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Eternity vs. infinitely extended duration. Aquinas is very careful in De Aeternitate
Mundi to distinguish between eternity and infinitely extended duration. Apart from the title of
the treatise, he does not use the term eternal but refers to the past infinite duration of the world
with the phrase the world existed forever. 42 Aquinas seeks to distinguish divine eternity from the
possible past infinity of time because of the common objection that the past infinite world would
be like God which is impossible. Aquinas adopts the Boethian definition of eternity: “the
complete possession all at once of illimitable life.” 43 While our existence at every moment lacks
what has already passed and what will come to be, “in God’s existence, nothing has passed away
or is still to come; thus God perfectly possesses his whole existence and because of this God is
more properly said to exist than anything else.” 44 Aquinas derives the divine eternity directly
from divine immutability that is the necessary condition for God to be the First Cause of the
42
Wilks, "Aquinas,” 301.
Brian J. Shanley, "Eternity and Duration in Aquinas." The Thomist 61, no. 4 (1997): 525.
44
Ibid, 533.
43
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