summa-contra-gentiles

^38
THE SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES
to exist. Now of
existence extends as far as its
power
everything that has begun to be it is at some time true to
say that it is not. Therefore that which will never cease to
be, at no time begins to be.
Further. The truth of intelligibles is not only incorruptible,
but, for its own part, is eternal : because it is
necessary ;
and whatever is necessary is eternal, since for that which
necessarily is, not to be is an impossibility. Now it is from
the incorruptibility of intelligible truth that the soul is
proved to have incorruptible being. ^
Therefore by similar
reasoning, from its eternity we can prove the eternity of
the soul.
Moreover. A thing
is not perfect
if it lack several of its
principal parts.
Now it is clear that the principal parts of
the universe are intellectual substances, to which genus, as
shown above,^ human souls belong. Consequently if every
day as many human souls begin to exist as men are born, it
is evident that many of its principal parts are added to the
universe every day, and that it lacks many such parts.
Therefore it follows that the universe is imperfect which
:
is impossible.
Furthermore some argue from the authority of Holy
Writ. For it is stated (Gen. i.)^ that on the seventh
day God ended His work which He had made: and He
rested . . .
from all His work which He had done. But
this would not be so, if He made new souls every day.
Therefore new human souls do not begin to exist, but they
have existed from the beginning of the world.
For these, then, and like reasons some, supposing the
world to be eternal, have said that as the human soul is
incorruptible, so has it existed from eternity.
Hence those,
namely the Platonists, who maintained that human souls
in their universality are immortal, held that they have
also existed from eternity, and are united to bodies at one
time, at another separated from them, this vicissitude
depending on certain fixed periods of years.* On the other
»
Cf. ch. Ixxix. "
Ch. Ixviii.
* Cf. Timteus 42 ;
Phadrus xxviii., ixix.
» ii. 2.