Aquinas's Fifth Way

[Esquilax]

It’s fairly common to assert that the regularities of nature are brute facts that requires no further explanation.

But there is an explanation; the cause is not changing, and so there is no mechanism evident that would cause the effect to change. You're either positing the existence of an effect (that changes the effect of another effect) without a cause, or you're positing a cause that we're unable to apprehend, creating the same effect. Your very first premise is that things do not change without some extant force acting upon them, and while effects follow causes they are also discrete entities in their own right regardless of that relationship; for them to change, wouldn't something need to be working on them to accomplish that?

Either way, the burden of proof is on you for making that positive claim. You're not going to be able to shift it by saying that we're unable to rule it out.

That said, can you think of a reason why it must be a brute fact other than you cannot give an account for the natural order. In other words, why is your assertion that the regularity of nature not an argument from ignorance.

Well, for one, all of the evidence at hand enforces the regularity of nature. For another, the premises of your own argument deny the possibility that it could be otherwise; if you continue to argue down this path then either you are wrong, in that you're positing an effect without a cause which violates your first premise, or your premises are wrong, in that you've apparently found an effect that can exist without a cause, in which case the entire argument as it has lost the basis by which you reach your conclusion.

The first is plenty sufficient. The second should just give you pause for thought.

My answer to you depends upon whether or not you deny that causes are conceptually linked with their effects by necessity?

Hmm, by necessity? Yes, in terms of reality, no in terms of discussion, since though effects obviously require causes, I don't want to set up a scenario in which I can't examine each thing individually if need be.