Was the past eternal?

Question

I'm asking this question here, because it's the section that includes escatology. We seem to have no problem with the idea that the future is eternal, streching to the infinite. But what about the past? Could the past have been eternal, or is somehow ruled out? Physics treats the past and future as symmetric, and there is speculation that "our" big bang (or "our" genesis) was one of many, perhaps an infinite number stretching into the infinite past. The alternative, of course, is that everthing began at some point, and continues from there into the future.

Answer 1

There is no literal past, or future, or present..."present" as we think of present...there is this eternal present, or spacious present, that stretches, encompassing all experience, until it seems there is a past, a present, and a future. But there is no time in those terms, nothing ages, whithers, to fade away into oblivion. Everything is "Now".

Answer 2

Yes, the past is eternal. Well, with a caveat. Time itself had a beginning, it was created. GOD exists eternally into the past because He existed before time, before anything was that is.

He exists in all places and all times simultaneously, because He exists outside the bounds of physical location and time. That's how He can be the Great I AM - in every place, at every time, He IS.

Answer 3

Of course the past is eternal. There's no need in speculation anent that. Do you think that sometime everything just appeared? There always was something and there'll always be something.

Answer 4

Past, present and future is how we measure time now. In Heaven, there is no time and so no past, present and future. Think of a book. You read it from the start to the finish. The characters inside may see time going from start to finish, but you can put the book down for years and the time in the book is the same.

Answer 5

God's past is eternal. The rest have a beginning.

Answer 6

Duh? Who just informed you of this? Of course it was infinite...the "Big Bang" or "our" genesis was not the beginning of the universe, as time is concerned....