Question Four
Whether the world or any creature could have been produced from eternity
It is asked whether it is simply incompatible with the world, or with any creature, to have existed from eternity.
To this the answer is simply negative. The reason is that, if this were incompatible with a creature, it could be so only in one of two ways: either it would be necessary for the efficient cause to precede its effect, and thus the effect would not be coeternal with the efficient cause; or it would be necessary for the non-being of the effect to precede its being. But neither of these two modes can make it incompatible with a creature to exist from eternity, as I shall prove. Therefore, and so forth.
The first is proved as follows. No cause which produces its effect suddenly precedes its effect in duration. But God is an agent not through motion, but in an instant and suddenly. Therefore it is not necessary for him to precede his effect in duration. The major premise is evident in all sudden changes. For immediately at the presence of the sun, illumination is caused in the air in an instant; and as soon as fire begins to ascend upward, it heats. The minor premise is also self-evident. Therefore, and so forth.
In causes which do not act suddenly but through motion, however, it is necessary for the agent to precede its effect in duration, because the beginning of a motion always precedes its effect and end in duration.
Nor does the non-being of an effect necessarily precede its being in duration. For when something is said to be made from nothing, the preposition “from” does not designate a material cause, but only an order, as is manifest to one who investigates carefully.
Addition
The position of Saint Thomas consists in this, as is found in Part I, distinction 46, article 2: God could have produced the world from eternity, but this can never be proved demonstratively by anyone, either through an intrinsic middle term or through an extrinsic one. For this belongs to the will of God, and no reason can be had or known why he wills the world to exist from eternity rather than not to exist from eternity.
Scotus, however, in Book II, distinction 1, question 3, attacks the opinion of the Holy Doctor. Henry of Ghent, called here the Doctor of the Servants, agrees with Scotus. In Quodlibet I, question 7, and Quodlibet IX, question 17, he maintains the opposite of Saint Thomas’s opinion - namely, that it includes a contradiction for something other than God to have existed without a beginning of duration, or to have existed from eternity - and adduces many arguments, although Augustine in Book VI of On the Trinity, chapter 1, and Book X of The City of God, chapter 31, seems to think otherwise.
It is true that the world began: this is maintained by faith alone and cannot be known demonstratively, but it is most expedient to believe it.