Sacred Demonstrations, or the Christian Euclid, Book II

However, more on these matters in the chapter on the Trinity in Book I. Divine power would have no solid happiness if it were not endowed with the freedom of will by which it might bestow such a happy order upon things when it willed. For it did not will for the things that happen now to be done before, and it did not will for the things that were done long ago to be done now, but willed them to be done at that time. Therefore, although God is pure act—never acting in potency but always in act—He nevertheless predefines the times for things in which they should or should not exist. Therefore, it is a wonder that both the Peripatetics and many other philosophers of the first rank wished to ascribe eternity to worldly matter based on that one argument, that God could not not act. For they do not notice that they are taking power away from Him while they strive to give Him the greatest amount. He is, indeed, certainly pure act, but able to act in Himself by His mind without any matter of the world, so that no facility from matter accrues to Him except time. For if they wish for Him to act immediately because He can, knows, and wills to act, then since He could, willed, and knew all things from eternity, it would have been necessary for all things that have been done in the last 5,500 years to be produced in an instant in a consequential manner. For the soul of the world original: "mens mundi" foresaw all things from eternity. Note Therefore, there is for Him—just as for us, in addition to power, knowledge, and will or love (for in this we carry around the image of God)—a free choice of time for the things we wish to do, which I also taught in the first book. That He created all things for the sake of His own honor and the happiness of man, I have already shown above.