Note (return) — Chapter V

Some Theistic writers--as Descartes, Pascal, Leibnitz, and Saisset--have made the fatal admission that the universe is, in some sense, infinite and eternal. In making this admission they have unwittingly surrendered the citadel of strength, and deprived the argument by which they would prove the being of a God of all its logical force. That argument is thus presented by Saisset: "The finite supposes the infinite. Extension supposes first space, then immensity: duration supposes first time, then eternity. A sudden and irresistible judgment refers this to the necessary, infinite, perfect being." 215 But if "the world is infinite and eternal," 216 may not nature, or the totality of all existence (τὺ πᾶν), be the necessary, infinite, and perfect Being? An infinite and eternal universe has the reason of its existence in itself, and the existence of such a universe can never prove to us the existence of an infinite and eternal God.