31. (iv) THE INFINITY OF GOD AS PREDICATED OF SPACE IS CALLED IMMENSITY, AND AS PREDICATED OF TIME IS CALLED ETERNITY. DESPITE THESE PREDICATIONS HIS IMMENSITY IS TOTALLY DEVOID OF SPACE AND HIS ETERNITY IS TOTALLY DEVOID OF TIME.

The reason why the infinity of God predicated of space is called immensity, is that the term 'immense' is used of what is great and large, and also what is extensive and in this respect spacious. But the reason why the infinity of God predicated of time is called eternity is that 'for eternity' is used of progressive stages, which are measured by time, without end. For example: the globe with its land and sea surfaces is in itself what enables objects to be regarded as spatial; and its rotation and motion in orbit is what enables them to be regarded as temporal. These movements create periods of time and the surface of the globe creates distances, and they are so perceived through the senses in the minds of those that reflect on them. But as shown above, there is no space or time in God, yet space and time begin from Him. Hence it follows that immensity means His infinity predicated of space, and eternity His infinity predicated of time.

[2] The angels in heaven understand by the immensity of God the Divinity as to Its Being (Esse), and by His eternity the Divinity as to Its Coming-into-Being (Existere); also by immensity they understand the Divinity as to Love and by eternity the Divinity as to Wisdom. This is because the angels banish space and time from their ideas of the Divinity, and this is the result. But because human beings are incapable of thinking except by means of ideas formed from spatial and temporal concepts, they cannot form any idea of the immensity of God before space existed or His eternity before time existed. In fact, when the human mind wishes to form such an idea, it is as if it lapsed into unconsciousness, almost like a shipwrecked mariner who has fallen into the water, or someone swallowed up by the earth in an earthquake. Indeed, if the mind persists in the attempt to penetrate these mysteries, it can easily become deranged, and thus be led to deny the existence of God.

[3] I too was once in a state like this, when I was thinking what God did from eternity, or before the world was made: did He deliberate about creation and work out the order to be followed? was deliberative thought possible in a total vacuum? and other useless speculations. But to prevent me becoming deranged by such speculations, I was lifted up by the Lord into the sphere and light enjoyed by the interior angels; and when the idea of space and time which had previously restricted my thinking was there to a small extent removed, I was allowed to grasp that the eternity of God is not an eternity of time, and that because time did not exist before the creation of the world it was quite useless to engage in such speculations about God. But because the Divine from eternity, and so regarded as separate from all time, does not involve the existence of days, years and centuries, but these are to God a single instant, I concluded that the world was not created by God in time, but that time was introduced by God together with creation.

[4] I will add this account of an experience.

At one end of the spiritual world are to be seen two statues of a monstrous human shape with open mouths and gaping jaws. Those who have useless and mad thoughts about God from eternity imagine themselves being swallowed by these statues. But this is mere imagination into which those plunge who have absurd and improper thoughts about God before the creation of the world.