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.

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.

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.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This talk was delivered by Dr. Bryan Cross, a Strange Notions contributor, at Franciscan University on July 29, 2017. Although the original audience was primarily Catholic, most of Dr. Cross' advice applies equally well to all readers at Strange Notions, Catholics and atheists alike. We're sharing it given our special commitment here to "speaking the truth in love," to rational, charitable discussion. Enjoy!

I. Introduction

 
A number of years ago, before I became Catholic, I received a phone call from a moderator of a private internet discussion group to which I had belonged for nine years, informing me that I was being removed from the group. The news was painful. Officially I was being removed because of my views, which had changed somewhat. But after some months and then years of reflection, it became very clear to me that no small part of the reason I had been removed was that although in regard to logic I was probably better than average among the members of the group, I lacked certain virtues crucial for participating in the discussion in a way that facilitated its advance.

Over time I came to realize more fully that fruitful dialogue depends on much more than good argumentation and sound reasoning; it depends even more so on the presence of particular virtues in the heart of each participant. I also learned that I did not know much of anything about rhetoric. So I began a long-term and still ongoing endeavor to acquire these virtues, weed out their opposing vices, and learn a bit about rhetoric.

What I learned applies not only to ordinary communication, but also to communicating the gospel, because grace builds on nature. So I'm going to be talking about how to speak and write in a virtuous way, a more beautiful way. I'm not talking about beautiful grammar, or about eloquence or turn of phrase, and I'm not talking primarily about the propositional content of virtuous communication. I'm talking about the mode, the stance, the manner, and awareness of and sensitivity to the place of the interlocutor, in other words, excellence in that personal dimension of authentic communication.

And excellence in one's mode of speech is not fundamentally a set of tricks, techniques, moves, or skills, because excellence of this sort is in one's character, one's dispositions, who one is as a person in relation to other people. In fact, verbal persuasion techniques without virtuous character tend to be counterproductive, even repulsive, because interlocutors soon see right through them, and feel as though the speaker is trying to manipulate them for his or her own advantage. So even though I will be talking about rhetoric, which is an art or skill, I'll be talking primarily about the role of virtuous character by which rhetoric allows us to communicate effectively.

Why should we talk about this? Media technology used well obviously provides us with many conveniences and benefits. But the arrival of the internet and social media, and sensational forms of television, have also facilitated the spread of a public habit of speech and writing that is less personal and less gracious. It is often uncharitable, ugly, angry, combative, abusive, abrasive, hateful, base, uncivil, mean-spirited, malicious, and entirely useless for resolving disagreements or persuading anyone. This is why some web sites have closed their comboxes. And the conversations in the comboxes of those that haven't closed tend to devolve quickly into verbal war-zones in which insults and invective are lobbed back and forth in attempts to silence or destroy opponents.

If a person is considering whether to voice an opinion on a public forum, and the issue is even possibly contentious, just the fear of verbal reprisal or orchestrated harassment or stalking can intimidate the person into silence. This public habit of mean-spirited speech tends to drive persons to withdraw into self-selected bubbles or safe spaces of virtual societies composed of like-minded people, and thus tends to increase polarization and social fragmentation. It also leads to a kind of despair regarding even the utility of reasoning and logical argumentation.

II. The Relation of Truth and Love

In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul writes, "But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ." (Eph. 4:15) In this verse St. Paul shows that truth speaks and is made intelligible through love. And in his first letter to the Corinthians he notes that love "rejoices in the truth" (1 Cor. 13:6). To the Christian, this deep union and interplay of love and truth is not surprising, because the God who is the Truth (Jn. 14:6) is also the God who is Love (1 Jn. 4:8, 16). In their ultimate referent, therefore, truth and love are one and the same, that is, God Himself, even though in our human minds these concepts are distinct, and in their expression in creation they are ontologically distinct. Yet because they are one in God, any attempt to separate them entirely from each other not only separates us from them both, but also distorts our image of God, and distorts man who bears His image. In short, there is a coherence of love and truth, and this coherence has important consequences for effectively communicating, and especially for communicating the gospel.

Richard of St. Victor wrote, "Ubi amor ibi oculus"—wherever love is, there the eye is also. Love sees the truth about what is loved.¹ The truth is revealed through love for the truth. At the most basic level, this is why we listen, because we want to learn the truth, and this is why we speak, because we want the truth to be known and shared by all. Because of this relation between truth and love, truth is revealed more truly the more it springs from love, is conveyed by love, and is received in love. This is because Truth ultimately is personal; propositions are, in a way, abstractions, reflections of Truth abstracted by persons from communicating persons. Truth in its personal dimension as known by and communicated among persons, depends upon love, not only a shared love for the truth communicated, but also a love for the persons with whom one is communicating.²

In his 2009 encyclical Caritatis in veritate, Pope Benedict XVI wrote the following:

“Hence the need to link charity with truth not only in the sequence, pointed out by Saint Paul, of veritas in caritate (Eph 4:15), but also in the inverse and complementary sequence of caritas in veritate. Truth needs to be sought, found and expressed within the ‘economy’ of charity, but charity in its turn needs to be understood, confirmed and practised in the light of truth.”³

Because love and truth are the same in God, each is necessary to acquire the other more fully, and a deficiency in one is a deficiency in the other. Love requires truth because love becomes authentic only as informed by the truth. Pope Benedict writes, “Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way.”⁴ And the encyclical primarily develops that direction of the relation between truth and love, that is, how love needs to be informed by truth, in order to be true love.

But just as importantly, as Pope Benedict notes, the relation also operates in the reverse, that is, truth is empowered, animated, authenticated, and thus made credible and communicable, only by love.⁵

Personal Encounter

Because of the deep connection between truth and love, a failure in love leads to a darkening of the mind, whether on the part of the speaker or on the part of the listener. If the speaker is deficient in love, his words do not penetrate to the heart of those to whom he speaks; he fails to gain a hearing because he does not connect with his hearers at the heart. Likewise, if the listener is deficient in love, the listener closes himself off to the truth he might receive from the speaker. The greater the departure from the principle of charity on the part of the listener, the less he is able to listen and understand rightly what he is hearing. Inversely, the more we love the speaker, the more we hear what is spoken. For this reason, at least a minimal degree of love for the one speaking is a necessary condition for hearing and interpreting the speaker rightly.⁶

So speaking the truth in the beauty of love involves a personal encounter, a meeting of persons at the level of their personhood, not just a meeting of minds, but a meeting of hearts as well, where one speaks the truth from love for the other person.

Only in love does genuine communication of the truth become possible. Without love for those with whom we are speaking, the communication of truth is inhibited, we become a "clanging gong," and there can be no effective evangelism. Love as the animating principle of our speech characterizes our speech and writing with a tone of love and grace.

Two Principles

1. The Principle of Edification

Let's consider two principles following from the notion of truth speaking in the beauty of love. If our communication is to be animated by love, then since love always seeks the good for the other, our speech should always seek the good for the one with whom we are speaking. This leads us to the principle of edification, which is based on Ephesians 4:29, and which reads:

"Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear."

The Greek here indicates some additional nuance, so as to be saying:

"Every evil or corrupt word, do not let it come out of your mouths but only let out those words that are good for edification, according to the need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear."

Evil words are words that tear down those who hear or read them; edifying words are those that build up those who hear or read them. So the principle of edification is this:

Only speak or write what is edifying; do not speak or write what is not edifying.

Thus in our daily speech, in our social media statements, before we allow a word to exit our mouth or thumbs or fingers, we should consciously ask ourselves:,"Is this edifying?" and continue to ask this question until we develop the habit of speaking only what is edifying.

Now of course the immediate question is, so does that mean that I cannot criticize a claim or idea or person? No, criticisms of false ideas, imprudent proposals, sinful behaviors, and of persons, can be edifying insofar as such criticisms help persons out of error, poor judgment, or sinful behavior. That's true even if such criticisms are painful to hear. That's primarily what distinguishes a friend from a flatterer; the friend will tell us what is painful to hear, but is also precisely what we need to hear for our own good. Yet not all criticisms are edifying, unless they are communicated in the right way, at the right time, in the right context, and in the right spirit. And it takes self-reflection and prudence to distinguish edifying criticisms from unedifying criticisms.

Nor does the principle of edification mean that we cannot disclose our own faults and sins or struggles or sorrows, especially to a spiritual director or a close friend. When we confess our sins as sins, to the appropriate persons, this edifies both us and them, because we're confronting together the disorder within ourselves. Allowing other persons to help carry our burdens is a gift to them, and is thus edifying. What I'm talking about are things like venting anger or frustration, or spreading insults or detraction or scandal or tragedy or gossip or negative speculation. The test each word must pass before it exits the doors of our mouth, or the doors of our thumbs, is this: does this build up those who hear or see it, or am I communicating it to get attention, attraction, approval, even though it is unedifying? So the first principle here is the principle of edification.

2. The Principle of Charity

A second principle following from speaking the truth in the beauty of love is the principle of charity. When we speak of following the principle of charity in communication what we are referring to is not merely an external rule but a virtue, i.e. a rule that has become so internalized into our dispositions as to be connatural within our soul and character. Charity "believes all things," says St. Paul, and by the principle of charity we believe the best about others, given the available evidence. By this virtue when we are faced with ambiguous statements by others we choose the better of two or more possible interpretations. By this virtue we assume the better of two or more possible motives underlying our interlocutor's comments or actions.⁷ Charity is not blind, yet it does not presume the worst, but thinks the best when such explanations are available.

This virtue oils the gears of communication, because by its perceived presence it removes the threat of personal offense or insult, and frees the participants from the worry of being misunderstood or misjudged in a way that is harmful to themselves or to their fellow participants.

One way to abide by the principle of charity is as follows: when we think someone has said or written something we think is false or harmful, before responding critically we can ask that person to verify that we have understood correctly what is his or her position. The principle of charity impels us always to avoid the straw man fallacy, that is the fallacy of setting up and knocking down a caricature or weaker version of our interlocutor's position, as though we've knocked down his or her actual position.

Another way to follow the principle of charity is to assume, until shown otherwise, that persons are doing the best they can, with the information and formation available to them. Never assume malice when a non-malicious explanation is available and we have no countervailing evidence. Never assume ignorance when an explanation involving a simple mistake is available. And so on.

