Thomas Aquinas, The Unmoved Mover

[JDaniel]

There’s a big difference between creation and natural causation, but creation is causation. In other words, there is a big difference between ‘first’ causation and secondary causation, but both are kinds of causation - aren’t they?

Betterave:

Not quite. Creation is differentiated from causation in that causation always requires already existing matter upon which to work, which always remains in the effect, except with a (new) form. That is, matter, whether primary of secondary, is undifferentiated substance, but which is NOT particles of God. God creates matter. Form is what the matter lacks, it is that which is begged for, in a sense, by the matter. (Com. on the Met., Bk. XII, les. 2, nn. 2429{2430.)

On the other hand, creation is the production of something where there was absolutely nothing whatsoever before. (See New Advent Encyclopedia.)

I think you should double check that context.

Alrighty then, I did:
"So far, then, induction has shown that there are three kinds of causes in the natural universe. There is also a fourth kind of cause, the final cause. Cf. This is the end or purpose, from the Latin word finis which means end, goal, term, aim, purpose. A final cause is that for the sake of which an agent acts. It provides the explanation of why the efficient cause acts. For example, a man walks for the sake of health, and health is thus the final cause of his action. It is a cause because it is the answer to the question: why? - Phys., Bk. II, ch. 3, 194b, 32{35.31 and Ibid., 194b, 18{20.

Sorry.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Yes granny, your always welcome as far as I’m concerned. Peter Lombard’s Sentences were required reading at the University of Paris in the 13th Century. The format was rather legal, where both sides (pro and con) of a question were examined from the Christian core of questions. In order to get your doctorate, you had to record your answers to the questions. And I think St. Thomas’ Summa Theologica replicates the same basic format. A good book to read, which should be made into a movie, is G.K. Chesterton’s short work entitled Thomas Aquinas.

Charles:

Wow. Wouldn’t that be wonderful!

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Isn’t something being its own cause the same thing as being logically necessary? Can we conceive of a world where a strange quark does not exist? I can conceive of such a world. It would seem then that we can dismiss the strange quark as not logically necessary and therefore not its own cause either.

Warp:

I don’t think so. The strange quark is apparently an essential particle of certain quantum aspects of matter/energy. I’m not at all sure we can throw it out. But, we can certainly continue to investigate them.

Here is Wikipedia’s account:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_quark

God bless,
jd

 

[charlescritt]

Isn’t something being its own cause the same thing as being logically necessary? Can we conceive of a world where a strange quark does not exist? I can conceive of such a world. It would seem then that we can dismiss the strange quark as not logically necessary and therefore not its own cause either.

Yes, St. Thomas pointed this out as exigency inherent in pure energy. But if you admit the whining nature of the charm quark, then the strange quark usually jumps into being as a result. This is highly metaphorical and speculative, but let’s admit that St. Thomas was thinking of the whining nature of a newborn- waaaaaa!!!waaaa!!!waaa!!!. This intolerable incessant crying would provoke a hearer into a strange attempt to satisfy the little brat and he might do it in a number of ways. Yet all attempts could be considered Knightly or soldierly, because that person always has an option to leave. In a full legal account, the pawn baby is the petitioner and the knight is the defender of existence, he takes a stand. If he finds the task too challenging, he may hire a lawyer, then the baby hires his, whereupon the necessity for examination and counter examination and eventually a judge and jury to publicly deal with the situation at hand. The primary cause is the petitio principii, the categorical(against the assembly) whining and not the strange one, who just happens to try and do a good deed. The answer is not the absolutist cry for simplicity, nor the relativistic demand for a fully complicated extension, but just a focus between the two for both their sakes.

 

[charlescritt]

Betterave:

Not quite. Creation is differentiated from causation in that causation always requires already existing matter upon which to work, which always remains in the effect, except with a (new) form. That is, matter, whether primary of secondary, is undifferentiated substance, but which is NOT particles of God. God creates matter. Form is what the matter lacks, it is that which is begged for, in a sense, by the matter. (Com. on the Met., Bk. XII, les. 2, nn. 2429{2430.)

