Free will, Pompanazzi, and First Cause

[Touchstone]

So, elsewhere I am going back and forth with a Catholic friend about free will and its illusory nature (or not), and I came upon an interest (to me) problem with Aristotelian principles and free will. I’m sure this has come up before, but neither I or my interlocutor could recall or easily find the answer. So, maybe the big brained Catholics here can recall the way out of this putative conundrum?

I brought up Pietro Pomponazzi, who did some commenting on William of Ockham, a thinker I’m historically interested in. Pomponazzi got into trouble in the 16th century for his mechanistic metaphysics and Stoicist intutions.

Anyway, Pomponazzi connected a problem I wrestled with a lot as a Christian and “metaphysical libertarian” back to Aristotle in a simple and direct way that hadn’t occurred to me, which is not surprising given that Aristotle has never been influential on that level for me.

But on the Aristotelian view, how does one escape determinism (which to hear it, here, inexorably produce fatalism and nihilism) if free will must be reconciled with the First Cause?

I think the objection would go something like this:

1. Self-determination is a choice between two or more exclusive options (tautology).
2. There is free-will (self determination) in human minds.
3. Ergo, human minds can choose on their own between two or more exclusive options.

Then:

1. No secondary cause can move itself if not itself moved.
2. Human choices are secondary causes
3. Ergo, human choice is dependent on something higher and external.

and thus:

Human choice is not local to humans, not “free” with respect to them.

I’ve often pressed this idea with Christians, and others who suppose free will is “magically free”, but here, in loosely paraphrasing Pompanazzi, it seems Christian notions of free will run afoul of the First Cause, and redound to it. To someone who objects that my “free will”, my choices I’m responsible for may be externally driven, I say, “how else could it be, what other basis is there for choosing?”

I suppose “randomness” does qualify, the throw of the dice, and would be truly free, but this seems unacceptable to Christians. But if one’s choices are not random, fundamentally, what does determine the choice of A over B or C?

On Aristotelian principles, it seems the Christian cannot be truly free to choose, as this would make every human an “unmoved mover”, and would the First Cause would be rendered thoroughly absurd. If man cannot move except that he is moved upon by something, how can he be free?

I’m sure this must come up often, so I’ve probably sunk more time into writing this up than is necessary. But if you know the answer from an Aristotelian standpoint, please share, as I’m stumped for the moment, and have been thinking about this for several hours now this evening. Pointing me to a “ready made answer page” for this is fine – I did look a bit, and curiously found nothing that takes this on. Was Calvin right on this, after all?

-TS

 

[JDaniel]

So, elsewhere I am going back and forth with a Catholic friend about free will and its illusory nature (or not), and I came upon an interest (to me) problem with Aristotelian principles and free will. I’m sure this has come up before, but neither I or my interlocutor could recall or easily find the answer. So, maybe the big brained Catholics here can recall the way out of this putative conundrum?

I brought up Pietro Pomponazzi, who did some commenting on William of Ockham, a thinker I’m historically interested in. Pomponazzi got into trouble in the 16th century for his mechanistic metaphysics and Stoicist intutions.

Anyway, Pomponazzi connected a problem I wrestled with a lot as a Christian and “metaphysical libertarian” back to Aristotle in a simple and direct way that hadn’t occurred to me, which is not surprising given that Aristotle has never been influential on that level for me.

But on the Aristotelian view, how does one escape determinism (which to hear it, here, inexorably produce fatalism and nihilism) if free will must be reconciled with the First Cause?

I think the objection would go something like this:

1. Self-determination is a choice between two or more exclusive options (tautology).
2. There is free-will (self determination) in human minds.
3. Ergo, human minds can choose on their own between two or more exclusive options.

Then:

1. No secondary cause can move itself if not itself moved.
2. Human choices are secondary causes
3. Ergo, human choice is dependent on something higher and external.

and thus:

Human choice is not local to humans, not “free” with respect to them.

I’ve often pressed this idea with Christians, and others who suppose free will is “magically free”, but here, in loosely paraphrasing Pompanazzi, it seems Christian notions of free will run afoul of the First Cause, and redound to it. To someone who objects that my “free will”, my choices I’m responsible for may be externally driven, I say, “how else could it be, what other basis is there for choosing?”

I suppose “randomness” does qualify, the throw of the dice, and would be truly free, but this seems unacceptable to Christians. But if one’s choices are not random, fundamentally, what does determine the choice of A over B or C?

On Aristotelian principles, it seems the Christian cannot be truly free to choose, as this would make every human an “unmoved mover”, and the First Cause would be rendered thoroughly absurd. If man cannot move except that he is moved upon by something, how can he be free?

I’m sure this must come up often, so I’ve probably sunk more time into writing this up than is necessary. But if you know the answer from an Aristotelian standpoint, please share, as I’m stumped for the moment, and have been thinking about this for several hours now this evening. Pointing me to a “ready made answer page” for this is fine – I did look a bit, and curiously found nothing that takes this on. Was Calvin right on this, after all?

TS:

Unfortunately, I believe that you have been subjecting yourself, all this time, and, for all this effort, to battling with a straw-man. The First Cause argument from Aristotle is not about the myriad thoughts and decisions made by the human mind and whether or not they are in some way caused, or causes that produce substantial or accidental change. The First Cause argument is about the existential occurrence of ‘change”, or, the appearance of that which was not present before, but is present now. It is about the Privation of form, or the formal cause, prior to the instantiation of the effect and the possession of that form by the matter after said instantiation. A “decision”, whether acted on or not, is not an “effect”, per se, except in the very widest sense of the term.

continued . . .

 

[JDaniel]

from above . . .

Perhaps you mean “First Cause” to be a synonym for God, the Father. I’m not quite sure from the way you wrote your lead-in to the dilemma. On the assumption that I was right in my original diagnosis, we shall move on from that. So, at least for me, the next question is: in what way does the seeming problem of free will impinge upon Aristotle’s First Cause? I need a little more specificity, please.

I would re-write premises 1 – 3, of your Objection, but, for no other reason than to make them more intelligible to a reader, thus saving ourselves the problems of misinterpretation down the road. Thus:

“1. Self-determination is being able to choose between two or more options, relative to some desired purpose or end. (tautology) – I’m not sure why you want to explain this as a tautology? Also, what’s the significance of modifying the meaning of, ‘two or more options’, with the word ‘exclusive’?).
2. There is free-will (self determination) in human minds.
3. Ergo, human minds can choose on their own between two or more ‘exclusive’ options.” (Again, significance?)

