New Beginnings

A story a day...


In the Fullness of Time

In the fullness of time is such a meaningless phrase, if we take out the filler words in, the, and of, we are left with fullness and time. In fact we are left with two words that have no relationship to one another at all – at least only in the mind of a deviant prevaricator. There are a couple of meanings of fullness,
the state of having or containing a lot of something,
or
the quality of being whole or complete.
Let’s run with those. Time is a different concept which has three definitions for our purpose,
A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.
An interval separating two points on this continuum; a duration.
A number, as of years, days, or minutes, representing such an interval.

Let’s ignore the second and third definitions of time and look at the first one – a nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future. A good analogy for this definition would be an unstoppable train that is running in one direction only – there is no return ticket. Of course we can mark points and intervals on this continuum, the duration between two points, or intervals of seconds, minutes, days etc.. But these are artificial constructs that are abstract in nature, products of the human mind. The first thing we notice is that time has no volume. It does not have length, height or width, and subsequently can’t be measured in traditional measures of volume, cubic metres, square feet, or any other that we might think of. So, my question is how can there be a fullness of time? If time has no volume how can it be either full or empty, that would seem to be an impossibility. Next, fullness – the state of having or containing a lot of something – implies that there is an element of physicality, and that there is something we could hold, or at least touch. We can arrive at a similar conclusion with – the quality of being whole or complete – which again implies a degree of physicality, of solidity.

Consequently ‘in the fullness of time’ presents us with what appears to be an unsolvable conundrum – the problem of finding a relationship between fullness and time. The bigger problem is that it is virtually impossible to find any relationship between these two concepts – at least with our current understanding of physics. We are also presented with a totally meaningless phrase, fullness and time are completely incompatible, there is no relationship between the words. This leaves me thinking that those who speak about ‘the fullness of time’ are either prevaricating, trying to cover something up, plain stupid/ignorant, or simply out and out weird.