Please explain why the first cause/necessary being must be personal

[belorg]

That this should not be surprising, and in particular that it should not be regarded as damaging to the aim of proving the existence of God

Thank you for the quotes, Trevor.

Now I hadn’t read this, but I’ve seen the same argument presented in another form.

And, for one, it does nothing to even suggest how a purely actual being can create poptentiality. In order for this argument to work, potentiality must have eternal existence and must be uncreated, and this is contrary to the Christian doctrine that God is the creator of everything.

Moreover, even if we grant that potentiality is eternal (or ‘necessary’ as Aquinas would put it), potentiality alone is not enough. because as you quote " matter considered apart from anything else, and in particular apart from form, is just “prime matter” or pure potentiality; and pure potentiality, since by definition it has no actuality"
So it has to get its actuality from something else, namely the only being that has it, the purely actual being (or God).
But here comes the probelem: pure act is unchanging so it cannot by definition extend its actuality towards the potential ‘prime matter’, so there is no way for ‘prime matter’ to get actuality because that would entail potentiality on the part of the purely actual being.
That’s the main problem.

So, the only solution is to posit something that is eternal and has both potentiality and actuality. On an Aristotelean conception, this would be impossible, but I think it’s time, after more than 2000 years, to get rid of some of Aristotle’s conceptions.
I have always felt the distinction between actual and potential is artificial. They are, in my view, two sides of the same coin. Actual and potential describe, not two distinct properties, but two points of view on the same phenomenon, namely existence.

So, my view does entail some kind of everlasting (although timeless) prime matter (call it some kind of quantum vacuum or whatever) that has the eternal potential to change. Once the first ‘change’ occurs, time begins and so does what we call matter (secondary matter?)and space etc.

This is not a complete answer to all questions, but, at least, it does not require something logically impossible, namely a purely actual being at the base of all the potentiality.

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

And, for one, it does nothing to even suggest how a purely actual being can create poptentiality. In order for this argument to work, potentiality must have eternal existence and must be uncreated, and this is contrary to the Christian doctrine that God is the creator of everything.

But here comes the probelem: pure act is unchanging so it cannot by definition extend its actuality towards the potential ‘prime matter’, so there is no way for ‘prime matter’ to get actuality because that would entail potentiality on the part of the purely actual being.
That’s the main problem.

You are right, pure act is unchanging in that it’s essence and existence will never be distinct, always identical, and that it will always be existing. But the universe is not ex deo, begotten of God, where his essence and existence changed into form and matter. It is ex nihilo, created from nothing, where God stays in pure actuality, unchanged, and potentiality is created from divine freedom. Let’s not forget, Aquinas holds that freedom is perfection. Just as us humans are more perfect then simple animated things, such as animals, and inanimated things, such as plants, in that we have freedom. God, being the most perfect agent, must have a greater degree of freedom. Side note, finding we are participants in freedom we can see the first cause as personal but that’s later.

But if your implying that God is somehow unable to “create”, let’s quote again from Feser’s book (quotes are Aquinas):

As the cause of the world God obviously has power, for “all operation proceeds from power”. Moreover “the more actual a thing is the more it abounds in active power,” so that as Pure Act, God must be infinite in power. In line with classical thetistic trandition, Aquinas holds that since there is no sense to be made of doing what is intrinsically impossible (e.g. making a round square or something else involving self-contradiction), to say that God is omnipotent does not entail that he can do such things, but only that he can do whatever is instinsically possible.

But what is the real objection here belorg? That God is unable, or that potentiality cannot arise from a pure actual being, or is it that the necessary being cannot be personal?

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

Correction on my part:

God, being the most perfect agent, must have a greater degree of freedom

Meant to say, “God, being the most perfect agent, must have the greatest degree of freedom”

 

[belorg]

You are right, pure act is unchanging in that it’s essence and existence will never be distinct, always identical, and that it will always be existing. But the universe is not ex deo, begotten of God, where his essence and existence changed into form and matter. It is ex nihilo, created from nothing, where God stays in pure actuality, unchanged, and potentiality is created from divine freedom. Let’s not forget, Aquinas holds that freedom is perfection. Just as us humans are more perfect then simple animated things, such as animals, and inanimated things, such as plants, in that we have freedom. God, being the most perfect agent, must have a greater degree of freedom. Side note, finding we are participants in freedom we can see the first cause as personal but that’s later.

