How do we really know that basic metaphysical principles, such as, that contradictions in being are impossible, are both certain and transcendentally true? That is, how do we have perfect certitude that they apply validly to every possible thing, including the God of classical theism?

Some have argued that the principle of non-contradiction (PNC), which states that the same thing cannot both be and not be in the same respect, applies merely to macroscopic reality – to the humans and horses and even bugs we see in the full size world of our normal experience. They claim, in the name of science, that at the submicroscopic level of subatomic entities, such as photons, the principle may be violated. For example, a photon presents experimentally both as a wave and as a particle, which seems to be contradictory.

The problem with this type of objection is that in order to make the observations that allegedly “prove” that a subatomic contradiction can be real, one must be certain that subatomic observations are what they are and are not otherwise. In other words, the observer must assume that the PNC is working at the subatomic level in order to judge, for example, that the photon is in truth behaving as a particle and not like a wave. It is bad logic to presuppose that the PNC is working at the subatomic level in order to “prove” that it does not work at the subatomic level!

What limits the extent of a principle’s application is the nature of that to which it applies. What applies to one kind of being may not apply to a different one. For example, a rule about chickens may apply to all possible chickens, but it may not apply to squid.

The PNC is a principle, not about any particular kind of being, but of being or existence itself. It does not matter what kind of being we consider, for example, whether macroscopic entities or submicroscopic ones. Once the mind understands what it means to exist, as opposed to not existing, it immediately and validly applies the PNC to anything and everything.

While it is possible for something to be a non-chicken, it is not possible for something to be a non-being. The PNC applies to both creature and God, not because they are like in nature – which they are not, but because both have being or existence. So, once we understand what it means to be, we know that the PNC applies both to creature and Creator and to every least existing aspect of every possible being. That is, it is transcendentally true.

The Problem with Some Logicians

Others object that the principle of non-contradiction is really merely a rule of logic, which says that the same predicate cannot be both affirmed and denied of the same subject. In this view, the rule may have universal conceptual validity within the mind, but what is to guarantee that it applies universally to extramental beings? How do we know that the PNC can apply validly to a transcendental entity, like the God of classical theism -- the reality of which would be utterly beyond the finite world in which we live?

The problem is that even such objectors, like the rest of us, find themselves unable to think of anything, except in terms of “being” or “non-being.” Even claiming that truth is merely a matter of probability still requires absolutely affirming the state of probability.

What makes the mind work this way? What makes skeptics keep trying to find contradictions in the God of classical theism, as if that would prove with certitude that such a being is impossible? They keep demanding that God obey the PNC in spite of being highly skeptical about its transcendental application to God.

We must recall that the concepts used in logic do not represent direct knowledge of things themselves, but merely abstract notions of things existing in the mind. What we first know, in fact, is not a concept, but real things in a real world – even if that real world is merely a really experienced bad dream. Even if someone is hallucinating pink elephants dancing on the ceiling, the hallucinations are still real as hallucinations. In knowing our own hallucinations, we, in fact, know something real in its own order.

It is objected by some that we simply do not encounter abstractions, such as “being” or “existence.” But, the concepts formed through abstraction, which are the ones logicians deal with, presuppose encounters with real things. You don’t form a concept of “animal,” unless you first have judged that you have encountered a real animal from which to abstract the universal form of animal.

The first knowledge we have of things is had in a judgment of existence, that is, that “something is real.” If I encounter a tiger, I judge that something is real and tiger-like in my experience. This judgment contains both the nature of the tiger and its reality or being, confusedly apprehended at first.

It is not the structure of my language that determines the content of my experience, but the reverse. That is, it is the content of my experience which has developed the structure of my language. First, we know things, and then we invent words to describe them. Even though my words reflect the structure of my experience, they do not determine it. Rather, as I reflect on what I perceive, I express language which I judge describes it correctly.

Unlike irrational animals, I not only have sense experience of some object, but I also am fully aware that I am judging that it actually exists before me. That is why it is correct to say that “I know something to be or exist,” not by sense knowledge alone, but by an intellectual judgment that this is true.

Rather than some presupposed theory forcing the description of experience, it is the experience itself as understood that forces the description of what is taking place. That is, first there is awareness of something there, second, self-reflective awareness of the awareness itself, and third, awareness of something (the self) having the awareness of something there.

Thus, the primary act of knowing things is a judgment of some kind of nature being real, that is, as existing. This is not to be confused with the concepts, empty of all existential content, which the logician studies in terms of their proper relationships. The logician’s concepts need not exist extramentally at all, once they are abstracted from really existing things or formed through a fictional combination of qualities taken from real things, as in the case of the unicorn.

That is, we first encounter some real being, even if it is merely a real mental experience, and only secondarily do we form the concepts of things that we use in logic.

We know full well that our judgment about whether something is really existing or not is not a mere judgment about relationships between concepts, but about real being itself.

This is why judgments about the nature of being itself do not fall under the purview of the science of logic, the practical science which determines correct relationships between concepts. The rule against contradictions in predication is simply an application to logic of the metaphysical principle of non-contradiction. Metaphysics regulates the science of logic, not vice versa.

That is why the Thomistic philosopher Jacques Maritain tells us that “…logic is the science of conceptual being and not a science of real being.”¹

The Foundation of Certitude

Nor is there any doubt about the reality of being as encountered in lived experience. I often tell people just to try sitting on a large roofing nail. One might doubt whether the experience is (1) merely one of a subjective psychosomatic symptom or (2) one caused by an objectively real extramental nail. But one cannot doubt the reality of the pain involved!

That is because doubt is the fear of error, that is, the fear that something may not be the way we think it is. But, this means that there must be a real distinction between what one thinks to be real and some distinct objective reality. For example, if I think my car to be in my garage, but it actually has been removed by a thief. But, in the direct experience of the nail-induced pain itself, although I might doubt the reality of the nail, I cannot doubt the reality of the pain, because my experience of the pain is identical with the pain’s very reality – thereby allowing no possibility of a real distinction between my experience of the pain and the pain itself.

This is why we have perfect certitude that we encounter reality or being in our first experience of anything at all. For, in experiencing something, there can be no real distinction between the act of experiencing and its own real content, regardless of whether the experience is merely of some subjective fantasy or directly of some external object. The lack of a real distinction between the act of experiencing something and the reality of the experience’s own content precludes the lack of conformity required for the possibility of error and its associated doubt – at least as far as to the fact that something, some reality, some being has been encountered.

I can doubt whether the pink elephant I hallucinate dancing on the ceiling exists extramentally, but I cannot doubt that I am experiencing seeing one. Also, in that selfsame act of experiencing anything at all, we know immediately in a general way what the nature of being is, since being’s nature is given to us with certitude as our mind conforms to the real being of its own experienced content. We do not know a mere concept of being, but being itself in this direct experience of it – in the mental act in which we judge, “Something is, something is real, something is existing.”

This immediately-given understanding of being we express in judgments, such as, the principles of identity (that being is being) and non-contradiction (that being cannot be non-being). Our mind finds itself conformed to being itself in the selfsame act by which we first encounter being and in every subsequent such act. That is also why even skeptical logicians cannot help but think of all reality in terms of being and non-being, even if they formulate denials of such knowledge in their scholarly tomes.

No Rabbits Out of Genuinely Empty Hats

Just as we are perfectly certain that being cannot be non-being, we are equally certain that non-being cannot beget being. Everyone who is intellectually honest knows and admits that you cannot get something from nothing. A few confuse the “nothing” of quantum mechanics with the “absolutely nothing at all” that the philosopher is talking about. But, when they say that you get protons popping into existence from nothing in quantum mechanics, the “nothing” they refer to is not really nothing at all: it is merely a “quantum vacuum,” which is the lowest state of energy thought to be found in physical reality. It is still something – not the “total non-being” to which the philosopher refers.

Even materialists do scientific handstands to try to avoid the suggestion that the cosmos was actually somehow generated from absolute nothingness. They do not seem to want to get caught in the position of trying to explain how a magician’s completely empty hat can generate a real rabbit.

The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)

The human intellect knows truth in the self-reflective act of knowing its own conformity to reality or being. That is why certitudes such as the PNC are possible. But the intellect or mind is always searching for reasons to assure itself that it is in conformity with reality or being so that it knows that perfect certitude has been achieved. The Thomistic PSR has to do with whether or not all things have reasons for being or for being true.

In seeking to understand whether all things must have reasons for why and how they exist, we must first make a distinction. Some things are directly evident to our senses and can be known to exist because of this. On the other hand, the principle of sufficient reason addresses the question as to whether all things must have reasons for their existence – reasons founded in being or reality sufficient to account fully for what exists.

Note the difference between what is known to be true from direct experience and what may still not be explained by that experience. For example, we may know that something exists by direct observation. Still, that does not mean that such a being is self-explanatory or is the reason for its own existence. For example, I know that the sun exists because I can see it. But that is not the same thing as to know why the sun exists, that is, whether there is a reason for it existing and what that reason may be.

Thus, the existence of what is directly experienced is truly affirmed in the sense that we have immediate knowledge of its presence. But that is not the same thing as its being able to explain why it is present or existent.

The plain fact is that we use our minds to reason to conclusions that we expect to be true. If we could not trust our reasoning processes to lead to true conclusions, then all human knowledge would be worthless – philosophy, theology, and all the natural sciences alike. But true conclusions demand true reasons leading to them. If a conclusion is true when it conforms to reality or being, then solid reasoning requires true premises – premises or reasons that faithfully reflect objective reality or being itself.

It makes no sense to trust the mind to lead us to know true being, and yet, not to trust the way the mind demands reasons for all things in order to reach that true being.

If (1) the mind demands reasons for things that do not fully explain themselves and if (2) we trust the mind to tell us the truth about reality when it reasons correctly, then the fact that the mind is not satisfied with things that fail to fully explain themselves proves that there must be a reason for everything.

In other words, since the mind demands reasons that conform to reality or being for any statement or thing that does not fully explain itself, it necessarily follows that a thing or statement must fully explain itself in order not to need extrinsic reasons.

I say, “thing or statement,” because, although the mind reasons in terms of judgments expressed as statements, those judgments are true solely when they conform to being. So, if a thing is explained by premises, which are expressions of judgments about being, true reasoning manifests the actuality or being on which something actually depends. Thus, I shall speak of true premises as actual extrinsic reasons for something actually having being or existence.

Just as the extrinsic reasons must conform to reality or being, a thing can fully explain itself only if that self-explanation itself conforms to reality or being. That is, it must be a real intrinsic explanation of why the thing exists as it does. To the extent a thing fails to fully explain itself, then, other reason(s) must exist to explain the thing’s being.

That being the case, it must be that all things either are fully their own reason for being, or else, to the extent that they do not have sufficient intrinsic reasons for being, there must be extrinsic reasons sufficient to complete their explanation.

This is merely a complicated way to state the principle of sufficient reason, whose metaphysical expression is this: Every being must have a sufficient reason for being or coming-to-be either within itself or from some extrinsic reason or reasons. And, since these reasons are grounded in being or reality, the PSR is itself one of the metaphysical first principles of being.

The principle that you cannot get something from nothing, or being from non-being, is simply an application of the principle of sufficient reason.

Thus, being itself must be known truly by the mind for the mind to be a valid faculty with which to know reality. That is why the mind must know true being in its true judgments and why being must have a sufficient reason for itself either in itself or from another. If a thing’s sufficient reason is “from another,” that is what we speak of as a “cause,” and hence, everything that does not fully explain itself (meaning, an effect) necessarily requires an extrinsic sufficient reason (meaning, a cause).

Some, especially scientific materialists who normally demand explanations for all observable phenomena, will claim that possibly some things, such as the very existence of the entire cosmos itself, are simply “brute facts” for which there is no explanation or reason at all. In so doing, they fail to grasp the necessary relationship between the mind’s validity as an instrument of true knowledge and the need for things to have existential reasons that correspond to the mind’s demand for reasons – as was shown above. In effect, a “brute fact” is no more possible than is the production of something from absolutely nothing, which latter truth every intellectually honest person knows is totally impossible.

Transcendental Nature of First Principles

For my own part, I have not the least doubt that these two first principles, (1) that being cannot both be and not be, and (2) that being cannot proceed from non-being, are apodictically true and apply to all possible beings. Nor do I think that, if these statements are properly understood, any intellectually honest, intelligent person can actually deny to himself either of them. Yes, the principle of sufficient reason has broader extension than the principle that you cannot get being from non-being. Yet, as shown above, even though it is not as clearly seen by all as is the principle that you cannot get being from absolute non-being, the principle that all beings must have a sufficient reason is equally valid and universal as is every other metaphysical first principle, simply because the laws of being are as universal as is being itself.

These metaphysical first principles apply to all beings, including the God of classical theism – for the simple reason that the mind clearly sees they must apply to any being simply in virtue of its existing. Some claim that being is a genus and, as such, cannot be analogically and transcendentally applied to God. This error arises from confusing logic and metaphysics.

In logic, any universal term, at best, rises to the level of a genus. But, any genus must be understood to be predicated univocally in all instances. Hence, the Thomistic claim that being must be predicated analogically and transcendentally is alleged to be invalid – which it would be, were it merely a concept of the type studied by logicians.

But, the understanding of being that the metaphysician forms is not formed through the normal mode of abstraction assumed by logicians. Rather, it is formed in a judgment of actually experienced being. From that being which is known in a judgment of real being, a mere concept of being is formed, which is then studied by the logician. As such, that logician’s concept would, indeed, be predicated merely univocally.

