Question Three. Whether there is one Aeviternity for all Aeviternals

126. Third I ask whether there is one aeviternity for all aeviternals.

127. That there is not:

First, because then aeviternity would be in a subject upon whose destruction or change all the other aeviternals would change, which seems unacceptable; and likewise, when the others were destroyed, aeviternity would seem to be changed, because an aeviternity with respect to others would not be there.

128. On the contrary:

There is one time for all temporal things (Physics 4.10.218b4-5), so there is one aeviternity for all aeviternal things.

I. To the Question

A. Opinion of Henry of Ghent

129. Here it is said [by Henry of Ghent] that there are as many aeviternities as there are aeviternal things, such that there is in any aeviternal thing some proper indivisible pertaining to the genus of quantity, and from many such one number can be constituted, as was reported before [n.90].

B. Rejection of the Opinion

130. But this opinion seems to posit plurality without necessity. Therefore it seems one should speak against it as was done in the preceding question [n.123]:

That either aeviternity is said to be the actual existence of the aeviternal angel, and in this way there are as many aeviternities as there are angels.

131. Or it is said to be a thing intrinsic to something actually existent and measuring that existence - and in this way it is nothing, as was proved in the preceding question [n.122].

132. Or aeviternity is said to be something extrinsic, different from the actual existence of the aeviternal thing, which extrinsic thing, from the nature of itself, is however of a nature to measure the actual existence of the very aeviternal thing - and then this can be posited in three ways:

Either that one can deny that any such thing is, from the nature of itself, of a nature to measure the existence of the very aeviternal thing, by positing that all aeviternal things have an existence equally invariable, because, although one existence is more perfect than another and, for this reason, can measure it by that sort of quidditative measuring (the way the Philosopher speaks in Metaphysics 10.2.1054a9-11), yet in the case of a measuring of duration - which is in some way reduced to the genus of quantity - no invariable existence seems to be more invariable than another, because a succession of parts within itself is altogether repugnant to any of them; and then one should say that, since aeviternity is posited as the measure of something insofar as this something endures unvaried, and since the extrinsic measure should, from the nature of the thing, be more known in idea of invariability, and since there is no such difference [sc. in idea of invariability] among existences of aeviternal things, then nothing will be thus an aeviternity.

133. Or one can say in another way that any superior existence is simpler than any inferior existence, and is of a nature, from the nature of the thing, to give certainty about that inferior existence, and to this extent any existence of a superior could be called aeviternity in respect of an inferior; and then there will be as many aeviternities as there are aeviternal things, excepting that there is no aeviternity in the last aeviternal thing since its existence does not measure any other invariable existence; and likewise the existence of the highest angel is only an aeviternity with respect to the other inferior angels, because his invariable existence measures all the others and does not have himself any aeviternity in this way, because he has no other existence above him.

134. Or one can say in a third way that, if aeviternity is not said to be any existence simpler than another and to be of a nature to give certainty about it, but is said to be the simplest existence which, by its own formal idea and in itself, is most certain and is first known and of a nature to give certainty about the others - and in this way one can say that there is only one aeviternity, namely the existence of the first angel with respect to all the other aeviternals.

135. Now whichever of these ways [nn.130-34] is posited, there is not in any aeviternal its own aeviternity [n.129]; nor is there in the last aeviternal any aeviternity

[n.133] - nor is the one in which is the first aeviternity measured by any aeviternity [n.133], because it has nothing such in itself (from the preceding question [nn.122-23]) -nor is aeviternity in any other aeviternal from the nature of it, because any other [sc. being inferior to the first] is less certain.

C. Instance

136. Against this [n.135]:

Because then it would follow - if this is so [sc. if the first angel is not measured by any aeviternity] - that the first motion will not be measured by time, just as the first aeviternal is not measured by aeviternity; for the comparison seems to be similar on this side as on that.

137. The consequent [sc. the first motion is not measured by time] is conceded for this reason, that - according to the rule in Physics 4.12.221a26-b5 - everything that is in time ‘is exceeded by time and is corrupted and wastes away in time’; and thus necessary and impossible things are not in time. Therefore the first motion (which is not corrupted in time nor exceeded by it) is not in time nor measured by time.

D. Response to the Instance

138. But this reason is not valid, because ‘something’s being in time is like something’s being in number’ [Physics 4.4.12.221a17-18], but it is not of the idea of a being existing in number that it be exceeded by number - rather, if the first numbered thing is taken (that is, the adequate one), it is equal to number itself; but it is of the idea of the first numbered thing that a part of it is exceeded by number, because the whole is greater than its part and the whole is equal to the number; therefore part of it is exceeded by number.

139. Therefore I say about an entity in time that, from the fact any such entity is of necessity variable according to its varying being, it must be that in accord with something of itself - namely in accord with some discreteness which it has on the part of time - it is exceeded by time, because it will be disposed differently in a different part of time; and for this reason it is that impossible and necessary things ‘are not in time’ [n.137], because there is no difference of disposition in them so that they could be exceeded by time or be differently disposed. But the first motion, although not in its totality exceeded by time, yet is exceeded by time as to some part of itself, and this suffices for it to be truly said to be measured by time; and it seems unacceptable that time, since it is a uniform measure, should not have some first uniform measured thing.

140. And then to the argument [n.136]:

I deny the consequence [sc. if the first angel is not measured by aeviternity, then the first motion is not measured by time], because the reason is not the same here as there. For if the first motion is measured by time, this is either because motion is posited to be something other than time (because of the reason set down above, from the Physics, n.85), or because, by positing time to be the same as motion, that motion can measure itself (not indeed first, but it measures the whole by the part of it that is known, as the Philosopher says in Physics 4.12.220b32-1a4, “Time measures motion itself by determining some motion that will afterwards measure the whole motion, as a cubit measures length by determining some length that will measure the whole”); but neither reason is found in the issue at hand, because there is not anything in the first aeviternal thing other than its existence, nor is its own very existence an extension, or a quantum, that could measure itself by some known part of itself [n.122].

II. To the Principal Arguments

141. To the first principal argument [n.127] I say that, on the destruction of the first aeviternal, it does not follow that the other ones are changed save as to a certain relation in them (namely that then they will not be measured by the first aeviternal as they were before), and it is not unacceptable to posit such a change in something that before had the relation. Likewise, as to the inference that ‘the first aeviternal will be changed when the others are destroyed’ [n.127], I say that this does not hold, because the first aeviternal before did not have a real relation to the others but only a relation of reason, because it is not a measure dependent on the measured thing but exceeding it; and so, upon the destruction of the others, it will not be changed absolutely or according to any real relation, because there was no real relation to them in it before.

142. As to the argument for the opposite [n.128], one can say that, when speaking of aeviternity as it states something extrinsic different from the measured existence of the angel [n.132], the first opinion alone denies an aeviternity in this way [sc. one aeviternity for all aeviternals], but the second and third concede that there is one aeviternity, although the second does not concede that there is only one [nn.132-34]. And then if you argue that ‘there is only one time for all temporals, therefore there should be only one aeviternity for aeviternals’ [n.128], the consequence is not valid, because not every superior motion has, from the nature of the thing, the idea of measure with respect to an inferior motion, nor does it, from the nature of the thing, have the conditions of a measure the way any superior existence, speaking of the invariable existences of angels, has with respect to an inferior one; and so the reason here and there is not alike, that just as only one time exists there for all temporals so one aeviternity should exist here for all aeviternals.