Prima Pars
Lecture 36: God's Immutability and Eternity: Definition and Nature

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to those things down below. And he gives this likeness to the sun there. So he says, every procession of the divine manifestation proceeding comes to us, right, from the Father of lights, huh? It's all the perfect gifts come down moved by him. And the last one about God approaching us, does he really approach us? As I've said metaphorically, huh? Insofar as we really, what, approach him, right? Or fall short, huh? Okay. It was important that you talked about metaphoris there in the first question. Occasionally you go into people, especially Protestants sometimes, who think that God really gets angry, right? Some Catholic theologians say that God got sad when Christ died on the cross. The Father got sad. He was upset. It's anthropomorphic, right? We realize that they are anthropomorphic in your own way. God is rather strange, you know. I was reading St. Alphonsus in his first meditations and the passion, you know. You think about him becoming man and then dying, and dying a most shameful death, right, and painful death and so on. It's kind of strange, you know. I mean, since it's so great, from the way we are, I mean, you know, we wouldn't... In the Greeks, the Greeks thought this was foolishness, right? You know, I was thinking, you know, of the way Shakespeare speaks in Hamlet, you know, where Horatio, what happens, how strange it says, and Hamlet says, well, then as a stranger, give it welcome. Pardon? As a stranger, then give it welcome, you know. Oh. Now, whether to be unchangeable be a, what, property of God or be private to God, right? God is the only thing that's really unchangeable. The first, therefore, it proceeds, it seems that to be unchangeable is not private to God, so I would translate it, rather than it's not proper to God, for the philosopher says in the second book of Wisdom, which the rude multitude called the metaphysics, that matter is in everything that is moved, right? But the created substances, such as the angels and souls, do not have matter, right? As seems to some, right? Like the Anishas. Therefore, to be unchangeable is not private to, what, God, huh? Moreover, everything that is moved is moved in account of some end, but therefore has arrived at the last end is not moved. But some creatures have already arrived at the last end as all the blessed. Therefore, some creatures are immobile. And those people who want to go over the action is, what are they going to say about it? There's no motion in. Moreover, everything that is changeable is variable. But forms are invariable, as is said in the book of the six, what, beginnings, huh? Now, I have the book of the six beginnings, huh? But Aristotle, in the categories, he talks about the ten highest January, right? Or distinguishes them. But then he has a chapter both of the substance and one to quantity and one to relation and one to quality. But then he kind of just, you know, leaves the last six. So some thought we ought to say a little bit more about the last six. So this is the book, the six beginnings, huh? Yeah. But form is consisting in a simple and variable essence, it says in that book. Therefore, it is not private only to God to be unchangeable, huh? Again, this is what Augustine says in the book on the nature of the, what, the good. That God alone is unchangeable. But the things that you made, because they are for nothing, they are, what, changeable, huh? Thomas says, I answer, it should be said that God alone is altogether unchangeable. In every way he's unchangeable. Every creature of her in some way is, what, changeable, huh? It should be known that something can be said to be changeable in two ways, huh? In one way through the power or ability which is in it, and another way through the power or ability which is in another. And he says, all creatures before they were, right, were not possible to be through any created power since nothing created was eternal, but only through the divine power in so far as God was able to produce them or bring them forth in being. But just as it depends upon the will of God and that he produced things in being, so also from his will is it, or it also depends upon his will, that he conserve things in their being. For not otherwise does he conserve them in being than by always giving them being. Once if he subtracted his action, all things would return to what? Nothing. As is clear through Augustine in the fourth book upon Genesis to the letter. Thus therefore, it was in the power and the ability of the creator that things would be before they were in themselves. So also is in the power of the creator after they are in themselves, it's also in his power that they not be, right? Don't get on the wrong side of that guy. Get angry. friends before you go to court. Yeah. Thus therefore through the power which is in another to wit in God they are what? Changeable, right? Insofar as by him they are produced from nothing into being, right? And they are able from being to be reduced to what? None being. Now, second part of the dichotomy there, or he's going to speak about now being changeable, not a reason of a power built in another, but in oneself, right? If however something is said to be changeable through a power existing in it, thus also in some way, also every creature is changeable, For there is in the creature a two-fold power to wit the active and the passive. That's the first distinction Aristotle makes it's in the ninth book of wisdom, right? I call that a passive power by which something is able to what? Get to its what? Get to its perfection, right? Either in being or in achieving its end. If therefore one notes the changeableness of a thing according to its power to being, thus not in all creatures is there a what? Mutability. but in those only in which that which is possible in them is also evil or