Know the State of Your Interlocutor

Speaking the truth in the beauty of love also calls us to seek to know our interlocutor, and know his or her state or condition. Who is this person with whom I'm speaking? In what mental or emotional condition is he or she right now? What is his or her current station in life, goals, activities, philosophy, etc.? Is this person interested in talking with me or not? The disposition to become aware of the condition and emotional or mental state of those around us with whom we are or could be communicating is part of the virtue of sensitivity. A person without this disposition can, for example, sit down with someone and talk for twenty minutes straight without determining whether the other person is presently interested in talking with him or interested in the subject matter.

That's not speaking the truth in the beauty of love. Developing the virtue of sensitivity requires learning to become attuned to where the other person presently is, what that person most needs at that time, and how or whether that person is presently receptive to communication. That person may need to be alone, may need silence, or a gentle touch, or may need to communicate something more than he or she needs to hear whatever I have to say.

Because the truth must be spoken in love for the person, and therefore involves personal encounter, evangelism is not reducible to monologue. Evangelism is a dialogue of heart to heart. In order to understand where the other person is coming from, we have to listen and receive. The type of communication involved in evangelism is a kind of dialogue precisely because it is an encounter of persons, and such an encounter is never merely one way, but also always give and take.

1. Interested/Inquiring/Open

I generally distinguish between three states: the first is interested/inquiring/open, the second is antagonistic/hostile, and the third is indifferent.

Of the three, the easiest for communication is, of course, the person who is interested, genuinely open, and even inquiring. In such a case we are free to communicate in a positive way, explaining and answering questions, so long as our interlocutor retains this stance. Obviously, determining a person's stance is easier when speaking face to face, because we can read body language. Determining a person's stance on the internet or social media can be more difficult for precisely this same reason. And this calls therefore for greater sensitivity.

2. Antagonistic/Hostile

What about the antagonistic or hostile person? Here I also distinguish between active and passive hostility. By passive hostility I mean that the person is not actively hostile, but would be actively hostile if you attempted to engage in communication. For such persons usually the prudent course of action is not to attempt to communicate, because that would not only be futile, but likely destructive. Instead, respect the person's desire to be left alone, pray that he or she would be blessed, and, if possible, find some other way to show some kindness to the person.

Now, what about the actively hostile person, the one who is actively attacking you verbally, is not open or interested in genuine dialogue, but only either wants to attack what you say, or wants to quarrel? Here there are at least two options.

One prudent option is silence. Why did Jesus remain silent when He was asked certain hostile questions during His trial? I think it was because the questions were not sincere, and He knew that engaging persons in such a state would be unfruitful and possibly even harmful. If a person is sinning against the truth in their words, and unwilling to listen, but is intent only on attacking what is said to them, then to engage them can be to participate in their sin, or at least give them further occasion to sin with their words. Silence is especially prudent if the object of the person's attack is your own person. While I need not subject myself to another's verbal abuse, neither do I need to defend myself if someone is verbally insulting me. In my own experience, I find it more fruitful to remain silent when I myself am the object of attack. And in general, silence is wise when speaking would involve what Jesus refers to as "casting one's pearls before swine."

But in a public setting, if the actively hostile person is, for example, attacking the faith, one way of responding is by engaging this person in only a defensive way. That is, instead of attempting to persuade your interlocutor by presenting positive argumentation and making a positive case, which would be futile on account of their disposition, you can use the opportunity to show briefly how and why their attacks are flawed, and their arguments unsound. In such a case you have an advantage in the defensive stance, because it is easier to defend a position than to advance a position. And that is especially the case when the position you are defending is true. The hostile critic may not receive your explanations, but these explanations can nevertheless be helpful to other persons who may be participating in or listening or watching the conversation. The time to make a positive case, laying out evidence in support of your position, is when your interlocutor is open and genuinely interested in examining the evidence to see whether it is true. But in my opinion, when your interlocutor is actively hostile, either silence or defense are generally the only two modes of prudent engagement.

Now, sometimes you can encounter a person who is in fact open and interested, but is merely venting, or leads with complaints, gripes, etc. Persons in this state generally do not want or need an argument explaining why their complaint is misguided; in fact, responding to them with such an argument only pushes them away because argumentation and explanation is not at root what they are looking for. What they are looking for is someone willing to listen, to understand, to empathize. And if that's how you respond, you will have established a personal connection that allows for fruitful communication.

Generally, avoid asking questions to antagonistic critics, especially in a public setting, because this only provokes an unfruitful exchange. Ask questions only to sincere good-faith interlocutors in order to understand better where they are, even when they disagree with you. And in general avoid asking rhetorical questions, questions for which you are not seeking an answer. Rhetorical questions suggest insincerity or an unwillingness to make a positive case, an attempt to let a rhetorical question substitute for an actual argument which can be considered and examined together.

3. Indifferent

This leads to the case of the person who is indifferent. This is the most difficult of the three states, and to talk about this state from a more informed perspective, I want to bring in some insights from rhetoric.

III. The Role of Rhetoric, Virtue, and Logic in Dialogue

A. Rhetoric and Dialogue

1. Aristotle's Definition of Rhetoric

In contemporary public usage the word 'rhetoric' has a negative connotation, as you likely know. The term 'rhetoric' is often used to refer to language that is manipulative, empty, or not substantive, hence the phrase 'empty rhetoric.' But classically, rhetoric is something positive, one of the original liberal arts: grammar, logic, and then rhetoric. Some of the early Church writers were masters of rhetoric, e.g. Tertullian, St. Augustine.

Aristotle, is his work titled Rhetoric, defines rhetoric as follows:

"Let rhetoric be defined as an ability, in each case, to see the available means of persuasion. This is the function of no other art."⁸

Rhetoric, according to Aristotle, is the skill by which in every situation one is able to see or discover all the available means of persuasion. That does not mean that the person with this skill will always persuade, only that he or she is always aware of the available means of persuasion, and puts them to good use. Given this conception of rhetoric, rhetoric is obviously relevant to evangelism, because even though there is a supernatural operation of grace by the Holy Spirit at work in the one who converts, grace builds on nature. And so excellence in rhetoric aids in evangelism. And therefore some understanding of rhetoric, and especially an awareness of the available means of persuasion in our time, is essential for evangelism in our time.

2. Sophistry vs. Rhetoric

Here it is important to say something about the distinction between rhetoric and sophistry, because in order to avoid engaging in sophistry, we must know the difference between the two. Sophistry, as Plato uses the term, is an imitation of rhetoric. It mimics rhetoric by attempting to persuade. But it attempts to persuade apart from commitment to the truth, and apart from a commitment to persuade only by showing the truth. That is, sophistry attempts to persuade not on the basis of truth or reasoning ordered to truth, and thus without adhering to logic. Sophistry is in this way a kind of illocutionary pragmatism; it makes use of whatever works to persuade. Imagine a car salesman who uses whatever techniques work to move cars off the lot, even if those techniques are deceptive and dishonest to customers. Or imagine a corrupt prosecutor who uses whatever techniques work to persuade juries to convict, even when the defendant is innocent. That's how sophistry functions.

Rhetoric, by contrast, seeks to persuade by the available means of showing the truth. Whereas sophistry seeks to persuade by any means available, rhetoric sees and uses only the available means of persuasion that persuade by showing the truth. So, for example, rhetoric does not resort to the logical fallacies, but avoids them. Rhetoric therefore requires greater discipline. When sophistry is the status quo all around us, we have to discipline ourselves not to adopt it, but to take the high road, that is, rhetoric in the service of logic.

3. The Role of Ethos

So what then does rhetoric add to logic? Aristotle says the following in his Rhetoric:

"Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself."⁹

These three are ethos, pathos, and logos.

Ethos is the perceived personal character of the speaker, by which he is recognized to be good and trustworthy, as one who loves the truth above all else, seeks what is truly good, and knows that of which he speaks.

Pathos is the ability of the speaker to move the emotions of the audience, and so put them into a receptive state of mind so as to come to a particular judgment.

Logos is that by which the speaker demonstrates the truth of the content of his speech.

Of the three, which does Aristotle think is the most effective means of persuasion? Ethos. According to Aristotle, the credibility of the speaker is the most important of the three.

So what constitutes ethos? Ethos is constituted primarily by three things: (a) virtuous character, including the virtues of prudence, benevolence, and truthfulness, (b) knowledge or expertise, and (c) experience.¹⁰

So growing in our knowledge of a subject and our experience in that subject increases our credibility in that subject. And for this talk my only advice regarding expertise and experience is to avoid speaking beyond your level of expertise.

As for virtuous character, we can also increase our credibility if we grow in virtue, and since love (charity) is the chief of the virtues, the virtue with which all the other moral virtues are infused, when we grow in love we also grow in our credibility, our ethos. Why did St. Teresa of Calcutta have so much credibility? Both her love and her experience were palpable. Why does Jean Vanier have so much credibility regarding care for the disabled? Again, self-evident love, virtuous character, and years of experience practicing in action what he talks about with his words. So let's talk about what virtues constitute the moral virtue component of ethos and are needed for dialogue.

B. Important Virtues and Vices For Dialogue

1. Disposition to Listen

Participation in genuine dialogue requires the disposition to listen so as to understand accurately the positions and perspectives of the others participating in the dialogue, where that person is.¹¹ By this virtue one silences not only one's tongue, but also one's mental movements directed toward any activity other than receiving the communication of one's interlocutor, so that one can receive and more accurately and thereby more perfectly achieve the view from within his or her paradigm, ordering each newly discovered detail in its place in that paradigm. Through this virtue one restrains even the internal movement toward critical evaluation until the other paradigm has been fully comprehended and perceived from within.¹² Jesus Himself provides us with an example, for He listened first for thirty years before teaching. Regarding the virtue of listening Pope Francis wrote:

"For this to happen, we must first listen. Communicating means sharing, and sharing demands listening and acceptance. Listening is much more than simply hearing. Hearing is about receiving information, while listening is about communication, and calls for closeness. Listening allows us to get things right, and not simply to be passive onlookers, users or consumers. ...
 