Where the big problem begins is with premises 4 – 6. To the point, I do not know what you mean by “secondary cause”. Please explain what the juxtaposition of those two words means to you. If by “secondary cause” you mean causes that are secondary in the order of occurrence, then my answer will be different from my answer to the question should you mean causes of lesser importance, or some other signification. It would be very helpful to know what you mean by it, in the statements below:

“4. No secondary cause can move itself if not itself moved.
5. Human choices are secondary causes
6. Ergo, human choice is dependent on something higher and external.”

I think you are trying to mark some sort of distinction between “grades” of efficient causes. But, amongst efficient causes, there is no gradation. Efficient causes are efficient causes, each having the same impact on the chain as the next, except at the chain’s absolute beginning. Or, on the other hand, you may simply be attempting to delineate between causes that directly “pass” from potency to act, in a primary way, as opposed to “causes” that are more rightly considered parts of chains, or, abstractions, that supply our minds with the information needed in order for us to decide to act in one way or another.

Anyway, it’s very vague. If it’s the latter meaning, I suspect that you have already guessed that there is no equating “real” cause and effect, and “apparently” real cause and effect. Nevertheless, I will stipulate, just for the record, that a decision process has taken place that seems to share a non-physical likeness with “real” causality. I know that I act – at least in important matters – after obtaining all of the knowledge I can of the possible consequences of my actions, which persuades me towards one action or another.

Next you say, “To someone who objects that my “free will”, my choices I’m responsible for may be externally driven, I say, “how else could it be, what other basis is there for choosing?”

I answer that my juxtaposition of several choices and the analysis of the possible consequences of each one, is not “externally” driven in the sense you mean. In fact, since the electrical impulses, in my mind, are exclusively mine, my choices are “internally” driven. Since my mental pictures of the consequences are among my closest personal possessions, and are thereby permitted to be right or wrong depending upon the overall health and wellbeing of my mind and brain, there is nothing more certainly mine than my perceptions.

Then, you say, “I suppose ‘randomness’ does qualify, the throw of the dice, and would be truly free, but this seems unacceptable to Christians. But if one’s choices are not random, fundamentally, what does determine the choice of A over B or C?”

I answer that there is a major difference between that which is “random” and that which is “chance”. One can study a “randomnicity” and make predictions about it. Chance, on the other hand, includes the introduction of some unknown exigency totally unrelated to the randomnicity that cannot be studied, and no predictions can be made for it. If, instead of our choices being random, they are affected by chance, the unacceptability that is extant for randomness may not be a problem for those opposed to it. So, the human element, the “chance” element, is decided, ultimately, by us.

Now, with regard to Aristotle, you cannot straw-man the argument then claim some sort of win. Who said a man cannot be a self-moved mover? Certainly he can. And, he can be a moved mover in a primary way. But, this merely means that he is not an interior part of an essentially subordinated chain.

The principle is, “whatever is moved is moved by something other than itself; there must be an extrinsic mover whenever there is motion.” But, the impetus to move is not the selection of one supposedly studied, better rationale over another, it is the mind telling the muscles, “Now, get up and move.” So, the cause is that part of the brain that instigates the nerves and subsequently the muscles to rise up and get the body moving. There is no simultaneity in these actions. In fact, though I may decide on a course of action today, I might not act on it until tomorrow, or some other future time.

jd

 

[Matthias123]

I will brain storm on this and post tomorrow. I have not thought much about free will, as the idea of it has always seemed rather evident to me. I understand that you have given a valid objection, and I will hope to post tomorrow. (I spent the whole day thinking about the First Way, so my brain is not in a state to do anymore thinking)

 

[NowAgnostic]

So, elsewhere I am going back and forth with a Catholic friend about free will and its illusory nature (or not), and I came upon an interest (to me) problem with Aristotelian principles and free will.

Every single time debates regarding free will go off the rails unless everyone agrees from the outset on exactly what is meant by “free will”. Do we mean:

1. Compatibilist free will, (compatible with determinism) “free will” is defined as the lack of external hindrance from acting in accordance with one’s desires (but they can be pre-determined); or
2. Libertarian free will, nothing can cause or pre-determine a person’s choice in any situation.

I’m sure this has come up before, but neither I or my interlocutor could recall or easily find the answer. So, maybe the big brained Catholics here can recall the way out of this putative conundrum?

Sure, adopt compatibilist free will like Aquinas.

On Aristotelian principles, it seems the Christian cannot be truly free to choose, as this would make every human an “unmoved mover”, and would the First Cause would be rendered thoroughly absurd. If man cannot move except that he is moved upon by something, how can he be free?

Yes, and therefore Aquinas held the human will was moved by God. Now by “free to choose” you presumably mean libertarian free will and then you don’t just have a conundrum, you have a contradiction. The ability to choose rightly (the potency) mysteriously pops into act without a cause, something absolutely impossible under Thomistic metaphysics.

 

[Touchstone]

from above . . .

Perhaps you mean “First Cause” to be a synonym for God, the Father. I’m not quite sure from the way you wrote your lead-in to the dilemma. On the assumption that I was right in my original diagnosis, we shall move on from that. So, at least for me, the next question is: in what way does the seeming problem of free will impinge upon Aristotle’s First Cause? I need a little more specificity, please.

I don’t think this complaint militates against Aristotle’s First Cause in any way. Rather, I see the First Cause as a problem for the Christian idea of libertarian free will (the non-Calvinist form). First Cause is not the target here, but the tool that seems to pry libertarian free will off it’s foundation.

I would re-write premises 1 – 3, of your Objection, but, for no other reason than to make them more intelligible to a reader, thus saving ourselves the problems of misinterpretation down the road. Thus:

“1. Self-determination is being able to choose between two or more options, relative to some desired purpose or end. (tautology) – I’m not sure why you want to explain this as a tautology? Also, what’s the significance of modifying the meaning of, ‘two or more options’, with the word ‘exclusive’?).

I’m fine with the re-write, and am not surprised to encounter such – this was written as a bit of an after-thought from an email conversation, that I thought thinkers here might address. I use ‘exclusive’ just because in my experience, if I’m not explicit in specifying that choices must be exclusive, I get back objections that the choices are or maybe proxies for one another – that’s all. As long as we understand this to be “real choice” – choosing A creates a different world in a forward sense than B – then we’re clear.

