

Temporal extension, entailing emergence from nothingness and growth into a last end, is simply what it is to be a creature. Nothing is what it is except as realizing those inseparable rational relations-“ aitiai” or “ causae,” to use the classical and mediaeval terms-that make it what it is. But, more to the point, the entire question is rather on the order of asking why God bothered to give a square four sides or wind the capacity to blow. In part, because its premise is an absolute banality: that life is a kind of contest, played within the arbitrary constraints of the clock, at the end of which one either gets the trophy of salvation or suffers damnation.

Frankly, Al, I find the question very strange.
