Summa I q.10 a.3-5: Is Only God Eternal? How Eternity Differs from Time, and the Aevum Introduced

Orientation #

He refers back to “the definition of eternity” as already seen, “what we saw in the definition” (prev. lecture), and to the definition of time “I think we studied that a little bit”. He ends by starting a.5 on the aevum (“we start the next article here”) and takes a break after its objections. The previous class treated q.10 aa.1-2 (Boethius’s definition and eternity as belonging to God); the next continues with the aevum and the ordering of common notions.

The class, in order #

1. Article 3: objections and sed contra (“whether to be eternal is what private to God”) #

Point: sets up whether eternity is proper (private, i.e. peculiar) to God.

• Obj. 1: Daniel 12, those who instruct many in justice will be “like stars in perpetual eternities”; many eternities means not only God is eternal.
• Obj. 2: Matthew 25, “Go, accursed, into eternal fire.”
• Obj. 3: everything necessary is eternal (Posterior Analytics); the principles of demonstrations and demonstrative propositions are necessary; so not only God.
• Sed contra: Jerome to Marcellus, God alone has no beginning; whatever has a beginning is not eternal. He notes this is not the definition of eternity (“all at once and perfect possession of unending life”) but a consequence: no beginning, no end.

2. Article 3: body and degrees of partaking (“eternity follows upon immutability or unchangeableness”) #

Point: eternity properly is in God alone; creatures are called eternal by partaking.

1. Eternity follows on unchangeableness as time follows on motion; negate motion and you negate time (as seen in the definition).
2. God alone is altogether unchangeable (shown above).
3. So eternity properly is God’s alone; things partake of it insofar as they receive unchangeableness from Him. Degrees, in his reading of Thomas:

• things that will never cease to be: Ecclesiastes, the earth “stands in aeternum”;
• things called eternal from length of duration though corruptible: “the eternal mountains” (Psalms), “fruits of the eternal hills” (Deuteronomy); aside: “Bacchus amat colles”, he had forgotten the word colles;
• things unchangeable in being, or further in operation: angels and the blessed seeing the Word; no changing thoughts in the saints (Augustine, De Trinitate XV); John 17:3 “this is eternal life, that they might know You and Him whom You have sent.” Aside: Thomas uses John 17:3 when dividing the articles of faith (divinity and humanity of Christ) because faith is a foretaste of the vision.

3. Replies to a.3, purgatory, and eternity as an equivocal word (“nothing prevents one from using a word like eternity”) #

• Ad 1: many eternities because many partake of eternity by contemplating God; no before and after in seeing God face to face. Aside: he read the last chapter of the Summa Contra Gentiles that morning, quoting the Apocalypse “time will not be anymore”; adjusting to not living in time “will take you a long time”.
• Ad 2: hell’s fire is called eternal on account of its end (no end), but there is change in the pains: Job 24, they pass from waters of snows to exceeding heat (“both the complaints of winter and summer”); so no true eternity in hell, since eternity is totum simul; Psalm 80, “their time in ages”. Beatific vision keeps more of the meaning (may have a beginning, no end, no before and after); hell keeps only “not having an end”. The word becomes equivocal by dropping something of the full meaning and keeping less.
• Student: souls in purgatory? He: no sense of eternity there, beginning and an end; “more time than hell”, i.e. more of time. Aside: pain in purgatory is intense because the separate soul, with no body to distract or console, is more aware of its defects and desires to see God (comparison to wanting to be cleared up before a wedding); St John of the Cross asked friends to pray he have his purgatory on earth; funerals now speak as if everyone has arrived; the priest at his father’s funeral told his mother “never stop praying for him”, prayers are not wasted.
• Property analogy from logic: Porphyry’s strict property belongs to only one species, to every member, always (two: half of four). Drop “only” (two less than ten), drop “every” and “always” (man a logician): you get looser senses of property. Likewise eternity drops “no before and after”, or “no beginning” while keeping “no end”. Most people think of eternity as endless time, “falling off from the full sense”.
• Ad 3: “necessary” signifies a mode of truth; truth is in the understanding (Aristotle, “sixth book of wisdom”, the sixth after the natural books [ed.: Metaphysics VI]); so true and necessary things are eternal because in an eternal mind, the divine mind alone; nothing outside God follows. Student asks about “always true that two is half of four”; he: in some sense yes, always true, but you must answer the objections.

