Without God nothing else could exist

The following is Part V in a series defending the claims of the Catholic Church. Read Part I here; Part II here; Part III here; and Part IV here. 

(LifeSiteNews) — This is the fifth installment in a series of articles demonstrating the reasonableness of the claims of the Catholic Church. In the previous installment we demonstrated that the existence of God can be known with certainty from what we observe of “motion,” or change, in the world around us.

In this article we will explore a second path by which we can attain certainty about the existence of God: the argument from “efficient causality.”

The distinction between the ‘first way’ and the ‘second way’

As we noted in the previous article, St. Thomas Aquinas’s proofs for the existence of God all begin from something that we can easily observe in the world around us. 

The “first way” begins with our sensory perception that the things of our experience are subject to change.

The “second way” begins with our perception that the things in the world around us are caused by something external to themselves.

There is a distinction between the observation of motion and the observation of efficient causality, and thus the proofs proceed from a different point, even though there is a similarity in how they develop.

But what is “efficient causality”?

Efficient causality

To understand the “second way” we must first understand the meaning of the term efficient causality. 

First, let’s see what we mean by cause and effect. 

• A cause is anything which contributes in any way to the producing of a thing.  
• An effect is the thing produced by the causes. 

The relationship between cause and effect is called causality.

There are countless different causes in the observable universe. However, they can all be categorized as either intrinsic or extrinsic. 

• Intrinsic causes are “in the thing,” they are part of it, and cannot be separated from it. For example, the wood of which a statue is made.
• Extrinsic causes are external to the thing. For example, the craftsman who carved the statue.

Intrinsic causes can be further subdivided into material and formal causes:

• The material cause is the matter of which a thing consists. For example, the wood, or marble or gold, of which a particular statue is made.
• The formal cause is that which constitutes a thing as precisely the thing that it is. It is that which determines and specifies the matter. For example, a wooden statue of a particular size, shape, weight, and so on.

Extrinsic causes can be subdivided into efficient and final causes:

• The efficient cause is that which produces an effect by its own action. For example, the craftsman is the efficient cause of the wooden statue beginning to exist. The efficient cause may have its effect through an instrumental cause, which in this case might be the chisel and hammer with which the craftsman works.
• The final cause is that towards which the efficient cause is directed in the production of the effect. In this example, the craftsmen may wish to make a statue of Our Lady so as to move men to prayer. Of course, things need not be consciously aware of their final causes; a wooden torch does not intend to burn and give light, but the nature of the wood does dispose it towards the end of burning.

All causes fall under one these four categories: material causes, formal causes, efficient causes and final causes.  

All beings which are caused can be called contingent beings, that is they are contingent on the operation of their causes for their existence. If the causes did not operate, the contingent being would not exist. 

A contingent being is therefore something capable of non-existence. It is a “possible” being, but it does not exist out of “necessity.” It exists only because it has been caused to exist by a being other than itself.

The opposite of a “possible being” is a “necessary being,” that is, a being whose existence is not contingent on any other being. A “necessary being” would, therefore, be self-existent and uncaused. 

These points will be important to remember later on in our argument. 

A closer look at efficient causality

There are few important aspects of efficient causality to consider before we move on to look at St. Thomas’s proof.

A distinction can be drawn between two types of efficient cause:

1. An efficient cause, the action of which causes a thing’s coming into being (an efficient cause in fieri) 
2. An efficient cause, the action of which sustains a thing in being (an efficient cause in esse)

The craftsman is the efficient cause of the statue’s coming into being, but once he has finished his work the statue will continue to exist, without his further action. He is the efficient cause of its coming into being, but his actions do not sustain its continued being.

The statue continues to exist because it’s existence is being sustained by another efficient cause operating at the given moment at which it exists. 

In the case of the statue, the wood from which it is made is of such a nature as to retain the shape which the craftsman gave it. In the absence of those natural qualities which allow it to conserve its shape, that shape would disappear, and the statue could no longer be said to exist. 

An effect ceases to be as soon as its cause ceases to operate. The statue’s process of coming into being ceased when the craftsman laid down his tools, and the statue’s being would cease if the cause sustaining its existence ceased to operate.  

