In Ed Feser's summary of Plotinus' argument he states that atheists look for a first principle as much as theists, but atheists tend to be satisfied with something like a theory of everything, where as the the theist thinks this first principle would be some sort of being, or metaphysical entity.  Aside from general arguments against materialism, why would a natural law (the complete natural law that dictates the action of everything in the natural world) not be a satisfactory ultimate principle?  That law would be simple, would it not?  I suppose that unless that principle accounted for the existence of undifferentiated matter, then it would not be ultimate..?  Excuse me if this is a foolish question, it has been some time since I've seriously engaged with Plotinus.

iwpoe wrote:

Public Property? | Lloyd P. Gerson

I'm getting a 'private video' message with this one unfortunately.

DanielCC wrote:

Brian wrote:

Aside from general arguments against materialism, why would a natural law (the complete natural law that dictates the action of everything in the natural world) not be a satisfactory ultimate principle? That law would be simple, would it not? I suppose that unless that principle accounted for the existence of undifferentiated matter, then it would not be ultimate..? Excuse me if this is a foolish question, it has been some time since I've seriously engaged with Plotinus.

What is a 'Natural Law'? People bandy these words around without really thinking what they mean when taken ontologicallyy as opposed to methodologically. A Law is not a being in one of the categories; instead it's shorthand for a series of relations which hold between X kinds of entity - depending on what account one takes this relation could be one of necessitiation based on the natures of the entities in question or an arbitrary series which has just occurred that way with sufficient regularity. Neither of these explain others instead they are codified explanations.

[A crude parallel: the fact that there was an earthquake explains why the windowpanes rattled but the 'explanation' 'The windowpanes rattled because there was an earthquake' is not the reason the windowpanes rattled)

I did not word my question precisely.  Let me try again.  Most atheists would be satisfied if if we discovered the "theory of everything" that described the way in which all natural phenomena acted.  They would be satisfied that this was the ultimate level of explanation that one could attain.  Really though, the theory wouldnt be a principle that explained everythng, it would be a formula that expressed some natural law (I think I am using this correctly here, but if not, please correct me).  So the question is about this force or natural law being described by the theory, and not the theory that describes it.  Why, in principle could this force not be the ultimate thing in the universe upon by which everything else's behavior and existence is elucidated?

I speculated earlier that in part it was becsuse this force would not explain where matter comes from, and in that sense it would not be a simple thing, as the force operates on or through matter. The way you explained natural law above makes this clear, but could a natural law also not be a directing power that exists independently of that which it works on?  But perhaps in that case the natural law would need a mind or something of the like to "enforce" or "dictate" it. If that were the case, then it would be derivative, coming after the mind or being that made it.