Second Causes

I was part of a conversation recently among coworkers about Intelligent Design versus Evolution. No, not the merits of either case, but the concept of the two. My engineer associate told me he would not consider God as a possible answer to origins. That was just right out. No possibility. He offered a couple reasons. First, the theory of God is untestable. Um, well, okay, if you say so. More importantly, if the answer is "God", then we will not ask any more questions. It terminates the search.

I haven't figured out why. Maybe it's because I think in terms of First and second causes. What's that? Well, logic dictates that all effects have to have a cause. Rather than an infinite regression of prior causes, there must, then, be a First Cause. This First Cause would be an uncaused cause, not an effect. It would be what Aristotle termed the "First Mover". Without this uncaused cause, this first mover, there is no answer to the question how anything exists or anything moves. Because "a body at rest tends to stay at rest." Science rooted in materialism demands no First Cause and then has to argue that all that exists came into being from nothing and the Big Bang is a blatant violation of the Law of Inertia. Thus, they refuse to admit the singularity of God and embrace uncritically the singularity of the Big Bang. They argue "Nothing + Time = Everything". We argue "God + Nothing = Everything". And we're the irrational ones.

Rationally, then, there are good reasons to believe that there is a First Cause who would be, by definition, God. Logically for morality to have any binding basis, there would have to be a Prime Lawgiver who would be, by definition, God. It is reasonable to conclude that there is a God and that this God is the First Cause. But, it would be irrational to conclude, "Well, then, we will not ask any more questions." Why wouldn't we?

You see, "First Cause" implies, even demands "second causes". A "first" without a "second" (at least) is a meaningless term. And we who believe that God is the First Cause also assume He uses second causes. What are second causes? Well, that would be whatever tools He uses. If He wanted to drop a safe on your car, He would use gravity. Second cause. His will was first; the safe falling by gravity was second. Or let me try a biblical example. In 1 Kings Ahab died when "a certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel in a joint of the armor." (1 Kings 22:34). Of course, the event begs the question. Why was the king on the battlefield? Well, as it turns out, he went to battle because his prophets told him he would win (1 Kings 22:12). Okay, so a cause of his death was the arrow, but a prior cause was his prophets who, apparently, were false prophets. So, why did they mess that up so bad? Micaiah tells us that God wanted Ahab to die in battle (1 Kings 22:20). So "the LORD has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and the LORD has proclaimed disaster against you." (1 Kings 22:23). So a deceiving spirit caused the prophets to fail, and the deceiving spirit was sent by God. Ah! First Cause. Ahab died from an arrow in the chest because God wanted it so. God used 1) a deceiving spirit 2) in the mouths of Ahab's prophets to 3) get him to the battlefield where 4) a random arrow could kill him. Now that is a string of second causes.

So, here's the thing. If I believe that God is that bottom-line answer to the question of origins, that does not mean we stop asking questions. How did God do it? What processes did He use? When did He accomplish it? Why did He do it? Lots and lots of questions. Some are theological, some philosophical, some historical, and some scientific. Lots of ways to go. So just because God is the final answer does not require that we stop asking questions. In fact, it was this concept that originated modern science as Christians sought to use science to think God's thoughts after Him.

Have you ever heard that objection? "If God's the answer, it short-circuits the questions." Don't believe it. However, the converse is true. If God cannot be the answer, then you may just be removing the genuine answer. And that seems like a poor scientific method.