But if your implying that God is somehow unable to “create”, let’s quote again from Feser’s book (quotes are Aquinas):

As the cause of the world God obviously has power, for “all operation proceeds from power”. Moreover “the more actual a thing is the more it abounds in active power,” so that as Pure Act, God must be infinite in power. In line with classical thetistic trandition, Aquinas holds that since there is no sense to be made of doing what is intrinsically impossible (e.g. making a round square or something else involving self-contradiction), to say that God is omnipotent does not entail that he can do such things, but only that he can do whatever is instinsically possible.

But what is the real objection here belorg? That God is unable, or that potentiality cannot arise from a pure actual being, or is it that the necessary being cannot be personal?

The real objection, Trevor, is 1 and 2 combined.
God is unable to create **because **he is pure act. Creating from nothing is just as impossible as spontaneoulsy arsisng from nothing. And by ‘nothing’ I mean literally nothing, not ‘pure potentialyi’ because that is not nothing. Ex nihilo nihil fit.
If God has ‘powers’ these pwoers have to have an effect on something. But since there is nothing, these powers cannot have an effect unles the powers somehow transform themselves into matter and energy. But then, since at one instance God has ‘powers’ and at another instance God has powers that have turned into matter, there is a change in God. But since God is supposed to be pure act, there cannot be a change in God.
Therefore a purely actula being cannot possibly create from nothing.
Even if you don’t buy this, ‘using’ powers already entails a change, so even that is impossible. Deciding to do something entails a change, making a free choice by definition entails a change. Every single thing involved in creating entails a change. So that’s why Thomism fails to get anything from the ground. It’s just impossible under Thomism to account for material reality.

Moreover, a pure actual being does not have a greater degree of freedom. Human beings are capable of changing, God isn’t. So it seems like humans have a greater degree of freedom.

Now as to the necessary being ‘s personality. Personality, as we see it, necessarily entails change. A perosn can e.g. change his mind.If he coulldn’t, he would be nothing more than an aotomaton, with all the plans’, ‘preferences’, ‘decisons’ etc in place since eternity and never changing. If we were to witness a being that has a completely unchanging mind, nobody would regard such being as personal…

 

[danserr]

You should strike the “from nothing” part out. That’s not part of the big bang.

Not according to my understanding of hte Big Bang. The Big Bang describes the expansion of space, and matter and the beginning of time 13 billion years ago. Without the Big Bang, nothing existed, and I am quite correct to say that the Big Bang describes the expansion of time, space, and matter, from nothing.

If you object to this, could you clarify your question?

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

The real objection, Trevor, is 1 and 2 combined.
God is unable to create **because **he is pure act. Creating from nothing is just as impossible as spontaneoulsy arsisng from nothing. And by ‘nothing’ I mean literally nothing, not ‘pure potentialyi’ because that is not nothing. Ex nihilo nihil fit.
If God has ‘powers’ these pwoers have to have an effect on something. But since there is nothing, these powers cannot have an effect unles the powers somehow transform themselves into matter and energy. But then, since at one instance God has ‘powers’ and at another instance God has powers that have turned into matter, there is a change in God. But since God is supposed to be pure act, there cannot be a change in God.
Therefore a purely actula being cannot possibly create from nothing.
Even if you don’t buy this, ‘using’ powers already entails a change, so even that is impossible. Deciding to do something entails a change, making a free choice by definition entails a change. Every single thing involved in creating entails a change. So that’s why Thomism fails to get anything from the ground. It’s just impossible under Thomism to account for material reality.