1. There is free-will (self determination) in human minds.
2. Ergo, human minds can choose on their own between two or more ‘exclusive’ options.” (Again, significance?)

Just being explicit. Choices here necessarily negate the other paths as choices (‘lemma non-equivalence’ we would say in software terms).

Where the big problem begins is with premises 4 – 6. To the point, I do not know what you mean by “secondary cause”. Please explain what the juxtaposition of those two words means to you. If by “secondary cause” you mean causes that are secondary in the order of occurrence, then my answer will be different from my answer to the question should you mean causes of lesser importance, or some other signification. It would be very helpful to know what you mean by it, in the statements below:

“4. No secondary cause can move itself if not itself moved.
5. Human choices are secondary causes
6. Ergo, human choice is dependent on something higher and external.”

My recollection is that this is the language that Pomponazzi used, which is why I was using it. I see in my haste that I misspelled “Pomponazzi” in my thread title, which I think also explains my failure to find the quote with Google. I have an oldish book here, The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, that confirms my misspelling of Pomponazzi, and has lots of references to him in the index, but as is the trouble with real books, finding “Pomponazzi” and “secondary cause” together is tricky. I will have to go reread that section, and can report back the quote when I find it.

Nevertheless, I think there’s nothing novel in my use of “secondary cause” – a cause that cannot become active except by the power of the primary cause. If I sit down and play you a bit of Rachmaninoff on the piano, I am the primary cause of your listening experience, and the piano is the secondary cause. Clear?

-TS

(con’t)

 

[Touchstone]

I think you are trying to mark some sort of distinction between “grades” of efficient causes. But, amongst efficient causes, there is no gradation. Efficient causes are efficient causes, each having the same impact on the chain as the next, except at the chain’s absolute beginning. Or, on the other hand, you may simply be attempting to delineate between causes that directly “pass” from potency to act, in a primary way, as opposed to “causes” that are more rightly considered parts of chains, or, abstractions, that supply our minds with the information needed in order for us to decide to act in one way or another.

Anyway, it’s very vague. If it’s the latter meaning, I suspect that you have already guessed that there is no equating “real” cause and effect, and “apparently” real cause and effect. Nevertheless, I will stipulate, just for the record, that a decision process has taken place that seems to share a non-physical likeness with “real” causality. I know that I act – at least in important matters – after obtaining all of the knowledge I can of the possible consequences of my actions, which persuades me towards one action or another.

Yes, but if that were all that contributed to your actions, your will isn’t free, but a bound by the results of your investigation. It’s a mechanistic model, an algorithm, which is fine, but one in which – see J.L. Mackie’s examples – it’s trivial to overthrow, just as a matter of choosing something else to prove one’s autonomy (which only recurses into the question of whether that choice was, in turn, determined by a determining urge to disprove determinism…).

If your choosing is utterly endogenous, then, that would support the notion of libertarian free will, but be an effect with an entirely local efficient cause. Each man a “prime mover” in that regard, then. If, alternatively, the choice a man makes is exogenous with respect to himself, a “secondary cause” dependent on the active primary cause outside himself, that free will is undermined.

Next you say, “To someone who objects that my “free will”, my choices I’m responsible for may be externally driven, I say, “how else could it be, what other basis is there for choosing?”

I answer that my juxtaposition of several choices and the analysis of the possible consequences of each one, is not “externally” driven in the sense you mean. In fact, since the electrical impulses, in my mind, are exclusively mine, my choices are “internally” driven. Since my mental pictures of the consequences are among my closest personal possessions, and are thereby permitted to be right or wrong depending upon the overall health and wellbeing of my mind and brain, there is nothing more certainly mine than my perceptions.

Sure, and I agree there’s nothing more personal, nothing more unassailably personal than just that. But if we assume you have a healthy, rational mind/brain, “internally driven” doesn’t explain anything causally; it only distinguishes it as “internal” as opposed to “external” in its execution. It’s yours, it’s personal, but that doesn’t insulate such a choice in terms of causal factors.

Consider a tumor growing in your brain – OK, growing in my brain! It’s just as “Internal” as a developing phenomenon as my thoughts, but perhaps the causal factors were external – radiation I unknowingly was exposed to, too much mercury in my diet, whatever. I’ll allow that it may be “internal” causally, too, the product of some random frameshift errors in the transcription process that had terrible long term consequences for me, or what not, but the point there is, even though I don’t suppose a tumor is anything like my thoughts as a personal possession or even just a complex phenomenon, that should convey the distinction I’m driving at; saying “my thoughts are mine” doesn’t raise an objection – I share that sentiment, viscerally – but neither is it dispositive in terms of causality.

If we looked at the electrical impulses in your brain, and traced their source, would they truly be “yours” – not in terms of possession, but causation – or would they be dependent on outside stimuli? I will just put the phrase “pink elephant” in this sentence, and thus claim I have put that “brain-state”, that electrical pattern in your head “forcibly”; in reading this post, you are agreeing to let me direct lots of brain-states in your head (and vice versa).

Chew on that, and see what you think, but nevermind, really. The important part is this:

If I stipulate, arguendo, that your personal thoughts are insuperably “personal and internal”, impervious to outside influence, and not dependent on them in any way, **ANY **choice you make, then, would make you “Prime Mover”, your thoughts would be an “uncaused cause”, in the Aristotelian nomenclature.

Consider the counter-rebuttal I get from people advancing the Kalam: I say “virtual particles are uncaused effects”, and the response, invariably now, as the apologetics have become diffuse on this, “well, the quantom void isn’t nothing, but is a seething context of energy”, etc. – an “efficient cause” for virtual particles, even if their timing and energy dynamics perfectly fit “uncaused” in terms of proximal mechanism. The cause is imputed to the quantum void, which in principle I except (but with qualification, another issue I won’t address here) – somehow, some way.

Why? Well, because, you cannot have virtual particles be truly uncaused effects, or the Kalam, and other related premises come crashing down hard.

I’m thinking that this same principle cuts both ways here, and makes “free choices” as offensive as “virtual particles”, as they are putative “uncaused effects”. On Aristotelian understandings, those choices must be caused, because they themselves are effects, even as they are causes themselves.

