RE: The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.
July 3, 2023 at 11:40 am
Belacqua
No, that's not what the argument says.
It sounds as if you are anthropomorphizing the First Cause by calling it a being, with the indefinite article. The First Cause is not a being, it is being.
Too many people think of the First Cause like a big guy who decides to pull the levers to start things going. It's nothing like that. It is the thing which must be the case in order for anything else to be the case. There must be being in order for any contingent thing to be. There can be nothing essentially prior to being, because that thing would require being to be, and that's a paradox.
The word "cause," in these arguments, is not the same as the modern English word. It is the translation of the Greek αἰτία. The αἰτία of X includes all the things which must be the case in order for X to be the case.
The argument in the OP is intended to show that a non-contingent First Cause must exist in order for there to be contingent things. A First Cause, by definition, cannot be created by something else. The argument does not attempt to show that it was a conscious being; that requires a number of separate arguments. So you're running together separate issues and fuzzing up the topic.
The First Cause is about essential priority, not temporal. It does not address conscious decisions in time to make things go.
Then explain this well-known quote from Aquinas:
Aquinas says, flat out, that the first cause is God. Are you contending that Aquinas didn’t believe that God is a conscious being?
For future reference, anyone with a chubby for Aquinas would do well to look into what Kant had to say about the Argument from Causation.
Boru
(July 2, 2023 at 9:21 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Implicit in your argument is that a "being" of some sort or other caused anything.
No, that's not what the argument says.
It sounds as if you are anthropomorphizing the First Cause by calling it a being, with the indefinite article. The First Cause is not a being, it is being.
Too many people think of the First Cause like a big guy who decides to pull the levers to start things going. It's nothing like that. It is the thing which must be the case in order for anything else to be the case. There must be being in order for any contingent thing to be. There can be nothing essentially prior to being, because that thing would require being to be, and that's a paradox.
The word "cause," in these arguments, is not the same as the modern English word. It is the translation of the Greek αἰτία. The αἰτία of X includes all the things which must be the case in order for X to be the case.
Quote:Demonstrate that
1) this creator exists,
2) that he wasn't created by another something, and
3) and that this creator must have been a conscious being.
The argument in the OP is intended to show that a non-contingent First Cause must exist in order for there to be contingent things. A First Cause, by definition, cannot be created by something else. The argument does not attempt to show that it was a conscious being; that requires a number of separate arguments. So you're running together separate issues and fuzzing up the topic.
The First Cause is about essential priority, not temporal. It does not address conscious decisions in time to make things go.
Then explain this well-known quote from Aquinas:
Quote:To take away the cause is to take away the effect. If there be no first cause then there will be no others. Therefore, a First Cause exists (and this is God).
Aquinas says, flat out, that the first cause is God. Are you contending that Aquinas didn’t believe that God is a conscious being?
For future reference, anyone with a chubby for Aquinas would do well to look into what Kant had to say about the Argument from Causation.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
