Natural Theology: The Existence of God

Change occurs. This is self-evident when we consider if such a proposition is true, then conclude that it is. Further, it is empirically validated by stepping outside and observing everything around you. If change occurs, then we must ask what is change? Change is the actualization of a potential. Since everything in our experience changes in some respect, everything in our experience is a combination of act and potency. A ball has the potential to roll, now it’s actually rolling; a boy has the potential to grow muscle, now he actually has muscle; a mirror has the potential to reflect my image, now it actually reflects my image. So, change exists, and the definition of change is the actualization of a potential.

For something to go from potential to actual, some other thing already actual must bring the something in question to actuality; this is known as the principle of causality. The idea that something potential could bring itself to act - pulling itself up by its metaphysical bootstraps - is necessarily impossible. An example showing this impossibility would be the incoherent statement, “I actualized my own existence”. If I caused (i.e., actualized) my own existence, that implies I existed before I caused my own existence since for me to cause my own existence presuppose I already exist, thus making a self-contradicting claim.

So, change exists; change is the actualization of a potential; and for something potential to be actual requires a cause (i.e. something actual). Now, there are two applications of the principle of causality in reality: one deals with a temporal, static line of events (a linear casual series) that traces causes back in time, without any need for the series to terminate in some fundamental, first cause; the second kind deals with any given moment in time, particularly the very present moment (a hierarchical causal series) that involves causal power being derived from some fundamental member, the primordial source of a given causal power. An example of a linear causal series is a father who begets a son, and that son, in turn, begets his own son, and so on. This series could theoretically go on to infinity; taken at face value, there is nothing in this example that necessitates a first, most fundamental cause through which all the other members in the series rely upon in order to actualize their potency. In the example used, the first son requires nothing from his father to beget his own son once the first son is begotten; after the first son is begotten the father is irrelevant to the son continuing to exist and using his own causal powers (i.e. actualities) to actualize the potential life of his own son.

The metaphysics is different in a hierarchical causal series. In a hierarchical causal series, a first cause is necessary for the other, secondary members of the series to have any causal efficacy because derivativeness is the key factor in how a secondary cause can have causal power at all. Consequently, a hierarchical causal series is not concerned with the past in explaining how a potency is actualized, but how any potency is actualized at any moment, including here and now, given the secondary cause must derive its actualization from a first cause. I will provide three examples of a hierarchical causal series:

1. A stone’s potency to roll is actualized by a stick pushing it; however, the stick can only actualize this potency insofar as a moving hand actualizes the stick’s potency to move.
2. A car’s potency to drive is actualized by a gas pedal in the forward throttle position; however, the gas pedal can only actualize this potency insofar as a foot pushed down actualizes the gas pedal’s potency to be in the forward throttle position.
3. A mirror’s potency to reflect your likeness can only be actualized insofar as you stand in front of the mirror; otherwise, this potency of the mirror remains in potency until you, being in act by simply existing, walk in front of the mirror to bring the potency to act.

In all three cases, there is simultaneity in the potencies being actualized: my body being reflected in the mirror is only there insofar as I stand in front of the mirror; as soon as I step away, the reflection ceases. Additionally, there is a “first member” who is necessary to the causal series since the other members of the causal series wouldn’t have causal efficacy without it. Notice two important considerations: One, there is no reference to the distant past; the “first member” is first not because it came at some earlier point in time, but because it imparts causal efficacy to the other members, which the other members would not otherwise have. Two, the hand, foot, and body are all in fact relative first members in these examples; there are more fundamental members in all three of these causal series, to be sure. However, the point is to show what a hierarchical causal series looks like and the metaphysical work a first cause does in this series.

So, change exists; change is the actualization of a potential; going from potential to actual requires something already actual to make it happen; and a hierarchical causal series requires a cause who imparts causal power to the secondary causes at any given moment without itself needing to Derivia such power, simply, a first cause. 

Recall that in the linear causal series, I said a son’s potential to beget his own son into existence doesn’t require the first son’s father. However, in this example we were concerned with the distant past and a progression of time (i.e. the temporal). While this historical begetting explains how all the sons came into existence, it doesn’t explain how the father and all his progeny continue to exist at any given moment in time; what is actualizing their potential to exist here and now? Since nothing in our experience exists necessarily, but instead contingently, we are left to explain not just the temporal event that brought us into existence, but what keeps us in existence at any moment. This shows that linear causal series presuppose hierarchical causal series and that the latter is fundamental for the former. Additionally, the most fundamental hierarchical causal series deals with the actualization of anything’s potential to exist. Recall that a hierarchical causal series deals with the here and now and requires a first cause to impart causal efficacy to the secondary members in the series. Therefore, in this most fundamental hierarchical causal series concerning the very existence of things, we must have a first cause that actualizes the existence of all beings, conserving them in existence at every present moment so they might actually exist and not go out of existence.

Thus, we are lead to conclude a first cause of existence, actualizing existence in all things potential for existence and conserving them in existence at every moment, without itself needing such actualization, but instead possessing possessing existence in a primordial, necessary way.