Eternity of the world
| Latin | Aeternitas mundi; De aeternitate mundi |
|---|---|
| Treatise | Summa theologiae I, question 46; De aeternitate mundi |
| Controlling authority | Lateran IV, Firmiter credimus; Dei Filius; Catechism 279–301 |
| Doctrinal standing | That the world had a beginning is Catholic doctrine; that the beginning cannot be demonstrated by reason is a Thomistic thesis |
| School | Thomism |
| Branch | Natural theology |
Eternity of the world names the medieval question whether the created universe could have existed without a beginning, a question Thomas Aquinas answered by joining the Catholic confession of a beginning to the claim that reason cannot demonstrate that beginning.[1]
Faith in a beginning
The Fourth Lateran Council, in Firmiter credimus, confesses one Creator and a world made from the beginning of time. Dei Filius and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 279–301, repeat creation from nothing and the distinction of Creator from creature. Those are the dogmatic bounds. A world that exists of itself, or a world that is God, is closed. A beginningless uncreated matter is closed.[2][3]
The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia article on creation records that Catholic doctrine. The remaining question is whether philosophy can prove the beginning, or only creation. That is where Thomism parts from some of its Catholic neighbors.[4][5]
What reason can and cannot show
Summa theologiae I, question 46, article 1, holds that nothing except God can be eternal, and that the world is not necessary because God's will is not necessary with respect to creatures. Article 2 then teaches that by faith alone we hold that the world did not always exist, and that this cannot be demonstrated. To offer weak proofs of a mystery is to give unbelievers occasion to laugh. Creation as dependence can be argued. The first moment is revealed.
De aeternitate mundi, available in the public-domain Isidore translation, assumes the Catholic faith that the world began, and then asks whether God could have made a world that always existed. Aquinas answers that there is no contradiction in an eternally created effect. An agent need not precede its effect in time. The abominable error is an unmade eternal world, not a made one without a first moment.[6]
The thirteenth-century fight
Bonaventure and other Franciscan masters argued that an eternal world is impossible, because an infinite series of past days cannot be traversed, or because creation means beginning. Latin Averroists were suspected of teaching an eternal world in a way that threatened creation. Tempier's condemnations mixed the issues. Aquinas's short treatise is commonly read as a reply in that climate: keep the faith's beginning, refuse a pretended demonstration, refuse to call the opposite a contradiction.
The controversy is intramural and historical. It is not a choice between Genesis and Aristotle. It is a choice about the reach of natural reason under Genesis. Thomism's characteristic claim is modest: reason can show that the world is caused; it cannot show that it began.
Catholic bound
A Catholic must confess that the world is created and that it began. He is not required to hold that an eternal created world is a contradiction in terms. He is not permitted to teach an uncreated eternal cosmos. Later cosmology, which studies a temporal metric of the universe, neither replaces nor is replaced by the metaphysical question of created dependence.
The Creator is confessed as dogma. The demonstrability of the first moment is a school question. Physics has not made Lateran IV optional, and a failed syllogism is not the Creed.
References
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 46, articles 1–2 — Primary demonstration that creatures need not have existed from eternity, and that the world's beginning is held by faith rather than by natural demonstration.
- Back to citation Fourth Lateran Council, Firmiter credimus — Conciliar confession of the one Creator and of a world made from the beginning of time, together with the Creator-creature distinction.
- Back to citation First Vatican Council, Dei Filius — Dogmatic constitution on God the Creator, creation from nothing, and the distinction and harmony of natural and supernatural orders.
- Back to citation Catechism of the Catholic Church, 279–301 — Authoritative doctrine of creation from nothing, the beginning of the world, and the real distinction between the Creator and every creature.
- Back to citation Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), Creation — Public-domain doctrine of creation from nothing and the beginning of the world.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, De aeternitate mundi — Short treatise arguing that an eternally created world is not a contradiction, while the Catholic faith teaches that the world in fact began.