5 Common Misconceptions of Aquinas' First Way

Misconception #1: Aquinas was trying to argue that the universe had a beginning.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The argument that the universe had a beginning is called the "kalam cosmological argument", and was developed by Muslim philosophers. Aquinas was well aware of this argument, and rejected it because he did not think it could be proven philosophically that the universe had a beginning. Aquinas said: "By faith alone do we hold, and by no demonstration can it be proved, that the world did not always exist..."

If the kalam cosmological argument could be said to be arguing for a "knocker down of the first domino", the First Way could be said to be arguing for "the motor that drives the watch". No matter how old the watch is, as long as it's hands are turning there must be a motor inside it.

Misconception #2: Aquinas does not have good reasons for thinking there cannot be an infinite chain of causes

Much of this stems from the above misconception. Once it is understood that Aquinas is arguing for a present source, and not a finite past, it can be easily shown why he thinks an infinite chain is impossible. Consider first how a receiver necessitates a giver:

• Receiver <--------- Giver

If we remove the giver, then the receiver won't be receiving anything:

• Receiver 

But similarly, if we extend the receiving line out to infinity, we have in effect removed the giver as well:

• Receiver <-------------------------------------------------------------------------

In which case, again, the receiver would not be receiving anything.

This is what Aquinas means when he says: But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover [giver], and, consequently, no other mover [receiver]...


Misconception #3: Aquinas stuffs "God" into a gap in our scientific knowledge.

God-of-the-gaps reasoning is when there is a gap in scientific knowledge, and someone says "God did it!" In other words, they stuff God as an explanation into the gaps in our knowledge. Sometimes it is alleged that Aquinas didn't know how our universe began, and so he just stuck "God" into that gap.

But first of all, Aquinas was not arguing for a beginning to the universe, as can be seen above. Second, his argument is deductive. It argues from the premises that things are changing and that nothing can change itself, to something that can cause change without having to be changed by anything further. Much the same you might reason that the lamp in your living room is receiving electricity from the outlet, which is in turn receiving electricity from the power lines, and so on to the existence of something that can give electricity without having to get it from anything further. That is, a power plant.

Similarly, the argument is trying to argue from the fact that nothing can change itself, and so must be receiving change from somewhere else, to a source of change that does not need to receive change from anything further. The argument may or may not be sound, but it proceeds logically via deductive argument to a necessary conclusion. It is not trying to arguing for the best explanation for a set of facts, as it would be if it were guilty of god-of-the-gaps.

Misconception #4: Aquinas is specially pleading for God, exempting him from the rules of earlier premises. He says that everything has a cause, but then goes on to exempt God from needing a cause.

He never says everything needs a cause, or even that everything is in motion. Again, we might say that the lamp must receive electricity and then reason that there must therefore be a source of electricity, and we would not be specially pleading for the source. The source by definition cannot be receiving electricity from anything further because then it just wouldn't be the source. And a receiver necessitates a source.

Misconception #5: Aquinas gives no reason to think that this first cause must be God; it could be Zeus or Ishtar or anything else.

The argument concludes with something of "pure actuality". That is, something with no potentials for change. He spends much of the first part of the Summa Theologica arguing for why something of pure actuality must have certain familiar attributes. For example, he argues that something that is purely actual must be immaterial, because matter and energy all have the potential to change. But something that is purely actual does not have any potentials. Also, since it is the cause of all change, then it is the cause of anything that has happened or ever will happen, and so it is all-powerful. He goes on to show why it is also all-knowing, all-good, and so on. So whatever one wishes to name it, the argument is for a singular, immaterial, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good entity.

Evidence for the Human Soul

Mental activities include beliefs, desires, hopes, fears, pains, tastes, sensations, etc.

Mental events are correlated with brain activity.

Correlation can mean identity, or causation. A pain could be correlated with brain activity because it just is brain activity, or because brain activity causes pain, or because pain causes brain activity.
Neither.

Let's consider the case that brain activity and mental activity are identical. Two different labels for one event. In the same way that Mark Twain and Sam Clemens are two different labels for one person.

So that means that pain is the firing of C fibers and the firing of C fibers is pain. They are two different labels for one event, as with Mark and Sam.

But this cannot be so.

If pain is the firing of C fibers, then anyone who lacks C fibers cannot feel pain. So what about aliens? They may have followed a different evolutionary track and lack C fibers. Or future Artificial Intelligence. Or non-human animals who lack C fibers. None of these beings would be able to feel pain, were this true. This is clearly absurd.

So the second option is better: brain activity causes mental events, but is not identical to it. Different brains can cause pain: C fibers in humans, silicon circuits in A.I., and crystal fibers in aliens. Different cells can cause the same mental event: beliefs, pains, etc.

But this won't work either.

Consider locking your door because you FEAR burglars. The fear is a mental event that causes your hand to flip the lock. For your hand to flip the lock, the brain must be sending signals down the arm into the hand. But the brain also causes the mental event "fear of burglars." So the brain causes the fear, and the brain causes the hand. Now note: the fear does not cause the hand to flip the lock. But clearly, your fear of burglars does cause your hand to flip the lock.

