[Serious] For former Christians only, why did you leave your faith?

[Neo-Scholastic]

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.

Yeah, while Aquinas may have believed in a temporal beginning he knew that an essential first cause did not exclude an infinite past of pagan belief.

But I have ask Bella if you have ever questioned the premise that only things in act have causal power. I sometimes wonder if there is potency in the abyss.