to last 500,000 years

1. The Bab
2. Bahá'u'lláh - Universal Manifestation for this Universal Cycle a. Heroic, Primitive, or Apostolic Age - 1844-1921 (or 1932 - the death of Bahiyyih Khanum) i. Ministry of the Bab (1844-53)
ii. Ministry of Bahá'u'lláh (1853-92)
iii. Ministry of `Abdu'l-Bahá (1892-1921) b. Formative, Transitional, or Iron Age - 1921 - i. First Epoch (1921-44/46) - Erection of the Administrative Order
ii. Second Epoch (1946-63) - spread of the Faith beyond the confines of the Western Hemisphere
iii. Third Epoch (1963-86) - emergence of the Faith from obscurity and initiation of social and economic development plans
iv. Fourth Epoch (1986- ) - national communities taking on the responsibility for their own development
v. Successive further Epochs c. Golden Age
Successive Epochs leading to the Most Great Peace 3. Further Manifestations - under the shadow of Bahá'u'lláh

• END OF PRESENT UNIVERSAL CYCLE

III. FURTHER UNIVERSAL CYCLES

More information:
Ages and Cycles

 

[Twilight Hue]

I first heard of "a cyclical view of history" when reading the works of a rather interesting, if not all that sane or admirable, woman named Savitri Devi. She claimed many religions, not just her preferred religion of Hinduism, believed this. Googling, I found:
Traditional Views of History - Essentials Of Unification Thought

Similarly, when researching Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, I found out about this:
Three Ages of Buddhism - Wikipedia

This is one of the most fascinating theological ideas I've seen, and I have read a lot about all sorts of religions. I was just curious if anyone here has a spiritual view of time? What does your faith say about this, if anything?

I'd give an answer if I had the time.

 

[Jainarayan]

I see it as eternally and infinitely cyclic, not only this universe but in other universes as well. I also tend to think time is not linear. I think it can loop and bend back on itself.

 

[Quintessence]

When I first started learning about contemporary Paganism, I had the blessing of being introduced to non-linear views of time. Pagan traditions tend to ground themselves in natural cycles, which are cyclical. As I was studying natural sciences at the time as well, many of the things I was learning about were better understood as cycles than as linear events. For example, we have many of our natural cycles because our planet orbits around a celestial body in an inherently repetitive (cyclical) pattern; same deal with the rotation of the planet about its axis. There are also many other natural cycles - like the nitrogen cycle and the water cycle - all of which reinforce a more cyclical perspective on reality as a whole, not just for time. The cyclical view of time was more consistent with what I was learning and observed, so I fully embraced the idea.

 

[whirlingmerc]

I first heard of "a cyclical view of history" when reading the works of a rather interesting, if not all that sane or admirable, woman named Savitri Devi. She claimed many religions, not just her preferred religion of Hinduism, believed this. Googling, I found:
Traditional Views of History - Essentials Of Unification Thought

Similarly, when researching Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, I found out about this:
Three Ages of Buddhism - Wikipedia

This is one of the most fascinating theological ideas I've seen, and I have read a lot about all sorts of religions. I was just curious if anyone here has a spiritual view of time? What does your faith say about this, if anything?

I would say Christianity and Judaism have a more linear view of time
and God may be outside time which may be part of His creation

 

[David T]

I first heard of "a cyclical view of history" when reading the works of a rather interesting, if not all that sane or admirable, woman named Savitri Devi. She claimed many religions, not just her preferred religion of Hinduism, believed this. Googling, I found:
Traditional Views of History - Essentials Of Unification Thought

Similarly, when researching Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, I found out about this:
Three Ages of Buddhism - Wikipedia

This is one of the most fascinating theological ideas I've seen, and I have read a lot about all sorts of religions. I was just curious if anyone here has a spiritual view of time? What does your faith say about this, if anything?

In ancient Greece there are two frameworks. It's constantly alluded to in the new testament. One framework, is chronos or in modern times the term would be conscious artificial subjective idea of a clock or measured time. The other is Kairos or event driven. That can be explained but actually it requires realization rather than an explanation..

 

[whirlingmerc]

In ancient Greece there are two frameworks. It's constantly alluded to in the new testament. One framework, is chronos or in modern times the term would be conscious artificial subjective idea of a clock or measured time. The other is Kairos or event driven. That can be explained but actually it requires realization rather than an explanation..

The New Testament does use chronos and kairos. Cyclical? not really.
Also salvation was a dine deal 'before time began' God is beyond the universe. God may have created time as part of creation and then entered into it in Jesus

 

[David T]

The New Testament does use chronos and kairos. Cyclical? not really.
Also salvation was a dine deal 'before time began' God is beyond the universe. God may have created time as part of creation and then entered into it in Jesus

Well your understanding of nature is as about as accurate as darwin s or Dawkins not at all. You have the correct, you have reality wrong it's bigger than your cranium. It's culturally endemic so the bible based on the cranium mismatch to reality makes understanding it impossible. It's normal it's identical to how atheists understand it as well. Modern culture nothing more.

 

[Mowgli]

"Kairos" had a begining in the BigBang and it'll have an end after Big Crunch...then there will be a state of Timelessness before it 'Bangs' again..this cosmos (Time-Space Unity) takes infinite re-births just as we animals n humans do...so, it's circular with a clear indefinite intermission of Timelessness intervening between various "Cosmic Cycles"...This is what Hindus heard from gods..

 

[Tumah]

I would say Christianity and Judaism have a more linear view of time
and God may be outside time which may be part of His creation

I do not know if you are in a position to speak about Christianity, but I do know you are not in a position to speak about what Judaism's views.

In fact, time in Judaism appears to be understood to be epicyclic, or perhaps spiral.

 

[Sunstone]

I was just curious if anyone here has a spiritual view of time? What does your faith say about this, if anything?

@Nikkolas, you might want to familiarize yourself with the rather influential ideas of Mircea Eliade on sacred and profane time.

Eliade is not an entirely admirable man -- he seems to have been involved at one point in his life with right wing Romanian antisemitism, for instance, and he was a political reactionary in many ways -- but he was extremely erudite, and he has had a considerable influence on how scholars view religion in general or comparatively.

Time was of especial interest to Eliade. In his youth, he was absolutely obsessed with it, and he carried a bit of that obsession with him over into how he understood time in a religious sense. For Eliade, time could be divided into the sacred and profane. The profane was geometric, non-religious, usually linear time. Each unit of profane time (minutes, seconds, etc) was like every other unit of profane time with nothing to make one unit intrinsically more meaningful than the next.

Sacred time on the other hand was very different. It was not, for instance, intrinsically uniform: Some moments -- such as, say, holy days -- were to the religious mind very different from other moments. Sacred time was also cyclical, as opposed to linear.

Another notion of Eliade's is that religions tend to have "Golden Ages", which are ages of sacred time that are located in either the mythic past or the mythic future. For instance, Christians have the Golden Age of the Garden of Eden and the Golden Age following the Apocalypse when Christ reigns on earth.

You might want to check out this article on Eliade's notion of the Eternal Return. That notion in particular has influenced much scholarship in the field of comparative religious studies -- which was one of my two minors at university.