Christian Questions to the Greeks 3

[Christian question 3] If God makes by his being and not by his willing, as fire heats by its being, how is it that he himself is simple and uniform, yet the maker of different essences?

[Greek answer] We must not suppose that, as in us being is one thing and willing another, so it is also in God; rather, in God being and willing are plainly one and the same. For what he is, he also wills; and what he wills, he is; and there is no division in God, because God is self-produced. So the division of being from willing in God must be thrown out. Yet neither must we suppose that God makes by his being in the way that fire heats. For fire, even if it has heat essentially, still has it as something that has come to belong to it; but in God nothing has come to belong to him, either essentially or accidentally. Since, then, nothing has come to belong to him, and being and willing are the same in God, he is simple and uniform, making the things that exist unbegottenly. For just as we see that begotten things, for example a particular human being who has come to be by begetting, being begotten, make begotten things, and in general begotten things that come to be by begetting make begotten things, and things from themselves, in the same way God too, being unbegotten, makes all things unbegottenly, not as things that come into being but as things that subsist together with him; and by the infinity of his power he makes different things. Let us not think of God's making in a human way. For as we, having first been in one condition and afterward changing to another, are said to make, God does not make so; rather, making all things without time by an unspeakable and surpassing power, he brings all things to completion; and at the same moment as he himself is, he also makes the things that exist, not needing, as we do, first to come into being and be brought to completion and then to make, because there is nothing earlier and later in him. We see nature too making by its very being, and always working its change all at once; as in the curdling of milk we observe the curdling coming upon the milk all at once. Much more, then, must we suppose that God makes all things all at once and without time, being himself one, but by the infinity of his power bringing forth different things, which themselves are wholly self-produced.

[Christian rebuttal] [1] “We must not suppose,” he says, “that, as in us being is one thing and willing another, so it is also in God. For what he is, he also wills; and what he wills, he is; and there is no division in God, because God is self-produced. So the division of being from willing in God must be thrown out.” Since God has essence for existing and will for making, whoever throws out the difference between essence and will throws out both God's existence and his making: his existence, his own; his making, that of things that do not exist. That God's essence is one thing and his will another is shown from the answerer's own words when he said: “For what he is, he also wills; and what he wills, he is.” He converted will with essence and essence with will. But conversion can in no way take place unless the terms converted are one thing and another, either in definition or in number. Nothing prevents what is one in number from being one thing and another in definition; for example, a straight line is one in number in its subsistence, but in the definition of “straight” and of “line” it is one thing and another; so too the nature of God is one thing and another in the definition of essence and of will. To exist is one thing and to exist in something another; God's essence exists, and the will exists in the essence; therefore the essence of God is one thing and the will another. If God's will is from his essence, but his essence is not from his will, then God's essence is one thing and his will another. God's essence does not admit of not being essence; but God's will admits of not willing. For example, God willed to make one sun; he did not will to make a second sun, because just as it was profitable for the things that exist that there be one sun, so it was not profitable for them that a second sun come to be; and he willed what was profitable and did not will what was not profitable. But if this is so, then God's essence is one thing and his will another. If what God is, that he also wills, clearly he is the object of will and not will. How then is will the same as essence, when the object of will and the will are one thing and another, just as the object of sense and sense? If God is without beginning and eternal, he is neither self-produced nor produced by another; for what is simply self-produced is in no way eternal and without beginning. The answerer by one statement does away with the difference between God's essence and his will, and by another statement lays it down. Doing away with the difference between God's essence and his will, he said: “We must not suppose that, as in us being is one thing and willing another, so it is also in God.” Laying down the difference, he says: “Rather, they are plainly the same”; and again: “Being and willing are the same in God.” For just as what is different is different, one thing from another, so too what is the same is plainly the same, one thing with another; and likewise what is “plainly” so is plainly so, one thing in relation to another. But if God's essence and will are the same, let them plainly be one thing and another; otherwise, if the “one thing and another” is done away with, the sameness of God's essence and will will necessarily be done away with too, and the “plainly” as well. As being moved is the activity of motion, so willing is the activity of will; and the difference that power has from activity, will has from willing. But it is impossible for willing to differ from will and not to differ from the one who wills. And if in no way can willing, will, and the one who wills be the same, clearly whoever throws out the distinction between God and his willing throws out the difference between the one who acts and the activity, which is absurd. If what subsists in itself is one thing and what does not subsist is another, and God is the former and willing the latter, clearly whoever throws out the distinction between God and willing throws out either what subsists or what does not subsist. If, by the opponent's argument, what God is he also wills, and what he wills he is, then clearly, if God did not will that his activity should not perish, … Therefore God is not what he wills. If making comes from God's will, clearly, as … differs, so being differs from willing.

