Scotus Academicus, Tomus primus: De Deo in se subsistente

In right order the Divine Immensity is followed by Eternity, its inseparable companion and ally, for both of those perfections of God proceed by equal measures, as St. Prosper sings in sententiis:

And as it goes before and passes beyond the spans and numbers of time, So the Immense One is confined by no limit of places.

For just as through His Immensity God penetrates and exceeds all spaces, so through eternity He is present to all times and embraces every duration that can be conceived. But how far the knowledge of eternity escapes human grasp is to be gathered from this: that Augustine, the Eagle of the Doctors, always regarded even the momentary duration of time as a most obscure enigma; for as he says in lib. 11. Confessionum, cap. 14., What time is, he says, if no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it to one who asks, I do not know, how much more, then, does our weak mind grow dull in investigating and unlocking the divine eternity? Nevertheless, with the prior and resplendent doctrine of the Holy Fathers, and with the shining subtlety of our Scotus, the Subtle Doctor, whatever it has been granted to know concerning this divine eternity we shall set forth in the following Questions.

Note 1. The use of Eternity among the ancients, both sacred and profane, was varied and manifold. — First, indeed, "eternal" signified the same as "ancient" in Genesis, 49.¹ where Jacob, foretelling the coming Messiah, calls him the desire of the everlasting hills, that is, of the ancient Saints; for which reason David also, Psalmo 75.² calls the holy Angels, or the ancient Patriarchs, "everlasting mountains," saying: Thou enlightenest wonderfully from the everlasting mountains, which usage of eternity he himself confirms in Psal. 76., where he calls years long past "eternal," saying: I remembered the days of old, and I had the eternal years in mind. — Secondly, eternity is sometimes taken for an age, or the period of any thing, and its long duration. Thus Exodi 15.³ it is said, The Lord shall reign for ever, and beyond, where another version has: he shall reign for an age, and beyond; for which reason also God promised Abraham a long-lived posterity and a stable dominion, in Genesis, 17., saying: I will give to thee, and to thy seed, all the land of Chanaan for an everlasting possession. — Thirdly, that is called "eternal" which has indeed a beginning of its duration, but will lack an end. Thus Matthaei 25. the reprobate shall go into everlasting punishment, but the just into life everlasting. — Fourthly, eternity can be taken for that thing which would have neither beginning nor end of its duration, yet would depend on a producing principle, for which reason some Philosophers judged that the world was produced from eternity, and would last into eternity. — Fifthly and finally, eternity is taken properly for the duration of him who acknowledges neither end, nor beginning, nor any productive cause of himself, in which way eternity is said to be proper to God alone.

Note 2. There is this distinction among the various following modes of duration: namely, time, aeviternity, sempiternity, and eternity: that Time is the duration of a successive thing according to before and after, which has a beginning and an end; Aeviternity, however, is the duration of a permanent thing, incorruptible from within, which has indeed a beginning, but will not have an end, such as is the duration of the Angels, and of the rational soul. Sempiternity, truly, can be said of those things which would lack beginning and end according to duration, yet would have dependence on an extrinsic producing principle, such as would be the duration of the world, or of some special creature, if it had been produced from eternity; or as Richardus Victorinus says, lib. 2. De Trinit., cap. 4.: That seems to be sempiternal, he says, which lacks beginning and end; but eternal, that which lacks both, and all mutability; and although perhaps neither is found without the other, yet a distinction is rightly made between the signification of the names. Whence he infers: What, therefore, is Eternity other than a duration without beginning and end, and lacking all mutability?

Note 3. Duration is wont to be called the measure of a thing persevering in its being; that this description may become known, a threefold genus of measure must be distinguished. First, there is the measure of Perfection, according to that saying of Arist. 1. Metaphysicorum, cap. 3.: In each genus there is one thing which is the measure of the rest under the same genus. Secondly, the measure of Notification, as an ell makes known the quantity of cloth. Thirdly, there is the measure of Duration, as time is called the measure of motion, aeviternity the measure of the Angels, and eternity is called by some the measure of God. These things being premised, three things are proposed for resolution in the present Question: first, indeed, what is the genuine definition or description of eternity; secondly, whether eternity can truly be called a duration; thirdly, whether it has the notion of measure with respect to God, or with respect to creatures.

First conclusion. — Eternity is rightly described by Boethius, lib. 5. De Consolatione, Prosa sexta: the whole, simultaneous, and perfect possession of interminable life; with which agrees that which Anselm had earlier handed down, cap. 21. Monologii, saying, What else is eternity, which belongs to that God alone, than interminable life, existing wholly simultaneous and perfect? But the individual words of the aforesaid Boethian description must be weighed, for each of them bears a varied and manifold sense. First, indeed, it is called Possession to designate its firmness, certainty, and indefectibility; for we are said to possess that which we hold firmly and inalienably, nor can we be removed from it in any way.

Secondly, possession is called life; for since life is the most excellent grade of the Divinity, it is not undeservedly taken for the other predicates of the Divinity, both essential and attributive, as the Doctor observes in Quodlibeto 6.: For this reason (he says) Christ, wishing to indicate that he received the whole Divinity from the Father through eternal generation, makes mention of life alone, saying Ioannis 5.: As the Father has life in himself, so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself. Thirdly, interminable, that is, lacking every beginning and end, not only in act, but also by absolute potency. Fourthly, whole simultaneously, so that it may be distinguished from time, whose parts are never simultaneous; but are acquired through succession, so that at the presence of one, the rest vanish. By these particles also a double imperfection of time is excluded from eternity, namely the imperfection of division, which is excluded by the particle "whole," and the imperfection of succession, which is removed by the particle "simultaneous." Fifthly and finally, it is called perfect possession, both so that the now of time may be excluded, which although it is wholly simultaneous and has no parts, yet is not absolutely something perfect, nor is any thing held and possessed perfectly in it; and so that that possession may be denoted as independent, inalienable, and absolutely necessary. Or (as the Doctor observes in the cited place) it is called interminable, because it excludes ceasing; whole simultaneously, because it excludes succession; and perfect possession, because it excludes dependence, and participation. Or as the Seraphic Bonaventure observes, lib. 1. Compendii Theologici cap. 18.:

In this definition three conditions are laid down, which are inseparable from uncreated eternity, which is God: namely, interminability there, the possession of interminable life; likewise invariability there, whole simultaneously; for nothing is variable in God, but all is simultaneous; likewise simplicity there, perfect; for that is supremely perfect to which no addition is possible. By the first, God is separated from everything corruptible. By the second, from everything variable. By the third, from everything composite.

