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| St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae |
It’s common today to hear both believers and nonbelievers claim that the existence of God is ultimately unknowable, or at least unprovable. According to this view, we’re left to take a leap of faith, or else to go with the option we think is more likely.
Classical theism rejects this idea completely. It claims to be able to prove the existence of God – to be able to prove, in fact, that He can’t not exist. And what’s amazing is that these theists seem capable of following through on this promise. There are several of these non-probabilistic arguments for the existence of God, but one of the strongest (and most misunderstood) is the argument from contingency. This is presented in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways in the Summa Theologiae, although Aquinas actually gives a better version of the same argument in the Summa Contra Gentiles.
To see how the argument works, let’s define two of our terms, and then lay out the two syllogisms that get us to a sure knowledge of the existence of God.
- Contingent beings are those being that only exist under particular conditions. They don’t have to exist, and they don’t always exist. Rather, they come into existence under particular conditions, and require certain conditions to continue to exist. Humanity, for example, requires air, water, carbon, and a whole host of other things. If any of these variables ceased to exist, so would we. In other words, contingent beings are things that could not-be. They exist, but only because certain conditions are met.
- Necessary beings are the opposite. They exist necessarily. Or, if you’ll excuse the double negative, necessary beings couldn’t not-be. If there were some set of circumstances in which these beings could cease to exist, then their existence would be contingent, and they’d be up there in the first group. This means that necessary beings aren’t capable of generation or corruption (that is, of being born or dying).
With that in mind, let’s consider the two arguments that bring us to a sure knowledge of the existence of God:
- Step 1: We see in the world some things that can be and not-be.
In other words, we see contingent things all around us. We see birth and death, both in the literal sense for organic matter, and in the metaphorical sense: we see galaxies come into, and go out of existence, for example.
This should raise a question for us: Why is there something, rather than nothing? After all, seemingly everything we see could not-be. Keep that question in mind.
- Step 2: Everything contingent has some other cause for its being.
Under particular circumstances, a tree will exist. But if those conditions aren’t there, the tree will never come into existence; or, if it already exists, it’ll go out of existence. So, for example, if the soil temperature suddenly increased a thousand degrees, your tree would quickly blink out of existence. But this means that the tree isn’t the cause of its own being. If it were, it could never not-be, and would exist necessarily, not contingently.
And of course, this point isn’t limited to trees. It’s true of every contingent being, including you and I, the cosmos, etc. So if you say that X is a contingent being, then some conditions (Y) must exist for X to exist.
- Step 3: This can’t go on infinitely.
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| Oculus Non Vidit, Nec Auris Audiuit (17th c.) (“Eye has not seen, ear has not heard,” a reference to 1 Corinthians 2:9) |
If X requires Y to exist, and Y requires Z to exist, you can’t just draw that chain out infinitely. At some point, you must arrive at something that does exist, and isn’t dependent upon something else for its existence.
Another way to approach this question: what conditions are necessary for you to exist right now? We’re talking about the kind of conditions that you literally can’t live without, here are now. And there can’t be an infinite number of them, or you (and everything else) wouldn’t exist.
The branch you’re sitting on may be connected to another branch, but at some point, it needs to meet up with something grounded, like a trunk. You can’t just have an infinite chain of branches dangling in the air. If literally everything is contingent, there’s nothing capable of bringing it from non-existence into existence, or keeping it in existence.
- Conclusion: There must be something necessary.
If there’s nothing necessary, you end up with the logically-impossible infinite regress described in step 3. So there must be something that can’t not exist.
Shrewd atheists will sometimes object at this point that this doesn’t prove God. They’re right; at this point, we’ve just shown that at least one thing can’t not exist. That could be God, or gods, or angels, or a Demiurge, or matter, or mathematical laws… or more than one of these things.
So we haven’t proven monotheism yet. But we’ve still made some headway: many of the popular atheistic cosmologies actually fail to clear this first hurdle: they assume a universe in which everything comes about under the right conditions, but don’t have anyway of accounting for those conditions (or hold that those conditions require other conditions, and so on…).
To get from “something necessary” to “God” requires a second line of argumentation.
- Step 1: Every necessary being either (a) has its necessity caused by something outside of itself, or (b) doesn’t.
