Article 4: Creation in Time

Pohle, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, Part I, Chapter I, §2, Article 4 (pp. 49–54)

It is an article of faith that the world was created in time, i.e., that “a certain finite number of days has elapsed since the instant when the angels and the material world were brought into being.”¹ But theologians differ with regard to the question whether God, had He so willed, could have created an eternal world.

Thesis I: God created the existing universe not from everlasting, but in time.

This is de fide.

Proof. In its famous Caput “Firmiter,” the Fourth Lateran Council solemnly defined against the Albigenses, that God “simul ab initio temporis utramque de nihilo condidit naturam,” and the Council of the Vatican repeated this definition word for word: “God created out of nothing, from the very first beginning of time, both the spiritual and the corporeal creature.”² This dogmatic definition is based on solid Scriptural grounds.

a) The very first verse of Genesis declares that the world began in time: “In principio (ἐν ἀρχῇ) creavit Deus coelum et terram” — In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Some theologians doubt whether these words refer to the beginning of time;³ but it is easy to show that they do. רֵאשִׁית, in Biblical usage, signifies either the beginning of time, or a primacy due to dignity, or the cause that produces an effect, or headship in a local sense. In Gen. I, 1 the context clearly excludes the three last mentioned meanings. Consequently, the term must here denote the beginning of time.

Some of the Fathers⁴ apply “beginning” to the Divine Logos, as principium de principio. But it is highly improbable that Moses had in mind the Logos. Moreover, the Fathers in question did not propound their construction as the primary and only correct one; they merely suggested it as a possible secondary interpretation resulting from a deeper study of the text.⁵

There are numerous other Scriptural passages which could be adduced in confirmation of our thesis. Cfr., e.g., Ps. CI, 26: “Initio tu, Domine, terram fundasti” — In the beginning, O Lord, thou foundedst the earth. Ps. LXXXIX, 2: “Priusquam montes fierent aut formaretur terra et orbis, a saeculo et usque ad saeculum tu es, Deus” — Before the mountains were made, or the earth and the world was formed, from eternity and to eternity thou art God.⁶

With the possible exception of Origen, the Fathers unanimously teach that the world is not eternal. Tatian, the Apologist, says: “Οὐδὲ γὰρ ἄναρχος ἡ ὕλη, καθάπερ ὁ Θεός” — Matter is not beginningless, as God is.⁷ St. Basil, the ablest among the Patristic commentators of the Hexaemeron, declares: “Because many believed that the world was eternal, like God, Moses purposely chose these words: In the beginning God created heaven and earth.”⁸ St. Ambrose insists that the world began simultaneously with time. “In principio temporis,” he says, “Deus coelum et terram fecit; tempus enim ab hoc mundo, non ante mundum” — In the beginning of time God made heaven and earth; for time began simultaneously with, not prior to, the world.⁹ In other words, time began with Creation. Before the Creation of the world there was no real, but only imaginary time.¹⁰

Quite appositely, therefore, does St. Augustine observe: “Procul dubio non est factus mundus in tempore, sed cum tempore” — The world was doubtless not made in time, but with time.¹¹ And he brushes aside the ludicrous question: “What did God do during the time that preceded the Creation?” with the remark: “Non enim erat tunc, ubi non erat tempus” — There was no then, because there was no time.¹²

Thesis II: Creation from all eternity seems to involve a contradiction, and hence was probably impossible.

Proof. As against the revealed truth that the world had its beginning in time, it is a purely speculative question of decidedly minor importance, whether or not an eternal world is intrinsically possible. Granted that it is possible, we must carefully distinguish between “beginning in time” and “being a creature.” From the fact that a thing began in time we can rightly conclude to its being a creature, but we could not argue conversely that it must have begun in time because it is a creature; an eternal creature would be as truly a creature as one produced in time.

Still some of the Fathers, believing that an eternal world would involve an intrinsic contradiction, boldly concluded from the dependence of the world to its creation in time. It should, however, be noted that not a few of the Patristic texts usually cited in this connection do not really bear on the question at issue. They merely affirm that the dualistic assumption of an uncreated eternal hyle involves a contradiction, whereas the question we are now considering is whether or not creation from eternity would entail a contradiction. But there is another group of Patristic dicta which are germane to our topic. Thus St. Cyril of Alexandria says: “That which has been brought into being by creation, cannot possibly have existed from all eternity.”¹³ This view was adopted by a number of eminent Scholastics, e.g., Albertus Magnus and Richard of St. Victor. St. Bonaventure went so far as to declare: “To assume that the world is eternal … and [at the same time] to hold that all things were created out of nothing, is so contrary to right reason that I cannot persuade myself that any philosopher, no matter how small his intellectual capacity, ever took this ground.”¹⁴

But St. Bonaventure’s opinion was not shared by all Catholic theologians and philosophers. Those two great antagonists, St. Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, agreed that the proposition that the world necessarily began in time, cannot be cogently established by philosophic arguments. “Mundum non semper fuisse, sola fide tenetur et demonstrative probari non potest,” says St. Thomas; “That the world is not eternal we hold solely as a matter of faith; reason cannot demonstrate it by stringent arguments.”¹⁵ The Angelic Doctor carefully reviews the objections raised against this thesis in his work De Aeternitate Mundi.¹⁶

Still less is it demonstrable that an eternal creation is necessary.¹⁷ Such being the status of the vexed controversy, there is plainly no need for us to embrace either of the contradictory opinions current among Catholic philosophers and theologians. We merely note, in passing, that the authority of the Fathers seems rather to favor the intrinsic impossibility of an eternal creation.¹⁸

Notes

Note on this transcription: two Hebrew/Greek terms in the body (רֵאשִׁית in the discussion of Gen. I, 1, and the Tatian quotation) were reconstructed from garbled OCR characters, as were footnotes 1–18, which again spanned column-interleaved page breaks (most notably at the Article 4/5 boundary, where all four footnotes for p. 54 print immediately after the Article 5 heading). German titles (Möglichkeit, Münster, Schöpfung, zeitlichen) had their umlauts restored where OCR had dropped them.