HKB
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Often appears with: fate, destiny, and necessity · the nature and attributes of God · unity of aeviternity · religious persecution and toleration · necromancy · miracles and divine intervention · measure of duration · mean between eternity and time · lunatics and moon · first movement · demons and stars · before and after
Usually: argument (3) · curiosity (2) · detachment (1) · skepticism (1)
“The *one* which is convertible with *being* is opposed to *multitude* by way of privation; as the undivided is to the thing divided.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) · insight
In discussing aeviternity, Aquinas claims it differs from both eternity and time: it is a mean where “before” and “after” are compatible, though not like time’s innovation and ending.
Reply Obj. 2: Aeviternity is simultaneously whole; yet it is not eternity, because "before" and "after" are compatible with it. Reply Obj. 3: In the very being of an angel considered absolutely, there is no difference of past and future, but only as regards accidental change. Now to say that an angel was, or is, or will be, is to be taken in a different sense according to the acceptation of our intellect, which appr…
Aquinas concludes that there is only one aeviternity because aeviternity is the simpler measure shared by changeless spiritual substances, analogous to how one first movement grounds unity of time.
as is clear from *Metaph.* x. But the *one* which is convertible with *being* is opposed to *multitude* by way of privation; as the undivided is to the thing divided. Reply Obj. 1: No privation entirely takes away the being of a thing, inasmuch as privation means "negation in the subject," according to the Philosopher (Categor. viii). Nevertheless every privation takes away some being; and so in being, by reason of …
On whether heavenly bodies act on demons, Thomas rejects the idea that demons are merely forces of the stars or bodily-air animals, concluding demons are spiritual substances not subject to heavenly influence, though they may use bodily conditions.
Whether Heavenly Bodies Can Act on the Demons? Objection 1: It would seem that heavenly bodies can act on the demons. For the demons, according to certain phases of the moon, can harass men, who on that account are called lunatics, as appears from Matt. 4:24 and 17:14. But this would not be if they were not subject to the heavenly bodies. Therefore the demons are subject to them. Obj. 2: Further, necromancers obser…