Classical Theism, Philosophy, and Religion Forum / Struggling with First Cause

**Posted by DanielCC** 11/08/2015 10:15 am

Alexander wrote:
Etzelnik wrote:
To me it sounds as if McCabe is emphasising his preference for a robust cosmological argument than one from intelligent design and such.

We can't say "look how wonderous this apple is, God must have made it" as much as we can say "well, the universe exists and as such has an underlying Necessity.
In the context of the quote, yes, that is basically what he is doing. But even some cosmological arguments, he thinks, can fall into the trap of treating God like "just another cause", rather than the source of being and causality.

'Fall into a trap' seems a rather strong way of putting it - if we are talking about something like the Kalam Argument which seeks to prove God specifically as the cause of the universe's temporal beginning it wouldn't be right to say there's anything wrong with it; it's just the scope is more limited than, say PSR or First Cause type Cosmological Arguments. Ditto for arguments which focus on motion or composition.

**Posted by DanielCC** 11/08/2015 11:59 am

Alexander wrote:
DanielCC wrote:
'Fall into a trap' seems a rather strong way of putting it - if we are talking about something like the Kalam Argument which seeks to prove God specifically as the cause of the universe's temporal beginning it wouldn't be right to say there's anything wrong with it; it's just the scope is more limited than, say PSR or First Cause type Cosmological Arguments. Ditto for arguments which focus on motion or composition.
I agree that there's nothing wrong with such arguments but, as you say, they are limited. McCabe is pointing out that they don't get you to the God of classical theism (which is to say, in his opinion, that they don't get you to God).

Thinking about it maybe he had in mind the kind of inductive probabilistic cosmological arguments those like Addler and Swinbourne offered - I say this because those sorts of arguments very big at the beginning of the Philosophy of Religion revival. What time was he writing out of interest?

I am not certain those more limited arguments I initially had in mind can't get one to the God of Classical Theism. The composition argument can get one to Divine Simplicity - not sure if the KA can though (it can certainly get us to some of the Attributes of supplemented with something like the Scholastic principle of proportionate causality).

**Posted by joewaked** 11/08/2015 12:24 pm

Gents, back to the "beginner's questions" for a moment.
I'm looking at my dog right now. God is responsible for the dog coming into existence and remaining in existence. True so far, right? The dog just moved across the room. (For that matter, I could replace "move" with "breathe" or any action.) Do we say that God caused the dog to move?

**Posted by Scott** 11/08/2015 5:59 pm

joewaked wrote:
I'm looking at my dog right now. God is responsible for the dog coming into existence and remaining in existence. True so far, right? The dog just moved across the room. (For that matter, I could replace "move" with "breathe" or any action.) Do we say that God caused the dog to move?

We say that God eternally causes and sustains the existence of the dog, including the dog's essence/nature and all of the causal powers associated with that essence/nature, and is thus the First Cause of the entire process (which takes place via secondary causation) dog's-being-conceived-living-its-entire-life-(including-its-movement-across-the-room)-and-finally-dying.

God doesn't, in the sense you appear to mean, directly "make" the dog move. What He does is make there be a dog that has the causal powers necessary for it to move itself, and allow it to exercise them. In whatever sense He is ultimately the cause of what the dog does, He exercises that power "through" the dog, not "on" it, if you know what I mean.

Last edited by Scott (11/08/2015 6:01 pm)

**Posted by joewaked** 11/08/2015 7:50 pm

@Scott
This is great stuff. You fellows help make this so much more understandable. I love this forum!