Contra Scott Clifton on the Principle of Causality

It’s been quite a while since I last posted an article on my blog; in fact, I pretty much told myself I was done blogging. And yet here I am…blogging again – “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” But, instead of explaining my absence, or promising that I will blog in the future, I think I’ll just jump right into my post.

I’ve looked up to Scott Clifton (also known on YouTube as Theoretical Bullshit) for a long time now, ever since I first watched him in my favorite soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. Ok not really, I’ve never watched him in a soap opera. I really looked up to him because of his videos on YouTube. I began watching Scott’s videos around 2010, when I was still a naive Christian apologist, and even though I disagreed with him more often than I agreed—though now that’s changed—I always took him very seriously intellectually, and I still do—in fact, his argument from nonbelief has helped shape my present beliefs.

Recently, to my pleasant surprise, I discovered that Scott has a blog on his website, and already has a lot of great articles. And it’s one article in particular that I have felt the need to address: an article entitled Beginning to Exist: A Critique of Kalam’s First Premise—please make sure and read Scott’s article before following along with my critique. Now, hopefully my readers (however many of them are left) know that I am not a William Lane Craig fan, in fact I disagree with him on virtually everything—and I certainly am not a fan of the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA). However, I do in fact endorse the first premise of the KCA, and I do believe it to be true, and thus I disagree with Scott in this regard. Hence my motivation is manifest for the writing of this post.

So, before we jump into Scott’s criticism, I believe most of my readers are aware of the first premise of the KCA: (P1) everything which begins to exist has a cause. This is a basic form of the principle of causality (which I have defended here) and, obviously, in order for the KCA to be sound, this premise needs to be true. This is where WLC attempts to justify said premise, and Scott lists Craig’s justifications as follows:

         

         1)   Something cannot come from nothing. 

               2)   If something can come into being from nothing, it becomes inexplicable why just anything                   or everything doesn’t come into being from nothing.

               3)    Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of [P1].

Scott then begins with his criticism of (1):

It’s odd that Craig ever refers to this [sic] an “argument”. It’s not an argument; it’s a claim. And why should I, his intended audience, believe this claim? Craig’s answer is that this is a “metaphysical intuition” we all share. But what is an intuition? As an evolved primate whose cognitive abilities were naturally selected for survival and mating, why should I—an atheist for whom the Kalam Cosmological Argument is intended—take this seriously as an epistemic tool for determining the ultimate metaphysical nature of reality? What should I understand my intuitions to be, exactly, if they are not ultimately reducible to induction? How could this “metaphysical intuition” (which I don’t share, by the way) be anything other than an inference—conscious or subconscious—derived from my empirical knowledge of temporal, spatial, ex materia causality in the physical world? Isn’t (1) really just (3) in ‘metaphysical clothing’?

There’s a lot to unpack here. First, I agree that if one of Craig’s arguments for (P1) is simply to assert (1) as a mere intuition, then he has much work ahead of him. That being said, I don’t share Scott’s skepticism towards this principle, for reasons I will explicate shortly. Now, while I do agree that principles like (1) are abstracted from the spatiotemporal world, I don’t see that this hinders one from pronouncing (1) as a necessary proposition that we can be certain of.

Take, for instance, the cornerstone of logic and epistemology, the laws of logic. As I’ve argued in the past, we can be absolutely certain of these principles. Is P identical to P? Certainly. Is it the case that an existent cannot be both P and not-P  at the same time and in the same respect? Absolutely, etc. etc. Again, these logical laws are seen to be (by most logicians) logically necessary truths which would hold in any conceivable world—spatiotemporal or not—and it certainly is not a problem that these principles are abstracted from the world we observe. Now, is Scott skeptical of the efficacy of the laws of logic the same way he’s skeptical of (1)? I can’t say. But, if he is then I fail to see how this wouldn’t poke major holes in his epistemology.

More to the point, all that would need to be demonstrated in order to equate the efficacy of (1) with the efficacy of the laws of logic is to demonstrate that the former, like the latter, is a necessary truth. And this is not difficult to argue—though, in order to be as exhaustive as I can to argue this point, I will be using more Aristotelian-Thomistic jargon than analytical jargon [insert eye-roll here].

The phrase “something coming from” indicates that at one time this “something”, or whatever made up this “something”, only had the potential to do this, and thus when it did in fact come from whatever it came from, it was reduced from potency to act. Just like in order for water to come from ice, the ice had to, at some point, have only had the potential to become water, and subsequently when it did become water, this potency became actual.

