Step 4: The Unconditioned Reality is the Creator

In the last two steps I have departed significantly from Fr. Spitzer’s proof for the existence of God. This step, however, will closely follow the last part of his argument. In this final step, we will show that there exists a creator of all that is, and that this creator is infinite, immutable, unbounded by the laws of physics, eternal, absolutely simple, and unique.

First, some definitions:

4.1 “’Creation’ means the ultimate fulfillment of a conditioned reality’s conditions.” (Spitzer 140)

4.2 “Ultimate fulfillment” means the fulfillment of a reality’s conditions that does not itself depend on some further condition. Ultimate fulfillment may be distinguished from proximate fulfillment, in which a reality fulfills a condition in such a way that it depends upon some further condition.

4.3 “’Creator’ means the source (power or act) which ultimately fulfills a conditioned reality’s conditions.” (Spitzer 140.)

It is either the case that a reality is unconditioned or it isn’t. There is only one unconditioned reality. (3.4) Therefore, all realities other than the unconditioned reality are not unconditioned—i.e., they are conditioned.

4.4 All realities other than the one unconditioned reality are conditioned realities.

Recall the argument in Step 1. Any conditioned reality which has, as its conditions, a finite set of conditioned realities, does not exist. (1.6) Any conditioned reality that has, as its conditions, an infinite set of conditioned realities does not exist. (1.7) Therefore, a conditioned reality must have, as a condition, a reality which is not conditioned—i.e., an unconditioned reality. Furthermore, this condition is not itself conditioned, so it must be last in the series of conditions. Thus:

4.5 The unconditioned reality is the ultimate condition of all conditioned realities.

Now we are in a position to conclude that the unconditioned reality is the creator of all other realities. For the unconditioned reality is the ultimate condition of all other realities, (4.5) and the ultimate condition of a conditioned reality’s conditions is its creator. (4.2 and 4.3) Therefore:

4.6 The unconditioned reality is the creator of all other realities.

The creator of all things must continually fulfill the conditions, for if the conditioned were at some point in time unfulfilled, the conditioned reality would cease to be. (1.3) Thus, the Creator must continually sustain all other realities so long as they exist as their final condition. Thus:

4.7 The Creator continually sustains all other realities in being.

These four steps establish the truth of theism. There exists a Creator of all other realities that is not limited by space or time, is immutable and eternal, infinite, absolutely simple, and the ultimate condition for all that is.

Conclusion of the Series

In the introduction to this series I spoke of a gradation in the strength of an argument. I’ll reproduce that here:

A: Absolute certainty. No rational person could harbor any doubt, however small, as to the argument’s conclusion. 

B: Satisfactory certainty. The argument is so convincing that no rational person could be unpersuaded. A reasonable person may be able to identify some doubts about the conclusions of the argument, but those doubts are so small, and the weight of the argument so great, that it would be irrational to deny the conclusion.

C: Relative certainty. A reasonable person can be certain that conclusion of the argument is better supported than any alternative. The argument is not airtight, but it is sufficient to establish that the conclusion is superior to any alternative.

D: Reasonable disagreement. The argument is sufficiently compelling that a reasonable person could reasonably believe the conclusion of the argument to be true. It is not so compelling that it would convince any rational person.

E: Moderate support. An argument does not compel one to a conclusion, but it nevertheless furnishes grounds that supports a conclusion.

F: Bad arguments. The argument does not establish its conclusion, nor does it furnish any ground that might lead a reasonable person to think the conclusion more likely.

Every reader can, of course, assess the argument from himself or herself. In my view, the argument hovers between an A and a B. The only major empirical claim made by the argument is that something of some kind exists. The rest of the argument is deductive. The argument does not depend upon any particular scientific or philosophical theory.

Most cosmological arguments rely on either the principle of causation, the principle of sufficient reason, or both. Our argument, however, does not rely on either principle. It does not assume that the existence of things has an explanation. It simply shows that if one affirms that some reality exists, one cannot deny the existence of a single unconditioned reality, unbound by space or time, immutable, eternal, infinite, and the Creator of all that is.

