SECOND ARTICLE: WHETHER THE PROCEEDING PERSON IS COETERNAL WITH HIS PRINCIPAL

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."