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Delusioned
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Probably because you can’t.
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Aquinas11
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Can’t make this up
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IWantGod
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loooool…
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Delusioned
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Mic drop!!
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STT
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- Free decision is an uncaused act
- A contingent agent cannot perform uncaused act
- Therefore any free agent is uncasued cause
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IWantGod
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Number 2 does not follow. You haven’t explained why causing the act of some things existence is the same thing as causing what it does once it exists. Why cannot a thing act according to it’s nature while at the same time be sustained in existence by God. I think you are conflating the possibility of a free act with the possibility of a things existence.
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Wesrock
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This is actually one (not the only one) reason why it must be intellectual (and is, to my understanding, the basis of Aquinas’ Fifth Way), such that what it effects proceeds knowledgeably and voluntarily, and not in any way determined by another. If it was not intellectual, then it could not determine its own effects or orientation, and so must be determined by something prior. As for the First Cause, it effects without beginning or end, and it’s not a thing with knowledge, but is all “knowledge” (or truths), such that it is basically Truth Itself.IWantGod:
Ah, but that begs the question, what is the nature of the first cause? And if it’s possible for it to exist without giving rise to an effect. Then what causes it to do so? And if something causes it to do so, then can the “first cause” really be defined as the first cause?
So the question remains, does the first cause, whatever it may be, require the existence of the first effect? And every subsequent effect.
As for what’s the nature of the First Cause, that is part of what we mean when we say the First Cause is incomprehensible, as we have no way of sensing the essence. Therefore the only way to proceed to knowledge of God/First Cause (outside of revelation) is, not by arguing from cause to effect, which would require direct knowledge of the essence, but proceeding from effects to cause. At most this tells us THAT it is, not WHAT it is in a totally comprehensible way, though we do get some insight as it does allow us to conclude some of what the essence (and nature) is not. That is real knowledge, which is comprehensible in itself, even if the essence in itself is beyond us.
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Wesrock
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The First Way is to the Prime Mover, not First Cause. But anyway, if all other things have causal power in a derived way, only the Uncaused Cause has causal power in an underived way. And if such a thing must exist, we can know that it must not have any effects/properties/attributes which would require being caused by another.Aquinas11:
Sorry, but we are on topic. Aquinas’ first proof is the uncaused cause. What constitutes an uncaused cause?
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STT
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A caused thing cannot be source of an uncaused thing. If it was otherwise then a being that is merely made of atoms which are caused could be free.
One cannot cause a thing and set it free since the very act of causation needs knowledge, knowledge is structured, therefore one cannot create something free based on knowledge.
God simply cannot sustain a thing which is free either. God’s eternal knowledge can simply be challenged by asking God’s about our future acts and doing the opposite.
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Wesrock
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On the topic of free will, it’s important to note that Aquinas’ arguments on causation are not about the causality of events, but the causality of substances. And Aquinas held that there were four types of causes (explanations) for a substance: material, efficient, formal, and final. And even then, if we’re investigating the effecient cause, which is what his cosmological arguments do, he’s not even arguing about the accidental efficient causes that led to a human person, but their essential efficient cause, which admittedly requires some unpacking. But, suffice it to say, with the appropriate background, a substance can still be caused essentially while still acting for its ends voluntarily and not deterministically.
An analogy (a very limited one) is like the electrical power source for a personal computer. It allows the computer to continue its operations, but doesn’t determine what its operations will be. Now, a computer itself doesn’t have a voluntary nature, but similarly, the Uncaused Cause does cause our nature to exist and conserves the nature’s ability to act in accordance with its nature moment-to-moment, not moving it like a puppet, but allowing it to operate according to its own nature and intrinsic principles, such that it can be voluntary.
All that now said, both Dominican and Molinist conceptions of Free Will are probably much more limited than, say, Kant and other continental philosophers would have allowed. For a Thomist, the key point is that a human being make choices knowledgeably and voluntarily (by an intrinsic principle, not as if being yanked about like a puppet) while the ability of the human nature to do this is still sustained by God.
I’m really only trying to give a brief rundown here.
An analogy (a very limited one) is like the electrical power source for a personal computer. It allows the computer to continue its operations, but doesn’t determine what its operations will be. Now, a computer itself doesn’t have a voluntary nature, but similarly, the Uncaused Cause does cause our nature to exist and conserves the nature’s ability to act in accordance with its nature moment-to-moment, not moving it like a puppet, but allowing it to operate according to its own nature and intrinsic principles, such that it can be voluntary.
All that now said, both Dominican and Molinist conceptions of Free Will are probably much more limited than, say, Kant and other continental philosophers would have allowed. For a Thomist, the key point is that a human being make choices knowledgeably and voluntarily (by an intrinsic principle, not as if being yanked about like a puppet) while the ability of the human nature to do this is still sustained by God.
I’m really only trying to give a brief rundown here.
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Wesrock
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To me it sounds like you’re following the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Could you clarify?Wozza:
That’s the “infinite causal chain” previously discussed & available evidence doesn’t support it.
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Wesrock
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I for the life of me don’t understand why this keeps being repeated by so many people in different topics.
The revelation of a certainty which can be voided is basically a square circle, a logical impossibility, and so is not something that could occur, as there is no real capacity for such an instance to actually happen. Either there could be no such prophecy, or the prophecy would necessarily be required to be sufficiently vague or constructed in a way that all concerned end up making it a self-fulfilling prophecy even if they did try to avoid it, or something along those lines. The objection is an attempt at a reductio ad absurdum, but it fails at it, as the absurdity doesn’t necessarily follow and is simply avoided with a different answer that doesn’t contradict any sound premises.
