Time: An Alternate View and its Implications for Aquinas' Argument from First Cause
By Hugh Hagen
We tend to assume time is objective– something that, for many people, has always and will always exist to bind the universe and make change possible. Others assert the existence of a timeless supreme being that introduced time with the creation of the universe. In this article, I will expound the concept of time by examining its interaction with causation, then applying the findings to Thomas Aquinas’ Argument from Efficient Cause (also known as the Argument from First Cause). When I refer to Time-as-we-know-it, I refer to the common view of time, which is that it exists objectively. The term will encapsulate the theories that time always existed and that time began at once. When I refer simply to time, I mean only the colloquial concept.
Refutation of Time-as-we-know-it
The Kantian view is that time is the form of the inner sense, and it goes hand in hand with space which is the form of the outer sense, much like a bottle is the form of the water it holds. The inner sense is described as the means by which we become aware of alterations to our own state. This would include thought processes that exist independent of the five senses. Therefore, time is the arrangement in which we are able to become aware of alterations, or changes, to our own state.
We are then given the question: does time exist outside of one’s own sensibility? I believe the answer is no, time exists subjectively so that the mind can interpret objects of the senses. For example, one might see a dog, and one might also see a cat. It is only possible for these two contradictory statements to be true when the dimension of time is added, and then it is clear that one was simply seen after the other. When we abstract the inner sense, however, one can no longer be aware of changes to one’s visual state, and the two visions would no longer exist one after the other. Without the inner sense, it is impossible to perceive time.
I will bring up an example to refute the assertion of the objective existence of Time-as-we-know-it, independent of sensibility: all things have a beginning, and all events succeed other events. These are two rules we encounter when we accept Time-as-we-know-it, but they create a paradox. It is impossible for Time-as-we-know-it to have a beginning, because a change from a universe without time to a universe within time would imply the existence of time throughout the change. Thus, Time-as-we-know-it must have always existed. However, we once again encounter an issue: if there was no beginning to time, there was also no beginning to change among forces, energy, and/or matter. If there was a beginning to change but not to time, there would have been some first change that occurred from nothing, which is impossible, therefore change could not have begun at one point. If change could not have begun at one point, then physical things could not have begun at one point, which is impossible, therefore time must not have always existed. Time-as-we-know-it obviously raises major issues when we consider it as an objectively existent thing. It should be considered logically impossible for Time-as-we-know-it to objectively exist. Therefore, it may exist only subjectively within the inner sense.
Examining Aquinas’ Argument from Efficient Cause with these findings
We can now take this understanding of time in context of Aquinas’ Argument from Efficient Cause, as given by Lander University:
There is an efficient cause for everything, nothing can be the efficient cause of itself.
It is not possible to regress to infinity in efficient causes.
To take away the cause is to take away the effect.
If there be no first cause then there will be no others.
Therefore, a First Cause exists (and this is God).
To refute this argument, I will not use the claim that nothing could always have existed to say that God must not have always existed. I will grant that exemption, but I will still use the claim to refute Time-as-we-know-it, on whose existence the argument is dependent.
Now, if God was the First Cause, then He was never caused and accordingly has always existed. This argument then implies one of two things: one, that God exists without time; or two, that God has always existed within time. The former has an issue in that if God existed without time, that must be because time was not always present for God to exist within, which I have previously proved to be an impossibility. The latter would imply that time had always existed as well as God, which I have also already proved to be an impossibility. With the new concept of time, it would seem that time stretches backward as far as humans can reach with memory and the help of science, meaning that it at the same time did not “always exist” or “begin” at any one point. Thus, any attempt to pin down a “first cause” or something else of that sort is flawed because it must always presuppose the objective existence of Time-as-we-know-it.
The Bottom Line
Time as it is commonly known cannot objectively exist because it can be neither infinite nor finite
Therefore Aquinas’ Argument from First Cause cannot be true because it presupposes the existence of Time-as-we-know-it