Notes to Accompany a Course on

Cosmology
by: Brother Francis, M.I.C.M.

Philosophia Perennis
Foundations of Catholic Wisdom
from Revelation and from Reason
I. Some Initial Definitions
1.

Wisdom is the most perfect knowledge, of the most important truths, in the right order of
emphasis, accompanied by a total, permanent disposition to live accordingly.

2.

Philosophy is natural wisdom. It is the science of things through their ultimate causes,
attained by the light of reason.

3.

Cosmology is a philosophic science which begins in the examination of the sensible universe considered as the realm of changing reality, or, in the language of philosophy, ens
mobile. It terminates in a complete intelligent grasp of the order of the universe.
Cosmology is somehow wisdom, but not first wisdom.

4.

Order is the exact adaptation of things to their ends.

5.

Essence is the reality of a thing as manifest to the mind. It is the answer to the question
what is? or Quid est? Hence it is also called whatness or quiddity.

6.

Nature is the essence of a thing considered as the principle of its actions (and passions); of
what a thing can do, suffer, or resist.

7.

A Material Being is one existing in space and time, subject to change, even to the very
destruction of its nature.

8.

A Spiritual Being is one capable of existing and acting without intrinsically depending on
matter. It is not subject to substantial change.

9.

The Material Universe is the total reality perceived by our senses as a continuous process
in space and time.

II. Creation
1.

Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, factorem caeli et terrae, visibilium omnium
et invisibilium. (The Nicene Creed)

2.

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. (Gen. 1:1)

3.

He that liveth for ever created all things together. (Eccus. 18:1)

4.

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? (Job 38:4)

5.

For He spoke and they were made. (Ps. 32:9)

6.

If anyone does not admit that the world and everything in it, both spiritual and material, have
been produced in their entire substance by God out of nothing, let him be anathema. (Pius V)
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III. The Counsels of Eternal Wisdom

1.

The world was created freely: Whatsoever the Lord pleased He hath done. (Ps. 134:6)

2.

But it was through the counsels of an eternal wisdom and, therefore, for an end worthy of a
divine Maker: The Lord made all things for Himself. (Prov. 16:4)

3.

And God saw all things which He had made and they were very good. (Gen. 1:31)

4.

As He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. (Eph. 1:4)

5.

She (Wisdom) reaches from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly. (Wisd. 8:1)

6.

And to enlighten all men, that they may see what is the dispensation of the mystery which
hath been hidden from eternity in God, who created all things . . . According to the eternal
purpose which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Eph. 3:9)

IV. Wisdom is Hidden in the Universe

1.

I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the
world. (Ps. 77:2) Our Lord applied this text to His parables. (Matt. 13:25)

2.

Solomon having prayed for, and obtained wisdom from God, said of himself through the
Holy Spirit: For He hath given me the true knowledge of things that are: to know the disposition of the whole world, and the virtues of the elements. (Wisd. 7:17)

3.

Solomon also said: I will speak of great things. (Prov. 8:6)

V. The Universe Is Conserved in Existence by God

1.

Upholding all things by the word of His power. (Heb. 1:3)

2.

For of Him, and by Him, and in Him are all things. (Rom. 11:36)

3.

For in Him we live and move and are. (Acts 17:28)

VI. The World Was Created Originally in a Perfect State

1.

The Works of God are Perfect. (Deut. 32:4)

2.

For God created Man incorruptible but by the envy of the devil, death came into the world.
(Wisd. 2:23-24)

3.

And God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good. (Gen. 1:31)

4.

And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning; wherein He
placed man whom He had formed. (Gen. 2:8)

VII. The Fall

It is impossible for us to understand our universe, and the defective order prevailing in it,
until we know that it is a fallen order; and that it constitutes an intermediary state between the
original state of paradise, and the consummate state towards which the whole world moves.
1.

The Fall of Lucifer. Our Lord, speaking as the Second Person of the Trinity said: I saw
Satan like lightning falling from Heaven. (Luke 10:18)

2.

The Fall of Man. (Gen.2 3)

a. . . . cursed is the earth in thy work; with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days
of thy life. (Gen. 3:17)
b. Holy Scripture calls the world in its fallen state "The vale of tears"
Ps. 83:7); also The valley of the shadow of death (Is. 9:2 Ps. 22:4)
c. As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. (1Cor. 15:22)

VIII. Man The Principal Object of All Creation

(The Anthropic Principle)
1.

For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God himself that formed the earth, and made
it, the very maker thereof: He did not create it in vain: He formed it to be inhabited. (Isa.45:18)

2.

The whole story of creation in Genesis 1, 2, 3; esp. Fill the earth and subdue it, (Gen.
1:28)

3.

And He gave him (i.e. man) power over all things that are upon the earth. (Eccus. 17:3)

4.

Thou hast set him over the works of thy hands. (Ps. 8:7)

5.

My delights are with the children of men. (Prov. 8:31)

6.

Why dost thou set thy heart upon him? (Job 7:17)

7.

All the seasons are ordered to man's purpose. (Gen. 8:22, Eccus. 33:9)

8.

Even the heavenly bodies were created for man. (Gen. 1:14)

9.

Even the angels - For are they not ministering spirits, sent to minister for them, who shall
receive the inheritance of salvation? (Heb. 1:14)

10. And the whole world groaneth with man (i.e. reflects man's anxiety and man's desire).
(Rom. 8:22)

IX. Order and Purpose

1.

And to enlighten all men, that they may see what is the dispensation of the mystery which
hath been hidden from eternity in God, who created all things . . . according to the eternal
purpose, which he made in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Eph. 3:9-11)

2.

Thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight. (Wisd. 3:9-11)

3.

And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as,
according to His purpose, are called to be saints. (Rom. 8:28)

4.

That he might make known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He hath purposed in Him, in the dispensation of the fullness of times, to reestablish all things in Christ [instaurare omnia in Christo], that are in heaven and on earth,
in Him. (Eph. 1:9-10)

X. God's Providence His Government of the Universe

1.

