It appears as if I’ve overlooked something in trying to refute Aquinas’ First Way for God’s existence. .
In doing so, I seem to have granted Aquinas a few questionable metaphysical truths, which shouldn’t have been done.
This is a look at how to go about attacking Aquinas’ argument, exhausting all possibilities and looking at what physics has to say on the matter.
St. Thomas Aquinas lived in a world that was not yet privileged with the works of Galileo, Newton, and Einstein. He was not privileged with general or special relativity, the Big Bang Theory, Cosmic Background Radiation, Black Holes, particle physics, quarks, neutrinos, etc. Rather, he had only the understanding of the physics Aristotle and medieval physics.
Aquinas lived and was influenced by a period in time where people still spoke of “heavenly bodies” when referencing the stars, when people believed only four elements existed, and when it was unclear whether or not the Earth was the center of the Universe. His understanding of physics, especially compared to that which we know today, is enough to undermine the premises of his First Way.
This however, is not an argument against Aquinas. It does not follow that because Aquinas believed Aristotle’s physics and Aristotle’s physics was wrong that Aquinas’ metaphysics was wrong.
I. Reformulation of Aquinas’ Argument
The most common misconception of Aquinas is that he meant “locomotion” or “movement” when he said motion. Indeed, he actually meant “change”. Do not misrepresent Aquinas on this account – it will only make you look foolish.
Many people fail to realize this before criticizing Aquinas. I am definitely guilty of this myself in my first article. So, let us update his argument to a more modern form, from Rocket Philosophy:
- No non-existents can have any causal efficacy
- Potentialities are non-existent
- Therefore, potentialities cannot have any causal efficacy
In other words, potentialities do not exist. So they cannot actualize themselves.
- If potentialities could actualize themselves, then they already would have done so and nothing would not be changing
- Things are changing
- Therefore, potentialities cannot actualize themselves
- Therefore, there exists a First Cause
Embedded in here are three conclusions of Aquinas’ argument, and I must prove at least one of the following to be false if Aquinas’ argument is to be discarded entirely. These are provided by the author of Rocket Philosophy himself.
- How something that “does not exist” can do anything,
- How the Law of the Conservation of Energy can be violated,
- How if a potential could actualize itself it has not already done so,
- How that if something has no power to change itself but is changing does not need something else applying change to it
II. Modern Physics
In his First Way, Aquinas proposes an Aristotelian framework for how an object is “set” into motion.
Let us continue:
a) How something that does not exist can do anything
I am uncertain of this premise.
Depending on how potentiality is defined, it may “not exist” but have it’s own “causal efficacy”. Please see: Dispositional Essentialism for more details. It is ultimately here that I would take Aquinas to point.
b) how the Law of the Conservation of Energy can be violated
I will be returning to this point, namely concerning the metaphysical nature of virtual particles. This is out of the question if one wishes to stick with the Standard Model of Physics.
c) how if a potential could actualize itself it has not already done so
This is tantamount to asking for the cause of a phenomenon spontaneous decay or emission, which becomes relevant after observing the next point. Could it partially actualize? Attacking Aquinas here seems a bit unfruitful and speculative.
d) that if something has no power to change itself but is changing does not need something else applying change to it
Not all change is caused by something which is applying change to it. Most of our forces are relational and have to do with spatio-temporal relations in space and time. The examples to note here are: gravity, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and electromagnetism. Then again, we face the same question of how initially things were “set” into motion, so I believe this route too ultimately fails.
Consider an objection from Rocket Philosophy:
Keep in mind that the actualizing of potential is not billiard-ball style causation, necessarily, but simply dependence. The actualization of an atom’s beta decay, for example, is entirely dependent on the weak nuclear force to be in place and set just so. And the weak force depends on force carriers. Take any member of this chain out, and beta decay no longer occurs.
I think it is wrong to think of the actualization of an atom’s beta decay as “causally dependent” upon the weak nuclear force. It should instead be said that the weak nuclear force is a property of the atom itself. To be clear, the weak nuclear force is contained within the atom, and it is not an external actualizer. There is no external force which facilitates beta decay. A similar example is held in the Casimir effect:
When you say “take the weak nuclear force out of the chain”, it is true that the atom will no longer decay. However, this is not an argument against Aquinas in any way since he is an essentialist and would readily agree with you here. He is talking about the problem of change in existing things.
As far as physicists are concerned, virtual particles do not violate the Law of Conservation of Energy, due to the short time-frame of their “existence”.
Energy conservation holds for virtual particles at every vertex (especially initial and final) in their Feynman diagrams. Virtual particles do appear to violate the Law of Conservation of Energy, but do not exist for a time greater than that allowed by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, so no laws are actually broken.
It is because of virtual particles that spontaneous phenomena exist. Examples of these include but are not limited to: the Casimir force, spontaneous photon emission during decay, Hawking Radiation, etc.
The Thomist then properly responds:
Virtual particles are dependent on the presence of zero point energy in the vacuum
And we may concede that the Thomist is correct and we cannot use this route of attack, either.
IV. Conclusion
Your best bet contra Aquinas is to show how something that does not exist can do anything. Note that you do have significant leeway in your definition of “that which does not exist”. Fundamentally, I would object to Aquinas’ definition of intentionality as belonging to a conscious agent (e.g. God) and show how physical intentionality may take its place.
Take care.
Dave
