Question Three
Whether the world is eternal, or whether it must at some time come to an end
It is asked, since according to the faith the resurrection of bodies will occur at the end of the world, whether it is true that the world must at some time come to an end.
In answer it is said that, just as philosophers have held opinions differing from the Catholic faith concerning the beginning of the world’s duration, so they have also maintained various opinions concerning its end and terminus. For Aristotle - to pass over the others - according to what is imputed to him, what the commentators expound, and what his words hold forth, fell into this error: he posited that the world was created from nothing from eternity, would endure perpetually, and would continue into infinity, as is evident in the book On the Nature of the Gods. Master Albert acknowledges the same thing in his commentary on Book VIII of the Physics.
They say that Aristotle maintained the first part, concerning the eternity of the world a parte ante, for the following reasons. In Book I of the Physics they say that Aristotle posits nature to be ungenerated. And in Book I of On the Heavens he posits the world to be ungenerated. But ungenerated things have always existed. Therefore, according to Aristotle, the totality of things did not begin to exist.
Again, Aristotle argued as follows, as they say, in Book VIII of the Physics. Nothing begins anew to be moved unless through the mover or the movable thing now being disposed otherwise than before. But whatever is disposed otherwise now was moved before. Therefore, before every motion beginning anew there was some motion. Therefore motion always existed, and therefore so did a movable thing, because motion does not exist except in a movable thing, according to Book III of the Physics.
And when it was brought against Aristotle that, if the world existed from eternity, generation also existed from eternity, and thus infinitely many human beings preceded us; therefore infinitely many incorruptible souls and infinitely many revolutions of the sun preceded us while the world existed from eternity; therefore it will be necessary to posit an infinite in act and that it has happened that infinitely many things have been traversed, which are absurdities in philosophy; or else it will never happen that the present revolution is reached.
Again, in each revolution God could have created one stone. There will therefore be infinitely many stones remaining. And since these stones can be joined to one another, there will be an infinite in act not only in multitude, but also in magnitude.
Perhaps Aristotle would have answered these objections as follows. To the first argument he would have said that, with the eternity of the world posited, infinitely many souls do not exist in act, since unbelievers maintain the mortality of souls. Again, the Commentator and Algazel, in Book II of the Metaphysics, posited that it is not impossible for infinitely many things per accidens to exist in act. Even so the argument would not conclude, because in this way the soul would be a creature, as is supposed. It is impossible, however, for something generated to be eternal, because nothing is prior to the eternal. But every generated thing universally is preceded by some motion in duration and time; consequently, what is generated is generated at a determinate time, and thus there would not have been infinitely many souls in act.
To the second he would have said that there would not have been infinitely many revolutions, since there is one continuous illumination and one day, and consequently many in potency. The reason for the unity of the revolution, of the one day, and of the one illumination is the unity of the motion. But the fact that many days and many illuminations are spoken of arises on our part, because we judge illumination according to our hemisphere, where illumination appears at one time and not at another because of the varying interposition of an opaque body before the sun.
To the objection concerning the stones it must also be said that it has no force, because you posit one thing from which an impossibility follows. For you posit that continuous revolution, which is actually and really one, as divided and infinite, which is impossible, since it is divisible in potency. You posit, secondly infinitely many days according to your imagination. Once this absurdity has been posited, it is necessary to concede what follows, because when one absurdity is granted, others follow.
Thomas, however, defending Aristotle in On the Power of God, question 3, article 10, says: Aristotle posited that the world had always existed, not from that consideration by which the procession of the universe is understood to be from God, but from that by which a particular agent begins to operate through motion. And because there is a motion before every motion, from this he posited the world to be eternal dialectically against Anaxagoras and Empedocles, as is evident in Book VIII of the Physics, and not demonstratively.
And in Part I, question 46, article 1, Thomas says: it cannot be proved demonstratively that the world has always existed. Nor are the arguments which Aristotle adduces for this demonstrative absolutely, but only in a qualified respect - namely, for contradicting the arguments of the ancients who posited that the world began according to certain modes which are impossible in truth: either through a concourse of atoms, as Democritus said, or through fire, or through water, and so forth.
