Dr Greg Bahnsen - Philosophy of Christianity: The Ontological and Cosmological Arguments (Part 5)

Our Lord and our God. We call upon you, acknowledging that we are your servants, that indeed you are the Lord, and therefore we bow before you as one who makes an absolute demand upon our lives that we bring all of our thoughts into captivity to Jesus Christ and that indeed we love you with all of our heart, soul, strength and minds. We ask that you would enable us by your spirit to be obedient to these injunctions. That indeed we might reason in a way that is pleasing to you. And especially as we think about this crucial subject of your own existence. Lord, take away our arrogance, take away our self sufficiency and do show to us, convince us that indeed there could be no existence at all were it not for your own. Now we praise you that you have deigned to call us into existence, and even more, that you have called us into the kingdom of your Son. We might exist as your sons and daughters. We pray that you would bless us as such in this hour, for it's in Jesus name that we come to you. Amen. Who can state for me the ontological argument? All right, one down. Who would like to make a. Would you like to keep going? I don't want to cut you off. Somebody give me the strategy of the argument. Maybe you can't state it in terms of all its premises. What is the math of this argument? What kind of argument is it? Well, try again. Our idea of God is what I can conceive of and it really doesn't hinge on actuality. I'm not a philosophy major. No, that's all right. You don't have to be. That's fine. There's some ambiguities in what you're saying. I'm afraid that perhaps not the best summary for the sake of getting started here. Let's come back to that though, yeah? The mere fact that it is possible for me to think of that which is perfect makes it probable or even necessary that it exists. The question of probability is altogether out of the story here because this is a proof that appeals to all priori notions and to pure reason. Consequently, it either is a valid proof or it's an invalid proof. There's no probability involved and nor is it based upon the idea of possibility of thinking. So let's make another run at it. Somebody. All of these attempts here are really much more than I'm asking for. Just what is the general thrust of this argument? Okay, let me take a stab at him and get shot down. Okay? God exists. And God is the most perfect thing conceivable. This is where the concept starts out, and if he is the most perfect thing conceivable, then God exists. God exists because of that particular argument that he is the most perfect thing conceivable. You're starting with what then? What is the foundation from which this argument proceeds? Concept. A certain conception of God. Right. Okay. So we have a certain conception of God, and from that conception we can deduce his existence. Now, this is the heart of the ontological argument, and this is what everybody should be able to state when. What, in your own words, if you wish. But this is what everybody has got to have down. Even if you can't fill in the premises or do what you would consider a sterling job of stating the case so that others might be convinced, you should at least know that this is what we're trying to do. In this kind of argumentation, an ontological argument deduces existence from a conception. The very conception of God requires His existence. It's a rational argument in that sense. You don't have to know anything about the world to see that this argument's true. You don't have to appeal to any facts from your experience. If you just know that God is that than which none greater can be conceived, and you start to think about the fact that that which exists outside the mind is greater than that which exists in the mind, then by the very conception of God, we must deduce his existence. All right, what's wrong with the argument? Okay, first of all, you, by starting off with conception, you can't prove whether he. You've got to. How do I want to put it? God. Well, it's arguable because of the point that it's a conception and it can't be. It just can't really be proven. I hear you talking. I just don't hear any good reasons for what you're claiming. Okay? And some would undoubtedly say to you, but don't you see? The very conception of this God demonstrates that he must exist. I mean, you say it can't be done, but all you have to do is look at the definition of God. It's not been done. You've already granted his existence by saying that God is that then which none greater can be conceived, but only conceptually. Only conceptually. What have you granted his existence. You're supposing that there are two cases involved, that to conceive of his existence is the same as his existence. Okay, now who expresses this argument in our reading? That's a harder question than that because you either are equivocating here I don't think you are or you're not. And if you're not, you probably will recognize that your argument comes from David Lewis. Lewis distinguishes between the greatest being in a possible world and the greatest being in an actual world. Now, I may conceive of that which is the greatest in some possible world. Okay, Remember the possible world we were talking about last time? The possible world where you have Superman and Batman and you have Wonder Woman. Now, that's a possible world. Now, is God the greatest being in that possible world? Is that what you're thinking of, Anselm? Are you thinking of God as being the greatest in the actual world? To think of God as being the greatest in the actual world is simply to think of. That isn't to show that he is the greatest being in this actual world. It's only to think of him as being in the actual world. Okay. And certainly to think of him existing is greater than to think of the concept of God not existing. Therefore, you cannot think of God except to consider that he exists. To think of him as existing is greater than to think of him as nothing not existing. Yes. Why? What is his argument? Okay, go ahead. That he's saying that the concept of God demands that he exists. But I'm putting that caveat conceptually. Yes. God is the most perfect being. You've got to consider that he also exists. That's right. In the realm of conception. If your idea of God is that he's the greatest, he's the most perfect, then in the realm of conceptions you must grant that he exists and the reason why. Before you go on, I want to make sure the class is with us here because I think you're on to something that's important, but I don't want it to be lost. Does everybody follow that? Anselm? The argument goes like this. Anselm, you're right. If I think of God as that than which none greater can be conceived, then I must also conceive of goddessness existing. You're right. I can deduce the existence of God conceptually. I can say if I think of God this way, I must also think of God as existing. But now, whether God is this and whether God does exist, that's another question altogether. Exactly. Because the whole process of the reasoning is to place reason as to God. I'm not going to push that one. Okay, okay. That's what I would push, that one. Okay. That's getting into something we'll probably get into in our summation lecture about the whole attempt to prove God's existence and what reason does, what role it plays in all this. Okay, this is one of the major problems with the ontological argument. Now we didn't