Infinite Regress of Gods

[Ambrose]

But your argument of course implies that Aquinas was wrong anyway, certainly if even non-contradiction is based on experience, so maybe you're shooting yourself in the foot.

But that might be an interesting argument to see how non-contradiction is based on experience. If anything, I would think that would help the Mormon point of view which makes direct experience a primary avenue for obtaining knowledge.

Do you mean somehow along the lines of the Kantian synthetic a priori?

How does my argument imply that Aquinas was wrong? Aquinas too hinged his arguments upon these first principles which we learn via experience.

I meant "a priori" in the fashion that Hume argues from that which he counts as prior, namely ideas.

[Hughes]

Howdy CK!

Long time no chat!

I just found this thread and it appears no one has yet addressed your question about the "uncaused cause".

I have found that a few LDS accept this as a valid argument, but I think they are mistaken in not realizing that it incorporates a view of God which we should consider (pardon the expression ) "apostate" since Aquinas was clearly strongly influenced by Neoplatonism.

To my way of thinking, Hume effectively put the notion of the "uncaused cause" to rest hundreds of years ago, and I am not aware of anyone who has successfully challenged his view except some Scholastic philosophers whose conclusions are largely discounted outside of Scholastic philosophy.

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-David-Hume-Philosopher.htm

The point is that there is never a logically necessary cause of anything, and that it is impossible to define a single "cause" for any single effect from a logical perspective, except of course by observation and experience- not logic.

So if I drop a pebble into a pond which "causes" ripples- what is the "cause" of those ripples? Was it the pebble, or was it me dropping the pebble? Was the "cause" the gravity which pulled the pebble down to the surface of the pond? Was the "cause" somehow my intention to drop the pebble? What was the cause of the intention? The professor who stated the problem? And what was my cause? Was my cause my parents, my grandparents or great grandparents? Or was the cause the pebble itself- but what caused the pebble- etc etc

So what was the ultimate "cause" of the ripples?? The answer will always be "it depends on how you look at it".

There is no logically necessary cause which can be defined for anything. There may be a high degree of correlation, but correlation is observation and is not logically necessary. So on this view, the universe does not need a "cause" to start it- and certainly any implied cause (the big bang, etc) is not logically necessary.

So it cannot be said that the existence of God can be logically proven by causation.

You haven't eliminated the need for a cause, simply because you have shown that the *exact* cause can't be known, for sure.

Just as the ripples in the water were caused by something.

So to the Universe was caused by something.

The fact that it can't be known exactly doesn't eliminate it's need or it's necessary existence.

Every effect must have a sufficient cause; everything that comes into being must have a cause. (Principle of Causality)

Seems to me that the only way out of infinite regress is to posit a uncaused causer or unmoved mover.

[Ambrose]

Even more trouble for Hume, he equivocates "cause".

[mfbukowski]

I meant "a priori" in the fashion that Hume argues from that which he counts as prior, namely ideas.

Yes that's the whole problem.

What comes first- experience or ideas? That is Platonism vs science. Science says that experience is first- observation of what is real- Platonism says that ideas- the Platonic Forms come first- that ideas are more "real" than experience.

I'll take tables and rocks as being more "real" than the idea of tables and rocks anytime. Experience is primary and that is the side contemporary thought takes.

[mfbukowski]

You haven't eliminated the need for a cause, simply because you have shown that the *exact* cause can't be known, for sure.

Just as the ripples in the water were caused by something.

So to the Universe was caused by something.

The fact that it can't be known exactly doesn't eliminate it's need or it's necessary existence.

Every effect must have a sufficient cause; everything that comes into being must have a cause. (Principle of Causality)

Seems to me that the only way out of infinite regress is to posit a uncaused causer or unmoved mover.

The whole point is that you can't prove that logically. There are no causes unless you see them. That a causes b is an abstraction- it is a product of the way you want to look at things. You can see the cause of b as a or something else- there is no logical connection.

Suppose the universe never had a beginning- does "eternity" have a cause? Does "eternity" have a beginning?

If you can see that eternity has no beginning- why does anything else need one?

It is just a product of the way you are used to thinking about things, it is what you have been taught.

[mfbukowski]

Even more trouble for Hume, he equivocates "cause".

What's the cause of eternity? What's God's cause?

If the uncaused cause can exist, why does everything else need a cause?

If there is one uncaused thing possible, nothing needs a cause.

[Ambrose]

Yes that's the whole problem.

What comes first- experience or ideas? That is Platonism vs science. Science says that experience is first- observation of what is real- Platonism says that ideas- the Platonic Forms come first- that ideas are more "real" than experience.

I'll take tables and rocks as being more "real" than the idea of tables and rocks anytime. Experience is primary and that is the side contemporary thought takes.

St. Thomas would certainly agree here. He held that we were tabula rasa, and that it was only by experience or by divine illumination that we came to know anything.

