The Argument from Causality by N. Fakhr - HTML preview
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Week Nine: The Argument from Causality and the Rejection of the Existence of Heaven and Hell
Believer, holding his cup of coffee as he waited for it to cool a little, said, “I want to make a confession.”
Not knowing what sort of confession to expect, Skeptic asked, “It isn’t about our previous discussions, is it? Because I certainly don’t expect you to confess that you’ve accepted what I’ve been saying.”
Believer: “It’s true that I don’t find what you’ve been saying particularly convincing, but you shouldn’t have said that. What you’re implying is that you think I’m stubborn.”
Skeptic: “I’m sorry. But our views don’t change easily, and there is a certain degree of stubbornness in human nature—especially when sacred beliefs and religious convictions are involved. Anyway... what is your confession about?”
Believer: “Actually, it is about those very beliefs. To tell you the truth, during worship and in my prayers after the ritual prayer, following religious recommendations, I used to try to address God in a tone of helplessness and desperation, accompanied by pleading and lamentation. But after the discussion we had last week, and after thinking more deeply about the immutability of the Necessary Existent, every time I tried to add that sense of helplessness and lamentation to the tone and cadence of my prayer, it struck me as something strange and unnecessary. So, over the past few days, although I still pray, I haven’t been able to bring myself to adorn my prayers with lamentation and pleading. I don’t know whether that counts as progress or regression.”
Skeptic: “Do you think something you arrived at through reflection and reasoning could be a regression?”
Believer: “Still, the recommendations of the saints of God are different. They regard prayer accompanied by humble supplication as better and preferable.”
Skeptic: “If your reasoning tells you that the recommendations of the holy figures of your religion are neither rational nor correct, will you disregard your reason and consider it invalid when set against the saints and holy figures of Islam?”
Believer: “Our reason is imperfect, whereas the Prophet and the Imams possess perfect reason. Their knowledge comes from God.”
Skeptic: “You and I are examining whether the teachings of religion are rational. That means we are not supposed to accept religious claims until their rationality has been established. So have you ultimately accepted that your own faculty of reason takes priority, or not? If you think that whatever has reached you from the holy figures of your religion must be rational even when it appears irrational to your own reason and thought, then why engage in philosophical discussion at all?”
Believer: “I want to prove to you that it is rational. As far as I’m concerned, it has already been proven. At least through other means, it has been established for me that Islam is the true religion.”
Skeptic: “So am I wasting my time? Do you not trust your own reasoning at all?”
Believer: “I do. But once I have established that God exists and that Muhammad is His prophet, from that point onward I give priority to his teachings. In this way, up until the fundamental principles of religion have been established, I give priority to my own reason.”
Skeptic: “Although I think your faith was originally formed under the influence of what you were taught by the people around you and by the media, let us nevertheless assume that at some point you did use your own reason and accepted your religion only after subjecting it to serious criticism. Don’t you think the information your reason relied upon the first time might have been incomplete, and that you have the right, throughout your life, to reassess and criticize your religion again and again as your knowledge increases?
“Had you read the entire Quran the first time around, so that you could be certain there was nothing unreasonable in it? Had you listened to the arguments of your religion’s critics to make sure there was no point you had overlooked? After all, you were going to live with this faith for the rest of your life and submit yourself to the rules and laws of your religion.”
Believer thought for a few seconds and was about to say something when Skeptic spoke first:
“Anyway... the fact that you say you once established the fundamental principles of your religion through reason is itself a step forward. So let’s continue and see whether those very principles of your religion are rational or not. The God of your religion did not turn out to be rational; now it is the turn of resurrection and the afterlife.”
With a self-assured expression, Believer shook his head regretfully and said, “Very well... go ahead.”
Skeptic: “You said that anything that did not exist and then came into existence is what we call a phenomenon. You said that every phenomenon must have a cause. And you said that the chain of causes and effects must have begun with a Necessary Existent.”
Believer: “That’s right.”
In What Ways Is Creation Possible?
Skeptic: “We observe chains of successive phenomena. I think successive phenomena can be created by the Necessary Existent in two ways:
“The first way is for the Necessary Existent to bring the first phenomenon into existence, after which the first phenomenon becomes the sufficient cause of the second phenomenon; that is, by virtue of the existence of the first phenomenon, the second phenomenon necessarily comes into existence. Then the second phenomenon becomes the sufficient cause of the third, and so on, giving rise to a chain of phenomena.”
Believer: “So far, I have no problem with that. What is the second way?”
Skeptic: “The second way in which the Necessary Existent could create is this: the phenomena we observe occurring one after another might have no causal relation to one another. In other words, the first phenomenon might not be the sufficient cause of the second. Instead, the phenomena could be created one by one, successively, by the Necessary Existent itself. In this case, the Necessary Existent would be like an animator who creates images one by one and places them in succession, creating phenomena one after another.
“For someone observing these phenomena in succession, it would be impossible to determine whether they have causal relations with one another or whether they are all being created individually by the Necessary Existent and have no causal relation to one another.”
Skeptic looked at Believer and waited for his reaction.
Believer thought for a moment and said, “Yes... that is possible too. As you said, God could create phenomena successively, like an animator. If he did so according to a consistent rule or law, like the laws of physics, we would imagine that the phenomena were causes of one another, because one phenomenon—for example, fire—would always be followed by another phenomenon, such as heat. If the animator always creates B after A, the constant succession of these two phenomena would create the impression in our minds that the first is the cause of the second. But in reality, it would be the rule-governed activity of the animator that creates this illusion. In any case, I have no problem with this so far.”
