📖 - Plotinus — Enneads §2.1.1

:: Of Origins & Ends

§2.1.1. When we say that the cosmos, although it has a body, has both always existed and always will exist, if we should refer the cause of its everlasting existence to the will of god, first, although we might possibly be saying something true, we would not be providing any clarity. Next, the transformation of the elements and the destruction of the living beings on earth preserve their respective forms. This will perhaps suggest that the same thing is occurring in the case of the universe, too, since the will of god is capable of this – even though a body is always fleeing and in flux – that is, capable of placing the identical form at one time in one thing and at another time in another, and consequently of always preserving its unity in form, though not its unity in number. For why would some things possess everlastingness in this way only in form, while the things in the heavens and heaven itself possess individual everlastingness?