The Medieval philosophers Thomas Aquinas and Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali were two of the most influential of their age. That time of philosophy was primarily tied with religion and new ideas of what God may mean for us that have passed on to our current ideologies today. In the present day, however, science has largely taken place as the main “rational belief” in society with atheism continuing to increase in prevalence as the years progress as well. A greater belief in systems that are built on consistency, evidence, and logic as opposed to faith-based ones have been the general result of these ideological shifts. Nonetheless, the ideas of the Medieval philosophers are still relevant today in the way that they help prove that today’s scientific systems are just as faith-based as the religions that they have succeeded.
In the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas’ second question is: Does God exist? This itself brings along even more questions as though there are straightforward answers of “yes” and “no,” to conjure any persuasion for each side will need more work. However, Aquinas does give some narrowing of his own position on this with this quote in his reply within Article I: “But because we do not know what God is, the proposition is not self-evident to us and needs to be demonstrated by things more known to us, though less known as far as their nature goes – that is, by God’s effects” (ST 1a q.2). What Aquinas is saying here is that it is not self-evident that God exists because one can primarily deny it through nonbelief, but secondly we do not know what God’s essence is because we cannot definitively define Him from our human knowledge; so from a purely human perspective, it is not self-evident. From this, we can see that we cannot understand what God is, but Aquinas believes that we can reason from God’s effects. To elaborate on this more clearly, I will present the two kinds of demonstration that Aquinas is implying:
1. Why Demonstration: A known cause results in one noticing some effect.
P1: A cause is something that directly influences an outcome to occur.
P2: An effect is an outcome that results from something directly influencing it.
C1: An effect can be known from a cause.
2. That Demonstration: An effect noticed leads one to know its cause.
P1: A cause is something that directly influences an outcome to occur.
P2: An effect is an outcome that results from something directly influencing it.
C2: A cause can be known from an effect.
For further understanding, I will provide two common examples for each argument:
3. Socrates Argument for “Why Demonstration.”
P1: Socrates is human.
P2: All humans are mortal.
C: Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
4. A God Argument for “That Demonstration.”
P1: Nothing changes/causes itself.
P2: No infinite regress of causes exists.
C: Therefore, there must be something first (Aquinas says this is God).
From the Socrates argument, the syllogism follows a standard A–>B, B–>C, therefore A–>C valid argument form. This form shows that the middle term “B” or “human” is the identifiable cause in which we have a cause-and-effect argument. It is the term that allows us to know why the conclusion of “Socrates is mortal” is true. The God argument, however, has no direct cause that connects everything together. This is because it is an effect argument. What we are given is that the “something first” is being attributed to God. The two premises are not connected in a causal fashion like the A, B, C syllogistic form, but are instead two effects noticed by observation. One can derive a conclusion from those effects by attributing the word “God” to be the cause of them. One can then attach a meaning to the word “God” that gives us the “cause” which could be, for example, a Being who is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good. Those three attributes explain the conclusion, but they do so outside of the argument form because of the definition applied to the cause (God) and another theist could have a differing definition of God. In argument 4, the “something first” is what we call God, but we still don’t know what that cause is. So the problem is that Aquinas is attributing explanations for the sake of ends, instead of means. I believe that this is a problem for logical thinking and that “that demonstrative” arguments are not valid.
I will start by invalidating the example argument 4 above. Firstly, it is known that for an argument to be valid, the premises must connect well to the conclusion. P1 and P2 are seen as effects as previously mentioned. These individual effects have no direct connection to one another and neither to the conclusion. They are merely statements of thought that only show commonality by the fact that they are talking about topics of creation. They are like attempts to explain that a car is the color red by saying it is not orange, not yellow, not green, etc. Eventually, all the other colors will be shown to not be the color of the car, so the only answer left is red. I could just as easily add another premise saying “A cause cannot come from another universe outside of all matter and energy existing in this universe” which would merely be another effect statement that helps push for the cause being the Christian God. With argument 4, yes P1 and P2 can very well be true, but that does not mean that C is true because of their truthiness.
