Becoming an angry atheist

[Faith No More]

Aquinas does not use the fifth way to explain high order levels of order, i.e. apparent design. The 5th way grounds Aristotelian final causes, at all levels of reality, in intelligent agency. Complex intentionality is possible at the higher degrees of reality precisely because it is already present more fundamentally. The common experience to be explained is why changes occur in particular ways and not in randomly.

Now, the regularity of nature is either a contingent or necessary fact. If it is necessary then no further explanation is required. If it is a contingent must be explained by that which is necessary or a series of contingencies that lead back to a necessity. Since knowledge based on induction is by its nature contingent, it is proper to seek that which makes our world intelligible.

Anyone can see from common experience (induction) that reality holds together in an intelligible way. When people take this induced knowledge for granted they quickly fall into the absurdity trap of occasionalism when they try to defend it. Even most occasionalists still tacitly believe that something holds causality together, even if they think that something itself remains unintelligible. Those, like me, who believe the universe is actually intelligible, say that something necessary serves as the ground for the regularities of efficient cause. Either way, occationalist or otherwise, there must be something. All that remains is to give that something a name. Hmmm…

You're begging the question again. Even if we agree to the fact that something may be required to create order, you still haven't established that it requires intelligence. The question is whether or not the fact that matter behaves in a particular manner requires an intelligence. You then use common experience as your proof because the order we human beings see comes from intelligence, but for that to be proof, you have to ignore the very question we are asking in the first place. There is order we see that we are sure of its origins and that is due to intelligence. Then there is order that we are unsure of its origins, and the origin of that order is the question we are attempting to answer. You are trying to prove that the origin of the order we are unsure of is intelligence by simply declaring that all order is due to an intelligence, but we cannot know that because we are asking the question, "where does this other order come from?"

[Neo-Scholastic]

That's just it, no one asserts that they just happen. They follow natural laws whose origins are uncertain and show absolutely no evidence of being the result of some greater intelligence.

Let’s further explore your statement, shall we? What I hear you saying is that there is that something explains natural laws, but we cannot know what that something is. Hold that thought.

… you’re… also creating a false dichotomy by assuming that they [causal relationships] must be the result of an intelligence or happen for no reason at all.

I didn’t just make the assumption. I also referenced the grandmaster skeptic’s (Hume’s) way of thinking. He showed that what you get when you abandon final cause is occasionalism, the absence of any rational principle for linking causes to their effects, i.e. no reason at all.

The clear alternative is that causality is directed by something, which you have already admitted above. Something capable of directing could be either intelligent or mindless. You say mindless. But, since intentional, directed, activity is associated with intelligence, it is reasonable to conclude that that which directs causality is an intelligent agent.

[KevinM1]

Prove intentional and directed, please.

[robvalue]

So, what moved the prime mover again? I think I missed the answer. Everything needs a mover, right?

[TreeSapNest]

You say mindless. But, since intentional, directed, activity is associated with intelligence, it is reasonable to conclude that that which directs causality is an intelligent agent.

Anyone can imagine super beings making and/or controlling the world. Reasonable is a bit of a stretch. :-)

[LostLocke]

And again, these types of arguments seem to rely on 'word play'.
There still has yet to be given a basic real world example of this process.

I could say, accretion 'causes' planets.
Does that mean the matter within the accretion purposefully and intentionally 'created' a planet?

[TreeSapNest]

I could say, accretion 'causes' planets.
Does that mean the matter within the accretion purposefully and intentionally 'created' a planet?

No. It's: "People make things. The world is a thing. It's reasonable to conclude a super-people made the world." It gets wrapped in new terms and redistributed over and over again.

[Faith No More]

Let’s further explore your statement, shall we? What I hear you saying is that there is that something explains natural laws, but we cannot know what that something is. Hold that thought.

But that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that there may be something that explains natural laws, but that whether there is or not is uncertain.

I didn’t just make the assumption. I also referenced the grandmaster skeptic’s (Hume’s) way of thinking. He showed that what you get when you abandon final cause is occasionalism, the absence of any rational principle for linking causes to their effects, i.e. no reason at all.

The clear alternative is that causality is directed by something, which you have already admitted above. Something capable of directing could be either intelligent or mindless. You say mindless. But, since intentional, directed, activity is associated with intelligence, it is reasonable to conclude that that which directs causality is an intelligent agent.

You'd have to flesh-out the argument that abandoning final cause leads to occasionalism for me to actually address that. I'm not familiar with it.

Regardless, there isn't sufficient justification to even assume the final cause exists, which is the fatal flaw in Aristotelian thinking. Every effect we see that has been caused by intelligence does have a final cause, but that final cause is as a result of the intelligence behind it. Since we are asking the question of whether or not intelligence is behind an effect, it is insufficient to assume that it must have a final cause because we know that final cause is a result of intelligence. It just comes down to begging the question again.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Hey, Chad, I think you missed this. Care to opine?

Anthropic fallacy is in play.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Hey, Chad, I think you missed this. Care to opine?

Anthropic fallacy is in play.

It helps my case. When someone asserts that causation’s regularity is a brute fact, he or she is violating the anthropic principle, by looking at contingent facts and calling them necessary ones.

Besides, no fine tuning argument has been presented, so the point is mute.