Overcoming Atheist Responses To Aquinas' First Cause Argument

[Cruce]

Some common responses from atheists to the first cause argument/cosmological argument are:

1) What caused the first cause? I know that, by His nature, God is eternal and thus to ask the question "Who made God?" makes no sense, but what do you say to an atheist who wants to posit the universe as the "uncaused cause" rather than God? Is positing God as the origin of the universe just explaining one mystery (why is there something rather than nothing?) with another mystery (God)?

2. The identity of the first cause. Some atheist do concede that there must be a first cause, a necessary existent, but argue that this "uncaused cause" could be anything. they will say that there is a necessary existent but ask how we know that that uncaused cause is a being with intelligence, power and will

How does one respond to these two objections?

[havok579257]

there arguement is the stupidest arguement athiets can make. cause even if you don't believe in God, then this arguement can still be made.

ex: what came before the universe.... the big bang. well what came before the big bang....???? well what made the big bag... ???

this argument for any belief can never be answered.

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='Cruce' timestamp='1298193061' post='2214076']
Some common responses from atheists to the first cause argument/cosmological argument are:

1) What caused the first cause? I know that, by His nature, God is eternal and thus to ask the question "Who made God?" makes no sense, but what do you say to an atheist who wants to posit the universe as the "uncaused cause" rather than God? Is positing God as the origin of the universe just explaining one mystery (why is there something rather than nothing?) with another mystery (God)?

2. The identity of the first cause. Some atheist do concede that there must be a first cause, a necessary existent, but argue that this "uncaused cause" could be anything. they will say that there is a necessary existent but ask how we know that that uncaused cause is a being with intelligence, power and will

How does one respond to these two objections?
[/quote]

The response you give to the first cause is not really an objection. In fact, it outlines the point in even better. It lays out why people are uncomfortable with an infinite regress and so you must posit a first, and absolute (not just a first efficient cause).

As for the second. If something is pure, absolute being then it must have intelligence, power, will etc. The medieval, scholastic framework goes like this: Being is in itself first. It is what makes all things possible in that it gives existence. Now individual beings as we know them are hylomorphic in that they are one in themselves and are unified but are made up of not only being but also essence/nature. The essence or nature makes a thing what is and is known or apprehended by the mind when we come to recognize any part of the created order. So this is true of any created creature but for the first, absolute cause it is not true in that the first cause cannot be limited since it is absolute. Therefore, it has no essence/nature that limits it (our human nature limits our being. Something which isn't scandalous since we are not scandalized when you say that what makes up the human person limits them so that they cannot fly). So human nature limits the intelligence to a certain degree: we are far more intelligent than dogs etc, but clearly we are not absolutely intelligent in that we learn (though it seems that we can learn any individual fact). A being with no essence/nature and which is absolute Being has no limit on its intelligence or power. Also, it would know all things in that it would be the cause of them. Such an absolute being as the source of all things and which sustainer of all things in their being would necessarily know them as their cause (you know the statue you make and so would the first cause know what it causes in their very beings in that it is the cause and creator of them).

I hope this helps. I am sorry if I only served to confuse the issue.

[JenDeMaria]

[quote name='Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam' timestamp='1298226633' post='2214142']
The response you give to the first cause is not really an objection. In fact, it outlines the point in even better. It lays out why people are uncomfortable with an infinite regress and so you must posit a first, and absolute (not just a first efficient cause).

As for the second. If something is pure, absolute being then it must have intelligence, power, will etc. The medieval, scholastic framework goes like this: Being is in itself first. It is what makes all things possible in that it gives existence. Now individual beings as we know them are hylomorphic in that they are one in themselves and are unified but are made up of not only being but also essence/nature. The essence or nature makes a thing what is and is known or apprehended by the mind when we come to recognize any part of the created order. So this is true of any created creature but for the first, absolute cause it is not true in that the first cause cannot be limited since it is absolute. Therefore, it has no essence/nature that limits it (our human nature limits our being. Something which isn't scandalous since we are not scandalized when you say that what makes up the human person limits them so that they cannot fly). So human nature limits the intelligence to a certain degree: we are far more intelligent than dogs etc, but clearly we are not absolutely intelligent in that we learn (though it seems that we can learn any individual fact). A being with no essence/nature and which is absolute Being has no limit on its intelligence or power. Also, it would know all things in that it would be the cause of them. Such an absolute being as the source of all things and which sustainer of all things in their being would necessarily know them as their cause (you know the statue you make and so would the first cause know what it causes in their very beings in that it is the cause and creator of them).

I hope this helps. I am sorry if I only served to confuse the issue.
[/quote]

This is great! But wouldn't it be easier to reverse the way this is expressed to say that unless a person could formulate their definition of the First Cause in such a way that would prove its purely mechanical, unconscious nature, that assenting to the reality of a First Cause implies a de facto admission that there is a God?