Thomas says that this is apparent from three things. First, because both in Book VIII of the Physics and in Book I of On the Heavens, Aristotle premises certain opinions - namely, those of Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and Plato - against which he introduces contradictory arguments. Second, because wherever he speaks about this subject, he introduces testimonies of the ancients, which belongs not to one demonstrating but to one persuading probably. Third, because he expressly says in Book I of the Topics that there are certain dialectical problems for which we possess no arguments, such as whether the world is eternal.
In the same place Thomas replied to the two arguments brought against Aristotle in the opposing position. To the first he says that in Book I of the Physics Aristotle proves nature to be ungenerated for this reason: it does not have a subject from which it comes to be. And in Book I of On the Heavens he proves the heaven to be ungenerated because the heaven does not have a contrary from which it might be generated. Hence it is evident that neither argument concludes anything except that matter and the heaven did not begin through generation and natural motion, by which generable and corruptible things begin, as a certain person posited especially concerning the heaven. But we say that both the aforesaid matter and the heaven were brought into being through creation.
To the other argument the same Thomas says that the first mover has always been disposed in the same manner, but the first movable thing has not always been disposed in the same manner, because it began to exist when previously it had not existed. This, however, did not occur through change, but through creation, which is not a change, since it presupposes nothing pre-existing, but expresses a certain relation to the creator as to the principle of its being.
And Bonaventure says in distinction 1 of Book II: certain moderns say that Aristotle did not intend to prove that the world absolutely did not begin, but that it did not begin through natural motion. But whatever Aristotle and the other philosophers thought concerning the eternity of the world is nothing to us Christians, who hold by faith, rather than by any demonstrative argument, that the world began in time. Hence an article of faith also says: “I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” Articles of faith cannot be demonstrated, because faith concerns things which are not apparent, according to Hebrews 11.
That the world began can, however, be persuasively argued with probability as follows. God is related to the causation of all things as an artisan is related to what is fashioned. But the artisan is the cause of all things fashioned through his will. Therefore God is similarly the cause of things.
Now it is certain that the will is never necessitated to do or will anything except with respect to that thing toward which it is naturally inclined, or with respect to those things without which its end cannot be attained. But the end of the divine will is its own goodness, which does not depend upon another. Therefore it is not necessary for God to will anything outside himself, and consequently the production of creatures was not necessary either.
It was nevertheless fitting that the world itself should be produced in time, because through this the divine perfection is shown more fully. For since nothing can be the cause of itself, but everything which begins anew to exist acquires being from another, from the fact that all creatures are posited as once not having existed, it is shown that they proceeded from some first principle, which is God. But if they had always existed, it would not have been so evident that they were created by God. It was therefore fitting that the world should have been created in time.
Augustine first testifies to this in Book XI of The City of God, chapter 4, saying that we believe no one more readily than God’s prophet Moses concerning the fact that God made the world. Through him God spoke, saying: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” Through him the Wisdom of God, through whom all things were made, spoke; she transfers herself into holy souls, constitutes friends of God and prophets, and without noise inwardly narrates her works. The angels of God, who always see the face of the Father, also speak to the prophets and announce his will to those to whom it ought to be announced.
And Gregory says in his Homilies on Ezekiel: “A certain prophecy concerns the past, as is that of Moses, who prophesied, saying: ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth.’” In this the newness of the world is handed down.
And John 17 says: “Father, glorify me with yourself with the glory which I had before the world was made.”
And Macrobius says in Book II of The Dream of Scipio on this subject: “Who would not judge from this that the world itself began and that its age does not extend far back, when from this time beyond two thousand years backward there survives no Greek history of outstanding deeds? For before Ninus nothing was splendidly committed to books. If the world existed from the beginning - indeed, before the beginning - why, throughout the series of innumerable ages, was the culture which we now employ not invented? Why was the use of letters, by which alone eternity is sustained, not invented? All things of this kind appear to oppose eternity, since they cause us to think that, after a determinate beginning of the world, each individual thing gradually began.” Thus he speaks.
