Christian Questions to the Greeks 2

[Christian question 2] If it is impossible for one who has made nothing to be God, how is there a God, if the world is unbegotten, as you think?

[Greek answer] To say that it is impossible for one who has made nothing to be God is absurd. For here again the same argument applies, that nothing is temporal with God. And if nothing is temporal with God, clearly it is not fitting to attach the past of time to God. And if this is not fitting, neither is it fitting to say that God has made anything whatever. What then? Will you say that we err in calling God inactive? But that is not what we say; we say that God neither has made, nor makes, nor will make, in time. For he has no more made than he makes, nor again does he make more than he will make; rather, with God the past is in the present, and the future in having already come to be, since God has nothing in flux but always does the same things, because of his perfect and unchangeable power and activity. He makes the world, then, in this very thing that it is, providing it with unceasing motion by shining upon it through eternity. … that he who remains in the same state does the same things, the same one the same thing, having no beginning of his making so as to have no end either; since, if his activities have a beginning and an end, God will be perishable in his activity, which is absurd. For his power too will be changeable, using now one activity and now another; and his essence will be shaken, generating now some powers and now others, and not remaining in the same ones. So if these things hold throughout, clearly God will be changeable in essence, power, and activity, which is absurd. He, then, remaining the same, has nothing temporal; … the world, ordering it always; and the world, by being always guarded, comes into being, and by always being, the same world is unbegotten.

[Christian rebuttal] Refutation of the answer, which was not rightly given.

[1] “To say that it is impossible for one who has made nothing to be God is absurd. For here again the same argument applies, that nothing is temporal with God.” If, because nothing is temporal with God, it is absurd to say of him “he has made,” it is equally absurd to say “he makes,” which is as temporal as “he has made.” How then does the answerer say that “he has made” is unfitting for God but “he makes” is fitting? And if “having made” is equivalent to “has made,” and likewise “makes” to “will make,” and equivalent terms may be substituted for one another without hindrance, how is it that in the first answer the answerer applied “having made” and “makes” to God, but now removes both from him? “Having made” he applied to God thus: “If the God who made the things here is the same God”; and “to make” thus: “So he, being the same and remaining in the same state, must do the same things.” But removing in the second answer what was laid down in the first, he says: “It is absurd to say that it is impossible for one who has made nothing to be God”; and again: “God neither has made, nor makes, nor will make, in time.” But perhaps he came to contradict himself through his own forgetfulness, through which, as he said, ignorance befalls human beings. Let us examine in order what follows.

[2] “Nothing,” he says, “is temporal with God. Clearly it is not fitting to attach the past of time to God. And if this is not fitting, neither is it fitting to say that God has made anything whatever.” Here the answerer, having laid down the absurd premise that nothing is temporal with God, brings in as reasonable what follows of necessity from the absurdity: that if nothing is temporal with God, clearly it is not fitting to attach the past of time to God; and if this is not fitting, neither is it fitting to say that God has made anything whatever. That he laid down absurdly that nothing is temporal with God, and used it as proof for what he brings in next, the answerer refutes himself in what he said in the first answer: “If,” he says, “the God who made the things here is the same God, clearly, since the same God remains, the same things will be later and always; for what he could do of old he can do now.” If, then, nothing is temporal with God, clearly neither “having made,” nor “makes,” nor “earlier” and “later,” nor “of old” and “now,” nor “could” and “can” apply to him. For “having made,” “earlier,” “of old,” and “could” indicate past time; and “makes,” “later,” “now,” and “can” signify present and future time. And if these words, applied to God, come to signify and assert that all God's works are temporal with him, clearly he laid down absurdly that nothing is temporal with him. And when this, as an absurd premise, is done away with, there is necessarily done away with it the claim that “he has made” does not fit God. For when this is done away with, its contrary is necessarily laid down, that is, that “he has made” fits God; for in every case either the affirmation or the denial must be true. And once it is laid down that “he has made” fits God, it is impossible to speak of a God who has made nothing; for this follows from that.

[3] … “What then? Will you say that we err in calling God inactive? … that God has made nothing, nor makes, nor will make, in time; for he has no more made than he makes, nor again does he make more than he will make; rather, with God the past is in the present, and the future in having already come to be, since God has nothing in flux but always does the same things, because of his perfect and unchangeable power and activity.” But to flee the error that calls God inactive, while saying of him that he “neither has made, nor makes, nor will make, in time,” is to fall into the same error. For if you had wanted to err and call God inactive, what more could you have said than what you have now said, though you did not want to err and call God inactive, namely, that God neither has made, nor makes, nor will make? For when the words that show and carry a temporal sense are removed from God's activity, God will be found inactive, and so not a maker either.

