Johannes wrote:

I have seen treatments of the subject of knowing and loving as the main operations of a spiritual being only in expositions of the doctrine of the Trinity, .... I found an interesting presentation of the subject based on the experience of human beings by the late British priest Edward Holloway, of the Faith movement (*). You can read a summary thereof under the heading "Analogy Through the Human Being" here:

http://www.faith.org.uk/article/september-october-2008-the-holy-trinity-in-the-catechism-and-holloway

(*) Names which will ring strong dissonances in the ears of deniers of biological evolution.

 
Thanks Johannes!

Reason for my question is for purpose of conversation with atheists.  I can explain that we desire or aspire to the transcendentals, e.g., truth, beauty, etc., because that is something we all have experienced in our lives.  But to make a statement such as the “greatest operations of spirit are to love and to know,” would certainly draw an objection, or at least, a “how do you arrive at that?”

What is "nature"? It's just an abstraction; nature is just how we describe all these substances and events, including the motion involved in the fundamental forces. Either a physical thing is changing - like all physical things seem to be - or they are not changing. If they change, they can't be the foundation and source for everything else. The main gist of the proof from motion is that only an actual being can actualize another thing's potential. What is purely potential can't actualize anything. A potential mirror cannot reflect light to another mirror, only an actual mirror can reflect light. A potential lightbulb cannot produce light, only an actual one can.

So with respect to existence, only something which is actual can actualize something else. But if that something is not pure act, but rather something else whose existence is just a potential which is actualized, then obviously its own existence (actualization of its potential to exist) will depend on something else, already actual, which actualizes it. And so on. But this series can't proceed to infinity, otherwise there would be no actual beings right now; an actualizer A can only actualize B if it is first actual, but if what actualizes A itself needs to be actualized, then the actualizing of A will be postponed ad infinitum, and in being continuously postponed it will never happen. But A *is* actual. So there must be a first actualizer which didn't need to be actualized by anything else; in other words, its existence is not the case of a potential existence which is/was actualized, its existence was never (even conceptually) merely "potential" in the first place, it was always actual with no potency whatsoever, no potency for non-existence. So we have to conclude the existence of a being which is just pure act, entirely different from all other things, which is responsible for their existence.

Fundamental forces are not a good candidate for this purely actual actualizer. Firstly, because all physical beings appear to us as mixtures of act/potency; why would another physical being somehow be pure act? This being who is Pure Act must be entirely different from all others. It's just not plausible that it is physical. Secondly, because this being is Pure Act, it cannot undergo change. It has no potency to be actualized. It just always was pure existence, pure act of being. So it has to be outside of time; but then physical beings are never timeless. Thirdly: I am no expert in physics, and other posters may correct me on this one. But to my knowledge, talk of "fundamental forces" isolated from actual physical beings, like fundamental particles, is just an abstraction. It's jus how we describe specific physical phenomena. But this purely actual actualizer cannot be an abstract thing, like a law of nature or something like that, because abstract thigs do not *cause* or *actualize* anything. The number 2 p, or an equation, for example, doesn't cause the existence of anything.  Laws of nature merely *describe* phenomena involving actual objects and properties. We are, however, looking for a being which is concrete (meaning capable of causing things) and Pure Act. The fundamental forces are not a plausible candidate.

And so you can continue deriving other divine attributes. You may check other threads about this.

Someone else can help, too. I think it's fine like this.

Last edited by Miguel (3/23/2018 7:01 pm)

Thanks for the feedback guys.

If Dave asks, “Are you saying that God is immediately moving (or causing) the 4 fundamental forces?”  (i.e., is there anything “in between” the 4 forces and God?)

What’s the appropriate response that I should give?

If he backs down and says it's all just an unexplainable brute fact, pressure him that indeed he was willing to seek for a rational explanation in every step; why thereby stop the search for a rational explanation? And how could it be possible for beings which are not purely actual to exist if there is no actualizer whose existence itself is just pure act?

If needed, you can also give the argument from experiende for the principle of causality. Or for the principle of sufficient reason (Feser gives many arguments for PSR in the first part of the "rationalist proof" in five proofs)

The category of act/potency is not strictly necessary for these discussions, even though it is one way to frame the argument (as I did) and it can be useful. Essence/existence is another way; the difference between *what* a thing is and *that* it is. Or even just contingent (things which could've failed to exist and therefore need an explanation) versus necessary beings, or dependent/conditioned beings x an independent being or being whose existence is inconditional. It's up to you to choose what you're most comfortable with or find strongest.

The point is to show that everything which exists now can only be because there is a being whose existence is completely necessary and independent. It has self-existence; it is purely actual; its essence just is existence; it is necessary; etc etc. And the "fundamental forces" or even any laws are not good candidates for that, since they are (I believe) mere abstractions which describe the way physical beings operate. We need a necessary being who is *concrete*, in the sense that it is causally effective, so it can explain the existence of contingent/dependent/essenceexistencedistinct/actpotencydistinct beings. The number 2, or an equation, or any purely abstract thint (like a law of nature) doesn't "cause" or explain the existence of anything.

And even the most basic fundamental particles we know seem like they could've failed to exist or exist differently, and/or are dependent (quarks for instance can never exist in isolation, they always must be conjoined to other quarks), etc. Physical things would not be a good candidate at all.

Then you can just keep arguing for the attributes of the necessary being/pure act/being whose essence is existence/independent etc. It has to exist by a necessity of its own nature, being completely self-sufficient for its existence; it must obviously be eternal; it cannot be immaterial for what has been said. It must have power to create things/cause their existence, so it's not a mere abstraction. We may also say it must be infinite, because if it weren't then it would be really mysterious why it would have to be limited to X or Y degree (another reason for being immaterial, we might add).

We may also say it is intelligent/personal. Because the universe/things it actualizes or causes isn't just any universe. It is a well ordered universe with rational physical laws, a moral landscape, conscious agents with the opportunity to learn and develop science, practice moral virtues etc; we'd understand why, and thus have reasons to expect, a personal creator would actualize such a universe instead of one with no order no people etc. So it makes it plausible that the necessary being is personal and intelligent.

Another reason is the contingency of the effects. If the necessary being, the being whose essence just is existence, had to *necessarily* create something, then that something would be necessary too, since what follows necessarily from a necessary being is also necessary. But us, the universe, etc, is contingent. So the first cause/necessary being is not a deterministic cause, but must have freedom - it creates by free will. If responds that it could be an impersonal indeterministic cause, then we may answer as follows: The suggestion of its being an indeterministic, impersonal cause would be problematic however, since then presumably it would have a X% probability to create contingent things. But what could even fix that probability? And why exactly (say) 0,7 but not 0,7001? So then the best explanation is that the first cause/necessary being is a personal cause who freely creates; it is not determined to create, and it also doesn't create by means of an impersonal stochastic process. (See Rasmussen)

You can then add Feser's other arguments in Five Proofs, etc.

Last edited by Miguel (4/01/2018 12:24 pm)