I just wanted to comment on these and start a new discussion pointing out what a lot of us really mean by saying God is the primary cause of all things. I am not a philosopher but will ltry my best to lay out some complex metaphysics that I think answers both questions.
From Aquinas we get the idea of Primary vs Secondary Causes. God is not an intervener in nature but the sustainer. This is why I find arguing from gaps (where God supposedly goes beyond how he normally sustains things) to essentially be serving someone scraps as a main course. I donât deny supernatural miracles occur or that gaps could in theory exist that need filling, we just donât intellectually need them. It is nature itself that is the primary evidence for God. Secondary causes are probably what we perceive as the normal ones that operate on a day to day basis in the created order (natural world) to produce contingent effects.
God as the primary cause means God is not one cause among many but the cause of the very being of things or being itself. Secondary causes depend entirely on God (primary cause) to exist and function. Using this distinction we believe God is involved in every event without compromising the integrity or removing the autonomy of natural processes. This allows science to proceed as normal and allows us to insist on divine providence throughout.
Aquinas distinguished between two types of causes : per se and per accidens. I will use linear and hierarchal to explain them.
A Linear Series or causation per accidens can be described like a domino effect. A causes B, B causes C, C caused D and so on. If A disappears after causing B, this will not impede B causing C in any way. The series goes on. Imagine a line of dominoes where if the first domino disappears after knocking over the second, the rest will still fall. In this way we might say each member has its own causal power in this series.
Another example is as follows: It is a hot day so I press a button, this turns on the air conditioner, which then cools the room which in turns causes my coffee to get really cold. In this linear series of causes and effect, I could drop dead after pressing the button to turn on the AC but everything else will happen as expected. There is no continued dependence of later members on earlier ones in a linear casual series once a specific cause happens.
A Hierarchal Series or causation per se is different, requiring a continued dependence of members. Aquinas used the image of a hand moving a stick that is moving a stone. Now it does not really matter if these actions are truly simultaneous in reality, what matters metaphysically speaking is that if the hand disappears then the stick and stone both stop moving. Whereas when talking about dominoes in a linear series, the first domino A could disappear after falling and B and C would still occur. Here, in a hierarchal series, removing a member destroys the causal chain. We can similarly say A causes B, B causes C and so on but if A is removed then also B and C disappear and the whole chain ceases to be. Another example used by Feser might be coffee sitting on a table. The cup is being held up by the table, which is being held up by the floor which is being held up by the earth and so on. If I remove the desk or floor, the coffee falls. This is a hierarchal series of causes and effects leading the actualization of the potential of the coffee sitting on my desk.
Some modern proponents might object that the hand pushing the stick which is pushing the stone does not occur instantaneously. This would be correct but we are still not describing a linear series. Physical simultaneity is not the issue. Metaphysically speaking these causes and effects are treated simultaneously but even then, it is the dependence and borrowed power in a hierarchal series that truly matters. To use the coffee analogy, the table has no inherent power on its own to hold up the coffee. In this case X is borrowing a power from Y to produce Z. Feser says as much about the coffee cup:
Since the desk, the floor, and the foundation have no power of their own to hold the cup aloft, the series could not exist in the first place unless there were something that did have the power to hold up these intermediaries, and the cup through them, without having to be held up itself.â â Feser, Five Proofs
To put it another way, once Abraham begat Isaac, we know that Isaac can beget Jacob whether or not Abraham is still alive. That is an inherent property Isaac possesses by virtue of his very nature as a biological male. But compare this to a moon shining light through a bedroom window. We know the moon has no power of its own to produce light. It only reflects light from a sun. We can think of this reflection as borrowed illumination. It wouldnât matter if you stacked up a million reflective moons one after another, without a sun, or a first member, we would never get any illumination. Even an infinite number of moons would produce no light.
