The Age of the World

We have seen that creation is inevitably the explanation of the first origin of the world. Now it may be asked whether creation is necessarily a temporal thing, whether in fact it might not be ab aeterno, that is, whether God might not have created, not in time, as we say, but from eternity. In other words, we ask whether matter (the bodily world) might not be eternal. Of course, we know, and have proved, that matter cannot be unproduced. But, granted its production, its first creation, we ask whether it might not be eternal.

The eternity of matter, discussed here as to possibility, does not mean a perfect eternity. A perfect eternity is predicable of God alone. For a perfect eternity admits no successive stages or moments of duration ; it is “all there at once.” Thus, it can belong only to an infinite being which knows no limitations of past and future, but which subsists in a changeless all-embracing now. The concept of “eternity of matter” is the concept of a relative or limited eternity, an eternity which merely excludes beginning, but admits successive duration and change.

Can matter have been created from eternity? Is it possible that matter has had a creation, but no beginning? The question is moot among Scholastic philosophers, but most of them incline to the opinion that eternal matter is not possible. Let us consider some pros and cons.

Since God is eternal, it is manifest that He can create from eternity. There is no change or development in God; to say that there is, or can be, such change or development, is to fall into the fundamental error of the pantheists. Certainly, there was no moment at which God became able to create, for God is eternally able to create. Thus it seems that eternal creation is possible.

There is an answer to this argument. No one denies the infinite perfection of God. There is not a doubt in the world that God can exercise from eternity all possible activities and powers. Indeed, He does so, when we understand the divine operations strictly and are not confused by the limitations of human speech and human thought. But granted that God can create ab aeterno when the point is considered absolutely, is there not some involvement of difficulties on the part of creatures, and of their requisite mode of being, that makes creation from eternity a self- contradictory thing? There are indeed great difficulties, but it is not certain that these constitute an absolute self-contradiction in the concept of creation from eternity. Such difficulties are, for example, the following two: .

(a) Creatures, and particularly matter or bodily being which is the focal point of our discussion throughout cosmology, are limited things, and, in themselves substantially or at least in accidentals, they undergo a continuous succession of states and conditions. We may say, to put the matter shortly, that creatures experience a continuous series of events. Now, if creatures have existed from eternity this series of events must be an actual infinity. For the series has been running on forever without any start.

Yet we have already learned that an infinite series of numbers (or simply a number actually infinite) is not possible, and events are numerable things; an infinite series of events can be, and indeed must be, expressible in terms of an infinite number. Therefore, it appears that the concept of creation from eternity involves a difficulty that amounts to self-contradiction and consequent impossibility.

(b) The same difficulty, seen from a new angle, is discerned in the contrast of time and eternity in bodily being. If matter has existed from eternity, it appears that this existence is mensurable in moments. For limited existence, and notably material existence, is admittedly a successive thing, a thing which involves movement, and reference to before and after, to now and then. But such an existence is precisely what we describe as an existence in time. It has moments, succession, mensurability in terms of what has gone, what is, and what is to come. In a word, creatural existence appears to be time-bound existence. But to call a time-bound existence a time-free existence is to be guilty of contradiction. And it appears that the concept of creation from eternity involves just such a contradiction It is to be noticed that this argument has no force when applied to an eternity to come. For there is manifestly no contradiction in the concept of creatures being continually maintained in existence. The point is that their continued existence will never be rounded out into a completed eternity.

But the concept of creation from eternity is the concept of an eternity that has gone; it suggests an eternity already completed and rounded out. Indeed, at any moment in the past history of creatural existence, an eternity has been completed, in the sense that an infinity of moments has already been traversed. Here, then, there seems to be a difficulty in the concept of creation from eternity, and a difficulty so great as to amount to self-contradiction and consequent impossibility in the concept and reality of such a creation.

Recall the fact that when we say God cannot do a thing, this is never a limitation in God. It merely indicates a self-cancelling conflict in the “thing” which we say God cannot do. God cannot make a square circle, because a square circle is simply nothing ; it is not a thing, but two things that cancel each other out and leave nothing. Just so, if it be true (and it surely looks true) that the concept of creation from eternity is the concept of a self-contradictory thing, then we say that God cannot create from eternity. Not that we assert any limitation in God, but that we recognize limitation in creatures, and in their requisite mode of being. It is not that God cannot give existence from eternity; it is rather that creatures lack capacity to receive such existence.

It is probable therefore, to put the point mildly, that creation from eternity is an impossibility, and indeed an absolute impossibility.

b) CREATION OF THE WORLD IN TIME

Whether or no creation from eternity be possible, human reason recognizes as acceptable the fact of creation in time. There is, indeed, no compelling proof, direct and inescapable as a mathematical demonstration, to show that creation in time ts a fact. But there are many persuasive arguments which strongly recommend the acceptance of such creation as a fact. For example, the mind finds no requirement for creation from eternity (that is, for eternal matter) in its deepest explanation of the world of bodies; there are tremendous difficulties in the way of a clear concept of eternal matter, and these even seem to indicate the absolute impossibility of such matter; the creation of matter in time appears to be more in line with the divine perfections ; the unvarying tradition of all peoples expresses a constant human conviction that the world had a beginning. We must look more closely into one or two of these arguments.

