Card 1.2.1 · Root I — Metaphysics

Origins and First Cause

Did anything ever start, or has it always been running?

This node asks whether existence had a beginning, and what follows either way.

From The Coordinates of Thought by Syed Raheel Shahzad, card 1.2.1, page 37

On this card

Where it sits
The rival answers
Key figures
Connections
On Coordinates of Thought

Where it sits

Under 1.2 Cosmology. Borders 1.4 Philosophy of time, 6.11 Philosophy of physics, 1.8 Natural theology.

The rival answers

Position	Claim	Its difficulty
Temporal finitism	The past is finite; existence began	Owes an account of what beginning means without prior time
Eternal cosmos	The past is infinite; nothing began	Must answer whether an infinite past can be traversed
Cyclical cosmology	Beginnings and endings recur without a first	Relocates the question rather than answering it
Timeless origination	The universe depends on a cause without beginning in time	Requires a notion of dependence that is not temporal
Quantum origination	The universe arises through a quantum-gravitational process that proponents take to need no external cause	Disputed whether such a model describes an origin or redescribes one, and whether it removes the need for a cause

Key figures

Figure	Dates	Tradition	Contribution
Aristotle	384–322 BCE	Greek	An eternal universe with an unmoved mover
John Philoponus	c. 490–570	Greek Christian	An actual infinite past is impossible
Al-Kindi	c. 800–870	Islamic	An early Arabic finitist argument, drawing on arguments derived from Philoponus
Al-Ghazali	1058–1111	Islamic	A classic statement of the kalam argument: whatever begins to exist has a cause of its beginning
Ibn Rushd	1126–1198	Islamic	Defended Aristotle's eternal universe against it
Jain cosmologists	Classical	Indian	A beginningless, uncreated universe whose ages of ascent and decline repeat without end
William Lane Craig	b. 1949	Analytic	Revived and defended the kalam argument in contemporary terms
Guo Xiang	d. 312	Chinese	Things are self-so (ziran): each arises spontaneously through self-transformation within a web of mutual conditioning, with no external creator or first cause
Hasdai Crescas	c. 1340–1410/11	Jewish	Argued that an actual infinite is possible, removing a premise of the finitist proof

Connections

→ 1.2 · ↔ 1.4, 1.4.2, 6.11, 1.8 · ◇ temporal finitism, eternal cosmos, cyclical cosmology, timeless origination, quantum origination · ○ Classical; Islamic golden age; Modern; Table 1

→ narrower questions · ↔ questions it borders · ◇ the positions, mapped in Part III of the book · ○ the eras and comparison tables (Parts IV and V)

The full card is in the book

In The Coordinates of Thought this card goes on to a worked example that sets the answers against one case, and to where the question touches daily life — page 37.

About the book Get the book

On Coordinates of Thought

Conversations about this question in Physics & cosmology:

Join free to ask about it Everything in Physics & cosmology