But, such a concept of being is merely a logical construct existing in the mind of the logician. It is an “artifact” constructed by abstraction from the real being of some existent thing or quality of a thing. What the mind initially and directly knows is not merely the concept abstracted from the thing, but the thing itself: Scio aliquid esse. “I know something to be.” Not, I know a concept of something to be.

When the mind grasps merely a concept of a thing, it abstracts some essence or essential quality from the really existent object of the judgment, and hence, leaves behind the very existence which differentiates the concept of being from the real being the mind first knows.

That is why being, considered as a mere concept, would be restricted to univocal predication, whereas the mind knows that real existence of real beings can vary analogically from being to being and that, whether finite or infinite, the laws of being apply to all real things. Logic is not metaphysics.

As Maritain puts it, “For by definition none of the real functions of being, but only its conceptual functions, are the proper and the direct object of logical study. There could be no more serious error than to suppose that the being of metaphysics is this being envisaged under the aspect of conceptual being….”²

That is why no one can resist applying such metaphysical first principles as non-contradiction and sufficient reason to all beings, including the Infinite Being. What has been called “the natural metaphysics of human intelligence” drives the mind to affirm the first principles of being as true and as applying to anything that exists in any way. But, they apply analogically, not univocally, since “being” is not a logical concept, but a metaphysical notion.

This is why even analytic thinkers have trouble resisting the temptation to look for what they think to be inherent contradictions in the God of classical theism. Yet, from their perspective, the law of non-contradiction need not apply to a transcendent being, such as God. If they really mean what they say, any alleged contradiction between an infinitely good God and the presence of evil in the world should be ignored – since, for them, contradictions in God might not be a problem! I have dealt with this false allegation against the goodness of God in another article on Strange Notions.

Without addressing the rest of the many details of the classical proofs for God’s existence, successfully defending the transcendental validity of these metaphysical first principles also defends common core premises essential to such proofs. Since many of the recent objections against the classical proofs for God rest on attacking the first principles of being, it should now be all the more clear that such proofs are effective and valid and that sound reason proves that the existence of God can be known by the light of unaided human reason.

For a more in-depth treatment of the themes discussed in this essay, see my longer article, “How Metaphysical Certitudes Anchor Proofs for God,” which appeared in the online Homiletic & Pastoral Review.

Ever wonder what it is like to be in the next life, that is, to be dead? (I thought it best to leave the word “dead” out of the title of this essay.) Since this is something we all must face sooner or later, I thought it might be of interest to engage in some rational speculation about what a human being experiences, if anything, after he becomes unconscious for the last time.

This is not a theological enquiry. So, depictions of hellfire and eternal bliss, though they may be apologetically defensible, are not where this essay is going. Rather, I shall explore what natural reason might tell us about afterlife possibilities.

Now one can make the rather impertinent observation some have offered about the curious situation of the atheist at his own funeral: “All dressed up and nowhere to go.” That is, after all, the ultimate implication of most forms of skepticism, materialism, and atheism.

Reincarnation, or, Getting Another Bite at the Apple

On the other hand, we have the doctrine of metempsychosis or reincarnation offered by both the Vedic tradition in the east and Plato in the west. In that view, dying is followed by birth into another life. Plato, in his dialogue, the Timaeus, expresses his own version of metempsychosis, when he postulates that the form of life we reenter depends on how we live this present life.

“He who lived well during his appointed time was to return and dwell in his native star, and there he would have a blessed and congenial existence. But if he failed in attaining this, at the second birth he would pass into a woman, and if, when in that state of being, he did not desist from evil, he would continually be changed into some brute who resembled him in the evil nature which he had acquired, and would not cease from his toils and transformations until he followed the revolution of the same and the like within him, and overcame by the help of reason the turbulent and irrational mob of later accretions, made up of fire and air and water and earth, and returned to the form of his first and better state.”¹

Prescinding from Plato’s speculation about moving down and back up the ladder of living things and since we presently know what it is to experience our own human life, it is not all that difficult to imagine reentering the same kind of life we presently have.

Death Without Continuous Reincarnation

Far more intriguing is the prospect of trying to imagine what it is like to experience life after death when no immediate or proximate reincarnation occurs. Since (1) death entails the loss or corruption of the entire human body and (2) it appears that all we know in this life comes to us through the senses and brain, which are material organs of the human body, what would life after death be like? What could or would we know or experience either intellectually or sensitively in such a hypothetically disembodied state of being?

This last view is doubtless of greatest interest to the majority of those who share some form of the Christian religion, which dominates in Western Civilization. Now, I am not presuming the revealed content of that religious worldview, but merely am noting that its central doctrines entail the notion of death and some form of afterlife for the spiritual soul – but without any notion of proximate reincarnation. The Christian doctrine of bodily resurrection pertains to something that happens for most all men, not at their immediate time of death, but at the end of the world at some point in the future. Until that indeterminate span of time has elapsed, the spiritual soul must exist without a corporeal body. It is that purely spiritual condition of temporally extended human existence upon which I now focus my attention.

Indeed, among leading Christian figures we have, in the prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, the beautiful truth expressed that “…it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” One cannot but wonder exactly what this statement might mean to us, the living, who have no direct experience of what it appears to affirm.

What Reason Can Say About the Separated Soul's Experience

Certainly, most human beings admit to having no direct evidence of what it is like to be dead before we are actually dead. But we do have some (1) speculative philosophical arguments about what the separated soul can know and (2) possibly analogous experiences which some have reported to us about this condition of continued immaterial existence.

St. Thomas Aquinas offers a rather complete speculative explanation of what man’s spiritual soul can know after the soul’s separation from the body.²

St. Thomas affirms that the separated soul can no longer operate using sense powers or sense organs, since they belong to the body and the soul of the deceased is no longer the actuating form of the body, Thus, such acts as forming and understanding universal concepts abstracted from phantasms, which themselves are formed from physical sense experience, are no longer possible when we are dead. Still, he insists that “... the soul in that [separated] state understands by means of participated species resulting from the influence of the divine light ….”³ In other words, while the soul no longer can perform such acts by its own natural bodily powers, God can infuse such knowledge into it.

For the same reason, the separated soul can have knowledge of some singulars to which it is related in some fashion. This is not accomplished by abstraction from phantasms, but “… by the infusion of species by God, and in that way it is possible for the intellect to know singulars.”⁴ Such knowledge would naturally entail formation of judgments and self-reflective awareness of one’s own existence in the act of making of such judgments.

However, St, Thomas maintains that “… by natural knowledge [that is, unless God directly infuses such knowledge], … the dead do not know what passes on earth.”⁵ The notable exception is the state of the blessed in heaven, who see God, and who, through Him who sees all things, are infused with knowledge of things that take place on earth.⁶

But, What is it Really Like to be Dead?

While the preceding speculative musings may be of great interest to the philosopher or theologian, they do little to help us ordinary mortals to imagine what it is really like to be dead. The unfortunate fact is that we simply cannot imagine the spiritual experiences described above for the simple reason that imagining entails the use of the imagination, which is a sense power whose function depends on bodily organs, and thus, completely terminates at the time of passing into the next life. We need something that will help us to grasp precisely what it would be like to be a disembodied spirit that is still, in a meaningful sense, having a real life experience. How would it “feel” to be living, but without a body and without the body’s sense organs that we need for sense experience in this life?

I do not herein propose to demonstrate the spirituality and immortality of the human soul. Those are proper topics for other venues and I have addressed them myself elsewhere, including on this Strange Notions site. Rather, I propose here simply to give two examples of reported human experience that depicts the content of “disembodied existence,” namely, (1) those drawn from near death experiences and (2) those drawn from our own experience of dreams.

Near Death Experiences

I do not intend to give a broad analysis of NDE here, but merely want to show that those who claim such experiences often claim out-of-body events, some of which appear to be verified by others. For example, we have the rather common NDE claim of people feeling themselves “floating” up out of their bodies, say, on an operating table, and then “seeing and hearing” the doctors and nurses – being able correctly to report what they were wearing and actually saying and doing – all while being unconscious from anesthesia.

Perhaps, a case some readers may have seen reported is that of a migrant worker named Maria, who had a severe heart attack and was in cardiac arrest. She was able to look down from the ceiling and watch the medical team at work on her body. “At one point in this experience, said Maria, she found herself outside the hospital and spotted a tennis shoe on the ledge of the north side of the third floor of the building … [and] … was able to provide several details regarding its appearance, including the observations that one of its laces was stuck underneath the heel and that the little toe area was worn.” Her observations were later confirmed in exact detail!

Such experiences of being “out of the body,” and yet having accurate sense knowledge of objects and people which the patient cannot possibly perceive in their “medically dead” state, attest to the possibility of actual sensory experience of someone while in a seemingly disembodied state, that is, someone whose consciousness has actually separated from his body and yet is able to have continued and verifiable sense experience.

Such NDE experiences tend to confirm the possibility of “disembodied spiritual experience.” I do not claim that the people involved are actually dead, since clearly their consciousness subsequently returns to their bodies. But they do meet the criteria for some form of disembodied sense experience.

“Disembodied Dreams”

My final example of a “disembodied experience” can easily be verified by all of us, namely, as experienced in a dream. I suspect that most of us have had the experience of sitting in a theatre and watching a movie in which we become so engrossed that we literally “forget ourselves” and, as it were, start “living” on the screen in front of us. We lose consciousness of ourselves as having separate and distinct bodies sitting in seats, which are not part of what is taking place on the screen before us.

Similarly, we have probably all had dreams in which we were victims of some sort of bodily attack (as in a good nightmare!) and well aware of a sense of being in a body. In deep dreams, we can sometimes experience things as if we were in a body even though the experiences are not those of our sleeping body.

Moreover, I have certainly had many a dream myself in which it was like the theatre experience. I was watching often very vivid scenes of events, things, and persons engaged in various activities of which I was simply an observer, having no self-reflective bodily experience at all.

Nothing prevents God from giving us similar experiences of sensible reality, since anything our natural powers can do to actuate our subjective experience, God can do as well. Call it miraculous or merely how things work in the afterlife. Either way, the experience is that of a disembodied spirit and it can be fully as real, or more so, than any experience we have in this life – only in a disembodied form like that of a vivid dream -- one whose objective reality cannot be epistemically doubted.

I am not trying to offer a speculative defense of the reality of a spiritual afterlife in this essay. My sole purpose has been to show what it might be like to be alive and fully engaged in both intellectual and sensitive experiences in a spiritual afterlife, while awaiting what Christians believe to be a later resurrection of the body. Indeed, we might have to adjust the impertinent observation about an atheist at his funeral that I offered at the beginning of this essay. What if it turns out that the atheist is all dressed up and then shocked to discover that he does have somewhere to go?

For those who reject the notion of free will, our experience of making our own decisions is nothing more than a deep-seated illusion. “The reality is,” insists biologist Anthony Cashmore, “not only do we have no more free will than a fly or a bacterium, in actuality we have no more free will than a bowl of sugar.”

Those who argue for the nonexistence of free will often do so on scientific grounds. And those who offer a scientific “proof” against free will point to one type of experiment more than any other—namely, those done and inspired by neurobiologist Benjamin Libet.

In 1983, Libet seemed to prove that the unconscious processes of the brain—the interaction of molecules, electrical discharges, and the like, which are associated with decision-making—are ultimately in control. In other words, our voluntary decisions begin unconsciously in the brain. So it is the brain, not the person, that decides the actions we “feel” to be voluntary.

Libet-style experiments involve having a subject carry out a simple prescribed behavior (flexing the wrist, bending a finger, etc.) whenever he feels the urge to do so. Watching a special clock while he executes his movement, the subject notes the specific time at which he decided to move. The goal of the researchers is to plot a timeline of averages, noting the typical sequence of brain activity (e.g., by EEG), muscle activity (e.g., by EMG), and conscious urging (by subjective reporting). The expectation is that if our intentional actions are truly free, associated brain activity will follow the moment of decision. But this is not what Libet found.

Why does this matter? Well, it has obvious implications for the truth of the Catholic worldview. It also concerns human nature and how we understand ourselves as human beings. For if we don’t have free will, then this may dramatically change how we govern ourselves and interact with others. Much of how we operate as individuals, communities, states, and institutions presuppose that we are personally responsible for our actions. But if it were proven that we are not, this would entirely undermine our rationale for structuring and governing society on the assumption that we are free creatures.

So did these experiments really succeed in proving that free will is an illusion? They did not.

First of all, the experiments look exclusively at spontaneously willed behavior with brain activity. Participants were asked to act when they felt the urge. These experiments, then, say little about choices resulting from rational planning. At most, they suggest the nonexistence of free will in the restricted case of willful spontaneity. The voluntary actions with which they are concerned are barely more than split-second reactions. As some critics have observed, such studies tell us more about “picking” than “choosing.”

But even that conclusion might be overly hasty, for the concept of free will is not as plain as often presumed. Free will is a spiritual appetite for the intellectually known good. A decision, moved by free will, is not a quantifiable event like a neuronal discharge. Nor is it reducible to an instantaneous impulse or urge. And a willed movement is not always a purely linear cause-then-effect event like a cue ball striking an eight-ball into action. The activity of the will is more “smoothed out” and pervasive than an impulse. And it is enacted in layers. Thus, even in a setting like the Libet-style experiments, the free will cannot be isolated as cleanly as many assume.

