Understanding Eternal–Temporal Simultaneity in John’s Prologue and the Sacred Liturgy: A Hermeneutical Theology of Liturgy

Abstract

This article explores the intersection of time and eternity as it is expressed in the liturgical theology and the theology of John’s Prologue. Drawing on a “thesis–thesis” methodology that juxtaposes scriptural and liturgical theologies, the study offers an interdisciplinary dialogue between these disciplines. While biblical scholars such as Bernadetta Jojko and Raymond Brown elucidate the Johannine vision of divine preexistence and Incarnation as a movement from eternity into time, liturgical theologians such as Alexander Schmemann and Odo Casel describe the Mass as a movement from time into eternity. Through a comparative reading of John 1:1–2 and 1:14 alongside classical and modern liturgical sources—including Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, Casel, and Guardini—the article seeks to identify a mode of eternal–temporal simultaneity that challenges the claims of analytic philosophers like William Lane Craig. Ultimately, the liturgy is shown to be both a sacramental representation of Christ’s temporal sacrifice and a real participation in the eternal heavenly liturgy.

1. Introduction

In1 the Mass liturgy, the past, present, and future intersect in a what Marco Benini has called a “fusing of temporal layers” (see Benini 2023, p. 222). Every Mass is, in a way, Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross represented, a present, true, and proper sacrifice, and an eschatological event—a foretaste of the heavenly liturgy of the New Jerusalem.2 This unity of event and diversity of tense is philosophically unsound, or—at the least—difficult to explain.3 This difficulty is exemplified in the writings of modern analytical philosopher William Lane Craig who argues that, “there is no single mode of existence that would allow one to define Eternal-Temporal simultaneity as existence at the same _____. There is nothing to fill in the blank.” (Craig 2001, p. 90)

The purpose of this article is to examine solutions to this missing term in Eternal–Temporal simultaneity. To do this, a methodology will be employed that has been inspired by the collaborative effort between the Theological Faculty of the University of Trier and the School of Theology and Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America, which led to a symposium in 2022, in which a Biblical scholar presented a Biblical exegesis on a given psalm and then a liturgical scholar presented a liturgical exegesis on the same psalm (Begg and Benini 2022). Following this method, this article will begin with an exegesis of the scriptural intersection of time and eternity using Biblical commentaries, and then the same question will be explored in liturgical theology. This “thesis–thesis” methodology will lead to an interdisciplinary synthesis of the two mirrored exposés.

Biblical scholarship has long recognized the Gospel of John as a theologically rich text whose sustained engagement with temporal language serves to articulate a distinctive vision of eternity.4 As Bernadetta Jojko observes, “The relationship between eternity and time has been a perennial issue in Johannine studies (Jojko 2019, p. 245).” Echoing this insight, Ruben Zimmermann and Douglas Estes urge interpreters to “open up the discussion to the broader topic of ‘time’” (Zimmermann 2018, p. 294) and “unlearn assumptions about time that we implicitly use (Estes 2016, pp. 42–43; Cf. Zimmermann 2018, p. 304).” Among Johannine texts, the prologue stands out as the climactic expression of the Gospel’s theology of eternity. Raymond Brown furthers the scholarly appreciation of this text saying, “If John has been described as the pearl of great price among the NT writings, then one may say that the Prologue is the pearl within this Gospel (Brown 1966, p. 18).”

We will look to John not because he has an extensive and nuanced use of the term “eternity,”5 but because his Gospel has a notable temporal consciousness and because the theological explanation written by modern Biblical scholars elucidates John’s understanding of eternity by referencing his prologue. That this pericope should hold an exalted place in relation to liturgical theology will not surprise the liturgist. For centuries, the Johannine Prologue functioned as the Last Gospel—a testament to its perceived capacity to disclose the mystery at the heart of Christian worship. This article will explore whether liturgy does what Scripture says—whether the Johannine theology of the Incarnation and Divine pre-existence is the proper lens to understand the metaphysical condition of time and eternity in the sacred liturgy.

