fore He made anything from the beginning."

_I answer that,_ Nothing except God can be eternal. And this
statement is far from impossible to uphold: for it has been shown
above (Q. 19, A. 4) that the will of God is the cause of things.
Therefore things are necessary, according as it is necessary for God
to will them, since the necessity of the effect depends on the
necessity of the cause (Metaph. v, text 6). Now it was shown above
(Q. 19, A. 3), that, absolutely speaking, it is not necessary that
God should will anything except Himself. It is not therefore
necessary for God to will that the world should always exist; but the
world exists forasmuch as God wills it to exist, since the being of
the world depends on the will of God, as on its cause. It is not
therefore necessary for the world to be always; and hence it cannot
be proved by demonstration.

Nor are Aristotle's reasons (Phys. viii) simply, but relatively,
demonstrative--viz. in order to contradict the reasons of some of the
ancients who asserted that the world began to exist in some quite
impossible manner. This appears in three ways. Firstly, because, both
in _Phys._ viii and in _De Coelo_ i, text 101, he premises some
opinions, as those of Anaxagoras, Empedocles and Plato, and brings
forward reasons to refute them. Secondly, because wherever he speaks
of this subject, he quotes the testimony of the ancients, which is
not the way of a demonstrator, but of one persuading of what is
probable. Thirdly, because he expressly says (Topic. i, 9), that
there are dialectical problems, about which we have nothing to say
from reason, as, "whether the world is eternal."

Reply Obj. 1: Before the world existed it was possible for the world
to be, not, indeed, according to a passive power which is matter, but
according to the active power of God; and also, according as a thing
is called absolutely possible, not in relation to any power, but from
the sole habitude of the terms which are not repugnant to each other;
in which sense possible is opposed to impossible, as appears from the
Philosopher (Metaph. v, text 17).

Reply Obj. 2: Whatever has power always to be, from the fact of
having that power, cannot sometimes be and sometimes not be; but
before it received that power, it did not exist.

Hence this reason which is given by Aristotle (De Coelo i, text 120)
does not prove simply that incorruptible things never began to exist;
but that they did not begin by the natu