So the correlation of brain activity to mental activity is neither brain-to-mental causation, nor identity.

So the only option left is that brain activity is correlated with mental activity because mental activity causes brain activity.

Deductive:

1. Mental events are correlated with brain activity because they are either A) identical to brain activity, B) caused by brain activity, or C) cause brain activity
2. Not A
3. Not B
4. Therefore, C
5. Therefore, mental events are separate from brain activity

Whythereisnogod.wordpress.com on the Cosmological Argument

Atheist Confirmation Bias

The website http://whynogod.wordpress.com has a list of reasons why there is no God, and one of them addresses my speciality: the cosmological argument. Ah! I love it when atheists try to address this argument because they are so easily exposed as being guilty of confirmation bias whenever they open their mouths about it. I wonder why they let their conclusions drive their thinking rather than the other way around?

Although my blog has multiple explanations of cosmological arguments, I will re-explain here to keep this article self-contained. First, I will explain how the traditional cosmological argument is supposed to work. Then we will compare with the version on the website and see if any of their objections apply at all. 

The traditional cosmological argument, inaugurated by Plato, developed by Aristotle, and merged with Christian theology by Aquinas, is also known as the argument from change or the First Way of Thomas Aquinas.

Most people who have an opinion on this argument are already wrong, because inevitably they think that these thinkers were trying to argue that the universe had a beginning, and that God must have touched off that beginning. Nothing could be more of a strawman. Aristotle actually believed that the universe was eternally old, and his argument for an unmoved mover actually begins by proving that change and motion are eternal; that it is logically impossible for the universe to have had a beginning.

Dominoes and Clocks

Before diving in, it is important to see the forest before looking at the trees. In a general sense, the traditional cosmological argument is not trying to argue for something that knocked down the first domino, which would mean that it may not still be around. Rather, the argument is trying to argue for something like the motor in a watch: the watch could be infinitely old, and yet as long as the hands are turning, there must be a motor in it somewhere making them turn.

Pre-Socratics vs Aristotle

The argument developed as a response to Parmenides, who claimed that the change and activity we see around us does not actually exist. Nothing changes. Nothing happens. Aristotle rebutted Parmenides by saying that change is possible because changeable things are a mixture of the way they are now, and the way they could be in the future. He labeled them actuality and potentiality (or act and potency). The ice cube on your table is actually solid, and potentially liquid. After a time, it becomes actually liquid and potentially spilling all over the floor. 

Concurrent Chains

For something to become actual, it must be made actual by something already actual. The ice cube sitting on your kitchen table is potentially liquid water, but that potentiality cannot be made actual except  by actual warm air; it can't make itself actual because it is merely potential and not in existence yet. But now if that thing is being made actual by something else, it too needs something else to actualize it, and so on. Something needs to be making the air warm. Say, the wall heater. But something needs to be making the heater run: natural gas. But something needs to be making the natural gas come through the pipes: the gas company. And so on and so on.

Do you see how this is a concurrent chain?

The watch hand is only turning because it is being turned by a gear, which is itself only turning because it is being turned by another gear, and so on. The ice is melting only because the warm air is melting it. The air is warm only because the wall heater is heating it. The wall heater is running only because the gas is being pumped into it.

The Motor

This chain must bottom out in something that actualizes the chain without having to be actualized by anything further. The watch motor turns the gears without having to be turned by any further gears. No motor, no gears turning. In the case of the melting ice cube, something unchangeable must be causing the change. Something that is purely actual, with no potentialities at all. 

God?

Aquinas goes on to show what kinds of attributes a purely actual thing must have. It must be immaterial, because matter, being changeable, is a mixture of potential and actual. It must be spaceless and timeless, as these both involve being changeable. It is the cause of everything that occurs or could occur, and so it is all-powerful. It is the ground of all being or existence, and so does not have knowledge but rather is knowledge. So it is all-knowing. Also, if it were not all-powerful or all-knowing, it would have an unrealized potentiality that could be realized by learning more and being able to do more. But a purely actual thing is "maxed out" already, and has no potentialites for change. 

So just from the fact that things change, we get: an immaterial, timeless, spaceless, all-powerful, all-knowing being.

There will be no evaluations of this argument here. Rather...

WTF?!

As the website objects:

"Who or what created god?"

Well, obviously this question translates to: what actualized the potential of the thing which has no potentials? I don't need to tell you why this is a nonsense question.

"Why should a hypothetical ‘cause’ have any of the common attributes of a god?"

Just explained above, in VERY brief form. Aquinas actually spends the better part of the Summa examining just this question. All ignored by atheists, who want the easy way out of the religion that they so despise. 

"Why is the ‘cause’ a specific god?"

Well, it's not any specific religion's god, but it is the specific all-knowing, all-powerful God of most Western monotheistic religions.

"Why can’t the universe be causeless too?"

Because the universe is a compound of act and potency. At one point it was actually a singularity and potentially a large expansive universe. Right now, it is actually a large universe and potentially heat-dead. At some point in the far future, it will be actually heat-dead. So as a compound of actuality and potentiality, the universe cannot change itself into these future states. These future states must be made actual by: something already actual. 