really begin where we should have in terms of criticizing it. The first criticism was Anselm has beg the question as to whether it is a coherent notion to say that God is that than which none greater can be conceived. Remember how Leibniz said, now wait a minute, what does this mean? That there is this greatest being? Does that mean he has all attributes? That means he's green and red at the same time, all over that he has all attributes. It means he has the evil attributes too. Is that what you mean by all perfectionism in God? Oh, you mean all the. Remember we said the G properties, the good making properties are in God. Well, even then you have to start distinguishing between properties like truthfulness and love. Because you see, there is a highest limit to truthfulness, but there is no highest limit to love as a matter of conception. And so to say that God has all these attributes in the highest degree is not even to make sense in some cases. There's no such thing as someone who is more truthful than another, once you've got someone who tells the truth all the time. And so if we have the idea of a man who tells the truth every time the question arises, to say that God is truthful par excellence is not to say anything more, but that God always tells the truth. And so you begin having difficulty even talking about a most perfect being in the Anselmian way. And that's what Leibniz was getting at. Now Ganelon, remember, had a reductio ad absurdum of Anselm's argument talking about the lost island, the most perfect island. And while Anselm responded to Gondolan, that has remained, at least in the history of this argument, something that has to be taken account of. What was Kant's argument against Anselm? Existence is a property. Very good. Okay. God is most perfect. Existence is a perfection, which is the, the medieval way of saying a property. Of course, existence is a perfection, therefore God exists. Existence is not a perfection concept. Existence is not an ordinary property that you can add to a notion to make it a different one. It doesn't make it a different notion. Consequences. Consequently, the argument is false because the second premise is not right. Now, Alvin Plantica responded to Kant. Can somebody tell me the strategy in Plantica? Just the strategy. We're out of hand. No, you don't. I think he made a reference to kind of an island as a direction. No, no, that's. That's gone a lot. Okay, the monk who responded to Anselm, what is. What is plantage strategy for dealing with the Kantian criticism? It's very simple. Whenever I'm lecturing, by the way, I think you'll find it helpful when I talk about strategies and maps and so forth. That's when you want to write an awful lot, because that means we're getting down to the structure of what's going on here. Conceptually planting his argument, as I told you the other day, is this. To deny that existence is a perfection or a property calls for some interpretation. What does Kant mean by that? Okay, now he proposes a few things. Kant might mean. He might mean that to conceive of something as existing is not any different a conception as to think of something as not existing because the conception of the thing remains the same. And Flaninger, of course, laughs this one out of the arena because he says, now wait a minute. A horse in conception has no height at all, but a horse in reality has height. And so you couldn't mean that. Certainly existence is a property in that sense, Kant. Okay, well, now here's another possibility. Here's another possibility. He proposes different interpretations until he finally comes up with an interpretation that will be true to what Kant says. That's right. Existence is not an ordinary property plan on this particular interpretation. But then what happens? Anselm is not interested in that interpretation. He says that has nothing to do. It's not even relevant to Anselm's argument. And since it's not relevant, the sense in which Kant says existence is not a property doesn't affect Anselm at all. So that's one attempt to save Anselm. Now, another attempt to save Anselm was Norman Malcolm's attempt, which you read, and in general terms, without giving all the details, what did Malcolm attempt to do? Well, what did Malcolm claim about Anselm after Gondolan criticized him? Anselm. Yes. Reformulated his argument. Exactly. He reformulated his argument. Now, not using the concept of existence as a property, but necessary existence as a property. And Malcolm argues that this argument is successful, that this one will work. And that's where David Lewis comes in and Lewis says, yes. Now look, whether you're talking about God having existence or necessary existence in a possible world or an actual world is the whole issue. And when he draws that distinction, it turns out that the argument tends to evaporate. Now, all along we've been assuming the rationalistic interpretation of this that is the more or less Platonistic direction of Anselm's philosophy. But there is another whole tradition that says that Anselm was not arguing this way at all. That is, let's suspend all of our most ultimate convictions and see if we can prove God's existence. This other interpretive approach says that Anselm was really reasoning in a, what might be called presuppositional way. Before we get to that, if I may summarize, Kant and then ask a question about Lewis, Kant, to me is saying, in essence, anselm, you have not shown how the ideal implies the real. Would you accept that much so far, Anselm, you have not shown how the ideal implies the real. Well, Kant is actually saying you can't show that the ideal implies the real just because existence is not a property. It's not just that he's failed to do it, it's just it can't be done at all. Okay, I was going to say, if that's true, how is it different from Lewis? It's Lewis who's saying that you have not shown how the ideal implies the real. Okay, I'll buy that as well. I was equating and Lewis. Yeah, Lewis. That really almost trivializes Lewis's thing. And that's why I think if he were here, he might be chafing a bit by your description of his argument. I think that is the underlying thrust of his argument, so I'll accept it. Is anyone critiquing him by saying, anselm, you haven't shown how the ideal implies the real? Well, that is the attempt being made by everybody. I mean, that is the general definition of all reputations is to say you've got a definition, you've got an ideal, you've got a conception. Doesn't prove that it's actual. And what we've been looking at are different ways of doing that. The reductuat absurdum of gondola, okay, the denial that existence is a predicate, and Kant and so forth. This distinction between conceiving of something in a possible world, conceiving of something in the actual world. In David Lewis, which is the more sophisticated argument. Now, let's clear the register. Okay, we're going to take a different approach to Anselm, the approach that says he's really reasoning on the basis of a Christian presupposition. Remember that Anselm writes this document as a prayer. He is reasoning in the presence of God. He is not reasoning to somebody who denies the faith. When Gamalan questions some of his reasoning, I can't think of. I don't have this conception of God that than which none greater can be conceived. And immediately Anselm says, oh, I appeal to you as a Catholic monk. You certainly do. You have faith. You trust the scriptures. You know this is