2. Biblical Exegesis—The Prologue of John

Biblical scholars agree—all or for the most part—that the prologue of John’s Gospel is a poetic hymn which introduces and summarizes this Gospel.6 John’s use of the phrase “In the beginning” is identified as the key to the Johannine understanding of eternity.7 In order to understand this phrase and to contrast it with the Johannine understanding of time, verses 1, 2, and 14 will be examined.

3. God’s Eternity in John’s Prologue (Verses 1–2)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

St. Thomas Aquinas says that, regardless of what duration is taken to be meant by the phrase “In the beginning” (temporal, aeviternal, or of some imagined span of time), the Word already exists prior to this beginning of time (Aquinas n.d., p. 37). Similarly to Aquinas’s teaching, Jojko notes that this phrase does not merely refer to the beginning of time, but rather that it must refer to a “pre-temporality,” the “source” and “origin” of time (Jojko 2019, p. 249; cf. Köstenberger 2004, p. 25). Likewise, Estes remarks that by using this phrase, “John signals that the temporal scope of his writing will be more extensive than a mere book may allow (Estes 2016, p. 44).” Similarly, Ruben Zimmermann argues that the prologue begins with an existence anterior to time. He clarifies that while John’s narrative may suggest temporal linearity, the evangelist is fully aware that Christ’s pre- and post-existence are not to be conceived as temporal phases.8 Raymond Brown concurs, explaining that the Prologue is not concerned with the temporal origin of Christ, but rather with “the heavenly existence of the Word in the beginning (Brown 1966, p. 18).” Thus, both Scholastic and modern Biblical theologians agree that the Prologue of John points to the Biblical understanding of God’s eternity.

Biblical scholars have also commented on John’s grammatical use of the imperfect tense in these verses. Aquinas explains that John uses the past imperfect tense because God is pure act and the imperfect does not imply non-being in the past nor does it necessitate potency in the future: “The past imperfect tense indicates that something has been, has not yet come to an end, nor has ceased to be, but still endures (Aquinas n.d., p. 39, see also 67).” Andreas Köstenberger likewise contends that the use of the imperfect signals that the Word’s existence lies beyond temporal limits (Köstenberger 2004, p. 27).

The second clause of the prologue—“the Word was with God”—introduces two crucial terms: “God” and “with.” It is agreed that “God” stands for the person of the Father and the “with” explains the relation of the Father to the Son, that of begetting.9 By affirming that the Word was “with” God, John distinguishes the Word from God while simultaneously establishing their relational unity (Köstenberger 2004, p. 27; Martin and Wright 2015, p. 33). The next clause—“and the Word was God”—reveals what the Word and God share: divinity.10 While the Word is God, the relationship between the Word and God from the previous phrase warns that Word and God cannot simply be used interchangeably (Michaels 2010, pp. 47–48). Aquinas explains that the “Word was with God from eternity, and not only in the beginning of creatures, […] he was with God, receiving being and divinity from him (Aquinas n.d., p. 62).”

The text that biblical scholars regard as central to the theology of eternity thus emphasizes divine preexistence relative to all creation and duration. Eternity, in this framework, denotes not merely endless time but a mode of being prior to change and temporal succession (Zepp 2023). John’s use of the imperfect tense reinforces this: the Word always was and always remains. Eternity, understood biblically, does not coexist with temporality but transcends it. Yet, as the Prologue moves toward verse 14, it reveals a paradox: the eternal enters the temporal through the mystery of the Incarnation.

4. God’s Temporality in John’s Prologue (Verse 14)

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten Son from the Father.

Köstenberger explains that the word “flesh” here denotes “all of human person in creaturely existence as distinct from God (Köstenberger 2004, p. 40).” He does not understand this to merely mean that the Word “changed into,” “appeared,” or “took on” a human form, but that the Word chose to be with his people in a more personal way than he previously had been.11 Commenting on this account of the Incarnation, Brown highlights that it is the “pre-existent heavenly Word” who becomes flesh, stressing a contrast to eternity (Brown 1966, p. 35). Again pointing to this contrast, he explains that the “eternal being of the Word” in the first verse is Biblically contrasted in this verse with the “temporal becoming of the Word (Brown 1966, pp. 30–31).” Thus, by becoming flesh, the eternal Word entered time and the Word became the intersection of time and eternity. This idea of intersection is also supported by Jajko, who, while confirming John’s affirmation that the Word is both true God and true man, says that this doctrine specifically links eternity and time in the Gospel of John (see Jojko 2019, p. 248).