The piano doesn’t play itself, that is to say.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Every single time debates regarding free will go off the rails unless everyone agrees from the outset on exactly what is meant by “free will”. Do we mean:

1. Compatibilist free will, (compatible with determinism) “free will” is defined as the lack of external hindrance from acting in accordance with one’s desires (but they can be pre-determined); or
2. Libertarian free will, nothing can cause or pre-determine a person’s choice in any situation.

I used “libertarian free will” in a couple places in posts I just put up to make that more clear, sorry – see above where “libertarian free will” gets dislodged by the First Cause in my post to jDaniel. But I’m actually focusing here on the compatabilist rendering, as that’s the tougher problem, and specifically whether the “pre-determination of internal desires” can be resolved with the causality notions of Aristotle.

That is, if a Catholic here says they are “Thomist compatibilists” in terms of free will, I’m wondering about the implication of the determinism that gets scoped to the desire, the “internal state”. I think, form reading what jDaniel wrote in reply, that my “missing piece” was allowing for “chance” to be acceptable as the underwriter of “free” in “free will”. I’m not convinced that’s an accurate summary of his take on it, yet, but that would seem remarkable as a position for a Thomist compatibilist to take, but “remarkableness” notwithstanding, it would resolve the tension. And, curiously, would be very much the response I would give from my perspective.

If, on the other hand, “chance” is not acceptable as a surrogate for “free” to the Thomist, then the tension obtains. Without chance, man’s desires are “fully determined” externally, or else every man is an “unmoved mover” unto himself. If it’s the former case, that’s just dealing with the implications of determinism. If it’s the latter, and this was where I was aiming in my original post, the statement “all men are unmoved movers” has profound implications for Aristotelian thinkers. Or so I claim, anyway. More on that if the ball rolls there, I guess.

Sure, adopt compatibilist free will like Aquinas.

As a compatabilist myself, I think that’s fine, but my resolution obtains in a way there that I thought a Catholic, an Aristotelian, would object to – that our desires are effective in determining our actions, but subject to some level of randomness in the system, a part of our physiology, which makes us more “free” in the sense that a random number generator is “free”.

I’ll see how jDaniel (or others) reply, but I expect(ed) that to be an unacceptable answer for Catholics. I may be mistaken!

Yes, and therefore Aquinas held the human will was moved by God. Now by “free to choose” you presumably mean libertarian free will and then you don’t just have a conundrum, you have a contradiction. The ability to choose rightly (the potency) mysteriously pops into act without a cause, something absolutely impossible under Thomistic metaphysics.

As I understand Aquinas, our nature determines our will towards certain ends, and we will by necessity, not as a matter of free choice. Human freedom obtains in the consideration of the various paths we identify toward those (determined) ends. The ends we have set for us, then, but the means to get there remain paths we can choose “freely” from. The causality of that “intellecting”, our judgment as to the means we adopt toward preset ends that has me identifying an ostensible problem.

I suggest, for Aquinas, in light of his views of causality, this remains problematic, even under this umbrella of compatibilism, in a way it doesn’t for me, as acausality, or just pure randomness, is not problematic for me like (I thought) it to be for Aristotle and Aquinas. As jDaniel suggested, there’s the prospect of “unmoved movers” in there, still, which I see as problematic, but which jDaniel apparently doesn’t, so long as its isolated in its “uncausedness”.

As I said, I’m not going to be surprised to learn this is “old ground” to cover, and am happy to be pointed to that “old ground”. If “Hey, Aquinas was a compatabilist” seems an adequate answer, I think I’ve failed to articulate the issue here on my end.

-TS

 

[Prodigal_Son]

If, on the other hand, “chance” is not acceptable as a surrogate for “free” to the Thomist, then the tension obtains. Without chance, man’s desires are “fully determined” externally, or else every man is an “unmoved mover” unto himself. If it’s the former case, that’s just dealing with the implications of determinism. If it’s the latter, and this was where I was aiming in my original post, the statement “all men are unmoved movers” has profound implications for Aristotelian thinkers. Or so I claim, anyway. More on that if the ball rolls there, I guess.

My two cents…

I would accept “all men are unmoved movers,” with provisos.

Let me compare this to a train. When a train is moving steadily, the engine need not apply any force; it will continue to move as it was moving. Likewise, human beings have momentum. In this sense, our “decisions” are almost always caused by our past. Very rarely do we express libertarian free will, but we have the capacity to do so. This is the train conductor pulling the brake, so to speak, or choosing between two tracks which diverge. In such moments, we are unmoved movers.

Now, I’m not a believer in “arguments for the existence of God”, but nevertheless I don’t see how many unmoved movers kills such a “causal” argument. If I were to say that:

P: Every contingent fact about the world must have a cause.

I can still claim that the existence of the world itself must be explained by a necessary being, that is, the one particular unmoved mover who just happens to be God.

But yes, I will admit my theory has a strange result: suddenly, your existence and my existence are no longer contingent, but rather (it seems) necessary. And now I say to myself, “Self, have you veered off into heresy again?”

I would prefer to think of it this way, however: God’s existence is as a premise from which our existence, and the existence of the world arises. Our existence is as a premise from which our action arises. We might not have been, in relation to God. But we must be, in order for our actions to be.

 

[Touchstone]

My two cents…

I would accept “all men are unmoved movers,” with provisos.

Let me compare this to a train. When a train is moving steadily, the engine need not apply any force; it will continue to move as it was moving. Likewise, human beings have momentum. In this sense, our “decisions” are almost always caused by our past. Very rarely do we express libertarian free will, but we have the capacity to do so. This is the train conductor pulling the brake, so to speak, or choosing between two tracks which diverge. In such moments, we are unmoved movers.

I think there’s some equivocation complicating things here on the use of “move” and “motion”. Certainly for Aristotle and I think for Aquinas as well “motion” (motus) was NOT just “physical motion”, but “change”, “alteration”. See, for example, Aquinas example on motion, fire; fire takes something only *potentially *hot, and reifies heat – the ignition represents motion, in the terminology of Aquinas, from potentially aflame to actually aflame.

If we accept that human minds – all human minds – are “unmoved movers”, that seems quite a problem for Aquinas’ Argument from Motion:

*Nothing moves without a prior mover.
This leads us to a regress, from which the only escape is God.
Something had to make the first move, and that something we call God. *

This argument fails spectacularly as soon human minds become “unmoved movers”. The train in your example may be “moved” to the left or the right track at the switch by a human mind, an “unmoved mover”, who, according to Aquinas, must necessarily take on the attributes we associate with “God”. Recall that Aristotle, when asked (by himself, I think) about the number of “unmoved movers” in reality, supposed there were something like “fifty” – the number of heavenly bodies. Later, invoking a line from the *lliad, *he supposed that rule by many was bad, rule by one ruler was the best.

