Question Three. Whether it is possible for God to produce Something without a Beginning other than Himself

95. Thirdly I ask whether it is possible for God to produce something other than himself without a beginning.

96. That it is possible:

The Philosopher in Physics 1.9.192a27-31 proves that matter is ungenerated and incorruptible - otherwise there would be a process to infinity in matters. Therefore either matter was not produced, or it was produced without a beginning, which is the intended conclusion; or if not, at any rate some form was produced in it and without a beginning, because matter never was without form.

97. Secondly thus: time, according to the Philosopher Physics 8.1.251b10-28 and Metaphysics 12.6.1071b6-9, is without beginning, which he seems to prove from this: because if not, then time could have been before it was, or could be before it was; but ‘before’ is a difference of time;     therefore before time there was time.

98. Thirdly thus: according to the Philosopher On Generation 1.3.318a23-25, the generation of one thing is the corruption of another. So there never was any first generation, and consequently some generable things were without a beginning.

99. Fourthly thus: a cause not acting by motion and being unable to be prevented can have an effect coeval with it, as is plain in creatures; therefore etc     .

100. On the contrary:

Augustine To Felicianus [Ps.-Augustine ch.7] assigns a definition for creatures and says that ‘a creature is from the fact that - by the will of the omnipotent God - its substance is produced from not-being to being’. If therefore it is of the idea of a creature to be produced from not-being, then it is impossible for it to be produced without a beginning.

101. Secondly thus: by the same reason that God could have produced one thing without a beginning, he could also have produced another - and so things infinite in multitude would have been produced in act; God could also have piled together all the magnitudes that there would have been afterwards and so have made an infinite mass. But an infinity both in mass and in number is rejected in Physics 3.5.204a17-b10.

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.

II. Second Opinion

117. Against this position [n.102] it is argued [from Henry of Ghent] that there is a contradiction involved in something ‘other than God’ having existed without a beginning; because it is at some time true - or will at some time be true - to say of any produced thing that it is produced, because even of the Son of God produced in eternity it can truly be said that he is produced in eternity. The creature then is either always being produced when it is, or it is produced at some time and not always; if in the second way, then in the instant in which it is produced it first obtains being, and the proposed conclusion is plain [sc. that the creature at some time began to be]; if in the first way, then the creature is in continual becoming - which seems unacceptable, because it would in that case be impermanent.

118. It also seems that in this case [sc. the first way in n.117] being created would not differ from being conserved, and this is disproved in two ways:

First because ‘to be created’ is to be produced from not-being to being, but ‘to be conserved’ belongs to the very being already possessed, and thus to be created is not to be conserved.

119. Second, because a particular agent generates and does not conserve; therefore when both come together in the same thing, the one is different from the other.

120. And added to this reason [n.117] is that a creature has acquired being and consequently it exists after not existing; because if not, it would have being without acquisition, as the Son of God does - although it would not have the same being with that from which it acquires being.a

a.a [Interpolation from Appendix A]. Third, by the authority of Augustine Immortality of the Soul 8 n.14, “What is made by him, he guards; for what does not exist per se will be nothing if it is deserted by that through which it exists.” And Genesis 2.1, “God rested on the seventh day from the work of creation,” not from the work of conservation [Henry of Ghent].

121. A second argument is as follows: “Everything that is, when it is, necessarily is,” from De Interpretatione 9.19a23-24; therefore it can only not be because potency precedes its being, whereby it can be prevented from being. But if anything was from God from eternity, no potency preceded its ‘being from God’; therefore it was not able not to be from God.

122. An objection is raised to this that someone predestined can be saved and not saved; therefore likewise in the case of something made from eternity it is possible for it to have been and not to have been.

The response is that predestination regards ‘a thing outwardly’ for some definite now of time, namely a time for which the thing cannot not be and so cannot not be predestined, because predestination corresponds to the nature of the thing; but to give to something being from eternity regards power for infinite eternity, wherein there is no power for the opposite and so not in the act of giving either.

123. And there is confirmation for this, that “in perpetual things to be and to be possible are not different,” Physics 3.4.203b30; and in Metaphysics 9.8.1050b7-8, “Nothing eternal is in potency.”

124. Further, the same is argued thus in another way: any species is in equal potency for existing, when comparing it to God as to the giver of being; therefore just as the sun could have been from eternity, so also an ass, and this a perfect one being able to generate; and from this ass all the other asses that there have been could have been generated, up to this one generated now. And then I ask whether all the asses would in that case have been finite or infinite; if finite, then the whole time from then up to the present would have been finite; if infinite, then, once the extremes are posited, an actual infinity of middles between them could have existed, which is unacceptable.