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STT
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No. The existence of foreknowledge is a square-circle because a free agent can in principle know it. Of course there is a contradiction in here.
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Wesrock
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The objection is faulty because there is no obligation or necessity that any foreknowledge be revealed to begin with, which this objection assumes. “If I had foreknowledge I could avoid it!” But you go wrong in assuming avoidable foreknowledge is a real possibility. There is no reality in which such a state of affairs could actually exist, as it’s a square circle.Wesrock:
No. The existence of foreknowledge is a square-circle because a free agent can in principle know it. Of course there is a contradiction in here.
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Aquinas11
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Yes I think you’re right thx for correction , got them mixed up
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HarryStotle
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Aquinas argued that there are two kinds of causation, per se and per accidens. He conceded that an infinite causal series per accidens could not be ruled out because the cause (or series of causes) need not subsist after the effect is brought into being. So, for example, parents (cause) might die, but their child (effect) can continue to exist. The child’s moment-to-moment existence is not dependent upon the parents existing. Aquinas allowed that these types of causal series could go on infinitely since there is nothing that could logically rule them out.
Some have argued that the difference between actual and virtual (or mathematical) infinites suggests that actual infinites might be impossible, a la Hilbert, but that wasn’t Aquinas’ concern.
What Aquinas was talking about, however, when he suggested a causal chain could NOT go on infinitely is where the cause is per se, i.e., when the effect requires the cause to subsist in order to maintain the effect in existence in the here-and-now. Feser, for example, calls this per se causation a vertical chain of causation as opposed to a horizontal chain (per accidens).
Since, per se or vertical causation happens in the here and now, to maintain the effect(s) in existence, an infinitely stacked chain of abiding causes in the moment could not be explanatory in any real sense, and therefore such a possibility would contradict the logical principle of sufficient reason, although that is only one of the problems with an infinite per se causal series.
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HarryStotle
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“So many people” are under the impression that their own incapacity to imagine or conceive of something functions as a necessary and insurmountable obstacle for God. As if God is limited because human limitation or ignorance exists.STT:
I for the life of me don’t understand why this keeps being repeated by so many people in different topics.
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HarryStotle
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This is a classic case of begging the question. You assume that a decision to create must necessarily be of a causal nature. True, the agent acts to bring about the effect, but it isn’t necessarily true that the manner in which the effect is brought about is “causal” in nature. Nor that the decision to act was itself caused in that same sense. There may be a number of different ways to bring about effects, and cause (in the sense you appear to use it) may only be one of them.IWantGod:
Okay, then let’s get back on topic.
And I’ll repeat my question.
Why does it create? What causes it to do so? If it has a choice to create, or not to create, what causes it to decide one way or the other?
To insist that all effects require a cause or the same kind of cause, i.e., one that is itself caused, is to beg the question of whether choices or willed actions are themselves necessarily caused to begin with.
The other issue here is that the metaphysical foundation of the relationship between a cause and an effect is largely unknown to begin with.
Sure, we can see regularity in the causal order and therefore we can reliably say this cause brings about this effect. However, why it does is largely unexplained.
Why do objects exert gravitational or magnetic pull on other objects? We can give a superficial answer, but that is by no means one that fully or sufficiently explains the relationship between a particular cause and a particular effect.
There exists a kind of facade of scientific knowledge, but that only masks a deep ignorance about the things in the objective world and why they behave as they do. We can predict a great deal based upon regularities in what we observe, but that is far from having a clear view into the reasons why things happen as they do.
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Wozza
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The purpose of which you speak is that which is part of an intellligently designed plan. Going back to our plants in the fire zone, your contention is that there has been a conscious intelligent decision for some plants to survive. Whereas most people would simply see a natural tendancy that has emerged via random rolling of the genetic dice.Wozza:
If an organism is clearly acting for it’s survival then it is acting for the purpose of surviving. The fact that some other physical object didn’t do so well in comparison is irrelevant.
You act for your survival everyday i assume, like going to work, eating, and other blatantly self-evident reasons for acknowledging the existence of purpose driven activity.
It’s like you were born yesterday. Are the things that i’m saying really that controversial that you feel the need to ignore it?
If you want to claim that the random roll is not random at all but an intentional result of intelligent thought then go for it. All you are saying in that case is that ‘God exists’. You cannot then fail to have purpose in literally everything. And as Popper said (paraphrasing): something that explains literally everything explains nothing.
I would like to think that purpose must entail some sort of Inbuilt intelligence. But your position means purpose in everything. So the flower turning to the sun shows purpose - it must to survive. The death of a deer shows purpose - it feeds the lion. There is nothing that won’t show it. So there is nothing to discuss. You cannot differentiate something that has no purpose from something that does. It’s all part of God’s plan.
In any case, when someone talks about the purpose of existence I really don’t think that me going to the fridge for another beer or the chicken crossing the road to get to the other side needs to be considered. But that’s what you want to bring to the argjment.
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Wozza
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Surely that is wrong. Every act is formed by a decision which is preceeded by a cause. It’s not conceiveable to make a conscious decision for no reason at all.Delusioned:
Please note that you can decide meaning that your act, your decision, is uncaused cause. Therefore you are uncaused cause.
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