Book III, Chapter 15

CHAPTER XV. He recounts the fourth opinion, that of the Sophists, who say that nothing is future.

The fourth opinion maintains that nothing is future. This is the opinion of the Sophists, over which they quarrel sophistically, saying: "A future thing is not a being, therefore it is a non-being and nothing, therefore nothing is future." Again, thus: Let it be posited that Antichrist is to come; then Antichrist is future; therefore, by conversion, a future thing is Antichrist; so either the future thing, which is Antichrist, is Antichrist, or it is not Antichrist. If it is Antichrist, then Antichrist is Antichrist, and therefore Antichrist is a man and an animal, a being and an existent. If it is not Antichrist, then contradictories are verified of each other and of the same thing, which the first principle does not permit. The same point is refuted again as follows: if anything is predicated of Antichrist, most of all he himself will be predicated of himself, since according to the old rule of Boethius no proposition is truer than one in which the same thing is predicated of itself. Again, then, that Antichrist will be1 is true in the divided sense; that truth is either Antichrist or something else; it is not Antichrist,

since he himself does not exist; therefore it is not some truth, nor is that truth something else.2 For whatever is granted besides God, if it were destroyed, it would still be true, or could be true, that Antichrist will be, just as it was before any creature. And then by the same reasoning God's being to come and God's being would be something other than God; therefore God is and will be through something other than himself; therefore, if that were destroyed, he would not be. But if it is said that this truth is God, then God is Antichrist's being about to sin and about to do all evils. Again, that which is Antichrist's being to come will be Antichrist's being; therefore God will be Antichrist's being; therefore God now is the being of any being whatever. Again, God is Antichrist's being to come, and by the same reasoning God is the eclipse's being to come; therefore the eclipse's being to come is Antichrist's being to come. Furthermore they say: if anything were future, something could desire it and act for its sake; but this does not appear to be so, since every action is for the sake of some end and for the sake of some good, as is clear from Ethics 1, 1 and 2, and Metaphysics 8 and 9;3 but such a future thing does not exist; therefore it is neither an end nor a good. This argument is confirmed, because everything desirable or willable appears good, as the second [book] shows.4

But a future thing does not appear to be a being or a good. They press further as follows: then there could be hope and confidence in such a future good; therefore such a person would knowingly put his trust in nothing, and would incur the prophetic rebuke of Isaiah 59, in which are rebuked those who trust in nothing and speak vanities. But this folly tries to destroy all knowledge and to undermine all faith. For Grammar and Rhetoric posit three tenses, present, past and future, and Dialectic likewise, as is clear from On Interpretation 1; natural and moral science also posit that natural and voluntary actions occur for the sake of an end not possessed but to be possessed; Medicine, moreover, and Astrology make judgments about the future; and all faith posits hope, foreknowledge and prophecy, very often about future things. These people must also say, as a consequence, that they themselves can imagine or understand no future thing, nor anything non-existent, since then it would be imagined or understood, and by conversion the other way round; so that it would also be itself and would be. They are therefore quite crude. So, as a further consequence, they must

concede that they themselves do nothing for the sake of happiness, or of any other future end whatever; so they will always remain unhappy and wretched, which also contradicts their profession, the appearance of which they covet in the end.5 By the same reasoning they must also concede that nothing is past, that they can understand nothing past, and that they can remember nothing. Who, then, would argue against such people, when they are unable to recall any argument, and so cannot recite any? Who, indeed, would do anything for people so ungrateful that they never remember any benefit? But the irrational reasonings of theirs set out above do not have even the appearance of reasons.