Metaphysics: The Principle of Causality & Causal Series

An example of a hierarchal causal series

The Principle of Causality

Previously, we established the principle of causality (PoC), which states, potential being can only be actualized by some already actual being.  Potential being, by virtue of merely being potential, cannot do anything in and of itself. In other words, the PoC accounts for how potential being becomes actual being. The potentiality of a car’s movement is actualized by something already actual, namely a foot stepping on the pedal; a mirror’s potential to reflect my self is actualized by my standing in front of it; a pot of water’s potential to boil is actualized by heat underneath it. In all these cases, something actual – a foot, a person, a source of heat – brings something potential – locomotion, reflection, boiling water – to actualization. The PoC is the explanatory foundation of how being goes from potential to actual.

An effect (i.e., an actualized potential) cannot be self-caused, but, as we said, must rely on something else already actual. The idea that a 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 caused my own existence”. If I caused my own existence, then I existed before I caused my own existence since for me to cause my own existence presupposes my existence. The very thing I am claiming to cause is in fact already in effect before I cause it, an incoherent absurdity. Furthermore, causation is intimately connected by simultaneity. For instance, it would be imprecise to say “throwing the baseball caused the window to shatter”; rather, it is the pressing of the thrown baseball into the window, as the cause, and the window buckling, as the simultaneous effect, which account for the causal story in such an example.

The PoC is one of four causes articulated by the ancient philosophers; all four provide an exhaustive account of what any substance. We will discuss the other three later. The ancients used “cause” more inclusively than us moderns. For them “cause” would be closely related to the word “explanation”. For us moderns, only one of Aristotle’s four causes would intuitively be tied to the word “cause”, namely the “efficient cause”, another term for PoC. We will discuss the other three "causes" - material, formal, and final - in later posts. 

Causal Series

There are two applications of the principle of causality: a linear causal series that deals with a temporal line of events and a hierarchical causal series that deals with any moment in time, independent of the past. An example of a linear causal series is a father, who at some point in time, begets a son, and that son, later in time, begets his own son and so on. From a philosophical analysis, this series could theoretically go on to infinity: there is simply nothing in this causal series that necessitates a first, most fundamental cause that all the other members in the series rely upon 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 to actualize the potential life of his own son.

However, in a hierarchical causal series a first cause is necessary for the other members of the series to have any causal efficacy. Additionally, a hierarchical causal series deals with simultaneity, and therefore not concerned with the past. 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 mirror’s 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 secondary members’ efficacy in the causal series are contingent on receiving said efficacy from the first member. Notice two important considerations: 1) there is no reference to the past since the “first member” is first not temporally, but because it imparts causal efficacy to the other members at any given moment; 2) the point of these examples is not to make the literal claim the hand, foot, and body are all in fact the first members in these examples (that’s why I used quotes around “first member” at the beginning of the paragraph); there are more fundamental members in all three of these causal series. The point is to show what a hierarchical causal series looks like and the metaphysical work a first cause does in this series vis-a-vis its secondary members.

Next in the series: Teleology 

Metaphysics: Being as Act and Potency

Since being is common to all that exists and therefore above every category, as we have shown, how do we account for the diversity and change we see in being? Diversity and change can be accounted for by a fundamental distinction within being: actuality and potentiality. Actuality is being immediately apparent to the senses: the car is parked in the driveway, the human is speaking, the bird is roosting. Potentially is being that can be become actualized: the car is potentially able to back up from the driveway, the human can potentially be quiet, the bird can potentially fly. Potentials and their actualization explain the diversity of being since different beings possess different potentials and the actualization of those potentialities vary within each of those beings. Furthermore, the actualization of potential being explains change amongst beings since for a thing to go from potential to actual just is for a thing to change from one state of being (potentiality) to another (actuality). Therefore, diversity and unity as well as change and permanence are present under the transcending reality of being.

Actual being grounds potential being, for without something actual, there cannot be something potential. Without an actually parked car, there is no potentially moving car; without an actually talking human, there is no potentially quiet human; without an actually roosting bird, there is no potentially flying bird. The asymmetry that gives priority to actual being is seen most fundamentally when we consider existence itself. Without an actual [i.e. existing] car, there is no potential for the car to park or move; without an actual human, there is no potential of the human to speak or be quiet; without an actual bird, there is no potential of the bird to fly or roost. Thus, potentiality and actuality are layered together, with actuality always supporting potentiality. 

