An Avicennan Critique of Bertrand Russell’s ‘Why am I not a Christian’

Sir Bertrand Russell begins this work with his objections on the First-Cause Argument, which are : “Perhaps the simplest and easiest to understand is the argument of the First Cause. (It is maintained that everything we see in this world has a cause, and as you go back in the chain of causes further and further you must come to a First Cause, and to that First Cause you give the name of God). That argument, I suppose, does not carry very much weight nowadays, because, in the first place, cause is not quite what it used to be. The philosophers and the men of science have got going on cause, and it has not anything like the vitality it used to have; but, apart from that, you can see that the argument that there must be a First Cause is one that cannot have any validity. I may say that when I was a young man and was debating these questions very seriously in my mind, I for a long time accepted the argument of the First Cause, until one day, at the age of eighteen, I read John Stuart Mill’s Autobiography, and I there found this sentence: ‘My father taught me that the question, “Who made me?” cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question, “Who made God?” ’ That very simple sentence showed me, as I still think, the fallacy in the argument of the First Cause. If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu’s view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, ‘How about the tortoise?’ the Indian said, ‘Suppose we change the subject.’ The argument is really no better than that. There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination. Therefore, perhaps, I need not waste any more time upon the argument about the First Cause.” https://users.drew.edu/jlenz/whynot.html

The First-Cause Argument was used by Christian theologians to prove the existence of God in the following manner: “since everything that exists has a cause and the cosmos exists, therefore the cosmos must also necessarily have a cause, and that cause is God”. Now Sir Russell used the same argument against the theists to prove that God must also have a cause. It is not difficult to ascertain from the above excerpt that according to Sir Russell’s understanding of the First-Cause Argument, everything that exists has a cause, and since everything that exists has a cause, so God must also have a cause if it is granted that He is an existent; Sir Russell’s objection to the argument is to be honest very sound because when the Christian theologians state that everything that exists has a cause but then later declare that God is an existent that has no cause, so they are actually contradicting themselves and violating the Principle of Non-Contradiction by making an exception in the case of God. The theologians have erroneously identified existence as the criterion of being an effect and hence requiring a cause, and since God also fulfills the criteria by being an existent therefore He too must necessarily be an effect of some cause, as Sir Bertrand Russel rightly mentions.

However if we alter the major premise of the argument from saying that “everything that exists has a cause” to saying that “every contingent-existent has a cause” so Sir Russell’s objection loses its validity completely, because the criterion of being an effect and hence requiring a cause is not existence but contingency which is defined as the negation of the necessity of existence and the necessity of non-existence, therefore a contingent-essence is one for which neither existence nor non-existence is necessary but both are equally possible, and due to oscillating in this state of equilibrium between the possibility of existence and the possibility of non-existence a contingent-essence depends upon an external agent or preponderant that can prefer the possibility of its existence over the possibility of its non-existence by converting the possibility of existence into a necessity thereby realizing the existence of the essence. Now since the real criterion of being an effect is contingency and not existence as has been demonstrated, and God is a Necessary Being and not a contingent one, therefore Sir Russell’s objection “then God must also have a cause” loses its validity completely. It has now become evident that the question “who made ‘x’?” is only appropriate where ‘x’ is an essentially-contingent being and therefore cannot be asked in respect of an essence that is either essentially-impossible or a Necessary Being, and since God is a Necessary Being therefore the question “who made ‘x’?” cannot be asked in respect of God.

Sir Russell further remarks in the above excerpt that “If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God”, here as well Sir Russell has made a very valid objection to the First-Cause Argument as formulated and presented by the Christian theologians according to which “since everything that exists has a cause and the cosmos exists, therefore the cosmos must also necessarily have a cause, and that cause is God”; now what Sir Russell is rightly saying here is that if everything that exists must have a cause, so why must God be made an exception because after all if the criterion for being an effect and thus needing a cause is ‘existence’, so God also fulfills this criterion and hence must also be an effect of some prior cause; and if an exception must be made so why can’t that exception be made in respect of the cosmos instead of God. The objection is an extremely potent and an irrefutable one if the major premise of the argument is to remain unchanged as “everything that exists has a cause”, because in its unaltered form the major premise identifies the criterion for being an effect and thus requiring a cause as ‘existence’; but if the major premise is amended to say that “every contingent-existent has a cause” then Sir Russell’s objection is once again rendered ineffective because the altered form of the major premise identifies essential-contingency as the criterion for being an effect and thus needing a cause as opposed to ‘existence’, and since the world is a matter-form composite, and every composite by virtue of its dependence upon its parts is essentially-contingent therefore the world cannot be without a cause, as Sir Russell may have desired it to be.

Towards the end of the above excerpt Sir Russell states further that “There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause”, this I am afraid was not expected from someone of his stature and intellect and it would have been much better for him not to have uttered these words, because to say that the world is originated is equivalent to stating that the world did not exist before or that it has come into being from non-being and hence the fact that the world did not exist before and then subsequently came into existence is proof of its contingency because the very fact that the world exists now is sufficient evidence against its being an impossible-essence [something for which existence is impossible] for had it been impossible in essence so it could never have existed; therefore the world which is now existent can either be essentially-necessary [meaning a Necessary Being] or contingent, but the fact that the world is originated and hence did not exist before is sufficient proof of its contingency because had it been essentially-necessary so it would never have not existed, meaning that had the world been essentially-necessary so it could never have failed to exist, but the fact that it is originated and hence did not exist before shows that it did fail to exist at some point and hence cannot be essentially-necessary, and this establishes the contingent nature of the world. Now having established that the world is contingent we would here like to reiterate what was said earlier in relation to identifying the criterion of being an effect and thus needing a cause was contingency and not existence; in other words that which is contingent is an effect, and since the world is contingent therefore it must also be an effect and due to this reason could not have come into being without a cause.