"Why rule out all other possible explanations?"

This argument is not a matter of empirical hypothesizing, but rather follows necessarily from its premises. If it is the case that things change, and that nothing can change itself, then it follows that there must be an unchangeable changer. 

"Our current lack of understanding concerning the Universe’s origins does not automatically mean ‘god’ holds any explanatory value."

This is true, but the argument does not concern itself with the origin of the cosmos. And god isn't supposed to have "explanatory value" like one hypothesis among others, argued to be the best one. Rather, the fact that things are compounds of act and potency means that there must be something that is just act, actualizing everything else. It is more like an equation rather than a hypothesis. 

Most of the rest of the objections concern origins of the universe, and would not touch the unchangeable changer. 

It is absolutely stunning the credulity which atheists show when they find something that confirms what they already believe. They unquestioningly accept that this website has gotten the cosmological argument correct, and that its objections are good. They do not show any skepticism over the website's evaluation of it, and in the comments they effectively just high five each other over how good it feels to have shown those "religious" people how wrong their arguments are. They want to hate religion, they have a "tribal" feeling with other atheists, and they blindly accept other atheist authority on cosmological arguments.

Why not be a free thinker instead?

A Platonic Defense of Religion #1: Overview

Plato provides underdeveloped arguments for a religious worldview. I will not attempt to develop them any further here, but let's take a look at them anyway as a sort of "seed of truth" at the core of much more sophisticated arguments.

In this first post, this will be ridiculously brief.

1. The material world points beyond itself to an eternal and perfect source.
2. The human soul is immortal.
3. God, a rational soul that causes the motions and changes in the world, exists.

Next post we will look at the first idea.

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A Brief History of Philosophy 2: Sophists and Socrates

I. Sophists

With the widely varying theories of the Presocratics, and the apparent ability of equally good arguments to support both, for example, Heraclitus (only change occurs)  and Parmenides (change does not occur), a loose group known as the "sophists" concluded that philosophy cannot be used to discover truth. And in fact, there is no truth. Man is the measure of all things. Philosophy should be used instead as a tool to convince others of whatever position you desire.

II. Socrates is Ignorant

The Oracle at Delphi was purported to have said that there is no one wiser than Socrates. Socrates took this to mean that he is wise because he recognizes his own ignorance. What he knows is that he knows nothing.

III. The Socratic Method

Thus, seeking knowledge was one of the goals of Socrates. Unlike the Presocratics, who were concerned primarily with speculations about the fundamental nature of reality, Socrates was more interested in ethics. His famous Socratic Method generally starts with a request for a definition of a moral concept (What is courage?), and after the person responds he asks more questions, eventually leading them to a belief that contradicts their original definition. In this way, he shows that they, like Socrates, are not knowledgeable after all.

IV. Socratic Ethics

Like the sophists, Socrates is more concerned with human events than with cosmological theories. However, unlike the sophists he is not a nihilist. He believes that there are moral truths. For Socrates, the goal of human virtue is to seek happiness, but happiness can only come by taking care of one's soul. Virtuous actions improve the soul, and vicious actions harm the soul. This is why doing harm to someone else is worse than receiving harm: the former harms one's soul, whereas the victim only has his body harmed.

Famously, Socrates denies that anyone ever knowingly does evil. Everyone does what he believes to be good for himself, but ignorance of what is genuinely right is what leads people to do evil. If they knew that a virtuous soul leads to happiness, then no one would harm his or her own soul by doing evil. So knowledge leads to morality.

A Brief History of Philosophy 1: The Presocratics

I. What Stuff is Fundamental?

The first philosophers were primarily interested in explaining everything in terms of one simple principle.

Thales: Water is the most fundamental element.

Anaximander: An infinite, unobservable, amorphus indefinite is the the most fundamental element.

Anaximenes: Air.

Pythagoras: Numbers. Also started a religious cult.

II. Permanence vs Change

In addition to this, we have the problem of change. Things around us appear to change, but things appear to stay the same as well. The water in a river is never the same, but the river itself persists. A person's physical body changes constantly, but the person persists over time. What accounts for this? What is fundamental? Change or permanence?

Heraclitus: Change is fundamental. "You can't step into the same river twice."

Parmenides: Permanence is fundamental. Existence "is", and non-existence "is not". Since change would involve something coming to be that did not exist (such as a property), and non-existence is not, then change is impossible. Everything is One.

Zeno: Follow of Parmenides. Agreed that change is impossible, and formulated his famous paradoxes to prove it. 

III. Responses to Permanence 

In many ways, the next philosophers tried to answer Parmenides' declaration of the impossibility of change, because it at least seems like change occurs. They attempted to combine elements into one (thus in keeping with Parmenides argument that all is One), or claim that there are several fundamental elements.

Anaxagoras: All elements exist in a single mass. Nous (mind) separates the elements into their individual forms.

Empedocles: Fire, air, earth, and water are fundamental.  

Democritus: Atoms are fundamental. Everything is composed of groups of small particles that cannot be broken down any further.