The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.

[polymath257]

Why would that be the case if there was no causal link? And, in fact, it is quite easy in a relativistic scenario, to have multiple events, even ordered in some reference frames, that have no causal links.

I'm simply going by the common definition that contingent things do not exist in all possible worlds but necessary things do.  Not that I have any love for any of these definitions as my general reaction to the notion of necessary existence is, "What does that even mean?"

Oh, I agree. The whole notion of 'contingent existence' and 'necessary existence' are deeply problematic to the  point of being meaningless.

I was simply  pointing out that relativity does NOT eliminate the possibility of multiple uncaused causes as long as they are all outside of the  light cones of the others. The fact that some would be 'before' others in certain frames of reference is irrelevant since there can be no causal connection.

[polymath257]

I think that your unwillingness to consider the universe as a hypothetical first cause may have more to do with it lacking the properties you believe your god has, than lacking the sort of relationship to contingency and necessity that a first cause is alleged to have.

Answered earlier. Here it re-summarized and expanded upon, 4 Reasons the Universe cannot be the First Cause:

R1: The Universe began to exist. What began to exist exists contingently.

prove it

Therefore, the Universe cannot be the (non-contingent) First Cause.
R2: Further, the Universe was caused by the Big Bang a finite time ago in the past.

That is a bit of a misreading. The Big bang is simply the  properties of the early universe. there is no cause assumed.

Now, what was caused by definition cannot be the First Cause.
R3: Even Further, it is generally agreed the Universe can cease to exist at a Big Crunch event in the future. Again, what can cease to exist is not a Necessarily Existent Being, because what exists necessarily will never cease to exist.

Prove it.

Granted the Universe can, therefore, it is not the First Cause.
R4: Still Further, the Universe began a finite time ago. But we showed in Property I (which none of you have challenged yet AFAIR) that the First Cause had no beginning but exists eternally. Ergo, etc (universe cannot be the first cause). How many more reasons are needed?

You are assuming that time itself is infinite in duration. If, however, time is finite into the past, an event at the beginning of time would qualify as the first cause. It also could not be caused because nothing was prior to it (since time didn't exist prior).

Similarly, if time is finite into the future, it is possible to end and yet still be 'necessary' (in the sense that whenever anything exists, it exists).

In fact, time itself is a pretty good example of something 'necessarily existent': whenever anything exists, time does as well. And everything except time exists within time.

It's not the universe that is the first cause; rather it is the First Cause of the Universe that the Contingency-Necessity Argument proves. B1, contingent on no prior being, existing eternally, not caused by the Big Bang, is therefore not the universe itself, but the First Cause of the Universe.

Let me come to Property IV of the First Cause that makes this even more clear: especially because "potential first cause" was said above, which is ironic, the 4th Property is that the First Cause has no Potentiality, but is Pure Actuality, nothing that He can become that He is already not. 

Property IV of the First Cause: The First Cause has no Potentiality but is Pure Actuality. If some attribute or perfection exists in God, it exists in the highest possible degree, without possibility of decrease or increase.

Prove it. That does not follow from merely being non-contingent.

This is also referred to as the Simplicity of God/the FC. Needless to say, the Universe does not demonstrate this quality.

Proof of Property IV: This is another consequence of His Non-Contingency. It should be observed that beings like man can not only corrupt or decay, can begin to exist and cease to exist, and thereby are called contingent; but further, we can also increase or decrease in various attributes, like power, wisdom, goodness etc - but this is another hallmark of contingency. We have little strength, and we potentially could have much more; these are various contingencies in our being. But in the First Cause, which exists non-contingently, such contingencies like potentialities are impossible. There is therefore no contingency in God/FC; granted that some power and wisdom exists in God, and it clearly had to because He caused the Universe to begin to exist, it follows that God is not merely a powerful being or a wise being, but is Power itself, and the source of all power, and Wisdom itself, and the source of all Wisdom, and so on and so forth with all His attributes (including Goodness, based on Prop III). 

Again, non-potentiality, like non-contingency itself, is not an essential feature of the Universe. Therefore, it is the Cause of the Universe, not the universe itself, that is non-contingent, or non-potential, and thus the First Being in Existence, whom we called B1 in the OP.

Hmm...once again, it looks like the universe as a whole (all of spacetime and all of matter and energy) satisfies these properties: it is necessarily existing, exists whenever there is anything, is the essence of actuality, etc.

[Gwaithmir]

1 In the beginning Erú Ilúvatar, the One, made the Ainur of His thought; and they made a great Music before Him. In this Music the World was begun; for Ilúvatar made visible the song of the Ainur, and they beheld it as a light in the darkness. And many among them became enamored of its beauty, and of its history which they saw beginning and unfolding as in a vision. Therefore, Ilúvatar gave to their vision Being, and set it amid the Void, and the secret fire was sent to burn at the heart of the World; and it was called Eä.