our conception of God. And so it becomes rather evident in the way that he deals with criticism and the way that he's writing, the way he addresses God, the way he says, help me think this through, God, so that my faith will be enriched. So having once believed in you, I might now understand what I believe. It's rather clear to me that at least in some areas of this discussion discussion in the pros logium that Anselm is trying to reason out from within the Christian world and life view. And that's what I'm getting at. We have to take a different approach to him now. He's trying to set forth the role of God's existence within the system of Christian faith, not trying to prove the Christian faith to somebody who wants to deny everything all the presuppositions. But he says, for us, for us as Christians, this is the role God's existence has. It's necessary to. Even if you understand the Christian idea of God, then God must exist, at least within that framework of thought. God is necessary existence for us as Christians. His existence isn't just like any other kind of thing, like maybe a 68 Thunderbird, you know, it isn't as though it might exist, it might not exist. It's not like us. We might have been born. We might not have been born. God exists necessarily. Okay, so this is an approach we can take to Anselm as well. I'd like to play it out here for a few moments. I've read you the quotes from Anselm. Let me give you a reconstruction of his argument. It would seem that the proof is an appeal to one's most basic commitment and that his commitment with respect to a paradigm of perfection what to your way of thinking what in your most ultimate commitment of life and thought is the paradigm of perfection. And some says for us as Christians, it's God. God is the paradigm of perfection. And that there's two things going on here. Get all this rationalistic stuff off the board. There's two things going on here. We need a paradigm of perfection. And Anselm says for Christians, this is God. Moreover, this plane than our that the paradigm of perfection is God is a most ultimate claim. It is our presupposition to use the modern language. Note that God is the paradigm of perfection. And this is a presupposition for a Christian. Now this is rock bottom. I mean there's nothing that goes beyond this sort of reasoning for us. You take this away, you take away our faith. This is one of the defining chronological features of Christian faith, that God becomes the paradigm of perfection. And so for Christians, the God of Scripture, our paradigm of perfection must exist. He must exist because otherwise all other evaluations, all other predications, all other descriptions of the world will be meaningless. If the paradigm of perfection doesn't exist, exist, then there can be no perfection or property attributed to anything. That is, this is showing, if you will, the logic or the grammar of Christian faith. Here's how Christian faith operates. You deny God's existence as far as our world and life is considered and nothing else has meaning. Nothing else has any perfection or property. Now the argument would continue that without this particular paradigm of perfection there can be no meaningful predication for anybody. Okay, I show you the logic of critical Christian commitment. God is the paradigm of perfection and if you deny that paradigm, everything else is meaningless. Now Anselm might add, and the unbeliever has no competitor. The unbeliever can't even offer another paradigm of perfection that will allow for meaningful predication, meaningful description, attribution of properties, things. Nothing else can be perfect in terms of the unbelievers world and life view. And that argument could be continued. It seems to me I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it. But it would be something like this. That which is most perfect for a Marxist is the material dialectic history. But of course, since there is no God, no sovereign personal God controlling whatsoever comes to pass in Marxism. The dialectic, the materialistic dialectic of history is predicated on a metaphysic of randomness and chance. But if that's true, if what lies behind everything is chance, to put it very simply, then whenever a perfection is attributed to, to something, a property attributed to something by a Marxist, that can't really make sense. It's only an appearance because chance, really the irrationalism of history, makes it impossible to say anything for sure about anything else. Okay, I'm not going to go any further than that because we're going to come back to this reasoning over and over and over again in our course. But now that might be one way we could approach ancestors. I'm going to take this a step further now. I'm going to get a little more personally and passionately involved in this issue. As a matter of fact, I think that's right. As a matter of Christian commitment, I think the ontological argument does function within a presuppositional setting in a way that we as Christians want to endorse. And I'm going to give you my own approach to it. Okay? Now, again, this is not an argument that you can just, you know, for any unbeliever coming down the street, you hand him this and he says, now you have to be a Christian, right? There it is laid out for you. Pure reason. It's certain. Not all this is within the system of Christian reasoning. Okay? And it goes like this. If God is truly the Lord, if God is the Lord and not merely someone who is confused, addition to my thoughts or relative to my attitudes, somehow dependent upon my actions, if he is the Lord, then there must be a sense in which he exists in Himself. If God is the Lord, there's a sense in which he must exist in Himself. I'm going to be arguing from the idea of lordship then, to the idea that God exists in himself. God makes an absolute demand upon man as the Lord. That is, the Lord means He makes an absolute demand on me. Please underline, or at least in some way stress that this is an absolute demand. It's not conditioned to buy anything. It's not relativized by anything. It's not qualified by anything. When God makes a demand upon man upon me in particular, there's no fudging about it. We don't have any claim upon God, for the Bible says He owns everything. Moreover, he owns everything. And we are sinners. We are attempted usurpers of his property. He owns everything in creation, and yet we have tried to take over, if you will. And so we have no claim on God. We have no claim on God because we're creatures, and we have no claim on God because we're sinners. Moreover, when God makes a demand upon us, that demand cannot be questioned. Paul says, nay, man, but who are you to respond to your Maker in the following way? Okay? Whenever God says something to us, it can't be questioned. Moreover, when God makes a requirement or makes a demand of us, lays a demand upon us that transcends all other loyalties. Jesus says, you must hate your parents if need be to follow me. Nothing takes precedence over the demand of God. Nothing. It supersedes all other loyalties and it covers all areas of life. So whatsoever we do, whether it's eating or drinking, drinking, we must do to the glory of God. Look at this absolute demand. It can't be questioned. It supersedes all other loyalties and it covers every domain of life. And if that's the case, then God as the Lord is our ultimate standard. God's not accountable to us. He is the ultimate judge. He is the ultimate standard