Thomas makes that things which can possibly be or not be must be caused to exist. But physical examples are sometimes challenged as being instances of becoming and, alternately, metaphysical instances require philosophical proof, for example, the argument St. Even more evidently, if a builder quits building a house, the house does not “finish itself.”Ĭauses of being appear intuitively more simultaneous, since they do not entail motion which takes place through time. If the earlier gears quit moving, so do the later ones. Bearing in mind observations about submicroscopic physical causes made above, a valid example of simultaneous causation of becoming might be a series of contiguous gears in motion simultaneously, so that the earlier move the later in what is, in effect, a single motion. Thus, a falling dominoes series is an invalid example of a series of simultaneous moved movers, since the first domino may be down before the last one starts to fall. ![]() Nonetheless, a true cause of becoming must be simultaneous with that which comes to be. Yet, an “antecedent” sounds like a cause of coming-to-be. Thomas says, “To take away the cause is to take away the effect.” 2 That is because every true cause must be simultaneous with its effect, since a cause is an extrinsic sufficient reason, and therefore, as St. For many scientists, because of Hume’s influence, the term, “cause,” means merely an “antecedent” – something always coming temporally before an alleged “effect.” This entails that the antecedent as such cannot be the true cause, since it could cease to act or even to exist before the alleged “effect” appears, which is impossible in terms of principles of being. Physics is inherently incapable of penetrating the depths of this metaphysical insight about being and causality.Ĭauses of being and coming-to-be: Metaphysics requires thinking of everything in terms of being, since it is the science of being considered precisely as being. Since non-being cannot ever produce being, and since the effect, as such, is in continual existential dependence on another for some accidental quality and/or its very existence in being, no effect can survive ceasing to be actively caused – even if that causal agency ceased only a nanosecond ago. Nor do claims on behalf of modern physics undermine the classical metaphysical analysis of causality taking place in time as normally understood. ![]() ![]() Nanosecond delays in field propagation between interacting particles do not avoid the metaphysical necessity for contiguity and simultaneous mutual causation between those fields. This also I defended in a more recent Strange Notions article. While that article employed common macroscopic examples of simultaneous causality, metaphysical first principles – since they are principles of existence, not of some particular essence – apply equally to submicroscopic physical realities. ![]() This principle is recognized by virtually all mankind as essential to reality’s intelligibility.īy causality, I mean that every effect (a being whose sufficient reason is not totally intrinsic) has immediate dependency on a cause (an extrinsic sufficient reason). Presuppositions, definitions, and purpose: This article presupposes the metaphysical first principles of non-contradiction, sufficient reason, and causality, which I defended earlier in a Strange Notions article.īy the principle of sufficient reason, I mean that every being has a sufficient reason for its being or becoming.
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