What happened to the why questions? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
We all know about little children. The constant question they ask is “Why?” Many groups will try to claim them as their own. Those include scientists, journalists, lawyers, philosophers, theologians, etc. There are many professions where one of the questions you ask is “Why?”
Except we don’t really ask that much anymore.
There’s a quote said to be from Polkinghorne where he gets asked the question “Why is water boiling on the stove?” One such answer is “Because heat is being applied to the water thus causing its molecules to move further apart and thus turn from a liquid state into a gas state.” There’s another answer to the question as well.
“Because I am going to fix tea.”
Too often in our scientific age, we think the answer is the first one, but that is not what we have in mind. The first question merely describes what is going on. The second question asks a different question, the question of purpose.
In Aristotelian thought, a final cause is the reason why something is. What purpose does it serve? What is the end goal? This does not imply that the agent is acting intentionally. Kudzu grows and spreads. So do viruses. It’s not said that these are acting with an intentional plan.
Thomist Philosopher Edward Feser gives an example of an iceberg floating through water. As it goes on its way, the water in its area of effect becomes colder. It does not become cotton candy. Yes, this gets us into the fifth way for the existing of God, but that is not the point today.
Even if one holds to evolution, evolution depends on final causality. The goal is the passing on of the genes so that the most fit can survive. It’s literally described as the survival of the fittest.
Over a week ago, I saw an atheist make this argument in a group. I only still have it because it’s so monumentally stupid that I couldn’t believe anyone made it. Lo and behold, the capacity for human stupidity ever increases. So here is one of the stupidest arguments ever in all its infamy.
If God created everything and created everything perfect. Than God created the man’s anus to stretch large enough to fit a raccon inside of it. Just think that’s only part of humans body God created to stretch that big. God certainly wanted men to have big stuff in there
Leaving aside if God created everything perfect, it was one of those arguments that I had to have it register a bit before I said anything. I just couldn’t believe someone said something so monumentally ignorant. However, they did and so I asked a simple question.
I don’t remember the exact words, but it was asking what was known about final causality.
Because if you know what the final cause of the anus is, you know that the argument just doesn’t work. It violates that order.
When debates happen in “Pride Month”, we forget that final causality. We don’t know the purpose of so many things today. We don’t understand the purpose of sex, the family, and marriage, for a start. We think we can just change what any of these are and we’ll all get along fine.
We won’t, and I’m sure that a lot of people now are asking “What really is wrong about showing items of a sexual nature to extremely young children?” This is the normalization of pederasty starting.
When we treat sex as if it’s just a recreational activity and it doesn’t even matter the sexes of the people involved, we are lowering sex and ourselves. When we treat a family as just any group of people together, we are lowering the family. When we make marriage just a long-term relationship that anyone can leave at any time for any reason, we are lowering marriage.
Will that impact our society?
Look around and tell me what you think.
This is not to deny the role of the gospel in our society, but the gospel doesn’t dwell in a vacuum. We need good thinkers who can apply the principles of the gospel to life and in studying God’s world just as much as we should His Word, then we need to understand why the universe is the way it is. Why did God make things the way He did?
Bring back final causality.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)