The Twilight of the Idols · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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Let us think backwards a moment If the world had a goal, this goal must have been reached: if a certain (unintentional) final state existed for the world, this state also would have been reached. If it were in any way capable of a stationary or stable condition, and if in the whole course of its existence only one second of Being, in the strict sense of the word, had been possible, then there could no longer be such a process as evolution, and therefore no thinking and no observing of such a process. If on the other hand the world were something which continually renovated itself, it would then be understood to be something miraculous and free to create itself—in fact something divine. Eternal renovation presupposes that energy voluntarily increases itself, that it not only has the intention, but also the power, to avoid repeating itself or to avoid returning into a previous form, and that every instant it adjusts itself in every one of its movements to prevent such a contingency,—or that it was incapable of returning to a state it had already passed through. That would mean that the whole sum of energy was not constant, any more than its attributes were But a sum of energy which would be inconstant and which would fluctuate is quite unthinkable Let us not indulge our fancy any longer with unthinkable things in order to fall once more before the concept of a Creator (multiplication out of nothing, reduction out of nothing, absolute arbitrariness and freedom in growth and in qualities):— He who does not believe in the circular process of the universe must pin his faith to an arbitrary God—thus my doctrine becomes necessary as opposed to all that has been said hitherto in matters of Theism.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.