Zagadnienie filozoficznej argumentacji za początkiem czasowym wszechświata

Abstract

The main thesis of the paper, formulated at the level of philosophy of nature, states the impossibility to prove philosophically the very beginning of the Universe. When the nature of time in Aristotle’s and St. Thomas’ apprehension is regarded or when the known properties of events as well as the nature of the succesive set are analysed, we have no foundation to deny the possibility of the eternal existence of the Universe. Nevertheless, this thesis should be studied also in the perspectives of metaphysics and philosophy of God, where one may analyse the reductive ontological implications concerning ultimate justification, which enables the existence of an actually infinite set of events in past history of the Universe. Now I return to some aspects of my argument presented in first part of my book „W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny” [„In Search of the First Cause”] Warszawa 1955, pp. 69–89. Contained in this argument is a mental experiment, where going back into the past one could not state at any particular event that a set of events actually infinite a parte ante had been actualised. A similar statement would not be admissible because the above mentioned set of events could not have contained any event (rsp. events) absolutely first as its boundary. In this mental experiment we approach to an ontological impossibility characteristic for the autonomously treated set of events succesively actualised. However, this impossibility would have not occured if the Universe had been created ab aeterno, because atemporal God might have created the Universe containing in its the actually infinite set of events.