Or finally, as Alensis explains, q. 12. art. 2. membro 2.:

In the aforesaid definition three conditions are touched upon, which are inseparable from uncreated eternity, which are interminability, invariability, simplicity. For there is something which is terminable both on the part before, and on the part after, such as generable and corruptible things, by way of distinction from which eternity is called the possession of interminable life. Likewise some things are interminable, as perpetual, and yet are mutable, or variable, by way of distinction from which "whole simultaneously" is added; for nothing variable is whole simultaneously; rather, it has some things in act, some it does not yet have. Likewise there is a being which is interminable and invariable, but yet is composite of itself, such as the Angelic being, which has composition (as Boethius says) from that which is and that by which it is, by way of distinction from which "perfect" is added; for that is supremely perfect to which no addition is possible, and where no part is possible with respect to the whole, and by this simplicity God alone is perfect, who, whatever is in him, is himself. By the first, therefore, the being of eternity is separated from everything corruptible; by the second, from everything variable; by the third, from everything composite, whether it be composed of matter and form, or of that which is and that by which it is, or of differences.

Observation. — nevertheless with Smisingo, quest. 1. de Aeternitate, num. 3., simplicity is taken improperly to describe eternity, because, he says, that a thing be simple seems to relate to the duration of the thing per accidens, or materially, speaking of that simplicity which excludes composition from subject and form; for just as some beings that are more simple do not participate more in eternity, but rather in time, as accidents, which are acquired successively, inasmuch as they are thus produced, are measured by time, for their production is successive; while substances, which are composite, are measured by the aevum, which agrees more with eternity. Unless perhaps they take simplicity in that sense in which it denies composition from the act of existence and objective potency, by which simplicity coincides with the negation of dependence, or closely follows upon it; for by the very fact that something is wholly independent, it has no objective potency: but is a necessary being, and simply in act, and consequently eternal, and invariable.

Second conclusion. — Eternity is truly, and essentially called duration. This is common among Theologians against Aureolus, in 1. dist. 9. q. 2. art. 2., where he affirms that eternity is not properly the duration of the Divinity, but is the divine nature itself, inasmuch as it has the power of coexisting with an imaginary infinite time, just as immensity is called the divine power by which God can present himself present in every imaginable place.

The Conclusion is proved first: Eternity is related to God in the way that the aevum and time are related to creatures, for eternity, the aevum and time are three species placed under the same genus: but the aevum and time are under the genus of duration, for time is called the duration of successive and mutable things, the aevum, the duration of incorruptible and permanent things: therefore a pari, eternity also is to be called the duration of an immutable, and necessary being.

Secondly: Duration is nothing other than the permanence of a thing in its being, with the negation of its ceasing: but truly God remains in his being, and has the negation of ceasing, and of mutability by reason of his eternity; for eternity, as has been said, is the whole, simultaneous, and perfect possession of interminable life. Therefore it is also the true duration of God.

Thirdly: If anything stands in the way of eternity being true duration, it is chiefly because, says Aureolus, every duration of itself formally imports succession, or extension to before and after: but this is openly false, rather, formal succession detracts from duration, for something is said to last as long as it remains in being, but when it loses permanence, it also loses duration: therefore the less it loses its being, the more perfectly it is judged to last: but in succession being is lost, for something does not persevere in the same way, nor is it tenaciously and perseveringly in act, but continually passes from potency to act: therefore succession is not formally of the concept of duration, inasmuch as it is precisely duration, but duration in itself prescinds from succession, and only imports the thing actually existing, and persevering: therefore since eternity signifies the perseverance of God in his actual existence without end, beginning, and any change, and dependence, it is truly to be called duration.

You will say 1. — from Aureolus: every duration is divisible according to before and after: but such divisibility does not belong to the divine existence: therefore neither does duration. The minor is evident, from divine immutability: the Major is proved. Every duration compared to another, is either greater, or lesser, or equal; for when it is asked how long something has lasted, the answer is given: so long, because it either was before, or after another, or simultaneous with another: but this is to exist, either according to before and after, or according to divisible coexistence: therefore duration is divisible.

I deny the major. — and to its proof I say, that when two durations are compared to one another according to magnitude, and divisibility, that comparison is not made according to the absolute existence of the things enduring, but according to coexistence, in which succession can be found, although their existence is not successive. Thus when eternity is said to be greater, or more long-lasting than the aevum, or time; and when God is said to have existed before the creature, nothing else is understood, than that the aevum and time and the creature did not coexist with God, and eternity, but no succession is signified in God, nor in eternity, as we shall prove more fully in the following question.

You will say 2. — Every duration is understood by way of a certain extension, and stay, which the enduring thing has: but that extension, and stay cannot be conceived according to a permanent, and simultaneous existence: therefore it must be successive, and divisible. The major is evident from our own experience; for no one can conceive duration otherwise. The minor is proved: The parts of extension cannot make a greater, or lesser quantity in duration, except according to their succession; for a three-foot piece of wood, v. g. is not judged to last longer than a two-foot piece of wood, because it has greater persevering extension: therefore, for the duration of things to be greater, or lesser, it must be successive.

I distinguish the major. — that it is so understood according to our imperfect mode of conceiving, I concede: according to the truth of the thing, I deny: for just as spiritual things cannot be apprehended positively, except by way of corporeal things, which are presented to our senses, so neither do we conceive eternal things in this state, except by way of temporal things, which have divisibility in their existence, although eternal and aeviternal things do not have such divisibility, but exist indivisibly and simultaneously.

You will say 3. — Divine eternity is related to duration in the way that divine immensity is related to place: but immensity does not place in God any permanent extension and magnitude, but only says the power by which God can reach and penetrate every place: therefore also eternity does not place in God any duration, or stay of the divine being formally, but only signifies the power by which God reaches every imaginable duration, without any succession.

I answer by distinguishing the major. — Eternity is related to time, and duration in the same way that immensity is related to place, and ubi; in this respect, that just as immensity does not infer in God any actual intrinsic divisibility, but only a virtual, and extrinsic one, as we have explained, so eternity is related to time, I concede; otherwise, I deny: for eternity, although it does not say formal and intrinsic extension, and succession, nevertheless imports and supposes a virtual one, and signifies that perfection of God by reason of which he can coexist divisibly with every successive, and divisible thing.

Third conclusion. — Divine eternity does not have the notion of measure, neither with respect to God, nor with respect to creatures. This is against the modern Thomists.

