The Eternity of God

31 JANUARY 2013. I will do this from time to time. Some may know, that I have enrolled and am taking classes (by distance learning) at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut, in pursuit of a Master of Arts in Theology. For those who have not taken a look at the college's online course offerings, I would encourage you to do so. Tuition is more reasonable than others and the school offers a solidly  Catholic education in accordance with Ex Corde Ecclesiae, and has even won the recommendation of the Cardinal Newman Society.

This week's assignment in One and Triune God (the basic master's level course on the Trinity) was to summarize portions of the Summa Theologica, including portions on the eternity of God. This work of St. Thomas Aquinas is striking is many ways, but the concept of God's eternity, as explained by the great Saint, is an awesome portrait of God.

Below is my summary of Summa Theologica 1, Question 10, Articles 1-4. The Eternity of God.

1. What is eternity? Eternity is that which has no beginning or end and which is perfect in all ways simultaneously because it has no succession. There is no before or after in eternity because eternity is outside of movement, and thus outside of potentiality. As such, eternity is absolute infinity and perfection, being simultaneously whole because it is wanting in nothing.

2. Is God eternal? God is eternal. As God is immutable—not subject to change—He is not subject to movement and time, which is continuous change. As God is infinite, which we have learned, He has no beginning and no end; He is unlimited and boundless. Thus, God must be eternal. As the great Saint says: “Nor is He eternal only; but He is His own eternity; whereas, no other being is its own duration, as no other is its own being. Now God is His own uniform [perfect] being; and hence He is His own essence, so He is His own eternity.” And, “[e]ternity is nothing else but God Himself.”

3. Does it belong to God alone to be eternal? Only God is eternal. Because God is immutable and infinite, being without beginning or end, and only God is without beginning, it is proper only to God to be eternal. Some items of creation are called eternal, e.g., the hills are eternal (Psalm 75:5), because of the length of their duration and still other creation, e.g., angels share in the nature of eternity as they possess unchangeableness in being or operation. However, only God is eternal as being without beginning. All creation comes from God. The great Saint answers the three objections to this in this way. First, although there are said to many eternities, creation shares in eternity in its contemplation of God. Second, hell is not eternal, but exists in time. Third, the true and necessary are eternal, but only because they exist in the eternal mind—the divine intellect of God. Eternity is identified, then, with the essence of God.

4. Does eternity differ from time? Eternity is not the same as time. Eternity is a simultaneous whole, while time always has a “before” and “after.” While time has a beginning and eternity does not, this does not fully explain the difference between the two. The great Saint describes the difference this way “eternity is the measure of a permanent being; while time is a measure of movement.” Time, too, has potentiality because the beginning and the end are potentialities. Eternity is an immutable, infinite now; eternity is pure actuality. While time is not so. The “now” of time, for example, refers to what is moveable, but the “now” of eternity is perfect, unchangeable, and infinite. Eternity is the measure of a perfect being, while time is the measure of movement. We can know the meaning of eternity, but cannot really picture it because we and all that we know in creation are subject to time—not just that which changes, but that which is changeable. Thus, time and eternity are necessarily different and even opposed to one another.

The Year of Faith

14 OCTOBER 2012. In these first days of the year of faith, I will begin a prayer effort that Catholics take more advantage of the opportunities to truly learn the depth and beauty of the faith from reasoned truth.

As St. Thomas Aquinas taught, while God reveals articles of faith to us through Divine revelation, some of those articles of faith can be learned without the benefit of Divine revelation (e.g., the existence of God, who was discovered by Aristotle, although Aristotle did not call Him by the name of the Israelites--I am) and some of those articles of faith cannot be penetrated by the human mind and can only be known by Divine revelation (e.g., the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation). For the endeavors of the faithful in this Year of Faith, how better to engage with the Church than to truly explore this integrative relationship of faith and reason?

Stay tuned . . . .

-3OP-

A Prayer of Saint Thomas Aquinas

28 JANUARY 2012. Today the Church and our Order celebrates the feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Grant me, O Lord my God,
a mind to know you,
a heart to seek you,
wisdom to find you,
conduct pleasing to you,
faithful perseverance in waiting for you,
and a hope of finally embracing you.

