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].