125. Further, a fourth argument is as follows: a creature from eternity is able to be and able not to be,a     etc . [sc., from Henry, but ability not to be precedes in nature and duration ability to be, just as not being precedes being in nature; therefore      if the creature can have being from God from eternity, it would either have being after not being in duration (and so it would at some point begin to be), or it would have being and not being together, which is impossible; n.162, Quodlibet 8.9].

a.a [Interpolation from Appendix A] if then it is posited in being, it has that being as acquired; therefore its not being preceded in duration its new and acquired being. Or...

126. Again an argument for this opinion [n.117] is made that, if the world could have been from eternity without a beginning, there have been an infinity of intellective souls.

127. Further, it is against the idea of the infinite in quantity that it can be exceeded or can be taken in its totality (as is plain from its definition in Physics 3.6.206b33-7a2, 79, “the infinite is that of which nothing outside it can be taken,” and “that which, when one takes its parts, there is always something further to take”); but if the world could have been from eternity and without a beginning, an infinite duration would have been taken.a Nor is the response valid which says that ‘an infinite duration would have been in potency and in always receiving being and not in having-received being’, because the intellect’s taking note does nothing to make the infinite to be actually taken, for that a future infinite has at some time been taken is incompossible, even if there had been no intellect that would take note of the parts of the infinite time.

a.a [Interpolation from Appendix A] an infinite could have been exceeded and taken in its totality, because infinite things have preceded to which addition is continually made, which additions are also now taken; therefore it is impossible for the world to have been from eternity.

128. Again, argument is made that the part would be greater than the whole -because let midday today be a and midday tomorrow be b; if time on either side of a could have been infinite, the same reasoning holds about the past and the future with respect to b; therefore by whatever amount the past up to b is greater, by that amount the future from b is greater [sc. so that the amounts of time on either side of b remain equal]. But the past up to b is greater than the past up to a as the whole than the part, therefore the past up to b is greater than the future from a; therefore the future from b - which is equal to the past up to b - would be greater than the future from a, and so the part would be greater than the whole.a

a.a [Interpolation] Again, every permanent eternal thing is formally necessary; nothing other than God is formally necessary [1 d.30 n.56, d.36 n.19]; therefore. - Proof of the major: a permanent thing has the whole of its being at once, such that if it remain perpetually it receives no new being [1 d.8 nn.257-58]; therefore it now has the being whereby it formally is; therefore it now has the being whereby it would be a repugnance for it sometimes not to be; therefore it is now a necessary being. Proof of the minor: what includes being in act is of itself a ‘this’.

    Again, when a determinate act necessarily follows a determinate act, if the necessity of the prior can be demonstrated, the necessity of the posterior can be demonstrated as well; the act of the divine will with respect to ‘anything other than itself’ necessarily follows the determinate act of the divine intellect about the same thing, and by a necessary reason can the determinate act of God’s intellect about it be demonstrated; therefore it can be demonstrated of the determinate act of the will too; and also creation, which follows the determination of the will. - Proof of the first part of the minor: by a likeness about sense and the sensitive appetite. Proof in another way: the divine will presupposes an act of the divine intellect (about the same object) and a right act; the will cannot fail to be in concord with the intellect, because then it would not be right. - Proof of the second part of the minor: what follows on causes that cause necessarily can be inferred necessarily from them; the determinate act of the intellect follows on such causes, for only the intellect and the object are causes of the act (in no way the will, because then the will would have an act about a non-understood thing). Another proof of the second part: as the principle is in speculative things, so the end is in desirable and practical things; from the principles there is necessary speculative knowledge of all other things, therefore from the end there is necessary practical knowledge of things for the end.

    Again, every essence other than God is finite and not pure act - therefore (according to Thomas [Aquinas]) it is in matter or in potency to being, and by parity of reasoning it is material; it is therefore in potency before it is in act (Metaphysics 5.11.1019a7-11), and the order of nature between incompossibles has a similar order in the case of duration.

    Again, the more necessarily and immediately a determinate relation to something follows on the essence, so much the more can such a relation be demonstrated through the essence as through the middle term; but a relation to the first efficient cause more necessarily and immediately follows an essence than does a relation to something posterior, because it depends essentially on the former but not on the latter (some relation to something posterior is determinately and necessarily inferred through the essence as to its specific property); therefore this determinate relation is demonstrated more. Creation states such a determinate relation, because it states a determinate receiving of being from such a cause; therefore.

    Again, through the essence is necessarily inferred that without which the essence cannot be; such is dependence on the first efficient cause; creation as it is common to everything other than God states this dependence and states no other respect, because then it would not signify a concept per se one.