Listening is never easy. Many times it is easier to play deaf. Listening means paying attention, wanting to understand, to value, to respect and to ponder what the other person says. It involves a sort of martyrdom or self- sacrifice, as we try to imitate Moses before the burning bush: we have to remove our sandals when standing on the “holy ground” of our encounter with the one who speaks to me (cf. Ex 3:5). Knowing how to listen is an immense grace, it is a gift which we need to ask for and then make every effort to practice."¹³

2. Sociability and Willingness to Reason Together

Another virtue necessary for communication is the disposition of sociability and a stance of willingness to reason together. The person with this virtue reveals him or herself as person, and thereby connects with others as persons, transcending thereby the ‘us vs. them’ divide at the level of ideas and positions. Maintaining anonymity, for example, hinders the development and expression of this virtue. So long as a person remains anonymous or hides his or her identity, he or she remains incapable of entering into authentic dialogue, because authentic dialogue requires the personal authenticity by which we reveal who we are, where we stand, and take responsibility for our words, by allowing them to be connected with our personal identity by those with whom we enter into dialogue. C.S. Lewis wrote, "I myself do not enjoy the society of small children: because I speak from within the Tao I recognize this as a defect in myself—just as man may have to recognize that he is tone deaf or colour blind."¹⁴ Contrast this with Jean-Paul Sartre:

"So this is hell. I'd never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the "burning marl." Old wives' tales! There's no need for red-hot pokers. HELL IS- OTHER PEOPLE!"¹⁵

Vices: Captiousness, Quarrelsomeness, Disputatiousness

Of course the activity by which participants in a dialogue come to agreement most certainly requires critical evaluation of the various positions under consideration. But there is a crucial difference between mutual engagement in critical evaluation of the various available positions, and the vice of being captious, deprecatory, or disparaging. The ability to find actual errors in positions or arguments is a useful and necessary skill when evaluating positions and arguments. But the vice of captiousness disposes its holder to minimize or even fail to see and accept what is actually true and good, and to magnify errors disproportionately. In this way it prevents or hinders the attaining of the goal of dialogue, by preventing or hindering its possessor from seeing and embracing the positive truth present, and not seeing only the negative truths. In order to enter into genuine fruitful dialogue the participants must have the virtues by which they see fault and error in their proper proportion, and act in a way that corresponds to this.¹⁶

The person with the vice of disputatiousness or quarrelsomeness is incapable of entering into dialogue because he is incapable of reasoning together with others, and is inclined instead to reason only in opposition to others. He opposes every position advanced by the others, and affirms or in some way praises every position rejected by the others. He never acknowledges when his claim is shown to be false, and subsequently never seems to remember that it has already been shown to be false. He seems to disagree just to disagree. He does this perhaps to affirm his individuality and intellectual independence, but this vice makes him incapable of affirming a position together with the other participants or collaborating together with the others, and thus disqualifies him from even entering into dialogue from the outset. If he comes upon an already existing authentic dialogue, he does so already in debate mode, not comprehending that the existing conversation is not a debate.

The corresponding virtue required for dialogue is cooperativeness, agreeableness, civility, amenability, affability. By this virtue we behave in a becoming and agreeable manner toward others, disposed to cooperate with them toward attaining a good, and especially toward attaining our common good, including the common good of agreement in the truth.

3. Disposition to present the other person's position accurately

This disposition to listen is essential for achieving the mutual understanding that is the first stage of authentic dialogue. Accompanying and preceding this virtue is the deep desire to understand and represent the other participants' positions accurately, and a genuine sorrow when one either fails to understand the others' positions or misrepresents them as something other than, and especially something less than, they actually are. Repeatedly constructing or knocking down straw men, for example, is an indication that these two virtues are lacking. The person who finds himself repeatedly knocking down straw men has failed to develop within himself the virtue to listen, by which one refrains from criticizing a position until one has confirmed that one is understanding it accurately and representing it truthfully and fairly. If he lacks any sorrow regarding his condition, then he has in addition failed to develop the corresponding appetitive virtue by which one loves the truthfulness of truthful presentations of positions other than one's own, and detests misrepresentations of positions other than one's own.

These virtues underlie the basic ground rule in fruitful dialogue according to which, out of respect and charity, each person gets to define, articulate and specify what is his own position, such that no one ought knowingly to attribute to or impose upon another, a position his interlocutor denies is his own. The one holding a position has the say in determining what is his position. And this therefore requires on the part of each interlocutor a disposition and willingness to listen so as to allow his own conception of the other interlocutor’s position to be informed and shaped by the other interlocutor.

4. Virtue of Trust / Vice of Suspicion

In addition to the virtue of sociability, in order to enter into genuine dialogue one must also believe that the other persons entering into the dialogue are capable of engaging in the activity of mutually exchanging and evaluating evidence and argumentation for the purpose of reaching agreement concerning the truth of the matter under dispute. And one must believe that the other persons sincerely intend to enter into this very same activity. In this way a good faith belief about the capacities and intentions of the other persons is necessary, and this belief itself requires the stance of charity toward those who would participate.

By contrast, a stance of suspicion and distrust concerning the motives of the other persons, or an assumption that the other persons are incapable of pursuing the truth in dialogue or rightly evaluating evidence and argumentation prevents the one having this stance from entering into dialogue with those he or she distrusts or assumes to be so incapacitated. If, for example, I believe that the other persons are only out to convert me, rather than come to agreement with me concerning what is the truth, I cannot enter into dialogue with them, because I do not believe that they are engaged in sincere dialogue.

Similarly, if I believe that the other persons are blinded by sin or by the devil, I cannot enter into dialogue with them, because I believe them in their present condition to be incapable of doing that which is essential to dialogue, namely, sincerely examining the evidence and argumentation with an aim to discovering and embracing what is true.

5. The Virtue of Humility and The Vice of Pride

Here too the vice of pride, for example, disposes a person to be unwilling to enter into a shared activity aimed at the mutual pursuit of truth, because collaborative inquiry requires a certain humility. Such a person will at best resort to teaching, attempting to transform the dialogue table into a classroom. Of course in the classroom there is typically a kind of dialogue between the teacher and the students, but there is also there a preceding mutual agreement to accept the respective roles of teacher and student. But the presumption of the teaching role in the presence of others placed into the student role by this act of presumption, without any preceding mutual agreement to accept a teacher- student relationship, indicates that the one so presuming has not entered into the mutual activity of dialogue, but is engaged in his own activity. Here again Jesus provides us with an example. He who is God is "meek and humble in heart," willing to learn from humans how to speak, how to dress Himself, how to engage in carpentry, etc. In dialogue I must always maintain the stance that I can learn from you, and I want to learn from you.

6. The Virtue of Hope and the Vice of Despair

In addition, participants in dialogue must possess a certain kind of hope, particularly the hope that the goal of the activity can be achieved. This is not a pollyannaishness, but a vision in the present of the goal as accomplished in the future, and of the real possibility connecting that future achievement with the present condition of disagreement. This hope is the energy of dialogue, driving it by anticipation toward the accomplishment of the end-as-envisioned. For this reason those who come to the table predicting that unity and agreement will not occur, or who claim that the pursuit of such agreement is the disillusioned expectation of heaven-on-earth, disqualify themselves from participating in genuine dialogue. Without the hope that the goal of dialogue can be attained, they by their own relegation can only be cynical observers of the dialogue of others.

C. Acquiring the Virtues for Dialogue

How do we acquire the virtues necessary for dialogue? We begin with a regular examination of our heart and actions to discover and root out the vices that hinder dialogue. We have to take a step back and examine our comments to others. Are they kind? Are they rude or mocking or angry or derogatory or cynical or continually sarcastic? Do they constructively advance the discussion toward reaching agreement in the truth? Do they show an appreciation for what is true and good in the opinions of others? By their tone do they invite a cooperative response from others, or do they drive others away? Do they attack the other participating persons? Do they misrepresent the positions of others? Do they stay on-topic or do we use any forum to advance our own agenda? Are we truly trying to achieve agreement in the truth with the persons with whom we are speaking, or are we merely trying to make their position look bad to others who may be observing, or have our questions answered, or get our opinions out there?

Am I envious of others, when they are right or do well or speak or write well? These are the sort of questions a person wanting to grow in the virtues essential for dialogue must ask him or herself sincerely, with an aim to discovering the truth about him or herself.

One way to do this is to ask these questions to others who know and read our writing, who perhaps can see us better than we see ourselves, and are willing to tell us unpleasant truths about ourselves that we need to know in order to grow.

In light of what we discover upon reflecting carefully on our present habits and attitudes, we can then take small steps or adopt disciplines that develop the necessary virtues in us over time. For example, when entering a dialogue, it is a good idea first to take some time to learn the positions and arguments of the other participating persons. Always try to learn the history of a discussion. When commenting within a dialogue, we should be able to specify to ourselves how our comment will help advance the dialogue toward agreement in the truth, and otherwise hold our tongue.

Before publishing a comment or article, we might have someone of good character, distance, and objectivity read it and point out to us any places where our content or tone is not gracious, kind, or edifying. When I began writing at Principium Unitatis, I made it a habit never to post anything without having my wife read through it to look for any unkind words. That practice helped me acquire the habit of examining all my drafts carefully for any unkind or uncharitable comments, even though sometimes uncharitable comments unfortunately still slip through, both in writing and in speaking. But by developing the discipline of prescreening all our writing for any words or statements that are either uncharitable or do not help advance the dialogue toward agreement in the truth, we can develop the habit of writing and speaking in dialogue with more charity, focus, and substantive content that is helpful for advancing dialogue toward its goal of agreement in the truth.

D. The Order of Knowing

In order to practice the art of rhetoric we must be aware of the relation between the order of being and the order of knowing. St. Thomas Aquinas, drawing from Aristotle, distinguished between the order of being and the order of knowing. That which is first in the order of being is last in the order of knowing, and that which is first in the order of knowing is last in the order of being. One implication is that to reason with someone fruitfully, we must start with what that person already knows. An argument has no persuasive force if the person does not accept the premises. Rhetoric as the art by which we recognize the means of persuasion also necessarily recognizes what will not persuade, and therefore is attuned to the order of knowing and its application, learning where people are, in order to start where they are.

Imagine as an example initiating evangelism of a random non-Christian couple by telling them God commands them to repent. With supernatural guidance this may be justifiable, but without supernatural direction or credibility or ethos, this will most likely have the very opposite long-term effect, because it (a) ignores where persons are in the order of knowing, (b) fails to establish the credibility necessary in order for a truth of this sort to make it to the level of the heart. And here again Jesus provides an example, as can be seen in His conversation with the woman at the well, with the woman caught in adultery, with Zaccheus, and with the blind man, Bartimaeus.

E. Dialogue vs. Debate 

The art of rhetoric also carefully distinguishes between dialogue and debate. In debate, as I am using the term, each participant's aim is persuading onlookers of the superiority of his own position, in part by making his "opponent's" position look inferior.

