On the Eternity of the World

We accept, in accordance with the Catholic faith, that the world had a beginning in time. The question still arises whether the world could have always existed, and to explain the truth of this matter, we should first distinguish where we agree with our opponents from where we disagree with them. If someone holds that something besides God could have always existed, in the sense that there could be something always existing and yet not made by God, then we differ with him: such an abominable error is contrary not only to the faith but also to the teachings of the philosophers, who confess and prove that everything that in any way exists could not exist unless it be caused by him who supremely and most truly has existence. However, someone may hold that there has always existed something that nevertheless had been wholly caused by God, and thus we ought to determine whether this position is tenable.

Now, if it be impossible that something caused by God has always existed, it will be so either because God could not make something that has always existed or because such a thing could not be made, even by the power of God. As to the first, all parties agree that, in view of his infinite power, God could have made something that has always existed, provided that such a thing can be made. It remains to be seen, therefore, whether something that has always existed can be made.

If such a thing cannot be made, the impossibility will arise for one of two reasons: either because of an absence of a pre-existing passive potentiality or because of some contradiction between the ideas involved.

In regard to the first, notice that before an angel is made, we may say, in a certain manner of speaking, that the angel cannot come to be, meaning that, since an angel is not made from pre-existing matter, there is no passive potentiality preceding its existence. Nevertheless, God was able to make the angel, and he was able to make it that the angel came to be, for God made the angel, and the angel was made. If a thing’s being made implied the pre-existence of a passive potentiality, then it would have to be conceded, according to faith, that something caused cannot have always existed, for if such a thing had always existed, it would follow that a passive potentiality had always existed, and this is heretical. But, as the example of the angel shows, a passive potentiality need not precede in time something God makes, and so it does not follow that God could not have made something that has always existed.

In regard to the second, saying that something made has always existed may be thought to involve a contradiction and therefore be impossible in the way it is impossible for an affirmation and a negation to be simultaneously true. Still, some people say that God can even make self-contradictory things, while others deny this and argue that such things are actually nothing. Clearly, however, God cannot make self-contradictory things come to be, for the assumption that such a thing exists immediately implies that it does not exist. Nevertheless, the proposition that God can make self-contradictory things is not heretical, although, as I believe, it is false, just as the proposition that the past did not occur is false, for that proposition includes in itself a contradiction. For, as Augustine says in Contra Faustum (26, 5): anyone who says, "If God is omnipotent, let him make what has happened not to have happened," does not realize that he is saying, "if God is omnipotent, let him make true things false insofar as they are true." (PL 42, 481.) Nevertheless, certain great men have piously maintained that God can make past events not to have happened, and this was not reputed to be heretical.

We thus ought to determine whether there is any contradiction between these two ideas, namely, to be made by God and to have always existed. And, whatever may be the truth of this matter, it will not be heretical to say that God can make something created by him to have always existed, although I believe that if there is a contradiction involved in asserting this, the assertion will be false. However, if there is no contradiction involved, then it will be neither false nor impossible that God could have made something that has always existed, and it will be an error to say otherwise. For, if there is no contradiction, it will be expressly derogatory to the omnipotence of God, which exceeds every thought and power of ours, to say that we creatures could conceive of something that God could not make. (Sins are not an instance to the contrary, for, considered in themselves, they are nothing.) In this, therefore, the entire question consists: whether to be wholly created by God and not to have a beginning in time are contradictory terms.

That they are not contradictory can be shown as follows. If they are contradictory, this is for one or both of these two reasons: either because the agent cause must precede the effect in time, or because non-being must precede the effect in time, for we say that what God creates comes to be out of nothing.

First, we should show that it is not necessary that God, as an agent cause, precede in time that which he causes, unless, of course, he should will to do so. This can be shown in several ways.

First, no cause instantaneously producing its effect necessarily precedes the effect in time. God, however, is a cause that produces effects not through motion but instantaneously. Therefore, it is not necessary that he precede his effects in time. The first premise is clear by induction from all instantaneous changes, such as illumination and the like, but this premise may be proved by reason as well.

For, at whatever instant a thing exists, at that instant it can begin to act, as is clear in the case of all things that come to be by generation: in the very instant at which there is fire, the fire heats. But in an instantaneous action, the beginning and the end of the action are simultaneous, indeed identical, as is clear in the case of all indivisible things. Hence, at whatever moment an agent instantaneously producing an effect exists, the end of its action can exist as well. The end of the action, however, is simultaneous with the thing made. Therefore, there is no contradiction if we suppose that a cause instantaneously producing an effect does not precede its effect in time. A contradiction does obtain if the cause involved is one that produces its effects through motion, for the beginning of the motion precedes in time the end of the motion. Since people are accustomed to considering the type of cause that produces effects through motion, they do not easily grasp that an agent cause may fail to precede its effect in time, and so, attending to a few things and being unfamiliar with many others, they easily fall into error.

