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Tomdstone
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I thought that the question was to take one argument and show its flaws. I guess we can agree that the Kalam argument has at least one flaw or unprovable assumption… What argument shall we look at next?
Out of nothing comes nothing, So how is creation exnihilo possible?
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Anthony_V
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There are different levels of predication going on here. Yes, where “itself” refers to a potency taken in isolation. No, where “itself” refers to something which is a composite of actuality and potentiality (for then some actuality in the same thing could actualize potentialities in the same thing).
While you may have had the potency to undergo the change of learning French, and in virtue of which you yourself learned French when that potency was actualized, it was the potency that was actualized not without an external cause – even if that cause external to the potency taken in isolation was some other efficient cause(s) subsisting in you yourself. Inasmuch as your knowing French was potential, it did not actually exist. Causes which do not actually exist do not produce changes which actually exist. Therefore your potentially knowing French could not even in principle cause you to know French, even if the potential to know French was a necessary condition for actually doing so. Hence, it was caused by another, even if that “other” was in you.
But to push that there are such act/potency composites which are themselves unified and irreducible to their actualities and potentialities launches into a debate concerning essentialism (and the distinction between accidents and substance) – which is itself tangential to the principle of causality. If you don’t like essentialism, you don’t have to reject the act-potency distinction. You may say that change in any meaningful sense of the word only happens on the most reduced level, and that learning French is just a conventional way of referring to all the microscopic changes happening physiologically. That’s fine; the main point is that whatever potency is reduced to act, that potency does not reduce itself to act, but it actually reduced by an efficient cause external to the potency.
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Anthony_V
Guest
We should probably finish talking about the principle of causality first. Or are you convinced that whatever potential which is reduced to actuality is reduced by another?
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Tomdstone
Guest
I would be interested in looking at a second argument or proof for the existence of God. If you don’t want to give one, I will do so now.
Father Spitzer has proposed that near death experiences point to the existence of the afterlife and to the existence of God.
"Father Spitzer said even recent studies about near-death experiences point to God…
This is riveting evidence that God exists and is moving in the world, and Father Spitzer said, "
spitzercenter.org/html/posts/an-amazing-creation-when-science-and-faith-meet-146.php
Father Spitzer is referred to on another site dealing with near death experiences.
On this site there is a link and reference to books such as:Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences (2010).
Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon–Survival of Bodily Death
The Other Side (2008)
thousandmiracles.com/science-near-death-experiences/
I suspect that near death experiences are similar to dreams. or hallucinations and as such
will not convince many people of the existence of God or of the existence of the afterlife.
scientificamerican.com/article/why-near-death-experience-isnt-proof-heaven/
theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-science-of-near-death-experiences/386231/
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Anthony_V
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I don’t think those are arguments which you would find conclusive. I don’t even think I would find them conclusive. The ones I think you would find conclusive deal with the principle of causality. We must establish the principle of causality in order to demonstrate those arguments. Heck, we would have to demonstrate the principle of causality to begin to take the Kalam argument seriously. Of course, I’m not interested in the Kalam argument because it goes beyond my knowledge. If someone with more knowledge about it than me would like to present it, that’s their prerogative.
Unless I’ve made some blatant misstep (I did have a particularly healthy glass of wine) and you are dropping somewhat passive - aggressive hints, I don’t understand why you’ve posted that.
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Tomdstone
Guest
I think it was a mistake on my part. I was confusing this thread with another one where someone asked to give the flaws in the arguments proving the existence of God. In view of my mistake, I will let you carry on from here and decide what to discuss next. thank you.
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Anthony_V
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I appreciate the gesture, but the very point is that I’m waiting for you to respond with any counter-objections (and some further explanation which I requested) to my defense that quantum mechanics does not undermine the principle of causality, as you originally stated. It is because I was interested in the principle of causality – which causal arguments for God’s existence rest upon, a fortiori the kalam argument – that I dismissed conversation about the kalam argument, since it would simply regress to arguing about the principle of causality anyway. I was trying to cut to the point, but maybe I was confusing.
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Tomdstone
Guest
As I said, I was thinking of causality in a deterministic sense that if A causes B, then A must always be followed by B. For example, if an exploding bullet penetrates my skull and explodes inside the skull, my brain will cease to function. So the exploding bullet inside my skull has caused my brain to cease functioning. Whenever event A: (an exploding bullet penetrates my skull and explodes) happens, event B: (my brain will cease to operate) will occur. So it can be said that A has caused B.