More on freedom and personal later but your argument sounds like question 45 in the summa, have you read it?

newadvent.org/summa/1045.htm

 

[belorg]

More on freedom and personal later but your argument sounds like question 45 in the summa, have you read it?

newadvent.org/summa/1045.htm

Yes, I have and it does not really answer my objections.Aquinas states that

Originally posted by Thomas of Aquino

And yet “to make” and “to be made” are more suitable expressions here than “to change” and “to be changed,” because “to make” and “to be made” import a relation of cause to the effect, and of effect to the cause, and imply change only as a consequence.

Importing a relation of couse to the effect requires an effect that this relation can be imported to. But this is putting the cart before the horse. There isn’t an effect to import anything to.
It’s like Aquinas is saying that it os not so much nothing that becomes something, but nothing being ‘injected’ with an effect. But ‘injecting’ something means change on the part of the injector, which is impossible as the injector is Pure Act.
In order to create Prime Matter, God has to inject potentiality. But God does not have potentiality to inject anywhere.

 

[vz71]

As I understand it, this would contradict current Big Bang Cosmology, the point (singularity) is typically considered to be only an ideal point, it does not actually have physical existence. The Big Bang describes the expansion of the universe from nothing 13 billion years ago.

That would seem to contradict all of the descriptions given by physicists of the ‘entirety being squeezed into one single point of unbelievable density’ that I have heard described so many times.

And even this ‘ideal point’ you describe will have to exist somewhere along the way to give rise to existence as we know it. And the question is still open as to how long it could stay there before expanding.

But I do like that your definition is more blatant with the ‘something from nothing’ aspect.

 

[Luke_K]

Not according to my understanding of hte Big Bang. The Big Bang describes the expansion of space, and matter and the beginning of time 13 billion years ago. Without the Big Bang, nothing existed, and I am quite correct to say that the Big Bang describes the expansion of time, space, and matter, from nothing.

If you object to this, could you clarify your question?

I don’t understand it that way. The theory doesn’t describe the universe coming from nothing. We can’t describe anything beyond the Planck time, so we simply don’t know what went on before then or whether there was anything before the singularity. “From nothing” seems like an overly eager religious jump, convenient with what we’d like to be true.

Do you have any quotes from cosmologists saying the Big Bang describes the universe coming from nothing?

 

[levinas12]

But since God is supposed to be pure act, there cannot be a change in God.
Therefore a purely actula being cannot possibly create from nothing.

belorg has identified the problem.

There is no potentiality in God. But creating would seem to be a change in God. Ergo, there must be potentiality in God.

The same issue came up with a rossum thread.

Thomas says that creatures have a real relation to God but God does not have a real relation to creatures (ST 1, q.13, art.7, c; q.28, art.1, ad 3; De veritate, q.4, art. 5, c; q.3, art. 3, c). If we can get our arms around this, then we might have a solution to the question of whether there is potentiality in God.

 

[danserr]

I don’t understand it that way. The theory doesn’t describe the universe coming from nothing. We can’t describe anything beyond the Planck time, so we simply don’t know what went on before then or whether there was anything before the singularity. “From nothing” seems like an overly eager religious jump, convenient with what we’d like to be true.

Do you have any quotes from cosmologists saying the Big Bang describes the universe coming from nothing?

No jump at all. On the contrary, the claim "we don’t know what was before the big bang is a desperate claim of non-theists to try to prevent us from drawing the conclusion that God is the cause of the universe.

– PCW Davies, “Space-time Singularities in Cosmology”: …“For this reason most cosmologists think of the initial singularity as the beginning of the universe. On this view the Big bang represents the creation of event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe,but also of space-time itself.”

– John barrow and frank Tipler, The anthropic cosmological principle p.422: “At this singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before hte singularity, so if the universe originiated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex-nihilo.”

– So the big bang represents the beginning of space, time, and matter. They did not exist, then the were created with the big bang. “before” the big bang, there was no matter, and not even space or time.

