One defect of the English language is that it has only one word, “time,” to express two quite distinct concepts. There is the “time” which passes, is subdivided and measured. Then there is the “time” to do something, as in “a time to sow, and a time to reap.” Some languages have a different word for each concept, such as Greek, wherein chronos is time in the first sense, “clock-time,” and kairos is “place-time,” time in which things happen. Another way to think of kairos is “now-ness.” Just as “space” is a featureless, undifferentiated background within which “places” are located, kairos happens within the framework of chronos. Notice that neither “space” nor “chronos” have any meaning or value except as reference points within which they contain their respective “place” or “kairos.” The below table lists some characteristics of each.

The philosophical practice of attempting to understand the character of time by analogy with space is an old one, and effective. The fact that we can construct such a table as the above seems to support the utility of such analogies as a starting-point, and therefore it makes sense to continue with it.

Since the conceptions of “eternity” as either “infinite time” or “no time” are both unsatisfactory, let us consider eternity as a third temporal dimension where chronos and kairos are the first and second dimensions, respectively. The reasons for this conception can be seen when we consider the necessary characteristics of eternity: it must encompass all other time and contain it, as a cube contains both lines and squares.

The analogy between space and time holding true for our purposes, we may use geometry as a tool to help us visualize the relationship between chronos, kairos, and eternity. One way to represent the relationship in order to keep eternity from being something less than its constituent dimensions might be as follows.

A circle can be used as a coordinate system which can represent chronos, the first dimension. The reason for a circle, rather than a line, can be seen in its seemingly inherently cyclical nature. Chronos is subdivided into repeating units defined according to utility. Whether second, minute, hour, day, week, month, or year, once each unit ends, another begins. Any point in chronos can be therefore defined along the coordinate system of the circle, multiplied by the number of iterations that have passed.

Once anything happens within the framework of chronos, however, we have passed into kairos, the second dimension in our three-dimensional temporal system. Kairos can be visualized as a spiral going up a cone whose circularity is the progression of chronos, just as the squareness of a cube is dependent on the straight lines which define its overall shape. Once the spiral reaches the apex of the cone, it has reached the center of the circle. Chronos is now no more, and all that is left is kairos, upward progression. Eternity, then, is the line extending through and above the apex of the cone, pointing upward and extending to infinity. Perhaps the most powerful aspect of this model is that it shows how kairos can continue unabated; indeed, at maximum capacity; after chronos has become extinct. The upward line of eternity did not begin at the apex of the cone, it went straight through it, having never begun, and everything about the cone’s existence and character does nothing so much as point the way that eternity goes.

Q&A

Interesting that we have now made eternity appear “one-dimensional” (a straight line!).
I think it’s kind of beautiful, how the analogy comes full circle, back upon itself. Note, however, that since in this picture chronos + kairos = a spiral, eternity is not something that can be subdivided into chronos, any more than a line has circularity. This distinction needs to be pointed out lest it should appear that the eternity “line” is something like a “timeline,” complete with the familiar chronos. It’s something we can’t picture what it’s “like,” we can only abstractly grasp it by analogy (assuming the analogy is valid).

Isn’t this just reasoning-by-analogy (and therefore fraught with potential fallacy)?
Yes, it’s reasoning by analogy. But we are otherwise so at sea in our attempts to understand time (and why it should seem so mysterious! Another subject altogether...), that without being able to test any hypothesis on this subject by experimentation, it necessarily resides in the realm of abstract reasoning for now. And I’d say as such, it’s valid so far as it goes.

But what would kairos look like without chronos?!
Who knows?? If this picture has any validity, though, it sure sounds exciting: kairos at full tilt without the wan, tired vicissitudes of chronos—it almost makes my heart race to think about it!

Why believe in eternity? Is it not just panacea for our Weltschmertz, our weaknesses in dealing with reality?
Why would we have Weltschmertz (world-weariness)? It’s not just about pain; even when things are going swell, we mourn the passing of years and have an unshakable feeling that this can’t be all there is to it (at least, I think most people do). What’s that all about? Meaningless byproduct of psychological complexities? Such materialistic catch-all “explanations,” being (a) unfalsifiable and (b) having no predictive power, are thereby themselves meaningless. Instead of “debunking,” then, I think the appropriate method of addressing possible error is to figure out wherein the misconception may be, instead of automatically rejecting all metaphysical topics. Looking at it from a somewhat less-subjective point of view, I think the demonstrated relationship between chronos and kairos itself points to a necessary “third temporal dimension,” as seems to be borne out in the described model.

How are conceptions of eternity as “infinite time” or “no time” “unsatisfactory”?
I have heard many people say that they find the concept of “eternal life” quite horrifying if taken to mean “an infinite quantity of time”—as if one simply lived normal days which we know now, except never, ever, ever dying. It’s appropriate to be horrified at this prospect, because it’s not in the character of time (chronos) to continue on without end. If I’m not mistaken, modern physics itself postulates an “end of time,” and also my impression is that mathematical theory has it that there is no such thing as an “actual infinite,” i.e. an infinite quantity of discrete, numerable entities. The idea of chronos being neverending has something in it of a self-contradiction, anyway. What’s befuddling to me is when people take this idea of “infinite time” eternity as the only possible one, and react by being actually dismayed at the idea of going to heaven; as if God didn’t know what he was doing and, oops, accidentally made heaven a kind of hell! It’s utterly absurd, but I have actually heard people talk this way.
“No time” means, I would guess, none of either chronos or kairos. All I can make of this is eternity as NO dimensions, in fact a point, static and immovable. And this just defies any attempt to characterize it at all; it certainly would seem to mean that eternity is something LESS than time. Makes me think of nirvana, the extinction that is the highest goal of certain Eastern philosophies. I can’t help but think that it’s a poor, beggarly philosophy that prizes oblivion above all else.

Originally written around January 2003
Last modified: November 25, 2003; 4:07 pm CST