The Physico-theological Argument
You wrote to me in the past that a willful God is required by the physico-theological argument.
Desire, Purpose and Perfection – Rabbi Michael Avraham (mikyab.net)
Your Haggadahs always enlighten me, so I would love to understand why. Why not say that the regression stops at a necessary being that is not known to us and for some reason does not need a cause. I agree that this sounds problematic, but how exactly does “God” being volitional or conscious, etc. solve anything?
Thank you very much.
Not exactly. The physico-theological argument requires a first cause that itself has no cause. It is an argument that says it is unlikely that this is a mechanical and involuntary cause (you yourself write that this sounds problematic, so what is the question?!). If it is a mechanical cause, it itself needs an explanation/reason.
Anyway, if you think it’s reasonable then to your health. The physico-theological argument only proves the existence of a first cause. What you assume about it is up to you.
Beyond that, tradition joins the argument and tells us this.
Why doesn't my will need a reason?
And in general, those who claim that the knowledge that the entity is not mechanical contributes nothing to our knowledge of what it is, – my will is not the negation of mechanical.
We know nothing about a non-mechanical cause, except perhaps a sense of choice.
The truth is that any cause that is not mechanical is an abstract mystery to me.
It seems to me that claiming that God is volitional because He is not a mechanism is an argument from ignorance. I know nothing about non-mechanisms that affect anything. For me, we can simply say, as I wrote, that God simply causes without our knowledge and there is no indication whether He has volitions.
I do feel an elusive dichotomy between “volitional” and ”mechanical”, but I would like to know how to define it clearly, in a way that I can pass on.
I did not write that a voluntary entity does not need a cause, but that a primary entity that does not need a cause is probably voluntary.
When those who claim so claim, we will speak. This is just nonsense. Why is it clear for a mechanical entity and not for a voluntary entity? You just insist and blame it on others.
He didn't say that mechanical is clear and voluntary is not. He said that we have no indication of that primary cause except that it is a primary cause and therefore it is impossible to know whether it is voluntary or involuntary. It could be involuntary and not mechanical. These are not forms of negation.
It is not clear to me why it would need a cause of its own if it is involuntary. I would be very happy to explain.
And I answered that it is a matter of conjecture. A mechanical entity is not essentially different from the world and therefore leaves the question of cause. It necessarily creates a world as special as ours. This means that it itself is built in a way that requires it to create such a world, and then the question is why it is built so that such a world emerges from it, or what is the reason for this. But if it is a volitional entity, then it does not create such a world but rather decided on this type of world from among all the possibilities. This could be a primary cause.
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