But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. (Matt. 10:30)

2.

Chance is a reality to man: . . . I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the
battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the learned, nor favor to the skillful:
but time and chance in all. (Ecce. 9:11)

3.

But before God there is no chance. Lots are cast into the lap, but they are disposed of by
the Lord. (Prov. 16:33)

4.

Say not before the angels, There is no providence: lest God be angry at thy words, and
destroy all the works of thy hands. (Ecces. 5:5)

5.

Lord, Lord, almighty king, for all things are in thy power, and there is none that can resist
thy will. (Esth. 13:9)

6.

Who hath numbered the sands of the sea? (Eccus. 1:2)

7.

God condemns the philosophy of deism: (see Job 22:13-14)

XI. The Incarnation The Central Event of History

1.

But when the fullness of time was come, God sent His Son, made of a woman. (Gal. 4:4)

2.

In these days He hath spoken to us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all
things. (Heb. 1:2)

3.

For in Him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. (Col. 1:16)

4.

The beginning of the creation of God (Principium creaturae Dei) (Apoc. 3:14)

5.

The Alpha and the Omega (Apoc. 22:13)

6.

And He hath subjected all things under His feet. (Eph. 1:22)

7.

The mystery which was kept secret from eternity. (Rom. 16:25)
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XII. Our Lady The Crown of Creation

1.

All the generations of the faithful greet Mary as the second Eve the mother of all those
who are born to the life of grace, as Eve is of those born to the life of nature. (Gen. 3:20)

2.

The Protoevangelium: I shall put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and
her seed: She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel. (Gen. 3:15)

3.

The Angel brought her the greeting of heaven: Hail, Full of grace. (Luke 1:28)

4.

It is not hard to guess the enigmatic hint about Her in Heb. 1:15; for who of the angels
could ever say to God: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee.? (Ps. 2:7)

5.

The Church applies to Her: The Queen stood on Thy right hand (Ps. 44:10 and the rest of
Ps. 44.) Also The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways (Prov. 8:1 and the rest
of Prov. 8.) Also Thou art all fair, 0 my love, and there is not a spot in thee (Cant. 4:7),
and many other references in the same book. Also I am the mother of fair love, and of
fear, and knowledge, and of holy hope. (Eccus. 24:24)

XIII. Immortality Resurrection Glory

1.

Now that the dead rise again, Moses also showed, at the bush, when he called the Lord, the
God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; for he is not the God of the
dead, but of the living: for all live to him. (Luke 20:37-38)

2.

And the dust returns into its earth, from whence it was, and the spirit returns to God, who
gave it. (Ecce. 12:7)

3.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. (Apoc. 21:1)

4.

For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth. (Job 19:25)

5.

I have learned that all the works which God hath made continue for ever; we cannot add anything, nor take away from those things which God hath made that He may be feared. (Ecce. 3:14)

6.

Behold I make all things new. (Apoc. 21:5)

7.

In the beginning, 0 Lord, thou foundest the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy
hands. They shall perish but thou remainest; and all of them shall grow old like a garment:
and as a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art always the
selfsame, and thy years shall not fail. The children of thy servants shall continue: and their
seed shall be directed for ever. (Ps. 101:26-29)

8.

The just shall shine, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds. (Wisd. 3:7)

9.

Then shall the just shine as the sun, in the kingdom of their father. (Matt. 13:43)

10. Martha saith to him: I know that he shall rise again, in the resurrection at the last day.
(John 11:24)
11. It is better, being put to death by men, to look for hope from God, to be raised up again by
Him. (2 Mac. 7:14)
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XIV. Utility and Contemplation

1.

And God said: Let there be lights made in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from
the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and for years. (Gen.1:14)

2.

And the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of trees, fair to behold, and
pleasant to eat of. (Gen. 2:9)

3.

The most high hath created medicines out of the earth, and a wise man will not abhor them.
(Eccus. 39:4)

4.

The apothecary shall make sweet confections, and shall make up ointments of health, and
of works there shall be no end. (Eccus. 38:7)

5.

Behold the birds of the air. . . . Consider the lilies of the field. (Matt. 6:26 28)

6.

The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed . . . (Matt. 13:31)

7.

God poured out wisdom upon all his works, and upon all flesh. (Eccus. 1:10)

8.

The heavens show forth the glory of God . . . (Ps. 18:1)

9.

The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom: and his tongue shall speak judgment. (Ps. 36:30)

XV. The Universe is One and Finite

1.

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. (Gen. 1:1)

2.

He that liveth for ever created all things together. (Eccus. 18:1)

3.

All things were made by him, and without him was made nothing that was made. (John 1:3)

4.

She (wisdom) reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly. (Wisd. 8:1)

5.

Thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight. (Wisd. 11:21)

XVI. All Creatures Share One Common Destiny

1.

And to Adam He said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife . . . cursed is the
earth in thy work. . . thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee. (Gen. 3:18)

2.

God made not death, neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living. For He created all
things that they might be: and He made the nations of the earth for health: and there is no poison
of destruction in them, nor kingdom of hell upon the earth. For justice is perpetual and immortal.
(Wisd. 1:13-15)

3.

For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to
come, that shall be revealed in us. For the expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation of
the sons of God. (Rom. 8:18-19)

4.

And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to His purpose are called to be saints. (Rom. 8:28)

5.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. . . . Behold I make all things new. (Apoc. 21:1)
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XVII. Signs and Miracles

1.

Who is this that he commandeth both the winds and the sea, and they obey him? (Luke 8:25)

2.

Who alone doth great wonders: for His mercy endureth for ever. (Ps. 135:4)

3.

Renew thy signs and work new miracles. (Eccus. 36:6)

4.

