The Argument from God

All right, I've basically forgotten what this argument is, so I am going to reconstruct it. I think a version of it is in my theodicy, which is earlier in the post.

The cosmological argument roughly goes as follows:

1. There are events which have causes.

2. Events which are caused can either go back infinitely (so that there is an infinite regression of causes), or there is one Cause which is itself uncaused.

3. Even if there is an infinite regression of causes, we can still ask, why this causal chain?

4. If an infinite regression of causes is not possible, there must be something like a first cause.

5. So, either there is a first cause which itself has no causes, or there is a reason for the existence of an infinite causal chain.

6. This second thing, a "reason for the infinite causal chain," is really not substantively different from the Uncaused Cause: it is an uncaused cause, in a sense, since it is the basis for the possibility of the causal chain, in a sense.

7. So, an Uncaused Cause is a reasonable belief.

I've given a really light version of the argument, obviously, and haven't looked at it in a long time, so go easy on me here. But basically you get the idea. It seems like at some point, for cause to make sense, one has to posit something which can give rise to ordinary cause but is itself somehow special. This thing is what is called God by Aquinas. We don't have to do that, however. We can simply admit that either there is a First Cause, the nature of which would not be caused or it wouldn't be the first cause, or there is a Cause for Infinitely Temporal Causes, which would be also a sort of uncaused cause; whatever it looks like, we'll call it God for short, would not have a cause. Note, however, that this could also not be random, because randomness is really either 1. causes we don't understand or 2. something happening for no reason. The Uncaused Cause doesn't happen for 'no reason,' ITSELF is the reason for its existence. It is the nature of causality itself, and is exactly the opposite of the notion of randomness. All regular causes, you see, are sort of partial. This means that they owe their existence to some other cause. Randomness could only admit itself, I think, in the realm of partial causes. The Uncaused Cause cannot have such partiality because it cannot be caused into being; it is causally "full." But, in this sense, it is also causally "free." It is not caused, and it is not random.

I propose that this Uncaused Cause, if we can assume that such a thing exists (even if we are not willing to call it God for the purposes of this argument) could be partaken of by human consciousness in a lesser sense. I don't propose that human beings are Uncaused Causes, but that human will could have a power analogous to uncaused causality. It would not be a true uncaused cause, because human beings are caused into existence, and therefore so are their wills. But the development of the human will, in the process of understanding the world around it and comprehending the concept of cause within its own choices, may become a sort of lesser version, a mirror if you will, of Uncaused Causality. If one accepts theism, this is a lot easier to swallow: we simply can believe that God imparts, in some way, a sort of representation of Uncaused Causality, what we in our day to day lives experience as free will. It does have cause involved, it is not causally free, but its design is to, within certain contexts, behave in a fashion analogous to the Uncaused Cause, which allows the human will to transcend the caused/random dilemma of the hard determinist. Exactly how this would work isn't clear to me, and it seems like some details still need fleshing out. It seems like the "Uncaused Causality" of humans is perhaps limited in this way: there have to be certain causes already in effect (what we could call freedom factors, if we like alliteration) which permit the human will to be exercised freely. This would include: being born, not being brain washed, not being coerced, and other factors we might say could encroach on the designed, "caused" Uncausality of causation (whew!) that God created in us. Free will is thus a contingency and still demands certain limitations on libertarian thought; it certainly would be less free than Kant's libertarianism. But it seems like a possibility, at any rate.