WHETHER THE WORLD IS SUCH
THAT IT HAS ALWAYS EXISTED (DP 3, 17)

I. Arguments for the affirmative answer:

1. A property always follows upon that whose property it is. But, as Dionysius says, it is a property of the divine goodness to communicate itself to creatures by producing them. Therefore, since the divine goodness has always existed, it seems that it has always been producing creatures, and so it seems that the world has always existed.
   
   
2. God has not denied to any creature what it is capable of by its nature. But there are some creatures whose nature is capable of having always existed, e.g., celestial bodies. Therefore, it seems that it was given to celestial bodies to be such that they exist always. But given the existence of the celestial bodies, one must posit the existence of other creatures, as the Philosopher proves. Therefore, it seems that the world has always existed. Proof of the middle term: Everything that is incorruptible has to power to exist always, since if it had the power to exist only for some determinate interval of time, then it would not be able to exist always, and so it would not exist always. But celestial bodies are incorruptible. Therefore, they have a nature that always exists.
   
   
3. Someone will object: A celestial body is not absolutely incorruptible, since it would fall into nothingness if it were not retained in being through God's power. Reply: One should not think that something is possible by virtue of the fact that its destruction follows upon the destruction of what follows from it. For instance, even though it is necessary that a human being is an animal, its destruction still follows from the destruction of what follows from it, viz. that a human being is a substance. Therefore, it does not seem that a celestial body can be called corruptible because of the assumption that God does not conserve it.
   
   
4. As Avicenna proves, every effect is necessary in relation to its cause, since if the effect does not necessarily follow once the cause is posited, then even with the cause posited it will be possible for the effect to exist and possible for it not to exist. But what exists in potentiality is reduced to act only through that which is in act. Hence, there will have to be some further cause which makes the effect issue into actuality from the potentiality by which it was possible for it to exist and possible for it not to exist once the original cause was posited. From this one can infer that once a sufficient cause is posited, it is necessary for the effect itself to be posited. But God is a sufficient cause of the world. Therefore, since God has always existed, the world has likewise also existed.
   
   
5. Everything that exists prior to time is eternal. But aeviternity does not exist prior to time, but rather begins to exist simultaneously with time. But the world existed prior to time, since it was created at the first instant of time, which is obviously prior to time. Therefore, the world existed from eternity.
   
   
6. The same thing, as long as it remains the same, always produces the same thing unless it is impeded. But God always remains the same. Therefore, since in virtue of his omnipotence he cannot be impeded in his action it seems that he is always making the same thing. And so since he produced the world at some time, it seems that he has always been producing it from eternity.
   
   
7. Just as a human being necessary wills his own happiness, so too God necessarily wills his own goodness and whatever pertains it. But it pertains to God's goodness that he should produce creatures. Therefore, God wills this by necessity; and so it seems that he has willed to produce creatures from eternity, just as he has willed his own goodness from eternity.
   
   
8. Someone will object: It pertains to God's goodness that creatures should be produced, but not that they should be produced from eternity. Reply: It pertains to a greater liberality to give something sooner rather than later. But the liberality of the divine goodness is infinite. Therefore, it seems that he gave being to creatures from eternity.
   
   
9. Augustine says, "I claim that what you will is that which you do if you can." But from eternity God willed to produce the world; other wise he would have changed if he had begun to will to create the world. Therefore, since he has no lack of power, it seems that he produced the world from eternity.
   
   
10. If the world has not always existed, then before it existed, either the world was possible or it was not possible. If it was not possible, then then it was impossible that it exist and necessary that it not exist, and so it has never been produced. But if it was possible for the world to exist, then there was some potentiality with respect to it, and so there was some subject or matter, since a potentiality cannot exist without a subject. But if there was matter, then there was form, too, since matter cannot exist completely deprived of form. Therefore, there was some body composed of matter and form, and thus there was a complete universe.
    
    
11. Everything that becomes actual after having been possible is educed from potentiality into actuality. Therefore, if, before the world existed, it was possible for it to be made, one would have to claim that the world was educed from potentiality into actuality--and so matter would have preceded it and would have been eternal. Same conclusion as above.
    
