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world contained in Timaeus is ambiguous. While Aristotle and Augustine interpret Plato’s
statements as claiming a beginning of time, Boethius thinks Plato considered the world to be
without a temporal beginning. 5 This lack of clarity arises from Plato’s distinction between the
exemplar of the world whose mode of existence in eternal and the sensible world which has time
as its mode of existence. Dales synthesizes his position as, “the exemplar remains always the
same while the world is its moving image.” 6 It is unclear how to interpret Plato’s statement that
the world and time come into being together which leads commentators of Plato’s Timaeus to
various and opposing conclusions.
Centuries later, Augustine addressed this issue. Augustine was not a systematic
philosopher but a great rhetorician. His works contain a great deal of philosophical content and
brilliant intuitions but lack systematic and philosophically rigorous presentation. 7 However,
several of Augustine’s doctrines and ideas were greatly influential in the medieval debates of the
5
Ibid, 4.
Ibid, 9.
7
Ibid, 12.
6
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