Skeptic: “Do you think there could be any other mode of creation?”
Believer: “A combination of the first and second modes is also possible. That is, sometimes chains of successive causes and effects could arise, while at other times the Necessary Existent could intervene in the chain and directly create a phenomenon without any intermediary.”
Skeptic: “I think there may be a rational objection to that possibility, but for now, let us assume that it too is possible.
“There is another possibility: the Necessary Existent, acting as an animator, might create phenomena not according to a fixed rule, but sometimes according to rules and sometimes without them. In other words, sometimes it might create phenomenon B after phenomenon A, and at other times create phenomenon C after A. Thus, sometimes heat might be created after fire, while at other times cold might be created after fire.”
Believer: “Yes, that is not impossible either. It could even have been the case that the Necessary Existent acted like an animator but always created phenomena without any consistent rule. Apparently, however, that possibility has not been actualized, since we can detect regularities. Discovering the laws of physics is precisely the discovery of such regularities. We simply do not know whether those regularities arise because successive phenomena are causally related to one another, or because the Necessary Existent, acting as an animator, creates phenomena successively according to consistent rules, thereby giving rise to what appear to us as laws of physics.”
Skeptic: “Very well... all these possibilities ultimately fall under the same two basic modes I mentioned at the beginning. That is, for any particular phenomenon we choose, one of two things must be true:
“Either the Necessary Existent creates that particular phenomenon by creating another phenomenon as the first member of a chain of causes and effects—that is, it creates phenomenon A as the beginning of the chain, A brings B into existence, and the process continues in this way until it eventually leads to the particular phenomenon in question;
“Or the Necessary Existent creates that particular phenomenon directly.
“In any case, according to the argument from causality, there is no phenomenon that comes into existence without a cause, and there is no phenomenon of which the Necessary Existent is not, either directly or indirectly, the cause.
“To accept the possibility of even a single phenomenon coming into existence outside these two alternatives would mean that the universe could have existed without a Necessary Existent, in which case it would no longer be possible to establish the existence of the Necessary Existent through this argument.”
Believer: “Yes, that’s right.”
Skeptic: “We human beings are ourselves among the phenomena of the universe. We once did not exist and then came into existence. We, too, require causes. We, too, are temporal and undergo change. Every aspect of us and every moment of our existence is a phenomenon. Among these aspects and moments are our ‘desires,’ ‘wills,’ and ‘actions.’
“If you disagree with this, say so. Otherwise, accept that our desires, wills, and actions are themselves created by the Necessary Existent.
“It is therefore unacceptable that the Necessary Existent should prepare a heaven and a hell in order to reward or punish us for our desires, wills, and actions. He—or, more accurately, ‘it’— is the one that, directly or indirectly, creates our desires, wills, and actions. It is the one that creates our desires, wills, and actions either directly, in the manner of an animator, or indirectly, by creating a chain of causes and effects.
“How can we accept that, on the one hand, it itself creates our actions and desires, while on the other hand taking vengeance for those very actions and desires and punishing us for them?”
Believer: “What you have raised is the age-old problem of free will and determinism. This issue has always been debated among philosophers, and no definitive conclusion has ever been reached.”
Skeptic: “Have philosophers reached a definitive conclusion about the existence of God? Philosophy is not like physics, where an experiment can be repeated before scientists around the world and thereby silence the opposition. Philosophy means claiming that you want to arrive at the truth of a matter without prejudice or partiality. Philosophy means wanting to think freely, without chaining your thought to any desired conclusion. Philosophy means that it should make no difference to you whether the conclusion of your reasoning is what you want it to be or not. The problem, however, is that in philosophical thinking, for various reasons, we often fail to follow the very path we claim we intend to follow.
“Our desire to arrive at a conclusion consistent with our existing beliefs does not always allow us to follow our information wherever its logical implications lead. From another direction, our information itself is sometimes incomplete and does not provide a sound foundation for reaching the correct conclusion.
“In any case, you and I cannot say that because different philosophers hold different views on a question—such as God, or free will and determinism—no conclusion can therefore be reached. We do not know which side has failed to follow the proper path toward the answer. We do not know which of them lacked sufficient information, sound foundations, or reliable epistemological premises on which to build their reasoning. We do not know which of them, through partiality toward a desired conclusion, has committed fallacies against himself and others. We will know none of this unless we examine the matter ourselves and try to proceed step by step.”
Believer: “What is the value of doing that? Why is it important for us to resolve the problem of free will and determinism?”
Skeptic: “If you were not a religious teacher for the children of this country, perhaps it would not matter. But you are a teacher—or, more accurately, a preacher of a religion. If you yourself cannot defend the truth of that religion through rational arguments—or worse, if you discover rational arguments showing that this religion and its claims are false—then you would have to give up that profession if you wished to act honorably.
“If, through an argument called the argument from causality, you establish the existence of a Necessary Existent, but the further conclusions of that very same argument, alongside establishing the Necessary Existent, necessarily show that this Necessary Existent cannot possess the attributes ascribed to God in your religion, and also that it is impossible for this Necessary Existent to have prepared a heaven and hell in which to reward and punish us, then it becomes clear that this argument—which you yourself accept—is in fact an argument against the God of your religion and against your religion’s doctrine of the afterlife.
“In that case, you and all the religious philosophers who have employed this argument must, each for one reason or another, have strayed from the path of free inquiry and truth-seeking. Where the argument worked in your favor, you welcomed it; but then you closed your eyes to its other, unwelcome conclusions.”
Believer: “I am certain that is not the case. Next week, I will present to you the arguments against determinism and in defense of free will.”