Aristotle and Cosmological Arguments

This is the condensed and slightly modified version of a paper I wrote last semester.  Longstanding in the great monotheistic traditions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam has been a popular argument for the existence of God known today as the "cosmological argument."  Its current expounder-in-chief among Christians, William Lane Craig, has adapted a version of the argument derived from the Kalam tradition of Muslim scholarship.  Similar arguments were advanced by Thomas Aquinas in the Middle Ages and can even be seen in some Hellenistic Jewish literature among a variety of other sources from ancient times to present day.  The arguments for the most part take their starting point in the writings of Aristotle and in particular the argument laid out in Metaphysics XII concerning an "unmoved mover."  Yet there are some significant differences between Aristotle’s original argument and contemporary manifestations of the cosmological argument.

Aristotle’s cosmological argument occurs amidst discussions of substance and causation, and that context is extremely important to understanding the argument.  Substance for Aristotle is what “certain thinkers assert to be capable of existing apart” (1069ab).  Aristotle's argument can be understood as a critique of the Platonic notion of the Forms.  Essentially, Aristotle's argument is that the principles which cause change in individual substances- by which he seems to mean “formal change,” i.e., the things which demarcate individual substances as being a particular thing, whether they be shape or color or size or texture or movement or any other such factor- only exist as they are actualized in the particular things.  Thus, Aristotle seems to say, we can note ways in which these causes are analogous between one another, but we cannot make the conclusion, as Plato attempts to do, that such causes exist as universal Forms that stand apart.

Aristotle begins his argument by asserting that movement must have always existed, and if this is the case then time must have always existed and likewise space (1071b).  From this starting point he argues that substances must have always existed because without them this movement could not have existed (1071b).  Further, he argues as another critique of the Platonic notion of the eternal Forms, these eternal substances cannot exist in a state of potentiality but must be actualized for motion to exist.  The most significant point of this argument is that substances must be eternal.

In an interesting turn, then, Aristotle next adopts one of the key components of his teacher Plato's ideology, namely that the moving, changing, actualized world is somehow less real than the stable, unmoving, eternal world.  Based on this idea he will conclude that while moving objects exist eternally, they exist only in an intermediate state.  What is really needed is an unmoving object to ground everything, and what this object must be is eternal, actual, and most importantly a substance (1072a).  This Platonic idea that the ultimate cause needs to be free from the vagaries of motion or change is important for understanding the conclusion of this argument, a conclusion which has had profound implications on much of later theology.  This leads to the final conclusion of Aristotle:

It is clear then from what has been said that there is a substance which is eternal and unmovable and separate from sensible things.  It has been shown also that this substance cannot have any magnitude, but is without parts and indivisible.  But it has also been shown that it is impassive and unalterable; for all the other changes are posterior to change of place.  1073a

This substance is the famous "unmoved mover" who is eternal and separate.  From this will be derived many of the classical ideas about God in the monotheistic traditions: that God is eternal, transcendent and distinct from the world, indivisible, unchanging, etc.  This cosmological argument, we might claim, is not simply significant for its apologetic value but also because of the way it shapes the theological tradition.

In stark contrast to some more contemporary cosmological arguments, such as that advanced by William Lane Craig, which hold that the universe has a definite temporal starting point of which the "unmoved mover" is the first cause, Aristotle maintains that motion has eternally existed as we have discussed above.  How, then, is the "unmoved mover" a "first cause"?  The answer, I believe, lies in this discussion of substance.  For Aristotle substance is what underlies matter to allow it to take its form.  What I believe this argument establishes is essentially a hierarchy of substances.  This is Aristotle's twist on Plato's notion of the Forms existing as a hierarchy.  Since Aristotle denies that merely potential Forms can exist, he insists on the actuality of all substances.  The substances underlie matter and allow motion to exist.  What underlies the individual substances, however, and allows them to exist?  Other substances, in a kind of genetic tree or in a kind of motion of their own.  Aristotle thus thinks he has solved the problem of the universe's existence (NB: not its origin, because it has always existed) by the idea of underlying substances tracing back to a “first,” or perhaps better put “primary” or “foundational” substance, the first cause or “unmoved mover,” which exists eternally and apart from other substances but whose existence gives rise to the existence of the other substances.

Whether or not Aristotle’s argument ultimately works or convinces us that there is such an “unmoved mover,” what I think Aristotle does establish is an alternative type of causation to what we typically think of today.  We can call this more familiar type of causation, which underlies the Kalam argument, “temporal causation.”  It has to do with the sequence of cause-and-effect stretching back through time.  The Kalam argument maintains that there must be a definitive starting point to this sequence of “temporal causation.”  The alternative type of causation that Aristotle has presented we can call “ontological causation,” having to do with a hierarchy of substances from which others are derived ontologically but not necessarily temporally.  Interestingly, while I think Aquinas followed Aristotle’s notions of causation here fairly closely, for the most part the Christian tradition of philosophical theology has not employed this notion to particularly great affect (at least not the Protestant tradition).  I think the potential implications of this distinction, though, are fairly significant, especially as regards discussions about human agency/free-will and divine causation.