Because if the First Cause were simply another mechanical, unconscious process in a chain of events, there would be no difference between it and any other causative effect in the chain of cause and effect inherant in the origin of time, the universe and everything else -- it would just be another big bang or another turtle on which the other turtles rest going "all the way down". On the other hand, if the First Cause can be defined as the sole and infinite source of all potential and actual being, then you have in fact assented to a description of God that would be recognizable to everyone from the New Age set to the Platonists to a Hopi who believes in the Great Spirit to a Hindu child on the streets of Calcutta, but especially to all those who recognize God as the One Who revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush as the "I AM that I AM".

[MarkKurallSchuenemann]

[quote name='Cruce' timestamp='1298193061' post='2214076']
Some common responses from atheists to the first cause argument/cosmological argument are:

1) What caused the first cause? I know that, by His nature, God is eternal and thus to ask the question "Who made God?" makes no sense, but what do you say to an atheist who wants to posit the universe as the "uncaused cause" rather than God? Is positing God as the origin of the universe just explaining one mystery (why is there something rather than nothing?) with another mystery (God)?

2. The identity of the first cause. Some atheist do concede that there must be a first cause, a necessary existent, but argue that this "uncaused cause" could be anything. they will say that there is a necessary existent but ask how we know that that uncaused cause is a being with intelligence, power and will

How does one respond to these two objections?
[/quote]

I don't respond to those objections, I just acknowledge that it could be either or (after all, faith is the evidence of things unseen and things hope for - we can't really know - we can only have faith in God's existence).

But a great question to ask them is - where does your worth come from. Give them a moment to answer you, and then say. Well, you worth is tied to temporal things that can change at a moments notice (because they can only gain worth from temporal things), and then you can say - my worth is the same yesterday, today, and forever - because Christ - 2000 years ago thought I am worth laying his life down for, today, Christ thinks I am worth laying his life down for, and every single day after this - Christ thinks I am worth laying his life down for - so if you think I believe a fairy tale, I want to believe in this fairy tale for the rest of my life because someone thought I was worth dying for - no matter what situation I am in - and that gives me peace!

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='JenDeMaria' timestamp='1298229373' post='2214154']
This is great! But wouldn't it be easier to reverse the way this is expressed to say that unless a person could formulate their definition of the First Cause in such a way that would prove its purely mechanical, unconscious nature, that assenting to the reality of a First Cause implies a de facto admission that there is a God?

Because if the First Cause were simply another mechanical, unconscious process in a chain of events, there would be no difference between it and any other causative effect in the chain of cause and effect inherant in the origin of time, the universe and everything else -- it would just be another big bang or another turtle on which the other turtles rest going "all the way down". On the other hand, if the First Cause can be defined as the sole and infinite source of all potential and actual being, then you have in fact assented to a description of God that would be recognizable to everyone from the New Age set to the Platonists to a Hopi who believes in the Great Spirit to a Hindu child on the streets of Calcutta, but especially to all those who recognize God as the One Who revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush as the "I AM that I AM".
[/quote]

Yes, the First Cause as absolute Being, as "I am" with no potency, would be a different kind of cause than the normal efficient causes we normally experience. It would be a formal/final/absolute cause. If one were normally familiar with an "a" then "b" then "c" causal horizontal chain, it might be helpful to think of "Ω" as something different than the normal events in the chain, which acts downward giving being to the whole chain (beginning and end). This image thus allows the "Ω" to be the creator of the beginning and fulfilling the end without being subject to the rules of the normal horizontal chain of events. This image also gives one an image of the Cross to contemplate and as such is another way in which all things image Christ.

[dairygirl4u2c]

ya hit two primarily nails on the head. if God can 'just be', the universe can 'just be'. and, there must be an uncaused cause, but that doesn't mean it has to be 'God'... it could be existence or whatever came first... if "God can just be, the universe can'.
ya can't prove God's existence necessarily.
as was said, belief in God takes faith.
existence though, points toward God.

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' timestamp='1298239834' post='2214183']
ya hit two primarily nails on the head. if God can 'just be', the universe can 'just be'. and, there must be an uncaused cause, but that doesn't mean it has to be 'God'... it could be existence or whatever came first... if "God can just be, the universe can'.
ya can't prove God's existence necessarily.
as was said, belief in God takes faith.
existence though, points toward God.
[/quote]

I highly disagree. My first point is that you don't need to have faith to believe [i]that[/i] God exists. One can come to the understanding that God exists through reason. Aristotle does this; Plato does this; other philosophers who lived solely according to reason came to this understanding through reason alone. They did not say who or what God was like but that He was. So just historically that is wrong in that people came to understand that God was through the use of their intellect and reason rather than faith (in fact such men were charged with impiety and corruption of the youth in that they were perceived not to have faith in gods. Something with which the people of Athens often charged such men). Our differences with these men over who God is stems from faith in what God has revealed to us about Himself (which is why the conception of the Covenant God of Israel differs from that of the God of the Philosophers); however, we agree with them rationally that God is and that He is absolute and uncaused.

