If God is eternal
Pe. Dilonei Pedro MÜLLER
Original title: Se Deus é eterno
Published in The Time and the Eternity in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Being, Duration, Eternity, God, Time.
This study focuses on comprehending some of the aspects about God’s eternity in São Tomas. He talks about the question of the eternity of God in the first part of the Summa Theologiae, the tenth question. The eternity concept acquires itself throughout the knowledge of time. Such as to the knowledge of the simple things gets through the knowledge of the composed things, and the knowledge of God’s eternity is acquired through the knowledge of time. Time is the enumeration of the movement one second before and one second after and characterizes itself by own succession. In a not moving endowed being, which, in fact is always the same one, there isn’t one second before and one after. This comprehension derives the idea of eternity. So, what is totally immutable doesn’t carry any succession, and, because of this it doesn’t have either a beginning or an end.
Representations and symbols from East to West: rebirth of Phoenix
Maria Leonor García da CRUZ
Original title: Representações e símbolos de Oriente a Ocidente: o renascimento da Fênix
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
Keywords: Eternity, Myth, Phoenix, Rebirth, Symbology.
Passing over vast times and spaces, the symbology of the Phoenix is found in legends from China, India and Persia, varying in details, constructing a myth that the West inherited from Egypt and which it helps to consolidate in classical, mediaeval and modern times with projections even in our modern times. Is the only thing the European Phoenix has in common with the Chinese Phoenix, i.e. Feng-Huang the mythical creation related to inheritances of mankind and a collective unconscious, deposit of images and symbols (Jung)? A comparison of details jointly emphasises its spiritual energy, from rare beauty to divine virtue, from sanctification and purity to eternal love, to prosperity and good governance, from singularity and excellence to rebirth and eternity.
Time and Eternity in Saint Augustine
Marcos Roberto Nunes COSTA
Original title: Tempo e Eternidade em Santo Agostinho
Published in The Time and the Eternity in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Eternity, Manichaeism, Neoplatonism, Saint Augustine, Time.
Every Augustinian disputation regarding to time - eternity relation arises from the need of combating the Manicheans and, by indirection, all those ones that affirmed, asserted world eternity, that denied ex nihilo Jewish - Christian Creation principle. Saint Augustine, departing from Genesis Scriptural Book in order to present a revelational founding and neoplatonic philosophy, in order to impart philosophic maintenance to the above - mentioned thesis, has ended up by moving away from not only Manichaeism, but from Neo-Platonism itself which has worked as philosophical foundation for contesting those ones.
Time and Eternity in Saint Thomas Aquinas
Carlos NOUGUÉ
Original title: Tempo e Eternidade em Santo Tomás de Aquino
Published in The Time and the Eternity in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Eternity, God, Thomas Aquinas, Time.
Analysis of the concepts of time and eternity in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas.
Time and eternity: a model in John Duns Scotus (c. 1265-1308) and a note on Francis of Mayrone (c. 1280-1327)
Roberto Hofmeister PICH
Original title: Tempo e eternidade: um modelo em Duns Scotus (c. 1265-1308) e uma nota sobre Francisco de Meyronnes (c. 1280-1327)
Published in The Time and the Eternity in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Divine Knowledge, Eternity, Francis of Mayrone, John Duns Scotus, Time.
Since a seminal study by Richard Cross doubts were raised about some Scotist passages concerning God’s knowledge of future contingents, where the Subtle Doctor would have adopted, atipically, a kind of presentism about time. Making use of McTaggat’s expressions, Cross recognized that Scotus is bound to a A-theory (presentism) language. This brings some difficulties to the interpreter, but it should not prevent anyone from concluding that Scotus seems at the end to favour a B-theory (here called “staticism”) on the nature of time. The exposition of time as a “fluent now” would occur for the first time in Lect. I d. 39. Scotus rejects there what he sees as Aquinas’ view on God’s timelessness – which would entail a B-theory, and therefore that a A-series of “past, present, and future” does not exist. In this study, a clarification of the dilemmas is pursued through the analysis of three key texts by Scotus on the subject – Lect. I d. 39 q. 1-5, Ord. I d. 38 q. 2 and d. 39 q. 1-5, and Rep. exam. I d. 38 q. 1-2, which deal with the question of the knowledge that God has of all things according to every temporal condition of existence. A short note on the position of Francis of Mayrone concerning the ontological status of time can confirm the approach offered here.
“Checkmate to the time, the forms and the place…”. Meister Eckhart between flowing of time and stillness of Eternity
Matteo RASCHIETTI
Original title: “Xeque-mate ao tempo, às formas e ao lugar...”. Mestre Eckhart entre o fluir do tempo e o remanso da Eternidade
Published in The Time and the Eternity in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Eternity, Time, birth of logos, fullness, instant.
The conception of time in Eckhart’s reflection is a fundamental point that joins the thought of German Dominican: the metaphysic model of development of being overcomes the concepts of time and eternity, leading plurality into One, the duplex esse into unum esse, the temporal into timeless. The illustration of the main features of this rational path, here, is done starting from the poem Granum sinapis, which condenses the main themes of philosophicaltheological speculation of Thüringen, among of that there’s the issue of time.
