Joseph Pallatty

St Augustine presents two accounts of time such as objective as well as subjective. Objective dimension of time is independent of human being but subjective dimension of time is related to human consciousness. This psychological face of time is a phenomenon of human consciousness. Augustine put forward an imagery to present his concept of time. An athlete is getting ready for the race. His one foot is behind the starting line (past), face is after the starting line (future), the rest especially the other foot is on the starting point (present). By this example St Augustine states the interconnectedness of past, present and future.

Augustine makes the following claims regarding the past, present and future: first of all, the past is no longer, it was; then, the future is not yet, but it will be; and the present is, but cannot last because if the present would last, then it would be eternity and not the present. The present’s being as time depends on its perpetual flowing or passing away. Thus, the being of time depends on its non-being.

The three stages of time lead Augustine to ask certain questions concerning time. For example, how can the past time exist, since the past is no longer? Or how can there be a future time, if the future is not yet? Or how are the past or future measured, if they do not have real existence? These questions lead Augustine to develop a psychological account of time. Augustine suggests that time is present in, and measured by, the mind. The past and future are in the mind. The past and future have a sort of being in so far as the past is remembered and the future is anticipated. The past is not real in itself. The past lives on, so to speak, only in so far as we remember it.

Memory plays an important role in Augustine’s psychological account of time. Memory is the storage of the past. Past events are present to the memory. In other words, the past is not present to the senses, but only to the mind. This means that my past is also present only in my memories. The past and future are real only in so far as they are present to the mind, in memory or in expectation. Augustine writes: there are three times, a present of things past, a present of things present, a present of things future. The present of things past is memory, the present of things present is sight, and the present of things future is expectation.