Doesn't the 'Infinite Regression Fallacy' Prove that Time Had a Beginning?

[lmelahn]

My parents are not sustaining me in existence, neither is the pen sustaining the ink on the paper. They are “once causes”. How is this at all relevant in the discussion of whether there can be an infinite regress of motions?

Right, they are “once causes” (I like that expression), which for Aquinas are a kind of “per accidens” causes.

The problem is that many people confuse “once causes” for real (“per se”) causes. There can be (at least hypothetically) an infinity of “once causes,” because God can create an infinite multitude if He wants to. (Remember that, for God all times are present.)

But there cannot be an infinity of “real” (per se) causes. The buck has to stop somewhere. When you were writing, your pen was applying the ink to the paper; your hand was holding the pen; your arm was sustaining your hand; your arm and hard are parts of your body, which has its being thanks to your soul (moreover, you were writing thanks to operations of your intellect and will, which also have their operation in your soul); your soul (and body and everything) is maintained in existence by God. You see, this “vertical” chain of (per se) causes comes very quickly to the Creator, and it cannot go beyond Him.

On the other hand, suppose you were writing a very long letter. After a while, your pen runs out of ink, and you use another, and then another, and then another (and then you run out to buy extra paper, too…). You see, there is nothing (absolutely speaking) that prevents this process from continuing on forever. There are only the physical limits of the various agents involved. Why not? Because in the words of Aquinas, the letter only depends “per accidens”—I guess we could say “relatively” in English) on the particular pens used. (And the same holds true for the paper, and even the writer.)

In fact—speaking in the realm of pure hypothesis here, naturally—there is nothing, absolutely speaking, that prevents events in time from extending infinitely in either direction. That is because a given moment in time does not depend per se on the previous moments: only “relatively” or “per accidens.”

In summary, “real” or (if you prefer) “absolute” or “per se” causes—those that sustain a thing or a state of things in existence here and now—must be traceable to a unique First Cause. The chain of causes must terminate in a First Cause.

On the other hand, the “horizontal” progression of events in time need not, absolutely speaking, be finite, because God is perfectly capable of creating a numberless (infinite) multitude. Moreover, later events do not depend on earlier events “really,” here and now. Prior events are merely (to use your expression) “once causes.”

(To be perfectly precise, past events are no kind of cause at all, because the past does not exist anymore. However, those things that once exerted a “real,” or “per-se” causality—like my parents, or the pen you used to write the letter—are “once causes” or “per-accidens” causes.)

 

[Michael19682]

My parents are not sustaining me in existence, neither is the pen sustaining the ink on the paper. They are “once causes”. How is this at all relevant in the discussion of whether there can be an infinite regress of motions?

Would anyone mind if I joined the discussion. My intro, (would be a tie in of the question) “If a tree fell in the forest with no one around to hear it, would it make a sound?” to the original topic question of infinite regress.

 

[Michael19682]

Well, I waited about an hour and no one responded, so here goes.
The tree in the forest falling with no one around to hear it is relevant to this discussion. The former question shows that depending on where one puts emphasis, i.e, on the human perception as “reality” versus on the physical law that once established is assumed therefore to govern situations in the absence of any needed “observation”, the answer branches in different directions, in the mode of human perception, viz., time is a measure of observable change in form, outlook, or any vector or scalar quantity versus in the case of the law’s physicality, time becomes a point at which we start an observation and a corresponding point at which it ends, with both points being of no magnitude, in other words, being pure number. The difference in the numbers is the amount of time as opposed to the amount of change where perception is the branch. The laws of physics propose that we can measure time indirectly by knowing how much change has occurred in a controlled experiment. Thus, the perception and the law are ideally interchangeable.
But the theological assessment of time is more complex because people, who in either case are doing the theology and measuring the time, are not so simple as combustion or motion in a vacuum. People can disagree on how long an hour really is. That is because we change at different rates as humans.
Thus, since all theology involves scripture, and since scripture depends on interpretation, the question of time’s beginning depends on the level of literalness that is applied to scriptures beginning.
For me, when it says that God said, let there be light…it means that language is the beginning of being a being who is capable of truly measuring time. (I’ve read that rats can pace out time in a cage, but I will not call that true language because it is limited.) If we branch in the direction of language, then we end with a theory of spiritual consciousness whose highest form is the Word made Flesh, Jesus the Incarnate Word of God, who gives Light to the world. Indeed that seems to me to be God’s plan, as it does seem to me to be the opinion of almost everyone who acknowledges his supremacy. Thus we know the fullness of life which begins when we learn his name and how to pray in his name at our baptism, where we at least must hear the prayers reverberated in our brains. In this branch, it matters little whether the matter or material of the world was created out of nothing, because the story already includes man, who has the highest language of all creatures in God, at the very beginning. In fact, God is not satisfied until he creates both man and woman, which shows that mere matter or material is not life capable of satisfying him.
Seen from the law perspective, where time began on such and such a date so many years ago corresponding to actual record keeping of course, the Word was not a process that reached fullness of revelation in Christ, actual Light that gives us the ability to truly measure things like change, but is seen as something rather that is preserved for no other purpose than keeping time and records of events. From the law perspective, observation of life is not needed lest it be to sustain itself in this world because life has been given and is subject to neither devaluation nor increase. Life is not a qualified process but a law that is irrevocable and need not observe itself to be concluded. Since all human life is equal and of one grade, little does it matter if the person is enlightened or unenlightened, and success is measured by wealth and continuance of the likeness of form (family), or by achieved power (as distinct from wealth). For some, these successes indicate enlightenment because there is no conception of higher existence, only of more time to live the absolute life you have.
In one, time begins with the Holy Spirit’s entrance into the human form and is not subject to beginning because time is God’s process and under God’s control; and therefore time is outside of the story; and uses time to express himself.
In the other, time is not used to express, but only to measure expressions. The beginning of time is the literal beginning of the story.
In one, infinite regression proves there is no beginning that can be defined because inert matter is not really life, which defines any meaningful beginning because only the living can measure time.
In the other view, infinite regression points to our omnipotent God as the first cause, but those living under that measure have no infinite relation to God because time as the word is not appreciated as an absolute derivative of God that has already been revealed in himself and fulfilled in Christ.