    Again, there is no less dependence in real being than in known being; but by a necessary reason the passive exemplification of anything exemplified is entailed, because God is an agent through knowledge, because he is the first orderer.

    Again, how the divine will is disposed to quiddities is demonstrated necessarily, therefore also how it is disposed to existence. - Proof of the antecedent: God is well pleased by participation of his goodness. Proof of the consequence: existence has an equally perfect relation to the first object of the divine will as essence does.

129. Many other reasons can be adduced, but some are sophistical and many others are made frequently.

III. To the Reasons for the First Opinion when holding the Second Opinion

130. Those who hold this conclusion [sc. that there is a contradiction involved in

God having made something other than himself without a beginning], especially because they posit the same impossibility to exist on the part of any species (and in some species - as in successive ones - it seems that everything taken is finite, although the whole is infinite by taking part after part [nn.124-28]), give response to the reasons of the first opinion [nn.102-116] thus:

To the first [n.102], that although it cannot naturally be known whether God’s will exists in respect of this particular, yet it can naturally be known that his will is not of anything that is not of itself willable, and this because there is a contradiction - and consequently an incompossibility - involved in the divine will’s being of that of which there is no idea; but then it is necessary to place the ‘non-willability’, as also the incompossibility, on the part of the object, from 1 d.43 nn.3, 6.

131. And so, when it is argued that ‘the what it is’ is not a middle term for demonstrating existence [n.102], the response is made that, although this is true, yet a creature can be a middle term for demonstrating the beginning of its existence.

132. Against this: that the middle term by which the beginning of existence will be demonstrated cannot be the ‘what it is’, according to them, therefore it must be existence.

133. And then it seems that the argument is doubly at fault: first, according to the fallacy of the consequent, because existence in the minor does not entail actual existence; second, because the premise in which existence is applied to a stone will be contingent, and thus the demonstration will not be a very probable reason but sophistical.

134. A response can, however, be made to the argument [n.102], that although the ‘what it is’ is contingently disposed to existence actual or non-actual (and therefore it is not a middle term for demonstrating absolute existence, or any absolute condition of existence [131]), yet some condition of existence can be repugnant to some ‘what it is’, and so can be a middle term for demonstrating that existence under such a condition does not fit that to which the ‘what it is’ belongs; just as the quiddity of a stone, although in itself it does not include existence, does yet of itself have ‘uncreated being’ repugnant to it - and so from the idea of this quiddity can be inferred that it does not have uncreated being, and not eternal being either.

135. Therefore one should say as to the issue at hand (according to this position [sc. when holding the second opinion, n.130]), that eternal existence is repugnant to a stone, and therefore from the quiddity of a stone can be demonstrated that it does not have eternal existence; and from this further, not absolutely that it has new being, but that if it exists it has new being - which is the intended conclusion.

136. The reasoning [nn.102, 131] is also at fault - as it seems - according to the fallacy of the consequent; for this consequence does not hold, ‘the opposite of this cannot be demonstrated, therefore this is possible’, but there is a fallacy of the consequent, for ‘first impossibles’ are impossible from the terms, just as their opposites, the ‘first necessaries’ are necessary from the terms; and although the first necessaries cannot be demonstrated (because they are first truths), yet it does not follow that therefore they are possibles; but to the antecedent ‘the opposite cannot be demonstrated’ one should add that the opposite is not a first necessary or something known from the terms - and perhaps this would be denied by some in the case of the issue at hand, although the fact that the opposite is necessary from the terms is latent and not evident to any intellect that confusedly conceives the terms.

137. To the second [n.103] it can be said that if there are necessary reasons for things believed, yet it is not dangerous to adduce them, neither because of the faithful nor because of the infidels.

138. Not as to the faithful, for Catholic doctors, when examining by reasons the truth of things believed and striving to understand what they believed, did not intend by this to destroy the merit of faith - on the contrary, Augustine and Anselm believed they were laboring meritoriously to understand what they believed, according to Isaiah 7.9 (according to another translation [the LXX]), “unless you believe you will not understand;” for while believing they examined, so that they might understand through reasons what they believed. But whether demonstrations - if they can be had - make faith void or not, on this see book three on the incarnation [3 Suppl. d.24].