Furthermore, “nothing” in A-T terms just means non-actual. But, non-actuality cannot move something from potency to act because you need something actual to reduce something from potency to act in the first place, like a lighter in the case of the ice—note that the mere potency cannot move itself since potency is only potential, not actual. Since that which is non-actual literally cannot do anything, it therefore cannot possibly be that which reduces the existent from potency to act. Therefore, there is no possible world in which something can be reduced from potency to act by something not already in act. Thus, there is no possible world in which something can come from nothing, which is the very definition of what makes something a necessary truth. 

Along with claiming that (1) is not a metaphysical principle we can be certain of, Scott maintains that there are other linguistic problems with this principle:

Further, there’s some very tricky language being employed here, and it causes other problems. Ask yourself if (1) is logically equivalent to:  

          (1′) Something cannot not come from anything.

Well if “nothing” means “not-anything”, then yes, the two statements (1) and (1′) are indeed logically equivalent. However, this presents a problem, since God by definition “didn’t come from anything”. So if God exists, then this proposition is false, and vice versa. Meaning the (logically equivalent) proposition, “Something cannot come from nothing” is also false, or else theism is false.

This seems to me to be blatantly false. (1) is not logically equivalent to (1’) and we can prove such simply by explicating the corollaries of logical equivalence. One corollary of two statements being logically equivalent is that the relation of consequence holds in both directions between them, which, in other words, means that the two statements are necessary and sufficient conditions of one another. So, let’s demonstrate that (1) and (1’) are not logically equivalent by demonstrating that one is either not sufficient or necessary for the other, and this is easier to see if strip the statements of particulars and restate (1) and (1’) as follows:

           P: X cannot come from Y

           Q: X cannot not come from not-Y.

Now, consider the following conditional statements:

          (C1): If P, then Q.

          (C2): If Q, then P.

When put in this form it should be clear (based on C1) that P is not a necessary condition for Q to obtain. Likewise, based on C2, Q is neither a sufficient nor necessary condition for P. Thus, P and Q, and therefore (1) and (1’), cannot be logically equivalent, contra Scott’s claim.

Not so fast though because Scott anticipates this objection:

“Perhaps [Craig] would grant that the terms “nothing” and “not-anything” are logically equivalent, but reject that the two statements (1 and 1′) are logically equivalent. He might say—and I’m just spitballing, here—that the true logically equivalent proposition to (1) would be:   

           (1″) Something cannot come from not-anything.

Meaning we must turn our focus to the phrase “come from”. God, you may argue, didn’t “come from” anything at all, whereas an uncaused universe would have “come from” not-anything, and that’s the difference. But is that even coherent, let alone true? I think not! Why think the phrase “came from” applies to the universe any more than it applies to God? If the earliest moment of the universe was the first moment of time itself, it is incoherent to speak as if the universe did any “coming from” at all. It would simply be the case that the universe exists at all points in time, and that there exists no moment prior to its existence… just like God.”

First, Scott asks a pertinent question here, namely, why suppose that the phrase “come from” applies to the universe any more than it applies to God? The answer is that the universe is not necessary, whereas God, if he exists, would indeed be necessary. And if the universe is not necessary, then either it has a cause or it’s a brute fact—I’ve argued against the latter here. And if the universe has a cause, then this opens the door for the phrase “coming from” to at least have a possible metaphysical application to the universe, whereas God would not have this possibility.

Second, is it true that if the universe did not have a first moment, then it is incoherent to speak of it “coming from” anything? Indeed it seems to be, and I actually agree with Scott here; principle (1) would not apply to the universe, if it did not have a beginning, just like it wouldn’t apply to God. Thus, I agree with Scott when he says that, “(1) could be true yet have no implications for the universe.”

However, does this actually mean that the universe, therefore, didn’t have a cause? Not necessarily, for, as I’ve argued in the past (here), there are cases of efficient and material causation which are non-temporal. If this is correct, then the universe can still have a cause without temporally coming into existence, and therefore it would still be contingent. However, let us note that, in his post, Scott did not survey whether or not the universe is contingent because it is outside of the subject matter dealt with in said post, so he can’t be faulted for not considering these responses.

At this point Scott delves into Craig’s justification for (1) based on an A-theory of time, and at this point I have no hard opinions on what he articulates. Subsequently, Scott then addresses Craig’s second (2) and third (3) argument for (P1), yet, in agreement with Scott, I don’t find (2) or (3) very persuasive, so I have little to say here. However, let it be known that in his discussion of Craig’s arguments for (3), Scott makes many comments regarding the nature of temporal causality that I would not agree with, but I feel as if the comments I’ve made above, and the articles I’ve linked to regarding causality, suffice to provide an answer to said comments.

