St. Thomas' Argument from Contingency

[belorg]

Oh brother!
Let’s see what aquinas says:

newadvent.org/summa/1019.htm#article3

Article 3. Whether whatever God wills He wills necessarily?

Objection 1. It seems that whatever God wills He wills necessarily. For everything eternal is necessary. But whatever God wills, He wills from eternity, for otherwise His will would be mutable. Therefore whatever He wills, He wills necessarily.

Reply to Objection 1. From the fact that God wills from eternity whatever He wills, it does not follow that He wills it necessarily; except by supposition.

Objection 2. Further, God wills things apart from Himself, inasmuch as He wills His own goodness. Now God wills His own goodness necessarily. Therefore He wills things apart from Himself necessarily.

Reply to Objection 2. Although God necessarily wills His own goodness, He does not necessarily will things willed on account of His goodness; for it can exist without other things.

Objection 3. Further, whatever belongs to the nature of God is necessary, for God is of Himself necessary being, and the principle of all necessity, as above shown (2, 3). But it belongs to His nature to will whatever He wills; since in God there can be nothing over and above His nature as stated in Metaph. v, 6. Therefore whatever He wills, He wills necessarily.

Reply to Objection 3. It is not natural to God to will any of those other things that He does not will necessarily; and yet it is not unnatural or contrary to His nature, but voluntary.

Objection 4. Further, being that is not necessary, and being that is possible not to be, are one and the same thing. If, therefore, God does not necessarily will a thing that He wills, it is possible for Him not to will it, and therefore possible for Him to will what He does not will. And so the divine will is contingent upon one or the other of two things, and imperfect, since everything contingent is imperfect and mutable.

Reply to Objection 4. Sometimes a necessary cause has a non-necessary relation to an effect; owing to a deficiency in the effect, and not in the cause. Even so, the sun’s power has a non-necessary relation to some contingent events on this earth, owing to a defect not in the solar power, but in the effect that proceeds not necessarily from the cause. In the same way, that God does not necessarily will some of the things that He wills, does not result from defect in the divine will, but from a defect belonging to the nature of the thing willed, namely, that the perfect goodness of God can be without it; and such defect accompanies all created good.

Objection 5. Further, on the part of that which is indifferent to one or the other of two things, no action results unless it is inclined to one or the other by some other power, as the Commentator [Averroes] says in Phys. ii. If, then, the Will of God is indifferent with regard to anything, it follows that His determination to act comes from another; and thus He has some cause prior to Himself.

Reply to Objection 5. A naturally contingent cause must be determined to act by some external power. The divine will, which by its nature is necessary, determines itself to will things to which it has no necessary relation.

Objection 6. Further, whatever God knows, He knows necessarily. But as the divine knowledge is His essence, so is the divine will. Therefore whatever God wills, He wills necessarily.

Reply to Objection 6. As the divine essence is necessary of itself, so is the divine will and the divine knowledge; but the divine knowledge has a necessary relation to the thing known; not the divine will to the thing willed. The reason for this is that knowledge is of things as they exist in the knower; but the will is directed to things as they exist in themselves. Since then all other things have necessary existence inasmuch as they exist in God; but no absolute necessity so as to be necessary in themselves, in so far as they exist in themselves; it follows that God knows necessarily whatever He wills, but does not will necessarily whatever He wills.

Very interesting, but completely irrelevant.

 

[empther]

Very interesting, but completely irrelevant.

Tell that to a hundred Popes, thousands of cardinals, millions of priests and billions of Catholics since Aquinas.

Reminds me of last night’s episode of “Scam, Scoundrels and Scandals” on CNBC.

Some guy in Long Island scammed thousands of blue collar class workers out of four hundred million dollars in a phony real estate investment ponzi scheme. Thousands of people had their life savings wiped out. One of the suckers got forty of his friends to invest including his parents who lost their home.
The scammer is serving 25 years in prison. In a phone call to CNBC he says he never meant to hurt anybody and wants to get out of prison so he can start working to get all the people their money back! :bigyikes: :banghead:

Denial, denial, denial! Don’t like something for what it is? Just call it something different.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

That means that there are different possible worlds, in each of which God is different, according to what He determines Himself to be in that particular world.

With all due respect, but I don’t think you really understand possible world semantics.

