ETERNAL RETURN / RECURRENCE
80ETERNAL RETURN / RECURRENCE.
Events A, B, and C have and will reoccur
infinitely, in the same order and involving
exactly the same things. For the Stoics,
given the perpetual, rational, and provi-
dential nature of divine activity, the same
causal principles will be re-applied in the
world time and time again, resulting in
eternal return.
Nietzsche also famously employed the
concept of eternal return in his work,
arguing that given an everlasting finite
universe there must be exact recurrences.
It is debatable whether Nietzsche actually
believed this to be a true property of the
cosmos or rather used it simply as a
thought experiment to delimit the authen-
ticity of life. If you had to live your life
over and over again for all eternity, would
you still affirm it?
More broadly speaking, eternal return
can also refer to an understanding of
time as cyclical. Understood in this sense,
much Eastern philosophy would follow
this doctrine, as would some ancient
Greek philosophers (e.g., Heraclitus) and
medieval theologians (e.g., Eriugena).
ETERNITY. Something (God, values,
ideal forms) is eternal if it is not subject to
temporal change. A value like justice may
be thought of as eternal if it is not subject
to change; it remains a fixed reference
point for all of time. The concept of “eter-
nal life” has sometimes been used to refer
to a life lived in orientation to eternal
values as opposed to preoccupation with
temporal goods like fame or reputation.
In the philosophy of God, “eternity” has
been used to refer to God being timeless:
there is no past, future, or successive
change for God.
Boethius and some other philosophers
(Augustine, Aquinas) held that God’s
eternality helps account for the capability
of what (for us) is divine foreknowledge
of future free action. If God is eternal,
there is a sense that what for us is past
and future is present to God eternally.
If God is eternal, God does not act suc-
cessively (first willing one thing, then
another). Rather, God wills (eternally)
successiveness; e.g., from all eternity God
willed that God would be revealed first to
Abraham, then to Moses. God’s eternity
also accords with the conviction that
God created temporality or time. Some
moderns hold a different view, claiming
that God is a dynamic, personal reality
who is temporal and yet not somehow
governed or trapped by time (as a neces-
sarily existing being, God does not age,
weaken or decompose over time).ETHICS. The domain of virtues and
vices, right and wrong action. In ethical
theory, one seeks to understand the
nature, justification, and structure of
ethical values. Can one rank the virtues,
identifying which virtues are more foun-
dational? In applied ethics, philosophers
seek to address the virtues, vices, right
and wrong action of specific practices
such as abortion, euthanasia, duties to