> Eternal life doesn’t appeal to me much. Imagine living a quadrillion years. Even as a god, that would be miserable. That isn't necessarily what eternal life

> Eternal life doesn’t appeal to me much. Imagine living a quadrillion years. Even as a god, that would be miserable. That isn't necessarily what eternal life would be. Indeed, eternity is not temporal at all. For example, in the Catholic understanding of heaven, those in heaven exist in aeveternity or aevum[0], a state in between the temporal and the eternal. Eternity[1] is proper only to God and is by definition timeless, with no beginning or end, so it would not make sense to speak of quadrillions of years. Where God is concerned, there is, loosely, only a now with no beginning, no end, no past, and no future, only the present, to use temporal language analogically. Furthermore, heaven is in part characterized by the beatific vision[2] which is an immediate, direct, and inexhaustible knowing of God (Being Himself) which is Man's ultimate and supreme happiness. In this life, knowledge of God is generally mediate like much of human knowledge. In other words, thus understood, the best of this life is but a faint shadow of a shadow in comparison to the ultimate fulfillment of heaven which is Man's proper end. [0] https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1010.htm#article5 https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1010.htm#article5 [1] https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05551b.htm https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05551b.htm [2] https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02364a.htm https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02364a.htm