See, above? If that is true, then it is true that there are different possible worlds in each of which God determines Himself to be different.

Tha means that God could choose to exist and not exist at the same time.

Actually, what I’m doing is questioning the usefulness of talking about possible worlds when discussing God. I understand that one could talk about the possible world where God does X and the one where He does Y, but the connotations of such language as it sounds in plain English rub me the wrong way.

But to use it anyway for a bit: if there were a possible world in which God willed not to exist, then He wouldn’t. But then that world wouldn’t exist. So it wouldn’t actually be a possible world, since its existence implies its nonexistence. Therefore God willing His existence is necessary in that it must occur in any possible world. But other acts of will may not be necessary.

For the moment, I still maintain that this only depends on Him, together with the fact that He determines what that means.

 

[CatholicSoxFan]

That is not an aswer to my question.

It is. It reconciles the necessity of the attributes of God with His free will.

 

[belorg]

Actually, what I’m doing is questioning the usefulness of talking about possible worlds when discussing God. I understand that one could talk about the possible world where God does X and the one where He does Y, but the connotations of such language as it sounds in plain English rub me the wrong way.

But to use it anyway for a bit: if there were a possible world in which God willed not to exist, then He wouldn’t. But then that world wouldn’t exist. So it wouldn’t actually be a possible world, since its existence implies its nonexistence. Therefore God willing His existence is necessary in that it must occur in any possible world. But other acts of will may not be necessary.

If God is necessary he can’t will not to exist.

For the moment, I still maintain that this only depends on Him, together with the fact that He determines what that means.

OK, I respect that, but that also means any discussion with you is pointless.

 

[belorg]

It is. It reconciles the necessity of the attributes of God with His free will.

If God has the freedom to create somthing different, that means there is a possible world in which he creates somethign different, because in that world He prefeers to create something different, which means in world A He has preference a and in world B He has preference b, which mean we have Actus Purus A and Actus Purus B.

That seems pretty incoherent to me.

 

[polytropos]

His preference for starters. Is it really coherent to say that “Actus Purus” could have had the preference to create something different?

Can you clarify what you mean by “preference”? God created the actual world A and could have created some other world B. Both A and B are good (if it is possible that God could have created them). Neither A nor B is the best possible world, for there is no best possible world. God therefore has reasons for creating either A or B. His acting on one set of reasons rather than another set of reasons (ie. the goodness of A rather than the goodness of B) does not imply that he is different in B than he is in A.

So the only difference is in God’s act. But God may have active powers as long as he does not have passive potencies. And the difference between worlds A and B is not reflected in a passive potency in God, but only in an active power, the exercise of which is not essential to God’s substance, and so does not imply that God is different in different possible worlds.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

If God is necessary he can’t will not to exist.

Yes, this is true. And in fact what I just said. Willing not to exist would give a contradiction, but this does not apply to all other things He could will in more than one way.

OK, I respect that, but that also means any discussion with you is pointless.

I mean I maintain it because I have neither arrived at nor been shown any refutation of what I said before at this time; that I so far fail to see a problem. I do not mean that I would reject any such refutation out of hand.

 

[polytropos]

Actually, what I’m doing is questioning the usefulness of talking about possible worlds when discussing God. I understand that one could talk about the possible world where God does X and the one where He does Y, but the connotations of such language as it sounds in plain English rub me the wrong way.

This is only tangentially related: I read an interesting commentary somewhere about Aquinas’s analysis of omnipotence. Many have tried to provide an analysis of omnipotence in terms of “doing,” but it is interestingly difficult to formulate. (The analytic philosopher Peter Geach settled for calling God “almighty” since he could not make sense of omnipotence, although I think that is too drastic.) But if one reads Aquinas closely, it is apparent that he had a different notion in mind. Omnipotence should be formulated not in terms of doing but in terms of having states of affairs under one’s powers. For instance, God cannot “sit” (qua divine substance, that is – Jesus can sit), but it is under his power that people should sit. God cannot grow, but it is under his power that things should grow.

I think you are right as well about possible-worlds talk. Possible worlds talk does seem to connote either a realist or Platonist interpretation, but I think neither are quite correct. It may be fine as a metric, but it is more appropriate, I think, to be clear that possibilities are rooted in the real natures of things.