2 Then those of the Ainur who desired it arose and entered into the World at the beginning of Time; and it was their task to achieve it, and by their labors to fulfill the vision which they had seen. Long they labored in the regions of Eä, which are vast beyond the thoughts of Elves and Men, until in the time appointed was made Arda, the Kingdom of Earth. Then they put on the raiment of Earth and descended into it, and dwelt therein. (The Silmarillion: Valaquenta: 1-2)

2 In that time [of the Beginning of Days] the Valar brought order to the seas and the lands and the mountains, and Yavanna at last planted the seeds that she had long devised. And since, when the fires were subdued or buried beneath the primeval hills, there was need of light, Aulë at the prayer of Yavanna wrought two mighty lamps for the lighting of the Middle-earth which he had built amid the encircling seas. Then Varda filled the lamps and Manwë hallowed them, and the Valar set them upon high pillars, more lofty far than are any mountains of the later days. One lamp they raised to the north of Middle-earth, and it was named Illuin; and the other was raised in the south, and it was named Ormal; and the light of the lamps of the Valar flowed out over the Earth, so all was lit as it were in changeless day.

3 The seeds that Yavanna had sown began swiftly to sprout and to burgeon, and there arose a multitude of growing things great and small, mosses and grasses and great ferns, and trees whose tops were crowned with cloud as they were living mountains, but whose feet were wrapped in green twilight. And beasts came forth and dwelt in the grassy plains, or in the rivers and the lakes, or walked in the shadows of the woods. As yet not flower had bloomed nor any bird had sung, for those things waited still their time in the bosom of Yavanna; but wealth there was of her imagining, and nowhere more rich than in the midmost parts of the Earth, where the light of both the Lamps met and blended. And there upon the isle of Almaren in the Great Lake was the first dwelling of the Valar when all things were young, and new-made grass was yet a marvel in the eyes of the makers; and they were long content.
(The Silmarillion 1:2-3)

It is told that even as Varda ended her labours, and they were long, when first Menelmacar strode up the sky and the blue fire of Helluin flickered in the mists above the borders of the world, in that hour the Elven Children of the Earth awoke, the Firstborn of Ilúvatar. By the starlit mere of Cuiviénen, Water of Awakening, they rose from the sleep of Ilúvatar; and while they dwelt yet silent by Cuiviénen their eyes beheld first of all things the stars of heaven. Therefore they have ever loved the starlight, and have revered Varda Elentári above all the Valar. (The Silmarillion, 3:8)

[Bucky Ball]

The Augustino-Thomistic Argument from Contingency and Necessity provides Basic Foundational Evidence for the Existence of Almighty God.

Let's define Contingency and Necessity. You, me, our parents, then theirs, the Planet Earth, etc all exist contingently, i.e. are contingent beings.

By Contingent Beings is meant a being whose existence or the existence of which is contingent, i.e. dependent on the existence of another.

Thus, you and me are dependent for our existence on the existence of our parents, all life on Planet Earth is contingent upon Earth etc.

Now, the argument may be formulated both logically and mathematically:

1. Now, every Contingent Being, by definition, is Contingent, i.e. Dependent on a Prior Being's Existence.

if we wrote it mathematically, for every Contingent Being, CB, CB(n) is dependent on CB(n-1); CB(n-1) on CB(n-2) etc.

2. But it is impossible for this series of contingent causation to go on until infinity.

Again, mathematically, this is obvious. If CB(n) is dependent on CB(n-1), and so on (and negative beings are impossible; we are speaking of real beings here. The nth Being in existence, the 2nd being etc; so also, there is no "zeroth" being; n must be a natural number here), then that can proceed back until at most Being 2, B2=CB2, contingent upon B1. [B1 cannot be contingent upon anything, since no B0, as we come to down]. 

3. Therefore, not every Being in existence is a contingent being.

4. Specifically, the First Being in Existence exists Non-Contingently. 

We already showed this above when we saw B2 is contingent upon B1, but B1 is not contingent upon any prior being, being the First Being in existence. [The only alternative to the existence of an actual first being is an infinite series of contingent beings, but that is impossible because an infinite series never ends; and if there were an actual infinite of real beings, we would never have gotten to the present moment; again, an infinite series cannot be formed by successive addition, because no matter how beings you add to each other, whether it is 1 or 1 trillion, n will always be finite. Therefore, granted that we got here, granted that we are 1 in a series of contingent beings, the number of beings in existence is finite.]

Therefore B1, the First Being, is a Non-Contingent Being, a Necessary Being, One Whose Existence is not contingent/dependent on a Prior Being.

Let's Debate.
God Bless.

