(NOTE: This it the third of a three part series on Bernard Lonergan's philosophical proof for God. Be sure to read the first part and second part.)

V. The One Unrestrictedly Intelligible Uncaused Reality is an “Unrestricted Act of Thinking”

We will now explain Lonergan’s contention that unrestricted intelligibility can only occur through an unrestricted idea, which in turn can only occur through an unrestricted act of thinking.

As noted above, the one uncaused reality that exists through itself is unrestricted in its intelligibility. This means that it can answer from within itself not only the question “Why is it so?” but also all other questions grounded in this question for explanation. For Lonergan, this kind of intelligibility cannot be material (conditioned by space and time) or individuated (restricted to an instance and therefore unable to unify or relate distinct or opposed objects). It must therefore be trans-material and trans-individual – having the qualities of an idea. In order to explain what Lonergan means by “idea,” it will be helpful to distinguish between two kinds of thinking – “picture thinking” and “conceptual thinking.” Picture thinking results in what is called “perceptual ideas” – ideas which correspond to an individual image (such as my dog Fido), and “conceptual thinking” corresponds to conceptual ideas, which require more explanation.

Look at the words in the previous two paragraphs. How many of them correspond to an individual image (like my dog Fido)? As you can see, the vast majority of them do not correspond to any individual image. Instead they correspond to concepts which designate groups of objects and even groups of groups. Thus they can be conjunctions, prepositions, logical terms, mathematical terms, verbs, adjectives, abstract nouns, etc. How are these abstract “group” concepts formed? By placing perceptual and conceptual ideas into relationships with each other. Though some animals are capable of forming perceptual ideas, humans alone are capable of forming conceptual (“relationship based”) ideas.¹ So how do we form conceptual ideas that can stand for groups of objects and groups of groups? How do we form relationship-based ideas that do not directly refer to perceptual objects? How do we form ideas that can be used as predicates, objects, and grammatical, logical, and mathematical constructs? In a word, “heuristic notions.”

Notions are general inclusive concepts, and heuristic notions are among the highest of these inclusive concepts. They are capable of unifying (bringing together) all other less general concepts under their broad and inclusive intelligibility. These high-level unifying concepts enable humans to create superstructures through which to interrelate perceptual ideas among one another, perceptual ideas with conceptual ideas, and conceptual ideas among one another. These superstructures are like context for organization of particular ideas – like a map is a context for organizing specific places or a clock or calendar for organizing specific times, or a table of genus and species for organizing similarities and differences among realities, etc. Each superstructure has particular heuristic notions (high-level ideas) intrinsic to it that determine the way in which ideas are to be organized and interrelated.

For example, the notions of “similarity and difference” are essential for interrelating answers to the question, “What is it?” The notions of “here and there” are essential for interrelating answers to the question “Where?” The notions of “earlier-now-later” are essential for interrelating answers to the question “When?” And the notions of “causation-possibility-necessity-contingency-actuality” are essential to organizing answers to the question “Why?” Without heuristic notions to give intelligibility to organizational superstructures, we would have no way of relating ideas among one another, and if we could not do this, we would have no conceptual ideas. We would be reduced to about 4% of the words we use – limited only to those having direct pictorial referents.

Heuristic notions cannot be learned from the empirical world because we would have to use them in order to learn them. Recall that notions are necessary for transforming our perceptual ideas from the empirical world into conceptual ideas, and that notions are the highest-level conceptual ideas. Thus we are confronted with a paradox. We would have to use the very notions that we have not yet learned from the empirical world to translate our perceptions from the empirical world into notions – we would have to use them before we learn them so that we could learn them – an obvious impossibility. They must therefore be innate. Lonergan believes that all such heuristic notions are derived from the supreme heuristic notion – the notion of completely intelligible reality (what he terms “the notion of being”).²

Bearing this in mind, we may now examine the function of heuristic notions. We use them to create organizing superstructures to relate perceptual ideas among one another, relate perceptual ideas with conceptual ideas, and relate conceptual ideas among one another. Let’s return to the heuristic notions of “here,” “there,” and “where.” Notice that these notions provide a superstructure (like a map) for relating one location to another location. Without this superstructure, we would not be able to understand location—because location requires interrelating the data of experience. Thus, perceptual ideas alone cannot make location intelligible. Similarly, the notions of “similarity,” “difference,” and “What?” enable us to create an organizational superstructure to relate one kind of object with other kinds of objects. Again, without these notions (and the superstructure they organize), we would not be able to understand various kinds of objects because perceptual ideas alone (unrelated to each other) do not reveal similarities and differences among objects.

The human mind with its innate heuristic notions is not limited to relationships among perceptual ideas; it can also organize relationships among conceptual ideas. This gives rise to second level abstractions (such as particular conjunctions – “and,” “or,” etc.) and particular prepositions (such as “here,” “around,” “below,” etc.), and third level abstractions (such as the concept of “conjunction” and “preposition”). The mind can generate higher and higher levels of abstract ideas in language, logic, mathematics, and metaphysics. Some of the higher levels of logic are manifest in the complex operators of contemporary modal logic; higher level mathematical concepts may be found in tensor geometry and the mathematics of higher dimensional space; and higher level metaphysical concepts are manifest in the ideas of space, time, reality, intelligibility, causation, and unrestricted intelligibility.