That they may know thee as we also have known thee, that there is no God beside thee 0
Lord. (Eccus. 36:15)

5.

For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, in so much as to deceive (if possible) even the elect." (Matt. 24:24)

6.

But Aaron's rod devoured their rods. (Exod. 7:12)

7.

[N]either will they believe, if one rise again from the dead. (Luke 16:31)

Cosmological Meditations
I. A grain of sand
1.

We can consider the visible universe (the cosmos) as a whole. But let us consider first the
things that make it up. If we study a human child, a bird, a flower, and a grain of sand, we
would have exhausted the types of all the things which make up the visible universe. Let us
begin with the simplest of these: the grain of sand.

2.

We can study a grain of sand in such a way as to make it represent, not only every other
grain of sand, but also every other sensible object from the remotest star to the smallest
drop of water. Even things like the child, the bird, and the flower, could be represented by
that grain if we ignore, or prescind from, the realities of intelligence, sense perception, and
life. When we study it in this manner, even though we are talking materially about a grain
of sand, formally we are considering a more abstract object, or, to put it in other words, we
are considering a grain of sand under a more abstract formality; namely, we are considering it as a natural body. Of such approach is Cosmology, that part of philosophy which
studies the order of nature (the visible universe) by prescinding from the fact of life. But
since for beginners in philosophy, abstraction can be a repellant, while continuing to deal
with my grain of sand as a natural body, I am going to continue calling it a grain of sand.

3.

This grain of sand has a recognizable nature (it acts, resists, and can be acted upon, in a
definite and dependable way) which it shares with all other grains of sand. And while this
grain may be destroyed, and may have not existed before some point in time, still there
must be a tendency in reality to produce and to preserve that nature, so that, as long as men
have been talking, they have always talked about sand. This is a matter for wonder to an
intelligent mind. This fact alone refutes some philosophic error. The visible universe cannot
be reduced to a process of mere indeterminate, unintelligible, inexpressible change (flux).
There are in it recognizable, permanent realities which can be apprehended by the mind,
thought about, and expressed in human language.

4.

Our senses can perceive only an amount of sand present here and now, but our mind
apprehends in that sand a universal nature not limited in space and time.

5.

Every grain of sand has a size. If that size were infinite, sand would be the only material
reality. If there were an infinite number of grains of sand, there would have been at least
one substance not ordered in number, measure, and weight. (Wisd. 11:21) There exists a
very large number of grains of sand, but not an infinite number.

6.

When we deal with sand, we are usually dealing with a multitude; a great number together,
like a sand beach. All the properties of a sand beach are rooted in the natures of the individual grains. All the forest is in the trees.

7.

Every grain of sand may be destroyed; e.g., dissolve and become absorbed and assimilated
in a living tree. But as long as it lasts, it will continue faithfiilly to behave in accordance
with its sand nature.

8.

If every grain of sand could lose its nature, and start behaving like, let us say, drops of
water, the continents would collapse, and life on earth would become impossible.
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9.

Therefore, every grain of sand is doing its part in restraining the oceans, and sustaining the
conditions of life.

10. Human intelligence cannot produce one grain of sand, unless it discovers a real potency in
other existing things, which the human intelligence cannot produce either.
11. Human intelligence is inventive (in the strict sense of being capable of discovering the
potentialities of what is already in existence), but in the absolute sense, human intelligence
is not at all creative.
12. If intelligibility is discoverable in the things of the visible universe (the existence of the
sciences and the arts proves that it is), then it must be due to an intelligence which bears a
different relation to the existence of things than our intelligence: an intelligence on which
the existence and the intelligibility of things depend, and not vice versa.
There is such an intelligence, and Its name is God.

II. A Mustard Seed

1.

A small mustard seed may be mistaken for a grain of sand. Every perfection which can be
attributed to the grain of sand may be adapted so as to apply to the mustard seed. You
could say of either entity that it is a natural body, existing in space and time, possessing a
definite nature and contributing its part in maintaining the order of the nature. But one perfection is in the seed and not in the sand life.

2.

The evolutionists want us to believe that, given sufficient time, a grain of sand, or something like it, by mere chance may begin to be alive. But the mustard seed has life because it
comes from life, and nothing less could explain its living nature.

3.

Life is not visible, nor can it be perceived by any sense power (although its effects may be
perceived by the senses), but life is intelligible it can be understood by the intellect, and
can also be defined: the mustard seed is a living thing, because its nature endows it with
the power of immanent action; i.e., an action that begins and ends in the thing itself, and
whose purpose is the perfecting of the thing itself. The vital action of a living thing proceeds from an intrinsic principle (or cause) and tends to a good or a perfection of the living
thing itself. The grain of sand is capable of producing only transient actions, whose good
or purpose must be sought outside the nature or the reality of sand.

4.

Incidentally, here is an excellent example of how our human intelligence can penetrate
through the visible (or sensible) phenomena to apprehend an intelligible reality (life), and
to give a definition of this reality in clear understandable terms.

5.

Every object of the non-living universe is capable only of transient actions; i.e., it can
only do something to something other than itself. A grain of sand can be depended upon
to behave, to act, in very definite ways, but the effects and the purpose are to be sought
for in other things. As far as the grain of sand itself is concerned, all the powers and the
inclinations of its nature are such as to make it serve purposes other than its own. The
grain of sand acts for other beings, exists for other beings; and, therefore, its nature as
such is servile.
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6.

But the mustard seed, as alive, has a purpose of its own, and given the opportunity, it begins
to move itself and to put other things to its use. The mustard seed actually puts the entire
rest of the universe at its service - the sun, the moon, the stars, the atmosphere, the wind, the
clouds, the oceans, the seasons of the year and the cycles of the days, the different conditions of the weather; not to speak of the soil and humidity in immediate contact with it.

7.