The first part is proved. — If it were a measure with respect to God, it would either be a passive measure, or rather the measurability of the divine Essence, or an active measure of the same: but neither can be said. Not the first, indeed, for a measure is called passive only with respect to an active one: but there is no active measure outside God, which could measure his essence according to duration. For if there were such a measure, it would above all be created duration; but this cannot be such, because created duration would measure the divine Essence, either by simple application, as an ell measures a single ell of cloth, or by repetition, as days repeated many times measure one year, and an ell applied many times measures the whole cloth: but in neither way can created duration measure the duration of the divine Essence: not by simple application, indeed, because created duration is finite, while uncreated is infinite, and consequently since they are not equal, one cannot measure the other by simple application. Nor by repetition either, for those things which are thus measured have a beginning, and an end: but the divine Essence has neither beginning, nor end of its existence, and duration: therefore it cannot be measured by created, and finite duration. — Nor does it have the notion of an active measure, because it would either measure precisely the divine being, or only its duration: not the first, because a measure must be homogeneous, or similar to the measured, as Aristotle teaches, 10. Metaphysicorum cap. 3.; for we measure weight by weight, not by extension, and we measure duration by duration, not by weight, or length; but eternity is not of a similar notion with the divine being as such: for the magnitude of that divine being is considered according to virtual intension, namely inasmuch as it virtually comprehends an infinite number of grades of perfection; but duration is attended to according to virtual extension, namely inasmuch as it can coexist with infinite time if it were given. Add that created duration does not measure created being as such, for many things last longer than others, although they have a less perfect being. — Nor can eternity be said to measure the duration of the divine being, because a measure must be distinguished from the measured. For it is, says Aristotle, in the cited cap. 2., that by which we know how great a thing is, or a measure leads us into the knowledge of the quantity of another: but eternity is the very duration of the divine being: therefore it cannot measure this duration, otherwise it would be said to be the measure of itself, and would lead into the knowledge of itself. — It must therefore be concluded with St. Thomas, in 1. dist. 19. quest. 1. art. 1. ad quartum, that the divine magnitude is in no way measurable, or measured, neither by another, nor by itself. First, because mensuration posits a termination, but the divine magnitude has no term, within, nor without, and therefore is called infinite, not indeed by privative extension, but by negation of term. Where he adds two other reasons: first, because if something were the measure of God, there would be something in God, which would not be God himself, for commensuration, he says, is not of one quantity to itself, but of two. Second, just as every mover is reduced to some unmoved mover, so every measure is reduced to some immeasurable measure: therefore, just as God is an unmoved mover, so he ought to be called an immeasurable measure. By which it is clear that the recent Thomists deviate far from the opinion of their Doctor.

The second part is proved. — namely, that Eternity cannot be the measure of the duration of created things. For it would measure that duration either by adequation, or simple application, or by repetition: but neither can be said. Not the first, indeed, since created duration is not equal to eternity; for that is finite, and limited; this is infinite, unlimited, and independent; but between the finite, and the infinite there is no equality. Nor the second either, for a measure by repetition is smaller than the measured; thus a day is smaller than a year, and an ell is shorter than a cloth of several ells: but eternity is not smaller than created duration; rather, it is infinitely greater: therefore in neither way can it be its measure.

It is confirmed. — If eternity could be said to be the measure of created successive things, it would either measure them according to one part of motion and time before another, or it would reach all the parts of time and motion simultaneously and indivisibly: but neither can be said: therefore it cannot be the measure of created things, at least of temporal and successive ones. The consequence is evident; the minor is also evident. For the first is against the notion of eternity, which, since it is whole simultaneously, and perfect possession, cannot have any succession, neither in itself, nor in measuring. But the second is against the nature of time, whose parts are in continuous flux, nor can they exist simultaneously, nor consequently coexist simultaneously, and permanently with another permanent, and indivisible thing, so as to be measured by it.

You will say. — A measure is that by which we know how great the duration of a thing is, or how great are the parts of an enduring thing: but by eternity we know how great, and how extended the duration of God is: therefore eternity has the true notion of measure with respect to God.

I distinguish the major. — By a measure we know the quantity of a thing definitely and distinctly, I concede: indefinitely, and confusedly, I deny: for a measure, as we have already said from Aristotle, must lead into a distinct, and determinate knowledge of the quantity of another, for it is assumed for this. Likewise I distinguish the minor: by eternity we know the duration of God distinctly and definitely, so that we could evidently say, the duration of God is so great, and not greater, nor lesser, just as it is said of any created thing that it has so many days, or months, or years, or ages, I deny: we know it indistinctly, confusedly, and indefinitely, so that we can say, the duration of God has no beginning, nor will have an end, I concede: but this does not suffice for the notion of a perfect measure, by which the extension of the measured must be distinctly made known.

Three things are to be resolved in this Question. First indeed, whether the highest eternity befits God; second, whether it befits him alone; third, whether it is to be attributed to him by way of a special perfection, and distinct from his other divine excellencies.

Note 1. The pagan philosophers were not of one and the same opinion concerning the duration of the Divinity. For some fabled that the gods were born in time; for, as Hesiod relates in the Theogony, they imagined that Jupiter, the parent of gods and men, was begotten by Saturn, that Saturn was the son of Heaven, and that Heaven was brought forth from the earth.

These Tertullian deservedly derides and rebukes, lib. 1. Contra Marcionem, cap. 8.:

This will be the novelty, he says, which gave birth to gods even for the pagans, always by a new title of consecration of each one. What god is new except a false one? Not even Saturn will so great antiquity prove to be a god, because novelty also at some time produced him, when it first consecrated him. But the living and genuine Divinity is judged neither by novelty, nor by antiquity, but by its own truth... If God is old, he will not be: if he is new, he was not. Novelty testifies to a beginning, antiquity threatens an end: but God is as alien from beginning and end, as from time, the arbiter and measurer of beginning and end.

Some therefore thought the gods eternal only in this respect, that they would nowhere ever perish.

The wiser ones, however, judged that the gods are truly eternal, as may be gathered from Plato in the Timaeus, where he argues against those who, led by error, imprudently transfer those parts of time, was and will be, to the eternal substance.

The Pythagorean Numenius has the same in Eusebius, lib. 11. De Praeparatione Evangelica: God, he says, is an eternal and stable being, always persevering in the same state.

Note 2. A twofold eternity can be distinguished: one indeed without the anterior and the posterior at once, another however without the posterior only; the former denies the beginning and the end, the latter only the end of duration. That one is called eternity simply, this one however immortality or incorruptibility. For, as Isidore of Pelusium notes, Epist. 11t.,

Eternity is wont to be used as it were an everlasting vitality, of that nature alone which is without beginning, and always behaves in the same way. For immortal can be pronounced of that which, although it had a beginning, nevertheless does not die, that is, of the Angel and of the soul: and likewise incorruptible of those things which were made, but are superior to all corruption: so that eternal properly befits the divine Essence.