Now it must be seen what philosophers thought concerning the end of the world, and what Christians according to the Catholic faith ought firmly to believe concerning it.
For this it must first be known that nearly all the philosophers, with the exception of Aristotle, as we have said, unanimously acknowledged a conflagration and an end of this world. Their opinions varied, however, concerning the manner of its end and terminus.
For Plato and Pythagoras posited that this elemental part of the world must be dissolved after thirty-six thousand years and then, after all its parts had been recovered, must be formed anew. They assign the reason for the thirty-six thousand years as follows. They say that every disposition of the heaven and of the celestial orbs is naturally completed in so great a time.
For the moon completes its course in one month; Mercury and Venus in a period shorter than one year; the sun completes its motion in one year; Mars in two years; Jupiter in twelve; and Saturn in thirty. The first mobile - that is, the crystalline or aqueous heaven, so called from its transparency - completes its circuit in twenty-four hours. But the starry heaven, that is, the firmament beneath the first mobile, completes its course in thirty-six thousand years. For it is moved one degree in one hundred years, as the astronomers say.
Plato and Pythagoras therefore say that the world will end when all the aforesaid celestial orbs complete their courses, beginning from that instant in which the firmament was created. This occurred at the vernal equinox, on Sunday, the eighteenth day before the Kalends of April, with the moon being full: 4,440 years before the founding of the City; 3,936 years before the Incarnation according to the Hebrews and Jerome; and 5,199 according to Bede.
And when, through a power infused into the substances of the heavens, all the parts of the heaven return again to their place of first creation, then, they say, all generable and corruptible things which have existed will return numerically the same through the power of the celestial bodies.
But Augustine refutes this opinion in Book XII of The City of God, chapter 13, saying: “The philosophers who maintain this think not what they know, but what they wish.” They know that naturally there is no return from pure privation to habit, and therefore he concludes against them as follows: “Far be it from us that we believe these things. For just as Christ died for us once and, rising, dies no more, so after the resurrection we too shall always be with the Lord,” in the manner in which we say what the sacred Psalm admonishes: “You, O Lord, will preserve us and will guard us from this generation forever.”
Empedocles of Acragas and Anaxagoras said that through the friendship of the elements the world had been dissolved, and that through their conflict and discord it would be restored infinitely many times. The Philosopher refutes their opinion in Book VIII of the Physics.
Heraclitus, according to the Philosopher in Book I of the Physics, posited fire as the principle of the world; and so that the end might correspond to the beginning, he said that the world would be ended through the same fire, as is evident in Book III of the Physics. But just as he erred concerning the beginning of the world, so he also spoke badly concerning its end. For God created the world not from fire but from nothing; and it will be ended not with respect to its essential parts - namely, the heavens, the angels, and elemental substance - but with respect to some of its accidental parts, namely the individuals of the elemental species and the motion of the heavens, as is explained in the book On the Heavens.
Seneca, in a book of the Natural Questions, said according to the opinion of Empedocles that the earth would burn naturally when all the stars came together in the sign of Cancer - namely, in the month of June - through a concurrence of hot and dry things. He says likewise that the flood occurred in the time of Noah through a conjunction of the wet and cold planets, when all the stars came together in Capricorn in the month of September.
But Master Peter of Tarentaise and Richard, in Book IV of the Sentences, distinction 48, say that the concurrence of wet and cold things was not the necessary cause of the flood in the time of Noah, but was indeed a congruous cause. Nor will the disposition toward fire or the concurrence of hot and dry things be the necessary cause of the end of the world, but it will be a congruous cause. For a violent dryness, naturally generated and congruous for producing fire at God’s command for such an effect, will precede the purgation by the fire which is to purify the world itself at the end of the ages.