4. Article 4, objection 1 and the digression on simul (“that’s a very important word, that simul”) #

Point: obj. 1 argues time is part of eternity; he digresses on how simul and the equal are known by negation.

• Obj. 1: two measures of duration are together (simul) only if one is part of the other (not two days or two hours together, but an hour and a day); eternity and time are together; eternity is not part of time; so time is part of eternity, not other from it. “Stretches the mind a little bit.”
• Simul, Greek hama: Aristotle’s Categories chapter right after before and after; translate “together” or “at once”; its senses correspond to the senses of before and after, so it is understood by negation of before and after.
• Parallel: more and less before equal. Anaxagoras: never more (nothing from nothing), never less (something can’t go into nothing), so all things forever equal, i.e. equal concluded from neither more nor less. But in geometry the equal is before the unequal: Euclid defines equilateral before isosceles before scalene, right angle first and obtuse/acute as more/less than a right angle; axioms of equality before the whole greater than the part; Pythagorean theorem and converse (I.47, 48) before the obtuse/acute theorems near the end of Book II, whose proofs use the Pythagorean theorem; I.5 (equal sides, equal angles) used to prove the inequality theorem (I.18, “I think”). “Kind of strange.”
• Phaedo: Socrates argues we had equality before this life since bodies (two chairs) only approach it. A way out: we get equality by negation from bodies clearly larger or smaller, “neither larger nor smaller”. Yet geometry goes from equal to unequal; modern science uses the equation to know the unequal, “contrary to where my mind works”.
• Student: simultaneous means “at the same moment”, implying a measure of duration.

5. Objections 2 and 3 of a.4 (“the now of time remains the same in the whole time”) #

• Obj. 2: Physics IV, the now remains the same throughout time; this seems to be the notion of eternity (same, indivisible, in the whole course of time); the now is not other in substance from time; so eternity is not other from time.
• His gloss from Physics IV: it is not the same now throughout time. When is a now corrupted? Not when it is; so in a later now; but there is no next now (like points on a line: two points cannot touch without coinciding, always a point between), so it would continue through intermediate nows. Aristotle’s resolution: the now remains but is always in a different position, as the falling stone is the same body through a motion whose parts are in parts of the time, but always in a different place. So in that sense the now is never corrupted. He anticipates Boethius: the now that flows makes time, the now that stands still makes eternity. “This objection makes you stop and think.”
• Obj. 3: the measure of the first motion (for us the sun’s apparent motion) measures all motions (Physics IV); so the measure of the first being measures every being; eternity measures the first, divine being; perceptible things are measured by time; so time is eternity or something of it. Aside: Plato in his last work says God, not Protagoras’s man, is the measure of all things.

6. Sed contra and the digression on Aristotle’s ordering of senses (“before and after is in the very definition of what time”) #

Point: eternity is tota simul, time has before and after, and before and after is in the very definition of time.

• Definition of time: the number of before and after in motion, especially the most regular and continuous. Before and after is explicit in the definition of time, not in the definition of motion (“the act of what is able to be, insofar as it’s able to be”), though Physics VI links before and after in the road, in the motion, and in the time, divided together.
• In the Categories the first sense of before and after is in time, motion and path being reduced to it. Contrast: the first sense of “beginning” (Metaphysics V) is of magnitude (table, road), with beginning of motion and of time reduced to it, as Thomas notes in his commentary; and the first of the eight senses of “to be in” (Physics IV) is in place (our being in this room), Thomas explaining that “in time” is led back to it since place and time are both measures of what they contain. With before and after “the reverse is so”.
• “Very subtly he does that”: Aristotle gives central senses and their order, not all senses; some are attached to central ones without being stepping stones to the next. Aristotle is the first man to really understand the words he uses; Thomas alone could order the eight senses of “in” as Aristotle teaches in Metaphysics V, since Aristotle does not order them in the Physics.
• His “famous propositions”: “If a man understands the words he uses, then he is wise”: false, wisdom is chiefly knowing the first cause, God. “If a man does not understand the words he uses, then he is not wise”: true. Parallel: knowing plane geometry does not make a master of geometry (solid geometry needed), but not knowing it excludes mastery.
• Examples: Hume on “nature”, read while clearing his office, obviously does not understand the word. Those who say of Christ “one person but two hypostases” do not understand their own language: like “two animals but one man”; a person is a hypostasis of a rational nature, the only hypostasis in God or man is a person, so two hypostases means two persons, heresy. Sophistical Refutations: the most common mistake in thinking comes from mixing up senses of a word.

