IV. To the Arguments for the Second Opinion

     To the arguments for the second opinion.

     To the first I concede that immensity is present to every place, but not to every place actual and potential (as is argued in the first reason against this opinion), and so neither will eternity because of its infinity be present to any non-existent time.

     And from this is plain the example about the stick and the stream. For because the stick does not have that whereby it can be present to all parts of the water, therefore it cannot be immense with respect to them; but the ‘now’ of eternity does have this, as far as concerns its own part, because it would be present to all parts of time if these parts existed.

     The other example ‘about circle and circumference’ is like the opposite one [sc. about the stick and stream]. Because if we imagine a straight line having two end points a and b, let point a be stationary and point b be moved round in a circle (as in the case of a compass where one leg is stationary and the other moves), and let b when moved around cause a circumference as imagined by geometers, who imagine that a moving point causes a line; on this supposition, if nothing were to remain of the circumference from the moving of b, but there is only this point b in the circumference (so that whenever the point ceases to be anywhere there is then nothing of the circumference there), then the circumference is never simultaneously present to the center, but only some point of the circumference would be present to the center; but if the whole circumference were simultaneous, the whole would be present to the center. So here: since time is not a standing but a flowing circumference, of which circumference there is nothing but an instant in act - so nothing of it will be present to eternity (which is as it were the center) save the instant which is as it were the present; and yet if per impossibile one were to posit that the whole of time were standing simultaneously, the whole would be present to eternity as to the center.

     From this is plain an answer to the other argument. When it is said that the ‘now’ of eternity, as it co-exists, does not equal the ‘now’ of time - this is true, because the ‘now’ of eternity is formally infinite, and therefore it formally exceeds the ‘now’ of time; not however by co-existing with another ‘now’. Just as: the immensity of God - present to this universe - is not co-equal with this universe, and so exceeds it formally; but yet it is not anywhere save in this universe.

     From the same point is plain a response to the next: because if the whole of time were simultaneous, eternity would embrace it, - and so I concede that eternity, as it is of itself, has infinity enough for embracing the whole of time if the whole were simultaneous; but however much immensity is posited on the part of one extreme, because of which it could co-exist with however much in the other extreme, since co-existence states a relation between two extremes (and so it requires both), one cannot, because of the immensity of one extreme, conclude to coexistence with the other extreme save only with what exists of the other extreme.

     [Additional note: Hence there is in the argument a fallacy of the consequent, since the argument goes ‘nothing is lost to eternity from the fact that the whole of time is not simultaneous, therefore it can, because of its infinity, be simultaneous with all the parts of time’. For that it is not present to every part of time can be understood for two causes: either because the whole of time is not, or because something is lost to eternity; and in the antecedent one cause is denied - therefore the fallacy follows. Example: although nothing is lost to someone who is white when there is someone else who is white, yet he is never alike unless there is someone else who is white.]

     And therefore all these arguments proceed from what is insufficient, namely from the immensity of eternity, - from which there does not follow a co-existence that states a relation to the other extreme unless something is had in the other extreme that could be the term of co-existence with this foundation; and such cannot be a non-being, of the sort that all time is save the present.