it's compatible with, you might say, right? With none being, huh? Whence in the lower bodies, you know, because it's a special opinion of Aristotle and Thomas about the other bodies, once in the lower bodies is is what what what what is is is what what There is changeableness according to their, what, substantial being. Because the matter of them is able to be with the lack of the substantial form of them. So my matter could lose the substantial form it has right now, my soul, and become the matter of a lion or something, right? If they feed me to the lions or whatever. And also as regards accidental being, right? If the subject is compatible in itself with the, what, lack of the accident. Just as this subject man is compatible in itself with, what, non-white, right? And therefore it can change from white to, what, non-white, huh? My hair is changing from brown to gray or something, okay? Okay, but if it would be such an accident that follows upon the essential principles of the subject, then the privation or lack, using this word, of that accident cannot stand with the subject. Once the subject is not able to be changed according to that accident, just as snow cannot become black. I've never seen our snow in the winter, but... But in the celestial bodies, matter is not, what, compatible with the lack of form because they thought, Aristotle and Thomas following them, that the form perfected the whole, what, ability of matter. So it's not the ability for any other form, right? Okay. We don't necessarily have to follow them in this particular position, right? And therefore, we thought that they are not changeable according to the substantial being, but according to their local being, their being here or there in place. Because the subject is compatible with the lack of this place or that place. Now they can lose this place and go to another place, like the sun goes one place to another. But now the bodiless substances, the incorporeal or bodiless substances, because they are, what, subsisting forms, I don't know about the matter, which nevertheless have themselves to their being as potency to act, right? They do not, not compatible with them, the pervations act, because to be follows upon form, and nothing is corrupted except through the fact that it loses its, what, form. Whence in such a one, the form is not in potency to, what, non-being. Okay? Talking about what it has in itself, huh? Okay? And therefore, these substances are unchangeable and variable according to their being, right? And this is what Dionysius says in the fourth chapter of the Divine Name. See, he's quoting Dionysius and not Augustine, because someone has some kind of spiritual matter, you know, for the angels. Mm-hmm. Dionysius is more clear than that. The intellectual, the created intellectual substances, the angels, right? Munde, they're clean up, huh? Free of generation and from all variation, as being bodiless and immaterial substances. But nevertheless, there remains in them a two-fold mutability, right? One according as their inability to the, what, end, huh? And thus there is in them mutability according to choice, from good to, what, bad, as St. John Daneson says. Another according to place, right? They, insofar as by their, what, limited power, they are able to, what, attain or to act upon certain places, which before they did not attain too much, which cannot be said of God, who by his infinity fills all places, as has been said before. So this piece of place here for the incorporeal substances, is it metaphorical or just like... Well, no, it means they can apply their power to some place then. They can't apply their power to every place, right? So what would you call it, at least a place? Well, it's different from being contained in place, right? Okay? It means that, you know, it's a little bit like what God is said to be everywhere, right? Except they're not everywhere, because their power is not different, right? So they are said to be where they're acting, right? Okay? But that doesn't mean that they're contained in that place, right? Yeah. You see? But there's no connection there between them and the place, huh? So like the place is sort of the object instead of... Yeah, the object of the power, yeah. Instead of the subject. Yeah. But in a sense, you could say, you know, when you act upon something, if I tell you a sad story, I touched your heart, right? Yeah. And it doesn't mean that I can't contact your heart, but my causality was there, right? So it seems in a different sense, huh? The contact of power rather than the contact of my surfaces, right? By the water in here, right? The outer surface of the water and the inner surface of the cup are... Yeah, yeah. But that's a different sense of saying that I touch you with my power, right? When you look at the treatise of the angels, and we're going to get to the angels down here, you'll be talking about that fairly early in the treatise on the angels, huh? And so it's a little way of letting us into these things, huh? Mm-hmm. The Motu Locale Angelorum, question 53, huh? Okay. But question 52, the Comparazione Angelorum at Loca, huh? Mm-hmm. Oh. And Utum Angelis Sittin Loco, right? That's the first article. And just click that for a second to your question here. 52? Yeah, 52 article one. And this is the body of the article. So, I answer it should be said that it belongs to the angel to be in place, but equivoce, right? Oh, that's good. Yeah. The angel is said to be in place, and a body is said to be in place, right? Mm-hmm. A body is in place through this, that there is applied to the place according to the context of its dimensive, what, quantity, right? A dimensive quantity is the name for continuous quantity, right? And you're thinking of the surface of the water here, right? The outer surface of the water, and that's in contact with the inner surface of the place, right? That's not the way the angels are