Note 3. According to the Doctor, 7.6. Quodlibetica, three things are to be distinguished in eternity: First, that it is a perfect possession of life; Second, that this possession has a threefold negation attached, expressed in the words of the aforesaid description of eternity; for it is called interminable, because it denies cessation: wholly simultaneous, because it excludes succession: and perfect possession, because it rejects every dependence and participation; Third, that besides this threefold negation it involves a twofold relation, one indeed negative, by the negation of termination, by the negation of succession, and by the negation of dependence; the other however positive, which is the virtual and aptitudinal respect which God has, that he may be able to coexist with any created duration. This twofold relation is of reason, not however real: the first indeed, as consisting in negation; the second, because it is a respect ad extra, which cannot be real in God, otherwise he would be said to be mutable. Whether, however, besides these three, eternity formally imports something positive, the Doctor does not resolve, but weighs this Question on both sides.

First conclusion. — The highest and most perfect eternity befits God. This is of faith, as appears both from several texts of Sacred Scripture, by which God is celebrated as being without any beginning and end, and eternal: so especially Hebraeorum 1. cites that oracle of the Psalmist, 101., In the beginning, O Lord, thou didst found the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands: they shall perish, but thou dost remain, and all shall grow old like a garment, and as a covering thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same thyself, and thy years shall not fail, prophesied of Christ, as a proper mark of true divinity: then from the Council of the Lateran; then finally from the Creed of Athanasius, where Eternal Father, eternal Son, eternal Holy Spirit is affirmed.

This truth is evident also by the very light of nature implanted in each one: for, says Boethius, lib. 5. De Consolatione, Prosa 6., that God is eternal is the common judgment of all who live by reason. Tertullian affirms the same thing, lib. 1. Contra Marcionem, cap. 3.: As much as human condition can define about God, he says, that I define, which the conscience of all acknowledges; that God is the highest, constituted in eternity, unbegotten, unmade, without beginning, without end: for that state is to be judged belonging to eternity which makes the highest, great God. For since God is that than which nothing greater or more perfect can even be imagined, he would by no means be such, if he were not eternal.

Manifold reason convinces of the same thing. First indeed; if God is not eternal, it follows that he received his origin from another, and so is not the first cause of all things, supremely independent; nor consequently God. — Besides, if God was not from eternity, either something else existed before him, or nothing. If something else existed, this is better and more excellent than God, which is repugnant to the Godhead: if nothing at all existed, it follows that neither would anything have been future. Because, says Richard of St. Victor, lib. De Trinit., cap. 8., he who would give, or could have given, to himself or to others the beginning of existing, at that time did not exist at all; how false this is, evidence itself shows, and the experience of existing things convinces. — Finally, the divine eternity itself is established from the fullness of the divine essence, or the notion of existing through essence; for nothing can be from itself and contain in itself the whole fullness of being, unless it be from eternity, as Anselm excellently demonstrates in Prosol. cap. 22., where, addressing God, he speaks thus: But thou art what thou art, because whatever thou art at some time or now, this thou art wholly and always; and because thou art properly and simply, thou hast not a having been or a being about to be, but only a present being, nor canst thou be thought at some time not to be. For, as Hugh of St. Victor adds,

Therefore he to whom it is the same to be and that which he is, necessarily always is, because nothing can be separated from himself. If therefore whatever is from itself — for to this it is the same to be and that which it is — since it did not receive being from elsewhere, it necessarily follows that it always is, and that what was not given from elsewhere cannot be taken away from elsewhere.

It is confirmed. The highest and most perfect eternity befits him to whom belong the three conditions required for true eternity, namely, the interminableness of life, simultaneity, and perfect possession: but these belong in the highest degree to God. The first indeed; because, says Novatian, lib. De Trinit., cap. 4.,

God is immortal and incorruptible, feeling no losses at all, nor an end: for because he is incorruptible, therefore he is also immortal: and because he is immortal, certainly also incorruptible, both being intertwined with each other in turn, and in themselves by a mutual connection, and brought to the state of eternity by a reciprocal concatenation: with immortality descending from incorruption, and incorruption coming from immortality.

— The second likewise; for Plutarch says in the book De Esse:

God alone is he who truly is, and is in no time, but in an immovable and interminable eternity; of whom nothing is prior, nothing posterior, neither future nor past: and he alone is truly being through himself, which neither was, nor will be, neither began, nor will cease.

Or, as Nazianzen speaks, Oratione 3. et 80.,

God, he says, both was always, and is, and will be, or, to speak more correctly, he always is, for was and will be are figments of our time and of a flowing nature: but he always is, and in this way he names himself, when on Mount Horeb he delivers the oracle: I am who am.

Whence Peter Damian elegantly concludes, opusculo 36. cap. 8.,

For the omnipotent God there is no yesterday or tomorrow, but an everlasting today, from which nothing flows away, to which nothing accrues: for whom nothing is variable, nothing diverse from himself. This today is unchangeable, unfailing, inaccessible eternity... in that today, namely, that day is still immovable in which this world took its origin; and in that today that day also already is nonetheless, on which it is to be judged by the equity of the eternal judgment.

— The third condition of eternity, finally, befits God; for, says Gregory of Nyssa, lib. 1. contra Eunomium:

that nature, needing nothing, and eternal, and containing in its embrace all things that are, is neither in place, nor in time, but before these, and above these, is beheld by faith alone in itself by a certain inexplicable reason, neither circumscribed by ages, nor running along with times, but consisting in itself, and founded and established in itself.

A little below. To that sublime and blessed power, however, to which all things are always present according to the present, even that which is future is considered to inhere, on account of that infinite power of comprehending. Therefore, since the three conditions required for perfect eternity befit God, there is no doubt that he is truly eternal.

Second conclusion. — Eternity properly so called befits God alone. This sufficiently appears from the preceding conclusion: for the three aforesaid conditions required for perfect eternity can belong to none besides God. Nevertheless the holy Fathers prove it further in various ways. Thus St. Gregory the Great affirms from immutability that God alone is eternal, lib. 12. Moralium, cap. 17.:

For what is mutability, he says, but a kind of death? which, while it changes any thing into another, as it were kills what it had been, that it may begin to be what it was not: and of the author of all things it is written, who alone has immortality, because namely he alone is immutable in himself.

