A Close Look at a Cosmological Argument: Aquinas

I've written numerous interpretations of Aquinas' famous First Way of proving the existence of God on this blog, but I've never closely analyzed the argument in Aquinas' own words. So let's take a closer look at this argument as he actually writes it:

"The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion."

Now, caution must be exercised here with the word "motion." He uses words differently from how we use them today. What he is talking about here is not necessarily motion from place to place, but rather something more like "change." Specifically, he is talking about the actualization of a potential. Or to put it another way, the coming to be of an object or attribute of an object that has the ability to be. The banana that is turning black on top of your fridge would be considered "motion" in the sense Aquinas means here.

"It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion."

This is the empirical premise. Just look around you. Is there "motion" as meant above? Is the banana turning from yellow to black? Are trees outside swaying with the wind?  Birds flying? Cars driving? People walking? In short, are there things becoming? Becoming older, becoming bigger, smaller. Becoming pieces. Becoming whole. Change. This is evident to our senses, and we can see it all around us all the time.

"Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another..."

Again we must be cautious. Let's rephrase it in modern terms: "whatever is changing is being changed by something else." But even more caution is warranted. What he means by "another" is not "something else" per se, but rather something that already exists. This could be a part of the thing that is changing, even an internal part. You may protest that you move yourself when you walk. That you are not moved by "another" at all. But think about what is being changed, here. Your upper body is being moved by your legs. Your upper body is not moving itself. It is being moved by something else. Something else that exists. If your legs didn't exist, they couldn't very well move your upper body.

"...for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion."

Another tricky term! The word "potentiality" could perhaps best be defined as "ability to be." An acorn has the ability to be an oak tree. It may be eaten by a squirrel or dry up, but as an acorn, it has the ability to be an oak tree. A yellow banana has the ability to be black, whether it actually ever turns black or not because you eat it. So change is only possible because something has the ability to be whatever it is becoming. If it doesn't have the ability to be whatever it is becoming, then it just wouldn't be changing into that thing.

"...whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act."

Something can only cause change if it exists. If something doesn't exist, it can't cause change. Your upper body cannot be moved by non-existent legs. If you have no legs, either your upper body won't move, or something else is going to have to move it. If something is moving it, whatever that thing is must be something that actually exists.

"For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality."

Remember that "motion" means "change," and that "potentiality" means "ability to be." So this could be translated as "change is when something actually becomes what it has the ability to be." The acorn has the ability to be an oak tree, and when it actually become that oak tree, a change has occurred. This is all pretty basic stuff once the terminology is understood, isn't it?

"But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality."

This is the same principle that was highlighted above. A change in something can only be caused by something else that already exists. The change in your upper body can only be caused by existent legs, or an existent wheel chair. The change in color in a banana can only be caused by existent enzymes, not non-existent enzymes.

"Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it."

Here he gives an example, as I have already done a few times. Wood is potentially on fire, and if something comes along to set it on fire the wood becomes actually on fire. The potential becomes actual. One thing to note is that his example here might not be the best, since it gives the impression that whatever causes change in something must be in the same state, as when he says that something which is actually hot causes the wood to be actually hot. But this is not always the case. As I showed above enzymes cause bananas to turn black but may not actually be black themselves. They only have the ability to cause blackness in the banana.

"Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold."

The banana cannot be both actually black, and potentially black (that is, yellow with the ability to be black) at the same time in the same respect (color). For then the banana would be both black, and not black, which is a logical contradiction.

"It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another."

Therefore, something (a single part) cannot be both the initiator of change and thing being changed, with respect to the same property, such as color. Another slightly different way of making this point is that a potential (a property that has the ability to be but does not yet exist) cannot make itself real, because a potential doesn't even exist yet and therefore cannot very well cause anything, such as bringing itself into existence.

"If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again."

Remember above, with the legs? The legs are moving your torso, but since they too are changing, they must be being changed by something else. Your legs are being moved by muscles. But the muscles are changing! And whatever is changing is being changed by something else. They are being changed by motorneurons. But wait! The motorneurons are changing! And so on. We have here a concurrent chain of changers. and this is vital to understand for the next point:

"But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover, seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand."

Now, here is where most people REALLY mess up, and is by far the trickiest part of the argument. They see the premise that this cannot go on to infinity, and they usually imagine a chain stretching back in time to the first event, like the Big Bang.  But Aquinas explicitly allows this type of series to stretch on indefinitely. Elsewhere, he says that an artificer may act by means of an infinite number of hammers, as one after another may be broken. There is nothing in this series of broken hammers that demands there be a first.

But consider a different kind of chain. A concurrent chain. A chain where an effect is being transmitted from one end to another. For example, a power plant is generating electricity, which is being transmitted through power lines to the lamp in your living room. If there is no power plant (or other source of electricity), then there is no electricity and your lamp won't be lit. If there is an infinite string of power lines, then there is by definition no power plant and your lamp won't be lit. But your lamp is lit, so there must be a source of electricity, so there cannot be an infinite string of power lines.