139. Nor is it dangerous as regards infidels if necessary reasons can be had;a even if necessary reasons cannot be had for proving the existence of a fact - namely an article of faith - yet if they may be had for proving the possibility of the fact, then to adduce them against an infidel would even be useful, because he would in some way be thereby persuaded not to resist such articles of belief as impossibilities. But to adduce sophisms for demonstrations against infidels would indeed be dangerous - because the faith would thereby be exposed to derision (and so it also is in every other matter, even an indifferent one, as in the case of geometers, to propose sophisms as demonstrations). For it is better for the ignorant to know he is ignorant than to think because of sophisms that he knows; but those who state the opposite view say that they are not adducing sophisms but necessary reasons and true demonstrations - and hence they are not doing anything prejudicial to the faith (neither in respect of the faithful nor of infidels), but are rather with reasons of this sort confirming it.

a.a [Interpolation from Appendix A] because “demonstrative speech is of a nature to solve all questions that arise about a thing,” Averroes Physics 1 com.71.

140. As to the third [nn.104-105], although different people speak in many ways about it, yet I say that in the same consequence there can be many reasons because of which the inference is necessary, and therefore many places (namely taken from the many reasons of such consequence) in the antecedent itself; and wherever any of these reasons or any of these places can be found, a like inference can be found and drawn. An example: ‘a man runs, therefore an animal runs’ rightly follows from the place taken from species [sc. because man is a species of animal], and not only from this place but also from a more common one, namely from the place taken from subjective parts [sc. because animal is a subjective part of man, for man is a rational animal] - because not only is the consequence good wherever there is an inference from species to genus, but it is also good wherever there is an argument from a subjective part to the whole. And another example could be posited where many reasons for an inference come together, but this suffices for the present purpose.

141. So I say that this consequence holds, ‘there is fire in this moment now and it is not impeded, therefore there is light’; the place is from a cause naturally causing and not impeded; and not only this, but this consequence can also hold from a certain more common reason in the antecedent, namely from the reason of something naturally producing and not impeded. For not only does ‘a thing naturally causing and not impeded’ have a caused thing or an effect coeval with it (Physics 2.8.199a10-11), but also ‘a thing naturally producing’ has a product coeval with it, as is manifest from the second reason [here above]. So wherever there exists a like reason for inferring, there will exist, not only according to the special reason [sc. a thing causing] but also according to the general one [sc. a thing producing], a necessary and natural consequence.

142. And so I say that the example [n.104] is very well to the purpose; because if ‘there is fire’ entails, by reason of a thing producing naturally, ‘splendor is diffused’, then even if the antecedent were impossible and incompossible and the consequent likewise, yet the consequence is necessary and good. Therefore, wherever this reason for entailment exists [sc. a thing producing naturally], the consequence is necessary and good, however things may stand with the antecedent and consequent; but so it is here with the Father and the Son, because the Father is a natural producer with respect to the Son; therefore there will be here a like entailment, good and necessary.

143. And hereby is plain the response to the confirmation of the reason, ‘that no perfection that can be in a second cause is taken away from the first cause’ [n.106]. Now to have a simply necessary caused thing is not a mark of perfection in a second cause, nay it even fails to belong to any second cause (as was said in 1 d.8 n.306), although some second cause may have it in a certain respect; for to cause simply necessarily involves a contradiction, and so it belongs to no second cause.1 d.8 n.306: “I say that no natural connection of cause and caused is simply necessary in creatures, nor does any second cause cause simply naturally or simply necessarily but only in a certain respect. The first part is clear, because any second cause depends on the relation of the first cause to the caused; likewise, no second cause causes save by the first cause causing the caused along with it, and this naturally before the proximate cause causes; but the first cause only causes contingently, therefore the second cause causes simply contingently because it depends on the causation of the first, which causation is simply contingent. The second part, namely about necessity in a certain respect, is plain, because many natural causes, as far as concerns themselves, cannot not cause their effects, and so there is necessity in a certain respect -namely as far as concerns themselves - and not simply; just as fire, as far as concerns itself, cannot not heat, yet, with God cooperating, it can absolutely not heat, as is clear, and as was clear about the three boys in the furnace [Daniel 3.49-50].” ⁵ Nor does Augustine (when inferring something on the part of fire) argue from this as from something impossible, but he argues it [sc. splendor is coeternal with fire] from a more common reason (namely from the reason of a thing producing), which does not involve a contradiction, and this suffices for his reasoning [n.104, cf. 1 d.9 n.10].

144. The same point makes plain the response to the other reason, ‘that a diverse mode of causing does not vary the caused thing formally’ [n.107]. This is true of ‘diverse modes of causing’ that can be causes in some causation, but if one mode in causing is possible and another impossible, then according to the possible mode the caused will be such [sc. possible] and according to the impossible mode the caused thing will be different [sc. impossible]; just as the impossible follows from the impossible, though by natural consequence - so I say that by natural consequence the inference holds that if something did cause naturally it would cause necessarily (and even coeternally), but this mode of causing involves a contradiction in the case of ‘causing freely’; however some other mode of causing - namely causing freely - is compossible with this cause, and therefore it does not remove compossibility in the antecedent and consequent [sc. in the inference ‘if it causes freely, then it causes contingently’].

