How Does Time Move? (St. Augustine) - a podcast by Dre Carlan

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“...how do prophets see the future, if there is not yet a future to be seen? It is impossible to see what does not exist. In the same way people who describe the past could not describe it correctly unless they saw it in their minds, and if the past did not exist it would be impossible for them to see it at all. Therefore both the past and the future do exist.”
-Confessions, Book XI, Ch. 17


“It might be correct to say that there are three times, a present of past things, a present of present things, and a present of future things. Some such different times do exist in the mind, but nowhere else that I can see. The present of past things is the memory; the present of present things is direct perception; and the present of future things is expectation. If we may speak in these terms, I can see three times and I admit that they do exist.”
-Confessions, Book XI, Ch. 20


“It is not that God’s knowledge varies in any way, that the future, the present, and the past affect that knowledge in three different ways. It is not with God as it is with us. He does not look ahead to the future, look directly at the present, look back to the past. He sees in some other manner, utterly remote from anything we experience or could imagine. He does not see things by turning his attention from one thing to another. He sees all without any kind of change. Things which happen under the condition of time are in the future, not yet in being, or in the present, already existing, or in the past, no longer in being. But God comprehends all these in a stable and eternal present. And with him there is no difference between seeing with the eyes and ‘seeing’ with the mind, for he does not consist of mind and body. Nor is there any difference between his present, past, and future. God’s knowledge has no change or variation. ‘With him there is no alteration, or shadow of movement.’”
-City of God, Book XI, Ch. 21

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