Chapter 18

*Being and Causality

*Chapter 18 Vocabulary

*Causality (p. 105)

*To Cause (p. 105)

*Instrumental Cause (p. 110)

*Principal of Causality (p. 113)

*Terms

*Causality: The Act of Causing

*To Cause: To bring something to be

*The Study of Causality: The study of substance in its becoming or in its acting on another.

*When a substance come to be, it is the effect of a cause

*Effect is what comes into being

*Cause is what brings it into being

*What is the cause of all the causes?

*Most effects have a cause

*There can be a being without any causing*A carpenter who refuses to create is still a carpenter

*“being” does not imply causing or a cause.

*A being that was not caused would be God.

*God causes, not because He must, because he chooses.

*Origin of the Concept of Cause: The four

Causes

*Hey, you know this!

*Cause, Condition and occasion*Cause: Really flows into an effect

*Condition: That which is required for the cause to produce the effect

*Occasion: The situation which favors the actuation of a present cause

*Whatever influences a thing in its becoming is a cause of that thing

*Materials can influence being

*The form a being takes influence’s being

*The maker of a thing influences being

*The purpose of a thing influences being

*Material and Formal Cause: Theological

Relevance

*A Person can become a material cause of a supernatural act, like charity.

*In a supernatural act of charity the person doing the act is the material cause and the grace from God is the Formal Cause.

*Efficient Cause: creation and causality

*What makes something to be? What brings about the reality of a being?

*Creatures truly do cause other things to be, they produce beings

*This is an example of God’s power

*It is more powerful to share the power to create with your creatures, than it is to simply retain that power to yourself.

*We do really cause and this makes us responsible for our actions.

*The Instrumental Cause

*Efficient Cause is divided into Principal and Instrumental

*Instrumental Cause: That which acts on an effect by virtue of the fact it is moved by the principal agent.*A pen is an instrumental cause of writing. It acts by virtue of the principal agent which is the person controlling it.

*Free persons can also become the instrumental cause of something for God, but God would take into account their power, intelligence and freedom.

*The Final Cause: Cause of causes

*The final cause is what motivates the efficient cause to act.*The need for a table motivates the woodworker to make one.

*It is called the final cause because it is the last to be reached.

*It is also the first cause because it sets all else in motion.

*Direction to an End; Freedom and

Love

*Non-Intelligent agents are directed by nature.

*Intelligent agents direct themselves.

*They (you) recognize an end as an end.

*They (you) choose the appropriate means to their end.

*They (you) don’t really choose your ends so much as the means you will use to reach them.

*Only humanity can recognize the absolute last end: God

*Only humanity has the ability to choose the means with which to deal with it.

*Principal of Causality

*Definition: If there is motion, there is something that moves, and something must move it.

*Corollary: every effect implies a cause

*There have been attempts to refute this

*See p. 113 for the attempt by David Hume

*If the principal can be disproved it will provide solid reason to deny the existence of God, or a first cause.