Now, I’m not a believer in “arguments for the existence of God”, but nevertheless I don’t see how many unmoved movers kills such a “causal” argument. If I were to say that:

P: Every contingent fact about the world must have a cause.

I can still claim that the existence of the world itself must be explained by a necessary being, that is, the one particular unmoved mover who just happens to be God.

I don’t suppose billions of unmoved movers does contradict (P) there, if for no other reason than it’s a tautology – by “contingent” we mean to say that which has a cause.

What minds as unmoved movers does entail, however is that the any given causal chain need not trace back to God; any human will do to terminate the regress, and a human is as efficacious as God in explaining motion. For any given motion, then, as soon as the causal chain crosses a “human mind node”, we might stop there.

But yes, I will admit my theory has a strange result: suddenly, your existence and my existence are no longer contingent, but rather (it seems) necessary. And now I say to myself, “Self, have you veered off into heresy again?”

I guess that depends on how orthodox Aquinas is. On that model, each human mind is “God” by definition. Reading that back, that wars against much more than just Thomist arguments from motion, doesn’t it?

I would prefer to think of it this way, however: God’s existence is as a premise from which our existence, and the existence of the world arises. Our existence is as a premise from which our action arises. We might not have been, in relation to God. But we must be, in order for our actions to be.

Well, given the twists and turns the above produces (some of which complications I’ll own as due to my poor articulation, but only some!), I can see why you’d prefer that view.

-TS

 

[Matthias123]

I do not currently have time to read your entire posts touchstone, so I am just going to go ahead and give my position in the hopes that it will help. I believe we need to make a distinction between efficient causation and formal causation. As the first cause, from an Thomistic standpoint, is not only the first efficient cause, but the first formal cause, and thus all forms that exist in reality are either created by Him either directly or indirectly. (created by an intellect that He brought into being) The efficient cause can establish that certain effects happen by necessity, as we can observe in our natural world, but even so a free observer would still, given that it is not necessarily impossible could still potentially choose freely from what choices are available to him. As from the moment of conception, when the efficient cause of the sperm, fertilizes the material cause of the ovum, we receive a formal cause, that has been deemed specifically for us by God. This formal cause brings into being a form that is peculiar in the sense that it bears the proper accident of rationality. In this it bears the image of God, which is free will, and in this man becomes a self moved mover, being able to choose what is available to him. I do not really see how the restriction of possible choices would void free will, unless it were the case that material necessity forced us to commit actions without allowing us to exercise our self-motion, but even in this case, we would still have free will, but just not be able to exercise.

To answer your question, it is not a problem as man is a self- moved mover and can choose from among any actions that are possible to commit, those that are not possible to commit are not possible due to providence.

 

[Matthias123]

If we accept that human minds – all human minds – are “unmoved movers”, that seems quite a problem for Aquinas’ Argument from Motion:

This is an error. Motion is from potency to act, this includes formal causation, so the human mind is far from unmoved, it has a formal cause that brought the form into existance.

 

[NowAgnostic]

I used “libertarian free will” in a couple places in posts I just put up to make that more clear, sorry – see above where “libertarian free will” gets dislodged by the First Cause in my post to jDaniel. But I’m actually focusing here on the compatabilist rendering, as that’s the tougher problem, and specifically whether the “pre-determination of internal desires” can be resolved with the causality notions of Aristotle.

OK.

That is, if a Catholic here says they are “Thomist compatibilists” in terms of free will, I’m wondering about the implication of the determinism that gets scoped to the desire, the “internal state”. I think, form reading what jDaniel wrote in reply, that my “missing piece” was allowing for “chance” to be acceptable as the underwriter of “free” in “free will”.

Absolutely impossible according to Thomism. Anything good cannot be the result of unexplained “chance”.

I’m not convinced that’s an accurate summary of his take on it, yet, but that would seem remarkable as a position for a Thomist compatibilist to take, but “remarkableness” notwithstanding, it would resolve the tension. And, curiously, would be very much the response I would give from my perspective.

You’ve just moved the problem one step back. Instead of being “free to choose” between alternatives, we are now “free to choose” our desires, which pre-determine oru choices.

If, on the other hand, “chance” is not acceptable as a surrogate for “free” to the Thomist, then the tension obtains. Without chance, man’s desires are “fully determined” externally, or else every man is an “unmoved mover” unto himself. If it’s the former case, that’s just dealing with the implications of determinism. If it’s the latter, and this was where I was aiming in my original post, the statement “all men are unmoved movers” has profound implications for Aristotelian thinkers. Or so I claim, anyway. More on that if the ball rolls there, I guess.

Oh, absolutely. The first, second, and fifth ways immediately fail, the first mover, first cause, or designer isn’t God.

As a compatabilist myself, I think that’s fine, but my resolution obtains in a way there that I thought a Catholic, an Aristotelian, would object to – that our desires are effective in determining our actions, but subject to some level of randomness in the system, a part of our physiology, which makes us more “free” in the sense that a random number generator is “free”.

I’ll see how jDaniel (or others) reply, but I expect(ed) that to be an unacceptable answer for Catholics. I may be mistaken!

It certainly would be unacceptable for Thomists!

As I understand Aquinas, our nature determines our will towards certain ends, and we will by necessity, not as a matter of free choice. Human freedom obtains in the consideration of the various paths we identify toward those (determined) ends. The ends we have set for us, then, but the means to get there remain paths we can choose “freely” from. The causality of that “intellecting”, our judgment as to the means we adopt toward preset ends that has me identifying an ostensible problem.

I’m not sure that understanding is entirely correct.

As I said, I’m not going to be surprised to learn this is “old ground” to cover, and am happy to be pointed to that “old ground”. If “Hey, Aquinas was a compatabilist” seems an adequate answer, I think I’ve failed to articulate the issue here on my end.

-TS

Well it’s an adequate answer in a way, our good desires also have to be willed by God.

 

[Matthias123]

that our desires are effective in determining our actions, but subject to some level of randomness in the system, a part of our physiology, which makes us more “free” in the sense that a random number generator is “free”.

