The Long and the Short of Infinite Regressions

One of my favorite philosophy bloggers is James Chastek at Just Thomism. I find his posts more challenging than Ed Feser‘s (one of my other favorites); Feser’s usually going out of his to explain Thomism (and Scholastic philosophy in general) to those outside the tradition, while Chastek’s posts are more usually reflections or even meditations on something he’s been pondering. As such they take longer to read and appreciate, and far too often I don’t make the attempt. I’ve long thought that I should go back to the beginning of his blog (which goes back to 2004, long before I started reading him) and read through it a little a time. And in February of 2004, I found a gem called “A False Inference About Infinite Regressions“; it’s especially apropos given my recent posts about Aquinas’ proofs for God’s existence:

We prove the existence of God By showing the impossibility of certain things having an infinite regress (Motion, causality, contingency…etc.)

One of the most common inferences from this is that God’s causality in things must be very far away. After all, we are only sure that the causes are not infinite. How many are there then? Billions?

When I was discussing this proof with a class yesterday, everyone in the class was quietly convinced that this God, even if he existed, must be very far away. If God acted on the here and now, he only did so with a very long pair of fire tongs, or through a universe of middle men.

This comes from thinking in terms of creation as something that happened a long, long time I ago. I was caused by my parents, who were caused by their parents, and so on, and so on, and so on, back to the Big Bang or the Garden of Eden, as you prefer. But that’s what St. Thomas calls a per accidens chain of causes, and one that (pace revelation) could theoretically go on infinitely.

But in fact, God is much closer to us than that.

But this is to profoundly misunderstand the proof. If we actually follow out lines of causality are probably not more than five intermediate causes between any action or being and God (very often there are none). All things which reduce to some natural motion or desire are in immediate contact with the Divine causality, for nature is nothing other than an openness to be moved by the divine mind in a certain way.

This is only to say that if there are intermediate causes, there usually are not many between the first and the final. To deny an infinite regress is not to assert an immense one.

I, as a human being, am sustained in being directly by God (just as is everything in the cosmos). There are no links in the chain between me and God; He’s right there. When I move my hand, my will moves my hand, and my hand moves the shovel, and the shovel moves the dirt. But God sustains me in being, and thus allows me to will to move my hand.

God is closer than you might think.

* So I was looking for a picture of a father walking with his son, hand-in-hand. Oddly, virtually all of the pictures that popped up were of storm troopers. (shrug)