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that is, that the world both has and has not a beginning in time;
and that an absolutely necessary being both does and does not
exist. If this is the case, he urges, then reason must be endeavoring
to operate in a sphere where, in its theoretical aspect, it
does not legitimately belong.
First Antinomy:
The World Both Has and Has Not, a Beginning in Time
Statement of Kant's argument.---On the one hand, Kant argues,
the world must have had a beginning in time (and this is the alternative
espoused by an adequate natural theology). For on the
opposite supposition it follows that at any given moment of
time an eternity must have elapsed and hence and infinite series
of successive conditions or states of things must have taken
place. But this is impossible since the very notion of infinity
implies that it never can be completed by such a successive synthesis.
Therefore, the only alternative to an infinite series being
a beginning in time, "a beginning of the world is a necessary
condition of its existence." (Footnote 2: Critique of Pure Reason,
p. 241.)
On the other hand, it is equally necessary to argue that the
world has had no beginning in time. For on the opposite supposition
there must have been a void time in which the world did
not exist, since "a beginning is an existence which is preceded
by a time in which the thing did not exist." (Footnote 3: Idem.)
But in such a void or empty time, no origin of the world is possible,
since "no part of such time contains a dis- [[263]] tinctive
condition of being in preference to that of nonbeing." (Footnote
4: Idem.) It follows that the world has had no beginning in
time. Therefore, since both of these positions are at the same
time logically necessary and logically impossible, it appears
that any view which incorporates either of them is an untenable