there, actually. So, it's equivoce, huh? Who is that again? Question 52, article one, yeah. Which, as he says, is not in the angels, but there is in them the quantity of what? Power, yeah, virtual quantity. Through the application, therefore, of the angelic power to some place, in any way, the angel is said to be in a bodily place, right? But you obviously use no word in an equivocal sense, huh? Mm-hmm. And according to this, it is clear that it's not necessary to say that the angel is, what, commensurate there locally, that he's measured with the place, right? Or that it has a location in the continuous, huh? But these things belong to the located body, huh? Of course, there's another way in which Christ is here or there, right? In the Eucharist, huh? Mm-hmm. But he's there, not by his own, what, dimensions, huh? But by the dimensions of the bread, the substance he has replaced. That's how he's connected with that place, right? Because that's a very mutual way, right? But it's different than this, and it's different than, obviously, the way you and I are in place now with our bodies. What about the souls in heaven now? Yeah, they're not in place. And they might be able to have some application to, you know, that gives them some power to act upon things. But it'd be like the angels more. If they're in place, it'd be equivocally. So then, sometimes it comes up, they talk about all heaven or purgatory. Is it a place? Is it a state? Yeah. Yeah. So it's very hard for us to understand because we never think without images, right? Right. And therefore, it's a common opinion of the Greeks that whatever it is must be somewhere. And you continue in the place that your body is, right? And if it isn't somewhere, it doesn't exist, huh? But you're being, in a sense, deceived by your imagination. But it's very hard for people to write about the imagination. And, you know, one of the articles there in the De Trinitate of Poethe is there, that Thomas has, you know, one of the articles there in the De Trinitate of Poethe is there, and it's very hard for people to write about it. And it's very hard for people to write about it. And it's very hard for people to write about it. And it's very hard for people to write about it. And it's very hard for people to write about it. And it's very hard for people to write about it. It says you're transcending imagination in talking about God, right? But you have to transcend imagination also in logic, right? And I don't know if you've ever seen my law articles on logic there, but I'll quote the passage in the Parmenides there, you know, where Socrates is imagining universal to be like a sail covering everybody instead of. And if that was the way you imagined, say, the definition of a fractional animal is kind of a sail, well, then maybe one of us had got an animal, one of us got rational. We don't have the whole, you know? Some of us would be a friend. So you're getting a false thing there, right? And you go to the great porphyry, right, in the Isocoge, and the first universal he takes up is the genus, right? And he gives two meanings of genus before that are not the logical meaning, right? And the first two meanings he gives, which Aristotle gives himself, of course, are ones that are, what, more sensible and imaginable. So one sense of genus is a multitude of men who have descended from the same man. And then another sense of genus is that one patriarch, shall we say, from whom the multitude has descended, right? And this is kind of approaching, bit by bit, the idea of the genus, because the genus is going to be something one, said of many, right? And it's not something one like the individual patriarch is. And it's not the multitude itself, but it's something said of the many. And so it's kind of leading you gradually up to see the genus, but you have to eventually move beyond what can be sensed. The universe can only be understood. I was giving the students in the physics there recently that little passage there from Barclay's critique there where he's talking about general ideas. I think I showed it to you guys one time, two deniers back. But it's a nice passage, because he quotes a passage from Locke, right? And Locke is thinking of the universal as kind of a mishmash of the particulars. So it's like, you know, this is the way I get the idea of animal, let's say, in general. I have the image of a dog, image of a cat, image of a horse, an elephant, and I kind of, you know, put these inconsistent images together and make a mishmash, and now I've got this very perfect idea of animal. When actually animal leaves out the differences between dog, cat, and horse, you see. So he's trying to imagine the universal. And it's a little bit like people like Anaxagoras, who imagined matter to be a mishmash, composed of all the things it's able to be. And you've got all these difficulties there, Aristotle shows them, yeah, yeah. But genus, in a way, is to the difference. It's a little bit like matter is to form. So it's a similar difficulty. So we're doing the ninth book in metaphysics there, an act and ability, trying to show how, you know, they can't see the distinction, these two guys, neither Barclay nor Locke. And Locke says it's all none of these. Well, it's all of these in ability, none of them in act. But he can't make the distinction. So I said, these two guys need the book in act and ability. And you go to Descartes, you know, who thinks you can't define motion. There's no way to define it. But you can't define motion through act and ability, so he needs the book in act and ability, too. And it's funny, you know, they don't read their predecessors, you know. So, okay. So that's, so they apply, in other words, their power to one place, right? And then they apply it, maybe, to another place, right? Where God is everywhere. In his infinite power. So that's a kind of change, right? You apply it here and then you apply it there. So, in regard to