Eternity And History

Augustine, in his Confession, made a profound and systematic exposition on the "Time", which started guiding the Christian's concept of time; the exposition was characterized by emphasizing on people's psychological factors and conceiving time as the inner spiritual experience. In Augustine's view, the "past" derives from the images or memories of "now", and the "future" derives from the imagination or expectation of "now". The past and future are all governed by now. Therefore, Augustine believes that there exists only the eternal "now", the past and future is just the extension of people's mind. In the City of God, Augustine applied the concept of time to explain the collapse of the holly city of Rome, which formed the Christian's view of history. Thus the time has become a part of life, and there has existed the separation between "City of God" and the "secular city". According to this concept, the process of advancement of history is actually just the origin, development and the end of "City of God" and "secular city"Augustine's concept that internalizes the time has made the concept of time be extended from the traditional objectivity to the subjectivity, which is considered as the thought guidance for the later philosophy of humanistic culture (such as Bergson's philosophy of life, Heidegger's existential philosophy, etc.). The Historical Theology based on the internalization of the time, which is characterized by the typical world history and linear development, has laid a theoretical foundation for the formation of the Western Philosophy of History.