 

[belorg]

Can you clarify what you mean by “preference”? God created the actual world A and could have created some other world B. Both A and B are good (if it is possible that God could have created them). Neither A nor B is the best possible world, for there is no best possible world. God therefore has reasons for creating either A or B. His acting on one set of reasons rather than another set of reasons (ie. the goodness of A rather than the goodness of B) does not imply that he is different in B than he is in A.

So the only difference is in God’s act. But God may have active powers as long as he does not have passive potencies. And the difference between worlds A and B is not reflected in a passive potency in God, but only in an active power, the exercise of which is not essential to God’s substance, and so does not imply that God is different in different possible worlds.

Since neither A not B is the best possible world, the ‘reason’ God has for creating A instead of B cannot be anything else but a preference.
If God has free will, then God can have different preferences in different possible worlds. That’s what preference means.

The rest of your post just begs the question, I am afraid. Actus Purus is Actus Purus, and it is not Actus with preference A versus Actus with preference B.

 

[belorg]

Yes, this is true. And in fact what I just said. Willing not to exist would give a contradiction, but this does not apply to all other things He could will in more than one way.

I mean I maintain it because I have neither arrived at nor been shown any refutation of what I said before at this time; that I so far fail to see a problem. I do not mean that I would reject any such refutation out of hand.

You say that the laws of logic depend on Him; That means He can change them, so any logical discussion is pointless.

 

[polytropos]

Since neither A not B is the best possible world, the ‘reason’ God has for creating A instead of B cannot be anything else but a preference.

If God has free will, then God can have different preferences in different possible worlds. That’s what preference means.

That doesn’t clarify the meaning of “preference.” God has reasons to appreciate the goodness of whatever world he creates. He does not need a preference of one over the other in order to create. He does not have ends to fulfill for himself, nor is there a best world he could create. He creates different worlds in different possible worlds, not because he prefers one to the other but because they are good in any case.

The rest of your post just begs the question, I am afraid. Actus Purus is Actus Purus, and it is not Actus with preference A versus Actus with preference B.

I can’t understand what your point is here. So I’ll guess.

I have claimed that God creates based upon reasons. He created world A. That doesn’t mean that he does not in A still have reasons for creating B which he could have created but did not, and which is also good. It simply means that he created A. His acting one way or another does not change him substantially (it is “a mere Cambridge change”).

 

[CatholicSoxFan]

You say that the laws of logic depend on Him; That means He can change them, so any logical discussion is pointless.

Like objective moral values, the laws of logic are based on God’s nature. And since His nature can’t change, He can’t change the laws of logic.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Contingent in this context does not mean logically contingent as in ‘there is at least one possible world in which it doesn’t exist’. For Aquinas, contingent means ‘not eternal’.
So, what this argument establishes is, at most, that there is at least one eternal entity.

And there is no real argument against eternal changeable entities, so the universe can be eternal and Sagan’s comeback does work. There is harldy anu-y Cosmologist who thinks everything can ever go out of existence, so in that sense, the universe is eternal.

BTW, there is nothing preventing even a logically necessary entity from changing.

Not quite, not by a long shot. If you read Aristotle’s Physics, esp. Book VIII, you will see a discussion of the Unmoved Mover. My analysis is here: " Re: The First Way Explained

---

Just finishing Aristotle’s Physics. It was certainly worth the effort. One thing that struck me was that eventhough his argument for God’s existence goes through his analysis of local motion, the existence of the movers themselves must be accounted for. For if they do not exist they cannot move anything. And their existence cannot be accounted for unless they are brought into being from non-being by the First Unmoved Mover, who Exists as an Eternal Being, who is Simple and Immaterial ( having no parts ), One ( since there cannot be more than one such being), and Intelligent ( Mind or Soul), who causes the being of all the other movers and of all other beings, otherwise they can neither be at rest nor in motion, nor be changing. So Thomists ( i.e. Feser ) who insist that the First Way of Thomas must consider the cause of the existence of things are absolutely correct.