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

Importing a relation of couse to the effect requires an effect that this relation can be imported to. But this is putting the cart before the horse. There isn’t an effect to import anything to.
It’s like Aquinas is saying that it os not so much nothing that becomes something, but nothing being ‘injected’ with an effect. But ‘injecting’ something means change on the part of the injector, which is impossible as the injector is Pure Act.
In order to create Prime Matter, God has to inject potentiality. But God does not have potentiality to inject anywhere.

I don’t see how change, outside of the agent, implies change within the agent. Could you elabroate?

By simply saying that God has nowhere to inject potentiality, does not automatically imply that he is injecting potentiality into himself or some other explaination. One could argue that the receptive of injection, or change, was nothingness. And God being something acts on this nothingness outside of himself. And if the argument turns to say nothingness is co-eternal with God, the stone God cannot lift, is fallacious because all that was nothing is now something.

 

[belorg]

I don’t see how change, outside of the agent, implies change within the agent. Could you elabroate?

Because change outside the agent entails a ‘power’ going from ‘inside’ the agent to outside.So there is an instance at which the immutable agent has this power ‘inside’ and there is another instance where this power ‘leaves’ the agent. That’s a change.

By simply saying that God has nowhere to inject potentiality, does not automatically imply that he is injecting potentiality into himself or some other explaination.

Not only does he have nowhere to inject potentiality, he has no potentiality to inject anywhere.

One could argue that the receptive of injection, or change, was nothingness.

If nothingness is a ‘receptive’, it is not nothingness.

And God being something acts on this nothingness outside of himself.

If nothingness can be acted upon, then nothingness already has potentiality.

And if the argument turns to say nothingness is co-eternal with God, the stone God cannot lift, is fallacious because all that was nothing is now something.

I’m afraid I don’t understand this.

 

[tonyrey]

So, one cause, impersonal.

When we use personal-impersonal are we really talking about being, animated matter? If so, in your view, animated being then originated from impersonal entity? Are we on the same page, here?

In my twenties after running across the problems of no first cause, and then thinking about the every day matters in my own (and others) life, such as fear, and love, and sacrifice, and hope, aspirations, regrets, forgiveness, happiness, contentment, joy, etc. I just sort of caved in to the weight of “personal” in my life. All the things that “make up” our lives, at least to me, had to be “present” for a reason. My conclusion was that these ‘things’ were there to remind me that all real life is personal, and that these things must ‘point to’ something eternally personal, and that the mere ‘un-avoidability’ of “personal” in my ordinary life had to be a super-substantial fact, worth deeply pondering and responding to.

The most formidable problem for materialists is that they have no spiritual life - or at least they fail to recognise it! They stake everything on earthly things…

 

[belorg]

belorg has identified the problem.

There is no potentiality in God. But creating would seem to be a change in God. Ergo, there must be potentiality in God.

The same issue came up with a rossum thread.

Thomas says that creatures have a real relation to God but God does not have a real relation to creatures (ST 1, q.13, art.7, c; q.28, art.1, ad 3; De veritate, q.4, art. 5, c; q.3, art. 3, c). If we can get our arms around this, then we might have a solution to the question of whether there is potentiality in God.

I don’t think this is a solution to the question of whether there is potentilaity in God, not in the sense I use it anyway.
That God odes not have a real relationship to creatures can work to answer the question: “if at one instance God was alone and at another instance there was something He created, then at the first insatnce He wasn’t a creator while at the second He was, so God changed from being a non-creator to being a creator”.
Since ‘to be a creator’ is a relation, Aquinas’ answers that the relation ‘is a creator’ is only real from the perspective of the creatures, but is not real from the perspective of the creator and as such does not entail a change in the creator. And he may be correct, but it does in no way solve the problem of accounting for potentiality.

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

Because change outside the agent entails a ‘power’ going from ‘inside’ the agent to outside.So there is an instance at which the immutable agent has this power ‘inside’ and there is another instance where this power ‘leaves’ the agent. That’s a change.

Mind if I quote Aquinas?