With him agrees St. Augustine, Tractate 23. in Ioannem: what is it, he says, that the Apostle says of God, who alone has immortality, unless because this he openly says, that he alone has immutability, because he alone has true eternity? St. Hilary, however, lib. 3., shows that eternity is proper to God alone from his supreme necessity of being:

I do not think, he says, that God is mutable, nor does vice, or correction, or advance, or loss befall eternity; but what he is, he always is; for this is peculiar to God; what always is, will never be able at some time to have it in its nature not to be.

St. Prosper, however, in Sententiis n. 183.: The true eternity of God, he says, belongs to him who alone has immortality: since he is changed by no species or motion; nor is his will temporal.

You will say. Angels and the rational soul are said to live forever: therefore eternity is not proper to God alone.

I distinguish the consequence. Eternity of a certain kind, and participated, that is, a parte post, I concede: simple and absolute, which has no beginning of duration and is not to have an end, such as belongs to God alone, I deny. Add. That nothing is said to be perfectly eternal except what is altogether immortal and immutable. Whence St. Augustine, lib. 3. contra Maximinum, cap. 12.:

God is said to have immortality alone, because he alone is immutable; for in every mutable nature the mutation itself is a kind of death; because it makes something not to be in it, which was. Hence the human soul itself, which is on that account called immortal, because in whatever way, according to its own mode, it never ceases to live, nevertheless has, for its very mode, a certain death of its own; because if it was living justly, and perishes, it dies to justice; if it was a sinner, and is justified, it dies to sin; that I may pass over its other changes, about which it is long to dispute; and the nature of the heavenly creatures could die. For the Angels also sinned, and were made demons, of whom the devil is the prince; and those who did not sin were able to sin.

Whence, lib. 83. q. 19., he gathers that this is the distinction between the immortal and the eternal: that every eternal thing is immortal, but not every immortal thing is with sufficient subtlety called eternal: because even if it always lives in some way, yet if it suffers mutability, it is not properly called eternal; because it is not always of the same mode; although it may rightly be called immortal, because it always lives. It must be concluded, therefore, that eternity properly befits God alone, and that it is subtly and learnedly called by Tertullian the estate of God, in the book contra Hermogenem, cap. 1.: For what other estate of God, he says, than eternity? what other state of eternity, than to have always been, and to be about to be, by the prerogative of no beginning and no end?

You will press. St. Basil, Homilia 1. in Hexaemeron, affirms that, before the world was made, there was an eternal state of creatures, and an intelligible light:

There was, he says, before the constitution of the world a certain more ancient state suited to the supermundane powers, eternal before the times, perpetual, in which the creator and maker brought the creatures to completion: an intelligible light suited to the blessedness of those who love the Lord, natures endowed with reason, invisible, and every ordering of intelligible things, surpassing whatever grasp of our mind; of which we cannot so much as search out the names. For these things complete the substance of the invisible world.

Therefore something is eternal besides God, not only a parte posteriori, but also a parte anteriori. — I answer. St. Basil understands by the more ancient state nothing other than the ideas of all things, which God had from eternity, bearing the world in his mind, and forming it in time from a like image, says Boethius; to which that saying of St. John 1. corresponds: What was made, in him was life. By the intelligible and eternal light, however, St. Basil expresses the eternal Word, who is called the splendor of the divinity; for he is the vapor of the power of God, and a certain pure emanation of the clarity of God, etc. For he is the brightness of eternal light, says the Sage, cap. 7.; whence St. Ambrose, lib. 1. in Hexaemeron, c. 5.: If you seek the splendor of God, the Son is the image of the invisible God. As God is, therefore, such is the image; God is invisible, and the image also is invisible. He is also the splendor of the paternal glory, and the image of his substance.

You will insist. But creatures, not only according to ideal being, but also according to real being, truly are from eternity: therefore there is no solution. The antecedent is proved: possible creatures are not pure nothing, nor beings of reason: therefore they are something real. The antecedent is evident: possible creatures have something that a chimera does not have; for it is repugnant to the latter to exist at some time, but not to the former: but a chimera is a being of reason, and not pure nothing: therefore possible creatures are not pure nothing, nor a being of reason, and hence are something real from eternity.

I answer 1. Possible things can be said to have being in three ways. First, in the divine intellect, which knows them. Second, in the divine omnipotence, by which it can produce them. Third, in themselves. The first is called objective or known being: for the divine intellect, as infinite, from eternity distinctly knew all possible creatures, according to the proper entity of each, which it is to have in time if it is produced. The second is called virtual being, which they have in the divine omnipotence, which can produce them. The third is called entitative being, which they can be conceived to have in themselves. It is certain that the first two are real from eternity; for God really knows creatures, and has the power of producing. The third, however, is not more real than a chimera, as the Doctor affirms in 1. dist. 36. q. un. n. 14., saying:

The first reason, therefore, altogether, and not reducible to another, why being is repugnant to man, is because he is formally man, and this whether really in the thing, or conceptibly in the intellect; and the first reason why being is repugnant to the chimera is the chimera inasmuch as it is a chimera. In different ways, therefore, that negation of nothingness is present to man in eternity, and to the chimera; and yet not on this account is the one more nothing than the other.

To this answer he had premised the reason in n. 13., saying that the negation of something is present in another either on account of the mere defect of the cause producing it, or on account of the repugnance which it has to receiving it. In the former way whiteness is denied of a non-white wall; in the latter it is denied of an Angel, and in this case a non-white wall is not less nothing of whiteness than an Angel. And the reason (he says) why this negation is not more than that one is because any negation denies the whole affirmation opposed to it, from whatever reason it be such; for it is just as true to say that a black wall is not white, as that an Angel is not white: the same is to be said, by way of similarity, of possible creatures and of the chimera; because real being is truly denied of both from eternity.

I answer 2. The essences of created things can be said, in their own way, to be eternal, and essential propositions, insofar as they are considered objectively, to be of eternal truth; this eternity, however, is not of some positive and true being outside God, but only of a certain negation or non-repugnance that such essences may at some time exist and be true beings: therefore this eternity is not true and perfect, such as that is which is attributed to God alone.

Third conclusion. — It is probable that eternity is not a special perfection of God distinct from immutability.

This is the teaching of the Doctor, q. 6. Quodlib., who although he weighs this question on both sides, and concludes with these words: concerning this eternity, whether it is present from the nature of the thing, let that one of the two stated parts be held which seems more probable to the inquirer; nevertheless he inclines more to our side, and confirms it more broadly, and, leaving its foundations untouched, he altogether dissolves the arguments of the opposite opinion; and after he has weighed the definition of eternity expressed in the third Note, he concludes:

If, therefore, this is the most proper description of eternity that we have found, and only this one thing is there from the nature of the thing, namely, life, but the three things which complete its notion are not there from the nature of the thing, as it seems, because they per se import either the negation of some extrinsic imperfection, or some aptitudinal relation, or a potency to something intrinsic: and neither in this way, nor in that, is any of them there from the nature of the thing; and consequently, neither will eternity as eternity be there from the nature of the thing.

