That is created which once did not exist, which some time will exist no longer, to which, therefore, it is possible not to exist, which we can think of as not existing, in a word, which has not its existence in itself, is not necessary. "Cum enim res producantur ex suo non-esse, possunt ergo absolute non-esse, adeoque implicat, quod non sunt necessariæ."--Duns Scotus (ap. Rixner, B. ii. p. 78). But only necessary existence is existence. If I am not necessary, do not feel myself necessary, I feel that it is all one whether I exist or not, that thus my existence is worthless, nothing. "I am nothing," and "I am not necessary," is fundamentally the same thing. "Creatio non est motus, sed simplicis divinae voluntatis vocatio ad esse eorum, quae antea nihil fuerunt et secundum se ipsa et nihil sunt et ex nihilo sunt."--Albertus M. (de. Mirab. Scient. Dei P. ii. Tr. i. Qu. 4, Art. 5, memb. ii.) But the position that the world is not necessary, has no other bearing than to prove that the extra- and supra-mundane being (i.e., in fact, the human being) is the only necessary, only real being. Since the one is non-essential and temporal, the other is necessarily the essential, existent, eternal. The creation is the proof that God is, that he is exclusively true and real. "Sanctus Dominus Deus omnipotens in principio, quod est in te, in sapientia tua, quae nata est de substantia tua, fecisti aliquid et de nihilo. Fecisti enim coelum et terram non de te, nam esset aequale unigenito tuo, ac per hoc et tibi, et nullo modo justum esset, ut aequale tibi esset, quod in te non esset. Et aliud praeter te non erat, unde faceres ea Deus.... Et ideo de nihilo fecisti coelum et terram."--Augustinus (Confessionum l. xii c. 7). "Vere enim ipse est, quia incommutabilis est. Omnis enim mutatio facit non esse quod erat.... Ei ergo qui summe est, non potest esse contrarium nisi quod non est.--Si solus ipse incommutabilis, omnia quae fecit, quia ex nihilo id est ex eo quod omnino non est--fecit, mutabilia sunt."--Augustin (de nat. boni adv. Manich. cc. 1, 19). "Creatura in nullo debet parificari Deo, si autem non habuisset initium durationis et esse, in hoc parificaretur Deo."--(Albertus M. l. c. Quaest. incidens 1). The positive, the essential in the world is not that which makes it a world, which distinguishes it from God--this is precisely its finiteness and nothingness--but rather that in it which is not itself, which is God. "All creatures are a pure nothing ... they have no essential existence, for their existence hangs on the presence of God. If God turned himself away a moment, they would fall to nothing."--(Predigten vor. u. zu. Tauleri Zeiten, ed. c. p. 29. See also Augustine, e.g. Confess. l. vii. c. 11). This is quite correctly said from the standpoint of religion, for God is the principle of existence, the being of the world, though he is represented as a personal being distinct from the world. The world lasts so long as God wills.