of all things. Now let's take this in step two further. For a Christian, the absolute demand of God is made upon our actions as well as our beliefs. God doesn't simply say, do the following with your body, but I really don't care what goes inside your head. God also makes requirements as to what we will believe and how we will think and reason. That is to say, the absolute demand upon God by God is made upon our ethics as well as our opinion. Epistemology. Now, if God is the Lord and makes an absolute demand in ethics and epistemology, then I would argue that this absolute demand in ethics and epistemology implies an absolute demand in the realm of metaphysics. We must have a particular view of the being of God if he makes an absolute demand in our behavior and our thinking. We cannot look upon God as having the same kind of being as other things. God has a unique ontological status in some sense because he's the Lord. His ontological status is going to be unique for the Christian. What is the uniqueness of his ontological status? How is it that his being is different than the being of a 68 Thunderbird or even my own existence? Well, it's different in that because God is my absolute standard, because God is the absolute judge, because God is the fundamental presupposition of my thought and behavior. I can't think of him as not existing. I mean, what sense would it make to have a Lord that you could think of as non existent? Obviously that kind of Lord would not be making an absolute demand upon you. It would always be qualified by if in fact he exists. Okay, so let's say you have a boss at work and he makes a demand upon you, but he can't make an absolute demand upon you for a number of reasons that we could add because there might be qualifications. I mean, he might be sick someday. He can't tell you what to do when you're sick. All these sorts of things. But in addition to that, in terms of the way you think about this boss, is to say, well, you know, he might not even exist. I mean, it's possible that he was never born. So I mean, his demand upon me is not absolute. He doesn't have any unique existence. He's just like me. But that's not true of the Lord. The Lord makes an absolute demand, in which case I can't think of him as somehow qualified in his being any more than I can qualify his demand upon me. You see, if I did think of him as not existing, then I wouldn't be submitting my thoughts to him, would I? And is it obedient before God to pretend that he doesn't exist? Of course not. I wouldn't be regulating my life according to him if I thought of him as non existent. And therefore I cannot think of God's existence as somehow questionable or contingent. Let's kind of wrap this all up here and see what we've been saying then. By recognizing God's unique status epistemologically and ethically, there is a certain metaphysical framework established for the Christian and that entails what we will call now the necessary existence of God, the very uniqueness of his existence. His ontological status is that he exists necessarily for the Christian and so unlike the autonomous spirit which feels it needs no revelation from God. This form of the ontological argument is based on Scripture and has, if you will, a religious ethical orientation. It has a religious ethical force to it. To really understand the conception of God presented in the Bible is to conclude that he cannot but exist. Let me say that again. To really understand the conception of God as presented in the Bible is to conclude that he cannot but exist. He necessarily exists if you understand the Christian conception of God as Lord. Now I think there is a certain exegetical foundation for this line of reasoning that I want to suggest to you very quickly. The Bible teaches that God possesses all things. And because he possesses all all things, he's totally independent, he's totally self sufficient. Everything depends on him, but he depends on nothing and thus his existence is necessary. And I'm just going to give you these verses very quickly to jot down in your in your notes. Genesis 14:2, Deuteronomy 10:14, Psalm 24:1. That's the premise. God owns everything. The conclusion, his existence is somehow necessary. Job 41:11 Psalm 50:12 and 14 Romans 11 at verse 35 through 12:2 and then Acts 17:24 28. Consider also the polemic against idolatry in the Bible. Unlike the pagan gods, the prophets the of tell us the living and true God needs nothing to keep him going. The pagan gods may be contingent, they're dependent beings, but God's not. Isaiah 41:7 Isaiah 44:16, 17, Isaiah 46:6 7 Jeremiah 10 verses 3 to 16 and Habakkuk 2 verses 18 and 20. I will not often give you A string of passages like this. But I'm afraid our time will get away from us if I look at all of them. So at least you'll have the benefit of having them in your notes if you wish to look them up and consider this. But I think the passage that is most telling in this regard is Galatians 4:8. Somebody please read Galatians 4:8 for us. While that's being looked up. John 5:26, John 1:4 are passages that it seems to me illumine what we're going to read in Galatians 4. 8 also. Okay, Galatians 4 8. Anybody have it yet? Go ahead. However, at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. All right. When you didn't know God, you were slave to. To gods, to idols, to false conceptions, which by contrast, apparently by nature were not gods. By nature, they were not gods. In essence, they were not gods. By contrast, the God that you worship is by nature God. Now, we're not talking about in terms of something, something in the created world by nature here is being used in the. In almost the linguistic or philosophical sense, he is essentially God. It is naturally the case with respect to him that he's God. Now, these other things were not by nature gods, but he is by nature God. The implication is that the Christian's God is God inherently, and in that sense he self exists. And then John 5:26, anybody. But just as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself. Here we have God described as the one who has life in himself. Now, it's certainly a richer conception than existence to be true, but it's his least existence he's so exists if life is in himself, he doesn't receive his life from anything else like the rest of us. And John 1:4 says essentially the same thing. Okay, what I've been trying to do in the last few minutes is to suggest that Anselm made some mistakes philosophically, and there's an ambiguity. You can understand him rationalistically, you can understand him presuppositionally, but on the presuppositional reconstruction of the ontolog argument, there is some value to it. And as a matter of fact, there's some biblical foundation for it. For this line of reasoning, the idea that the very conception of God shows that he necessarily exists within the world and life view of Christianity. If you understand what God is as the unique Lord, then you must conclude that he exists. Or you can deny the whole world and life view of Christianity, then try to come up with another standard of perfection, some other self existent thing that is life in itself. And then you have the clash of worldviews that we were talking about last week. And anybody recall what happens to the unbelievers worldview a little bit louder? Dialectical tension. Dialectical tension. Great. See we're getting this down by the end of the 10 weeks. We're going to have that one rest. Okay, that's