B. Arguments against the Opinion

33. Against this position [n.11] the argument is made that it involves a contradiction, because where succession is, there before and after are - and these are not together, but when what is after arrives, what was before falls away, and consequently what was before grows old and what comes after is new.

34. And if the succession is supposed to exist in the measure without newness coming to be in the measured - an argument against this is that, according to the Philosopher Physics 4.11.219a10-29, ‘before’ and ‘after’ in time are because of ‘before’ and ‘after’ in motion, such that if there were no different stages in motion there would not be ‘before’ and ‘after’ in time; therefore, by similarity, if there is no new existence in what is aeviternal (nor any newness in it), there will be no distinction between ‘before’ and ‘after’ in the measure of it.

35. This is confirmed by the Philosopher in Metaphysics 10.1.1053a18-27, because a measure should be of the same genus as the measured, such that, if the measure is divisible, so too is the measured; this is also proved by the fact that the indivisible (insofar as it is indivisible) cannot be measured by the divisible.

36. Further, if the ‘now’ of aeviternity passes away and does not always remain the same, this cannot be because of a defect in the subject, because the subject for you remains the same; nor can this be posited because of some corrupting cause, because it does not seem that any corrupting cause can be assigned. Therefore the ‘now’ does not pass away. It is otherwise with the ‘now’ of time, because its proximate subject (or the proximate measured thing) passes, namely change.

37. Further, if there is here some newness and some remaining with respect to the same thing, then it properly changes, because it is disposed differently now than before; but the measure of change is the ‘now’ of time; therefore to the extent aeviternity is posited as being measured by the ‘now’ of aeviternity, it will be measured by the ‘now’ of time.

38. On behalf of this view are the authorities of Blessed Augustine City of God -look there.11.31, “The holy angels have an eternity of persistence...”, 12.15 n.2, “...the immortality of the angels does not pass in time, nor has it gone by (as if now it were not) nor is it in the future (as if it not yet were).” ¹¹