Monologion: Chapter 19
BASIC WRITINGS
But neither will he have an end. For if he is going to have an end, he is not supremely immortal and supremely incorruptible. But it has been established that he is supremely both immortal and incorruptible.15 Therefore, he will not have an end.Moreover,if he is going to have an end,he will perish either willingly or unwillingly. Now surely that by whose will the supreme good perishes is not an unqualified* good. But he himself is a true and unqualified good.Therefore, he who assuredly is the supreme good will not perish voluntarily. But if, on the other hand, he is going to perish unwillingly, then he is not supremely powerful or all-powerful. But the necessity of reason has declared that he is supremely powerful and all-powerful.16 Therefore, he will not perish unwillingly. And so, if the supreme nature will not have an end either willingly or unwillingly, he will in no way have an end.
Moreover, if that supreme nature has a beginning or end, he is not true eternity, as he was irrefutably found to be above.17 Further, let anyone who can do so think of this:When did it begin to be true, or when was it not true, that something was going to exist? Or when will it cease to be true, and no longer be true, that something existed in the past? But given that neither of these is conceivable, and both statements cannot be true apart from truth, then it is impossible even to think that truth has a beginning or end. Finally, if truth had a beginning or will have an end, before it came into being it was then true that there was no truth, and after it has ceased to exist, it will then be true that there is no truth. Now nothing can be true apart from truth. So truth existed before truth existed,and truth will exist after truth has ceased to exist—which is an absolute absurdity. So, whether truth is said to have a beginning or end or is understood not to have a beginning or end, truth cannot be confined by any beginning or end. Therefore, the same thing follows with respect to the supreme nature, since he is himself the supreme truth.
Chapter 19 How nothing existed before him and nothing will exist after him But look how nothing once again arises to trouble us,and whatever reason has taught us thus far, supported by the harmonious testimony of truth and necessity, it declares to be nothing. For if the things that were set out earlier are fortified with the defenses of necessary truth, it is not the case that something existed before the supreme essence or that something will exist after 15 In Chapter 16.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
MONOLOGION
him. Therefore, nothing existed before him and nothing will exist after him.
For, necessarily, either something or nothing preceded him or will follow him.
Now whoever says that nothing existed before him and nothing will exist after him appears to be saying that there was a time before him when nothing existed, and that there will be a time after him when nothing will exist.
Therefore, when nothing existed, he did not exist; and when nothing will exist, he will not exist. So how is it that he did not begin to exist from nothing, and how is it that he will not come to nothing, if he did not yet exist when nothing already existed,and if he will no longer exist when nothing will still exist? Why, then, have we wielded such a weight of arguments, if their work is so easily wrecked by nothing? For if it is concluded that the supreme being both comes after nothing, which preceded him, and gives way to nothing, which will follow him, that which was established above as necessarily true will be destroyed by a worthless nothing.
Do we not instead need to fight against nothing, lest so many constructions of necessary reason be besieged by nothing and the supreme good, who has been sought out and discovered by the light of truth, be lost for nothing?
Therefore, rather than allowing a place for nothing either before or after the supreme essence, so that nothing itself reduces to nothing the being who through himself brought into existence that which once was nothing, let it instead be declared (if this is possible) that nothing did not exist before the supreme essence and will not exist after him.For the single expression,"Nothing existed before the supreme essence," gives rise to a twofold meaning. One sense is this: Before the supreme essence existed, there was a time when nothing existed. But there is a second meaning: Before the supreme essence there was not anything. Thus, if I were to say "Nothing has taught me to fly," I would interpret this either as meaning that nothing itself, which signifies notanything, has taught me to fly, and so it would be false, or else as meaning that there is not anything that has taught me to fly, which is true.
And so it is the first meaning that generates the absurdity discussed above,18 and reason utterly rejects it as false. It is the other meaning, by contrast, that is perfectly consistent with our earlier conclusions and is compelled to be true by its whole interconnection with them. Therefore, the statement that nothing existed before him is to be understood in accordance with the second meaning. It should not be interpreted as meaning that there was a time when nothing existed but he did not, but rather as meaning that before him, there was not anything. The same sort of twofold meaning applies to the statement that nothing is going to exist after him.
18 That is, in the first paragraph of this chapter.