Using the argument form above at 2, I attempted to logically apply the “that demonstrative” argument in a standard way. I think that most will agree that P1 and P2 are true, but do they connect well to the conclusion? Can a cause be known from an effect 100% of the time? Say that a yellow penalty flag is seen on a football field. This is an effect of one of the players in the football game committing a penalty. However, I do not know the definitive cause that made this penalty flag appear on the ground. It could have been for holding, pass interference, offsides, on the offense, on the defense, etc.; it is impossible to know the direct cause from just the effect. I could name all of the possible penalties for the situation and eventually I would say the cause, but I would not be able to pinpoint the exact one from the bunch. I can similarly name a myriad of effects that a possible God has committed, but I would not be able to concretely say that the cause was indeed God or that it was God with certain specific attributes.
Inversely, if there is a cause of a defensive player holding an offensive player, then I can 100% discern that the effect will be the throwing of the yellow penalty flag. This is why the Socrates argument 3 works as well. If the cause is that Socrates is human, then the effect will always be that he is mortal. Now, I believe that we as humans are very logical creatures. We derive our sciences from mathematics to physics to chemistry on these “why demonstrative” arguments because we want to be able to consistently know the outcomes (effects) of the situations in our everyday lives. However, I believe that one facet of the sciences is not loyal to this method of deduction: the four fundamental forces.
Every reaction, movement, and change within science can be attributed to the four fundamental forces. These include: gravity, the electromagnetic force, the weak force, and the strong force. The problem with these forces (as with any type of system) is that they are “givens.” To be a “given” is to be essentially a brute fact. A theologian “given” is that God exists. A mathematical “given” is that one equals one because it is one, and two equals two because it is two which is one plus one. There are no further logical reasoning tactics that can attribute these “givens” to be proven in any way than which they just are. Isaac Newton explained gravity to be a fundamental attraction between two objects with mass. Albert Einstein explained it to be how mass/energy bends space-time in such a way that objects with less “bending power” are therefore overpowered and bend toward the larger ones. I can drop my pencil on the ground, that is gravity in action. The pencil is forced toward the Earth, and even the Earth is forced toward the pencil, but these are adequately proportioned due to their differing masses to basically just having the pencil “fall.” This act of falling by the pencil is an effect and people throughout time have noticed it and eventually it was given a word to define it: gravity. This name, like that of “God,” is not the definitive cause of the pencil falling, it is just a word with a meaning behind it: the fundamental attraction between two objects with mass. But, of course, this is just a definition we applied to the word “gravity.” We can see that there is the attraction (effect), but there is no discernible cause, just an attributive explanation for the sake of an end: giving us some solace for an unknowable reason that this phenomenon exists in our universe.
The electromagnetic force, in short, is the phenomenon where like-charges repel from each other and opposite-charges attract to each other. This is in the form of negative and positive charges which can be witnessed from car-sized magnets to the electron-proton interactions within an atom. Photon particles are what allow force to exist at the smallest level where the zero-mass particle moves at the speed of light from electrons of one atom to protons of another to allow for a balloon to stick to the ceiling and lightning to strike an unlucky umbrella. These charges, however, are intrinsic to the atomic particles. The electron just is negative, the proton just is positive; these are also just two effects that scientists have given names to on the basis of allowing for the properties of them to work consistently within the systems of chemistry and physics – though there is a little more going on within the particles which I will get into with the next two forces.
Continuing on, we must work further into the nucleus of an atom. This subatomic area contains protons (positively charged particles) and neutrons (neutrally charged particles) while surrounding it are electrons (even smaller, negatively charged particles). The weak force influences these particles by changing them into each other through particle decay. This type of decay is responsible for radioactive dating as well as nuclear fusion (how stars are formed and continue to burn). This changing of particles is influenced by even smaller particles called quarks, which consist of “up” (slightly positive) and “down” (slightly negative) flavors. Other subatomic particles used in this force are W bosons, which are housed in neutrinos (electron-sized particles). A neutron has one up and two down quarks while a proton has one down and two up quarks.
Based on this information, we can see how beta decay works. The weak force in action for beta decay is when a neutrino transfers a positively charged W boson to a neutron. The resulting changes that occur are the neutrino turning into an electron and then one of the down quarks of the neutron changing to an up quark (the positive W boson turns the quark from negative to positive, flipping its direction), which makes the neutron now a proton. Mathematically, this makes sense as the weak force basically changed a 0 charged particle into one -1 and one +1 charged particle. This is how a carbon-14 atom (6 protons, 8 neutrons) turns into a nitrogen atom (7 protons, 7 neutrons, 1 electron released).