That being said, keep in mind that Scott has not dealt with (P1) directly in his article—though he has elsewhere—but only Craig’s arguments for said premise. So, in the end, we have an interesting mashup of arguments. Most of Craig’s arguments for (P1) were poor and unpersuasive, and yet Scott’s arguments against (1)—the only “argument” of Craig’s I find tenable—I likewise found to logically invalid and unpersuasive.

Are space and time necessary?

The other day I was commenting over at DebunkingChristianity—usually not a good idea—regarding whether or not the universe could be said to be necessary. I got into a few decent discussions—which is surprising given the venue--one of which was with the very courteous Nicholas Covington, the author of Hume’s Apprentice, over at Skeptic Ink. During the discussion Nick brought up the possibility of not necessarily the universe per se being necessary, but space and time being necessary. It turns out that Nick has actually written up an article (here) defending this very thesis of his--in fact I remember reading it last year. It’s an answer to the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” His answer is that the reason there is something rather than nothing is because space and time themselves are necessary and provide a necessary framework for existents. Needless to say, I don’t find Nick’s arguments persuasive nor valid, hence this post.

So, let’s see where Nick goes wrong. He begins by attempting to narrow down the definition of existence:

What is the difference between the two [a sea monster and the sun] that makes one real and the other imaginary? Well, the sun has detectable effects on ourselves and other things, but a sea monster doesn’t. […] In order to interact with other beings, or have effects on things, you must be within time. An effect takes place at a certain point in time, and you can’t act at a certain point in time if you aren’t within it.

My quibble here is with the talk of cause and effect necessitating temporality. I agree that usually causality is temporal, in that a cause usually precedes its effect in time. For example, I can hit my drink thereby knocking it over, and obviously the act of hitting my drink came before the act of the drink falling over. This is the common deterministic billiard ball type of causation. But, this is not universally the case, and this does not exhaust all types of causation, as I’ve argued in the past. There is such a thing as non-temporal and simultaneous causation. For example, if I hold my daughter, we have the cause of me holding my daughter, and the effect of her being suspended five feet above the ground. Yet, these are one and the same event, meaning the cause and effect happen simultaneously. I don’t hold my daughter and then she is subsequently being suspended, she is being suspended as long as I am holding her. The cause is simultaneous with the effect.

There are many more examples like this.  For instance, a person shaping a clay pot. The pot is only shaped simultaneously as the sculptor shapes it, not after. Or, the solidity of table. The effect of a table being solid is achieved as long as the material constituents are arranged in such a way as to be sufficient for that effect--the solidity is simultaneous with that arrangement. Or, the swinging of a hammer. The hammer’s motion is being caused by the swinging of the carpenter’s hand, and these two are simultaneous. There is no shortage of examples of simultaneous causation. But, what does this mean? Well, it means that, contrary to Nick’s claims above, a cause and effect relationship does not necessitate time.

But wait. I know I can already picture a reader making the following point: while the examples given demonstrate simultaneous causes and effects, the objects used in said examples are still in time. That is to say, the daughter, pot, carpenter, hammer etc. are all temporal objects existing in time. This is correct, but does it really call my point into question? No. For recall that Nick’s point was that in order for one existent to interact or to have an effect on another existent, time is a necessity—not that the existents themselves must be in time. But we’ve seen that this is false. If simultaneous causation is a reality then it is at least metaphysically possible for two existents to interact—i.e. one causing the other—without such an interaction being temporally ordered and without the existents to be in time itself. The point here is that causation qua causation need not be temporal.

Thus, Nick’s attempt to help pin down the definition of existence by interaction is moot so far. For if time is not a necessary condition for interaction, then one cannot infer that all that can or could exist must be within space and time—since Nick claims that interaction is fingerprint of existence. And therefore Nick has no warrant for concluding that we can define existence as space and time.

But Nick’s not finished. After (erroneously) defining existence as space and time, he continues:

Under our working definition of existence, space and time do not exist, strictly speaking. Space and time don’t have effects on things, space and time are a framework in which effects, actions, and reactions reside. As such, it makes no sense to ask whether the framework of existence exists.

There reside a few problems here. First, Nick has already made this inference off of poor reasoning when he assumed that time is a necessary condition for causality and interaction—and therefore for existing things. We saw that this was false. But even aside from this, he seems oblivious to the question-begging nature of his endeavor. For even if for the sake of argument we concede that Nick was correct that space and time were necessary for actual existents, this doesn’t give us any right to redefine existence as space and time itself. Let me put my point a bit more analytically: Demonstrating that X is a necessary condition for Y does not entail that Y is identical to X. That is to say, demonstrating that space-time is a necessary condition for existing things—something that he hasn’t even demonstrated but that we’re granting for argument’s sake—does not entail that existence is therefore defined as space-time. This is simply a non-sequitur. Nick has shown absolutely no good reason, then, for redefining existence as space and time, and to do so is to engage in blatant question-begging.

