By RAYMOND DE SOUZA
Part 5
When we talk about simple logic, it is a good thing to begin with realities that everyone knows to be true. For instance: Everybody knows that for a man or an animal or even a thing to do anything, it must exist in the first place. For you to read, you must exist before reading. For a bee to make one ounce of honey, it must exist in the first place. For the rain to fall on your roof, it must exist as well.
Why is it so? Simply because non-existing beings do not do anything. Naturally. Equally evident, or certainly more evident, is the fact that nothing can create itself. If we see anything new come into existence, a chair, a new model sports car, a butterfly, a baby, or anything that was not there before, we are sure it must have been brought into existence by something or someone else.
So far we all agree, don’t we? OK. Now, in logical terms, we call the thing that did not exist and is now existing an effect. And the thing that brought it into existence, a cause.
But the causes we know are also effects from other causes. The chair came from the wood taken from a tree and the work of a carpenter with tools; the butterfly came out of an egg laid by another butterfly; the baby was born of his parents, and so on. Take another example: the electric light that suddenly springs up at the flick of a switch and floods your room at nighttime. It is an effect. But what is its cause? The electric current. But the current is an effect of the moving generator.
Now, we know that the moving generator is not the last cause that we can name in the list of causes, because it was made by someone with some materials. So, we are still without a full and satisfactory explanation of the electric light because the generator itself is an effect. Therefore, at the end of our series of questions, we find ourselves in the presence of a long series of causes and effects.
Let us repeat in general or abstract form what we have been saying in the last paragraph:
In the world around us, the existence of any particular thing, which we will call A, is accounted for by something else, which we will call B. A is the effect; B is its cause. But B itself is the effect of C; and C the effect of D; D the effect of E, and so on through a long series.
If the last cause which we can set down — let us call it Z — has itself been produced by something else, then we are still without a true and satisfactory explanation of A. When we run out of letters in the English alphabet, we begin using the Greek, with alpha, beta, and the list goes on.
Now, if there were not a first cause, two explanations impose themselves, and both are unworkable. First: If there were no first cause, then there was no second either, because the second depended on the first to exist. If there were no second, then there was no third, either, or fourth, etc., etc. Then, there should be nothing in the universe. But the universe is there for all to see. So this hypothesis is false.
The second hypothesis is that matter is eternal; it does not corrupt itself, and remains as good as new all the time. That would explain the nonexistence of the first cause. But the second law of thermodynamics contradicts this idea, because the amount of energy in the universe is being continuously spent. Stars burn themselves out when there is no more energy, just as the candle lit by the Blessed Sacrament dies out after a while.
The energy that exists today will come to an end in some zillions of years. Yes, the universe is material, and matter is demonstrably not eternal. It will come to a standstill someday. If it will end, it began. If it began, who or what gave it its beginning? The only solution is to admit that it was begun by a Cause outside of itself.
The complete and final explanation will be found only when we reach a cause which is not an effect, a Cause which has not derived its existence from anything else. This cause, which we designate the First Cause, accounts at once for the entire series of causes which we have been considering and of any other series which we choose to investigate.
Thus, the First Cause of all things in nature must necessarily be uncaused (if it were caused, it would not be the first cause). It was not brought into existence; thus, it must have existence of itself, it must be self-existent. The first cause, the self-existent source of all things, we call God.
Summing up: Order necessarily presupposes an orderer. Now, there is order in the universe. And when you see things neatly organized according to the specific nature and purpose of everything, therefore you know that someone who knew the purpose of everything put it together. The universe is in order. Therefore, someone put it in order. That “someone” we call God.
According to the natural property of matter called inertia, inanimate matter cannot start or stop a movement without the assistance of a being outside of it, to start or stop the movement. The universe moves. Therefore, it owes its movement to a being outside of it that set it in motion. This being we call God.
A law does not exist by itself. It is an effect. It is passed and enforced by a lawmaker. The universe is full of natural laws, each and every one being enforced all the time. Therefore, the universe has a lawmaker that passes the laws and enforces them. That Lawmaker we call God.
Nothing that exists owes its existence to itself. Nothing can create itself. Since the universe exists, it does not owe its existence to itself, but to another being that exists outside of it, independently of it, therefore uncreated. That being we call God.
A Bunch Of Nothing
That is why atheism is the silliest thing a human mind can concoct, as was well illustrated by a text I posted on my Facebook page:
“Atheism is the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.”
Makes perfect sense.
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(Raymond de Souza is an EWTN program host; regional coordinator for Portuguese-speaking countries for Human Life International [HLI]; president of the Sacred Heart Institute, and a member of the Sovereign, Military, and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta. His website is: www.RaymonddeSouza.com.)
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