Two main views of the relation of the Church to Time are being propagated at the present time. The first I shall designate the Ontological, the second the Eschatological; the first is characteristic of Catholic thought, the second of Reformed: the first dwells upon the ideas of timelessness and eternity, the second upon the ideas of time's arrow and the End. There is, as we shall see later, the possibility of recognising that each view has a certain validity and of attempting to work out a fruitful relationship between them. But for the moment we shall concentrate our attention upon each in turn.