summa-contra-gentiles

and such a time, is not delayed :
CHAPTER XXXV 75
because the creature began
to exist at the time appointed by God from eternity.
Nor can we conceive a diversity of parts of any duration
before the beginning of the whole creature, as was supposed
in the fifth argument. For nothingness has neither measure
nor duration. And the duration of God which is eternity,
no before and
has no parts, but is utterly simple, having
after, since God is immovable, as stated in the First Book.^
Wherefore there is no comparison between the beginning
of the whole creature and any various signate parts of an
already existing measure, to which parts the beginning of
creatures can be related in a like or unlike manner, so that
there need be a reason in the agent why He should have
produced the creature at this particular point of that duration,
and not at some particular or subsequent point. Such
a reason would be necessary
if there were some duration
divisible into parts, beside the whole creature produced, as
happens in particular agents, who produce their effect in
time but do not produce time itself. But God brought into
being both the creature and time together. Hence in this
matter we have not to consider the reason why He produced
This
them now and not before, but only why not always.
may be made clear by a comparison with place. For particular
bodies are produced not only at a determined time,
but also in a determined place and
;
since time and place by
which they are contained are extraneous to them, there must
needs be a reason why they are produced in this place and
time rather than in another : whereas in the whole heaven,
outside which there is no place, and together with which
the entire place of all things is produced, we have not to
consider the reason why it is produced here and not there :
and through thinking that this reason ought to be a matter
of consideration, some have fallen into error, so as to place
the infinite in bodies. In like manner, in the production of
the entire creature, outside which there is no time, and
together with which time is produced simultaneously, we
have not to consider the reason why it was produced now
1 Ch. XV.