From the point of view of quantity, the non-living things exceed by far the living; but in
importance, all non-living beings serve what possesses life. By its very definition, a nature
capable of only of transient action is servile, and a servile nature is a means to and end.
The end of purpose of non-living matter is to be at the service of life. This is the meaning
of order in the universe, because order is the adaptation of means to an end.

8.

If, in the entire universe, there were to be found only one living thing (one tree, one flower,
or even one blade of grass) that one living entity would, in relation to all non-living things,
stand as queen.

9.

A flower growing in a perspective of non-living objects, is perhaps the frailest object in

view. It is weaker than the soil, less permanent than the water, more perishable than the air,
and less powerful than the light. That flower could not exist unless we first have the soil,
the water, the air, and the light. But considered from that aspect of finality (or end, or purpose) the flower is that end and purpose of the soil, the water, the air, and the light; so
much so that the creative power which posited these things in existence, would not have
done it unless first intending to produce the flower the one object in the perspective
which has life.

10. In a growing mustard plant there are millions of physical and chemical processes going on
apparently according to their physical and chemical laws; yet all these processes are in fact
unified, simplified, and directed to a definite end, by the same principle or reality which
makes the seed to be mustard rather than any other substance that the quantity of matter in
the seed could have been. Our minds ought to realize that there must be such a reality (or
principle) before we ask the philosophers for its name.
11. If instead of a mustard seed, a seed of another kind were planted in the same soil, a different kind of plant would have been formed out of the same matter. Matter as such is indifferent, but once a mustard seed is chosen, a decision is made, and the indifference of matter
is removed. The mustard seed is not some vague something you do not know what it is nor
what it is going to be or do next (it would be so on the part of its matter alone), but it is a
very definite something with a determined nature and with dependable behavior.
12. There are things a mustard seed is capable of that no inanimate object is: nutrition, growth,
and reproduction. We call these vital activities; they are immanent in the mustard thing
itself they begin and end in the mustard reality, and their purpose is obviously a mustard
purpose. It is easy to see that nutrition and growth begin and end in the individual mustard
plant (mustard as individual or first substance), and that these two vital activities serve the
life that is in the plant and aim at its perfection. But reproduction, the third and consummate activity of the plant, seems to involve a transient activity ending in another individual
substance. How is reproduction still a vital act? In what sense is it immanent?

10

13. Yes, generation or reproduction is also a vital act since it manifests a propensity of life to
perpetuate itself. And considering that when life exists in matter the individual is bound to
die another individual of the same nature must be produced. Thus by naming the specific
nature mustard (substance in the sense of second substance), in place of the individual
substance (this mustard plant), we can say of the act of generation that it begins and ends in
mustard, as life begets life.
14. But since plant life remains a closed circle, beginning and ending in a seed, vegetative (or
plant) life, considered teleologically, could not be an end worthy of the creative intelligence
of God, because a circular process is futile and purposeless.

III. An Egg
1.

All the general truths about a grain of sand, considered as a natural body, may also be
attributed to an egg. It occupies space and endures in time, it can be seen, touched, and perceived by other senses. It has a definite enduring nature, but can be destroyed and changed
into other substances of different natures. It cannot however be utterly annihilated; that is,
it represents a quantity of matter which must be changed into something or the other.

2.

Also, all the general truths about a mustard seed, considered as a living body, may be
attributed to the egg. As living substances, the mustard seed and the egg possess a power
entirely lacking in the grain of sand, the power, namely, to move themselves towards the
attainment of greater perfection. There exists a quasi desire, so to speak, in the mustard
seed to become a fully grown plant, in the egg to become a bird.

3.

In both living objects there is manifest a more significant unity of substance than there is in
a non-living thing a unity that triumphs over diversity. We call it organic unity and we
perceive in it purpose and order more striking than unity and order found on the non-living
plane of being.

4.

But similarity between the mustard seed and the egg comes to an end, the moment the egg
turns into a bird - a sentient being. In sense perception a new plane of perfection becomes
evident. Sense perception is a kind of knowledge, be it the lowest level of knowledge, and
in plants as in all non-living things there is no knowledge whatsoever.

5.

Sense perception is knowledge in the material order, which means that the sentient being
must be material and so must the object perceived by sense. All our senses have material
organs and could not operate without them. Even the medium necessary for sense perception (e.g., light for seeing, air for hearing, etc.) must also be material. And yet when one
material being becomes aware of other material objects, materiality is somehow transcended, and a giant step is taken on the scale of being. In fact, the sentient being (or, to use
ordinary language, the animal) somehow takes in the material universe and appropriates it
to itself and begins to use it for its purposes.

6.

Knowledge is a reality or an experience that is sui generis. It cannot be reduced into any
reality or experience. It cannot, therefore, be explained, but neither can it be explained away
or denied. Knowledge is a mystery of the natural order, and could perhaps be one of the
landmarks pointing to a mystery of a higher order. When I see the moon, I see the moon
11

over there; my knowledge is entirely within me, and the moon is entirely over there. The
knower and the object known become somehow one, and yet the two remain distinct. An
animal, being a knower, is somehow in unity with the entire material universe, without
being dissolved or lost in that unity. On the contrary, the sentient being finds purpose in that
cognitive unity as it begins to make use of the whole universe for achieving its life purposes.
7.

There is an obvious and overwhelming propensity in all reality in favor of knowledge.

What exists must broadcast its being in the interest of a potential knower, while the knower
on the receiving end seems to be constructed almost uniquely for that purpose, i.e., for the
purpose of receiving knowledge. And light, necessary medium for the highest form of
sense cognition, bids fair to being the most primordial of all material realities.

8.

