Key Arguments

• He first lays out the objector’s reasoning: that if God began to will creation at some point, his will would not be eternal, but if he eternally willed creation, creation should be eternal as well: "For if in God any new development took place and any new intention, so as to make a creation which he had never made before, how then can there be a true eternity in which a will, not there previously, comes into existence? ... But if it was God’s everlasting will that the created order exist, why is not the creation also everlasting?"
• He insists that God is the Creator of everything that is created and that ‘heaven and earth’ can be taken to mean all created things: "I say that you, our God, are the Creator of every created being, and assuming that by ‘heaven and earth’ is meant every created thing I boldly declare: Before God made heaven and earth, he was not making anything."
• He clarifies that before any creature, there was simply no creating activity because there was nothing created to make: "If he was making anything, it could only be something created."
• He corrects the imagination of ‘unnumbered ages’ before creation by pointing out that no ages can pass that God has not made: "How would innumerable ages pass, which you yourself had not made? You are the originator and creator of all ages. What times existed which were not brought into being by you? Or how could they pass if they never had existence?"
• Because God is the cause of all times, there cannot be a time prior to his creative act; therefore the notion that he ‘abstained from working’ during earlier ages is incoherent: "Since, therefore, you are the cause of all times, if any time existed before you made heaven and earth, how can anyone say that you abstained from working? You have made time itself. Time could not elapse before you made time."
• He concludes that the very ‘then’ in ‘What were you then doing?’ is illegitimate, since without time there is no ‘then’: "But if time did not exist before heaven and earth, why do people ask what you were then doing? There was no ‘then’ when there was no time."

Source Quotes

103: 24). Wisdom is the beginning, and in that beginning you made heaven and earth. x (12) See how full of old errors are those who say to us: ‘What was God doing before he made heaven and earth? If he was unoccupied’, they say, ‘and doing nothing, why does he not always remain the same for ever, just as before creation he abstained from work?

If he was unoccupied’, they say, ‘and doing nothing, why does he not always remain the same for ever, just as before creation he abstained from work? For if in God any new development took place and any new intention, so as to make a creation which he had never made before, how then can there be a true eternity in which a will, not there previously, comes into existence? For God’s will is not a creature, but is prior to the created order, since nothing would be created unless the Creator’s will preceded it.

I would have preferred him to answer ‘I am ignorant of what I do not know’ rather than reply so as to ridicule someone who has asked a deep question and to win approval for an answer which is a mistake. No, I say that you, our God, are the Creator of every created being, and assuming that by ‘heaven and earth’ is meant every created thing I boldly declare: Before God made heaven and earth, he was not making anything. If he was making anything, it could only be something created.

How would innumerable ages pass, which you yourself had not made? You are the originator and creator of all ages. What times existed which were not brought into being by you? Or how could they pass if they never had existence? Since, therefore, you are the cause of all times, if any time existed before you made heaven and earth, how can anyone say that you abstained from working?

Since, therefore, you are the cause of all times, if any time existed before you made heaven and earth, how can anyone say that you abstained from working? You have made time itself. Time could not elapse before you made time. But if time did not exist before heaven and earth, why do people ask what you were then doing?

But if time did not exist before heaven and earth, why do people ask what you were then doing? There was no ‘then’ when there was no time.18 (16) It is not in time that you precede times. Otherwise you would not precede all times.

Key Concepts

• See how full of old errors are those who say to us: ‘What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?
• For if in God any new development took place and any new intention, so as to make a creation which he had never made before, how then can there be a true eternity in which a will, not there previously, comes into existence?
• No, I say that you, our God, are the Creator of every created being, and assuming that by ‘heaven and earth’ is meant every created thing I boldly declare: Before God made heaven and earth, he was not making anything.
• You are the originator and creator of all ages. What times existed which were not brought into being by you? Or how could they pass if they never had existence?
• You have made time itself. Time could not elapse before you made time.
• There was no ‘then’ when there was no time.

Context

Book XI, x–xiii (12–15): After summarizing a philosophical challenge about God’s activity ‘before’ creation, Augustine offers a metaphysical reply grounded in God’s eternal will and his role as creator of time itself.