THOMAS AQUINASON TIME & CREATION

CREATIO EX NIHILO• God is existence

– Existence belongs to him in virtue of his essence but pertains to all other things by way of participation.

• All things exist by the will of God– Things are necessary, according as it is necessary for God to

will that the world should always exist; but the world exists forasmuch as God wills it to exist, since the being of the world depends on the will of God, as on its cause.

• In the second and third ways of proving God’s existence, Aquinas argues for God as the first cause of all things, even while presupposing for the sake of argument the past eternity of the world.**

*ST 1 Q46 A2**ST 1a.2.3

CREATIO EX NIHILO• It cannot be proved that the world did not always

exist.however,

• God does not need to presuppose matter• Only God can create• Thomas echoes Aristotle as allowing a beginningless

creation of the universe by God.*– God may cause the universe in fieri.– The beginning of the universe does not follow from the fact

of creation; it does not even follow from the fact of creation out of nothing.**

*Phys. 8, lectio 2, n.974-5.**Scriptum Super Libros Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lobardi, in 3, dist. 1, q. 1, a. 2; ST 1 q. 46, a. 1, 2.

INFINITAS• Potential Infinite

– ∞ Lemniscate

• Actual Infinite– ℵ0 Aleph Naught or Aleph Null

• Thomas denies ℵ0 in esse but affirms ℵ0 in fieri causation.– Albert and Thomas both endorse the acceptance of an

infinite accidental chains.* But he does not believe that there has in fact been an infinite

chain of fathers and sons. Only Scripture can rule that out, not philosophy.

*ST 1.46.2, reply to (7); CG 2.38, reply to 5th arg.; Scriptum Super Libros Senentiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi, in 2, dist. 1, quaest. 1, art. 5. Albert Magnus, in VIII Phys., tract 1, ch. 12.

CREATIO EX NIHILO• The will of God

– “It must be said that the will of God is altogether unchangeable. But concerning this we should reflect that it is one thing to change one’s will, and another to will a change in things. For one can with one and the same will changelessly and steadfastly will that now one thing should come about and later its contrary. The will would change only if one began to will what he did not will before, or ceased to will what he did will before.”*

• This argument was later rejected by Berkeley in his Third Dialogue Between Hylas and Philonous.

*ST 1, q. 19, a. 7; cf CG 1.83; 3.91; 98; 4.70.

CREATIO EX NIHILO• How does a changeless cause make something

begin?– Aristotle insists on the need for a trigger.

• Even though no change of will is required, another kind of change is needed.– Consider Ghazali’s example of a Muslim divorce in Tahafut

al-Falasifa.– Thomas’ remarks seem to echo Ghazali.*– Thus, no trigger can be present or arrive and we don’t

need it to arrive either.

*ST 1, q. 46 a. 1

CREATIO EX NIHILO• Thomas’ distinction that the idea of creation involves a

will, rather than necessity, is what makes the idea distinctly Christian.*– Creation out of nothing was developed by earlier Neo-Platonists

(difference of accepting creation without a beginning).• The Neo-Platonist analogy was that of a body and its shadow or the sun and

light. This excludes God’s will and choice. The role of will is denied by Plotinus:– “If there is any second thing after [the One], it must exist without [the

One] having been moved, or having inclined towards it, or having willed (boulethenai), or moved in any way.”**

– For the Christian, creation lies not in the fact, but in the manner of the will’s being exercised.*Cael. I, lectio 29, n. 12; Scriptum Super Libros Sententiarium in 3,

dist. 25, q. 1, a. 2, ad. 9; ST 1, q. 32, a. 1, ad. 3. Follows from Irenaus Haereses 2.1.1; 2.30.9; 3.8.3 and Augustine City of God XI.24. Also Basil, Ambrose, Aeneas of Gaza, and Zacharias.**Plot. 5.1.6.

CREATIO ET VARIETAS• The plurality of existent things are found in God.• The existents are likened to God so that his

perfection may be imitated in the variety found in things.

• Whatever is caused is finite.– Finitude is rendered more perfect by addition.

