The demonstrations given by the school of Boethus are very convincing and I will proceed to state them. If, they say, the world is created and destructible we shall have something created out of the non-existent and even the Stoics regard this as quite preposterous. Why so? Because it is impossible to find any destructive cause either within or without to make away with the world. For there is nothing outside it except possibly a void, since the elements have been completely merged into it and within it there is no distemper such as to cause a dissolution of so great a deity. And if it is destroyed without a cause, clearly the origin of the destruction will arise from what does not exist and this the understanding will reject as not even thinkable. Further they say that the methods of destruction are of three kinds, namely, dismemberment, annihilation of the prevailing quality and amalgamation. Combinations of detached units, such as herds of goats or oxen, choirs and armies, or again bodies compacted of conjoined parts are disjoined by detachment and dismemberment. We find annihilation of the prevailing quality in wax when moulded into a new form or when smoothed out without taking any other different shape. We have amalgamation in the quadruple drug used by physicians, for the properties of the substances collected vanish and the effect thus produced is one single value of a special kind. Which of these can we say is adequate for the destruction of the world? Dismemberment? The world is neither composed of detached units, so that its parts can be dispersed, nor of conjoint parts which can be disjoined, nor is it a unity of the same kind as that of our bodies, for they are in themselves perishable, and under the sway of innumerable instruments of mischief, while the world’s strength is invincible and far more than sufficient to give it domination over all. What of a complete annihilation of its quality? This is impossible, for according to those who hold the opposite view, the quality of its original construction remains at the conflagration, though contracted, in a diminished substance, namely, Zeus. What of amalgamation? Nonsense. For again we shall have to admit that destruction passes into non-existence. Why? Because if each of the elements were severally destroyed each might be capable of changing into something else, but if all are annihilated in a body together by amalgamation we should be obliged to suppose something which is impossible. Moreover if all things are as they say consumed in the conflagration, what will God be doing during that time? Will He do nothing at all? That surely is the natural inference. For at present He surveys each thing, guardian of all as though He were indeed their father, guiding in very truth the chariot and steering the bark of the universe, the defender of the sun and moon and stars whether fixed or wandering, and also the air and the other parts of the world, co-operating in all that is needful for the preservation of the whole and the faultless management of it which right reason demands. But if all things are annihilated inactivity and dire unemployment will render His life unworthy of the name and what could be more monstrous than this? I shrink from saying, for the very thought is a blasphemy, that quiescence will entail as a consequence the death of God, for if you annihilate the perpetual motion of the soul you will annihilate the soul itself also and, according to our opponents, God is the soul of the world.
On the Eternity of the World 16
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