Biblical scholars further highlight this intersection in their analysis of the verb “dwelt.” The Greek term “to dwelt” literally means “to pitch one’s tent,” evoking the image of God’s tabernacling presence in the Old Testament (Köstenberger 2004, p. 41). In the Incarnation, the eternal God pitches his tent within the boundaries of temporal history, choosing to inhabit the very world he transcends (see Martin and Wright 2015, p. 38). Brown notes the unexpected intimacy of this claim for John’s audience, steeped in Hellenistic dualism, the idea that the Word “became flesh” would not have offered an escape from the material world the sought but rather a startling affirmation of God’s entry into it—an entry inseparably bound to time and history (see Brown 1966, p. 31).

In eternity, the Word was unchanging and pre-existent with God, and from eternity the Word was God. In time, the Word became man—pitching his tent among his temporal creations. By entering into time, the eternal Word bridges the realms of the unchanging and the changing. This is the mystery of the Incarnation: “the divine Word, who from all eternity is turned toward God and is himself God, has become completely human in Jesus (Martin and Wright 2015, p. 38).”

5. Theology of Liturgy

The bridge established in John’s Prologue—from divine pre-existence “in the beginning” to the Incarnational “pitching of the tent”—is, in the liturgy, reversed. In the Eucharistic celebration, the Church militant ascends to meet the Church triumphant in the eschatological banquet.12 To examine the liturgical understanding of eternity, four sources will be presented: (1) the allegorical/ontological method of Pseudo Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, and Germanus of Constantinople, (2) the modern theology of Alexander Schmemann, (3) the mystery theology of Odo Casel, and (4) Romano Guardini’s aeviternitas theory.

6. Pseudo Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, and Germanus of Constantinople

Pseudo Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, and Germanus of Constantinople write analogical theologies of the liturgy rooted in Neoplatonic philosophy (Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite 1987a, p. 79; 1987b, pp. 197–98; Armstrong 2019, pp. 37–40; Maximus the Confessor 2019, esp. chap. 2, pp. 56–58 and chap. 5, p. 59; Wybrew 1989, pp. 95–123; Meyendorff 1984, p. 10; Zepp 2023). Pseudo Dionysius affirms the philosophical notion that God is simple and atemporal while maintaining that in the Incarnation, “the timeless took on the duration of the temporal.”13 While God transcends time in this theology, the liturgy participates in the eternity of heaven.14

Maximus the Confessor develops this vision further, framing the sacraments not merely as symbols but as encounters with “ultimate reality”—a metaphysical and cosmological interpretation delving beyond mere allegory into ontology (Armstrong 2019, p. 23; Maximus the Confessor 2019, chap. 8 and chap. 13, pp. 73, 76; Cf. Armstrong 2019, p. 41). He holds that in the liturgy, “the archetypical mysteries [of the eternal realm] are presented through sensible symbols (Maximus the Confessor 2019, chap. 24, p. 88; Cf. Armstrong 2019, p. 42).”

Continuing in the same vein, Germanus articulates this same relationship of eternity to time: “In the company of the angelic powers, the priest approaches, standing no longer as on earth, but attending at the heavenly altar, before the altar of the throne of God, and he contemplates the great, ineffable, and unsearchable mystery of God (Germanus of Constantinople 1984, chap. 41, p. 89, [emphasis mine]).” This highlights the profound encounter in which the earthly liturgy becomes a participation in the heavenly liturgy, and the priest and deacons, alongside the angels, partake in the celestial worship before God’s throne. In this so-called “allegorical theology,” the eternal heavenly reality is made present in time through symbols. Thus, in the liturgy, the temporal world intersects the eternal realm.

