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[Sethomas]

I was hesitant about using the infinity symbol, but I went with it. I've always seen it as a reference to infinity, and one of the points I stress in the book is that eternity and infinity are not the same thing. But, it was the closest thing I know of to symbolizing eternity, and in its ancient origins the infinity symbol was used differently than in modern mathematics. Namely, it was used to represent the entire corpus of knowable-and-beyond numbers at once. The contrast with modern math is that with infinity you have to distinguish between positive and negative infinities, and you can treat the infinity sign as any old constant in certain contexts.

The definition I use of eternity is that of Boethius, as adopted by Anselm and Aquinas, that being "the simultaneously whole and complete (or perfect, the Latin term being ambiguous) possession of endless life". Thus, while conventional theology says that the soul is evaeternal, having a defined beginning and lasting ad infinitum, I say that it lacks beginning because all ethereal bodies have existence beyond the universe and, subsequently, beyond the physical phenomenon of time.