Christian Questions to the Greeks 4–5

[Christian question 4] If it is impossible for what formerly was not but later is to be co-eternal with what always is, how, if the world is begotten, is it co-eternal with God?

[Greek answer] That it is impossible for what is temporal (for this is what “formerly not being but later being” means) to be eternal and co-eternal with what always is, is clear; and that from this argument too the world is shown to be unbegotten is surely clear to everyone. But if someone should wish to say that some of the ancients call the world begotten: if people examined their words superficially, they would justly blame those who say this; but if they considered accurately the depth of what was said, they would find these men declaring accurately and clearly that the world is unbegotten. For when they say that the exemplary cause and the efficient cause are unbegotten, they clearly declare that the world too, being their product, is unbegotten. For the ancients have demonstrated that what are called relatives exist simultaneously by nature. Since, then, the image is relative to the exemplar and the exemplar to the image, and the product to the craftsman and the craftsman to the product, they will exist simultaneously by nature. If, then, the craftsman is unbegotten and the exemplar unbegotten, so is the world, being the image of the exemplar and the product of the craftsman. That relatives exist simultaneously by nature has been clearly demonstrated and agreed by all, and it is easy to see at once; for right and left are relatives. Just as there cannot be a right if there is no left, nor a left apart from the right, so there cannot be a craftsman without the product, or the product without the craftsman. If, then, the craftsman is unbegotten, the product too is unbegotten. And if someone should wish to say that the craftsman existed first and the product came into being later, he will fall into another absurdity. For he will be found saying that the craftsman is a craftsman in potency and not in act, which is nothing other than calling God imperfect; and besides, the product will nonetheless subsist together with the craftsman, being in potency as the craftsman is, since relatives everywhere subsist on equal terms. If, then, the craftsman is in potency, the product is in potency; if the craftsman is in act and perfect, the product is likewise. So it is clear to everyone that the product subsists together with the craftsman insofar as he is a craftsman.

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

[1] As though he had shown in his other answers that the world is unbegotten, the answerer promises in the present answer also to show that the world is unbegotten. Yet in his other answers he neither established the unbegottenness of the world from what is evident and known about the world, nor laid it down by demonstration, but only declared what seemed good to him on his own authority. Coming to this present answer, in which he tries to show that the world is unbegotten, he first mentions the ancients who said that the world is begotten; and these he called worthy of just blame for saying that the world is begotten, unless by their other statements they had overturned their own statements that the world is begotten. But this does not free them from just blame; rather it makes them deserving of great and just blame, to lay down both the affirmation and the denial about the coming into being of the world, and to fight against oneself with one's own words. Let this be said to show that the answerer had no right to use mutually conflicting statements as a demonstration establishing that the world is unbegotten. Let us now examine the statements of those ancients in which, as the answerer says, they declare demonstrably that the world is unbegotten.

[2] “And that from this argument too,” he says, “the world is shown to be unbegotten is surely clear to everyone. … the world begotten: if people attend superficially to the words, they would justly blame those who say this; but if they understood the depth, they would find these men accurately and clearly declaring the world unbegotten. For when they say that the exemplary cause and the efficient cause are unbegotten, they clearly declare that the world too, being their product, is unbegotten.” If the ancients have laid down that the world is begotten, and what is laid down remains unchanged when it is understood superficially but turns into its opposite when it is understood deeply, why did the answerer not apply the same kinds of attention, the superficial and then the deep, to the exemplary and efficient cause laid down by the ancients, turning it into its opposite, just as he turned the begotten world laid down by the ancients into an unbegotten one? But if it is absurd to do this, one must understand the words of the ancients by the natures of the things, and not change what is laid down into its opposite by different kinds of attention. The exemplar is one thing and what is made according to the exemplar another; for the exemplar is simple, and what is made according to the exemplar composite. What is thus one thing and another is necessarily at one time and another; and what is at one time and another, earlier and later, cannot be simultaneous by nature; therefore the exemplar and what is made according to the exemplar are not simultaneous by nature. The answerer sometimes calls the world the common product of the exemplary cause and the efficient cause, saying, “Clearly the world too, being their product”; and sometimes the product of the efficient cause and the image of the exemplary cause. From this it is clear that the world is not relative to the craftsman insofar as it is an image, nor to the exemplar insofar as it is a product. But if this is so, it is not true that the world is the product of both. If the craftsman crafts the world by means of the exemplar, he crafts it by willing; but if he crafts it by his being, the exemplar is superfluous, since God's being suffices to make what is made, and it sets aside the will. For things that would have come into being even if the maker did not will them are not objects of will; such is the work of those who make by their being. God himself is unbegotten; but he begot the exemplar from his own thought, and he crafted the world from matter according to the exemplar. But if, according to the answerer, the world is unbegotten because it is the product of the unbegotten craftsman, then the exemplar too will be unbegotten, since it is the offspring of the unbegotten. But if it is absurd to call the offspring unbegotten, it is absurd also to call what is begotten unbegotten. If, because the craftsman is unbegotten, the product too must be unbegotten, clearly in the same way the product must be uncrafted, since the craftsman is uncrafted. But if this is absurd, it is absurd also … the unbegotten … into the begotten. “Crafted” and “begotten” differ only in word, but in fact they do not differ; hence they convert with one another universally, because they are equal. For if something is begotten, it is necessarily crafted; and if it is crafted, it is necessarily begotten. But since it is impossible for the world to be both unbegotten and begotten (for in every case either the affirmation or the denial is true), how then can the world be called unbegotten? How can something be both crafted and unbegotten? The same thing existing in one thing and in another is necessarily at one time and at another. For example, the exemplar is in God and in matter: in God it is unmade, but in matter it is made; and in God it is not a world but the exemplar of the world, while in matter it is a world. But if it is at one time and another, and in one way and another, it is necessarily earlier and later; and if earlier and later, clearly not co-eternal.

