Whether a Being Diverse in Essence
from God Could Have Always Existed



I. Arguments for the affirmative answer:

  • A1. A cause that produces the whole substance of an entity has no less power over its effect than a cause that produces only the form. But a cause that produces only the form can produce it from eternity, if it itself exists from eternity. Therefore, a fortiori God can produce an effect that is coeternal with him.
  • A2. You will reply that that an impossibility would follow, viz., that a creature would be equivalent to God in duration. Reply: a duration which is not an "all at once" but is instead successive cannot be equivalent to a duration which is an "all at once". But if the world had always existed then its duration would not always be an "all at once," since it is measured by time. Therefore, it would even in that case not be equivalent to God in duration.
  • A3. Just as a divine person proceeds from God without motion, so too a creature. But a divine person can be coeternal with God, from whom he proceeds. Therefore, so can a creature be coeternal with God.
  • A4. What is always behaving in the same way can always be doing the same thing. But God behaves in the same way from eternity. Therefore from eternity he can be doing the same thing. Therefore, if he produced a creature at some time, then he was likewsie able to produce it from eternity.
  • A5. You will reply that A5 works for something that acts by nature but not for a voluntary agent. Reply: God's will does not restrict his power. But if he were not acting voluntarily, then it would follow that he has produced a creature from eternity. Therefore, the fact that he acts voluntarily does not undermine the claim that he could have produced a creature from eternity.
  • A6. If God produced a creature at some time or instant and his power was not increased, then he could also have produced a creature before that time or instant. And by the same argument he could have produced a creature before this latter time or instant, and so on to infinity. Therefore, he could have produced a creature from eternity.
  • A7. God can do more than the human mind can grasp. But the Platonists believed that something which had always existed was made by God. Therefore, God could have made something such that it has always existed.
  • A8. Whatever is not contrary to the notion of a creature is such that God can bring it about in the creature. Otherwise he would not be omnipotent. But to have always existed is not contrary to the notion of a creature insofar as it is made. Otherwise, to say that a creature has always existed would be the same as saying that it has not been made. For Augustine distinguishes these two beliefs: (1) that the world has always existed in such a way that it was not made by God and (2) that it has always existed while nonetheless having been made by God. Therefore, God can bring it about that something that has been made is such that it always exists.
  • A9. Just as nature can produce its effect instantaneously, so too an unimpeded voluntary agent can produce its effect instantaneously. But God is an unimpedable voluntary agent. Therefore, creatures that are produced through his will could have been produced from eternity, in the same way as the Son, who proceeded naturally from the Father.



II. Arguments for the negative answer:

  • N1. Augustine: The Trinitarian nature is immutable in such a way that nothing can be co-eternal with it.
  • N2. Damascene: What has been brought from non-being into being is not apt to be coeternal with that which exists everlastingly and without beginning.
  • N3. Everything eternal is invariable. But a creature cannot be invariable. Therefore, a creature cannot have always existed.
  • N4. Nothing that depends on another is necessary or, consequently, eternal. But everything that is made depends on another. Therefore, nothing that is made can be eternal.
  • N5. If God was able to produce a creature from eternity, then he did produce it from eternity. For, according to the philosopher, in everlasting matters to be does not differ from to be possible. But it is contrary to the Faith to say that a creature existed from eternity. Therefore, it is contrary to the Faith to posit that it could have been produced from eternity.
  • N6. The will of one who is wise does not, assuming that it can, put off doing what it intends to do except for some reason. But no reason can be given why, if God could have created the world from eternity, he should have created it when he did rather than earlier. Therefore, it seems that he could not have created the world from eternity.
  • N7. If a creature is made, then [ultimately] it is made either from nothing or from something. But not from something, since either (i) it would be made from something which is the divine essence itself--which is impossible--or else (ii) it would be made from something else such that (a) if it itself is not made, then it will be a thing outside of God that is not made by God--a claim that was disproved above--and such that (b) if it itself is made from another, then either there will be an infinite regress, which is impossible, or else we will come to something that is made from nothing. But it is impossible for something that is made from nothing to have always existed. Therefore, it is impossible for a creature to have always existed.
  • N8. It is part of the nature of the eternal that it has no beginning, whereas it is part of the nature of a creature that it does have a beginning. Therefore, no creature can be eternal.
  • N9. A creature is measured by either time or aeviternity. But time and aeviternity differ from eternity. Therefore, a creature cannot be eternal.
  • N10. If something is created, then there must be an instant at which it was created. But before that instant it did not exist. Therefore, one must say that the creature has not always existed.



III. St. Thomas's Reply

According to the Philosopher, the term possible is predicated sometimes (i) relative to some power and sometimes (ii) relative to no power. If it is predicated relative to some power, then it is predicated either (ia) relative to an active power (e.g., it is possible for a builder to build) or (ib) relative to a passive power (e.g., it is possible for wood to be burned). If it is not predicated relative to some power, then it is predicated either (iia) metaphorically (e.g., geometers call a line potentially rational) or (iib) absolutely, viz., when the terms of the relevant proposition are not incompatible with one another. In the corresponding sense, something is said to be absolutely impossible when the terms are incompatible with one another.
  • Now let's consider the proposition Something diverse in substance [from God] that is from God is such that it has always existed.
  • This proposition is not impossible absolutely, since, as we saw above in the case of the Son of God, being from another is not incompatible with having always existed--except when the thing in question comes to be through motion. The addition, diverse in substance, likewise is not incompatible, absolutely speaking, with having always existed.
  • If we take the term possible as predicated relative to an active power, then God does not lack the power to produce from eternity an essence diverse from him. However, if we take the term possible as predicated relative to a passive power, then, assuming the truth of the Catholic Faith, one cannot claim that something diverse from God that proceeds from God was able to have always existed. For the Catholic Faith assumes that everything distinct from God is such that at some time it did not exist. But just as it is impossible that something that is posited as having existed at some time should never have existed, so too it is impossible that something which is posited as not having always existed should have always existed. (Note that when we are talking about a real passive potentiality, we are talking about the potentialities attaching to things that really exist or have existed.) This is why some say that a creature's always having existed is possible on God's part but not on the part of any essence that has proceeded from God.