7. Body of a.4: the essential difference, and Boethius (“this difference Thomas says is what, per accidens”) #

1. Manifest that time and eternity differ; some assign the reason that eternity lacks beginning and end, time has them.
2. This is per accidens, not as such: even if time always was and will be (as those who hold the heavens’ motion eternal), the difference would remain, as Boethius says in the Consolation.
3. The difference: eternity is tota simul, time not, because eternity measures permanent being, time measures motion.
4. Taken from the things measured, the beginning/end reason has some force: only what has beginning and end in time is measured by time (Physics IV); if the heavens’ motion always endured, time would not measure its whole duration, the infinite not being measurable (Shakespeare on Mother Earth, “womb immeasurable, and infinite breast”, coupling the two words), but would measure each circulation. His example: my life as a whole is measured by time because it has beginning and end; if it had neither, three years could be measured but not the whole.
5. From the side of the measures, one can take beginning and end in potency: parts of time, the beginning and end of the day or year, which cannot be done in eternity.
6. But these differences follow what is first and per se: eternity all at once, time not. Aristotle defines time by before and after, not by having or lacking beginning and end. Boethius aside: the Consolation was written in prison; he followed Plato’s advice (bad government until philosophers are kings) and entered government, was just, made enemies, trumped-up charges, “martyred”, with a local cult in Rome. Form: verses alternating with prosa, a dialogue; Lady Wisdom consoles him; earlier books on happiness, false happiness before true as more known to us; later books on providence and divine knowledge, where the definition of eternity comes. A commentary attributed to Thomas (on the Navarre website, “I think”), not thought authentic; his brother Mark, teaching the Consolation at St Mary’s College, found it “pretty good”: it explains the pi with theta above it (theoretical above practical philosophy, “Mary has chosen the better part”) and the torn garments (men grabbing at the truth each rip off a part). Chaucer translated it; Washington Irving’s Sketchbook has the Scottish prince reading it in prison. He puts Boethius next to Augustine and Thomas; Thomas’s commentaries are on De Trinitate and De Hebdomadibus, not the Consolation.

8. Replies to a.4 (“the now that flows along makes time”) #

• Ad 1: obj. 1 works only if time and eternity were measures of one kind; false, since one measures motion, the other being.
• Ad 2: the now is the same in subject through the whole time but differs in definition (ratio; a student: “count”); as time corresponds to motion, the now corresponds to the mobile, the same in subject, differing in definition as here and there, its position; this flux of the now is time. Eternity remains the same in subject and in position; so eternity is not the now of time. Boethius’s simpler form: the flowing now makes time, the standing now eternity. His reading of possessio in the definition: you cannot repossess the now of time, it always gets away; “time waits for no man”, our master.
• Ad 3: eternity is the proper measure of being, time of motion; as a thing recedes from permanence of being and is subject to change, it recedes from eternity and falls under time; corruptible being is measured by time. Time measures not only what is actually changing but the changeable, so rest as well as motion. Rest is lack of motion in a subject able to move (as we in bed might still move); “God rested on the seventh day” is not lack of something He could have but simple negation of motion.

9. Article 5: objections on the aevum (“it seems that the evum is not other from time”) #

Point: he opens a.5 before the break, leaving aevum in Latin (“hard to know how to translate”), the measure of the angels, between eternity and time.

• Obj. 1: Augustine, Genesis ad litteram VIII, God moves the spiritual creature through time; the aevum measures spiritual substances; so no difference from time.
• Obj. 2: time has before and after, eternity is all at once; the aevum is not eternity, since Ecclesiasticus says eternal wisdom is “before the aevum”; so it has before and after and is time. Exchange on the book: now called Sirach, originally in Greek; he does not think it is in the Hebrew scriptures or that a Hebrew text was found (“I don’t think so”); the mnemonic E/Ecclesiastes vs I/Ecclesiasticus.
• Obj. 3: if no before and after in the aevum, to be, to have been and to be future would not differ in eternal (aeviternal) things; since they cannot not have been, they could not not be future; false, since God can reduce them to nothing.
• Obj. 4: their duration is infinite on the side of what comes after; if all at once, something created would be infinite in act, impossible.
• Sed contra: Boethius, “You command time to go forth from the aevum.” Aside: “divide evenly the time… we’re slaves of time.” Break.