[3] “The ancients have demonstrated that what are called relatives exist simultaneously by nature. Since, then, the image is relative to the exemplar and the exemplar to the image, and the product to the craftsman and the craftsman to the product, such things exist simultaneously by nature. If, then, the craftsman and the exemplar are unbegotten, the world too is unbegotten, being the image of the exemplar and the product of the craftsman.” The same ancients by whom relatives were shown to be simultaneous by nature have also given the definition of an image: “An image,” they say, “is that whose coming into being is by imitation.” But if, according to the answerer, the world is unbegotten, clearly the world has lost the name of image, both the name and the thing; for in unbegottenness the world cannot keep the definition of an image. Whoever calls the product unbegotten because its craftsman is unbegotten ought also to call the product uncrafted, because the craftsman is uncrafted; for these follow one another necessarily, “uncrafted” following “unbegotten” and “unbegotten” following “uncrafted.” But if this is absurd, it is absurd also to call the product unbegotten. If relatives are simultaneous by nature, and for this reason the product must be co-unbegotten with the craftsman, as the answerer thinks, then in the same way one must call what is begotten co-unbegotten with the unbegotten; for these too are relatives, the unbegotten being relative to the begotten and the begotten to the unbegotten. But if, while the begotten does not exist, the unbegotten is unbegotten in potency, and when the begotten exists the unbegotten is unbegotten in act, then one must understand the craftsman, the product, the exemplar, and the image in the same way; and no absurdity follows. For the nature that relation has in the case of the craftsman and the product, it has also in the case of the begotten and the unbegotten. “First” and “later” too are relatives; for the later is relative to the first, and the first to the later; and they are simultaneous by nature either in potency or in act. … For God is first and what is begotten is later; and if, according to the answerer, the product is co-unbegotten with the unbegotten craftsman because it is a relative and simultaneous by nature, then in the same way what is begotten will be co-unbegotten with the unbegotten God, because the earlier and the later are relatives and simultaneous by nature. But if, unless they are now in potency and now in act, it is impossible for the first and the later to be simultaneous by nature, then neither is the product co-eternal with the craftsman, nor the image with the exemplar.

[4] “That relatives exist simultaneously by nature has been clearly demonstrated and agreed by all, and it is easy to see at once. For right and left are relatives. Just as there cannot be a right if there is no left, nor a left apart from the right, so there cannot be a craftsman without the product … the craftsman is unbegotten, the product too is unbegotten.” If, just as right and left exist in the same essence, in the whole and its part, relative to each other, so the craftsman and the product existed in the same essence, in the whole and its part, relative to each other, the example by which the answerer tried to show that the product is co-unbegotten with the craftsman would have had a place. But since right and left are in the same essence, in the whole and its part, relative to each other, while the craftsman and the product are not of this kind, clearly the answerer used an inappropriate example, one with no analogy, in the nature of the thing, to what it was meant to illustrate. Of relatives, some are called what they are called of one another: for example, the father is called father of the son, and the son is called son of the father. Others are not called what they are called of one another, like the straight and the curved, for which it is common that one of them is sometimes called what it is called in potency and sometimes in act. Others are both always either in potency or in act, like the concave and the convex; others always in act, like up and down. Since these are the divisions of relatives, when we wish to solve a difficulty in some question by means of relation, we must first learn to which division of relatives the thing in question belongs, and then, according to the nature of that division, construct the analogy that the example has to what it illustrates; otherwise the example will be found inappropriate and the difficulty unsolved. The craftsman and the product belong to the relatives that are called what they are called of one another (for the product is the craftsman's, and the craftsman is the product's). But the answerer, wishing to show by an example that the begotten is co-unbegotten with the unbegotten, failed to notice that he used for this purpose a relation not among those called of one another (for the right is not called the right of the left, nor the left the left of the right). Clearly, then, he used an example inappropriate to the nature of what was to be shown, one that has no analogy to what it illustrates by which the question could be solved.

