Three views have been put forward on the question before us. Some assert that the world is eternal, uncreated and imperishable. Some on the contrary say that it is created and destructible. Others draw from both these. From the latter they take the idea of the created, from the former that of the indestructible and so have laid down a composite doctrine to the effect that the world is created and indestructible. Democritus with Epicurus and the great mass of Stoic philosophers maintain the creation and destruction of the world but in different ways. The two first named postulate many worlds, the origin of which they ascribe to the mutual impacts and interlacings of atoms and its destruction to the counterblows and collisions sustained by the bodies so formed. The Stoics admit one world only; God is the cause of its creation but not of its destruction. This is due to the force of the ever-active fire which exists in things and in the course of long cycles of time resolves everything into itself and out of it is constructed a reborn world according to the design of its architect. According to these the world may be called from one point of view an eternal, from another a perishable world; thought of as a world reconstructed it is perishable, thought of as subject to the conflagration it is everlasting through the ceaseless rebirths and cycles which render it immortal. But Aristotle surely showed a pious and religious spirit when in opposition to this view he said that the world was uncreated and indestructible and denounced the shocking atheism of those who stated the contrary and held that there was no difference between handmade idols and that great visible God who embraces the sun and moon and the pantheon as it may be truly called of the fixed and wandering stars. He is reported to have said in bitter mockery that in the past he had feared for his house lest it should be overthrown by violent winds or terrific storms or lapse of time or neglect of proper care. But now he lived under the fear of a greater menace from the theorists who would destroy the whole world. Some say that the author of this doctrine was not Aristotle but certain Pythagoreans, and I have read a work of Ocellus a Lucanian entitled On the Nature of the Universe , in which he not only stated but sought to establish by demonstrations that it was uncreated and indestructible.
On the Eternity of the World 3
Tap any verse to see what it echoes — and start a chain or echo from it.