145. As to the fourth [n.110] someone might say (on behalf of this way [n.117]) that ‘to be eternal’ includes a lack of limitation, because it includes being made equal to God in some respect (namely lack of limitation in duration), and this cannot be without lack of limitation [sc. in every respect], because a thing cannot be made equal to God in one respect and not in another.

146. But this is nothing, because what also coexists with God today is not for this reason made equal to eternity, with which it coexists today; and this eternity too, as it coexists with this day, is infinite and independent - and the creature, as coexisting with eternity today, is finite and dependent and so is not made coequal with it. Therefore one should say that ‘to be eternal’ states some lack of limitation in a creature and hence is repugnant to it; but why there is this repugnance and lack of limitation, let each show through the fundamental reason that he would posit for it.

147. To the fifth [n.111] the response is by reducing it to the opposite, because ‘just as a creature could not actually tend to not-being and yet be always going to be, so it cannot actually have been after non-being and yet always have been’ (now it is of the idea of a creature, according to this position [n.117], that not only is it a having had in aptitude not-being before being, but also a having had in actuality not-being before being).

148. As to the authority [n.112], I say that the authority posited there from Augustine City of God is not according to Augustine’s own opinion, but he put it there according to the understanding of the philosophers; hence he prefaces there about the philosophers, “For they speak thus, ‘if a foot were in sand from eternity, etc.’” Hence, according to the truth, that a foot has always been thus and has caused a footprint in the sand involves a contradiction, because the footprint is caused by a pressing down of the foot in the sand through local motion; and so for some motion to have been such without a beginning, when the motion, of its very idea, is between opposites [sc. between a beginning and an end], is a contradiction.

149. To the point about ‘scarcely intelligible’ [n.113] I say that contradictories can be apprehended by the intellect, and can even be apprehended together (otherwise no intellect would say they were contradictories), as is generally plain from the argument of the Philosopher On the Soul 3.2.426b8-23, where he proves about the common sense and the other particular senses that no sense compares extremes unless it apprehends both. But to be understood thus is to be ‘scarcely understood’ because it is not a being understood along with assent, in the way we say that we ‘understand’ what we believe to be true and ‘do not understand’ what we do not believe to be true, although yet we apprehend it.

150. Or it can be said in another way that, if the ‘intelligible’ is taken for what the intellect can assent to and if it be said that the manner of the philosophers was in this way scarcely intelligible, then the exposition can be that the manner was in its universal form intelligible but not in itself and in particular; for it was intelligible along with assent under the idea of producer and not under the idea of causer - and to understand ‘causer’ under the idea of producer is to understand ‘causer’ imperfectly, just as to understand man under the idea of animal is to understand man imperfectly.

151. Or it can in a third way be said (and perhaps in accord with Augustine’s mind) that latent contradictories - as long as an evident contradiction in them is not perceived - can in some way be apprehended by the intellect, but not with certitude; and so this ‘contradiction’, if it exists, did yet escape the philosophers and could by them be ‘scarcely understood’.

152. As to what is added about the philosophers, it can be said that they conceded many latent contradictions - as that they commonly denied that there was a first cause causing contingently, and yet they said that there is contingency in beings and that some things happen contingently; but there is a contradiction involved in ‘some things happening contingently and the first cause causing necessarily’, as was proved in 1 d.8 nn.275-277, 281-291, and 1 d.39 nn.35-37, 41,

91 [in the Lectura; there is no d.39 in the Ordinatio], and to some extent above at nn.69-70.

153. As to what is added about the four causes [n.115] (which are considered by the metaphysician), and that proves that the abstraction, in understanding, of the efficient cause is from the mover and changer - I say that not everything abstracted in understanding (or in the consideration of the intellect) needs to be able to be separated in being from that from which abstraction in the intellect is made; and so from this it does not follow that there is in fact some efficient cause which is not a mover or changer.

