Resolving Aristotle's Antinomy of Creation
by Dr A.B. Kelly
Abstract
I argue that Aristotle is correct in his apparently contradictory
conclusions that God is necessary as the first mover to explain the existence
of the world and that God is not able to be the cause of an entity that is
significantly different from God.
The cosmic process exists to make possible the self-creation of a
communal entity whose nature is not significantly different from God's nature,
resolving Aristotle's contradiction. Humans are involved in this process,
creating aspects of their own being and their cultures. This self-creative
process can enable humans to become similar to God in knowledge, creativity and
goodness.
Introduction
In 'The Intelligent Design of the Cosmos' (2006) I argue that the Cosmos
is an intelligent design, a freely operating process of material
self-organisation and human self-creation. Homo sapiens became human by
developing a mind and beginning to create their individual and communal moral
and spiritual natures.
In 'Resolving the Goldilocks Enigma' (2007) I argue that the
Life-friendliness of the Universe is neither a chance occurrence in a
Multiverse nor the result of interventions by a 'hands-on' God. God is
necessarily 'hands-off' the world, which is Humanity's 'do-it-yourself kit'.
In this paper I resolve Aristotle's antinomy of creation, propose an
explanation of God's motive for creation, and provide the solution to the
problem of evil.
Apologia
In previous roles as a Criminal Investigator and as Police Prosecutor I
found Criminals were seldom obliging enough to commit crimes in front of
witnesses. I always had to construct a coherent case from the available
evidence. When I turned to Philosophical Cosmology I discovered I was immersed
in the evidence that supports this case.
The Process of Emergent Evolution
The Cosmos freely develops by the process of Emergent Evolution. This
process operates to make possible the development of a life-form that can
freely create a mind, which can enable that life-form to begin the free
self-creation of a communal entity that is similar to God in knowledge,
creativity and goodness.
There are four Emergent Stages to date: Matter, Life, Mind and the
present Human Moral-cultural Stage. The Cosmic process involves the free
self-organisation of the Emergent Stages of Matter and Life, followed by the
free self-creation of the Human Mind and of the Human Moral-cultural Emergent
Stage.
The Emergent Stages of Matter and Life develop from the Energy of the
Big Bang and the Information provided by the Mathematical Constants that
accompany the Big Bang. These Mathematical Constants 'constitute a recipe for a
universe.' (Rees 2000, 4) They inform the laws of nature of the Emergent Stages
of Matter and Life and of the natural Moral Law.
The first Emergent Stage, Matter, freely self-organises into Galaxies,
Stars and Solar systems. At least one life-friendly planet, Earth, is
eventually produced through this process. The development of a life-friendly
planet provides the opportunity for information from the Mathematical Constants
to inform some available appropriate matter, enabling Life to emerge. Life then
freely evolves, new forms of life appearing in response to internal genetic
processes and changing environments. Life forms tend to increase in complexity
and animal life forms tend to increase in cephalisation.
From about One Million years ago a series of large-brained Hominid
species evolve. As with all life-forms, Hominids have the instinctive knowledge
that is necessary for any species to survive in its environment. Homo sapiens,
the most recent Hominid species, evolve some 160,000 years ago. This species is
initially bound to the same pattern of instinctive activity as other earlier
Hominids.
Eventually some Homo sapiens initiate the process of Human
self-creation, using their cognitive capacity to acquire and apply knowledge
that goes beyond the basic level of knowledge provided by instinct. The Human
mind develops in this self-creative process. This development differentiates
Homo sapiens from every other Hominid species. The development of a mind
justifies the term 'Human' being applied to Homo sapiens, but not to other
Hominids. The first clear physical evidence of the development of the Human
mind appears in the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution some 40,000 years ago.
The next Emergent Stage, the Human Moral-cultural Emergent Stage, begins
some 3,000 years ago. Prior to this, human cultures had developed customs that
seemed appropriate to their situation, but these were often less than moral.
Eventually some humans began to realise that actions can have a moral
dimension, in the Kantian sense of relating to a natural Moral Law. Bruno Snell
charts the development of the idea of the moral in the Ancient Greek world. In
Chapter 8 of The Discovery of the Mind he notes that 'goodness' in
Homer's time relates to either utility or profit rather than to morality, while
to possess virtue or to be good related to realising one's nature or one's
wishes, without any regard to a moral dimension. (1982, 158-9)
The Human Moral-cultural Emergent Stage has much further to develop.