Step 2: The Absolute Simplicity of God (Updated)

This is the second step in a proof for the existence of God that has been the subject of an ongoing series. In the First Step, we deduced the existence of at least one unconditioned reality. This argument draws heavily on Robert Spitzer’s New Proofs for the Existence of God.

In the first step, we saw that if any reality exists—any reality at all—there must be at least one unconditioned reality. In this article, we will be drawing out the consequences of this with respect to simplicity. We will see that an unconditioned reality must be absolutely simple.

The term “simplicity” is a term of art. In common parlance, simplicity often means something like the lack of content or what is easily understood. We naturally consider “1”, for instance, to be simpler than the operation “1+1” or the number “32.” “Simplicity,” as we will use the term here, will not mean what is easy to understand or what lacks a richness of content. Simplicity will be used in an ontological sense to mean that which is without parts, boundaries, or incompatible states.

Step 1 in the Argument for God's Existence: Clarification and Responses

By Thomas Cothran

This is a part of the ongoing series setting out an argument for the existence of God. For an overview of the series, click here. The numbers (e.g., 1.3) refer to the premises. The “1” in 1.3 refers to Step 1, and the “3” refers to the third premise. To see the premises, review Step 1.

Before moving on to the second step in the argument for the existence of God, let us expand on the claim that an infinite series of conditioned realities necessarily does not exist. This turned out to be the most controversial part of the argument for commentators on this blog. First, we will consider in more detail the notion of infinite series, then we will consider some objections.

The question is whether an infinite series of conditioned realities can exist without an unconditioned reality. We begin with the assumption that there exists an infinite set of conditioned realities, but no unconditioned realities. We will show that an infinite number of conditioned realities without an unconditioned reality entails the non-existence of any realities whatsoever.

Let’s start this time with an illustration, and then proceed to the argument. It is important to remember that by signifying different stages, what is being signified is not necessarily different moments in time, but a conditioned reality along with its conditions. What is meant is not so much a sequence as particular relations of dependence. CR2 is before CR1 as a condition precedes the conditioned in the causal order. It may be the case that a condition precedes the conditioned in time; but this is not something that needs to be resolved here.

	Stage 1	Stage 2	Stage 3	Stage 4…
Conditioned reality in question	CR1	CR2	CR3	CR4…
Conditions that must be fulfilled for Conditioned Reality to Exist	CR2 exists & CR2’s conditions are fulfilled	CR3 exists & CR2’s conditions are fulfilled	CR4 exists & CR4’s conditions are fulfilled	CR5 exists & CR5’s conditions are fulfilled….
Present CR’s existential conditions met?	No	No.	No	No…
Previous CR’s existential conditions met?	No	No	No	No…

Take a look at Stage 1. CR1 is the conditioned reality in question. In order for it to exist, its condition must exist. (1.1 and 1.3) CR2 is the condition of CR1. Thus, if CR2 does not exist, CR1 does not exist.

But there is an objection. Why can we not represent the relations of conditions as CR1 if CR2, CR2 if CR3, CR3 if CR4…., and then simply posit CR2 as existing, leaving aside the question whether its own condition is fulfilled, and thus posit CR1’s conditions as being met? That is to say, why can’t we consider [CR1 if CR2] in separation from [CR2 if CR3], or indeed, the rest of the infinite series? In the lowermost row in the chart above, why is it that we say that at Stage 2, the previous conditioned reality (CR1) has unmet conditions?

The answer, put simply, is that CR1’s condition is not met until CR2’s condition is met, and CR2’s condition’s condition, and so on to infinity. That is, not only must it be the case that, if CR1 is to exist, its condition, CR2, must exist. It must also be the case that CR2 is a conditioned reality (since we have excluded any unconditioned realities), and therefore CR2’s condition must be met.