The words and arguments are typically and ultimately aimed at observers. Usually the debaters are not facing each other, but facing the audience. And often there is a moderator, for very much the same reason that boxing matches require a referee in the ring. The 'opposing parties' are generally referred to in the third person, and typically in adversarial terms (e.g. "my opponent"). Usually there are some subtle or not so subtle criticisms of the other person himself, his intelligence, education, character, etc., again directed to the observers with the purpose of 'scoring points with the crowd' by denigrating the credibility of one's "opponent," and thus indirectly denigrating his position as well. Debaters attempt to dodge difficult questions rather than face them, and often attempt to score points by way of generalities and hand-waving (i.e. unsubstantiated assertions), because in debate in this sense, it does not matter if one's position is true and one's argumentation is sound; it only matters that one's position seems to be true and that one's case seems to be adequate. To the crowd uneducated in logic, hand-waving generalities and point-scoring sound bites will typically do for that purpose. Finally, at the end of the debate the question is "Which side won?"

In genuine dialogue, by contrast, the participants are talking to each other as collaborators in a mutual endeavor to come to agreement with each other concerning the truth regarding the matter about which they presently disagree. They are 'facing each other,' working together toward a common goal. There is no moderator, because there is no need for one. The participants are not exchanging cheap shots or personal criticisms, because there is no intention of scoring points with observers, and because engaging in such behavior would be contrary to the singular activity in which by conscious intention they are mutually participating, namely, working together to achieve agreement in the truth. They are not ultimately speaking to or trying to persuade observers. Their shared goal is not winning a contest between one another, but is rather coming to agreement with each other concerning the truth. Anything short of attaining agreement with each other regarding the truth is considered by each participant to be a failure to reach the goal of their dialogue. In debate, by contrast, the activity is considered a success only if one side 'wins' in the eyes of the crowd, even if over the course of the debate the persons debating do not come to any agreement regarding what is the truth.

Debate as an attempt to win a contest in persuasion is a sophistical contest of power, because it requires only the power to persuade. Dialogue, by contrast, can be a shared collaboration of love, because the goal of dialogue as mutual pursuit of agreement in the truth requires love not only for the truth, but for the one with whom one pursues agreement in the truth. Debate is in this respect easier than dialogue because in debate one can remain disengaged from one's "opponent," and do battle in an arena without any second-person union. In dialogue, by contrast, one must enter into a shared activity with one's fellow participants working together in an I-Thou relation to achieve agreement regarding the truth. Debate, like boxing, requires no friendship between the competitors; it requires only following the rules. Dialogue, on the other hand, requires a certain kind of civic friendship by which persons relating in the second-person, even though they disagree, work together in a singular activity to achieve a shared end.

For this reason debate is an entirely different type or species of activity from dialogue, and one clear sign that a person has not entered into dialogue is his engaging in the grandstanding that characterizes debate, that is, talking critically to the observers about the other person or his position rather than talking directly to the other participant.

So we need to ask ourselves: Do we conceive of our interlocutor as our "opponent"? Are we trying to score points, land blows, like a boxing match? Our interlocutor is not our enemy. The divine imperative to love our enemies shows that from our point of view, our interlocutor is not our enemy. Insofar as we have enemies, it is at most our interlocutors who conceive of themselves as our enemies. For us, they are fellow human beings made in the image of God, persons for whom Christ died, called to share in eternal life with God together with us, even if they, like us, are presently flawed or mistaken in certain respects.

F. Public vs. Private

The art of rhetoric is keenly aware of the role of the difference between public  and private speech in the available means of persuasion. A public conversation, if in the least bit a debate, is very rarely fruitful, because in public people tend to dig in their heels. Whether in public or private, I try always to avoid moving into the debate dynamic, especially where the other person is put placed on the defensive. However, one way to help avoid the debate dynamic is to shift the conversation from a public to a private conversation, ideally in person, or, next best, by videoconference or phone. A person does not feel peer pressure and defensiveness in a private conversation. And dialogue is more effective at reaching agreement when it is in viva voce personal conversation than in exchange of Facebooks notes or emails.

A key rhetorical insight is first to help the other person see the positive, true, beautiful aspect of one's position, then see its evidence and strength in the face of his objections, showing how it withstands his objections, and only then examine the problems in his own position, especially in relation to your own. Starting with the problems with your interlocutor's position is rarely a fruitful way of initiating a genuine dialogue, because it tends to elicit defensiveness and move the conversation into debate mode.

As a general rule of thumb: publicly present objections to another person's position only in the abstract, not explicitly directed to that person by name. That avoids putting the person on the defensive. It does not tie the person to the criticized position, but gives the person a chance to disown the position based on your objections. As a general rule, never put the person on the defensive, especially in public. Let him be his own critic, by letting him observe the refutation of the position he holds, while not attaching his name to it.

G. What About the Ad Hominem?

Sometimes we're reminded by interlocutors that the argumentum ad hominem is a fallacy only as a response to an argument. When a personal attack is not a response to an argument, then, say these interlocutors, it is not a fallacy. And strictly speaking that is true. In effect, however, such a reminder tends to provide a kind of approbation and justification for opening the 'bomb bay doors' and releasing a payload of insults that are not responses to arguments, because, it is thought, logic does not prohibit personal attacks. Yet virtue and civility go far beyond the formal requirements of logic, and if we wish to improve and elevate the quality and fruitfulness of both public and private dialogue, and heed the principle of edification, we do well to nurture not just our skill in logic, but, more importantly, the virtue of civility, especially in dialogue with those with whom we disagree, as I have just discussed. This may mean refraining from attacking another's person even when doing so does not involve a logical fallacy.

I wish to point out here, however, that even within the domain of logic there is a way in which the public use of personal criticisms not as a direct response to an argument or as an intended refutation of an argument, but directed to or said of persons whose argument or position we reject, can be nevertheless fallacious.

Here's why. All other things being equal, public insults and criticisms of persons who have advanced an argument or hold a position, as part of one's critical response to that argument or position, are fallacious because they criticize the argument or position indirectly (i.e. by criticizing its source) but not by evaluating the soundness of the argument or the truth of the position. And even if such personal criticisms are accompanied by a critical evaluation of the argument or position itself, they remain fallacious because their rhetorical purpose is to criticize the argument or position through attacking the person making the argument or holding the position rather than resting on the refutation of the argument or the falsification of the claim.

Defending the use of personal insults that are not responses to the interlocutor's argument, nor intended to refute or falsify their argument or position, by noting that such personal attacks do not formally commit the argumentum ad hominem fallacy focuses on the "letter" of the ad hominem fallacy. But the fallacy has a spirit as well, because it has implicit forms and not only an explicit form. There are many ways of implying that a person's argument or position is bad because of something negative related to the arguer or position holder, without explicitly saying that the person's argument or position is bad because of something negative about the person. Those too are ad hominem fallacies of the well-poisoning sort, albeit again implicitly so, for the very same reason that the explicit ad hominem is a fallacy, namely, because they attack the position or argument by attacking the person holding it. That's why, all other things being equal, stating something negative about the arguer, within the broader context of critically evaluating the arguer's argument or position, just is engaging in the ad hominem fallacy, because that statement of something negative about the arguer is not accidentally included in one's attempt to criticize the argument or position, but is included in one's statements in order to aid in one's attempted refutation of the argument or position, at least aid in one's attempt at dissuading others from believing it. And such is an instance of implicit engagement in the ad hominem fallacy.

So under what conditions is criticizing a person in the public square not fallacious in the way just described? There are at least three such conditions. Publicly denouncing the personal, character, moral, or behavioral flaws of a person is appropriate when (a) either the person is being considered for holding or retaining a public position or role requiring certain character qualities, or (b) the truth of a person's claim is being questioned, the person's character flaws or deficiencies are relevant to the likelihood of the truthfulness of the person's claim, and there is no other way of determining the truth of the claim than by evaluating the character of its source, or (c) the criticism is a second- person public rebuke directed at the person deserving of rebuke, when the conditions call for such a rebuke, any preceding requirements have been satisfied, and the person giving the rebuke is at least one of the right persons to do so.

Apart from conditions such as these where personal criticisms are appropriate for reasons altogether different from illicitly short-cutting a refutation of an argument or falsifying of a position by attacking the messenger, public insults and criticisms of persons who have advanced an argument or position, as part of one's critical response to that argument or position even if these insults and personal criticisms are not made with the explicit or conscious intention of refuting the argument or falsifying the position, are fallacious because they criticize the argument or position indirectly by criticizing its source, rather than solely by evaluating the soundness of the argument or the truth of the position. In short, when you need to criticize, always criticize the position not the person, and show what is wrong with the position that you are criticizing. This is part of the path away from sophistry, toward virtuous reasoning.

IV. Evangelism as Dialogue

A. Evangelism Proselytism

Let's apply this to the distinction between evangelism and proselytism. In calling others to conversion, Pope Francis said Christians must avoid the practice of proselytism or coercion, "which goes against the Gospel." Proselytism connotes coercion, manipulation, a notches-in-one’s-belt approach that fails to respect persons as persons, and fails to affirm their freedom in love and authentic person-to-person friendship. It is, for example, inviting a person to an event portrayed in one way (e.g. a meal, or entertainment), but then springing a sermon on them trying to get them to make a decision for Christ, such that they feel tricked, deceived, coerced, or manipulated. The definition of 'proselytism' given by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is as follows:

"the promotion of a religion by using means, and for motives, contrary to the spirit of the Gospel; that is, which do not safeguard the freedom and dignity of the human person."¹⁷

By contrast, evangelism is by attraction, to the truth in love, not by pressure, which is contrary to freedom, and contrary to love. Pope Francis talked about this in his address to catechists in September, 2013, saying,

"Remember what Benedict XVI said: ‘The Church does not grow by proselytizing; she grows by attracting others.’ And what attracts is our witness."¹⁸

What Pope Francis is talking about is establishing an ethos that creates the attraction by which evangelism in word and deed is not imposed on others, but is freely received, and even invited.

B. Attraction and the Indifferents

So let us return to the indifferents. If we want to attract those in the indifferent category, we must create in our local communities an attractive presence and way of life. In order to help people know who we are, and thus communicate with the needed pathos and ethos, we need to contextualize our arguments and reasons in a personal narrative framework allowing those with whom we communicate to know our stories, where we come from, what we've done, what is our education, who is our family, what is our service, etc.

Likewise, if we want to be attractive online to those in the indifferent category, our online presence and interaction ought to be beautiful and attractive. It certainly cannot include bickering, fighting, insulting, attacking each other or others. Anger never persuaded anyone. If you find yourself angry, take time to cool down. Never type while angry. If you simply have to think about this as a competition, think about it as a competition in which the goal is who can outdo the other in love. Pray for the persons you communicate with, if online, before every post, reply, every comment, every text, etc.

