Monologium, on the Being of God24 Chapter XXIV. How it is better understood to exist always than at every time.
Chapter XXIV. How it is better understood to exist always than at every time.
It is also evident that this supreme Substance is without beginning and without end; that it has neither past, nor future, nor the temporal, that is, transient present in which we live; since its age, or eternity, which is nothing else than itself, is immutable and without parts. Is not, therefore, the term which seems to mean all time more properly understood, when applied to this Substance, to signify eternity, which is never unlike itself, rather than a changing succession of times, which is ever in some sort unlike itself?
Hence, if this Being is said to exist always; since, for it, it is the same to exist and to live, no better sense can be attached to this statement, than that it exists or lives eternally, that is, it possesses interminable life, as a perfect whole at once. For its eternity apparently is an interminable life, existing at once as a perfect whole.
For, since it has already been shown that this Substance is nothing else than its own life and its own eternity, is in no wise terminable, and does not exist, except as at once and perfectly whole, what else is true eternity, which is consistent with the nature of that Substance alone, than an interminable life, existing as at once and perfectly whole?
For this truth is, at any rate, clearly perceived from the single fact that true eternity belongs only to that substance which alone, as we have proved, was not created, but is the creator, since true eternity is conceived to be free from the limitations of beginning and end; and this is proved to be consistent with the nature of no created being, from the very fact that all such have been created from nothing.
Eamdem quoque summam substantiam constat sine principio et sine fine esse; nec habere praeteritum, aut futurum, nec temporale, hoc est, labile praesens, quo nos utimur, quoniam aetas sive aeternitas ejus quae nihil aliud est quam ipsa, immutabilis et sine partibus est. Nonne ergo semper quod videtur designare totum tempus, multo verius (si de illa dicitur) intelligitur significare aeternitatem, quae sibi ipsi nunquam est dissimilis, quam temporum varietatem, quae sibi ipsi semper est in aliquo non similis. Quare si dicitur semper esse, quoniam idem est illi esse et vivere; nihil melius intelligitur, quam aeterne esse vel vivere, id est, interminabilem vitam simul perfecte totam obtinere. Videtur enim ejus aeternitas esse interminabilis vita simul perfecte tota existens. Cum enim supra jam satis liqueat quod eadem substantia non sit aliud quam vita sua, et aeternitas sua; nec sit aliquo modo terminabilis, nec nisi simul et perfecte tota, quid aliud est vera aeternitas, quae soli illi convenit, quam interminabilis vita simul et perfecte tota existens? Nam vel hoc solo, veram aeternitatem soli inesse illi substantiae, quae sola non facta, sed factrix esse inventa est, aperte percipitur; quoniam vera aeternitas principii finisque meta carere intelligitur: quod nulli rerum creatarum convenire, eo ipso quod de nihilo factae sunt, convincitur.