IV. To the Reasons for the Second Opinion when holding the First Opinion

154. Now as to those who hold the first opinion [sc. God can make something other than himself without a beginning, n.102], especially because no contradiction is found in the terms ‘other than God’ and ‘to exist eternally’ [n.114, Aquinas On Power q.3 a.14], and secondly because the reasons that seem to prove contradiction are special (and so, although they prove contradiction of something special, yet do not prove it of everything that is ‘other than God’ [Aquinas ST Ia q.46 a.2 ad 8]), and thirdly because some reasons seem to reject a like able to come to be about the future as about the past [n.127] (although however no one denies ‘the possibility of a future without end’ or the coming to be of the non-successive or the able to come to be of the successive) - those, as I say, who hold this first opinion have a reply to the reasons against this opinion that show contradiction [nn.117-28].

To the first [n.117], that some creature could have been always produced, as an angel, whose being is to be in eternity.

155. And if you say that that creature [sc. an angel] at some time comes to be [n.117] - they would concede that it comes to be in an instant of eternity and that it always comes to be and is produced when it is. And when the inference is drawn that ‘therefore it would be successive’ [n.117], this does not follow, because the Son of God too is always generated, and yet is not something successive but supremely permanent, because the instant in which he is generated always persists. And so they would say that the same ‘now’ persists, wherein the angel persists and receives being, and thus there is no succession; for successive things always receive one part in being after another.

156. To the other proof, about being conserved and created [n.118], the answer will be plain in the first question about eternity [2 d.2 nn.49-51, 63].

157. To the point added about acquired being [n.120] - they concede that a creature has an acquired being, because it does not have a being that is of itself formally necessary; yet it does not seem to have been acquired after not-being, but acquisition (like reception too) seems to stand sufficiently if the creature does not have of itself what it is said to acquire, whether what it acquires is new or old.

158. To the second reason, about the Philosopher in De Interpretatione (“Everything that is, when it is, necessarily is” [n.121]), the response is plain from earlier [1 d.39 nn.55, 58 of the Lectura and 1 d.39-40 nn.45, 49 of the Reportatio], where this objection is introduced to prove that a thing does not exist contingently in the instant for which it exists, since then the opposite could be present in it; and from this it is plain that the assumption is false - rather, in the instant and for the instant in which it is and for which it is, it exists contingently, as was proved and determined there. And I say the same of the cause, because the cause does not cause insofar as it precedes the effect in duration, but it is cause insofar as it precedes the effect in nature; if therefore every cause - for the instant for which it causes - necessarily causes and not contingently, then every cause necessarily causes and none contingently.

159. As to the third reason [n.124], one could deny that there is in each species an equal possibility for eternity and everlastingness, because a contradiction does not appear on the part of each species equally [e.g. it does not appear on the part of angels but does on the part of souls, n.154 ref. to Aquinas]; and so not a like possibility. Or if it be conceded of an ass that it could have been produced from eternity, and could have generated, and that consequently from it all the asses could have been that have been generated up to now [n.124] - when you ask whether they were finite or infinite, let it be denied that they are infinite; rather let it be said that they were finite [editors: the position actually adopted by Thomas of Sutton, who supposed an infinite past time before the first generation by the first ass, but a finite time from the first generation to the present].

160. And when the inference is drawn [n.124] that ‘therefore the whole duration from the production of that ass up to this one would have been finite’, let the consequence be denied; for although the first ass was produced from eternity, yet it could not have been generated from eternity, because generation necessarily includes - in creatures - that there is a change between opposite terms (namely privation and form), and whatever is between opposites succeeding to each other cannot be eternal.

161. And if you say that the ass would in that case have had to be at rest from generating for an infinite time (although however it had been made perfect and capable of generating), which seems unacceptable - I reply that the ass was not from eternity made more perfect for generating than God for causing, and yet for you [sc. someone who posits that creatures were produced at some time and not always, n.117] God must have been at rest from causing a for a quasi-imagined infinite duration, such that there would be a contradiction in his having caused anything without a quasi-imagined infinite past having gone by; and yet in the causing of it, namely in the giving of total existence to what has being in itself [sc. as to the first ass], it does not seem that newness was as necessarily included as it is in generation, which is from privation to form. It is not disagreeable, therefore, that, if an ass had to have generated, it was at rest for an imagined infinite time from an action [sc. generation] that necessarily involves its being new, when you posit that God was necessarily at rest from an action that you do not show formally includes newness.a

a.a [Interpolation from Appendix A] and so, as to anything else that would have been created from eternity, what is said is that it had rested for an imagined eternity.

