Two Basic Questions — A Second Reminder
In a world that has become a madhouse, it is routine for all public institutions to affirm that women have male sexual organs and men can menstruate, that homosexuals can become man and wife in holy matrimony, and that a mother has constitutionally protected right to murder her child in the womb, and that 97% of scientists agree we all died of mass starvation due to overpopulation triggered by the New Ice Age that destroyed the earth seven years ago.
In such a Bedlam world, it is useful and necessary from time to time for sane and rational men each to be reminded of basic truths that reason deduces from the self evident.
These things are not self evident in themselves. Each requires agreement on common propositions learned from things commonly observed in the world around us, or learned from history.
The basic enigmas of the human condition fall into two basic questions: 1. Who am I? 2. Where did I come from?
It is safe to say that, aside from the babe full of benignity on his mother’s breast suckling, humans are generally dissatisfied with the human condition.
Whatever else may or may not be true of us, man is the only rational creature known to us to fear death, and be forever unable to escape it. That is the one branch of the central mystery and horror of human life on earth.
Whatever else may or may not be true of us, man is the only rational creature known to us to be able to understand the moral order of nature, but unable to live according to it. That is the second branch.
I say “the moral order of nature” because I am not here speaking of the customs of a particular time and place, or the obligations imposed by contacts or covenant which apply only to a given group.
I am speaking here of whatever moral order there may be that applies to all men for better or worse, high and low alike, of all times and places.
The moral order is more than this, and its precise nature is open to dispute, but certain basics have no sober dispute.
Among these basics is the notion of the reciprocity that must underpin any moral standard, namely, that it is not a standard unless it applies equally to all.
This standard is known in the West as the Golden Rule: do as you would be done by. But the classical world had their own wording for this, as do sages in the East. There are differences in nuance, but the basics are the same.
It follows that this rule cannot be obeyed by men possessed by cowardice, passion, folly or injustice. An internal order in the soul is needed to allow for a correct ordering of our acts towards others.
Following the classical reasoning, then, the moral order includes an imperative for each man Each man should so conduct himself that fortitude appear in labors and dangers: temperance in foregoing pleasures: prudence in the choice between good and evil: justice in giving every man his own.
That we are unable or unwilling to abide perfectly by these imperatives is the central observation that is the beginning of wisdom. Young children, or those who adore a famous figure with divine honors, may regard parent or teacher or pop star or glorious leader as a flawless paragon, but no one of common sense. Men are not angels.
One need but observe that no child, as he learns language, need ever be taught that abuse of language called lying. It is something all men do naturally.
Nor is the sense of wrongdoing that follows something which need be taught, particularly when the child finds himself as the one being lied about.
He might offer an excuse saying the rule does not apply in his particular case, but this tacitly implies the rule applies in the general case.
Guilt is when the reason joins in the condemnation, an a growing child reaches the age when he sees that he should not treat others how he himself would see to be unfair where it he.
Shame is something men share with the higher animals, since a dog, as well as a small child, can tell when he has offended master or mother, even if neither can articulate why.
The origins of this universal experience of guilt is not obvious. The matter is shrouded in mystery and legend, and so we need not approach that question here and now.
Here and now, it is sufficient to that the sense of a universal standard of good and right behavior is universal to mankind, as well as knowledge that all have fallen short.
It is the one irremovable fact of the human condition that ought never be eluded, or evaded, or denied, first, since it is too obvious to debate, and, second, since it is the only cure for pride, and the folly pride engenders.
Who am I? I am a mortal man who has fallen short of moral perfection. In theological terms: I am a sinner who is doomed to die.
Something about that does not seem right. I do not want to die and I do not want to sin, and yet both are inescapable.
There are revealed truths that mystics and prophets have recovered from worlds beyond the natural world which adumbrate that the one fact, that men sin, and the other fact, that men die, are linked. This column only purports to remind all men of things we all already known, so we must leave these deeper matters aside. Whether the two facts are linked or not linked is a crucial matter, but it is not one we here and now address.