Second, if space and time were necessary, then, by the definition of ontological necessity, simply contemplating space and time would enlighten us to its necessity. Why would this be? Because something which is necessary contains the reason for its existence in its nature—that is to say, what it is would be identical to the fact that it is. Thus, if something is necessary, then contemplating its nature would be to simultaneously contemplate its existence. And a corollary of this is that you could not fail to conceive this thing existing. But space-time obviously does not satisfy this definition of necessity, since we can easily conceive of space-time not existing at all, and therefore space-time is not necessary.  However, Nick thinks that he can get around this by claiming that space-time does not “exist,” and instead claims that space-time is a framework, and that therefore speaking of its existence or non-existence is nonsensical.

However, this is might only be true if indeed existence is to be defined as space-time. But we’ve seen no good reason to think that we should redefine existence in such an idiosyncratic way. Yet, it gets worse than this, because Nick is basically engaging in explicit question-begging (again). He’s simply defined existence as X, and then claimed that you cannot question the existence of X since X is, by definition, the framework of existence—of which interaction is a corollary. But this is extremely problematic. One cannot simply a priori redefine existence as X and then claim that X is therefore necessary. In fact this is exactly what the ontological argument for God attempts to do, and Nick’s argument is fallacious for the same reasons—in fact we could call Nick’s argument the ontological argument for naturalism.

But it gets even worse than this for Nick’s thesis. For let’s grant for argument’s sake that Nick was correct in his arbitrary redefining of existence as space-time and that space-time is indeed the framework for all existents. Is it still true, as he stated above, that we cannot speak of this framework’s existence or non-existence? No it’s not, because space-time, in order to be distinguishable from literal non-being, must have certain properties and actualities. The fact that it is a framework does not absolve it from harboring these things. For example, in mathematics the set of integers is itself a framework that is completely different in nature from its elements. But the set itself--again in order for it to actually be something as opposed to nothing—must have certain distinguishing properties—e.g., it is infinite, and thus we see that a framework can have properties. So space-time, though it might be a framework, still is manifest in certain actualities and properties—and who would even argue that space-time does not have properties? But why is this important? Well, if space-time has certain properties—e.g., being n-dimensional—then it will always be possible to conceive the absence or lack of these properties, and therefore the lack of space-time itself. But this means that talk of the existence or non-existence of space-time is not nonsensical. And more importantly it means that, by the definition of necessary given above, space-time is not necessary and could metaphysically fail to exist. And thus space-time cannot be existence itself.

In conclusion we’ve seen that Nick’s bold thesis is extremely problematic. First, it assumes a faulty view of causality. Second, it engages in question-begging and non-sequiturs. And most importantly we’ve seen that even if we were to grant his argument and erase all previous objections, his conclusion is still not justified, and is false. It would seem that space-time, then, is not necessary.

 

 

Can an eternal universe require a cause?

I had a couple of discussions recently regarding the Cosmological Argument, among various other topics related to that. As most should know, the Cosmological Argument is an argument that attempts to demonstrate the contingency of the universe. That is, it attempts to demonstrate that the universe requires a cause to bring it into or sustain it in being. Now on these aforementioned discussions the topic was brought up regarding the possibility of an eternal universe, and it was postulated that if the universe was eternal, then the cosmological argument would lose force.

Let me explain why this assertion might seem prima facie logical. If the universe is eternal—that is, existing infinitely into the past with no beginning—then it can have no events that temporally precede it. But if there are no events that precede the universe, then there can be no prior cause of the universe. Thus stated, the existence of the universe would not have been caused, and hence it would not be contingent. All this is to say that an eternal universe seems to logically side-step the cosmological argument.

But is this line of argumentation as logical as it seems? Spoiler alert: I don’t believe so. For everything here hinges on one’s ontology of causation. If causes must necessarily precede their effects then the line of argumentation above might indeed be valid. However, I maintain that causation is not this simplistic, and obviously I need to make a case for that here.

