(November 2, 2021 at 8:51 am)Belacqua Wrote:(November 2, 2021 at 8:12 am)Jehanne Wrote: Ergo, not every event (in physics, something that happens at a particular point in space at a particular time) has a cause; most, in fact, do not.
When discussing causality in theology, they are not talking only about efficient causes, which is what you're referring to.
Quote:Aitia (Greek: αἰτία), the word that Aristotle used to refer to the causal explanation, has, in philosophical traditional, been translated as "cause." This peculiar, specialized, technical, usage of the word "cause" is not that of everyday English language.
"The cause of X" in theology means something like "that which must be the case in order for X to be the case." All of the events in physics which you're talking about require something to be the case in order for them to happen. For example, the universe must exist. The laws of nature must be as they are. etc. etc.
Everything you're talking about has αἰτία.
Which may not make much sense. In order for a baseball to break a window, the ball, the bat, and the window must be the case. But also, the earth must be just so, the gravitational constant be just so, the sun be where it is, and everything in the universe which can in some way be traced back to the beginning of the universe the way it is, for if that were different, the universe's beginning would be different, and might lead to a different fate for the baseball. So, that definition of cause seems to lead to everything in the universe being the cause of any specific event.