Let us remain with what reason and common sense shows to one and all with eyes to look.
The next question that naturally arises is whence come I? For that matter, whence comes the rest of this enigma called nature?
Where does this wonder, the world in all its glory, all the pain and sorrow, triumphs and tragedy, beauty and strangeness, how does it all originate?
That nothing comes from nothing is an axiom without which empirical reasoning is impossible. Is is also axiomatic that men have free will, for, it we lacked it, we would lack responsibility for any action, including the mental action of asking whether or not men have free will.
Please note, however, lest confusion erupt, that the existence of free will is a legal or moral question, that is, who is and is not responsible for his actions; whereas the causation, the principle that nothing comes from nothing, is an axiom of empiricism. Legal and moral questions are not, however, empirical. The two categories apply to different objects, aside from the limited case where, at times, the question of blood alcohol level (an empirical question) relates to cognitive impairment (a legal question related to the moral questions of negligence and responsibility).
Hence, when we say “nothing comes from nothing” we mean it in two ways. First, in an empirical question, its means no event can arise in spacetime without a prior event sufficient to give rise to it to give rise to it.
(In the case of subatomic particles, there may indeed be causes that, by their nature, cannot be known because the interference of the act of observation hides or changes the cause, but obviously a statement of a physicist about the ontology of unobserved entities is a metaphysical statement, believed, if at all, for a priori philosophical reasons, not something that can be proved or disproved by any possible outcome of an experiment. The ontological nature of things not open to empirical examination , such as whether they exist in actuality or only in potential until observed, it is a philosophical question, not an empirical one.)
Logic says that, an infinite regress of causes being not logically possible, there must be an uncaused first cause.
This seems a paradox, but it is not. In a murder case, for example, if the cause of death was a gunshot wound, and the wound was caused by the gunshot, and the gunshot was caused the gun being fired, and the gun was fired by the murderer, because his nervous system stimulated the muscles in his trigger finger deliberately, and if the murderer did all this with malice aforethought, then all the steps in the chain of cause and effect but the last are open to empirical examination, because they deal with mechanical causes. Whether the trigger finger motion was deliberate or accidental, however, and the intent of the shooter at the time of the shot and prior, is not open to empirical observation. The state of mind is deduced from the surrounding evidence, from words or deeds, and from understanding the symbolic meaning of those words and deeds, and symbolic meaning is beyond the reach of empirical investigation.
This last link in the chain of cause and effect is what is called final cause, or, in other words, the reason why a deliberate act was done can only be known by knowing the ends and means the actor had in mind.
All the other links in the chain, such as the mechanical snap of the firing pin, or the chemical reaction of the propellant, or the ballistic path of the bullet, can be completely understood without any reference to the intent or the frame of mind of these inanimate objects, which have no intent nor mind in themselves. These are called efficient causes or mechanical causes.
The chain of cause and effect for the creation of all creation can only go back so far. Even if a later physical theory should say that the Big Bang was a local event only, and that the universe is infinitely old, this merely means that the story is one that has no beginning, not that there is no author.
Someone or something made the timeline and put what is inside the timeline inside, even if it later turns out that the timeline extends infinitely into past and future, or otherwise has no boundary nor first original point.
This timeline, the continuum, contains all of time and space and all the objects in it. It contains all of nature. But if so, then the cause of all of nature cannot arise by a natural cause, that is, by definition that cannot be a material and mechanical cause which gives rise to the material fact that everything material has a mechanical cause.
This means the first link in the series, as in our example of the murder’s gunshot, must be a deliberate act. Because if the act of creating a universe (whether it is created with or without a boundary or origin point in time) creates all time and all nature, then the creation act itself cannot be inside time, nor can the creation act be caused by a natural cause. The law of cause and effect itself cannot arise from nothing, since nothing arises from nothing, nor can it arise from a mechanical cause, since the operation of mechanical causes rest on the prior existence of the law of cause and effect.
Mechanical causes operate from past to future, no mechanical cause can be in the past of the first act in the cosmic beginning of all time.
