[Serious] Thomism: Then & Now

[Belacqua]

Isn't this just simultaneous "accidental" causation? I would name the two simply "simultaneous" and "sequential" causation. In which case, so what? What is the fundamental difference? I don't see the real separation between the two kinds. It seems to me, accidental causation is just as orderly (or disorderly) as essential causation in the grand scheme.

So I think in the clock example, we're to think of the motor as the "prime mover" of the action in the clock. Then all the gears are intermediate, and the end of the chain is the hands of the clock showing us the correct time. 

The point is that the motion of the motor moves all the pieces simultaneously. If the motor stopped, the whole thing would stop. If any intermediate piece broke, all the pieces "downstream" from it would also stop. The motor doesn't touch the hands of the clock directly, but the hands need sustained motion from the motor to continue. This is what makes it essential rather than accidental. 

The motor sustains the whole system in motion at all times. Without it all motion would stop immediately.

In an accidentally caused series, the original impetus can stop, go away, drop dead, whatever, and the chain of cause and effect will continue. The example in the article is that a guy swings a bat and hits a ball, beginning a chain of cause-and-effect, but once he's done his part he can bow out of the process. 

So imagine this like a comedy movie. The guy swings the bat, hits the ball, then immediately drops dead from a heart attack. (Well, it's a dark comedy.) The ball flies through a window, upends a frying pan, the pancake flies out and scares the cat, the cat jumps on the top of the cabinet, the cabinet falls down, the impact of the cabinet shakes the lamp on the ceiling of the apartment downstairs, etc., etc., for two hours. This is accidentally ordered because the "prime mover" in the series has stopped moving -- he has stopped contributing to the motion of the cause-and-effect. He started the whole thing, but he is no longer involved. In fact each portion of the chain has done its part and then ceased to contribute: the ball has come to rest, the frying pan is upside down on the carpet, the pancake is stuck to the ceiling, the cat has gone into hiding, etc. etc. Each element plays its part and stops, but the chain continues. 

An essential chain would require the original mover, plus each step in the chain, to continue acting in order for the whole chain to be complete. 

So God sustains existence itself. Existence is necessary for the laws of nature, the laws of nature are necessary for subatomic particles to exist, subatomic particles are necessary for hydrogen atoms to exist, hydrogen atoms are necessary for the sun to exist. 

If you work backwards in that chain, the elimination of each effect wouldn't eliminate its cause. If the sun exploded, there would still be atoms. If all the hydrogen atoms broke up, there would still be subatomic particles, etc.

But working from the beginning, if at any time you eliminated God from the chain, then the whole chain would stop immediately. If God stopped sustaining existence, then nothing would exist. So God is the First Cause, because the causal chain begins there. 

Could something exist which caused the First Cause? No, because the First Cause sustains existence itself. Anything which exists is sustained by that. And if something is caused by the First Cause, then it can't be the cause of its own cause.