Notice that no conceptual ideas can exist in the physical world, because physical realities are limited by individuation and space-time particularity. Conceptual ideas transcend individuality and space-time particularity, and require the power of mentation (mind)—with its capacity to relate perceptual and conceptual ideas—to achieve this status.

Let us review – humans move from the domain of individual things and individual images (perceptual ideas) to the domain of conceptual (relational) ideas through the use of heuristic notions (high-level ideas that act as superstructures to organize relationships among perceptual and conceptual ideas). These conceptual ideas go far beyond the domain of individual material objects and perceptual ideas, because they contain relational contents that underlie the whole of language, logic, mathematics, metaphysics, and every science and discipline that uses them. Conceptual ideas, then, are vehicles to convey not only meaning, but the intelligibility of reality. Such ideas cannot come from the world of material things; they must come from the domain of mind (thinking) in which heuristic notions organize relationships among individual perceptual ideas and the conceptual ideas derived from them.

We may now proceed to the main point of this section – that the unique unrestrictedly intelligible uncaused reality is an unrestricted act of thinking. Recall from Sections I – IV that an uncaused cause existing through itself (necessary for everything else to exist) must be unique and unrestrictedly intelligible. What kind of being has unrestricted intelligibility? As can be seen from the above analysis, it cannot be something physical or material which is limited by individuality and space-time particularity. Furthermore, it cannot be something which is merely abstract (such as a conceptual idea) because an abstraction is restricted by the ideas from which it is derived. Moreover, it cannot be a restricted act of thinking (which can still inquire) because a restricted act of thinking by definition is not unrestrictedly intelligible. Well then, what is a reality with unrestricted intelligibility? It must be an unrestricted act of thinking (mentation) which grasps everything about everything – every relationship among things and relations – the complete set of correct answers to the complete set of questions. Lonergan puts it this way (using “act of understanding” in the same way I have been using “act of thinking”):

…[I]ntelligibility either is material or spiritual [immaterial] or abstract: it is material in the objects of physics, chemistry, biology, and sensitive psychology; it is spiritual [immaterial] when it is identical with understanding; and it is abstract in concepts of unities, laws…. But abstract intelligibility necessarily is incomplete, for it arises only in the self-expression of spiritual intelligibility. Again, spiritual intelligibility is incomplete as long as it can inquire. Finally, material intelligibility necessarily is incomplete, for it is contingent in its existence and in its occurrences, in its genera and species… moreover, it includes a merely empirical residue of individuality, noncountable infinities, particular places and times…. It follows that the only possibility of complete intelligibility lies in a spiritual intelligibility that cannot inquire because it understands everything about everything.³

So what is an unrestricted act of thinking like? Let’s begin with what it is not. An unrestricted act of thinking cannot occur through a material brain because a material brain cannot accommodate unrestricted intelligibility since it is restricted in both its intelligibility and its material functioning. The same can be said for artificial intelligence, which also is restricted in its intelligibility and material (electromagnetic, electrochemical, or even biochemical) functioning. Indeed, we will have to eliminate any apparatus, power, or activity which is in any way material or restricted in its power to ground intelligibility.

This means that an unrestricted act of thinking must be a power which is capable of bringing together, in a single act, the interrelationship among unrestricted intelligibility and all restricted intelligibility. What kind of power could this be? It must be a power that can be in relationship to itself and anything extrinsic to itself – a power which is not restricted by a spatial or temporal manifold; a power which has no intrinsic limitations or extrinsic restrictions that would prevent it from being unrestricted in its intelligibility; a power that can act as a unifying agent of every restricted reality and idea as well as for itself; a power which can be completely self-reflective, self-appropriating, self-conscious, and self-transparent because it has no intrinsic restriction preventing it from being present to itself and everything distinct from itself (the whole domain of restricted reality and intelligibility).

This pure mentative power cannot be imagined (i.e., picture thinking), because that would subject it to individuation as well as space and time (which it completely transcends). We can only approach it through an appreciation of its unrestricted and self-transparent unitive and unifying power. Any attempt to further refine this notion will only serve to restrict and particularize it – which would render our conception false.

For Lonergan, then, the only possible source of complete intelligibility is an unrestricted act of understanding – what we have called an unrestricted act of thinking – an unrestricted power capable of comprehensive unification of itself (unrestricted intelligibility) with the whole of restricted intelligibility in a completely self-transparent self-reflective act. This unrestricted mentative power is the ultimate cause of everything else in existence – including restricted powers of mentation (like ours). For this reason, Lonergan refers to it as “God.”