good. Any questions about the ontological argument? Today is really dedicated to the cosmological argument. And if I don't move on quickly, we won't get much of it done. But I do want to make sure that you understand what we've done. Any questions? Are we going to end up at this end point with each of the arguments, unless taken from a Christian presupposition, are rationally unprovable? In a sense, we're going to end up there with every argument. What I'm going to argue in each case is that they have to be reconstructed on better philosophical and theological premises. Yes. Now in each case there's going to be variations on that. I don't want you to think we're just running some kind of monomaniacal argument over and over and over again under the guise of all these different labels. But there is a certain logic to this. That's right. That each one of these will fail philosophically. And then you can reconstruct it on a philosophy that is geared toward Christian theology, if you will. And you can make them function, I think, fairly adequately. But a lot of it depends upon being able to reason as a Christian. Because this clash of worldviews is always going to come in. It's always going to have a bearing. Would you say then that that's what Romans 1 is saying? The whole thing? No matter how we try to concoct a philosophy that excludes God, the only way we can come to a conclusion about his existence is from the Christian point of view that only with that. Well, if you add to that, Paul says that it's unavoidable that you have the Christian point of view. Because what he says there, of course, is that everybody does know God. And knowing God, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Knowing the living and true God, they nevertheless make fools of themselves. Okay, so we want to say that the unbeliever does know these things, even though he's attempting to suppress it. And it's just our apologetic that's trying to show him that he's suppressing the truth that he has to know, if he were to know anything at all. Okay, let's turn to the cosmological argument now, really change gears. This will be a real relief to you. Remember I said we started with the toughest of all the stuff in the reading on the ontological argument. That's the kind of weed the sheep from the goats. I guess you can make it through that. You can make it through the rest of this. That's everything else is easy by comparison to the ontological. And the reason for that is that the ontological argument makes no claim to be a philosophical explication of some intuitive notion. But the cosmological argument, by contrast, is something that everybody's supposed to think about. I mean, this is rather obvious. It's common sense. It's something you have an intuitive grasp of the ontological argument. You have to learn some philosophy to be able to make that one work. But everybody can reason this way. It has a certain obviousness about it. It is thought. Okay, so we're going to move into some easier terrain, although the philosophical issues are going to be stiff, to be sure. Let me say a word or two about Aquinas before we talk about the cosmological argument itself. St. Thomas Aquinas. First, a word about faith and reason. We're going to come back to this in our evaluative lecture in a week or so. Natural reason, according to Aquinas, operating apart from revelation, is able to discover many things, not only about the natural world, but even about God, that is reason that is not dependent upon God's revelation, is able to discover many things, not only about the world itself, but about God in particular his existence and his major attributes. Now, other things are known about God only on the basis of special revelation, Aquinas says, and therefore can be received only on the basis of faith. For instance, we wouldn't know that God was triune. We wouldn't know that the world was created out of nothing unless he had told us. So we receive those things by faith. But there are some things which are provable by natural reason apart from faith. Now, it turns out the things provable by natural reason are also revealed in the Bible, and that's for the sake of those unable to prove them on their own. Okay, so if you will. This is a pejorative way of putting it, but I have a pejorative attitude toward it, so I guess it's appropriate. God does tell us certain things in the Bible for the sake of those who can't do their philosophical homework. Sophie, the washwoman can't work out these proofs, and so God does condescend to tell her these things. But nevertheless, those things are also provable by natural reason. And then there are other things which are not provable by natural reason, which neither Sophie the washwoman nor the greatest philosopher ever living could prove. And God expects us to receive them on the basis of faith, like the Trinity. Well, that distinction between natural reason and faith does leave reason autonomous, well autonomous within its own sphere. To be fair to Aquinas, it's not totally autonomous, but within a certain range it is autonomous. And even there, Aquinas was, I think, right to say that faith has veto power. If it should turn out that the way you're reasoning contradicts something found in the Bible, that is, that would force you to go back and try to work things out again. Again, you made some mistake, even though you didn't notice it up to this point. But it's this whole idea of reasoning being self sufficient, no dependence upon revelation at all, that I'm later going to want to talk about. Thomas develops his basic metaphysical scheme out of Aristotle. It turns out, because it makes no difference that Aristotle was a pagan, because in this realm of natural reason, we can get along quite well with that revelation. And then after he works out his metaphysical scheme, that is Aristotelian by everybody's sophisticated perception, he then goes and fits the data of Scripture onto that scheme as best he can. As to epistemology, Aquinas is a empiricist. He believes that what we know is based upon sense experience. All knowledge begins in sense experience. And so you sense Beauregard and Abula and Buttons out in the field, these three cows, and. And from the sensations that go through your eyes, apparently you're able to abstract intellectually the form of cowness. Okay? The active intellect determines the universal forms or essential properties of things by abstracting from sensation. So he's an empiricist in the most traditional sense. All knowledge begins with sensation. If all knowledge begins with sensation, how do we know God? By natural reason. Is God a physical object that could be known empirically? Yes, sir. I don't know if this is brief or not. Maybe you don't want to deal with it. What's the difference between Platonic approach to the Aristotelian Aristotle type logic? It's the difference between intuition and sensation. Plato knows the forms by intuiting the forms, and it has nothing to do with abstracting from his sense experience, which is totally unreliable according to Plato. But Aristotle says we go and we look at these different cows in the field and then we intellectually abstract the features of cowness from them. And the gentleman behind you, I thought was raising his hand. I was going to say, does he hold to any kind of intuitive thought or intuitive knowledge? As a matter of fact, Aquinas does not have what might be considered the most integrated epistemology because later on in