[2] “Yet neither must we suppose that God makes by his being in the way that fire heats. For fire, even if it has heat essentially, still has it as something that has come to belong to it. But in God nothing … Since, then, nothing has come to belong to him, and being and willing are the same in God, he is simple and uniform, making the things that exist unbegottenly.” How heat has come to belong to fire, as the answerer wishes to say, I leave aside. For our inquiry now is not about how heat has come to belong to it, but simply about making, … what and how many and when he makes, … but about the activity without will, by which he acts by his being. Willing is either the essence or something added to the essence. But if it is the essence, it is not the one who wills; and if it is added to the essence, it is necessarily one thing and another; for what is and what is added are not the same. If God wills many things but is not many things, then being is not the same as willing in God. If God can make as many things as he wills to make, but does not will to make as many as he can make, then being is not the same as willing in him. If God is one, simple and uniform, but wills many things, and also does not will many things (for example, he wills that the things that exist be many in their variety, but does not will that they be infinite in number), then being is not the same as willing in him. If God does not make what he is, but makes what he wills, and he wills to make the world, then being is not the same as willing in him. If unbegotten things do not come into being unbegottenly, neither then does God make unbegotten things unbegottenly; for it is impossible for a thing made to be unbegotten. As teaching is the activity of the teacher in the learner, so making is the activity of the maker in the thing made. Therefore whoever does away with coming into being in the thing made also does away with activity in the making of the maker. In vain does God exercise the activity of making, if there is nothing that comes into being. If God does not make without making, neither does he make unbegottenly. “God makes” is the affirmation of making; but “he makes without making” is in effect the denial of the affirmation. “Unbegotten” and “made” are words that fight each other. If what comes through making is begotten, then what does not come through making is not begotten. There is no difference between saying, “The maker made, but the thing made did not come into being,” and saying, “God makes unbegotten things.” If it is reasonable to say, “God makes unbegotten things unbegottenly,” then it is reasonable also to say, “Unbegotten things come into being unbegottenly”; for “comes into being” follows “makes” by natural necessity. But if the second is absurd, the first is absurd too. If coming into being is temporal, being made is temporal too; for they are equivalent; for it is impossible, while the maker is making, for the thing made not to come into being. If nothing comes into being unbegottenly, neither then is anything made unbegottenly; for coming into being and being made are not the same in word, but are the same in fact. If God makes by his being, he makes what he makes by compulsion; but if he makes by willing, he makes with sovereign authority; and making with sovereign authority, he makes as many things as he wills, and such things as he wills, and when he wills. If God makes by his being, his willing is of no use to him, since he can in no way use it. The answerer lays down two incompatible things about God: he calls him the maker of the things that exist, and attaches to him making unbegottenly. For if he himself makes unbegottenly, but the thing made in no way comes into being, neither by begetting nor without begetting, neither as made nor as unmade, then just as the thing made does not come into being, so neither does the maker make.