Upon knowledge follows that power to move around, and both the knowledge and the
power of locomotion are useful to the animal. The animal must see, or touch, or smell; it
must also be able to fly, or run, or creep, or swim; otherwise, the animal would fail to feed
itself, protect itself, or propagate its kind. Knowledge and the power of locomotion are both
useful to an animal (therefore, they participate in the goodness of means); but what is
more, both seeing and moving around can be also delightful (which means that they also
participate in the goodness of ends). Even when not seeking food, the bird enjoys looking
and flying around. The sight, the flight, and the enjoyment are all vital acts (i.e., they consist in immanent actions); but they all come to and end, and so does the bird. That is why,
as in the case of the mustard plant, the bird life can continue only because the mature bird
lays an egg. In other words, animal life, like vegetative life, is a circle that goes nowhere.

9.

We must seek, therefore the purpose of sentient life, when considered as a whole, in something outside and beyond itself.

10. Were matter the only reality, the greatest and most perfect being in existence would be a
sentient being, like, for example, a flying bird.

IV. A Child
1.

What is a grain of sand to another grain of sand? Only as part of a garden in which a
flower may grow, does a grain of sand have meaning and purpose.

2.

What is one flower to another flower, seeing that, even as beauties, neither of them can
appreciate either itself or the other flower? What is being where there is no life, and what is
life where there is no consciousness - no knowledge of any sort?

3.

And what is existence, even with consciousness, where there is neither personal reflection,
nor permanence. A bird's life is a fleeting experience, a temporal and temporary process,
which emerges out of an eternity of non-existence, to sink back into an eternity of nonexistence. A contingent being, superior to all the realities on which it depends in the material order, yet one unable to account for what it is or that it is. And what is the permanence
of the bird species except a multiplicity of the same meaningless purposelessness of the
individual being. So to find a purpose worthy of the wisdom and love of a divine mind, we
must seek it beyond the kingdom of birds.

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4.

The experimental sciences are restricted by their several methods to certain aspects of
material reality (to what can be felt, measured, or controlled), but true philosophy seeks the
whole of reality. The modern sciences stick by the sensible appearances (the phenomena)
while philosophy seeks after the intelligible realities that the phenomena are meant to
reveal and somehow also to conceal). However, reality even the material reality of the
visible universe becomes a whole, only when to the realm of mineral existence, and to the
realm of plant and animal life, a child is added to the perspective. Otherwise the cosmos
remains incomplete truncated.

5.

If a flower is queen in an inanimate world, and if a bird is king in a universe lacking all
consciousness, so is a child in a world lacking intelligence. With man, the material universe
connects with a new realm of reality, the spiritual.
The child asks questions and tries to understand what tremendous implications in those
two simple undeniable facts!
The child reflects on itself and its activities; and even as it deals with matter, it deals with
itin an immaterial manner; and while it is involved in change, it is concerned with what is
permanent.
The child is a being who lives in time and thinks in eternity, a being who is master of his
actions and personally responsible for their consequences.
A child is an entity that will exist for ever!

6.

If the visible universe could not be without the prior existence of a creative intelligence,
then that same universe could not have been put in existence without man; i.e., without
being intended to be the requisite for human existence and at the service of human purposes.

7.

In the most profound sense of the word, the whole material universe every particle of
dust in it, every blade of grass in it, every bee or bird in it, every atom or molecule in it,
was created for man and revolves around man.

8.

Man is central to the universe (in a sense not to be upset by the Copernican hypothesis) and
is not incidental to the laws of nature. Rooted as these are in the natures of things, these socalled natural laws were meant to provide for, and to minister to, human life as it is.

9.

The total view of the universe, as it emerges from the material science taught now in the
schools and universities, is at best Manichean that is, when it does not completely ignore
the reality of God, it conceives Him as an eternal mind helplessly limited by the inexorable
laws of equally eternal matter.

10. There are no laws of nature prior to, and apart from, the natural entities created by God. All
natures, in the concrete, are and act, exactly as God intended. There is nothing that nature
can do in a million years, which God could not make it do in a day, or rather in an instant.
This is the kind of intelligent consideration of all things together and in the concrete, which
the method of science has systematically banished from education, and therefore made for
the peculiar variety of folly, a cultivated and sophisticated folly, which subverts true wisdom, and hinders the knowledge of God.

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Two Quotations from Saint Thomas

1.

Natura est ratio artis diuinae, inditae rebus, qua moventur ad suos fines. (Nature is what
the divine art bestows on things, by which they are moved to their ends.)

2.

Tota natura comparatur Deo sicut instrumentum agenti principali. (All nature is to God
what an instrument is to the principal agent.)