his life he gave up writing his magnum opus and theology and apologetics because he said he had had a. Sounds like I'm being unduly harsh on the poor site today. I'm not trying to do that, but I mean, there are some real questions we have to at least ask. And if you're still satisfied, then that's fine. And if you're not, well, then you're going to look elsewhere. But anyway, this much must be known by way of background to Aquinas. Oh, how do we know God if He is not a physical object? That's where we were in our discussion. All knowledge begins with sensation. Aquinas says we know him in three ways. The way of causality, the way of remotion, in the way of eminence. One, the way of causality, attributing to God the ability to cause the things which we know and experience. Okay, we only experience thunderbirds and cows and other such things, but after all, there has to be some cause for those. And that's what we call God, the way of remotion, which is traditionally called the via negativity. We know God by negating the things we find in experience. We can learn what God is not by distinguishing him from all that is merely finite, all that is creaturely. Okay, so God is not physical. He is not limited to certain times and spaces. And then the way of eminence, we ascribe to God in utmost degree every perfection known in our experience. He is most loving, most just, all knowing. Okay, we know people that know things, we know people who are loving, we know people who are just. But God is all those things par excellence. So the way of eminence, he is the greatest degree of these things, the way of negation. He is not any of those things which are merely finite and creaturely. He is not temporal or spatial. And in the way of causality, he is the explanation for those things that we do find in sensation. Let's go now to the cosmological argument in particular, this by way of background. So you know why he reasons the way he does. It can be found elsewhere and before Aquinas. But Aquinas is the one who gives the classical expression to the cosmological argument? And the cosmological argument is found in what is called the five ways, the five ways of proving God in the first two of those ways. There's some dispute about the third or fourth, but everybody will grant that the first two of the five ways of proving God are cosmological arguments. What is it that makes something a cosmological argument? We're back to our map. You know, the structure of argument. So this is where everybody wakes up again for a while. What is the thrust of all cosmological arguments, whether it be way one, in Aquinas, way two, or Swinburne or anybody else? What is it that makes something a cosmological argument? Remember now, just do a little review. An ontological argument reasons from the conception of God to the existence of God. By contrast, a cosmological argument begins by saying, notice some fact about the world, okay? Note some fact and experience. And the second thing you do in a cosmological argument is you invoke the causal principle. What is the causal principle? Many popular Christian apologists attempt to state the causal principle in a way that trivializes it when they say that every effect has a cause. Why is that a trivial way of expressing the causal principle? It's redundant. Well, yeah, okay, it's redundant. But effect is just defined by something that has been caused. And cause is defined as that which gives an effect. So of course every effect has a cause. It's true by definition. So what is a better way to express this that doesn't trivialize? By the way, if you want example of that, some of you are familiar with the work of R.C. sproul, and Sproul tries to make his cosmological proof rest upon the idea that every effect has a cause. What's going to be the problem if you say every effect has a cause and try to prove that God is the author of the world? Well, the argument will have to go like this. Every effect has a cause. The world is an effect. Therefore, the world has a cause which we call God. What's the unbeliever going to say about that argument? No, no, no, no. That's another argument that comes up. But if every effect has a cause, how do we know that the world is an effect? That's the point. Why categorize the world as an effect? To say that it's an effect is to beg the question is to say it must have a cause. And so it turns out this is. That's why I say trivializes the cosmological argument to do that, because the unbeliever is immediately going to say, but I don't categorize the world as a whole as an effect. I categorize it as a cause. And therefore I don't have to go any further. I don't have to go a step back to God. Okay, so the causal principle. Does anybody want to suggest or shall I just run ahead here? Want me to run ahead? Every event has a cause. Every event has a cause. So we note some fact about the world, something in our experience, then we invoke the causal principle. What sort of thing might we. What sort of thing might we invoke about our experience? What do we want to note? Well, Aquinas said you might note that change occurs. Right? You were sitting in one position five minutes ago and you've changed in your chair. Okay? Something has happened. There's something different about the world. Now, change occurs in this world, or even more mundanely, something exists. Hardly the sort of place premise anybody's going to want to question that something exists. Okay? So if you note this, that something exists, or you note that change occurs, and then you appeal to the causal principle that every event has a cause, what's the conclusion? There must be a series of cause and effects that precede what we have noted in our experience. So let's say we've noticed the change of a young man to an old man. Now, if we see this change and we appeal to the causal principle, then there's going to be a series or a sequence of causes and effects that precede what we have noted, that is the aging of the man. But that doesn't complete the argument, does it? Okay, if you will. You can call these the first two premises. This is a sub conclusion. But now another premise has got to be added, and Aquinas adds that immediately. And what is it? What is the missing link? He's proven a series, only now he's got to do something to get to God. The conclusion is going to be down here that God exists. Again, many evangelicals, I think, misconception, the cosmological argument, by going simply from here, if you will, from 1 and 2 to 5. But that is not right. It's philosophically horrendous to think that you could do that. What you prove is a series. And now you must add another premise. And from the series you'll get to God. And that premise is you cannot have infinite number of causes. Ultimately, you must come to a first cause. Very good. You have to deny an infinite causal regression. All right, we Have a series of causes and effects. Okay, we have this cause. Excuse me, this effect, and behind it, this cause. And then behind it, this cause. Back, back, back, back. But you can't go on forever. You can't have an infinite regression of causes. That is to say, every series must end. And where the series ends is what we call God. Looks very neat, doesn't it? It also, as I said, seems to explicate philosophically what is an intuitive notion, an intuitive way of thought for many people. Well, where did the universe come from? Had to come. Everything comes from something. Where'd the universe come from? Came