Eternal Beings

By Jonas Brenneman

September 1, 2025

Some things are so common and universally experienced that we never stop to consider them or their implications. They are absorbed in our daily routine as just being part of life. But what if they tell us something about who we are?

Consider time. I have a routine that I follow most days. I wake up and am not surprised that it is morning. Something within me expects the mornings to come consistently. No one thinks, “Oh, I was not expecting a new day!” or “I just can’t believe that the sun is setting again!” It would be a much greater surprise if the day didn’t progress as it always has.

We go throughout the day and expect night to come. Sometimes we are surprised at how soon night comes, but at the same time relieved, because we are ready to rest.

We are not surprised that days consistently progress the way they always have. It would be a much greater shock if that pattern were interrupted. This gives us a clue that we are temporal beings.

An argument could be made that we have evolved to adapt to the twenty-four-hour cycle of time; an equally persuasive argument could be made that we have been designed to fit into a twenty-four-hour day cycle. But before we get hung up on this point, let us consider another point that shows us that we are eternal beings.

We are constantly surprised by the passing of time. So often we hear people exclaim “I can’t believe this year is almost over!” or “Summer went by so fast!” These surprises only increase as a person grows older. In one sense, one would imagine that as a person experiences more of the passing time, they would grow more accustomed and be less surprised, but the opposite is true.

We are always surprised by the passing of a loved one. When my father’s mother passed away, I can still remember him saying, “I knew she was going to die, and I had been trying to prepare myself for it, but it doesn't matter how long a person prepares themselves, the death of someone they love always comes as a shock.”

Why are we always so surprised? Death is one of the sure things in life. Out of the billions and billions of people who have lived, only a handful are said not to have died, yet death is still a shock.

Why is death such a surprise when it is so common? Maybe it is because humans are good at deceiving themselves and always want to believe things will turn out differently. But it would still be a difficult argument to sustain to say that the majority of people consistently deceive themselves in the same way.

A better explanation would be that humans were created to be eternal.

God created us to exist forever. Death comes as an interruption to the natural order of things, and that is why it is consistently a surprise.