Do not push or coerce. So if someone does not want to talk, I do not push; I respect their request. The truth wins not by pushing, but by drawing, by attraction, by being willing to be silent yet at the same time with your interlocutor, even if only in spirit. But the rhetorical key is prior to that point of being forced to silence. That is, the key is not getting to the point where the other person cuts off communication. And that requires being sensitive to where that person is; it requires taking an approach aimed at attraction rather than pushing.

V. Conclusion 

Evangelism is somewhat like courting or wooing, attracting interest by generating and eliciting attraction. There is a subtleness necessary here, a discreteness. Attraction builds by seeing/noticing something attractive. Pressure or coercion or pushiness eclipse and obscure any attractiveness in the agent. What nurtures attraction is precisely their contrary. Wooing is subtle and patient and sensitive; it gives space and time to allow attraction to manifest itself naturally, and attractedness to grow naturally. And here too grace builds on nature. What we have in the gospel of Christ is that than which nothing is more attractive: Christ Himself. If we speak the truth in the beauty of love, with graced rhetoric, keen to the order of knowing and at the level of personal encounter, the Holy Spirit will nurture and develop in those with whom we speak an attraction to the beauty of God as revealed in the beauty of the gospel, as manifested in the beauty of our lives, and in the beauty of our mode of speech.

“Motion is the act of a being in potency insofar as it is in potency.” - Aristotle, Physics Book III, 201a10-11

In his famous First Way of proving God’s existence, St. Thomas Aquinas says, “It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion.”¹ But, are things really in motion? Most people would think that motion in the world is too obvious to doubt. Yet, some, based on theories of modern physics, claim that physical change in the universe is actually impossible. Change or motion—meaning that “this” becomes “that” with some persisting reality exhibiting those before and after qualities—simply does not exist. Like Parmenides, those denying motion claim that our dynamically changing, evolving world is merely one grand illusion.

Despite such claims that change is unreal, philosopher of physics Tim Maudlin, well known for studying entangled quantum particles, insists, “Physics has discovered some really strange things about the world, but it has not discovered that change is an illusion.”

In his book, The Trouble with Physics (reprint edition, 2007), theoretical physicist Lee Smolin puts his finger on why physics is prone to make the mistake of saying motion and time are unreal: “…Descartes and Galileo both made a most wonderful discovery: You could draw a graph, with one axis being space and the other being time. A motion through space then becomes a curve on the graph. In this way, time is represented as if it were another dimension of space. Motion is frozen, and a whole history of constant motion and change is presented to us as something static and unchanging.”² In other words, the static mathematical abstractions of modern physics automatically tend to omit the very starting point they presume, namely, the reality of objective motion or change.

In a new book, Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science (2017), philosopher Edward Feser points to the incoherence of physicists denying the reality of motion when their scientific method presupposes it. For example, even the simplest experiment requires watching for movement of a needle on a dial:

“When the needle moves from its rest position it loses one attribute and gains another (namely a particular spatial location), and it is one and the same needle that loses and gains these attributes and one and the same dial of which the needle is a component. If there were no gain or loss of attributes, or if the needle or dial were not the same, the observation would be completely useless.”³

Similarly, physicists presume real physical causation takes place through time with ontologically-continuous physical agents causing the continuous coming-to-be of ontologically-continuous effects. For example, the same rocket engine causes the progressive ascent of the same spacecraft into orbit. This is simply how natural science has always understood the nature of physical causation operating in the real world. That a physical theory should be interpreted as contradicting this universal scientific presupposition defies understanding.

Even if change or motion were simply a subjective illusion or a memory function product, it is still immediately recognized and judged by the intellect for precisely what it is, that is, a change. The intellect knows the nature of being and forms a concept of being that begets the universal certitude of the principle of non-contradiction – a truth about reality that scientists absolutely accept, but have no scientific way of explaining. In like fashion, the intellect judges the nature of change or motion as real when immediately experienced – no matter its size or type. Whether it is extramental or intramental change makes no difference. Static experiences alone would never beget the concept of motion, since non-motion contradicts motion.

One of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20^th century, Karl Popper, says of the experience of change within consciousness, “It could not be explained away by a theory of the successive rising into our consciousness of time slices which in some sense coexist; for this kind of ‘rising into consciousness’ would have precisely the same character as that succession of changes which the theory tries to explain away.” Worse yet for materialists who deny change, if all that exists is material, then change’s reality within consciousness means that change is real in the physical universe.

We have a concept of change solely because we have encountered a reality – subjective or not – that actually contained motion. That alone explains how we even have such a concept. Yes, we form concepts of imaginary things. But, they are always composed of elements taken from real objects, as a unicorn is composed of concepts taken from real horses and real horns. Since the concept of change itself is primary, it must be based on an actually existing nature.

Nor could motion or change be experienced as such unless both the “before” and “after” of the change is present to the same knower. This fulfills change’s meaning, since “this” becomes “that” with something (the knower) persisting to both the before and after.

Therefore, change or motion is objectively real.

If some physicists cannot reconcile the immediately given reality of motion or change, as defined here, with their speculative inferences drawn from the special theory of relativity, their speculations must be wrong on that point.

Einstein’s special relativity thought experiment assumes a train moving past a standing observer. Observer, of what? Observer that the train is in motion! The observer knows it is motion because the train he observes is in diverse positions relative to his own position. So, for him there is a before and after with himself, the observer, being present to both – which fulfills the Aristotelian meaning of motion. Clearly, no speculative interpretation of special relativity can contradict the reality of the very motion Einstein’s thought experiment presupposes in its proof.

Either Einstein made a mistake in one of his assumptions, or else, one of several philosophical interpretations of special relativity compatible with motion must be correct.⁴ In any case, the immediately given reality of motion or change trumps any subsequently developed theory that denies its objective reality.

“Quidquid movetur ab alio movetur.” Whatever is moved is moved by another. What this famous principle really means is this: Whatever is in motion is being moved here and now by another. While motion is mostly thought of in terms of local motion – motion from place to place, any type of change can be called motion.

As seen above, motion does not mean simply one thing replacing another, like frames in a motion picture film. Rather, it means one thing becoming somehow different with some persisting reality connecting the before and after. For example, consider the same knower experiencing successive images, or, the same body moving from one position to a different position relative to some point of reference.

Aristotle defines motion as the act of a being in potency insofar as it is in potency. Easier to grasp is this description: the progressive actualization of a potency. For purposes of describing motion, potency is what is able to be, but is not; act is that which is fully real or completed. Strictly speaking, motion means local motion, a change of place. More broadly, it can mean any kind of change, any passage of something from potency to act—sometimes even instantaneously.

For a non-technical macroscopic example, consider water being heated from room temperature to boiling. Motion is not maintaining the water at 72 degrees, but progressively adding heat so as to constantly raise the temperature until 212 degrees is reached. If the “raising” stops at, say, 200 degrees, the motion stops, even though the heat must be maintained to stay at that point. Thus, the motion is not the act already achieved, namely, the 200 degrees, but the act that is achieving the potency yet to be fulfilled, that is, 212 degrees.

The reason everything in motion needs a mover is simple. A thing cannot reduce itself from potency to act and that is exactly what is happening to the thing in motion: it is being reduced from potency to act. Yet, “reduction” here does not mean less being, but more being!

A thing in motion is gaining new perfections of existence every moment it continues to move or change. Since a being cannot give to itself that which it lacks, something else must be giving to it that which it lacks, but is gaining incrementally.

Yet, how do we know this reasoning is correct? While it is easy to defend the principle in terms of the standard Thomistic analysis of potency and act, many today do not fully appreciate the full force of such reasoning.

Here is a different way to see the objective certitude of the principle that whatever is in motion must be being moved by another, one simply based on “the natural metaphysics of human intelligence.”

Everyone knows and uses the metaphysical principle of non-contradiction, that is, that nothing can both be and not be at the same time and in the same way. Even though materialist scientists cannot prove this principle or show how its certitude arises, they have no honest doubts about its universal truth and application. This is because the human intellect, once it forms the concept of being, sees clearly the necessary truth of its application to all possible things.

So too, the fact that you cannot get something from absolutely nothing is universally accepted—after you eliminate claims of getting particles from quantum vacuums that turn out to be something after all. Once it is understood that the philosopher means really nothing, every honest mind assents to the truth that from nothing, nothing comes to be.

What has this to do with things in motion? Simply this: a thing in motion is gaining new properties of being it did not previously possess. As such, with respect to those properties it did not have, it is non-being; nothing at all. Since nothing cannot beget something without extrinsic causal assistance, a being in motion must be getting this new being from something other than itself, that is, from a mover.

For a thing to reduce itself from potency to act would be for it to be giving itself the very perfections of existence that it lacks. This is equivalent to having something that is non-being in a certain respect accounting for the coming-to-be of the selfsame being that it does not have. Being coming from non-being is impossible and absurd.

The full force of this principle is not understood until it is realized that it applies even to bodies already in a “state” of motion—a motion “explained” by most moderns simply by appeal to Newton’s principle of inertia. Even those who defend the principle that motion requires a mover sometimes retreat to applying it solely to cases in which a change in inertial motion occurs. Thus, to accelerate or decelerate an object in motion is seen to require a mover, but that the object merely stays in its present “state” of motion is considered fully explained by inertia.

Part of the problem is that it may not be clear as to exactly which body is in motion, since all motion appears relative—so that if A moves relative to B, we cannot tell which body is actually undergoing the motion. In fact, it could be both. But it really does not matter at all, since all we need to know is that a change of distance or relative position between two or more bodies occurs.

Just as I have shown in a prior Strange Notions article how many confuse physical antecedents with real causes of present effects, so too, acceptance of Newton’s first law of motion as full explanation for the phenomenon of inertial motion causes many to fail to see the further need of metaphysical explanation. Modern science correctly describes the phenomenon under consideration: a body in motion tends to remain in motion. But mere description is not identical to giving an adequate explanation as to why this phenomenon occurs at all.

Calling motion a “state” does not render it static. All motion still requires the continuous reduction of potency to act. And since nothing can give to itself the new perfections or qualities of existence that it lacks, some extrinsic reason or cause must account for the coming-to-be of those changes.

This applies just as much to bodies in a “state” of inertial motion as it does to objects that are accelerating or decelerating. Nor does it matter which object is considered to be in motion, since any change in spatial relation or any other kind of relation between things entails a real change in something—and that requires some extrinsic agent or mover to complete the explanation of what is going on—to account for the “new being” that is manifested, even if that new being is merely a change of relative position. Some outside agent must exist to account for the coming-to-be of the new existential qualities manifested by these new spatial relationships.

