Does Catholicism teach that there is a cyclic creation of the world?
Upvote:3
It's de fide, a truth of the Catholic faith, that God created the universe a finite time in the past and that the universe will end a finite time into the future. Thinking the universe is eternal is a heresy.
The Fourth Lateran Council pronounced (Denzinger 428-9):
Firmly we believe and we confess simply that the true God […] by His own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature from nothing
and that He will
come at the end of time, to judge the living and the dead
Scriptural proofs (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma bk. 2, ch. 1, §6, 1.):
John 17:5: “And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself, with the glory which I had before the world was with thee.” Eph. 1:4: “He chose us in Him (Christ) even before the foundation of the world.” Ps. 101:26: “In the beginning, O Lord, thou foundest the earth.” Cf. Gn. 1:1; Pro. 8:22 et seq.; Ps. 89:2; John 17:24.
St. Thomas Aquinas defended this Catholic truth, against those (e.g., the Greeks, Aristotle) who believed the universe to be eternal, in his short work De aeternitate mundi (On the Eternity of the World). He argues this truth can only be known by divine revelation.
Upvote:4
None of the main parts of Christianity adhere to a cyclic view of creation. The Christian scriptures speak of the creation of the world (meaning the universe) by God "in the beginning" (meaning that nothing happened before that). Christians consider the creation was "Ex Nihilo" meaning that it was from nothing - there was no material from which the universe was made.
Likewise the scriptures speak of an end times of being with God which will last for ever. The "new world" will not be destroyed, not even for another creation.
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Source: stackoverflow.com
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