Why the effort?

[tonyrey]

tonyrey;11195063:

It seems the most adequate explanation in the absence of any proposed alternative.

To me it does, as well, but I acknowledge it as a possible solution to what appears to be a logical dilemma. The most I would say is that, “based on our current understanding of causality, it appears that an unmoved mover/uncaused cause would have to exist.” This conceivably could be based on a misunderstanding of causality, or of movement, as it applies the universe as a whole, however.

That objection is devalued by the fact that it applies to **all **cosmological theories, including the “multiverse”.

Again, I cannot get outside of the universe in order get a clearer perspective on what would be exerting itself on the universe from the outside, if anything.

This explanation does not concern the nature but the existence of **one **Cause - (in accordance with Occam’s Razor))

Nor is this supposition immune to future advances in knowledge, at least in principle. It would be like affirming a miracle but giving the caveat, “based on our current knowledge, there is no other possible or conceivable explanation; we’re at a loss to explain how it happened, and calling it a miracle is as good an explanation as any.” By these standards, what would qualify as a miracle in 5 A.D., however, would not necessarily be a miracle by the standards of 2013 A.D,.

But I think proponents of the uncaused cause argument would not want to agree that, in principle, our understanding of causality or of time could, in principle, change to such an extent that the uncaused cause/unmoved mover argument may no longer be compelling (which is precisely what critics already believe to be the case).

That amounts to an argument from ignorance!

We can’t get inside our minds to see what’s going on but we still draw reasonable conclusions about their existence, value and significance - and even their origin.

The onus is on materialists to explain how mindless objects produce minds.

 

[kmcarl56]

Sometimes it seems that Christians who are relying on “reason” to “explain” that God exists are trying to convince themselves of their own faith, not that of others.

Believing in God/Jesus IS FAITH. That is all we have to go on…our own BELIEF.

Thus, FAITH + BELIEF = REASON (at least enough reason for me)

I need no other proof. All I have to do is look at the wonders that God created for us, and what a perfect machine He made for us and within us.

It seems to me that people just try so very hard to make it complicated.

 

[tonyrey]

Sometimes it seems that Christians who are relying on “reason” to “explain” that God exists are trying to convince themselves of their own faith, not that of others.

Believing in God/Jesus IS FAITH. That is all we have to go on…our own BELIEF.

Thus, FAITH + BELIEF = REASON (at least enough reason for me)

I need no other proof. All I have to do is look at the wonders that God created for us, and what a perfect machine He made for us and within us.

It seems to me that people just try so very hard to make it complicated.

Your statements would cut no ice with materialists…

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Your statements would cut no ice with materialists…

I agree, I don’t think that they would get much traction.

 

[polytropos]

But argument is that all the causal chains can be traversed “backwards” and reach the same “starting point”. And since we know that there are distinct causal chains, with separate starting points, the “first cause” argument simply fails. Aquinas commits the fallacy of Quantifier Shift, which makes his argument logically incorrect.

Well, as I’ve noted (and as Feser explicitly notes in the blog I linked), no one is necessarily committed to the idea that the Unmoved Mover is the first cause in the sense that He is sitting at the end of a queue.

However, let us grant that characterization for the sake of argument. I agree that there would be a quantifier shift fallacy if I took two causal chains and argued that the same entity had to be responsible for each. But that is not what the argument does. The argument argues that there must be a purely actual Unmoved Mover for change to occur. At this stage, we are not assuming that there is only one Unmoved Mover.

But, from the definitions of act and potency, it would follow that there is only one. There could be no distinguishing between “two” things which are Pure Act; any distinguishing characteristic would have to be something that one actually has and the other, therefore, lacks, which is a contradiction. So rather than assume that all causal chains are traced to the same Unmoved Mover, we determine after the fact that the “different” Unmoved Movers are actually the same.

There are two problems with it. One is, that even this endeavor would be successful, it would never point to the God of Christianity. It would only point to some faceless “first cause”, “primary mover”, whatever, which does not necessarily exist today.

I don’t claim that the argument deductively concludes that the God of Christianity exists. It deductively concludes that an entity very much like the God of Christianity exists (it would also forestall naturalistic explanations of revelation, which is how it would buttress faith).

Also, the Unmoved Mover would necessarily exist today, since it must exist simultaneous to any change, since per se causal series are simultaneous.

The more serious problem is that Aristotle and Aquinas were totally ignorant of the “physics” of reality. Being ignorant, they speculated and came up with some “metaphysics”. They had no idea that “motion” is a relative term, that there is no difference between stationary existence and linear motion.