Newton’s first law of motion is not an exception to the principle that whatever is in motion requires a mover here and now continuously providing the new modes of existence manifested by continuing change or motion.

Of course, local motion is only one type of motion, but it is one of central occupation to physical science. The principle in question applies to every conceivable type of change, not only of local motion, but also to changes of quality, relation, size, disposition, time, and so forth. It can even be applied to spiritual changes that entail no gradual change. That is, even an instantaneous change by which a potency is actualized requires an extrinsic agent to effect the change, as when a fresh insight suddenly “pops” into one’s mind.

Much more can be said, but this should be enough to demonstrate that the philosophical principle that whatever is in motion is moved by another is absolutely certain and universally true.

This principle is not merely a principle of natural philosophy, but of metaphysics as well—since motion, which is the progressive actualization of a potency, entails that something is gaining new qualities of being. A being in motion must be getting this new being from something other than itself.

All of this shows that this principle is a principle of being, just like the principle of non-contradiction. As such, just like the concept of being and the principle of non-contradiction, it applies to all beings and can be used in an analogical manner, even possibly to reason from finite being to infinite being in a transcendent fashion. This, of course, foreshadows a role for this principle well beyond the topic at hand.

Presuppositions, definitions, and purpose: This article presupposes the metaphysical first principles of non-contradiction, sufficient reason, and causality, which I defended earlier in a Strange Notions article.

By the principle of sufficient reason, I mean that every being has a sufficient reason for its being or becoming. This principle is recognized by virtually all mankind as essential to reality’s intelligibility.

By causality, I mean that every effect (a being whose sufficient reason is not totally intrinsic) has immediate dependency on a cause (an extrinsic sufficient reason). This also I defended in a more recent Strange Notions article. While that article employed common macroscopic examples of simultaneous causality, metaphysical first principles – since they are principles of existence, not of some particular essence – apply equally to submicroscopic physical realities. Nanosecond delays in field propagation between interacting particles do not avoid the metaphysical necessity for contiguity and simultaneous mutual causation between those fields. Nor do claims on behalf of modern physics undermine the classical metaphysical analysis of causality taking place in time as normally understood.¹

Since non-being cannot ever produce being, and since the effect, as such, is in continual existential dependence on another for some accidental quality and/or its very existence in being, no effect can survive ceasing to be actively caused – even if that causal agency ceased only a nanosecond ago. Physics is inherently incapable of penetrating the depths of this metaphysical insight about being and causality.

Causes of being and coming-to-be: Metaphysics requires thinking of everything in terms of being, since it is the science of being considered precisely as being. Proper distinctions must be made. For many scientists, because of Hume’s influence, the term, “cause,” means merely an “antecedent” – something always coming temporally before an alleged “effect.” This entails that the antecedent as such cannot be the true cause, since it could cease to act or even to exist before the alleged “effect” appears, which is impossible in terms of principles of being. That is because every true cause must be simultaneous with its effect, since a cause is an extrinsic sufficient reason, and therefore, as St. Thomas says, “To take away the cause is to take away the effect.”²

Yet, an “antecedent” sounds like a cause of coming-to-be. Nonetheless, a true cause of becoming must be simultaneous with that which comes to be. It is not antecedent to it. Thus, a falling dominoes series is an invalid example of a series of simultaneous moved movers, since the first domino may be down before the last one starts to fall. Bearing in mind observations about submicroscopic physical causes made above, a valid example of simultaneous causation of becoming might be a series of contiguous gears in motion simultaneously, so that the earlier move the later in what is, in effect, a single motion. If the earlier gears quit moving, so do the later ones. Even more evidently, if a builder quits building a house, the house does not “finish itself.”

Causes of being appear intuitively more simultaneous, since they do not entail motion which takes place through time. But physical examples are sometimes challenged as being instances of becoming and, alternately, metaphysical instances require philosophical proof, for example, the argument St. Thomas makes that things which can possibly be or not be must be caused to exist.³

The key takeaway from all this is that it simply does not matter whether one is talking about causes of being or of becoming: the causes in both cases must be simultaneous with their effects. When the cause of coming-to-be ceases causing, the coming-to-be of the effect ceases – just as when the cause of being ceases causing, the being effected ceases to exist. Properly understood, causal series of becoming are just as temporally simultaneous as those of being.

Extrinsic causes may be efficient or final. Proper causes are those precisely required to produce a specific effect and prescind from accidental or causally non-relevant associations with either cause or effect. The purpose of this piece is to prove, not God’s existence, but solely that no proper causal regression to infinity is possible. In contrast, a merely accidentally ordered regression, such as the procreative one leading back through all our ancestors, could potentially go on to infinity – as Aristotle appears to say with respect to the possible eternity of species.

Since proper causes must be simultaneous with their effects, temporal causal regressions are irrelevant – including even nanosecond prior submicroscopic “events” that no longer exist. Proper causal regressions at issue are hic et nunc “vertical” -- in the present, not “horizontal” through past time.

Yet, it appears that even such “vertical” regressions can go to infinity. Consider a series in which the being of A is the final effect and B the sufficient reason for A, with C the reason for B, and D for C, and so forth. Since B explains A, and C explains B, and D explains C -- as long as the causally prior reasons regress to infinity, every link in the chain is explained, since each one is explained by the prior link. Since the whole chain is nothing but the sum of all the links and every link is explained, the entire chain is explained and there appears to be no need for a first sufficient reason for the being of A.

Or again, consider such a series from the standpoint of causality as such. We have a final effect which is explained by a regression of intermediate prior proper causes. Other than the final effect, every prior cause is intermediate, since each one is followed by an effect and preceded by its own proper cause. (Remember all causal links exist and act simultaneously in accord with proper causality.) Is there anything about an infinite regression of such intermediate causes that requires a first cause?

Each intermediate cause has two aspects: it is “intermediate” and it is a “cause.” But the term, “intermediate,” refers merely to a subsequent effect and a prior cause. It says nothing about a first cause. And “cause” refers only to a subsequent effect. As long as the causality of each intermediate cause is fully explained by a prior intermediate cause, and as long as the causal regression does not have a beginning point, each intermediate cause is fully explained. Since the whole chain is nothing but the sum of the intermediates, and each intermediate is explained by its prior intermediate, the whole chain appears to be explained without any need for a first cause.

Yet, to understand the opposing and correct side of the argument, imagine a surgical incision in the process of being cut. Since surgeons don’t make incisions with their fingers, a scalpel is needed – essentially to convert blunt motion into cutting motion. Since scalpels don’t normally do surgery by themselves, a hand is needed to move and direct the motion of the scalpel. And an arm is needed to move the hand. While this example is deliberately abbreviated, its initial elements are instructive.

The scalpel, hand, and arm are all intermediate causes. But, what makes them intermediate? What does each contribute to the causal chain? The scalpel contributes sharpness, the hand contributes “holding the scalpel,” and the arm directs the hand. But none are called “intermediate” in virtue of what they contribute of their own nature or role in the series. With respect to what they contribute, they actually act as something of a “first cause,” since what they contribute, they originate for the process.

On the other hand, they are called “intermediate” precisely because of what they do not contribute to the surgical process – something from a prior cause that they simply pass on to a subsequent effect. Each intermediate cause entails two distinct aspects: something they contribute originally to the chain and for which they are something of a “first cause,” and, critically important, something that they do not contribute of their own nature, but which they merely pass on from a prior cause and for which they themselves are termed “intermediate causes.” In the example, it is the motion that passes through the whole chain. As long as nothing but intermediate causes are operative in the chain, each contributes something original – but, and here is the key, none of them contributes that chain of causation or motion that passes through the whole chain and, with respect to which, they are properly called “intermediate causes.” If all such causes are merely intermediate, then some causal activity is passing through the entire chain, but no member of the chain can explain it. Whether the intermediate causes are limited or unlimited in number, they cannot alone explain the causal process that runs through the entire chain. Solely a first cause that initiates the entire chain can do that – a first cause uncaused.

Now, to reconsider that chain of intermediate reasons described above, we see that the same problem arises. The problem is that each prior reason is not really sufficient unto itself. If it were, it would be a first reason, not an intermediate one. It is called intermediate precisely because it is passing along a reason that it itself does not fully explain. Otherwise, the chain would stop right there. If one looks for the sufficient reason of A, it is not fully in B, since B depends on C to fulfill its own reason. If one regresses to infinity in looking at intermediate reasons, the fully sufficient reason will never be found, since none of the intermediate links provides the complete reason for the final effect. Each one leaves some of the needed reason lacking. If one regresses the chain to infinity, the total sufficient reason is never found – and thus, the final effect lacks a sufficient reason. But that is impossible. Thus, there must be a first sufficient reason, which is its own reason – otherwise the principle of sufficient reason itself would be violated.

As for the regression in the chain of intermediate causes, the problem is the same. The argument claims that “as long as the causality of the intermediate cause is fulfilled,” and as long as you never exhaust prior causes, no need exists for a first cause. But the catch is that the causality of each intermediate is not fulfilled in its prior cause, since that cause, too, is dependent on yet a prior cause to fulfill its causality. Regression to infinity means that the causality never gets completely fulfilled, and thus, the chain fails for want of an uncaused first caused.

Let me offer an easily evident example, even if it entails an accidental temporal aspect that is irrelevant in this case. Imagine six people going to a theater together. Imagine that they buy six tickets and walk toward the ticket taker. As the first person reaches the ticket taker, he tells him that the person behind him has his ticket. The next one does the same, and so on until the last person arrives and hands all six tickets to the taker. All is well.

But imagine a different scenario, one in which every person reaching the ticket taker tells him that the person behind him has the ticket. But this time the line of “referrers” is infinite! This means that there are actually no tickets, since no individual person has any tickets! The theater becomes overfilled and bankrupt at the same time!

That is the essential problem with an infinite regress of proper causes. The intermediate causes don’t have any “tickets.” They exist and act only in virtue of passing on some causal process that none of them ultimately originates or completely explains. As causes, they are an ontological welfare class. Whether they are finite or infinite in number, they explain nothing of the thread of causation that runs through them all and links them all together as a causal chain.

Each intermediate cause may contribute something novel to the final effect. Still, what denotes it as an intermediate cause is not what it originates or contributes to the final effect. Rather, it is called “intermediate,” because of what it does not originate or explain of its own nature. It is called “intermediate,” because of what it does not contribute to the final effect -- but rather merely receives from its immediately prior cause and merely passes on to the next cause or final effect.