“The fact that God produces things by His will clearly shows that He can produce new things without any change in Himself. The difference between a natural agent and a voluntary agent is this: a natural agent acts consistently in the same manner as long as it is in the same condition. Such as it is, thus does it act. But a voluntary agent acts as he wills. Accordingly it may well be that, without any change in himself, he wishes to act now and not previously. For there is nothing to prevent a person from willing to perform an action later, even though he is not doing it now; and this without any change in himself. Thus it can happen, without any change in God, that God, although He is eternal, did not bring things into existence from eternity.”

dhspriory.org/thomas/Compendium.htm#97
Also answered in the Summa, question 9: newadvent.org/summa/1009.htm

Not only does he have nowhere to inject potentiality, he has no potentiality to inject anywhere.

If nothingness is a ‘receptive’, it is not nothingness.

If nothingness can be acted upon, then nothingness already has potentiality.

Again, let me direct you to Thomas, yet again in the compendium theologiae. Chapter 99.

dhspriory.org/thomas/Compendium.htm#99

 

[belorg]

Mind if I quote Aquinas?

“The fact that God produces things by His will clearly shows that He can produce new things without any change in Himself. The difference between a natural agent and a voluntary agent is this: a natural agent acts consistently in the same manner as long as it is in the same condition. Such as it is, thus does it act. But a voluntary agent acts as he wills. Accordingly it may well be that, without any change in himself, he wishes to act now and not previously. For there is nothing to prevent a person from willing to perform an action later, even though he is not doing it now; and this without any change in himself. Thus it can happen, without any change in God, that God, although He is eternal, did not bring things into existence from eternity.”

This is not relevant. God applies power.to produce something. Applying power is a potentiality. There is an instance at which God does not apply powerf and there is aninstance at which God does apply power. That’s a change, although Thomsts will deny it., they have no basis for doing so.

Again, let me direct you to Thomas, yet again in the compendium theologiae. Chapter 99.

dhspriory.org/thomas/Compendium.htm#99

Again, these are empty words. Nothing cannot become something, and you cannot answer this by saying that it is not the case that a thing called nothingness becomes something, which would be a change but rather that there was nothing at all to become something. The possibility of nothing becoming something is not a potentiality because it is passive. But that means that the active component of the potentiality resides in the creator himself, which contradicts His Pure Act.
Really, Trevor, the more I read from and about Aquinas, the more I become convinced that Thomism, while promising in a lot of domains, completely fails to answer the fundamental question of how potentiality can arise. I find lots of attempts to circumvent the problem, but no answer at all.

 

[levinas12]

I don’t think this is a solution to the question of whether there is potentilaity in God, not in the sense I use it anyway.
That God odes not have a real relationship to creatures can work to answer the question: “if at one instance God was alone and at another instance there was something He created, then at the first insatnce He wasn’t a creator while at the second He was, so God changed from being a non-creator to being a creator”.
Since ‘to be a creator’ is a relation, Aquinas’ answers that the relation ‘is a creator’ is only real from the perspective of the creatures, but is not real from the perspective of the creator and as such does not entail a change in the creator. And he may be correct, but it does in no way solve the problem of accounting for potentiality.

Aquinas uses the example of an animal that is to the left of a column, and, then, starts moving, until it is to the right of the column. Initially, the column was to the “right of the animal” and now is to the “left of the animal.” There has been a change with respect to the position of the animal, i.e., a change “for the animal”. But there “really” has been no change in the column.

Another example: when I know the apple is red, there is a change in me; but there is no change in the apple. Knowledge does not affect the known.

I know - these examples seem a little stretched.

But then again - bringing beings into existence where there was previously no potentiality for existence from the side of the beings themselves - that’s an “unusual” activity.

It may sound like a dodge but this is where analogy comes into play. You cannot apply Aristotelian concepts univocally here. Especially given that the divine ideas of the beings were in God’s “mind” from eternity but were not “separate” from His Essence/Existence. And that “creation” was a totally free act of God’s Intellect and Will. Therefore, God’s status as a creator does not “depend” on the created, i.e., God does not have a “real” relation to the created.

I hope some of the Thomists out there will comment.