162. To the fourth [n.125] I say that the whole deduction about those powers seems to be superfluous and to be at fault in many ways.Vatican Editors quote from Henry Quodlibet 8 a.9: “If the creature has from God actual being, then the creature is of itself a possible to be...; wherefore, since just as being simply is related to possible being simply, so too is being from eternity to possible being from eternity - therefore, if the creature has from God being from eternity, then the creature is of itself a possible to be from eternity...and a not haver of being from eternity. I ask therefore whether at the same time the creature has altogether from God being from eternity and from itself possible being and not-being from eternity, or whether it has being first from God before the reverse, or the other way around? Not in the first way because then contrary acts would be together in the same thing, namely being and not-being; nor in the second way, because what belongs to a thing from itself is prior to what belongs to it from another. So the third way is necessary, namely that the creature has from itself possible being and not-being before it has being from God. -- Being able to be in existence and being able not to be in existence, do they have being in the essence of the creature at the same time, or one first and then another? Not together because contrary powers (according to the Philosopher On the Heavens) cannot be wholly together in the same thing, just as neither can contrary acts; for if (as they say) the powers were present together.then two contrary powers could at the same time issue in contrary acts, and from the positing of a possible in being there would follow a false impossible. - Can then in the essence of the creature possible being in existence precede possible not-being in existence, or the reverse, and this either in nature or in duration? Now possible being cannot precede in nature, because not-being precedes being in nature. Possible not-being then precedes possible being. There remains a doubt, therefore, which of these precedes in duration? For if one of them precedes in duration then of necessity either possible this precedes possible that, or the reverse, or either of them can indifferently precede the other. And the last of these is impossible because then the essence of the creature under indifference would be disposed to both of them, and thus to the possible and to the act of them; but as it is, the essence of the creature is not equally disposed to act of existing and act of not-existing, because it is not of a nature to have the act of existing save from another, while the act of not-existing it has from itself. But if possible to be precedes in duration, and this of necessity. then of necessity the existence of the creature would precede its not-being (thus the creature would not be of itself a non-being in nature before it would be a being from another by some duration; for nothing belongs prior in nature to something which is not of a nature to belong first in duration to the same); but this is impossible, because (as has been said) what belongs to something of itself by nature is prior to what belongs to it from another. The second member (what I called above ‘the reverse’) is therefore necessary, that of necessity possible not to be is prior in the being of the creature in duration; wherefore so too is its not-being prior not only in nature but also in duration. It remains therefore that the creature cannot have being from something other than itself prior in duration to its having not-being (which belongs to it of itself) - and thus in no way could it be posited that a created thing could be made from eternity but from time.” ⁶ And yet when speaking of power as he himself [sc. Henry] does in arguing at the end, one should conclude that ‘potency to not-being’ necessarily precedes potency to being, and thus his argument, namely about contrary potencies (which he takes from the Philosopher On the Heavens 1.12.281b9-18) should be understood of potencies incompossible with their acts; and then if potency for not-being necessarily precedes potency for being, then being necessarily precedes not-being, because potency for not-being never exists, according to this understanding [sc. about potencies incompossible with their acts], unless in the same thing being has preceded.

163. Here one needs to know that when speaking properly of potency, namely prior to act, the subject of the immediate opposites is never in opposite potencies at the same time, because then it would lack both acts, and so the opposites would not be immediate to the same subject; and in the case of these it is true that never is the potency for one without the act of the other; not because the act is receptive of the potency, rather the subject alone receives the potency, just as it also receives the act of it (for if act a is prior to potency for b, because it is the idea of being receptive - then it is also prior to b itself, because in the same thing potency is prior by nature to act; but b is by the same reason prior in potency to a, and thus the same thing is prior and posterior to the same thing) - but the potency for one is necessarily concomitant with the act of the other, because of the immediacy of the acts.

164. To the proposed conclusion [n.125] I say that the creature was not from eternity under potency to being but under potency to not being, but it was first under potency to being (according to truth) because it was under not being, and so it was not in potency to not being; but if it had existed from eternity, it would always have existed under potency to not being, and never under potency to being but under act [sc. of being]. But if you are not speaking of potency before act but of quasi subjective potency, and if you are assuming essence not to be in this way to being save as under not being, the assumption is false and was rejected above [n.162].

165. Passing over this point about potencies, then, the argument in brief seems to stand on this, that opposites which are in the same thing in order of nature cannot be in the same thing at the same time in order of duration, because what is first by nature in a thing is first by duration in it; therefore, being and not being, since they are present in a stone in order of nature, cannot be present in it at the same time in duration, nor can they precede each other indifferently, but necessarily not being precedes being in duration, and so the stone could not have existed for ever. Now there is proof as follows that not being is present by nature first before being is: because not being belongs to a stone from itself, while being belongs to it not from itself but from another [from Henry: see footnote to n.162].