It will not do for us to say that CR1s condition is met by simply assuming the existence CR1’s condition, CR2, leaving for later the question of whether CR2’s conditions are met. For we have also assumed the existence of an infinite series of conditioned realities each conditioning another. For every conditioned reality in the chain, insofar as it is causally prior, is a condition of CR1. And the consequence of this is that at no point is any condition of any conditioned reality met.

Assume that CR1’s condition, CR2, has unmet conditions. If CR2’s conditions for existence are unmet—as they are at Stage 2—CR2’s conditions for existence has not yet been met. (1.1 and 1.3) If CR2’s condition has not been met, CR1’s condition has not been met for the simple reason that CR1’s existence hinges on CR2. (1.3) Therefore, it is necessary to posit not only the existence of CR1’s condition; it is equally necessary to posit that condition’s condition being met. And, at Stage 2, one cannot do this. Thus, at Stage 2, neither CR1 nor CR2’s condition has been met.

Does positing the existence of CR1’s condition’s condition solve the problem? That is to day, does positing CR3 meet the conditions of CR1 and CR2? The answer is no, and for the same reasons. CR3 cannot be posited without co-positing that CR3’s conditions are met. Thus, at Stage 3, the conditions for CR3, CR2, and CR1 remain unmet.

You can see from the chart that no matter which stage you pick (i.e, no matter which conditioned reality is in question) neither that reality nor the realities prior to it have had their conditions met. It doesn’t matter whether you’re looking at CR 51 or CR 1,029,348,203. For every single conditioned reality in the sequence (and there are an infinite number of them) it will both be true that their existential conditions will be unmet, and that all the conditioned realities prior to them will likewise have unmet existential conditions. Every single one. And for no conditioned reality with an unmet condition can exist. (1.1 and 1.3) Therefore, on the assumption of an infinite causal regress, no conditioned reality exists.

The reason for this is simple. It is impossible to derive a non-conditional statement from a series of conditionals, no matter how many conditional you posit. Contrast:

A if B
B
Therefore A

With:

A if B
B if C
C if D
D if E
…

At no point in the second example can the conclusion “A” be drawn. “B if C” does not justify the conclusion “A”, and no additional conditional premise (e.g., “C if D”)can do so unless it posits something as unconditioned.

Barry Miller puts it this way:

“The point, an it is a purely logical one, is that conditionals can be piled up ad infinitum without the slightest chance of a categorical conclusion ever being inferable from them. If, from the conditional ‘[A] if [B], we want to infer [A], then besides the conditional, we need the categorical [B] as well. It is the the lack of any such categorical in the above series that makes it impossible on logical grounds to assert categorically ‘[A] exists.’” Miller, “The Contingency Argument” 369.

The important point is that the relations of conditions to each other is not so simple as, for example, CR1 exists if CR2 exists. It must also be the case that CR2’s conditions are fulfilled. And we know that CR2’s conditions will have further conditions, each themselves conditioned, ad infinitum. CR1’s conditions are then “nested” rather than linear. That is to say that it the series should not be expressed like this:

[CR1 if CR2] & [CR2 if CR3] & [CR3 if CR4] …

So much as this:

CR1 if (CR2 if [CR3 if {CR4 if |…|}])

The relations of conditions to what they condition in an infinite set of conditioned realities is not a matter merely of the two conditioned realities taken at a time. The “if” in “CR1 if” cannot be resolved without resolving the future “ifs”—as the second way of noting the series shows.

For example, CR1’s “if” is conditioned not only on CR2, but on CR2’s conditions, and the conditions of those conditions, and the conditions of the conditions of those conditions to infinity. Thus, for CR1 to exist, it is never simply a matter of assuming that CR2 exists and leaving the other CRs to be considered later. CR1 has an infinite number of conditions, each of which is a conditioned reality, none of whose conditions are achieved.

And since none of those conditions are never achieved, no conditioned reality in the infinite set can exist without the existence of an unconditioned reality.


Further Objections


Singring, in the comments objection, raises the following objection: The argument “implicitly assumes that the conditional realities 'arise' in some causal sequence, that is ordered in time - e.g. one reality existing before another.”

