The Material-Formal Cause of the Body of the Universe

Without using the proper scholastic terminology, Dr. David Tong, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge in England, describes the Material-Formal cause of the body of the universe. He uses the terminology of modern physics which readers of Scientific American may be assumed to understand without any difficulty. And so, his article in the December 2012 issue of this magazine, “The Unguantum Quantum”, is truly a breakthrough for Catholic cosmology. The sub-title of the article (on page 48) – sums it up: 


“Quantum theorists often speak of the world as being pointillist at the smallest scales. Yet a closer look at the laws of nature suggests that the physical world is actually continuous – more analog than digital.” (p.48).

David Tong understands that this debate about the ultimate nature of the material world – “is one of the oldest in physics; whereas the atomists conceived of reality as discrete, other Greek philosophers – such as Aristotle, thought of it as a continuum…”

Now to put it all in a philosophical nutshell, and in Aristotelian-Thomistic terms, the continuous nature of the material universe describes the substance, while the discrete, atomic structures describe the accidents or properties of the physical universe.  I am assuming that the universe, as a whole, (the totum of Lateran IV) was created ex nihilo and in toto on Day One of the Genesis account; the Heavens and Earth, water and light (Genesis 1:1-3).  This is the body of the universe; a wholly material substance, with no soul but the formal aspect which is circular or spherical and manifested itself immediately in the temporal rotations of light and the concentric spheres around the central earth.  As St. Thomas frequently insists, matter never exists without form.  And material substances, therefore, never exist without their proper accidents.  What David Tong is describing in physical terms is the substantial but material nature of the universe.  This substance, which includes the Prime Matter of the scholastics, is continous in nature, thus always in motion, and, indeed, the very nature of motion which requires (1) an agent, and (2) time. 

 

The first and always necessary agent is God the Creator - our Triune God, Father, Word and Holy Spirit, all explicitly present in the opening verses of Genesis.  God is Creator ex nihilo and in toto only in the beginning.  Thereafter, He is necessarily present as Governor and Sustainer-Maintainer - (the 5th Way of St. Thomas).