Whether God Can Make the Past Not to Have Been?
Objection 1: It seems that God can make the past not to have been.
For what is impossible in itself is much more impossible than that
which is only impossible accidentally. But God can do what is
impossible in itself, as to give sight to the blind, or to raise the
dead. Therefore, and much more can He do what is only impossible
accidentally. Now for the past not to have been is impossible
accidentally: thus for Socrates not to be running is accidentally
impossible, from the fact that his running is a thing of the past.
Therefore God can make the past not to have been.
Obj. 2: Further, what God could do, He can do now, since His power is
not lessened. But God could have effected, before Socrates ran, that
he should not run. Therefore, when he has run, God could effect that
he did not run.
Obj. 3: Further, charity is a more excellent virtue than virginity.
But God can supply charity that is lost; therefore also lost
virginity. Therefore He can so effect that what was corrupt should
not have been corrupt.
_On the contrary,_ Jerome says (Ep. 22 ad Eustoch.): "Although God can
do all things, He cannot make a thing that is corrupt not to have been
corrupted." Therefore, for the same reason, He cannot effect that
anything else which is past should not have been.
_I answer that,_ As was said above (Q. 7, A. 2), there does not
fall under the scope of God's omnipotence anything that implies a
contradiction. Now that the past should not have been implies a
contradiction. For as it implies a contradiction to say that Socrates
is sitting, and is not sitting, so does it to say that he sat, and did
not sit. But to say that he did sit is to say that it happened in the
past. To say that he did not sit, is to say that it did not happen.
Whence, that the past should not have been, does not come under the
scope of divine power. This is what Augustine means when he says
(Contra Faust. xxix, 5): "Whosoever says, If God is almighty, let Him
make what is done as if it were not done, does not see that this is to
say: If God is almighty let Him effect that what is true, by the very
fact that it is true, be false": and the Philosopher says (Ethic. vi,
2): "Of this one thing alone is God deprived--namely, to make undone
the things that have been done."
Reply Obj. 1: Although it is impossible accidentally for the past not
to have been, if one considers the past thing itself, as, for
instance, the running of Socrates; nevertheless, if the past thing is
considered as past, that it should not have been is impossible, not
only in itself, but absolutely since it implies a contradiction.
Thus, it is more impossible than the raising of the dead; in which
there is nothing contradictory, because this is reckoned impossible
in reference to some power, that is to say, some natural power; for
such impossible things do come beneath the scope of divine power.
Reply Obj. 2: As God, in accordance with the perfection of the divine
power, can do all things, and yet some things are not subject to His
power, because they fall short of being possible; so, also, if we
regard the immutability of the divine power, whatever God could do,
He can do now. Some things, however, at one time were in the nature
of possibility, whilst they were yet to be done, which now fall short
of the nature of possibility, when they have been done. So is God
said not to be able to do them, because they themselves cannot be
done.
Reply Obj. 3: God can remove all corruption of the mind and body from
a woman who has fallen; but the fact that she had been corrupt cannot
be removed from her; as also is it impossible that the fact of having
sinned or having lost charity thereby can be removed from the sinner.
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