I would object to the fact that our desires impose some sort of necessity on us, as instincts do to lower creatures. This is obviously not the cause, as we often resist extremely strong disordered desires to act towards a greater good. As I often have the strong desire to lust, but I choose not to commit a lustful action out of a natural desire that will obtain a higher good. Thus I would certainly say in some cases, our will can be inclined towards a certain end by habit (As in the case with virtue and vice-- acting according to, or contrary to, natural law) but there is no necessity here.

Well it’s an adequate answer in a way, our good desires also have to be willed by God.

When we get into desire it seems to lead into ethics. I don’t think this is really relevent.

 

[JDaniel]

I don’t think this complaint militates against Aristotle’s First Cause in any way. Rather, I see the First Cause as a problem for the Christian idea of libertarian free will (the non-Calvinist form). First Cause is not the target here, but the tool that seems to pry libertarian free will off it’s foundation.

Yes, that would appear to be a logical conclusion if, in fact, the First Cause was a “problem” for the idea of libertarian free will. But, what if First Cause was not a problem? What if this local association of First Cause and will is the product of some misunderstanding(s)?

Somewhere along the line, it seems that someone has equated First Cause with that which is not a first cause, and moreover, not even causal, but rather is merely a motive. I can see how a motive could emulate a cause, in people’s minds. However, using a strict definition of cause it is not a cause.

The process of choosing between two or more items of interest to me is not an inevitability. Rather, I see it like this: if I am attracted to only one item-of-interest, I cannot help but attend to it, at least until I see a better reason to attend to one of the others. At that time, I may switch my attending view to the other one. However, if neither one is attractive to me, I might ignore both of them. It may come to pass that I am equally attracted to each of the choices before me, in which case I will more than likely do nothing with regard to either of them. But, if one of them attracts me more than the other – let’s say I perceive it to be the more pleasurable of the two, whilst the other one I perceive to be the greater good, I may attend so much to the first one that the second one practically disappears from my view. Then the first one will change from being just an idea and become an ideal, and its attracting power will become more than just an attracting force, it will be a reasonable motive. So, I choose it. But, even so, it was not an inevitable choosing, because, notwithstanding the power of any attractive “force”, I might not have yielded to it. As Rev. C.C. Martindale, S.J. once said, “It is, on the whole, in this negative power of not yielding that I catch myself acting ‘freely’.

Further, he says, “Notice then that the real source of the difficulty of “free will” arises from the using of my imagination, and imagery drawn from the material world , by means of which to examine and explain the activity of what we have seen to be essentially non-material – spiritual.

“I might add that a confusion arises sometimes, owing to people thinking that free-will implies that you can act without a motive. We have not said that [here]; but, that you are not forced instantly to act according to even the stronger motive. And again confusion arises owing to its being thought that we suggest that all human acts are as a matter of fact ‘free.’ I suppose that there are very few fully free acts in a day of life; and many that are not free at all. Much is automatic; much is impulsive; much is very largely just instinctive.”

I’m fine with the re-write, and am not surprised to encounter such – this was written as a bit of an after-thought from an email conversation, that I thought thinkers here might address. I use ‘exclusive’ just because in my experience, if I’m not explicit in specifying that choices must be exclusive, I get back objections that the choices are or maybe proxies for one another – that’s all. As long as we understand this to be “real choice” – choosing A creates a different world in a forward sense than B – then we’re clear.

Good. That makes it clear.

Just being explicit. Choices here necessarily negate the other paths as choices (‘lemma non-equivalence’ we would say in software terms).
My recollection is that this is the language that Pomponazzi used, which is why I was using it. I see in my haste that I misspelled “Pomponazzi” in my thread title, which I think also explains my failure to find the quote with Google. I have an oldish book here, The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, that confirms my misspelling of Pomponazzi, and has lots of references to him in the index, but as is the trouble with real books, finding “Pomponazzi” and “secondary cause” together is tricky. I will have to go reread that section, and can report back the quote when I find it.

Nevertheless, I think there’s nothing novel in my use of “secondary cause” – a cause that cannot become active except by the power of the primary cause.

OK. Now that clears up the meaning of “secondary cause” for me. Such is not in the Aristotelian/Aquinian vocabulary as a “secondary” cause. We do not say that “my shoulder caused my upper arm, to cause my lower arm, to cause my hand, to cause the hammer’s handle, to cause the head of the hammer, to cause the nail to be driven into the wood.” We simply say, I hammered the nail into the wood. Nevertheless, when we dissect the movers in such a series, it does appear that the subsequent causes in the series are “secondary,” “tertiary”, “quaternary”, etc., causes, and, particularly when the First Cause is thought to be the ultimate cause.

continued . . .

 

[JDaniel]

Continuation from above . . .

But, I think you can see now why the selection of a motive, which then is said to be the motivation for a choosing of an action is not the same as its cause, per se. The cause of setting things in motion to attend to the stronger motive is something very different. The motivation to set things in motion this way or that, is not something dependent upon an appetite for it in the effect. Often, another motive can be the motivation for quite the same effect. I may go to see a movie because I’d heard it was good, or, I like the lead actors, or, it is about a subject that interests me, or, it is appearing in a theater nearby, or, it – unlike the other movie choices - hasn’t’t started yet. Perhaps the motive is all of these taken together.

Motive can be “causative”, but, in this case it is not expressly or dynamically causative as in the sense of causing being, or substantially changing being, or coming into being, or dying. It is more like a rationale, or, a motivational critique, or speech.

If I sit down and play you a bit of Rachmaninoff on the piano, I am the primary cause of your listening experience, and the piano is the secondary cause. Clear?

In a counting sort of way, yes, however, the piano could be outfitted with the mechanism to make it play by itself – and with you sitting on the stool watching the show. The piano is not necessarily a cause that is second, it may be primary. However, I doubt it would be as inspirational!

jd

 

[Touchstone]

Yes, that would appear to be a logical conclusion if, in fact, the First Cause was a “problem” for the idea of libertarian free will. But, what if First Cause was not a problem? What if this local association of First Cause and will is the product of some misunderstanding(s)?

I mentioned above that I think my argument raises problems for libertarian free will (that is, the wider sense of freedom not constrained by compatibilist notions), but my “target” in this thread was actually in the compatibilist notion of free will, where the mind is free to act one’s desires, even though those desires themselves may be determined.

As for the what it, I’m open to new understandings, but not sure where you are going. The “what if” would depend on the nature of any putative understanding, I guess.