The Problem of Change

A Mystery of the Natural Order
Fakhri Maluf
Philosophy begins with wonder, says Aristotle; and indeed those who have no capacity for
wonder, have no appetite for wisdom. But what is wonder? Wonder arises in the mind when, what
started to be a problem, turns out to be a mystery. If you are working on a crossword puzzle, you
have a problem on your hands; but if you suddenly discovered that the crossword puzzle is really
a disguised message from the one you love, the problem becomes a mystery. In a problem there is
nothing to be known besides a solution, but in a mystery there is no final solution, but a continual
growth towards contemplation. You face a problem but you plunge into a mystery. When a problem is once solved, you do not want to think about it any longer, but the more you think about a
mystery, the more you want to think about it. Mysteries are visible leads to invisible realities; they
are landmarks on the way to our destiny. Mysteries are undeciphered messages from our eternal
lover and the supreme object of our love. Father Leonard Feeney said once that mysteries are not
things about which we can know nothing but things about which we cannot know everything, precisely because there is so much to be known. Tides, for example, are a problem, but the sea is a
mystery. Making a living is frequently a problem to man, but life itself is always a mystery.
Now the world is alive with such mysteries, and they occur as frequently in the order of nature
as the do in the order of grace We look at the sky aud say: what is this apparently limitless expansion of the blue? Is it infinite or is it finite? Is it thoroughly full, or is it partly empty? Is space a substance or is it an accident? Or is it perhaps a figment of the mind? Is it changing or is it changeless?
And how about time: where is the past and what is the future? What is even the very actual present,
the evasive now, which, as soon as you grasp at it, has already slipped away and is no more! Birth
and death, food and growth, thought, love, and even sleep; all these are mysteries in the natural order
which parallel the mysteries of the faith and prepare the mind for the message of revelation. The
early philosophers called them problems, but we are entitled to change their labels and call them
mysteries, having seen so many ages of thinkers throughout history try to sound their depths.
I intend to take up here one sample of a mystery which has haunted the minds of men at
all times, and which is partly responsible for the development and growth of philosophy. I
mean the mystery of change. I wish to suggest that meditation on this mystery is an excellent
introduction to philosophy. I can even promise, that when assisted by the light of grace, such
meditations may illuminate the central mysteries of the faith, and increase our knowledge and
love of God.
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At first glance, it does not seem as if change is even a problem, much less a mystery. Yet down
through the ages, men from all over the earth, have felt that a changing universe could not be the
only kind of reality in existence, but that this changing world must have a changeless creator, a
Being who can be known by the mind, although not seen through the senses. In other words, men
(and I do not mean philosophers only) have always felt that this universe of ours, by being in a
state of change, indicates its insufficiency and leads the mind to God. And the fact of change is
not something which requires any specialized or expert observation in order to be known; on the
contrary, it is overwhelmingly with us all the time. It can be brought to our attention by winds or
waves or rain, by the procession of the seasons or the succession of the days, by the movement
of the stars or by the growth of a tree. Even things which appear firm and constant, like mountains and rocks, are in fact subject to forces which in time will cause decay and dissolution. At
times change seems ordinary and commonplace, but every once in a while we are shocked into a
terrific realization of what it implies to us.
The shock might come from the death of a friend, the end of an era, or the sudden realization
that we are growing old and that there is no way back to childhood.
In the history of philosophy, the importance of the problem of change was fully recognized when
a Greek philosopher of the sixth century before Christ, ventured the daring opinion that all reality
is change. This philosopher is Heraclitus, who held that everything flows like a river. Ordinarily
we talk as if there are things which undergo change. This clearly implies, that while change is
going on. Something remains the same; for if everything about an object or a being were to change,
we could not continue to talk about the same being. If, while growing up from childhood, not only
my size and weight and ideas change, but even my personal identity, then why keep saying that I
was a child and that I am now an adult? What is this I which was something and is now something else? How was this I identified with childhood without being identical with it? For if it
were identical with its childhood, it could never truthfully say about itself: I am now an adult.
According to Heraclitus, nothing remains the same, and therefore, not only is all the world changing, but all is change! Nobody jumps into the same river twice, says Heraclitus, because the second time he jumps, it is another and a different river. One of the disciples of Heraclitus went further to say: Nobody jumps into the same river even once, because even before he touches the
river, neither the river nor the jumper remain the same.
If this doctrine of Heraclitus is true, then neither science is possible nor philosophy. Even when
science talks about change it must talk about what is permanent in it. If nothing is permanent about
reality, then there can be no scientific knowledge about it. If Heraclitus himself failed to draw all
the latent conclusions of his doctrine, his disciples certainly perceived all its logical implications.
When one of them, named Cratyles, was asked: And what then should the philosopher do, if, as
you say, all is change? he replied, The wise man simply wiggles his finger! There is no use making any philosophical statements, if before you finish uttering your assertion, all reality has
changed, and the assertion no longer applies. As a matter of fact, if Heraclitus is right, morality and
moral responsibility become absurd. What, in that case, would justify condemning a man for murder, unless we are dealing with the same entity responsible for the misdeed. If nothing remains the
same, then nobody can be held responsible for an act of the past.
The absurdities of the Heraclitian doctrine led a contemporaneous philosopher, Parmenides,
to the absurdities of the opposite extreme. Parmenides held that change is a mere illusion of the
senses, and that what is really real must be one and changeless. All change, says Parmenides,
involves being coming out from non-being or turning into non-being, both of which are absurd
15

and impossible. Nothing can turn into its other. Being can be limited only by its only remaining
alternative, which is non-being and therefore nothing. Therefore being cannot be limited, and
must be one continuous whole, remaining for ever one and the same. Reality, concludes
Parmenides, is an infinite, homogeneous, and changeless sphere. All else is illusion.
Zeno, a disciple of Parmenides, formulated a number of arguments which seem to prove the
impossibility of movement and change. The best known of these is the race between Achilles and
the tortoise. Zeno argues that if Achilles were to give the tortoise only ten yard advantage, he
could never overtake the tortoise, even though he ran ten times as fast. Before he can overtake the
tortoise, Achilles must first cover the ten yards, but in the meanwhile the tortoise would have
moved one yard ahead. Achilles must now cover the yard before overtaking the tortoise, who in
turn would have moved one tenth of a yard in the meanwhile. It is clear that this process may be
repeated ad infinitum and so Achilles will never get to be ahead of the tortoise. Another argument
of Zeno aims to prove that a flying arrow could not be in motion, for if it is in motion it should
be in motion at every instant of its flight, but at any given instant the arrow cannot be moving
either in the space occupied by the arrow at that instant, or in any other space. It could not be moving in the space of the arrow because this is exactly the size of its volume and allows no freedom
of movement within it; nor in any other space, because the arrow cannot move where it is not.
Another argument may be stated in this manner: No body can be moved from one place to another place, because there is always an infinite number of positions between the two terminal places,
and no body can occupy an infinite number of places in a finite time.
What do the arguments of Parmenides and the paradoxes of Zeno aim to prove? They seem to
show that when we try to think about change with our intellects we judge it to be impossible. You
say: But if by our intellects we judge change and movement to be impossible while by our senses we see clearly that things do change and move. Why don't we trust our senses and disregard
the judgment of the intellect? The answer is that such an attitude is impossible to man, because
man's supreme and ultimate power of knowledge is his intellectual judgment and not his sense
perception. What appears to the senses is naturally subordinated to what is evident to the intellect. Even the choice between the evidence of the senses and the evidence of the intellect is a matter for the intellect and not for the senses to decide.
But on the other hand, neither can the intellect deny the testimony of the senses, especially with
regard to that part of reality, the material universe, which falls within the province of the senses.
When we consider the senses by our intellect, we find them to be cognitive powers, that is, faculties intended by their very nature to report things as they are and not as they are not, unless, something interferes accidentally with their natural operations. If it were true, as Parmenides and Zeno
claim, that the senses methodically and systematically report the fact of change, while the mind
irrovocably denies its possibility, then the result is intellectual despair. There is no doubt that the
controversy about change and motion between the school of Heraclitus and the school of
Parmenides is at the root of that period of Greek thought known as the age of sophistry, when
philo-sophers, having despaired of attaining the truth with their minds, discarded speculative philosophy, and used their intellects instead for the acquisition of power.
It was Aristotle who contributed the right solution for the problem of change. The solution was
already implicit in the commonsense judgment of men; but when Aristotle succeeded in drawing
from the ordinary discourse about change, the distinctions and definitions required for a philosophic solution of this problem, philosophy as a science became possible. Parmenides had said, as
already mentioned, that being is, and non-being is not, that being can be limited only by non16