VI. Conclusion

We began this proof with showing the necessity for at least one uncaused reality that exists through itself – without which nothing would exist. We then proceeded to show that such a reality would have to be unrestricted in its explicability and intelligibility. We then showed that an unrestrictedly intelligible reality could only be one – absolutely unique – and then showed that this one unrestrictedly intelligible uncaused reality would have to be the ultimate cause (Creator) of everything else in reality. We then asked what an unrestrictedly intelligible reality would be like, to which we responded that it could not be a physical reality, an abstract idea, or a restricted power of mentation. This left only one remaining option – an unrestricted power of mentation which is described above. These proven attributes – unique, unrestrictedly intelligible, uncaused reality existing through itself, which is the Creator of everything else in reality and an unrestricted mentative power—may refer to “God.” Inasmuch as a denial of the above proof entails either a contradiction of fact (i.e. that nothing exists) or an intrinsic contradiction (e.g. an unrestrictedly intelligible reality which is restricted in its intelligibility), we may conclude that “God” as defined, exists.

Notice that this “God” is a metaphysical God – which emphasizes “what God is” – the attributes of God – but does not emphasize “who God is” – “the heart of God.” If we are to answer the latter question, we will have to go beyond the domain of reason, logic, and experience – and delve into the domain of revelation.

(NOTE: This it the second of a three part series on Bernard Lonergan's philosophical proof for God. Read the first part here. We'll share the third part on Friday.)

III. A Reality which is Unrestricted in Intelligibility Must be Absolutely Unique

The general argument is as follows: If there were more than one unrestrictedly intelligible reality, there would have to be a difference between the one and the other, and if there were such a difference, then one of the supposedly “unrestricted intelligibles” would have to be restricted in its intelligibility—and obvious contradiction. This proof can be set out in two steps:

Step #1

Suppose there are two unrestrictedly intelligible realities – UI₁ and UI₂. There would have to be some difference between UI₁ and UI_2. If there were not some difference in intelligibility (difference as to activities, space-time point, qualities, etc.) between the one and the other, then the two would be the self-same, which means there would only be one of them (a priori). Therefore if there are two or more unrestrictedly intelligible realities, there would have to be a difference between them.

Step #2

If there is a difference between UI₁ and UI_2, then one of them would have to be somewhere, be something, or have something that the other one did not. This “not having or being something or somewhere” implies that one of them would not be unrestricted in intelligibility – because one of them would not be intelligible in some way that the other one is. The one that is not intelligible in a way the other one is would have to be restricted in its intelligibility. This means that every second or third (etc.) hypothetical unrestrictedly intelligible reality would have to be restricted in its intelligibility – an obvious contradiction. Since every second or third (etc.) hypothetical unrestrictedly intelligible reality is intrinsically contradictory, it must be impossible. Therefore, there can be only one reality that is unrestricted in its intelligibility.

Prior to this point, we only showed that there must be at least one uncaused reality existing through itself. But in view of the fact that an uncaused reality (existing through itself) must be unrestricted in both its explicability and intelligibility, and the fact that there can be only one reality that is unrestricted in its intelligibility, we must now acknowledge that an uncaused reality must be “the one and only uncaused reality” – it must be absolutely unique.

Let’s review where we have come so far in the proof. We began by showing that there must be at least one uncaused reality existing through itself in “all reality” – otherwise nothing would exist (proved in the Minor Premise). We then proved that an uncaused reality would have to be unrestricted in its explicability – otherwise we would argue an intrinsic contradiction – “a reality that exists through itself that cannot fully explain its existence” (proved in Section II, Step 1). We then showed that a reality unrestricted in its explicability would also have to be unrestricted in its intelligibility – because the answer to the question “Why is it so?” must ground the answers to all other questions – “What is it?” “Where is it?” or “How does it operate?” etc. (proved in Section II, Step 2). We then showed that there can be only one reality unrestricted in its intelligibility because every second, third (etc.) hypothetical unrestricted reality would have to be an intrinsic contradiction – “a unrestrictedly intelligible reality that has restrictions to its intelligibility” (proven in Section III). We are now in a position to assess two other attributes of the absolutely unique uncaused reality which is unrestricted in its intelligibility – it is a Creator and an unrestricted act of thinking.

IV. The One Uncaused Reality is the Ultimate Cause of Everything Else in Reality

This proof comes from a simple combination of two conclusions given above:

1. Every caused reality and every cause-effect series must ultimately be caused by an uncaused reality – otherwise they would not exist (proved in the Minor Premise – Section I).
2. There can only be one uncaused reality (proved in Section III). Therefore, the one uncaused reality must be the ultimate cause of the existence of all caused realities (and cause-effect series).

We can now add one other deduction from the Minor Premise (Section I) to complete our conclusion. It comes from a simple disjunctive syllogism – in “all reality there must be either caused realities or uncaused realities.” This means that if there can only be one uncaused reality, the rest of reality must be caused realities. We may now complete our conclusion. If the one uncaused reality must be the ultimate cause of the existence of all caused realities, and all reality – except for the one uncaused reality – is constituted by caused realities, then the one uncaused reality must be the ultimate cause of the existence of everything else in reality – it is the ultimate cause of everything else that exists.