This objection is certainly well motivated, for we are accustomed to think of causes as arranged in temporal sequences: first my grandfather exists, then my father exists, then I exist. We customarily think of effects as following causes in time. However, there are good reasons to believe that effects can be simultaneous with causes, as both Thomist metaphysics and quantum physics purport to show.

The argument presented here, however, does not depend on any particular view of how causes and effects are related to time. “Before” and “after” refer to relations of dependence, not points in time. Thus, the argument does not preclude eternally existing conditioned entities; it just says these eternal conditioned realities must depend on an unconditioned reality. (Aquinas famously argued that philosophical considerations could not show that the world had a starting point in time.)

Art, raising a very different objection, states that the argument is the same thing as Zeno’s paradox. I admit that this claim mystifies me. Two arguments are the same if they have the same premises and conclusion. Zeno’s paradox shares not a single premise with this cosmological argument. Nor are the conclusions the same. Zeno’s paradox concludes that change with respect to place is impossible. The cosmological argument isn’t concerned with that question.

Furthermore, the arguments are not about the same thing. Even the notions of infinity are different. The cosmological argument considers the question of an infinite number of realities. Zeno’s paradox, on the other hand, deals with an entirely different kind of infinity: the infinite divisibility of a single magnitude.

Finally, Zeno’s paradox is advanced to support the view that no conditioned realities exist. Zeno was a Parmenidean. But this is rejected in our argument by premise 1.4. The arguments are different in what they argue, why they argue it, what they conclude, and even what they are about. At the points they do touch, they are contradictory.

An Argument for the Existence of God: Step 1

By Thomas Cothran

This is the third post in the ongoing series presenting an argument for the existence of God. In this post we move into the argument itself, taking the first step toward an argument for the existence of God.

In this first step, I will show that at least one unconditioned reality exists. First, we will define what it means to be a conditioned or unconditioned reality. Then we will proceed to demonstrate that the assertion "there is no unconditioned reality" logically entails that there are no realities at all. In other words, the claim that there are no unconditioned realities is logically equivalent to saying that nothing exists.

Roadmap for an Argument for the Existence of God

By Thomas M. Cothran

This is the second in a series of posts setting out an argument for the existence of God.

This post sets out the initial roadmap for the argument for the existence of God that will be set out in later posts. The particular argument I will be using is derived from Robert Spitzer’s New Proofs for the Existence of God and W. Norris Clarke’s The One and the Many. Both are simplified versions of Aquinas’ Second Way, and they do not rely on any particular metaphysical view of the world. Thus, one does not need to accept Aquinas’ metaphysics to find the argument compelling.

The argument will proceed in five major steps. The first step is a proof for the thesis that at least one unconditioned reality exists. As we will see shortly in greater detail, an unconditioned reality is one that does not depend on another reality for its existence. It is an absolute reality that transcends the order of space and time.

The next steps will be as follows: 2) an unconditioned reality must be absolutely simple, 3) an unconditioned reality must be infinite in all perfections, 4) an unconditioned reality is absolutely unique (i.e., there is only one unconditioned reality), and finally 5) unconditioned reality is the creator of all that is.

My plan is to devote a single post to explaining each step of the argument, and perhaps additional posts to consider any objections. I may modify the plan as we move along.

Cross-Posted on Interstices: Between Philosophy and Theology

Introductory Remarks to An Argument for the Existence of God

by Thomas Cothran

It is commonly assumed that there is no compelling argument for the existence of God. However, the argument for the existence of God is more compelling than almost any other argument about the fundamental nature of reality. The existence of God is more easily and convincingly demonstrated than the existence of other minds; the independent or objective existence of objects; or the real existence of subatomic particles.

In order to back up these claims, it is necessary to set out an argument for God’s existence. This is the first in a series of posts setting out an argument for the existence of God. The argument I will present is a form of the cosmological argument. The cosmological argument itself is hardly new. It dates back to ancient Greece, and its characteristic reasoning was set out in the Medieval period.

