The First Cause Argument

[McCulloch]

The First Cause Argument
Simply stated this argument asserts that everything in the universe has a cause, therefore there must be an ultimate cause. If the universe has a beginning then there must be something outside it that brought it into existence. This being outside the universe, this Creator, the first cause argument tells us, is God.
Is this a valid proof of the existence of God?

[harvey1]

So God is allowed to be uncaused but universes are not.

Well, technically, there doesn't need to be a cause for causation. That would be like asking what color is the color of red. The fact that there is causation is not even the same as saying there is some brute fact that is true. A brute fact is something that we assume could very well be something different but as a consequence of the brute fact obtaining it just happens to not be that way. This clearly isn't what we are talking about with regard to causation. It could be no other way, since whatever other way it could be would involve the concept in the first place. This is why God is a rational concept and a brute fact multiverse is not.

[ST88]

First, assuming there is a valid concept called "first cause", then the God hypothesis is but one explanation... so you'd have to assume that it is at least equally possible that there either is or isn't one... that condition is either some unknown but natural condition where the concept of "first" makes no sense at all, or else magic.

The pen floating in the middle of the air without cause is like a multiverse existing without cause. Regardless how long it has been floating (e.g., infinite amount of time), there must be a reason why it is there in the first place--unless you are prepared to nullify what you said about the pen requiring a rational cause even if we do not know what it is.

You're making a leap in syllogistic logic that isn't available for crevasse jumping. The pen event is something that happens while we are watching it. There is a condition: pen lying on the ground, then there is an effect: pen moving. We are able to recognize these things because we know that pens aren't supposed to behave that way. For the First Cause argument to work in this way, we must be able to describe the condition before the First Cause (pen lying there) in order to recognize how it is different when the First Cause happens (pen moving). The idea of a First Cause itself would seem to nullify anything happening before it. We would have to know why a multiverse shouldn't behave as it does, and not only do we not have this knowledge, we don't even know what "shouldn't behave as it does" means.

We have no idea how the initial universe creation event is different from the instant "before" it, so recognition of the nature of the event is out of the question.

This is the reason why the first cause argument is a good argument for God's existence. In my opinion, this has nothing to do with the temporal origin of a universe (which neither Aristotle or Aquinas believed), it was always about why a pen is hanging in the middle of air. There must be some cause to that phenomena. And, that cause is obviously God.

It is not obvious, nor is that conclusion warranted. Out of the millions of explanations, you have settled on God. That is your right, of course, but that doesn't make you right.

This works if we can first assume that God exists, which defeats the purpose of the argument.

[McCulloch]

This is the reason why the first cause argument is a good argument for God's existence. ... There must be some cause to that phenomena. And, that cause is obviously God.

It is not obvious, nor is that conclusion warranted. Out of the millions of explanations, you have settled on God. ...
This works if we can first assume that God exists, which defeats the purpose of the argument.

As I understand the argument, it does not assume that God exists nor does it select God out of millions of explanations. It says that there must be an uncaused cause of the universe. Then it defines that cause to be God. In that sense, it attempts to prove the existence of the God. What it does not do, is define any attribute of the God except:

1. God is uncaused.
2. God caused the existence of the universe

In order to show that the first cause argument is false, I think that one would have to argue that the universe itself is uncaused.

[ST88]

As I understand the argument, it does not assume that God exists nor does it select God out of millions of explanations.

It says that there must be an uncaused cause of the universe. Then it defines that cause to be God.

You'll have to excuse the cold morning, but jump starting my brain is not working at the moment. How does that second statement not assume the existence of God?

If you assume that there is a first cause, then you must assume that God is the uncaused cause before you can state that the uncaused cause is God. No?

In that sense, it attempts to prove the existence of the God. What it does not do, is define any attribute of the God except:

1. God is uncaused.
2. God caused the existence of the universe

In order to show that the first cause argument is false, I think that one would have to argue that the universe itself is uncaused.

That's just semantics. It doesn't say anything follows from anything, it merely states a tautology.

