The argument for beginningless matter is challenged by science and the model of the expansion of the universe, yet many among us, philosophical in nature struggle with the position of matter needing no cause beyond itself.
If matter has no cause, then there being nothingness beyond it is not considered, nor is there being a fullness beyond it considered. The nothingness or fullness being regarded as transcendent of the universe.
Let us posit that matter is beginningless. What would be the case?
Matter would be infinite.
- We see that matter is finite. I can move it. I can divide it. I can throw it. Therefore, the evident qualities of matter make it impossible for it to be infinite. Infinity cannot exist in the material world as matter, especially past-eternally, rather it can only exist as its cause, its continuation, or that which is beyond it. This is because matter is observably finite, encompassed, measurable, etc.
If we were to rewind the clock to see how things came to be, there would be no logical explanation for the existence of certain phenomena, such as motion, plurality in the universe, or design. This makes beginningless matter implausible. Lastly, matter is movable, it is divisible, it is measurable, it is finite. Therefore matter needs a master - it cannot be eternally existent from the past.
The seeming flaw in this line of thinking is that temporal infinity and spatial infinity are different and do not necessitate each other. In the case that we rule out a cause outside the series of infinite regress, a cause that is beyond matter and space or in some capacity beyond the universe, and provided that temporal infinity necessitates spatial infinity in some capacity over an infinite amount of time due to the fact that a cause must always be greater than that which is caused, then the argument stands. The impossibility of spatial infinity makes temporal infinity impossible as well. None of this is true if the cause of a regress is placed outside the system of finite activity. Since we are considering an infinitude of time past eternal and a spatial infinity (or alternatively an infinity in power) eventually due to causes being greater in some capacity than that which is caused, it becomes evident that a beginningless past eternal matter is not plausible.
Despite this, a correct understanding of causation in the case of past eternal systems implying an impossible infinite regress is often distorted by quantum physics, which brings me to believe that it is in this case flawed.
Causation implies increase in magnitude in some capacity backwards in time and certainly infinitely backwards in time. If not, then even if I prove God’s existence by bringing you to look at and touch him, so to speak, God can be said to be less in magnitude than that which he causes and creates.