The form of the cosmological argument I will present, however, is primarily derived from the work of Robert Spitzer and W. Norris Clarke. Spitzer and Clarke both offer stripped down forms of the cosmological argument, which require less philosophical background knowledge than the more classical formulations of the arguments. This has the benefit of being more convincing to those who don’t want to spend years studying metaphysics. But it also has a downside: the arguments, though they do demonstrate the existence of a divine creator, say less about that creator than do the classical arguments. 

The next post will give the first step of the proof. Before considering the proof itself, we should think about the nature of the certainty of arguments in general. Here are several levels of certainty an argument can attain.

A: Absolute certainty. No rational person could harbor any doubt, however small, as to the argument’s conclusion. There is no objection that has not been completely accounted for in the argument.

B: Satisfactory certainty. The argument is so convincing that no rational person could be unpersuaded. A reasonable person may be able to identify some doubts about the conclusions of the argument, but those doubts are so small, and the weight of the argument so great, that it would be irrational to deny the conclusion. 

C: Relative certainty. A reasonable person can be certain that conclusion of the argument is better supported than any alternative. The argument is not airtight, but it is sufficient to establish that the conclusion is superior to any alternative. 

D: Reasonable disagreement. The argument is sufficiently compelling that a reasonable person could reasonably believe the conclusion of the argument to be true. It is not so compelling that it would convince every rational person. 

E: Moderate support. An argument does not compel one to a conclusion, but it nevertheless furnishes grounds that tend to support a conclusion. 

F: Bad arguments. The argument does not establish its conclusion, nor does it furnish any ground that might lead a reasonable person to think the conclusion more likely.

Arguments can be more or less certain. It is a strange feature of the debate about the existence of God that many people presume that the arguments must be A-type arguments. If the God argument turns out to fall below the A-level standards, it is judged to have failed. For almost all other issues, however, we accept B or C type arguments as sufficient. Let me give an example.

Suppose that the argument from contingency (that is, that the contingency of things implies the existence of God) presents a dilemma. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that the theist shows that either there is a God or that things in the world came into existence without a cause. But the atheist, who accepts the dilemma, concludes that the theist has not show with absolute certainty that the world didn’t just pop into existence without a prior cause. The atheist then concludes that the theist has not demonstrated the existence of God.

Let’s assume arguendo that the dilemma holds and that the theist has not established the first possibility to an A-level certainty. There may still be very compelling reasons to suppose that things cannot come into existence without a prior cause. Even if there is no mathematico-deductive proof of that thesis, it could still be the case that the theist has shown the conclusion to be compelling enough to convince any rational person.

The point is this: A possible objection does not mean that the argument is not convincing. One cannot offer an absolutely certain argument that we are not brains in a vat, for example. But arguments do not have to be absolutely, deductively certain to establish their conclusions. No major scientific theory rises to A level (or even B-level) certainty, for example. That does not mean they should be rejected.

In my view, an argument can be made that establishes that the existence of God is satisfactorily certain (B). Parts of the argument, such as the argument for the existence of an absolute, non-physical reality, rise to A-level certainty. But I will leave it to the reader to judge how certain the argument is for themselves as this series proceeds.

This article was originally posted  on Interstices.

Is Theism a Fraud? and other questions some people think they can answer without knowing the best arguments for a position

A week or two ago, I saw a post come across my Google Reader about a philosopher who had decided to "call it quits" on the philosophy of religion:

Over the past ten years I have published, in one venue or another, about twenty things on the philosophy of religion ... But no more. I’ve had it. I’m going back to my real interests in the history and philosophy of science and, after finishing a few current commitments, I’m writing nothing more on the subject. It was kind of a strange post, since this kind of thing is not normally "news." Who the heck cares whether some academic has decided not to study or teach in a particular area of his discipline, anyway?

I take it that one of the benefits accruing to someone who decides not to do any more work in a particular field is that he doesn't have to talk about it anymore. But if he doesn't want to talk about it anymore, then why is he announcing it to the world?