For each study participant, in carrying out the prescribed movement, the will to move in this way at this time is nested within a multiplicity of other intentions motivating the same action. A singular act of wrist flexion is driven also (presumably) by the will to participate in the study; by the desire to follow the specific instructions given; by the desire to contribute to neuroscientific advancement; and in the will to do something for the common good. Additionally, the subject may bend his wrist because he desires to fulfill a class requirement—a class he desires to pass—or because he thinks it will hold the attention of the attractive research assistant across the room. The point is this: due to the complex integration of intentions involved in a single choice to move a body part, these studies cannot account for all the reasons that cause a person to conduct a singular movement. There is a sense in which the free decision of the research subject to flex his wrist “now” originated even before he entered the research lab.

We find ourselves here at an important juncture. It shows that once we have started making claims about free will’s reality or unreality, we have turned from all observation, measurement, and data analysis. We have reached the far side of the physical and have (perhaps unwittingly) thrust ourselves into the realm of philosophy.

Let’s turn to some further considerations. The Libet experiments relied on machines to capture brain and muscle activity. But it must be noted that neither EEG nor fMRI, nor any other form of advanced imaging, can capture the qualitative content of brain activity. When researchers carry out Libet-style experiments, they note the onset of brain activity and compare it to that of muscle activity and, more importantly, the time when the subject reports consciously willing the prescribed movement. But there is no precise way for scientists to know—even when the subject acts on an urge—whether the brain activity recorded or observed is representative of decision, or decision-making, or planning to make a decision.

In fact, more recent research shows the same brain activity believed to induce conscious decision-making is also found in subjects even when they do not make a conscious decision. Libet’s initial conclusion was “that cerebral initiation even of a spontaneous voluntary act . . . can and usually does begin unconsciously.” But these recent studies call such a conclusion into serious question.

There are several other critiques and limitations that have a significant impact on how much (or little) Libet-style studies actually prove. For an excellent detailed discussion of these limitations and their philosophical implications, read Alfred Mele’s little book Free.

At most, Libet-style experiments prove that a constrained subset of willed behaviors is not as freely executed as we are inclined to assume. But as we have seen, they hardly prove even that much. As far as Catholics traditionally conceive human freedom, such experiments pose little threat—and thus, the human person has every reason to believe that he remains infinitely more free than a bowl of sugar.

Conversions from atheism are often gradual and complex, no doubt. For many converts the road is slow and tedious, tiring and trying. But in the end unbelievers who find God can enjoy an inner peace that comes from a clear conscience in knowing they held to truth and followed the arguments faithfully.

Of course not all converts from atheism become Christian or even religious. Some converts only reach a deistic belief in God (an areligious position that God is “impersonal”) but the leap is still monumental; and it opens new, unforeseen horizons.

The factors that lead to faith are often diverse. It is clear that every former atheist has walked a unique path to God. Cardinal Ratzinger was once asked how many ways there are to God. He replied:

“As many ways as there are people. For even within the same faith each man’s way is an entirely personal one.”

Of course, the pope-to-be was not endorsing the view that “all religions are equal” but rather that there always seems to be a unique combination of factors—or steps—that move each convert towards belief in God. It also seems that some of these factors are more prominent across the board than others.

Here are eight common factors that lead atheists to change their minds about God:

1. Good literature and reasonable writing.

Reasonable atheists eventually become theists because they are reasonable; and furthermore, because they are honest. They are willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads; and in many cases the evidence comes to the atheist most coherently and well-presented through the writings of believers in God.

Author Karen Edmisten admits on her blog:

“I once thought I’d be a lifelong atheist. Then I became desperately unhappy, read up on philosophy and various religions (while assiduously avoiding Christianity), and waited for something to make sense. I was initially  appalled when Christianity began to look  like the sensible thing, surprised when I wanted to be baptized, and stunned that I ended up a Catholic.”

Dr. Holly Ordway, author of Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms, describes the consequences of reading great, intelligent Christian writers:

“I found that my favorite authors were men and women of deep Christian faith. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien above all; and then the poets: Gerard Manley Hopkins, George Herbert, John Donne, and others. Their work was unsettling to my atheist convictions…”

Dr. Ordway mentions the eminent 20th century Oxford thinker, C.S. Lewis. Lewis is a prime example of a reasonable but unbelieving thinker who was willing to read from all angles and perspectives. As a result of his open inquiry, he became a believer in Christ and one of modern Christianity’s greatest apologists.

G.K. Chesterton and George MacDonald were two of the most influential writers to effect Lewis’ conversion. He writes in his autobiography, Surprised By Joy:

“In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for… A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.”

Author Dale Ahlquist writes matter-of-factly that “C.S. Lewis was an atheist until he read Chesterton’s book, The Everlasting Man, but he wasn’t afterwards…”

Ironically, it was C.S. Lewis’ influential defenses of Christianity that would eventually prompt countless conversions to Christianity—and his influence continues today unhindered. Among the Lewis-led converts from atheism is former feminist and professor of philosophy, Lorraine Murray, who recalls:

“In college I turned my back on Catholicism, my childhood faith, and became a radical, gender-bending feminist and a passionate atheist …. Reading Lewis, I found something that I must have been quietly hungering for all along, which was a reasoned approach to my childhood beliefs, which had centered almost entirely on emotion. As I turned the pages of this book, I could no longer ignore the Truth, nor turn my back on the Way and the Life. Little by little, and inch by inch, I found my way back to Jesus Christ and returned to the Catholic Church.”

For an in-depth account of Murray’s conversion, see her book: Confessions Of An Ex-Feminist.

2. "Experimentation" with prayer and the word of God.

The Word of God is living. It has power beyond human comprehension because it is “God-breathed.” God speaks to man in many ways; but especially through prayer and the reading of the inspired Scriptures. When curiosity (or even interest) of non-believers leads to experimentation with prayer or reading the Bible the results can be shocking, as many converts attest.

One former atheist who was profoundly affected by prayer and the Scriptures is author Devin Rose. On his blog, he describes the role that God’s Word played in his gradual conversion process from atheism to Christianity:

“I began praying, saying, “God, you know I do not believe in you, but I am in trouble and need help. If you are real, help me.” I started reading the Bible to learn about what Christianity said…”

Once Rose began to read the Scriptures and talk to God, even as a skeptic, he found himself overwhelmed by something very real:

“Still, I persevered. I kept reading the Bible, asking my roommate questions about what I was reading, and praying. Then, slowly, and amazingly, my faith grew and it eventually threatened to whelm my many doubts and unbelief.”

And the rest was history for the now rising Catholic apologist and author of The Protestant’s Dilemma.

Similarly, renowned sci-fi author John C. Wright distinctly recalls a prayer he said as an adamant atheist:

“I prayed. ‘Dear God, I know… that you do not exist. Nonetheless, as a scholar, I am forced to entertain the hypothetical possibility that I am mistaken. So just in case I am mistaken, please reveal yourself to me in some fashion that will prove your case. If you do not answer, I can safely assume that either you do not care whether I believe in you, or that you have no power to produce evidence to persuade me…If you do not exist, this prayer is merely words in the air, and I lose nothing but a bit of my dignity. Thanking you in advance for your kind cooperation in this matter, John Wright.'”

Wright soon received the answer (and effect) he did not expect:

“Something from beyond the reach of time and space, more fundamental than reality, reached across the universe and broke into my soul and changed me…I was altered down to the root of my being…It was like falling in love.”

Wright was welcomed into the Catholic Church at Easter in 2008.

3. Historical study of the Gospels.

Lee Strobel, the former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and author of the influential work, The Case For Christ, is a prime example of what happens when an honest atheist sets out to establish once and for all whether the claims of the Gospels are reliable or not.

Strobel writes at the end of his investigation in The Case For Christ:

“I’ll admit it:I was ambushed by the amount and quality of the evidence that Jesus is the unique Son of God… I shook my head in amazement. I had seen defendants carted off to the death chamber on much less convincing proof! The cumulative facts and data pointed unmistakably towards a conclusion that I wasn’t entirely comfortable in reaching.” (p. 264)

Modern historical scholars like Craig Blomberg and N.T. Wright have advanced the area of historical theology and the study of the claims of the Gospels to exciting new heights. The results of such ground-breaking studies are one of the greatest threats to modern day atheism.

Referring specifically to the historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ in the Gospels (discussed below), former atheist and freelancer, Philip Vander Elst, writes:

“The more I thought about all these points, the more convinced I became that the internal evidence for the reliability of the Gospels and the New Testament as a whole was overwhelming."

4. Honest philosophical reasoning.

Philosophy means “love of truth.” Philosophy is meant to lead one to truth; and it certainly will, if the philosopher is willing to honestly consider the arguments from both sides and follow the best arguments wherever they may lead.

Psychologist Dr. Kevin Vost recalls his discovery of the arguments of St. Thomas Aquinas:

“Pope Leo XIII had written in the 1879 encyclical Aeterni Patris that for scientific types who follow only reason, after the grace of God, nothing is as likely to win them back to the faith as the wisdom of St. Thomas, and this was the case for me. He showed me how true Christian faith complements and perfects reason; it doesn’t contradict or belittle it. He solved all the logical dilemmas.”

Philosopher Dr. Ed Feser, in his article, The Road From Atheism, recounts the shocking effectof opening himself to the arguments for the existence of God:

“As I taught and thought about the arguments for God’s existence, and in particular the cosmological argument, I went from thinking “These arguments are no good” to thinking “These arguments are a little better than they are given credit for” and then to “These arguments are actually kind of interesting.”  Eventually it hit me: “Oh my goodness, these arguments are right after all!”

Feser concludes:

“Speaking for myself, anyway, I can say this much.  When I was an undergrad I came across the saying that learning a little philosophy leads you away from God, but learning a lot of philosophy leads you back.  As a young man who had learned a little philosophy, I scoffed.  But in later years and at least in my own case, I would come to see that it’s true.”

Two fantastic books from Edward Feser include The Last Superstition: A Refutation Of The New Atheism and Aquinas. Also recommended is Kevin Vost’s From Atheism to Catholicism: How Scientists and Philosophers Led Me to the Truth.

5. Reasonable believers.

It has been the obnoxious position of some (not all) atheists that in order to believe in God, one must have a significant lack of intelligence and/or reason. Most atheists believe that modern science has ruled out the possibility of the existence of God. For this reason, they tag believers with a lack of up-to-date knowledge and critical thinking skills. (Of course, the question of the existence of a God who is outside of the physical universe is fundamentally aphilosophical question—not a scientific question.)

Intelligent and reasonable believers in God, who can engage atheistic arguments with clarity and logic, become a great challenge to atheists who hold this shallow attitude towards the existence of God.

Theists especially make a statement when they are experts in any field of science. To list just a few examples: Galileo and Kepler (astronomy), Pascal (hydrostatics), Boyle (chemistry), Newton (calculus), Linnaeus (systematic biology), Faraday (electromagnetics), Cuvier (comparative anatomy), Kelvin (thermodynamics), Lister (antiseptic surgery), and Mendel (genetics).

An honest atheist might presume, upon encountering Christians (for example) who have reasonable explanations for their supernatural beliefs, that the existence of God is at least plausible. This encounter might then mark the beginning of the non-believer’s openness towards God as a reality.

Consider the notable conversion of former atheist blogger, Jennifer Fulwiler. Her journey from atheism to agnosticism and—eventually—to Catholicism, was slow and gradual with many different points of impact. But encountering intelligent believers in God was a key chink in her atheist armor.

In this video interview with Brandon Vogt, Jen explains how encountering intelligent, reasonable theists (especially her husband) impacted her in the journey towards her eventual conversion.

For the full account of Jen’s conversion process, get her must-read book, Something Other Than God. Her blog is conversiondiary.com.

And then there’s Leah Libresco—another atheist blogger turned Catholic. Leah recalls the challenging impact of reasonable Christians in her academic circle:

“I was in a philosophical debating group, so the strongest pitch I saw was probably the way my Catholic friends rooted their moral, philosophical, or aesthetic arguments in their theology. We covered a huge spread of topics so I got so see a lot of long and winding paths into the consequences of belief.”

Recalling her first encounter with this group of intelligent Christians, she writes on her blog:

“When I went to college…I met smart Christians for the first time, and it was a real shock.”

That initial “shock” stirred her curiosity and propelled her in the direction of Christianity. Leah is now an active Catholic.

Finally, there’s Edith Stein, a brilliant 20th century philosopher. As an atheist, Edith was shocked when she discovered the writings of Catholic philosopher, Max Scheler. As one account of her conversion recounts:

“Edith was enthralled by Scheler’s eloquence in expounding and defending Catholic spiritual ideals. Listening to his lectures on the phenomenology of religion, she became disposed to take religious ideas and attitudes seriously for the first time since her adolescence, when she had lost her faith and and given up prayer.”

Edith Stein would eventually convert to Catholicism and die a martyr. She is now known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

6. Modern advances and limitations in science.

Antony Flew was one of the world’s most famous atheists of the 20th century. He debated William Lane Craig and others on the existence of God. But eventually his recognition of the profound order and complexity of the universe, and its apparent fine-tuning, was a decisive reason for the renowned atheist to change his mind about God’s existence.

In a fascinating interview with Dr. Ben Wiker, Flew explains:

“There were two factors in particular that were decisive. One was my growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe.”

He concluded that it was reasonable to believe that the organization of space, time, matter and energy throughout the universe is far from random.