Invoking “physics” vaguely does nothing to undermine Aristotle or Aquinas’s metaphysics. Metaphysics are also not simply a pre-scientific speculation. If metaphysics were contradicted by reality, they’d have to be tossed (it happens that Aquinas’s are not). It’s also impossible not to engage in metaphysics as a way of interpreting physical results.

As far as inertial motion goes, it does not obviously cause any issue for Aquinas’s metaphysics, for a number of reasons. By motion, Aquinas means change in general, and the principle of motion states that, “whatever is moved is moved by another,” which the principle of inertia, figuring motion as a state, tacitly agrees with. If we equate motion with rest in another reference frame, then an object still only “changes” to another state when it is acted upon, by both principles.

There is also the issue that the fact that “there is no difference between stationary existence and linear motion” does not exactly follow from the fact that motion can be mathematically represented as rest in some other reference frame, since there is no reference frame in which everything is at rest either.

The trouble is that one cannot conduct a conversation with a written material.

You asked that I provide a link to what I thought was the best defense of Aquinas’s arguments (or, at least provided that I’m not interested in providing a full defense myself). You don’t have to refer to that or read all of the material on the First Way. I’m just kind of burned out from the other recent topic on the argument from motion and so I’m not that interested in getting into a ton of detail.

Generally speaking, if metaphysics is the same as physics, then the metaphysics is unnecessary. If the metaphysics is contradicted by physics, then metaphysics is incorrect and should be discarded. Those metaphysical assumption that form the basics of the 5 ways have been rendered incorrect by the advancement of physics.

Metaphysics is neither the same as physics nor is it contradicted by physics. I don’t think you’ve successfully shown in this topic that physics contradicts metaphysics.

 

[polytropos]

What even Aquinas never claimed to do is try to prove the Trinity or the divity of Jesus, nor hell or the existence of the devil – not without Scripture, at least.

Yes, and if he did claim to prove those things deductively, then everyone would be objecting, “But doesn’t that do away with faith?” The argument, like any argument, only has the implications it alleges to have.

I see a few possibilities, here. One is that there is an uncaused cause. Another is that perhaps we should question our understanding of causality; is it possible that we are not understanding causality in the correct way? Certainly, it is possible. In making an argument, one is assuming one’s understanding of causality is correct – whether the causuality of Aristotle or causality as posited by modern science. Both could be wrong.

I would not really say that causality of Aristotle or modern science, since they don’t really exclude each other. A very general sketch would be that modern science admits of efficient and material causes, while Aristotelian metaphysics admit of formal and final causes as well as those.

It is true that we are relying on an Aristotelian notion of causality. I think for that assumption to be problematic it would have to 1). not apply generally, 2). be contradicted by some instance, or 3). be conceivable that it fails. It’s not clear that any of these conditions have been met.

What this argument seems to amount to is, We can’t see where it goes wrong, but maybe it does in some way that we don’t know of. This is almost like postulating another entity - some inconceivable incident which violates our understanding of causality - which seems, at best, unparsimonious without supporting “evidence.”

This question has been posed by scientists and philosophers as regards the question “what existed before the Big Bang?” The very question may not be sensical and may point to our own conceptual limitations.

Well, theism does not really commit anyone to thinking that “what existed before the Big Bang?” has a logical answer. Before requires time.

Of course, a not unnatural question to ask, in that case, is, what caused the first cause? And if something that exists can exist without an antecendent cause (namely, the uncaused cause) then why not the universe itself? Thus the possibilities, as I understand them, are:

1. There may be an uncaused cause to the universe
2. The universe may not have a cause, in any sense in which we understand causality

This objection (“What caused God?”) is very common but generally speaking does not meet the argument - which is not to say that it can’t have any force, but as it is usually formulated, it does not have any force.

The principle of motion states everything which is moved is moved by another. The argument from motion essentially proceeds by claiming that per se causal series necessitate a cause for the instrumentally derived causal efficacy in the world, so the First Cause is that which does not have instrumentally derived but intrinsic causal efficacy. From that we realize that its motion cannot rely on its being moved; hence it is unmoved.

Anything which can be moved (ie. the universe) simply would not fit the criteria.

I can’t posit an immaterial first cause that exists outside the unvierse because I do not know that there is anything that exists outside the universe, that could fill the shoes of an uncaused cause. It’s possible there is, with or without the first cause paradox. But I can’t know this; I can’t know if my positing the uncaused cause would be like scientists positing the “ether” in 19th century physics

The thing is, “posit” is the wrong word. I do not posit that the Unmoved Mover is outside of the universe, nor do I posit that the Unmoved Mover is immaterial. I don’t look at the universe and say, “There must be something which is outside of this and which has causal efficacy.” Rather, we only conclude that there is a purely actual Unmoved Mover from the argument from motion. Then it follows that the Unmoved Mover, being Pure Act, could not be material (since material things can change).

