Don't forget: Gruenbaum and empirical Kalaam.

Empirical Kalaam

Gruenbaum

• All causes we observe are transformative.
  • (But the shape may come from nowhere!)
• Hence, the concept of "cause" in the conclusion of the cosmological argument differs from the ordinary concept.
• Need first instant of time for cosmological argument.
• Cause of God?
• If creation is beyond understanding, it cannot be explanatory.
  • (Unjustified: some things beyond human understanding may be explanatory. I can't give examples, by the nature of the case.)
• Makes no sense to ask for cause of continuation of inertial movement. Likewise, makes no sense to ask for cause of density conservation.
• Makes no sense to ask what happened before t=0 if that is the first instant of time.
  • (Yes, but if there was no time then, then the coming into existence of the universe is more miraculous, since it is more a coming into existence ex nihilo.)
• Out of quantum vacuum things can emerge.

Five Ways, Part I

The First Way

• Grammatical difficulty: need to distinguish moving-transitively from moving-intransitively.
• Two crucial assumptions:
  • Whatever is in motion is moved by another.
  • It is not possible to proceed to infinity.
• Why nothing moves itself?
  • Argument I
    • Reduce to case where the whole is moving (transitive) itself, and the movement is "primary".
    • If one part were at rest, the whole would be at rest.
    • But if the rest of the part would cause the rest of the whole, the movement of the part must be causing the movement of the whole, and hence it is not a case of self-movement.
    • Why?
    • In any case, this argument fails for simples. (Aquinas notes that he understands motion as the movement of bodies.)
  • Argument II
    • Exhaustive list of kinds of change: accidental, by force, by nature. The last is the most promising. But then the cause of change is the removal of an impediment, or the soul, etc.
  • Argument III
    • Nothing is in act and in potency in respect of the same thing. But the thing moved is in potency--it is having its potency for motion fulfilled. The mover is in act.
  • A different way. Suppose that an entity started itself moving at t. Well, the transition from not causing itself to move to causing itself to move is a kind of change. Could the entity have initiated that transition? But then a regress follows, and we still don't have the start of self-movement. What if the entity was always moving itself? Then we don't have the transition, but we still have a regress in the order of explanation: Why is the entity causing itself to move?
  • Aquinas notes that in a sense it doesn't matter whether we say the first mover is immobile or self-moving. Either way we come to a first mover.
• Why no regress?
  • Argument I
    • Moving is simultaneous with being moved.
      • Hmm. Is this true now that we know there are no rigid bodies? But we might think that real causation only happens at boundaries, and that is simultaneous? Besides, how could there be causation across a temporal gap? (If presentism is true, this is a strong argument. Less so otherwise.)
    • But can't have an actual simultaneous infinity of movements. For an infinite body cannot be moved in finite time?
      • Why not? If the amount of moving is finite...
  • Argument II
    • If one takes away the first mover, the whole series disappears.
    • So we cannot have a series of merely intermediate movers.
    • But if all we have is an infinite series (or, better, ungrounded infinite series), then that's all.
  • Argument III
    • Instrumental movers require a primary mover.
      • Why?
• Variant argument in SCG.
  • It is either accidental that each mover is moved or not accidental.
  • If it is accidental, then it could be that no mover is moved. Thus, it could be that there is no motion, and hence it could be that there is no time.
    • (An odd argument, since Aquinas as a theist is committed to the claim that it could be that no mover is moved. But he responds--he says that if one can show that God exists from the hypothesis of the eternity of the world, then God exists. (But what if one can only show it from the hypothesis of the necessary eternity of the world?))
  • Moreover, if it is accidental, it is likely that somewhere this fails, and hence that there is an unmoved mover.
  • If non-accidental, then each thing is moved by the same kind of movement that it has, since there are only finitely many kinds of movement. But that is not right.