There are a few different ways to phrase this principle. Here is one: for any given effect, there must be some cause capable of producing it. The lamp being lit is the effect, and there must be some cause capable of producing that effect. But the power outlet is not capable of producing that effect, and neither is the power line by itself, and neither is an infinite number of power lines. An infinite number of powerless wires is just as powerless as a single set of wires.

This principle is often spoken of as a "vertical" causal series, moving down into the most fundamental aspects of reality in the present, as opposed to a "horizontal" causal series, moving back to earlier and earlier events.

Another way of understanding this point is to consider the cause of something becoming, vs the cause of something being. The cause of a lake's becoming would be the evaporation of water, which turns into clouds, then rain, which falls, collects in ground water, and becomes the lake. A series of events: event 1, then event 2, then event 3, and so on. But once a lake is in existence, it continues to exist from moment to moment due to factors other than the lake itself, and that is what Aquinas is getting at. The lake continues to exist from moment to moment because of warm air that keeps it from freezing, the warm air continues to exist because of the heat from the Sun, the heat from the Sun continues to exist from moment to moment because of nuclear reactions in the core, and so on. Notice how with this type of chain, we are moving "down" so to speak to more fundamental aspects of reality in the present, not in a chain of events stretching back in time.

You could think of each member of this chain as getting its realness, its existence, its actuality, from the next member in the chain, which in turns gets its actuality from the next member in the chain, and so on. And how I showed with the lamp and power plant, if there is no source of actuality (source of existence, or source of realness), then nothing would exist. But something does exist. So there is a source of existence, or source of actuality. Something that can cause existence without needing to be caused to exist. Or to put it another way, something that can actualize without needing to be actualized. And that is what Aquinas concludes next, in his own words:

"Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other..."

Note that the word "first" here does not mean first event, but rather it means something more like "source." Or "primary cause, rather than secondary cause." This follows from what I said above regarding a source of an effect. The Moon is the cause of light, but it is only a secondary cause, as it depends on the Sun for its light. The Sun is the source of light, and therefore "first" in the sense meant by Aquinas. And even if the Sun were infinitely old, it would still be the "first" cause of light, with the Moon the "second" cause of light.

And then:

"...and this everyone understands to be God."

Wait, wait, wait! What?! This everyone understands to be God?! Aquinas has not proven this thing to be intelligent, or good, or anything else. What's he talking about?

Well, for one thing, he is writing to other Catholic priests, not to atheists, so he is not really building a case for an unbeliever to read raw. For another thing, he retroactively justifies the use of the term "God" in later arguments, when he shows the unmoved mover to be intelligent, good, and all the rest. So you might accuse him of jumping the gun a bit, but it's only semantics at this point. Just a label. In the next article, he goes on to ask, "Is God a body?", showing that he is just slapping a label on the unmoved mover even though we don't know what it's like yet. What Aquinas has at this point is simply something that is unchangeable but that causes other things to change, and that's it.

Carl Sagan: Where Did God Come From?

Watch this:



"Where did God come from?" This is a popular objection from atheists. Unfortunately, it's also completely misguided, and only exposes the atheist for being utterly unfamiliar with classic monotheism.

To explain…

Starting with Aristotle, which is where classic monotheism begins to really gel, the basic idea is that all changeable things (such as birds, people, planets, stars) cannot collectively be responsible for their own existence, because then they would be causing themselves to exist, and so would have to exist prior to them existing, which is a logical contradiction. To solve this, Aristotle hypothesizes that there must be something unchangeable which is responsible for the existence of changeable things. Because it is unchangeable, it cannot have a cause even in principle. A cause implies a change, so if something is unchangeable then it doesn't need nor can it even have a cause.

It must be emphasized that Aristotle is not speaking of the thing that triggered the Big Bang, but rather of a "substrate" that grounds the existence of changeable things, even if the universe is eternally old. Just like a room full of dancing people, even if infinitely old, still has to have a floor in order to hold the people up.

So now hopefully it is clear why Sagan's objection makes no sense, and is in fact complete gibberish. Asking where God came from is asking about a change in God, that he came from somewhere, or was caused by something. But the whole point of classic monotheism is that God is the unchangeable reality that grounds the existence of changeable things. So Sagan's objection translates as follows:

• What changed the thing that is not changeable?

You can see that this is a nonsense question. It entails a contradiction. It's like asking:

• Which mountain is higher than the highest mountain?

Alexander Pruss on the Principle of Sufficient Reason

A very brief rundown of some of the arguments Alexander Pruss has offered for accepting the principle of sufficient reason (the principle that for any state of affairs, there is some explanation for its existence).

Epistemological Argument: Once we accept that the PSR is false, and hence some contingent facts have no explanation, then skepticism results: a demon may not be deceiving you, but your perceptions might be happening for no reason at all. Thus if the PSR is false, then we cannot know empirical truths. But we do know empirical truths. Therefore, the PSR is true.