As Dr. Peter Kreeft has pointed out, no person would see a hut on a beach and conclude that it must have randomly assembled itself by some random natural process, void of an intelligent designer. Its order necessitates a designer. Thus if this “beach hut analogy” is true, how much more should we believe in an Intelligent Designer behind the vastly more complex and ordered universe and the precise physical laws that govern it (click here for William Lane Craig’s argument for the fine-tuning of the universe).

Flew continues in his exposition on why he changed his mind about God:

“The second was my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself—which is far more complex than the physical Universe—can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source. I believe that the origin of life and reproduction simply cannot be explained from a biological standpoint . . . The difference between life and non-life, it became apparent to me, was ontological and not chemical. The best confirmation of this radical gulf is Richard Dawkins’ comical effort to argue in The God Delusion that the origin of life can be attributed to a “lucky chance.” If that’s the best argument you have, then the game is over. No, I did not hear a Voice. It was the evidence itself that led me to this conclusion.”

Parents often describe their experience of procreation as “a miracle,” regardless of their religious background or philosophical worldview. Intuitively, they seem to accept that there is something deeply mysterious and transcendent at work in the bringing forth (and sustenance) of new human life. Flew also was able to realize (after a lifetime of study and reflection) that there could be no merely natural explanation for life in the universe.

For a more in-depth account of Flew’s change of mind on God’s existence, read There Is A God: How The World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.

7. Evidence for the Resurrection.

Thanks to the phenomenal work of leading New Testament scholars, including Gary Habermas, William Lane Craig, and N.T. Wright, the case for Christ’s resurrection has become more airtight than ever.

Modern historical studies have left little doubt about what the best explanation is for the alleged postmortem appearances of the risen Jesus, the conversions of Paul and James, and the empty tomb: Jesus really was raised from the dead. Even most of today’s critical New Testament scholars accept these basic facts as historically certain (the appearances, conversions, empty tomb, etc); but they are left limping with second-rate alternative explanations in a last ditch effort to refute the true resurrection of Christ and “signature of God”, as scholar Richard Swinburne has tagged it.

The case for the resurrection of Jesus had a significant impact on the former atheist, now Christian apologist, Alister McGrath. He recalls in one of his articles:

“My early concern was to get straight what Christians believed, and why they believed it. How does the Resurrection fit into the web of Christian beliefs? How does it fit into the overall scheme of the Christian faith? After several years of wrestling with these issues, I came down firmly on the side of Christian orthodoxy. I became, and remain, a dedicated and convinced defender of traditional Christian theology. Having persuaded myself of its merits, I was more than happy to try to persuade others as well.”

For more on McGrath’s journey see his book, Surprised By Meaning.

8. Beauty.

The great theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar, wrote:

“Beauty is the word that shall be our first. Beauty is the last thing which the thinking intellect dares to approach, since only it dances as an uncontained splendour around the double constellation of the true and the good and their inseparable relation to one another.”

Father von Balthasar held strong to the notion that to lead non-believers to belief in God we must begin with the beautiful.

Dr. Peter Kreeft calls this the Argument from Aesthetic Experience. The Boston College philosopher testifies that he knows of several former atheists who came to a belief in God based on this argument (for more from Dr. Kreeft, see his Twenty Arguments For The Existence Of God).

In classic Kreeftian fashion, he puts forward the argument in the following way:

“There is the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Therefore there must be a God.

You either see this one or you don’t.”

The concept of certitude itself is not very popular today. Most skeptics, agnostics, and atheists view natural science as providing the surest available rational knowledge, and yet, because of this very fact, view all knowledge, at best, to be a matter of very high degrees of probability – never of absolute certitude.

The inherent epistemological limitation of natural science is its inductive method, since observation of particular events can never produce universal certitudes – as famously argued by the Scottish skeptic, David Hume. Thus, those thinkers who claim to attain absolute certitude today tend to be viewed as being epistemologically naïve.

I aim here, not to demonstrate all possible absolute certitudes, nor even the most important conclusions of speculative philosophy, such as God’s existence or the human soul’s spirituality and immortality. Rather, I propose to show that (1) some cognitive starting points of philosophy entail certitudes, and (2) the proper use of reason necessarily implies some absolute certitudes about reality, which constitute universal metaphysical first principles.

What is certitude? Formal certitude is the firm assent of the mind to a proposition together with clear knowledge that the evidence for the assent excludes error and the possibility of error. Such knowledge will be made evident in the examples that follow.

Scio Aliquid Esse

The seventeenth century French philosopher, René Descartes, insisted that what we first know is expressed as “Cogito, ergo sum; I think, therefore, I am.” In so doing, he recognized that, in the act of knowing, there is reflexive consciousness of the self as an existing knower. But what Descartes missed is that in every perceptive act of knowing – the kind first experienced in sensation – what is immediately known is given as an extramental object.¹

The equally French contemporary Thomistic philosopher, Jacques Maritain, corrects Descartes’ omission by restating the initial proposition as “Scio aliquid esse; I know something to be.”² In so saying, he affirms what is first and primarily known is something presented to the knower as an extramental sense object. It is solely in knowing such an object that I become conscious of my own act of knowing – and thereby, reflexively, of myself as the knower. In fact, direct experience tells us that both intramental and extramental objects are known clearly and distinctly, while they are also known as radically distinct from each other.³

Contemporary naturalists would argue that what is known is not directly something in the physical world, but rather some sort of representation inside the brain, presumably caused by an external object. And yet, to know that some internal image constitutes a representation of an external object would require somehow knowing both terms of that relationship. That logically requires directly knowing the external object at some point.

In fact, that is how we developed the scientific explanation of perception – by first knowing the extramental physical world, and from studying it, coming to the conclusion that sensation begins in an external stimulus caused by external objects and tracing the causal sequence from the external sense organs along nerve pathways to the inside of the brain, where, it is assumed, an image is somehow formed and known.

Of course, were it actually true that all the mind knows is the internal images of the brain, then the whole of science would be about images in the brain – in which case science would tell us nothing at all about an extramental physical world.

Still, prescinding from the question of whether what we directly know is some external object or merely an image inside the brain, it is immediately evident that what we know is not thought itself, but thought about something that is real in some way. Scio aliquid esse: I know something to be.⁴

This immediate experience is sufficient to give us absolute certitude that something is known to exist – regardless of its exact ontological status.

Even skeptics pay tribute to the realization that true knowledge consists in conforming the mind to reality. Error arises when what is known by the self does not conform to the really existing thing. Doubt arises when we fear that what we know may not conform to reality itself. But, in the act of perception, there can be no lack of union between the knower and the known, or else, no knowledge at all would occur. Knowledge actually occurs solely when there is union of knower and thing known.

This is why we cannot doubt the immediately known contents of perception.⁵ As children, we never doubted that the physical things around us were anything but real, since they are given to us as external in sensation – except for such internally-experienced entities as images or emotions. The external world around us is the primary given of sense experience, intellectually judged as such.

But Descartes rejected this whole world of things as his starting point. Rather, he took thought itself as his immediate knowledge – even forcing himself by convoluted reasoning to prove that extramental things exist, only after proving to himself God’s existence! Small wonder that Descartes’ inquiry, which starts with a subjective intramental starting point, namely, thought itself, inevitably led to subjective idealism – the denial that the mind can reach objective extramental reality.

Realist epistemology insists that Descartes made the fundamental blunder of thinking that the mind’s primary object is its own thought. Rather, thought is always of something other than the act of knowing itself. For this reason, we naturally distinguish between knowing a cow and knowing an image of a cow. The image is always secondary to direct experience of the extramental object.

Still, whether Descartes is right or wrong, what is absolutely certain is that in any act of knowing, what is immediately given is something existing in some way. That is sufficient for our purposes.

The Rules of Reason

No debate about reality’s nature can escape the use of reason. Defenders of naturalism and skeptics alike are bound by the rules of reason. One need not be a professional logician to know that (1) he cannot contradict himself and that (2) claims need to be supported in some fashion.

To say that contradictions are not permitted means that the same predicate cannot be both affirmed and denied of the same subject. I cannot simultaneously say that the moon is made of green cheese and that it is not, when speaking either of the whole moon or of its exact same part.

Even so-called “paraconsistent logics” are merely ones that try to maintain some limited coherence while ignoring or side-stepping such inconsistencies by denying the so-called “principle of explosion” that says that “if contradictories are true, then any statement is also true.” Yet, it is precisely because admission of any contradictories does lead to all statements being true that no exceptions to the principle of explosion can be admitted – ever. Or, as has been pointed out, in paraconsistent logic, “negation” is not really negation, but merely a subcontrary-forming operator.

Obviously, statements become unintelligible if they are ever permitted to mean the contradictory of what they say! Thus, the intelligibility of every possible proposition requires that its content be affirmed and not denied, thereby making the governing rule here absolutely universal.

Nor is it merely an axiom to forbid contradictions, since it is impossible even to posit an axiom without affirming what is proposed and denying its contradictory – and that includes positing the principle of non-contradiction itself. Thus, even to posit ¬(p ∧ ¬p) as an axiom is to presuppose that its contradictory is false, and hence, is to presuppose the very principle being posited.

To say that claims need support means that a statement or proposition must somehow be either (1) immediately evident or (2) that some extrinsic evidence proves it is true. A statement may be immediately evident either (1) because it is self-evident, as when I say every triangle has three angles, or else, (2) because it is immediately-known as when I say that I am presently experiencing some form of change or motion.

Failing to be immediately evident, any claim must have extrinsic evidence, or else, will rightly be dismissed as mere assertion with no reason to be believed at all. If you make a claim that is neither immediately evident nor supported by any extrinsic evidence, no one will listen to you. Nor should they.

These are the basic rules of reason that govern all rational arguments about anything. Everyone, including skeptics and agnostics, are bound by these rules – or else will have their statements derided as not worthy of any belief at all. These rules apply to all rational discourse between intelligent agents – governing all coherent communication between human beings, be they natural scientists, philosophers, theologians, or the proverbial man in the street.

The Rules of Reason are the Rules of Reality

But, do these rules of reason apply merely to logic and the mind alone? Why is reason the sole natural instrument we use to discover the true nature of reality? If these rules of reason do not apply to reality as well as to reasoning, then what is the usefulness of reason? If the rules of reason must apply infallibly within reason itself, must they not also apply to all extramental things as well?

If reason says that I cannot affirm and deny the same predicate of the same subject in making meaningful statements, then it must be that things, if they are real beings, cannot both be and not be in the same respect. Why is this so? Because, if affirming a predicate of a subject is to have any meaning in the real world, it must mean that some existential property is real in relation to whatever the subject of the proposition refers to in reality. And, if denying the predicate means anything in the real world it must mean that some existential property is not real in relation to that same subject. Hence, to say you cannot affirm and deny the same predicate of the same subject in a proposition must mean that, in the real world, you cannot have a property be both real and not real at the same time.

In a word, this necessarily implies the reality of the principle of non-contradiction. To deny what I have just said would amount to saying that the logical form of non-contradiction has no meaning in terms of reality – in which case the mental reasoning process would be absolutely irrelevant and useless in respect to reality, as I just stated above. Moreover, just as the rational principle must apply to every possible predicate – or else, every possible statement is true, so must its metaphysical corollary, the principle of non-contradiction, apply to every possible being. That is, just as its logical formulation must be universal, so too, must the ontological formulation of the principle of non-contradiction be universal. Otherwise, reason would not equivalently reflect reality – leaving rational understanding of the world unattainable.

The Principle of Sufficient Reason

As for the need for reasons in the domain of reason itself, nothing gets a “free pass” here. Reason itself demands a sufficient reason for every claim or assertion that goes beyond what is immediately evident in sense experience itself. Claims of “brute facts” are simply not accepted in the realm of reasoning. Every truth claim that goes beyond what is immediately evident in sense experience itself requires some rational justification.

Moreover, if such a need applies solely to reason itself, then reason becomes irrelevant to the search for ontological meaningfulness. If reason does not match reality, why deceive ourselves by using this fraudulent power at all?

As shown above, some statements are immediately evident, such as those that are self-evident or those immediately evident from experience. I gave an example above of a self-evident statement: “Every triangle has three angles.” This statement must be true since the definition of triangle entails having three angles.

So, too, if the nature of a real being requires a certain property, it is self-evident that it possesses that property. For example, if man’s nature is that of a rational animal, then rationality must be an existential property of man. Or, if a thing’s essential nature included its existence, such a being would necessarily exist. Essential definitions of real beings would be meaningless if they failed to include every necessarily entailed existential property of the thing defined.

It is also immediately evident that the reality of motion or change is “self-manifested” in the very act of being experienced.

That is to say, the fact of motion is immediately evident. But, what of statements about the facts of immediate experience which make claims beyond the facts themselves? For example, what if one says that motion is perfectly self-explanatory? Or, on the contrary, that motion requires a mover other than what itself is in motion?

There is a critical distinction here between the immediately evident fact that the motion itself is real and, on the other hand, any explanation as to why the motion is real. For it is not self-evident that self-motion is inherent in the essential nature of motion. That is, if it is claimed that motion’s self-movement is an essential property of motion, that claim itself must be rationally justified before it can be accepted as true.

Thus, even self-evident statements require an active defense of their self-evidence, or else they will not be acknowledged as self-evident. They cannot be merely asserted as a “brute fact.” Rather, the reason that they are their own evidence for being true must be defended by reason.

