How can this premise in the Cosmological Argument be true?

[Peter_Plato]

I would like to add that observable conditions which appear sufficient to bring about a physical event are not sufficient to explain why the event does follow from those conditions.

That is why “causes” are not, ultimately, explanatory because they do not explain themselves or the existence of a causal order. Simply pointing out that A is the “cause” of B does not explain why B should follow from A, consistently or necessarily.

Saying something is a “cause” merely directs us to the observable conditions we know to consistently precede the effect. Why these conditions precede this effect is another matter, entirely. One which metaphysics and scientific theories attempt to explain.

 

[Oreoracle]

on no mathematical theory do any of the numbers of a set actually cause any of the others to exist. what you are describing is not a set of existential relations (e.g. as between fathers and sons), but rather logical relations.

Indeed, I conceded as much in the very post you quoted: “Now we don’t actually talk about contingencies in math, but only logical implication.”

Again, as it pertains to physics, time is just a parameter, i.e., a number that helps specify a model. To act as if you need the past to “cause” the future is just as bad as saying you need some numbers to cause other numbers. You could try to assert that time is more than just a parameter, but this goes beyond what physics tells us.

the cosmological argument is an argument about what must be true about concrete objects that exist in existential relations; not about the (many) logical relations that may exist between abstract objects.

If you look further back in the thread, I was replying to a poster who likened the ordering of events to the ordering of natural numbers. He said that you would need a “first” number, but this is actually unnecessary for a mere ordering (a way of deciding which objects precede others), as I pointed out. You only need “first” objects in lists, and assuming that events can be enumerated in such a manner is begging the question.

i believe that our main disagreement (if there is one) concerns an (i.e. your) elision of existential and logical relations, and concrete and abstract objects: spacetime as it exists in our universe is not an abstract space, but a contingent concrete space, and the objects that inhabit that space are themselves all contingent concrete objects. and all of them require a (causal) explanation of their existential relations. this includes the existential and causal relations of the parts of spacetime to one another: witness the horizon problem of current cosmological theory.

So far no one has substantiated the bolded portion. To say the universe is contingent is to say that it didn’t have to exist and it didn’t have to not exist. I will concede that the universe isn’t logically necessary for the sake of argument. Now what? How do you prove from this that it requires further explanation?

Also, what constitutes an explanation, in your opinion? I am assuming you aren’t using the term as it is used in the natural sciences.

 

[Tomdstone]

Indeed, I conceded as much in the very post you quoted: “Now we don’t actually talk about contingencies in math, but only logical implication.”

Again, as it pertains to physics, time is just a parameter, i.e., a number that helps specify a model. To act as if you need the past to “cause” the future is just as bad as saying you need some numbers to cause other numbers. You could try to assert that time is more than just a parameter, but this goes beyond what physics tells us.

If you look further back in the thread, I was replying to a poster who likened the ordering of events to the ordering of natural numbers. He said that you would need a “first” number, but this is actually unnecessary for a mere ordering (a way of deciding which objects precede others), as I pointed out. You only need “first” objects in lists, and assuming that events can be enumerated in such a manner is begging the question.

So far no one has substantiated the bolded portion. To say the universe is contingent is to say that it didn’t have to exist and it didn’t have to not exist. I will concede that the universe isn’t logically necessary for the sake of argument. Now what? How do you prove from this that it requires further explanation?

Also, what constitutes an explanation, in your opinion? I am assuming you aren’t using the term as it is used in the natural sciences.

Is it clear or obvious that the universe is contingent?

 

[Oreoracle]

Is it clear or obvious that the universe is contingent?

Using “contingent” in the modal sense, one could certainly argue that the universe is contingent. We perceive the universe, so presumably its existence is possible, but the laws of logic would be undaunted if it didn’t exist, so it isn’t logically necessary. That being said, I don’t see how the existence of God is necessary, or why contingent things need to be grounded in necessary beings or the like.

In fact, I’ve advanced an argument before in these forums that went something like: 1) God acts according to his nature. 2) God’s nature is necessary (since he is a necessary being, supposedly). Conclusion #1) God’s actions are therefore necessary. 3) God acted so as to create the universe. Conclusion #2) Thus it is necessary that the universe was created.

