Eternity is time without beginning or end. As such, it makes any measure of time along that continuum essentially meaningless. It is hard to wrap our minds around this, so here’s a little mental exercise to help.
Visualize a meter stick as being the span of time since the formation of planet earth to today, a period of approximately 4.5 billion years according to science. Each centimeter on that meter stick would represent 45 million years, each tiny millimeter 4.5 million years. Now picture a mark not quite 9/10th of the way to the far right side of the ruler, which is present time: This would be when the first multicellular life forms appeared in the early oceans.. Then move further to the right, and picture a mark just one millmeter before the very end of the meter stick: this is when the first man appeared approximately 6 million years ago.
What would the measurement be for the last hundred years? About 2/100th the thickness of a very fine human hair; And for your own lifetime? Half or less of that, unimaginably small. Insignificant against the span of earth’s existence.
And yet to visualize eternity you must take that meter stick and stretch it out to infinity on either end. Thus each moment of time within the timeless span of eternity is so minute relative to the span of eternity that in essence it is no time at all.
Eternity reduces all time to no time. It is a state outside the realm of time altogether, an ever present ‘now.’
“I am.”
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Similarly, Infinity is space that extends forever, without boundaries, in all directions, all dimensions. Visualize a sphere of laser light beams, each shooting out from a central point in all directions and continuing on forever. By the same rationale we used to describe eternity, any distance – from the miniscule space between subatomic particles in an atom to the millions of light years between galaxies – when measured against the span of endless boundless ever expanding space becomes no distance at all. Thus infinity simultaneously encompasses all space and no space.
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What is a Singularity, and what does that have to do with infinity and eternity?
In the Big Bang Theory it is thought that all matter – and thus all space – “in the beginning” was condensed down to a single point, not even as big as a single atom. A “singularity”.
In “Space.com” it describes it thus: The universal origin story known as the Big Bang postulates that, 13.7 billion years ago, our universe emerged from a singularity — a point of infinite density and gravity — and that before this event, space and time did not exist (which means the Big Bang took place at no place and no time). (Bolding emphasis mine.)
The “Big Bang theory” states that this singularity of infinitely condensed matter and energy then exploded outward, creating not just all the matter and energy that fills the universe but the space between things made of matter. The concept of time is created by that measurement of distances between these objects.
But how is that even possible? It defies all scientific logic.
It is saying that all the great stars and planets and galaxies, the enormous nebula of forming star systems and the black holes that consume them, all things that fill the vastness of the universe, including you and I, were condensed into something far tinier than the smallest atom which is the basic building block of all matter. Even a single adult human is composed of around 7 octillion atoms (7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000)
So where did all these atoms come from? The laws of physics deny this explanation, this so-called “singularity”.
What is a singularity, in the metaphysical, this infinitely dense progenitor of the infinitely expanding universe? It is the flip side of the coin of infinity and eternity, it represents the timeless, spaceless nature of infinity and eternity, the no time, no space side of the coin of endless time and space.
And even this is a contradiction. The definition of ‘eternal’ is this: Lasting or existing forever; without end or beginning.
Without end or BEGINNING.
So this would mean there was no beginning to the universe, to the space/time continuum, no ‘singularity’ and no big bang.
Which is where God comes into all this science and philosophy.
God is described as infinite, his realm eternal. He exists outside of time in an eternity that has no beginning and no end. He also exists outside of space, as well as filling all this infinite space.
God is simultaneously that singularity, outside time and space, as well as being present in all time and space that ever was and ever will be. This is the dual nature of God, transcendent and immanent.
And what of our relationship to God, eternity and infinity?
King Solomon wrote this:
10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet[a] no one can fathom what God has done. from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 New International Version
The Apostle John wrote this:
3 Eternal life means to know and experience you as the only true God,[a] and to know and experience Jesus Christ, as the Son whom you have sent. John 17:3 The Passion Translation
This means that through accepting and experiencing the love of Jesus, we are able to experience eternal life, the realm of God, that place outside of all time and space,
Now consider this:
If eternal life means life with no beginning as well as no end, that means you are not only promised to go on as spirit after your body dies, it means you had no beginning to your life as well: It means that your life did not begin with your conception or birth, it means that you have been here all along, with God, a part of Him, infinite and eternal, and that you will be with him forever. The knowledge and experience of this Truth is what Christ gives us.