- Step 2: If all necessary beings were in category (a), you would have an infinite regress.
- Step 3: Therefore, not every necessary being has its existence from another. A necessary being exists who has its necessity through itself and so is the cause of the necessary being of any other necessary thing – which being all call “God.”
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| Sébastien Bourdon, Moses and the Burning Bush (1645) |
Let’s unpack those conclusions, one by one:
- A necessary being exists who has its necessity through itself: In other words, Something not dependent upon anything at all to exist. This Something literally can’t not exist, in this or any possible universe. (If its existence was contingent upon a particular type of universe, we’d be right back in the infinite regress problems detailed above).
- A necessary being who is the cause of all other necessary (and contingent!) things: Everything else we’ve talked about — you and me and all contingent realities, as well as all the necessary realities in category (a) — depends, either directly or indirectly, on this Something to exist. In other words, if this Something didn’t exist, everything would instantly blink out of existence.
- This Something is Unlimited Being: This is implicit, but I wanted to draw it out explicitly. When we’re talking about Something that exists necessarily, and isn’t determined by anything else, we’re talking about Something whose being is necessarily limitless. (If its being were limited by some external cause, where does that cause come from?)
- This Something is what we call “God”: For those used to thinking of God as a created being, perhaps this seems like a big jump. But we’ve arrived at the existence of a Something that exists by definition, and exists as “pure Being” or “unlimited Being.” And that’s the best definition of God, and the definition of God that He gives (see below).
Of course, it’s important to realize the limitations of our approach. Necessarily, we’re limiting ourselves to what we can know by reason alone. After all, it would be terribly circular to argue that God exists because the Bible says He does, and we can trust the Bible because God inspired it, etc.
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By the way, I’ve cross-posted this both here and over at Strange Notions, a site dedicated to Catholic-atheist dialogue. Feel free to check out the comments there to see how this piece is received.
How would you reply to the point that nothing really ceases to exist? For example while the tree ceases to exist the underlying matter continues to exist. Can matter in principle continue to exist?
I still struggle with infinite regress. Why can’t it be ‘turtles all the way down’ as they say?
That is what has always bothered me about this argument. For some reason, I tend to picture “A causes B”, “B causes C”, etc. as a line: A -> B -> C. That has the same form as a sequence of consecutive integers: 1 (+1 =) 2 (+1 =) 3. There is a smallest natural number, but there is not smallest INTEGER.
I strongly suspect that the difference is between a proximate cause and an ultimate cause. An infinite regress of proximate causes is almost certainly possible, even somewhat boring, like Zeno’s Paradox, but it would not remove the need for an ultimate cause.
When I was still Catholic this is the kind of argument I would try to hide from my non-Catholic friends, because unfortunately there some very fatal and very obvious flaws very early on. Flaws which, by themselves, wouldn’t be all that grating — except you’ve gone out of your way to exclaim how you’re dishing out “perfect knowledge” and “logical certainty” and generally smacking unbelievers with a +5 Vorpal Truthstick. And what was it the bible says goeth before a fall?
On SN Paul Rimmer has already demonstrated (and you’ve conceded) you’ve confused epistemic necessity and logical necessity. Would it surprise you to learn you’ve also equivocated on nomological necessity?
Just look at your definition of contingent beings. Isn’t it obvious you’ve conflated no fewer than three separate and logically distinct properties? There is a possible world (PW) where one banana exists at every moment from the beginning to the end of time, and hence always exists, and there is a PW where a banana miraculously or randomly pops into existence in the middle with no causal antecedents given the laws of that world, and there is a PW where the causal antecedents required in our world for a banana to come into existence cease to exist, but the banana continues to exist. Not to mention that if air ceased to exist, we would suffocate and die (but our bodies would not cease to exist) in a few minutes, but if water ceased to exist our bodies would cease to exist, since unlike air we are actually made of water. And we aren’t even touching that pandora’s box of scenarios where we upload our consciousness to non-organic media, where neither air nor water are required.
You simply cannot smoosh all these concepts together under the arbitrary label “contingent being” and then expect that term to function in any meaningful way in a coherent philosophical argument. Things that are contingent in one sense may not be contingent in one or more of the other senses. You have to, have to, have to keep the logical, nomological, and epistemic modalities distinct.
