The Argument of the First Cause

Argument

So a common argument you hear for God’s existence is based on accounting for where everything we see came from, in time. For example, I came from my parents, and they from theirs, and so on. You’ll hear arguments that say this chain can’t go forever, and there must have been a God to start the whole process.

However well-meaning, this approach is flawed. I believe Aristotle proposed a more solid approach, which I’ll now present (with several additions and clarifications).

So why is that approach flawed? Mostly because even though my existence can be accounted for by pointing to my parents, they are no longer required to account for my existence right here and now. Even if they pass away, my existence can persist.

Philosophers would call this sort of causal chain ordered per accidens. Or a “horizontal” causal chain. We technically can’t rule out that such a chain doesn’t regress to infinity because every link in the chain doesn’t strictly require appeal to a previous member in order to account for its existence here and now.

What we need to consider is a vertical chain of causation that accounts for things here and now. Imagine a coffee cup sitting on a table. What keeps it from falling to the floor? The table supporting it underneath. Well then, what keeps the table from falling downward? The foundation of the house underneath. Well then, what keeps the foundation stable? The earth below.

Now you see we have a causal chain whereby each member strictly requires appeal to a previous member in order to account for its circumstances here and now. If the table passes away, the coffee cup comes crashing down. It’s position above the ground here and now is a power derived from previous members of the chain in a way that my presence here and now isn’t derived from my parents.

Philosophers in would call this sort of vertical chain ordered per se. It is this sort of chain that cannot regress to infinity. Eventually you must reach a first member of the chain which imparts causal power to the rest of the members but which itself does not receive causal power.

But what caused this first member? This objection comes from the assumption that all things must have a cause. But remember, the whole point of this argument is that it cannot be true that all things must have. That leads to an absurdity. The force of this argument is that there has to be at least one thing which doesn’t itself require a cause, or causal chains becomes nonsense.

If we saw a gear turning and we asked what was moving it, one could say the previous gear. If asked what moves that gear, one could say the one before it. You could keep going this way for a while, but eventually you’d have to stop at something that does not derive it’s moving power from something prior. To suggest this is as absurd as to suggest that a series of gears can move themselves so long as you have enough gears in the series (infinitely many).

Let’s pause briefly to consider how causation in this way works. Whenever any change occurs, it is always preceded by a potential to change in that way. For example, before a match is lit, it merely has the potential to be aflame. Once enough energy is generated at the match head, that potential becomes actual. But no change ever occurs without the potential to change followed by the actualization of that potential.

Now potentials don’t exist by themselves. You don’t just have a potential to be aflame absent of anything capable of causing flames. Potentials require actualizers to exist. And a potential plus the power to actualize that potential isn’t inherently found together in a single thing, or else that potential would just always be actualized. The power to actualize a potential is external.

Finally, when we say “potential,” we don’t mean literally every conceivable thing that could happen. A match doesn’t inherently have the potential to fly to the moon, although you could give it that potential by strapping it to a spaceship. And that potential would then be actualized by the rockets which are actual.

All of this potential-actual talk all may either sound strangely abstract or commonsensical, but either way, it’s a reliable description of reality and holds up predictably when we observe the universe. It may be abstract, but it can be known inductively, by observing nature.

A causal chain ordered per se is just a series of members actualizing the potentials in subsequent members. And by the way, in this example I keep showing, the ultimate first member of this series can’t be the earth, since the earth derives its power to prop up the rest of the series from electron repulsion and other factors. And those factors themselves appeal to yet prior factors. But this series too cannot regress infinitely, as we have seen.

So when we say that these sorts of chains must have a first member that does not receive causal power from a preceding member, we are saying that this first member must lack potency. It’s just purely actual.

Think about it. If this first member had any potency, and potencies don’t exist without external actualizers, then there would have to be something actual external to the first member which accounts for the potential in the first member. Not that this is a problem, but then whatever that external actual is, it must lack potency. Or if it had any potency, then it would require an actual external to itself, and so on. Remember, this is exactly the type of chain which is not allowed to regress forever. A vertical chain ordered per se. Eventually, we must hit on something which doesn’t require appeal to a previous member. Something that is just purely actual. It is logically inescapable.

And once you arrive at the Pure Act, or the actus purus in the Latin, a whole host of conclusions logically follow:

The actus purus is One. For there to be more than one such actualizer, there would have to be something that one has that the other doesn’t. If literally every aspect about the actualizers was the same, then they’d just be one identical thing. In other words, you can’t differentiate two things unless they have unactualized potentials. But we have already shown the actus purus cannot have any potency. So the actus purus is one.

The actus purus is Changeless. Remember that change is just the actualizing of a potential. But the actus purus does not have any potency. This also means that the actus purus can neither come into being nor pass out of it, since these are types of change. So the actus purus is changeless.

The actus purus is Outside of Time. Existing inside time implies changeability, but the actus purus cannot change. As we have seen before, it is also eternal since it cannot come in or out of being. So the actus purus is outside of time.

The actus purus is Immaterial. Materiality implies changeability. But the actus purus cannot change. So the actus purus is immaterial.

The actus purus is Perfect. Whenever we say something is imperfect, we mean that there is some unactualized potential remaining in a thing. But the actus purus has no potency. So the actus purus is perfect.

The actus purus is All-Good. Grant that evil or badness is just a privation — that is, a lack of — good. All evil or bad things are defective in some sense, short of what is needed to be counted good. For example, a liar’s speech is deficient in the truth. (Aristotle goes into this deeper in his Nicomachean Ethics.) But the actus purus is perfect and does not lack. So the actus purus is all-good.

The actus purus is All-Powerful. To have power means to be able to change things, or to actualize potencies. The more things you are able to change, the more power you have. But as we have seen, if we regress far enough, all causal chains must ultimately terminate at the actus purus. Therefore the actus purus is the ultimate cause of all effects. So the actus purus is all-powerful.

The actus purus is Rational. According to the Principle of Proportionate Causality, what is in an effect is in the cause in some way. For example, if the effect is fire, then the cause must either be fire itself or the ability to cause fire, such as friction. Since the actus purus is the ultimate cause of all effects, there is some way in which what is in all effects must be in the actus purus. They cannot exist in the actus purus concretely, since this would mean that many particular material things exist within a totally one and immaterial thing. So then what is in all effects must exist in the actus purus abstractly. But abstracts can only exist in the mind, as when we conceive of treeness, catness, truth, the number three, or any idea. So then what is in all effects exists abstractly in the mind of the actus purus. So the actus purus is rational.

The actus purus is All-Knowing. Since what is in all effects exists in the mind of the actus purus, as we have seen, then there is nothing in the universe which can exist outside the range of that mind. But when we say that nothing is outside the range of a mind is just to say that the mind is all-knowing. So the actus purus is all-knowing.

So it has been demonstrated that there exists something which is pure act, lacking any potency, totally one, changeless, outside of time, immaterial, perfect, all-good, all-powerful, rational, and all-knowing. But this is obviously just what we mean when we say “God”. So the actus purus is God. Therefore God exists.