‘Being’ and ‘Unity’ are among the number of attributes that follow everything.—Aristotle.
This post is simply presented as an introduction or prolegomenon to a series of posts I will call “Mere Metaphysics” which will explicate the most fundamental concepts in metaphysics.
What I would like to call “mere metaphysics” is along the lines of C. S. Lewis’s work entitled Mere Christianity. Lewis, of course, wanted to explain the basic themes and ideas that were common to all of the Christian family, regardless of denomination. He was eager to show the truth of Christianity itself. Once one has entered the house of faith, one is then free to explore the particular rooms and denominations. The next series of posts will explicate and define the most basic and foundational metaphysical principles—concepts which everyone takes for granted and, upon reflection, are impossible to deny. These basic and foundational principles are called “first principles” by classical philosophers and are still accepted and used by philosophers today. They are the first principles needed for making sense out of the world.
Dr. Mortimer Adler defined philosophy as the rational discussion of basic ideas. Metaphysics, then, is simply the branch of philosophy which rationally discusses the most basic ideas and fundamental nature of being or reality. Some of the mere metaphysical principles we will explore in future posts are the laws of logic—noncontradiction, excluded middle, and identity, along with other principles like being and nonbeing, act and potency, the principle of existence, principle of causality, principle of analogy, and principle of predictive uniformity among others. These, and others, are properties of being. Metaphysicians understand being to be the totality of the universe or reality. It includes everything within temporal reality, including the past, present, and future. (As we will discover, all things composed of form and matter have an immaterial aspect to them along with a material component. And because of the form or essential element to being, there may well be a timeless element to reality as well.) Put a little more simply, for now, all we need to know is that which has being is the individual and the external world.
A few other prefatory remarks need to be made. The opposite of being is nonbeing or that which does not exist, nothing. Being and nonbeing are essential components to classical metaphysics. In addition, classical philosophy uses the term “becoming” for that which is in a state of change. That which is becoming is an admixture of being and nonbeing. The artist who carves a block of marble takes away part of the stone in order to form it into a beautiful sculpture. Some of the block’s being is removed. There is an element of nothingness, or certainly absence, involved in the removal of the stone. In one way or another, we live in a world of change, becoming, and mutable being.
The hope is that by examining these mere metaphysical principles, we will be reminded of the basic structure of the universe that ultimately finds its foundation in God. However, in order to approach the question of God, one must first understand the basic metaphysical structure of reality. One can only engage in a project of natural theology when a proper metaphysics is in place.
One of the oldest and most perennial questions of human existence is, why is there something rather than nothing? Or, put a bit more philosophically, how did being come to be? This is not a strictly scientific question or one that can be analyzed by repeated observation (how does one apply the scientific method to past events?) In order for science to succeed, it must assume prior metaphysical principles such as the ones mentioned above. The question of being, then, is a more fundamental and philosophical question concerning reality. Science can be a helpful tool, to be sure, but the question of reality evades a strictly scientific approach. Part of the question of being, or reality, is the exploration of what makes science possible in the first place. Being and its properties are prior to everything else.
For centuries philosophers have puzzled over one of the most all-embracing metaphysical questions of human existence—what is the cause of being? From the time of the Pre-Socratics (those philosophers who lived before Socrates) to the current day, important thinkers have rationally and carefully thought about the nature of existence and how it might have come about. In different ways, Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Cicero, Augustine, Plotinus, Anselm, Aquinas, Spinoza, Locke, Descartes, Leibniz, and those in the modern and contemporary scene such as Joseph Owens, Mortimer Adler, John Knasas, Brian Davies, Richard Swinburne, William Lane Craig, Stephen Davis, and Edward Feser (among others) have engaged in a rich dialogue about the cause of reality. Much of the discussion centers around what is known as cosmological reasoning, or reasoning from the fact of existence (being) to a creator God.
Sometimes this form of reasoning is called the cosmological argument. However, over the centuries many different versions of the cosmological argument have been put forward. Aquinas, himself, gave several different ways to argue for God’s existence based on the cosmos or world. I made a distinction between two different and popular forms the cosmological argument in a recent post.
The general line of thought for cosmological reasoning goes like this (premises that are common to most forms of the cosmological argument):
1. The world exists. Space and time exist. I exist. Something exists. Being is.
2. Being can not be the cause of itself.
3. Being can not come from nonbeing (nothing).
4. Being could not be an effect in an infinite series of causes and effects.
5. Therefore, it must be caused by something outside space and time, something uncaused and ultimate.1
Or put more concisely in the form of a categorical syllagism:
1. All contingent (or caused) being depends for its existence on some uncaused being.
2. The cosmos is a contingent being.
3. Therefore, the cosmos depends for its existence on some uncaused being. (Aquinas would say, “to which everyone gives the name of God”.)
This form of the cosmological argument is called the argument from contingency because it focuses on the caused and contingent (dependent) nature of existence.
Another form of the argument goes like this:
1. Every part of the universe is dependent.
2. If every part is dependent, then the whole universe must also be dependent.
4. Therefore, the whole universe is dependent right now on some independent Being beyond it for its present existence.2
This argument is focused on what philosophers call ontological dependence. It is less concerned with arguing that the universe has a beginning in time, and more focused on the ontological dependence that things demonstrate here and now in reality. An interesting part of this argument is that even if reality is somehow infinite, it is no less ontologically dependent here and now than a finite one.
These are just a few examples of philosophical cosmological reasoning. In future posts we will explore a little more carefully how these premises can be presented and defended. Because there are many different versions of the cosmological argument, the one we will be using moving forward will be the one used by Norman Geisler in his book, God: A Philosophical Argument From Being. Here is the shortened version of what Geisler calls an argument from being:
1. Something exists (e.g., I do)
2. Nothing cannot produce something.
3. Therefore, something exists eternally and necessarily.
A. It exists eternally because if ever there was absolutely nothing, then there would always be absolutely nothing because nothing cannot produce something.
B. It exists necessarily because everything cannot be a contingent being because all contingent beings need a cause of their existence.
4. I am not a necessary and eternal being (since I change).
5. Therefore, both God (a Necessary Being) and I (a contingent being) exist. (= theism)
Of course, no conclusion in a deductive argument can be stronger than its premises. Many have posed doubts, critiques, challenges, and questions regarding this argument and its premises. Indeed, many have asked, why cannot something be the cause of itself? Why cannot something come from nothing? And why cannot something be the product of an infinite series? These are questions that have been discussed and debated throughout the centuries of human civilization. The answers have profound and far reaching effects. In our next series of posts, we will consider the mere metaphysical concepts that show the validity of the argument from being.
1Ed L. Miller and Jon Jensen, Questions That Matter: An Invitation to Philosophy, 5th ed (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2004), 272.
2 Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Books, 1999), S.V. Cosmological Argument.
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