Monologium, on the Being of God22 Chapter XXII. How it exists in every place and time, and in none.
Chapter XXII. How it exists in every place and time, and in none.
How, then, shall these prepositions, that are so necessary according to our exposition, and so necessary according to our proof, be reconciled? Perhaps the supreme Nature exists in place and time in some such way, that it is not prevented from so existing simultaneously, as a whole, in different places or times, that there are not more wholes than one; and that its age, which does not exist, except as true eternity, is not distributed among past, present, and future.
For, to this law of space and time, nothing seems to be subject, except the beings which so exist in space or time that they do not transcend extent of space or duration of time. Hence, though of beings of this class it is with all truth asserted that one and the same whole cannot exist simultaneously, as a whole, in different places or times; in the case of those beings which are not of this class, no such conclusion is necessarily reached.
For it seems to be rightly said, that place is predicable only of objects whose magnitude place contains by including it, and includes by containing it; and that time is predicable only of objects whose duration time ends by measuring it, and measures by ending it. Hence, to any being, to whose spatial extent or duration no bound can be set, either by space or time, no place or time is properly attributed. For, seeing that place does not act upon it as place, nor time as time, it is not irrational to say, that no place is its place, and no time its time.
But, what evidently has no place or time is doubtless by no means compelled to submit to the law of place or time. No law of place or time, then, in any way governs any nature, which no place or time limits by some kind of restraint. But what rational consideration can by any course of reasoning fail to reach the conclusion, that the Substance which creates and is supreme among all beings, which must be alien to, and free from, the nature and law of all things which itself created from nothing, is limited by no restraint of space or time; since, more truly, its power, which is nothing else than its essence, contains and includes under itself all these things which it created? Is it not impudently foolish, too, to say either, that space circumscribes the magnitude of truth, or, that time measures its duration — truth, which regards no greatness or smallness of spatial or temporal extent at all?
Seeing, then, that this is the condition of place or time; that only whatever is limited by their bounds neither escapes the law of parts — such as place follows, according to magnitude, or such as time submits to, according to duration — nor can in any way be contained, as a whole, simultaneously by different places or times; but whatever is in no wise confined by the restraint of place or time, is not compelled by any law of places or times to multiplicity of parts, nor is it prevented from being present, as a whole and simultaneously, in more places or times than one — seeing, I say, that this is the condition governing place or time, no doubt the supreme Substance, which is encompassed by no restraint of place or time, is bound by none of their laws.
Hence, since inevitable necessity requires that the supreme Being, as a whole, be lacking to no place or time, and no law of place or time prevents it from being simultaneously in every place or time; it must simultaneously present in every individual place or time. For, because it is present in one place, it is not therefore prevented from being present at the same time, and in like manner in this, or that other, place or time.
Nor, because it was, or is, or shall be, has any part of its eternity therefore vanished from the present, with the past, which no longer is; nor does it pass with the present, which is, for an instant; nor is it to come with the future, which is not yet.
For, by no means is that Being compelled or forbidden by a law of space or time to exist, or not to exist, at any place or time – the Being which, in no wise, includes its own existence in space or time. For, when the supreme Being is said to exist in space or time, although the form of expression regarding it, and regarding local and temporal natures, is the same, because of the usage of language, yet the sense is different, because of the unlikeness of the objects of discussion. For in the latter case the same expression has two meanings, namely: (1) that these objects are present in those places and times in which they are said to be, and (2) that they are contained by these places and times themselves.
But in the case of the supreme Being, the first sense only is intended, namely, that it is present; not that it is also contained. If the usage of language permitted, it would, therefore, seem to be more fittingly said, that it exists with place or time, than that it exists in place or time. For the statement that a thing exists in another implies that it is contained, more than does the statement that it exists with another.
In no place or time, then, is this Being properly said to exist, since it is contained by no other at all. And yet it may be said, after a manner of its own, to be in every place or time, since whatever else exists is sustained by its presence, lest it lapse into nothingness. It exists in every place and time, because it is absent from none; and it exists in none, because it has no place or time, and has not taken to itself distinctions of place or time, neither here nor there, nor anywhere, nor then, nor now, nor at any time; nor does it exist in terms of this fleeting present, in which we live, nor has it existed, nor will it exist, in terms of past or future, since these are restricted to things finite and mutable, which it is not.
And yet, these properties of time and place can, in some sort, be ascribed to it, since it is just as truly present in all finite and mutable beings as if it were circumscribed by the same places, and suffered change by the same times.
We have sufficient evidence, then, to dispel the contradiction that threatened us; as to how the highest Being of all exists, everywhere and always, and nowhere and never, that is, in every place and time, and in no place or time, according to the consistent truth of different senses of the terms employed.