Furthermore, potential being requires already actual being(s) to bring it to actuality. The car’s potential to move cannot be actualized without already actual things: keys, a motor, a driver; a human’s potential to be quiet cannot be actualized without actual things: an intellect and will to direct their lips and tongue or duct tape; the bird’s potential to fly cannot be actualized without actual things: healthy wings and desire to fly. Therefore, potential being can only become actual being by something that is already actual. This is known as the principle of causality. 

Finally, potentiality and actuality are divided into subcategories: first and second. First potentiality is that which is contingent, in need of receiving something to actualize some power. First actuality comes when such a power is realized, but not being exercised. Second potentiality, which is intimately tied to first actuality, is the acquisition of a power that can be exercised but is not being exercised at a given moment. Finally, second actuality is the exercising of a power at a given moment. 

For example (see visual for additional example):

• Capt. Nathan Algren’s potency for learning Japanese (first potentiality)
• Capt. Nathan Algren, having learned Japanese, is now capable of speaking it (first actuality) but is currently not (second potentiality)
• Capt. Nathan Algren is speaking Japanese to Katsumoto (second actuality) 

In sum, actuality accounts for the unity and permanence of being and potentiality accounts for the diversity and change in being. Potential being depends on actual being for its existence and actualization, creating an asymmetry between the two. Finally, there is first potentiality, which requires something in act to bring it to actuality; first actuality and second potentiality, which is actual insofar as a being has it at its disposal, but potential insofar as it is not in actual use at a given moment; and lastly second actuality, in which a being has an actual power and is exercising it.

Next in the series: The Principle of Causality & Causal Series

Metaphysics: The Nature of Being

 

All that is possess being and all that possess being is. Outside of being there is nothing, for that which lacks being is non-being, which is nothing at all. Being cannot be and not be at the same time in the same respect since this would entail existence and non-existence simultaneously. Such a supposition reduces to an infinitude of simultaneous affirmation and denial of existence, an absurdity. We encapsulate this truth by the principle of noncontradiction: something cannot be and not be in the same respect and time under pain of incoherence. Therefore, being is the most fundamental aspect of existence, transcending all categories, since being is common to all that is. Further, nothing can be added to or subtracted from being since what is added can only be that which is, which just is being, and what is subtracted from can only be that which is not, which is nonbeing.

From the material to the immaterial all possess being. Concrete objects of everyday experience - plants, animals, humans – possess being insofar as they exist as independent substances. Cognitive objects – images conjured by animals and humans, abstractions contemplated by humans -  exist as dependent activity of creatures’ minds. All reality is being, and by knowing being we begin to know reality.

To know what is, then, is to know truth, since truth just is what is - what is real - and what is not has no being, and therefore lacks truth and is not real. Truth, then, is intimately associated with being and falsity with nonbeing. “The sky is purple” is false insofar as such a claim attributes specific being to some thing that in fact lacks that specific being. A drawing of a closed, three-sided polygon claimed to be a triangle is true in insofar as such a drawing conforms to the truth of what a triangle is. Therefore, to the extent we know being, we also know truth.

Next in the series: Being as Act and Potency

Orthodoxy and Hipsterdoxy

In contemporary Orthodoxy, we often hear a theological metanarrative that divides “Eastern” (i.e., Orthodoxy) and “Western” (i.e., Catholicism and Protestantism) Christianity into two halves that clash at their theological cores, or, as one author puts it, their “phronemas”. While prevalent in contemporary, popular-level writings, this metanarrative likely has its conception from Orthodox theologians and academics of the 19^th century and took full-root in the 20^th century. Exponents of this metanarrative reduce Western theology to a vaguely defined “rationalist”, “legalistic”, “Augustinian” framework, while defining Eastern theology as mystical, experiential, and giving primacy to the Greek fathers, particularly the Cappadocians.

It is a metanarrative because it provides an overarching explanation of what enables any theological disagreement between Orthodoxy and the West; thus, it is more fundamental to any specific doctrinal disagreement. It is a metanarrative because it walks the reader through the diverging theological developments of Church history between Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism. Euphemistically, I will refer to this metanarrative as hipsterdoxy. I call it hipsterdoxy because it comes from within Orthodoxy and seeks to differentiate Orthodoxy from the perceived theological mainstream of the West, ostensibly for the sake of being different. It is my aim to show this metanarrative is erroneous. I will do this with a short elaboration of the metanarrative and then address five theological doctrines often used to justify it. My hope is the reader will see, to quote Marcus Plested in his Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, “the Christian East is not quite as ‘Eastern’, nor the West as ‘Western’, as is generally assumed”.