On the other hand, if the creation of time and space is a legislative act, that is, a willed act, it can be deliberate, in which case it arises by final cause. Final causes act from the future to past. Indeed, is it the nature of deliberate action that it creates a future which otherwise would not come to pass. If all deliberate action creates the future, there is no logical contradiction in specifying a deliberate act, that is, a final cause, to be the cause of all time and space, or, again, to identify a supernatural act as the act which creates all nature.
The uncaused first cause of all being we call God. All other things are contingent on Him, He alone is non-contingent, that is, necessary. Hence, all things that exist come from Him.
Logic says that, contingent on nothing, God lacks nothing, and can be compelled by nothing, and no cause deeper than the first cause can exist: therefore His acts are voluntary. He is a being of free will.
Hence all things that exist come from Him come voluntarily, by His word, which is, by His will.
Without Himself acting, He inspires all acts. Motionless, He sets all things in motion by His word, that is, by His command. Needing nothing, He supplies all that is needed.
Logic says that God is pure act, that is, He contains no potential for additional changes needed to satisfy some felt desire, or to grow into a more perfect form. He has no lacks, no lapses, no wants.
He fathers all things not to sate some need in Himself, nor to repay a debt, but only from the overabundant generosity of His nature. Hence all things that exist come from Him come from His grace, that is to say, as a gift freely given.
We have words for the various perverse and corrupt and diseased versions of things, their lapses and wants, gaps and lacks, but these words do not refer to things but to absences. Truth, virtue, and beauty are things. Falseness, vice, and ugliness are distortions, corruptions, or cavities where things should be, but are not.
Even pain, which seems more real than anything, is but a sign or symbol arising from the body to tell the mind of a lack of food or drink, a lack of love or purpose, a lack of healthy organs each operating as it should.
As the father of all things, God is the source of truth, virtue and beauty. Love is the only proper voluntary response to these things: love of truth is called honesty, love of virtue is called morality, love of beauty is called by many names, from eroticism to affection to ecstasy to aesthetics.
Since love can have no other source but love, therefore the source of all these beloved things must itself be love. God is love.
As the father of all things, God is the cause, or, if you like, the architect of any boundaries that exist: the difference between light and dark, heaven and earth, land and sea, night and day, fish and fowl, beast and man.
As the author of all bounds, He Himself must be unbounded. Therefore we call Him infinite.
As the father of all things, God is the cause of time. Therefore He is eternal.
God is the father of all powers and virtues, for everything that acts, acts because He sets it in motion. Therefore we call Him omnipotent.
As the father of all things, God is the cause of all knowledge, all events. Therefore we call Him omniscient.
Nothing material can be infinite and eternal: hence God is spirit.
Infinite and unbound love cannot suffer any lack or want or needs, and yet, as the uncaused first cause, as well as being a voluntary being, He brings forth all things. Nor is this a paradox: love begets love out of its own superabundance.
That God brings forth all things does not mean He brings forth evil. We experience pain, loneliness, and want in the same way we can see a shadow or hear a silence. It is misleading to speak of this as being directly caused by God, as it would be to speak of darkness being created by the light. Darkness is created, if that is the word, only by interposing an opaque object between eye and lightsource; blindness is created by striking out the eye. This is not a product of the eye being created, but by it being destroyed.
Finally, logic says that if man has the same capacity for reason and moral action as God, we must be spirit, as He is. This means, despite any appearance to the contrary, bodily death is not final. Only material things can decay and die.
Spirit is eternal. It cannot be destroyed.
So much merely logic, without reference to any information God Himself may or may not have chosen to impart to us, can deduce. Even were there no Christians, no Jews, anywhere in history, a sufficiently alert pagan philosopher should at least be able to deduce the monotheism of a Deist.
The answer to who you are and whence you come is to say that you are an imperfect being created by a perfect being, whose nature has somehow been marred or compromised at a fundamental level that is, in a way that afflicts all men by their very nature.
Now that we know who we are and whence we come, what, if anything, is to be done? That is a deeper issue, and must wait another day.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