You have to first wrap your head around the idea that "cause and effect" is an actual representation of what happens instead of just a metaphor for what happens. Can we say that this event causes that event the way we can in computing? (If Then Else) To do this we would have to describe events as being discrete happenstances, and to do this, we would have to slice time up into intervals, something we do for our own convenience, but which the universe does not do. As part of a continuum of time, an "event" has no meaning except by the definition we give it.

As such, the "First Cause" must be described as a "First Cause" before it can be proved to be such. In other words, underlying the argument is that God is sitting there waiting to be proven, and now, presto! there's the window through which we can see him!

[harvey1]

For the First Cause argument to work in this way, we must be able to describe the condition before the First Cause (pen lying there) in order to recognize how it is different when the First Cause happens (pen moving). The idea of a First Cause itself would seem to nullify anything happening before it. We would have to know why a multiverse shouldn't behave as it does, and not only do we not have this knowledge, we don't even know what "shouldn't behave as it does" means.

I think this is fundamentally incorrect. The reason that the floating pen gets our attention is not because it was lying on the table and then began to float in mid-air. Actually, we don't have to know what the pen was doing before we encountered it. The causal problem is tied to why the pen is in a particular floating state without an apparent cause (e.g., helium in the pen, etc.). The pen could be on Pluto, and when people arrive at Pluto at some distant time in the future, they would still believe that there is some cause for the pen floating (assuming there is no natural explanation available at the time). The first cause argument makes a similar claim. Things (multiverses) don't just pop out of thin air (or thin space manifolds, if you prefer) without a reason. Just like you are committed to find a rational reason for a floating pen, you should be just as committed to finding a rational reason for a universe (or multiverse). Claiming this as a brute fact is an irrational claim. I might add that what is true of a brute fact (multiple-)universe could also be true for anything that occurs in the universe. What is to say that more brute facts don't just happen to occur for no reason? Perhaps everything is that way and we just happen to live in a world that only appears as if it is lawful but since there are an infinite number of worlds acting randomly, sooner or later one will occur which follows law-like patterns for a given stretch. (And, maybe our lucky stretch is about to come to a chaotic end....) This is the kind of sillyness that we should entertain by not clamping down on all this rubbish (that word is inserted for QED and Curious) and simply requiring any rational explanation of a physical phenomena to include a cause. This applies for the universe also.

It is not obvious, nor is that conclusion warranted. Out of the millions of explanations, you have settled on God.

Not so. Any explanation must necessarily involve a causation. Central to that claim is the existence of God. You can have anyone of your million effective causes for the world, but they all require the existence of God.

[harvey1]

In order to show that the first cause argument is false, I think that one would have to argue that the universe itself is uncaused.

But, arguing that the universe is uncaused is to argue for an irrational world. Is that what atheism is based on: irrationality? I like what I'm hearing, but how many atheists are going to come forward saying that they are irrational in their beliefs?

[McCulloch]

As I understand the argument, it does not assume that God exists nor does it select God out of millions of explanations. ... It says that there must be an uncaused cause of the universe. Then it defines that cause to be God.

You'll have to excuse the cold morning, but jump starting my brain is not working at the moment. How does that second statement not assume the existence of God?

It argues the existence of an uncaused causal agent. It then names that agent, "God".

If you assume that there is a first cause, then you must assume that God is the uncaused cause before you can state that the uncaused cause is God. No?

Semantics. If there is a first cause, then whatever that first cause is, define the word, "God" to mean whatever that first cause happens to be.

In that sense, it attempts to prove the existence of the God. What it does not do, is define any attribute of the God except:

1. God is uncaused.
2. God caused the existence of the universe

In order to show that the first cause argument is false, I think that one would have to argue that the universe itself is uncaused.

That's just semantics. It doesn't say anything follows from anything, it merely states a tautology.

To me, that is the weakness of the first cause argument. It says virtually nothing about the alleged God. In that sense, it is much like a tautology. Yes.

