(July 16, 2019 at 7:40 am)Bucky Ball Wrote: Where did non-existence come from.

I am pretty confident that some things currently exist. 

Quote:A being cannot "decide to create" and THEN "create" without at least mental movement, thus the entire argument is nonsense. 

Can you point me to the place in Thomas's works where he says that a being "decides to create" and then creates? All of the books about Thomas I've read are clear that, in his view, there is no decision involved -- no change or temporal element in creation. You are correct that this would require mental movement, and this is why both the Thomists and the Neoplatonists rule it out. 

Everyone time I see when of these threads I get a little bit of excitement that bubbles up... then I feel stupid for getting excited after reading that first post.

(July 16, 2019 at 8:15 am)Belaqua Wrote:

(July 16, 2019 at 7:40 am)Bucky Ball Wrote: Where did non-existence come from.

I am pretty confident that some things currently exist. 

Quote:A being cannot "decide to create" and THEN "create" without at least mental movement, thus the entire argument is nonsense. 

Can you point me to the place in Thomas's works where he says that a being "decides to create" and then creates? All of the books about Thomas I've read are clear that, in his view, there is no decision involved -- no change or temporal element in creation. You are correct that this would require mental movement, and this is why both the Thomists and the Neoplatonists rule it out. 

Saying you are confident things exist in no way addresses anything about non-existence. We can conceive of (and indeed in some systems it is asserted are impossible ie "God cannot created a 3 sided rectangle" (therefore it does NOT exist). Reality is not JUST about "existence". 

It's Aquinas' works, not Thomas' works ... and I'll have to think about it. He was a Catholic (even though he was censured by the Archbishop of Paris for his views), so his god "did" all sorts of things "sent his son" etc etc ... he's hardly an unmoved mover.

In the Summa Theologica, Question 19, The Will of God, Article 4, "Whether the Will of God is the Cause of Things", in the second answer to the objections :
"Hence, since God is first in the order of agents, He must act by intellect and will". 

The real question in all of this, is not cause or First cause ... it's the problem of the Principle of Causality. Where did *that* come from. How could a First Cause cause Causality, if the principle was not already in place. THAT is the real question, and there is no answer for it.

(July 16, 2019 at 8:22 am)Bucky Ball Wrote: Saying you are confident things exist in no way addresses anything about non-existence. We can conceive of (and indeed in some systems it is asserted are impossible ie "God cannot created a 3 sided rectangle" (therefore it does NOT exist). Reality is not JUST about "existence". 

Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, some things don't exist.

But throughout the present discussion, I've been basing the argument on the brute fact that some things exist. That's true, I think -- some things exist. The fact that some things don't exist doesn't change what I've been saying.

Quote:"Hence, since God is first in the order of agents, He must act by intellect and will". 

Did you see two paragraphs after that quote? 

"For effects proceed from the agent that causes them, in so far as they pre-exist in the agent; since every agent produces its like. Now effects pre-exist in their cause after the mode of the cause. Wherefore since the Divine Being is His own intellect, effects pre-exist in Him after the mode of intellect, and therefore proceed from Him after the same mode. Consequently, they proceed from Him after the mode of will, for His inclination to put in act what His intellect has conceived appertains to the will. Therefore the will of God is the cause of things."

Here, Thomas explains that effects proceed from God only if they pre-exist in him. And it's true that will is the thing that follows from intellect, but these don't operate in God as they do in people, who are full of motion and emotion. God is unchanging, so all of this is simultaneous and eternal. This is all argued in more detail later on, but the point is that everything already exists in God, since he is existence, and he doesn't change in order to bring things about, as people do. 

Quote:his god "did" all sorts of things "sent his son" etc etc ... he's hardly an unmoved mover.

Are you arguing that he's unmoved because he did things? That's not what "unmoved" means. Here, "unmoved" means that nothing causes God to move -- not that he takes no actions. 
The simplest explanation is the Neoplatonic one: God takes no action (he is unmoving) but he causes movement in other things (he is a mover), because they desire by their nature to be like him. Usually when people say "unmoved mover" this is what they mean -- he himself cannot be made to move, but all things move because of him.

Quote:The real question in all of this, is not cause or First cause ... it's the problem of the Principle of Causality. Where did *that* come from. How could a First Cause cause Causality, if the principle was not already in place. THAT is the real question, and there is no answer for it.