So if we insist that contingencies be explained in terms of necessities, the contingencies themselves become necessary.

 

[thinkandmull]

Aquinas in the Summa offers his erroneous view that it is rational to believe the world could be eternal. He disagreed with St. Bonaventure on this point, both writing thesis’s on it. Aquinas had a change of heart somewhere (I don’t know the chronology): the Summa Contra Gentiles says there certainly cannot be infinite intermediate movements. He was torn because Aristotle too was self-contradictory on this point.

 

[thinkandmull]

To be fair, I think Aquinas would allow that an infinite regress could be possible, but that it couldn’t sufficiently explain its own existence or even how an Uncaused Cause (aka God) could affect the present from a time in the infinite past. Hilbert’s writings confirm this.

In other words, for anyone looking, a la the principle of sufficient reason, for a sufficient explanation for a causal chain within the chain itself, an infinite regression would be ruled out in principle. You could not, by definition have a sufficient reason for an infinite chain of events within that very chain of events.

That does not rule out the possibility of infinite causal chains existing if the sufficient reason for the existence of the chain itself is “outside” the chain.

This is where Aquinas gets into the difference between causes per se and per accidens

Take the train example.

It is true that the motion of the cars currently in front of us (the present) would never have been passed to these cars if the initial movement began an infinitely long time ago since, for one, infinity would rule out “initial” by definition.

What Aquinas is saying is that a chain of accidental “motion” or change could not depend upon an initiator of that motion from the infinite past.

However, that does not, by itself, rule out the possibility of an infinite chain of “motion” if the initiator is not in the chain itself, but outside of it.

Take the infinitely long train. It could not be powered by a locomotive at one end, partly because there is no end to begin with, but also because “motion” could not be transmitted from the infinite past to the present - it would never get here.

However, if what it is that “powers” the chain of train cars is not a locomotive at the end but, if this were, say, a child’s play set consisting of an infinitely long train on an infinitely long track, the child’s hand at a specific location in time and space could by pushing it from somewhere in the middle, transfer motion in both directions (front and back) at the same time. Similarly some conception of the “hand of God” (Unmoved Mover, motion per se, etc.) could effect the motion of the train from the present in both directions - from the past and into the future - moving the train forward. In other words, if the “motion” or “cause, per se, of motion” were imparted in the present there would be no need to overcome the problem of an actual infinite and Aquinas would be quite correct to admit the conceptual possibility of an infinite universe provided the present was key to explaining the “motion” of the universe in both temporal directions, i.e., the infinitely long train is moved “from the middle,” from the present by a cause of motion “outside” of the train itself.

The problem with this analogy is that the child’s hand only explains one aspect of the train (its motion in the commonly held sense,) whereas the principle of sufficient reason requires that everything about the train (size, shape, colour, location, existence, etc.) be explained, but a “past dependent” explanation can never suffice for the same reason a past dependent explanation for motion doesn’t.

When Aquinas insists, for example, that God “sustains” all of creation in existence, he is maintaining that the subsistent cause of reality is from the eternal “Now,” not from “the past” pushing forward. This means that causal chains could conceivably be of infinite length in either direction since time, itself, could be generated atemporally.

That doesn’t mean that infinite causal chains necessarily exist, but merely that they are not ruled out a priori. Current Big Bang cosmology is demonstrating that the universe itself is not an infinite causal chain.

Either way, whether the universe is infinite or not, Aquinas’ argument is not affected because he demonstrates that any cause, to sufficiently explain what is required of it, cannot merely operate within either an infinite or finite chain since an Uncaused Cause (Unmoved Mover) must logically account for its own existence (why anything exists at all) prior to (and independent of) explaining anything else.

I think you misunderstand Kreeft, by the way.

