The Numerous Problems with the First Cause Argument: Aquinas....Eat Your Heart Out

[hensatri]

The Cosmological Argument, also known as the First Cause or the Prime Mover Argument, is one of the most common apologetic tools you’ll come across. Even those who know nothing about apologetics or religious debate will manage to stumble their way across some basic form of this argument if they keep at the discussion long enough.

The argument typically goes as such-

Premise 1: All events have a cause, and all causes have a prior cause.
Premise 2: The chain of cause and effect seems to regress back infinitely.
Premise 3: An infinite series of prior events is logically and rationally untenable, leading to apparent inconsistencies.Conclusion: There must therefore be a first cause, itself uncaused, and that cause we choose to call God.

We all know that this argument is unsatisfying, but it can be difficult to pin down exactly what aspect of this doesn’t settle well in our gut. So I just wanted to outline what I see to be the basic structural problems with this argument. To give clear language to that little "ehhh…I’m not buying that" that many feel when they hear this.

The conclusion falsifies the premise. Premise one states that all things have a cause. The conclusion posits a thing that doesn’t have a cause. If the conclusion posits a causeless thing, then the first premise, that all things require a cause, must not have been true in the first place. This renders the entire argument unsound. If your conclusion is in direct defiance of the premise that lead to that conclusion…then your argument has some problems.
Another way in which the argument fills us, but at the same time leaves us hungry, is in the simple response that even a school child can immediately come up with; "Then what created God?"

This is not a proper rebuttal. It works in short order, but a sophisticated thinker can side-step this response relatively easily. The First Cause argument attempts to show that there must be an ultimate capstone cause that is uncaused. Once you reach that capstone, however far back you wish to go, that is the thing that is God. The causal chain ends at that point (according to the argument) so to ask what caused that cause is nonsense. It is simply not a valid question if you accept the premises and the conclusion.

The problem is that there is no justification for anthropomorphizing the capstone state. Even if you logically agree that some eternally existent ultimate state or cause is necessary, there is utterly no justification to personify that state as a Deity. That eternal and consistent cause could just as easily be a virtually empty quantum background or an eternally fluctuating matter/energy cycle. It is even possible that it could be a Personal God, but there is no justification to posit the anthropomorphic God over the other options. All new information we discover about the cosmos leads towards the still uncertain conclusion that some form of extremely low-energy quantum state is the eternal cause, and nothing that we discover even begins to point toward some eternal personality or agent.

Furthermore, the entire argument hinges upon the limits of our mental comfort. Logic is a system we use to make sense of reality as our minds can comprehend it. It makes no logical sense to us that there could be an infinite regression of finite events, but our minds are notoriously bad at dealing with concepts of infinity, and it could very well be that there is an infinite regression; we just find it difficult or impossible to wrap our logic around that. It is also possible that there is a finite beginning out of truly nothing approximately 14 billion years ago. Our minds are notoriously bad at dealing with the idea of nothingness, and even less equipped to contemplate all of everything coming out of nothing with no prior cause. This does not mean that it could not have been this way, just that we are not equipped to toy very well with that idea.

Basically, the Prime Mover argument is internally inconsistent, with a conclusion that falsifies its own premises. It arbitrarily assigns agency to the First Cause with no justification for that move. Lastly the whole argument relies on the fact that we cannot conceive of causality lasting infinitely, or beginning at a finite time, and assumes those two states to be impossible although that may not be the case.

Thoughts? Questions? Criticisms? Comments?

[finder]

The Cosmological Argument is flawed because of the ineptness of the mind to comprehend the whole of reality. That doesn't make it a flawed argument for God. It just can't be the single argument for God.

[sulh-i-kul]

I don't buy the First Cause argument and I don't subscribe to its underlying theology but I think it makes sense if you understand what it's talking about.

The conclusion falsifies the premise. Premise one states that all things have a cause. The conclusion posits a thing that doesn’t have a cause. If the conclusion posits a causeless thing, then the first premise, that all things require a cause, must not have been true in the first place.

God isn't a thing (or an event according to your earlier formulation). That's the whole point!

In mainstream theology, the causeless non-thing is called Big Bang or some such.

[Peter]

Thoughts? Questions? Criticisms? Comments?

Well done. You nailed it.

[barts]

The problem is that there is no justification for anthropomorphizing the capstone state. Even if you logically agree that some eternally existent ultimate state or cause is necessary, there is utterly no justification to personify that state as a Deity. That eternal and consistent cause could just as easily be a virtually empty quantum background or an eternally fluctuating matter/energy cycle.

This to me this is one of the key objections to the Cosmological Argument. As you say, there is nothing in the argument to give any credence that the "capstone state" is anyone's god of choice or a god at all for that matter. To posit a god or, in deference to Aquinas, God, the argument devolves into a matter of faith, as do all arguments for gods.

And, welcome to Volconvo, hensatri. Excellent essay.

[grandpa]

This to me this is one of the key objections
to the Cosmological Argument.
As you say, there is nothing in the argument to
give any credence that the "capstone state" is anyone's god
of choice or a god at all for that matter.

The other flaw is human assumption, and the comfort zone thereof. If my explanation is
the one I'm originally most inclined to accept, it doesn't necessarily prove anything but my own bias. That's where evidence comes in handy. On top of that, there's the adage,
"If things appear to be going well, you have overlooked something." We might think we understand the world perfectly, then something comes along and royally messes up our confidence.

To a large degree it's a matter of choice, and we have limited means to determine if the choice is really right.

Grandpa h.

[hensatri]

I don't buy the First Cause argument and I don't subscribe to its underlying theology but I think it makes sense if you understand what it's talking about.

God isn't a thing (or an event according to your earlier formulation). That's the whole point!

In mainstream theology, the causeless non-thing is called Big Bang or some such.

God isn't a thing? Well I guess that kind of depends on your definition of "thing". Thing is generally used as the broadest category to encompass all that is. Everything, from a mathematical abstract with no physical reality, or a rock, or a smell, or a feeling, to a mind, are included in the category of "things".

Most theologians will describe God as a "mind". A mind certainly fits within my category of "a thing". Is he a spirit, a force, and essence, a desembodied abstract concept of creation? Those are all things.

I don't think you can even describe a God in language that wouldn't make him a "thing" and if you actually managed to, then I think the definition would be so vague and so insubstantial that it would be essentially worthless.

And if we consider what characteristics most believers attribute to God, he certainly counts as a thing. He has agency, answers prayers, sends sons down to die for our sins, creates worlds, floods worlds, these are all aspects of a thing.

Now if you are really hung up on the language of "thing-hood" then some formulations of the argument don't use the word "thing" at all, instead they use the word "cause". That all causes are cause by previous causes and due to the problems with infinite regress, there must be an ultimate cause. At least that is the way Thomas Aquinas puts it.

[Jack]

I don't think you can even describe a God in language that wouldn't make him a "thing" and if you actually managed to, then I think the definition would be so vague and so insubstantial that it would be essentially worthless.

True even for non-believers. If I describe gods as fabrications of the human imagination, a fabrication is still a thing, just insubstantial.

[sulh-i-kul]

Yes, "a fabrication" is exactly what the word thing means.

God isn't a thing? Well I guess that kind of depends on your definition of "thing". Thing is generally used as the broadest category to encompass all that is. Everything, from a mathematical abstract with no physical reality, or a rock, or a smell, or a feeling, to a mind, are included in the category of "things".

Yes, that's a common definition... but one that happens to rule out God (monotheistic definition). So it's inappropriate here.
Your definition reifies the things you conceive. Implicit in my definition is the attribution of things (constructs) to individual thought. What you do not conceive is not a thing as far as you're concerned. If you do not conceive of the air filling the space between you and the nearest wall, as far as you're concerned there's no thing between you and the wall. And if you use the name "God" for a thing you can conceive, then that thing is not God (monotheistic definition).
That's part of my main problem with the first/ultimate Cause argument. It implicitely reifies God's agency (something you also seem to object to).

Most theologians will describe God as a "mind". A mind certainly fits within my category of "a thing". Is he a spirit, a force, and essence, a desembodied abstract concept of creation? Those are all things.

I'm not familiar with that definition.
As mentioned above, that mind is not God (monotheistic definition). None of these things are.

I don't think you can even describe a God in language that wouldn't make him a "thing" and if you actually managed to, then I think the definition would be so vague and so insubstantial that it would be essentially worthless.

Yes, God (monotheistic definition) has no value since it's not for you to use or exchange. To claim otherwise would be presumption of the highest order.

And if we consider what characteristics most believers attribute to God, he certainly counts as a thing. He has agency, answers prayers, sends sons down to die for our sins, creates worlds, floods worlds, these are all aspects of a thing.

No, the aspects themselves are things. You can imagine a thing based on these aspects but again, that thing is not God (monotheistic definition).

Now if you are really hung up on the language of "thing-hood" then some formulations of the argument don't use the word "thing" at all, instead they use the word "cause". That all causes are cause by previous causes and due to the problems with infinite regress, there must be an ultimate cause. At least that is the way Thomas Aquinas puts it.

Yes, I believe you are expressing it properly. I'm not objecting to the language but to what is meant.
As I said above, I object to this argument precisely because it's a way to (partly) reify God without using the word "thing".

[Jack]

Could you share the definition you refer to with "God (monotheistic definition)"?

[sulh-i-kul]

He is the One God

God the eternal, the Uncaused Cause of all being

He begets not, and neither is He begotten

and there is nothing that could be compared with Him

[hensatri]

Firstly, keep in mind that this is not "My" First Cause argument, this is the First Cause arguement developed in antiquity, first recorded in relation to Socrates, and powerfully promoted by Thomas Aquinas in his Quinque Vae, which was THE defining apologetic document from the time it was written in the 13th century right up until only the last few years when his five proofs have begun to need a bit of elaboration. First Cause has been apologetics 101 for Theologians since before the time of Christ.

So it's not exactly MY First Cause argument.

Now as to you definition, you are stepping in some non-sense there. If God is so ephemral, unkowable, and undefinable that I am on shakey ground even calling him a "thing" then you certainly have no justification for laying out to me, with the utmost certainty, all of the attributes he doesn't have.

Now that said, I find you definition worthless. I have seen many such definitions, they are facetious and serve only one purpose. These kinds of weirdly intangible ephemeral definitions try to describe God in language so abstract and vague that there is nothing there to grab a hold of and criticize.

Look at what you've said, the language spells out exactly what you've done. You've definied God out of existence. "there is nothing that could be compared with Him" There is nothing that can be compared to him? So then it is fair is we compare him to nothing? I am fine comparing God to nothing.

I say this definition is facetious because this is an apologist front-definition. This is the kind of definition that believers give to critics as a guarded presentation that is difficult to interface with, and therefore difficult to criticize, but this is NOT the operating definition of God that they worship under, pray to, preach about, ect. They have a separate idea of God they use amongst themselves and in their own worship that most certainly has definite attributes. It would be like if I was criticizing Democrats, and the Democrat I was debating refused to take a stand on any points of policy, and only gave a vague definitive like "The Democratic Party represents the unquenchable human thirst for liberty." and then when we were done retired to the smoke room to talk to other Democrats about their shared stance on abortion, gay marriage, and fiscal policy.

Also, you are on intellectually dangerous ground claiming that you have privileged access the THE definitive meaning of "God (monotheistic definition)". You know there are 30,000 some odd denominations of Christianity in this world. You must be some kind of spectacular theologian if you've managed to lay the issue to bed once and for all, overturning countless church leaders, religious thinkers, and Christian philosophers before you and finally figure out that the TRUE definition of God is. Anyone should know better than that.

And on the issue of God as a Mind, Frank Tureck, William Lane Craig, and Matt Slick, are the first to pop into my mind who define God as a Mind. In fact the Transcendental Argument for God (TAG for short) is a popular argument for God that relies heavily on the concept of God as the first Mind.