A lot of people think cosmological arguments are all about tracing linear series of causes and effects into the past and then denying an infinite regress. I think there is definitely merit to that as an actual infinite there seems quite troubling to me but this is not what Aristotle and Aquinas were doing . Many formulations of the cosmological argument attempt to show that the existence of something (using Aristotleâs act and potency) is a borrowed power or part of a hierarchal series. This is the proper understanding of Aristotleâs prime mover and Aquinasâs first way.
Feser uses a cup of coffee which he simplifies to water in an attempt to demonstrate this. First note that a potential can only be actualized by something actual itself. A cup of water on my desk is an actualized potential. In a pure Aristotelian sense, it is an example of âchangeâ because change is simply the actualization of a potential. Those water molecules have the potential to be elsewhere and even separated into individual atoms. Anything that exists in the here and now is an actualized potential. We can ask how the water got there (someone obviously poured it) but that is not what Feser would ask. He would ask why it exists in the here and now or âWhat keeps the coffee in existence?â Chemical bonds of course is the first answer we science inclined folks think of but this pushes the problem back. Why are these bond actualized this way?
Ă Feser: The potential of the coffee to exist here and now is actualized in part, by the existence of the water, which in turn exists only because a certain potential of the atoms is being actualized, where these atoms themselves exist only because a certain potential of the subatomic particles is being actualized. This is a hierarchical seriesâone which, as we have seen, must have a first member. â Five Proofs
So when we say God is the cause of all things and cannot actually interfere with what He is already doing this is what we generally mean. Every material thing, every process, every law â it is all dependent on the prime mover for its sustenance and being at all times. âEvolution or Godâ is only viable to a Christian who both thinks Genesis 1-11 describes the process of creation factually step by step and that any errors in the Bible undermine the Christian faith. Outside of these constraints, the rest of us are free to let science âwellâ science.
So if God is the cause of existence itself for all hierarchically actualized potentials (material objects), a few things follow: God actualizes existence itself without having to have that power imparted to Him. God lacks potentiality and has âbuilt-inâ non-derivative casual power. He is pure act of being itself. Not one cause among many, but the source of all cause (actualized potentials). Not only does God not have a cause of His own, He could not in principle have had or needed one.
@T_aquaticus I think the quote you highlighted is generally fine.
@Theangeloffury Liam, you are asking about why there is no explicit evidence for God in nature. If this reasoning is correct, all objects in the material universe seem to fit this bill as they represent hierarchically actualized potentials. The problem is not that there isnât any evidence, but there is so much of it youâve been blinded by it or are entrenched in a mechanistic image of a God out there who comes in to tinker with nature. I remember Trent Horn in noting in a book that a skeptic said he would convert if he saw a limb regrow from nothing Trentâs response was something along the lines of: Why do you need a limb? God already provides you with a whole universe from nothing. Looking for supernatural miracles or scientific gaps as proof for God is like looking for scraps on the floor while the main entree sits on the table in front of you.
So I firmly believe metaphysics and scripture teach the same thing:
I formed you in the womb (Jer 1:15, Psalm 139:13-16 ) does not negate reproductive biology. God brings forth the rain (Mt 5:45, Job 37:13, Am 4:7, Zech 10:1) does not negate collision and coalescence in warm clouds or the Bergeron process in cold clouds. God feeds birds (Mt 6: 26-34) does not mean food webs or ecological systems donât exist. The American Robin eats worms and other natural foods, as opposed to supernatural manna and quail from heaven. It is not God vs nature but God through nature. Yet I affirm all these descriptions as true along with the scientific understanding of them.
âą Acts 17:24, 28a The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. . . . For âIn him we live and move and have our being.â 1 Cor 8:6 reads**: â** yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.â Col 1:16-17: âall things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.â Hebrews 1:3: â3 He is the reflection of Godâs glory and the exact imprint of Godâs very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.â We can glean creation ex nihilo from a number of passages (Gen 1:, Isaiah 45:18, Ps. 33:6,9, 90:2, John 1:3, Rev 4:11, 10:6, Acts 4:24, 17:24 ,Hebrews 11:3).
Whether or not you agree with the argument for Godâs existence, the distinction between types of causes should help explain what we mean by them
Vinnie