When we think of most causation, we tend to think in temporal, linear, and deterministic terms, such as when a billiard ball bumps into another. That is, we tend to think of (a) causing (b) which causes (c) etc., wherein this causation flows linearly as (a)→(b)→(c). But a lot of causation is non-temporal, simultaneous, non-linear, and non-deterministic. Let’s examine a few examples. Take the act of someone shaping a clay pot. The act of shaping the pot (the cause) is simultaneous with the effect of the pot being shaped. Notice that this is one event wherein the cause does not precede the effect, but is, rather, simultaneous with it. Or take the solidity of a table. This is an effect which is caused by the structure of the material constituents of said table. But the structure of the table does not temporally precede the effect of the solidity of the table. They are, once again, simultaneous. (Note: It seems, then, that Hume’s simplistic idea of causation as the constant conjunction of events, which could be ontologically loose and separate, is false.)

It should be apparent then that causation does not need to take place linearly, and causes do not always—and many times do not—precede their effects. So, what relevance does this have for the idea that an eternal universe is necessarily absolved of a cause? Well, it means that this proposition is false. For if causes do not need to precede their effects, then an eternal universe is still capable of being caused, as long as this causation is non-linear and non-temporal.

Now, this does not presently mean that I need to determine exactly how an eternal universe can have a cause, nor does it mean that an eternal universe necessarily does have a cause—the contingency of the universe would first need to be demonstrated. My current thesis is only that an eternal universe does not ipso facto evade talk of causation, and thus an eternal universe is not necessarily a refuge for naturalists from the efficacy of the Cosmological Argument.

The principle of causality

It is no secret that causality places a central role in natural theology. That is to say, the notion of causality is central to arguments—mostly cosmological arguments—that attempt to prove the existence of God. It is because of this fact that most theologians work very hard to ground the principle of causality as an absolute. For if the principle of causality has exceptions, then natural theology will take a hit. Hence it is obvious that theologians have a vested interest in preserving the immutability of this principle. Because of this fact some, then, will claim that theists are extremely tendentious when it comes to talk of causality, and that such talk should be challenged, and put under the skeptical magnifying glass. I completely agree with this, though I do believe that the “skeptics” or non-theists can be charged with a bias as well (can’t we all?) since a denial of the principle of causality is central to their position, all things being equal.

I will not attempt to distance myself from the aforementioned theologian. I agree that the principle of causality is something that, perhaps through my own biases and wishful thinking, I am determined to defend. That being said, however, I do in fact believe that said principle is hard to deny, and I do believe that any attempt to do just that will run into absurdity and incoherence; And thus, my belief in the principle of causality is at least surely grounded in reason, and has just warrant.

It is my objective in this post to demonstrate why it has said warrant.

So, let me begin by articulating the principle of causality. The principle of causality states that whatever is moved from potentiality (potency) to actuality (act) is done so by something already actual. (Let the reader understand that the potentiality of a substance is just the potential that the substance could realize, and the actuality of a substance is just the way it currently is realized—that is, the way it currently exists or exhibits being. For instance, an acorn is actually an acorn and is potentially an oak tree, while it is not potentially a lizard.) Another way to formulate the principle is to say that whatever is changed is changed by another, since change just involves a reduction of some potency of a thing to an actualization of said potency. Thus, the glass of water on my table has the potential to be knocked over (among other things) but this potential can only become a reality--that is, it can only be actualized--if, for example, someone or something (actual) knocks it over.

Now, while one can conjure up all sorts of examples that satisfy the principle of causality, how do we know that this principle is an actual principle in the sense that it holds immutably, without exception? Well, to one who tries to deny the principle, there are only two other options: 1) a potential can actualize itself, or 2) nothing can actualize the potential. Obviously 1) is not possible because potency qua potency cannot do anything because it is not actual. In fact, the only way for it to actualize itself would be for it be actual before it is actual, which is a contradiction and an absurdity. Now, 2) is likewise absurd because nothing is, well, nothing, and nothing cannot do anything. Nothing is not actual and cannot act on anything, precisely because it is nothing--that is, because it is the absence of being. So, then by logical necessity we can see that that which is moved from potency to act must be done so by something already actual.

Another formulation of the principle of causality is that whatever begins to exist has a cause. And again, we can see that this formulation is necessarily valid. For if something comes into being, then there are only two options left over if one is to deny the principle: 1) the substance caused itself to come into being, or 2) the substance came into being from nothing. It should be obvious that these options fail for the same reasons as above. 1) is false because in order for a thing to be self-caused it would have to exist before it existed in order to cause itself to exist, which is incoherent. 2) is false because nothing cannot be a cause because nothing cannot do anything, since it is by definition the absence of anything. Thus, this formulation of the principle of causality is also necessarily valid.

So far then we have seen that the principle of causality is a metaphysically absolute principle. There simply is no logical room for any exception to said principle, for any alternative runs into absurdity and incoherence. It seems then that we can be completely certain of the validity of the principle of causality.