And Thomas’ conclusion: " .1172. Then at (918) from the premisses already demonstrated he concludes to the main conclusion. And he says that from the foregoing it is plainly impossible for the first immobile mover to have any magnitude or to be a body or to be a power residing in a body. For if it had any magnitude, it would te either finite or infinite. But it was proved in Book III, when nature in common was discussed, that an infinite magnitude is not possible. What remains, therefore, is that, if it does have magnitude, it will have a finite magnitude. But that such is not so he proves on the ground that it is impossible for a finite magnitude to possess infinite power, such as the first immobile mover must necessarily have. Therefore, it cannot have a finite magnitude.

But that the first immobile mover must have infinite power he proves from something previously demonstrated, namely, that it is impossible for something to be moved for an infinite time by a finite power. Now, the first mover causes a motion that is perpetual and continuous, and is one and the same for infinite time, for otherwise this motion would not be continuous. Therefore, it has infinite power.

Thus it does not have a finite magnitude, and an infinite magnitude is impossible to be. It is plain, therefore, that the first mover is indivisible, both as having no part, as even a point is indivisible, and as wholly without magnitude, as though existing outside the genus of magnitude.

And thus does the Philosopher in his general consideration of natural things terminate at the first principle of the whole of nature, Who is the One above all things, the ever blessed God. Amen. "

If you are reading the Physics, don’t let yourself get bogged down by A’s " chalk board " demonstrations of motion. Just go to his summaries. It is all perfectlly logical and understandable. "

And of course Aquinas perfected Aristotle’s notion of being and existence.
It should also be noted that Aristotle argued strongly against other possible worlds.

Linus2nd

 

[belorg]

That doesn’t clarify the meaning of “preference.” God has reasons to appreciate the goodness of whatever world he creates. He does not need a preference of one over the other in order to create. He does not have ends to fulfill for himself, nor is there a best world he could create. He creates different worlds in different possible worlds, not because he prefers one to the other but because they are good in any case.
I can’t understand what your point is here. So I’ll guess.

I have claimed that God creates based upon reasons. He created world A. That doesn’t mean that he does not in A still have reasons for creating B which he could have created but did not, and which is also good. It simply means that he created A. His acting one way or another does not change him substantially (it is “a mere Cambridge change”).

Either there is a reason why God chose to create A and not B, and than we have a problem for Actus Purus or there isn’t, in which case the fact that A was created was just by chance.
Anyway, if God created A, then God had a will to create A and if God created B, then he had a will to create B. Since god is Actus Purus, there is no distinction in Him, so God doesn’t have a will, He is His will. And since He can apparently have two wills, there are two possible Actus Purus, which is incoherent.

 

[belorg]

Not quite, not by a long shot. If you read Aristotle’s Physics, esp. Book VIII, you will see a discussion of the Unmoved Mover. My analysis is here: " Re: The First Way Explained

---

Just finishing Aristotle’s Physics. It was certainly worth the effort. One thing that struck me was that eventhough his argument for God’s existence goes through his analysis of local motion, the existence of the movers themselves must be accounted for. For if they do not exist they cannot move anything. And their existence cannot be accounted for unless they are brought into being from non-being by the First Unmoved Mover, who Exists as an Eternal Being, who is Simple and Immaterial ( having no parts ), One ( since there cannot be more than one such being), and Intelligent ( Mind or Soul), who causes the being of all the other movers and of all other beings, otherwise they can neither be at rest nor in motion, nor be changing. So Thomists ( i.e. Feser ) who insist that the First Way of Thomas must consider the cause of the existence of things are absolutely correct.

And Thomas’ conclusion: " .1172. Then at (918) from the premisses already demonstrated he concludes to the main conclusion. And he says that from the foregoing it is plainly impossible for the first immobile mover to have any magnitude or to be a body or to be a power residing in a body. For if it had any magnitude, it would te either finite or infinite. But it was proved in Book III, when nature in common was discussed, that an infinite magnitude is not possible. What remains, therefore, is that, if it does have magnitude, it will have a finite magnitude. But that such is not so he proves on the ground that it is impossible for a finite magnitude to possess infinite power, such as the first immobile mover must necessarily have. Therefore, it cannot have a finite magnitude.

But that the first immobile mover must have infinite power he proves from something previously demonstrated, namely, that it is impossible for something to be moved for an infinite time by a finite power.

Complete nonsense. An object just need a little push and it will move for eternity.
This is based on Aristotle’s erroneous physics.

 

[belorg]

Like objective moral values, the laws of logic are based on God’s nature. And since His nature can’t change, He can’t change the laws of logic.

