(Scripture Reading Exercise.)

III. MISCELLANEOUS EVIDENCES AND ARGUMENTS FOR THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. (Continued.)

I. THE ARGUMENT FROM "A FIRST CAUSE."

SPECIAL TEXT: Intelligence, or the Light of Truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be. (Doc. & Cov., Section cxiii, 30)

NOTES.

1. Definition of Cause: "The power or efficient agent producing anything or event; agent or agency; as gravitation is the cause of the stone's falling; malice is a cause of crime. * * * In a comprehensive sense, all the circumstances, (powers, occasions, actions, and conditions) necessary for an event and necessarily followed by it; the entire antecedent of an event. Efficient Cause, the power or agency producing anything or event; Material Cause, the material out of which by the efficient causes anything is made; Formal Cause, the pattern, place, or form according to which anything is produced by the operation of efficient causes; Final Cause,—God as uncaused and as the original source of all power, change, motion, and life. Styled by Plato and Aristotle the "Prime Mover." (Standard Dictionary, Funk and Wagnall.) The four last forms of the definition are known as "Aristotelian Causes."

2. Evidence of Causation in the External World: "The consideration of the external world around him, even in its broadest aspect, leads man up to the thought of an Eternal Cause; the study of its phenomena in detail with its marvelous intricacy of harmonious interaction produces the impression of design, and leads to the thought of a Designer—i. e., of an Eternal Cause that is intelligent and free.

"Man finds in himself a principle of causality in the light of which he interprets the external world. He cannot help regarding the succession of phenomena which he observes as effects—attributing each to some cause, When he examines that again he discovers it to be no true or absolute cause, but itself the effect of something further back, and so on. He finds in himself the nearest approach to a vera causa. Yet he would recognize the absurdity of calling himself self-caused. And the mind cannot rest in an endless chain of cause-effects. There must be, he feels, if you go far enough back, a real cause, akin, in some way, to man's own power of origination, yet transcending it—a cause that owns no cause—no source of being—but itself." (Belief in God, Dummelow's Commentary, p. ci.)

3. The Mind and the Necessity of Causation: "The mind is compelled to believe in the necessity of causation, and that the cultivated mind, which can realize all the essential conditions of the cause, is compelled to believe in its universality. For what is the belief in the necessity and universality of causation? It is the belief that every event must be determined by some preceding event and must itself determine some succeeding event. And what is an event? It is a manifestation of force. The falling of a stone, the union of two gases, the blowing of a wind, the breaking of wood or glass, the vibration of a cord, the expansion of a heated body, the sprouting of a seed, the circulation of blood, the development of inflammation, the contracting of a muscle, the thinking of a thought, the excitement of an emotion,—all these are manifestations of force. To speak of an event which is not a manifestation of force, is to use language which is empty of significance. Therefore, our belief is that necessity and universality of causation is the belief that every manifestation of force must be preceded and succeeded by some equivalent manifestation. Or, in an ultimate analysis, it is the belief that force, as manifested to our consciousness, can neither arise out of nothing nor lapse into nothing—can neither be created nor annihilated. And the negation of this belief is unthinkable; since to think it would be to perform the impossible task of establishing in thought an equation between something and nothing."

4. The "Eternal Cause": "The argument for a First Cause admits of being (existence), and is, presented as a conclusion from the whole of human experience. Everything that we know (it is argued) had a cause, and owed its existence to that cause. How, then, can it be but that the world, which is but a name for the aggregate of all that we know, has a cause to which it is indebted for its existence?

"The fact of experience, however, when correctly expressed, turns out to be, not that everything which we know derives its existence from a cause, but only every event or change. There is in nature a permanent element, and also a changeable; the changes are always the effects of previous changes; the permanent existences, so far as we know, are not effects at all.^[1] It is true we are accustomed to say not only of events, but of objects, that they are produced by causes, as water by the union of hydrogen and oxygen. But by this we only mean that when they begin to exist, their beginning is the effect of a cause. But their beginning to exist is not an object, it is an event, i. e., the uniting of the elements that make the water. If it be objected that the cause of a thing's beginning to exist may be said with propriety to be the cause of the thing itself, I shall not quarrel with the expression. But that which in an object begins to exist, is that in it which belongs to the changeable element in nature; and the outward form and the properties depending on mechanical or chemical combinations of its component parts. There is in every object another and a permanent element, viz., the specific elementary substance or substances of which it consists and their inherent properties. These are not known to us as beginning to exist; within the range of human knowledge they had no beginning, consequently no cause; though they themselves are causes or con-causes of everything that takes place. Experience, therefore, affords no evidences, not even analogies, to justify our extending to the apparently unmutable, a generalization grounded only on our observation of the changeable.