One could literally write a book on this topic with many more examples and complex distinctions.⁴ Still, this is essentially the problem of infinite regress among any type or order of intermediate proper causes. Such a regression is simply impossible. One has to arrive eventually at a first cause that has no ontologically prior cause. For an excellent recent peer reviewed article supporting this same conclusion see here.

Again, this is not presented as proof of God’s existence, but merely as proof that an infinite regress among essentially subordinated causes is metaphysically impossible.

Still, if an infinite regression among proper causes of existence (extrinsic sufficient reasons) is impossible, then such a regression, if demonstrated, would require a first cause (extrinsic sufficient reason) which is its own sufficient reason for being – since nothing is prior to it. In other words, the universal principle of sufficient reason would then necessarily imply that at least one thing must be its own sufficient reason for existing. Such a first sufficient reason that fully explains its own existence would be, of course, not a brute fact, since a brute fact is alleged to have no reason at all – either within itself or from another.

An infinite regress among proper or essential causes is metaphysically impossible. And, yes, this conclusion may henceforth be employed as a universally true principle in any proposed demonstrations of God’s existence.

The metaphysical principle that every thing must have a sufficient reason for its being or coming-to-be is challenged by those who claim that some “brute facts” exist, that is, things for which there are simply no reasons at all.

The opponents of sufficient reason’s universality claim that science works quite well by finding reasons for many things, even though we allow that one thing or some things might turn out just to be “brute facts,” that is, things without a reason. But that is to ignore valid logic.

Even a single exception to a rule refutes the rule, since it is now always possible that the next thing encountered will be another “exception.” Moreover, it simply isn’t how science or the human mind actually works.

Does anyone seriously suggest that the driving force behind modern science is not the effort to “unlock the secrets of the universe?” Why not say that the whole of physical reality is just a bunch of “brute facts,” and then forget it all?

The incontestable history of science has been to probe ever deeper understanding of cosmic mysteries – from the “aether puzzle” of the Michelson-Morley experiments to the orbital oddities of Mercury to the  present conflict between quantum mechanics and relativity theory. Since when have scientists been heard to say, “We give up! Maybe it is just a bunch of brute facts,” and then end their enquiries? Rather, they are frustrated at their inability to find answers beyond the latest frontiers of knowledge, while relevantly, they still cannot resist asking, “Why?”

If scientists did not hold the universal conviction that phenomena reveal the underlying reasons that manifest themselves through those phenomena, they would not even bother making observations at all.

Thomism, common sense, and natural science concur in seeking reasons for all things. Certain atheists, though, seem obsessed with vacating the scientific quest for reasons when it comes to why the universe as a whole exists – yet, they arbitrarily and illogically seek to protect the demand for reasons as they are needed for the rest of science. This is totally illogical and a case of special pleading, since they refuse to see that they have allegedly already ruined the intellectual foundations for their beloved science.

Why should it bother anyone if claims are not fully intelligible and logically coherent?  Atheists steeped in scientism are very much into logical demonstrations. But, that is to demand true premises and valid inferences. Premises stand as causes to their conclusions. So skeptics universally demand logical proof for all philosophical claims – except, of course, for their claim that something “just is” without a reason.

Still, as Aristotle points out in his Posterior Analytics, logic is ultimately grounded in premises that have no prior premises. No, these are not “brute facts. Rather, logical conclusions ultimately lead back to either self-evident or immediately evident initial premises. If such initial premises ultimately were grounded in irrational, unintelligible “brute facts,” why bother with all the pretense of pursuing the strictly rational and logical steps leading back to them?

Some statements are self-evident because their denial would be self-contradictory. But this presupposes the metaphysical principle of non-contradiction. Why are even scientistic atheists so sure of the truth of that principle that they apply it universally with logical rigor? Is it just an irrational “brute fact” that has no reason to be true? If that were the case, it would be worthless for either logic or common sense. Clearly, this metaphysical first principle is grounded in a philosophical birthplace quite foreign to “scientific verification.”

More importantly, what of those statements that are “immediately evident?” Are they not “brute facts?” For those who are not willfully blind to the reality of immediate experience, consider the immediately-given fact of motion or change. Is that merely a “brute fact,” concerning which nothing further can be known? Amazingly, some of those who affirm the existence of “brute facts” actually take the philosophically absurd position that change or motion is impossible! In so doing, they employ a highly convoluted process of reasoning that contradicts an undeniable given of the very starting point of human knowledge.

Some are so deceived by their own alleged “logic” that they fail to realize that even if the experience of change is purely illusory, hallucinatory, subjective, based solely on mistaken neural patterns, and totally removed from any objective extramental order, it is still real in its own “psychotic,” delusional order. That is because no aspect of immediately experienced being is totally non-being – and the mind immediately recognizes it as something having some kind of changing existence. As such, it constitutes real change or motion, which is immediately evident, and that still must be rationally explained as real, rather than simply denied. The posited illusory experience of becoming itself entails becoming.

Does its property of being immediately evident make change itself a “brute fact?” Not if we can explain it, or if there is a reason for its existence, even if we cannot fully understand it ourselves. Just because motion or change is a first for us in the order of immediate experience does not mean that it is also first in the order of being – since its intelligibility can still be examined and explained.

In his Physics, Aristotle explains motion in terms of potency and act. Skeptics may not agree with his explanation, but the mere fact that one can argue about what constitutes an adequate explanation again points to the ability and need for the human mind to seek intelligible reasons for things.

Why do skeptics demand that philosophical claims be intelligible and logically defensible – and that there be no “holes” in that logic? If they are correct about the existence of “brute facts,” then perhaps claims are simply true without reason and should be accepted on face value.

The fact that those who deny the universality of the principle of sufficient reason universally and absolutely and insistently demand even a single prior premise for claims bespeaks the urgency of the mind’s demand for reasons for all things. It is the same intellectual impulse that makes the mind challenge every philosophical or scientific claim with a firm, “Why?” or, “How do you know this?”

That includes the anti-intellectual claim that something “just is.” Such a claim is a proclamation that being is essentially unintelligible, that there is nothing to understand. But the proper function of the intellect is precisely the opposite. Its natural driving impulse is “to understand.”

Yet, we are told that the very basis of this whole universe – a universe that yields itself to the mind of brilliant scientists with a panorama of intensely complex structures fully amenable to the highly intellectual parsing of sophisticated mathematical physics -- that this complex and highly intelligible universe is really, at its very existential foundation, essentially unintelligible and meaningless. That is what it really means to say that the cosmos “just is.” We are being asked to believe that the cosmos, with all its near-infinitely structured splendor, is, in the last analysis, just the product of some sort of deaf, dumb and blind cosmic “burp.”

We cannot resist the urge to know the “why” of everything – that is, unless we have a reason not to see reasons for everything. It is always possible to say things that, in practice, we don’t really believe or live by.

Psychosis is an abnormal condition of the mind that involves a loss of contact with reality.” What makes psychosis an “abnormal” condition is that the normal human mind does stay in contact with reality.

If the human mind cannot resist searching for the reasons for everything, including the universe itself, how could it be that out of contact with the way reality really works, without us having to conclude that we are all psychotic? Conversely, since, by definition the entire human race cannot be abnormal or psychotic, it must be that the natural tendency of the human mind to demand reasons for all things is grounded in its natural ability to see the implications of the concept of being itself – the same ability that enables it to see the universal certitude of the principle of non-contradiction, which latter principle even scientistic atheists affirm -- although they cannot explain the basis for its certitude through natural science alone.

Just as the intellect cannot think a contradiction because it thinks in terms of being itself, so it cannot think anything at all without a reason to do so. If it thinks something with certitude, it does so because it is compelled by a sufficient reason to do so. True thought is simply being in the intellect understood as forced by a reason to affirm it. The “rules of logic” do not dictate the rules of thought, but reflect the intellect understanding its own conformity to being, and then, carefully describing the actual process by which it attained that conformity.

This is why the principle that all things have reasons is simply described as “self-evident.” The intellect must seek reasons in all things because its natural function is to demand the intelligibility of what it knows – and, as shown above, that natural function must conform to the laws of being itself.

That every being must have a reason for being or becoming does not say whether the reason must be intrinsic or extrinsic to that being. If it is extrinsic, it is called a “cause.” But that in no way rules out the possibility that the reason for being is intrinsic to the being itself.

Metaphysicians advance a concept of God in which his essence or nature is identical with his own act of existence, making him the Necessary Being. Completely unlike a “brute fact,” which has no reason at all for existing, God would be his own reason for existing – which is perfectly consistent with the principle that every being must have a reason for its being or coming-to-be.

Today some claim that modern physics evinces that Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy is an archaic myth that has outlived its credibility. They say things like, “If Thomist metaphysics contradicts modern physics, then Thomism is false.”

They make claims against Thomism, citing modern physical theories like quantum mechanics and relativity. We are told counterintuitive things, such as that (1) whole universes can pop into existence from nothing according to quantum mechanics, (2) effects sometimes actually exist before their causes, (3) special relativity entails that time is not sequential, but rather “B theory” says that past, present, and future are equally real and change is impossible, and (4) electrons around an atomic nucleus can be in two positions simultaneously, or “smeared over space.”

Still, on basic truths about the world, natural science and Thomism hold identical positions.

Epistemological realism: Natural scientists and Thomists share the conviction that we immediately sense the external world. Scientists are certain that they are discovering laws that apply to a vast extramental physical cosmos. Still, those who impose a materialist philosophical interpretation on sensation’s science find themselves entrapped in an epistemological nightmare whose immanent logic leads to the false conclusion that all we really know is internal neural patterns of our brains.

Thomism offers an alternate view of sense experience that supports natural science’s realist presupposition. It notes that all human beings have the same noetic starting point. There are three components to every human act of knowledge: (1) the thing known, (2) the act of knowing, and (3) reflexive awareness of the knowing self. In most relevant cases, what is known is known as external to one’s self. While an entire epistemology is not possible here, note that we cannot doubt external reality when it is directly confronted. Doubt arises only when we shift our attention to a judgment about the external object in which what we know is not the object itself. For example, if I close my eyes and wonder whether the lion confronting me is really about to attack me, I am no longer looking at the lion, but at some internal image of it. At that moment, I can doubt the real lion, but I cannot doubt its mental image. Opening my eyes provides a different certitude – as the lion takes its first bite.

