“What is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I want to explain it to a questioner, I don't know. But at any rate this much I dare affirm I know: that if nothing passes, there would be no past time; if nothing were approaching, there would be no future time; if nothing were, there would be no present time. But the two times, past and future, how can they be, since the past is no more and the future is not yet? On the other hand, if the present were always present and never flowed away into the past, it would not be time at all, but eternity. But if the present is only time, because it flows away into the past, how we can say that it is? For it is, only because it will cease to be. Thus we can affirm that time is only in that it tends towards not-being.”
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Aurelius Augustinus - more commonly "St. Augustine of Hippo," or simply "Augustine" - was a philosopher and theologian, and one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity. He framed the concepts of original sin and just war. Augustine was one of the most prolific Latin authors in terms of surviving works, and the list of his works consists of more than a hundred separate titles.
Augustine took the view that the Biblical text should not be interpreted literally if it contradicts what we know from science and our God-given reason. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists, consider him to be one of the theological fathers of Reformation teaching on salvation and divine grace.