place, in regard to their end, huh? Thus, therefore, in every creature, there is some potency to change, either according to substantial being, as the corruptible bodies, right? And we can kind of skip the next part there. Or according to place only, as the celestial bodies, or, in these two ways, in the angels, according to their order to the end, right? And also the application of their powers to diverse things, as in the angels. But then, recalling what we said before, and universally, or in general, all creatures are commonly changeable according to the power of the, what? Creator, right? In whose power is to be and not to be of them, right? Right? Okay? So, maybe we should try to oppose him. Do you think it makes any sense to oppose someone who's repeating and unbeating or had his power? But it's interesting, you know, he doesn't show his power the way we might if we had such power. But it was our perfect, you know? He's very patient with it, you know? Once, since God, in none of these ways, is changeable, right? It is private to him, right? It's a property to him, huh? To be altogether, what? Unchangeable, right? Okay. Now, the first objection. Matter isn't everything that is moved, but the created substances, as the angels and the souls, don't have matter, right? Okay. The first, therefore, it should be said that that objection proceeds about what is changeable according to what? Substantial being, to its matter, or accidental. For about such motion, the philosopher is treated, meaning the actual philosophers, I think. Yeah. And just like we use the word science sometimes, you know, meaning what? Natural science, right? You know? We don't need to say, you know, you might think of social science, you can call it a science, but we have to say social science, right? We wouldn't say science, right? It's just a science period if you think of natural science, right? And from the point. Now, the second one here was about the, what? Blessed, right? Okay. So second should be said that the good angels, in addition to or above the unchangeableness of their being, right? Which belongs to them by their very nature, it's going to be not to run. They have unchangeableness of choice from the divine, what? Power, right? Nevertheless, there remains in them changeableness according to place, huh? Okay. Interesting, he says the angels were not the saints. Unless. Well, the objection was what? Interesting, the blessing, I think. Yeah. Okay. But it's similar. By the way, when we get our bodies back, we will have a little gift of agility, is that the same possible, except that. The third objection, huh? About form being this way. To the third, it should be said that forms are said to be invariable because they are not able to be the subject of variation. But they're subject, nevertheless, to variation, insofar as the subject is varied according to them, right? Once it is clear that according as they are, thus they are, what? Varied, huh? But they are not said to be, what? Beings, as it were, the subject of being, but because by them something is, right? So it's not like we're saying that the existing thing is, what, unchangeable, right? Mm-hmm. But that by which it exists is in some sense unchangeable. So, can we go break before we look at the eternity of God? Amen. That's a very fortunate one, those two guys. Yeah. Okay, let's look at question 10 here now. Now notice how this follows upon the unchangeableness of God, huh? Just as time follows upon what? Motion, right? So Aristotle talks about motion in book 3 of natural hearing, and then time in book 4, right? So Thomas talks about the unchangeableness of God and then his eternity, huh? But just as unchangeableness involves negation of what's found in motion, so eternity will involve some negations of what's found in what? Time, huh? We know more what God is not than what he is. So the first thing is, what is eternity, right? The definition of eternity, huh? Then you can ask in the second article whether God is eternal, huh? So we know something about God already, from the articles we said, and then we found what eternity is, and then we see the connection between the two. And then the third one, whether to be eternal, is private to God, right? Okay. And then it goes into what? Three articles that are what? Really? Well, different, right? Amparisons. Yeah. Whether eternity differs from time. Huh? That should be more than clear about the time we get into that article. And then the difference of the, what? The eternity. Yeah. That's something maybe for the angels or something, right? The language is altogether clear, or fixed, I should say. And then whether there is one evum as there is one time and one, what? Eternity, huh? We'll find out what the obscure evum is, huh? The angels have, huh? You can't really imagine your angel, huh? You're going to have something, huh? My old teacher, Kisurk, said you should make an act of will, open up your mind to your guiding angel, huh? That no direction or more, efficaciously. To the first, one proceeds thus. Thus, it seems that this is not a suitable definition of eternal fate, which Boethius lays down in the fourth book of the Consolation of the Colossary. So, do I give you a little copy of it? I think there's a copy of the Consolation of the Colossary. You can have a copy of that in the library. Maybe. I think we have a Latin copy. Yeah. Well, it's better to read a lot to do. There is a pseudo-Thomas commentary on the Consolation of the Colossary. Yes, if you look in the, it's probably in the bar, you know, if you look in there. But it's not in Christ authentic, but it's pretty good. I remember years ago when I taught my brother Mark at St. Mary's College there. He's looking at that because I was teaching that or something. He found it kind of helpful, you know. So, it's not by Thomas, but it's all kind of interesting things. But you would notice, like the Lady Wisdom comes