What is the point of St. Thomas's 5 proofs for the existence of God if he believed the universe could have existed eternally?

[Ben_Sinner]

I have heard that St. Thomas Aquinas believed that it is possible for the universe to have existed for ever. This argument would mean that there is a possibility that there is no God, which would be contrary to the 5 PROOFS of God’s existence (Especially his First Cause argument)

Am I misunderstanding what the St. Thomas was asserting?

 

[Aloysium]

In either case God would be its Creator. He is the Cause of its existence in each and every moment, regardless of whether these moments stretch out forever in both directions. He is the cause of the here and now, each and every moment, finite or infinite.

 

[Ad_Orientem]

St. Thomas affirmed that the universe had a beginning in time (S.T. I, Q. 46, a1). “Nothing except God can be eternal,” he wrote.

But some thinkers such as St. Bonaventure thought we could prove that the world had a beginning in time using reason alone, without having to appeal to supernatural revelation. St. Thomas shows flaws in Bonaventure’s arguments, and shows how, using philosophy alone, one can reasonably hold that the world is, in a sense, eternal (though not in the same way God is).

St. Thomas’s paper on the topic is called De Aeternitate Mundi (On the Eternity of the World). It’s a good read, just bear in mind he’s writing here as a philosopher, not recording Christian theology (he does that in the Summa).

 

[mdgspencer]

Even if the universe existed eternally, there had to be a cause for why it exists.
I never heard the story that he thought it could have existed eternally, and I doubt that he thought this a real possibility. You should go back to your sources for this idea, if possible, and and them to verify it.
In fact, I doubt that he would have denied a Catholic article of faith, that God created heaven and earth. If he had said he doubted this, he would hardly have been seen as a leading Catholic theologian for 700 years.

 

[JimG]

It should be noted that an infinite series of temporal events is not eternity. A temporal universe with no discrete beginning or ending in time is just an infinite series. It is not eternal. Eternity is existence unbounded by time.An eternal Being has no extension in time. An infinite temporal series is experienced as past, present, future. An eternal existence is experienced as “now.” Even a temporally (or spatially) infinite universe requires a Creator.

 

[TarkanAttila]

Edward Feser, in his book “The Last Superstition”, gave an explanation of one of Aquinas’s proofs that I found rather mind-blowing. When he speaks of God being the first mover, it doesn’t necessarily mean the first cause of change in time.

Think of this. I have a cup of coffee on my desk. What’s holding up the desk? The Floor. What holds up the floor? My apartment. And what holds that up? The Earth. What holds up the Earth? Gravity. And so on.

Several actions - the act of holding a thing at a particular point on the Earth - are bound up with the seemingly simple act of a cup resting on a desk.

But at the bottom of all of those actions there must be a first cause, a first mover, because you cannot make causes infinitesimally small. On the atomic level, atoms are held together by the properties of electrons, protons, and neutrons; which are held together by the properties of sub-subatomic particles… and each of these is a unique thing in their own right; there isn’t really such a thing as “half an atom”.

And the line of unique causes simultaneously working together to do one single action has to end somewhere, or not even the simple act of holding a cup on a desk can be possible. I mean, does this make sense?

Perhaps you might read Feser’s book instead. He says it much better than I do.

 

[Tomdstone]

there isn’t really such a thing as “half an atom”.

There are objects with fractional charges such as quarks which go up to make a proton or neutron.

 

[levinas12]

It should be noted that an infinite series of temporal events is not eternity. A temporal universe with no discrete beginning or ending in time is just an infinite series. It is not eternal. Eternity is existence unbounded by time.An eternal Being has no extension in time. An infinite temporal series is experienced as past, present, future. An eternal existence is experienced as “now.” Even a temporally (or spatially) infinite universe requires a Creator.

Are angels completely outside of time, i.e., “eternal”? This would seem to be the case if time and matter are inseparable, and angels are immaterial beings. Yet the angels were created - at some point (non-temporal?) they did not exist.

 

[Aloysium]

Are angels completely outside of time, i.e., “eternal”? This would seem to be the case if time and matter are inseparable, and angels are immaterial beings. Yet the angels were created - at some point (non-temporal?) they did not exist.

It depends on what is meant by time. There can be change without its going anywhere.
There is a beginning and end to us. We grow up and grow old, grow in wisdom, knowledge and understanding, hopefully.
At the same time, there is a structure to the workings of the universe; a person above speaks of quarks. Those quarks at some point did not exist in creation, with everything being a plasma. Yet, the principles that govern their activity and all physical matter have been unchanging since then, as “eternal” as the cosmos itself.
Goodness has always existed, and with the creation of free will, came evil, “eternal” as long as there is a heaven and hell.
There is truth and there are lies and illusions. Outside of creation, the Truth is God. The truth within creation is the Word of God. The truth made known through its messengers, is countered by untruth, which opens us up to sin, which casts us deeper into the thrall of ignorance.
There are eternal structures, principles, laws and beings that had a beginning and are unchanging while acting within and through time, giving it its direction.

