I am reading the Anti-Dühring by Engels, in it he proves the false arguments of the person who the book is named after. Engels goes from a varied array of subjects from philosophy, to biology, chemistry, physics, and so on.

At some point, Engels, while correcting Dühring, speaks about the theories of the beginning of existence and points out that Dühring is a supporter of creationism, e.i.: that there was a point where there was only nothing (absolute rest) and that out of this nothing, something came to be (motion). The only logical conclusion to an outlook like the one proposed is the existence of a God, which Düring rejects.

My question would be as following, what is the Marxist take on this, because if we assume the previous mentioned, we need to either accept the existence of God, or to believe there is some sort of unknown scientific law that allows the creation of motion out of absolute rest. Both seem very unlikely.

A third option is that time and matter have always existed since infinity, and that they will keep on existing until infinity. Which is the option that makes the most sense from the point of view of dialectical materialism.

From my understanding, though, neither of these three theories can be understood as “bad infinities” (in the Hegelian jargon), since they do not represent a contradiction in itself.

Do we have scientific proof that further discredits any of these three possibilities?

  • ☭ 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗘𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 ☭A
    2•1 year ago

    We can’t know what the (absolute) “beginning of existence” is, of course. If we theorize that our universe was created by X, we can’t explain how X could “exist” (or, if we say that X can “exist” because of Y, we can’t explain how Y could “exist” (or… repeat ad infinitum))

    In practice, being unable to define the “beginning of existence” has no impact on our ability to materially analyze what we are capable of understanding