On the other hand, creation is the production of something where there was absolutely nothing whatsoever before. (See New Advent Encyclopedia.)

Alrighty then, I did:
"So far, then, induction has shown that there are three kinds of causes in the natural universe. There is also a fourth kind of cause, the final cause. Cf. This is the end or purpose, from the Latin word finis which means end, goal, term, aim, purpose. A final cause is that for the sake of which an agent acts. It provides the explanation of why the efficient cause acts. For example, a man walks for the sake of health, and health is thus the final cause of his action. It is a cause because it is the answer to the question: why? - Phys., Bk. II, ch. 3, 194b, 32{35.31 and Ibid., 194b, 18{20.

Sorry.

God bless,
jd

jd, betterave has a good point here. You are on different pages. The four causes work as well for demonstrative inferences as well as speculative inferences ( those in which St. Thomas would probably agree with me), come from the possible intellect. they are distinct beings, you can’t get an ought from an is. You can’t get an up from a down, matters of faith are separate creatures from matters of material fact. Meanness is meanness and niceness is niceness, they are separate entities. Yet we use them legislatively, making a world where we hopefully protect and serve each other.

 

[charlescritt]

Aristotle’s logic (used by Aquinas) has known flaws. Aquinas’ argument (sometimes taken as proofs when they were intended to be indications) also have known flaws, sometimes induced by the underlying weaknesses in Aristotle’s logic.

God hasn’t changed, but man’s ability to build a logical argument has. Man’s understanding of nature has. Man’s understanding of logic, of time of material, of motion, has.

What are these flaws? Are you sure their not just biases?

 

[charlescritt]

Since I am not yet familiar with the language of Aquinas and am just beginning to understand the scholastic environment, my first thought is that the end or purpose of God is pure existence or pure being with no restrictions. While the first centuries were filled with debate, God was accepted as existing. Thus the various debates concerned how He existed. In our century, people work backwards to find the existence of God.

Starting with God Himself, I think of Him as sharing or giving existence to His creation. Thus, having existence would be the end or purpose of the universe. Human nature, which unites both the material and spiritual worlds, gives us the opportunity to share in God’s life through knowledge and will. Thus, we have a twofold end or purpose. First we exist in the universe, i.e., in the material realm and second we exist in the spiritual realm which requires our unique spiritual souls. The second end of human nature is the spiritual existence with direction or purpose toward eternal existence with the Beatific Vision.

Some of my reading describes the unity of soul and body to be so profound that one can consider the soul to be the “form” of the body. This union forms a single nature. Refer to Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, paragraphs 362-367.

In my humble opinion, the reason God can be the unmoved mover or uncaused cause is that God is the first or original Being existing eternally. If I am understanding the 13th century correctly, it wasn’t necessary to prove God’s existence, but rather to account for His attributes through the reasoning of philosophy, In turn, like a circle, His attributes not only describe His existence, they are existence. Thus, God is Divine Nature.

Blessings,
granny

“The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?”
from the poem “Christmas” by George Herbert

Granny, in the thirteenth century it was of paramount importance to logically prove God’s existence as opposed to his essence. Duns Scotus and others carried on the work, but the primary irritant was Siger of Brabant, who taught that the church must be right theologically, but could be wrong scientifically. He was a teacher at the University of Paris and what he taught irritated St. Thomas tremendously, What he represented was a weakness and a belief that nice people don’t know how to win. That nice people can’t come to the brutal truth that authority must hold the reigns of knowledge. The Summa, which he never finished, was a valiant attempt to reconcile the dual nature of the universe. Historically, Siger was the absolutist, survival of the fittest, Theologian and essence, the nonergodic, must hold the reigns of existence to prevent mass hysteria. St, Thomas was the civil rights leader of the time, the Martin Luther King of the Dominicans. At least that’s my version.