Lawrence Kohlberg has shown that only a small minority of people are yet
capable of making principled moral decisions. Most people still get their idea
of morality from what is considered an acceptable practice in their culture.
Some present cultures have very little morality, even accepting that it is
legitimate to kill other people for their beliefs.
The Freedom of the Process of Emergent Evolution
The development of Matter after the Big Bang is a freely operating
process involving material self-organisation. The Evolution of Life is also a
freely operating process of self-organisation, as is the development of human
cultures. Humans operate with complete freedom in relation to the Moral law,
which can command but cannot compel. As Lawrence Kohlberg has shown, the Moral
law is still perceived, understood or applied by individuals to a widely
variable extent.
The laws of Physics are inherent in Matter and the laws of Life are
inherent in the living, but the Moral law is not generally inherent in humans.
However the Moral law appears to have the potential to become inherent in
humans, as may be indicated by individual humans such as Moses, Socrates and
Jesus.
The development of the Cosmos through the several Emergent Stages has
the form of a process, a connected series of purposeful actions or changes over
time. The Cosmic process, understood as the process of Emergent Evolution, can
provide us with evidence relevant to the motive for creation.
The Motive for Creation
Consideration of the motive for creation begins with Aristotle. In his Christian
Revelation and the Completion of the Aristotelian Revolution (1988) Patrick
Madigan notes that the Greeks were able to reason up to a realm of true Being,
or God, but they could not connect that realm with the world of appearances.
(1988, 27) He then outlines the discussion of God's motive for creation from
Aristotle to Aquinas and beyond. None of the explanations of God's motive
outlined by Madigan prove to be satisfactory.
Aristotle began the discussion of motive by establishing two apparently
contradictory conclusions. (1) God is necessary, as first mover, to explain the
existence of the world, and (2) God is not able to cause an entity that is
significantly different from God. As Madigan puts it: 'Aristotle establishes
simultaneously two very strong points: first, that God must exist as a
necessary first cause to explain the world, and secondly that God, if he
exists, could not cause a world significantly distinct from himself. Both
conclusions are demonstrated as necessarily true, and the one contradicts the
other'. (1988, 16)
Aristotle's conclusion that God could not cause a world significantly
different from God was contradicted by his empirical knowledge of the world.
Aristotle ultimately concluded that God could only be engaged in contemplation
directed back to God, the world not being worthy of God's concern. (1988, 3)
Subsequent discussion of God's motive for creation has sought to avoid
Aristotle's antinomy, rather than to confront or resolve it. Plotinus, for
example, argues that the world is 'produced necessarily but unconsciously as an
automatic emanation from God's nature'. (Madigan 1988, 62) Madigan's own
explanation of the existence of the world, its generation by an expansion of
the circuit of divine self-love (1988, 118) is similar to Plotinus' device of
an emanation of the world from God's goodness. Both these explanations would
make God directly responsible for evil.
The Problem of Evil
Any satisfactory explanation of the world has to account for the
existence of evil. Evil could no more derive from an expansion of God's
self-love than it could derive from an emanation from God's nature. Whether a
satisfactory accounting for evil could ever be given has been a matter of
doubt. John Courtney Murray asks how the world can be a place of manifold evil
and an arena of human misery if an all-mighty God exists. He maintains that the
problem of evil utterly defeats philosophy. (1964, 104) I challenge this view.
The potential for natural evil is an unavoidable consequence of the
self-organising freedom of the processes of Emergent Evolution at the Emergent
Stages of Matter and Life. Moral evil is an unavoidable consequence of the
complete freedom of the Human Moral-cultural Emergent Stage of the process of
Emergent Evolution. This freedom is essential to any genuinely free process
involving both self-organisation and self-creation.
Getting Around Aristotle's Problem
The explanations of the production of the world surveyed by Madigan, and
Madigan's own explanation, all seek to avoid the force of Aristotle's
conclusion that God could only be the cause of an entity that is similar to
God. They seek to provide some other way to connect God to the world, in order
to avoid Aristotle's conclusion.
