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Thus in every creature there is a potentiality to change either as regards substantial being as in the case of things corruptible; or as regards locality only, as in the case of the celestial bodies; or as regards the order to their end, and the application of their powers to divers objects, as in the case with the angels; and universally all creatures generally are mutable by the power of the Creator, in Whose power is their existence and non-existence. Hence since God is in none of these ways mutable, it belongs to Him alone to be altogether immutable.
Reply Obj. 1: This objection proceeds from mutability as regards substantial or accidental being; for philosophers treated of such movement.
Reply Obj. 2: The good angels, besides their natural endowment of immutability of being, have also immutability of election by divine power; nevertheless there remains in them mutability as regards place.
Reply Obj. 3: Forms are called invariable, forasmuch as they cannot be subjects of variation; but they are subject to variation because by them their subject is variable. Hence it is clear that they vary in so far as they are; for they are not called beings as though they were the subject of being, but because through them something has being.
QUESTION 10
THE ETERNITY OF GOD (In Six Articles)
We must now consider the eternity of God, concerning which arise six points of inquiry:
(1) What is eternity?
(2) Whether God is eternal?
(3) Whether to be eternal belongs to God alone?
(4) Whether eternity differs from time?
(5) The difference of aeviternity and of time.