Since intelligibility follows existence (see Section II, Step 2), the one uncaused reality must be the ultimate cause not only of the existence of everything else, but also the intelligibility of everything else. It must be the ultimate, sufficient, correct answer to all questions about everything that exists.

In conclusion, the existence and intelligibility of every reality must be ultimately caused by the one – and only one – “uncaused reality existing through itself” which is unrestricted in its explicability and intelligibility. Inasmuch as “Creator” refers to the ultimate cause of reality and intelligibility, the one unrestrictedly intelligible uncaused reality is the Creator of everything else that exists.
 
 
(Image credit: LonerganResearch.com)

(NOTE: This it the first of a three part series on Bernard Lonergan's philosophical proof for God. We'll share the second and third parts on Wednesday and Friday, respectively.)

Introduction

Bernard Lonergan was a Canadian Jesuit priest, philosopher, and theologian, regarded by many as one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. He articulated a philosophical proof for God's existence which may be stated as follows:

If all reality is completely intelligible, then God exists.
 
But all reality is completely intelligible.
 
Therefore, God exists.¹

We will first prove the minor premise—“all reality is completely intelligible” (Section I)—and then move to the major premise—“if all reality is completely intelligible, then God exists” (Sections II-V).

I. Proof of the Minor Premise (“All reality is completely intelligible”)

Step #1—“All Reality must have at least one uncaused reality that exists through itself.”

If there were not at least one uncaused reality in “all reality,” then “all reality” would be constituted by only caused realities – that is, realities that require a cause to exist. This means that all reality would collectively require a cause in order to exist – meaning all reality would not exist – because the cause necessary for it to exist would not be real (i.e. would not be part of “all reality”). Therefore, if there is not at least one uncaused reality that exists through itself in “all reality,” there would be absolutely nothing in existence. But this is clearly contrary to fact, and so there must exist at least one uncaused reality that exists through itself in “all reality.”

It should be noted that it does not matter if one postulates an infinite number of caused realities in “all reality.” If there is not at least one uncaused reality (existing through itself) in “all reality,” this infinite number of realities (collectively) would still not be able to exist, because the cause necessary for them to exist would still not be real – it would not be part of “all reality.”

Step #2—“An Uncaused Reality Must Be a Final and Sufficient Correct Answer to All Coherent Questions”—Making ‘All Reality’ Completely Intelligible.

There is another consequence of the existence of at least one uncaused reality. An uncaused reality not only enables “all reality” to exist, but also enables “all reality” to be completely intelligible. This can be proven in three steps:

Step #2.A

Using the above logic, we can also deduce that every real cause-effect series must also have an uncaused reality. If the series did not have an uncaused reality, it would not exist, because it would be constituted only by realities that must be caused in order to exist, and as we saw above, this means that the entire series (even an infinite series) would collectively need a cause to exist. But if an uncaused cause is not in the collective causes and effects in the series, then the collective cause-effect series would be nonexistent—merely hypothetical. Furthermore, this uncaused reality must ultimately terminate every real cause-effect series, because when the cause-effect series reaches a reality that does not need a cause to exist (because it exists through itself), there is by definition no cause prior to it.² Therefore, an uncaused reality must terminate every real cause-effect series, and as such, no real cause-effect series continues infinitely. Thus, all real cause-effect series are finite insofar as they are terminated by an uncaused reality.

Step #2.B

At this point, Lonergan recognizes something special about a terminating uncaused reality. It is not only an ultimate cause and terminus a quo (the terminus from which any cause-effect series begins), it is also the ultimate answer to all questions of causal explanation – “Why is it so?” What Lonergan sees clearly is that intelligibility follows ontology. By “intelligibility” Lonergan means what makes something capable of being understood – that is what makes something “questionable” and “answerable.” If any intelligent inquirer can ask a coherent question about something, and that question has a correct answer that comes from “that something,” then “that something” is intelligible – it is capable of providing a correct answer to coherent questions asked about it.

What Lonergan sees in Chapter 19 of Insight³ is that the terminus a quo (beginning) of any cause-effect series must also be the final and sufficient answer to the question for causal explanation – “Why is it so?” So why is an uncaused reality a final and sufficient answer to this question? Inasmuch as an uncaused reality terminates any cause-effect series, it also terminates the possible answers to the question “Why is it so?” asked about that series; and since an uncaused reality exists through itself, it must also explain itself through itself. It is its own answer to the question of its existence. Thus, the terminating answer to the question “Why is it so?” about any cause-effect series is also a completely self-explanatory answer. In this sense, it is both the terminating and sufficient answer to the question, “Why is it so?” for any cause-effect series.

Thus, we will always reach a sufficient end to our questioning for causal explanation (“Why is it so?”), because we will ultimately arrive at an uncaused reality existing through itself – without which all reality would be nothing. Therefore, an uncaused reality must be the final and sufficient answer to every question of causation (“Why is it so?”).