from God, of course, in that very simple way of expressing it. That's where you get the obvious child's question in response. Well, where'd God come from? And so, to put it a little bit more precise, he argued that there is a series of causes, but every series must end, and therefore there is a God, the beginning of the series. Now, if you were going to. If you were going to challenge this argument as you see it on the board, what would you take to be the most crucial premise? Obviously, if you challenge any of the premises, you're not going to get to the conclusion. But what is it that everything is going to rest on? I mean, where does the real swing in this argument take place? Where do you turn the corner where it finally can become something of religion, religious interest? Certainly it's not that, you know, something exists or that young men get old or that every event is a cause or they're a series. We've all gotten to the same place. Okay. This denial of an infinite causal regress has been the focus, you see, of challenges to the cosmological argument. And depending on how much time we have here. Yeah, I think what I'd like to do is to talk about the direct challenge to that. There have been direct challenges to the idea that there can be no infinite causal regress. And then there have been attempts to reformulate the cosmological argument without this premise. Yes, very good. You made a statement that in number four, that it has to recognize an end as well to the series. Okay. And then also the. The five. Wouldn't someone bring up why? Why does God have to do that? Aquinas answer to that is that that becomes a linguistic thing. That's just what we call God. Whatever is the end of the series is what we call God. You see, what this really proves, and I'm glad for you to bring this up, what this proves is that every causal series has an end. Okay, and then what there's kind of just a little parenthetical thing that Aquinas then adds at the end of each one of his ways. And that's what we call God. Okay, now you unbeliever, you pagan Aristotle, you may have called it the unmoved mover. You may have done all these sorts of things. But I mean, in terms of the nomenclature of the Christian church, we call it God. We're talking about the same thing in our language is God language about that, okay, so he's not trying to say anything more, but that God is, if you will, the most adequate cause or the first cause. That's a little misleading. I think more adequate is better. But nevertheless, he's just saying God is the first cause, okay? Nothing more is being important. He may not be personal, he may not be a very nice person. He is personal. He may not be very powerful, he may not be this, he may not be that. But when all said and done, he is the first cause. He's the most adequate cause. Now, there are two strategies that you can take. You can challenge number four, challenge the denial of the infinite causal regress and then try to overcome the challenge. Or you can grant. You can grant the challenge. You can say, okay, we give up. Maybe there can be an infinite causal regress and then reformulate the argument to get around that challenge. Now, what I was trying to do by looking at how much time we had left is to decide which one of these we want to explore first this afternoon before we run out of time. And I think we can probably say something in time about Patterson Brown's challenge. You all have read Patterson Brown for today. And what he attempts to do is to explain the difference between an infinite causal regress that Aquinas could accept and an infinite cause causal regress that Aquinas would have to reject. Okay, let's put it this way. There's at least two varieties of infinite causal regresses. There's at least two kinds of infinite causal regresses, one of which Aquinas could accept. In fact, his literature evidences that he did. And another kind that he could not. One that he kind of. He would have to reject. Okay, the kind that he rejected, turns out is a very special kind. Okay, if you will, I'm going to do this twice. I'm going to start very simply with you and just go through this once, then go back and fill in details. There's a kind of ordinary infinite causal regress, if you will, the garden variety sort, you know, that you run into, and all the cheap markets around town. And then there's a very special kind, a very unique kind of infinite causal regress. Okay, that's this very special kind that Aquinas could accept. He could put up with a very special kind of infinite causal regress and its ordinary kind. He couldn't. Now, just saying that much without even telling you the difference between the different kinds of regressives, what's going to become the problem? How do you know when to apply which one? Well, of course, you have the difficulty of applying one, but in terms of philosophical argument, we can let Aquinas choose his own. Okay, but Aquinas is going to be choosing the special kind. The special kind. Well, how do we know that events happen, A cause in the special sense in which Aquinas is going to use an infinite causal regress. How do we know that events have this special kind rather than the ordinary kind? There's kind of a special pleading going on here. You see, when everything begins to look a little shady about the argument, Aquinas redefines his terms. Now, if he redefines his terms, then that, of course, gives a whole new complex to the whole argument. We have to go back. We've been accepting some things on an ordinary language approach to it, if you will. We've kind of taken for granted, okay, things do exist, events have causes, all this sort of thing. And now, lo and behold, Aquinas introduces a new idea of causation. You say, well, maybe not every event does have a cause. Then in the special sense. Now, do you all follow this? Aquinas says every event has a cause, and then it turns out he's going to talk about causation in a special way. Sir, if there's a case, there's even one case where infinite causation is possible, then that series of causation needs no creation. And it may be true for many other series as well. Special connotation may not exist. I think what you're actually doing is taking the other approach to this that I've now erased and we'll come back to after our vacation. There have been those like Samuel Clark and Ed Rowe and others who have wanted to say, well, okay, maybe we can have an infinite causal regress, but there has to be some explanation or some cause for the entire series taken as a whole now, not just of the individual members. And if I understand your remark just now, that fits into that line of thought, right? Not exactly. I'm refuting Aquinas at this point. Okay, run it past me again. How do you. If there is a Series of causation which does not require a first cause. There can be an infinite causal progression. Yes. And for one case or several cases, if they don't need a creator, the necessity of creator is not necessarily proved by any one special causation. No, you see, the difficulty is that Aquinas can grant a certain kind of infinite causal regress and still salvage his argument. That is, if he says. If somebody says, now look, Aquinas, here's an argument for an infinite causal regress. And Aquinas listens to the argument and he says, well, you got a point there. But that isn't the kind of infinite causal regress I had in mind. You see, he can escape his tormentor by now drawing a distinction. He can say, well, what