A Very Brief History of Eternity (review)

A history of the concept of eternity in Western thought is a brilliantly original idea, and Carlos Eire makes complex ideas easily accessible. Eire is deeply learned in history, philosophy, theology, literature, language, and popular culture. His underlying assertion, against the fad of current academic materialism, is that ideas have consequences: Beliefs and social conditions affect one another. His thesis is that ideas of eternity have had an enormous effect on people’s behavior and on culture. His focus is on “eternity as it pertains to human existence, not eternity as abstractly conceived” (p. 17): on what he calls “lived religion” (p. 21). He discusses concepts of time, infinity, immortality, eternal life, afterlife, transcendence, eternal return, eschatology, heaven and hell, and the entropic fate of the material universe.

The author divides the book into four chronological sections, preceded by an important introduction and followed by an appendix with an analysis of important ideas. The four sections are the Jewish and Greek origins of the idea and their synthesis in early Christianity; the Middle Ages; the Reformation and rise of science; and the Enlightenment, modernism, and postmodernism. The organization works well, although it might have been better to divide the last section into modernism and postmodernism.

The first section shows how the Jewish eternal creating God and the Greek eternal first principle were melded in New Testament and patristic thought. A quibble is that Eire misunderstands the Gospel of John as being primarily influenced by stoicism (p. 41). The second section is a masterful discussion of both the scholastic and the mystical aspects of medieval religion.

The third section is the most interesting, treating Protestant views of eternity on society, which created “a wholesale . . . segregating . . . of the dead and the living” (pp. 108, 150). The Protestant critique moved from indulgences to rejection of purgatory and prayers for the dead. The Communion of Saints was postponed to vague eschatology, erasing the Catholic sense that the saints are eternally present in Christ and thus present to us at all times. Protestantism rejected the idea that we can do something for the dead “here and now” (p. 110) and replaced it with the idea that the deceased are dead and gone, at least until the end of time. Protestants have only two alternatives at death, “only two small doors on the horizon . . . one leading to heaven and the other to hell” (p. 153). Since nothing could be done for the dead, the focus shifted to an emphasis on life in this temporal world; combined with Protestant individualism, this produced a world attuned to modernization and capitalism. A sharp shift in society and property characterized the Protestant Reformation. Earlier, much wealth had been given to churches and monasteries in return for services for the deceased and their families. Once such services were deemed nugatory, the churches’ property was seized by the secular authorities (the most notorious being King Henry VIII), allowing the state to hugely enhance its military, economic, and social power. “The Reformation of eternity was a significant first step toward the elevation of this world as the ultimate reality” (p. 153).

The final section contains thoughtful criticisms of modernism and materialism on the one hand, and postmodernism and deconstruction on the other. Unfortunately, while criticizing the postmodern view of the relativity of truth, the author does not escape it. He bemoans the current rule of two false orthodoxies—individualism and collectivism—without offering the alternative of Christian communion in love freed from both selfishness and tyranny. This weakens the strength of his voice, so strong in the previous sections. Nonetheless, this is a book that deserves a lot of attention by historians, philosophers, and theologians, and it is written so clearly that it will also interest the literate public.