City of God - Augustine - XX - Book 11 commenced

Required reading
City of God by Augustine (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) -  Commence Part II by starting Book 11 and reading Chapters 1 to 17.

My summary
Now we begin Part II where Augustine says his 'task is to discuss, to the best of my power, the rise, the development and the destined ends of the two cities, the earthly and the heavenly, the cities which we find, as I have said, interwoven, as it were in this present transitory world, and mingled with one another.'

Book 11 is the first book in Part II and Augustine says that to begin with 'I shall explain how the beginnings of those two cities arose from the difference between the two classes of angels.'

Thus Augustine starts with an examination of the Biblical evidence for the creation of the world and the beginning of time.

Then he moves onto angels who 'form the greater part' of the Holy City.  Augustine reasons that God created two classes of angels: the angels of light and the offending angels.  The offending angels 'did not have this bliss [experienced by angels of light], even before their fall.'

What grabbed me
There were a number of things in today's reading of which I was not convinced. 

One of my recurring problems is the idea that there is no time/sequence before the world began.  Augustine believes this is true because their is no motion/action before the creation of the world: 'Since God, in whose eternity there is no change at all, is the creator and director of time, I cannot see how it can be said that he created the world after a lapse of ages, unless it is asserted that there was some creation before this world existed, whose movements would make possible the course of time...An event in time happens after one time and before another, after the past and before the future.  But at the time of creation there could have been no past, because there was nothing created to provide the change and movement which is the condition of time.'

If we accept the premise that time does not occur till action occurs, then surely we can say that time exists before the creation of the world because of the action that is occurring within the trinity.  The trinity love (an action) one another before creation and so there is a sequence (time) occurring as they love one another.

Yes, time was not as we know it, but for God there appears to me to have been some sort of sequence and will continue to be so.

Maybe I'm out on a limb here.  If you think so, let me know in the comments.

Next week's reading
Conclude Book 11 by reading Chapters 18 to 34.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.