 

[thinkandmull]

Right, they are “once causes” (I like that expression), which for Aquinas are a kind of “per accidens” causes.

The problem is that many people confuse “once causes” for real (“per se”) causes. There can be (at least hypothetically) an infinity of “once causes,” because God can create an infinite multitude if He wants to. (Remember that, for God all times are present.)

But there cannot be an infinity of “real” (per se) causes. The buck has to stop somewhere. When you were writing, your pen was applying the ink to the paper; your hand was holding the pen; your arm was sustaining your hand; your arm and hard are parts of your body, which has its being thanks to your soul (moreover, you were writing thanks to operations of your intellect and will, which also have their operation in your soul); your soul (and body and everything) is maintained in existence by God. You see, this “vertical” chain of (per se) causes comes very quickly to the Creator, and it cannot go beyond Him.

On the other hand, suppose you were writing a very long letter. After a while, your pen runs out of ink, and you use another, and then another, and then another (and then you run out to buy extra paper, too…). You see, there is nothing (absolutely speaking) that prevents this process from continuing on forever. There are only the physical limits of the various agents involved. Why not? Because in the words of Aquinas, the letter only depends “per accidens”—I guess we could say “relatively” in English) on the particular pens used. (And the same holds true for the paper, and even the writer.)

In fact—speaking in the realm of pure hypothesis here, naturally—there is nothing, absolutely speaking, that prevents events in time from extending infinitely in either direction. That is because a given moment in time does not depend per se on the previous moments: only “relatively” or “per accidens.”

In summary, “real” or (if you prefer) “absolute” or “per se” causes—those that sustain a thing or a state of things in existence here and now—must be traceable to a unique First Cause. The chain of causes must terminate in a First Cause.

On the other hand, the “horizontal” progression of events in time need not, absolutely speaking, be finite, because God is perfectly capable of creating a numberless (infinite) multitude. Moreover, later events do not depend on earlier events “really,” here and now. Prior events are merely (to use your expression) “once causes.”

(To be perfectly precise, past events are no kind of cause at all, because the past does not exist anymore. However, those things that once exerted a “real,” or “per-se” causality—like my parents, or the pen you used to write the letter—are “once causes” or “per-accidens” causes.)

First off, Aquinas doesn’t believe that there can be an infinite multitude: newadvent.org/summa/1007.htm#article4

Second, there cannot to an infinite in either direction in the same way. If someone has an infinite number of tasks to do, he will do them forever, but it is not the same infinity as saying something always ways.

Also, in saying there is an infinity of past movements, you are saying they are per se, because this depended on that, which depend on that, which depended on that, ect.

 

[lmelahn]

First off, Aquinas doesn’t believe that there can be an infinite multitude: newadvent.org/summa/1007.htm#article4

I actually talked this over with an expert on this topic a couple of weeks ago.

Apparently, Aquinas is not denying that there can be an infinitude of things, merely that we would able to count them. Aquinas argues that when man counts a discrete quantity of things, he must always (at least at some point) start from one and then move on to the next, until reaching the last one of the “multitude.”

(Aquinas is well aware that we have sophisticated methods for counting that enable us to count faster than we can with our fingers, but the principle for us is always the same, because our intellect is finite and discursive. Unlike the angels, we need to move from one proposition to the next in order to progress in knowledge.)