Evolution: The confidence of the theory of evolution is strong argument for the PSR. We presuppose the PSR when examining evolution, otherwise we could conclude that there are some facts with no explanation, and thus that a monkey just appeared out of nowhere and evolved into people.

Inference to the Best Explanation: For a particular phenomenon, we look at all the possible explanations and infer that the best one is the most likely. But we never think to include “no explanation” as a possibility.

No Widespread Violations of the PSR: Why aren’t there violations of the PSR all around us, if it is false? Why aren’t strange things popping into existence all over the place with no explanation? If the PSR is false, then we should think that a brick popping into existence in mid-air is perfectly possible. But we already discount that from having a high probability, so perhaps the PSR is a priori.

Philosophical argumentation: If the PSR is false, then we could just claim brute fact whenever we do philosophical arguments. Why is it true that it is morally right to switch the trolley car to kill one person instead of five? Who cares. It’s just a brute fact.

Al Farabi and Avicenna's Cosmological Argument

Although they were not together, the cosmological argument of Al Farabi and Avicenna is close enough that there is no need for a separate post for each one.

I. "What it is" vs "That it is"

Consider the definition of something. A dog. A dog is a carnivorous mammal with four legs, a tail, and a snout. But just from knowing what it is, we cannot tell that it is. I.e., that it exists. We have to go out into the world to see if dogs actually exist:

Or consider the Higgs boson. This is the elusive particle that physicists were looking for using large particle accelerators or "atom smashers." They knew that the Higgs boson had certain properties, such as a specific charge and spin. But they did not know whether it existed, and for this reason built atom smashers such as the Large Hadron Collider. Again, we could know what a Higgs boson is but just from that not know that it exists.

So for most objects of our experience, their definition, or essence, does not entail their existence. In other words, these objects are not the source of their own ongoing existence. So since their ongoing existence does not come from themselves, it must come from outside them. In other words, they must be dependent on other factors for their existence. For example, a lake does not entail its own existence; its existence is maintained by warm air, gravity, and so forth. But these factors also do not entail their own existence, and we see that warm air depends on a source of heat, and gravity depends on mass, and a source of heat depends on nuclear reactions, and so on.

This leads into a regress…

II. Dependent Objects Imply an Independent Object

What kind of regress are we talking about, here? We don't mean a regress stretching back in time, but rather a hierarchical regress of dependent members here and now:

If object A does not entail its own, ongoing, existence, then it must depend on other factors for its own ongoing existence, as we saw. But the same applies to those other factors. Now consider a chain of clamps that only stay closed if held by another clamp:

The only way this chain of clamps will stay closed if there is at least one "permanent" clamp holding shut one of the clamps, which then in turn holds together the rest of the clamps. One clamp must be "independent": not held shut by any further clamps:

Similarly, if object A is receiving or dependent on further factors for its ongoing existence, and those factors are themselves dependent upon further factors, then this must terminate in something not dependent upon any further factors:

To put it another way, all these objects whose essence (what it is) is separate from their existence (that it is) must trace to something whose essence is its own existence. That is to say, existence itself.

III. Existence Itself = God?

Now that we have arrived at the conclusion, existence itself, what must this thing be like? It must be eternal, as existence cannot not exist. It must be immutable, as nothing cannot exist and so existence must always exist. It must be unchangeable, because change entails a gain of something that was lacking, and a lack of something is the non-existence of something, and existence itself cannot have non-existence. It cannot be material, or have spacial location, or exist in time, because all these things entail change. It must have all positive properties to a maximum degree, because anything less than maximum would entail a lack of something, which is non existence. This would entail such properties as maximum power, maximum knowledge, and maximum goodness:

Cosmological Arguments: An Illustrated Guide

See below for illustrated versions of the cosmological arguments for the existence of God. This list will expand as I create them:

1. Plato's Cosmological Argument
2. Aristotle's Unmoved Mover
3. Plotinus's One
4. Al Farabi's and Avicenna's Cosmological Argument
5. Al Ghazali's Kalam Cosmological Argument
6. Averroes's Cosmological Argument
7. Maimonides's Cosmological Argument
8. Aquinas's First Way
9. Aquinas's Second Way
10. Aquinas's Third Way
11. John Duns Scotus
12. Spinoza's Cosmological Argument
13. Leibniz's and Clarke's Cosmological Argument
14. Richard Swinburne

Plotinus's One

A look at the neo-Platonic version of God called "the One", most famously associated with the philosopher Plotinus. This can be read in Enneads, Book 6.

I. Prerequisite: Plato's Forms

Since Plotinus was a Platonist and Platonism hinges on the Forms,let's first do a crash course in the Forms.

