First, I must distinguish between that which always is and never
becomes and which is apprehended by reason and reflection, and
that which always becomes and never is and is conceived by
opinion with the help of sense. All that becomes and is created
is the work of a cause, and that is fair which the artificer
makes after an eternal pattern, but whatever is fashioned after a
created pattern is not fair. Is the world created or
uncreated?—that is the first question. Created, I reply, being
visible and tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible;
and if sensible, then created; and if created, made by a cause,
and the cause is the ineffable father of all things, who had
before him an eternal archetype. For to imagine that the
archetype was created would be blasphemy, seeing that the world
is the noblest of creations, and God is the best of causes. And
the world being thus created according to the eternal pattern is
the copy of something; and we may assume that words are akin to
the matter of which they speak. What is spoken of the unchanging
or intelligible must be certain and true; but what is spoken of
the created image can only be probable; being is to becoming what
truth is to belief. And amid the variety of opinions which have
arisen about God and the nature of the world we must be content
to take probability for our rule, considering that I, who am the
speaker, and you, who are the judges, are only men; to
probability we may attain but no further.
SOCRATES: Excellent, Timaeus, I like your manner of approaching
the subject—proceed.
TIMAEUS: Why did the Creator make the world?...He was good, and
therefore not jealous, and being free from jealousy he desired
that all things should be like himself. Wherefore he set in order
the visible world, which he found in disorder. Now he who is the
best could only create the fairest; and reflecting that of
visible things the intelligent is superior to the unintelligent,
he put intelligence in soul and soul in body, and framed the
universe to be the best and fairest work in the order of nature,
and the world became a living soul through the providence of God.
In the likeness of what animal was the world made?—that is the
third question...The form of the perfect animal was a whole, and
contained all intelligible beings, and the visible animal, made
after the pattern of this, included all visible creatures.