World without end?

I was recently asked: at the end of the doxology, what is the "world" in "world without end"? Is it the world to come?

Well, I answered this question, and sent my reply to my friends. This got Ed Pacht, Jim Ryland and me talking and discussing, and suddenly I find that this doxology, which is often so glossed over in psalms is so powerful in what it suggests.

It's essentially from the Authorised Version's translation of Ephesians iii.21

ipsi gloria in ecclesia et in Christo Iesu in omnes generationes saeculi
saeculorum amen

αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ καὶ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ εἰς πάσας τὰς γενεὰς τοῦ αἰῶνος τῶν αἰώνων· ἀμήν.

Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

Greeks use the doubling of a word in a phrase to give it emphasis. In Greek, the double negative is an emphatic negative, not a positive, so the phrase "I haven't never been to the pub" so often uttered around here is meant in the Greek sense of emphasising the speakers tendency to be teetotal, rather than a subconscious admission to a lock-in at the King's Head. Hence "age of ages" gives a greater emphasis on the scope of how Glory is attributed to God.

I did put forward an opinion that it wasn't the greatest triumph of the AV's language, but Ed reminded me that I am living in a different milieu. Indeed, the scientific world is materialist, and lives under the belief that everything that exists can be scientifically observed and measured and explained. Hence the word "World" is narrower than its meaning in the 16th century.

The "world" certainly might be indicative of the world to come which is Eternal in nature, yet if it is Eternal (and hence timeless) what does it mean for a world "to come" which implies temporal movement? If it does refer to world at is is now (i.e. an Aeviternal world) then the phrase "age of ages" might be more pertinent referring to our existence now throughout the entirety of Time. Certainly to say "forever" appears rather dull and one-directional than "age of ages". Giving Glory to God is not just something that shall be done in the future, but something that has a greater potency.

However, the phrase is "world without end" implying a world without boundaries, i.e. in which the boundaries of Time and Space are meaningless, so personally I think that the translators are trying to get this idea across of the Glory to Christ within our existence (i.e. in Aeviternity), but beyond our existence (i.e. into Eternity) and into the Hypostastic Union. It is essentially a text that was and is used to denounce Arianism, and the fact that we use it in our doxology makes this a central indication of how we are expected to attribute the Glory to God.

We can only make such an attribution from our paltry existence as infinitesimal beings sandwiched between the oppressive inaccessibilities of the Past and the Future (as St Augustine would have it). However, each person in the Hypostatic Union attributes glory to each other person of the Trinity and this takes place within the richer existence that God enjoys and promises to share with us in His offer of Theosis.

Ed pointed out to me that it is precisely this Theosis which makes us part of the "Ages of ages", of the "Word without end."

The trouble with human beings is that we have an inbuilt sense of time that we just cannot truly escape. Our heartbeats simply cannot but remind us of the passage of time, and it takes some very good quality contemplation (which is after all a gift from God) to dip into the sense of timelessness which seems only to be a lack of awareness of Time passing.

Certainly, there are theoretical transformations that turn the temporal dimension into a spatial dimension (though these transformations are prohibited by Einstein if one is to make sense of how his theory is to describe reality) , but then one of the spatial dimensions must become temporal. One can try to view spacetime as one object, but if one does, one experiences a weird sense of motion without motion as our brain tries to comprehend it.

I don't know what this means for Eternity. From a theoretical point of view it would look absolutely static, as there would be nothing for it to move into. For a temporal being, it would behave in a confusing manner as everything tries to present itself to the finite brain at once. I think of how the image of God the Holy Trinity jostles in my mind as I try and fail to comprehend the implications of Who God really is. There is a dynamic in the Hypostatic Union, but blowed if I can describe it other than each person of the Trinity giving Glory to the other two!

And again, I'm drawn back to the beginning, to Genesis when we are told that God rested, and in the Venite where we are told that those who harden their hearts will not enter into His rest. Could this mean rest as a toy car comes to rest, i.e. it falls into a state of equilibrium without any further force to continue its journey? Is that what Eternity is - perfect stability and equilibrium? Again, that does not necessarily imply complete stasis, but simply no motion relative to itself.

This world without end, is perfect equilibrium, but is far from static. It is Hypostatic.

And what about the "World to Come"? It's a credal statement, after all.

I wonder if it is our movement towards an awareness of Eternity, that we are being propelled into it. We are told that the Kingdom of God is within us and that it has already come in Christ who provides the Way into Timelessness, through the Mass and yet has never really been very far from us since the beginning. We say in the Creed that we believe in the "life of the world to come". Is this the issue of relativity? Relative to us, the Sun does go around the Earth. Relative to us, the Kingdom is coming. Yet are these observations true from an objective observer - in the first case it seems reasonable to suppose that the evidence is that the Earth and Sun orbit the centre of gravity, in the second, there is no such thing as an objective observer save the Almighty God Himself, and our movement is towards Him (or at least should be if we follow Christ).

It's amazing. Every day I say:

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the Beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen

I guess that I ought to say that phrase with a little more appreciation now.