Uncaused cause=Pantheism

[SalamKhan]

However, God does not move you in the manner a sheet moves a coin on it

Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange uses the analogy of fire heating water.

 

[STT]

I am helping you make your argument more coherent. Your current conclusion is:

Thanks. Let’s see if we can build this argument together.

Pantheism is God. In other words, everything is God is God.

Yes.

The only correct and coherent premise you’ve posited is that God is the cause of causes.

I think that something which its very existence depends on something else cannot cause existence of something else. Can we agree on this point? If yes, then it follows that the source of all cause is one. In another words, beings/things are not origin cause of other beings/things. This has to be true because otherwise beings/things can be cause of each other and there was no need for God. This means that God causes all causes which is this basically premises (2).

 

[STT]

We’ve discussed God’s knowledge relative to reality in multiple topics. Can you please explain to me what you mean by God’s foreknowledge?

Foreknowledge means that God eternally knows all our decisions.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

We’ve discussed God’s knowledge relative to reality in multiple topics. Can you please explain to me what you mean by God’s foreknowledge?

Foreknowledge means that God eternally knows all our decisions.

Can you please elaborate on that a bit more? What is meant by eternally? How does God’s experience differ from our own?

 

[SalamKhan]

Let’s see if we can build this argument together.

It is your argument, not mine. I helped you only to help move the discussion forward.

Pantheism is God. In other words, everything is God is God.

This is part of why your argument was incoherent. Use the definition of Pantheism (broken down to the two terms ‘everything’ and ‘God’) as your conclusion, rather than making the part (‘God’) the subject term and the whole (‘Pantheism’) the predicate term.

I think that something which its very existence depends on something else cannot cause existence of something else. Can we agree on this point?

No, that is similar to (if not actually) occasionalism. Let us think of ‘cause’ as a middle term, which is surrounded by two extremes: ‘cause of causes’ and ‘effect’. So there is the ‘cause of causes’, the ‘cause’ being the intermediary, and finally ‘effect’.

 

[STT]

It is true that God is the First Principle of all things, even human choices. However, God does not move you in the manner a sheet moves a coin on it. The coin’s movement is based entirely on principles external to itself. Whereas yours is based on your intrinsic principle according to your nature, which is real and not non-real because it is made real by God.

Can we agree that something which its very existence depend on something else cannot cause something else? If not, where is your argument in favor of your position? There was no need for God if things can depend on something else yet could cause something.

 

[STT]

Can you please elaborate on that a bit more? What is meant by eternally? How does God’s experience differ from our own?

God experience all our decision at once. We experience our decision as we make them by time.

 

[STT]

No, that is similar to (if not actually) occasionalism. Let us think of ‘cause’ as a middle term, which is surrounded by two extremes: ‘cause of causes’ and ‘effect’. So there is the ‘cause of causes’, the ‘cause’ being the intermediary, and finally ‘effect’.

I understand what you are trying to say but I don’t think that you can prove it. You need to show that the cause can cause effect knowing the fact that its very existence depends on cause of causes.

There was no need for God if something which its very existence depends on something else can cause existence of something else.

 

[STT]

To insert perhaps a different direction into the thread: Pantheism can’t be true, because change is real.

Saying “illusion” won’t help your cause. Even if you limit all reality to a mental state, mental states still change. Your participation in this thread, thought to thought, expresses it so.

Now change is just the actualization of a potential state of affairs. If precipitation changes from rain to snow, it is only because the rain had potential to do so. But in order for this potential to become actualized, there must be another reality that indeed does the actualizing. (In this case, air temperature, among other things).

But not EVERY thing can be merely potential, for then nothing could be explained. At all. For, as we have seen, change requires actualization – but from something that is already actualized prior to it.

The result is a reality that is fully actual, and therefore distinct from all other realities that ultimately depend on this ultimate, fully actual reality.

So the fully actual reality, also called “unmoved mover,” is distinct from all potential realities that receive actualization. God is distinct from contingent realities. The Creator is distinct from creation.

Changes are simply manifestation of existence of unmoved mover. What I am arguing is that there is no other being which is responsible for any change. Therefore Pantheism is true.

 

[mrsdizzyd]

I wonder what your thoughts are on Aquinas’ explanation of man’s free will?

 

[SalamKhan]

So you’ve actually changed from arguing for pantheism, to arguing for occasionalism.

You need to show that the cause can cause effect knowing the fact that its very existence depends on cause of causes.

