In this chapter, Maimonides finally lays out the question of the eternity of the universe, to which he has been alluding throughout the book so far. He claims that, among those who believe in the existence of God, there are three theories about its origin:

  1. That the Universe was created from nothing
  2. That the Universe, including both the heavens and the earth, was fashioned from a primordial substance
  3. That the Universe is eternal, and has always been as it is now.

Neither of the three theories deny the existence of God; Maimonides tacks on to the end of the chapter a passing mention of atheists such as Epicurus, but he considers that “it would be superfluous to repeat their views, since the existence of God has been demonstrated whilst their theory is built upon a basis proved to be untenable”.

Let’s now examine each of these three theories in detail, as Maimonides tells them.

  • Createdness of the Universe. Maimonides is unequivocal about which theory he believes in. He exhorts the reader to believe only in this theory, and declares it to be second in importance only to monotheism.

    Those who follow the Law of Moses, our Teacher, hold that the whole Universe, i.e., everything except God, has been brought by Him into existence out of non-existence (بعد العدم المحض المطلق ). In the beginning God alone existed, and nothing else; neither angels, nor spheres, nor the things that are contained within the spheres existed. He then produced from nothing all existing things such as they are, by His will and desire (بإرادته ومشيته).

Maimonides further explains that time itself is one of the created entities; it does not make sense to speak of a time before the creation of the Universe because “time is undoubtedly an accident.. connected with motion. This must be clear to all who understand what Aristotle has said on time and its real existence”. Thus, it is technically incorrect to say that God created the Universe “in the beginning” because time only began to be counted with the act of Creation and the existence of bodies which can experience motion.

  • The theory of most philosophers other than Aristotle, including Plato.

God created the existing Universe out of a pre-existing matter of some kind; the heavens and earth did not always exist, but some type of primordial substance did always exist coeternally with God. Maimonides presents a strong, quite convincing version of this theory.

They … assume that a certain substance has coexisted with God from eternity in such a manner that neither God existed without that substance nor the latter without God. But they do not hold that the existence of that substance equals in rank that of God: for God is the cause of that existence, and the substance is in the same relation to God as the clay is to the potter, or the iron to the smith: God can do with it what He pleases; at one time He forms of it heaven and earth, at another time He forms some other thing.

According to this theory — says Maimonides — it is impossible for God to create something out of nothing, or to destroy entirely an existing thing; in other words, God is subject to the Law of Conservation of Matter.

To say of God that He can produce a thing from nothing or reduce a thing to nothing is, according to the opinion of these philosophers, the same as if we were to say that He could cause one substance to have at the same time two opposite properties, or produce another being like Himself, or change Himself into a body, or produce a square the diagonal of which be equal to its side, or similar impossibilities. The philosophers thus believe that it is no defect in the Supreme Being that He does not produce impossibilities

  • Aristotle and his followers go a step further and state that the Universe in its current form is eternal;

    the Universe in its totality has never been different, nor will it ever change: the heavens, which form the permanent element in the Universe, and are not subject to genesis and destruction, have always been so; time and motion are eternal, permanent, and have neither beginning nor end; the sublunary world, which includes the transient elements, has always been the same, because the materia prima is itself eternal, and merely combines successively with different forms; when one form is removed, another is assumed.

The reason why he contends that the Universe always has been the way it is now is that it is

impossible for God to change His will or conceive a new desire … Aristotle finds it as impossible to assume that God changes His will or conceives a new desire, as to believe that He is non-existing, or that His essence is changeable. Hence it follows that this Universe has always been the same in the past, and will be the same eternally.

From a polemical standpoint, Maimonides considers the second and third opinions to be equally contrary to revealed religion: “it makes no difference to us whether it is believed that the heavens are transient, and that only their substance is eternal, or the heavens are held to be indestructible, in accordance with the view of Aristotle”. This is why, in the next chapter, he proceeds to restrict his analysis of ‘the philosophers’ position to Aristotle’s position alone.

However, like a good scientist, Maimonides does not overstate his case. While he is unequivocal about what he believes, he does not pretend that (what he considers to be) the Biblical position is established by proof.

All who follow the Law of Moses, our Teacher, and Abraham, our Father, and all who adopt similar theories, assume that nothing is eternal except God, and that the theory of Creatio ex nihilo includes nothing that is impossible, whilst some thinkers even regard it as an established truth.