 

[tdgesq]

Apparently, Hume is one of the philosophers I spaced out. Even so, how would the induction method destroy causality?

It doesn’t really, but Hume thought it did. Hume’s Enquiry begins with how we know cause and effect. He posits that we have knowledge of causal relations because we have observed them. Water is cooled to zero degrees Celsius, it freezes. A cue ball strikes another billiard ball at a certain angle, it goes into the corner pocket. We understand all of these things through induction, which means that induction must be justified before we can know causal relations.

However, when we say we know that a certain cause (cooling water to a certain temperature) will result in a certain effect (ice), what we are really saying is that in the past we have observed one event (X) follow another event (Y). We may have observed this hundreds or thousands of times. Conceivably though, the next time (Y) happens it may be that (X) does not follow. In fact, the only reason we believe that (X) will follow (Y) is because we’ve seen it happen “lots of times” in the past. But Hume pointed out that isn’t justification for our belief that it will happen again in the future. Something more must be assumed, and that something more is the uniformity of nature.

More specifically, the belief that nature will remain uniform in the area of causality lacks justification in Hume’s view. This leaves him questioning whether there is such a thing as causality to begin with. There are only events occurring before other events, and even that relationship is uncertain to hold in the future.

 

[grannymh]

Granny, in the thirteenth century it was of paramount importance to logically prove God’s existence as opposed to his essence.

In the book I am reading, I saw this point hinted at. I need to continue reading. But I am glad I was able to spot what you are saying.

Duns Scotus and others carried on the work, but the primary irritant was Siger of Brabant, who taught that the church must be right theologically, but could be wrong scientifically. He was a teacher at the University of Paris and what he taught irritated St. Thomas tremendously, What he represented was a weakness and a belief that nice people don’t know how to win. That nice people can’t come to the brutal truth that authority must hold the reigns of knowledge. The Summa, which he never finished, was a valiant attempt to reconcile the dual nature of the universe. Historically, Siger was the absolutist, survival of the fittest, Theologian and essence, the nonergodic, must hold the reigns of existence to prevent mass hysteria. St, Thomas was the civil rights leader of the time, the Martin Luther King of the Dominicans. At least that’s my version.

I am only into my first reading of the book’s introduction, but it seems to me that earlier philosophers were referred to. This back and forth between the centuries is what I thrive on. It is easier for me to understand Catholic theology, because a Catholic high school religion course included the early heresies and the Protestant Reformation. Obviously, I don’t remember any details such as facts…I was learning how to learn about Catholicism.

Having gotten use to strange, I am comfortable with the necessity of comprehending the OP topic and surrounding information in order to defend the reality of Adam and Eve as being the two, sole, true parents of the human species.

Blessings,
granny

Isaiah 55: 6-9

 

[grannymh]

It doesn’t really, but Hume thought it did. Hume’s Enquiry begins with how we know cause and effect. He posits that we have knowledge of causal relations because we have observed them. Water is cooled to zero degrees Celsius, it freezes. A cue ball strikes another billiard ball at a certain angle, it goes into the corner pocket. We understand all of these things through induction, which means that induction must be justified before we can know causal relations.

However, when we say we know that a certain cause (cooling water to a certain temperature) will result in a certain effect (ice), what we are really saying is that in the past we have observed one event (X) follow another event (Y). We may have observed this hundreds or thousands of times. Conceivably though, the next time (Y) happens it may be that (X) does not follow. In fact, the only reason we believe that (X) will follow (Y) is because we’ve seen it happen “lots of times” in the past. But Hume pointed out that isn’t justification for our belief that it will happen again in the future. Something more must be assumed, and that something more is the uniformity of nature.

More specifically, the belief that nature will remain uniform in the area of causality lacks justification in Hume’s view. This leaves him questioning whether there is such a thing as causality to begin with. There are only events occurring before other events, and even that relationship is uncertain to hold in the future.

Thank you.

