On Space and Time as Properties of God

Leibniz’s Sentiment. Newton’s Sentiment and Reasons. Infinite Matter Impossible. Epicurus Had to Admit a Creator and Governor God. Properties of Pure Space and Duration.

Newton regards space and time as 2 beings whose existence necessarily follows from God Himself.

An Infinite Being is in every place.

Therefore every place exists.

Eternal Being endures from all eternity: therefore eternal duration is real.

It escaped Newton to say at the end of his questions on Optics: Do not these phenomena of nature show that there is an incorporeal being, living, intelligent, present everywhere, who in infinite space, as in his sensorium, sees, discerns, and understands everything in the most intimate and perfect manner?

Leibniz had previously recognized with Newton the reality of pure space and duration. But he:

• had long since ceased to share Newton’s views
• had placed himself in Germany at the head of an opposing school
• attacked Newton’s expressions in a letter he wrote in 1715 to the late Queen of England, wife of George II

She initiated a dispute settled by letters between the 2 parties.

But Newton, an enemy of all disputes, and a miser with his time, allowed Dr. Clarke, his disciple in physics, and at least his equal in metaphysics, to enter the lists for him.

The dispute centered on almost all of Newton’s metaphysical ideas.

Clarke began by justifying the comparison taken from the sensorium[1], which Newton had used.

He establishes that no being can act, know, or see where he is not: now God, acting, seeing everywhere, acts and sees in all points of space, which in this sense alone can be considered his sensorium, given the impossibility of expressing oneself in any language when one dares to speak of God.

Leibniz maintains that space is nothing but the relationship we conceive between coexisting beings, nothing but the order of bodies, their arrangement, their distances, etc.

Clarke, following Newton, maintains that it is absurd that space is not real.

If God had placed the earth, the moon, and the sun in the place where the fixed stars are, provided that the earth, the moon, and the sun were in the same order as they are, it would follow that the earth, the moon, and the sun would be in the same place where they are today, which is a contradiction in terms.

According to Newton, we must think of duration as we think of space, that it is a very real thing: for if duration were merely an order of succession among creatures, it would follow that what was done today and what was done thousands of years ago would themselves have been done in the same instant, which is still contradictory.

Finally, space and duration are quantities: this is therefore something very positive.

It is worth paying attention to this ancient argument, which has never been answered. If a man at the limits of the universe stretches out his arm, this arm must be in pure space: for he is not in nothing; and if we answer that he is still in matter, the world, in this case, is therefore infinite, the world is therefore God.

Pure space, the void, therefore exists, just as much as matter, and it even exists necessarily, whereas matter exists only through the free will of the Creator.

But, it will be said, you admit an immense, infinite space; why not do the same for matter? Here is the difference. Space exists necessarily, because God necessarily exists;

It is immense; it is, like duration, a mode, an infinite property of an infinite, necessary being. Matter is none of these things: it does not exist necessarily; and if this substance were infinite, it would be either an essential property of God, or God himself; but it is neither one nor the other: it is therefore not infinite, and could not be.

I will insert here a remark that seems to me to merit some attention.

Descartes admitted a God as creator and cause of everything.

But he denied the possibility of the void.

Epicurus denied a creator God, and cause of everything, and he admitted the void.

Descartes’ principles had to deny a creator God.

It was Epicurus who had to admit it. Here is the obvious proof.

Space is a necessary consequence of God’s existence.

God is, strictly speaking, neither in space nor in a place.

God is everywhere, constitutes by this alone immense space and place.

In the same way, duration, eternal permanence, is an indispensable consequence of God’s existence. He is neither in infinite duration nor in time; but, existing eternally, he constitutes by this both eternity and time.

Immense, extended, inseparable space can be conceived in several portions: for example, the space where Saturn is is not the space where Jupiter is; but these conceived parts cannot be separated; one cannot put one in the place of another, as one can put one body in the place of another.

Similarly, infinite time, inseparable and without parts, can be conceived in several portions, without ever being able to conceive one portion of duration put in the place of another.

Beings exist in a certain portion of duration, which we call time, and can exist in any other time; but a conceived part of duration, any time, cannot be elsewhere than it is; the past cannot be the future.

Space and duration are two necessary, immutable attributes of the eternal and immense Being.

God alone can know all of space and time.

We measure some improperly called parts of space by means of the extended bodies we touch; we measure improperly called parts of duration by means of the movements we perceive.

We will not enter here into the details of physical proofs reserved for other chapters; it is sufficient to note that

In everything concerning space, time, and the limits of the world, Newton followed the ancient opinions of:

• Democritus
• Epicurus
• a host of philosophers rectified by our famous Gassendi

Newton said he regarded Gassendi as very wise.