Somewhere along the line, it seems that someone has equated First Cause with that which is not a first cause, and moreover, not even causal, but rather is merely a motive. I can see how a motive could emulate a cause, in people’s minds. However, using a strict definition of cause it is not a cause.

Well, that is likely a significant part of any confusion here, on my part, then. Can you give me a strict definition of “cause” to use as my measure, then? I have more to say here, but if you’re right, I better hold off and make sure we are connecting on terms.

The process of choosing between two or more items of interest to me is not an inevitability. Rather, I see it like this: if I am attracted to only one item-of-interest, I cannot help but attend to it, at least until I see a better reason to attend to one of the others. At that time, I may switch my attending view to the other one. However, if neither one is attractive to me, I might ignore both of them. It may come to pass that I am equally attracted to each of the choices before me, in which case I will more than likely do nothing with regard to either of them. But, if one of them attracts me more than the other – let’s say I perceive it to be the more pleasurable of the two, whilst the other one I perceive to be the greater good, I may attend so much to the first one that the second one practically disappears from my view. Then the first one will change from being just an idea and become an ideal, and its attracting power will become more than just an attracting force, it will be a reasonable motive. So, I choose it. But, even so, it was not an inevitable choosing, because, notwithstanding the power of any attractive “force”, I might not have yielded to it. As Rev. C.C. Martindale, S.J. once said, “It is, on the whole, in this negative power of not yielding that I catch myself acting ‘freely’.

Yes, but this just invokes a regress, itself. You point out that A and B may both be “insufficiently attractive” choices, and that you may choose to eschew both of them. But this is itself a choice, which then raises the question of its causality. Why would one choose to be so particular about “attractiveness” with regard to those options? What are the features of those options that make them “unattractive”, or “insufficiently attractive”? In the case you describe, you are choosing the “demanding the sufficient attractiveness in adopted choices”. A and B you pass on in favor of C – “none of the above”. But “none of the above” either comes about by causation or non-causation, by law or by chance.

And should you see fit to explain C in terms of something yet higher to which that choice is subordinate, we move our regress yet one more step back, and then inquire as to what caused that choice…

Further, he says, “Notice then that the real source of the difficulty of “free will” arises from the using of my imagination, and imagery drawn from the material world , by means of which to examine and explain the activity of what we have seen to be essentially non-material – spiritual.

I understand the urge to shift this into the “mystery” column, the “immaterial sphere” where causality is much more (or perfectly?) inscrutable, but no matter: either the choice arises as an effect from causal factors, or it does not. If it does obtain from causal factors, once those causal factors are identified as “external to mind”, the mind is, by definition, being controlled in its choice. That is, “not free”. If the choices obtain without causal factors, you have an unmoved mover, and all the problems that cascade from that.

-TS

(con’t)

 

[Touchstone]

“I might add that a confusion arises sometimes, owing to people thinking that free-will implies that you can act without a motive. We have not said that [here]; but, that you are not forced instantly to act according to even the stronger motive. And again confusion arises owing to its being thought that we suggest that all human acts are as a matter of fact ‘free.’ I suppose that there are very few fully free acts in a day of life; and many that are not free at all. Much is automatic; much is impulsive; much is very largely just instinctive.”

I understand, but I think that is not a relevant concern here. If we said that we are looking at just one single choice here in a man’s life which is putatively a “free choice”, and granted that every other feature of the man’s life and mental activity was completely determined and utterly beyond his control, this problem would still hold force with respect to that one choice.

If we think that one choice is free (the obvious single choice here is “love God” or “do not love God”, right?), even in the more constrained compatibilist sense, whence this freedom? On a Thomist view, there are accidental causes – Aquinas had no problem with, allowing that chance events could accidentally intersect causal chains – but this is not where he locates “freedom”, is it? If our freedom is not just ‘selection by chance’, what other options are there besides determinism, for Aquinas? The only logical “third choice” beyond determinism and chance I can think of is to posit each mind as a non-contingent god in its own right.

I’m still not sure if that’s where you are going, but I suspect it is, albeit with man somehow deprecated to a demi-god of some kind, so as to preserve God’s ultimate supremacy, and maintain some “substance of freedom” in man’s mind as unmoved mover.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

JDaniel:

OK. Now that clears up the meaning of “secondary cause” for me. Such is not in the Aristotelian/Aquinian vocabulary as a “secondary” cause.

From *Summa, P1, A2:
*

Objection 2. Further, the effect of the secondary cause is reduced to the first cause. But good is the cause of evil, as was said above (Article 1). Therefore, since God is the cause of every good, as was shown above (2, 3; 6, 1,4), it follows that also every evil is from God.

See also *Summa, P2.2, A2:
*

Reply to Objection 1. The effect is done away, not only when the first cause is removed, but also when the secondary cause is removed. Hence the movement of hope can be done away, not only by the removal of the universal estimate of faith, which is, so to say, the first cause of the certainty of hope, but also by the removal of the particular estimate, which is the secondary cause, as it were.

(my emphasis in both)

See my specific example of the piano invoked for Aquinas’ “secondary cause” here:

5.3. Thomas Aquinas: God Acts Through Secondary Causes
5.3.1. Primary and Secondary Causes
Example: consider the quality and beauty of piano music at a concert.

•  Primary Cause: the gifted pianist with the ability to play the piano beautifully

•  Secondary Cause: the piano

•  The primary cause (the gifted pianist) must work through the secondary cause (the piano) to achieve the effect they desire. If the piano is horribly out of tune

and from [Alister McGrath’s Science and Religion: A New Introduction (p95) (http://books.google.com/books?id=wh...fiIxBAZ&pg=PT105&f=false#v=onepage&q=&f=false):

The idea is best explained in terms of an analogy. Suppose we imagine a pianist, who is remarkably gifted. She possesses the ability to play the piano beautifully. Yet the quality of her playing is dependent on the quality of the piano with which she is provided. An out of tune piano will prove disastrous, no matter how expert the player. In our analogy, the pianist is the primary cause, and the piano is the secondary cause, for a performance of, for example, a Chopin nocturne. Both are required; each has a significantly different role to play. The ability of the primary cause to achieve the desired effect is dependent on the secondary cause which has to be used.

