Tempo e eternidade: a leitura do livro XI das confissões de Agostinho por Paul Ricoeur

Abstract

In this study will discuss the relation between time and eternity in Book XI of the Augustine’s Confessions , based on the reading of Paul Ricoeur in Time and narrative . Time, for Augustine, is experienced internally from the movement of the soul as a distension. The meditation about time comes in conjunction with a discussion of eternity and the creation of the world. In turn, distension is understood by Paul Ricoeur as the moment when we intend to accomplish something, such as reading or even reciting a hymn, in which our intention expands on the words we intend to read or sing, some of which of them are in our expectation (those we have not yet read), others in attention, those we are reading, and still others in memory, when they have been read. It is intended to show that temporal experience and narrative - of life or events - form a circle that moves from the outer world into the human being through reflection; and so through the narrative one can experience eternity. Moreover, it is shown that, from the contrast between eternity and our temporal experience, language becomes a narrative.