This has a further consequence for Lonergan, because the final answer to the question “Why is it so?” must also be the final answer to all other questions – as we shall see in Step 2.C.

Step #2.C

If there must be a final and sufficient answer to the question “Why is it so?”, there must also be a final and sufficient answer to every other question (e.g. “What?”, “Where?”, “When?”, “How does it operate?” etc.), because the latter is grounded in (dependent on) the former. Without an ultimate cause of existence, there would be literally nothing to be intelligible. There cannot be questions for intelligibility (e.g. “What is it?”) that go beyond the final (ultimate) cause of existence. If there were such questions, their answers would have to be “nothing.” Therefore, a final (ultimate) answer to the question “Why is it so?” must ground the final (ultimate) answer to every other question. The answers to all possible questions must terminate in the final answer to the question “Why is it so?” Since there must exist a final and sufficient answer to the question “Why is it so?” (an uncaused reality existing through itself), there must also be a final and sufficient answer to every other question about reality. The complete set of correct answers to the complete set of questions really must exist – and reality, as Lonergan asserts, must therefore be completely intelligible.⁴

II. Proof of the Major Premise (“If all reality is completely intelligible, God exists”)⁵

Why does Lonergan believe that if all reality is completely intelligible, then God (i.e. a unique unrestricted reality which is an unrestricted act of thinking) exists? As we saw in the proof of the Minor Premise, all reality must include an “uncaused reality that exists through itself.” Without at least one uncaused reality, there would be nothing in all reality. This uncaused reality brings finality to the answers to every question that can be asked about all reality – and so makes all reality completely intelligible. Lonergan recognizes that such an uncaused reality must also be unrestricted in its intelligibility, and this requires that it be unique (one and only one) as well as an unrestricted act of thinking, and the Creator of the rest of reality. The proof of these contentions is summarized below in this section and in Sections III, IV, and V.

We now turn to the proof of the first of these contentions – namely, that an “uncaused reality existing through itself” must be unrestricted in its intelligibility. This may be shown in two steps:

Step #1

An uncaused reality must be unrestricted in its explicability (its capacity to explain itself from within itself). If it were restricted in its capacity to explain itself, then its existence would be at least partially unexplained, which contradicts the nature of a reality that exists through itself (an uncaused reality). Put the other way around, a reality that exists through itself (an uncaused reality) cannot be restricted in its capacity to explain its existence (because that would be a contradiction); therefore, it must be unrestricted in its capacity to explain its existence and so also unrestricted in its explicability.

Step #2

If a reality is unrestricted in its explicability, it must also be unrestricted in its intelligibility. We were given a hint about the proof of this contention in the Minor Premise when it was shown that the final answer to the question “Why is it so?” must also be the final answer to all other questions – that is, that the answers to all questions must terminate in an uncaused reality existing through itself. Lonergan realizes that not only the finality of intelligibility follows from the finality of explicability (existence), but also that the unrestrictedness of intelligibility follows from the unrestrictedness of explicability (existence).⁶

Let’s begin with a logical examination of this contention – “If an uncaused reality is unrestricted in its explicability, then it will be unrestricted in its intelligibility.” This can be analyzed by looking at the necessary logical implication of this proposition – namely, that if an uncaused reality is not unrestricted (i.e. is restricted) in its intelligibility, then it cannot be unrestricted (i.e. it must be restricted) in its explicability (modus tollens). In brief, if a reality is restricted in its intelligibility, then it will also be restricted in its explicability. As we saw in Step #1 above, an uncaused reality must be unrestricted in its explicability, otherwise it would be a contradictory state of affairs – “A reality existing through itself that cannot fully explain its existence.” It now remains to show why a restriction in intelligibility implies a restriction of explicability.

What does it mean for a reality to be restricted in intelligibility? In Lonerganian terms, it means that more questions can be asked about a reality than can be answered by the information within it. This means that the answer to some questions about what a thing is, or how it operates, where it occurs, or when it occurs, etc., are explained by realities beyond the reality in question. For example, I cannot completely answer what an electron is without reference to the electromagnetic field through which it operates (which is beyond any given electron). Similarly, I cannot answer questions about where and when an electron will occur without making reference to the space-time field, the specific electromagnetic field, and other electromagnetic constituents in the region (which are all beyond a particular electron). I cannot even understand how an electron operates without making reference to electromagnetic fields and other electromagnetic constituents (which are beyond a particular electron).

It may be asked whether every reality that is restricted in intelligibility must depend on something beyond itself for its intelligibility. If it did not depend on something beyond itself for its intelligibility, and its intelligibility is not ultimately grounded in itself, then its intelligibility would have to be grounded in nothing. But this is incoherent – because it means that the intelligibility of a reality is grounded in the unreal – which is tantamount to saying that a reality has the intelligibility of nothing.