Aquinas arrives at a similar conclusion to Aristotle. Madigan summarises
Aquinas' conclusion that God will, as far as able, create another 'God', the
closest approximation to himself, as like produces like. Later Theologians
proposed that the motive for God's creation had to be the production of a
perfect creature, which they argued had been realised in the person of Jesus Christ,
'the creature that uniquely justifies the enterprise of creation'. (Madigan,
1988, 111) They sought to avoid the uncomfortable reality of man in general by
focussing on Christ as the one person who justifies creation, reasoning that
the world was created as the only way to produce Jesus.
While Jesus is probably an example of the perfect man, the argument that
the purpose of creation was finally and fully accomplished nearly two thousand
years ago would raise the question of man's present purpose in a still
imperfect world. Commenting on this tactic Madigan recognises that Christ 'is
the proleptic anticipation of the life-form that should eventually characterise
the world as a whole.' (1988, 124, Note 6).
Madigan does not suggest how a transition to such a new life-form might
occur, but a further development of the present Human Moral-cultural Emergent
Stage could possibly provide such a transition. This would depend upon
significant further self-development, in particular on moral development.
None of the arguments considered by Madigan confront Aristotle's
conclusions that God is necessary as a first cause to explain the existence of
the world, and that God could not cause a world which is significantly
different from God. Aquinas' argument is more specific than Aristotle's, as he
speaks of another 'god' both as created, and as being the closest possible
approximation of the original. These descriptions appear at first sight to be
self-contradictory. There can be no 'close approximation' between a creator God
and a created entity. The difference between creator and created is perhaps the
most significant difference which could exist between two entities.
However the extent of the difference between creator and created could
depend on who does the creating. If Aquinas' 'other god' is self-created, in
those aspects of its being that make it similar to God, it could well become
the closest possible approximation to the original. There cannot be another
self-existent being, but there could possibly be a communal entity that is
self-created in those aspects of its being that make it similar to God.
Understanding God's causal activity as restricted to direct creation has
hindered us from recognising that God could initiate a process that could
enable the self-creation of new aspects of the being of a created entity.
Aristotle's original position that God could not cause a world which was
significantly different from God is worth further consideration. Our adoption
of the Hebrew concept of mankind as a special creation 'in the image of God'
may have contributed to our failure to resolve the Aristotelian antinomy.
Mankind is only a special creation to the extent that he is self-created in
those aspects of his being that in any way make him similar to God.
Aristotle's Unstated Assumption
The contradiction between Aristotle's conclusions that God is necessary
as a first cause to explain the existence of the world and that God cannot
cause a world that is significantly different from God, is more apparent than
real. The contradiction rests upon the unstated assumption that the world is a
finished product rather than a stage in a continuing process.
We are in a much better position than Aristotle to appreciate the extent
of the changes in the cosmos since the Big Bang, the changes in life since it
first evolved and the changes in Homo sapiens since the species first evolved.
It is now commonplace to understand the world as evolving or in process.
The old idea of a completed world was reinforced by the Biblical idea of
a completed creation. Clifford notes the effect Mesopotamian myths had upon
biblical cosmogonies. He provides an example of the belief in Mesopotamia that
everything was fixed permanently on the day of creation. (1988, 151-2) That
assumption is untenable in the light of what is now known of the development of
the cosmos since the Big Bang.
Accepting Aristotle's Conclusions
I accept Aristotle's conclusions that God is the necessary first cause
and that God could not cause an entity that is significantly different from
God. It is also clear that God can not create another self-existent entity. God
can only create creatures. So what course could God adopt to resolve this
apparent problem?
God could initiate the freely operating cosmic process of Emergent
Evolution. Once big-brained animal species appear within the evolutionary
process, the possibility is open to members of those species to begin a process
of self-creation, utilising their cognitive capacity to generate a mind that
can operate beyond the limitations of instinct. Homo sapiens appear to be the
only species to successfully begin this process, despite an earlier species,
Homo neanderthalis, having a larger brain.
It appears that the purpose of the present Cosmic process is to enable
the self-creation of a communal entity that is not significantly different from
God. When the Cosmic process is understood in this way the contradiction
between Aristotle's conclusions disappears. If the purpose of the process is
eventually achieved God, by creating a freely operating Cosmos, will become the
ultimate cause of another entity that is similar to God.