The conclusion is therefore proved. First indeed from the holy Fathers, who, as we said above, not only gather the divine eternity from immutability, but even confuse it with it; for, as Tertullian speaks, adversus Hermogenem, cap. 37., the laws of eternity are that it cannot suffer change: and St. Augustine, lib. 4. De Trinit., cap. 18., when he had said: Inasmuch as we are mutable, in so much we are distant from eternity, adds: But true immortality, true incorruptibility, true immutability, is itself eternity; whence Richard of St. Victor, lib. 2. De Trinit., cap. 4.: What else, he says, is eternity than a long duration without beginning and end, and lacking all mutability?

It is proved secondly by reason. On the one hand, because, says Smisingus, Disput. de aeternitate, n. 11., once the immutability of the divine existence, supremely necessary, and which of itself denies every potency to being and non-being, and signifies the most simple and most actual being, is conceived, the concept of an interminable life, existing wholly at once and perfectly, is sufficiently had, which is the very description of eternity; for it implies a contradiction that the most simple, most actual, and supremely necessary being should have a beginning, an end, and a succession of its life; and hence God, inasmuch as he is immutable, has an interminable life, and wholly at once, and so eternity is not positively distinguished from immutability. On the other hand, because the duration of God is not more distinguished from his existence than created duration from the existence of the created thing; but created duration adds no positive real thing to created existence, by which it is distinguished from it: therefore neither does the divine from the existence of God. The major is evident; for if created duration adds no positive real thing to created existence, much less will the duration of that most simple and uncreated being add any positive real thing to uncreated existence; for the divine perfections are identified with one another more than the created ones. The minor is therefore proved: if created duration added some positive real thing to created existence, it would add it most of all either as a new thing, or as a new formality, after the first instant in which the created thing began to exist: but neither can be said, because that thing, since it would have its own existence, would also have to claim for itself its own duration, and so there would be a duration of a duration, and hence a process to infinity. The same must be said of the formality; for just as any formality has its own formal being, from the nature of the thing distinct from the formal being of another, so too it has its own duration, which would be a new formality, and hence one which would also have its own duration; and so to infinity.

You will say 1. Just as infinity is related to the divine essence, so eternity is related to existence: but infinity is a positive perfection of the divine essence: therefore eternity also will be a positive perfection of existence.

The cited Doctor denies the major: Infinity, he says, is indeed an intrinsic mode of the divine essence, positively perfecting and attaining it, such as eternity is not with respect to existence; for if, per impossibile, he says, the divine essence passed away in an instant, that is, subsisted only for a moment, still both the essence and the existence would have an intrinsic mode, namely, intensive infinity; but that existence would not have eternity, by which we understand durative infinity: which beyond intensive infinity adds only the negation of failing, or a relation of potentiality, namely, of coexisting with whatever is possible, which relation is only of reason. This he proves thus; because if an Angel were annihilated tomorrow, it would have no other intrinsic mode in its nature than if it remains forever, as it will remain, and according to some without succession. Whence he concludes: It is true, therefore, that existence has a mode intrinsic to itself just as essence has, but that is nothing other than intensive infinity; eternity, however, as eternity, or interminable duration as interminable duration, is not infinity. Add that since the divine existence is of the formal and intrinsic concept of the divine essence, it has no other intrinsic mode than the essence itself.

You will say 2. The divine eternity is proved through immutability: therefore it is not formally the same as immutability; for nothing is proved through itself.

I distinguish. It is proved by an expositive proof, which is made, namely, through a greater explanation of the thing, or through a diverse connotation to something extrinsic, I concede: by a formal proof, by which something unknown is demonstrated and known through something more known, I deny. And so the divine immutability, inasmuch as it universally denies every variation altogether in the divine being, is specially called eternity through the special connotation of succession, dependence, beginning and end, all of which it denies in particular of the divine being.

You will say 3. Every duration is some positive mode of the enduring thing: but eternity is the duration of the divine existence: therefore it is also its positive mode, not, however, some simple negation.

I deny the major. For duration, as is evident from the proof of the Conclusion, adds no reality or formality to the existence of the enduring thing, but only connotes the perseverance of that existence, as we have also abundantly proved in our Physics, when treating of duration.

Three things are proposed for discussion in this Question: first, whether God is truly said to coexist with the creature, and eternity with time. Second, whether this coexistence is divisible like time, or entirely indivisible like eternity. Third, whether time and temporal things so coexist with eternity that they are always present to it and from eternity, so that compared with eternity they have nothing future nor past, but only present: which, in order that it may be discussed and resolved more fully

Note 1. The distinction between eternity and time is various, but especially threefold. First, eternity is an uncreated duration, entirely independent; time, however, is a created and dependent duration, since it is the duration of motion which depends on the mover. Second, eternity is an interminable and infinite duration both a priori and a posteriori; time, however, is a finite and limited duration, at least from the prior side, because it has its beginning, although perhaps it will not have an end, on the hypothesis that the circulations of the heavens will last forever. Third, eternity, like the aevum, is formally indivisible and wholly at once; the duration of time, however, is essentially flowing and successive, so that its parts can in no way really exist simultaneously; for the past no longer is, and the future does not yet exist.

Note 2. Something can be said to be divisible chiefly in three ways: first, formally, whose parts actually existing can actually be separated from one another: thus a two-foot quantity is divisible into two feet. Second, virtually, whose parts are not actually divided nor existing, but only by virtue and potency: thus the continuum is said to be divisible to infinity, not because it actually has infinite parts, but because it could have them, if namely it were divided again and again. Third, eminently, when an indivisible thing has from its perfection and excellence, but in a nobler way, all that perfection which divisible or divided things comprise.

Note 3. Creatures can be said to be present to God in three ways; namely, either objectively and ideally, insofar as they are always and from eternity known by him. Second, virtually, because he has the power to produce, preserve, and reproduce them when they have ceased to be. Third, really, when they coexist with the existing God through their actual and real existence.

First conclusion. — God truly coexists with the creature, and eternity with time.