I appreciate the gesture, but the very point is that I’m waiting for you to respond with any counter-objections (and some further explanation which I requested) to my defense that quantum mechanics does not undermine the principle of causality, as you originally stated. It is because I was interested in the principle of causality – which causal arguments for God’s existence rest upon, a fortiori the kalam argument – that I dismissed conversation about the kalam argument, since it would simply regress to arguing about the principle of causality anyway. I was trying to cut to the point, but maybe I was confusing.
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Anthony_V
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Yes, and I said that there is no need to say that all causality is deterministic – wherein I gave the example of free will, but the example is neither here nor there. At best, quantum mechanics disproves the proposition “All causes are deterministic,” but not “Everything which is changed is changed by another”; for the change might not be deterministic in mode; again, where the relevant change happens in the reduction of a potency to act, such that the potency is considered solely by itself, and, inasmuch as it only potentially exists, cannot cause itself. Aren’t you claiming that quantum mechanics undermines the premise that non-existent causes do not produce existing effects? As a corollary, do you uphold the proposition that a potency could cause itself to become actual, even though it does not exist in actuality beforehand?
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Tomdstone
Guest
Well according to my reading of Aristotle:
“The dividing point (limit) in the case of what comes to be in actuality [entelecheia]
from what is potentially in production by practical thought is when it comes to be
(actually) at the will of the agent without any hindrance from factors outside his (or
her) will, and in this case (the one just mentioned) when nothing in the patient being
healed hinders his (or her) being healed. Similarly, in the case of what is potentially a
house. If nothing in it (ie in the matter) prevents its becoming a house, and there is
nothing which needs to be added or taken away or changed (for it to become a house),
it is potentially a house. And the same account applies in all cases where the starting
point of the process of coming to be is external (to the matter).”
But this brings up the question at what time exactly is A potentially B? When is something potentially a house? If no one knows exactly when something is potentially a house, then that means that the concept of potentiality is a fuzzy one which is subjective.
Metaphysics 1049a3-12 .
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Anthony_V
Guest
That begs the question. If you are at odds with essentialism, you don’t have to accept that there is a potential for a house, but just give a reductionist account that there is just a potential for whatever fundamental, physical constituents that physicists would say make up a house. Cut the deck of cards wherever you please, but you must cut it somewhere. I stated earlier that you don’t have to be an essentialist to accept act and potency:
You just have to accept that something discretely changes (moves from potency to act) on some level, otherwise nothing changes, and there is no change. Even if you say that you don’t know what, it’s evident that there is change on some level to account for the change on this level. Therefore, something somewhere is moving from potency to act. Otherwise, nothing would ever actually be anything different than it is, but at best only potentially be different than what it is (which is not to change at all).
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Tomdstone
Guest
Take the example of the potency of the human mind to interact with the physical body to do things. What is the efficient cause external to the potency of the human mind which is reducing it to act on the physical body? If the mind has the potential to actualize the body, it needs an outside efficient cause to do so. What is this outside cause and if this efficient cause external to the mind, acts on the mind, then what happens to free will?
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Anthony_V
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Given the fact that you’re opening up this issue, it’s going to take me a bit to formulate things. Consider these couple posts the summarized version.
Firstly, I’ll say that whether or not I can demonstrate the application of potency and act upon free will does not have any bearing on “whether” the principle is the case – unless you’d like to explain change in terms essentially other than act and potency, which I don’t think is possible. And if you did, I have other arguments more to the point. But we can know that something is positively the case (such as the act-potency distinction) without a sufficient explanation of how it is the case in specific instances (for instance, free will, if I cannot give a sufficient explanation due to my own lack of knowledge). With that said, I’ll still try and provide a sufficient explanation, but some of these things really are beyond my “expertise” (not that I can claim much of that anyway). In those cases, I’ll try an refer you to other sources or authors who do much better than I.
Second, I’ll give a preliminary answer. There are a couple proximate causes of the will: First, the intellect moves the will. Second, there is a sense in which the will moves itself since it is a composite of act and potency; suchwise as an animal can move itself, seeing as how it actualizes its potencies by other actualities it already possesses. Lastly, there is a remote cause of the will, and that is God, Who provides the will its actuality in the first place by moving it according to its nature, viz., freely.