[4] If nothing is temporal with God, clearly neither the past of time is with him, nor the present, nor the future. How then does the answerer, while removing temporal things from God, apply temporal things to God when he says: “Rather, with God the past is in the present, and the future in having already come to be”? This means one of two things: either this, which is not with God, is in what is not; or this, which is not with God, is in what is. If the first, it is impossible; for to be in something, or not to be, belongs to what is. If the second, then with God what is not is in what is, that is, the past of time is in the present of time. Once this is laid down, it is shown that “nothing is temporal with God” was not rightly said, since the past in the present and the future in having already come to be are temporal. Even if he changed the manner in which the parts of time are with God, he still granted that the past of time, the present, and the future are with him; and also that he has no more made than he makes, nor again makes more than he will make, … since the makings … For what need was there to remove “more” from the makings that correspond to “has made,” “makes,” and “will make,” which differ from one another, if the makings taken as a whole do not differ from one another by more and less? To say “he has no more made than he makes” is not a denial of having made but rather an affirmation of “he has made.” Plainly, all the temporal things he removed from God in the opening of the second answer he left with him here: “since God has nothing in flux but always does the same things, because of his perfect and unchangeable power and activity.” One who removes temporal things does not lay down temporal things. How then, if according to the answerer nothing is temporal with God, does God make the same things? For “makes” cannot be conceived outside present time. And how does God have perfect power and activity, if he makes the same things unceasingly? For motion is called imperfect activity precisely because it is always in motion; and if God made in imitation of it, his activity would be imperfect and not perfect; for perfect activity is seen in a work already completed, not in one not yet completed. But if, because of the incompleteness of the activity and the endlessness of the process, the answerer says that God has made nothing, he will not speak the truth when he says that God's activity is perfect, since it has completed nothing either in whole or in part. And if it is impossible for the activity of one who is always making to be perfect without the work being completed, then clearly God does not have perfect activity, since he is always making what is being made.

[5] “He makes the world, then, in this very thing that it is, providing it with unceasing motion by shining upon it through eternity.” If God makes the world in providing motion, clearly he makes the world temporal; for the motion provided to the world by God for its own movement is not without time. If, then, making belongs to present time, and motion is temporal, how is it not false that “nothing is temporal with God”? And how is it possible for the world, which has not yet come to be, to be moved, unless it is in the process of being made, when God makes without time and the world lies in time? For as the maker makes, so must the thing made lie, without time. And if God makes the world by providing motion, and it is not fitting to say of him, “He has made the world,” then neither is it fitting for the world to be moved. For what is moved is one thing and motion another. Let the sun, for example, be what is moved, and its motion a passing by travel from place to place. If motion does not provide the sun with its essence but provides it with moving by travel, clearly the sun has two makings, one of its essence and another of its motion. For example, the sun is an ethereal condensation in essence, bright in form, spherical in shape; none of these does the sun have from motion. But if the sun has none of these through motion, clearly God does not make the sun, which is a part of the world, through the making of motion, as he makes the whole world; and what is movable must exist first, and the motion afterward. Either, then, the sun is unmade in its essence, or God made its essence by one making and its motion by another, having first made its essence and afterward provided it with motion. But if he always makes it move but does not always make its essence, clearly after the making of its essence he provides it with its unceasing motion; and the end of the making of its essence is the beginning of its motion. If this is so, clearly nothing is timeless with God; for a making that succeeds another making is not timeless.

[6] “So he has made nothing, nor …; but the same one always makes the same thing, having no beginning of his making, so as to have no end either.” Now that it has been shown that the making of the sun's essence is one thing and the making through motion, which the answerer called unceasing, another, and that the making of its essence precedes the making through motion, how is it not absurd to call beginningless the making of the sun through motion, when the sun had, before the unceasing making through motion, the making of its essence, which had come to an end? Either, then, God is not the maker of the sun's essence, or the making of the sun through motion is not beginningless. If the first, and God is not the maker of the sun's essence, neither is he the maker of its motion; for from whom a thing has its essence, from him it must also have its motion. If the second, God will be perishable in his activity, if indeed, according to the answerer, when God's activity ceases, God perishes in his activity. But if God is the maker of the sun's essence and does not always make it, clearly he made it before the sun was moved, so that nothing is timeless with God.