Nor can the conclusion be avoided by saying that God is an agent cause that acts voluntarily, for neither the will nor the voluntary agent need precede its effect in time, unless the agent cause acts from deliberation, which we take to be absent in God.

Further, a cause that produces the whole substance of a thing is not less powerful than a cause that produces just a form. On the contrary, it is much more powerful, for it does not act by educing from the potentiality of matter, as do causes that merely produce forms. However, some causes that produce only forms are such that, whenever the cause exists, the form produced by it exists as well, as is clear in the case of illumination by the sun. Therefore, much more can God, who produces the whole substance of things, make something caused by him exist whenever he himself exists.

Further, if, when a cause exists, its effect does not immediately exist as well, this can only be because something complementary to that cause is lacking: the complete cause and the thing caused are simultaneous. God, however, never lacks any kind of complementary cause in order to produce an effect. Therefore, at any instant at which God exists, so too can his effects, and thus God need not precede his effects in time.

Further, the will of the voluntary agent in no way diminishes the agent’s power, and this is especially true with God. But all those who try to answer the arguments of Aristotle (who held that something caused by God has always existed, since like always makes like) (See Aristotle, De generatione et corruptione, 2, ch. 10, 336a 27-28.) say that the conclusion would follow if God were not a voluntary agent. Therefore, allowing that God is a voluntary agent, it still follows that he can make something caused by him to have always existed. Thus, although God cannot make contradictories true, we have shown that there is no contradiction in saying that an agent cause does not precede its effect in time.

It remains to be seen, then, whether there is a contradiction in saying that something made has always existed, on the grounds that its non-being necessarily precedes it in time, for we say that it is made out of nothing. But that there is no contradiction here is shown by Anselm in his explanation of what it means to say that a creature is made out of nothing. He says in Monologion, 8: the third sense in which we can say that something is made out of nothing is this: we understand that something is made, but that there is not something from which it is made. In a similar way, we say that someone who is sad without reason is sad about nothing. We can thus say that all things, except the Supreme Being, are made by him out of nothing in the sense that they are not made out of anything, and no absurdity results. On this understanding, therefore, no temporal priority of non-being to the thing made is posited, as there would be if there were first nothing and then later something.

Further, let us even suppose that the preposition in question imports some affirmative order of non-being to being, as if the proposition that the creature is made out of nothing meant that the creature is made after nothing. Then this expression "after" certainly implies order, but order is of two kinds: order of time and order of nature. If, therefore, the proper and the particular does not follow from the common and the universal, it will not necessarily follow that, because the creature is made after nothing, there was first nothing and then later in time something. Rather, it suffices that non-being be prior to being by nature. Now, whatever naturally pertains to something in itself is prior to what that thing only receives from another.

A creature does not have being, however, except from another, for, considered in itself, every creature is nothing, and thus, with respect to the creature, non-being is prior to being by nature. Nor does it follow from the creature’s always having existed that its being and non-being were ever simultaneous, as if the creature always existed but at some time nothing existed, for the priority is not one of time. Rather, the argument merely requires that the nature of the creature is such that, if the creature were left to itself, it would be nothing. For example, if we should say that the air has always been illuminated by the sun, it would nevertheless still be right to say that the air has always been made lucid by the sun.

Thus, since anything that comes to be such-and-such comes to be such-and-such from being not such-and-such, we say that the air is made lucid from being non-lucid or opaque, not because the air was once non-lucid or opaque, but because the air would be opaque if the sun did not illuminate it. This is clearly the case with the stars and those celestial bodies that are always illuminated by the sun.

It is thus clear that there is no contradiction in saying that something made by God has always existed. Indeed, if there were some contradiction, it would be amazing that Augustine failed to see it, for exposing such a contradiction would be a most effective way of proving that the world is not eternal, and although Augustine offers many arguments against the eternity of the world in De civitate Dei, 11-12, he never suggests that such a view involves a contradiction.