Consider any drawn triangle, or even a carefully constructed computer triangle:

No matter how carefully drawn it is, it will always have imperfections that make it less than a perfect triangle. For example, even the computer triangle consists of pixels, and so will consist of jagged lines and other features that are not true features of triangles:

What this indicates is that any physical triangle is only an approximation of a triangle, and not a real one. The real triangle would be the one of pure knowledge; the archetype, or Form.

The same thing applies to almost everything else that exists. For example, any particular elephant might be missing a leg, or have genetic imperfections, and thus only be an approximation of its archetype. According to Plato, these archetypes really exist as immaterial Forms, and are what constitute the real world. The physical world is but an inferior copy or approximation of the world of pure archetypes.

The problem is that if true reality consists of knowledge, then this knowledge must be grounded in a mind or some kind of intellectual source.

II. The One

Consider what the most fundamental principle in the universe must be like. It must be very simple, not composed of parts or sub-principles, because if it were, then each of its parts or sub-principles would be more fundamental than it. For example, the principle of A+ B is not as fundamental just A alone or B alone. Or consider an atom. An atom cannot be the most fundamental thing, because it consists of parts: neutrons, protons, and electrons. And its parts consist of parts. Protons consist of quarks, and so on:

So the first principle, the bottom-most layer of reality, cannot consist of parts. It also cannot be changeable, since change throughout time would be more complex than a homogenous and unchanging thing:

Such a thing is ineffable, and is beyond either being or non-being. This is The One:

III. The Intellect

However, the Forms must be anchored in it somehow, since they are pure knowledge and pure knowledge cannot just "exist" on its own, but must exist in an intellect. But the One is utterly simple, so how can it contain all these complex archetypes? The answer is that the One is not intelligent. Rather, an intellect emanates or proceeds out of it, and it is in this secondary principle that the Forms are grounded:

IV. The Soul

But this is still not enough to explain the world. If we have a simple One, and an Intellect in which Forms are grounded, all we have are static forms and all that would exist are immaterial Forms of knowledge. But we see physical objects and animals changing, coming into being, passing away, and going about their daily activities. So there must be a third principle which emanates from the Intellect which instills activity in things:

V. Conclusion

So we have from Plotinus a Trinitarian God which consists of the simplest first principle, an intellect to ground the Platonic archetypes, and a source of movement and activity.

Aristotle's Unmoved Mover

A look at Aristotle's famous argument for an unmoved mover, which can be read in Metaphysics, Book XII, parts 6 to 8, and in Physics, Book VII.

I. The Universe is Infinitely Old

To begin with, Aristotle argues that change and time must be infinitely old, and hence the universe must have existed forever. This is because if a change occurs, something has to cause that change, but then that thing changed in order to cause the change so something must have caused it, and so on back into infinity:

II. Something Cannot Change Itself

He then argues that something cannot change itself. This is because the future state of something does not exist yet, and so cannot make itself real. Only something that already exists can cause a change to happen. So any change that is occurring must have some cause:

But the cold air is itself changeable as well. It causes the water to change into ice, but it itself can change by becoming warm, or changing location, etc. Call it a "changeable changer."

III. There Must Be an Unchangeable Changer

If everything were a changeable changer, then it would be possible for change to stop happening. Because changeable changers, by their very nature, could stop causing change, and so it is possible that there could be a gap, wherein everything stops changing:

But change cannot stop, as per the first argument Aristotle gives. It has been going eternally, and will never stop. So not everything is a changeable changer. There must be at least one UNchangeable changer. Or to use the classic terminology, an "unmoved mover." Something that causes change, without itself changing, which provides a smooth, continuous source of eternal change:

IV. Attributes of the Unmoved Mover

The unmoved mover must be immaterial, because matter is changeable.

The unmoved mover must cause change as an attraction, not as an impulsion, because it cannot itself change. In other words, as an object of desire. This way it can cause change (by attracting things to it) without itself changing.

As an object of desire, it must be intelligible.

As an intelligible being, it must also be intelligent.

As an intelligent being, it thinks about whatever is good, which is itself. So it thinks about itself.

Plato's Cosmological Argument

A look at Plato's cosmological argument for the existence of God, which can be read here, about a third of the way down the page.

There are two kinds of motion or activity: transmitted, and self-generated. Something can either move itself, or must be moved by something else. Matter is a passive transmitter of motion. An electron, or atom, or molecule...they are all passive recipients and transmitters of motion. These particles must be pushed or pulled by something else, such as other matter or a force, in order to move:

We see matter all around us, and this matter is in motion. Trees are growing, rivers are flowing, birds flying, planets and stars moving and burning, orbiting, electrons orbiting atoms. In other words, activity:

But if everything is a passive transmitter of motion, then there would be no motion. Just like if all there is in a town are passive transmitters of electricity with no source of electricity. A passive transmitter can only transmit, and cannot be a source. If they are transmitting electricity, then there must be a source of electricity:

So the presence of all this activity implies something capable of self-motion, just like the presence of electricity being transmitted implies a power plant. What is capable of self motion? Life. So the source of all this activity must be something:

• Alive
• Not material

Or in other words, Soul:

We see "bad" activity, like destruction and strife, so there must be a Soul responsible for these bad and irregular events. And we also see good activity, like the beautiful regularity of the universe in general. Consider how we can rationally investigate the workings of the universe and how it displays astonishing intricacy and regularity:

So on the level of the Universe in general, there must be a good Soul, responsible for the regularity we observe.