In the examples given, claims are being made beyond what is immediately given in experience. Whether motion is self-explanatory or needs a cause is not immediately evident merely from apprehending motion itself. As said earlier, such claims demand actual proof – or else, no sane person would simply accept one of these mutually-exclusive claims without adequate evidence of its truth. In a word, such claims demand a sufficient reason for belief beyond the mere statement itself.

Now, that sufficient reason could simply be that a given property belongs to the subject’s very nature, in which case, the claim would be proven to be self-evident. But if the property in question does not belong to the subject’s nature, then the claim is still in need of some explanation for the property being present, even though it does not belong to the essence or nature of the subject of the claim. In either case, some sufficient reason for the claim must be produced, which is the opposite of a “brute fact” – since “brute facts” require no explanation at all.

Therefore, claims about reality, which go beyond what is immediately given in sense experience itself, must either offer a reason why they are self-evident (1) because something about the very nature of the subject requires them to be true or (2) (hypothetically) some other intrinsic reason not based on the nature of the subject must explain why they are true. Or else, such claims are not self-evident, but rather (3) require extrinsic reasons explaining why they are true. In every possible case, some sufficient reason for the claim must be given – or else, there is no reason to take the claim seriously, since it is being made with no adequate reason or reasons for accepting it as true.

Since all such claims are claims about reality, the reasons needed for them to be true must be reasons pertaining to the real order of being, or else, such “reasons” are totally irrelevant as to why they would support the truth of the claim about reality being made, since it is a claim about reality, not merely about the way reason functions.

Moreover, this analysis is universally true and universally applicable, since it belongs to the very nature of how statements are understood and rationally defended.

If all this is true, then all beings must have a sufficient reason for their nature, properties, and existence either (1) within themselves (intrinsically) or (2) from something outside themselves (extrinsically, from a cause). This is, in fact, a statement of the metaphysical first principle of sufficient reason.

Moreover, if the above given inferences are not true, there is no reason to reason about anything, since the rational order would have absolutely no direct correlation to the real order of existing things.

Implications for the Science of Metaphysics

What all this means is that the universal fundamental rules of reason must also be the universal fundamental rules of reality or being. If statements cannot contradict each other and if statements must either be actively self-explanatory, or else, be explained by other statements, then this necessarily implies that beings cannot both be and not be and that beings must either be their own reason for being, or else, something else (a cause) must be their reason for being.

In a word, the principles of non-contradiction and sufficient reason must be universally affirmed by anyone who recognizes the rules of reason are correct and applicable to the real world. And if these most basic metaphysical principles are universally applicable to reality, as are the basic rules of reason, then they may be employed by metaphysicians as universal first principles necessarily applicable to all beings.

This means that the universal foundational principles of metaphysics are secure and certain. It means that the search for the ultimate existential basis for all finite beings is well-founded both in reason and in reality. It should then be no surprise that classical metaphysics employs these basic existential truths to lead the mind from the reality of finite beings, whose essences do not include their existence, back through a search of extrinsic reasons for their contingent existence, and ultimately to a First Cause for everything finite, the Infinite Being -- the God of classical theism.

But, it is All Backwards!

This essay has shown that the very intelligibility of rational thinking requires that the rules of reason are universally applicable to extramental reality: that logic has no meaning at all unless its rules that correspond to the metaphysical principles of “non-contradiction,” “sufficient reason,” and “causality” apply with equal universality and certitude to the real world as well as to the mental world.⁶

But, the Thomistic metaphysician – while accepting the truth of this necessary connection between the rules of reason and the rules of being – would immediately point out that this whole explanation is reversed from reality.

That is to say, it is not the rules of reason that dictate the rules of being, but it is the rules of being that dictate the rules of reason.

What the mind of man first knows is the concept of being – abstracted somewhat confusedly, but with certitude, from the first things it encounters in experience. This applies even to the subjective certitudes of experience described at the beginning of this essay. It is these initial certitudes (1) that being cannot be non-being and (2) that being must have reasons either in itself or from another, which force the mind to form the rules of reason that govern all our correct thinking and rational communication with others.⁷

Still, whether non-Thomists will accept this explanation or not, the very fact that all rational persons must accept the basic rules of reason, and that these rules of reason necessarily imply their universal application to extramental reality or being, is enough to establish with certitude the foundations for that very metaphysical science which is so anathema to contemporary naturalism. And it also shows us how certain absolute certitudes are possible.

Ever since the time of Charles Darwin’s thunderous appearance on the human stage, evolutionary materialists have envisioned a world in which man appears without any rational need either for the God of classical theism or for a spiritual and immortal human soul. Human beings are finally to be classed as merely highly-developed subhuman hominins, whose mental abilities do not differ in kind from those of other primates. Human intellectual activity is thought to be merely a highly-evolved form of sentient activity, which, in turn, is ultimately reducible to highly-evolved neural patterns and activity within an advanced primate brain.

Still, a curious hangover from earlier Platonic times has haunted this view of the world, something philosophers have long wrestled with, known as the “problem of universals.”

The Problem of Universals

Today many philosophers debate the exact status of universals. While it is clear that a universal term is one thing predicated of many, this linguistic reality gives rise to important and controversial philosophical questions. Do universals exist only in speech or are they something that exists independently in the real world? If they exist in the mind, what do they ontologically constitute within the human person – merely some biological phenomenon, or a spiritual product evincing human spiritual immortality? Or, do they exist independently of the mind? If so, are they merely something really common found within things? Or, do they actually exist in a world of their own, independent of both men’s minds and natural objects – as Plato claims?

Down through the long history of Western philosophy, major and minor thinkers have sought to give answers to these sorts of questions. Proper evaluation of these many positions would properly require a lengthy professional journal article or even a book – far beyond the scope of this present short piece.

Instead, what I propose to do here is to examine the actual cognitive objects involved in this extensive discussion, not with a view to declaring a winner in the debates between the various positions, but simply to show that the basis for the debates entail two distinct cognitive entities which are clearly incommensurable with each other, namely, the image and the concept.

Image and Concept

One might wonder why I am now talking about the concept (also called an “idea”) rather than the universal. It is because we encounter the universal first in the form of the universal concept, which is the intellectual representation of something that is common to many and can, therefore, be predicated of many individuals. Hence, I will be talking about the concept, or universal concept, as the cognitive object in and through which the universal is understood. Thomistic philosophers maintain that the universal concept is a spiritual in nature. Since the human intellect produces this spiritual concept, they then use this fact to argue for the spirituality and immortality of the human soul.

The image is viewed generally as an internal sense representation, such as one has when he closes his eyes and imagines a “picture of a cow.” More technically, for Thomistic philosophers, an image is any sense impression of one of the internal senses, especially the imagination or sense memory.

For many, the distinction between a concept and an image is not clear, leading to such common depictions as that of forming a picture of a “blindfolded lady holding scales” in one’s “mind,” when having an idea of justice.

The Scottish skeptic, David Hume, who has greatly influenced the thinking of many modern materialists, was guilty of such confusion. Hume distinguishes between “impressions,” which he views as vivid and lively perceptions, and “ideas,” which are products of imagination and memory, making them less vivid and lively. But both “impressions” and “ideas” remain experiences, with ideas being merely weak resemblances of direct experience. One might rightly think that Hume has primarily in mind sense experience, when he speaks of “impressions.” Still, he also includes such things as love, hate, and acts of will.

Indeed, it is quite predictable that modern evolutionary materialists would find themselves unable to think of ideas or concepts as anything other than the same kind of neural activity that they conceive sensation to entail. Suggesting that intellectual knowledge could be radically different in kind from sense knowledge might be the belief of medieval theologians and philosophers, but such byproducts of assumed metaphysical dualism appear to have no place in modern science and its philosophical interpretations, according to these scientific materialists.

The Differences

For evidence of the radical differences between images and concepts (ideas), I shall turn to the work of Fr. Austin M. Woodbury, S.M., who taught philosophy for decades at the Aquinas Academy in Sydney, Australia, which he founded following World War II. Woodbury, who studied under Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, distinguished himself by thoroughly systematizing the work of St. Thomas Aquinas in a manner not found in the writings of Garrigou-Lagrange or other contemporary Thomists.

Woodbury enunciates many clear differences between images and concepts, thereby underlining the radical epistemological and ontological distinction between them. The following seventeen distinctions are based on his work.¹

1. An image is solely of how something appears to the senses, as having this color or that shape or sound. But, the concept gives us the very nature of something, for example, a mammal is understood as an animal that gives milk.

2. An image always exhibits singular sensible qualities, for example, a particular color or shape or loudness or smell. But, a concept may have no sensible qualities, for example, justice, truth, or goodness. Even a sensible quality, considered as universal, may have no sensible qualities, for example, color, as such, is colorless and loudness, as such, is silent.

3. An image is always singular, for example, this pig or this car. But, the concept is always universal (unum-versus-alia: one against others), an understanding that applies to many things, for example, triangularity or mankind.

4. An image has no degrees of extension, that is, that is, the number of individual things to which it applies. For example, the image of this horse applies to this horse only. But, a concept has degrees of extension. Horse, as such, applies to all horses; animal applies to all animals. Yet, animal has greater extension than horse, since it applies to all animals, including all horses.

5. An image can be produced extramentally, as say, a statue or painting of a given height, color, and so forth. But the concept cannot be produced extramentally, since there is no single statue or painting that can physically be all horses at once. How does one make a painting or statue of “living?” That is why abstract art looks so bizarre! You can make a statue of Lincoln, but you cannot make a statue of humanity, since you cannot express all mankind at once physically in a single statue.

6. An image makes no distinction within itself. For example, an image of horse does not distinguish its vegetative powers from its sentient powers. But we can abstract its vegetative powers from its sentient powers and consider the conceptual distinction between them.

7. An image is always concrete. It is this triangle on this board at this time, with its exact shape, color, and size. The concept is abstract. It abstracts from all the singularizing aspects of the image. The concept of animal abstracts from the concrete accidental qualities of the zebra image that may be associated with it.

8. Images constitute the fleeting, changing sense content that accompanies conceptual knowledge, which is stable. Writing a paper on animals may evoke many associated images of various individual cows, horses, stables, hunters, and so forth – constituting a disconnected kaleidoscope of sensible images connected only by the underlying conceptual theme.

9. Images follow the laws of association of images, as in sailors and ships, whereas concepts follow the laws of reason, as hammering is understood as a cause with a loud noise being its effect.

10. Images can vary without changing one’s logical train of thought, whereas changing concepts under consideration can destroy the logic of thought. Thus, imagining horses, chickens, or mice does not affect thinking about animals, but shifting from animals to plants would distract from thinking solely about animals.

11. Image clarity does not assure clear thinking, but clear thinking – even with confused images – can still lead to true understanding. Conversely, conceptual confusion will lead to false conclusions no matter how vividly and clearly it is associated with images.

12. Despite variations in images, concepts may remain stable. Thus, whether one imagines squirrels, bats, or mice, the concept of animal is unaffected. Also, verbal images may vary while conceptual content is untouched. For example, homme, Mann, uomo, homo, and hombre all signify “man,” despite the varied verbal image.

13. Images alone do not permit speech to take place. Speech is based on concepts, not images. The same word, animal, may evoke an image of a horse to one person but a mongoose to another person. If the word stood for the image, its content would be equivocal! That is why one does not say, “Did you get my images?,” but rather, “Did you get my meaning, that is, the conceptual content intended?”

14. If we thought only in images, translation from one language to another would be impossible. The image does not convey a single, defined meaning. The image of a man does not reveal whether it stands for an adult, a male, Homo sapiens, intelligence, a criminal, or any of a number of other significations. Words themselves are purely arbitrary, meaning nothing unless you already know their meaning or assign them a new meaning.

15. The judgment establishes a relation of affirmation or negation between a subject and a predicate. Such a relation is not an image.

16. Reasoning entails apprehension of a nexus between premises and a conclusion. This nexus is not an image.

17. While an image represents an individual entity existing in space, the concept represents the nature outside of a given space and time.

Woodbury defines a “common image” as an image of a singular thing according to sensible appearances that happens to be similar to other singular things.² While useful for the instinctive life of, say, a mouse, enable it to avoid all cats, it is not to be confused with the intellectual understanding of the nature of a cat, which belongs to the radically distinct universal concept.

Implications of This Radical Distinction

While philosophers may still argue about the exact epistemological and ontological status of the universal concept, what should now be clear is that its nature must be radically distinct from that of the image.

Those philosophers and scientists who reduce all human knowledge to sensation have constantly confused the image with the concept – believing that all thought must be understood merely in terms of images and their associations. In turn, images, for materialists, are grounded in neural patterns or activity – so that concepts, ultimately, were presumed to be basically reducible to just forms of neural activity in the brain. And, since images were thought to be common to man and beast alike, no essential differences between humans and other animals could be based on human intellectual abilities.

But, once it is clear that conceptual knowledge is radically distinct from sense images, the possibility, that human intellectual knowledge is essentially distinct from, and superior to, mere animal manipulation of images, again emerges. The old arguments of ancient philosophers for the qualitative differences between human beings and lower animals become more rationally acceptable. Whatever credence may be given to such arguments, the seventeen distinctions between the image and concept listed above make it clear that it is no longer reasonable for naturalists to claim that universal concepts are merely sophisticated or common images somehow constituted of neural activity in the brain.