Metaphysical first principles: Universal first principles apply to the minds and methods of modern physicists themselves. If there is even a single exception to such universal rules, there would be no logical reason ever to expect such a “broken rule” to apply again. Assuming, for instance, that the whole universe has no reason for existing, but that somehow the rest of cosmic phenomena still must have reasons, is special pleading in the extreme.

The principle of non-contradiction, which says that things cannot both be and not be, is universally applied by every scientist making an observation. Even the smallest phenomena must be read as what it is and not as its contradictory – otherwise, the reading would be useless. Claims of contradictory phenomena, such as wave-particle duality, rely on such observations. If a subatomic entity appears as a wave, that same exact reading cannot say it is a particle. Neither Thomist nor natural scientist could ever reject this principle, since, without it, every judgment could be contradicted.

Science simply cannot be done without the principle of sufficient reason. By “sufficient reason,” I refer, not to Leibniz’s famous definition, but simply the universal truth that all things must have reasons. Long before St. Thomas or Leibniz, Adam knew that all things have reasons. So do all scientists. Every scientist pursues explanations of natural phenomena because he knows they must have explanations. Through Hume’s influence, he may think of causes as “antecedents,” but he never stops looking for them because he believes in the principle of causality. Causes are merely reasons for things that do not explain themselves.

From the time a child begins to explore the world, his mind invariably demands to know reasons for all things. Things’ intelligibility demands that they “make sense” -- either through some external cause or their own internal coherence. “Why?” is the ever-pressing question. Science never researches to discover whether a given phenomenon has an explanation, but rather to discover what that explanation is. If sufficient reason is not universally true, scientists could never be sure that observed phenomena actually reveal the nature of what they study, since no underlying reason need exist. Science would be impossible. The mind’s reasoning process could never be trusted, since no reasons for thoughts need ever be present. Indeed, all the rational connections in the whole of reality depend upon our expectation that reasons underlie everything. And, if the way our mind works does not correspond to reality, science becomes fantasy and we are all, by definition, psychotic.

Even atheist scientists, like Stephen Hawking, questioning the existence of the cosmos, usually assert that it simply explains itself. They may claim that it is the end product of eternal cosmic “bubbles,” arising from “nothing” – which “nothing” turns out to be a “quantum vacuum” that itself turns out to be actually pre-existing active quantum fields consisting of virtual particles! Those who claim that the cosmos has no reason at all for existing are making a philosophical claim that happens to be at variance from both modern physics and Thomism. Thomist philosophy comports with and supports natural science’s universal operating conviction that things have reasons.

Potency and act, matter and form, finality, essence and existence: Most other Thomist principles are so clearly philosophical that natural science properly says little about them. The exceptions would be materialist denials that substantial forms and final causes exist in nature. Still, those are clearly philosophical, not scientific, claims.

What should be made of the types of counterintuitive scientific claims presented at the beginning of this article? To understand, we have to consider the various steps in the process of scientific enquiry. First, we have the target entity to be explained, for example, the actual movement of planets around the Sun. Since concrete solar system conditions are far too complex to “handle” in every detail, scientists create a “model” that abstracts essential elements of the target from less relevant details, such as, the actual shape of bodies, gravitational influence from other stars, and so forth. In the process, the model no longer perfectly fits the actual conditions of the target, and yet, is close enough to reality so as to illustrate an hypothesized explanation.

What happens next is where physicists can surreptitiously introduce philosophical assumptions. For now the scientist will make his own interpretation of the model – sometimes with hidden philosophical assumptions. Note that the “interpretation” is based on a “model,” which is based on the target reality. Hence, the speculative interpretation is two epistemic steps removed from the original reality. While the solar system model appears fairly straightforward, some evident instances of philosophical speculation are found in modern physics.

For example, most people would not realize that there more than a dozen different interpretations of quantum mechanics – many expressive of diverse philosophical assumptions or claims. Such interpretive pluralism alone bespeaks limited empirical evidence favoring one interpretation over another. Still, this philosophical quagmire does not prevent aggressive claims being made for various interpretations -- as if they were fully demonstrated by natural science.

Thomism or any valid philosophy must always comport with experience, for example, by acknowledging the fact of change. Conversely, natural science can never validly sustain claims that violate universal metaphysical principles.

Thomist metaphysics is often claimed to be “disproved” by conventional interpretations of quantum mechanics, also known as the “Copenhagen interpretation.” The paper, “Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics”(2011), exposes how such physicists’ claims “are not consistent or coherent in their existential treatment of fundamental particles, their wavefunctions, and physical states.” (Introduction) In its concluding paragraph, it warns, “The great danger in Copenhagen sophistry is not that it will harm physics as a discipline, but that it leads to egregious errors in other disciplines, which accept the Copenhagen interpretation with the authority of scientific truth.” (no. 15)

The number of erroneous metaphysical assertions made today by physicists operating outside their proper field of competence prevents “unraveling” them all here.

Still, drawing upon the same paper (no. 6), consider the following example I offer regarding the claim of “superposition” of electrons around an atom’s nucleus. Rejecting the “old” model in which electrons remained in a single orbit around the nucleus, some claim that quantum mechanics affirms such counterintuitive notions as that, when unobserved, electrons are simultaneously in different positions, or perhaps, even “smeared over space.” Yet, when we “collapse the field” by making an observation, an electron is always found solely in one position or another – never in the indefinite or contradictory positions that are assumed prior to taking the measurement. Since an electron is always found in a single position, the counterintuitive claims should be rejected for clearly violating the principle of non-contradiction. Rather, we must be talking merely about conflicting levels of probability as to where a particle actually is when not measured. Quantum mechanics ought not to be interpreted as violating sound metaphysics.

This same paper offers similar explanations of other quantum mechanics enigmas, including wave-particle duality (nos. 4, 14), Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (no. 9), and the ontological status of virtual particles (no. 13). In these and other instances, it shows that sound metaphysical principles deserve rightful priority over counterintuitive interpretations of theoretical models. It counsels, “Denials of the principle of non-contradiction or of objective reality ought to concern physicists no less than philosophers, as these logical and metaphysical claims are presupposed by physics.” (no. 13).

A 2006 study appeared to support Wheeler’s delayed-choice thought experiment suggesting that an effect could actually occur temporally prior to its cause, thus wreaking havoc on the metaphysical principle of causality. Yet, a published comment corrected this, pointing out that the experimental observations can easily be explained without recourse to claims of reverse causation.

Although both Thomism and modern physics proclaim general “principles” or “laws,” they “get there” in vastly different ways leading to vastly different implications.

Scientific research relies upon an inductive method from many particular observations to universal conclusions that can never achieve logical necessity. Experimental verification of hypotheses entails the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, remedied hopefully by a perfect “critical experiment.” Negative experimental results can falsify an hypothesis. But, no amount of positive results can ever absolutely prove one is true, since some unanticipated extraneous factor always might have produced the positive result. Competent scientists always admit that the experimental results merely tend to support their hypotheses. Both these logical weaknesses entail that the “laws of physics” possess neither absolute certitude nor guaranteed universality.

By contrast, Thomism and the natural metaphysics of human intelligence discover universal first principles based upon the intellectual apprehension of intelligible being in our very first experience of material things – forming a concept of being that inherently transcends all reality. Since these are principles of existence, not essence, they necessarily apply to all beings – whether of cosmic dimensions or infinitesimally small. Such universal principles are regulative of all physics and philosophy. Unseen philosophical assumptions that permeate the speculative interpretations of modern physics’ models remain subject to the primary universal laws of being – whether physicists know this or not.

Metaphysics achieves universal certitudes; modern physics will get man safely to Mars – maybe.

The rational approach to quantum mechanics given above applies to relativity theory as well. Much of relativity theory may be read as simply perfective of Newtonian physics. One novel feature of special relativity is its denial of temporal simultaneity. An odd philosophical “by product” of this was the “B theory” of time with its attendant hypothesis of “eternalism.”

The “B-theory” of time, proposed by McTaggart in 1908, states that, instead of the common sense progression of events from past, to present, to future, events can be ordered in a tenseless way. “B-theorists” appear to take a “God’s-eye” view of space-time, embracing all frames of reference. This leads them to say that past, present, and future are equally real and that change is an illusion. Some rely upon Parmenides’ ancient arguments against the possibility of change.

Those who follow Parmenides’ (born c. 515 BC) univocal use of “being” to argue that change is impossible imbibe genuinely archaic philosophy. Aristotle (384-322 BC) realized that “being” is an analogous term. Combined with his innovative principles of potency and act, he finally refuted Parmenides’ argument -- demonstrating how change was both possible and actual. Competent philosophers respect reason, but also immediate experience. Even if change were merely an illusion, as Parmenides claimed, it is real as an illusion and, as such, part of reality that must be explained, not denied.

All these peculiar “B theory” claims about time, together with its “eternalism,” are philosophical interpretations of special relativity, which are not empirically verifiable.

Special relativity shows that relativity of simultaneity obtains solely between “spatially-separated” events, meaning events outside each other’s light cone (no light-speed or sublight signal can connect them). Contrary to “B theory” claims, “Relativity does not abolish the objectivity of time as succession, at least not locally. For every physical event, there is an absolute past and absolute future that is the same in all reference frames.” (“Basic Issues in Natural Philosophy,” (2016) no. 14.1.3.)  Such local events are still temporally ordered in the common sense manner: past to present to future. Moreover, “This preserves the succession of causality, where a cause cannot be temporally posterior to its effect (though they might be simultaneous).” (Ibid.) Since all causal interaction is local (no action at a distance), the Thomist principle that the effect must be immediately dependent upon its cause is in no way violated.

Since it is impossible to examine every possible physical theory, it is reasonable to expect that any future claim by physicists that contradicts metaphysical first principles entails philosophical assumptions outside their field of competence.

Physicists loathe being told that they are doing metaphysics – even more so, that they are doing metaphysics badly.

Many competent physicists know the limitations of their science, and therefore, take their measurements, do their computations, and explain their findings -- without misleading the public with problematic speculations, which they falsely claim to be objective or definitive findings of natural science.

Contemporary science’s progressive achievements crown God’s gift of human intelligence. Still, the whole point of this article has been to show that, unlike the inherent logical weaknesses of the “laws of physics,” which prevent them from ever rightfully enunciating universal certitudes, Thomism’s universally-certain laws of being, not only are logically presupposed by physics, but, indeed, supersede any modern physics’ claims that actually contradict them.

No, Thomism is not an archaic philosophy in light of modern physics. To the contrary, Thomist metaphysics is regulative of modern physics’ speculative claims insofar as they contain philosophical assumptions and implications.