In Lonerganian terms, if a reality is restricted in its intelligibility, then there is insufficient information in it to answer all coherent questions that can be asked about it – it poses more coherent questions than it can answer by itself. In the example of the electron, we saw that the answer to the questions “What is it?” “How does it operate?” “Where is it?” and “When is it?” etc., depend on the intelligibility of the realities beyond the electron. Does every restrictedly intelligible reality function this way? Do the answers to the coherent questions -- which are not answered by a restrictedly intelligible reality – have to be grounded in realities beyond it – like the electron? They would have to be if we are to avoid the paradox of the intelligibility of a reality being grounded in the unreal. As we saw above, this is tantamount to saying that a reality has the intelligibility of nothing – a contradiction. This means that the unanswered questions about a restrictedly intelligible reality will have to have their answers in realities beyond it – like the electron.

Therefore, if a reality is restricted in its intelligibility, it does not explain some aspect of itself, which implies that its explanation lies in something beyond itself. In short, if a reality is restricted in its intelligibility, it is also restricted in its explicability.

As noted in Step #1, an uncaused reality cannot be restricted in its explicability, because it is not dependent on anything beyond itself for its explanation – it exists through itself. To suggest otherwise is to argue a contradiction – “that a reality existing through itself cannot fully explain its existence.” Now, if a restriction of intelligibility implies that a reality is dependent on realities beyond itself for its explanation, and an uncaused reality by definition is not dependent on any reality beyond itself for its explanation, then an uncaused reality cannot be restricted in its intelligibility. It must therefore be unrestricted in its intelligibility.⁷
 
 
(Image credit: Crisis Magazine)

Is reality intelligible?  Can we make sense of it?  Or is the world at bottom an unintelligible “brute fact” with no explanation?  We can tighten up these questions by distinguishing several senses in which the world might be said to be (or not to be) intelligible.  To make these distinctions is to see that the questions are not susceptible of a simple Yes or No answer.  There are in fact a number of positions one could take on the question of the world’s intelligibility – though they are by no means all equally plausible.

Consider first the distinction between the world’s being intelligible in itself and its being intelligible to us.  Suppose there is, objectively speaking, an explanation of why the world exists in the way it does. Whether we can grasp that explanation is another question.  Perhaps our minds are too limited to discover it, or perhaps they are too limited to understand the explanation even if we can discover it.

Might we turn this around and suggest also that the world could be intelligible to us but not intelligible in itself?  This proposal seems incoherent.  If the world is not intelligible in itself, how could it be intelligible to us?  To be sure, we might think that we’ve grasped some explanation even when we haven’t, but that is not the same thing.  That would be a case of its merely seeming intelligible to us while not really being intelligible in itself, not a case of its really being intelligible to us while not really being intelligible in itself (whatever that could mean).  So we have an asymmetry here: While something could be intelligible in itself but not necessarily intelligible to us, if it really is intelligible to us – and doesn’t just seem to be – then it must also be intelligible in itself.

A second distinction we might draw is that between the world’s beingthoroughly intelligible and its being only partially intelligible.  This distinction is an obvious one to draw if we think in terms of intelligibility to us.  For it might be that the world is intelligible in itself but, while not entirely intelligible to us, at least partially intelligible to us.

Might the world be partially (but not thoroughly) intelligible in itself? Philosophers like Bertrand Russell and J. L. Mackie seem to think so, insofar as they think that we can explain various natural phenomena in terms of the laws discovered by empirical science, but hold also that the most fundamental level of laws cannot itself be explained, and must be regarded as a brute fact.  For the reasons given above, however, it would seem incoherent to hold that the world is thoroughly intelligible to us while only partially intelligible in itself. If it is only partially intelligible in itself, it could only ever be partially intelligible to us.

With these distinctions in mind, we might identify the following possible positions on the question of the world’s intelligibility:

A. The world is thoroughly intelligible in itself and thoroughly intelligible to us: We might call this the “strong rationalist” position. Very few philosophers seem ever to have held it, but Parmenides might be an example of someone who did.

B. The world is thoroughly intelligible in itself but only partially intelligible to us: We might call this the “moderate rationalist” position. It was the view of Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas and seems to have been the position of the continental rationalist philosophers. (The word “rationalism” is, of course, used in many senses.  Aristotle and Aquinas were not “rationalists” in the “continental rationalist” sense of being committed to innate ideas.)  The continental rationalists were not “strong rationalists” in our sense, insofar as none of them seems to have held that the world is thoroughly intelligible to us.  For example, Descartes did not think we could fathom God’s purposes in creating nature as He did; Spinoza thought that we know only two of the infinite attributes of the one infinite substance, viz. thought and extension; and Leibniz did not think our finite monads had the clarity of perception that the infinite monad that is God has.

C. The world is thoroughly intelligible in itself and completely unintelligible to us: It is not clear that anyone has ever actually defended this position. “Mysterian” naturalists like Colin McGinn and Noam Chomsky would not be examples of philosophers taking this position, because while they claim that there might be some aspects of reality that we can never understand, they don’t claim that this is true of every aspect of reality, or even, necessarily, that it is thoroughly the case with respect to any aspect. Their position would seem rather to be a variant on either B above or D below.  Nor would the even more skeptical naturalisms of Heraclitus, Hume, or Nietzsche seem to be instances of C.  If you’re going to present a theory to the effect that metaphysics is a mere projection of human psychological tendencies, or an expression of a will to power, or whatever, then you are implicitly claiming that at least part of nature (namely us and our tendency toward metaphysical theorizing) is at least partially intelligible.  These thinkers too seem committed instead to some variation on either B or D.