As such, it isn’t an act of arbitrary speculation that the Unmoved Mover is distinct from the universe, i.e. it is not special pleading. The claim that it couldn’t be, though, would be begging the question, without supporting argumentation.

 

[polytropos]

Sometimes it seems that Christians who are relying on “reason” to “explain” that God exists are trying to convince themselves of their own faith, not that of others.

Believing in God/Jesus IS FAITH. That is all we have to go on…our own BELIEF.

Thus, FAITH + BELIEF = REASON (at least enough reason for me)

I need no other proof. All I have to do is look at the wonders that God created for us, and what a perfect machine He made for us and within us.

It seems to me that people just try so very hard to make it complicated.

Part of the reason for trying to justify God’s existence without recourse to revelation is to show that faith is not irrational. I do not think that being able to defend Aquinas’s arguments is at all necessary for faith, nor is it even sufficient. While you don’t need to study philosophy to be a Christian, though, I think it can open some people up to it.

 

[Portofino]

Yes, and if he did claim to prove those things deductively, then everyone would be objecting, “But doesn’t that do away with faith?” The argument, like any argument, only has the implications it alleges to have.

I understand. You are always going to have non-believers – like Dawkins – who will not be satisfied with this, or those who – even if they accept the Five Ways – will not necessarily become Christians. Perhaps they will be Platonists, or Deists, or something else. You’d try to persuade them with other arguments, perhaps of a empirical or historical nature, such as those arguments for the reliability of the gospels.

But, at some point, they would have to take at least some commitment of faith.

I think there are some non-believers out there who would be pacified by the believer’s admission that, “I can’t demonstrate 100% of my faith through rational arguments. But you’d be surprised about how much I could demonstrate to be in accordance with the sound reasoning of anyone.”

this argument seems to amount to is, We can’t see where it goes wrong, but maybe it does in some way that we don’t know of. This is almost like postulating another entity - some inconceivable incident which violates our understanding of causality - which seems, at best, unparsimonious without supporting “evidence.”

I agree that it seems there would have to be something outside of the universe itself, that must have caused the universe or be acting on the universe. I can’t conceive of an effect without an antecedent cause. “Spontaneous generation” is as inconceivable to me, as regards the genesis of the universe, as it is on the scale of life. Uncaused cause is more compelling to me than the notion of an unmoved mover, because motion is a much more a posteriori phenomenon, and I’m not convinced (from my non-scientific perspective) that we fully understand motion. But casuality is something more fundamental; it structures thought, such that to eliminate a notion of causality is probably inconceivable (as Kant showed, I believe). Uncaused cause is also more generic, more general, so it doesn’t require going out a limb as much as positing that motion in the universe required an antecedent mover.

I suppose I also wouldn’t call it an uncaused cause. I would simply say that something caused the universe, and leave it at that. It could be a chain of infinite universes, for all I know. I admittedly can’t conceive of there being an uncaused cause, for the same reason that I cannot conceive that the universe did not have an antecedent cause, in the first place.

 

[polytropos]

I think there are some non-believers out there who would be pacified by the believer’s admission that, “I can’t demonstrate 100% of my faith through rational arguments. But you’d be surprised about how much I could demonstrate to be in accordance with the sound reasoning of anyone.”

Which has, of course, been the Catholic Church’s position for hundreds of years.

I can’t conceive of an effect without an antecedent cause.

Do you mean temporally antecedent? As in your understanding of causality requires that causes and effects be temporally distinct events? That is sort of the Humean notion, and perhaps why he ventured to claim that it is imaginable that there could be an effect without a cause (although, for reasons I mentioned earlier in this thread, it does not seem like one could actually imagine that).

The prototypical example of Aristotelian causality is a potter shaping a pot on a wheel. In this case, the cause and effect are not two events, but one event, the cause being that imparting the shape to the clay, which yields. This is where the notion of per se versus per accidens causal series comes from.

Another example is the throwing of a brick at a window. Hume would say that the cause (the throwing of a brick) is not necessarily connected to the effect (the window breaking). But this does not even address the type of causality that the Aristotelian is talking about. For Aristotle, there is one event (the brick hitting the window). At that point, the cause (the brick) and the effect (the window’s breaking) are decidedly not “loose and separate.”