being, and therefore, being cannot be finite or plural, that being cannot become non-being, nor
can non-being become being, and since these are the only possible alternatives then change is
impossible. But Aristotle denied the dichotomy between being and non-being; he said, between
being in the fully actual sense, which is God, and absolute non-being, which is nothing, there is a
third possibility, namely, a being in potency, like a seed. A seed, Parmenides would say, either is
or is not a tree. If the seed is a tree then it cannot change to one) because there is no change when
things remain the same, but if the seed is not a tree, then neither can it change to one, because the
being of a tree cannot arise from its non-being. But stated in the more common-sense terminology
of Aristotle, the problem can be stated more correctly in the following manner: a seed is not a tree
in act, but is a tree in potency and therefore when sufficient causes cooperate to reduce that potency to act, the seed develops into a tree and the process of development is what we call change. This
is how Aristotle arrived at his definition of change: change is the act of a being-in-potency as long
as it is yet in potency. Potency is a reality and is different from sheer non-being which is nothing.
Change is the actualization of real potency in beings that are real but finite.
We cannot leave the problem here without at least suggesting the way to solve the Zeno paradoxes. The fallacy of the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise consists in regarding as divided
what is seen to be only divisible. Movement, time and distance, are different kinds of continuous
quantities. Being continuous, each of them is immediately seen to be divisible ad infinitum. But
divisibility is potential and not actual division. If distance were actually divided into an infinite
number of intervals, it would be hard to see how Achilles can ever overtake the tortoise.
Thus as far as philosophy is concerned, the problem of change is solved by reduction to this
concept of a being-in-potency. But how about potency, and what report does it give of itself apart
from the fact of change? The truth is, that potency as such, can neither exist nor can it be conceived or understood. There is no existing entity which may be called pure potency. Philosophers
imply that much when they tell us that prime matter is not a being but rather it is a principle of
being. Whenever real potency exists, it exists as the potency of something actual. You should have
an actual egg before you can claim to possess the real potency of a chicken, and you must know
a real and actual chicken before you can understand what is meant by a potential chicken in an
egg. If potency can neither exist nor be understood except in its relation to act, then a being in
potency like our universe, is also to that extent a being opaque to our complete understanding.
The element of potency in the universe implies an aspect of mystery which will be resolved only
when we see face to face the One Eternal Being in whom there is no potency and therefore no
mystery. Our senses cannot perceive such a Being who is pure act, but our intellect cannot be satisfied without it. We may be able now to realize a little more fully how both Parmenides and
Heraclitus were baffled by the same aspect of mystery in the visible universe which was intended by God to wake them up to a realization, be it dark, of the intelligible but invisible God behind
the visible uni-verse. Parmenides was looking with his mind on the objects which his senses offer,
and insisting on finding in these extended material things the one object which satisfies the intellect. He was looking for the right object in the wrong direction, and the result is his monotonous,
uniform, but empty sphere which is neither a good God nor a good universe. Parmenides was staring at time and imagining eternity.
On the other hand, when Heraclitus denied permanence and asserted that all is mere change
he was implicitly denying the existence of God and the substantial reality of things. Both philosophers were thwarting the universe regarding its first message as a creature, for when the world
changes it confesses its insufficiency, and points towards God.
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The Readers Digest

Special Request Feature: Brig. Gen. David Sarnoff, Chairman of the board of the Radio
Corporation of America, and one of the nation's outstanding industrialists, has recommended
the republication of this article. It appeared in the December 1946 issue of The Reader's Digest