you were talking about. Yeah, you're right, you win there. But over here there's a different kind of infinite causal regress, and boy, we sure can't. We can't grant that kind of infinite causal regress. Or Aquinas could take a different approach, which he didn't, by the way, but some of his supporters have, and that's that. Well, maybe you can have an infinite causal regress after all. All. But you still have to have an explanation for the entire series. Okay, the infinite causal regression is okay. We explain Z in terms of Y and Y in terms of X and back, back, back. And maybe it keeps going. But now how do you get the whole thing accounted for? But that's the other way, you know, that we're going to do after vacation. I begin to think we're after vacation. Okay, let me see if I can just, in concluding moments here, wrap up one explanation of what Patterson Brown's trying to do. Patterson Brown points out that the special kind of infinite causal regress that Aquinas has to deny may not apply to events at all. Very simply put, the special kind of causation, and therefore the special kind of infinite causal regress that Aquinas must deny is that of legal responsibility. Cause in the sense of legal responsibility. Now, if you have not done your reading assignment for day, that has got to sound just a little bit strange. But if you've done the reading assignment, you'll understand that Patterson Brown goes through these various kinds of causal chains that you might have. And he draws the traditional distinction between an accidental chain and an essential chain. What is an essential chain of causes? I think it's right on your lips. I know. Propulsion is the example he gives. Okay, so my hand moves the stick, the stick hits the ball and the ball moves, okay, what caused the ball to move the stick? But of course, it's my hand that moved the stick. And so in a very real sense, we can say my hand moved the ball by means of the stick. Now, that is called essential causation. That's an essential chain of causes. Just because. Well, I'm not going to beg the question. Philosophers have argued as to what makes it essential causation. But the point here is it's just the moving of the hand. It's just the moving of the stick by the hand that brings about the moving of the ball, okay? So what we have here is a moving hand and therefore a moving stick and therefore a moving ball. And you notice that you have all these things are the same motion. It's the same hand motion that is moving the stick that is moving the ball along, okay? So it's essential in that sense. It becomes the same every time you look at the effect. Here's one cause, here's an effect. This effect turns out to be a cause and it has another effect, okay? But nothing is lost in the transference here. It's all the same. The cause and the effect are the same here. Now that's different. That's the example of propulsion as a causal chain. But there's another kind of causal chain we speak of, and that would be a genealogical chain, okay? Abraham brought about who and he brought about Jacob. We'll use Jacob. Okay? Now here you have a causal chain also. You couldn't have had Jacob without Isaac, and you couldn't have had Isaac without Abraham, right? But what's different? It isn't true that Abraham is the cause of Jacob. It is true that the moving of the hand is the cause of the moving of the ball. That's because there's an essential causation here, because the effect is the same as the cause. It's just in this that you see the essential part of it. But now notice Abraham begets Isaac, Isaac begets Jacob. The effect here is not the same as the cause. Abraham is a cause. He causes an effect. Isaac, his son. And it turns out that Isaac goes and does something that brings about somebody else. But it's not the birth of Isaac that brings about the birth of Jacob. Isaac is an effect in a way that is different from the way that he's a cause. I think the clearest way you can express that, it was all. It was very clear to you. I can tell. Let's do it again. Isaac is an effect in a way different from the way he's a cause. It's true that Abraham causes Isaac and Isaac causes Jacob. But you see, Abraham causes Isaac as an effect. That is to say, he's born because of Abraham in a way that's different than the way in which Isaac becomes now a cause. As an effect, he's a child, if you will, as a cause, he's a man. And so there's a difference here that's called a genealogical chain of causes and it's not essential. In medieval philosophy it was called an accidental chain of causes. Okay, so Patterson Brown, oh dear. Patterson Brown distinguishes between these two. And then at the end of his article he introduces another notion of causation. Not just essential causation and accidental causation. He introduces the whole idea of legal responsibility causation. And what's his example there? Remember the autopilot, okay, Mr. Alfred hits Mr. Beta, who hits Mr. Gamma, who hits Mr. Delta. Okay, so here's this four car pileup. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Alright, now you go to court, see, Delta goes to court and he says, now I want my car paid for and now Gamma, you caused it, you're accountable for it. Okay? Gamma says, well, that'd be all right, but as a matter of fact, I was hit from behind by Beta and Beta gets to alpha and Alpha becomes the cause of all of this in the legal sense. You've got to pay all the bills, Alpha. Alright, now that's a causal chain that is established in terms of legal responsibility moving backwards. And Patterson Brown shows, and I think makes a brilliant suggestion that in the Thomistic way of proving that God is the cause of the universe, we don't mean that he is somehow the essential cause. Just think about what that would mean. And it's certainly not the accidental cause, because the accidental cause could have an infinite regress without any problem. I mean, there's nothing to say that one's genealogical tree stops at a certain place or just goes back, back, back, because it turns out there's always a break between the cause and effect at every child that comes along. So it turns out that this legal responsibility is the prime candidate for interpreting the cause of logical argument. Every event has a cause in the sense that something's responsible for that event. Something's responsible. Now if you believe that, if you believe that every event in the world has someone responsible or something responsible accounting for it, then you might very well conclude that this world has got to have a maker, God. But Patterson Brown says, what assurance do we have that every event has some kind of legal responsible cause behind it? Science can only tell us about simultaneous events. One event is simultaneous with another, and we say because of habit, that there's this cause, effect, relation. What assurance do we have from the scientific world, which is, by the way, what Aquinas wanted to appeal to our natural experience? What assurance do we have that this notion of causation is applicable to every event in our experience? Well, none whatsoever. And consequently, it turns out that the challenge, the way of denying the challenge to an infinite causal regress, relies upon a notion of causation that is itself suspect when it comes to natural things or natural natural order. And on that encouraging note, we'll take a break and come back and do the cosmological argument and teleological in about a week's time. Thank you.