7. Alexander Schmemann

Alexander Schmemann’s modern liturgical theology claims that in the Mass, there is an “ontological union” (Schmemann 1990, pp. 129–30) between heaven and earth—and by extension between time and eternity. Schmemann explains that Eucharistic liturgy is the kind of thing that ontologically occurs in some fourth dimension:

The liturgy of the Eucharist is best understood as a journey or procession. It is the journey of the Church into the dimension of the Kingdom. We use the word ‘dimension’ because it seems the best way to indicate the manner of our sacramental entrance into the risen life of Christ… Our entrance into the presence of Christ is an entrance into a fourth dimension which allows us to see the ultimate reality of life.

(Schmemann 2004, pp. 35–39)

The liturgical journey is more than a mere “symbolic” journey to the kingdom; in the liturgy, the people of God “really” journey to the heavenly kingdom (Schmemann 2004, p. 39). The movement of the liturgy is the Church ascending to God; for Schmemann, liturgy is not eternity in time, but time in eternity (Schmemann 1990, p. 135; 2004, p. 41).

Schmemann explains the intersection of time and eternity through the iconic presence of Christ. In the Orthodox Church, the book of the Gospels is given the same reverence as an icon, and—as Schmemann says—“it is a verbal icon of Christ’s manifestation and presence (Schmemann 1988, p. 71; see Benini 2023, p. 232).” This manifestation and presence shows us that icons are not signs of absent realities; they are signs of the true presence of the thing they symbolize. Thus, through signs and symbols—icons—in liturgy there is a metaphysical “breakthrough” into the eternal presence of God (see Schmemann 2004, p. 50).

This vision is also embedded in the liturgical text. At the altar, the priest chants the Trisagion: “O holy God… who art hymned by the seraphim and with the thrice-holy cry, and glorified by the cherubim, and worshipped by every heavenly power (Schmemann 2004, p. 41).” Schmemann asserts that “The angels are not here for decoration and inspiration. They stand precisely for heaven, for that glorious and incomprehensible above and beyond of which we know only one thing: that it eternally resounds with the praise of divine glory and holiness.”15 In this view, the heavenly and eternal realm is the “locus” of the liturgy.

8. Odo Casel

Odo Casel’s theology of mysterium centers on the idea that God’s salvific action proceeds from eternity, is enacted in time, and returns to eternity. He defines mysterium—in the Pauline sense—as: “a deed of God’s, the execution of an everlasting plan of his through an act which proceeds from his eternity, realized in time and the world, and returning once more to him its goal in eternity.”16 Mysterium is an act of God engaging with humanity, not simply in the sense of something hidden, but the divine action which proceeds from eternity, interacts with the temporal world, and returns to eternity—it necessarily includes a reditus to God (Casel 1962, p. 40). For Casel, the representation of salvation history does not refer to bridging time but to the fundamental breakthrough of time registers (Zerfass 2016, p. 51). The human experience of mysterium is limited to its revelation in time, where “mystery took on the shape of economy (Casel 1962, p. 10).” The return to eternity is a return to an unending moment; Casel explains that God’s time is an eternal present moment: “God is presence; he has no past and no future; he is the everlasting point in which all hold together (Casel 1962, p. 142).”

Casel also posits a breakthrough between time and eternity through the mystical body of Christ (Casel 1962, p. 143; Cf. Pius XII 1943, esp. §1, 34, 60, 106, and 110). Insofar as each baptized person is in Christ through his Christian initiation, Casel contends that the baptized person stands in the midst of God’s eternal action—that he is in the eternal heaven (Casel 1962, p. 143). He holds that the temporal man becomes eternal through his participation in Christ. This understanding of eternity in the liturgy is closely interwoven with the teaching that the liturgy is an eschatological event and as such, it is necessarily a social event.17 Casel explains this, saying, “In heaven, the glorified Lord is the very content of eternal life for all the saints; on earth, his mystery is the spring of the church’s life (Casel 1962, p. 65).”

