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Abyssinia
Guest
Coul the First Cause be Thor or Zeus?
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warpspeedpetey
Guest
No, G-d cannot be dependent on anything else for His existence. If anything is dependent on something else for its existence, it cannot be G-d. Thor, Zeus etc, are all dependent on others for their existence. Therefore they cannot be first cause.
A
Al_Moritz
Guest
Yes.
An excellent (and dirt-cheap) book on the topic of metaphysics (of God) is Feser’s Aquinas:
amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Oneworld/dp/1851686908
R
rossum
Guest
Then the First Cause is not God either. The First Cause is dependent on the First Effect; if there is not effect then there cannot have been a cause. A cause requires and effect just as an effect requires a cause. All causes are dependent on some effect in order that they are a cause. A parent cannot be a parent without children.
Since any First Cause is contingent, it depends on something else, it cannot be God under your definition.
rossum
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warpspeedpetey
Guest
Then what you are calling the first effect is the first cause, you just renamed it the first effect.
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rossum
Guest
The First Effect is dependent on the First Cause. The First Cause is dependent on the First Effect. The two are mutually contingent.
Since both are contingent neither meet your definition of God.
rossum
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puzzleannie
Guest
since they do not exist, obviously not
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warpspeedpetey
Guest
Darn it, you got us.
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John21652
Guest
Only the first effect is contingent upon the first cause. The first cause is only called a first cause after a causal event. Until then it can be called whatever . God seems to be a good name. The only variable is the first effect. The first cause is immutable. God alone can actualise the categories we term time and eternity, necessity and contingency, actuality and potency, as being distinct from His actuality.
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Pieman333272
Guest
Thor is a weather god. Zeus has been falsified.
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John21652
Guest
Thor came down from the heavens in a frightful temper. No one was paying him due homage and boy, wasn’t he peeved. He strode across the earth, swinging his hammer and making a frightful din. Still no one paid him any heed. he leapt onto the back of a big, wild stallion and urged it into a gallop, determined to make the world take notice. Unsatisfied with the horse’s speed, he leaned forward, grabbed the horses head, turned it towards him and said in his most thunderous voice “I’m Thor”. Without slackening its pace, the horse looked Thor in the eye and said, Of course your Thor thilly, you forgot your thaddle."
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warpspeedpetey
Guest
BOOO!!!
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fhansen
Guest
Then neither could be first…either.
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John21652
Guest
Afterwards Thor was pretty impressed with himself the way he handled that wild stallion. He thought they were a great pair, the finest in the whole universe. When he got back to the heavens, he jumped up and down in front of the other gods, saying “Did ya Zeus. Did ya Zeus”.BOOO!!!
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rossum
Guest
But it cannot initially be called the “First Cause”. At most it can be “First Cause in Waiting”.
No, as you pointed out it isn’t the First Cause until after the First Effect. It has to change from “First Cause in Waiting” to “First Cause”. Since it changes it cannot be immutable; it actually has to say “Let there be light,” or whatever it does to change from its “I am not causing yet” state to its “I am now causing” state.
rossum
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rossum
Guest
Correct. Also the description “First” implies the existence of time since we are talking about “First in time”. Without time we cannot decide between the First Cause and the Second Cause.
rossum
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John21652
Guest
You are confusing the name of what will be the first cause with its actuality. Until the first effect takes place, which is entirely contingent upon the first cause acting volitionally as a (first) cause, you can name the actuality of what will be the first cause anything you like. Convention says that once it causes something, it will be called, by us, the first cause. It will be a ‘first’ cause because time, also contingent upon its actuality, will commence with the first effect. However, its actuality does not change. Time, effects, etc are outside its actuality. It/God/The First Cause in waiting/Whatever doesn’t change at all. Only its name/adjectival description changes and that is according to we who are operating from the contingent time sphere/modum/universe thingy. It causes change, but doesn’t change. It/God is immutable, as per the dictionary, meaning not subject or susceptible to change, or variation in form or quality or nature.
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warpspeedpetey
Guest
Inventing metaphysically vacuous statements , doesn’t necessarily give them ontological import. Uttering the words “First Effect”, “First Cause in Waiting”, or attempting to assign G-d changes in state are meaningless. I thought I might point this out as it looks like people are fixing to start arguing about terms that don’t mean anything. Hence my comment “Darn it, you got us”
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shoe
Guest
I think that to posit God, who by Webster’s definition is “the supreme or ultimate reality," as the uncaused first cause of the universe is valid because no evidence to the contrary has ever been produced. And since Christians are not postulating that God had a beginning but that He is infinite and eternal in nature, it therefore isn’t necessary for them to have to explain God as the first cause.
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rossum
Guest
No, I merely have a very different view of the relationship between ‘name’ and ‘actuality’.
However, its causing something is an action, and any action requires a real change from the “not acting” state to the “acting now” state. That is a real and essential change. If there is no action then there can be no effect. If the cause is always in the “acting now” state then the effect is also always present. An eternal unchanging cause results in an eternal unchanging effect.
If time starts with the first effect, how can you tell that the cause came ‘before’ the effect. There is no ‘before’ if there is no time. Causation requires time in order to be able to distinguish between the cause and the effect. If they are simultaneous, or eternal, how can you tell which was which?
Then its actions are also outside its actuality. You have two things; an unchanging thing and a second changing thing which performs the actions. God and the ‘Hand of God’ if you like. God cannot act but the Hand of God can. God cannot change but the Hand of God does. Two different things with two different sets of properties.
rossum
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