First, the intellect moves the free will; yet also the free will moves the intellect, but not in the same manner. The free will moves the intellect inasmuch as the “exercise of its act is concerned,” such as when we choose to consider something. The intellect has truth as its proper object, much as the eyes have light as their proper object, and the ears have sound as their proper object. The will has as its proper object what is good, since we will something inasmuch as we see it is a good. Thus, inasmuch as a truth can be good to know, the free will can act upon it by moving the intellect to consider it. Yet the intellect also moves the will, inasmuch as the intellect proposes to the will what is good in the first place. Thus, the intellect is a proximate mover of the free will, for without the intellect, the free will could not act towards any good on account of not having any knowledge of it. The intellect itself is not reliant upon the free will in the beginning (so there is no paradoxical feedback loop; only a positive feedback loop beginning with the intellect), because while the the intellect can positively be moved to act by the will, the intellect can still abstract from the sensory powers without the movement of the will, or even against the movement of the will – i.e. when we are being told something we don’t will to know, the will cannot simply intercept the process of abstraction from the side of the intellect, but must intercept the process by interfering with the sensations themselves which are abstracted from, e.g. by shuffling papers and singing a tune so as not to overhear someone’s delicate conversation. Thus, we would say that the intellect gives the will direction towards its acts, without which it could not operate. In this sense it is a proximate cause, providing the will with final causality, that is, the very objects towards which the will can act; without the intellect, the will would not have potencies for any determined actuality, but would be acting at random, if at all.
Second, the will also moves itself in a sense, since it is a composite of act and potency; much as an animal can move itself by actualizing its potencies with actualities it already possesses. St. Thomas says: “…a power of the soul is seen to be in potentiality to different things in two ways: first, with regard to acting and not acting; secondly, with regard to this or that action.” (S.T. Ia Q.9, Art.1). There is a certain power present to the will simply belonging to its existence, and this is the power to “act or not act.” The potential for “this or that action” is provided by the intellect, which knows and proposes such things, but always under the aspect of the good, which is the proper object of the will (much as the eye can never “hear,” nor the ear “see,” because that is not their proper objects). The potency to “act or not act” is actualized by God, according to the free mode of the will.
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Anthony_V
Guest
…
Remotely there is one cause, and this cause is God. I will deal only with the latter part of that proposition here. God moves the free will, and He moves it according to its nature, which is to say freely. We can note that the way God moves things – that is, distributes actuality to them – is according to their nature. God moves an animal in a manner fitting to the animal. The animal has the potentials it does because of its form, which is to say the kind of thing it is. The kind of thing a deer is gives it the potential to run, and to do other deer-like things. It does not give the deer the potential to fly, or to jump over very large buildings. That is not to say it is impossible that the deer fly (in an airplane) or to jump over very large buildings (from the top of scaffolding), but only that the unaided form of a deer does not provide the potencies for such things. Potency is not simply “logical possibility” but more fundamentally an ontological feature of formal causality, or simply “form.”
Now, the potential for a deer to walk is directed at actually walking. When the potential for the deer to walk is actualized, the deer actually walks. This is called final causality, or “teleology.” A potency is for specific effects (in deterministic causality) or for possible a range of effects (in non-deterministic causality, as we saw in the free will having multiple options presented to it by the intellect). When the deer’s potency to walk is actualized, it does not result in, say, the deer painting an exact replica of the Mona Lisa. Neither does such a potency, when actualized, result in the deer sitting, nor flying a kite. Certain potencies are directed towards certain actualities; otherwise it will not be a potency for anything, and will not actually result in anything in particular, viz., it will have no effect towards which it is directed, or will act at random.
Similar to how we say the intellect provides final causes for the will, which then sets about to actualize those final causes accordingly, we can say by analogy that final causality provides final causes for God’s will, which then sets about at actualizing those final causes accordingly. The actuality that the deer ultimately receives from God when it walks is apportioned to its potency, which is a potency for walking. Thus, the act that the deer receives is the act of walking. Now, the Thomist would also say that the form and thus the the teleology of the deer is found principally in the divine intellect, and only secondly in the deer itself; the latter is founded upon the prior, not the prior upon the latter. (Of course, this doesn’t mean that the divine intellect is the form of the deer any more than someone’s intellect is the form of a deer when they think about a deer; the form in such cases merely has cognitional being.) So, if we were to complete the analogy, the divine will moves the deer accordingly “because” of the divine intellect, which has and cognizes the form, and thus the potencies, and thus the teleology in the first place. And thus the proposition “God moves things according to their nature” is simply to say that God’s will acts upon creatures as an efficient cause according to the teleology He knows He gives them.