    
12. Every agent that begins to act de novo is moved from potency into act. But this cannot be said of God, since he is altogether unchangeable. Therefore, he seems that he did not begin to act de novo but that he produced the world from eternity.
    
    
13. If a voluntary agent begins to do what he has previously willed, then since he has not done it already, there must now be something that induces him to act that was not present before and in some way incites him. But one cannot claim that something besides God existed before the world which would have induced him to act de novo. Therefore, since he willed from eternity to produce the world, it seems that he did produce it from eternity.
    
    
14. Nothing moves the divine will to act except its goodness. But the divine goodness is always the same. Therefore, God's will was always directed toward the production of creatures, and so he produced creatures from eternity.
    
    
15. That which is always at its beginning and always at its end never begins or ceases, since every [real] entity exists after its own beginning and before its own end. But time is always at its beginning and always at its end, since nothing belongs to time except the [present] instant, which is the end of the past and the beginning of the future. Therefore, time never begins nor ceases, but always exists. Consequently, motion always exists and what is moved always exists, and the whole wold. For time does not exist without motion; nor does motion exist without that which is moved; nor does what is moved exist without the world.
    
    
16. Someone will object: The first instant of time is not the end of the past or the last beginning of the future. Reply: The now of time is always thought of as flowing, and it is in this that it differs from the now of eternity. But that which flows flows from something and into something. Therefore, every now must flow from a prior now and into a later now. Therefore, it is impossible that there be any first or last now.
    
    
17. Motion follows upon the movable thing, and time follows upon motion. But the first movable thing, since it is circular, has neither a beginning nor an end. For in a circle there is no actual beginning or end. Therefore, neither does motion or time have a beginning. Same conclusion as above.
    
    
18. Someone will object: Even though a circular body does not itself have a beginning of its magnitude, it may still have a beginning of duration. Reply: The duration of a motion follows upon the measure of a magnitude. For according to the Philosopher, the motion and the time are as great as the magnitude. So if the magnitude of a spherical body has no beginning, then neither will the magnitude of the motion or of time have a beginning. As a result, their duration will not have a beginning, since their duration--especially the duration of time--is their magnitude.
    
    
19. God is a cause of things through his knowledge. But knowledge is predicated relatively to what is knowable. Therefore, since relatives are simultaneous by nature and the knowledge of God is eternal, it seems that the things are produced by him from eternity.
    
    
20. God precedes the world either just in nature or in duration as well. If he precedes the world just in nature, in the way that a cause precedes an effect that is coeval with it, then it seems that since God existed from eternity, creatures likewise existed from eternity.
    
    
21. Augustine says, "I do not wish to claim that God was not the Lord from eternity." But whenever he was Lord he had a creature subject to him. Therefore, one should not say that there were no creatures from eternity.
    
    
22. God could have produced the world earlier than he did produce it. Otherwise, he would have been powerless. He likewise knew the world before he produced it; otherwise, he would have been ignorant. Likewise, it seems that he willed it; otherwise, he would have been envious. Therefore, it seems that he did not begin de novo to create.
    
    
23. Everything that is finite is communicable to a creature. But eternity is something finite; otherwise, nothing could exist outside of eternity--for Exodus 15:18 says, "The Lord will reign eternally and beyond. Therefore, it seems that a creature was capable of infinity, and so it was fitting for the divine power that he produce a creature from eternity.
    
    
24. Everything that begins has a measure of its duration. But time cannot have any measure of its duration; for it is not measured by eternity, since in that case it would always have existed, or by aeviternity, since in that case it would endure in perpetuity, or by time, since nothing is the measure of itself. Therefore, time does not begin to be, and so neither do movable things or the world.
    
    
25. If time began to be, then it began to be either in time or in an instant. Not in an instant, since time does not yet exist in an instant. Nor in time, since no time would exist before the terminus of time, since nothing of a thing begins to be before the thing itself begins to be. Therefore, time did not begin to be. Same conclusion as before.
    