Now that doesn't mean that St. Thomas didn't hold that there isn't something very real about the Mind of God, nor about the idea in the Mind of God, but this is in direct opposition to the Platonic nonsense about ideas being a separate realm quite apart from the things that have concrete existence.

[Ambrose]

What's the cause of eternity? What's God's cause?

If the uncaused cause can exist, why does everything else need a cause?

If there is one uncaused thing possible, nothing needs a cause.

Are you attempting a red herring here? In response to my saying that Hume equivocates "cause", you come off with a fine list of questions that do not relate.

In short answer, these questions can only be examined in light of how we know causes.

Ex quolibet autem effectu potest demonstrari propriam causam eius esse.

EDIT: If you should truly like to examine these questions, please, clarify what you mean by "cause". What sort of causality are you speaking of?

[tana]

So if I drop a pebble into a pond which "causes" ripples- what is the "cause" of those ripples? Was it the pebble, or was it me dropping the pebble? Was the "cause" the gravity which pulled the pebble down to the surface of the pond? Was the "cause" somehow my intention to drop the pebble? What was the cause of the intention? The professor who stated the problem? And what was my cause? Was my cause my parents, my grandparents or great grandparents? Or was the cause the pebble itself- but what caused the pebble- etc etc

Ripples were formed in the water *because* a pebble fell. A pebble fell *because* gravity influenced it's behavior. Gravity influenced it's behavior *because* fingers released it....because, electrical impulses traveled down a nervous system.....because, a conscious decision was made.....because.....Well, one reason could be; NO reason whatsoever.

I personally think that the only way to avoid the problem of *first cause* is to quit making "matter" primary. If Mind/pure awareness is primary, and is the "wave form" of matter, it is the creator. Mind/awareness can both operate on cause and effect or on pure abstract randomness.

And that is the only way I can see that existence can be.....is if at it's most fundamental it is not a system of matter and mechanics.

[Ambrose]

I personally think that the only way to avoid the problem of *first cause* is to quit making "matter" primary. If Mind/pure awareness is primary, and is the "wave form" of matter, it is the creator. Mind/awareness can both operate on cause and effect or on pure abstract randomness.

What?

[WalkerW]

I happen to find Thomist-Aristotelian metaphysics very interesting, especially the "uncaused cause." Unfortunately, I think this argument is misunderstood by both advocates and critics. Eastern Orthodox philosopher David Bentley Hart explained it this way:

The most venerable metaphysical claims about God do not simply shift priority from one kind of thing (say, a teacup or the universe) to another thing that just happens to be much bigger and come much earlier (some discrete, very large gentleman who preexists teacups and universes alike). These claims start, rather, from the fairly elementary observation that nothing contingent, composite, finite, temporal, complex, and mutable can account for its own existence, and that even an infinite series of such things can never be the source or ground of its own being, but must depend on some source of actuality beyond itself. Thus, abstracting from the universal conditions of contingency, one very well may (and perhaps must) conclude that all things are sustained in being by an absolute plenitude of actuality, whose very essence is being as such: not a

[mfbukowski]

St. Thomas would certainly agree here. He held that we were tabula rasa, and that it was only by experience or by divine illumination that we came to know anything.

Now that doesn't mean that St. Thomas didn't hold that there isn't something very real about the Mind of God, nor about the idea in the Mind of God, but this is in direct opposition to the Platonic nonsense about ideas being a separate realm quite apart from the things that have concrete existence.

And yet he had no problem with the idea of "substance" apart from anything which is real- hence transubtstantiation. That is certainly an idea without concrete existence. And then we have "being" and "nature" and the whole Trinity thing.

So I don't really know if you can say that about "Platonic nonsense".

[Ambrose]

And yet he had no problem with the idea of "substance" apart from anything which is real- hence transubtstantiation. That is certainly an idea without concrete existence. And then we have "being" and "nature" and the whole Trinity thing.

So I don't really know if you can say that about "Platonic nonsense".

mfbukowski, I think that you are treading into dangerous territory, where you might not be all that familiar, as your first sentence demonstrates of your knowledge of what is meant by "substance".

[Ambrose]

It is equating this essence with the personality of God Himself that I find problematic. I can accept static absolutes when it comes to laws, principles, intelligence, and/or truth. But not when it comes to a personal, loving God.

Your assessment of most proponents of Aristotelian cosmology is exactly how I see it to be. Most of the debates I've witnessed between atheists and theists do not begin well for the theist hasn't any idea of the underlying principles for the arguments from contingency.

If you do not equate the persons of God with the essence of God, then you have a complex thing. Complexes do not seem to account for their being complex. Do they?

[mfbukowski]

Are you attempting a red herring here? In response to my saying that Hume equivocates "cause", you come off with a fine list of questions that do not relate.

