Cyclical vs. Linear Time

While looking at Native American, and the English world of early America, you will find there are several differences between their religion, and view of time. Because the two communities never intermingled before the first explorers came to their shores, they had completely different views of time and space. In fact, the two societies had no idea that the other even existed. It is common belief, that while observing the Native America we discovered, the English were looking 'back in time' to a less advanced culture. This is debatable, because the view of the Native Americans did not call for advancement, like our society does; simply because they did not view time the same way.

Native American time is cyclical - of, relating to, or characterized by cycles (dictionary.com). This means, that instead of having a single line of time, going onward and onward without any stopping (as is the belief of common day America), but that time was like a circle, or a spiral. The same events would happen over and over again, in one way or another. Time, in their sense, was stoppable. Scott Momaday once explained Cyclical time, stating

"It is an interesting concept... I don't know that anyone can explain it... I think instead of being something that passes by, it is static, and people walk through time as they might walk through a canyon, and one can pause and stand in time... It isn't something that necessarily rushes by, one can take hold of it.”
Linear time, pertaining to or represented by lines (dictionary.com) was the common belief of the Englishmen, and other Christian societies. Linear time is simply the view that time stretches onward into space; that it cannot be stopped, and one cannot see the end of it, because time is infinite.

One thing that can be contrasted is how religion played a part in the development of the view of time. The English at the time were predominantly Christian. The book of Genesis in the Bible explains this view of time well. The story in Genesis states that a man and a woman; Adam and Eve were created in a great Garden of the name of Eden. They were created to rule over the beasts and the Earth, but never to touch the fruits of the forbidden tree. Yet, human nature overpowered Adam and Eve, and they were cast out of the Garden, having upset God. God, cursed all human kind, sentencing us to work and toil for long hours to make our living in a place very different from the Garden. As well, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ also proves that we live in a world of linear time.
“According to St Augustine of Hippo, the Universe of going along in a straight line...if time is cyclic Jesus Christ would have to be crucified again and again. There would not be, therefore, that one perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. Time had to be a straight line from the creation to the consummation to the last judgment.” (Alan Watts).
In Christianity there is a sense of a “fall from grace” - the being thrown out of paradise, to thrive in sin until Armageddon. Without linear time this belief is not possible.

Cyclical time for the Native Americans meant that there was no fall from grace as the Christians see it. They were simply created by a power higher than themselves. Yes, there were wrongdoings to be learned from, but there was no belief of a thing called 'sin', or anything equivalent to it. Since time is cyclical, there would be no need for forgiveness and improvement, since they did not believe they were progressing, eventually to the enlightenment, and judgment of their God over them. Their 'myths', or stories of how things have to pass were delivered orally, and not in a scripture as the Bible is. The Native American way of life did not look upon time as a force rushing past them on and on until eventually the end of their existence was terminated.

The sense of society and way of living was different between these two cultures, also. The English were people that valued improvement. Knowing that time was passing by, they strove to create new solutions, gain knowledge, build things bigger and better before... to become better people individually. They owned their own land, houses, and money. If another human wished to have something they did, they would have to buy or trade for it; it was not generously given. Each generation was expected to do better than the last. Knowing that with each passing year knowledge was to be gained raised the bar for ever new generation. Learn more than the next, and you will acquire more money, and more knowledge, and then pass that on to your children.

Native Americans did not think so selfishly: they shared their food and land as form of commonwealth; 'this is not anyone's land, it is everyone's land.' They did not have such a strong from of individuality, but a sense of community. They lived and thrived off the land, thus being incredibly close to nature and its animals. They believed that all animals were on the same level as themselves, and to disrespect a creature was a bad thing to do, and
would upset the gods. A French missionary once described the behavior of the Innu tribe : “the Savages do not throw to the dogs bones of female Beavers and Porcupines, - at least, certain specified bones, in short, they are very careful that the dogs do not eat any bones of birds and of other animals which are taken in the net, otherwise they will take no more except with incomparable difficulties ... it is remarkable how they gather and collect these bones, and preserve them with so much care, that you would say their game would be lost if they violated their superstitions.”


