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    The impossibility of an eternal world cannot be demonstra... — Carmelics
    Home/Skepticism
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    The impossibility of an eternal world cannot be demonstrated, nor can its possibility be demonstrated.

    Modality & Possibility
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Arguments that an eternal world is impossible under the present dispensation do not prove that no world could have been eternally created.
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    • 2.Neither side of the debate about an eternal world can be shown to be necessarily true.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Actual infinity entails logical contradictions (e.g., Hilbert's Hotel paradoxes), making an eternal past demonstrably impossible.
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    • 2.If traversing an actual infinite series of prior events is logically incoherent, the impossibility of an eternal world is demonstrable a priori.
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    • 3.Al-Ghazali and later Bonaventure showed that an infinite temporal regress generates formal contradictions, not merely contingent implausibilities.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Aquinas argued that while revelation settles the question, unaided reason can establish that creation ex nihilo requires a temporal first moment.
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    • 2.If God's causal primacy entails that no co-eternal effect can exist alongside its cause, the eternal world is demonstrably ruled out by modal theology.
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    Topics

    SkepticismModality & Possibility

    Connections

    1 topic

    Natural Theology1 linked

    Related

    Actual infinity entails logical contradictions (e.g., Hilbert's Hotel paradoxes)...Al-Ghazali and later Bonaventure showed that an infinite temporal regress genera...Aquinas argued that while revelation settles the question, unaided reason can es...Arguments that an eternal world is impossible under the present dispensation do ...
    +3 moreShow less
    If God's causal primacy entails that no co-eternal effect can exist alongside it...If traversing an actual infinite series of prior events is logically incoherent,...Neither side of the debate about an eternal world can be shown to be necessarily...

    Similar

    Arguments that an eternal world is impossible under the present dispen...92%Doubts about the existence of non-actual possible worlds cannot cast d...80%Necessity and impossibility apply to things that have being from God80%Therefore the non-actual possible worlds in which possibilia exist are...80%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: godfrey
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    Godfrey comments that this objection can also be formulated more forcefully in terms of human souls, i.e., the actual infinity of human souls that would have resulted from an eternal world eternally populated by human beings with immortal souls. Aquinas had considered this form of the objection in his De aeternitate mundi, and had noted that it has not yet been demonstrated that God could not produce an actual infinity of spiritual beings. Godfrey does not adopt this solution, presumably because
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit