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To: metmom; D-fendr; All

God is eternal and unchanging,so everything is one eternal event with God-The resurrection the crucifixion,your death and mine, Moses parting the sea,Adam and Eve and so on and so on

I don’t understand why this is so difficult to some to grasp this explanation

From Saint Thomas Aquinas...

That God is Eternal

THE beginning of anything and its ceasing to be is brought about by motion or change. But it has been shown that God is altogether unchangeable: He is therefore eternal, without beginning or end.*

2. Those things alone are measured by time which are in motion, inasmuch as time is an enumeration of motion.* But God is altogether without motion, and therefore is not measured by time. Therefore in Him it is impossible to fix any before or after: He has no being after not being, nor can He have any not being after being, nor can any succession be found in His being, because all this is unintelligible without time. He is therefore without beginning and without end, having all His being at once, wherein consists the essence of eternity.

3. If at some time God was not, and afterwards was, He was brought forth by some cause from not being to being. But not by Himself, because what is not cannot do anything. But if by another, that other is prior to Him. But it has been shown that God is the First Cause; therefore He did not begin to be: hence neither will He cease to be; because what always has been has the force of being always.

4. We see in the world some things which are possible to be and not to be. But everything that is possible to be has a cause: for seeing that of itself it is open to two alternatives, being and not being; if being is to be assigned to it, that must be from some cause. But we cannot proceed to infinity in a series of causes: therefore we must posit something that necessarily is. Now everything necessary either has the cause of its necessity from elsewhere,* or not from elsewhere, but is of itself necessary. But we cannot proceed to infinity in the enumeration of things necessary that have the cause of their necessity from elsewhere: therefore we must come to some first thing necessary, that is of itself necessary; and that is God. Therefore God is eternal, since everything that is of itself necessary is eternal.

Hence the Psalmist: But thou, O Lord, abidest for ever: thou art the self-same, and thy years shall not fail (Ps. ci, 13-28).


664 posted on 02/13/2012 6:39:20 AM PST by stfassisi ((The greatest gift God gives us is that of overcoming self"-St Francis Assisi)))
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To: stfassisi
I don’t understand why this is so difficult to some to grasp this explanation

Me either. I think some don't even try or object, knee-jerk, to anything that might be a Catholic belief. And some, perhaps, wish to maintain an anthropomorphic view of God based on their personal interpretation of scripture.

669 posted on 02/13/2012 8:42:11 AM PST by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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To: stfassisi
God is eternal and unchanging,so everything is one eternal event with God-The resurrection the crucifixion,your death and mine, Moses parting the sea,Adam and Eve and so on and so on

And you know this how?

In what nugget of divine revelation did God reveal this to you about Himself?

Since when are events which happen in time concurrently existant outside time and how do you know this?

679 posted on 02/13/2012 11:08:54 AM PST by metmom (For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore & do not submit again to a yoke of slavery)
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