 

[e_c]

Are angels completely outside of time, i.e., “eternal”? This would seem to be the case if time and matter are inseparable, and angels are immaterial beings. Yet the angels were created - at some point (non-temporal?) they did not exist.

No. The angels are “aeviternal,” just as the saints. The “aevum” is a half-temporal half-eternal mode of being.

Am I misunderstanding what the St. Thomas was asserting?

Yes. The person who recommended Feser’s book to you had a good idea. You have started several threads along this line in the past few months, if I recall correctly.

 

[goout]

There are objects with fractional charges such as quarks which go up to make a proton or neutron.

That’s kinda beside the point of the argument. In fact your observation simply continues the line of thinking along it’s logical course.

 

[fisherman_carl]

I have heard that St. Thomas Aquinas believed that it is possible for the universe to have existed for ever. This argument would mean that there is a possibility that there is no God, which would be contrary to the 5 PROOFS of God’s existence (Especially his First Cause argument)

Am I misunderstanding what the St. Thomas was asserting?

My understanding is that while Aquinas would have believed the universe was created by God and is not infinite, as the Bible would have directed him to, he did not think that one could using reason alone prove that the universe was not infinite. So there is a difference in what you said. It’s not that he thought the universe could be infinite. He just simply did not see how you could prove that it was not from reason alone. As a Christian he would have believed the universe to be finite and created. But when it came to his philosophical proofs he would not have used that as a starting point, but from reason. Since in Aristotle’s days it was believed the universe was infinite and Aquinas is building on Aristotelean logic, he would have to address this.

Why would God be relevant if the universe always existed? Rationally it boils down to contingency. Something that is contingent on something else for it’s existence, even if the something has always existed, must necessarily have something else that caused it. If it itself can not explain it’s own existence then it must be caused by another. One of these things is how does anything exist at any moment? The cause of our existence at any moment can not be infinite. There must be a finite number of causes for our existence at any moment. Otherwise we could not actually have existence, if there was no first cause that actually had existence to pass it on. For example, if someone sent you a package you could not have received it, even if there were infinite intermediate receivers of the package who sent it to the next receiver in sequence, if there was no Original sender of the package. Because if no one originally had the package in the first place then no one could have received it in order to pass it on to you. You can not have an infinite number of contingent beings with out one that is non contingent.

I don’t agree that you can not satisfactorily show that the universe is not infinite. One question that you can ask is if there were an infinite number of receivers between you and that package then how could you have ever received it? It seems that the package would never arrive because infinite means with out end.

 

[JimG]

Edward Feser, in his book “The Last Superstition”, gave an explanation of one of Aquinas’s proofs that I found rather mind-blowing. When he speaks of God being the first mover, it doesn’t necessarily mean the first cause of change in time.

Think of this. I have a cup of coffee on my desk. What’s holding up the desk? The Floor. What holds up the floor? My apartment. And what holds that up? The Earth. What holds up the Earth? Gravity. And so on.

Several actions - the act of holding a thing at a particular point on the Earth - are bound up with the seemingly simple act of a cup resting on a desk.

But at the bottom of all of those actions there must be a first cause, a first mover, because you cannot make causes infinitesimally small. On the atomic level, atoms are held together by the properties of electrons, protons, and neutrons; which are held together by the properties of sub-subatomic particles… and each of these is a unique thing in their own right; there isn’t really such a thing as “half an atom”.

And the line of unique causes simultaneously working together to do one single action has to end somewhere, or not even the simple act of holding a cup on a desk can be possible. I mean, does this make sense?

Perhaps you might read Feser’s book instead. He says it much better than I do.

That is a good example. I once hae a philosophy prof who kept repeating this same point. The idea of the impossibility of an infinte series of causes doesn’t refer to an infinite series of temporal causes but to the impossibility of an infinite series of causes right now.

 

[fisherman_carl]

One confusing aspect of an infinite past is the starting point. Where is the starting point of an infinite past? Or where do you start counting from to determine its length? If you talk about an infinite past then your starting point is now and you are counting backwards. However, the now, keeps changing. It is not fixed. Now, If you affix now as the ending of an infinite series then now plus one second becomes the next now one second from now. But one second from now is still infinite as you can not have more than infinite. Infinite plus any number is still infinite. If we have achieved infinite time in the now then that means an infinite amount of time would have passed to get to now. But an infinite amount of time means with out end. Therefore it can not be reached. Can you reach infinite amount of time in the future? No matter how much time you reach you can never get to infinite because you can always add more time. Thus it would be impossible to have reached an infinite amount of time in the present moment. Therefore, the universe can not be infinite in space or time.