[3] “For just as,” he says, “we see that begotten things, for example a human being who has come to be by begetting, being begotten, make begotten things, and in general begotten things that come to be by begetting make begotten things, and things from themselves, in the same way God too, being unbegotten, makes all things unbegottenly, not as things that come into being but as things that subsist together with him; and by the infinity of his power he makes different things.” Who, then, is the maker of the human being who, by the answerer's own expression, came to be by begetting, and who, being himself begotten, makes begotten things by begetting? If it is God, how did the answerer not speak falsely when he said, “God, being unbegotten, makes unbegotten things unbegottenly”? But if it is not God, how does God not exercise providence over what belongs to others, when he exercises providence over human beings, of whom he is not the maker? But if it is absurd not to call God the maker of the human being, it is absurd also to say that God makes unbegotten things unbegottenly; for see, he has made the human being, who by begetting is begotten. If the part of something is begotten, the whole of it is necessarily begotten too; and the human being, who by the answerer's own expression came to be by begetting, is a part of the world; therefore the world too is begotten. If God is unbegotten and makes unbegotten things, how does he not bear the name “unbegotten” in common with them, distinguishing himself from nothing? If God does not make what he is (for that is impossible), but makes what he is not, then he makes begotten things, being himself unbegotten. We do not first inquire how God makes, but what he makes; for once what he makes is found, how he makes is found too. If God, being unbegotten, makes unbegotten things unbegottenly, then, being without a master, he makes things without a master, in a masterless way. But if the second is absurd, the first is absurd too. Of things that subsist together with one another without interval, none can be the maker of any; otherwise they will be makers of one another. But if this is absurd, it is absurd also to call God the maker of things that subsist together with him without interval. If God can make infinite things, but by willing; and God cannot be different things, for he is one, simple, and uniform; but he wills different things; then he does not make by being but by willing. If the world subsists together with God as angles subsist together with the composition of lines, then God makes the world by compulsion and without willing, accidentally and not in itself; for … by compulsion … the lines. Whoever makes, makes what is not; for what is has no need of a maker. But if this is so, God is not the maker of the things that subsist together with him, as the answerer says. God did not make a house; he made the human being and gave him the power to make a house. Neither of these, then, is unbegotten with God, neither the making of the human being nor the giving of that power. The answerer laid down two rules: one for the making of things that are unbegotten and make unbegottenly, and one for the making of things that are begotten and make by begetting. The works of the unbegotten, he says, subsist together with their makers unbegottenly; but the works of the begotten are temporal. Since, then, none of the unbegotten makes temporally, clearly begotten things have neither come into being from the unbegotten nor will they come into being.

[4] “Let us not think of God's making in a human way. For as we, having first been in one condition and afterward changing to another, are said to make, God does not make so; rather, making all things without time by an unspeakable and surpassing power, he brings all things to completion; and at the same moment as he himself is, he also makes the things that exist, not needing, as we do, first to come into being and be brought to completion and then to make, because there is nothing earlier and later in him.” We change what is earlier into what is later by finding what is better; but God does not do so; rather, as is fitting, he makes from the beginning, not changing the earlier into the later. For if he had resolved from the beginning to change the earlier into the later and did not change it, it would be thought either weakness of power, or that he had found something better than what was resolved; neither of which belongs to God, neither weakness of power nor finding later something better than what came before. If God makes all things not as coming into being but as subsisting together with him, it was superfluous to make the things that exist at the same moment as he himself is. For just as, when the composition of lines exists, it would be superfluous to make the angles, so, since God exists together with the world, it would be superfluous to make the world, if indeed it subsists together with God, as the answerer says. If the world exists at the same moment as God exists, and the world is always in motion, and motion is in time, then God is in time together with the world. If God, being unbegotten, makes unbegotten things unbegottenly, not things that come into being but things that subsist together with him, then the human being too, being a part of the world, is unbegotten. How then does the answerer call him begotten? And if God, being unbegotten, makes unbegotten things unbegottenly, clearly, being simple, he makes all things that subsist together with him simple. But if so, the world does not subsist together with God, since it is composite both as a whole and in its parts. If God is one, and what subsists together with him is not one, then neither do begotten things subsist together with him, who is unbegotten. If God … accidentally the angles subsist together with the position … If God is beyond intelligible and sensible things, neither then, being unbegotten, does he make unbegotten things. If it is impossible for anything to subsist together with what is beyond it, how did the world come to subsist together with God, who is beyond it? If it is impossible for composite things to be unbegotten, how are the heaven, the sun, and the world unbegotten, since they are composite, having their matter from one source and their form from another?