Now, the free will has the potential to various acts, but it acts in a free mode. Even if the will is a composite of potency and act such that the will can move itself by actualizing its potencies with other actualities it has, the actualities must ultimately receive their act from God, who is pure act; for composition of act and potency derives its act from pure act. …
(I’m not going to prove that exhaustively here; it deals with per se series of efficient causes. Short version: (I) Being a composite entails having parts; (II) parts are potential to a whole; (III) Such a potential, if actualized, requires an external efficient cause; (IV) If that external efficient cause is not simply pure act, then such an external efficient cause is actual at a given moment is an actualized potency, for the efficient cause is not a necessary being but a potential one; (V) There cannot be an infinite regress providing the efficient cause its actuality [This would be like plugging a lamp into an infinite series of power strips with no generator and expecting the lamp to light up]; (VI) Therefore, pure act must provide actuality to any composites.)
… Thus, God provides the actuality of any of the free will acts, even if He does so in a way according to the free will’s form, potencies, and teleology, viz., freely. God provides the will the actuality to choose, and the will chooses from the potentials provided by the intellect. The will directs itself towards the actions which it determines, even if the actuality for doing so is derived from God.
Remotely there is one cause, and this cause is God. I will deal only with the latter part of that proposition here. God moves the free will, and He moves it according to its nature, which is to say freely. We can note that the way God moves things – that is, distributes actuality to them – is according to their nature. God moves an animal in a manner fitting to the animal. The animal has the potentials it does because of its form, which is to say the kind of thing it is. The kind of thing a deer is gives it the potential to run, and to do other deer-like things. It does not give the deer the potential to fly, or to jump over very large buildings. That is not to say it is impossible that the deer fly (in an airplane) or to jump over very large buildings (from the top of scaffolding), but only that the unaided form of a deer does not provide the potencies for such things. Potency is not simply “logical possibility” but more fundamentally an ontological feature of formal causality, or simply “form.”
Now, the potential for a deer to walk is directed at actually walking. When the potential for the deer to walk is actualized, the deer actually walks. This is called final causality, or “teleology.” A potency is for specific effects (in deterministic causality) or for possible a range of effects (in non-deterministic causality, as we saw in the free will having multiple options presented to it by the intellect). When the deer’s potency to walk is actualized, it does not result in, say, the deer painting an exact replica of the Mona Lisa. Neither does such a potency, when actualized, result in the deer sitting, nor flying a kite. Certain potencies are directed towards certain actualities; otherwise it will not be a potency for anything, and will not actually result in anything in particular, viz., it will have no effect towards which it is directed, or will act at random.
Similar to how we say the intellect provides final causes for the will, which then sets about to actualize those final causes accordingly, we can say by analogy that final causality provides final causes for God’s will, which then sets about at actualizing those final causes accordingly. The actuality that the deer ultimately receives from God when it walks is apportioned to its potency, which is a potency for walking. Thus, the act that the deer receives is the act of walking. Now, the Thomist would also say that the form and thus the the teleology of the deer is found principally in the divine intellect, and only secondly in the deer itself; the latter is founded upon the prior, not the prior upon the latter. (Of course, this doesn’t mean that the divine intellect is the form of the deer any more than someone’s intellect is the form of a deer when they think about a deer; the form in such cases merely has cognitional being.) So, if we were to complete the analogy, the divine will moves the deer accordingly “because” of the divine intellect, which has and cognizes the form, and thus the potencies, and thus the teleology in the first place. And thus the proposition “God moves things according to their nature” is simply to say that God’s will acts upon creatures as an efficient cause according to the teleology He knows He gives them.
Now, the free will has the potential to various acts, but it acts in a free mode. Even if the will is a composite of potency and act such that the will can move itself by actualizing its potencies with other actualities it has, the actualities must ultimately receive their act from God, who is pure act; for composition of act and potency derives its act from pure act. …
(I’m not going to prove that exhaustively here; it deals with per se series of efficient causes. Short version: (I) Being a composite entails having parts; (II) parts are potential to a whole; (III) Such a potential, if actualized, requires an external efficient cause; (IV) If that external efficient cause is not simply pure act, then such an external efficient cause is actual at a given moment is an actualized potency, for the efficient cause is not a necessary being but a potential one; (V) There cannot be an infinite regress providing the efficient cause its actuality [This would be like plugging a lamp into an infinite series of power strips with no generator and expecting the lamp to light up]; (VI) Therefore, pure act must provide actuality to any composites.)