Casel’s conception of eternity is God’s unending and untensed “now.” The intersection of time and eternity is understood in two ways: an exitus from the unending presence which is eternity into economy and then reditus to eternity and also through the social reality of the mystical body of Christ. In both explanations there is a mystery-connection of earthly time to primaeval time (see Zerfass 2016, pp. 48–50). While Casel’s approach to the concept of mysterium was emphasized through exitus and reditus, Guardini provides an attempt at a religious-philosophical exploration of the presence of mysteries.18

9. Romano Guardini

Guardini is careful to clarify that while the events of Christ’s life are “present and real” in the liturgy, this does not mean that the liturgy is something “super-historical” or “extra-historical (Guardini 2022, p. 88, see also 91–93).” He demonstrates that modernity cannot explain the commemorative and anticipatory elements of the Mass, and he points to the Medieval concept of aeviternal time as the solution to this shortcoming.19

Aeviternitas is “the way in which the eternal and the times coexists in time (Guardini 2022, p. 107).” As Alexander Zerfass says, it is “Between aeternum, eternity as the sphere of God (the eternal ‘Now’), and the aevum in its meaning as saeculum, time (Zerfass 2016, p. 53 [translation mine]).” Guardini explains that while God is eternal, simple, and without relationship to time, he coexists with time (Guardini 2022, p. 107). He shows that the historical event of salvation repeatedly appears in the form of mystery in history, and the mystery stems from the “coexisting aeviternal work of God (Guardini 2022, p. 117).”

Relating this concept of aeviternitas to the liturgy, Guardini says the liturgy shows how aeviternal things can exist in time (Guardini 2022, p. 111). He says:

[Christ’s] life can be grasped by faith. If it pleases God, then he can take his salvific action out of his coexistence and approach the faithful by entering anew into history: he can renew his salvific action. This salvific action is not to be taken in the sense of a historical duplication, a sort of historical doppelgänger, but in a proper, unique form that only faith can grasp.

(Guardini 2022, p. 111)

This is the liturgical mystery. The liturgy is a past event transposed into the present but not duplicated. The key to understanding this aeviternal coexistence is not a concept that can be empirically deduced; it does not properly belong to the discipline of history or philosophy (Guardini 2022, pp. 111–12). Rather, it is a theological mystery—a mystery of faith (Guardini 2022, pp. 111–12).

Through the theological lens of aeviternitas, Guardini elucidates how the liturgy serves as a bridge between temporal and eternal dimensions, thereby contesting the constraints of empirical and historical understanding. Commenting on Guardini’s theology, Zerfass says, “[Aeviternitas] is the manner in which the eternal, timeless in itself, coexists with the temporal; or conversely, how the temporal partakes in the eternal (Zerfass 2016, p. 53 [translation mine]).” This theology is the “single mode of existence that would allow one to define Eternal–Temporal simultaneity,” the missing term in William Lane Craig’s argument against Eternal–Temporal simultaneity.

10. Synthesis

While the understanding of eternity as Biblical scholars have developed in references to John’s prologue is in some ways similar to the liturgical understanding of time and eternity, they are not identical. A first similarity can be seen in so far as both fields see eternity as something beyond time. This was argued for in the Biblical field by John’s use of the past imperfect—demonstrating that God has been and has not ceased to be—and as an exegesis of the phrase “in the beginning.” Similarly, Odo Casel explained that “God is presence; he has no past and no future; he is the everlasting point in which all hold together (Casel 1962, p. 142).” Both of these explanations point to something that cannot be a matter of temporal phases.

Ultimately, the Biblical approach in the Johannine prologue was explaining and exitus and the liturgical approach was explaining a reditus. The Biblical approach held that in the mystery of the Incarnation, the divine and pre-existent Word, who from all eternity is turned toward God and is himself God, assumed human nature and entered time. The Word who was beyond temporality entered time. Conversely, in the liturgy, the Church, which is in time, makes a journey and ascends to heaven. For Schmemann, liturgy is not eternity coming down to time, but time entering eternity.20 For Casel, this upward journey occurs in the liturgy, a participation in the mystical body of Christ, which highlights how Christ is both the bridge from eternity to time and from time to eternity.

Guardini’s aeviternitas stand out in the theories examined in this article. While the other explanations simply state the mysteriousness of time and eternity directly overlapping and point to Christ, Guardini reintroduced another middle ground—another kind of time. To further reflect on the Guardini’s theory—and to complete this comparison to the Johannine meaning of entirety—more research into the Medieval concept of aeviternitas is paramount.