Conclusion

Because it is grounded in the individuating, quantifying nature of matter, the image always presents itself under the conditions of matter by being imaginable, concrete, sensible, singular, and particular. For this reason, Thomistic philosophers maintain that images manifest dependence on the physical organs of sensation. There is no indication that the sensory powers which we share with the rest of the animal kingdom make us any more than merely material beings.

On the other hand, the universal concept shows none of the characteristics proper to material beings. It is not imaginable, concrete, sensible, singular, or particular. In a word, the concept appears to be not material in nature and, entirely unlike the image, shows no signs of being dependent on matter. Concepts appear to be spiritual in nature. From the fact that human beings – alone in the animal kingdom – have the intellectual ability to form such universal concepts, Thomistic philosophers propose arguments demonstrating the spirituality and immortality of the human soul.³

Perhaps, humans are, after all, God’s special creatures, superior in nature to all lower forms of physical creation, including other animals. Perhaps, men are placed on earth – not as coequal species to other living things – but as stewards responsible for overseeing the welfare of all subhuman creation within their power, including lower animals.

While irrational animals may possess sensitive, but mortal, souls, they do not possess spiritual and immortal souls. Such spiritual souls would have to have been endowed by our Creator solely to genuine human beings, whose essential superiority is marked by our remarkable species’ unique ability to think in terms of universal concepts – an ability totally absent in the rest of this planet’s sentient organisms.⁴

Thomism’s metaphysical first principle of non-contradiction (PNC) reads, “Being cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect.” Its sister first principles are those of identity and excluded middle. Its logical form reads, “The same predicate cannot be affirmed and denied of the same subject.” The metaphysical statement is about being itself (that which in any way has existence), not about propositions about being.

There appears little reason to examine something so basic and obvious that everyone, even little children, just presumes its truth and concretely applies it to everything. It looks like merely a logical tool governing linguistic expression.

Yet, what is incredible about this metaphysical principle is that it offers a primary truth about being itself that is both absolutely certain and universally true. Because the PNC is presupposed by their own methodology, such philosophical systems as positivism, scientific materialism, and the analytic tradition have absolutely no way of explaining why it is true. Moreover, the PNC is radically transcendental, that is, it applies not only to the observable world of sense phenomena, but to anything at all -- even beyond the finite world to God himself.

Absolutely Certain

No one can actually doubt or deny the principle of non-contradiction – for the very act of denying or doubting presupposes its validity. To say, “I deny,” is to affirm that you deny and deny that you affirm, both of which need the PNC for their very intelligibility. To say “I doubt” is to affirm absolutely that you doubt, which is to deny its contradictory of not doubting. To say, “I am not sure” is to affirm that you are not sure and deny that you are sure. To say, “Well, maybe” is to affirm that something could be and deny that it is impossible.

Every declarative expression of words or thought is absolute, because the mind forms judgments solely by combining two concepts in an affirmation or by dividing two concepts in a negation. We speak this way, because we cannot think otherwise. The mind operates by judgments that combine or divide subjects in the form of “is” or “is not” copulas or some variant thereof, which reflect the PNC. Failure to do so is a failure to form any judgment at all. It is a failure to think or say anything at all.

Not Empirically Verifiable

A most fascinating PNC fact is that the most prevalent atheistic worldviews, for example, scientific materialism, positivism, or naturalism seen through a materialist lens, cannot explain the principle’s certitude within their own methodology. This is because the PNC cannot be empirically verified, since every experimental method presupposes the PNC’s truth.

That is, in order to empirically verify anything, the experimental data must first be affirmed as correct and its contradictory rejected. An instrument reading must be accepted as given and not as simultaneously not given. All scientists operatively presuppose the PNC whenever observations are recorded or results are reported. It remains an eight hundred pound gorilla in the room for positivistic worldviews.

Nor does the PNC derive from mathematics, since every supposition or axiom presupposes the PNC for its intelligibility. Let p > q presupposes that you are affirming that supposition, and the affirmation has meaning solely if it excludes its denial. In logic, no formal expression can ever be posited without simultaneously denying its contradictory. Even modal logic, wherein statements are qualified, presupposes absolute affirmation of statements.

Some of the greatest philosophical truths are hidden in plain sight. Parmenides’ simple starting point for Western philosophy is the initial concept of being. Brilliant minds sometimes overlook the obvious.

Universal and Transcendent

Because the principle of non-contradiction is a metaphysical law of being, not a principle limited to particular essences (natures), it applies to all possible things, even those transcending physical reality.

Imagine being confronted with something new and being told it is a chicken. A chicken has certain qualities specific to its nature. Having encountered one chicken, you know something of its nature. Now, if you were told that something existed, but not what it is, you would not know what qualities belong to it. But, if you were then assured that it was another chicken, you would immediately know something about it, because you already know what a chicken is. That is, once you form an initial concept of a chicken, you know that its basic qualities will hold for all possible chickens. This means that these qualities will apply to any entity – provided you are guaranteed it is another chicken.

But, what if you were told that something might or might not exist -- and that you will never encounter it anyway? What if you were told nothing about what kind of thing it might be? What would you then know about it? Nothing?

Not so. You would still know that, if it existed, it could not also not exist at the same time and in the same way. What might or might not exist might not be a chicken or any particular thing you have previously encountered. But, it will still obey the laws of being.

Once the mind has encountered any being, it forms an initial concept of being that will hold good for all possible beings. Since that knowledge is not restricted to some limited essence, like chicken-ness, it will apply to anything that can possibly be or exist. And if nothing exists, the PNC remains applicable, since nothing cannot both not be, and yet, be.

The concept of being’s universal nature directly causes the principle of non-contradiction to apply validly to each and every possible being – that is, to transcend any possible limitation of application.

Moreover, while something new might express some essence never before encountered, if it exists, it still is a being. And the mind has already encountered being from which it has formed a concept that applies to any being whatever.

Knowledge of this law of being is transcendental. Our minds necessarily affirm the principle of non-contradiction applies to every possible being. And yet, that does not mean that that this truth is somehow regulated by, or limited in scope to, our mind. If the laws of thought about being do not reflect the actual laws of being, the mind becomes utterly useless as an instrument with which to know reality. In that case, both natural science and common experience become unintelligible.

As a side observation, St. Thomas Aquinas proves the human soul’s spiritual nature through its ability to form universal concepts,¹ which, unlike sense images, are entirely free of the conditions of matter. While a man or triangle can be concretely imagined as particular objects, concepts, such as humanity or triangularity, cannot. This is because universal concepts are entirely free of the conditions of matter, which means that no bodily organ produces them. This reveals concepts’ spiritual nature and the spiritual nature of the mind able to form them.

In virtue of its transcendent universality, no concept is as universal and totally unimaginable as the concept of being. Hence, the concept of being uniquely manifests the spirituality of the human soul.

Kant's Transcendental PNC Use

The principle of non-contradiction cannot be inductively derived the way David Hume (1711-1776) views induction, that is, by attempting to predict regularity in relations of future phenomena based on prior repeated experience. This approach led him to conclude that there was no way to show that Newtonian scientific laws could be truly universal, since they assume an indemonstrable uniformity of nature, especially as regard causal relations.[

The German idealist Immanuel Kant[ (1724-1804) attempted to save Newtonian physics from Hume’s skepticism by postulating a priori forms of all possible cognition that guaranteed that physical laws -- even space and time itself -- would hold good for all possible experience, but only for experience – not for things in themselves. It is much like wearing rose-colored glasses would assure that everything would “look rosy,” despite the fact that real colors might be varied. But Kant’s defense of Newton entailed limiting the mind’s certitudes to possible experience – meaning that speculative pure reason could never be used to go beyond possible experience in order to prove God’s existence.

For Kant, to use speculative pure reason transcendentally would mean erroneously to apply a priori categories of the apperception (such as space and time) and of the understanding (such as cause and effect) -- categories designed solely for the phenomena (things as they appear to us) -- to the noumena (things as they are in themselves).

Kant claimed he proved his thesis through his antinomies of pure reason, which alleged that such transcendental use of speculative reason led to contradictory conclusions. Kant actually failed to save Newtonian science because his system limited its guaranteed universal laws solely to the phenomena, whereas physicists maintain that physical laws apply to the real physical world in itself (the noumena).

Astoundingly, Kant himself – despite being what he calls a “critical idealist” -- still applied the principle of non-contradiction transcendentally, when he claimed his antinomies led to contradictory conclusions about the noumena -- since he recognized that it was objectively impossible to have contradictions in things in themselves.

Just as Kant insisted that his a priori forms held good for all possible experience, similarly, Thomistic first principles hold good for all possible being. This is why we instantly know of some hypothetical entity, which allegedly we know nothing about, that it cannot both be and not be -- as long as we judge it from the exact same perspective.

Since the PNC is a law of being, not essence, it is not limited to the Kantian phenomena, that is, merely things’ appearances. It applies to all being, including the noumena (things in themselves). Moreover, since it applies to all being, whether that being is finite or infinite makes no difference, which is why it is legitimate to test the coherence of the concept of God by seeing whether any divine attributes entail intrinsic contradictions either with the divine essence itself or among themselves.

How Do We Do It?

How can the PNC be known with such absolute certitude and transcendental universality? Here one must distinguish (1) knowledge of the fact from (2) knowledge of the explanation of the fact. Such certitude and transcendentality are facts directly evident in human experience. Now must be examined why this is so evident.

It is much like skipping down stairs two at a time. In the midst of the feat, one is certain that one is doing it. But any attempt, at the same moment, to think about exactly how one does it would be a distraction risking catastrophe! One need not know how one does it in order to be certain that one is doing it.

Similarly, that being cannot both be and not be is certain -- even should it not be possible to explain fully why such certitude exists. The importance of this distinction is that the present section of this paper is not essential to its overall thesis.

Truth’s basic notion is conformity of the knower to the known -- of experience to reality. If I think my car is red, and it is, that is the truth. But if it is blue, then my knowledge is false with respect to its color.

Any experience whatever entails a union between knower and known (even if what is known is purely subjective) – or else, no knowledge, either true or false, is had. Knowledge is an act of experience, which has content. But to experience any content is to experience some form of being – from which a concept of being can be formed.

Even if someone is hallucinating pink elephants dancing on the ceiling, the hallucinations are still real as hallucinations. Since the concept of being is formed from any being whatever, it matters not whether the content experienced is merely subjective or extramentally real – or even a psychotic hallucination. It remains an undeniably real experience of something. Since both the concept of being and the PNC are based on being, and not on essence or nature, any encounter with being whatever can ground our universal certitude of metaphysical first principles, including the PNC.

We have visual experience of colors and can reflectively know we are having this experience – even if it is merely a visual hallucination or the content of a dream. Similarly, when we encounter reality in any form, we know it as real and existing -- and reflectively know that we know it as being.

The mind reflectively judges its own act of conforming to being, and in so doing, recognizes that it is constituted to know its own conformity to being. That is why all men are intellectually forced to admit the PNC’s truth as a presupposition to any judgment they may utter or think.

Just as color compels sight to experience it, so being compels intellect to acknowledge its presence. The metaphysical first principle of non-contradiction is neither given in sensation alone nor demonstrable. But, it is self-evident. Sensation alone is not a judgment, but being is known by the intellect when it judges that something exists, for example, as encountered in sensation.

From that first experience, which entails both sense and intellect, the initial vague concept of being is formed. And from this vague concept of being is soon formed the refined concept that Parmenides proclaimed in the form of a judgment: “Being is. Non-being is not.” From this we get the principle of non-contradiction: “Being cannot both be and not be” – adding “at the same time and in the same respect” in order to make clear that it is the same exact being or aspect of being we are apprehending.

One last point: Given that the above-described principle is undeniably given at the very starting point of all human knowledge, there is no “secondary level” philosophical system or theory that can disprove it, especially since all such alternative epistemologies presuppose the self-same principle of non-contradiction in their own initial premises and expositions.

Findings

(1)The principle of non-contradiction is apodictally true.

(2) It is transcendentally universal – applicable to all things, even to God.

(3) Natural science cannot explain why the PNC possesses these properties, because natural science’s experimental methodology absolutely presupposes its truth.

(4) Even if it were falsely alleged that the PNC is merely a law of thought, as a law of thought, the PNC must still reflect the actual law of being, or else, the mind becomes utterly useless as an instrument with which to know the real world. This would make natural science unintelligible.

(5) Thomism’s principle of non-contradiction stands prior to, and independent from, natural science, since it is a philosophical first principle that natural science absolutely presupposes, and therefore, cannot adjudicate.

(6) The human soul’s spirituality is classically proven through the intellect’s ability to form universal concepts, because such universals cannot be explained by sense knowledge -- as evinced in the case of the image, which is always under the particularizing conditions of matter. The PNC achieves its universality, and thereby manifests the spiritual nature of the human mind, precisely because it is based on the unique concept of being that transcends the particularity of all sense knowledge.

 (7) It is absolutely impossible that knowledge of the PNC could arise through some mechanism of materialistic biological evolution, since it is impossible for strictly material causes to account adequately for strictly immaterial, that is, spiritual, effects, such as the human spiritual soul, whose intellect forms the PNC.

(8) The PNC is formed from our initial encounters with being, and thereby begins the metaphysician’s journey toward the First Being, God – Whose self-existent being is the ontological foundation of the principle itself.