His words #

• “private to God”: Thomas’s proprium, peculiar to God alone [ed.: proper]
• “all at once and perfect possession of unending life”: his rendering of Boethius’s definition
• “totum simul” / “tota simul”: all at once, altogether
• “simul” / “hama”: together, at once; understood by negation of before and after
• property (Porphyry): belongs to only one species, to every member, always
• “sixth book of wisdom”: the sixth book after the natural books [ed.: Metaphysics VI]; “fifth book of wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics V]
• “Natural Hearing”: the so-called Physics [ed.: Physics]
• definition of time: the number of before and after in motion
• definition of motion: the act of what is able to be, insofar as it is able to be [ed.: act of being in potency as such]
• hypostasis vs person: a person is a hypostasis of a rational nature
• per accidens: the beginning/end difference, versus “first and through itself”
• “in potency” beginning and end: parts of time such as the day, the year
• differs “in definition”: the now’s ratio, its position here and there (a student offers “count”)
• “possessio”: you cannot repossess the now of time
• rest: lack of motion in a subject able to move; of God, a simple negation of motion
• “evum”: left in Latin, the measure of the angels [ed.: aevum]
• “prosa”: the prose sections of the Consolation

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas, ST I q.10 a.3 (whole article), a.4 (whole article), a.5 (objections and sed contra)
• Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy: the flowing now / standing now; “you command time to go forth from the aevum”
• Scripture as cited in the articles: Daniel 12; Matthew 25; Ecclesiastes (earth stands in aeternum); Psalms (eternal mountains; Ps 80, their time in ages); Deuteronomy (fruits of the eternal hills); John 17:3; Job 24; Ecclesiasticus/Sirach (wisdom before the aevum)
• Shakespeare, “Common Mother, thou whose womb immeasurable, and infinite breast” (no locus stated) Mentioned
• Aristotle, Categories (before and after; simul); Physics IV (now of time; eight senses of “in”; first motion measures all; only what has beginning and end measured by time); Physics VI; Metaphysics V (beginning) and VI (truth in the understanding); Posterior Analytics; Sophistical Refutations
• Thomas, commentary on Metaphysics V (beginning); Summa Contra Gentiles, last chapter; commentaries on Boethius’s De Trinitate and De Hebdomadibus; division of the articles of faith
• Jerome to Marcellus; Augustine, De Trinitate XV and De Genesi ad litteram VIII; Porphyry (property)
• Euclid, Elements I.5, I.18 (“I think”), I.47-48, Book II; Plato, Phaedo, and “last work” (God the measure); Anaxagoras fragment; Hume on “nature”; Chaucer’s translation and Washington Irving’s Sketchbook on the Consolation; commentary on the Consolation attributed to Thomas; St John of the Cross
• Verified sources also list handouts “The First Definition of Reason” p. 95 and “Friar Laurence on Stumbling” p. 10, and DHB Vol. III pp. 860-1054; the transcript does not show where these are read.

His questions #

• Whether to be eternal is proper to God alone? Yes: eternity follows on immutability, and God alone is altogether unchangeable; creatures partake by degrees.
• Why is the fire of hell called eternal, and is that true eternity? On account of having no end; not true eternity, since the pains change (snows to heat).
• Are the souls in purgatory eternal in any sense? (student) No: beginning and end, “more time than hell”.
• Are necessary truths like “two is half of four” eternal outside God? Necessary is a mode of truth, truth is in the understanding; eternal only as in the divine mind.
• How do you translate simul / hama? Together or at once; known by negation of before and after (class: “at the same moment”).
• When is the now of time corrupted? Not when it is, and there is no next now; the now remains like the body in motion, always in a new position.
• “If a man understands the words he uses, then he is wise”: true or false? False (student said true); wisdom is chiefly knowing God. The converse-negative is true.
• Is lack of beginning and end the difference between eternity and time? Per accidens only; the per se difference is that eternity is all at once.
• What does “God rested on the seventh day” mean? Not lack of a motion He could have, but simple negation of motion.
• Is Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) originally Greek, and is there a Hebrew text? Greek, he thinks; he does not think a Hebrew was found; left open.