Refuting Objections: What if Matter itself is Eternal?
In Aquinas's Third Way or proof for the existence of God, we saw that because contingent beings go in and out of existence, we must have a necessary being we call God in order for anything to exist at all. Some might object, however, saying that matter itself is eternal and thus there needs not be a first cause, a necessary being, or in other words God for anything to exist in reality. In this post, I will shed some light on this issue and show how it is untenable.
So, in the universe around us, we see many and various causal powers that produce varying effects and in turn these effects themselves act as causalities and produce further effects and so on. It is important to note that all these stages we see are not really said to be independent of one another. They are like a chain of metal links, all dependent on the others for their unity and existence as a whole. It logically follows that if each individual link on this chain is dependent on something for its existence as a coherent whole being, all the links and indeed the chain as a whole requires an explanation and cause for its existence. And so, all of the matter we see in the universe around us is dependent on something else and thus needs an explanation for its existence as a whole.
Also, we must note, even if matter were eternal, like a never-ending chain of metal links, it nevertheless would still require an explanation for its existence and thus would not do away with God's existence because it is not entirely unreasonable to think that God, the Eternal Being, could create from and throughout all eternity. However, it is fairly evident that matter is not itself eternal. To build on what we have been discussing, the idea of an eternal past also does not hold water. Let's think about this concept. Say you have an endless regress into the past of days, months, years, eons, ad infinitum- to infinity. We must ask ourselves how we could ever have gotten to this present day, given the fact that time is eternal. The only logical answer is that we couldn't have. There always could have been one more day in the infinite regress of the past or any number of days to boot. And so, we could never have reached this day in which we now live. Thus, time itself does not regress into an infinite past.
To wrap it up, we see that the material realities around us are not self-existent through all eternity and thus are not eternal substances apart from a First Causality. In addition to this, we saw that time must logically have had a beginning. Even if, for some reason or another, matter or time was eternal, it still would not do away with the existence of God, the First Being required for any existence or any causing power acting in a secondary way to Him. It for these reasons that God, the First Being and Cause of all existence, must necessarily exist from the sheer fact that He is existence by His very nature and thus gives all existence to contingent beings.
So, in the universe around us, we see many and various causal powers that produce varying effects and in turn these effects themselves act as causalities and produce further effects and so on. It is important to note that all these stages we see are not really said to be independent of one another. They are like a chain of metal links, all dependent on the others for their unity and existence as a whole. It logically follows that if each individual link on this chain is dependent on something for its existence as a coherent whole being, all the links and indeed the chain as a whole requires an explanation and cause for its existence. And so, all of the matter we see in the universe around us is dependent on something else and thus needs an explanation for its existence as a whole.
Also, we must note, even if matter were eternal, like a never-ending chain of metal links, it nevertheless would still require an explanation for its existence and thus would not do away with God's existence because it is not entirely unreasonable to think that God, the Eternal Being, could create from and throughout all eternity. However, it is fairly evident that matter is not itself eternal. To build on what we have been discussing, the idea of an eternal past also does not hold water. Let's think about this concept. Say you have an endless regress into the past of days, months, years, eons, ad infinitum- to infinity. We must ask ourselves how we could ever have gotten to this present day, given the fact that time is eternal. The only logical answer is that we couldn't have. There always could have been one more day in the infinite regress of the past or any number of days to boot. And so, we could never have reached this day in which we now live. Thus, time itself does not regress into an infinite past.
To wrap it up, we see that the material realities around us are not self-existent through all eternity and thus are not eternal substances apart from a First Causality. In addition to this, we saw that time must logically have had a beginning. Even if, for some reason or another, matter or time was eternal, it still would not do away with the existence of God, the First Being required for any existence or any causing power acting in a secondary way to Him. It for these reasons that God, the First Being and Cause of all existence, must necessarily exist from the sheer fact that He is existence by His very nature and thus gives all existence to contingent beings.
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