Time and the Possibility of an Eternal World

TIME AND THE POSSIBILITY OF AN ETERNAL WORLD HE who wishes to understand creation philosophically cannot neglect the problem of the nature of time and its bearing upon the hypothesis that an order of created things could have coexisted from eternity with God. Now this hypothesis clearly raises the problem of the beginning of things. Since a world eternal in the sense of having an endless duration a parte ante still would be temporally eternal, we have on our hands a nest of problems, not the less thorny for being ancient, centering around time: Is it possible, without self-contradiction , to conceive of a non-temporal origination of time? How, if at all, can time be understood to have begun? How, if at all, can it be understood to have possibly existed always? These and allied questions are vitally important in the doctrine of creation as a whole. The problem of understanding the act of creation in relation to its effects is involved, specifically as regards the latter's duration, as well as the problem of the relation of the effects to the Author of that act. Respecting the first of these problems, we may recall, for instance, that the act of creation, being God's own proper act, is one with Himself and therefore is eternal in the mode wherein He Himself is eternal. This act then is outside of time, yet its effect-the world, the order of things other than God-is undoubtedly in time. Could it have been in time from all eternity and nevertheless have originated? Of course it must have originated, for everything other than God was and is being created by God. On the other hand, it is not less easy to indicate how the problem of time and an "eternal" world bears. upon that of understanding the relation ofpassive creation, namely, the total dependency in being of the creature upon God.1 This relation is not really grasped unless 1 See my article, "Creation as a Relation," The New Scholasticism, XXIV (July 1950). pp. 268-288. 136 TIME AND THE POSSIBILITY OF AN ETERNAL WORLD 137 it is seen to be per se independent of time. And yet all creatures in their natural state, at least, seem to exist in time.2 Is a successive duration infinite a parte ante really compatible with created being as such? If so, how can this compatibility be conceived and explained? 1. CREATED BEING AND ETERNAL DURATION In a broad sense of the term, time is a measure of motion or change of every kind.3 It is important to notice that the essence of time-time as time-consists in measurable successiveness , not (any more than does the essence of eternity) in beginninglessness and endlessness. For even if time never began and will never end/ it still must retain its measurably successive character.5 Observe further that even if time and a world had always been, they could not be said to exist" coeternally" with God. Eternity, properly so called, is found only in God, Who alone has being and life simultaneously whole in an • Even intellectual substances, whose duration is aeviternal, participate in time; for, though their substantial being is not subject to change, they are transmutable as r~gards the accidental being of their immanent and transient operations, of their thoughts, volitions, and local changes. Cf. Summa Theol., I, q. 10, a. 5, c. and ad ~- • We need not be concerned with a technical analysis of the meaning of the celebrated Aristotelian definition: " Time is the number of motion in respect of before and after" (IV Physic., cap. 11; ~~Oa ~8). Here it is sufficient, I think, to describe time in terms which, though very general, nevertheless indicate clearly its essential character. In fact, St. Thomas himself, following Aristotle, recognizes this broad sense of " time " : Dicitur magis communiter numeTUS ejus quod habet quocumque modo prius et posterius. I Sent., dist. VIII, q. 8, a. 8, ad 4; cf. Aristotle, Physic, loc. cit. "Motion" can be understood to stand for actual succession, transition , or change of every kind. Cf. Summa Theol., I, q. 10, a. 1; q. 58, a. 8. The motion of which...