Aristotle, as we have just said above and as is imputed to him, said that the world would endure perpetually, for the reason by which in On the Heavens and the World he said that ungenerated and incorruptible are mutually convertible. But there is a contrary argument because in Book XII of the Metaphysics he says that the first cause moves under the aspect of a thing loved and desired. This is as if he were saying that the intelligences which move the heaven do so from the desire and love which they possess for obeying the first cause: just as they now obey in moving, so they will likewise obey when ceasing to move.
There were also others who committed the destruction of the world, although not to natural causes, to the divine will. Nevertheless, with bold presumption they attempted to assign it to definite and certain times. For Lactantius, in Book VII of the Divine Institutes, posited the consummation of the world after the completed sixth millennium. Others posited forty years; others, five hundred. Some posited as many years from the time of salvation as had elapsed before it. Some said that one thousand years could be completed from the Lord’s ascension until the final advent.
Certain persons, presuming something here concerning the spirit of prophecy, such as Abbot Joachim, and certain more recent persons adhering to their calculations, foolishly expected the world to be completed before or around the end of six thousand years. The error of all these is very great, and their speech creeps like a cancer. Therefore Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, says to them: “Let no one seduce you in any way, as though the day of the Lord were imminent,” and so forth.
Treating these words, Augustine says: “Of three persons speaking concerning the end of the world, the first says that the day of the Lord is near; the second, that it is far away; the third, ‘I do not know; God knows.’ The first errs more than the second. But the third, agreeing with Christ, is established in the way of truth.”
Let us Christians, therefore, leave aside the furious disputants and the obstinate crowds of philosophers and heretics, and come to the theologians, the givers of simple truth, and to the Sacred Scriptures, written not by human industry but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
First, let us say and confess that “the world passes away, and its concupiscence,” 1 John 2, and that “heaven and earth will pass away,” Luke 21, Mark 12, and Matthew 24; and that the end of the world will be an effect not of nature but of the Holy Spirit.
Second, let us say that the instrument of the conflagration of the world will be a very great fire, generated neither from a natural concurrence of hot and dry things, as Seneca said, nor from a concurrence of upper and lower fires, as others said. Nor will that fire be kindled from the reflection of the sun’s rays upon naturally solid terrestrial bodies, as occurs from the reflection of the sun toward a nearby concave mirror; nor from a release of the sphere of fire which is now restrained by the power of the heaven so that it does not flow forth.
Instead, that fire will be supernaturally caused by the will and power of God. Just as at the beginning of the world, in the time of Noah, he destroyed the age through a flood of waters in order to purge the heat of concupiscence and lust, so again he will destroy the human race and the world through fire in order to purge the coldness of malice and avarice opposed to charity. Thus the purgation of the world will occur through contraries.
Third, let us say that because, as we have said, the consummation of the world does not depend upon a natural cause but upon the divine will, the time of its end cannot be known with certainty. Therefore Christ, when questioned by his disciples concerning the time, said in Acts 1: “No one knows of that day and hour.” And in Luke 12 he says: “Be ready, because at an hour which you do not think, the Son of Man will come.” And Matthew 25 says: “You know neither the day nor the hour.” And Mark 13: “See, watch, and pray, for you do not know when the time will be.”
Hence Thomas, concluding in support of this position in On the Power of God, question 5, article 6, says: “Since the end of the world depends upon the pure will of God, it cannot be known by natural cognition. And since the world is to be ended when the number of the elect is complete, as Gregory says, the completion of which is a certain effect of divine predestination, it cannot be revealed except by Christ, through whom in a certain manner the predestination of the human race is fulfilled.”
And Augustine, in Book XVIII of The City of God, chapter 13, says in support of this conclusion: “In vain, therefore, do we attempt to calculate and determine the years which remain for this age, since it is not ours to know this.” And let Mark instruct us, saying: “Of that day and hour no one knows, nor do the angels of heaven.” He who said, “It is not yours to know the times or moments which the Father has placed in his own power,” releases from counting on their fingers the apostles and all the future doctors of the world who calculate concerning this matter, and orders them to rest. Thus Augustine in the place cited above.