Actually this provides support for no such thing. 
The proximate cause could be anything. The cause of NX could be a robot which makes Catholic fools. 
That robot could be just as eternal as any god.
Since as NX agrees, Reality includes eternal beings there, which were never created, there is no reason other eternal beings could not exist.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Answered earlier. Here it re-summarized and expanded upon, 4 Reasons the Universe cannot be the First Cause:

R1: The Universe began to exist. What began to exist exists contingently.

prove it

Therefore, the Universe cannot be the (non-contingent) First Cause.
R2: Further, the Universe was caused by the Big Bang a finite time ago in the past.

That is a bit of a misreading. The Big bang is simply the  properties of the early universe. there is no cause assumed.

Now, what was caused by definition cannot be the First Cause.
R3: Even Further, it is generally agreed the Universe can cease to exist at a Big Crunch event in the future. Again, what can cease to exist is not a Necessarily Existent Being, because what exists necessarily will never cease to exist.

Prove it.

Granted the Universe can, therefore, it is not the First Cause.
R4: Still Further, the Universe began a finite time ago. But we showed in Property I (which none of you have challenged yet AFAIR) that the First Cause had no beginning but exists eternally. Ergo, etc (universe cannot be the first cause). How many more reasons are needed?

You are assuming that time itself is infinite in duration. If, however, time is finite into the past, an event at the beginning of time would qualify as the first cause. It also could not be caused because nothing was prior to it (since time didn't exist prior).

Similarly, if time is finite into the future, it is possible to end and yet still be 'necessary' (in the sense that whenever anything exists, it exists).

In fact, time itself is a pretty good example of something 'necessarily existent': whenever anything exists, time does as well. And everything except time exists within time.

It's not the universe that is the first cause; rather it is the First Cause of the Universe that the Contingency-Necessity Argument proves. B1, contingent on no prior being, existing eternally, not caused by the Big Bang, is therefore not the universe itself, but the First Cause of the Universe.

Let me come to Property IV of the First Cause that makes this even more clear: especially because "potential first cause" was said above, which is ironic, the 4th Property is that the First Cause has no Potentiality, but is Pure Actuality, nothing that He can become that He is already not. 

Property IV of the First Cause: The First Cause has no Potentiality but is Pure Actuality. If some attribute or perfection exists in God, it exists in the highest possible degree, without possibility of decrease or increase.

Prove it. That does not follow from merely being non-contingent.

This is also referred to as the Simplicity of God/the FC. Needless to say, the Universe does not demonstrate this quality.

Proof of Property IV: This is another consequence of His Non-Contingency. It should be observed that beings like man can not only corrupt or decay, can begin to exist and cease to exist, and thereby are called contingent; but further, we can also increase or decrease in various attributes, like power, wisdom, goodness etc - but this is another hallmark of contingency. We have little strength, and we potentially could have much more; these are various contingencies in our being. But in the First Cause, which exists non-contingently, such contingencies like potentialities are impossible. There is therefore no contingency in God/FC; granted that some power and wisdom exists in God, and it clearly had to because He caused the Universe to begin to exist, it follows that God is not merely a powerful being or a wise being, but is Power itself, and the source of all power, and Wisdom itself, and the source of all Wisdom, and so on and so forth with all His attributes (including Goodness, based on Prop III). 

Again, non-potentiality, like non-contingency itself, is not an essential feature of the Universe. Therefore, it is the Cause of the Universe, not the universe itself, that is non-contingent, or non-potential, and thus the First Being in Existence, whom we called B1 in the OP.

Hmm...once again, it looks like the universe as a whole (all of spacetime and all of matter and energy) satisfies these properties: it is necessarily existing, exists whenever there is anything, is the essence of actuality, etc.

As a Panentheist, I would say that the Totality may indeed satisfy as Necessary Being, however, that is not necssarrily the same as the physical universe. I say that because, the physical universe is a particular thing with particular features which IMHO triggers the princple of sufficient reason.

[Pat Mustard]

@Nishant Xavier

The Big Bang Theory btw was first proposed by a Catholic Priest, Fr. George Lemaitre.

He was also an MIT-trained astronomer, mathematician, and theoretical physicist. He didn’t propose the Big Bang Theory because he was a Catholic priest, but in spite of it.

Boru

He slapped down the then current pope very hard when the pope tried to make out that the Big Bang was proof of god.

[Angrboda]

As a Panentheist, I would say that the Totality may indeed satisfy as Necessary Being, however, that is not necssarrily the same as the physical universe. I say that because, the physical universe is a particular thing with particular features which IMHO triggers the princple of sufficient reason.

I'm not sure that you're right there. I believe it was Giordano Bruno who got in hot water for claiming that he thought the universe was infinite. I'm told his thinking was that if the universe didn't go on forever, then it would stop somewhere and then the question is, what is on the other side of that boundary. He could not contemplate that the universe was finite and unbounded spatially because, naturally, he trie to imagine the universe 'within' space rather than the universe being space itself. It's possible that the temporal dimension of spacetime is similar, and that people err in trying to situate the time the universe has existed 'within' a larger timeline. But there is no need to do so for time any more than it is necessary to do so for space. It makes just as much sense that the temporal dimension of spacetime is also finite and unbounded -- rather than being 'in' time, it simply 'is' time.