It would be sort of like someone working in public relations having a press conference to announce that he didn't want to deal with the press anymore, and then taking questions from reporters about it.

Anyway, then I start seeing all these posts about this particular philosopher, Keith Parsons, who teaches the subject at the University of Houston, Clear-Lake, and how he took this dramatic action that everyone is supposed to care about, but not so much that he has to talk about it some more because that was the whole point of doing it in the first place.

Parsons states that he thinks the whole thing is a fraud, albeit perpetrated by sincere people.

I found the arguments so execrably awful and pointless that they bored and disgusted me ... I have to confess that I now regard “the case for theism” as a fraud and I can no longer take it seriously enough to present it to a class as a respectable philosophical position...

His announcement is curious because he does not actually give any reasons for why he thinks this, something you would expect a philosopher to do.

But now it is becoming interesting because his announcement has become the subject of some debate over the philosophy of religion, with our good friend Edward Feser weighing in on this curious non-news event that somehow got media traction. Parsons first says "who's Edward Feser?" and then accuses Feser of being "nasty." He apparently thinks that engaging in intellectual debate is "nasty." No wonder then, that Parsons doesn't want to deal with philosophy of religion anymore. I mean, he would have to, like, debate and defend his positions and all that nasty stuff.

Feser, far from being "nasty," criticizes Parsons for not having dealt, in his treatments of theistic positions, with classical theism itself, preferring instead to deal exclusively with modern theistic personalism, which, compared with classical theism, is a mere side attraction on the main highway of historical theism:

In general, though at least some contemporary atheist philosophers may be said to have a solid enough grasp of the arguments of writers like Plantinga and Swinburne, their grasp of the mainstream classical theistic tradition tends to be at best only slightly better than that of vulgar pop atheist writers like Richard Dawkins (who, as I demonstrate both in Aquinas and, more polemically, in The Last Superstition, hasn’t the faintest clue about what writers like Aquinas really said). And if one hasn’t grappled seriously with the arguments of the great classical theists, then one simply cannot claim to have dealt a serious blow to theism as such. Not even close.

Parsons, in response, simply accuses Feser of nastiness. Then comes the most lastest response to Parsons by Feser, in which Feser points to further evidence of why, after all, Parsons might want to find something else to do:

Parsons says, as if it were something we could all agree on:

Both theists and atheists begin with an uncaused brute fact.

And the problem is that that is precisely not what theists do, at least not if we are talking about theists like Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Anselm, Maimonides, Avicenna, Aquinas, and all the other great representatives of classical theism. Aristotle’s Pure Act is not a brute fact. Plotinus’ One is not a brute fact. Anselm’s That Than Which Nothing Greater Can Be Conceived is not a brute fact. Aquinas’s Subsistent Being Itself is not a brute fact. And so forth. In each case we have arguments to the effect that the material universe in principle must have had a cause and that the divine cause arrived at not only happens not to have a cause (as a “brute fact” would) but rather in principle could not have had or needed a cause and in principle could not have not existed. And the reasons, of course, have to do with the metaphysics of potency and act, the difference between composite substances and that which is metaphysically absolutely simple, the real distinction between essence and existence in anything contingent, and other aspects of classical metaphysics in the Aristotelian, Neo-Platonic, and Scholastic traditions.

...Neo-Platonist, Aristotelian, and Thomistic and other Scholastic writers are hardly marginal theists, after all. They are the paradigmatic theists. They invented (what is these days called) the philosophy of religion and the core arguments in the field. They represent a 2300 year old tradition of philosophical theism, and their thought has historically determined the intellectual articulation of revelation-oriented religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

It's sort of like a scientist saying that, despite only a passing familiarity with the thought of Albert Einstein and Neils Bohr, he had found relativity theory and quantum mechanics wanting. Or, despite only a vague idea of the accomplishments of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Haydn, you had announced classical music a fraud.

Sheeez.