The Argument from Causality by N. Fakhr - HTML preview
Download the book in PDF, ePub for a complete version.
Week Three: The Beginning of the Argument from Causality — Existence and Nonexistence
The Skeptic glanced at the Believer’s empty plate and said, “You gave arguments based on the order we see in creation and on the existence of the soul, and I pointed out the problems with both. Do you think you have another argument for the existence of God?”
The Believer replied, “I don’t think you fully understood the depth of the Argument from Design or the argument about the soul. Otherwise, you would see that both are strong and well-founded arguments, put forward by great scholars and philosophers.”
The Skeptic said, “Let’s avoid expressions like ‘strong argument,’ ‘well-founded argument,’ ‘deep argument,’ and other such promotional language when talking about our own reasoning. Let’s simply present our reasons, identify the flaws and fallacies in each other’s arguments one by one, and explain them in a language we both understand. If I used a fallacy in my objections to your arguments, identify exactly where I did so and show it to me. If I failed to understand some deep point in your arguments, explain that point clearly to me in plain language.
“If someone cannot expose the weaknesses in the other person’s reasoning and instead starts praising his own position by saying, ‘You don’t understand what I mean,’ or ‘You haven’t grasped its depth,’ or ‘My arguments are very strong and have been put forward by great philosophers,’ the discussion will get nowhere. In the end, whoever is more powerful, has more followers, or controls the government will simply be able to promote his own beliefs and teach them to society’s children. Then there will be no need for logic or careful reasoning. All that will matter is noise and rhetoric.
“If someone can show people, through observation and experiment, that the tetanus vaccine works, then that knowledge can be taught everywhere, regardless of people’s religion or beliefs, and it can properly be included in the country’s educational system.
“If someone can prove through mathematical reasoning, to people of any religion or belief, that the interior angles of a triangle in Euclidean geometry add up to 180 degrees, then this too can be taught as knowledge in the educational system.
“Religion is a matter of theory. Religious beliefs should therefore also be demonstrable, in some way, to all reasonable people, whatever their religion or beliefs may be. If they cannot be demonstrated, then they should not be taught as established truths in the educational system. I have now shown you that what you called proofs are not really proofs and that their conclusions do not follow. If you can find a flaw in what I’ve said, go ahead and show me. But don’t simply tell me that your arguments are deep or that famous people support them. And don’t point to the religious scholars of your own faith as those famous supporters, or I could answer by giving you a long list of thinkers and philosophers who oppose religion.
“None of that supports either your arguments or mine. We would get nowhere that way, and you yourself would not accept such reasoning from me.”
The Believer said, “I understand exactly what you mean. Very well... I’ll explain another argument to you—one that is, in fact, the foundation of almost all arguments for the existence of God1. The Argument from Causality.”
“I’m listening.”
“To present the Argument from Causality, I first need to explain two concepts:
“First, the concept of ‘existence’ or ‘being.’
“And second, the concept of ‘nonexistence’ or ‘nothingness.’”
The Concept of Existence
“If we want to define ‘existence,’ we must first look at what all examples of existence have in common. In the same way, if we wanted to define a human being, we would first consider several examples of human beings, such as you and me, and then ask what characteristics they share—characteristics that include all human beings while excluding everything that is not human. In other words, we would try to arrive at a definition that includes everything it should and excludes everything it should not.
“In the same way, if we want to define existence or being, we must consider examples of things that exist. But we find that whatever we point to is already something that exists and is therefore an example of existence. If we try to define existence, we have to begin by saying:
“‘Existence is something that...’
“And here we run into a problem. Whatever characteristic or explanation we add after ‘that’ may exclude some forms of existence from our definition. For example, if we say, ‘Existence is something that has volume,’ we immediately realize that perhaps something could exist without having volume. In other words, there may be forms of existence that have no volume. Whatever such a thing may be, it would still be something that exists. So we should not include ‘having volume’ in our definition, because we might accidentally leave out some things that exist, making our definition incomplete.