D. The world is only partially intelligible in itself and only partially intelligible to us: As indicated above, this seems to be the view of naturalistically-oriented philosophers like Russell and Mackie, who believed that science gives us real knowledge of the world but that the fundamental laws of nature in terms of which it explains all the others are brute facts that cannot themselves ultimately be made intelligible.

E. The world is only partially intelligible in itself and completely unintelligible to us: As with C, it is not clear that anyone has ever actually defended this position.

F. The world is completely unintelligible in itself and completely unintelligible to us: Once again, this does not seem to be a position that anyone has actually ever held. And once again, thinkers who might seem to have held it can be seen on reflection not to have done so. For example, Gautama Buddha might seem to be an example of a thinker committed to F, but he really wasn’t.  For even to hold (as the Buddha did) that there is no abiding self or permanent reality of any sort is to make a claim about the world that is intended to be both intelligible and true.  And even to recommend (as he also did) against indulging in much metaphysical speculation in the interests of pursuing Enlightenment is to presuppose that there is an objective, intelligible fact of the matter about what would hinder Enlightenment.  The Buddha too seems in fact to have been committed to something like a variation on either B or D.

Indeed, it is very difficult to see how one could defend either the view that the world is completely unintelligible in itself or the view that it is completely unintelligible to us.  For how could such a view be defended?  If you give an argument for the conclusion that reality is unintelligible in itself, it would surely have to rest on premises about reality.  You would be saying something like “Reality is such-and-such, and therefore it is unintelligible.”  But however you fill in the “such-and-such,” you will be referring to some intelligible feature of reality, or will in any event have to do so if your argument is itself going to be both intelligible and convincing.  And in that case you will in effect have conceded that reality is not after all completely unintelligible.  By the same token, if you give an argument for the conclusion that reality is unintelligible for us, then you will have to appeal to premises either about some intelligible feature of reality itself, or about our cognitive faculties – which are themselves part of reality – and in that case you will, once again, have implicitly conceded that reality is at least partially intelligible.

So, D would seem to the closest one could come plausibly to claiming that reality is unintelligible.  But I think that even D is not really coherent.  Suppose I told you that the fact that a certain book has not fallen to the ground is explained by the fact that it is resting on a certain shelf, but that the fact that the shelf itself has not fallen to the ground has no explanation at all but is an unintelligible brute fact.  Have I really explained the position of the book?  It is hard to see how.  For the shelf has in itself no tendency to stay aloft – it is, by hypothesis, just a brute fact that it does so.  But if it has no such tendency, it cannot impart such a tendency to the book.  The “explanation” the shelf provides in such a case would be completely illusory.  (Nor would it help to impute to the book some such tendency after all, if the having of the tendency is itself just an unintelligible brute fact.  The illusion will just have been relocated, not eliminated.)

By the same token, it is no good to say “The operation of law of nature C is explained by the operation of law of nature B, and the operation of B by the operation of law of nature A, but the operation of A has no explanation whatsoever and is just an unintelligible brute fact.”  The appearance of having “explained” C and B is completely illusory if A is a brute fact, because if there is neither anything about A itself that can explain A’s own operation nor anything beyond A that can explain it, then A has nothing to impart to B or C that could possibly explain their operation.  As the Scholastics would say, a cause cannot give what it does not itself have in the first place.  A series of ever more fundamental “laws of nature” is in this regard like a series of instrumental causes ordered per se.  The notion of “an explanatory nomological regress terminating in a brute fact” is, when carefully examined, as incoherent the notion of “a causal series ordered per se in which every cause is purely instrumental.”  And thus Mackie’s and Russell’s position is itself ultimately incoherent.

The only truly coherent positions one could take on the question of the world’s intelligibility, then, are A and B.  And A is, needless to say, not very plausible, even if coherent.  So, some variation on B seems to be the most plausible view to take on the world’s intelligibility.  Why do people bother with D, then?  The answer is, I think, obvious.  It is very hard to affirm either A or B without committing oneself either to classical theism or pantheism.  For once it is conceded that the world is at least in itself completely intelligible, it is hard to see how this could be so unless the most fundamental level of reality is something absolutely necessary – something that is not a mixture of potentiality and actuality but rather pure actuality (as the Aristotelian would say), something which is in no way whatsoever composite but absolutely metaphysically simple (as the Neo-Platonist would say), something which is not a compound of essence and existence but rather subsistent being itself (as the Thomist would say).  However one elaborates on the nature of this ultimate reality, it is not going to be identifiable with any “fundamental laws of nature” (which are contingent, and the operation of which involves the transition from potentiality to actuality within a universe of things that are in various ways composite).  One might still at this point dispute whether the ultimate reality is best described in terms of the theology of classical theism or instead in terms of some pantheistic theology.  But one will definitely be in the realm of theology – rational theology, natural theology – rather than empirical science.

