Things cease to exist all the time, while other things come into being as a result of them. But, according to the latest knowledge in chemistry, one hundred and five elements do not cease to exist; changes only take place in their electronic structure. Radio-active events have also shown that elements, and even their atoms, cease to exist, and that matter turns into energy. The German physicist Einstein even calculated the mathematical formula for this conversion. The fact that things and substances have been changing and issuing from one another continuously does not mean that existence itself comes from past eternity. That is, one cannot say, “It will be as it has so far been.” These changes do have a beginning. To say that the changes have a beginning means that the substances coming into being have a beginning, which in turn means that all of them have been created from nothing while nothing existed.
If the substances were not first created out of nothing and if their issuing from one another went far back into eternity, this universe would necessarily be nonexistent now. The existence of the universe in the eternal past would require the preexistence of other beings to bring it about, and those beings, in turn, would require others to pre-exist so that they could come into being. The existence of the latter is dependent upon the existence of the former. If the former does not exist, the latter will not exist, either. Eternity in the past means without a beginning. To say that something existed in the eternal past means that the first being, that is, the beginning did not exist. If the first being did not exist the latter beings could not exist, and consequently nothing could exist. In other words, there could not be a series of beings each of which required the pre-existence of another for their own existence. Therefore, all of them would necessarily be nonexistent.
Endless Bliss First Fasicle | Page 266-267
