How to Prove There Is a God by Mortimer Adler

Author:Mortimer Adler
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Open Court
Published: 2018-06-06T01:25:48.508873+00:00

In III: I shall restate the negative arguments of my original paper (against all proofs from motion), and comment on Schwartz’s misunderstandings, confusions, and irrelevancies.

In IV: I shall develop the positive argument for God’s existence as causa essendi, and here I will comment on Schwartz’s failures, which are similar in kind, though greater in degree.

II. Analysis of the Causes of Natural Motions

1. In Physics, II, 3 and Metaphysics, V, 2, Aristotle sets forth his analysis of the causes of a motion. This analysis has two main parts: (a) a distinction of the causes in type, according to the relation each bears to the effect, the motion caused; and (b) a consideration of the modes of causation.

a. The fourfold distinction of causes in type need not be discussed here. We are primarily concerned with the efficient cause, for this is the only cause that must be extrinsic to, rather than immanent in, the motion caused. Apart from the voluntary motions of men, in which an end for the motion lies beyond the term of the motion itself, the term of a natural motion is, in different aspects, both the formal and the final cause of the motion. The material and the formal (or final) cause of a motion are in the thing moved, according to the definition of motion as the act of that which is in potency in the respect in which it is potency—the formal cause being the act, the material cause the potency, mentioned. But the efficient cause is itself a motion, not simply the immanent principle of a motion, its constitutive act or potency; and, therefore, it must be the motion of a subject distinct from the subject whose motion is efficiently caused. Aristotle’s examples here verify this: the man who gave advice, or the builder who makes, or the father who procreates, are mentioned as efficient causes; and generally the efficient cause is described as “what makes of what is made and what causes change of what is changed” (Physics, II, 3, 194b30-31). Efficient causation thus always involves the correlation of agent and patient, mover and moved. I shall return to this point and discuss it in the light of what is said about motions in Physics, III, 3.

b. The distinction among modes of causation involves two points: what Aristotle calls “incidental” vs. “proper” causes, and what Aristotle calls “potential” vs. “actual” causes. I shall show presently that these distinctions apply only to one of the four causes, i.e., the efficient cause; or, at least, primarily to this one. In any case, we need consider these distinctions only in the sphere of efficient causation.

c. In addition to the foregoing, Aristotle gives certain rules for accurate speech about causes. If the cause is named generically or specifically, the effect must be similarly named; if the cause is named individually, the effect must be similarly named. Thus, the artist is generic cause of any work of art as generic effect; the sculptor, a specific artist, is cause of

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