If one wants to maintain a defensible atheist position, then, one has to try to make something like D work, as Russell and Mackie (and my younger self) did.  One has to claim with a straight face that the world is intelligible down to the level of the fundamental laws, but beyond that point suddenly “stops making sense” (as Talking Heads might put it).  For one has to say, not that the world has some ultimate explanation that is non-theistic, but rather that it has no ultimate explanation at all.  And in that case one can hardly claim to have provided a more “rational” account of the world than theism does.  To paraphrase what Copleston said to Russell, if you refuse to play the explanatory game, then naturally you cannot lose it.  But by the same token, it is ludicrous to claim that you’ve won it.
 
 
NOTE: Dr. Feser's contributions at Strange Notions were originally posted on his blog, and therefore lose some of their context when reprinted here. Dr. Feser explains why that matters.
(Image credit: Archangel Sanddevas)

The great British physicist Stephen Hawking has emerged in recent years as a poster boy for atheism, and his heroic struggles against the ravages of Lou Gehrig’s disease have made him something of a secular saint. The new biopic “The Theory of Everything” does indeed engage in a fair amount of Hawking-hagiography, but it is also, curiously, a God-haunted movie.

In one of the opening scenes, the young Hawking meets Jane, his future wife, in a bar and tells her that he is a cosmologist. “What’s cosmology?” she asks, and he responds, “Religion for intelligent atheists.” “What do cosmologists worship?” she persists. And he replies, “A single unifying equation that explains everything in the universe.” Later on, Stephen brings Jane to his family’s home for dinner and she challenges him, “You’ve never said why you don’t believe in God.” He says, “A physicist can’t allow his calculations to be muddled by belief in a supernatural creator,” to which she deliciously responds, “Sounds less of an argument against God than against physicists.”

This spirited back and forth continues throughout the film, as Hawking settles more and more into a secularist view and Jane persists in her religious belief. As Hawking’s physical condition deteriorates, Jane gives herself to his care with truly remarkable devotion, and it becomes clear that her dedication is born of her religious conviction. Though the great scientist concluded his most popular work with a reference to “knowing the mind of God,” it is obvious by the end of the film that he meant that line metaphorically. The last bit of information that we learn, just before the credits roll, is that Professor Hawking continues his quest to find the theory of everything, that elusive equation that will explain all of reality. Do you see why I say the entire film is haunted by God?

As I have argued elsewhere, it is by no means accidental that the modern physical sciences emerged when and where they did, namely, in a culture shaped by Christian belief. Two suppositions were required for the sciences to flourish, and they are both theological in nature, namely, that the world is not divine and that nature is marked, through and through, by intelligibility. As long as the natural world is worshipped as sacred—as it was in many ancient cultures—it cannot become the subject of analysis, investigation, and experimentation. And unless one has confidence that the world one seeks to analyze and investigate has an intelligible structure, one will never bother with the exercise. Now both of these convictions are corollaries of the more fundamental doctrine of creation. If the world has been created by God, then it is not divine, but it is indeed marked, in every nook and cranny, by the intelligence of the Creator who made it. We recall the opening lines of St. John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word…and all things were made through the Word.” The universal intelligibility of nature is a function of its being brought into existence by an intelligent Creator. The young Joseph Ratzinger stated the relationship as follows: the “objective mind” discoverable in finite reality is the consequence of the “subjective mind” that thought it into reality. Ratzinger furthermore observes how a peculiarity of our language discloses the same truth. When we come to know something, we speak of “recognizing” a truth, but the word “recognition” (re-cognition) implies that we have thought again what had already been thought by a more primordial intelligence. Long before Hawking used the phrase, Albert Einstein characterized his own science as a quest to know the mind of God, and in so doing, he was operating out of the very assumptions I’ve been articulating.

In light of these clarifications, let us look again at the central preoccupation of “A Theory of Everything,” namely, Hawking’s quest to find the one great unifying equation that would explain all of reality. It is always fascinating to go to roots of an argument, that is to say, to the fundamental assumptions that drive a rational quest, for in so doing, we necessarily leave the realm of the purely rational and enter something like the realm of the mystical. Why in the world would a scientist blithely assume that there is or is even likely to be one unifying rational form to all things, unless he assumed that there is a singular, overarching intelligence that has placed it there? Why shouldn’t the world be chaotic, utterly random, meaningless? Why should one presume that something as orderly and rational as an equation would describe the universe’s structure? I would argue that the only finally reasonable ground for that assumption is the belief in an intelligent Creator, who has already thought into the world the very mathematics that the patient scientist discovers. In turning his back on what he calls “a celestial dictator,” Stephen Hawking was indeed purging his mind of an idol, a silly simulacrum of God, but in seeking, with rational discipline for the theory of everything, he was, in point of fact, affirming the true God.
 
 
(Image credit: Circle Cinema)