… Thus, God provides the actuality of any of the free will acts, even if He does so in a way according to the free will’s form, potencies, and teleology, viz., freely. God provides the will the actuality to choose, and the will chooses from the potentials provided by the intellect. The will directs itself towards the actions which it determines, even if the actuality for doing so is derived from God.
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ynotzap
Guest
No, you didn’t change your self, you had the potential to learn french and by willing it, and putting the effort into it, your potential was fulfilled to the degree it was (which is probably not complete, but satisfactory.) Were did you get the power to fulfill your potential, or where did you get the means you used to fulfill your potentials? Did you take it for granted? Never questioned it? Is you will it’s own power? Did you create yourself? Was there a time you didn’t exist?
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ynotzap
Guest
When truth is reduced to the results of material experimentation, it fails to answer the non-material realities, those things that can not be reduced to physical demonstration. And this is what grounds modern scientists from advancing in their knowledge of reality. As I said they don’t transcend to the Metaphysical plane, which is non-material, but true As a consequence then we resort to a lot of theories that are inclusive of so many subjective thoughts, and one himself labored to separate fact from fiction just to get to some basic principles for evaluating what is truth. I find that modern science is really hindered in it’s advancement in truth. Technological advancement in my book is not qualitative advancement in knowledge We have technology, but how has that technology really advanced humanity, we still have wars, and use technology to fight it, but it hasn’t advanced the moral condition of society I have to admit it made us more conscious of the real needs of humanity by showing us by communication the negative conditions of humanity. Modern science strives to explain reality, by the use of mathematical measurement (quantum theories) and it’s own principles, which to me are very questionable, because they violate some well grounded basic things that I find not theories but facts.
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Randy_Carson
Guest
The Caused Beginning of the Universe: A Response to Quentin Smith
William Lane Craighttp://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-caused-beginning-of-the-universe-a-response-to-quentin-smith#ixzz4DG3cxdWZ
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Gorgias
Guest
Yet, does God really “give himself to the idea of a cow”, or does He simply create the cow and sustain it in its existence?
Based on what you’ve said now, it’s clear that you’re not talking about pantheism, but it sure sounds more and more like panentheism. Your clarification makes it sound like the cow is an emanation of God, which could be panentheism or one of the variants of gnosticism…
Inasmuch as you’re alluding to the fact that God’s essence is His existence, and that God is eternal, this is fine. If you’re trying to separate an eternal ‘existence’ from God, raising to a different level, then I can’t agree.
No. Remember – although God’s essence is His existence, that’s not the case for you and me. Your nature is ‘human nature’; but your existence is much, much younger than human nature. God created you (indirectly, through your parents; but directly, through your soul). He created your existence, in a distinct act from the creation of human nature.
Not really. After all, you pointed out that Cow-Existence is distinct from God-Existence. Saying that God creates existence is the same thing as saying God-Existence creates Cow-Existence. That’s not a contradiction at all, and not metaphysically impossible.
Now I think I see where you’re coming from. You’re simply agreeing with the Parmenidean “is” and “not-is” – if it exists, it always existed; if it’s merely “coming into being”, it never existed.
To hold to this, then, you must conclude that creation is a mere extension of God – if not, then its “coming into being” implies that it’s part of the “not-is”.
Let’s look at the cow you posited. When it dies, it is no longer in existence. But, you can’t have it both ways: how can the cow fail to exist, if it’s existence must be eternal? (I mean, you can claim that God takes back to Himself the existence He gave it, but that doesn’t hold up, either, since it’s Cow-Existence and not God-Existence, as you pointed out. Where did the Cow-Existence ‘go’? If it either “is” or “not-is”, and after it dies, it is not… then it’s eternally part of the “not-is”. But that can’t be, either; therefore, you’ve painted yourself into a corner.)
You’re really arguing for limits on God: He cannot truly create – in your metaphysics – but merely give His (pre-existing) “is” in a transformed nature to other creatures. That doesn’t hold up in Christian theology. Parmenides might’ve thought that the universe was eternal… but that’s not part of Christian theology.
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Partinobodycula
Guest
Okay, thanks folks, now I’m learning something. Time for another box of popcorn.
Anthony V, excellent job.
Anthony V, excellent job.
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ynotzap
Guest
I thought that I made that clear in my posts. Something that produces an effect , that the Universe is the effect of an, Uncaused Cause, in a Metaphysical interpretation, and that this Uncaused Cause effects secondary causes in the Universe, which then becomes the subject of human investigation. The Metaphysical interpretation employs the principle that nothing can exist or happen without a cause.
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