Also there is a problem with the way you are thinking of "just be." One cannot make a distinction between "God" and "just be." God--as understood in the Catholic, Jewish, and even Muslim Philosophic Traditions--is absolute Being. There is no potency or potential in Him as Being in itself, as that which nothing is greater than, as that which sustains all things. Now you claim that if God can "just be" so can the universe "just be." There is a problem with this in that you claim these two things "have" absolute being rather than "are" absolute being. You make "absolute Being" a quality of a being (part of the essence) rather than how the being is in itself. In doing so you introduce individuation and thus potential to be different into absolute Being by saying that two entities can have this "quality". In introducing individuation and thus potential and potency, you have said that "God" and the "universe" cannot be absolute Being and thus can't "just be" or be "always/eternally existent" and be uncaused. This follows since individuation shows that things could be other than they are since they have potency in being (making them contingent rather than necessary beings). In giving them potential you have said they are not pure actuality and pure Being and thus it is possible for something to be greater than them. In doing so you have not identified absolute Being (which would mean they would "just be" and always have been as uncaused), which has no potency and thus no individuation and thus has nothing greater than it, which we call and worship as God.

Edited for grammar and to make points clearer.

Edited February 20, 2011 by Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

[Socrates]

[quote name='Cruce' timestamp='1298193061' post='2214076']
Some common responses from atheists to the first cause argument/cosmological argument are:

1) What caused the first cause? I know that, by His nature, God is eternal and thus to ask the question "Who made God?" makes no sense, but what do you say to an atheist who wants to posit the universe as the "uncaused cause" rather than God? Is positing God as the origin of the universe just explaining one mystery (why is there something rather than nothing?) with another mystery (God)?[/quote]
This begs the question. If God, had a cause, then He wouldn't be an uncaused Cause.

The only philosophical alternative to an Uncaused Cause is an infinite regression of finite causes (essentially posited by many atheists in their hypotheses of the universe's origin), which is rather intellectually weak.

[quote]2. The identity of the first cause. Some atheist do concede that there must be a first cause, a necessary existent, but argue that this "uncaused cause" could be anything. they will say that there is a necessary existent but ask how we know that that uncaused cause is a being with intelligence, power and will

How does one respond to these two objections?[/quote]
It doesn't make much sense to claim that intelligence, power, and will were caused by something unintelligent, powerless, and unwilling. Nothing comes from nothing, after all. Saying that it did is quite a leap of "faith" on the atheists' part.

[JenDeMaria]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1298241052' post='2214193']


It doesn't make much sense to claim that intelligence, power, and will were caused by something unintelligent, powerless, and unwilling. Nothing comes from nothing, after all. Saying that it did is quite a leap of "faith" on the atheists' part.
[/quote]

Nicely put.

[dairygirl4u2c]

i'm not following how God is being definitively proven. it seems like 'abosolute being' is what i'm talking about. it seeems like you're just taking my 'if God can just be, the universe can..', and trying to add another layer onto it, just to suit your purposes. whatever God is in a proof argument, that's what the universe could be said to equate to. how about... if God is abosolute being, then the universe is absolute being. i shouldn't have to say this, but folks who try to necessarily prove God always revert to trying to insist on 'something more.'

i know in that thread that i made that pops up from time to time... we have primordial soup that explodes. that soup just exists. random particles that are the universse have always just existed. we have a ticking time bomb of sorts, that just explodes. maybe it's like an accordian, and it expands and collapes, as some posit the universe does. if God could be said to just be, or be an absolute being... then that expanding collapsing according, a ticking time bomb, a primordial soup... whatever it is, could just be, or be an abosolute being. being in itself.

it doesn't have to be that we come from nothing, eithe God or nothing. all these things are alternatives fo nothing. plus is it possible that something came from nothing, but I'd agree that that's not something we should say is very high on what happened... it's just a very lower possibility. if a possibility though, strictly and techincally speaking, then stil enough to say it's yet another way we could say that God doesn't necessarily exist. if a bike is rolling it's possible it just came out of nowhere. though of course, rationally, this 'nothing' argument isn't enough to say as far as practical rational purpsoes go, that something else had to cause this bike, or the universe.

---
people try to say things like 'if intelligence exists, that must mean God is intelligent-- and exists in the first place'. all that intelligence existing necessarily indicates, is that our universe has and, sure, always had something that is related to intelligence. like if you see a block set, the set indicates the pieces, and the set indicates how they came together and everything else.
but to say that God must exist because of intelligence or whatever else isn't true, necessarily.
we can come to know God by reason, and by illustrative proofs, but not be an definitive. proof.