On the contrary, Augustine seems to hint that there is no contradiction involved. Thus, speaking of the Platonists, he says in De civitate Dei, 10, 31: they somehow contemplate a beginning in causation rather than a beginning in time. Imagine, they say, a foot that has been in dust since eternity: a footprint has always been beneath it, and nobody would doubt that the footprint was made by the pressure of the foot. Although neither is prior in time to the other, yet one is made by the other. Likewise, they say, the world and the gods in it have always been created, just as he who made them always existed; yet, nevertheless, they were made. (PL 41, 311.)

Nor does Augustine ever say that this cannot be understood; rather, he proceeds against the Platonists in a totally different way. He says in De civitate Dei, 11, 4: those, however, who admit that the world was made by God but nevertheless want to hold that the world had a beginning in creation but not in time, so that, in some scarcely intelligible way, it has always been made by God, think that they are defending God against a charge of casual rashness. (PL 41, 319. In the Leonine Edition, Aquinas does not quote the predicate of the independent clause; it does appear in the Parma Edition, and I have chosen to supply it.) Their position is difficult to understand, however, only for the reason given above in the first argument.

How remarkable it would be that even the most noble of philosophers failed to see a contradiction in the idea that something made by God has always existed. Speaking against the Platonists, Augustine says in De civitate Dei, 11, 5: here we are contending with those who agree with us that God is the Creator of all bodies and all natures except himself, (PL 41, 320.) and then, again about the Platonists, he adds in De civitate Dei, 11, 5: these philosophers surpassed the rest in nobility and authority. (PL 41, 321.) Augustine said this even after diligently considering their position that the world has always existed, for they nevertheless thought that it was made by God, and they saw no contradiction between these two ideas. Therefore, those who so subtly perceive the contradiction are solitary men, and with these does wisdom arise. (Said ironically, the sentence is quite out of character for Aquinas, who courteously conducted the bitterest disputations. Here he is probably alluding to the Vulgate text of Job 12:2, in which Job says, You are solitary men, and with you wisdom shall die. The difference between 'arises' (oritur) and 'shall die' (morietur) is small.)

Still, since certain authorities seem to argue on the side of such men, we ought to show that they base themselves on a weak foundation. Damascene says in De fide irthodoxa, 1, 8: what is made out of nothing is by nature not such that it is coeternal to what has no causal principle and always exists. (PG 94, 814B.) Likewise, Hugh of St. Victor says in De sacramentis 1, 1: the ineffable omnipotent power could not have anything coeternal beyond itself that would help it in making. (PL 176, 187B.)

But the position of these and similar authorities is made clear by Boethius, who says in De consolatione, 5, prosa 6: when some people hear that Plato thought this world neither had a beginning in time nor will ever have an end, they mistakenly conclude that the created world is coeternal with the Creator. However, to be led through the endless life Plato attributes to the world is one thing; to embrace simultaneously the whole presence of endless life is quite another, and it is this latter that is proper to the divine mind. (PL 63, 859B.) Thus, it does not follow, as some people object, that a creature, if it had always existed, would be equal to God in duration.

For, even if some created thing always existed, it could in no way be coeternal with God, for nothing but God is immutable. As Augustine says in De civitate Dei, 12, 15, (So in Aquinas. The chapter divisions in De Civitate Dei are, at this point, somewhat unclear, and, as the editors of the Leonine Edition suggest, the quoted text is probably from cap. 16. In any event, the quoted material appears at PL 41, 364-365.) time, since it passes away by its mutability, cannot be coeternal with immutable eternity. Thus, even if the immortality of the angels does not pass away in time (it is neither past, as if it did not exist now; nor is it future, as if it did not yet exist), nevertheless, the angels’ motions, by which moments of time are carried along from the future into the past, pass away. Therefore, angels cannot be coeternal with the Creator, in whose motion there is nothing which has been that is not now, nor anything which will later be that is not already. (PL 41, 364-365.) Likewise, Augustine says in Super Genesis ad litteram, 8, 23, since the nature of the Trinity is wholly unchangeable, it is eternal in such a way that nothing can be coeternal with it, (PL 34, 389.) and he uses words to the same effect in Confessionum, 11, 30, (PL 32, 826.) as well.

Those who try to prove that the world could not have always existed even adduce arguments that the philosophers have considered and solved. Chief among these is the argument from the infinity of souls: if the world had always existed, these people argue, there would necessarily now exist an infinite number of souls. But this argument is not to the point, for God could have made the world without making men or creatures with souls, or he could have made men when in fact he did make them, even if he had made the rest of the world from eternity. In either case, an infinite number of souls would not remain after the bodies had passed away. Furthermore, it has not yet been demonstrated that God cannot cause an infinite number of things to exist simultaneously.