[7] “Since, if his activities have a beginning and an end, God will be perishable in his activity, which is absurd. And his power too will be changeable, putting forth now one activity and now another. And if the power is changeable, using now one activity and now another, the essence too will be shaken, generating now some powers and now others, and not remaining in the same ones. So if these things hold throughout, clearly God will be changeable in essence, power, and activity, which is absurd.” As God himself has no beginning or end, so neither, on this view, does his activity, nor do his works (for his activities are in his works). So, just as he himself does not need a maker, neither will his so-called works; and it will be false to call God the maker of things that, according to the answerer, are without beginning and without end. And if everywhere the maker precedes by the difference between prior and subsequent existence, … and as God himself … the difference between God and his works … deprives both, God and the things made, the one of the title of maker, the others of the title of things made. And if God's power is infinite, as indeed it is, but his works are finite, how is God, in respect of the powers that he has but does not exercise, not perishable in his activity, by the answerer's own judgment? But if, in respect of the powers that he has and does not exercise, he is not perishable, then neither, when the activity of God that brings forth the world ceases, does God perish in his activity. He acts as much as he wills, and not as much as he can; and the contraction of his activity does not make God perishable. Nor, when he contracts his activity, does he contract it by a change of his power; rather, God's power is always unchangeable, and he uses his activities as far as he wills. For God does not act as those things act which have their being in acting, and which cease to be when their activity ceases, like fire and snow. For if God acted in this way, he would act not for the sake of the things that come to be but for the sake of his own being, so that if he ceased acting he would also cease to be. But if this is absurd, it is absurd also to call God's power changeable by the contraction of his activity, or his essence shaken by putting forth now some and now other various activities. And just as God makes us first infants, then young men, then old men, not by a change of his power, nor by the corruption of his activity, nor by his essence being shaken, when he varies our ages at different times, which differ from one another as earlier and later, but by the putting forth and contracting of his activity, so his activity has a beginning and an end not by a change of his power but by putting forth and contracting. For if, when his activity was contracted, God could no longer use the activity that had ceased, it would rightly be called a corruption of activity; but if he can always use the same activity, the activity of God is not corrupted when it is contracted. For when the power is not corrupted, it is impossible for the activity to be corrupted. The corruption of activity is one thing, and the contraction of activity another; so that if the activity that makes the world were not contracted, worlds infinite in number would have come to be by an unceasing activity. But now, since only one world has come to be, the activity that made the world is shown to be finite by the finiteness of the work.

[8] “He, then, remaining the same, has nothing temporal. He makes the world, then, ordering it always; and the world, by being always guarded, comes into being, and by always being, the same world is unbegotten.” If God has nothing temporal, neither does he have making; for making is temporal. And if God makes the world … in his activity … not by themselves but accidentally. For the world is not a world without essence. And if the world has essence, it is necessarily unmade and unguarded. For what does not need anything in order to come into being in its essence does not need anything in order to be guarded either; for the unbegotten nature admits nothing from outside itself. And if in every case either the affirmation or the denial must be true, how did the answerer lay down both about the coming into being of the world, the affirmation and the denial, saying that it is both originated and unoriginated? Further, if, as he said in the third answer, God, being unbegotten, makes all things unbegottenly, not as coming into being but as subsisting together with him: since everything that subsists together with something is preserved by the preservation of that with which it subsists, needing no other guarding than the preservation of that thing (for when that is preserved, it too is preserved), therefore, if there is need of guarding for preservation, it is the thing with whose subsistence the co-subsisting things subsist that needs guarding, not the co-subsisting things. But if this is so, then it is not the world, which subsists together with God, that needs guarding, but God himself, with whom the world subsists. But if this is absurd, it is absurd also to say that the world subsists together with God. One must say, then, that the world subsists by the will of God, and by the will of God the same world endures, even if not forever. For things that subsist together with the subsistence of something are preserved by its preservation, not by their own. For example, angles subsist together with the composition of lines; while the composition remains, the angles remain too; and when the composition is destroyed, the angles are destroyed too; and if there is need for the angles to endure, it is necessary to give guarding to the composition of the lines, not to the angles: to the angles accidentally, but to the composition of the lines in itself. In the same way one must think of the world, if it subsists unbegottenly together with God, as the answerer says.