Putting the starting point to an infinite past and an infinite future as now is absurd because now is always changing and not fixed. Putting now as the end of an infinite series is a contradiction of terms because infinite means without end. And putting now as the start of an infinite future is absurd if you have an infinite past or even if you have any kind of past at all.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Correct me if I’m wrong.

My recollection is that Aquinas said it could not be demonstrated that the universe is not eternal. In that he was certainly right in the 13th Century. The universe could be eternal and still be created eternal by the First Cause, God.

Aquinas lived six centuries before another priest, Georges Lemaître, demonstrated that it appears the universe is not eternal and had a moment of inception later referred to as the Big Bang.

 

[TarkanAttila]

That’s kinda beside the point of the argument. In fact your observation simply continues the line of thinking along it’s logical course.

Exactly. It does possess a quality that is half of that of an atom. But it is not, literally, half an atom. It is a unique particle - i.e, one layer lower of causality.

 

[Aloysium]

Exactly. It does possess a quality that is half of that of an atom. But it is not, literally, half an atom. It is a unique particle - i.e, one layer lower of causality.

It depends on the definition of causality. Do the liver, kidneys, heart and circulatory system, the skin, the fat, the bowels and the rest of the digestive system, the lungs, the blood, the muscles and bones, the central and peripheral nervous systems and the sensory apparatus, the endocrine system, and whatever else I’ve forgotten, do all these cause a person? Likewise, the subatomic is utilized as a component of the atomic, which in turn forms the components for what is molecular, then organic and finally plants, animals and we ourselves, beings, whole, but composed of a myriad of parts. Just sayin’.

 

[Moontown_Rabbit]

St. Thomas distinguishes between a series of causes that is per accidens and a series that is per se. In the first series the causes are coincidental and not directly related. An example of such a series would be a bunch of collisions between billiard balls where one ball hits another, and that hits another, and so on. The collisions are temporally spaced out and unrelated in that any ball in the series could have hit any other ball in the series. Aquinas states that if we observe a per accidens series we have no way by observation alone to know whether the series is infinite or not.

A per se series of causes is one in which all of the causes are directly related to each other and are not temporally spaced. An example of this kind of series would be a person holding a cue and hitting a white billiard ball that is the first ball in a row of ten balls that are all touching each other. Imagine that all of the balls in the row move instantaneously when the white ball is hit (i.e. ignore micro-second delays due to propagation of force and elastic deformation). Such a series cannot be infinite because it is an example of an instrumental series which essentially means that the first cause in the series is the instrument of the entire related set of causes. In this example the human being would be the instrument. Since a per se series fits into a finite moment it cannot be of infinite size. A per se series must have an instrumental first cause because without such a cause it would not have a finite limit.

The creation of the universe and the moment by moment sustainment of the universe in being are per se chains of causality, so according to St. Thomas the universe cannot be infinite in duration.

 

[TarkanAttila]

It depends on the definition of causality. Do the liver, kidneys, heart and circulatory system, the skin, the fat, the bowels and the rest of the digestive system, the lungs, the blood, the muscles and bones, the central and peripheral nervous systems and the sensory apparatus, the endocrine system, and whatever else I’ve forgotten, do all these cause a person?

It seems to me you are conflating the idea of motion with the four causes.

The formal and material cause of an human being would be defined in what you just said.

But I was put into motion as a separate human being (which far fewer parts, of course) - my efficient cause - was my conception. The efficient cause of my growth and development - the mover that moved me to become bigger, more intelligent, etc - has been various, but first and foremost my parents, and then myself when I became independent of them.

Likewise, the subatomic is utilized as a component of the atomic, which in turn forms the components for what is molecular, then organic and finally plants, animals and we ourselves, beings, whole, but composed of a myriad of parts. Just sayin’.

Right. I don’t see where we disagree. And at the bottom, as far as efficient causes, God is the source of all change.

 

[STT]

I have heard that St. Thomas Aquinas believed that it is possible for the universe to have existed for ever. This argument would mean that there is a possibility that there is no God, which would be contrary to the 5 PROOFS of God’s existence (Especially his First Cause argument)

Am I misunderstanding what the St. Thomas was asserting?

You are correct with your observation. However, one can show that eternal universe is logically impossible. The proof is very simple: Eternal universe means that the universe has no beginning. This means that it takes forever to reach from eternal past to now. This is logically impossible.

I hope this helps.