The English Christians view of time affected them so that they strove to excel; to gain more knowledge and wealth. They believed in time as a straight line which would continue onward forever. The Native American view of cyclical time created an environment of a close community, dwelling with and around the earth and creatures. They believed they did not need to change or improve their way of living, because life was a cycle, and this was the way they would be, forever onward. These two societies are more different than they are the same, yet they are both brought together through religion.

8 comments:

Brad Jones said...

I was doing some research on this topic and stumbled onto this post. I wrote this to develop some inquiry/knowledge and not for the purposes of diminish anything that you said. I myself cannot give a sustainable answer that would satisfy the human intellect and am simply curious to know about the attributes of God. So with no disrespect, here I go.

I would challenge the view that Christianity has a linear view of time. I interpret the mentioning of time in the Bible as an anthropomorphism, much like how God is given human attributes in the bible but does not (likely) contain all of these attributes. God is desribed by Jesus as a hen and the OT displays God as a Father and as a wife. God is not both a Father and a wife in the sense that we understand the terms in the human realm, but only as they relate to our understanding of knowing something by what we have experienced so that we can gain an understanding of God.

Augustine of Hippo actually did not have a linear view of time, as he shows in his Confessions book, and makes some very keen observations. Although Augustine is somewhat of a dramatist in his writings, his main point was that God is totally "other" than what man can understand with the intellect. We speak of eternity in ways that relate to time because time is all that we have experienced.

There is a linear graph of time given in the Bible to describe the story of redemption but it seems presupposed to think that God experiences it in the same way that humans do.

From the Bible it is undeniable that God forsees all future events with absolute certainty. (There is open theism, a form of "Christianity" that denies this, but I do not believe in open theism). God may have in His mind a view of a particular instance of Him possibly allowing something and knowing all of the consquences of Him creating it. He sees the whole of it with the end result and every aspect of what is happening with it and connected and related to it at each stage in His mind and knows it all full well.

So while in some instance God has His mind fixed on a particular instance and is relating to that instance in a real and true way, because of His attributes, He is also relating to all other parts connected to that event at the same time.

It is likely that the rise of the Enlightenment and the need to explain everything through reason is a large part of how the view of linear time came to present itself in Christianity. These things were not bad things in and of themselves, but mystery is best to be left as mystery when no other explanation can be wholly given.

In regards to the comment about having Christ crucified over and over again if the cyclical view of time is held, this thought seems to be based on principles of linear time rather than on anything else. I do think that there are other explanations than the ones you offered, some of them being from Scripture, but space does not permit it right now.

I would love to hear back from you on any thoughts that you had and discuss some of this some more perhaps through email. I am unsure of this position and regard it as just thoughts and not as revelation from God and am totally open to any challenges and thoughts that were sparked from this. You wrote about a difficult topic and I don't know that I could actually take the time to plan out my thoughts on this subject as well as you did. Thanks for the post. It was very meaningful.

Carol said...

Hello
I would like to make some comments about cyclical time which is a concept that makes me feel very very peaceful and happy. I have often thought that I may have been Native Indian in a former lifetime.

