[128] many periods whereby the present is usually considered to be the last, and the first one is considered as the Golden Age, or the period of the Paradise, and after this worst-of-all periods will come to an end, the world will burn and a new circular movement of the same kind will start. Now this is metaphysics^a and religion^b. It is a religion which is based on the emphasis on natural processes, on the emphasis on the repetitious character of the seasons, on the circular character of the movements of the stars. Over against this Stoic circular idea of time^c, which we all will find in India and in many other places in the world, we have in Augustine^d the linear interpretation of history^e: it has a beginning, a moment of creation; it will have an end, the moment of consummation, and it runs from period to period through this limited amount of time and has a center, and this center is the appearance of the Christ. Now this is a question of ultimate concern, and has to be discussed in connection with the interpretation of history^f, which is always basically religious and can express itself in metaphysical terms. But if now somebody comes--[such] as Mr. von Weizsäcker, who is a very religious man and a great physicist at the same time, l estimate him very highly--and says, "There is so much evidence for the law of entropy that the time of the universe has the character of directed and not of circular time," then I would say this is a scientific hypothesis which cannot be used from the point of view of theology in order to confirm Augustine over against Aristotle and the Stoics, because it is quite possible that there is some unknown physical reality which overcomes the effects of the law of entropy and which turns the wheel back. It is not possible to refute the Stoics in terms of physical time, as it is not