You have to first wrap your head around the idea that "cause and effect" is an actual representation of what happens instead of just a metaphor for what happens. Can we say that this event causes that event the way we can in computing? (If Then Else) To do this we would have to describe events as being discrete happenstances, and to do this, we would have to slice time up into intervals, something we do for our own convenience, but which the universe does not do. As part of a continuum of time, an "event" has no meaning except by the definition we give it.

It looks like your attack on the first cause argument is now against the preposition that "everything in the universe has a cause". If this preposition can be shown to be false, the first cause argument goes down like a house of cards.

[ST88]

I think this is fundamentally incorrect. The reason that the floating pen gets our attention is not because it was lying on the table and then began to float in mid-air. Actually, we don't have to know what the pen was doing before we encountered it. The causal problem is tied to why the pen is in a particular floating state without an apparent cause (e.g., helium in the pen, etc.).

In other words, why is anything in any state at all? If we knew nothing about the pen previously, we might assume that it had the inherent ability to do so. If we were to bop along and come across object X, and knew nothing about object X, then why would we assume that a particular cause was necessarily the reason for it being in its state? Would we even know what "state" meant at that point? For all we know, object X is an uncaused cause. Without a reference point, we would have nothing to compare its current state with, not even its creation. The pen analogy does not work because we know what a pen is, how it's supposed to behave in a gravity environment such as we are in.

You argue that a multiverse must have a cause because it has a state that we can recognize. And I say, "Oh, really?" And what state is that? Does existence necessarily imply creation? If so, then your argument about God would then dissolve into: either God always existed or a multiverse always existed. And that would be my position.

[ST88]

In order to show that the first cause argument is false, I think that one would have to argue that the universe itself is uncaused.

But, arguing that the universe is uncaused is to argue for an irrational world. Is that what atheism is based on: irrationality? I like what I'm hearing, but how many atheists are going to come forward saying that they are irrational in their beliefs?

I'd like to hear how an uncaused universe is irrational but an uncaused God is rational.

[QED]

So God is allowed to be uncaused but universes are not.

Well, technically, there doesn't need to be a cause for causation. That would be like asking what color is the color of red.

That seems more linguistically convenient than technically correct to me

The fact that there is causation is not even the same as saying there is some brute fact that is true. A brute fact is something that we assume could very well be something different but as a consequence of the brute fact obtaining it just happens to not be that way. This clearly isn't what we are talking about with regard to causation. It could be no other way, since whatever ever other way it could be would involve the concept in the first place.

Now this I totally agree with. It's the way you conclude this to be God and his will that I am struggling to understand. You see, I was answering wordsmith in another topic when I wrote this:

Now a sequence of random operations isn't likely to perform a useful function, but we can introduce some additional features into the generating program in order to increase this probability by a massive factor. As you've no doubt already know this feature would be feedback from some form of selection criteria. The choice of criteria is obviously up to the programmer, and again this could be interpreted as an intelligent input -- but when the criteria is as simple as "persistence in a given environment" it seems to me to be implicit in the very concept of existence.

So in highlighting this divorce between the intelligence of the programmer devising a program that "generates a program" and the internal "intelligence" that shapes the product you might suggest that the programmer is some sort of God creating a universe with logical laws and materials that can be assembled in a wide variety of different ways. But this is an entirely philosophical matter. We have a clear division between the product and the cause of that product. Not only that, but the will of the programmer is only expressed in his choice of the selection criteria.

What intrigues me is that existence seems to be an inevitable criteria which is why I followed with this:

It strikes me then that existence (ultimately the only natural selection criteria) is a word that holds the key to everything. Once it is realized that whole universes with their own materials and laws might themselves be the product of self-organizing principles then existence becomes the sole objective. The existence of "what" is not specified, only that "things" will exist.

Now I appreciate your dislike of the potential for multiple instances of universes -- despite the natural extension they represent to the way things are in this particular universe. But either way it seems plain to me that the only will that might be the driving force behind causation is existence. To me such a will would not be particularly fussy about what gets created.