No I do not. An intermediary cause need not be aware that its existence is dependent on any cause to be able to cause, let alone being aware of the first cause. You are one such example of this.

There was no need for God if something which its very existence depends on something else can cause existence of something else.

On the contrary, intermediate causes in the creation strengthens the case for God being the first efficient cause rather than undermine it. The sterility of creation (the position of occasionalism) does more to undermine it.

 

[Wesrock]

There was no need for God if something which its very existence depends on something else can cause existence of something else.

Except for the issue of an infinite regress of an hierarchical series. Consider a cup on a table full of coffee. Coffee exists, but not necessarily so. Coffee exists because water molecules and other molecules exist. But the water molecules don’t exist necessarily. We have water molecules because we have oxygen and hydrogen atoms. But the oxygen atoms don’t exist necessarily, and so on, in a regress. There must be a First Principle to this series for, without it, the series would not exist at all, for all members that are not First Principles only exist in a derivative fashion.

 

[catholic1seeks]

What I am arguing is that there is no other being which is responsible for any change.

The Unmoved Mover (God) is ultimately responsible for all change. But there are other realities that exist that cannot be identified with the Unmoved Mover. Why? Because the Unmoved Mover cannot be actualized by anything else, and yet these other realities are actualized — they are in a state of change, of becoming.

So there is the Unmoved Mover, God, who is ultimately responsible for all change, for all things that come into being. But there are other realities – links in the chain, if you will – that are not purely actual, and so are not equivalent to God, and yet are ultimately dependent on him.

 

[STT]

I wonder what your thoughts are on Aquinas’ explanation of man’s free will?

That is what I am asking. One needs to prove that the cause can cause effect knowing the fact that its very existence depends on the cause of causes. Did he prove that?

 

[STT]

So you’ve actually changed from arguing for pantheism, to arguing for occasionalism.

I don’t see how.

STT:

You need to show that the cause can cause effect knowing the fact that its very existence depends on cause of causes.

No I do not. An intermediary cause need not be aware that its existence is dependent on any cause to be able to cause, let alone being aware of the first cause. You are one such example of this.

Of course you do need to prove it otherwise what you are saying is a mere claim.

STT:

There was no need for God if something which its very existence depends on something else can cause existence of something else.

On the contrary, intermediate causes in the creation strengthens the case for God being the first efficient cause rather than undermine it. The sterility of creation (the position of occasionalism) does more to undermine it.

There is no need for the first cause. You need to refute infinite regress, circular causation, interconnected causation, etc.

 

[Wesrock]

mrsdizzyd:

I wonder what your thoughts are on Aquinas’ explanation of man’s free will?

That is what I am asking. One needs to prove that the cause can cause effect knowing the fact that its very existence depends on the cause of causes. Did he prove that?

Yes he addressed that objection in the Summa and elsewhere.

 

[STT]

STT:

There was no need for God if something which its very existence depends on something else can cause existence of something else.

Except for the issue of an infinite regress of an hierarchical series. Consider a cup on a table full of coffee. Coffee exists, but not necessarily so. Coffee exists because water molecules and other molecules exist. But the water molecules don’t exist necessarily. We have water molecules because we have oxygen and hydrogen atoms. But the oxygen atoms don’t exist necessarily, and so on, in a regress. There must be a First Principle to this series for, without it, the series would not exist at all, for all members that are not First Principles only exist in a derivative fashion.

You need to refute infinite regress, circular causation, interconnected causation, etc.

 

[STT]

The Unmoved Mover (God) is ultimately responsible for all change. But there are other realities that exist that cannot be identified with the Unmoved Mover. Why? Because the Unmoved Mover cannot be actualized by anything else, and yet these other realities are actualized — they are in a state of change, of becoming.

So there is the Unmoved Mover, God, who is ultimately responsible for all change, for all things that come into being. But there are other realities – links in the chain, if you will – that are not purely actual, and so are not equivalent to God, and yet are ultimately dependent on him.

Think of changes which happen as a matter of existing illusion caused by God. We are discussing whether there exist an intermediate cause which is caused by God and can cause changes. You need to prove the existence of such a thing and you need also to prove that such a scenario is possible, something which is caused can cause.

 

[STT]

Yes he addressed that objection in the Summa and elsewhere.

Can you or someone else please give an address to it?

 

[mrsdizzyd]

This is the main section on Free-Will:

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1083.htm#article1