• Hence, it is better to have diversity in created things, and thus to have good existents in great number, than to have but a single kind of beings produced by God.

CREATIO CONTINUANSCC1. At t God creates x = def. x is a persistent thing,

and, for all t, if x exists at t, then at t God creates x.

or detemporalizing creation

CC2. At t God creates x = def. God at t brings it about that x exists at t.*

*Philip Quinn, “Divine Conservation, Continous Creation, and Human Action,” in The Existence and Nature of God, ed. Alfred J. Freddoso (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 55-79.

CREATIO CONTINUANSThomas believes all causation becomes a form of

creation that involves God creating a new accident.*

CC1. At t God creates x = def. x is a persistent thing, and, for all t, if x exists at t, then at t God creates x.

*CG 3.69

SIMPLICITAS ET CREATIO• Modified Platonism and the Creation of Properties

– Simplicity avoids the problem of properties being abstract objects.

– Simplicity makes properties identical; thus, God is identical to the single, simply property that is his essence.

• God exists explanatorily prior to creation and exists necessarily as a simple being.

SIMPLICITAS ET CREATIO• God’s relationship to creation

– God can have no contingent knowledge or action, for everything about him is essential—all modal distinctions collapse and everything becomes necessary.

– “God knows that p” is logically equivalent to “p is true.”• Thus, divine simplicity’s implication on creation leads to an extreme

fatalism, according to which everything that happens does so with logical necessity.

SIMPLICITAS ET CREATIO• Potential contradictions arise from this modal

collapse.– It is incomprehensible how the same cognitive state can

be knowledge that “I exist alone” in one world and that “I have created myriads of creatures” in another.

• The Less-than-Best Problem– Modal realism?

TOTUM SIMUL• Divine timelessness follows from divine simplicity

– “Just expand the specious present to cover all of time, and you have a model for God’s awareness of the world… a being with an infinite specious present would not, so far as his awareness is concerned, be subject to temporal succession at all. There would be no further awareness to succeed the awareness in question. Everything would be grasped in one temporally unextended awareness.”*

• Is it safe to assume Thomas would be a B-theorist?

*William P. Alston, “Hartshorne and Aquinas: A Via Media,” in Existence and Actuality, ed. John B. Cobb, Jr. and Franklin I. Gamwell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19840, 91.

TOTUM SIMUL• God, time, and backwards causation

– Does God lose his power if he is timeless posterior to creation?*• Ex. borrowed from Jerome: God is unable, after someone has lost her

virginity, to save her from losing it.• So, is there a loss in divine power?

• There are two possible causes.– Lack of power in God (or cannot see the event in question).– Because of a change in the object.

*Scriptum Super Libros Sententiarum, in lib. 2, dist. 44, 1. 1, art. 4; ST 1. 25. art. 4

AQUINAS ET PHYSICA• Does Aquinas need to worry about the fourth

dimension of time and physics squandering his understanding of time?– No.

• Recall his metaphysics of CC. The denuding creation of temporality avoids any possible embarrassment that the natural science of physics may one day [if not already] contradict him by suggesting actual temporality.

TOTUM SIMUL• Criticisms of Thomas’ doctrine of divine

timelessness– Objectivity of tensed propositions.– Potential absurdity of all spacetime events having equal

ontic statuses.– God could not respond to individual events in time.**

• Does Thomas betray his own B-theortic view?***

*William P. Alston, “Hartshorne and Aquinas: A Via Media,” in Existence and Actuality, ed. John B. Cobb, Jr. and Franklin I. Gamwell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19840, 91.**Paul Fitzgerald, “Relativity Physics and the God of Process Philosophy,” Process Studies 2 (1972): 267.***W.L. Craig, "God and Real Time." Religious Studies 26 (1990): 335-38.

CREATIO CONTINUANS ET NUNC

• Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)– Emphasis on Absolute Dependence promoted creatio

continuans over creatio originans.

• Contemporary physics has a split vote– Some physics advocate a B-theory spacetime block.– Some physics advocate an A-theory of temporal

becoming.