    
26. God was a cause of things from eternity ; otherwise, one would have to say that he was first a cause in potency and afterwards a cause in act. And so there would be something prior that would reduce him from potency to act, which is impossible. But nothing is a cause unless it has an effect. Therefore the world was created by God from eternity.
    
    
27. True and being are convertible. But many things are true from eternity, e.g., that a man is not a donkey and that the world will exist, etc. Therefore, it seems that there were many beings from eternity, and not just God.
    
    
28. Someone will object: All of these truths are true by the First Truth, which is God. Reply: The truth of The world will exist is distinct from the truth of A man is not a donkey. For if per impossibile the one of them were false, the other would still be true. But the First Truth is not differentiated. Therefore, they are not true by the First Truth.
    
    
29. In the Categories the Philosopher says that a sentence is true or false insofar as reality is or is not such-and-such. Therefore, if many propositions are true from eternity, then the things signified by them existed from eternity.
    
    
30. Speaking and making are the same thing for God (Psalm 148). But God's speaking is eternal; otherwise, the Son, who is the Word of God, would not be coeternal with the Father. Therefore, God's making is eternal and so the world was made.

II. St. Thomas's Reply

• One should hold firmly, with the Catholic Faith, that the world has not always existed. And this claim cannot be impugned efficaciously by any physical demonstration. To see this, notice that, as was shown in another question, God cannot be subject to any requirement stemming from the material cause or from an agent's active power or from the ultimate end. The only requirement stems from the form that is the end of the operation; given the presupposition that such a form exists, it is required that things be such as is proper to that form.

• It follows that one must speak in different ways about (a) God's production of a single particular creature and (b) his production of the universe as a whole. For when we are talking about (a), we can give a reason why such a creature should exist by appealing to other creatures or at least by appealing to the order of the universe, to which each creature is ordered. However, when we are speaking of (b), there is no further created thing by appeal to which we can explain why the universe is this way or that way. Hence, since one likewise cannot explain the particular disposition of the universe by appeal to God's power, which is infinite, or by appeal to God's goodness, which does not need creatures, such an explanation must be given by appeal to the simple willing of the producer--just as, if asks why the heavens are just so capacious and not more so, no reason can be given other than the will of the producer.

• As Rabbi Moses says, it is for this reason that Sacred Scripture leads men to a consideration of the celestial bodies, through whose disposition it can especially be shown that all things are subject to the creator's will and providence. For it is impossible to explain why this star is a given distance from that star, etc., except by appeal to the order of God's wisdom.

• It is irrelevant if someone claims that such-and-such a quantity follows upon the nature of the heavens or of a celestial body in the same way that every persistent thing has some determinate quantity by its nature. For just as the divine power is not limited to this quantity rather than to that one, so too it is not limited to a nature such that a given quantity is owed to that nature rather than to a nature to which some other quantity is owed. And so the same question will arise about the nature which has the quantity in question--even if we concede that the nature of a celestial body is not indifferent with respect to every quantity or that it does not have a potentiality for any other quantity than the one it has.

• However, the same cannot be said about time or its duration. For time is extrinsic to a thing, just as place is. Hence, even in the case of a celestial body that does not have a potentiality for a different quantity or for a different intrinsically inhering accident there is still such a potentiality with respect to place and location and even with respect to time, since time always succeeds time just as there is a succession of 'wheres' in a motion. Hence one cannot claim that either time or 'where' follow upon the nature of the celestial body in the same way that quantity does. It depends on God's absolute volition that the universe has a given quantity of duration. So one cannot conclude to anything necessary about the duration of the universe or thus show demonstratively that the world has always existed.

• Some, not thinking that the world comes from God, were forced into error concerning the beginning of the world. Some, omitting the agent cause and claiming that the matter of all things is not created by anyone, were forced to say that matter had always existed. For since nothing brings itself into existence, what begins to be must have some other cause. And they claimed that the world always existed either continuously or with interruptions (see Democritus, who claimed that the world had been composed and decomposed many times).

III. Replies to arguments for the affirmative answer:

Sorry. I haven't quite gotten around to this yet.