The strong force is similar to the weak force in that it relates to the nucleus and quarks, but it has a different role. Based on the electromagnetic force, positive particles will repel each other if within a close enough distance, just like magnets. This seems to be a problem if one imagines an atom nucleus because it is full of positive protons. So how do all atoms not burst apart? How is this electromagnetic force overcome? It turns out that the strong force is named appropriately; it is the strongest of the four fundamental forces and so it can overcome traditional magnetism “rules” as well as gravity and the weak force. The quarks from before are also involved. As mentioned before, there are three quarks inside each proton and inside each neutron. What holds each of these three quarks together so that there are no free-flying quarks anywhere is the strong force, which is facilitated by another, smaller particle, called a gluon. These gluons have no mass and no charge, yet flow between all three quarks to make sure they all stay together, which keeps every individual proton and neutron distinct. However, this force can “overflow” out of each individual nucleus particle through another subatomic particle called a pion which is made of two quarks. The exchange of these two-quark pion particles between the protons and neutrons within an atomic nucleus is what allows it to stay intact. In fact, it is so precise that the strong force is repulsive at very small distances to allow the atomic nucleus to have some measurable volume and very attractive at larger distances to allow for the actual keeping together of the protons and neutrons…
So now, I imagine, one can see just how ridiculous this sounds compared to the classical sciences of biology, chemistry, etc. How are there so many of these subatomic particles? How can we even see or measure them? How does a gluon, which has no mass or charge, know how to travel between the three quarks? What is its actual affinity for the quarks which are made of nothing more than themselves as they are “fundamental” particles? How does the pion evenly travel throughout the nucleus? Though some of these questions have definitive answers if I were to explain further, eventually those answers would get to a similar conclusion through enough cosmological “but what causes that?” questions. All these explanations are not reminiscent of nonsense because they are a part of very complex subject matter, but it is because all of this is the result of “that demonstrations.”
As scientists learned about subatomic data over time, they came to realize just how much our previous laws of physics could not explain the phenomena seen. I do not deny that gravity or the strong force are real; however, it can be clearly deduced that these “given” phenomena were first seen as effects and then names sure as “gluon,” “pion,” “positive charge,” etc. were applied with their own specific properties to give a cause (such as the weak force), although the complete picture was not yet known, just like with God. Science is therefore built on as much faith as religion. It is not convenient within its discovery by our human-made system that the strong force has the perfect range to repel the nucleus for volume and also attract it to prevent it from falling apart, it just has always been that way and scientists have since applied names to the phenomena that occur, then attribute definitions to the phenomena so that a consistent system can be used mathematically for our own purposes. A system is built to prove itself within itself and to disprove all other systems. Our current subatomic system is built to prove itself within itself and disprove all other systems. One can say that the will of God is what “pushes” the pencil back down to Earth at 9.8 m/s^2. Science tries to disprove that, and it also tries to prove that “gravity” by its name and definition that describes the effect is what pushes it to the ground at 9.8 m/s^2. A certain theist may try to disprove that gravity fundamentally pulls objects of mass together, and he also tries to prove that “God” by His name and definition that describes the effect is what pushes the pencil to the ground.
One may now question: What does this mean? Why does it matter that these four fundamental forces are “that demonstrations.” I know that gravity and magnets work consistently and we can use our measurements and equations for them just fine, what’s the issue? The problem is then that everything in science is built off of these fundamental forces. Without the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces, atoms could not exist at all. Then the intermolecular forces of London Dispersion, Dipole Interactions, Hydrogen Bonding, Ionic Bonding, and Covalent Bonding would not be possible. Then cells could not form, and therefore life, and so on. So what I am saying is that it is irresponsible and hypocritical for the scientific community to act like these phenomena are just as valid as “why demonstrative” phenomena and that having them around are concrete explanations for why anything in the world works when we just know how they behave based on effects and then we present a model that fits that behavior. This is equivalent to us not knowing what God is like (because He is not self-evident) and yet religions use Him as a model that fits for how the world works. The scientific community has continued to make advances that disprove many different facets of religious thought. In Aquinas’ time, the idea that the Earth was only a few thousand years old was the norm, a virgin birth was possible. Nowadays, many religious believers have had to alter their opinions of their faith based on new discoveries found by science. And science has this right to expand human knowledge this way and push against faith-based “that demonstrations” in the pursuit of objective truth, but that also means that they cannot push the theories of subjects like the four fundamental forces as their own Gospel to be seen as truisms.