[5] “We see nature too making by its very being, and always working its change all at once; as in the curdling of milk we observe the curdling coming upon the milk all at once. Much more, then, must we suppose that God makes all things all at once and without time, being himself one, but by the infinity of his power bringing forth different things, which themselves are wholly self-produced.” Nature works its change all at once not to make an essence but to make an affection; for curdling in milk is an affection of the milk; but nature in no way makes an essence all at once. How then has the answerer not used an inappropriate example, the working of nature, to illustrate God's timeless working, since God is the Creator of many and different essences? And even if God makes all at once, not even so does he make without time; for “all at once” is the indivisible instant of time. The will of God does not rule over self-produced things … the sun and the world. The will of God rules over all things; nothing, then, is self-produced. The answerer calls both God and the world self-produced. But if the world is self-produced, subsisting together with the cause of its own subsistence, then God too, being self-produced, must subsist together with the cause of his own subsistence. But if this is absurd, it is absurd also to call God and the world self-produced and subsisting together with one another without interval. If God is self-produced in himself, and the world subsists together with him accidentally, how is it not false that “nothing has come to belong to God,” if indeed, when God was self-produced, the world subsisted together with him as self-produced? If what comes to belong to something by natural necessity comes to belong to it without its willing, how, if the world subsists together with God by natural necessity, does it not subsist together with him without his willing, accidentally? If being is the same as willing in God, clearly where God does not will, there he is not. How then, where he is not, does the world subsist together with him? For the world subsists together with him without his willing. If the unbegotten makes unbegotten things unbegottenly, clearly the uncompounded also makes uncompounded things in an uncompounded way. But if not the second, neither the first; for the world is composite. If God does not make gods in a divine way, how does the unbegotten make unbegotten things unbegottenly? For the unbegotten itself is not something other: the one exists, while the other is distinguished from begotten things. God exists as making; he makes; he is not separated. And if he also makes that from which he is separated, but accidentally and not in himself, how does nothing come to belong to God when he makes accidentally? If the world subsists together with God as the concave and the convex subsist together in a sphere, then they are causes of each other, God of the world and the world of God, just as those are. If no one makes by will what he would have made even without willing, how then did God make the world by will, when even without willing to make it he made it of necessity? If God is one in essence but infinite in power, and the things that subsist together with him are neither one in his essence nor infinite in his power, neither then do they subsist together with him. God is always perfect, always powerful; and in him there is nothing earlier and later, but in his works there are both. His works are composite; and every composite thing is composed of simple things, and it is impossible for the simple things to exist at the same time as the composite; for the simple things come first and the composite afterward. Just as God cannot be accused of weakness of power because he did not make several worlds, but having made one world ceased from making, so God cannot be accused of imperfection of power because he did not make the world at the same moment as he himself is, but when he willed. “Self-produced” differs in nothing from “self-originated.” But if God is self-produced and the world self-produced, both God and the world will be self-originated. If the world receives being all at once, as we see the curdling come upon the milk all at once, then the world is begotten and changeable from non-essence to essence; for “comes upon” shows coming into being. If God is self-produced and the world self-produced, the self-production of each will be the beginning of the existence of each. How then are God and the world without beginning and eternal, if they have their self-productions as the beginnings of their existence? “Self-produced” carries the sense of production of what is brought forth by itself. But since everything that is brought forth is brought forth either in its presence, by a removal from place to place, or in its essence, by a making that leads from non-existence to existence, and neither of these belongs to God, clearly the answerer did not rightly call him self-produced; for in what is wholly self-produced the self-produced differs in nothing from what is produced by another. If it is impossible for the unbegotten to be unmade, it is impossible for the world to be unbegotten and for God to be its maker. And if the world differs from God by being made, it necessarily differs also by being begotten; for the world is made and God is unmade. If what subsists together with the unbegotten by natural necessity is unmade, how is it not false that “God made a made world,” when according to him it is unmade and unbegotten? … necessarily it is also self-made. “Self-produced” differs in nothing from “self-begotten” and “self-made.” But if both God and the world are self-produced, they will be self-begotten and self-made. But if this is absurd, it is absurd also to call the God who is without beginning and eternal self-produced, and the made world unbegotten and self-produced. If the world is self-produced, it is not produced by God; and if it is not produced by God, then God did not bring it forth. How then is the answerer not saying false and incompatible things when he says that God brings forth, while the world is self-produced? “Much more, then,” he says, “must we suppose that God makes all things all at once and without time, being himself one, but by the infinity of his power bringing forth different things, which themselves are wholly self-produced.” And if “makes” is equivalent to “will make,” how does one who removes “will make” from God as carrying the sense of future time now apply “makes” to him, which carries the same sense of time? And if “makes,” besides the sense of the future, also carries the sense of the past, how are not all the parts of time present in God's working?