The conversations happening today in the field of artificial intelligence, known as AI, are completely mind-blowing. Aside from AI robots using 3D printing to build bridges in the Netherlands or cars in Los Angeles with digital nervous systems, the crucial topic of discussion is the unknown potentialities which AI technology could precipitate. The central question which belabors not only scientists and engineers but also economists, politicians, and Christians is ultimately: “What will happen once AI is let out of the box?” Despite the wide variety of speculation within AI scholarship and social media, everyone agrees that the future of AI is a frightening yet seductive mystery from which no one can look away. “AI could be terrible, and it could be great,” remarked Elon Musk, founder of Tesla Motors. “Only one thing is for sure,” he says. “We will not control it.”

The big idea within AI circles is the creation of a superhuman, God-like intelligence that will amplify human cognitive abilities to solve all the problems of the world. At its base, AI is software that writes itself. In theory then, superintelligence can be achieved if the right algorithms are developed which give AI the ability to self-improve. As the algorithms develop themselves and improve their coding throughout a vast network of global intelligence systems, eventually exponential leaps in intelligence will leap off those leaps and reach unbounded levels of computing power. Some thinkers foresee the ability to achieve twenty thousand years of human progress in a single week. The hopes and dreams of those from Silicon Valley to China converge upon harnessing the power of this intelligence, and the practical aspects of building things or implementing innovative solutions is a secondary problem which the superintelligence itself will solve. Whatever company or nation reaches this level of intelligence first will win the world, and either save or destroy humanity in a winner-takes-all scenario.

To be clear, the AI debates do not predict a Hollywood doomsday scenario in which robots become spontaneously malicious and start attacking humans. The more subtle danger is aligning AI’s values and goals with those of humans, what thinkers call the “alignment problem.” The difficulty of alignment is that as AI self-improves, it can behave in ways beyond the foresight of computer programmers. A programmer cannot write a safety patch for every unknown scenario in which an AI might act. For example, if an AI is told to drive someone to the airport, it could be programmed with the common sense needed to drive according to traffic laws. But if an AI developed the ability to fly all by itself, this could be a problem if a human is taken up into the stratosphere with insufficient oxygen. The safety patch of “don’t take humans into the stratosphere without an oxygen mask” is nowhere close to the mind of a computer programmer until it happens. More serious concerns arise if the AI were to design new goals for itself. “What if humans are judged as obstacles to those goals or are objectified to reach them?” Sam Harris asks. Theoretically, the cognitive power of AI technology could be hard to contain and may inevitably lead to weaponization.

If humanity loses control of AI, an obvious solution is to simply unplug or shoot it. (Note to the reader: robots are like zombies; aim for the head or face.) Thinkers have toyed with this solution in what’s called the “AI in a Box” scenario. The idea is simple: anyone building an AI should do so in a secure laboratory to prevent it from escaping into the wild. The laboratory would include an emergence failsafe switch to override a robot with a hard shutdown. This line of thinking, however, overlooks the fact that the AI in the box is superintelligent, and convincing a human to let it out could be like taking candy from a baby. The AI could easily concoct a clever douceur and, with a carrot on a stick, win its freedom through manipulation or bribery. Eventually, the projected intelligence of the AI assumes a development beyond the reliance on electrical power.

While make-believe scenarios of autonomous robots with personality disorders are amusing, the self-improving ability of AI is not something completely untenable. In fact, it is already here. Google, YouTube, and Amazon already have algorithms which can learn and adapt to user search preferences. Right now, the advanced robotic system at the Deep Mind Company is playing video games super-humanly well, which it learned by merely watching a screen. Researchers at New York’s Columbia University recently created a robot that became self-aware and learned things entirely from scratch, with no prior computer programing. Just thirty-five hours after its launch, the robot was able to build its own biomechanics, allowing it to pick up and drop objects, write with a marker, and repair damages to its own body.

With superintelligence on the horizon, mortality itself could theoretically be overcome through some kind of human-robot symbiosis. Superintelligence could presumably develop robotic prosthetics or some kind of elixir that prevents biological decay. Talk has begun of a digital self, created by a neural processor chip which acts as a tertiary cognition layer between the brain’s limbic system and cerebral cortex, enabling anyone to have superhuman cognition. If the biological self dies, a person could upload their “digital self” into a new computer. Overpopulation would be solved by turning something like Facebook into a permanent virtual homestead or employing the power of superintelligence to streamline space exploration and establish a multiplanet species.

The achievement of AI immortality would have profound impacts on central doctrines of the Christian faith. The doctrine of the Resurrection could one day appear like an awkwardly devised VCR or reel-to-reel cassette tape, outdated and completely laughable. Atheists like Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins would have empirical verification that evolution has finally outgrown the primitive impulse of religion. According to their logic, natural selection built beavers and bees in such a way that they could adapt to their surroundings to survive. It would follow, therefore, that the inbuilt survival mechanism for humans is their intelligence and the production of robots is the ultimate zenith of adaptation. Dennett and Dawkins could very well conclude that the concept of “God” was merely a metaphorical projection of humanity’s highest potential, and the kingdom of God prophesied in the Bible was really a foreshadowment of the kingdom of Robots. Or perhaps the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection were interpreted incorrectly all these years, and the figure of Christ is really an image for the deification of human consciousness, technuminously exalted with the omniscience of “God.”

The harrowing prospects of AI immortality could make the doctrine of the Resurrection potentially unnecessary. To profess such a belief would entail the deliberate decision to forego synthetic life and endure biological death. The Christian of the future would be viewed as the epitome of unreason, illogically adhering to pro-life and pro-mortem beliefs. Once blamed as obstacles to “choice” and “dignity,” Christians will then be, ironically, charged as adversaries to life without end.

However, if the doctrine of the Resurrection is properly understood, the promise of cybernetic impersonation wane in comparison to its eschatological counterpart. The doctrine of the Resurrection has nothing to do with the prolongation of temporal-historical existence. Pope Benedict XVI would describe such thinking as the “secularization of salvation,” which reduces human nature to a permanent state of gadgetry and highly advanced tools, as opposed to an elevation of human nature to participation in the divine life. Ultimately, the essence of the Resurrection is a difference in the quality of life rather than its duration. The New Testament uses two Greek words for life: bios and zoe. The former is carbon-based life, life that is organic, mutable, and subject to decay. The latter is divine life, life that is immutable, unchangeable, and eternal. Zoe is life in the raw, life’s life, the very life of God. At the Resurrection, this divine life will not only fuel human bodies and souls but will transforms all of creation.

Perhaps the best description of the future life of the Resurrection comes from C.S. Lewis’ book The Great Divorce, in which he distinguishes between the “shadow lands” and “ultimate reality.” The story begins when the narrator of the book, Lewis himself, is taken by a bus to the foothills of heaven. The passengers on the bus disembark into the most beautiful country they have ever seen. Yet curiously, every aspect of the landscape is different. “I bent down and tried to pluck a daisy,” Lewis says, but the “little flower was hard, not like wood or even like iron but like diamonds.” The heavenly world is made of an entirely different substance, so remarkably solid that the grass hurts Lewis’ feet when he tries to walk. The life of heaven is so real that it makes the former world a mere shadow in comparison, a world where everyone and everything overflows with the superabundance of divine life. “The glory flows into everyone, and back from everyone,” says an inhabitant of the land, “like light and mirrors.”

The eternal life of God constitutes the very quality of the Resurrection, a life that has no terminus or limit on either side—that is, no beginning or end. Boethius’ classic definition of eternity is the “complete possession all at once of illimitable life.” Boethius abstracts eternity from the forward succession of time, measured by a before and after, and replaces it with the “now” of time. The now of eternity is unbounded by time’s fleetingness, which does not separate into past and future. Eleonore Stump describes eternity as a “durational now” that persists indefinitely, a stable moment of pure existence, without change or intervals.

In chronological time, human beings do not have full possession of their lives all at once. A person at age fifty will not possess the life he once had at age three, nor the life he will have at age seventy. Life is experienced sequentially, little by little. Humans have only one moment of their life within the continuum of its totality, which is experienced as a now that is continually passing away. If time can be transcended, a person can have a now that endures always and does not change or separate into past and future. The future life of the Resurrection will be the complete possession of a person’s entire life all at once in an uninterrupted moment of divine sublimity. Augustine longed for this life in his Confessions, praying: “I have been divided amid times, and my thoughts, even the inmost bowels of my soul, are mangled with tumultuous varieties, until I flow together into You.”

The eternal now of resurrected life is entirely different from a static, lackluster world that eventually succumbs to the bland familiarity to which AI is predestined. Eternity is a moment that is continually fresh and new with the life of God, a savory moment blooming with illimitable vitality. Gregory of Nyssa likens the soul to a vessel that is continually expanding as the divine life flows into it. Rather than the vessel becoming full and overflowing, God enlarges the soul’s capacity to receive more and more divine life. Yet because God’s infinity always exceeds the soul’s capacity to be filled, the soul can never reach a satiety of the endless good. While the soul will be satisfied completely and rest in its final end, its desire will be enkindled always anew by the pleasures that lie beyond it. Gregory described eternal life as a paradoxical state of “insatiable satiety” wherein desire itself is the satisfaction. The soul lives in a felicitous tension between its ecstatic desires and their ever-more wondering fulfillment. Which means humans are continually in a state of young love with God, always at the beginning of their relationship, since the possibilities are infinite.

To whatever degree it is appropriate to use the word “danger” in describing AI technology in the world, it can certainly be applied to the spiritual effects it will have on the human person. The indefinite extension of temporal life by AI technology would impede the human person’s final end of union with God. The soul would be left suspended in an intermediary spiritual stasis of insatiable longing for the infinite, while artificially ordained to the finite, a space of interminable spiritual frustration, like a fish out of water, gasping for its ultimate life principle. John of the Cross wrote of this condition with particular antipathy in his spiritual lamentations, complaining that he was “dying that I do not die.” The litmus test for the viability of AI immortality is surely the desire for God and the spiritual needs of the human person, which are too big for this world.

While the entire AI conversation may be written off as wildly speculative and more than likely impossible, humanity awaits the event on the horizon. For people of faith, the superintelligence of God incarnate has already enacted a solution for the human condition, expanding human consciousness with the vision of eternity and inestimable spiritual delights. Without the hope of the Resurrection, the costs and benefits that result from AI curiosity will forever be too small.

Bertrand Russell was one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20^th century, and an outspoken skeptic. His bestselling book A History of Western Philosophy (which was cited as one of the reasons for his 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature) contains a short chapter in which he examines St Thomas Aquinas’ life and work, concluding with the following, damning remark:

There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. He is not engaged in an inquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know in advance. Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation. The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading. I cannot, therefore, feel that he deserves to be put on a level with the best philosophers either of Greece or of modern times.¹

This, like a lot of Russell’s criticisms of philosophers he disagrees with, is unfair, inadequate, and misleading, resting on very basic misconceptions, and I want, in this blog post, to briefly argue so.

First, however, it ought to be said that Russell does not only have negative things to say about Aquinas – on the contrary, he makes a point of listing a good number of positive elements of his philosophy. He praises Aquinas’ deft synthesis of Aristotelianism and Christianity, as well as its originality, noting that in his day he was considered a “bold innovator”, whose doctrines were condemned by the universities of Oxford and Paris. He also commends his practise of stating opposing arguments before developing his own, although his remark that this is done “often with great force, and almost always with an attempt at fairness” renders this an imperfect compliment. Aquinas does well in clearly distinguishing doctrines derived from reason and doctrines derived from faith, he notes, and “knows Aristotle well, and understands him thoroughly, which cannot be said of any earlier Catholic philosopher”.²

What are we to make of Russell’s assessment? Perhaps even those sympathetic to Aquinas might feel that there is some force to it – isn’t there something pretty questionable about deciding what you believe first, and then searching for arguments to back it up later?

The first problem with the assessment is the very basic one that it is unsupported by evidence – Russell fails to provide a single example of Aquinas’ failure to “follow the argument where it leads”. He ignores, moreover, the frequent examples of Aquinas doing what appears to be the exact opposite; namely, accepting unpalatable conclusions when the facts seem (to him) to suggest that he ought to. Many philosophers before him had held that it can be demonstrated, by pure reason, that the universe is not eternal (this is still a position held by a good number of thinkers), and whilst it would no doubt be very convenient from a religious point of view if this were true – as it might point to a creator – Aquinas, after considering the subject in some detail, comes to the conclusion that it is not. 

So what about the broader claim that Aquinas’ whole method is unphilosophical, since he starts from the position that the Catholic faith is true, and then looks for arguments to that effect? As the Oxford philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny remarks,³ this is a comment that comes pretty strangely from Russell, who spent a few hundred pages of his book Principia Mathematica trying to prove (starting from a few logical axioms) that 1 + 1 = 2, something which, we can assume, he already believed before he began. More fundamentally, I think that Russell's assumption that Aquinas' religious belief is independent of reason is wrong, or, at best, unevidenced. Of course, being raised Catholic, Aquinas will have been religious before he was able to give any reason to be, but this doesn't imply that his later, mature faith was not rational. As he grew older, and became capable of reasoning about religion, and the world in general, it seemed (to him) that evidence confirmed his beliefs, but if it had not, it seems very unlikely that he would have remained Christian. Aquinas is famous for his insistence on the importance of reason, even in the face of certain church authorities, who claimed that it ought to be subservient to faith; his reasoning was that if the Christian religion is true, and reason leads to truth, then it makes no sense for the two to be in conflict. If he had found them to be in conflict – if, for instance, he was not convinced by his own Five Ways (arguments for the existence of God), and found prayer useless, or the problem of evil irresolvable, or the Bible seriously unreliable, and so on, then there is good reason to think that he would have abandoned religion.

