quite clearly in the previous sentence!
402 The Literal Meaning ofGenesis
6. Accordingly, whichever of these three opinions may win the prize ofbeing declared the most likely, we need have no fear of seeming to take a line against the words of this book which were written on that primordial six-day establish ment of creation. So with God's help let us undertake the more thorough exami nation of this question; and even if we do not end with a limpidjudgment which leaves no room at all for any further doubt, let us see if we cannot perhaps come to a conclusion of such general acceptability that it would not be absurd for us to hold it until something more certain emerges. But ifwe cannot even manage this, with the weight of the evidence wobbling equally now on this side of the scales, now on that, it will at least be clear that our doubts and hesitations are the result not of our shirking the labor of investigation, but of our shunning the rashness of dogmatic assertion. Then, if any others are sure about having the right solution, l hope they will be good enough to instruct me in it; while if it is not the authority either of the divine word or of clear reasoning, but just their own assumptions that make them so certain, l trust they will not disdain to share my doubts.
Some things that definitely cannot be said about the nature of the soul
4, 7. But let us begin by holding with the firmest possible conviction that it is not in the nature of the soul to be turned into the nature of body, so that what has once been soul becomes body; nor into the nature of non-rational soul, so that what was once a human being' s soul becomes an animal' s; nor into the nature of God, so that what began as soul becomes what God is; and thus, the other way round, that neither body nor non-rational soul nor the substance by which God is himself can be changed and become a human soul. This too should be no less certain, that the soul is the creation of none but God.
Accordingly, if God has made the soul of a human being neither from body nor from non-rational soul nor from himself, it remains that he either makes it from nothing, or else from some spiritual, but still rational created material. But to say anything is still being made from nothing is to wish to do violence to the finished works in which he created all things together simultaneously, and I do not know of any clear evidence to support this view. Nor is something to be required of us which no mortal is capable of grasping, or which, if anyone is capable of this, it will be astonishing ifhe can persuade anyone of its truth except the kind of person who can also already understand such a thing without any human being trying to teach him.5 lt is safer therefore in matters of this sort not to rely on human guesswork, but to search and scrutinize the evidence given by the divine witness.
5. Augustine merely repeating, surely at his most tortuously intricate worst, what he hasjust said quite clearly in the previous sentence!