This is the express opinion of the Subtle Doctor; for in q. 6. Quodlib. art. 6. he affirms that eternity is that divine perfection by which God can coexist with any difference of time: and in 1. d. 9. quaest. unica n. 6., teaching how it can be said of the divine Word that it has been begotten and that it is being begotten; and disclosing how the words of different times are attributed to God, he says:

I answer that they can more properly be said to consignify the now of eternity than the differences of time: yet not that now absolutely, because then there would be no variation in the different modes of signifying time, but insofar as it coexists with the parts of time, as when it is said, God has begotten, then the now of eternity is signified, so that the sense is: God has the act of generation in the now of eternity: insofar as that now coexisted with the past; God is begetting, that is, he has the act in the now of eternity, insofar as the now of eternity coexists with the present; and from this it is clear that, since that now truly coexists with any difference of time, we truly say of God the differences of all times.

Likewise, in d. 10 q. unica, resolving how it can be said that one who is predestined can be damned, he says: that predestination is an act always present, and that God can so freely will in the now of eternity what he wills, as if his will were determined to nothing: whence he concludes: the predestination of this one does not pass into the past; for although it coexisted with past things which have passed away, yet it itself has not passed away, if other things have passed away which coexisted with it, etc.

This truth is proved. First indeed from Sacred Scripture, which very often affirms that God is with time and reigns for ages of ages. The same is established from the Fathers. For St. Anselm, after he had taught, cap. 19. Monologii, that God is not properly in time nor in place, insofar as this signifies being contained and bounded by time or place; nevertheless adds that God is in time and place, insofar as he is present to both: but this presence is nothing other than coexistence. Whence in cap. 22 he says: Inevitable necessity demands that the supreme essence, whole, be absent from no place or time; it is necessary that it be simultaneously whole, present in all places and times. With him agrees Richard of St. Victor, lib. 2. De Trinit. c. 23.

Just as, he says, God is in every place presentially, so in every time he is eternally, in none temporally; for just as he who is supremely simple and uncompounded is not distinguished through places, so neither is he who is eternal and unchangeable varied through times.

The truth itself is evident also by reason; for to coexist with another is nothing other than to be present to the other according to existence, and to have duration together with it: but it is true that time with eternity, and God with the creature, have duration and existence: therefore also coexistence.

You will say 1. — God and his eternity prescind from all time and exceed it: therefore they do not coexist with it. The antecedent is evident from the authority of St. Augustine, lib. De vera Relig. cap. 19.: Eternal life, he says, surpasses temporal life by that very truth; nor do I catch sight, even by understanding, of what eternity is: for by the mind's gaze I separate all mutability from eternity, and in eternity itself I discern no spaces of time. And 5. De Trinit. cap. 1.: Let us understand God presiding without place … sempiternal without time. Ansel. In Prosol. cap. 19.: You were not yesterday, nor will you be tomorrow: but you are yesterday, and today and tomorrow, but simply you are outside all time.

I distinguish the antecedent. — That God, as he exists, absolutely prescinds from time and altogether passes beyond it, I concede: that, as he coexists and is present to it, I deny. It is certainly true that God, by reason of his eternal duration, passes beyond the duration of any creature and of time, since he has existed through the whole of eternity, while neither creature nor time yet existed: insofar, however, as his duration and eternity is conceived as it now is, it does not prescind from an existing creature nor from existing time, but coexists with both. The holy Fathers speak of the former, not of the latter.

You will say 2. — Coexistence is a real relation on the part of both terms, because it is a relation of equiparance: but neither to God nor to his eternity can a real relation belong with respect to creature and time, otherwise he would be mutable: therefore neither can coexistence.

I distinguish the major. — That coexistence is a relation in its formal concept, I deny: in its concomitant concept, let it pass. For coexistence, as such, does not formally signify a real relation, or precisely one of reason; but only the negation of distance between two things; although it concomitantly imports a real relation or one of reason, according as the coexisting things are capable of receiving that relation. Whence coexistence in the creature is a real relation, and a transcendental one, because it is inseparable from its foundation, which is the very existence of the creature: for just as it is absolutely repugnant that a creature exist without dependence on the Creator, so it is repugnant that it exist without coexistence with the Creator; but on the part of God this relation is only a relation of reason; since nothing real accrues to God through the existence of the creature.

You will say 3.¹ — The present cannot coexist with the past and the future, just as a point does not coexist with the whole line, because the indivisible is not coextended with the divisible: but eternity is always present: therefore it does not coexist with past or future time.

I distinguish the major. — That which is present and entirely indivisible both virtually and formally, like a point with respect to a line, cannot coexist with the divisible, I concede: that which is present and formally indivisible, but virtually divisible, cannot coexist with the divisible, I deny: for an Angel, although formally of itself it is indivisible, can nevertheless have a divisible local presence; as also the rational soul, which although in its substance it is indivisible, nevertheless actuates and informs a divisible body. Whence although eternity is formally and absolutely indivisible, nevertheless since it is virtually divisible, it will be able to coexist with the various parts of time, as he will disclose more fully

Second conclusion. — The coexistence of God and of eternity with time is successive and divisible, just as time itself.

This Conclusion is evident and is confirmed by all those places of Scripture by which the differences of time according to before and after are attributed to the divine existence. Thus Proverbiorum 8.: Before all the hills I was brought forth. Psal. 73.: God our King before the ages. Exodi 10.: The Lord will reign in eternity, and beyond; that is, beyond all determinate time, as St. Anselm explains in Prosologio, cap. 20. And this exposition is evident, for beyond eternity properly taken no duration can be imagined in which God is understood to reign. Likewise ad Ephesios 1.: He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, etc., by which an imaginary past time is attributed to God, which is imagined to have preceded the foundation of the world.

Reason evidently confirms the same; for since coexistence is the simultaneous existence of two things, it cannot remain, unless the existence of both subsists: but the existence of time, coexisting with eternity, does not subsist, but is in perpetual flux, so that, one part departing, another succeeds: therefore it cannot come about that the coexistence of eternity with it ceases to be, and another anew succeeds with the succeeding part of time: and so there must be as many mutually succeeding parts of this coexistence as there are flowing parts in time.

Hence St. Augustine excellently confirms and explains all things, Tract. 99. in Ioannem, where, weighing that saying of John, cap. 16.: Whatsoever he shall hear, he will speak, he adds:

In the eternal, that which is sempiternal is without beginning and without end. Let a verb of any time be posited, whether past, present, or future, it is not posited mendaciously. For although that immutable and ineffable nature does not receive was and will be, but only is: for it truly is, which cannot be changed; … yet on account of the mutability of times in which our mortality is engaged, … we do not mendaciously say both was, and will be, and is; it was in past ages, it is in the present, it will be in the future: it was because it never was lacking: it will be because it never will be lacking: it is because it always is: for neither, like one who already is not, did it fall with the past; nor with the present, like one who does not remain, does it slip away; nor with the future, like one who had not yet been, will it arise. Accordingly, since human thought is varied according to the volumes of times, of him who could not, cannot, and will not be absent through any times, the verbs of any time are truly said.

