The student has to ask the teacher to explain what sort of nature might be neither creating nor created (442a). So far, all three of the divisions of nature have turned out to be, in some sense, identical with God: the creating Father, the created and creating Son or primordial causes, and the created manifestation that is the world. The same is true of the fourth division. For Eriugena, all created things are designed and destined to return to their divine source.2 Of course God remains a creator, but if we think about Him as the final cause or goal for the things He has created, then we are
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