The laws of nature, of logic, and the principles by which the world works (Logos) are "somethings" that exist. Since the First Cause is existence itself, and causality exists, then it is dependent on the First Cause. As I've been saying in this thread all along. 

As for whether we should call him Thomas or Aquinas, there's no rule about that. People in those days generally used their first names. Nobody called Leonardo "hey, da Vinci," for example. "Da Vinci" and "Aquinas" both come from the names of their home towns. But modern people do both.

(July 16, 2019 at 8:15 am)Belaqua Wrote: Can you point me to the place in Thomas's works where he says that a being "decides to create" and then creates? All of the books about Thomas I've read are clear that, in his view, there is no decision involved -- no change or temporal element in creation. You are correct that this would require mental movement, and this is why both the Thomists and the Neoplatonists rule it out.

Kind of sounds like the act of creation was involuntary.

(July 13, 2019 at 9:33 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote:

(July 13, 2019 at 9:21 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: Yes. That is a perfectly valid way of approaching the PSR. Things that exist, exist because they must exist. It is necessary for them to exist.

I think that’s where my head is these days as far as philosophical positions go. It seems to me that there could never be nothing. That sentence itself is a logical contradiction. Even the word “nothingness” is an attempt to describe some thing. We try to hold a vague concept of “nothing” in our minds, but the second we attempt to use language to explain what nothing “is”, we’ve already defined it into existence. Anytime we use language like, “nothing instead of something” or “nothing is”, or, “if there was nothing”, we are talking, tacitly, about something. This is why I think that existence is necessary. I apologize in advance if none of that makes any sense, lol.

It makes all kinds of sense. Nothingness is indeed something and (assuming such an absurd thing were possible) if nothingness existed rather than something, we could then ask, "Why does nothingness exist rather than something-ness?"

---

(July 13, 2019 at 11:46 pm)polymath257 Wrote: And I see the problem as assuming there is a *cause* for everything to exist. Since, for example, any cause must exist prior to causing anything else to exist, there is ultimately no cause for why things exist.

To me, it is a matter to be investigated. The ultimate cause of reality (if there is such a thing) may be well beyond what any scientific theory can express. And even if there were a theory robust enough to describe it, we may never be able to see far enough over the cosmic horizon to confirm such a theory.

But, hey, maybe it's something we can figure out some day.

Wrested from the hands of theists who like to use it for their god-of-gaps projects, the PSR is actually a decent assumption (axiomatic principle) upon which to form conclusions about nature.

(July 16, 2019 at 9:17 am)Belaqua Wrote: Did you see two paragraphs after that quote? 

"For effects proceed from the agent that causes them, in so far as they pre-exist in the agent; since every agent produces its like. Now effects pre-exist in their cause after the mode of the cause. Wherefore since the Divine Being is His own intellect, effects pre-exist in Him after the mode of intellect, and therefore proceed from Him after the same mode. Consequently, they proceed from Him after the mode of will, for His inclination to put in act what His intellect has conceived appertains to the will. Therefore the will of God is the cause of things."

Here, Thomas explains that effects proceed from God only if they pre-exist in him. And it's true that will is the thing that follows from intellect, but these don't operate in God as they do in people, who are full of motion and emotion. God is unchanging, so all of this is simultaneous and eternal. This is all argued in more detail later on, but the point is that everything already exists in God, since he is existence, and he doesn't change in order to bring things about, as people do. 

It's actually self-contradictory. (First, it's all nothing but speculation, coming from a Medieval mind, and he's basically making it all up).
"Consequently, they proceed from Him after the mode of will, for His inclination to put in act what His intellect has conceived appertains to the will"
"Put in act" is a temporal process, which FOLLOWS something. A sentient being has thoughts. They are a PROCESS. Did he "put in act" EVERYTHING His intellect conceived. Obviously not.

Things happen. They were not always happening. They stopped happening. "Creation" is an act, that started and then stopped.
"For effects proceed from the agent that causes them, in so far as they pre-exist in the agent" is a false statement, obviously.

Quote:Are you arguing that he's unmoved because he did things? That's not what "unmoved" means. Here, "unmoved" means that nothing causes God to move -- not that he takes no actions. 