God, however, does not need to do this, because he has the so-called scientia visionis. He simple sees His creation immediately by means of His Essence.

This reasoning can be found in I, q. 14, a.12 ad 1:

to know the infinite according to the mode of the infinite is to know part after part; and in this way the infinite cannot be known; for whatever quantity of parts be taken, there will always remain something else outside. But God does not know the infinite or infinite things, as if He enumerated part after part; since He knows all things simultaneously, and not successively, as said above. Hence there is nothing to prevent Him from knowing infinite things.

Therefore, Aquinas is not questioning God’s capacity to create an infinitude, simply that it would be a quantity (or “multitude,” in the technical sense) that we are capable of counting. (The reasoning is simple: if God can know an infinitude, it follows immediately from His omnipotence that He will have no trouble creating it.)

Second, there cannot to an infinite in either direction in the same way. If someone has an infinite number of tasks to do, he will do them forever, but it is not the same infinity as saying something always ways.

But nothing is preventing a different person from continuing the task. Anyway, isn’t operari (action) a kind of being? Aquinas seems to think so (see I, Article 5 on the good). Obviously, I don’t think this has actually happened, just that it is something God is capable of.

Have a look, as well, at , q. 3, a. 17Quaestiones disputates de potentia, where Aquinas makes this point.

Also, in saying there is an infinity of past movements, you are saying they are per se, because this depended on that, which depend on that, which depended on that, ect.

Perhaps I didn’t explain the per se and per accidens well enough. Something in the past could not possibly be a per se cause right now, for the simple reason that past events don’t exist anymore. That is precisely what Aquinas means by “per accidens”: they are not causes anymore (because if you remove them, they don’t make the effect disappear), but they used to be.

If I cook spaghetti, say, I am the cause of the spaghetti’s existence (as cooked spaghetti, you understand: I didn’t create the noodles or the sauce, I just put them together and heated them). But I am only its cause (properly speaking) while I am cooking it. Once I am done, the spaghetti remains as cooked spaghetti, and I also remain myself. But I have stopped being the cause (properly speaking) of its being cooked.

While I was the cause, truly and properly, I was a per se cause. Once I have stopped cooking the spaghetti, I am just a per accidens (i.e., improperly speaking) cause.

You could say, in this case, that a per accidens cause is an “ex-per-se” cause.

 

[thinkandmull]

I actually talked this over with an expert on this topic a couple of weeks ago.

Apparently, Aquinas is not denying that there can be an infinitude of things, merely that we would able to count them. Aquinas argues that when man counts a discrete quantity of things, he must always (at least at some point) start from one and then move on to the next, until reaching the last one of the “multitude.”

(Aquinas is well aware that we have sophisticated methods for counting that enable us to count faster than we can with our fingers, but the principle for us is always the same, because our intellect is finite and discursive. Unlike the angels, we need to move from one proposition to the next in order to progress in knowledge.)

God, however, does not need to do this, because he has the so-called scientia visionis. He simple sees His creation immediately by means of His Essence.

This reasoning can be found in I, q. 14, a.12 ad 1:

Therefore, Aquinas is not questioning God’s capacity to create an infinitude, simply that it would be a quantity (or “multitude,” in the technical sense) that we are capable of counting. (The reasoning is simple: if God can know an infinitude, it follows immediately from His omnipotence that He will have no trouble creating it.)

But nothing is preventing a different person from continuing the task. Anyway, isn’t operari (action) a kind of being? Aquinas seems to think so (see I, Article 5 on the good). Obviously, I don’t think this has actually happened, just that it is something God is capable of.

Have a look, as well, at Quaestiones disputates de potentia, q. 3, a. 17, where Aquinas makes this point.

Perhaps I didn’t explain the per se and per accidens well enough. Something in the past could not possibly be a per se cause right now, for the simple reason that past events don’t exist anymore. That is precisely what Aquinas means by “per accidens”: they are not causes anymore (because if you remove them, they don’t make the effect disappear), but they used to be.

If I cook spaghetti, say, I am the cause of the spaghetti’s existence (as cooked spaghetti, you understand: I didn’t create the noodles or the sauce, I just put them together and heated them). But I am only its cause (properly speaking) while I am cooking it. Once I am done, the spaghetti remains as cooked spaghetti, and I also remain myself. But I have stopped being the cause (properly speaking) of its being cooked.

While I was the cause, truly and properly, I was a per se cause. Once I have stopped cooking the spaghetti, I am just a per accidens (i.e., improperly speaking) cause.

You could say, in this case, that a per accidens cause is an “ex-per-se” cause.

