Say Anything Blog

The cosmological proofs of a first cause have been offered in previous posts, here, here and here.  The exercise of reason in accordance with “the intuitive credence that every effect must have a cause” (Chafer) attempts to establish the following:

1.  What was first must have always been.

2.  What has always been was not of another.

3.  What is not of another is independent and all else dependent.

4.  What is independent is necessary by its own nature.

5.  What is necessary is self active (having the power, in and of itself, to act).

The cosmological proofs offered require that some thing exists which is eternal, uncaused, independent, necessary, and self active.  The teleological proofs build upon the principle of the cosmological, and once again, employ reason to establish… “…the intelligence and purpose of God as manifested in the design, function, and consummation of all things.  By so much, the existence of God is declared.” (Chafer) The following consideration is in regards to intelligence.

If then, knowledge be possible, we must declare that the world-ground proceeds according to thought-laws and principles, that it has established all things in rational relations, and balanced their interaction in quantitative and qualitative proportion, and measure this proportion by number. “God geometrizes,” says Plato. “Number is the essence of reality,” says Pythagoras. And to this agree all the conclusions of scientific thought. The heavens are crystallized mathematics. All the laws of force are numerical. The interchanges of energy and chemical combination are equally so. Crystals are solid geometry. Many organic products show similar mathematical laws. Indeed, the claim is often made that science never reaches its final form until it becomes mathematical. But simple existence in space does not imply motion in mathematical relations, or existence in mathematical forms. Space is only the formless ground of form, and is quite compatible with the irregular and amorphous. It is equally compatible with the absence of numerical law. The truly mathematical is the work of the spirit. Hence the wonder that mathematical principles should be so pervasive, that so many forms and processes in the system represent definite mathematical conceptions, and that they should be so accurately weighed and measure by number.

If the cosmos were a resting existence, we might possibly content ourselves by saying that things exist in such relations once for all, and that there is no going behind this fact. But the cosmos is no such rigid monotony of being; it is, rather, a process according to intelligible rules; and in this process the rational order is perpetually maintained or restored. The weighing and measuring continually goes on. In each chemical change just so much of one element is combined with just so much of another. In each change of place the intensities of attraction and repulsion are instantaneously adjusted to correspond. Apart from any question of design, the simple fact of qualitative and quantitative adjustment of all things, according to fixed law, is a fact of the utmost significance. The world-ground works at a multitude of points, or in a multitude of things, throughout the system, and works in each with exact reference to its activities in all the rest. The displacement of an atom a hair’s breadth demands a corresponding re-adjustment in every other within the grip of gravitation. But all are in constant movement, and hence re-adjustment is continuous and instantaneous. The single law of gravitation contains a problem of such dizzy vastness that our minds faint in the attempt to grasp it; but when the other laws of force are added the complexity defies all understanding. In addition we might refer to the building processes in organic forms, whereby countless structures are constantly produced or maintained, and always with regard to the typical form in question. But there is no need to dwell upon this point.

Here, then, is a problem, and we have only the two principles of intelligence and non-intelligence, of a self-directing reason and blind necessity, for its solution. The former is adequate, and is not far-fetched and violent. It assimilates the facts to our own experience, and offers the only ground of order of which that experience furnishes any suggestion. If we adopt this view all the facts become luminous and consequent.

If we take the other view, then we have to assume a power which produces the intelligible and rational, without being itself intelligent and rational. It works in all things, and in each with exact reference to all, yet without knowing anything of itself or of the rules it follows, or of the order it founds, or of the myriad products compact of seeming purpose which it incessantly produces and maintains. If we ask why it does this, we must answer, because it must. If we ask how we know that it must, the answer must be, by hypothesis. But this reduces to saying that things are as they must be. That is, the problem is abandoned altogether. The facts are referred to an opaque hypothetical necessity, and this turns out, upon inquiry, to be the problem itself in another form. There is no proper explanation except in theism.  – BOWNE, Philosophy of Theism, pp. 66-69