No. Precisely the opposite.

Quote:The simplest explanation is the Neoplatonic one: God takes no action (he is unmoving) but he causes movement in other things (he is a mover), because they desire by their nature to be like him. Usually when people say "unmoved mover" this is what they mean -- he himself cannot be made to move, but all things move because of him.

It's meaningless. "Causing movement" is an act. That is "movement" (if only mental) no matter how they define it.

Quote:The laws of nature, of logic, and the principles by which the world works (Logos) are "somethings" that exist. Since the First Cause is existence itself, and causality exists, then it is dependent on the First Cause. As I've been saying in this thread all along. 

No. First *cause* requires an underlying principle, which with ONLY "existence" is not present. You can't say *cause* unless it has a meaning that exists. The Principle of Causality cannot be "caused" if Causality is not in place, (and neither can First Cause). The Principle remains unexplained. *First* implies others in a chain, (and time and chains do not exist ... yet, therefore it's all meaningless drivel).

Quote:As for whether we should call him Thomas or Aquinas, there's no rule about that. People in those days generally used their first names. Nobody called Leonardo "hey, da Vinci," for example. "Da Vinci" and "Aquinas" both come from the names of their home towns. But modern people do both.

False analogy. We're not talking about what people of the time called Father Aquinas. Maybe it's a local custom, ... not one of my theology or philosophy professors, (although they were not Catholics in general), ever called him "Thomas".

Quote:Hence, since God is first in the order of agents, He must act by intellect and will.

That's a BIG problem. There is also (besides "existence") an order of agents, IN WHICH this deity (eternally, timelessly) of his, (must) participate.
He should have thought about that a bit more.

(July 16, 2019 at 7:40 am)Bucky Ball Wrote:

(July 15, 2019 at 10:42 pm)Belaqua Wrote: If we use the vocabulary that LadyforCamus suggests, I think it's clear why there has to be a first in the chain of essential causes. 

She suggests that the brute fact that things is exist is where we begin. I think that's a reasonable way to formulate the argument. 

Now, could there be anything prior to the brute fact that things exist? Is there something that could provide a foundation to the brute fact that things exist? I don't think so, because that thing would have to exist. So we'd have an existing thing resting as the foundation that things exist. And I don't think that makes sense. To make this work, you'd have to posit some kind of supernatural non-existent thing, and nobody here is fond of supernatural explanations. 

So I think it makes sense to talk about a first cause, in this sense.

I disagree. Along with existence is non-existence.

Can you describe non-existence to me without actually describing some thing?

Quote:Reality is more complex than "existence", (or could be).

You’re going to have to elaborate on that, and provide some evidential and/or logical support.

Quote:Where did non-existence come from.

This sentence is self-refuting. If non-existence, or ‘no things at all’ was a thing that came from somewhere, then it’s something, not nothing.

I think Bel has made his tentative position pretty clear (bold mine):

Quote:Now, could there be anything prior to the brute fact that things exist? Is there something that could provide a foundation to the brute fact that things exist? I don't think so, because that thing would have to exist. So we'd have an existing thing resting as the foundation that things exist. And I don't think that makes sense. To make this work, you'd have to posit some kind of supernatural non-existent thing, and nobody here is fond of supernatural explanations.

I think it’s explicitly clear here that Bel does not believe the first cause arguments can get us reasonably to a supernatural god that caused existence, so why is he being berated by some as though that’s what his argument is? He’s not insinuating anything meaningfully different from what I’m saying, yet he’s getting hammered and I’m not. Just because someone has “agnostic” next to their handle, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a Christian in disguise, lol

@Belaqua

If I misrepresented you in any way I apologize, and please do correct me.

(July 16, 2019 at 11:04 am)LadyForCamus Wrote: Can you describe non-existence to me without actually describing some thing?

The opposite of "existence".

Quote:You’re going to have to elaborate on that, and provide some evidential support.

Name anything that "exists" that does not have some description, or property, or definition.

Quote:This sentence is self-refuting. If non-existence, or ‘no things at all’ was a thing that came from somewhere, then it’s something, not nothing

I never agreed to any of your assumptions. Totally depends on the assumptions and definitions given and agreed to.
I say it's a category. Does everything you can possibly imagine "exist" ?