Objectors may bring in the answer: “What are you talking about? Science has been proven time and time again to be reliable on the level of experimentation through the scientific method. Physics allows me to throw a ball up and I can calculate the maximum vertical position based on variables such as the ball’s initial position, velocity, and acceleration. We have hundreds of years of data to show how mutations in the genome will provide a species with the best traits for their environment over time.” This is all very true in the sense of classical mechanics, but with subatomic (quantum) mechanics, medieval philosopher Al-Ghazali was ahead of his time in showing how direct cause-and-effect may not exist in our world.
In Discussion 17 of The Incoherence of the Philosophers, Al-Ghazali was adamant in trying to view the world without a complete cause-and-effect basis: “The connection between what is habitually believed to be a cause and what is habitually believed to be an effect is not necessary” (§1). This is because, for example, if fire can always burn a dry leaf, then that means that there can be no miracles. If the burning of a leaf happened every time the experiment occurred, then that means that it would be impossible for God to interfere if He wanted to. If every birth requires the joining of a sperm and egg, then that means that Christ could never have been born. “It is within divine power to create satiety without eating, to create death without decapitation, to continue life after decapitation, and so on to all connected things,” says Al-Ghazali (§1). I believe many scientists would smile at these “fantasies” as they go against all evidence-based knowledge that we have accumulated through the centuries: faith cannot bring consistent results in the real world. However, let me bring in the scenario of a hydrogen atom, which has one proton and one electron “orbiting” it. Well, that is just how the models show it in college general chemistry, based on quantum mechanics, the electron is technically “everywhere in space all at once, with more of a probability of being at certain places than others” (Samani, 2:04). This phenomenon allows for the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to be attributed to these subatomic particles: one cannot know both the position and the velocity of a subatomic particle. To make things even more inconsistent, the subatomic particles actually exhibit “wave-like behavior” to which the times when the electron moves smoothly (easier to find its position) means that its wavelength (used to find its velocity) is less defined; and the times where the electron has a more defined wavelength velocity, it’s wave is more spread out, making its position impossible to find. This means that unlike classical mechanics, where position and velocity are directly related where if someone has one of those values and a variable of time then the other can be found, quantum mechanics has these values unable to be found from one another. There is no cause-and-effect relationship between position and velocity at this level. Every time I locate the position of the electron, its velocity becomes illusory to me; every time I find its velocity, its position is indefinite. I can still find the velocity of a car based on its position and time or the position of a ball based on its velocity and time, but in these subatomic cases, it does not work; the fire does not burn the dry leaf. Perhaps this is just God intervening, showing us that miracles occur in our life every day in every atom of everything we know.
The four fundamental forces of science share the same effect-based evidence as the world’s religions do. A certain level of faith is needed at this smallest level of our universe that ends up building up to influence every possible aspect of everything we know. The Medieval philosophers were not around to be able to understand these aspects of life, but their thinking has transcended their time to help the people of today understand the importance of asking questions in the name of knowledge. I find great comfort in this argument because if I follow Aquinas’ and Al-Ghazali’s thinking toward quantum forces, I do not merely find conflict between science and religion; I see that the forces of life are built upon miracles at the subatomic level that very likely could have not all come together to give us existence, and yet we are all here, and whether there is a God or not, I believe that this is a realization where we can cherish how lucky we are to have life no matter what ideologies separate us.
Works Cited:
Al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid. The Incoherence of the Philosophers, trans. Michael E. Marmura. (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2000), pages 166-167.
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, trans. Brian Davies and Brian Leftow. (Cambridge: University Press, 2006), pages 20-21.
Samani, Josh, director. What Can Schrödinger’s Cat Teach Us about Quantum Mechanics? YouTube, YouTube, 21 Aug. 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1GCnycbMeA. Accessed 3 Dec. 2022.