Also, when you say that Thomas may be correct about “no change” in the creator, but that does not “solve” the problem of accounting for potentiality - can you elaborate a bit more on this? It would seem that, if there were no change, then there would be no need to speak of potentiality.

 

[belorg]

Aquinas uses the example of an animal that is to the left of a column, and, then, starts moving, until it is to the right of the column. Initially, the column was to the “right of the animal” and now is to the “left of the animal.” There has been a change with respect to the position of the animal, i.e., a change “for the animal”. But there “really” has been no change in the column.
Another example: when I know the apple is red, there is a change in me; but there is no change in the apple. Knowledge does not affect the known.

No, but these are examples of something passive or inert. The comumn does not change and neither does the apple, but the apple nor the column do anything at all with respect to the animal or you.
If it is said that the column created the animal, that seems impossible without a change in the column…

But then again - bringing beings into existence where there was previously no potentiality for existence from the side of the beings themselves - that’s an “unusual” activity.

You say it: it’s an activity. An activity that has something concrete as a result is just impossible without any sort of change.

To create something is to bring something into being from nothing. But that entails a power that goes from the creator to the effect. And that is change.

It may sound like a dodge but this is where analogy comes into play. You cannot apply Aristotelian concepts univocally here. Especially given that the divine ideas of the beings were in God’s “mind” from eternity but were not “separate” from His Essence/Existence.

Pij tis: now there are separate from HIs Essence/Existence. That’s a change.

And that “creation” was a totally free act of God’s Intellect and Will. Therefore, God’s status as a creator does not “depend” on the created, i.e., God does not have a “real” relation to the created.

His staus does not change, but He changes.

I hope some of the Thomists out there will comment.

That’s what I hope too.

Also, when you say that Thomas may be correct about “no change” in the creator, but that does not “solve” the problem of accounting for potentiality - can you elaborate a bit more on this? It would seem that, if there were no change, then there would be no need to speak of potentiality.

The problem is: there IS potentiality and there is nothing to account for it.

Let’s go over this, step by srep

1 There was an instance at which Pure Act existed and nothing else. (premise)
2 Pure Act is eternally unchanging (premise)
3 There can be no instance at which there is Pure Act as well as Potentiality (from 1 and 2)
4 There is potentiality now.
5 Conclusion: : 4 contradicts 3. 3 logically follows from 1 and 2, therefore either 1, 2 or 4 is false and since 4 isn’t false , either 1 or 2 is false.
Now since 1 and 2 are key concepts of Thomist cosmology; Thomist cosmology is false.

The controversial perimsie is, of course 3, but seems correct. THere is only one thing, so there is only one thing that would be able to change, yet, it isn’t by definition. Ergo: there is nothing that can change. Ergo: there can be no change.
Thomists will probably say that something from nothing isn’t a change at all, but for something to go from non-being to being, there must be potentiality, which there isn’t.

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

This is not relevant. God applies power.to produce something. Applying power is a potentiality. There is an instance at which God does not apply powerf and there is aninstance at which God does apply power. That’s a change, although Thomsts will deny it., they have no basis for doing so.

Again, these are empty words. Nothing cannot become something, and you cannot answer this by saying that it is not the case that a thing called nothingness becomes something, which would be a change but rather that there was nothing at all to become something. The possibility of nothing becoming something is not a potentiality because it is passive. But that means that the active component of the potentiality resides in the creator himself, which contradicts His Pure Act.
Really, Trevor, the more I read from and about Aquinas, the more I become convinced that Thomism, while promising in a lot of domains, completely fails to answer the fundamental question of how potentiality can arise. I find lots of attempts to circumvent the problem, but no answer at all.

This question is related to both of your reponses.

Is it possible to you that God was, is, able to create potentiality outside of Himself through His omnipotence? You asserted that there was nothing, besides Himself, receptive of change/potentiality. Since we can say this Pure Actual Being must have infinite active power, all which is only absolutely possible. Is it possible that He, through a process unexplainable to human thought (as is our powers of intellect and will are impossible to comprehend by animated things and inanimated things), was able to do this?