At the moment I am concerned about going off topic because I need to translate this into scientific situations that I am exploring in a thread in Back Fence Forum.
“How does the nitty-gritty of methods and materials of science research contribute to the various theories of [human] evolution?”
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=478146

Having landed on CAF in the middle of faith/science discussions, I now see why it is necessary to understand philosophy when analyzing scientific research. Sometimes, it takes a bit longer to get ideas through my head.

Blessings,
granny

The quest for truth is worthy of the adventures of the journey.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

**More specifically, the belief that nature will remain uniform in the area of causality lacks justification in Hume’s view. This leaves him questioning whether there is such a thing as causality to begin with. There are only events occurring before other events, and even that relationship is uncertain to hold in the future. **

Does he give an example of a law of a causal relationship in nature being violated? Only if he can do that is it possible to say that causal events are ultimately uncertain.

For example, if he can cite that some water will not freeze when it reaches a certain temperature, then he can say that the causal law is uncertain.

I don’t recall him giving such an example. He should have. Do you have such an example handy?

Even if the expected causal outcome did not occur, that would not eliminate the law of causality. It would only suggest that another cause is preventing water from freezing even when it reaches such a temperature. Don’t know how that would be possible.

 

[Betterave]

Betterave:

Not quite. Creation is differentiated from causation in that causation always requires already existing matter upon which to work, which always remains in the effect, except with a (new) form. That is, matter, whether primary of secondary, is undifferentiated substance, but which is NOT particles of God. God creates matter. Form is what the matter lacks, it is that which is begged for, in a sense, by the matter. (Com. on the Met., Bk. XII, les. 2, nn. 2429{2430.)

On the other hand, creation is the production of something where there was absolutely nothing whatsoever before. (See New Advent Encyclopedia.)

See it indeed:
The idea of creation thus outlined is intrinsically consistent. Given a personal First Cause possessing infinite power and wisdom, creative productivity would a priori be necessarily one of His perfections, i.e. absolute independence of the external limitations imposed by a material subject whereon to exert His efficiency. Besides, the fecundity which organic creatures possess, and which, in the present supposition, would be derived from that First Cause, must be found typically and eminently in its source. But creative productivity is just the transcendent exemplar of organic fecundity. Therefore, a priori, we should look for it in the First Cause. How the creature is produced, how something comes from nothing, is of course quite unimaginable by us, and extremely difficult to conceive. But this is scarcely less true of any other mode of production. The intimate nexus between cause and effect is in every case hard to understand
Thus creation is clearly a kind of causality.

Alrighty then, I did:
"So far, then, induction has shown that there are three kinds of causes in the natural universe. There is also a fourth kind of cause, the final cause. Cf. This is the end or purpose, from the Latin word finis which means end, goal, term, aim, purpose. A final cause is that for the sake of which an agent acts. It provides the explanation of why the efficient cause acts. For example, a man walks for the sake of health, and health is thus the final cause of his action. It is a cause because it is the answer to the question: why? - Phys., Bk. II, ch. 3, 194b, 32{35.31 and Ibid., 194b, 18{20.

Sorry.

God bless,
jd

It should have been obvious that I meant the context of the use of the word end as I was using it in this thread when you criticized me. What you wrote above provides a very different context, one which is completely irrelevant to that of my comment. Sorry.

 

[Betterave]

**More specifically, the belief that nature will remain uniform in the area of causality lacks justification in Hume’s view. This leaves him questioning whether there is such a thing as causality to begin with. There are only events occurring before other events, and even that relationship is uncertain to hold in the future. **

Does he give an example of a law of a causal relationship in nature being violated? Only if he can do that is it possible to say that causal events are ultimately uncertain.

For example, if he can cite that some water will not freeze when it reaches a certain temperature, then he can say that the causal law is uncertain.

I don’t recall him giving such an example. He should have. Do you have such an example handy?

Even if the expected causal outcome did not occur, that would not eliminate the law of causality. It would only suggest that another cause is preventing water from freezing even when it reaches such a temperature. Don’t know how that would be possible.