(Also, you shouldn’t let certain Sophisticated Theists at SN catch you calling God a “necessary being”. Sophisticated Theists there regularly love to snicker and guffaw at the hapless gnuatheists who don’t understand God is not a being at all…)
Staircaseghost,
“On SN Paul Rimmer has already demonstrated (and you’ve conceded) you’ve confused epistemic necessity and logical necessity.“
No, I haven’t confused the two, I just didn’t make that distinction as clear as I could have. As I said to Paul, ” I didn’t make that distinction very clear in the original post. To clarify: my position is that since the necessity of God’s existence is knowable, this is certain knowledge.”
The arguments prove that God’s existence is necessary. Because we have an argument showing this, we can now know of His existence with certainty. I thought that the step from “knowing He exists necessarily” to “having certain knowledge He exists” was obvious, but I could have been clearer in showing my work.
“Would it surprise you to learn you’ve also equivocated on nomological necessity?“
It would surprise me. You seem to be reducing all necessity to nomological necessity. But I’m also dealing with metaphysical necessity. I think you’re misunderstanding the argument.
Regarding your banana examples, the first wouldn’t even be a contingent being (re-read the definitions of “contingent” and “necessary,” and see the conclusion of Argument I), the second shows the problem with conflating “necessity” with “nomological necessity” (since there would still need to be a metaphysical explanation for the banana’s existence: see the beginning of Argument II), and the third deals with antecedent causality. Antecedent causes work in this line of argumentation, but it’s easier to see the truth of the propositions by looking at those conditions necessary for continued existence, which is why I specified that above.
As for water and air, you’re right that both are necessary conditions for our continued existence, but that only water is a necessary condition for our corpse’s existence. So what? What proposition does that refute or challenge in any way?
Shorter version: yes, there are different types of causes; and yes, the argument can handle this (remember that Aquinas, who first advanced the argument as presented above, wrote extensively on the different types of causation).
I.X.,
Joe
P.S. Re: Sophisticated Theists, etc. Aquinas uses the term “being” and “thing,” simply because we lack a better vocabulary to cover the set of all existing beings + God + mathematical and physical laws and other nonphysical realities. If you’re getting hung up on the terminology, and can find a better term, feel free to mentally substitute that one.
“The arguments prove that God’s existence is necessary. Because we have an argument showing this, we can now know of His existence with certainty. I thought that the step from ‘knowing He exists necessarily’ to ‘having certain knowledge He exists’ was obvious, but I could have been clearer in showing my work.”
The reason it is not obvious is because it is not true, because you are still confusing epistemic and logical necessity.
Here’s a hint: if mathematics is logically certain, why don’t all students answer every question on every math quiz correctly?
“Regarding your banana examples, the first wouldn’t even be a contingent being (re-read the definitions of ‘contingent’ and ‘necessary,’ and see the conclusion of Argument I)…”
Think very carefully about the implications of what you’ve just said here. You have just said an eternally existing banana is a necessary being. And necessary beings, by your argument, must exist. Have you heard about the eternally existing strawberry that you also apparently believe in now?
In fact banana #1 meets one of your definitions for noncontingency (it always exists), but #1 is neither logically nor nomologically noncontingent. So your definition is obviously wrong.
“…the second shows the problem with conflating ‘necessity’ with ‘nomological necessity’…”
Er, um, what do you think I meant when I pointed out you had a problem because you conflate nomological necessity with other kinds of necessity? That’s my point — get your own!
Like banana #1, banana #2 is clearly logically and nomologically contingent. And it also clearly meets another one of your (inconsistent) definitions of noncontingency (does not depend on antecedent conditions). So that part of your definition is also wrong. And inconsistent with the first part, since the property “doesn’t always exist” is not the same property as “dependent on prior conditions”.
“and the third deals with antecedent causality.”
Like bananas #1 and #2, banana #3 is clearly logically and nomologically contingent, And it also clearly meets another one of your (inconsistent) definitions of noncontingency (requiring conditions to continue to exist), which like the previous two properties is completely distinct.
“What proposition does that refute or challenge in any way?”
I challenge and refute the notion that your definition is even remotely consistent with either itself or with what those words mean in English.