Edited February 21, 2011 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

reminds me of....

[img]http://www.the-atheist.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/atheismmakessense.jpg[/img]



[which was made in response to...
[img]http://www.pauld.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/christianity-makes-perfect-sense.jpg[/img]

Edited February 21, 2011 by dairygirl4u2c

[Cruce]

I'm still not sure how you can identify the first cause as an intelligent, purposeful being. The only way I can see is if we inferred the nature of the cause from the nature of the effects (as Socrates suggests). But I'm not sure that such arguments work when evolution can give a wholly naturalistic explanation of our biological complexity and teleology has, for the most part, been discarded.

[dairygirl4u2c]

i doubt humans will ever create life. the essence of life, that which makes inanimate into living, is the breath of God. that essense in human life is the breath of God, and the image of God.

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='Cruce' timestamp='1298247544' post='2214253']
I'm still not sure how you can identify the first cause as an intelligent, purposeful being. The only way I can see is if we inferred the nature of the cause from the nature of the effects (as Socrates suggests). But I'm not sure that such arguments work when evolution can give a wholly naturalistic explanation of our biological complexity and teleology has, for the most part, been discarded.
[/quote]

In earlier posts, I have laid out how the first cause must be Being qua Being/Being in Itself/absolute Being. Being in itself and pure act is the entity which we call God. From this I went into an explanation of existence and essence/nature and how this would relate to the quality of intelligence (which would just be a limitation of absolute Being) etc. If I wasn't clear I'm apologize.

As far as evolution goes it doesn't explain everything. I was a biology major in undergrad and am now doing a philosophy masters in Berkeley. I just wanted to clarify that I am not anti-science but do believe that science does have its limitations. One thing that one of my professors is keen on (he's an atheist) is on the non-reducibility of the mind/consciousness to the brain. He argues for free will as well. It seems from my studies that biology and evolution don't explain everything. Our biology is complex but deterministic science does not account for our experience of having free choice and our experience of making reasons causally sufficient in that we do not experience our beliefs and desires as necessarily causally determining our actions (in fact when one does experience his desires as directly determining his actions, we say that person is addicted and we try to help them to be able to choose not to do those things). Many modern analytic philosophers are arguing that biology cannot explain everything and that there does seem to be more to consciousness than just our biology. I'll try to illustrate the problem of intentionality and consciousness.

A good example is this: Modern Evolutionary-Psychologist like to use evolution to explain cultural behaviors. Such arguments are very powerful they use a doubly causal argument to explain things: the causal level of the phenotype and the biological mechanism. For example, some plants have the hormone auxin which is a growth hormone. Its release is triggered by light, this causes growth in certain areas of the plant which in turn causes the leaves to turn towards the sunlight. This turning of the leaves allows for greater photosynthesis and allows for a better survival of the plant. There are two levels: the mechanism of auxin and the phenotype of the turning leaves. This method is in turn applied to human actions since our actions are just a part of nature and nature is entirely causally determined, right? This method fails. The favorite example of the Evolutionary Psychologist is the case of incest. All societies have a incest taboo. Incest is considered taboo by society because it is not good for the gene pool in that you can pass on recessive, harmful traits by not having genetic diversity. As such,a taboo against incest arises in society because it is evolutionary advantageous. Another example is the Native American Rain Dance. They argue that the rain dance is good for the society because people are dancing around the fire and interacting and this helps create a more cohesive society. These arguments are fundamentally flawed since they appeal solely to the phenotypical level and do not have a causally determinate mechanism.

For the first example of the incest taboo, it is historically clear that not every society has this incest taboo. The Czar's family and many other royal families are known to have had incestuous relationships (and I also hear this is not uncommon in places like Kentucky ). Also, it is important that is incest taboo is in fact a taboo and not an inherent biological revulsion or biological imperative not to engage in incest. Rather, it is a cultural taboo which means that society is trying to curb desires and restrain people from doing specific actions that they seem to have a desire to do. If anything this shows that people may desire to have sex with people they are close to. There is no mechanism in the evolutionary-psychology argument from incest but it only appeals to how a phenotype is good. It in fact shows that there may be a biological desire the society is trying to work against (which is odd if one believes in biological determinism). The second example of the Rain Dance also fails on the level of mechanism. It says that dancing together as a group is good for society but if you ask the Native American what he is doing the answer you will get is not "I am dancing to make our society stronger." The answer you get is "I am praying to the god(s) to make it rain." This desire which one experiences as motivating him to voluntarily dance is not accounted for. Intentionality must be accounted for and is not a biological mechanism like the hormone auxin. Now I am not bashing evolution. I think it is a good theory and is a great explanation on how life on this planet changes. However, it cannot give a completely naturalistic explanation of everything the human person is.

Edited February 21, 2011 by Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam