Aquines, Russell Efficient Causes Come

Aquines, Russell

Efficient causes come in series.

Nothing exists which is its own efficient cause (or at least we have no knowledge of such a thing), because that would make it prior to himself, which is impossible.

"The series of efficient causes cannot possibly go back to infinity."

Following the statement presented here above, there is one initial thing, producing a series of intermediary actions that in turn produce the final thing.

As one must admit that the intermediary causes and the final effect exist, there must be one initial cause.

This cause is known as God.

"If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause."

However, Thomas Aquinas's argumentation relies exactly on the idea that the series of causes must have a beginning, i.e. It cannot go back to infinity (see step 3 here above).

If we admit that the chain of causes is finite, we may also admit the fact that the world simply has no beginning or has been around forever.

4) Following the two argumentations here above, we may conclude that, from Russell's point-of-view, the argumentation for God's existence following Aquinas's first cause argument is the result of our lack of imagination.

5) if God has no cause, then we may assume that the world has no cause as well.

3. In order to understand Russell's conclusion and its relation with Aquinas's thesis, we must first explain what each refers to and how the two arguments differ. As such, Aquinas's argumentation may be interpreted as a reduction ad absurdum demonstration. We believe that there is no God. Following the equivalence between God and the first efficient cause, we may therefore state that there is no first efficient cause. The absence of the first efficient cause would mean that the chain is infinite, thus denying the existence of intermediary causes. This last statement is obviously false, so the initial presumption, according to which God does not exist, is false as well. Hence, God exists.

Russell's argumentation relies on two different issues. First of all, he relies on Aquinas's train of logical ideas to sustain the fact that if everything has a cause, then we need to admit that God has a cause as well. Most obviously, if God has a cause, he cannot be identified as the First Cause, hence we will ask ourselves whether God's cause isn't actually God. This will create an infinite chain, enough to prove God's non-existence.

Further more, he refutes the argument of non-infinity and replaces it with the argument of infinity irrelevance, in the sense that infinity is not necessarily relevant, as long as we can actually believe that the world has no beginning or rather it simply existed before everything else. This would allow him to believe in the world or the universe (as an object with no beginning) in the same manner someone else may believe in God as the First Cause. I have restated these two parts of Russell's argumentation because they constitute the base of discussion for the fact that Russell's refutation is not a refutation or that it is a false refutation (i.e. based on false premises).

Let's take the first argument: if everything has a cause, then God has a cause as well, which would led us to wonder whether or not God's cause is actually God and so forth. In order to prove the error in this reasoning, we need to refer to the notions of contingent and necessary or non-contingent beings, upon which the entire argumentation of Thomas of Aquinas relies on.

A contingent object or being must necessarily have a cause. The finite chain mentioned in Aquinas's argumentation is formed of contingent objects or events and this is why we understand that it should be finite.

On the other hand, God or the First Cause of things is not a contingent object, but an absolute or necessary one, and this is why God can be the end (or rather the beginning) of the chain. Being a necessary object and not a contingent one, it does not abide by the causal rule according to which it must have a cause, so that it can actually be a First Cause, a cause with no cause.

In this sense, this should be Russell's first error: in his first argumentation, he makes no separation between contingent and necessary and rhetorically asks himself whether God does not have a cause as well. The answer is simply no, because he is a non-contingent or an absolute being and, as such, God does not fall subject to the causal rule.

This brings us to the second part of Russell's refutation, which may be perceived as a second argumentative option: the world has no beginning and Russell may believe in the world the same way a Christian would believe in God. This would not only mean assuming the causal chain finite, but also assuming that the world is the primordial cause of all things. However, this cannot be, since the world is a sum of contingent beings and objects such that we may assume that it cannot be, overall, a necessary entity. According to the source I have mentioned, "it is clear that the kind of cosmological argument that is required for Russell's second rebuttal to work must stand on the premise that the universe has a temporal first cause." So, we may not assume that the world is the primordial cause, we need to discover a temporal first cause in order to make this work.

As a personal opinion, I would venture as far as to say that there is no real difference in conception between Russell's argumentation and Aquinas's, but rather a difference in form. I have made this rather bold assertion because I have noticed the fact that the facts that are used are present in both argumentations (I am referring to this second part of Russell's arguments, the world has no beginning, it simply is): the causal chain is finite, there is one First Cause, called God or the World.

Of course, Russell does not specifically admit to the fact that the world he chooses to see as the initial cause is quite similar to God as Aquinas has described him as the First Cause. Are we not facing here a simple difference in religious perception, to the point where Aquinas prefers his First Cause to be called God because of the century he lives in and his perception as a Churchman, while Russell sees himself as a rational philosopher and would much rather see the world or the Universe as the First Cause? We may debate upon this.

4. Following the conclusions I have drawn in the paragraphs here above, it is much easier to determine what factors are needed to be considered true in order to prove Aquinas wrong.

First of all, we would need to believe that all objects and beings are contingent. This would mean that all objects have a cause that has brought about their effect. Following along Aquinas's argumentation, we will then be unable to state that there is an initial cause for all things, because the concept of non-contingency would not actually exist.

As such, we will be in a position similar to Bertrand Russell and we will be able to ask ourselves whether that which Aquinas deemed to be the First Cause does not have itself a cause. In this sense, assuming that all objects are contingent would be enough to prove Aquinas wrong, as all things would need to have a cause, according to this assumption.

Would full contingency be enough to reject the argument from efficient causation as stated by Aquinas or is there any other necessary issue to be stated a priori true?

The fact that all objects are contingent and thus have a cause would be, in my opinion, a sufficient reason to always question whether something that was proven to be the First Cause does not have a cause of its own, much the same way Russell has done in his refutation. It would be, as such, a necessary and sufficient argument to refute Aquinas's argumentation following the First Cause.