(October 4, 2022 at 10:21 pm)Belacqua Wrote:(October 4, 2022 at 10:07 pm)Jehanne Wrote: The author of the article is simply wrong. Even if he was conceding a point to make another, Saint Thomas Aquinas most certainly did not believe in a beginningless Universe:
"God is the first exemplar cause of all things. In proof whereof we must consider that if for the production of anything an exemplar is necessary, it is in order that the effect may receive a determinate form." (Summa Theologiae I, 44, 2)
Kalam is about a temporal cause, Thomas writes of an essential cause. These are very different. "First exemplar cause" means it is essential for anything else to exist, not that it started the thing to exist in time.
Thomas agreed with Aristotle that there is no logical proof to show that the universe had a temporal beginning. He accepted such a beginning as faith, but agreed that it couldn't be proven. That's not what the First Cause argument is about.
Thomas also believed and argued that Hell was at the center of the Earth. What's your point?
