(July 15, 2019 at 9:58 pm)Bucky Ball Wrote: There is NOTHING about "First Cause" in the argument. It's simply "cause".
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.