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whether it would be possible for a being to be created eternally by God. In the opening passage
of De Aeternitate Mundi, Aquinas uses the subjunctive perfect tense asking “Could the world
have existed forever,” which shows he is interested in a hypothetical question rather than in
investigating whether the world actually is eternal. 38 In Wilk’s analysis . . .
If we are simply characterizing the creative powers of God then it makes sense to say that God
can create something of infinite past duration; but when we discuss the application of those
powers to something that is assumed to have been created a finite time ago, the possibility of
creating it in such a way as to have had infinite past duration is not a closed one. God therefore
has the power of bringing about a beginningless creature, but merely had the power of bringing
about this world as a beginningless creature. 39
The importance of this hypothetical question to Aquinas can be attributed to Aquinas’ conviction
of harmony between faith and reason and the ultimate intellectual irresponsibility of giving
incorrect “proofs” to doctrines of faith which undermine faith by making it seem irrational. 40
Moreover, the possibility of eternal creation is implicit in Aquinas’s understanding of the
permanency of the created universe. 41
38
Wilks, "Aquinas,” 302.
Ibid, 314.
40
Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. L. K. Shook (Toronto: Random House, 1956),
151.
41
Bukowski, “Understanding,” 122.
39
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