1over137 wrote:So, you are of the opinion that eternal God could create beginning-less universe.
As to the Scripture: As I read Genesis it tells me that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. But where is it told that the beginning mentioned here is the beginning of our universe? I am not sure what is meant here by heaven. And as I read it again and again it seems to me that heaven and earth were created together in one moment. So, the beginning mentioned here is the beginning when earth was created and it does not seem to me that it means the beginning of our universe. But I am not sure what earth here means either.
Biblical Hebrew doesn't have a word for "the universe." "The heavens" refers to the sky--the thing that holds the stars. The phrase "the heavens and the earth" (
hashamayim vehaeretz) was their way of referring to everything that exists. It might be sort of like if we said, "Everything above and below!"
So, no objection from Aristoteles on the beginningless universe.
No. In fact, Aristotle believed that the universe was beginningless. Aquinas thinks his arguments fails on this point (as do I), but he also thinks that [philosophical] arguments that try to prove that the universe had a beginning fail.
I looked at that, but I need help. What are the philosophical objections against the beginningless universe from the first paper?
Here's the section in question, plus my commentary:
- [2] It has been demonstrated that God is the cause of all things. But a cause must precede in duration the things produced by its action
Aquinas has already proved that God is the cause of all things (He is the First Cause). The argument is that since causes always precede their affect temporally, therefore, the universe itself (an effect) must have a cause temporally prior to it. But there is nothing temporally before a beginningless universe, so it follows that the universe cannot be eternal. This fails, though, because the principle only applies to things that change in time. Creation, however, is not a temporal event, so to say that God is the cause of the universe is not to say that His act stands temporally prior to the beginning of the universe, but rather than it stands logically prior to the universe. Aquinas here has in mind what are called essentially ordered causal chains (think of a hand pushing a stick pushing a rock--the hand is pushing the rock by pushing the stick; the hand's movement is not really temporally prior to the rock's movement. They happen together). For more on this, I'd recommend Howe's
Two Notions of the Infinite in Thomas Aquinas.
- [3] Moreover, since all being is created by God, it cannot be said to be made from some being. It follows that it is made from nothing and, consequently, that it has being after not-being.
The argument is that since God created all being, then there is no
thing out of which God created the universe. Therefore, if God created the universe, He did so out of nothing. But if the universe at some time was not, then the universe is not beginningless. This, however, fails because the logic is just bad. Aristotle had argued that something is always made out of something else (everything comes from a substatrum, he says). Aquinas had denied that with his proof that God created the universe. But the denial of the premise that something is made from something is not therefore something is made from nothing, as this argument has it, but rather that something is not made from something. But that isn't enough to conclude in creation ex nihilo.
- [4] Also, an infinite number of things cannot be traversed. But, if the world had always existed, an infinite number of things would have now been traversed, for what is past is passed by; and if the world always existed, then there are an infinite number of past days or revolutions of the sun.
This is a common argument still used today (in fact, it's one I used to you)--if the universe had a beginningless past, then we would have had to traverse an infinite number of days to get here. But since an infinite cannot be traversed, then if the universe had a beginningless past, then we would not be here today "yet," which is absurd. Therefore, since we are here, the universe had a beginning. This fails because the kind of infinite we are dealing with here would be a potential infinite (an infinite created by addition), which is possible. If we assume the eternality of the universe, then we would not have to "pass through" an infinite number of days, since all of them would be considered simultaneously. The only way to traverse from one to another is if we consider traveling from one point to another. But the moment you introduce a point from which to measure, we no longer being required to "traverse an infinite."
- [5] Moreover, in that case it follows that an addition is made to the infinite; to the infinite number of past days or revolutions every day brings another addition.
Here, the argument is that a beginningless universe entails that there has been an infinite number of events, but that now we are adding events to an infinite number of events. But how can you add anything to infinity? (So this is sort of an ancient version of Hilbert's Hotel.) Thomas just points out that while you cannot add to the infinite, a beginningless universe may have an infinite past, but it has a finite present, and there is no reason you can't add to the finite present.
- [6] Then, too, it follows that it is possible to proceed to infinity in the line of efficient causes, if the engendering of things has gone on perpetually—and this in turn follows necessarily on the hypothesis that the world always existed; the father is the cause of his son, and another person the cause of that father, and so on endlessly.
Here is an attempt at a reductio--if the universe is beginningless, then there is an infinite regression of efficient causes, which would mean there is no First Cause. But Thomas points out that there are two kinds of causal chains, what that can be beginningless and one that cannot. Essentially ordered causal chains of the hand-stick-rock kind cannot precede to infinity, because then there would be nothing actually doing the moving, since all of the intermediate causes of motion are just that--intermediate or instrumental. The other kind is called accidentally ordered causal chains and are of the father-son-grandson type relationship. Here, the cause of motion is accidental to the motion produced, not essential to it. That is, you can remove the efficient cause and the effect will continue to exist; that is not the case in essentially ordered causes, because the movement of the first cause is essential (not accidental) to the movement of the second cause. The bottom line is that there is nothing philosophically absurd about an infinite regress of an accidentally ordered efficient causal chain. I again refer you to the paper linked above for more on essentially vs. accidentally ordered causal chains.
- [7] Furthermore, if the world always existed, it will follow that there exists an infinite number of things, namely, the immortal souls of an infinite number of human beings who died in the past.
This, Aquinas says, is the closest to a convincing argument. The idea is that if the world was beginningless, then there would now be an infinite number of souls in heaven, but that is absurd (because now we are dealing with a proper infinite simultaneously existing in the present). The problem with this argument is that it just takes too much for granted that the skeptic is not likely to accept; indeed, it is based on premises that are known by faith! For instance, why should we accept the notion that the soul continues to exist after the body, or that if it does, it continues to exist forever after the body (that is, why should we accept the immortality of the soul?). On the other hand, someone could come up with counter proposals to explain away the requirement such as a beginning of the universe, such as reincarnation. We don't believe in reincarnation, but that (again) based on faith. So whatever truth it has rests on premises that cannot be embraced without embracing still more controversial or at least faith-based premises.
I hope that helps.