down. She's, of course, represented as a woman in Lady Wisdom. Not only because sapiensia is feminine in Latin, but because a woman is better at consoling. But then her garments are somewhat torn. And this represents the fact that people who have grabbed that wisdom have dismembered it. They've torn it, right? And so, you know, bring out these little subtle things. But you have the theta up here, which represents theoretical philosophy, and the pi for practical philosophy down below. And so the theoretical is put above the practical, just like Mary above Martha, you know, Mary's chosen by her part. And then there's some kind of a pathway up from the lower to the higher. So, that's kind of the tonic, too, you know. Because they thought you should start with the practical philosophy and then ascend to the theoretical. By the rest of the children, they think you do math and natural philosophy before ethics and politics, because of that great experience necessary for ethics and politics. So, it seems there's not a suitable definition of eternity, which Boethius lays down in the fifth book of the Consolation of Philosophy. Because there's a very famous work in the Middle Ages, huh? Chaucer translation. Chaucer did it in the Middle English, and I guess Queen Elizabeth was trying to make a translation of it. Oh, she was? Yeah. And I was reading, if you read Washington Irving's there, the sketchbook there, and he's describing that Scottish prince, you know, that was left, you know, in the tower there in England. And, I tell you, he finally got out. But anyway, he was reading the Consolation of Philosophy. So, he speaks a very reverence of it, you know, in Washington Irving, you know. So, it's a very famous work, huh? You've got these little, you know, kind of poetic things within a prose section, you know. But they're very profound. And it's kind of a mine there of things to dig out, you know. But this is the definition of eternity that he gives. It's the, what, totesimo et perfecta possessio vitae in terminabilis, huh? The, what, all at once, the way you can translate totesima, and perfect possession of unending life. Quite a definition, a hell of a good definition, too, we'll see. But, anyway. Now, he says, you look at the objections here. And a lot of them, you know, will signal out some part of the definition. Concentrate your mind on that. And raise some difficulty about it, and so on. So, he says, in terminabilis, unending, is said, what? Negatively. Negatively. But negation is not of the notion of those things, except of those things which are, what, deficient, right? That are lacking. Which doesn't belong to eternity, right? To be deficient or missing anything, right? Therefore, in the definition of eternity, we're not not to lay down in terminabilis. Because, you know, the bad is, what, always a lack of some sort, right? So, how can this be in there? Moreover, eternity signifies a certain, what, duration, huh? But duration more regards being than life, huh? Therefore, you ought not to lay down the definition of eternity, life, but more being, huh? Should have said the all at once and perfect possession of ending being, not life. Moreover, a whole is what has parts, huh? But this doesn't belong to eternity, since it's simple. Therefore, it ought not to be said tota. I mean, it's less the definition to get two of these objections, right? Okay, let's go to article two, then. Moreover, many days are not able to be together, right? Nor many, what, times, huh? But in eternity, days and times are said in the plural. For it says in the prophet Michias, his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity. And because of the Romans, 16, huh? According to revelation of the mysteries of, what, things, not said, is it, tachite? Today, in eternal, what, times, right? Therefore, eternity is not all at once, huh? Okay? Moreover, whole and perfect are the same thing. And that goes back to the fifth book of wisdom, right? Where, and Aristotle actually said in the physics first, that whole and perfect mean almost the same thing. And so you get to the third group of words there in the fifth book of wisdom. The first word is perfect, and then the ones that are attached to that, and then the word whole, right? Okay? It's going to be almost the same thing. Therefore, having posited tota, or whole, it's a perforous to add that it be, what, perfect. Now you're being redundant there, right? Okay? Moreover, possession does not pertain to duration. But eternity does sit in duration. Therefore, eternity should not be called a, what, possession. So that's an objection against possession, we just saw here, the sixth objection. The fifth objection is against perfect, then. And the, what, totesimo was in the fourth objection. And tota, period, was in the, what, third objection. And vitae was objected to in the second objection. Every single word has got at least one objection against it. But notice how this is very appropriate to a student, huh? Because it concentrates your mind upon every single word. And every single word in the definition is essential. I sometimes say to students, you know, a definition is a little bit like spelling, right? In that, if you leave out one letter in a word, you have misspelled it, and you add one letter that shouldn't be in there, you have misspelled it, and if any letter is out of order, you have misspelled it, right? Now, there's something arbitrary, of course, about how you spell a word, you know, if you know from Shakespeare's inability to spell his own name. But there's some likeness there, right? The definition, it's not arbitrary like the spelling word is, but you leave one little part out, and you, what? You go under a good definition. Yeah, the definition is deficient, or the order of the parts is important, too. It's a very, very precise thing. Okay. Thomas says, I answer. It should be said that it's necessary for us to come to a