From these words, as our Smisingus acutely notes, quaest. De Aeternitate, n. 81., three things may be gathered: first indeed, that the divine eternity truly coexists with the differences of times, since, as Augustine says, it was not lacking to them, that is, it is not at a distance from them. Second, that eternity itself coexists successively with those various differences of times, since has been, is, and will be are pronounced of it. Third, that this succession does not regard the nature, nor therefore the divine existence, which is wholly immutable and invariable, and subsists wholly at once: but only coexistence, which although on the part of the creature is consequently a real relation, on the part of God is only a relation of reason, which our intellect feigns, so that it may more easily perceive and explain that divine presence and simultaneous existence with the creature.

You will say 1. — There is no succession where there is no past or future, but only the present: but in God it is so. It is proved from St. Augustine, 5. De Trinitate: With God, he says, past and future things stand. And again: Thus, he says, those things which are called past have not passed away there, nor are those things which are called future awaited as lacking, that they may come; but all things are thought as present. All the other Fathers hold the same: therefore coexistence is not divisible.

I deny the minor. — For although the existence of God suffers no succession and division, nevertheless the coexistence itself of him with flowing and successive creatures is divisible and flowing.

To St. Augustine I say. — that he, like the other Fathers affirming the same, is to be understood of the objective presence of God, by which it comes about that, as Augustine himself, explaining that saying of Psalm 49. The beauty of the field is with me, says: All things are with him, constituted in the Word by a certain knowledge of the ineffable wisdom of God: whence he inquires: why are all things with him? then he answers: because even before all things were or were created, all things were known to him. With him agrees St. Gregory, lib. 4. Moralium, cap. 27., saying: Eternity does not have future being, for in it surely neither past things pass away, nor those things which are future come, because it beholds all things through the present. As if he would say: God, from eternity, through his infinite power of understanding, because he has present to himself future and past things, beholds them so openly as if they in fact existed in the nature of things.

You will say 2. — Eternity is the whole-at-once and perfect possession of life, that is, existence: therefore it suffers no succession.

I distinguish the consequence. — That it suffers no succession in its formal concept of eternity, and insofar as it is the duration of the divine essence, I concede: that insofar as it signifies the relation of its coexistence with creatures it is all at once, I deny. For since coexistence cannot subsist without the mutual existence of extremes coexisting with one another, it is necessary that if one flows, the other also flows, and accordingly the coexistence of eternity with time is necessarily successive.

You will say 3. — Whatever is in God is pure act, immutable and eternal; and accordingly excludes potency to the privation of a form held, and to the acquisition of a new one; and consequently imports no succession: but the coexistence of God with creatures and of eternity with time is in God: therefore the coexistence of God and of eternity with time cannot be successive.

I distinguish the major. — That whatever is in God intrinsically and really, by way of an essential or attributive predicate, is pure act, I concede; that whatever is in him only extrinsically, and by only an external denomination and a relation of reason, is pure act, invariable and eternal, I deny. For it is certain that the appellations of Lord, Creator, etc., which are attributed to God, and which import only a relation of reason, are not conceived by way of pure and eternal act, since they are attributed to God only in time, and from time. But coexistence is not something intrinsic to God, but is conceived by way of a relation of reason, which is feigned in God from his presence and simultaneous existence with the creature.

Third conclusion. — Temporal things do not coexist with God from eternity, nor with his eternity: then because to coexist supposes existence on the part of both terms: but creatures do not always exist in eternity; for it is certain that they were never truly and really from eternity, nor can they be said to exist in eternity; otherwise the past and the future would not befit them: therefore they do not coexist with eternity. Then because the coexistence of a created being with another is a real relation: therefore it cannot belong to a created thing before it exists in itself; because a real relation demands a real foundation, and consequently the real relation of coexistence requires the real existence of the thing which coexists with another: but the creature does not have real existence before it is in fact produced, and truly and properly exists in itself. Then finally because, since the finite cannot be made equal to the infinite, time, which is finite both from the part before and from the part after, cannot be made equal to eternity, which is infinite in both ways, and excludes every term of duration. Therefore neither can it coexist adequately with eternity, since this adequation imports equal duration.

You will say 1. Eternity is an indivisible duration and wholly at once: therefore what coexists with it at some time coexists with the whole of it, and consequently coexists always and from eternity; for to coexist with the whole of eternity is nothing other than to exist from eternity.

I deny the consequence. For there is a great difference between coexisting with the whole of eternity and coexisting with it totally: for the former only signifies presence, and an indivisible permanence on the part of eternity, by which permanence it truly befits eternity; but the latter signifies also an indivisible permanence on the part of time, and the interminable duration of it, according to which it would be said to coexist adequately with interminable eternity; but this interminability and indivisibility can in no way belong to time; and so time cannot coexist totally with eternity, although it coexists with its whole. Just as a foot, e.g., although it coexists with the whole rational soul, which is whole in the whole and whole in every part of the whole, nevertheless does not coexist with it totally, because it does not coexist with it where the head is, and where the other parts of the body are.

You will say 2. From Anselm, lib. De Concordia praescientiae divinae, et libero arbitrio, cap. 1.: Just as the same now of time encloses every place, however much the places are distant from one another, for all things are present to this indivisible now; so every time is enclosed by the eternal present, so that although the times are distant from one another, they are nevertheless simultaneously present to eternity: therefore St. Anselm judges that temporal things truly always coexist with eternity. — Which can be confirmed, because just as every place is present to the whole immensity, so is every time to the whole eternity.

I deny the consequence. For St. Anselm does not judge that times are present to eternity through a true permanence of themselves with it, and a real coexistence: for this permanence is against the nature of time, which is successive of itself: but he only intends that all times, or temporal things, are objectively present to God from eternity; for it is his to know the times, or the moments, which he has placed in his own power. — Or his meaning is that all the parts of time are present to this now of eternity; not that they in fact subsist, or have existed from eternity; but that that unchanged now of eternity coexisted with past time, coexists with the present, and will coexist with the future. — To the Confirmation I say that the example proves nothing, for just as all places are not truly present to the divine immensity from eternity, but only in time, and when they exist; so neither are temporal things really present to God from eternity, but only when they in fact exist.