I liked what you said about the hand of God moving in the middle and giving cause to both the past and the present. The problem is with infinity itself. It is a self-contradictory idea for four reasons:

1. Prime matter is infinite in divisibility, although it adds up to something finite.
2. Let’s say you are trying to get from A to B. You must first travel half of that distance, but half of THAT distance first, and HALF that ect ect ect. To infinity. But you would never get back to A, even though the point is moving closer and closer to a. And t’s a finite segment;? You can’t say you get to a point that cannot be divided, because then it has ZERO distance and is not a part of the line; a million zeros is ZERO. You can’t say its potentially infinite, because all the halves are there, whether you are thinking about them or not.
3. If it took an infinity to get to a point, you would never get there, although a point with an infinite line from it is thinkable.
4. One can imagine infinite space going in every direction but for some strange reason it is irrational to say it can be filled with anything, for an infinite object is self-contradictory.

Therefore, all arguments of these kinds MUST be rejected as irrational. Life starts at birth, as Jesus says “for a man has now entered the world”. The world itself MUST likewise have a beginning. Your false admission that eternal intermediate causes is possible refused to lead to the conclusion that an eternal support is necessary

 

[thinkandmull]

I personally think this is one of the problem of many modern authors when it comes to philosophy.

there are a few things some modern authors, even Kreft , seem to miss. It could be that they are talking to a modern argument so they are mixing it in with their arguments.

Aquinas says

First Aquinas is not talking using our modern understanding of language. Motion in the 21st century is thought in a strictly scientific way. A bowling ball has motion as it moves down the lane. Motion to put it simply is movement from point a to point b. People don’t know of anything in motion that is anything more than that. Look back earlier in his explanation. (I think many people miss this and fail to realize what is going on)

For aquinas this is what motion is. I have a coffee cup sitting next to me it is potentially cold. But my coffee cup could not move one cm and it still become actually cold. This is motion for aquinas. A movement from potentiality to actuality, nothing more nothing less. That is also the modern notion of motion. The bowling ball is potentially moving from lane to pins. Only when the person bowls the ball does that become actual. Even in that action it is still constantly going from potentiality to actuality.

The thing is Aquinas says that an infinite regress IS possible, but it is shown by divine revelation that God created us and there is a beginning. I don’t remember where this is found but it is out there.

When Aquinas in this talks about this can’t go on to infinity he means that an infinite regress can’t exist in itself. Something that is always active must be responsible for things that are in motion.

Atheist always tend to use the who created God argument. Many Christians can’t respond to it, because they have a Kantian view of the world. A causes B is the only cause that exists. Many don’t have an understanding of primary causality, formal causality final causality etc.

Aquinas does NOT argue that "an infinite regress (simply) can’t exist in itself. **“If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover” **

It is obvious that Aquinas is self-contradictory on these points. The only argument to settle this debate is the convulluted question: was the first cause an effect or a cause?

**For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot. **

WRONG! It can be potentially hotter!

 

[Peter_Plato]

Aquinas does NOT argue that "an infinite regress (simply) can’t exist in itself. **“If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover” **

It is obvious that Aquinas is self-contradictory on these points. The only argument to settle this debate is the convulluted question: was the first cause an effect or a cause?

Aquinas wasn’t self-contradictory on these points. He distinguished between causal order that was per se and order which was per accidens. He conceded that accidental causation that was temporal could involve an infinite series. He never argued that there existed such an infinite series, merely that the cosmological argument, as he formulated it, did not require or depend on causation being finite, which is why he didn’t pursue a counter argument against an infinite regress - he didn’t think it was necessary to do so, so he never contested that point.

Your “convoluted question” is simply malformed. The first cause, in Aquinas’ sense of “ontologically first” could not, itself, be an effect, which is why it is the Uncaused Cause - ipsum esse subsistens. It IS or EXISTS by its very nature, which is “to be.” If anyone feels a need to ask whether the First Cause COULD be an effect then, clearly, what has occurred is a complete “miss” in terms of what Aquinas’ metaphysics were all about.

For a better explanation of this point, see:
edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2010/08/edwards-on-infinite-causal-series.html

**For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot. **

WRONG! It can be potentially hotter!

Huh? It can’t get “potentially hotter” without some cause making it actualize its potential to “get hotter.” It can’t go from hot to hotter without some cause that actualizes its potential to get there. The key words are “it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality IN THE SAME RESPECT.” If something is burning at a temperature of 500 degrees, some causal event actualized its potential to burn at 500 degrees. It may have a potential to burn at 700 degrees, but some reason exists as to why THAT potential hasn’t been actualized yet. It actually is burning at 500 degrees, but there is no sense in saying it still has the potential to burn at 500 degrees. It already has had THAT potential actualized - which is what Aquinas means by “in the same respect.”

