Q&A: The Principle of Causality
The Principle of Causality
Question
To the honorable Rabbi,
I saw what you wrote in the booklet "The Cosmological Argument," page 23, and I was unable to understand. If the principle of causality originates in rational thought, how can we say that it applies only to sense data? Isn't the intention that this is something logical, like mathematics, that applies in every place and time?
Answer
It does not apply only to sense data. With regard to sense data it does apply, but also in other contexts. Except for places where there is an argument showing that it does not (God).
By the way, it is not like logic, because it is neither necessary nor certain.
Discussion on Answer
Indeed, that is the argument. Logic does not depend on any legitimacy.
But likewise I can say that it does not apply to the world as such, so why do I need to add God? And one cannot say that the universe as a whole is among the things in our experience, because so what? There is no real "understanding" behind distinguishing between things we have experience of and that which we have no experience of; it is just a way of escaping infinite regress.
!and that would probably make more sense considering Occam's razor
I explained the difference, and indeed its basis is avoiding infinite regress.
What argument shows that it does not apply to God? If it is the argument that otherwise you have an infinite regress, that still does not give you the legitimacy to say that it therefore does not apply, since there really is no understanding of why it should not apply to God.