That’s a very interesting twist Silhouette. Worth thinking about.
I’ve thought about it myself several times but never in the context of the cosmological argument. It adds new meaning to the expression of “alpha and omega”, or a cyclical universe. If the necessity of a first cause invariably comes with the necessity of a final effect, and we have just as much right to call the first cause “God” as we do the final effect, it paints a picture of a universe that comes from God in the beginning and returns to God in the end–a full circle, a complete picture.
Yet, what are we saying when we talk about the universe culminating in God as a final effect? Presumably God always exists along side his creation, which allows for deism, so what sense does it make to say that the final effect of the universe is God? As a first cause, it makes sense. God creates the universe. Much like I might create a cake. But what this means is that God had an effect which was to bring about the existence of the universe, just like my effect was to bring about a cake. If the cake has a “final effect” and that final effect has to come around to me, then it just means I was the final thing the cake effected before it disappeared (I ate it?). So to say that the final effect of the universe is God is to say that the final thing the universe effects before it (for some reason) disappears is God. How it effects God is anyone’s guess, but presumably it would have to be in such a significant way that only in this way does it disappear (and it can’t just be that God destroys the universe because that would make God a cause again–the universe has to do something to God). A tricky nuance of this is that disappearing is an effect. So the universe, in its final act, may do something to God, but this in turn must also cause the universe’s disappearance–perhaps by way of some reaction on God’s part–and so the effect it has on God would have to be labeled the “second last effect” and its disappearance the “actual last effect”. Either that, or it has two effects simultaneously–one on God and one on itself–but then that sorta defeats the purpose of this argument–God is no longer the “final effect” but one out of several final effects.
The other interpretation is that the universe becomes God. But this interpretation requires that God, as the first cause, becomes the universe. Does this mean God disappears upon creating the universe? Not necessarily. It just means God is the universe. In order to maintain the essential attributes that makes God “God”, the universe would have to somehow possess these attributes; maybe the universe is conscious; maybe the universe can preempt the laws of nature and perform miracles; maybe the spirit of the universe can incarnate in a human being and call himself God’s son. And something about where the universe is headed will lead to a wholesale transformation resulting in it taking the form that God assumed before he became the universe (timeless? Spaceless? An abstraction?). I think it would at least have to be timeless because only in a timeless context could you say there is no more cause and effect.
All this assumes a continuity of identity in the evolution of the universe (continuity of God), but if we strip the cosmological argument down to it’s bare bones, it doesn’t even depend on that. All it says is that there must be a first cause, and this cause, in order to be the “first”, must take a form that doesn’t require a prior cause (hence the timelessness). The only connection to God, at this point, is a label. We just say, “Let’s call it God”. If it follows that the same logic would have to be applied to a “final effect” (that it take a timeless form), there’s no reason to suppose that it becomes the same thing, only that both are timeless. Therefore, we need not use the same label. We could call it “God 2” or “God’s brother” or “Steve”. Or maybe “some timeless incomprehensible state.”
We can also question the very assumption on which this argument hinges: does the necessity of a first cause entail the necessity of a final effect? We certainly don’t approach the necessity of effects the same way we approach the necessity of causes. We don’t regularly demand that there be a final effect to anything the way we do causes. We seem to be much more comfortable assuming that effects go on forever than we do assuming that causes have gone on since forever. Why do we assuming there must be a first cause? Well, it makes sense that we always look for a cause to things. We assume that there is always a cause to explain whatever it is we experience, or whatever it is we know exists, because that is essential to our survival. Without looking for causes, we would not be able to control and manipulate our environment. So we have a propensity to care more about finding, and assuming the existence of, causes than effects. But why a first cause? Well, it might be a consequence of applying the need to find a cause to the universe itself. Why wouldn’t this need apply to the whole universe as much as it would any immediate phenomenon we encounter in the every day world? But when it comes to the whole universe, what we’d be saying when we talk about a cause is that this cause precedes the universe, and therefore somehow exists outside or before the universe, which is tantamount to saying it exists outside or before existence. That puts it in a context in which it becomes hard to understand how the chain of cause and effect continues retroactively. If there had to be a cause of whatever caused the universe, then we’re not talking about what caused the universe (at least qua existence all together). Another reason we might assume a first cause (and this might be the same thing seen from a different angle) is that if we allow that there is no first cause in the universe (or in time)–i.e. the chain of cause and effect reaches back in time infinitely–then the question of what caused that (because it will still arise given our psychology) becomes a question about an atemporal cause (i.e. what caused the entire chain of cause and effect?). In other words, if there has to be a cause for everything that occurs in time, and if everything that occurs in time has no beginning in time, then this cause has to exist outside time and be responsible not only for the events that occur in time but for time itself. Therefore, again, we run into the same difficulties of imagining a chain of cause and effect outside time. It seems more intuitive, therefore, to assume that whatever the cause for all the events that occur in time (and indeed for time itself), it must be the first, or only, cause.
The same just doesn’t arise for effects. We don’t have the propensity to question, “what will the universe finally effect?” And we don’t have the propensity to question, “what is the universe effecting outside itself?”–even though, logically, you would think that if these questions arise for cause, they should arise for effect as well.
Anyway, I was hoping JohnJBannan would debate me on his arguments, but it doesn’t seem like he’s responding. Looks like it’s just me and you, Silhouette. You’ll have to debate me instead. So why do you think the argument from dichotomy is a good argument for God’s existence?