 

[Tomdstone]

I liked what you said about the hand of God moving in the middle and giving cause to both the past and the present. The problem is with infinity itself. It is a self-contradictory idea for four reasons:

1. Prime matter is infinite in divisibility, although it adds up to something finite.
2. Let’s say you are trying to get from A to B. You must first travel half of that distance, but half of THAT distance first, and HALF that ect ect ect. To infinity. But you would never get back to A, even though the point is moving closer and closer to a. And t’s a finite segment;? You can’t say you get to a point that cannot be divided, because then it has ZERO distance and is not a part of the line; a million zeros is ZERO. You can’t say its potentially infinite, because all the halves are there, whether you are thinking about them or not.
3. If it took an infinity to get to a point, you would never get there, although a point with an infinite line from it is thinkable.
4. One can imagine infinite space going in every direction but for some strange reason it is irrational to say it can be filled with anything, for an infinite object is self-contradictory.

Therefore, all arguments of these kinds MUST be rejected as irrational. Life starts at birth, as Jesus says “for a man has now entered the world”. The world itself MUST likewise have a beginning. Your false admission that eternal intermediate causes is possible refused to lead to the conclusion that an eternal support is necessary

I don’t think that prime matter is infinite in divisibility. There are some grains which cannot be divided.
Further, you can get to a point B, even though it takes an infinite number of steps. This is seen by consideration of an infinite geometric series which adds up to a finite number.

 

[thinkandmull]

Even Aquinas admits that you can’t go thru and number the infinite points. To pass over them is to number them. And nothing is indivisible by the mind. Otherwise it would have no parts, and thus be nothing, instead of a material thing

 

[Tomdstone]

Even Aquinas admits that you can’t go thru and number the infinite points. To pass over them is to number them. And nothing is indivisible by the mind. Otherwise it would have no parts, and thus be nothing, instead of a material thing

You can number an infinite number of points.
As far as a particle must have parts, what would the parts of a spinon or of a quark look like?

 

[thinkandmull]

Aquinas wasn’t self-contradictory on these points. He distinguished between causal order that was per se and order which was per accidens. He conceded that accidental causation that was temporal could involve an infinite series. He never argued that there existed such an infinite series, merely that the cosmological argument, as he formulated it, did not require or depend on causation being finite, which is why he didn’t pursue a counter argument against an infinite regress - he didn’t think it was necessary to do so, so he never contested that point.

Your “convoluted question” is simply malformed. The first cause, in Aquinas’ sense of “ontologically first” could not, itself, be an effect, which is why it is the Uncaused Cause - ipsum esse subsistens. It IS or EXISTS by its very nature, which is “to be.” If anyone feels a need to ask whether the First Cause COULD be an effect then, clearly, what has occurred is a complete “miss” in terms of what Aquinas’ metaphysics were all about.

For a better explanation of this point, see:
edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2010/08/edwards-on-infinite-causal-series.html

Huh? It can’t get “potentially hotter” without some cause making it actualize its potential to “get hotter.” It can’t go from hot to hotter without some cause that actualizes its potential to get there. The key words are “it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality IN THE SAME RESPECT.” If something is burning at a temperature of 500 degrees, some causal event actualized its potential to burn at 500 degrees. It may have a potential to burn at 700 degrees, but some reason exists as to why THAT potential hasn’t been actualized yet. It actually is burning at 500 degrees, but there is no sense in saying it still has the potential to burn at 500 degrees. It already has had THAT potential actualized - which is what Aquinas means by “in the same respect.”

**You are mistaken. The distinction between an accidental and a per se infinity doesn’t even make sense and is unnecessary. If that push is responsible that the one, and we go back forvever, there is no need whatsoever for anything above that line to exist. Intermediates are self-sufficient as Aquinas unwittingly admits, then denies. Accidental infinities is nonsense. Once cause being the cause of another, back to eternity, that is all we are talking about. And my convoluted paradox was the only way out.