Quomodo ergo convenient haec tam necessaria secundum prolationem, et tam necessaria secundum probationem? Fortasse quodam modo est summa natura in loco vel tempore, quo non prohibetur sic esse simul tota in singulis locis vel temporibus, ut tamen non sint plures totae, sed una sola tota; nec ejus aetas, quae non est nisi vera aeternitas, non sit distributa in praeteritum, praesens et futurum. Non enim videntur hac lege loci ac temporis cogi, nisi ea quae sic sunt in loco vel tempore, ut loci spatium vel temporis diuturnitatem non excedant. Quare, sicut de his quae hujusmodi sunt, unum idemque totum simul non posse esse totum in diversis locis vel temporibus omni veritate asseritur; ita in his quae hujusmodi non sunt, idipsum nulla necessitate concluditur. Jure namque dici videtur, quod tantum ejus rei sit aliquis locus, cujus quantitatem locus circumscribendo continet, et continendo circumscribit, et quod ejus rei solum sit aliquod tempus, cujus diuturnitatem tempus metiendo aliquo modo terminat, et terminando metitur. Quapropter cujus amplitudini, aut diuturnitati, nulla meta vel a loco vel a tempore opponitur; ulli nullum esse locum vel tempus vere proponitur. Quoniam namque nec locus illi facit, quod locus; nec tempus, quod tempus: non irrationabiliter dicitur quia nullus locus est ejus locus, et nullum tempus est ejus tempus. Quod vero nullum locum aut tempus habere conspicitur, id profecto nullatenus loci aut temporis legem subire convincitur. Nulla igitur lex loci aut temporis naturam ullam aliquo modo cogit, quam nullus locus aut tempus aliqua continentia claudit. Quaenam autem rationalis consideratio omnimoda ratione non concludat, ut creatricem summamque omnium substantiam, quam necesse est alienam esse et liberam a natura et jure omnium, quae ipsa fecit de nihilo, nulla loci cohibitio vel temporis includat, cum potius ejus potentia, quae non est aliud quam ejus essentia, cuncta a se facta sub se continendo concludat. Quomodo quoque non est impudentis imprudentiae dicere quod summae veritatis aut locus circumscribat quantitatem, aut tempus metiatur diuturnitatem: quae nullam penitus localis vel temporalis distensionis magnitudinem suspicit vel parvitatem? Quoniam itaque loci haec est vel temporis conditio, ut tantummodo quidquid eorum metis clauditur, nec partium fugiat rationem, vel qualem suscipit locus ejus secundum quantitatem, vel qualem patitur tempus ejus secundum diuturnitatem; nec ullo modo possit totum a diversis locis vel temporibus simul contineri: quidquid vero loci vel temporis continentia nequaquam coercetur, nulla locorum vel temporum lege ad partium multiplicitatem cogatur; aut praesens esse totum simul pluribus locis aut temporibus prohibeatur; quoniam, inquam, haec est conditio loci aut temporis, procul dubio summa substantia, quae nulla loci vel temporis continentia cingitur, nulla eorum lege constringitur. Quare quoniam summam essentiam totam et inevitabilis necessitas exigit nulli loco vel tempori deesse, et nulla ratio loci aut temporis prohibet omni loco vel tempori simul totam adesse, necesse est eam simul totam omnibus et singulis locis et temporibus praesentem esse. Non enim, quia huic loco vel tempori praesens est, idcirco prohibetur illi vel illi loco, aut tempori simul et similiter praesens esse; nec quoniam fuit, aut est, aut erit, ideo aeternitatis ejus aliquid evanuit a praesenti tempore cum praeterito, quod jam non est; aut transit cum praesenti, quod vix est; aut venturum est cum futuro, quod nondum est. Nullatenus namque cogitur vel prohibetur lege locorum vel temporum, alicubi aut aliquando esse vel non esse, quod nullo modo intra locum vel tempus claudit suum esse. Nam, si ipsa summa essentia dicitur esse in loco aut tempore, quamvis de illa et de localibus sive temporalibus naturis una sit prolatio, propter loquendi consuetudinem, diversus tamen est intellectus, propter rerum dissimilitudinem. In illis namque duo quaedam eadem prolatio significat, id est, quia praesentia sunt locis et temporibus, in quibus esse dicuntur; et quia continentur ab ipsis. In summa vero essentia unum tantum praecipitur, id est, quia praesens est; non etiam quia continentur. Unde, si usus loquendi admitteret, convenientius dici videretur esse cum loco vel tempore, quam in loco vel tempore. Verius enim significatur contineri aliquid, cum dicitur esse in alio, quam cum dicitur esse cum alio. In nullo itaque loco vel tempore proprie dicitur esse, quia omnino a nullo alio continetur: et tamen in omni loco vel tempore suo quodam modo dici potest esse; quoniam quidquid aliud est, ne in nihilum cadat, ab ea praesente sustinetur: in omni loco et tempore est, quia nulli abest; et in nullo est, quia nullum locum aut tempus habet, nec in se recepit distinctiones locorum aut temporum; nec hic vel illic, vel alicubi, vel tunc, vel nunc, vel aliquando; nec secundum labile praesens tempus quo utimur, est aut secundum praeteritum, vel futurum, fuit, vel erit, quoniam haec circumscriptorum et mutabilium propria sunt; quod illa non est. Et tamen haec de ea quodammodo dici possunt; quoniam sic est praesens omnibus circumscriptis et mutabilibus, ac si illa circumscribatur eisdem locis, et mutetur temporibus. Patet itaque, quantum satis est ad dissolvendam, quae insonabat, contrarietatem; qualiter summa omnium essentia ubique et semper, et nusquam et nunquam, id est, in omni et in nullo loco, aut tempore sit, juxta diversorum intellectuum concordem veritatem.