You cannot infer dependency from contingency. They are not the same property, but you’ve let your words obfuscate this from yourself and so you can’t see that your whole argument rests on an equivocation.
(p.s. If a dog is not a cat, you should not call it a cat. If Yahweh is not a being, you should not call him a being. If you do, you have precisely zero right to complain about how “unsophisticated atheists” don’t understand the shimmering oceans of nuance in classical theism. Although I can’t help but suspect that is actually the desired effect.)
Contingency speaks to a subject and to an object. You can’t have a subject that is contingent without it being contingent on an object.
Perhaps there is some obscure metaphysical sense of dependency that contingency doesn’t mean, but nevertheless nothing contingent can exist alone, at least in an ontic sense.
Staircaseghost,
1) Again, I’m not conflating or confusing different types of necessity. I’m grouping them. You might as well say that a definition of animals “conflates” dogs and cats, just because it includes them both. I get that the term “necessary” is used in different ways in different contexts. That’s why I defined terms. But it’s not a logical fallacy that I’m not using whatever definition of “necessary” you learned in class, or whatever singular definition you think “those words mean in English.”
In any case, the second argument also fleshes out that not every “necessary” thing accounts for its own necessity: this effectively distinguishes between different types of necessity (there are other lines of distinction that could be drawn, but the one drawn in the second argument is the pertinent one). So to the extent that you’re trying to show that there are different types of necessity, and that the first argument doesn’t distinguish between them, granted. That’s why there are two arguments.
2) Your mathematics example is muddled and switches terms – from “mathematics” being necessary to knowing “every question or answer” on a math test with certainty.
It’s possible for a thing to be necessary, without us knowing that it’s necessary. That was Paul’s point, and it’s well taken. But if you know that X is necessary, then you know of its existence with certainty. To refine your example, if I know that 2 plus 2 is necessarily 4, I can be certain in asserting that 2 and 2 is 4. Necessity and certainty are distinct, but there’s a relationship, and that relation applies in this context, since we know of God’s necessary existence. Simply reasserting that necessity and certainty aren’t the same thing isn’t responsive to this.
3) Your banana hypotheticals seem to be a hot mess (insert “bananas foster flambé” joke).* Let me recap the argument so far:
You: Imagine a world in which a banana “exists at every moment from the beginning to the end of time, and hence always exists.”
Me: Okay.
You: You idiot! You believe in an eternally-existing banana! You probably believe in eternally-existing strawberries. (*pats self on back*)
That road doesn’t seem particularly productive. If you’re trying to show that something could be “necessary” without having the sort of metaphysical necessity that God has, then we agree – and indeed, that’s the entire point of the second argument. (This may be why you’re surprised to see that we’re making the same point). If you’re trying to make some other point, I’m afraid that you might need to explain it in another way.
4) You’re very ready to assume the worst about theists: that we’re using the term “beings” in a loose way here so that we can trick atheists and laugh at them. Do as you will, but I can more or less guarantee that this conversation would be a lot more productive if we would both (a) assume that the other is acting in good will, and (b) care more about the truth than seeming right or smart. After all, both the believer and the scientist is called to be a humble servant of the truth, and ego and bad faith assumptions obstruct that calling. So how about a reset in tone?
In Christ,
Joe
*I have only good things to say about bananas foster flambé. Highly recommended.
Thanks for posting the argument that led me back to the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church! (That is, what led me in that direction in the first place, as I was only convinced of God’s existence after looking at this, not of any particular religion.)
I used to wonder what it meant for something to be “necessary” but to have its necessity from something else–but now I think I have known it for a long time. Mathematics and logic, for example: I cannot even conceive of their being different than they are. The only way 2 + 2 = 5 is by changing the symbol, the definition, not the actual quantities or equation. That’s a difference in language, not in mathematics.
God bless!
