Monologion: Chapter 8
MONOLOGION
nature exists from the matter of the supreme good, the supreme good is changed or corrupted through himself, since nothing exists from any source other than the supreme essence. Therefore, the supreme essence, who is himself the supreme good, is in no way good—which is a contradiction. So no lesser nature exists materially from the supreme nature. Since, therefore, it has been established that the essence of those things that exist through another does not exist from the supreme essence as its matter, nor from itself, nor from some other thing, it is evident that it exists from no matter.
Therefore, since all existing things exist through the supreme essence, and nothing can exist through him unless he either makes it or is the matter for it, it follows necessarily that nothing but him exists unless he makes it. And since nothing exists or has existed except him and the things made by him, he could not make anything at all through any instrument or assistance other than himself. Now whatever he made, he certainly made it either from something as its matter or from nothing. Therefore, since it is perfectly obvious that the essence of all things that exist, other than the supreme essence, was made by that same supreme essence, and that it does not exist from any matter, there is undoubtedly nothing more evident than this: the supreme essence alone, through himself, produced so great a mass of things—so numerous a multitude, so beautifully formed, so orderly in its variety, so fitting in its diversity— from nothing.
Chapter 8 In what sense it is to be understood that he made everything from nothing
But something occurs to me about this "nothing."Whatever a thing is made from is a cause of the thing that is made from it, and, necessarily, every cause contributes some help toward the existence of the effect. This fact is so obvious to everyone from experience that no one can be talked out of it in debate, and hardly anyone can be tricked out of it through deception.Therefore, if something was made from nothing, then nothing itself was a cause of the thing that was made from nothing. But how could that which had no existence help bring something into existence? And if, on the contrary, nothing did not help bring anything into existence, who could be persuaded—and in what way—that something is brought about from nothing?
Furthermore, 'nothing' either signifies something or does not signify anything. Now if nothing is something, whatever was made from nothing was made from something. On the other hand, if nothing is not anything, then, since it is inconceivable that something is made from what does not exist at all, nothing is made from nothing—as the saying goes,"Nothing comes from nothing." From this it seems to follow that whatever exists was made from something, since it was made either from something or from nothing.
BASIC WRITINGS
Therefore, whether nothing is something or is not something, it seems to follow that whatever was made was made from something. But if this is admitted to be true, it contradicts everything that was settled above. Hence, since what was nothing will be something, what was in the greatest degree something will be nothing. After all, having found that there is a substance existing most greatly of all things, I proceeded by argument to the claim that all things were made by him in such a way that there was nothing from which they were made.Therefore, if that from which they are made—which I had thought was nothing—is in fact something, then whatever I thought I had discovered about the supreme being is nothing.
So then how is this 'nothing' to be understood? For I have already undertaken not to neglect any possible objection, foolish though it may be, in this meditation. And so it seems to me that if a substance is said to have been made from nothing, there are three ways of explaining this that would suffice to remove this present obstacle. One way is that we mean that what is said to have been made from nothing has not in fact been made at all. It is like a case in which someone asks what a silent person is talking about."About nothing," is the answer—that is, he is not talking at all. In this sense, if someone were to ask about the supreme essence himself, or about something that did not and does not exist at all, "What was it made from?" one could correctly answer,
"From nothing"—that is, it was not made at all. This sense cannot be properly applied to anything that actually has been made.
There is another meaning that can indeed be expressed but cannot be true: if something is said to have been made from nothing in the sense that it was made from nothing itself, that is, from what does not at all exist—as if nothing itself were some existing thing from which something could be made.
Now since this is always false, some absurd impossibility will follow whenever it is assumed.
The third sense in which something is said to have been made from nothing is when we understand that it has indeed been made, but there was not anything from which it was made. It seems we use a similar meaning when we say that someone who is upset for no reason is upset about nothing. So if we understand our earlier conclusion in this sense, that all existing things other than the supreme essence were made by him from nothing—that is, not from anything—then just as this conclusion follows logically from our previous conclusions, so nothing illogical will follow from it later on.
Nonetheless, it would also be logical and free from any absurdity to say that the things that were made by the creating substance were made from nothing in the sense in which we often say that someone has come from poverty to wealth or from sickness to health—that is, he who once was poor is now rich, which he was not before, and he who once was sick is now healthy, which he was not before. So if it is said that the creating essence made all things from