firstcauseargument | Causality, Personal Causality and the Science/Religion Dialogue (Thomas Fowler) @firstcauseargument | Uploaded June 2012 | Updated October 2024, 9 hours ago.
Thomas B. Fowler: "Causality, Personal Causality and the Science/Religion Dialogue"
Causality has been a key concept throughout the history of philosophy. One of its main uses has been in securing proofs of the existence of God. A review of the history of causality discloses five distinct phases, with major changes to the uses and understanding of causality. The first phase saw the development of the traditional notion of causality, on which rests the best-known proofs of God's existence. In this phase, causality was considered to be a principle of nature. Later phases rejected proofs based on causality understood in this fashion but still relied upon the same basic idea of causality for other purposes. The whole notion of causality became very confused, especially after developments in physics during the 20th century. Zubiri pointed out that there are really three elements conflated in our idea of causality: real production of effects, functionality, and power of the real. By sorting these out and recognizing that causality in the majority of cases is merely a type of functional relation between "cause" and "effect", many problems are greatly clarified. The type of functionality involved varies greatly and can involve notions unknown to Aristotle, Hume, or Kant. But especially important is the case of causality involving human beings, since knowledge of direct production of effects is available there that is absent elsewhere. Combined with understanding of the power of the real, Zubiri shows that we have knowledge of what he terms a "reality ground," which theists call "God". Causality once again becomes a key element of natural theology, though in a different and more rigorous way than in traditional proofs of God's existence.
2008 July 16
Thomas B. Fowler: "Causality, Personal Causality and the Science/Religion Dialogue"
Causality has been a key concept throughout the history of philosophy. One of its main uses has been in securing proofs of the existence of God. A review of the history of causality discloses five distinct phases, with major changes to the uses and understanding of causality. The first phase saw the development of the traditional notion of causality, on which rests the best-known proofs of God's existence. In this phase, causality was considered to be a principle of nature. Later phases rejected proofs based on causality understood in this fashion but still relied upon the same basic idea of causality for other purposes. The whole notion of causality became very confused, especially after developments in physics during the 20th century. Zubiri pointed out that there are really three elements conflated in our idea of causality: real production of effects, functionality, and power of the real. By sorting these out and recognizing that causality in the majority of cases is merely a type of functional relation between "cause" and "effect", many problems are greatly clarified. The type of functionality involved varies greatly and can involve notions unknown to Aristotle, Hume, or Kant. But especially important is the case of causality involving human beings, since knowledge of direct production of effects is available there that is absent elsewhere. Combined with understanding of the power of the real, Zubiri shows that we have knowledge of what he terms a "reality ground," which theists call "God". Causality once again becomes a key element of natural theology, though in a different and more rigorous way than in traditional proofs of God's existence.
2008 July 16