"As a fact of experience, then, causation cannot legitimately be extended to the material universe itself, but only to its changeable phenomena; of these, indeed, causes may be affirmed without any exception. But what causes? The cause of every change is a prior change, and such it cannot but be; for if there were no new antecedent, there would not be a new consequent. If the state of facts which brings the phenomenon into existence, had existed always or for an indefinite duration, the effect also would have existed always or been produced an indefinite time ago. It is thus a necessary part of the fact of causation, within the sphere of our experience, that the causes as well as the effects had a beginning in time, and were themselves caused. It would seem, therefore, that our experience, instead of furnishing an argument for a first cause, is repugnant to it; and that the very essence of causation as it exists within the limits of our knowledge, is incompatible with a First Cause.

"But it is necessary to look more particularly into the matter, and analyze more closely the nature of the causes of which mankind have experience. For if it should turn out that though all causes have a beginning, there is in all of them a permanent element which had no beginning, this permanent element may, with some justice, be termed a first or universal cause, inasmuch as though not sufficient of itself to cause anything, it enters as a con-cause into all causation. Now it happens that the last result of physical inquiry, derived from the converging evidences of all branches of physical science, does, if it holds good, land us, so far as the material world is concerned, in a result of this sort. Whenever a physical phenomenon is traced to its cause, that cause when analyzed, is found to be a certain quantum of Force, combined with certain collocations. And the last great generalization of science, the 'Conservation of Force,' teaches us that the variety in the effects depends partly upon the amount of the force, and partly upon the diversity of the collocations. The force itself is essentially one and the same; and there exists of it in nature a fixed quantity, which, (if the theory be true), is never increased or diminished. Here, then, we find, even in the changes of material nature, a permanent element; to all appearances the very one of which we were in quest. This it is apparently to which, if to anything, we must assign the character of First Cause, the cause of the material universe. For all effects may be traced up to it, while it cannot be traced up, by our experience, to anything beyond; its transformations alone can be so traced, and of them the cause always includes the force itself; the same quantity of force, in some previous form. It would seem, then, that in the only sense in which experience supports in any shape the doctrine of a First Cause, viz, as the primaeval and universal element in all causes, the First Cause can be no other than Force." ("Theism" Mill. "Three Essays on Religion," pp. 142-145.)

5. Of Mind as Originating Force: Mr. Mill in his treatise on Theism, from which the foregoing note is quoted, recognizes the fact that the conclusion with which our quotation ends, is not the last word on the subject. On the contrary, he recognizes the fact that the greatest stress of the argument comes forward at that point. "For," Mr. Mill goes on to say, "it is maintained that mind is the only possible cause of Force; or rather, perhaps, that Mind is a force, and that all other forces must be derived from it inasmuch as mind is the only thing which is capable of originating change. This is said to be the lesson of human experience. In the phenomena of inanimate nature the force which works is always a pre-existing force, not originated, but transferred. One physical object moves another by giving out to it the force by which it has first been itself moved. The wind communicates to the waves, or to a windmill, or a ship, part of the motion which has been given to itself by some other agent. In voluntary action alone we see a commencement, an origination of motion; since all other causes appear incapable of this origination, experience is in favor of the conclusion that all the motion in existence owed its beginning to this one cause, viz, voluntary agency, if not that of man, then of a more powerful Being." ("Theism" (Mill) p. 146.) The fact is, however, that mind, spirit, intelligence (representing one thing) is eternal, not first, since there can be no first. (See Notes 8 and 9.)

6. Mind not the Sole Originator of Force: "This argument," our author suggests, "is a very old one, going back at least as far as Plato, and is still a favorite argument with certain metaphysical defenders of natural theology." But Mr. Mill holds that "if there be truth in the doctrine that the total amount of force in the universe remains constant, i. e., is not diminished nor increased, but remains always the same (the fact is usually called the conservation of force)—then "This doctrine does not change from true to false when it reaches the field of voluntary agency." "The will," he goes on to say, "does not any more than any other causes, create force; granting that it originates motion, it has no means of doing so but by converting into that particular manifestation a portion of force which already existed in other forms. It is known that the source from which this portion of force is derived, is chiefly, or entirely, the force evolved in the processes of chemical composition and decomposition which constitute the body of nutrition; the force so liberated becomes a fund upon which every muscular and even every merely nervous action, as of the brain in thought, is a draft. It is in this sense only, that according to the best lights of science, volition is an originating cause. Volition, therefore, does not answer to the idea of a 'First Cause,' since Force must in every instance be assumed as prior to it; and there is not the slightest color, derived from experience, for supposing force itself to have been created by a volition. As far as anything can be concluded from human experience force has all the attributes of a thing eternal and uncreated.

7. Volition Does Not Answer the Idea of a First Cause: Observe the statement in the above note (6), "Volition, therefore, does not answer to the idea of a First Cause; since force must in every instance be assumed as prior to it." But why must Force "in every instance be assumed as prior" to volition? May not eternal things exist together as the two eternal things, matter and force, co-exist; as duration and space co-exist? Indeed Mr. Mill in a tentative way suggests the co-eternity of will and force as a possibility. "Whatever verdict experience can give in the case," he remarks, "is against the possibility that will ever originates force; yet if we can be assured that neither does force originate will, will must be held to be an agency, if not prior to force yet co-eternal with it; and if it be true that will can originate, not indeed force but the transformation of force from some other of its manifestations into that of mechanical motion, and that there is within human experience no other agency capable of doing so, the argument for a will as the originator, though not of the universe, yet of the cosmos, or order of the universe, remains unanswered." (Theism p. 148.)