Richard Dawkins vs Thomas Aquinas

Of the "new atheists", Richard Dawkins is one of the few who seems to realize that he ought to address the arguments theists have given for theism. Harris, Hitchens, and Dennet don't really address theistic arguments at all in their most popular books. So credit due where credit is due. However, when Dawkins addresses the Thomistic First Cause arguments, he mucks them up so badly that they are beyond recognizable. Let's take a closer look at what Dawkins says about Aquinas in The God Delusion:

All three of these arguments rely upon the idea of a regress and invoke God to terminate it. They make the entirely unwarranted assumption that God himself is immune to the regress.

The arguments in question do not make an unwarranted assumption at all. The whole point is to argue that a "vertical" series of in esse causes must terminate in something that can "hold up the whole stack" without itself needing to be held up by anything further (for more detail, see here). We use the same kind of reasoning when we are listening to the radio and we wonder where the radio station is transmitting from: our radio is a receiver, which entails that there must be a transmitter, or something that can give the radio signal without having to get it from anything further. Or how a series of spring-loaded clamps, each dependent on the next clamp for being held shut, must terminate in a clamp that doesn't need to be held shut by any further clamps. As you can see, this is not unwarranted at all.

Next, Dawkins talks about the divine attributes:

Even if we allow the dubious luxury of arbitrarily conjuring up a terminator to an infinite regress and giving it a name, simply because we need one, there is absolutely no reason to endow that terminator with any of the properties normally ascribed to God: omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, creativity of design...

Did he miss questions 3 through 26 of Aquinas's Summa Theologica? Once Aquinas argues for a first cause, he then goes on to extract the divine attributes of such a thing one by one, such as simplicity, omniscience, omnipotence, and even lovingness and mercy.. For a shorter look, see my article on the attributes of pure actuality. Dawkins seems completely unaware of this.

Incidentally, it has not escaped the notice of logicians that omniscience and omnipotence are mutually incompatible. If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can't change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent.

The whole point of the argument is to say that all changeable things must trace "down" to an unchangeable bottom-level. As something unchangeable, the bottom-level does not live "in time" like the rest of us, but its existence is simultaneously whole. There is no "future" for it. Its actions are already in place. So it makes no sense to talk about it changing its mind, since everything is already done, from its perspective. Had Dawkins been knowledgeable about the argument, he would not have made this mistake. Continuing:

To return to the infinite regress and the futility of invoking God to terminate it, it is more parsimonious to conjure up, say, a 'big bang singularity', or some other physical concept as yet unknown. Calling it God is at best unhelpful and at worst perniciously misleading.

And here Dawkins makes clear that he thinks, as most people do, that Aquinas is arguing for a beginning to the universe. The argument that the universe had a beginning is called the Kalam cosmological argument, and Aquinas clearly rejects this argument because he does not think it can be proven philosophically that the universe had a beginning. To quote Aquinas: "By faith alone do we hold, and by no demonstration can it be proven, that the universe did not always exist..."

Aquinas's argument is for the most fundamental layer of reality in the present, not the event that kickstarted the Big Bang. If you don't understand the difference between in fieri and in esse causes, then you cannot understand the argument. Dawkins, as most people, thinks Aquinas is talking about "in fieri" causes, stretching back to the Big Bang, rather than "in esse" causes stretching down in the present. 

Some regresses do reach a natural terminator. Scientists used to wonder what would happen if you could dissect, say, gold into the smallest possible pieces. Why shouldn't you cut one of those pieces in half and produce an even smaller smidgen of gold? The regress in this case is decisively terminated by the atom. The smallest possible piece of gold is a nucleus consisting of exactly seventy-nine protons and a slightly larger number of neutrons, attended by a swarm of seventy-nine electrons. If you 'cut' gold any further than the level of the single atom, whatever else you get it is not gold. The atom provides a natural terminator to the Crumboblious Cutlets type of regress. It is by no means clear that God provides a natural terminator to the regresses of Aquinas.

Good! I'm glad he is open to the idea of some regresses having a natural terminator. Because a vertical causal series does have a terminator. Dawkins would know this if he were aware that the argument is for an in esse chain of sustaining causes, rather than an in fieri chain of events. But, of course, he doesn't know this and so can't think of why a chain of events would necessarily need a first cause, as even Aquinas himself agrees! As Aquinas says: " ....it is not impossible to proceed to infinity "accidentally" as regards efficient causes...as an artificer acts by means of many hammers accidentally, because one after the other may be broken. It is accidental, therefore, that one particular hammer acts after the action of another..." That is to say, a chain of events could stretch back into the past for infinity, and does not necessarily need a first cause. It is only a concurrent chain of sustaining causes that has an natural terminator.