Aristotle and Free Will

Once again this topic rears its head… But two interesting connections have occurred to me based on some recent reading of Aristotle.  I have to say on the front end that this is not a topic that Aristotle ever consciously discussed- the debate over the nature of freedom post-dates Aristotle, believe it or not.  That said, I am trying to avoid being anachronistic.  My claim here is not that Aristotle argued for a particular model of freedom but that some aspects of Aristotle's thought can be useful to explaining a later idea of freedom as espoused by more existentialist thinkers.

The first idea is a distinction that Aristotle makes between two parts of human reasoning: the “mathematical” and the “deliberative.”  The mathematical follows "necessary" principles to reach its conclusions.  The deliberative part is a bit more open-ended, though.  Its principles are not "necessary", they are in some sense dependent on the goal of a person's life or existence.  They are, in other words, deliberately chosen by the individual as part of the development of that person into their individual self.

The second idea from Aristotle that I think is particularly useful is his notion of chance.  For Aristotle "chance" does not imply the kind of randomness we think of perhaps associating with the string of numbers we might get from rolling a twenty-sided die over and over again or the order of a well-shuffled deck of cards.  That kind of randomness is not what Aristotle means when he says something happens by chance.  Nor does he mean "without cause," which is often what libertarian freedom is accused of implying.  What Aristotle does mean by chance, however, might be termed "unintended circumstances."  Two causally determined chains of action cross in a way not intended by either.  The farmer plowing their field comes across a chest buried there long ago.  The chest is not there "randomly"- it was intentionally hidden there.  Nor is the farmer there "randomly"- he intended to be plowing his field.  But neither the person who hid the chest nor the farmer intended for this discovery to happen, these two paths have crossed in a way that was unexpected, creating an "unintended circumstance."

The model of free will I have found most compelling is one that I think can be greatly aided by both these concepts.  This model is one that I think is representative of how many existentialist writers think about free will, and in more analytic thinking something similar is argued for by Robert Kane.  Basically, the model argues that not every decision must be "free" in the sense of having "alternative possibilities."  Instead, freedom refers to our ability to shape ourselves, to oversee the formation of our character and beliefs.  This requires that at crucial junctures in our life, what Kane calls "Self-Forming Moments," we have the ability to choose which way we will go.  From Aristotle I think we can construct an account of how this works.  These moments arise from the kinds of "unintended circumstances" that we encounter throughout life.  In these moments where the chain of action we have taken part in leaves us entirely unprepared for the circumstance we find ourselves in, a decision must be made which will set the course of a new chain of action.  That decision is not necessitated by any of the previous actions that brought us to this place- it is a "new" moment, as it were.  Thus, we must deliberate and determine what principles will guide us through that moment.  It is in exactly these sorts of circumstances that our character is "formed" into the kind of person we are.

Response to Peter Millican's Critique of Aristotle

Reading Hume on Human Understanding

Realizing that this is ambitious, I'm going to take on Oxford's Peter Millican (click the link above to see his book which I have not read...). I have been listening to a recent pod-casting of his lectures from the course "General Philosophy" which covers the emergence and development of Modern/Enlightenment thought.

Honestly, I have been quite disturbed by his presentation of the critique of Christian and Aristotelian thought by the early moderns. Millican makes a strong effort to associate the Christian/Aristotelian view with a particular, Ptolemaic view of the cosmos. He then argues that the rise of mechanistic view of the universe beginning with Galileo and Descartes results in an essential undermining of the religious viewpoint.

It certainly seems to be the case that Modern philosophy developed in large part due to a reaction against the religious wars associated with the Reformation. In that sense, it was, as Millican argues, largely aimed at finding a philosophy of reason that could stand over and above the competing religious ideologies of the day. At the same time, a more mechanistic view of the universe emerged. Where I might differ with Millican is that it seems the rise of the mechanistic model had less to do with problems with Aristotelian philosophy as with the reaction of the Church.

