Confessions by Augustine — BOOK XII: Platonic and Christian Creation

1. 1. Augustine distinguishes the 'heaven of heaven' as an intellectual, non-physical creation that contemplates God without temporal succession.
2. 2. Formless matter, described as 'invisible and unorganized earth', is a 'next-to-nothing' that receives form and is the substrate of all mutable things.
3. 3. Augustine argues that time cannot exist without change, and formless matter, lacking form, is not subject to temporal succession.
4. 4. The 'heaven of heaven' and formless matter are two creations outside time: one formed and contemplative, the other utterly formless.
5. 5. Augustine holds that Moses, in writing Genesis, intended multiple true interpretations, and readers should not quarrel over a single meaning.
6. 6. Augustine distinguishes four kinds of priority: eternity, time, preference, and origin, to explain how formless matter is prior to formed creation.
7. 7. Augustine rejects the Manichean view of matter as having countless forms, instead defining it as privation of all form.
8. 8. God made heaven and earth out of nothing, not out of his own substance, so they are not equal to him.
9. 9. Augustine argues that the 'beginning' in Genesis can mean either the start of creation or Christ as Wisdom, and both interpretations are valid.
10. 10. The 'darkness above the abyss' signifies the absence of light in formless matter, not an evil substance.