8. The "Eternal Cause." In the passage quoted in the above note, Mr. Mill is very near the truth; and if only his term "will" could be dropped for the term "Intelligence," which represents a larger fact than volition merely, then Mr. Mill would be exactly right. Intelligence stands for consciousness, self-consciousness and consciousness of not-self; for reason; for judgment, the power that after ratiocination determines that this state or thing is better than that state or thing; and granting also that volition is a factor of Intelligence, (and one sees not how it can be otherwise), grant this, and also that intelligence is as eternal as force and matter, and you have if not every element of a first cause, at least every element of the "Eternal cause," which stands for the same thing—God!

But Mr. Mill insists, and very truly, that the statement last quoted from him, in so far at least as it holds that "there is within human experience no other agent capable of transforming force from some other of its manifestations into that of mechanical motion," is not conformable to fact. "Whatever volition can do," he says, "in the way of creating motion out of other forms of force, and generally of evolving force from a latent into a visible state, can be done by many other causes. Chemical action, for instance, electricity, heat, the mere presence of a gravitating body; all these are causes of mechanical motion on a far larger scale than any volitions which experience presents to us; and in most of the effects thus produced the motion given by one body to another, is not, as in the ordinary cases of mechanical action, motion that has first been given to that other by some third body. The phenomenon is not a mere passing on of mechanical motion, but a creation of it out of a force previously latent or manifesting itself in some other form. Volition, therefore, regarded as an agent in the material universe, has no exclusive privilege of origination."

So let it be. But this does not diminish the value of that transformation (and in a sense origination) of force by intelligence, by reason of which order is brought forth from disorder—cosmos from chaos. What matters it if great spaces of matter are "without form and void," and "darkness is upon the face of the deep," if only intelligence is there brooding over the mass to give purposive direction to the forces there latent or blindly tumbling in chaotic confusion, until light and orderly development shall bring forth worlds to answer noble ends. And that the 'Eternal Cause' does thus operate upon co-eternal force and eternal matter is witnessed by the orderly universe, everywhere giving evidence of the reign of law. It is this fact of an orderly universe, whose phenomena run backward through a chain of causes that suggest a purposive Eternal Cause, back of it. This necessity for an Eternal Cause makes that cause one of the sources of man's knowledge of God.

9. On the Use of the Phrase "Eternal Cause." It will be observed that in the quotation made from the article "Belief in God," in this lesson, (Note 2) that the term "Eternal Cause" is used instead of "First Cause." It is used by the author of that Article without explanation. Mr. Mill uses the term "First Cause" and "Eternal Cause" interchangeably. The reason for our use of "Eternal Cause," instead of "First Cause" will appear in part from the quotation made from Mill in note 2, where the difficulty of arriving at a cause that is not itself an effect to some preceding cause is pointed out; and where also it is shown that "though all causes have a beginning, there is in all of them a permanent element which had no beginning;" and "this permanent element may with some justice be termed a first or universal cause." In both Mormon Theism and Mormon philosophy, matter is eternal force, the permanent element in all causation, according to the suggestion of Mr. Mill, is eternal; and intelligence, with its power to direct force to purposive ends, is eternal. "Intelligence, * * * was not created or made, neither indeed can be." (Doc. and Cov. Sec. XCIII.) To talk of "beginnings," then, or "firsts," in any absolute sense, in the midst of these eternal things, is to talk nonsense.

As Mr. Herbert Spencer remarks, "We are no more able to form a circumscribed idea of cause, than of space or time; and we are consequently obliged to think of the cause which transcends the limits of our thought as positive though indefinite. Just in the same manner that on conceiving any bounded space there arrives a nascent consciousness of space outside the bounds; so, when we think of any definite cause, there arises a nascent consciousness of a cause behind it; and in the one case as in the other, this nascent consciousness is in substance like that which suggests it, though without form." (First Principles, p. 95-6.)

It may be difficult, then, especially within the range of human experience or even within human power of conception, to posit a cause that is not itself an effect of some antecedent cause, in other words, a "first cause;" but it is not difficult to apprehend an eternal cause, co-existing with eternal matter and force; and by the interaction of these eternal things an orderly universe under the reign of law is the outcome. I say it is not difficult to apprehend an eternal cause. I mean, of course, it is no more difficult to apprehend an eternal cause than it is to apprehend any other eternal thing—matter or force or extension.

Footnotes

1. Such as space, duration, matter, force. See Seventy's Second Year Book, all the notes of Lesson V, pp. 28-32.