Aquinas uses this appeal to secondary cause to deal with some of the issues relating to the presence of evil in the world. Suffering and pain are not to be ascribed to the direct action of God, but to the fragility and frailty of the secondary causes through which God works. God, in other words, is to be seen as the primary cause, and various agencies within the world as the associated secondary causes.

For Aristotle (from whom Aquinas draws many of his ideas), secondary causes are able to act in their own right. Natural objects are able to as secondary causes by virtue of their own nature. This view was unacceptable to theistic philosophers of the Middle Ages, whether Christian or Islamic…

Perhaps you disagree with McGrath’s take there on Aquinas, but I think that supports the way I’ve been using it per Aquinas, and I list the above not to pick nits, but because I think this notion is central to my complaint. As I understand Aquinas, he denies the “freedom” of the “47 or so” heavenly bodies that Aristotle supposed were “unmoved movers” in the world; for Aquinas, all motion traces back up to the One God. That “unity of motion” coalescing in God at the top of a clean hierarchy makes free will even in the compatibilist narrowing of the term problematic, as it rules out those “non-God unmoved movers” – man’s “motion toward a choice” is contingent on God, necessarily, on that view, I suggest.

We do not say that “my shoulder caused my upper arm, to cause my lower arm, to cause my hand, to cause the hammer’s handle, to cause the head of the hammer, to cause the nail to be driven into the wood.” We simply say, I hammered the nail into the wood. Nevertheless, when we dissect the movers in such a series, it does appear that the subsequent causes in the series are “secondary,” “tertiary”, “quaternary”, etc., causes, and, particularly when the First Cause is thought to be the ultimate cause.

continued . . .

I think the “secondary” distinction is much more fundamental than you suppose for Aquinas. As you have it, it’s simply descriptive in a sequential sense. For Aquinas, “secondary” was not useful in distinguishing “upper arm from lower arm”, but in separating God from the direct causes of evil, removing him by indirection, the Perfect Piano player playing a piano that has “chosen” to go out of tune.

It is this direction that I’m focusing in. If God creates man, and man is “free” as a function of intellective soul, his choices are not God’s choices, and this both frees God from direct culpability in man’s evil acts, and implicates man in same. But whence man’s choice, if not from God? By Aquinas, there are no “unmoved movers” but God (unless I’m badly mistaken, please correct if so), and man can no more “move” toward choice A or B on his own than he can create matter ex nihilo. In fact, that’s a good way to frame it – per Aquinas (in contradiction with himself, I suggest), man has the power to create ex nihilo, to create choices and selections that do not obtain from God, or accident.

-TS

 

[JDaniel]

I don’t think this complaint militates against Aristotle’s First Cause in any way. Rather, I see the First Cause as a problem for the Christian idea of libertarian free will (the non-Calvinist form). First Cause is not the target here, but the tool that seems to pry libertarian free will off it’s foundation.

I’m fine with the re-write, and am not surprised to encounter such – this was written as a bit of an after-thought from an email conversation, that I thought thinkers here might address. I use ‘exclusive’ just because in my experience, if I’m not explicit in specifying that choices must be exclusive, I get back objections that the choices are or maybe proxies for one another – that’s all. As long as we understand this to be “real choice” – choosing A creates a different world in a forward sense than B – then we’re clear.

Just being explicit. Choices here necessarily negate the other paths as choices (‘lemma non-equivalence’ we would say in software terms).
My recollection is that this is the language that Pomponazzi used, which is why I was using it. I see in my haste that I misspelled “Pomponazzi” in my thread title, which I think also explains my failure to find the quote with Google. I have an oldish book here, The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, that confirms my misspelling of Pomponazzi, and has lots of references to him in the index, but as is the trouble with real books, finding “Pomponazzi” and “secondary cause” together is tricky. I will have to go reread that section, and can report back the quote when I find it.

Nevertheless, I think there’s nothing novel in my use of “secondary cause” – a cause that cannot become active except by the power of the primary cause. If I sit down and play you a bit of Rachmaninoff on the piano, I am the primary cause of your listening experience, and the piano is the secondary cause. Clear?

TS:

Thank you for pointing out where you had seen “secondary causes” in the Summa. I must say that you have been inadvertently presenting an apples-to-oranges comparison. There are two completely different ideas of causes being spoken of here. The first is the primary causation that St. Thomas describes when he describes, and defends, the four main causes: material, formal, efficient, and final. In other words, the cause-action is a course directly from privation (the absence of form) in the matter (the material cause), to the possession of the form in the matter (the formal cause), because of the work of the efficient cause(s) for the purpose(s) mapped out by the final cause. This is the causation motion for Aristotle/Aquinas. “Secondary” causation is not serially related to this kind of causal motion, but rather, as a second cause, it joins forces, so to speak, with another primary efficient cause to act as one (first) cause.

I hope that makes sense, but, in case it doesn’t I will explain in another way what I mean. Let us say you (the owner) are building a house. In many states, in the United States, if you are not a licensed contractor, you cannot be the GC (General Contractor) for the house. You must hire a real, licensed GC to act as general contractor and then the two of you can build the house together. In this case we have what may be called a complex or compound – for all intents and purposes – singular contractor, consisting of two causes, a legal GC and you. You and the GC are co-directing the building of the house. And, each of you is just as essential to the effect as the other, but not in a sequential way. Both of you are coincidentally and equally first. You are a side-by-side co-existence of first causes that are not subordinated and simply have become a unified cause.

The actual series, per se, would go next to the sub-contractors, the building materials, the subs’ employees, the inspectors, the external suppliers, such as electricity, water, sewer, gas, etc., and so on. In other words, even though the relationship between the exigencies of a compound cause is rather essential to the effect, the exigencies are a unity much more of expediency, and much less of absoluteness. They are two separate things brought together in order to produce the effect, which is the completed house. (I understand that the owner of the house, in this example, would tend to have a bit more power than the legal GC and would want the house the way he wants it. However, the legal GC would be there to tell him - in this case “you” - whether or not it could be done that way.)

Complex cause then, is not the same as what is meant by first cause, in Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ schemas. For one, a First Cause is not a composite except occasionally. Number two, a First Cause is one that acts primarily as a whole so that a compound first cause is a unity. Number three, a First Cause is one that has no requirement for a secondary cause unless it is because of some external requirement incidentally placed upon the normal cause in order to permit the exigencies to be improved upon in some way. You, the owner, could simply have given the whole GC job to the legal GC, in which case you would not be a co-GC, or any part of a compound First Cause.

jd