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IV. To the Principal Arguments of Each Part
173. To the first principal argument [n.96] I concede that matter is ungenerated and incorruptible; but it does not follow from this that it is eternal, because although matter does not have a source whence it comes to be, it is yet itself a produced whole -and this production is not generation, because generation and corruption are of composites and not of simples.
174. To the second argument [n.97], about the eternity of time, I say that it is not valid, because it otherwise entails that ‘the mover cannot not move’7 (this response was made to the argument in the preceding question [n.70]). And as to what is argued and added about ‘before’ [n.97], I say that it is not conclusive save about an imagined ‘before’, or in the way that eternity is ‘before’ - which is nothing; it is as when we say ‘outside the universe there is nothing’, where the ‘outside’ is denied, or only an imagined ‘outside’ is asserted.
175. To the third about On Generation [n.98]. Although the proposition is in some way probable that ‘the corruption of one thing is the generation of another’ (I say that it is to this extent true, that no natural agent intends per se to corrupt anything, but it per accidens corrupts that which is incompossible with the generated thing that it per se intends), yet from this no perpetuity of generation follows, because the ultimate corruption can be concomitant with the ultimate generation, for example when all mixed things are resolved to the elements - and then there will be a stand both of generation and of corruption, although the ultimate corruption is not annihilation;a however the Philosopher supposes another proposition along with this one [sc. ‘the corruption of one thing is the generation of another’], namely that such a generable thing is again corruptible, and that its corruption is the generation of something else - and this is not true. But when arguing about past things one should take the proposition that ‘the generation of one thing is the corruption of another’ - and this is not as true from the per se intention of a natural agent as is the previous one; for it is accidental that the generator corrupts, because of the incompossibility of the term to be corrupted with the term the generator intends, because the generator cannot produce the form it intends save in preexisting matter - and this preexisting matter is commonly under a form incompossible with the form it intends, and so it must corrupt the preexisting composite in order to generate what it intends. And given that from this it would follow that there would be no generation in which the whole is produced, the eternity of the thing would not follow for this reason - because when the whole is produced it is not necessary that a part of it preexist under an incompossible form, and such production of some being does not have to be the destruction of some other being, but only the destruction of nothing or of not being precisely; and then there is no need for another production to have preceded the first production, because the term ‘from which’ [sc. nothing] of this production was not the term ‘to which’ of some other production, because ‘nothing’ was produced by no production.
a.a [Interpolation] because it is to matter, which is not nothing.
176. To the fourth [n.99] about succession because of motion (when it is said that ‘an agent not causing by motion and not able to be prevented can have an effect coeval with it’), one should say that where cause and effect can have an essence of one kind this major is true; but where they cannot be of one kind but the priority of nature in the cause requires of necessity priority of duration in the cause with respect to the effect, here the major is false; and so it is in the case at hand.
177. To the first argument for the opposite [n.100] I say that either that is not the definition of creature but a certain description, conceded by Arius (against whom Augustine is arguing) because Arius said that ‘the Son of God at some time was not’ -and then it is enough for Augustine to take against Arius this definition or description as conceded by him, and, from denying this description (conceded by Arius) of the Son of God, to conclude against him that the Son is not a creature; or if it is the definition of creature (speaking properly of creature qua creature), yet it is not for this reason a definition of whatever is other than God (for example of an angel or a man) - because it would be said that this definition is accidental to that which it is ‘to be a creature’. But if something were posited to be the definition of ‘what begins’ and in fact everything other than God is a thing that begins - ‘therefore everything other than God is a creature’ does not follow but is a fallacy of the accident, because of the extraneousness of the middle term with respect to the third as it is compared to the first; for not everything that is repugnant to the accident is repugnant to the subject of which such accident is an accident.8
178. To the second, about the infinite in multitude and magnitude [n.101] - the response was made before, in the response about the actual infinity of souls [n.168].