The Beginning of Creatures

Only God is necessarily eternal. Now, absolutely speaking, God could create from eternity, so that creatures should exist without a beginning. But God does not need to create from eternity, nor, for that matter, does God need to create at all. Andin creatures we discover no reason for supposing that God has created from eternity.

By revelation (Gen. 1:1) we know that God’s eternal will and decree to create are a will and decree to create in time. For, “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth…” But apart from revelation and our faith, we cannot prove that the world did not always exist; that is, that God did not create from eternity. But we can prove that even a beginningless world is a created world, a caused world. For eternal matter, if it existed, would not be causeless matter; it would still have being by participation and not by necessity.

God created in the beginning of time. Time itself came into existence with the creation of things.