Why must God continuously preserve the universe?

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bcirka

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Very excited to make my first post here!

I’m studying Aquinas’ Five Ways, and am reading a fantastic book that hashes out the details and common misconceptions about them (“Aquinas”, Edward Feser). In the book, he makes the point that the first three ways require essentially-ordered causal series, rather than accidentally-ordered causal series to hold true. I understand the difference between the two, but what I don’t understand is why essentially-ordered causal series are necessary to explain the origin of causes.

Let me try to clarify with an example. Why couldn’t God have created the laws of nature, created matter, and created beings, and the let creation run itself (a deist approach I believe). What concept, philosophically, requires Him to continuously hold us in existence (thus validating the essentially-ordered causal series that Aquinas requires for his arguments to hold)?

One final clarification, I’m certainly not denying the truth of continuous preservation, just haven’t filled in all the gaps in my understanding of it yet.

Thank you so much for all your help, God Bless!
 
The idea that things could continue to exist of their own right has been called “existential intertia”, as in a metaphysical version of Newton’s idea that once you get an object moving it has an impetus to keep moving without your or anyone else’s help.

Ed Feser has an article on “existential inertia” that requires a subscription to ACPQ to view. I think the long and short of it has to do with contingency. Nothing contains the reason for its existence. The argument from motion, dealing with essential ordered causes, also guarantees God’s continued interaction with the world, at least as long as things are moving/changing.

pdcnet.org/acpq/content/acpq_2011_0085_0002_0237_0267
edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-acpq-article.html

The idea of essentially ordered causes can be traced back to Aristotle’s definition of motion as “the actuality of what exists in potency as such”. Glen Coughlin, translator of this edition of the Physics, notes that no one since Aristotle has been able to provide a definition of motion that doesn’t include motion or one of its synonyms. Not Descartes, not Newton, not Einstein.
 
The universe as a whole, and in all of its parts, is contingent. It holds its existence as received, not as necessary. It could exist, it could not exist. A contingent being does not hold within its own essence sufficient reason for its own existence. Thus, its continued existence depends on God.

Another way of looking at it is this. If a human being ‘creates’ something, say, a chair, or a table, or a painting, or clothing, and then walks off and leaves it, it is held in existence by the material from which it is made–wood, canvas, fabric. But God creates from nothing. If God walks away and leaves his creation unattended, it is held in existence by the material from which it is made–that is–nothing. So the fact that the universe–and we–continue to exist is evidence that God has not forgotten us or walked away.
 
Why does God preserve the universe? Because He’s God / the Boss. He created this world and I’m very glad that He IS in control. He has a plan for it / us. He tells us about that in His Word to us. Would you rather that God put an end to all of this? Actually – book of Revelation tells us that at some point in the future, He Will do just That. And we have either heaven or hell to look forward to in our futures. And each person CAN know which he will end up in. In the last chapters or Revelation we read about the New Jerusalem which God will bring down to earth. The Old earth will pass away and believers will enjoy the New Jerusalem as their eternal home. All others will spend eternity with satan in hell. Personally, I’m looking forward to heaven. 🙂
 
The entirety of the universe exists within God, and cannot be separated from God, because God is omnipresent, so God cannot be ultimately separated from his creation. If God didn’t sustain the universe, it wouldn’t exist. Even if God didn’t interact with his creation and just “let it run itself”, it would still be subject to him sustaining it, because it exists within him.
 
Nothing can exist without God. Period. God is what gives everything else it’s essence. God’s will is the common element that’s in everything and if you remove His will everything ceases to exist.
 
bzkoss236 said:
The entirety of the universe exists within God, and cannot be separated from God, because God is omnipresent, so God cannot be ultimately separated from his creation. If God didn’t sustain the universe, it wouldn’t exist. Even if God didn’t interact with his creation and just “let it run itself”, it would still be subject to him sustaining it, because it exists within him.
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I would quibble with the phrase “within him,” since it makes it sound as though the universe is only an idea in God’s mind. But the universe is real an exists in time and space, whereas God does not. God is pure spirit, the universe is material. But it is true that the universe is always contingent on his creative will.
 
I think you are confusing the substance of something with its existence, and not really recognizing the fact that God is existence itself. Something which comes into existence does so by accident. It doesn’t have to exist. That is what is meant by contingent existence.

But it would make no sense to argue that something accidental (like a rock) can continue to exist without existence itself. If existence itself is gone, then your rock cannot exist. It’s not about whether the substance of the object is stable or contains some kind of inertia.

It would almost be like arguing the Moon can still rotate about the Earth, and the Earth about the Sun, even if gravity itself disappeared from the universe.
 
bcirka said:
Very excited to make my first post here!

I’m studying Aquinas’ Five Ways, and am reading a fantastic book that hashes out the details and common misconceptions about them (“Aquinas”, Edward Feser). In the book, he makes the point that the first three ways require essentially-ordered causal series, rather than accidentally-ordered causal series to hold true. I understand the difference between the two, but what I don’t understand is why essentially-ordered causal series are necessary to explain the origin of causes.

