Theism and Material Causality

Consider the following argument against classical theism, which I'll call the Argument from Material Causality:

1. If classical theism is true, then our universe began to exist without a material cause of its existence.

2. All concrete objects that begin to exist have a material cause of their existence.

3. The universe is a concrete object.

4. Therefore, classical theism is false.

The argument is clearly valid[1], and so the conclusion follows of necessity from the premises. Furthermore, premise 1 follows from the classical conception of theism, according to which God created the universe ex nihilo (I’ll say more about the premise a bit later, when we consider objections to the argument).

What about premise 2? First, a word about terminology is in order. Technical terms in the premise are meant to conform to standard philosophical usage. Thus ‘concrete object’ is here meant to denote the sorts of entities classically individuated by the ontological category of (Primary) Substance, i.e., non-abstract entities that can exist in their own right[2], such as atoms, stars, rocks, planets, trees, animals, people, and (if any should exist) Cartesian souls, angels, and gods. They are thus to be distinguished from concrete entities that can’t exist in their own right (tropes, events, states (e.g., qualia), and the like) and abstract objects (propositions, numbers, sets, and the like). Furthermore, ‘material cause’, is here meant to capture (roughly) Aristotle’s principle of material causality, i.e., the principle that states that new objects are always made from other stuff (whether the object is material or immaterial). By ‘material cause’, then, I mean (roughly) ‘the stuff out of which a new thing is made’.

Is the principle of material causality plausible? It certainly seems so. Compare: William Lane Craig has argued for an analogous version of Aristotle’s principle of efficient causality: whatever begins to exist has an efficient cause of its existence.[3] In support of the latter principle, Craig argues that (i) it's universally confirmed in our experience, and that (ii) it's supported by an a priori intuition.[4] But the same sorts of considerations Craig offers in support of his causal principle can be marshaled in support of the causal principle stated in (2) above: (i') it's universally confirmed in our experience, and (ii') it's supported by an a priori intuition. Let’s look briefly at each in turn.

The support for (i’) is, I take it, relatively uncontroversial. Indeed, (i’) has more going for it than (i). For while we lack evidence of a concrete object arising from an efficient cause without a material cause, quantum mechanics provides at last some evidence of concrete objects arising from a material cause without an efficient cause.

We can prime our intuitions about (ii') with the following illustration.[5] Thus, suppose we came upon a log cabin in the forest, and were told that the cabin was very special: it popped into existence out of nothing without an efficient cause. I imagine most of us would find that implausible. But suppose instead that we were told that it was special for another reason: a lumberjack built it without building materials. I imagine most of us would find the second claim at least as implausible as the first claim. I therefore take it that the principle of material causality stated in premise 2 has at least as much going for it as Craig's version of the principle of efficient causality, if not more.

That leaves premise 3 -- the claim that the universe is a concrete object. But this premise seems clearly true. Thus, the universe is clearly not an abstract object, on an ontological par with, say, the number three. Nor does it seem on a par with objects that can’t exist in their own right (akin to the way that, say, a smile depends upon a mouth for its existence). Rather, it seems to be a concrete object that exists in its own right, in the way that atoms, rocks, and planets do. Therefore, given the way we’ve defined ‘concrete object’ above, it seems clear that the universe satisfies this definition.[6]

We’ve seen that the argument from material causality is valid. We’ve also seen that the premises enjoy at least prima facie support. It therefore looks as though the argument from material causality is a pretty decent argument against classical theism. Can the premises be resisted? I can think of a number of ways in which one might do so. However, such responses seem less plausible than the premises themselves. I will argue for the latter claim below.

First, one might resist premise 1 by arguing that classical theism could still be true even if either (a) our universe never began to exist (i.e., it’s eternal) or (b) it was produced by a material cause (or both). Response (a) strikes me as implausible, given the predominance of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo within the history of Western philosophical theology. Furthermore, such a concessive response entails a substantially weaker view of divine creation and sovereignty. For on such a view, God is not responsible for the origin of matter, and is thus not the Creator in as robust a sense as that traditionally attributed to him.

One might push the point further by appeal to a stronger version of the principle of material causality, according to which all concrete objects that either begin to exist or depend upon a sustaining cause for their continued existence have a material cause. The second disjunct of this stronger causal principle seems to have as much support as the first, for it, too, is supported by both uniform experience and rational intuition. Thus, the continued existence of a flame depends upon a sustaining cause for its continued existence. But here we find that the flame’s sustenance crucially involves a material cause, viz. reacting gases and solids. Furthermore, our intuitions in support of the stronger causal principle are triggered when we attempt to imagine the flame’s continued existence without the presence of reacting gases, solids or some other material cause; the intuition is unaffected when we imagine the flame to be eternal. 

It therefore looks as though the stronger version of the principle of material causality enjoys as much support as the weaker version stated in the original argument. But if so, then there is pressure to say even if the universe is eternal, it nonetheless requires a material cause. And if that’s right, then the person who takes the option (a) response on the basis of our original argument from material causality has reason to deny that God plays the role of Creator in either of the traditional senses attributed to him, viz., as originating cause or as sustaining cause of the universe. Rather, at best he exists as just one among the many uncreated concrete objects within the universe, functioning as something on the order of Plato’s Demiurge. But if it seemed a stretch to say that denying God the role of originating cause is compatible with classical theism, then to also deny God the role of sustaining cause stretches the compatibility claim beyond the breaking point. Relatedly, adopting the sort of concessive response would seem to pressure one to reject the data appealed to in cosmological arguments for God’s existence. It therefore seems to me that few classical theists will take this route to resisting this argument, and that those who do must do so at the expense of a significant loss of data in support of theism.