knowledge of simple things through what? Compose things, huh? Just as it's necessary, right? He stated your general principle there. That's the first state of Aristotle there in the third book on the soul, right? And he takes, for example, even the point in geometry, you have to define it, what? Negative. Yeah. But as you go from the body, say, to the surface, to the line, to the point, the negations increase, right? Because the body is affirmatively defined as that which has length and width and depth. The surface has length and width, but no depth. And then the line has length, but neither width nor depth. And then the point is neither length nor width nor depth. So as you go from the composed to the simple, you have more of what? Negations, huh? And even in that imaginable science, imaginable things there in geometry, right? How much more so when you go to God, huh? So it says, just as we come to a knowledge of simple things through the composed things, and this is really in an aspect of the natural road, huh? So it is necessary for us to come to a knowledge of eternity through time. And then he goes back and recalls the definition of time, which Aristotle thinks out in the fourth book of the physics, which is nothing other than the number of motion according to the before and, what, after in motion. Since in each motion there is succession and one part after another, from this we number the before and after in motion. So the sun is going down the sky, right? And we say it's here and then it's here and then it's here. And you number these before and after, so if you want to make a division there. Or we measure the sun from sunrise to sunrise by the day, by the day like poor, poor, uh, from some crucial, right? And every time the sun rises, every time it sets, whichever he wants to do, he makes a mark on a piece of wood, right? He keeps track of how many days he's been there, right? But one of these circulations is before or after another one, right? So you're numbering the before and after in motion. That's going to be what time is. And that's why the philosopher Aristotle says that there wouldn't be time fully without the numbering soul. There's a way in which there's a number of chairs in this room, even if none of us are in here. And even if none of us have counted the number of chairs in this room, because all these chairs exist together, right? But three days, or even three hours, even three minutes, you never have them existing together. So since our mind has to, what, count yesterday, which doesn't exist anymore, with today and then tomorrow, which doesn't exist yet, and then you have three days, right? You know? And of course we say sometimes, I have three days, I have three hours or something, you know? You know, but do I ever have three days, you know? That's right. I have two weeks of vacation. You know, well, always prior vacation will be gone, and prior vacation still will come, and what do you have? You don't have much of it in time. So, since in any motion there is succession, and one part after another, from this that we number the before and after in motion, we grasp time, right, which is nothing other than the number of the before and after in motion. In that order, which lacks motion, and has itself always in the same way, right, one cannot get or take a before and an after. Just, therefore, as the notion of time consists in the numbering of the before and after in motion, so in the grasping of the, what, uniformity of what is altogether outside of motion consists the notion of, what? Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. What it is is something sensed or imagined, and that's always something composed, whether it be an actual thing or a mathematical thing. So that's our reason's own object, huh? That's why we never think without the image, huh? So if we think about something that cannot be sensed or imagined, that's not continuous, we have to negate. So when we think about God, we imagine a body. But then we think God is not a body. So we negate what we imagine. Now the second objection. Why say vita instead of esse, right? To the second it should be said that that which is truly eternal, not only is a being, but it's what? Living. And to be alive extends itself in some way to operation, not to being. So you have the day animal. You have that ambiguity there about life. We say that for a living thing, to be is to be alive, right? But then what it does is said to be it's what? Life too. So you have that building thing. I wouldn't say, I would say, you know, philosophizing is my life, you know, or I sell a bumper sticker. Music is my life. I must be some musician, huh? But, you know, but it's what I do with my life, right? You know, the month of the day I was getting there towards the end there, you know. I wasn't going to give a teaching, you know, it's just a semi-vis, you know. It's a white role. You know, but it's not his being, right? See, you wouldn't say your being is your life, right? See? But now if I get killed, we'd say I lost my life. Then you're talking about life in the sense of the being of a living thing, yeah? So he's pointing it out. But the extension of duration is more to be noted according to operation, more than according to being, whence time is the number of motion. That's what we're talking about before here, right? You see? Operation, as in English we're doing, it's for operation, right? We saw the likeness between motion and what? Doing, right? So if we're coming to eternity through time, and time is more the, what, measure of motion, right? Then eternity is talking about, what, something like motion, but the doing of God, right? That's eternal. Well, then it's more appropriate to, what, use the word life because that implies the operation as well as, yeah. If you say, is God alive? We'd say, yeah. But would you say that God is alive because he is? No. It's because he understands and wills and