ORTHODOXUS: You say, then, that quality-less matter coexists with God, out of which He fashioned the coming-to-be of the world? VALENTINIANUS: So it seems to me.
ORTHODOXUS: Then if matter was quality-less, and the world came to be by God, and in the world there are the qualities, then God has become the maker of the qualities? VALENTINIANUS: So it is.
ORTHODOXUS: And since I heard you also saying earlier that it is impossible for something to come to be out of things that are not, answer my question: does it seem to you that the qualities of the world have not come to be from underlying qualities? INTERLOCUTOR: It does seem so. ORTHODOXUS: And that they are something other than the substances themselves? INTERLOCUTOR: So it is.
ORTHODOXUS: Then if God fashioned the qualities neither from underlying qualities, nor do they subsist from the substances — since they are not themselves substances — it is necessary to say that they have come to be by God out of things that are not. Whence it seemed to me that you spoke superfluously in saying that it is impossible to hold that something has come to be by God out of things that are not.
But let the argument concerning this stand thus. For indeed, among us too we see men making certain things out of things that are not, even though they do indeed seem to make them in something. Take, for instance, the example of architects: for these too make cities not out of cities, and temples likewise not out of temples.
But if, because substances underlie them, you think that they make these things out of things that are, you err in your reasoning. For it is not the substance that makes the city or again the temples, but the art applied to the substance; and the art does not arise out of some art underlying in the substances, but arises out of an art not present in them.
But it seems to me you will meet the argument thus: that the craftsman makes the art-in-the-substance out of the art which he has. To this it seems to me well said in reply, that not even in the man does the art come to be from some underlying art. For it is not possible for the art, existing by itself, to give itself; rather it belongs to the accidents, and to the things that then obtain their being whenever they come to be in some substance.
For the man will exist even apart from the art of architecture; but it will not exist unless first there be a man. Whence it is necessary to say that the arts naturally come to be in men out of things that are not.
If, then, we have shown that this is so in the case of men, how was it not fitting to say that God is able to make out of things that are not, not only qualities but also substances? For by its being shown possible that something comes to be out of things that are not, it is demonstrated that the substances too are thus.