But against this there are innumerable authorities in both the old and the new law; but it is shown by reason .
1. For "relatives are simultaneous by nature"; Father and Son are truly relatives, and Spirator and Spirit: therefore they are simultaneous by nature: if therefore any of the persons is eternal, since the others are simultaneous by nature, it is necessary that all be eternal. And that this follows is manifest, because in God relation cannot be an accident nor something coming from elsewhere on account of the supreme simplicity: it is necessary therefore that they have every kind of simultaneity.
2. Again, the paternal mind simultaneously was and understood, because its being is its understanding, nor does anything precede by nature or by any duration; but in the mind, to understand is to take a word from itself: therefore it simultaneously was and begot the Word. But the Word cannot exist except as pleasing and loved, therefore also as connected to the lover: therefore if the divine understanding stands together with eternity, then also eternity with the trinity.
3. Again, it pertains to the nobility of power to produce quickly: whence some things produce in an imperceptible time, some things suddenly, some things simultaneously in duration, though posterior in nature: and all these are found in creatures: if therefore the divine power is most powerful, altogether surpassingly exceeding created power: therefore it is so able to produce and will produce, that what is produced is simultaneous in nature with the one producing.
4. Likewise, the Father can communicate deity and omnipotence to the Son, otherwise He would not be the Son; but deity is eternity itself, nor can one be God unless one is eternal; therefore the first person can communicate eternity to the others; therefore trinity and eternity can stand together.
5. Likewise, uncreated light is more powerful in producing its splendor than created light; but created light is never without its splendor, therefore neither is uncreated light; therefore if the splendor is a produced person, the conclusion is evident, etc.
6. Likewise, the trinity stands together with immensity, and immensity necessarily posits eternity; therefore from the first, the true and perfect trinity exists simultaneously where there is true and perfect eternity; therefore they have no incompatibility.
7. Likewise, the trinity stands together with supreme equality; but equality is not only according to power, but also according to duration, in which nothing can be equal to the eternal unless it is coeternal with it; if therefore it stands with supreme equality, then also with eternity.
8. Likewise, wherever potency and act are the same, if the potency can be eternal, so too can the act, especially when nothing extrinsic or created is connoted; but in the person of the Father, the power to generate and generating are the same; similarly this is true of the power of spirating; if therefore it is necessary that the Father could eternally generate, then it is necessarily posited that He has eternally generated.
9. Likewise, where being and being referred are utterly the same, it is necessary that they be measured by the same measure; but in the Father, being and being referred to the Son are utterly the same, and conversely, because there is no composition there; if therefore being is eternal, then so too is the mutual relation of the persons.
10. Likewise, in the created image, essence and potency exist simultaneously, and each of the three powers is coeval with the others, as is manifestly evident in the soul; therefore since there is greater agreement among the divine persons, much more strongly will one be coeternal with the others;
for as perpetuity is related to the image, so eternity is related to the creative trinity; whence "from the perpetuity of things the eternal Creator is manifestly shown;"
therefore from the perpetuity of the image, the eternity of the trinity is inferred and shown.
CONCLUSION.
The trinity of persons necessarily stands together with eternity.
I respond: It must be said that the trinity and eternity necessarily stand together; and this indeed is gathered from the side of the essential conditions, from the side of the original emanations, and from the side of the personal relations.
On the part, I say, of the essential conditions: because the trinity stands with the supreme unity, simplicity, and immensity of essence, as has been shown in the preceding: whence the divine persons have being that is one, most simple, and immense: but eternity regards being itself, which in the trinity can neither be numbered nor composed nor limited: it remains therefore that in the three persons there is true eternity on account of immensity, there is supreme eternity on account of simplicity of every kind, there is unique eternity on account of the unity of essence: therefore eternity does not exclude the trinity, because the trinity necessarily includes eternity.
On the part also of the original emanations, the same thing is gathered, both by reason of the one producing, and by reason of the one produced, and by reason of the mode of producing. The one producing is in complete actuality of power on account of supreme perfection: the one produced is in complete equality on account of supreme assimilation: the production is in complete necessity on account of natural diffusion or communication. If therefore the person producing is eternal, it is necessary that the act of producing be eternal, and the one produced himself, and the mode of producing. It is evident therefore that eternity and trinity not only do not conflict, but wonderfully harmonize and necessarily stand together.
On the part indeed of the personal relations, the same thing is gathered. For the divine persons are distinguished by their relations—relations, I say, not extrinsic but intrinsic; not adventitious but abiding; not diminished but most complete . Since moreover an intrinsic relation, not adventitious but perfect, coexists simultaneously with its supposit, and a relation and its correlative are simultaneous by nature: necessarily relations of this kind posit in the divine persons supreme simultaneity, nor do they introduce terminability, because they stand with supreme infinity. Since therefore nothing more is required for eternity than simultaneity with interminability of every kind, and supreme interminability with simultaneity of every kind; necessarily the trinity stands together with eternity, and eternity with the trinity, because the trinity does not exclude but includes eternity. Whence Augustine, in the eleventh book of the City of God, chapter twenty-eight: "God, to whose image we are created, is true eternity, eternal truth, eternal and true charity; and He Himself is the eternal and true and beloved Trinity." Just as therefore eternity does not conflict with charity and truth, so also it does not conflict with the trinity, nor conversely.
And therefore the arguments which show this are to be granted.
1. To that, therefore, which is first objected to the contrary, that where there is eternity, there is complete simultaneity: it must be said that the simultaneity of eternity excludes the order of prior and posterior, but not the order of origin. When, however, it is said that the Trinity posits an order, this is not understood of an order of priority and posteriority, but of an order of origin and natural emanation, according to what Augustine says, that "there is an order there, not by which one is prior and the other posterior, but by which one is from the other."
2. To that which is objected, that an effect follows a cause not by reason of diversity, but of production: it must be said that neither of those is the total sufficient and perfect cause, but one together with the other: for an effect follows its cause because it flows from it, in such a way that it differs from it according to essence; and on account of this it is neither as noble as the cause, nor is it equal to it in duration or in complete equality of power. But it is otherwise in divine production, where the one producing and the one who is produced have one and the same essence, and through this complete equality in duration alike and in power.
3. To that which is objected, that either the persons there are equally first, or not: it must be said that with respect to the privation of prior and posterior they are equally first, but with respect to the order of origin they are not equally first. But from this it does not follow that they are not equally coeternal, because, as was shown above, the nobility of those most perfect emanations by reason of simplicity and immensity posits the coeternity of those producing and those produced.
4. To that which is objected concerning corruption, which posits a final terminus: it must be said that it is not similar: because corruption always indicates a defect and a process from the complete to the incomplete; but generation is not so: because some generation is through the eduction of something from potency into act, and thus by reason of incompleteness it necessarily indicates an initial terminus; but some generation is through the most actual communication according to the complete perfection of the one producing and the one produced, and of that from which it is produced, and of the mode according to which it is produced. And such generation is posited concerning God, and this, because it indicates no incompleteness, posits no initial terminus.
5. To that which is objected, that eternity is interminable duration: it must be said that the terminus of production is spoken of in two ways: one is principal, namely the having been produced, the other is conjoined, namely no longer being produced, and this conjoined terminus obtains in those things in which being produced and having been produced differ. When, therefore, it is asked whether generation in the divine persons is terminated, or not: it must be said that if it is understood of the terminus in the first way, it is terminated, because the Father so generates the Son that the Son is generated; but if in the second way, then it does not hold true, because the Son is always generated and is always being generated, because in him being produced and having been produced are the same on account of the perfection of simplicity and supreme actuality.