3 Views of Time and Eternity

Philosophers sometimes talk about three views of time:

1. The view that only the present is real (so the past and the future are not real)
2. The view that the past and the present are real (but the future is not real)
3. The view that the past, present, and future are all real.

The first view is sometimes called “presentism,” since it believes that there is only one moment that truly exists: right now, the present. On this view, the past and the future don’t exist. The moments in the past once existed, and the moments in the future will exist later on, but right now, the only thing that is real is the present.