Seven Reasons Why a Scientist Believes in God

Adapted from the book "Man Does Not Stand Alone"
by: A. Cressy Morrison
Former president of the New York Academy of Sciences
We are still in the dawn of the scientific age, and every increase of light reveals more brightly the handiwork of an intelligent Creator. We have made stupendous discoveries; with a spirit
of scientific humility and of faith grounded in knowledge we are approaching ever nearer to an
awareness of God.
For myself, I count seven reasons for my faith:
First: By unwavering mathematical law we can prove that our universe was designed and
executed a great engineering intelligence.
Suppose you put ten pennies, marked from one to ten, into your pocket and give them a good
shuffle. Now try to take them out in sequence from one to ten, putting back the coin each time
and shaking them all again. Mathematically we know that your chance of first drawing number
one is one in ten; of drawing one and two in succession one in 100; of drawing one, two and
three in succession, one in 1000, and so on; your chance of drawing them all, from number one
to number ten in succession, would reach the unbelievable figure of one in ten billion.
By the same reasoning, so many exacting conditions are necessary for life on the earth that
they could not possibly exist in proper relationship by chance. The earth rotates on its axis
1000 miles an hour at the equator; if it turned at 100 miles an hour, our days and nights would
be ten times as long as now, and the hot sun would likely burn up our vegetation each long
day while in the long night any surviving sprout might well freeze. Again, the sun, source of
our life, has a surface temperature of 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and our earth is just far
enough away so that this eternal fire warms us just enough and not too much! If the sun
gave off only one half its present radiation, we would freeze, and if it gave half as much more,
we would roast. The slant of the earth, tilted at an angle of 23 degrees, gives us our seasons; if
the earth had not been so tilted vapors from the ocean would move north and south, piling up
for us continents of ice. If our moon were, say, only 50,000 miles away instead of its actual
distance, our tides might be so enormous that twice a day all continents would be submerged;
even the mountains could soon be eroded away. If the crust of the earth had been only ten feet
thicker, there would be no oxygen without which animal life must die. Had the ocean been a
few feet deeper, carbon dioxide and oxygen would have been absorbed and no vegetable life
could exist. It is apparent from these and a host of other examples that there is not one chance
in billions that life on our planet is an accident.
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Second: The resourcefullness of life to accomplish its purpose is a manifestation of an all-pervading Intelligence.
What life itself is, no man has fathomed. It has neither weight nor dimensions, but it does
have force; a growing root will crack a rock. Life has conquered water, land and air, mastering
the elements, compelling them to dissolve and reform their combinations.
Life, the sculptor, shapes all living things; an artist, it designs every leaf of every tree, and
colors every flower. Life is a musician and has taught each bird to sing its love song, the insects
to call one another in the music of their multitudinous sounds. Life is a sublime chemist, giving
taste to fruits and spices, and perfume to the rose, changing water and carbonic acid into sugar
and wood, and, in so doing, releasing oxygen that animals may have the breath of life.
Behold an almost invisible drop of protoplasm, transparent, jellylike, capable of motion,
drawing energy from the sun. This single cell, this transparent mist-like droplet, holds within
itself the germ of life, and has the power to distribute this life to every living thing, great and
small. The powers of this droplet are greater than our vegetation and animals and people, for all
life came from it. Nature did not create life; fire-blistered rocks and a saltless sea could not
meet the necessary requirements.
Who then, has put it here ?
Third: Animal wisdom speaks irresistibly of a good Creator who infused instinct into otherwise helpless little creatures.
The young salmon spends years at sea, then comes back to his own river, and travels up the
very side of the river into which flows the tributary where he was born. What brings him back
so precisely? If you transfer him to another tributary he will know at once that he is off his
course and he will fight his way down and back to the main stream and then turn up against the
current to finish his destiny accurately.
Even more difficult to solve is the mystery of eels. These amazing creatures migrate at
maturity from ponds and rivers everywhere those from Europe across thousands of miles of
ocean, all bound for the same abysmal deeps near Bermuda. There they breed and die. The little
ones, with no apparent means of knowing anything except that they are in a wilderness of
water, nevertheless start back and find their way, not only to the very shore from which their
parents came, but thence to the selfsame rivers, lakes or little ponds. No American eel has ever
been caught in Europe, no European eel in American waters. Nature has even delayed the maturity of the European eel by a year or more to make up for its longer journey. Where does the
directing impulse originate.
Fourth: Man has something more than animal instinct the power of reason.
No other animal has ever left a record of its ability to count to ten, or even to understand the
meaning of ten. Where instinct is like a single note of a flute beautiful but limited, the human
brain contains all the notes of all the instruments in the orchestra. No need to belabor this fourth
point; thanks to human reason we can contemplate the possibility that we are what we are only
because we have received a spark of Universal Intelligence.
Fifth: Provision for all living is revealed in such phenomena as the wonders of genes.
So tiny are these genes that, if all of them responsible for all living people in the world
could be put in one place, there would be less than a thimbleful. Yet these genes inhabit every
living cell and are the keys to all human, animal and vegetable characteristics. A thimble is a
small place to hold all the individual characteristics of almost three billion human beings.
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However, the facts are beyond question. Here evolution really begins at the cell, the entity
which holds and carries the genes. That the ultramicroscopic gene can absolutely rule all life on
earth is an example of profound cunning and provision that could emanate only from a Creative
Intelligence; no other hypothesis will serve.
Sixth: By the economy of nature we are forced to realize that only infnite wisdom could have
foreseen and prepared with such astute husbandry.
Many years ago a species of cactus was planted in Australia as a protective fence. Having
no insect enemies in Australia, the cactus soon began a prodigious growth; the alarming abundance persisted until the plants covered an area as long and wide as England, crowding inhabitants out of the towns and villages, and destroying their farms. Seeking a defense, entomologists scoured the world; finally they turned up an insect which lived exclusively on cactus, and
would eat nothing else. It would breed freely, too; and it had no enemies in Australia. So animal
soon conquered vegetable, and today the cactus pest has retreated and with it all but a small
protective residue of the insects, enough to hold the cactus in check forever.
Such checks and balances have been universally provided. Why have not fastbreeding
insects dominated the earth? Because they have no lungs such as man possesses; they breathe
through tubes. But when insects grow large, their tubes do not grow in ratio to the increasing
size of the body. Hence there never has been an insect of great size; this limitation on growth
has held them all in check. If this physical check had not been provided, man could not exist.
Imagine meeting a hornet as big as a lion!
Seventh: The fact that man can conceive the idea of God is in itself a unique proof.
The conception of God rises from a divine faculty of man, unshared with the rest of our
world, the faculty we call imagination. By its power, man and man alone can find the evidence
of things unseen. The vista that power opens up is unbounded; indeed, as man's perfected imagination becomes a spiritual reality, he may discern in all the evidences of design and purpose
the great truth that heaven is wherever and whatever; that God is everywhere and in everything,
but nowhere so close as in our hearts.
It is scientifically as well as imaginatively true, as the Psalmist said: The heavens declare
the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork.

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