Hopefully, this will show that Dawkins doesn't get Aquinas even close to right, and if anyone uses Dawkins to "refute" him, they are only exposing their own confirmation biases.

The Cosmological Argument: A Beginner's Guide

An extremely brief sketch of cosmological arguments. Please note first of all that no cosmological argument has the premise "everything has a cause", and also note that the term "cosmological argument" refers not to a single argument but to a family of arguments which are very different from one another. What they have in common is that they start with some general observation of the way the world is, and reason to some kind of self-existing source. NOTE: This is a work in progress and will be updated over time.

Plato

Plato is generally regarded as the originator of cosmological arguments. He argues that there are two kinds of motion: self-motion, and transmitted motion. Something either moves itself, or it is pushed by something else. But we see around us all kinds of change and motion: rivers flowing, trees growing, the sun burning, planets turning, and so on. All this motion is being pushed by other things. For example, the river is being pulled by gravity, which is in turn being actualized by mass, which is in turn actualized by (perhaps) the Higgs boson, and so on.

But all this activity cannot be just transmitted motion and nothing else, for then there would be no source of motion. If something is being received, then there must be a source. There must be something capable of self-motion that is the source of all this change and activity, because if everything were a passive transmitter of motion, then there would be no source and hence, no transmitted motion in the first place.

Self-moving things are alive, and so the source of the activity and change in the world must be something that is alive, or what Plato calls "Soul". He concludes that it must be immaterial, because matter is a passive transmitter of motion and hence cannot be the source of all motion.

Aristotle

First, Aristotle proves that motion (and hence the universe) is eternally old. He does this by arguing that if motion began at some point, then something must have moved in order to start the motion, in which case motion existed before it started, so something must have started that motion, and so on ad infinitum. So the past is eternal.

Like Plato, he argues that motion and change can either be transmitted or self-caused. Much of the change we see around us is transmitted. The tree only grows because of the sunlight, the sunlight only burns because (we now know) of nuclear reactions, which only operate because of gravity pulling the Sun in on itself, and so on in a string of dependent causes. There must be a source of change and motion, and this source must be a self-mover. Capable of moving or changing itself and hence the source of all change we see around us, since most change we see is transmitted change, not self-change. And remember that a receiver implies a source.  So the source of all change must be a self-mover.

But all self-movers ultimately reduce to unmoved movers. That is, things that can cause change and motion without themselves changing or moving and thus themselves not requiring a cause.

The unmoved mover must be unchangeable, and thus is immaterial. He also argues that it must be a mind, and that it eternally thinks about itself.

Plotinus

The neo-Platonist philosopher argued that the most fundamental principle in the world must be absolutely simple. If it were not, then it would be composed of further elements or principles that would themselves be more fundamental. So the most fundamental principle must be absolutely simple and not composed of further principles.

This means it is unchangeable, because if it were changeable, it would consist of multiple principles. Namely, the principle of actuality (the way it is now) and the principle of potentiality (the way it could be in the future).

To be continued....

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?

The Argument from Change in Plain English

A stone is on your kitchen table, and it is moving from one end to the other. You know, via other means, that stones do not have the power to move themselves. So if it's moving, something else must be moving it. You look and indeed see that a stick is moving the stone.

But now the same reasoning applies to the stick. You know that sticks can't move themselves, so yet a third thing must be moving the stick (which is in turn moving the stone). And again, you do see that something is attached to the stick: someone's hand. So now you have your explanation for the movement of the stone. A human being, who does have the power of self movement, unlike the stick and the stone, is what is pushing the stick which is pushing the stone.

Hold that thought...

Now, consider what is meant by "change." When something changes, it goes from state X to state Y. Some water in an ice cube tray goes from liquid to solid. When it was liquid, it was actually liquid but potentially solid. And after it freezes, it is actually solid and potentially liquid.

Since a potential is simply a future state that something could change into, a potential state does not actually exist (yet) and so cannot cause anything. When the water is still liquid, that is to say, when it is potential ice but not actual ice, it can't cause your drink to get nice and frosty cold. Only actual ice can do that.

So a potential future state cannot cause anything, which includes making itself actual. In other words, the future ice in your ice cube tray cannot cause the water in the ice cube tray to become solid. A future state (a potential) cannot cause anything; only a current state (actual) can cause anything.

So a potential cannot make itself actual.

Now remember the hand-stick-stone example from above. The stone can't move itself, so if it's moving, something else must be moving it.

Similarly, if something is changing, it can't change itself and so something else must be changing it. That is to say, a potential cannot make itself actual, so if it is becoming actual, something else actual must be causing it.