In short answer, these questions can only be examined in light of how we know causes.

Ex quolibet autem effectu potest demonstrari propriam causam eius esse.

EDIT: If you should truly like to examine these questions, please, clarify what you mean by "cause". What sort of causality are you speaking of?

Well honestly, I think that "cause" is in the eye of the beholder and how the phenomenon is defined. I am ultimately a Wittgensteinian so meaning is always dependent on use and context.

But I think the time issue is a real one- If God created time, there must have been a "time before time" in some sense or other- which I think relates to causality.

It just all seems contradictory that there would be an "uncaused cause" which started time- it just doesn't seem that time could possibly have a beginning.

But for a true Scholastic I am sure that question is child's play since they have had 1200 or more years to come up with an explanation. Not that I would buy the explanation, but I am sure there is one.

I just cannot imagine a beginning to time, but for some reason I am supposed to imagine an "uncaused cause", or a beginning to causality.

I suppose that goes with an "untimed time" or something, but I just can't see it.

For me there was no beginning to either of these things- they just have always been because we cannot imagine them not being like that.

Our minds are just not structured to comprehend that. Now you can call that "mystery" or you can call it "nonsense"- I suppose that depends on what side you are on, and I am not necessarily saying that one is better than the other. After all, I have been on both sides of that one at different points in my life.

Edit: Oh yes- and probably he does equivocate on "cause" but I have my own problems with the position- forget about Hume!

[mfbukowski]

Ripples were formed in the water *because* a pebble fell. A pebble fell *because* gravity influenced it's behavior. Gravity influenced it's behavior *because* fingers released it....because, electrical impulses traveled down a nervous system.....because, a conscious decision was made.....because.....Well, one reason could be; NO reason whatsoever.

I personally think that the only way to avoid the problem of *first cause* is to quit making "matter" primary. If Mind/pure awareness is primary, and is the "wave form" of matter, it is the creator. Mind/awareness can both operate on cause and effect or on pure abstract randomness.

And that is the only way I can see that existence can be.....is if at it's most fundamental it is not a system of matter and mechanics.

No, it still is, you have just included mind in the mix of causes.

Of course the LDS position is that mind and matter are one- since there is no such thing as "immaterial matter" and that "spirit is matter, but more refined".

So for me, the separation is artificial and doesn't get you anywhere in your theory.

[WalkerW]

If you do not equate the persons of God with the essence of God, then you have a complex thing. Complexes do not seem to account for their being complex. Do they?

If by "complex" you mean something that is not metaphysically "simple" (as understood in classical theism), you are correct. I don't believe in a "simple" God. I believe in one that is more akin to the Hebrew concept.

[Ambrose]

Well honestly, I think that "cause" is in the eye of the beholder and how the phenomenon is defined. I am ultimately a Wittgensteinian so meaning is always dependent on use and context.

If you hold that sort of position, then we ought not to have this sort of conversation, for, as the Philosopher says, we wouldn't know whether our words corresponded to reality.

But I think the time issue is a real one- If God created time, there must have been a "time before time" in some sense or other- which I think relates to causality.

I am fond of Plato's remarks in the Timeaus. " . . . and the past and the future, these are the created species of time . . . " Should there be something called the Past, it is only relative to that which is now called the Present. It is not "past" in and of itself. It is "past" when the present occurs. In this sense, I could certainly see your difficulty. You see the past as an absolute property; I think that a Thomist, or an Aristotelian, might see it as a relative property.

[mfbukowski]

But speaking of science and conscious observation, see Robert Lanza's theory of Biocentrism.

Very cool stuff- closely related to A.N. Whitehead's ideas- which if you want to read, you should start first with Hosinski

[Ambrose]

If by "complex" you mean something that is not metaphysically "simple" (as understood in classical theism), you are correct. I don't believe in a "simple" God. I believe in one that is more akin to the Hebrew concept.

Please, forgive me for my ambiguity. I do indeed mean "complex" in that opposition, described by Albertus Magnus, to "simplex".

Now here is where I cannot rely solely upon argumentation, for I haven't yet read enough, but I am thinking that this classical model makes some proof that complexes do not account for their complexity, that there is some sort of contingency apparent in complexity (at least, that's the way that Maimonides seems to make it out).

Do you happen to know why it is that complexes are said to be contingent?

[mfbukowski]

mfbukowski, I think that you are treading into dangerous territory, where you might not be all that familiar, as your first sentence demonstrates of your knowledge of what is meant by "substance".

Oh I think I know a little about it thanks to the Augustinian fathers I studied with, and my reading of the Summa. Probably not as much as you - I will readily admit, but let's just say I took it as far as I could stand to.

I would be interested in a contemporary perhaps scientific if possible, understanding of how you personally deal with the idea of "substance".