[Neo-Scholastic]

As a Panentheist, I would say that the Totality may indeed satisfy as Necessary Being, however, that is not necssarrily the same as the physical universe. I say that because, the physical universe is a particular thing with particular features which IMHO triggers the princple of sufficient reason.

I'm not sure that you're right there. I believe it was Giordano Bruno who got in hot water for claiming that he thought the universe was infinite. I'm told his thinking was that if the universe didn't go on forever, then it would stop somewhere and then the question is, what is on the other side of that boundary. He could not contemplate that the universe was finite and unbounded spatially because, naturally, he trie to imagine the universe 'within' space rather than the universe being space itself. It's possible that the temporal dimension of spacetime is similar, and that people err in trying to situate the time the universe has existed 'within' a larger timeline. But there is no need to do so for time any more than it is necessary to do so for space. It makes just as much sense that the temporal dimension of spacetime is also finite and unbounded -- rather than being 'in' time, it simply 'is' time.

I do not disagree. If time begins at the big bang then asking what happened before the big bang makes no sense. On the other hand, if there the multiverse theory is correct, then there are infinite space-times nested within...what?...a meta space-time? Maybe, IDK.

I liked your earlier post about asking what is necessary as opposed to contingent. The way I see it, the principle of sufficient reason applies to the particulars of this physical universe and asks what possible reason accounts for universal features that are everywhere always true about all things. IOW to be eternal is not being outside time; but rather, to be manifest in all parts of it...the truthes that transcend time and space. The starting points of the first 3 of the 5 ways seem to be just those kinds of things, i.e. things that evident about the world that seems necessary for there to even be a world at all.

That said, there has been 900+ years of ontological speculation since the Thomistic demonstrations and the 5W look different in light of Kant, Hiedegger, etc. which is why both @Belacqua and I have consistently said the 5W have to be evaluated on their own terms and within the classical philosophy tradition. Given certain classical assumptions they work, absent those foundational assuptions they fall apart. At the same time, one has to wonder what is lost besides belief in the transcendent when those foundational assumptions are gone and what is being offered up to replace them?

[Belacqua]

As a Panentheist, I would say that the Totality may indeed satisfy as Necessary Being, however, that is not necssarrily the same as the physical universe. I say that because, the physical universe is a particular thing with particular features which IMHO triggers the princple of sufficient reason.

I'm not sure what people mean by "the totality" here, or what it means to say that the universe itself may suffice as a necessary cause.

Obviously, when we total up all the stuff that's out there -- all the stuff that makes up the universe -- nearly all of it is clearly contingent. So we can't just say that "the universe" is non-contingent. We have to point to one aspect or level of the universe that is necessary in order to give rise to all the contingent things. 

And then I think we're back at the beginning, asking what part of everything there is is necessary for the rest of it.

[Belacqua]

I'm not sure that you're right there.  I believe it was Giordano Bruno who got in hot water for claiming that he thought the universe was infinite.  I'm told his thinking was that if the universe didn't go on forever, then it would stop somewhere and then the question is, what is on the other side of that boundary.  He could not contemplate that the universe was finite and unbounded spatially because, naturally, he trie to imagine the universe 'within' space rather than the universe being space itself.  It's possible that the temporal dimension of spacetime is similar, and that people err in trying to situate the time the universe has existed 'within' a larger timeline.  But there is no need to do so for time any more than it is necessary to do so for space.  It makes just as much sense that the temporal dimension of spacetime is also finite and unbounded -- rather than being 'in' time, it simply 'is' time.

Nicholas of Cusa (1401 – 1464) pointed out before Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600) that the universe might well be infinite. And in that case the earth isn't the center, because an infinite space has no center. He was a mathematician and a theologian and did original work on what infinity would mean, in math and in space. And he never got in trouble for it -- he was a valuable employee of the Vatican until the end. 

Bruno was executed because he wanted to overthrow the Catholic Church and replace it with his own original religion based on fake Egyptian tablets. He would have been fine if he'd stuck with speculation about infinity, or if he'd stayed in the Protestant countries where he'd been welcome. Coming back to the Papal States with the announced intention of overthrowing the ruling authorities was impolitic. If you announced all over social media that you were going to overthrow the US government and then flew into Washington airport, you wouldn't get burned at the stake, but things were tougher in those days. 

Augustine, in his Confessions, concludes that it doesn't make sense to talk about time before God made the world, because there couldn't be time without a world. So he's apparently OK with finite time. 

As always, we have to remember that for theologians eternity is not the same as infinite time.