In the case of water in your ice cube tray, it would be the cold air in the freezer.

But if the same thing applies to that thing, then like with the stick above, something else must be changing it, and so on.

In the case of the ice, the freezer compressor is causing the air to be cold. But something else is causing the freezer compressor to work: the electricity. And so on.

And like with the stone example, on the other end of the chain you must find something that is capable of causing change without itself needing to be changed by anything else.

That would have to be something that is just actual, with no potentials at all.

Because, if it had a mixture of actual and potential, then it would need something else to change it and would not be the "hand" that we need to explain the movement of the whole chain.

So the conclusion of the argument is: there must be something purely actual that is driving all change (and hence all events and activities) in the universe.

What is something purely actual like? Stay tuned...

Kalm Cosmological Argument

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause

Support: Intuitively true, and true in our experience. Things don't just pop into existence uncaused out of nothing, lest you propose the existence of magic. But in fact this would be even worse than magic, for at least magic has the "cause" of the magician waving a wand. If it were false then why doesn't anything and everything just pop into existence? Why only universes? Why is “nothing” so discriminating? Why aren't universes popping into existence all the time? Since they aren't, there must be some limiting factor, and a limiting factor can only operate if there is a cause to limit.

Objection: There is no a priori reason why it should be true. According to Hume, if we can imagine something coming into existence from nothing then it is not logically incoherent and thus at least possible. Response is that just because we don't have an a prior reason it does not refute the premise and that Hume went on to say that he does accept the causal principle. Just because we can imagine a horse popping into existence uncaused does not mean that we think this is actually possible.

Objection: If true, then it would apply to God as well. God can't have begun to exist without a cause. God can't be infinite. If God is timeless, then this is a mystery. And denial of the premise is preferable to acceptance of theism, which makes even less sense. Response is that it's true that God did not begin to exist and that he can't be infinite. But he can be external to time and in fact under Kalam he would have to be. Just because this is mysterious does not refute it.

Objection: It can be true of things in the universe, but not of the universe itself. Response is that the causal principle is a metaphysical principle, not a physical one. Being cannot come from non-being.

Objection: Virtual particles pop into existence uncaused from nothing. Response is that these may not be indeterminate; physicists are still looking for why they pop into existence and some do not like the apparently indeterminate nature. Also, they do not come from nothing but from a rich field of energy in the vacuum.

Objection: Alexander Vilenkin's quantum creation model says that a universe with a very small radius, even zero, can undergo quantum tunneling and lead to expansion, thus getting a universe out of (almost) nothing. Response is that even a radius with a measurement of zero is not the same as having no radius at all, as in the case with nothingness. Volenkin's model is still a step from something to something, not nothing to something.

2. The universe began to exist

Support #1: An actual infinite cannot exist. Hilbert's Hotel shows the logical contradictions that can occur in an actual infinite.

Objection: Cantor legitimized the idea of actual infinites. Response is that this is only a mathematical model and does not represent the ability of an actual infinite to exist in the real world.

Objection: Yes, the Hilbert's Hotel paradoxes would happen and are exactly what we would expect in an actual infinite. Response is that yes, the paradoxes would happen and would be logical absurdities and thus cannot exist in the same way a square circle cannot exist.

Support #2: You can't traverse an infinite. A beginningless series of events would equate to an infinite number in the past, and so to get to today you would have had to go through an infinite amount of time, which impossible.

Objection: It's a logical trick, like Zeno's Paradoxes, which also claim the inability to traverse an infinite. Response is that saying there could have been a beginningless series of events is like saying that you just wrote down all negative numbers, ending at zero.

Support #3: Scientific evidence from cosmological models.

1. Standard model: Space-time, matter, laws all originated in a singularity.

2. Steady-state models: Expansion is balanced by creation of new matter. No experimental verification, the microwave background radiation confirms Big Bang, and production of light elements (H, He, etc) could only happen in the Big Bang.

3. Oscillating models: Big Bang, expansion slows and reverses, Big Crunch and then new Big Bang. Hawking-Penrose singularity theorem shows a singularity at the Big Bang through which no spacetime trajectory (like from the previous collapsing universe) could pass, there are no known physics that would allow a bounce back, and there is not enough mass in the universe to halt and reverse expansion, and the expansion is actually increasing.

4. Vacuum fluctuation models: Virtual particles pop into existence from the pre-existing vacuum, and the universe may be one such particle. If the vacuum was pre-existing from eternity, then given this infinite time an infinite number of these universes would exist and have merged together, and we observe no evidence for this.

5. Chaotic inflation: There is a wider universe that will always be inflating, and our universe is one of many bubbles in this wider universe being forced to expand by the wider expansion; proposed to expand forever, but Linde proposed that it was infinite in the past as well. Cannot be infinite into the past and thus, still needs a singularity, and Linde now agrees

6. Quantum gravity models: Hawking uses imaginary numbers which gets rid of the singularity, and replaces it with a beginning that has no definite point. Imaginary numbers are a good trick but they do not respond to real life, and so to reflect reality the imaginary numbers need to be swapped out with real numbers again in which case the singularity reappears.

