Silmarillion - Ainulindale

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

I remember having some discussion of this point in a thread long ago, but its name escapes me. What I said there was that, in my view, stories about places "without time" invariably [i]do seem to involve time. Without time, nothing happens. There could be no creation, no thought, etc., etc. I've therefore always understood the "Timeless Halls" of Iluvatar not to be "timeless" in that sense - perhaps, rather, timeless in that they are eternal.

I would say that Time is a construct of mortal people, a way of dviding and conquering the space that's alloted to us in existence. To someone immortal, who lived in a place that had no mortality, Time would be irrelevant; there would be no need to measure existence so Time would not need to exist.

Although current scientific thought suggests that there is no such thing as eternity as the Universe will cease to exist entirely at some point. So for us, even if we had lived since the first days of Homo Sapiens and would live to the last days, there has to be Time.

If Eru is outside even the Universe (could he be?) then he could exist outside the boundary of Time. Though there must be time for the Ainur as they were created so at least they have a beginning - Eru, it seems, does not.