The Proof from Efficient Causality

a) Proof from Motion

By motion or movement is meant any transit, any change, from one state of being to another. Motion is most readily illustrated by local movement, that is, by the movement of bodily things in space. Such movement is all about us all the time; it goes on within us; it obtrudes itself upon our notice constantly. We find such motion or movement in the sunrise and sunset, in the rustling leaves, in the darting fly, in the beating of our hearts, in the twitching of our fingers, in the steps we take, in the creeping clouds, in the heaving ocean. But this movement of bodily things in space is not the only movement or motion in the world. There is motion in the transit from ignorance to knowledge, in the making up of our minds, in the change from the state of sin to the state of grace. Any transit, any going-over, from one state of being (substantial or accidental) to another is motion. Now, the principle of motion, that is, the self- evident truth which is the first source of sound reasoning about motion, is this: Whatever is moved is moved by something other than itself, or, in the familiar Latin formula which we should know, Quidquid movetur ab alio movetur. For motion requires a mover as well as a thing moved. And a little attention will make clear the fact that mover and thing moved cannot possibly be one and the same thing. As far as bodily or local movement is concerned the point is expressed in the physical law of inertia which tells us that bodies at rest tend to remain at rest; they never originate movement in themselves and of themselves; the thought is as self-contradictory as that of a man lifting himself by his own boot-straps. To moving bodies, motion has been communicated; it has been bestowed and given; it has come from some external source. And what is true of local motion in bodies is true of change of quality or quantity and of any motion at all. Living bodies are said to move themselves, and life is sometimes defined as the power of self-movement. But living bodies do not move themselves into existence ; nor do they dower themselves with the power called life. Life-movements depend upon the existence of an inner substantial principle (which did not move itself into existence) called the life-principle or soul or psyche or entelechy; and in the execution of lifemovements in bodies, part moves part. A living body has been (marvellously and mysteriously) assembled or “moved together”; it did not assemble its own parts in the first place for it was not there to do so even if it could. And so its subsequent movements are not self-movements in the full sense; these depend upon the balance of parts, the assembly, the organism or vital unity, which is not self-originating. It still remains true that whatever is moved is moved by something other than itself. To put the matter in the more stately philosophical terminology: Anything movable is in the state of potentiality with respect to the movement which it may undergo. When the movement takes place, the potentiality is actualized. Now, it is a principle of metaphysics that nothing is actualized except under the activity of something which is already actual; no potentality is self-actualizing. St. Thomas Aquinas puts the point thus : “Motion takes place inasmuch as things are changed from the potential to the actual, and this demands some actual agent to move them from the potential state.” Now, it cannot be that anything is both potential and actual under the same aspect or in precisely the same way; therefore the mover and the thing moved cannot be identical. Whatever is moved is moved by something other than itself. That, then, is the first point to remember. Motion is not self-originating, and wherever motion exists, there exists a mover which is something other than the thing moved. The second point is this: you cannot go on forever with a series of movers and things moved. If Z is moved by Y, and Y is moved by X, and X is moved by W, and W is moved by V, this sort of thing may go on through a long chain or series, but it does not go on endlessly. Somewhere you must come to an absolute A which is not moved by anything else, which, in fact, is not moved at all. For it is one of the chief of self-evident principles that a “process unto actual infinity” is impossible. The agnostic may object that we go too far in demanding a first mover itself unmoved. He may say, “It’s all very well to follow the chain of mover-and-moved, but where it slips out of the realm of bodily reality it slips entirely out of sight.” Yes, but we can know, and that with full certitude, that it does not slip out of existence when it slips out of sight. The chain that hangs a few visible links before our eyes, one duly supporting the next below it according to honored custom, may be lost in cloudy heights, but this fact does not make us less aware that the invisible portion of it is there, and that somewhere in the higher reaches there is a link hooked over a solid peg, and the peg supports the whole suspended chain, visible and invisible. To acknowledge the links we see and then to deny that there is anything knowable about the links we do not see, and especially the first link, is actually to take away the only reason there is for believing what our eyes behold. If, out there “beyond,” there is no knowable first link solidly moored on something that supports the whole chain, then the thing we see is something at once more and less than a miracle; it is something monstrous, and all our talk and reasoning about it become gibberish. To refuse to see an argument, or a chain, to the end, though it be a bitter end or a bitterly disliked end, is not to acknowledge, with humility, the powerlessness of the human mind to investigate invisible reality; it is to assert the powerlessness of the human mind to recognize visible reality. It is manifest that this argument from motion is a phase or aspect of the requirements of efficient causality. For the mover is the efficient cause of the movement. Hence, with St. Thomas who puts this argument first, we list it, with the two that follow, under the general heading of Proof from Efficient Causality. We may sum up our argument thus: If there is motion in the world, there exists a mover, and ultimately a First Mover Itself Unmoved. Now, manifestly, there is motion in the world. Therefore, there exists a mover, and ultimately a First Mover Itself Unmoved. This First Mover we call God. Therefore God exists.