Amen.

IMAGE: St. Thomas Aquinas in Prayer, Sassetta (1430-1432).

The Holy Father's Catecheses Continued: Saint Thomas Aquinas

23 JUNE 2010. Today the Holy Father concluded the third of his catecheses on Saint Thomas Aquinas. Highlights of his second catechesis in the series can be found here, and the first can be found here. From the Vatican Information Service, we receive this report:

The Holy Father explained how St. Thomas' masterpiece, the "Summa Theologica", contains 512 questions and 2,669 articles in which the saint "precisely, clearly and pertinently" outlines the truths of faith as they emerge from "the teachings of Holy Scripture and of the Fathers of the Church, especially St. Augustine". This exertion "of the human mind was always illuminated - as St. Thomas' own life shows - by prayer, by the light that comes from on high.

"In his 'Summa'", the Pope added, "St. Thomas starts from the fact that God exists in three different ways: God exists in Himself, He is the principle and end of all things, so all creatures come from and depend upon Him. Secondly, God is present through His Grace in the life and activity of Christians, of the saints. Finally, God is present in a very special way in the person of Christ, and in the Sacraments which derive from His work of redemption".

"St. Thomas dedicates special attention to the mystery of the Eucharist, to which he was particularly devoted", said Benedict XVI, encouraging people "to follow the example of the saints and love this Sacrament. Let us participate devotedly in Mass in order to obtain its spiritual fruits; let us feed from the Body and Blood of the Lord that we may be incessantly nourished by divine Grace; let us pause willingly and often in the company of the Blessed Sacrament".

The Holy Father went on: "What St. Thomas explained with academic rigour in his main theological works such as the ' Summa Theologica' was also expressed in his preaching", the content of which "corresponds almost in its entirety to the structure of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Indeed, in a time such as our own of renewed commitment to evangelisation, catechism and preaching must never lack the following fundamental themes: what we believe, i.e., the Creed; what we pray, i.e., the Our Father and the Ave Maria; and what we live as biblical revelation teaches us, i.e., the law of the love of God and neighbour and the Ten Commandments".

"In his brief 'Devotissima expositio super symbolum apostolorum', St. Thomas explains the importance of faith. Through it, he says, the soul is united to God, ... life is given a clear direction and we can easily overcome temptations. To those who object that faith is foolish because it makes us believe something that does not enter into the experience of the senses, St. Thomas offers a very detailed response, claiming that this is an inconsistent objection because human intelligence is limited and cannot know everything.

"Only if we were able to have perfect knowledge of all things visible and invisible would it be foolish to accept truth out of pure faith", said the Pope. "Moreover, as St. Thomas observes, it is impossible to live without entrusting ourselves to the experience of others, when our personal knowledge does not extend far enough. Thus it is reasonable to have faith in God Who reveals Himself, and in the witness of the Apostles".

Commenting on the article of the Creed concerning the incarnation of the Divine Word, St. Thomas says that "the Christian faith is reinforced in the light of the mystery of the Incarnation; hope emerges more trustingly at the thought that the Son of God came among us as one of us, to communicate His divinity to mankind; charity is revived because there is no more evident sign of God's love for us than to see the Creator of the universe Himself become a creature", said the Holy Father.

"St. Thomas, like all saints, was greatly devoted to the Blessed Virgin", Pope Benedict concluded. "He gave her a stupendous title: 'Triclinium totius Trinitatis'; in other words, the place where the Trinity finds repose because, thanks to the Incarnation, the three divine persons dwell in her as in no other creature, and experience the delight and joy of living in her soul full of Grace. Through her intercession we can obtain any kind of help".

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Saint Thomas Aquinas

28 JANUARY 2010. Today we celebrate the Feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas, friar, priest and doctor of the Church.

