Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through the doctrine of God and we’ve been using the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas as our guide. Those who do not have a copy of the Summa can read it at newadvent.org. We are going to start tonight discussing the eternity of God. Before we do that, I have my prayer requests. First off, I ask for prayer for my Christlikeness. Second, I ask for prayers for my financial situation. Finally, I ask for prayers for a third related area in my life.
This is one of the times where the term is defined. We seem to have a difficulty with eternity. We can think of infinity. We can think of goodness. Immutability is no problem. However, what does eternal mean? We are so bound by time that we cannot seem to think of anything outside of it.
Centuries before Aquinas, the Christian philosopher Boethius wrote a book called “The Consolation of Philosophy.” Boethius defined eternity in this book as “The simultaneously-whole and perfect possession of interminable life.” If anyone hasn’t read this book, I do recommend you get it. There is some fascinating philosophy in that.
But is this a good definition? After all, interminable is a negative term, and negative terms don’t belong to what is without defect. Aquinas answers however that we understand the essences by negating what they are not. The negation is not in the essence but in the understanding. Infinite is really a negative term. It means “Without limits. It’s not saying the essence is negative or with defect however.
What about eternity describing a duration? Duration regards being rather than life. Therefore, the idea of life should not be in this definition. However, Aquinas says that what is eternal is not just being but also living and there are things that are that are not living. God however is eternally living and he is eternal. Therefore, life is a valid term to use.
A whole is that which has many parts. How can eternity be a whole then as eternity has no parts? However, Aquinas says it is called whole not in the sense of having parts, but in the sense of lacking nothing.
Scripture also speaks of many days and times together. The goings forth of Christ are from eternity, from the days of old, in Micah 5:2. Therefore, not all of eternity is simultaneous. However, Aquinas argues that this is metaphorical language. It is putting the events of eternity, if they could even be called such, in ways we can understand.
It is superfluous to call it whole and perfect as the two statements mean the same thing. However, Aquinas says whole is used to describe the succession of time. Perfect is used to describe the now of time. The usage of both is to put God on an altogether separate field.
Duration also does not imply possession, but eternity is a kind of duration, so it is not possession. This is a term however used to describe the holding of eternity immutably. The one who does this is changeless.
For our purposes, Aquinas gives us the further idea that time is the number of movement with regards to before and after. God is eternal, and therefore, there is no before and after in him.
We shall begin unpacking this tomorrow.
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