In the last few lines of his criticism on the First-Cause Argument he states “nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all” ; here again I would agree with Sir Russell in that there is nothing within the essence of the cosmos or the world itself that could suggest its being originated or to have come into being in time, but I do not agree with Sir Russell’s intent and purpose behind making this statement which is to deny the need of a cause for the world by asserting its eternity because Sir Russell has mistakenly judged eternity as proof of the non-caused nature of an existent; the error here lies in not realizing that the criterion of being an effect and thus requiring a cause is contingency and not origination or the coming into the existence from non-existence, therefore even an eternal world would still be an effect and hence dependent upon a cause by reason of its essential-contingency regardless of being eternal. In other words eternity will not render an essentially-contingent world independent of a cause because a cause is not just needed for originating an existent but is primarily needed for granting preference to the possibility of existence of an essence over the possibility of its non-existence thereby converting the possibility of existence of an essence into a necessity for existence, and eternity does not eliminates this need of an essence for continued preference of the possibility of being over the possibility of non-being throughout its eternal existence.

Sir Russell next moves onto to his analysis of the Natural Law Argument which is “Then there is a very common argument from natural law. That was a favorite argument all through the eighteenth century, especially under the influence of Sir Isaac Newton and his cosmogony. People observed the planets going round the sun according to the law of gravitation, and they thought that God had given a behest to these planets to move in that particular fashion, and that was why they did so. That was, of course, a convenient and simple explanation that saved them the trouble of looking any further for explanations of the law of gravitation. Nowadays we explain the law of gravitation in a somewhat complicated fashion that Einstein has introduced” ; according to Sir Russell the planets do not revolve around the sun because of a divine behest but due to the influence of the laws of gravitation. Now there is nothing within the essence of the phenomenon of gravitation to indicate that it necessarily had to be or that it could not have failed to be because the very fact that Einstein and Russell were able to abstract the essence [which is the answer to the question ‘what Is it?’] of the phenomenon of gravitation from its external existence and thereby separate its essence and existence, is proof of the fact that existence is not integral/identical to and inseparable from, the essence of gravitation, because had existence been integral to and inseparable from the essence of the phenomenon of gravitation, in other words had the existence of gravitation been identical to its essence, so it would never have been possible for these scientists to abstract or separate the essence of gravitation from its existence, the two being the same or indistinct; and every existent which is an essence and existence composite is contingent and hence an effect of a cause, therefore the phenomenon of gravitation is also an effect of some cause. Sir Russell has here erroneously assumed that the causes of phenomenon can only be sensible or empirical and has therefore discounted metaphysical-causes which [to use his own words] saved him the trouble of looking any further for explanations of the law of gravitation. Scientific explanations of the laws of gravitation answer the ‘what’ of gravitation, meaning the question concerning its essence, but these explanations fall short of answering the ‘why’ of the phenomenon of gravitation.

Towards the end of his criticism on the Natural Law argument he states “ ‘Why did God issue just those natural laws and no others?’ If you say that He did it simply from His own good pleasure, and without any reason, you then find that there is something which is not subject to law, and so your train of natural law is interrupted. If you say, as more orthodox theologians do, that in all the laws which God issues He had a reason for giving those laws rather than others—the reason, of course, being to create the best universe, although you would never think it to look at it—if there was a reason for the laws which God gave, then God Himself was subject to law, and therefore you do not get any advantage by introducing God as an intermediary. You have really a law outside and anterior to the divine edicts, and God does not serve your purpose, because He is not the ultimate lawgiver”. The answer to the question above ‘Why did God issue just those natural laws and no others?’ Is, that all natural laws prevalent in the cosmos emanate or flow from the very nature or essence of the divine and therefore could not have been other than what they are and to demand these laws to be other than what they are is equivalent to demanding them not to have emanated from God, and to require God to have issued laws other than the prevalent ones is the same as asking God to have acted contrary to his very nature or essence and to have been or acted in a manner other than what He Is, which is impossible in the light of the Law of Identity according to which a thing say ‘x’ cannot be other than what it is namely ‘x’. In other words since the natural laws emanate or flow from the very nature or essence of the divine therefore to ask these laws to have been other than what they are or to require God to have issued laws different from these amounts to asking God to be other than Himself, which as has been shown is impossible. According to Sir Russell if these natural laws flow from the divine will [good pleasure] then it must be without a reason, as can be seen in his statement “If you say that He did it simply from His own good pleasure, and without any reason, you then find that there is something which is not subject to law, and so your train of natural law is interrupted”; now why can’t the issuance of these laws be through the divine will and also have a reason for the issuance or emanation of these laws, because as has been explained that these laws flow from the very nature or essence of God and since the divine will is identical to the essence therefore they flow from the Will, not without a reason but with a reason that is not extraneous to the divine essence but the reason is identical with the essence and is in fact the essence itself because the purpose or reason behind the emanation of these laws from the essence in particular and of the issuance of every divine act in general is the self-disclosure or manifestation of divine attributes, therefore these natural-laws not only flow from God’s Will but they flow with a reason and both the Will and the reason or purpose are identical to the divine essence, and not factors extraneous to it. Towards the end he says “if there was a reason for the laws which God gave, then God Himself was subject to law, and therefore you do not get any advantage by introducing God as an intermediary. You have really a law outside and anterior to the divine edicts, and God does not serve your purpose, because He is not the ultimate lawgiver” this objection is no longer valid because if the reason or purpose for the issuance of these laws is the divine-essence itself and not factors extraneous to it, then how can the essence become subject to itself.