As for the potentially hot, Aquinas’s argument misses the point. Each cause can be self causing like the movement of an animal, thus we have Hume’s philosophy of cause and effect, or each cause could be itself merely by the previous cause causing it to be so. Aquinas is a mess on these questions**

 

[thinkandmull]

You can number an infinite number of points.
As far as a particle must have parts, what would the parts of a spinon or of a quark look like?

Each half would look like the like itself

And it would take eternity to number infinite points, which means it would never happen because the time would be ***potentially ***infinite

 

[Peter_Plato]

**You are mistaken. The distinction between an accidental and a per se infinity doesn’t even make sense and is unnecessary. If that push is responsible that the one, and we go back forvever, there is no need whatsoever for anything above that line to exist. Intermediates are self-sufficient as Aquinas unwittingly admits, then denies. Accidental infinities is nonsense. Once cause being the cause of another, back to eternity, that is all we are talking about. And my convoluted paradox was the only way out.

As for the potentially hot, Aquinas’s argument misses the point. Each cause can be self causing like the movement of an animal, thus we have Hume’s philosophy of cause and effect, or each cause could be itself merely by the previous cause causing it to be so. Aquinas is a mess **on these questions

With all due respect, the mess is not with Aquinas. He addressed the movement of animals - as did Aristotle - as parts moving other parts. That isn’t self-causation. It is difficult to know where to begin since so much of what you claim about Aquinas isn’t about his work at all - just a caricature of his ideas.

 

[Tomdstone]

Each half would look like the like itself

That would not make sense, if you consider the value of the charge or the spin.

 

[Tomdstone]

And it would take eternity to number infinite points, which means it would never happen because the time would be ***potentially ***infinite

Not really. By numbering the first particle in 1 second, the second particle in 1/2 second, the third particle in 1/4 second, the fourth particle in 1/8 second, etc., you would succeed in numbering an infinite number of particles in 2 seconds.

 

[thinkandmull]

Parts moving parts? I’ve read that. Why isn’t that sufficient enough an explanation of the infinite movers? Its like a flame on a candle: one flame, many flames…? It doesn’t matter the relationship of one burst of heat to the other. It’s the sequence that counts. An infinite sequence FROM THE PAST to now would be absurd to our common sense of our place in the world. We are born into a story. Aquinas even admits there is no order or end in an infinity when he says there can’t be an infinite multitude: newadvent.org/summa/1007.htm#article4

Aquinas was a very good theologian (aside from predestination) but a poor philosopher.

 

[Tomdstone]

An infinite sequence FROM THE PAST to now would be absurd to our common sense of our place in the world.

Your common sense might be wrong here, because you can have infinite sequences extending both to the left and to the right.

 

[thinkandmull]

Even if Thomas Aquinas was in a different state of mind when writing the Summa, in the Contra Gentiles he still says with seeming approval that Aristotle thought motion had to be eternal. And then in the Summa he tries to pooh pooh this away with saying Aristotle was merely stating what he thought was probable. In reading the Summa lately, I have a small notebook of examples of Aquinas trying to explain things away. Very interesting read though. I don’t know whey he has been held up as the theologian of the Church however. Even Augustine has been held up as THE Church Father. Huh? He thought innocent babies went to hell where they were tortured with fire for all eternity but not with sufficient intensity for them to want their non-existence? HUH?

 

[Vico]

Hi!

I’m reading Peter Kreeft’s A Short Summa, which is a short book of excerpts of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica. I have read the article in which St. Thomas describes five ways to prove the existence of God.

I’m having trouble understanding one of the premises in the argument, however. In particular, the premise “this cannot go on to infinity” is puzzling to me. I do not see how that premise can be true. Why cannot an infinite chain of causes exist? It seems that he is begging the question: “if no first cause exists, then no second causes exist, and we know second causes exist. Then a first cause must exist.” How can we know that the causes we see are second causes, and not simply N+1th causes?

Thanks!
Ben

Well, it’s from Aristotle, four *kinds *of causes (aition): 1) material, 2) formal, 3) efficient, 4) final.

The efficient cause is the starter, stopper.

St. Thomas wrote:The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.