Let me elaborate: Aristotle proposed a certain cosmological model of the universe, this much Millican has correctly asserted. However, this model is not the entirety of Aristotle's metaphysics. In fact, I would argue (and now I am in conflict with Millican) that the model is nothing more than a particular manifestation of the more foundational metaphysical principles that Aristotle argued for. Those principles, especially the ideas of an empirical basis for knowledge, constancy in nature, etc, played a huge role in the science of the Enlightenment. In fact, the new Astronomy proposed by Galileo, I would argue (against Millican), offers no real conflict to Aristotle's metaphysics, merely to a particular cosmological model that embodied his metaphysics. Unfortunately, the Church had become attached to that model and the ensuing conflict, which was utterly pointless, has led to a great deal more of conflicts between science and religion since then. So essentially, here is my beef with Millican. It seems to me that Millican has adopted a straw man by conflating the metaphysics of Aristotle with his cosmology and arguing that if we lose one, so with the other. I am arguing that this kind of reasoning only works in one direction- if we drop Aristotle's metaphysics, then certainly his cosmology will make little sense. However, the opposite is not true. Aristotle's cosmology is dependent on his metaphysics, but not the other way around. We can drop the cosmology and keep the metaphysics by pairing it with a better understanding of cosmology. Historically, of course, this was not really done.

This is because Modern philosophy ends up parting with ways with Aristotle on at least one point- teleology has been dropped for a mechanistic view of nature. Millican's presentation here is again a bit biased. Millican offers two arguments against Aristotle's teleology: First, that it is tied to a particular cosmological model (we have already seen that this is a straw man argument), and second, that it is redundant. Essentially, Millican argues that Aristotle's teleological explanations are merely restating the description of the phenomenon in question: this object does this because it is striving to do this. This is why Modern philosophy opts for a more mechanistic view, Millican claims. But what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If we clear up some of Millican's straw man language a little and give a more concrete example of teleology, we can see that that a mechanistic view gives no greater explanatory power. A rock falls, Aristotle would say, because the essence of the rock is to be drawn toward the earth. Later Modern thinkers will say that the rock falls because a unobserved force exists which pulls the rock towards the earth. In both cases, we have described the phenomenon, and in both cases I would argue we have given something of an explanation for why it happens (essence or unobservable force). If one of these lines of reasoning provides no explanation, I would argue neither does the other and Millican has gotten us nowhere. A more plausible explanation for the adoption of the mechanical view over the teleological one is the desire of the Enlightenment to break with religion and exalt the reasoning of man.

It is at this point that I take a great deal of issue with Modern philosophy- the mechanistic view cannot be sustained, I want to argue. Ironically, the mechanistic view, I believe, makes it impossible to escape the skepticism of Hume and causes the entire Enlightenment project to come crashing down on itself. Better to keep with Aristotle in terms of teleology. Yes, the model we use must be updated to reflect more recent observations, but metaphysically this presents no conflict except to those who wish to escape the need of the supernatural and continue to exalt the reason of man.

The Irrationality of Naturalism

The enlightenment and Modernist philosophy have posed a dramatic philosophical challenge to Christianity, with, for the first time in philosophical history, atheism becoming a dominant presupposition. Indeed, atheism seems the inevitable conclusion of Modernist philosophy. The problem, however, is that this results in a complete logical absurdity.

Modernist philosophy replaces the ancient concept of "telos" (the idea that all things are striving to fulfill a purpose) with naturalistic determinism: the regularity of the universe is explained by set natural laws. If we follow the naturalist thought process, this eliminates all supernatural existences- God, human souls, angels, etc.- and reduces us to a completely material universe governed by the physical laws. If this state of things is correct, then all things are completely deterministic. Under naturalism, this must also include the activities of our minds, which are natural entities. Thus our thoughts, desires, beliefs, etc. are all determined by the natural laws of the physical universe.

This description of our mental state results in a radical skepticism. If my thoughts and beliefs are merely the products of physical reactions that have been determined since the moment the universe came into existence then what reason do I have to trust that these beliefs are in any way sound? It does not seem that such a reason exists, and even if I could come up with such a reason that conclusion would also be reached only because of chemical reactions over which I had no control. This eventually results in an absurdity because even my beliefs in naturalism or the deterministic nature of the universe would also be subject to the same criticism. Ultimately then, I not only have no basis for knowing anything (the usual claim of skepticism), I actually do not know anything under naturalistic determinism.

This is certainly not an argument for Christianity. In fact, this could be used just as well by a pantheist mystic as by a Christian. What this does establish to me, though, is that if we want to maintain any claims to knowledge then we cannot embrace a fully naturalistic worldview. Even if we scrap naturalism, though, the question remains whether the modernist paradigm of science (which has an anti-supernatural balance and attempts to explain natural phenomenon according to set scientific laws) can be maintained without a naturalist conclusion. In other words, can we maintain Descartes dualism and claim that the natural world operates by fixed laws but somehow our minds are able to escape those laws (despite being attached to bodies that are subject to them)? This seems to be a very flimsy solution at best.

Instead, I think that we have to return to a more ancient way of looking at the universe and reinterpret Aristotle's concept of "telos." Christianity should have no problem adopting the idea that all things are working toward accomplishing an ultimate purpose. This idea also explains the regularity that science observes without moving toward a conclusion that is completely naturalistic and irrational.