It is therefore not sufficient for existence for a thing to have come into being at some point in time, rather it must be sustained in being by the continued operation of its causes. 

As the philosopher George Hayward Joyce S.J. writes:

It is absolutely impossible that a thing, which requires a cause to bring it into being, should remain in existence independently of cause in esse retaining it in being.^[1]

This is because, as explained above, things which have come into being are contingent on their causes and are not the cause of their own being. 

If we were to assert that a created thing, like our wooden statue, could sustain itself in existence, we would be asserting that it was the kind of being which, by its own nature, was possessed of existence. But something which possesses existence by its own nature would have always existed and could never cease to be. Yet this is clearly not the case for the statue, or any other thing of which we have sensory experience. 

Therefore, we can affirm that every created thing of which we have sensory knowledge is the effect of two sequences of efficient causation:

1. Sequences of coming into being, through time
2. Sequences of being, at a given moment in time

Any given sequence under consideration has at least two members, a cause and effect, but a sequence may be extended to include a larger number of causes, from a first cause, through a number of intermediate causes, to the effect under consideration. 

An example of the first kind of sequence would be the continued generation of human beings, from father to son, generation after generation.

An example of the second kind of sequence would be the sustaining in existence of a given human being, after he has come to be. 

In this example we see more clearly the need for a sustaining cause. A man is more than just material substance, like our wooden statue, but rather he is a rational sentient living body, all of whose parts act as a single whole. There must therefore be an efficient cause of his continued being which is of an order capable of sustaining such a being in existence. 

It is from the second kind of sequence – the order of efficient causes of being – that St. Thomas Aquinas demonstrates the existence of God. 

How we can demonstrate the existence of God from the nature of the efficient cause?

St. Thomas begins:

In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. 

When we observe the world around us, we see things coming into being through the action of efficient causes. 

For example, we have seen the wooden statue coming into being due to the action of the craftsman, or a man coming into being as a result of human reproduction. 

We have also seen that there must be an order of efficient causes of being which explains why created contingent things, like the statue and the man, continue in existence after they have been created. 

As these things do not have the power to sustain themselves in existence, they must be sustained by something other than themselves, of an order capable of producing such an effect. 

For, as St. Thomas, says:

There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible.

Neither the statue, or the man, or anything else, can be an efficient cause of itself. All are the effect of one or more efficient causes of their being. 

However, as St. Thomas writes:

In efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. 

Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. 

But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false.

The reason for this is evident from everything that we have said so far. 

Every effect of which we have awareness is itself the effect of an efficient cause. Therefore, each member of the sequence must in turn have its own efficient cause. 

But how can there be a first cause standing at the beginning of the sequence, if every efficient cause needs to be caused by another cause? 

Yet, there must be such a cause, because as St. Thomas says, “if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate efficient causes.”

Without the first cause, which begins a sequence, no other effect would be produced. Hence St. Thomas says, “to take away the cause is to take away the effect.”

There is only one solution to this problem. At the beginning of every sequence there must be a first cause, which is not subject to the limitation inherent in all the causes of which we have sense knowledge.

There must be a first cause, which is itself uncaused by an efficient cause. This is the only explanation which permits a sequence of efficient causality which sustains a contingent being in existence. 

This uncaused cause is necessarily a being whose existence is not contingent on causes. Therefore, it is a self-existent necessary being.

If such a necessary being did not exist, we would be unable to account for a universe which consists of contingent beings that cannot be their own efficient causes. 

As Dominican friar and theologian Réginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange explains:

[W]e cannot proceed ad infinitum, but must finally arrive at a primary cause, itself uncaused, which has being from itself, which it can give to, and preserve in others, and without which nothing that actually exists could continue to exist.^[2]

Therefore, St. Thomas concludes:

It is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.

This being is the First Efficient Cause of all the effects in the universe. 

It is the origin of all existence and all change. 

This “Uncaused Cause” necessarily has no origin and must therefore be eternal. 

As a necessary self-existent being, it is not subject to limitation and is therefore both infinite and perfect.^[3] 

This necessary, self-existent, uncaused, eternal, infinite and perfect creator is certainly that being of which human beings speak when they say “God.”