I am 53 years old now and all my life I have been doing paintings of the 4 seasons and trying to do other paintings that capture the cyclical nature of time. I agree that Christians just do not understand this concept. The seasons themselves do repeat, but not identically as you can have a particularly cold winter or a hotter summer than usual. However, on a larger scale there has to be identical repetition because it really is the only way to explain eternity. Eternity can not be understood by thinking of time as linear. Eventually the two ends, (beginning and end) have to join up, just as traveling around the world will eventually bring you back to the beginning once again. I remember when I was a small child sitting by the ocean listening to the ocean waves on the shore and just having a very very peaceful feeling that I have to be eternal, that it is not possible for me to just die and not exist anymore. It was a powerful feeling which can not really be explained by logic. I also used to get that feeling when I listened to wind blowing in the trees or through grasses. It was a feeling that this sound is so basic that so many people must have heard this sound before and will continue to hear it in the future. It was a very soothing peaceful feeling. It was a feeling so strong that even when I am confronted today by a tense situation, I can quickly recall that feeling of peace and remain peaceful and stable no matter what is going on around me, secure in the knowledge that I, the soul, am eternal and I can never die, even if my body dies, or even if the entire world were to pass away. It is also a feeling that all moments will come once again, and once again, I will also feel this peaceful. It is a feeling that peace and to be in peace is my original nature. Actually the more stress there is around me, the more peaceful I feel. It is a feeling that I really do not care about any of it because all of that stress is not me. I am separate and above all of that.
The thought of cyclical time does not prevent you from becoming your personal best. Just think, whatever I do now will repeat for eternity. Why would I not want to do my best in everything that I do. Also, if you understand the law of karma, whatever I do today is creating my tomorrows, and whatever I am experiencing in this moment was created by every thought, word and action which I performed in the past. Understanding cyclical time in this way makes you very concerned with self improvement.
Time, moves in a huge cycle. Things in the world in general are really bad right now, but they were not always this way. Things will change, time will move. The whole world will return to its origin of being a peaceful paradise where humans and animals dwelled in peace and then entropy will take place and it will gradually move to a state of chaos once again and human beings will self destruct once again. But, since time is cyclical that destruction is only a part of a great purification process which will bring us back to a beginning state once again.
This is my understanding and it gives me sooooo much peace, contentment and happiness. I never want to see time as linear because I just can not conceive of that.

Avyakt7 - Ahnanda said...

For further information on cyclical time, here is a link:

http://wwwww.helium.com/items/487172-philosophy-which-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg
and this one as well:
https://acrobat. com/#d=svwImLtKx kMzTYYTqzaxkg

joe said...

I understand that Thomas Cahill in "The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels" spoke of his idea that the mytho/poetic story of Abraham speaking with yhwh was this unique event that jump started the linear time meme that eventually gave us the industrial catastrophe of today's world.
I would say that John Zerzan of anarchist fame would concur in the sense that people living in a conceptual world scheme of linear time would lose the sense of being embedded in a natural balanced matrix. If I remember correctly John Gatto speaks of regular bells for french monks, then the military, then comes Napoleon, then his defeat by the Prussians, then the embrace of prussian schooling techniques by american educators.
So we all have been raised by the bell to see (linear)time as money.

treeoflife358 said...

Carol,
I really enjoyed reading what you had to say about clylical time. I just read a book about Taoism, and clylical time was brought up in the book. Cylical time was a concept that I had trouble understanding, but having read about your understanding and your perspective on theory is quite refreshing and infromative. :)

Thank You for sharing your thoughts and your feelings!
-PEACE AND LOVE -ER

jpierre said...
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jpierre said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
jpierre said...

I view time as both cyclical (sinusoidal spiral) and becoming linear only if and when at a temporal node transformation manifests and leads to the next cycle; otherwise it remains in the same cycle and would be more of a renewal or regeneration until the cycle again approached a temporal node for another possibility at transformation. If the challenge is still not met to initialize transformation, then renewal ...renews until the challenge of that specific cycle is met. I view it geometrically as circles linked tangentially and at these points where the circles touch are the temporal nodes. So with amplitude and period being of equal length (just to picture the image) and within from the previous node to the next therein is a spiral (or multiple) (connectivity, etc) to the 'future' or transformational temporal node. ...it's how I have come to see time. In myths I associate the double-headed serpents with "known" time (all that is know by one or other).

The following link to what has just recently been confirmed as America's oldest petroglyph shows a similar representation of what I suggest for time.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/nevada-petroglyphs-oldest-north-america