Born in A.D. 1225, Saint Thomas was born into a military and noble family. From an early age Thomas was given a good education and in about A.D. 1239 Thomas was enrolled at the university in Naples. At the age of 19, Thomas resolved to enter the Dominican Order. His family was strongly opposed to this, and his two brothers even went so far as to hire a prostitute to dissuade him. But, Thomas drove her away with a burning stick. Later that night, Thomas was visited by two angels that strengthened his determination to remain celibate.

In A.D. 1245 Saint Thomas went to Paris to study at the university there and came under the tutelage of Saint Albert the Great. When Saint Albert was sent by his superiors to found a new university in Cologne, Saint Thomas went and was an apprentice professor there and, after a while, Saint Thomas returned to Paris to complete his studies for his masters degree in theology.

In the Spring of A.D. 1256, Saint Thomas was appointed regent master in theology at Paris and was assigned the work of defending the mendicant orders against the attacks of William of Saint-Amour. During his tenure as regent Saint Thomas wrote many works and began to work on one of his more famous works, the Summa contra Gentiles.

In A.D. 1259 Saint Thomas returned to Naples where he remained until going to Orvieto in September 1261. In Orvieto, Saint Thomas was named the conventual lector, in charge of the education of friars that were unabvle to attend university. As conventual lector Saint Thomas continued to produce many works, including authoring a liturgy for the newly created feast of Corpus Christi. In A.D. 1268 the Dominicans again named Saint Thomas as regent master at Paris, a post that he held until A.D. 1272. During this second regency, Saint Thomas had a difficult time, including disputes with Saint Bonaventure and John Peckham. As regent, now a second time, Saint Thomas was assigned with the task of combatting radical Aristotelianism.

In A.D. 1272 Saint Thomas left Paris because he was given the opportunity to establish a university anywhere he choose. With the first two parts of the Summa Theologica completed, Saint Thomas returned to Naples to begin a university. On 6 December 1273 Saint Thomas laid aside his pen and would write no more. That day Saint Thomas experienced a long ecstasy that began while he was saying mass. His comment, to those who tried to persuade him to continue working, was this: "I can do no more. Such secrets have been revealed to me, that all I have written now appears to be of little value."

Following this, Saint Thomas took to his bed and never fully recovered his health. Called to attend the Second Council of Lyon by Pope Gregory X, Saint Thomas was injured in route and went to Monte Cassino to recuperate. After a while, Saint Thomas continued the journey, but fell ill again at the Cistercian Fossanova Abbey. The monks there cared for Saint Thomas, who died on 7 March 1274 while dictating a commentary on the Song of Songs.

Fifty years after the death of Saint Thomas, Pope John XXII, sitting in Avignon, France, canonized Thomas on 18 July 1323. Pope Pius V declared Saint Thomas to be a Doctor of the Universal Church in A.D. 1567. At the Council of Trent, Saint Thomas was given the honor of having his Summa Theologica placed beside the Bible and the Decretals on the altar. And, during Vatican Council I, Saint Thomas was declared the "teacher of the church." The celebration of the Feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas is held on January 28 to mark the date of the transfer to Saint Thomas' mortal remains to the Dominican church in Toulouse.

The great body of Saint Thomas' work is supremely important in the fields of theology and philosophy and influenced much of Church teaching since that time. As an example, Saint Thomas teaches that the goal of human life is union and fellowship with God. This teaching should be recognizable by anyone that has studied the Baltimore Catechism. Although Saint Thomas lived less than 50 years, he authored more than 60 works with his own hand or through dictation to his secretaries.

A Prayer for Guidance

By Saint Thomas Aquinas

1225-1274

O creator past all telling,
you have appointed from the treasures of your wisdom
the hierarchies of angels,
disposing them in wondrous order
above the bright heavens,
and have so beautifully set out all parts of the universe.

You we call the true fount of wisdom
and the noble origin of all things.
Be pleased to shed
on the darkness of mind in which I was born,
The twofold beam of your light
and warmth to dispel my ignorance and sin.

You make eloquent the tongues of children.
Then instruct my speech
and touch my lips with graciousness.
Make me keen to understand, quick to learn,
able to remember;
make me delicate to interpret and ready to speak.

Guide my going in and going forward,
lead home my going forth.
You are true God and true man,
and live for ever and ever.