That completely misses Hume’s point. He doesn’t claim that he can show that particular effects don’t follow from particular causes. His point is that we never observe causality as such, just chains of events which succeed each other. We assign the terms ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ on the basis of ‘inductive inference,’ which is simply our psychological habit, not something that can be rationally justified (attempted justifications are always circular, petitiones principibus). We can never actually ground the reality of the necessity that we grasp in causal relationships, other than with reference to brute facts about our psychological habits.

 

[tdgesq]

Thank you.

At the moment I am concerned about going off topic because I need to translate this into scientific situations that I am exploring in a thread in Back Fence Forum.
“How does the nitty-gritty of methods and materials of science research contribute to the various theories of [human] evolution?”
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=478146

Having landed on CAF in the middle of faith/science discussions, I now see why it is necessary to understand philosophy when analyzing scientific research. Sometimes, it takes a bit longer to get ideas through my head.

Blessings,
granny

The quest for truth is worthy of the adventures of the journey.

I wouldn’t worry abut it for purposes of that thread. Although scientific investigation is dependent upon induction, nobody really believes that induction is an invalid method of gaining knowledge. Everybody uses it.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

If we are to accept the inductions that form the various natural laws. Then why should we be any less sure in our inductions of causality? The point being that the epistemological weakness of induction gives us no special cause to doubt causality.

 

[tdgesq]

Does he give an example of a law of a causal relationship in nature being violated? Only if he can do that is it possible to say that causal events are ultimately uncertain.

Hume isn’t claiming that he can give examples of a causal relationship being violated, rather, he is claiming that there isn’t any good reason to believe there are causal relationships to begin with. He points out that causality doesn’t have any justification because it is based upon induction, and induction in and of itself does not prove anything other than in the past event (Y) has always preceded event (X).

For example, if he can cite that some water will not freeze when it reaches a certain temperature, then he can say that the causal law is uncertain.

Or if he can give an example of induction failing, which he does. The white swan example is his most famous. He asserts that every swan ever observed has been white; therefore, all swans are white. Of course it turns out that a non-white swan was later discovered. Furthermore, we know that correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Every time I rub my lucky rabbit’s foot, I bowl a strike. Does induction in this instance justify a causal relationship?

Even if the expected causal outcome did not occur, that would not eliminate the law of causality. It would only suggest that another cause is preventing water from freezing even when it reaches such a temperature. Don’t know how that would be possible.

But this presupposes what is sought to be proven: whether causal relationships are justified. Hume says they are not, at least not through induction.

Catholics and most theists don’t have this problem. They have a justification for the uniformity of nature.

 

[grannymh]

Thus creation is clearly a kind of causality.

The original sense of creation can only be attributed to God, because creation is used in reference to creating of out nothing.

 

[Wayward_Wind]

You cannot have a cause unless you also have time. Your “first cause” cannot possibly be “outside of time”. Cause comes before the effect. Here the word “before” requires time. If there is no time then you cannot tell whether A cams before B or if B came before A. Hence you cannot distinguish cause from effect.

Causation requires time. In the absence of time there is no causation.

How do you know that your proposed “first cause” is not really the “second cause” unless you can distinguish between first and second? How do you distinguish between first and second in the absence of time?

rossum

Why can’t the first cause be outside of time, what law defines what is in or out of time?

-sorry to have arrived late, but better late than never…

 

[grannymh]

I wouldn’t worry abut it for purposes of that thread. Although scientific investigation is dependent upon induction, nobody really believes that induction is an invalid method of gaining knowledge. Everybody uses it.

In the science realm, the difficulty is not with the induction method per se. The difficulty is the evidence one starts with and the conclusion one ends with. Are the extrapolations of a particular conclusion warranted by the evidence? is the key question.

 

[grannymh]

Why can’t the first cause be outside of time, what law defines what is in or out of time?

It is my understanding that Genesis 1: 1 revels that the universe had a temporal beginning. The concept of God is eternal.