Sunday 8 September 2019

The difference between Immortality and Eternity (Joseph Pearce on Tolkien)


"The thing that defines us as Men is the fact that we die."

A three minute video which nonetheless (and with the help of quotes and enactments of Tolkien and his 'Three rings for the elven kings...' poem) manages to say some wise and encouraging things about death.


Note: Readers will know that I do not see eternity as 'beyond' time, since I understand time to be a given, necessary, linear, sequential: the context for everything. 

Instead I see eternity as unbounded in both directions from the present - an unbounded future and past; with all beings, including our-selves, as eternal. 

Nonetheless JP's qualitative distinction between 'immortality' and 'eternity' is maintained.