God’s nature is logically necssary, that means that because of the laws of logic, God’s nature cannot be other than what it is and, which means that the necsseary existence of god presupposes logic. IOW logic is based on the nature of God which is based on logic which is based on the nature of God … and infinite regress.

 

[tonyrey]

God’s nature is logically necssary, that means that because of the laws of logic, God’s nature cannot be other than what it is and, which means that the necsseary existence of god presupposes logic. IOW logic is based on the nature of God which is based on logic which is based on the nature of God … and infinite regress.

Originality and creativity transcend logic. For a start, God cannot not exist!

 

[belorg]

Originality and creativity transcend logic. For a start, God cannot not exist!

Those are two contradictory statements.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Complete nonsense. An object just need a little push and it will move for eternity.
This is based on Aristotle’s erroneous physics.

Sorry, but that was a typical knee jerk reaction to something you haven’t read. Not only have you refused to read Aquinas’ commentary on the Physics, you haven’t read what I have given in my post ( # 34 ). Read it again. The argument is that your " little push " requies that the movent be brought into existence first. If it doesn’t exist it can’t " push " anything. You can read Aquinas’ commentary to the eighth book of the Physics here:
dhspriory.org/thomas/english/Physics8.htm

For example paragraph # 974 : " But if one considers rightly, he was deceived by a cause similar to the cause by which he claimed we are deceived, namely, by considering particular things. For it is clear that a particular active power presupposes the matter which a more universal agent produces, just as an artisan uses the matter which nature makes. From the fact therefore, that every particular agent presupposes matter which it does not produce, one should not suppose that the first universal agent—which is active with respect to all being—should presuppose something not caused by it.

Nor, moreover, is this in keeping with the intention of Aristotle who in Metaphysics II proves that the supremely true and the supreme being is the cause of being for all existents. Hence the being which prime matter has—i.e., a being in potency—is derived from the first principle of being which is in a supreme way a being. Therefore, it is not necessary to presuppose for its action anything not produced by it.

And because every motion needs a subject—as Aristotle proves here, and as is the truth of the matter—it follows that the universal production of being by God is neither motion nor change, but a certain simple coming forth. Consequently, “to be made” and “to make” are used in an equivocal sense when applied to this universal production of being and to other productions.

Therefore, just as, if we should understand the production of things to be from God ab aeterno—as Aristotle supposed, and a number of the Platonists—it is not necessary, indeed, it is impossible, that there have been a pre-existing but unproduced subject of this universal production, so also, in accord with the tenets of our faith, if we posit that he did not produce things ab aeterno but produced them after they had not existed, it is not necessary to posit a subject for this universal production. It is evident, therefore, that what Aristotle proves here, namely, that every motion requires a mobile subject, is not against a tenet of our faith—for it has already been said that the universal production of things, whether ab aeterno or not, is neither a motion nor a change. For in order that there be motion or change, it is required that something be other now than previously, and thus there would be something previously existing, and consequently this would not be the universal production of things about which we are now speaking. "

It is true that Thomas uses Aristotle’s celestial universe in the argument based on A’s Physics, but he corrects it in the Commentary. But Thomas’ argument does not depend on that Celestial universe. He abandonded it altogether in the Summa Theologica. So to say that any of the Five Ways is invalid because of Aristotle’s Celestial universe is to beg the question entirely. It is nothing but a red herring. And this is even more true for the Argument from Contingency, the Third Way.

The point is that the universe, whether eternal or finite requires the creative act of the Prime Mover. In the former case God is eternally creating " being, " including individual beings. In the latter case He creates " being," in time, for which there was no prior time or matter of any kind, only God and His eternity.

My arguments are more fully covered in the thread below on pg 1 of this Forum The First Way Explained. I suggest you read it starting from post # 174 at least.

One final note. It is typical of those who have objected to Thomas’ Five Ways that they have not read Thomas himself, and most certainly, they have not read Aristotle. Typically they rely on commentary by hostile antognists who have themselves not read Thomas. And this error stretches right back to at least the 16 century. Consequently we have come to the impass that one liners serve the purpose of a Phd, or a life’s work. In other words the inmates have taken over the asylum. Screams and hooting pass for knowledge and learning.

Linus2nd