Time and Eternity: The Ontological Impact of Kierkegaard’s Concept of Time as Contribution to the Question of the Reality of Time and Human Freedom

Is time a matter of consciousness only or can it draw upon reality? Not only since Augustine’s question “But then what exactly is time?” the status of time has been challenged, but also much earlier during the days of the Ancient Greek philosophers. They already realized that the question of time must be confronted with the thought of eternity. For them, it was without question that eternity is the transcendental background of time. The insights of modern physics force us to reconsider 1. the meaning of time and its status of reality; 2. the relationship between absoluteness and relativity of time; 3. the idea of an eternal universe and the eternity of time.

This paper raises the question of a possible combination of eternity and time. Only if both aspects can coexist, we will be able to keep the idea of human freedom. In spite of a common prejudice, an eternal universe and its deterministic natural laws do not interfere with freedom as long as time plays a substantial role in our general rules of operation. Moreover, determinism plays an even necessary role, because it is only within determinism that a rational concept of freedom in terms of following rules can be maintained. It is time, which saves the freedom of the human will in spite of and even because of the determinism of natural laws.

Therefore, eternity and determinism do not contradict the freedom of will. However, it deserves an ontological concept of time, which is founded on a concept of eternity, not being “timeless” but also bearing time.

Keywords: Time, eternity, Søren Kierkegaard, Christoph von der Malsburg, the ontological status of time, the eternal universe, contingency, determinism, human freedom.