We might indeed be able to perfectly know the ‘existence’ of God, but this doesn’t give us much information on what is most essential for us, which is to know more perfectly the ‘nature’ of God. An understanding of the ‘nature’ of God is what differentiates all of the various religions in the world. As Christians we are given great understanding of the nature of God, and that is by knowing the nature of the body, soul, words and examples of Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself declares this when He says in the holy Gospel: “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” So, to ‘know’ perfectly that God exists does not equate with knowing God perfectly, which can be only accomplished by a perfect knowledge, and love, of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I know that the present article was focused only on the philosophical aspects of knowing the existence of God, but I just wanted to bring up the topic of the ‘nature’ of God so as to stress the importance of Christ as a ‘revealer’, or teacher, of God in this regard…even as was said of Him in Holy Scripture: “I come to reveal mysteries hidden since the foundation of the world”.
SACRED SCRIPTURE is the Word of God (CCC 81).
The “CATECHISM of the CATHOLIC CHURCH, second edition” contains the Doctrine of the Faith.
These are the 2 most important books in the Catholic Faith.
For more information including quotes from Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis
go to:
“What Catholics REALLY Believe SOURCE”
http://whatcatholicsreallybelieve.com/
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
This argument has a lot of problems. First off all contingent beings may have causes by contingents entities that are not beings. That’s essentially the claim of the theory of evolution. “Being” is an entirely unnecessary distinction.
So then we change the first claim to “every contingent entity has a cause for its being”. In which case that’s objectively falsifiable. We know that matter spontaneously forms and destroys via. a probability cloud based on underlying heat. So the most important contingent entity has a cause of a probability cloud. Which takes to the root of do we know that probability clouds of energy / mass have causes? We know of one example of such a thing, our universe, and we have no idea if it does or does not have a call must or must not exist. These claims come out of nowhere.
At best we maybe change the argument to can say the necessary being is the probability cloud of potential energy / mass and that’s still a stretch. Or to put it another way the potentially necessary being is the big bang.
Then of course we don’t know what caused the big bang. Some of those causes like quantum bubbles don’t meaningfully have entities that cause them other than something vacuous like empty space and time. Some like an exploding black hole with many trillions of solar masses would have an obvious cause but not in our universe. It wouldn’t be a knowable chain for us. You are left with questions like “are empty space and time necessary thingss” do we have any reason to believe they are or they aren’t. Why should they exist can be met with why shouldn’t they exist.
But let’s take empty space and time as the necessary limitless thing. In what meaningful sense that does that correlate with the revealed God you want to assert exits?
God’s Gonna Getcha for that, that, and that…but not for Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing
But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; 2 with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. 3 “Ananias,” Peter asked, “why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us[a] but to God!” 5 Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it. 6 The young men came and wrapped up his body,[b] then carried him out and buried him.
7 After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price.” And she said, “Yes, that was the price.” 9 Then Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” 10 Immediately she fell down at his feet and died. When the young men came in they found her dead, so they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 And great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things. Acts 5:1-11
Millions of human beings have been slaughtered by the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth over the last 2,000 years: pagans, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Indigenous Peoples, and other Christians. During the Crusades the streets of the city of Jerusalem flowed ankle deep with the blood of Muslim and Jewish men, women, and children. Tens of thousands of Jews were periodically and routinely slaughtered in European cities, triggered by the anti-Semitic diatribes of priests and pastors. One third of the population of Germany was wiped out during the Thirty Years War, all in the name of Jesus Christ, from both sides. Millions of Indigenous peoples were brutally forced to convert to the “True Faith” or die horrific deaths by “men of God”, the inheritors of the powers of the Office of the Keys, given to them by Jesus himself moments before his Ascension into Heaven
Now, I have a question for you, my Christian friend: Just where was the Holy Spirit during this 2,000 year Blood Bath? Why don’t we read accounts of entire Christian armies being struck dead on their horses by the Christian God due to their intent to slaughter thousands of non-combatant men, women and children? Why don’t we read of officials of the Inquisition being struck down by the Christian God as they attempt to light the kindling at the bottom of a stake to which is bound a terrified Jewish man or woman?
Dear orthodox/conservative Christians, are you really going to have the gall, the audacity, to once again recite to me the idiotic statement, “God’s ways are not our ways”…when your all-mighty, all-powerful, all-knowing God has allowed millions if not billions of human beings to suffer excruciating deaths for nothing more than thought crimes…but…will not hesitate for a second to strike down deader than a door nail, any Christian who holds back on this year’s Tithing Pledge???
If there is any proof that your Religion is an invention of men, and not of a god, this is it!
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