7. Pre-Big Bang models (string theory): Our universe emerges from a black hole in an infinitely existing vacuum. The infinitely existing vacuum would lead to an infinite number of universes, all merged, which we don't see.

8. Ekpyrotic models (string theory): Two large M-branes (branes) collide and cause the Big Bang, and is cyclic. The model is new, and there are problems with it, but the biggest issue comes back to the need for a singularity at some point

.

9. Borde-Guth-Valenkin Theorem: Proved that no matter what model turns out to be correct, the past cannot be infinite and there must be a singularity and an absolute beginning.

Support #4: The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that within a closed system, everything will tend toward a state of equilibrium and complete rest (entropy).

1. Cosmological implications: If an infinite past, then the heat death of the universe should have happened by now. Boltzmann's theory is that everything is at complete rest but some sections undergo spontaneous fluctuations of energy, and our universe is one of those. But we should be observing a much smaller area of energy than our own universe; thus it would be much more likely that we would either have a small universe or that only one person would exist, i.e. solipsism.

2. Eschatological scenarios: If enough matter exists, the universe will stop expanding and begin collapsing. However, there is not enough matter and so the universe will expand forever, dying a heat death. This confirms that the past cannot be infinite because otherwise we should be in a universe that has already died.

3. Oscillating models: Oscillating universe models may avoid entropy. But it was discovered that entropy actually carries over into the next cycle, so given an infinite past, the heat death of the universe still would have happened by now.

4. Baby universe: The idea that black holes give birth to new universes, and ours is one. Hawking came up with this idea, but quantum physics has shown that information must stay within a black hole and so they cannot give "birth" to a new universe on the "other side." Hawking placed a bet about them and admitted he lost.

5. Inflationary multiverse: Our universe is but one bubble of spontaneous energy fluctuation on an ever expanding region of an eternal universe that has already died a heat death. Suffers from the same problem as #1: we should be observing a much smaller region, or most likely just your own mind.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause

Support: From 1 and 2.

The Nature of the cause was spaceless, timeless, non-physical, supernatural, and personal

Support: The cause was external to and the cause of all space, time, matter, and the laws of nature, and so therefore must be spaceless, timeless, non-physical, and supernatural. It also must be personal, for the following reasons:

1. Scientific vs personal explanations: There are two types of explanations, physical and personal: the tea can be described as boiling due to the 212 degree heat applied to the bottom of the teapot, or it can be described as boiling due to someone wanting to make tea. The first one is a physical explanation, but the cause of the universe was external to the laws of physics and so the cause cannot be physical. Therefore it was personal.

2. Two types of non-physical objects: The cause must be spaceless, timeless, and non-physical, but there are only two types of objects that fit that description: abstract objects (like numbers), and minds. But abstract objects cannot cause anything, so therefore the cause must be a mind.

3. Timeless cause would lead to timeless effect: If the cause were impersonal and "eternally" existing (timeless), then the cause's effect would be eternal as well. But the universe began to exist a finite time ago and so therefore the cause must be the willful volition of a personal agent.

General Objections

Objection: The word "cause" is being used two different ways: to mean the re-arrangement of existing matter (as we usually mean), or creation ex nihilo (which we have no experience of). Thus, the argument is guilty of equivocation. Response is that "cause" is being used to describe something that brings about an effect, so whether its ex nihilo or not is irrelevant.

Objection: The argument does not conclude that the cause is personal. Response is that this is a supplementary examination of the first cause, but not part of the argument proper.

Objection: The argument does not argue for one cause vs multiple causes. Response is that there is no need to postulate more than one cause.

Objection: A first cause is logically compatible with an infinite past. Response is that the argument argues for the impossibility of an infinite past, regardless of any cause or not.

Objection: If everything has a cause, then the first cause must have a cause. Response is that the argument says that everything that begins to exist has a cause, not that everything has a cause. Not special pleading for God since the atheist has maintained the existence of an infinitely old universe.

Objection: Creation ex nihilo is incomprehensible, so it is irrational to believe in it. Response is that this is equivocation of the term "incomprehensible," which can mean either gibberish (as this objection defines it) or a proposition that is clear but we don't understand the mechanics. Since the argument is about the first cause, then clearly it isn't gibberish because we are discussing it actively and so the second meaning of "incomprehensible" is the correct one. Also by the same rationale, it would be even more incomprehensible that the universe popped into existence uncaused out of nothing.

Objection: The cause of the Big Bang can be neither before it (since time did not exist) nor after it (since backward causation is impossible). Response is that this is a false dilemma. The cause can be simultaneous with the Big Bang. As God is timeless, he can represent a boundary to time that is causally but not temporally connected with time.