loves. And therefore, Thomas won't talk about life here in the substance of God, right? They talk about his, the I am, who am, right? But he talk about his being alive when he gets to talk about his understanding and his, what, will he is. That's what he brings out that he's alive. So, now the third objection, the whole has parts, huh? Now, Thomas says, well, to the third it should be said that eternity is said to be whole, not because it has parts, but in so far as nothing is, what? Left. Now, see, I was translating it, as you do it in English, totesimo, in English would be, what, all at once, right? But all is a little bit like, what, hope, right? But again, we have the sense now of, what, a multitude, huh? When the sense of nothing is, what, lacking, huh? What do we say, God is omnipotent? Omni means what? Yeah, all powerful, yeah. And we say in English, I guess, on the creed, all powerful. Almighty. Yeah, okay. But it all means, you know, well, it's nothing lacking to his powerful, one thing. Right. Okay, so it's not to be understood as something that has parts, huh? Okay. The fourth objection was taken from the prophet Mikias, okay? Talking about the talk about days and so on, eternity. Doesn't it say somewhere in the script, one of the Psalms, your ears, your ears, your ears are unending, huh? Your ears do not fail, doesn't it, about God? Yeah, that's, um, Psalm 101. Okay. And so he's saying, to the fourth it should be said, that as God, since he is incorporeal, by the names of bodily things, he's named metaphorically in scripture, right? Thus, eternity, totusimu existing all at once, is metaphorically named by the, what, successive temporal names, huh? That's a nice time to talk, too, about how our verbs, you know, signify with time. You know, Aristotle, in the periharmonist, the noun, the verb, um, the noun signifies about time, like man or dog, but runs or walks or will walk and so on, signifies with time, right? Well, then how do you talk about eternity, right? But because it's, you might say, co-existence of the part of time, you've carried over the names of each part of time, so now it's eternity, right? You say, God was, and is, and will be, huh? He'll be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, who was in the beginning, is now, and to the beginning, yeah, yeah, yeah, see? Okay, okay, but it's kind of speaking metaphorically, right, huh? Kind of like God himself, at least, right? Um, God always was, and he always will be. But it shows you how, how, uh, was Thomas quoting one of the fathers there? Bill Puttien, though, I think, you know, kind of, uh, stuttering, uh, stuttering what eternity is, huh? Yeah. But I mean, somebody asked me, you know, was God, were you always dead? And I'd say, no, I wasn't always. Uh, was God always? Yeah, God always was. Thomas has a learned discussion there in the commentary on St. John there, why you say, in the beginning, was the word, right? Why that, you know, no verb form would be, you know, adequate to expressing God, right? But why that is better than some of the other ones, right? Okay. Now, the fifth one is talking about whole and perfect being the same, right? Now, to the fifth, it should be said that in time, there are two things to consider. Time itself, which is successive, right? And the now of time, which is imperfect. He says, therefore, totesimo, to removing the, what? Before and after in time, right? And perfect to excluding the, what? Now of time, right? Now, in the last one, the sixth one, the objection is that eternity is duration and not a possession, right? And to the sixth, it should be said that that which is possessed is had in a firm way and at rest, huh? To be designating, therefore, the immutability and inefficiency of eternity, he uses the name, what? Possession, huh? Maybe it's influenced there by Aristotle when Aristotle is describing wisdom, and he says it's not a human possession, right? And, you know, there's four, you know, he takes up the kind of knowledge wisdom is, right? And the first thing he says about wisdom is that it's looking knowledge and not doing knowledge, right? And the second thing he says is it's liberal and not servile. But that doesn't seem to fit the human condition. So he says it's not a human possession, right? And then finding that it's the best, the most honorable knowledge because it's the most godlike knowledge. But when he says it's not a human possession, it doesn't mean that man can't get it at all, but that he can't pursue it. or use it whenever he wants to, right? And so I say to the students, you know, you get a book out of the library, is it your possession? Well, no. It's got a date, it's got to be back and returned and so on. But if I have a book that I possess, anytime I want to, I can go and take the book and use it, right? But wisdom doesn't seem to be that because we have all these practical needs and we can't be always giving ourselves over to wisdom, right? So it's not a human possession, right? You can't have it, you know, you don't have a firm hold upon it, right? Okay. Now, we kind of state that a little bit of what Thomas is doing there. How many negations are there in the definition, you see, of eternity? And sometimes I explain it this way. I say, let's do the definition on the board, you can be sure. We all are at once in perfect possession of and in life. Now, you compare that to our life, right? Okay. Your life and my life. And your life and my life is measured by time, right? So your life and my life has a beginning and an end in time, right? And so you're negating the beginning and the end that our life has in time of the divine life, right? That's one negation, right? He's saying it has no beginning and no end, right? That's one difference in my life and God's life. His life has no beginning and no end, but mine does, right? And then, all at once, right? That's negating the before and after in my life, even