Finite Time to Meet the Infinite

‘He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has put eternity in the hearts of man’ Ecclesiastes 3:11

Is this why we feel like we will live forever? We recently discussed Rosenbaum's defence of Epicurus, "How to be dead and not care" in a philosophy group. The article assumed no eternal life and attempted to put across that we shouldn’t fear death as it is nothingness, almost like the state before we were born. However, many of us agreed that thinking in this way wasn’t that easy as it was difficult to imagine not existing in some way. Is that because of what is in our hearts?

‘All the rivers run into the sea Yet the sea is not full…the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing ’ Ecclesiastes 1:7, 8

Always planning for the next thing and hoping it will be better than the last. parties, drugs, extreme sports, business. I wonder which point in the cycle is satisfying, just before, during or just after? It’s strange to see how some of these things can eat away in our lives whilst we still thirst for them. Often they start easy with big returns but slowly can consume us and the return gets lower. Of course it’s great to use our talents and achieve but sometimes we allow blessings to become idols. Tolstoy, writer of the classic war and peace said he wished that someone had told him that when he reached the top there would be nothing there. He saw life as meaningless and observed four ways as to how people respond. 1. Ignorance - not seeing the absurdity of life and therefore not questioning it. 2. Aware of the hopelessness but making do with what they have. 3. Aware and are strong enough to escape so commit suicide and 4. too weak to escape despite wanting too. Tolstoy questioned "What is the meaning of my life, beyond time, cause, and space? What is the meaning of my life within time, cause, and space?. With the result that, after long efforts of thought, the answer I reached was: "None." Later in His life he did find an answer to his question, “What meaning has life that death does not destroy? - Union with the eternal God: heaven “ and as C.S. Lewis wrote ‘where, except in the present, can the Eternal be met?

About 2000 years ago Jesus meets a Samaritan woman by a well, during their conversation he tells her ‘whoever drinks of this water will thirst again but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.’ John 4:13,14