Thoughts from Culhwch

Is our current understanding of temporality the result of sin? It strikes me as rather peculiar that our understanding of time and sin both have a very similar structure. Let me explain.

Time: As much as philosophers love to play with definitions of temporality, and deny or proclaim its existence, I wish only to describe how I might perceive time. For me, temporality is a condition such that actions performed gain a sort of un-undoability. That which is performed cannot be un-performed. If I put it this way, time becomes a constraint upon me, dictating that at any given point certain actions cannot be changed.

Sin: The state of sin is such that having performed it, we can never un-perform it, we can never make our selves sinless.

Is the fallen state of humanity related to the constraint of temporality? Maybe, and maybe not. But they do seem highly related. I cannot go back an un-sin. I cannot change my past sinfulness. This is a condition both of sinfulness, and of temporality, as I have described it. But I wonder what temporality might look like if there was no need to un-do the past. If every moment was also the opportunity to be what we should be (or want to be?) in every moment, both past and present. Is the constraint of temporality also the constraint of sinfulness? Would temporality lose the constraint on the un-undoability of the past if sin were not there? Would it retain that constraint, but suddenly not be a constraint, since without sin, there would be no need to un-do the past? I’m rambling questions off the top of my head. I really don’t know what I’m getting into here. But something seems to be related.

Grace: What might grace be then? I wonder if it is not a sort of new kind of temporality, a breaking down of the temporal condition which dictates the un-undoability of the past. God gives us grace, but what is that grace? Is is the un-doing of sin and the undoing of our temporality. Does grace actually un-do the constraint of temporailty as well as the contraint of sinfulness?

Questions, and more questions…

What do you think?