Let me try to clarify with an example. Why couldn’t God have created the laws of nature, created matter, and created beings, and the let creation run itself (a deist approach I believe). What concept, philosophically, requires Him to continuously hold us in existence (thus validating the essentially-ordered causal series that Aquinas requires for his arguments to hold)?

One final clarification, I’m certainly not denying the truth of continuous preservation, just haven’t filled in all the gaps in my understanding of it yet.

Thank you so much for all your help, God Bless!
Click to expand...
Its a very deep question. St. Thomas Aquinas covers this in the Summa Theologica, Part 1, Ques 103-109 but especially in Ques 104 newadvent.org/summa/

However the basic reasoning is this, God created beings as entire substances - matter, form, and act of existence all together ( in the case of angels just essence and existence). This does not mean substances as we know them, horses, trees, rocks, elements, but at least beings, however primordial, which are truely real substances or beings.

The point is that material substances get their individuality through their particular matter, they get all their powers, operations, abilities and existence through their forms. But since their forms are the seat of all their powers and operations by which they exercise their proper characteristics, all they can do on their own is to exercise these characteristics. They cannot create or maintain existence.

Existence, per se, is a component of their being through their form but it is not a power of that form. It is that act which God gives to a being through its form. And since it is not a power of the form but only a component, no created being can be the cause of the actual being or esse of any other being. And since it did not cause its own existence, it cannot maintain its own existence. That is why God’s direct causality is necessary to keep all created beings in existence. He keeps them in existence by a continuation of his creative act.

Feser is probably the very best philosopher for learning the basics of Thomas Aquinas.
Pay close attention to his blogspot, he usually updates it ever other week or so. And look over his archives, he has lots of stuff there directly related to the Five Ways. And he gives you lots of resources. edwardfeser.blogspot.com/

I think Feser does a particularly good job of answering your question in regard to the necessity of the Unmoved Mover, as a pure act, being the necessary initiator of the activity and existence of beings, who have only a potency to act, on pgs 72-73 of Aquinas.

P.S. A word of caution, sometimes we " draw a little blood " around here. I know we should be little angels but we aren’t. Don’t let it bother you, just stick in there.

Linus2nd
 
bcirka said:
Very excited to make my first post here!

I’m studying Aquinas’ Five Ways, and am reading a fantastic book that hashes out the details and common misconceptions about them (“Aquinas”, Edward Feser). In the book, he makes the point that the first three ways require essentially-ordered causal series, rather than accidentally-ordered causal series to hold true. I understand the difference between the two, but what I don’t understand is why essentially-ordered causal series are necessary to explain the origin of causes.

Let me try to clarify with an example. Why couldn’t God have created the laws of nature, created matter, and created beings, and the let creation run itself (a deist approach I believe). What concept, philosophically, requires Him to continuously hold us in existence (thus validating the essentially-ordered causal series that Aquinas requires for his arguments to hold)?

One final clarification, I’m certainly not denying the truth of continuous preservation, just haven’t filled in all the gaps in my understanding of it yet.

Thank you so much for all your help, God Bless!
Click to expand...
I’d put the shoe on the other foot: how can a thing keep functioning in the absence of the cause?

So, for instance, in your example, the second causes would need to be operating in order for the things they cause to exist. If the law of gravity stopped operating, things would stop falling. It wouldn’t make sense to say “the law of gravity could stop operating once the stone started falling, and the stone would keep falling anyway.”

Since God is the cause of the law of gravity, the law only operates as long as God is causing it to do so. Just as the stone would stop falling if the law of gravity stopped operating, so the law of gravity would stop operating if God stopped “concurring” with it.

And what we say of the law of gravity we can say of all other created things without exception. This is just included in the nature of a cause. You’re thinking of a very narrow category of causes–the things that cause something to come into existence. But the argument from causation doesn’t limit itself to those sorts of causes. In fact it doesn’t work for them. There could be an infinite series of causes each of which caused the next to come into existence. But there can’t be an infinite series of causes all acting at the same time (so Aquinas argues).

Edwin
 
Thank you all so much! I have a lot to digest. The response that made the most intuitive sense to me was JimG’s analogy:

"Another way of looking at it is this. If a human being ‘creates’ something, say, a chair, or a table, or a painting, or clothing, and then walks off and leaves it, it is held in existence by the material from which it is made–wood, canvas, fabric. But God creates from nothing. If God walks away and leaves his creation unattended, it is held in existence by the material from which it is made–that is–nothing. So the fact that the universe–and we–continue to exist is evidence that God has not forgotten us or walked away. "

I want to sit down and read Aquinas’ question 104 carefully, as well as look into the existential inertia. I’ll respond back once I’ve had time to think through these resources.
 
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