IV. Replies to arguments for the affirmative answer:

  • To A1: This argument goes through with respect to the agent's power, but not with respect to the patient's power, given the assumption that the thing made has not always existed.
  • To A2: Even if a creature should have always existed, it would be equivalent to God not absolutely, but only insofar as it imitates him--which is OK.
  • To A3: In the divine person there is nothing that is assumed to have not existed at some time; but, according to the Faith, there is such an assumption with respect to everything distinct from God.
  • To A4: This argument goes through with respect to the agent's power, which is not diminished because of his (actual) act of will except insofar as by the freedom of the divine it was the case that no creature has always existed.
  • To A5: Same reply.
  • To A6: If one posits that a creature has existed prior to some given time, then we can still preserve the position of the faith by which it is posited that nothing besides God is such that it has always existed. However, that position cannot be preserved if one posits that some creature has always existed. Hence, there is no analogy between the two cases.
  • Also, one should note that the argument is formally invalid. For instance, God can make any given creature better, but he cannot make a creature of infinite goodness; for infinite goodness is repugnant to a creature, but not any determinate degree of (finite) goodness. Also, if one says God could have made the world before he in fact made it, then if the priority in question is referred to God's active power, the proposition is indubitably true. For he had the power of making the world from eternity, and eternity is prior to time. On the other hand, if what is at issue is the esse of the thing made, then it is being assumed that before the instant of the creation of the world there was a real time at which the world could have been made. But this is clearly false, since before the creation of the world there was no motion and hence no time. Still, we can imagine a time before the the creation of the world--just as we can imagine spatial dimensions outside of the universe--and in this sense we can say that God could have created the world before he did, since he was able to have made time more long-lasting.
  • To A7: The Platonists said this as strangers to the Faith and not assuming the truth of the Faith.
  • To A8: This argument proves only that to be made and to have always existed are not incompatible with one another when they are considered in themselves. Hence, it goes through only with respect to absolute possibility.
  • To A9: This argument goes through only on the part of possibility with respect to an active power.



V. Replies to arguments for the negative answer, which seem to conclude that it is in no way possible for a thing diverse from God to be such that it has always existed:

  • To N1: According to Boethius, even if the world had always existed, it would not have been coeternal with God, since its duration would not be an "all-at-once", which is what is required for eternity. For eternity is "the interminable, all-at-once, and perfect possession of life".
  • To N2: Damascene is speaking on the presupposition of Faith. This is clear from the fact that he says, "What has been brought from non-being into being...."
  • To N3: Variability as such excludes eternity but not infinite duration.
  • To N4: That which depends on another cannot exist at any time except through the influence of that on which it depends. But if the latter is such that it has always existed, then the former will likewise always exist.
  • To N5: It does not follow that if God was able to make something, then he made that thing. For he acts voluntarily and not by a necessity of nature. The claim that in everlasting matters to be and to be possible do not differ should be taken as referring to passive potentiality, not active potentiality. For a passive potentiality that is not conjoined to [the corresponding] actuality is a principle of corruption and so is repugnant to everlastingness, whereas a non-actual effect of an active potency does not preclude the perfection of the agent cause in question, especially in the case of a voluntary agent cause. For an effect is not the perfection of an active potency in the way that a form is the perfection of a passive potency.
  • To N6: Our intellect is unable to discover any explanation concerning the production of the first creatures, since it is unable to comprehend the art which is the sole explanation for why these creatures have a given mode. Hence, just as a human being cannot explain why the heavens is just so big and not bigger, so too he cannot explain why the world was not made earlier--even though both were subject to God's power.
  • To N7: The first creatures were produced from nothing and not from something. But the claim that at first they did not exist and later came to exist is necessary not because of the way they were produced but because of the truth which the Faith assumes. For, according to Anselm, one possible sense of this claim is as follows: A creature is said to be made ex nihilo because it was not made from anything, so that the negation has the preposition within its scope and is not within the preposition's scope--with the result that the negation negates the ordering to something that the presposition implies, whereas the preposition does not imply an ordering to nothingness. On the other hand, if the ordering remains affirmed and the preposition that has the negation within its scope, then it still does not have to be the case that the creature was nothing at some time. For one can say, as indeed Avicenna does, that the non-esse of a thing precedes its esse by nature and not in duration--because, namely, if the thing were left to itself, it would be nothing, whereas it has esse only from the other. For that which is of itself apt to inhere in something belongs to that thing in a naturally prior way, since it is apt to exist in it only from another.
  • To N8: It is part of the nature of the eternal not to have a beginning of duration, whereas it is part of the nature of a creature to have a source of origin but not a source of duration--unless, that is, one takes creation as the Faith takes it.
  • To N9: Aeviternity and time differ from eternity not only by reason of a beginning of duration but also by reason of succession. For time is successive in itself, whereas succession is joined to aeviternity insofar as [aeviternal] substances are variable with respect to something, even if they do not vary with respect to anything insofar as they are measured by aeviternity. Eternity, on the other hand, neither contains succession nor has succession adjoined to it.
  • To N10: The operation by God brings things into being should not be understood like the operation of a craftsman who makes a box and afterwards leaves it alone. Rather, God continually pours in the esse into the thing. Hence, it is unnecessary to assign some instant of the production of things before which they had not been produced--except in light of the assumption of the Faith.