You obviously didn’t read the link I gave. I don’t know what the expert was talking about, but Aquinas says “This, however, is impossible; since every kind of multitude must belong to a species of multitude. Now the species of multitude are to be reckoned by the species of numbers. But no species of number is infinite; for every number is multitude measured by one. Hence it is impossible for there to be an actually infinite multitude, either absolute or accidental. Likewise multitude in nature is created; and everything created is comprehended under some clear intention of the Creator; for no agent acts aimlessly. Hence everything created must be comprehended in a certain number. Therefore it is impossible for an actually infinite multitude to exist, even accidentally.”

I don’t believe anyone on this forum understands how per se vs accidental proves there had to be one supreme efficient Cause. Your explanation doesn’t fit, because if the accidental causes are there simultaneously, then we have a clear example of an infinite multitude, which Aquinas says is impossible. So that isn’t his argument. Likewise, the past is NOT the cause of the present now, but it once was the cause of something which is the cause of the now. Therefore your argument doesn’t go thru

 

[lmelahn]

Aquinas says “This, however, is impossible; since every kind of multitude must belong to a species of multitude.”

---

I don’t believe anyone on this forum understands how per se vs accidental proves there had to be one supreme efficient Cause.

I am not claiming that the distinction between per-se cause (i.e., present, necessary dependence on something) and per-accidens cause (past or circumstantial dependence) is sufficient to prove that there is a First Cause. I am just saying that if you are going to use the infinite regress argument, you can only do so through the per-se causes, because there is no obvious limit to the past causes.

As far as the link you gave me, I, q. 7, a. 4 (here is a version with the original Latin text side-by-side), I think there may be a slight misunderstanding here.

When Aquinas refers to a “multitude” (multitudo) he means something very specific: it refers specifically to number. Multitudo is the name that Aquinas uses to refer to the category of “quantity,” when it is discreet, not continuous. So, for example, there is a “multitude” of pieces in a chess set, a “multitude” of grains of sand on the beach, and so on.

Note that, for Aquinas, the notion of “multitude” (along with that of continuous quantity) is a mathematical abstraction. (He makes a whole explanation of the three great branches of speculative science in his commentary on Boethius’ treatise on the Trinity, where he explains the proper object of mathematics.) It is not properly something real, although it is, of course, based on reality.

What Aquinas is arguing in this passage is that a number (multitude) measuring a discrete quantity has to be finite. There is no such thing, he is arguing, as an actual, infinite “number,” as if “infinity” (∞) were a number in equal standing to 1, 2, or 10.

That his argument here is mathematical in nature can be demonstrated, I think, by comparing the passage from the Summa with Aquinas’ commentary on book III of Aristotle’s Physics. There, Aquinas makes much the same claim:

The second reason shows that there is no infinite multitude. For everything countable can be numbered and consequently passed through by counting. But every number and whatever has a number is countable. Therefore, every such thing can be passed over. If, therefore any number, whether separated or existing in sensible things, be infinite, it follows that the infinite can be passed through, which is impossible. (In III Physic., lc. 8, no. 351).

Aquinas himself says a little further on in the same commentary:

Notice that these reasons [for the impossibility of an infinity of things and an infinitely large body] are probable and proceed from common premises. For they do not conclude of necessity: in effect, whoever posits an infinite body would not concede that it would of its very nature be terminated by a surface, except perhaps potentially; although this is probable and well-known. Similarly, whoever would posit an infinite multitude would not admit it to be a number or that it has a number. For number adds to multitude the notion of measure, because a number is “multitude measured by unity,” as is said in Metaphysics X. For this reason number is considered to be a species of discrete quantity, but multitude is not; it is, rather, a transcendental (ibid., no. 352).

Note also that the previous question in the Summa deals with infinite magnitude which also a mathematical notion.

So, Aquinas is not denying that God has the power to create an infinitude of creatures, just that we would be able to count them. He says:

Since God knows not only things actual but also things possible to Himself or to created things, as shown above, and as these must be infinite, it must be held that He knows infinite things. Although the knowledge of vision (scientia visionis) which has relation only to things that are, or will be, or were, is not of infinite things, as some say, for we do not say that the world is eternal, nor that generation and movement will go on for ever, so that individuals be infinitely multiplied; yet, if we consider more attentively, we must hold that God knows infinite things even by the knowledge of vision. For God knows even the thoughts and affections of hearts, which will be multiplied to infinity as rational creatures go on for ever (I, q. 14, a. 12, corpus).

Note that Aquinas does not believe that God has actually created an infinitude of things. However, it is clear that God has knowledge of an infinitude. He can do that, because, unlike us, He does not have to count the infinitude; He simply sees it. If He knows an infinitude, it follows that His power is more than sufficient to create an infinitude.