“Since we cannot be certain that we know every possible kind of existence, or all the characteristics of everything that exists, we must conclude that we should not add any characteristic or explanation at all to our definition of existence. Only then can we be sure that our definition includes every possible form of existence.
“So, to define existence, we should simply say ‘something that...’ and stop there. Or, better still, the definition of existence should simply be: ‘something.’
“Every ‘thing’ is an instance of existence, no matter what it is or what characteristics it has. Anything at all is an example of being or existence. Being a ‘thing’ is enough for it to exist—material or non-material, living or nonliving, real or imaginary...”
The Skeptic interrupted, “Even imaginary things?!”
“Yes. Even imaginary things. An imagined thing is still ‘something.’ Of course, it is not the same kind of thing as physical reality. For example, the imagined water in a mirage in the distance is not real water. But the illusion itself is still something that exists in the mind of the person experiencing it. The water does not exist, but the illusion of water does.
“For something to exist, what kind of ‘thing’ it is does not matter. What matters is that it is something, and that is enough to bring it within our definition of existence. So the illusion of a mirage exists, even if we do not know exactly what kind of thing that illusion is.
“A memory that comes to mind at a particular moment is also something in its own right, whatever its nature or characteristics may be. We can say that the event remembered no longer exists in the world outside the mind, but the memory exists in the mind. So it is ‘something.’ We may debate what kind of thing this memory is or how much importance we should give it in our lives, but none of that changes the fact that the memory is something and exists at the moment it appears in a person’s mind.”
The Skeptic said, “All right... I understand what you mean. From this point on, if you introduce a rule that applies to ‘existence,’ you want that rule to have no exceptions. I just hope that whatever this rule turns out to be, it really does apply to ‘existence’ or to every ‘thing.’”
“Exactly. I need to introduce a rule that logically applies to anything that exists, whatever form it may take.”
The Concept of Nonexistence
“Now let’s turn to nonexistence, or nothingness. If we try to define nonexistence, we might begin with the sentence: ‘Nonexistence is something that...’
“But we have to stop right there. Every ‘something’ is existence; it is being. So nonexistence is not ‘something.’ Nonexistence simply is not—so there is nothing there to define. Nonexistence is not an empty space or a silent, dark place. We may be able to picture a silent, dark place or an empty space in our imagination, but we should not be able to picture nonexistence, because it does not exist at all. There is no image of it to imagine. Nonexistence is not something to which we can attribute qualities or about which we can give explanations.”
The Skeptic asked, “So could we say that nonexistence is a mystery—something that will always remain mysterious because we can never discover its properties?”
“Not at all. The moment you call nonexistence a mystery, you have already treated it as ‘something.’ The reason nonexistence cannot be defined is not that we lack enough knowledge to describe or understand it. Nonexistence is not a mystery to us. It is not a mystery to anyone, because there can be no knowledge of nonexistence or nothingness. Nonexistence is not ‘something’ that could be either known or unknown.
“The greatest mistake we can make about nonexistence is to think that we do not know it. It can neither be known nor unknown. Strictly speaking, we cannot even point to nonexistence with the pronoun ‘it.’ All of this is a trick of the mind, because the mind tries to treat nonexistence, just like existence, as ‘something.’
“Nonexistence is neither at the beginning of something nor at the end of something. It is not a dark silence that lasts for some period of time until existence finally appears. So that picture of nonexistence is mistaken as well. Any attempt to form an image of nonexistence, or to attribute any potential or capacity to it, is a fundamental misunderstanding of what nonexistence means.”
The Believer fell silent and looked at the Skeptic for a few moments. The Skeptic was staring at the table. After several minutes of silence, he said, “I need to think more about the concepts of existence and nonexistence. To be honest, the idea of nonexistence has really got me thinking. Let’s continue the rest of the discussion next week.”
“But we’ve only just started.”
“Yes, but it seems that the concepts of existence and nonexistence are extremely important to this discussion, and I need to be completely clear about what they mean.”
“I completely agree.”