when I have my life, right? Okay. So that's the second negation, no before and after. Now, insofar as eternity has no before and after, it resembles the now of time, right? Because the now, in the strict sense, in the strict sense including none of the past, which is not now, and none of the future, the now is indivisible. It's like a point, huh? Dividing two halves of a line. So in the now, in the strict sense, which is between the past and the future, and contains none of the past and the future, there's no amount of time at all, because then the before and after of existing together, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? So, now it seems that eternity resembles, what, the now of time, huh? And the great Boethius, he'll sometimes compare these, he'll say, the now that moves along, and there's always other, makes time, right? Mm-hmm. The now that stands still makes eternity. Mm-hmm. It's a beautiful comparison, see? Because Aristotle says that the now of time, in one way is always the same, in another way always different. Mm-hmm. And as you compare motion in the sense, excuse me, time itself, to motion, because they both have, what, a before and after, right? You can compare the now of time, in a way, to the body in motion, huh? And the body in motion, in a way, is the same throughout the motion, but it's always other and other, because it's here or there, right? And so the now kind of moves forward, right? Always in a different position, so in a way it's always different, right? Mm-hmm. And so, Boethius says the now that flows along, makes time. The now that stands still makes, what, eternity, right? Okay? But there's a difference between the now that, what, flows along, and the now that stands still. And this word, um, possession, I think, could be taken as separating the now that stands still, right, from the now that's always getting away from us, you see? You know, as a child, you're happy, you know, you're always told by your parents, you know, all good things come within. So how happy the birthday moment is, it's tied with a bad weather, right? It never lasts, it's always getting away from us, then. So, here you're negating, in a sense, the, what, always other character of the now, right? Okay? Now, um, if you could stop the now of time, you see? And I always take the, the, the, uh, fairy tales things, you know, where the, the evil mother, stepmother, where it is, cat casts a spell upon the thing, right? And everybody's frozen, you see? And I can certainly remember the pictures in the book, you know, the servants are bringing them to dinner like that, and they're frozen like that, right? So, um, if you could, and they'll stay frozen until the, the Prince Charming shows up and gives the princess a kiss, and then, then they all start to move again. Well, how much life do you have in that frozen now, you know? It's like an ee! You can do that now, you know? And, uh, so it's an extremely imperfect, but, uh, life you have in the, in the now of time, if you could stop it and freeze it at that moment, right? So, this is negating the imperfection, in a sense, of the life we have in the now of time, right? Yeah. And this is negating, to some extent, the, the, uh, always fleeting character of the now, which is always different, you see? Some moments in our life are, are very enjoyable, you know, and you wish they would, they would stay, but they don't, you know? And they're always just getting away from us, you know? So, we can't possess this moment, you know? This great moment, you can't possess it. It's always getting away from you, right? And, uh, but if you could hold on to it, you wouldn't have much time for that. Anyway, so sometimes I try to explain this to us as having, what, four negations, right? But two things are negating, uh, the time, right? The before and after in time, and the beginning and the end that things have in time, and, and two are, in a sense, touching upon, uh, negating the, the fleeting character of our now, although in some respects the now of time resembles the now of eternity, right? And the imperfection of life that you have in the now, what can you do during the now? Why can't you hear a Mozart melody in the now? That did take some time, right? I can't, I can't, uh, drink a glass of wine in the now, I can't have a cup of tea in the now, I can't, I can't do an article of Thomas in the now. It's amazing, I haven't even done it at all. I have no time, but you do anything, um, actually, by any time. So, is it, maybe, you know, you could expect it to, to four negations, huh? It's a beautiful example of the via negatia. Charles de Kahnig, you know when he did the course on time there in the fourth book of the physics? Kind of as a footnote there, at the end of the course he'd do a little bit of eternity, you know? But you'd see, you know, the importance of natural philosophy for understanding, what? Theology, right? The way you should really be taught natural philosophy before theology, right? Um, and what's interesting in the life of Thomas Aquinas is that he went to a university there in Naples, right? You know, before you, that's where you became Dominican finally, you know, but there's a university in Naples. And it's the only place in Europe at the time where the physics was available. Oh, you know, it's kind of a wild place, you know? But I mean, it was coming in, you know, from the, you know, to the Arabs and so on. And it's the only place, so it's kind of interesting to see divine providence, right? That he should have been at the one place we could get the physics at an early age and get it into him and so on. And then, you know, eventually he writes this. But he couldn't have written this without knowing time and the now of time and so on. Now, article two, whether God is, what, eternal, right? Now, article two, whether God is, what, eternal, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right,