Cultural Self-Creation
The process of human self-creation began with the self-creation of the
human mind. This was followed by the development of human cultures, as
evidenced by the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution. The Human Moral-cultural Stage
began about 3,000 years ago. Within the Jewish culture there had been a
critical focus on the imperative of moral action for up to a millennium before
Jesus.
Critical thinking appears to be a pre-requisite of moral thought. Within
the Greek culture the capacity to reason critically appeared with the
Pre-Socratics. Bruno Snell notes in The Discovery of Mind: 'the rise of
critical thinking among the Greeks was nothing less than a revolution. They did
not, by means of mental equipment already at their disposal, merely map out new
subjects for discussion, such as the sciences and philosophy. They discovered
the human mind.' (1982, v) In this passage Snell is not addressing the
self-creation of the human mind, as I have done, but the initial recognition by
a group of humans that they had developed a mind which they could apply to
matters that were beyond the prevailing pre-critical paradigm.
The Jewish and Greek cultures were subsequently linked as a result of
Alexander's efforts to take Greek culture to the rest of the world. (Weigall,
1933, Chapter 8) Socrates is a product of the Greek cultural process of human
self-creation. Jesus is a product of both the Jewish and Hellenistic processes
of human self-creation.
Both Jesus and Socrates were results of concentrated processes of
individual and cultural self-creation within the processes of Human
Moral-cultural self-creation. They both indicate the probable goal of the
present Moral-cultural Emergent Stage, the emergence of humans in whom the
Moral law is inherent.
In Jesus' case the Jewish emphasis on acting morally, which had been
maintained for up to one millennium prior to his birth, enabled him to develop
as a proleptic example of the next Emergent Stage. His selection of disciples
may have been based on his recognition of others as similar products of the
Jewish Moral-cultural process. The Moral law appeared to be inherent in Jesus'
nature, rather than merely being perceived to some limited extent, as occurs
with most humans. Whether this Jewish Moral-cultural process could continue to
produce such people was not tested. The Romans sacked Jerusalem soon after
Jesus' death, destroyed the Jewish culture and dispersed the Jews among other
cultures.
Apart from his inherently moral nature Jesus was a person of his own
time and place. He could only understand himself within the categories of the
understanding that were available in his time. Being learned in the Jewish Scriptures
he considered himself, and was considered by others, to be the Messiah. He
discovered otherwise, hence the anguished 'Why have you abandoned me?'
Homo sapiens have already developed themselves from being animals in a
habitat to becoming persons in a community, through the process of Human
Moral-cultural self-creation. This occurred without their having any
understanding of the overall process in which they are engaged.
Humans can now consciously engage in making themselves and their
cultures similar to God in knowledge, creativity and goodness. The example of
both Socrates and Jesus would suggest that goodness is the most important
aspect of this development.
Conclusion
The cosmic process exists to make possible the production of a communal
entity that is not significantly different from God, resolving Aristotle's
antinomy. Humans are involved in a process of self-creation that could result
in their becoming similar to God in knowledge, creativity and goodness.
To make this process of self-creation possible God initiates the 'Big
Bang', providing the Time, the Energy and the Mathematical Constants that begin
the process of Emergent Evolution. This process ensures the development of
life-forms with the cognitive capacity to develop a mind and to begin to make
themselves similar to God. The rest was, and still is, up to us.
References
Clifford R.J. (1988) 'Creation in the Hebrew Bible' Physics,
Philosophy and Theology Vatican, Vatican Observatory
Kelly A. (2006) 'The Intelligent Design of the Cosmos' PHILICA.COM
Article Number 50
Kelly A. (2007) 'Resolving the Goldilocks Enigma — An Evidence Based
Approach' PHILICA.COM Article Number 87
Madigan Patrick (1988) Christian Revelation and the Completion
of the Aristotelian Revolution, Lanham U.P. America
Murray J.C. (1964) The Problem of God New Haven Yale University
Press
Rees Martin (2000) Just Six Numbers, London, Phoenix
Snell Bruno (1982) The Discovery of Mind Dover Publications, New
York.
Weigall A. (1933) Alexander the Great London, Thornton
Butterworth
© Anthony Kelly 2007