A. Arguments for the Opinion

12. And for this opinion there is argument in four ways:

First on the part of conservation. And the reason is founded on the authority of Augustine Literal Commentary on Genesis 8.12 n.26, where he maintains that “as air is not a having been made to be bright, but a continual being made bright, in respect of the sun (otherwise the air would remain bright in the absence of the sun), so is the creature disposed in respect of God;” and again (ibid. 4.12 n.22), Augustine maintains that God is not disposed in respect of the creature the way the builder is disposed in respect of the house.

13. And from this an argument is made as follows: if the creature in respect of God is not a having been made in its being by God but is as it were formally in a state of becoming, then it is always formally being posited in being by God - and so its creation in being is as continuously from God as it is continuous in persisting.

14. The point is confirmed, because ‘to conserve’ is not merely not to destroy but is some positive action of God’s (otherwise one who does not close a window would be said to be conserving light; similarly, ‘to annihilate’ would then be a positive act, which is false, because ‘to annihilate’ is ‘to non-act’); therefore to conserve is to act.

15. This is also plain from the following, that no creature is independent in its existence, because neither is any creature pure act; therefore a creature depends for existence continually on its cause, and not just on a cause that has given it being and is not giving it now, because then ‘to conserve’ would be nothing other than to have acted before and not to be destroying now.

16. If all these things be conceded, that God in conserving does something positive as regards the creature, yet not by any continuous action (because there is no form in him according to which continuation of action could be assigned), nor even by different actions one after the other, but always by the same action - then, on the contrary: by this causation there is not had formally and ultimately that which, when this causation is in place, can possibly not be had (my proof for this is that a cause causing by this causation is a cause that is ultimate and applied to producing an effect in existence; therefore if the non-existence of the effect can stand along with this cause, then existence does not seem to be had ultimately by this causation); but when this causation, by which an angel was produced in existence, is in place, the angel can possibly not have existence tomorrow; so he will not formally by this causation have existence tomorrow; and he does have existence; therefore by some other causation.

17. If you say that from the first causation he does not have existence along with coexistence in time tomorrow, but that for this there is required the ‘existence of the future’ (and so, when the future then exists, this ‘reason of the future’ is the reason of coexistence for the angel) - on the contrary: this is how it is in eternity, that eternity does not have coexistence with time insofar as coexistence is coexistence.a Likewise, not only can an angel, when ‘causation of the future is not in place’, not have existence with the future, but he can even not have the foundation of the coexistence, namely existence absolutely; therefore he does not have ‘existence absolutely’ from such coexistence.

a.a [Interpolation] but only when time coexists with it; and so, if this were the cause, aeviternity and eternity would not differ.

18. Again, second: if an angel’s existence is simple, then just as God cannot make an angel not to have been, so neither can he make an angel not to be going to be.

19. There is a confirmation of the reason, that in eternity there are no true contradictories about the divine will, and neither is there divine volition in respect of contradictories as they are contradictories; but God could in eternity have willed to create some angel and to annihilate him; therefore he willed him to be and willed him not to be. Therefore some conditions on the part of being and not being must be found here so that they are not contradictories. But there seems to be nothing capable of being assigned to take away the contradiction save diverse ‘nows’ (namely, that God willed the angel to be at now a and not to be at now b); so it was incompossible for God to will to create an angel and to annihilate the same angel unless he willed the former and the latter to be at diverse ‘nows’; but God could have willed the former and the latter without any respect to time; therefore it must be possible to understand one now and another now on the part of the angel without any respect to time; this otherness can only be of the ‘nows’ of aeviternity; therefore etc.

20. The third way of argument is from infinity - because from the fact an angel will persist infinitely with the whole of future time, then, if he has now the whole duration that he will always have, he has now formally infinite duration.

21. There is confirmation of this in that the ‘now’ that is of itself such that it can coexist with the infinite is formally infinite - just as an angel, if he had in himself wherewith he was able to coexist with every place, would be infinite in place.

22. And if you say that this is not true unless the angel has of himself wherewith he can coexist - on the contrary: although he does not have of himself wherewith, as thus coexisting, he may possess infinity, yet, just as he formally has wherewith he does thus coexist, so he seems to be formally an infinite thing - just as if he had wherewith he might be present to every place (actual and potential), although he would have this from God effectively, yet he would be formally immense; and although his immensity would not be equal to the divine immensity in intensity, yet it would be equal to it in extension, such that God could be nowhere in his immensity save where the angel could be.

23. There is a confirmation for this reason too, that the negation of a negation is the assertion of the affirmation - therefore the negations of infinite negations assert infinite affirmations, or one infinite affirmation formally; but an angel, being possessed of this simple coexistence, has from it the negations of infinite negations (‘he does not exist with the infinite moments of time’); so he has from it infinite affirmations, or one infinite affirmation formally.

24. The fourth way is from the order of the things that come to be in aeviternity; for an angel could have been created not a sinner but innocent, and could afterwards have sinned or not sinned, with all time abstracted away; so this angel was innocent before he was a sinner; therefore there is in his existence ‘before’ and ‘after’.

25. Likewise, an angel could have been first created and afterwards at once annihilated, and another angel later created; the first angel never existed when the second existed, and so was not in the same ‘now’ as the second was; therefore the first was before and the second was afterwards (because if they existed, and not together, then one after the other). So if some other angel had existed along with both of them, there would have been ‘before’ and ‘after’ in his existence, just as the existence of one of them was before the existence of the other of them.

26. Authorities for this position [n.11] are:

Augustine Confessions 11.14 n.17, “The now of time, if it always stood and did not flow, would not be time but eternity;” and he seems there to be speaking of the true eternity of God, by expounding the verse of Psalm 101.28, “But you are yourself the same and your years, etc.”

27. Further, Literal Commentary on Genesis 4.12.n.23, “But as to his saying (John 5.17), ‘My Father works until now’, it signifies continuation of work;” and Augustine proves this by adding, “For he could be understood otherwise if he said ‘works now’ (where it would not be necessary for us to take it as continuation of work), but he compels us to understand it differently when he says ‘until now’, namely from then on -when he was making all things - he has been working.”

28. Further, Boethius On the Trinity ch.4 says that although, according to the philosophers, one could say of the heavenly bodies and spirits that they always are, yet there is a great difference; ‘being always’ in God is always present, not a running ultimately through eternity.

29. Further, Damascene Orthodox Faith ch.15, “The term ‘age [saeculum]’ means what is always being extended with eternal things, as space etc.”

30. Further, Gregory Morals 27.7 n.11 (on the remark in Job 36.26, ‘the number of his years is without reckoning’) says of the angels, “In them we discern a beginning when we turn our mind backwards etc.”

31. Further, Anselm Proslogion ch.20 speaking to God says, “You pass through all things, even eternal ones, because your eternity and theirs is all present to you, since they from their eternity do not have what is future as neither what is past.”

32. Further, Jerome To Marcella [rather Isidore Etymologies 7.1 n.12] , “Only God does not know ‘has been’ or ‘will be’.”