Jens Kraft was a Danish mathematician

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 and philosopher of Norwegian birth. He was born in Frederikshald in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

, but at age 5 he became an orphan and was subsequently raised by his uncle in Thy

Thy (district)

Thy is a traditional district in northwestern Jutland, Denmark. It is situated north of the Limfjord, facing the North Sea and Skagerrak, and has a population of around 50,000. The main towns of Thy are Thisted, Hanstholm and Hurup....

 in Jutland

Jutland

Jutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...

. As a philosopher he introduced the study of ontology

Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...

 to Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

n academic circles.

He was influenced by Christian Wolff

Christian Wolff (philosopher)

Christian Wolff was a German philosopher.He was the most eminent German philosopher between Leibniz and Kant...

 whilst still a student at Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

, attending a lecture by Wolff while visiting Halle

University of Halle-Wittenberg

The Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg , also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg within Saxony-Anhalt, Germany...

. He was appointed professor of philosophy at the Sorø Academy

Sorø Academy

Sorø Academy is a boarding school and public gymnasium located in the small town of Sorø, Denmark. It traces its history back to the 12th century when Bishop Absalon founded a monastery at the site, which was confiscated by the Crown after the Reformation, and ever since, on and off, it has served...

, where he responded to Baumgarten

Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten

Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten was a German philosopher.-Biography:Baumgarten was born in Berlin as the fifth of seven sons of the pietist pastor of the garrison, Jacob Baumgarten and his wife Rosina Elisabeth....

's Metaphsica with his own text metaphysik. Both divided their work into cosmologie

Cosmology

Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...

, ontologie

Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...

, psykologie

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

and naturlig theologie

Natural theology

Natural theology is a branch of theology based on reason and ordinary experience. Thus it is distinguished from revealed theology which is based on scripture and religious experiences of various kinds; and also from transcendental theology, theology from a priori reasoning.Marcus Terentius Varro ...

.

Kraft made a distinction between time

Time

Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....

 and eternity

Eternity

While in the popular mind, eternity often simply means existence for a limitless amount of time, many have used it to refer to a timeless existence altogether outside time. By contrast, infinite temporal existence is then called sempiternity. Something eternal exists outside time; by contrast,...

writing that "the finite can never obtain eternity, but it can obtain an infinite time, (Aevum) or a time with beginning but without end." The infinite by contrast has permanence (sempiternité)".