1 of 1- dumboxwannabe
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Illustration of per se causal series for a church class
Hi everyone
I have been working on some material for a class at church on the Five Ways, and I have been trying to think of some simple illustrations of a per se causal series that I could trace all the way to God so that the class could see how this works. I have been thinking about starting with a passage like Psalm 104:14 that speaks of God causing the grass to grow, and then moving through the series of causes. Do any of you have some ideas of a good way of how to do this, step by step, from a simple, observable phenomenon like growing grass all the way up the chain to God?
Thanks in advance!
Shane
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Re: Illustration of per se causal series for a church class
Have you read Michael Augros' "Who designed the designer?" book? His book is a good introduction to anyone who is interested in Thomistic Natural Theology.
- Greg
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Re: Illustration of per se causal series for a church class
dumboxwannabe wrote:
Do any of you have some ideas of a good way of how to do this, step by step, from a simple, observable phenomenon like growing grass all the way up the chain to God?
This is not necessarily possible. I think sometimes the argument from motion is described misleadingly vis-a-vis what is actually doing the work and what sorts of "series" are possible.
It's frequently noted that the distinction between the primary cause and secondary causes is not temporal. But it's also not necessarily a matter of the primary cause being item one in a finite list of causes. Feser writes:
=12.61pxIt seems to me that the reason Hennessey=12.61px misses this no less than Edwards is that he puts too narrow an interpretation on the word “first” in the expression “first cause.” He seems to think that what Aquinas was concerned to show is that if you lay out a series of causes ordered per se=12.61px in a straight line, the line will necessarily have a beginning. But that is not=12.61px what he was concerned to show. As Thomists sometimes point out, it wouldn’t change things in the least if we granted for the sake of argument that a series of causes ordered per se=12.61pxmight loop around back on itself in a circle, or even that it might extend forward and backward infinitely. For the point is that as long as the members of such a circular or infinite chain of causes have no independent causal power of their own, there will have to be something outside=12.61px the series which imparts to them their causal efficacy. (As the Thomist A. D. Sertillanges once put it, a paint brush can’t move itself even if it has a very long handle. And it still couldn’t move itself even if it had an infinitely=12.61px long handle.) Moreover, if that which imparts causal power to the members of the circular or infinitely long series itself had no independent causal power, then it too would of necessity also require a principal cause of its own, relative to which it is an instrument. This explanatory regress cannot possibly terminate in anything other than something which has absolutely independent causal power, which can cause or “actualize” without itself having to be actualized in any way, and only what is purely actual can fit the bill.
If you start out with a particular instance of change and keep asking what its proximate cause is, you need not necessarily get to God. What's important in the argument is that the series, so long as it only contains contingent movers, will always require some non-contingent mover.
(On the other hand, in some arguments the "series" of causes might have a single element, God--though not in general, I suspect, in the argument from motion, lest occasionalism be true. In From Existence to God, Barry Miller presents an updated version of Aquinas's argument from De Ente et Essentia, which according to some interpretations is the Second Way. He argues that Fido's existence requires a cause apart from Fido's, and argues that the series of causes must not be infinite. But he doesn't really suspect that there are other mediate causes of Fido's existence besides God.)
A nice illustration of Aquinas's First Way is a series of gears mounted on a wall, all (somehow) connected. If one is rotating, it is being rotated by something else (perhaps another gear). Perhaps the gears form a circle. We could imagine that there are infinitely many. Still, it seems for there to be rotation at all, something outside the system of gears should have to be moving them.
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Re: Illustration of per se causal series for a church class
Hi everyone
I have been working on some material for a class at church on the Five Ways, and I have been trying to think of some simple illustrations of a per se causal series that I could trace all the way to God so that the class could see how this works. I have been thinking about starting with a passage like Psalm 104:14 that speaks of God causing the grass to grow, and then moving through the series of causes. Do any of you have some ideas of a good way of how to do this, step by step, from a simple, observable phenomenon like growing grass all the way up the chain to God?
Thanks in advance!
Shane
Causing the grass to grow could be ascribed to nature as the divine art. But to "get to God" from that change (since grass is considered animate and thus a self-mover) I think would require asking how it is a self-mover could be. Of course, the grass's increase as such could not have caused itself to be/exist, as at one point it did not. The same holds true with the grass itself. You might be able from there to illustrate a per se causal series by noting that no member in the list of physical causes of the grass's being or existence have or had the power to cause itself to be. In evolutionary biology, life itself was of course caused necessarily by inanimate things. Those inanimate things were physically composite (the atom is still a composition of atomic and sub-atomic particles). None of those particles could have caused or have the power to cause themselves to be (indeed, considering CERN and the Higgs Boson even sub-atomic particles I think are believed to have been caused by something even more basic and elementary).
It will become plain after going through the list of physical causes that none of these things could have caused themselves to be and eventually we need something that necessarily does not need to be caused and has sufficient power to cause other things (indeed all contigent realities) to be. This will be the First and Uncaused Cause. It is important, I think, to stress the peculiarity of this Being insofar as It has the power to cause other things to be but is not Itself caused. Insofar as It is necessarily not composite, moreover, it should be arguable that this Being cannot in principle be destroyed or corrupted and is, therefore, necessarily also eternal and unchangeable/unchanging.
It is also important here to keep in mind and focus that the characterstic we need and are looking for is specifically the power to be a sufficient cause for other thing's being or existence while also and at the same time not itself needing anything to be. However true it might seem to entertain matter's existence as a brute fact, it notwithstanding lacks at least the latter characteristic insofar as matter does not have the power to have caused itself to be and, to that extent, would necessarily need an external cause for coming to be. There is no grounds for claiming that matter is ultimately and in itself a necessary existent; matter is only necessary insofar as material things and natural products actually exist.
Some Arguements Against Matter as a Brute Fact:
As we noted above, matter's necessity seems to be necessary only for the sake of other things (a material form). E.g., for any atomic or sub-atomic particle to be, body must be; but this necessity arises for the sake of the form; and insofar as the form and the matter are distinct, the being is also a composite. But every composite requires a composer. Now this composer cannot in turn be composite, otherwise we fall into an infiite regress. But as we noted matter's necessity arises for the sake of a material form only; therefore, no material being can be the sufficient cause of material being. Therefore some immaterial and non-composite being is necessary.
Again. Any alleged proto-matter will still need an active and passive principle to account for movement and change in the world; for it is not only necessary that matter exist, but that matter be moving and changing. Now this active principle will be either in matter itself or otherwise outside matter; however, if outside matter, then not itself matter; therefore, matter's being itself will require an immaterial being and cause. But if we say the active principle exists in matter, then necessarily matter will be a composition of active and passive principles (what moves and what is moved). But the cause of matter's moving cannot again be in turn just matter, for then all matter would be an active principle (what moves) and nothing would be actually moved or altered or changed. But this evidently cannot be. Therefore matter cannot simply be a brute fact.
Last edited by Timocrates (3/14/2016 12:54 am)
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