And I definitely don't think it's "dangerous territory"! If I am wrong I'm wrong. I have absolutely nothing invested in the idea of substance- it is a total confusion as far as I am concerned so maybe you can teach me something.

[mfbukowski]

Your assessment of most proponents of Aristotelian cosmology is exactly how I see it to be. Most of the debates I've witnessed between atheists and theists do not begin well for the theist hasn't any idea of the underlying principles for the arguments from contingency.

If you do not equate the persons of God with the essence of God, then you have a complex thing. Complexes do not seem to account for their being complex. Do they?

Just fyi, I am pretty much a social trinitarian- I think the concept fits well with the family aspect of the LDS Godhead.

I am not much of a fan of "essence"- I don't know what the word means. It tends to be a placeholder- a stand in for nothing at all.

[Ambrose]

Oh I think I know a little about it thanks to the Augustinian fathers I studied with, and my reading of the Summa. Probably not as much as you - I will readily admit, but let's just say I took it as far as I could stand to.

I would be interested in a contemporary perhaps scientific if possible, understanding of how you personally deal with the idea of "substance".

And I definitely don't think it's "dangerous territory"! If I am wrong I'm wrong. I have absolutely nothing invested in the idea of substance- it is a total confusion as far as I am concerned so maybe you can teach me something.

Interestingly, I don't think that Thomas ever gives an adequate explanation of what is meant by Substance in the Summa. He simply assumes that you're acquainted with Aristotle.

The discussion that Aristotle gives of this comes primarily in Categories, Posterior Analytics and the Topics.

Your saying that "substance" is apart from the "real" is what really threw me off. As far as I've read Aristotle and some of St. Thomas, I cannot say that they ever speak of substances apart from what is real, unless you are perhaps thinking of "secondary substances" . . .

[WalkerW]

Please, forgive me for my ambiguity. I do indeed mean "complex" in that opposition, described by Albertus Magnus, to "simplex".

Now here is where I cannot rely solely upon argumentation, for I haven't yet read enough, but I am thinking that this classical model makes some proof that complexes do not account for their complexity, that there is some sort of contingency apparent in complexity (at least, that's the way that Maimonides seems to make it out).

Do you happen to know why it is that complexes are said to be contingent?

I'm a philosophical novice myself. But how I've understood it is thus: there is a difference between potentiality (essence) and actuality (existence). For example, you may have an idea for a building (e.g. blueprints), but this only represents its potential. It does not actually exist yet. Once it is built, fulfilling the prior plans, it is actualized. Would-be parents make love in order to produce a child. They have the idea of a child, which gives it the potential to exist. But until it is conceived, it does not actually exist. And so forth. This is atrociously oversimplifying the issue, but you hopefully get the gist. The classical theism as I understand it is that God's essence is pure actuality. If all things in the universe in principle did not have to actually exist, but do, then something must account for its existence. This would be pure actuality; where essence and existence (potentiality and actuality) are one and the same. This pure actuality, ground of all being, Being itself, has been equated with God.

Very interesting arguments. In my mind, very thought-provoking. I, however, cannot accept that the personal, loving God that I find in scripture, in revelation, and manifested in the Incarnation of Christ is the same thing as this pure actuality. One reason, as put forth by Blake Ostler, is that to equate God with pure actuality and thus "the Good" is to make Him good by His very essence. In other words, He does not choose "the Good." He is the Good. This to me is problematic because it makes God an amoral being rather than a moral being. But if God is not equated with the Good, but instead perfectly chooses the Good (thus making Him God), this solves that dilemma.

[mfbukowski]

If you hold that sort of position, then we ought not to have this sort of conversation, for, as the Philosopher says, we wouldn't know whether our words corresponded to reality.

I think you're right. There is no "reality" (we can talk about) beyond words. And talking about things we cannot talk about becomes difficult.

So words I suppose, to use your analogy, "correspond" only to themselves. And THAT is how philosophy has changed in the last 2,000 years. I believe it is an advance, I suppose you don't.

I am fond of Plato's remarks in the Timeaus. " . . . and the past and the future, these are the created species of time . . . " Should there be something called the Past, it is only relative to that which is now called the Present. It is not "past" in and of itself. It is "past" when the present occurs. In this sense, I could certainly see your difficulty. You see the past as an absolute property; I think that a Thomist, or an Aristotelian, might see it as a relative property.

No, I think it is a word, and so is "property". I don't know what any of those things are beyond being words in a context.

It's that pesky old problem about talking about a "reality" beyond which we can speak. Of course, with Wittgenstein that makes me a good mystic.

Did you know that Wittgenstein was a life-long active Roman Catholic?

But he definitely was not a Thomist! You should consider "converting"! It makes things so much easier!

Were I today a Catholic as I once was, I would still be a Wittgensteinian, but I think Mormonism "fits" the whole picture better.