b) PROOF FROM THE ORDER OF EFFICIENT CAUSES An efficient cause is, as we have learned, a cause that by its own action produces an effect. Now, this effect may, in turn, be the efficient cause of another effect, and this of another, and so on. In a machine, one part moves another, and this another, the whole movement of all the parts depending upon the steam or electricity or water or other force which moves the first of these parts. We sometimes see a large factory full of moving machines and travelling belts, and all movement is communicated from one master engine or one enormous fly-wheel; efficient causality is communicated from point to point and from part to part, each movement being first an effect of an efficient cause, and then an efficient cause of a further effect. In nature about us we may observe examples of the same “subordination or order of efficient causes?’ Thus the sun acts as an efficient cause in shedding its light and warmth upon the plant; the plant, availing itself of the sun’s contribution, grows and flourishes and puts forth fruit. Again, the golfer, surely one of nature’s noblest sights, moves his arms; the arms move the club; the club (perhaps) moves the ball; and here is a neat chain of connected efficient causes. It is needless to multiply examples, for there are such chains of efficient causation (or such “an order of efficient causes”) to be observed on all sides. Now, just as motion cannot arise of itself; just as a thing moved cannot be its own mover, so a thing efficiently caused cannot be its own cause. As St. Thomas says, “It cannot be that anything is its own efficient cause; if it were, it would exist before itself, which is impossible.” Therefore, where we find a thing efficiently produced or effected, we must look for its cause in something other than itself.

To quote St. Thomas once more, “In every connected series of efficient causes, the first is the cause of the intermediate (one or many), and the intermediate is the cause of the last. Remove the cause and the effect is gone; remove the first cause and there remains neither intermediate nor last.” Therefore, he concludes, one cannot say a chain of efficient causality reaches back unto infinity, for to say that is to deny actuality to the first cause, and so to deny it to all the rest of the chain. One must come to the first cause in any series or chain of efficient causes, and one must come to the First Cause to account for all the chains, and this First Cause must be itself uncaused. For it is first, no cause is prior to it, nothing produces it; it is causeless, unproduced. Reason demands that such a Being must exist to account for the efficient causation we behold all about us in the world, and for the universe itself which is demonstrably an effect, that is, the product of efficient causality. We call this Uncaused First Cause, God. Therefore, God exists. We may sum up the argument in this way: If there exists a true order or connection of efficient causes, there must exist a First Cause, Itself Uncaused. Now, there does exist, as is manifest all about us, a true order or connection of efficient causes. Therefore, there must exist a First Cause, Itself Uncaused. This we call God. Therefore, God exists.

C) Proof From Contingency

Contingence or contingency means dependency; it is the converse of causality. If causality is “heads,” contingency is “tails.” A thing caused is said to be contingent upon, or dependent upon, the action of the efficient cause (or causes) that produced it. A thing uncaused (and such a Being is only one, namely, God) is said to be necessary; it is not dependent upon causes; it is not contingent; for it is causeless and unproduced and exists of necessity, that is, it cannot be nonexistent. Thus there is a fundamental classification of reality into necessary and contingent reality. All creatural reality, all worldly reality, is finite and hence contingent. Now, a contingent thing may exist, but, if it does exist, it exists by grace of the causes that gave it existence. In itself it involves no necessity for existence ; it didn’t have to exist, and it does not contain in itself the explanation of its existence. In itself, it is possible, and that is the most that can be said for it. That finite or contingent things exist is proof positive that they can exist, but it is equally proof positive that they might not have existed. Well, if everything is of this character; if everything is contingent; if everything is something that might not exist, there must have been a time when absolutely nothing existed. And, by that token, it must still be true that absolutely nothing exists. For in the blank of absolute nothingness there is no actuality that could draw pos- sible things into existence; absolute nothingness is simply nothing, and nothing it must remain. Hence, the very existence of contingent things (and all creatures are contingent) is indisputable proof that there exists a Being that is not contingent, but necessary. And, as necessary, it must be prior to all the contingent things that ultimately depend upon it for their existence; it must be first. Therefore, there exists a First and a Necessary Being, and this we call God. Therefore, God exists. When we say that a thing is contingent or dependent we label it as a thing subject to change, to motion, to efficient causality. It has been changed from its state of possibility or potentiality to actuality; it has been moved from non-being into being; it has been efficiently caused. Ponder these words of the great G. K. C., applying them to the three arguments we have thus far considered: “Mr. Wells must surely realize the first and simplest of the paradoxes that sit by the springs of truth. He must surely see that the fact of two things being different implies that they are similar. The hare and the tortoise may differ in the quality of swiftness, but they must agree in the quality of motion. The swiftest hare cannot be swifter than an isosceles triangle or the idea of pinkness. When we say the hare moves faster, we say the tortoise moves. And when we say of a thing that it moves, we say, without need of other words, that there are things that do not move. And even in the act of saying that things change, we say that there is something unchangeable.” We may put our argument from contingency in this brief form: If contingent things exist, they demand as their ultimate explanation (that is, as their sufficient reason for existing) the existence of a Being which is necessary and non-contingent, a First Being which does not depend on causes. Now, it is undeniable that contingent things exist. Therefore, there exists a Being which is necessary and non-contingent, a First Being which does not depend on causes. This Being we call God. Therefore, God exists.

Summary Of The Article

In this Article we have presented the first three arguments for the existence of God in the order in which they are set forth by St. Thomas Aquinas. It is manifest that these three arguments, or proofs, as we are fully justified in calling them, are all applications of the principle of efficient causality. This principle may be succinctly stated in these words: No effect is efficiently produced without an adequate producing or efficient cause. We have considered efficient causality as it is manifested in motion, in the subordination or order of causes, and in contingency. Any one of these proofs is conclusive. Their cumulative force is absolutely compelling to sound reason. Reason therefore demands the existence of a Prime Mover, a First Ef- ficient Cause Itself Uncaused, a First and Necessary Being. This Being we call God.