We’ve seen that the option (a) response is implausible. We’ve also seen that there is pressure on the one who adopts it to also adopt option (b), and that this seems incompatible with a sufficiently robust view of God as Creator to qualify as a standard version of theism. However, one might think there is yet a way out. For one might reply that God could function as originating cause of the universe, and perhaps even as its sustaining cause, even if he can’t perform either function without using pre-existing stuff. For it’s at least epistemically possible for God to create and sustain the universe out of his own Being. I grant that such a view is epistemically possible. Unfortunately, though, such a view is equivalent to either pantheism or panentheism. And whether or not either view is true, neither view seems compatible with classical theism.

We’ve seen that rejecting premise 1 looks unpromising as a way to resist the argument’s conclusion. One might therefore look next to reject premise 2, which would require producing a counterexample to the principle of material causality. And indeed some have attempted to do so. Perhaps the most promising (or at least the most prominent) approach at this involves an appeal to agent causal views of the self. So, for example, J.P. Moreland has appealed to introspective evidence of one’s own actions as evidence of our ability to act immediately and directly on our bodies qua sources of agent causal power.[7] But if so, then one might take this as evidence of an agent’s power to create energy ex nihilo without a prior material cause. Again, however, I think that few will take this route. For even if it could be shown that agent causation requires the creation of energy ex nihilo (as opposed to, for example, the transfer of pre-existing energy from within the agent), agent causal views of the self are held by only a tiny minority of contemporary philosophers – indeed those who hold such a view are typically already classical theists. For the antecedently unconvinced, however (i.e., the majority of contemporary philosophers), such appeals are likely to be less than persuasive.

Finally, one might reject premise 3. I can think of at least two ways in which one might resist this premise. First, one might resist it via appeal to disagreement about the nature of material composition, arguing that it's not clear that the universe is a single, composite thing that exists in its own right, rather than a mere aggregate of things. At least two things might be said in reply. First, one might argue that even if the universe isn’t currently a single thing, it's not implausible to think that it nonetheless was a single thing in the very earliest stages of our universe's history. Second, whether or not the universe turns out to be a single thing or a mere aggregate, the same considerations we discussed in support of (2) -- viz., universal experience and rational intuition -- also support the claim that aggregates that begin to exist, like single objects, have material causes as well. Thus, whether a chair is really a single object or merely a collection of simples arranged chairwise, our experience and intuitions support the claim that "it" came from previously existing stuff. Similarly for any other actual aggregate we've experienced (and for any possible aggregate we can imagine). 

Second, one might reject premise 3 by arguing that even if the universe is a single concrete entity, it’s nonetheless not an object in its own right. Rather, it’s something on the order of a thought or mental episode in the mind of God. Alternatively, one might take the universe to be some other sort of mode of God's being. Again, however, I doubt that many will take this route, as it requires adopting a view on the order of Berkeleyan idealism, which seems implausible, or Spinozism, which seems incompatible with classical theism.

We've seen that a strong argument against classical theism can be constructed from the commonsense observation that the universe is a concrete object that exists in its own right, and from the extremely well supported principle of material causality. Little attention has been paid to the argument to date, but our brief exploration of it suggests that it is worthy of serious investigation.

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[1] Proof: Let: ‘T’= ‘classical theism is true’; ‘Bx’ =’x begins to exist’; ‘Mx’=‘x has a material cause of its existence’; ‘Cx’=’x is a concrete object’; and ‘u’=’our universe’. Then we have:

1. T -> (Bu & ~Mu) Premise

2. (Ax)[(Cx & Bx) -> Mx] Premise

3. Cu Premise

4. T Assumption for Indirect Proof

5. Bu & ~Mu 1,4 MP

6. (Cu & Bu) -> Mu 2 AE

7. ~Mu 5 &E

8. ~(Cu & Bu) 6,7 MT

9. ~Cu v ~Bu 8 DeM

10. Bu 5 &E

11. ~~Bu 10 DN

12. ~Cu 9,11 DS

13. Cu & ~Cu 3, 12 &I

14. ~T 4-13 ~I

[2] My characterization of concrete objects as entities that exist in their own right reflects an “independence” account of substances or objects.  For a semi-recent analysis and defense of an independence account, see (e.g.) Hoffman, Joshua and Rosenkrantz, Gary S. Substance: It’s Nature and Existence (Routledge, 1997). However, nothing of significance turns on this characterization of substances or objects. What matters is the restriction of the subject in premise 2 to entities that fall within the classical ontological category of Primary Substance, and to distinguish them from entities that belong to other ontological categories (e.g., property, relation, event, etc.). If one is averse to appeals to ontological categories, ostensive reference to clear cases is sufficient to gain an adequate grasp of the meaning of the term. For help here, see the list of examples above. 

[3] Craig’s most recent and thorough defense of the claim can be found in Craig and James D. Sinclair, “The Kalam Cosmological Argument”, in William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), pp. 101-201.

[4] Ibid, pp. 182-190.

[5] The following illustration is based on the one found in Morriston, Wes. "Creation Ex Nihilo and the Big Bang”, Philo 5:1 (2002), pp. 23-33.

[6] As I'll argue below, the material composition debate turns out to be irrelevant to the argument.

[7] Moreland, J.P. “Searle’s Biological Naturalism and the Argument from Consciousness”, Faith & Philosophy 15 (1998), pp. 68-91.