I. First Opinion

102. Here it is said that God could have produced something ‘other than himself’ without a beginning, because his not being able to have done this (namely to have produced something ‘other than himself’ without a beginning) cannot be demonstrated either by an intrinsic middle term or by an extrinsic one. Not by an extrinsic middle term because that term is the will of God, for which no reason can be known or had as to why it wills this thing to be with a beginning rather than without a beginning. Nor by an intrinsic middle term, namely by the ‘what it is’ of the makeable thing, because the ‘what it is’ abstracts from the here and now; so it is not a reason for demonstrating the here and now.

103. Again, that ‘anything else whatever’ is from God is an article of faith. Therefore it is not expedient for demonstrations to be made about it, neither because of the faithful nor because of infidels; nay, it seems dangerous: as to the faithful indeed, because thus the merit of faith would be made empty, as it seems; and as to infidels, because then they could accuse us of believing these sorts of things for reasons and thus of being without faith - and also if such reasons should seem sophisms to them (just as they seem to certain of the faithful [e.g. Aquinas Sentences 2 d.1 q.1 a.5]), infidels could doubt the things we would believe because of such sophisms.

104. Besides thirdly, Augustine On the Trinity 6.1 n.1, “If fire were eternal the splendor caused by it would be eternal, and would be coeternal with it.”

105. And from this point an efficacious argument is made for this position [n.102], as it seems: for Augustine’s consequence is natural - otherwise it would not be valid against Arius to prove the coeternity of the Son with the Father; but it cannot hold save on the basis of the perfect idea of cause and caused; therefore just as in that case [sc. Augustine’s case of fire] necessary coeternity is inferred from a perfect cause acting naturally, so from a perfect cause acting voluntarily the possible coeternity can be inferred of a limited effect with an unlimited cause, because the only difference there seems to be between a natural agent and a free agent is in acting contingently and naturally (but there is no difference between them in being able to act and not to act, because whatever a natural agent can do a free agent can do as well, and the two differ only in mode of causing).

106. And this argument can be replicated in many ways:

Because no perfect condition, whatever the positive mark laid down (being a condition of perfection), is found in a second cause which is not in the first cause as cause; but it is a mark of perfection in some second cause to have an effect coeval with it - and from this, if the effect were eternal or coeternal with its cause, the perfection would be in the cause; therefore etc.

107. The deduction is also made in another way (and it is more or less the same): that the mode of causing does not vary formally the caused thing itself, according to Ambrose Incarnation of the Word 9 n.103; but if God caused naturally and necessarily, he could cause an effect coeval and coeternal with himself; therefore if he now causes voluntarily, although he not cause necessarily, yet he could cause an effect coeval with himself.

108. And if it be said that Augustine’s understanding [n.104] is about the immanent splendor of light, which is not formally caused by it - against this is his text, which says ‘the splendor generated and diffused by it’.

109. And he states the same opinion in homily 36 On John, about a stick and its image in water. But it is certain that such an image, if it existed, would be caused and generated by the stick.

110. Besides, fourthly: whatever is not repugnant to limitation is not repugnant to a creature, if it is an entity; but duration however long is not repugnant to the limitation of a creature, because what lasts for a day is not more imperfect than what lasts for ten years; therefore it seems that an infinite duration would not posit a greater perfection in a creature than a lesser duration, and consequently it posits no repugnance that a creature always was without a beginning.

111. Again, a creature tends to not-being, to the extent it is from itself, just as it is a not-being to the extent it is from itself and from nothing; therefore just as some creature can, without contradiction, always tend to not-being and yet always exist (as is plain of an angel and the soul), so it can without contradiction always have existed and yet - to the extent it is from itself - always have had not-being.

112. Again, Augustine City of God 10.31 says that “if a foot had been in sand from eternity, its footprint would always have been under it, and yet no one would doubt that the footprint was made by the treader; nor would either of them be without the other although one was made by the other.”

113. Again in the same place, “in a scarcely intelligible way” the philosophers said that the world was made and yet does not have a beginning of duration. Therefore this way, if it is scarcely intelligible, is intelligible, and so no contradiction is included in something’s having been always and without a beginning.

114. There is a confirmation too, that it does not seem probable that such brilliant philosophers, and such diligent inquirers into truth and such perspicuous conceivers of the reasons of terms, did not see the included contradiction if it had been included in the terms.

115. And there is also a confirmation (that there is no contradiction there) according to the philosophers, because not only does the natural philosopher consider the four causes but the metaphysician does so too, though under a prior and more common idea [sc. by abstracting from motion or change]; so the efficient cause is in more things than a mover (or even a changer) is, and consequently it can give being without motion. The first efficient cause, therefore, can give being without its having to give new being, because without its having to give being through motion or change.

116. Again, motion is an effect coeval and coeternal with the first mover; therefore there can be some product or effect from the first efficient cause that is coeternal and coeval with it.