# Study notes on City of God, book 11



## RamistThomist (Jun 18, 2022)

Key ideas: God creates the world AND time. He does not create in time. 

Propositions:


God speaks by truth in the mind (11.2).
Time was created with the world. This one idea is crucial in the history of doctrine. This is one of those “moments of no return” (but in a good sense). Time is finite, limited.

Augustine is not dogmatic on the nature of the days in creation. He notes, “What kind of days they were, it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible to say” (11.6).
Begetting is not the same as creating. Divine persons are begotten, not created: “For that which is begotten of the simple Good is simple itself” (11.10).
Vice is contrary to nature and cannot but damage it. This will be important in the next book as Augustine explores the roots of evil.
Image of the Trinity: “For we are, and we know that we are and delight in our being and the knowledge of it” (11.26). Vestigia trinitatis.

Corollary on virtue: “Because in men who are justly loved, it is rather the love itself that is loved” (11.28).


----------

