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State of the question. The difficulty arises because no
eternal being has a principle and that which is generated
begins to be. In the first difficulty St. Thomas
quotes the objection of the Arians, who enumerated twelve
kinds of generation in which there is no consubstantiality
or coeternity.
Reply. Nevertheless the reply is that the three persons
are coeternal. This is of faith according to the
Scriptures: "That which was from the beginning, which
we have heard";[575] "I am Alpha and Omega, the
first and the last, the beginning and the
end."[576] In the Athanasian Creed we profess,
"The whole three persons are coeternal together and
coequal." The Fourth Lateran Council also declared
that the three persons are "consubstantial and coequal and
co-omnipotent and coeternal."[577]
The theological explanation throws a great deal of light
on this somewhat obscure doctrine. The explanation is as
follows: The proceeding persons are coeternal with their
principles because they proceed from a principle whose
active power is always perfect by instantaneous action in
the one unique instant of eternity. The intellect and the
will of God are, of course, always in act. Therefore
the divine intellect is never without the Word nor is the
divine will ever without personal love, or the Holy
Ghost.
Reply to the first objection. A vestige of this
coeternity is found in the sun inasmuch as the sun never
lacks its brightness.
Reply to the second objection. Unparticipated eternity
properly so called excludes the principle of duration but
not the principle of origin. Thus the Son originates
from the Father in the one instant of immobile eternity.
This truth is expressed in the words, "Thou art My
son, this day have I begotten Thee."[578]
"Today, " that is, in this one unique instant of
eternity, which is the stable now (nunc stans) and which
is not fluent.
Reply to the third objection. The following principle,
"Everything that is generated begins to be," is not
verified in the Son of God because divine generation is
not a transmutation, nor is it a change from non-being to
being, but it takes place by the communication of
uncreated being itself.[579] Hence the Son is
always generated and the Father always generates, since
the "now" of eternity is not fluent but is immutably
stationary.
Reply to the fourth objection. In time the perduring
time is different from the indivisible fleeting point,
which is the fluent instant, for time is the successive
continuum which is divisible in infinity, whereas the
instant is indivisible like the point that terminates a
line. In eternity, however, this indivisible "now" is
always stable or stationary and therefore there is no
difference between the perduring eternity and this
indivisible point.[580] Since the generation of the
Son is in the "now" of eternity, we can say that the
Son is always being born, or still better that the Son
is always born because the "born" signifies the
perfection of him who is begotten, whereas being born
signifies that which is becoming and is not yet perfect.
A beautiful thesis could be written about this "now" of
eternity in comparison with continuous time, which is the
measure of the apparent movement of the sun, and with the
discrete time of the angels, which is the measure of the
angels' successive thoughts and affections.[581]
Such a thesis could be combined with the doctrine
concerning the life of God inasmuch as eternity is defined
as "the perfect, complete, and simultaneous possession
of interminable life."
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