[Serious] Thomism: Then & Now

[Neo-Scholastic]

Another common misconception is that the A/T causal chain is a temporal chain, with one thing leading to another in time. It is not that. It is an essential series, not a temporal one. That means that in order for Z to be the case, Y must be the case. In order for Y to be the case, X must be the case, etc. In fact all these things may have come into existence at the same time, or not -- that's not important. The important thing is that the thing farther down on the chain depends for its existence on the things that are higher. 

So for example, the existence of the sun depends on the existence of Hydrogen atoms. You can see this because if the sun stopped existing, this wouldn't make hydrogen atoms impossible. But if hydrogen atoms stopped existing, then the sun would be impossible. So the existence of hydrogen atoms is prior in an essential chain of causation. The time order isn't a part of the argument. 

Those are the main two misconceptions I've seen on this topic. There are others. I don't know why these errors are so basic and yet so difficult to dispel. 

(By the way, I love your screen name. I am no longer so young either!)

I disagree with your argument.  Time absolutely is part of causality.  I won't argue which is primal (physicists disagree), but either time determines what we understand as causality, or else causality determines what we understand as time.

Time gets invoked only when there is a change. What about persistence in any given moment? Yes, any embodied object has a history that brought it to whatever present moment it abides in. At the same time, in order for any object to be what it is, often it must have in the present moment other qualities that make it what it is...qualities independent of where that object is positioned in time. Those qualities may include having a specific organization (like a truss), material composition (like an acid), or function (like a kidney). Now, in some sense, and this came up in @vulcanlogic 's video of Nussbaum. Are these types of qualities just part of discourse, linguistic conventions, about appearances at a human scale or are they representative of something real? The choice seems to cut both ways. I cannot imagine doing any kind of calculation without the concept of a unit. As such, if an objection to the 4W rests on the idea that there are no degrees of perfection, then you can kind of forget doing science too.

[DLJ]

...
So for example, the existence of the sun depends on the existence of Hydrogen atoms. You can see this because if the sun stopped existing, this wouldn't make hydrogen atoms impossible. But if hydrogen atoms stopped existing, then the sun would be impossible. So the existence of hydrogen atoms is prior in an essential chain of causation. The time order isn't a part of the argument. 
...

This is a nice example to help answer the "How do you get life from non-life" question.

No gods required for that either.

I wonder how Aquinas missed it.

[Belacqua]

Time absolutely is part of causality.

Suppose congress passes a law outlawing your current hairstyle. 

The moment the law exists, the hairstyle becomes a crime. 

The law and the crime come into being simultaneously. 

The law is prior to the crime in the chain of essential causality. Because if you changed to a legal hairstyle, your crime would cease to exist but the law would still exist. But if the law ceased to exist, the crime would also cease to exist.

[vulcanlogician]

^
That's the sort of thing I'd like to get from this discussion. I'm fairly ignorant of Aristotle's concepts and how they influenced Anselm/Aquinas. But I also like to see how such concepts are (possibly) at odds with modern physics. I find the exchange between Bel, Neo, and HappySkeptic interesting.

[Belacqua]

https://voiceofacatholic.wordpress.com/2...five-ways/

"In an essentially ordered causal series, we see that the cause and effect are simultaneous."

[vulcanlogician]

https://voiceofacatholic.wordpress.com/2...five-ways/

"In an essentially ordered causal series, we see that the cause and effect are simultaneous."

Okay. So I read the article. Maybe I'm missing something properly basic here. (But if Bertrand Russell misunderstood Aquinas, at least I'm in good company.)

First, let us begin with the causal series in which we are most familiar with through our daily experience – a causal series that is accidentally ordered.  In this type of causal series, the cause comes before the effect in time. For example, I can swing a bat and hit a baseball. Once I hit that baseball, the effect is now independent of my causal influence.

Okay. Got it. Accidental causation is pretty easy to understand.

In an essentially ordered causal series, we see that the cause and effect are simultaneous.  This type of series can be best understood by thinking of the inside of a clock.[1]  In a clock, there is a motor, and connected to it are multiple gears which contribute to moving the clock hands.  Looking at the motor as the cause of the gears moving, if the motor stops working, the first gear and all subsequent gears will stop along with it.  In this way, the cause and the effect are simultaneous.  This is the type of causality that Aquinas employs in his proofs.

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.

What am I missing?

[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.

[The Grand Nudger]

Why create a rule with the intention of immediately breaking the rule while asserting that no other thing could..similarly, break that rule or satisfy it's conditions? Is there any particular reason, for example, that there aren't dozens or millions of things that are at the end of their respective and discreet causal chains?

[Neo-Scholastic]

@Belacqua that was a great explanation. However, the clock, criminal haircut, and sun examples all seem to be different from one another.

First, the clock gears are not actually turning simultaeously. It just seems like that in our time scale. In the physical world nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Imagine a fantastic series of gears in outer space that is a light-year long. It would take a minimum of one year before turning the first gear would result in the furthest gear's movement.

The sun and haircut examples seem better and yet feel amiss to me somehow.

[Belacqua]

@Belacqua that was a great explanation. However, the clock, criminal haircut, and sun examples all seem to be different from one another.

Thank you! 

Yes, in trying to talk metaphysics with physical analogies, nothing is going to be 100% right. I guess we sort of have to abstract the principle from the analogy...?

First, the clock gears are not actually turning simultaeously. It just seems like that in our time scale. In the physical world nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Imagine a fantastic series of gears in outer space that is a light-year long. It would take a minimum of one year before turning the first gear would result in the furthest gear's movement.

Well, in the normal-sized clock example they are turning together, I think. And then in the actual argument for a First Cause, we're not talking physical motion. So large distances don't really enter into it. We're talking existence of something, which is simultaneously supported by the existence of something else. 

The clock example of simultaneous motion is just intended to represent how an essential causal chain will require the constant action of all its "upstream" members. This is to differentiate it from an accidental chain, where the causes may wander off and leave the chain once they've played their role.

The classic example of an accidental cause is your parents -- even if they die, you continue to exist. (This is NOT to say that your parents made you by accident. That's a different kind of accident -- and I'm sure they were very careful about that kind of thing.) But in an essential causal relationship, if your cause stops you stop too. 

The sun and haircut examples seem better and yet feel amiss to me somehow.

Yep, I have yet to find the perfect way to say it. Modern people just don't think that way naturally, so it's hard to express in an intuitive way. If you think of a good example please let us know!