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| What is Said of God in Time, is Said Relatively, Not Accidentally.
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Chapter
16.—What is Said of God in Time, is Said Relatively, Not
Accidentally.
17. Nor let it trouble us that the
Holy Spirit, although He is co-eternal with the Father and the Son,
yet is called something which exists in time; as, for instance,
this very thing which we have called Him, a thing that has been
given. For the Spirit is a gift eternally, but a thing that has
been given in time. For if a lord also is not so called unless when
he begins to have a slave, that appellation likewise is relative
and in time to God; for the creature is not from all eternity, of
which He is the Lord. How then shall we make it good that relative
terms themselves are not accidental, since nothing happens
accidentally to God in time, because He is incapable of change, as
we have argued in the beginning of this discussion? Behold! to be
the Lord, is not eternal to God; otherwise we should be compelled
to say that the creature also is from eternity, since He would not
be a lord from all eternity unless the creature also was a servant
from all eternity. But as he cannot be a slave who has not a lord,
neither can he be a lord who has not a slave. And if there be any
one who says that God, indeed, is alone eternal, and that times
are not eternal on account of their variety and
changeableness, but that times nevertheless did not begin to be in
time (for there was no time before times began, and therefore it
did not happen to God in time that He should be Lord, since He was
Lord of the very times themselves, which assuredly did not begin in
time): what will he reply respecting man, who was made in time, and
of whom assuredly He was not the Lord before he was of whom He was
to be Lord? Certainly to be the Lord of man happened to God in
time. And that all dispute may seem to be taken away, certainly to
be your Lord, or mine, who have only lately begun to be, happened
to God in time. Or if this, too, seems uncertain on account of the
obscure question respecting the soul, what is to be said of His
being the Lord of the people of Israel? since, although the nature
of the soul already existed, which that people had (a matter into
which we do not now inquire), yet that people existed not as yet,
and the time is apparent when it began to exist. Lastly, that He
should be Lord of this or that tree, or of this or that corn crop,
which only lately began to be, happened in time; since, although
the matter itself already existed, yet it is one thing to be Lord
of the matter (materiæ), another to be Lord of the already
created nature (naturæ).599
| 599 [“Matter” denotes the material
as created ex nihilo: “nature” the material as formed
into individuals. In this reference, Augustin speaks of “the
nature of the soul” of the people of Israel as existing while
“as yet that people existed not” individually— having in mind
their race-existence in Adam.—W.G.T.S.] | For man, too, is lord of the wood
at one time, and at another he is lord of the chest, although
fabricated of that same wood; which he certainly was not at the
time when he was already the lord of the wood. How then shall we
make it good that nothing is said of God according to accident,
except because nothing happens to His nature by which He may be
changed, so that those things are relative accidents which happen
in connection with some change of the things of which they are
spoken. As a friend is so called relatively: for he does not begin
to be one, unless when he has begun to love; therefore some change
of will takes place, in order that he may be called a friend. And
money, when it is called a price, is spoken of relatively, and yet
it was not changed when it began to be a price; nor, again, when it
is called a pledge, or any other thing of the kind. If, therefore,
money can so often be spoken of relatively with no change of
itself, so that neither when it begins, nor when it ceases to be so
spoken of, does any change take place in that nature or form of it,
whereby it is money; how much more easily ought we to admit,
concerning that unchangeable substance of God, that something may
be so predicated relatively in respect to the creature, that
although it begin to be so predicated in time, yet nothing shall be
understood to have happened to the substance itself of God, but
only to that creature in respect to which it is predicated?
“Lord,” it is said, “Thou hast been made our refuge.”600
God,
therefore, is said to be our refuge relatively, for He is referred
to us, and He then becomes our refuge when we flee to Him; pray
does anything come to pass then in His nature, which, before we
fled to Him, was not? In us therefore some change does take place;
for we were worse before we fled to Him, and we become better by
fleeing to Him: but in Him there is no change. So also He begins to
be our Father, when we are regenerated through His grace, since He
gave us power to become the sons of God.601
Our substance therefore is changed
for the better, when we become His sons; and He at the same time
begins to be our Father, but without any change of His own
substance. Therefore that which begins to be spoken of God in time,
and which was not spoken of Him before, is manifestly spoken of Him
relatively; yet not according to any accident of God, so that
anything should have happened to Him, but clearly according to some
accident of that, in respect to which God begins to be called
something relatively. When a righteous man begins to be a friend of
God, he himself is changed; but far be it from us to say, that God
loves any one in time with as it were a new love, which was not in
Him before, with whom things gone by have not passed away and
things future have been already done. Therefore He loved all His
saints before the foundation of the world, as He predestinated
them; but when they are converted and find them; then they are said
to begin to be loved by Him, that what is said may be said in that
way in which it can be comprehended by human affections. So also,
when He is said to be wroth with the unrighteous, and gentle with
the good, they are changed, not He: just as the light is
troublesome to weak eyes, pleasant to those that are strong;
namely, by their change, not its own.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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