[5] “And if someone should wish to say that the craftsman existed first and the product came into being later, he will fall into another absurdity. For he will be found saying that the craftsman is a craftsman in potency and not in act (which is nothing other than calling God imperfect); and besides, the product will nonetheless subsist together with the craftsman, being in potency as the craftsman is, since relatives everywhere subsist on equal terms. If, then, the craftsman is in potency, the product is in potency; if the craftsman is in act and perfect, the product is likewise. So it is clear to everyone that the product subsists together with the craftsman insofar as he is a craftsman.” God has the same relation, as a relative, to the product as craftsman, as he has to what is begotten as unbegotten, or to later things as first; and there is nothing imperfect in him, either in his unbegottenness or in his being first (for there is no way to say that God is imperfectly unbegotten or imperfectly first because he was once both, unbegotten and first, in potency). How, then, can it be said that God is imperfect because he was earlier a craftsman in potency? But if, because he is first a craftsman in potency and later in act, he is accused of imperfection, then necessarily also, because he is first unbegotten and first in potency and later in act, he must be accused of imperfection. But if it is absurd to accuse God of imperfection in his unbegottenness and his being first, it is absurd also to accuse him of imperfection in his creative power because he did not make the world at the same moment as his own being, but later, when he willed. For it is not possible that one who is imperfect in one relation should not be likewise imperfect in all the other relations.

[Christian question 5] If the heaven is unbegotten and God is unbegotten, and God dwells in heaven, how is God not insulted by dwelling in what is not his? For the heaven that he did not make is not his.

[Greek answer] That God is unbegotten and the heaven unbegotten is clear both from what has just been said in passing and from what has been nobly demonstrated by many. But that it is not reasonable to say that God dwells in heaven, let us consider as follows. First, what is dwelt in exists for the preservation of what dwells in it. So if the world is a dwelling and God the dweller, clearly the world preserves God and God is preserved by the world, which is the most absurd of all things. Besides, the stronger contains the weaker, and the weaker is contained by the stronger. But what dwells is contained by the dwelling; so the dwelling will contain God; or by this argument God will be in the worse position … Besides, what is contained is in a place; and what is in a place is a body; so God too, if he is in a place, will be a body. How then will he, being a body, hold together the greater body, insofar as he is contained by it? It is absurd … That what dwells is contained in a place, in a house, is surely clear even to one who is blind. What then, you might say: how does Homer call the heaven the dwelling of God? Perhaps because, having observed a certain shining forth of God everywhere around the world, he called the world the dwelling of God, as being the receptacle of all God's making and creation; and they name the heaven especially, because the heaven is held by all to be the highest part of the whole world.

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

[1] To say that God is a craftsman but the world uncrafted (for “uncrafted” is equivalent to “unbegotten,” and equivalents may be substituted without hindrance); and to say that the uncrafted makes uncrafted things in an uncrafted way, which is the same as saying that the unbegotten God makes unbegotten things unbegottenly; and to say that God is eternal and the world co-eternal, yet that God and the world are brought from non-existence into existence as self-produced (for “self-produced,” said of God and of the world, has this meaning); and to say that the world is self-produced and yet guarded by another (for “guarded by God” means “guarded by another,” since the world is one thing and God who guards the world another, whereas, being self-produced, it ought necessarily to be self-guarded as well); and to say that God and the world are unbegotten and self-begotten (for “self-produced,” said of God and of the world, signifies “self-begotten”); and to say “God, having made the things here,” and again that he did not make them (for “he made” is temporal, and so is “having made”); and to say that the world subsists eternally together with God without interval, though it received its existence from the craftsman by begetting, through the composition of matter and form; and to say that the world is imperishable and perishable, imperishable by its being and perishable by being guarded; and to say that the world comes into being, while what is begotten is temporal; and to say that the world is the receptacle of God's making and creation, and that God is not the Creator of perishable things (for, according to the answerer, God makes nothing temporal, while all begotten and temporal things, according to him, are always perishable): these and such things are not the sayings of men who, from a knowledge of the nature of things, demonstrate by sound demonstration what concerns God and the world, but of reckless men, who shamelessly declare whatever seems good to them about God and the world.

[2] To disparage the expression about God's dwelling in heaven as unfitting for God belongs to people who hold the absurd notion of what is said; for an ill-sounding expression has an ill-sounding sense. But we did not set down in the question the manner of God's dwelling in heaven, which the answerer disparaged, but this: “If the heaven is unbegotten, it is not God's; and those who say that God dwells in it say so to the insult of God, as dwelling in a heaven that is not his own.” We call the heaven God's house and throne, not because God needs it for a dwelling or for a seat, since he is wholly uncircumscribed and without need, but so that we may not look at the greatness of its subsistence and the imperishability of its essence and suppose it to be God, or equal in honor to God. For this reason we call it the house and throne of God, separating it by these names from all communion with God in essence and in the titles that belong to his essence. For as a house and a throne are later than the one who made them, so the heaven is later than God, as the begotten is later than the unbegotten. And if we call the heaven imperishable now, we do not call it imperishable in the same sense as God. For God has his imperishability uncreatedly, from his own essence, and eternally; but the heaven has its imperishability in a created way, from the will of God, for the needs of the things here; and when that need is fulfilled, it is transferred to another mode of imperishability. For God, who gave it the magnitude of its body as great as he willed and not as great as he could (for he could have made it far greater in magnitude than it is), has now himself ordained it to remain in imperishability within its proper limit, until the time of the transformation of all things for the better, according to the faith of the orthodox, who have known God from the teaching of the God who made himself known to them, and according to the testimony of the answerer.