166. In response to this [n.165] I say that two opposites are not present in the same thing at the same time in order of nature when speaking quasi positively of order of nature (the way one must speak of animal and rational, of substance and accident), but they are thus present when speaking quasi privatively, namely that one of the two is present unless it is impeded - and this way was expounded in the preceding question [n.61], when expounding the opinion of Avicenna; and in this way I say that it is not necessary that what belongs to something first in nature should belong to it first in duration; for that which does not have any being from itself can be prevented by a positive cause that gives it something which it does not have of itself; and so it would, prior in duration to what it has from itself, have the opposite of this first.

167. This response [n.166] is plain in the case of other things. For the argument [sc. of Henry, footnote to n.162] would prove that God could not create matter under form, because matter is in nature first without form before it is with form, for it has privation of form from itself and it has possession of form from another; therefore form could not be in matter unless unformed matter had been prior in duration. But this argument is not conclusive, because matter is not of itself positively without form but only privatively without form, for from itself it does not yet have form but from another (as from its generator or creator), and it alone by itself, without any other positive cause, suffices for its being without form; it would therefore always be without form unless there were some positive cause impeding its continuing without form; and yet, because a positive cause can, from the beginning of essence itself, prevent matter’s being deprived by giving it being so that it is not always without form, therefore one should not necessarily deduce a priority of duration from such a priority of nature.

168. To the other point, about an infinity of souls [n.126] I reply that anything which cannot be made by God in one day ‘because it involves a contradiction’ cannot, for the same reason, be made by him in an infinite past time (if there had been an infinite past time). For in this one day there are infinite instants (nay, in one hour of this day), in each of which he could create a soul just as he could in one day of the whole of infinite time, if there were such infinite time (for it is not necessary that God rest from one day to the next in order to create one soul after another), and so if in the infinite instants of this day he cannot create infinite souls (because this cannot be done), neither could he have created infinite souls in the infinite days of the whole of past time.

169. And if you say ‘the instants of this day have not been actual in the way the infinite days of the past have been’, this is not enough, because just as the infinite instants of the infinite days - wherein God would have created - would have been in potency according to you [sc. you who say that the instants of this day have not been actual] (just as ‘the indivisible’ is in continuous coming to be and is not actual), because none of the instants would have been the end in actuality of the whole time, so too about the infinite instants of this day; therefore the instants of this day - or of this hour - seem to have an infinity equal to the infinite instants of the infinite days, and so the proposed conclusion seems to follow [n.168]. Yet some philosophers would concede that an infinity in accidentally ordered things is not impossible, as is plain from Avicenna Metaphysics 6.2 [f. 92ra], on causes.

170. As to the argument about the passing through of an infinite time [n.127], it seems to reject an eternity of successive things. But according to those who hold this opinion [sc. the first, n.102], there is not the same impossibility in successive things as in permanent ones, because although a permanence (of any kind) could be measured by time as to its motions, yet they posit that it is measured by eternity as to its substantial being; and so, to posit that a permanent thing is without beginning does not seem to mean positing that anything infinite has been taken.

171. This reasoning about ‘the successive infinite’ [n.170] is confirmed by the imagination about a converted line: that if some line were extended as it were to infinity, then, beginning from this point a, it would not be possible for it to be passed over; therefore it also seems that by imagining, to the converse, a line thus as it were taken into the past, it would not seem possible for it to be taken forward to this point a.

172. To the final argument [n.128] one can say that equal and greater and lesser only belong to a finite quantity of amount, because ‘quantity’ is divided first into finite and infinite before equal and unequal belong to it; for it is of the idea of a greater quantity to exceed and of a lesser quantity to be exceeded and of an equal quantity to be of the same measure - and all of these seem to involve finitude; and therefore an infinite should be denied to be equal to an infinite, because equal and unequal and greater and lesser are differences of finite quantity and not of infinite quantity [cf. Thomas of Sutton].

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’The mss. are obscure here. The Vatican editors note that the second ‘not’ is omitted by them, and they also print ‘be moved’ and not ‘move [something]’. But Scotus’ criticism seems to be that if time has to be eternal then God has to be always moving things, which he rejected in n.70 against the philosophers. Accordingly the alternative reading in the mss. of ‘move’ for ‘be moved’, together with the addition of ‘not’, is translated here. 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.Tr. The argument being criticized would run: ‘what begins is a creature, everything other than God begins, therefore everything other than God is a creature’. The middle term is ‘what begins’ which is extraneous both to ‘other than God’ and to ‘creature’, because ‘what begins’ is not part of what it is to be a creature or of what it is to be other than God, but is accidental to both. For those who hold the first opinion think a thing can be a creature and other than God and yet not have had a beginning (in time). 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].