If this is true, then his religious belief is really, contrary to Russell, no different, and no more intellectually suspicious, than the vast majority of the beliefs held by everyone – learnt, pre-rationally, in childhood, and later confirmed or rejected on the basis of mature reflection and experience. Think about the way you learnt that London is the capital of England, or that democracy is a fairer political system than fascism -  these are beliefs which you learnt uncritically as a child, and later grew to understand and accept (or deny) as you grew older – just, I would suggest, as Aquinas did with religion. This does not, of course, show that his belief is justified – I've said nothing about whether the reasons for his belief are any good. It does, however, suggest that if Aquinas is to be criticised, it must be because of the quality of the evidence he uses, and not on the basis that his religious faith is independent of it. 

A final problem with Russell's analysis lies in his assessment of Aquinas’ view of the interaction between faith and reason, when he writes that “If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation”. This accusation neglects a very simple and fundamental distinction in Aquinas’ thought, that between doctrines which can be known by reason and arguments which, by their very nature, cannot be. According to Aquinas, the existence of a prime mover, an uncaused cause of the universe, would be a fact of the first kind – he thinks that anyone, no matter where and when they are born, will come to belief in this sort of supernatural power if they think hard and well enough. The Trinity, he thinks, is a fact of the second kind – no amount of unaided reason could ever bring anyone to the conclusion that the uncaused cause has one nature in three persons; this can only be known through God's revelation. 

In providing arguments for some doctrines and not for others, then, Aquinas is not, as Russell suggests, just scrambling around for arguments where he’s able to, and making excuses where he isn’t, but relying on  what is a very sensible distinction between two types of fact. For analytical philosophers such as Russell, such distinctions are bread and butter, and it reflects very poorly on him to have so obviously missed the point.

It can, then, be seen that Russell's criticisms of Aquinas hold little water. Such misjudged attacks are, unfortunately, characteristic of him – his treatment of a number of important thinkers and schools of thought in the History of Western Philosophy has come under criticism, as has his condemnation of his one-time protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein, of whom he became extremely dismissive after they fell out (and who then went on to become probably the most significant philosopher of the 20^th century). Perhaps we would do well to emulate Aquinas, who, as we saw, always made sure to treat his opponents charitably, rather than Russell, when we have criticisms to deliver.

This article’s sole purpose is to defend free will against the claim of those who maintain that free will is metaphysically impossible, because it somehow violates the principles of sufficient reason and causality.

Arguments Against the Harmony

The most forceful argument against free will’s possibility is the claim that it violates Thomistic metaphysics’ understanding of the principle of sufficient reason. That principle states that every being must have a sufficient reason for its being or coming-to-be.

For St. Thomas Aquinas, the will is simply the intellectual appetite. The will desires the good as intellectually apprehended. While the will is necessitated in its movement toward the universal good, with respect to lesser goods it is free to choose this or that one, or to reject any at all.¹

The problem of free will metaphysically is to explain how a free choice can come-to-be without it being ultimately determined by God or by some other external or internal cause, not by the free will of the human being who makes it.

Since a person is in potency to his choice before he makes it, the question arises as to how he can possibly be moved from potency to act (from not yet having made his choice to having made it), without being moved by another. Since whatever is moved is moved by another, a human being cannot move himself from potency to act. But if he is moved by another to make his choice, how can the choice be said to be free and of his own making?

Although the will is a secondary cause, even secondary causes must be moved from potency to act. Now, it is argued that, since God makes creatures to act in accordance with their own natures, he makes free agents to be and to operate in accord with their free natures – so that they are true agents of their own choice.²

Still, in choosing between alternative goods, the human free will must become inclined to one rather than another. It is claimed man is free to choose because God sustains his free agency as he makes the choice.³

Nonetheless, if the human will is truly open to choose this or that object, such that it is not forced to one rather than the other, what, then, inclines it to one or the other alternative? It cannot be itself, since its “freedom” precisely entails not being forced or inclined with necessity to one option or another. Hence, when it begins to move in one direction or another, something other than itself must move it – which means that it does not move itself, but another so moves it. If that is so, then how can the will really be free, since its choices appear not to be made by itself, but by another?

Metaphysically, the problem with free will is that the will must first be open to its choice, and then, must give to itself that which it does not initially possess, namely, a dominating inclination to one good rather than another. Nothing can give to itself what it does not have, and hence, free will is impossible. Even if God sustains the person and his will, together with all conditions attendant to the will’s act, some final inclination must come-to-be which was not there before. Since nothing can give to itself what it lacks, that new and final inclination must not come from the person choosing, but from something else. That something else must be some internal precondition or external agent. Either way, free will appears to be a chimera.

To the Thomistic metaphysician (and to right reason), nothing is more true than metaphysical first principles. Thus, an argument against free will based on such principles appears irrefutable. For example, genuine freedom violates the first principle that you cannot get being from non-being, that is, a new specification from a will previously not so specified. Self-specification is impossible, since nothing can give to itself that which it lacks. But, if the will receives its specification from another, then it cannot be free.

Secondary Causes are True Causes of Their Effects

Still, the free act itself must be carefully analyzed – to see whether genuine freedom truly violates basic metaphysical principles.

Importantly, secondary causes are true causes of the changes they produce.⁴ Merely raising one’s arm produces “new existence” or a “new expression of reality” just by the arm’s position change. In another Strange Notions article, I demonstrate that this “new existence” requires an Ultimate Cause of all finite being, a “universal donor” of finite modes of existence that did not previously exist. This “donor” provides the novel perfection of reality that the arm’s new position entails.

Yet, the limitations, under which that “new existence” is expressed, come, not from God, as the universal source of new existence, but from the finite agent who moves his arm. That is, the limited expression of this new perfection of existence comes from the limited being of the person moving his arm (with existential assistance from God). It is the human being who moves his arm and it is his arm that is moved – not God’s arm!

Secondary causality’s essence is that God enables finite agents actually to cause their own effects, even though they cannot do so all by themselves. Secondary, finite causes are true causes of their effects. Secondary causes are not mere puppets. This helps explain how human free will is able to act freely, even though it cannot act all by itself.

Clarifications

First, so-called “free choice” is not really free. It is called “free” through extrinsic denomination, that is, because it is produced by free will. By the time one makes his choice, the choice is already determined to be what it is. The will determines the choice. The choice does not determine itself. Free will is simply the power that makes such choices independent of any secondary causal agency forcing its decision.

Second, the free will cannot act unless God moves it to act by giving it the natural inclination toward the good -- and even then only when the intellect apprehends a finite good to be embraced or rejected. We always want the perfection, but can reject the finite good because of its imperfection.

Third, the practical context of choice is like picking between chocolates, when someone says, “Pick one.” If you pick a cherry cordial, you get its unique flavor to enjoy. Still, at the same time, you deny yourself the sensitive good of a caramel. If you pick the caramel, you lose the cordial. These are finite goods. Since the will is necessarily ordered solely to the universal good (which is ultimately God himself), lesser goods can be rejected.⁵

Free Will Is Metaphysically Possible

Since the free choice itself is actually determined by the free will, it is the exercise of free will that must be examined carefully in order to determine if free will is metaphysically possible.

In its exercise, the will is confronted with finite goods, which do not necessitate its appetite to choose them. Because of their limited natures, they present both perfections, which attract, and imperfections, which permit rejection. Inherent in the nature of the intellectual appetite, or will, is that it is not necessitated by limited goods, but by the universal good alone.⁶

No extrinsic cause forces the will to choose this rather than that finite good. God sustains the will’s nature and moves it to choose by presenting goods to it through intellectual apprehension. But no extrinsic cause – not even God himself – inclines the will to choose necessarily this or that finite good.

Antecedent conscience is the last practical judgment of the intellect judging the moral lawfulness of a human act to be performed here and now. Still, since the will is attracted by the good present both in the morally correct choice and also in the morally evil alternative, and since neither option compels with necessity, no secondary cause but the will itself is responsible for the choice actually made.

Therefore, in the order of secondary causes, the will alone is responsible for its choices.

The free will is not a power existing in a vacuum. It is a property and power of the human being making his free choices through its exercise. Hence, it is the human person himself who bears responsibility for choices he makes through the exercise of his free will.

The metaphysical principle of sufficient reason not violated. The choice itself has a sufficient reason in that it is determined by the free will. The various components of the free will in its exercise never violate this principle either. The reason the will is moved to choose and to choose freely is God who sustains its nature and moves it to choose without necessitation by presenting it with intellectually apprehended finite goods.⁷

But it is precisely because there is no efficacious secondary cause whatever that moves the intellect to prefer one finite good to another that there is no sufficient reason forcing the will to choose one way or another. Yes, the intellect apprehends reasons both pro and con with respect to the finite goods that are considered as means. But none of these are necessitating reasons, because the intellect also sees the reasons that support the alternative choice. There is no adequate and sufficient reason forcing the will to embrace one alternative choice over another, even though the conscience declares which choice is morally good, and thus, which alternative ought to be chosen.

Indeed, it is precisely the absence of any sufficient reason forcing the will’s specific choice that guarantees that the human will’s genuine freedom in seeking the good is possible.

Conclusion

Finally, some may foolishly argue that -- lacking any sufficient reason as to why a given option is chosen -- free choice is merely a matter of pure chance! But, this is absurd, since the hallmark of chance is that it lacks all intentionality. To the contrary, free choice is fully intentional in that it is based on clearly understood motivations provided by the various reasons the intellect considers as it ponders various possible courses of action.

To the objection that “you cannot get being from non-being, that is, a new specification of the will from a will previously not so specified,” the answer lies in the fact that the will gets its specification from the intellect. Various alternative actions are already considered by the intellect. In choosing one as opposed to the others, the will does not get its specification from non-being, but rather from the being of an alternative already understood. It is, then, an already existing “specification,” which becomes the chosen course of action.

To the objection that “some final inclination must come-to-be which was not there before,” the same answer is given. The final inclination is simply one of the alternative actions already known by the intellect. God moves the will to exercise its own proper act of choosing, and since it is necessitated by no finite alternative, it is free to make one of those already existing “inclinations” its “final” choice.

The free will is moved to choose, but it is not moved in a violent way or contrary to its own inclination.⁸

The choice made has a sufficient reason, namely, the exercise of the free will that is moved to make a choice by God giving it the natural inclination to desire the good found in the alternatives.⁹ But to say that the sufficient reason for the choice made lies in the exercise of the free will is not the same as saying that there must be a sufficient reason why one alternative is chosen over another.

Rather than operating in violation of the metaphysical principle of sufficient reason, human free choice is possible precisely because there is no sufficient and efficacious reason why, considered in itself, it must choose one finite good over another.

Three truths must be kept in mind here:

(1) God’s transcendent efficient causality encompasses all created being, including the least movement of the human will – and this it does move “sufficiently and efficaciously.”¹⁰ Thus, any conception of free will that asserts that the will makes its decisions with complete existential autonomy violates not only sufficient reason, since it fails to admit that God moves the will, but also the absolute creative omnipotence of God over each and every finite thing.

(2) The human will is inherently free in its choice of finite goods because no finite good is its natural end. The universal good, God, alone is.

(3) The will moves itself from potency to act in choosing finite goods, but only insofar as God moves it as a secondary cause whose nature is free with respect to choosing finite goods.¹¹

Thus, God’s transcendent efficient causality in no way violates the will’s exercise of its free choice.

As philosopher Peter Pagan explains:

“Insofar as the created act of the will is without defect, it can have two efficient causes, provided that the causes are not of the same order. The Creator operates, and the spiritual creature cooperates, there being no real conflict. … The spiritual creature's real contribution does not logically preclude the antecedent operation of God's transcendent efficient causality. (See St. Thomas, S.Th., I, q. 83, a. 1, ad. 3.) If we were dealing only with efficient causes of the same order of being (univocal), however, there would be a real philosophical problem.”¹²

A morally good choice entails God causing the motion of the will and the will simply conforming to that motion with a perfectly natural concurrence based on its own natural inclination toward the perfective good.

Dr. Pagan continues, “Moreover, insofar as the spiritual creature's act includes some moral imperfection or privation of due order, the defective act qua defective does not demand an efficient cause, but only a deficient cause, which is not God. Also see St. Thomas, S.Th., I, q. 49, a. 1, corp. et ad 3.”¹³

As for the defective choice, the motion of the will is "deflected" from a proper means by reason of some defect within itself, for example, an inordinate love of carnal pleasure which blinds the intellect to some extent. Thus, the motion of the secondary cause (the free will) is truly its own, even though it is moved to act by God. But, the defect flows from its own defective affection -- so that the means chosen is not properly ordered to man's last end.

These free choices are perfectly natural, since God, as the sole cause of natural agents’ natures, is the sole agent able to enable the free will to be a genuine cause of its own contingent, not necessary, effects.¹⁴ God sustains the reduction from potency to act in the will whereby it chooses between the alternatives proposed by the intellect. But he does so in a manner perfectly natural to the will as a true secondary cause of contingent, not necessary effects. Thereby, the human free will exercises its own proper act of choosing – with no violation of the principle of sufficient reason entailed at all.

The foregoing is merely a modest attempt to express some elements of the Thomistic explanation of how free will comports with the principle of sufficient reason, following the penetrating and exhaustive exposition of such eminent contemporary Thomists as Pere Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange.¹⁵