(a) There is no need of creation from eternity to explain the world to the deepest investigations of the human mind. It is normal and natural for man to find in a world marked by change and limitation, a clear indication of a beginning rather than an eternal origin. Further, the mind looks in vain for any requirement of eternal creation in the two realities involved in the concept of creating, namely, God the Creator and the world of creatures. Certainly God, who is subject to no stresses or compul- sions (since He is infinite in all perfections, and therefore infinitely free), is not required to create at all; therefore, He is not required to create from eternity. As we have seen, God takes nothing real to His own nature and essence by the production of creatures out of nothing. Hence we find that the thought or concept of God involves no requirement of creation ab aeterno. And as for creatures, for the world itself, it is manifestly a contingent reality, that is, a thing which might not have been made at all. It has in itself no requirement for existence. Manifestly, then, it suggests no requirement for eternal existence. What, then, could lead the reasonable mind to declare that the world has been created ab aeterno? Surely, nothing. It would be unreasonable, therefore, to assert that the world has been created from eternity ; it would be a baseless assertion. On the other hand, it is reasonable to assert the creation of the world in time,—since there is much to suggest this conclusion, —and to accept it as a fact. For there are but two possibilities about the fact of the world’s origin; either it was created in time or it is created from eternity. If the latter is the remote possibility (and most remote it surely is) the former is the proximate and acceptable probability.

(b) It seems to be more in accord with God’s perfections that He should have created the world in time. For, as St. Thomas points out, “That which did not always exist, manifestly has a cause; but the existence of a producing cause is not so evident in the case of what has always existed.” Hence the causality of God is more evident in a world that has had a beginning than in a world that has existed from eternity. By the same token, the existence of God is more immediately apparent as First Cause of a world created in time than as First Cause of a world existing eternally. But that which makes God’s existence and causality more directly apparent is more closely in accord with the divine perfections (which, as St. Paul tells us are manifested in the creature world) than that which leaves these paramount realities in a state of obscurity. In other words, the world, which manifests God’s existence and perfections, is a clearer, more suitable, more apt manifestation as a thing with a beginning, than as a thing without beginning. And it is surely right and reasonable to conclude that God has chosen the clear, apt, and suitable service of the world for the instruction of the intelligent creatures for whom He made the world. Reason, therefore, recognizes a strongly persuasive argument in all this for the fact of creation in time, and, at the same time, an equally strong dissuasion from accepting as fact the creation of the world ab aeterno.

We may add here, for the information of Catholic students (or rather, for the purpose of recalling to the mind of Catholic students a fact which they know), that Divine Revelation as well as the infal- lible declaration of Christ’s Church leaves us in no doubt about the actual creation of the world in time. Holy Scripture, in the first words of Genesis, tells us that “Jn the beginning, God created heaven and earth.” And the Fourth Council of the Lateran declared that God “from the beginning of time, made out of nothing the creature, both bodily and spiritual.” This, of course, is not an argument for the philosopher, except in so far as it evidences the absence of all clash or disagreement between Revelation and reason.

As to the actual age of the world (created in time) we have no certain sources of information. Modern science, generally speaking, likes to express the age of the world in terms of millions and even billions of years. Still, very learned scientists have asserted that there is no compelling reason to believe that the world, or at least our earth, is more than fifteen or twenty thousand years old. Thus there is a tremendous field for speculation on the question. Faith has nothing to say on the point, for the hexahaemeron or “‘six days of creation” are only ‘‘days” in modern speech, that is, in translations of the Scripture. The scriptural word yom (which is translated or mistranslated as ‘“day’’) indicates an indefinite period of time; perhaps the word has even a philological connection with our word eon. The “days” of creation may have been stretches of millions or billions of years; we have no means of knowing even their ap- proximate duration. Hence there is nothing in Faith or in philosophy to give us a clue to the actual age of the world in terms of years. The matter must be left to the scientists, and it seems rather unlikely that these will be able to reach a reasonable agreement on the point, at least until the world is a lot older than it is now. However, the actual age of the world is an item of very small importance; in fact, it is negligible for the philosopher. The point is that whenever it began, it had a beginning; whenever it was created, it had a Creator; and, since God is absolutely outside time the length or brevity of the world’s term of existence is without meaning in reference to His eternity.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this brief Article we have considered the possibility of creation from eternity, that is, the possibility of eternal (but produced) matter. We have seen that the difficulties involved in the concept of eternal matter or creation ab aeterno are such as to make this creation appear impossible. On the other hand, we have noticed that strongly suggestive reasons invite the mind to the conviction that the world was actually created in time. We have noticed, in passing, that Catholics hold by Faith (in perfect agreement with sound philosophy) that the world was, in fact, created in time. We have seen that there is no means of expressing the actual age of the world, or of our earth, in terms of a definite number of years,