First Cause: The Hand of God

Mike Corthell

Author David Kupelian points out that Sir Issac Newton has seen the “Hand of God” everywhere:

“This ubiquitous natural wonderland caused man to acknowledge and honor the Creator of creation, as Copernicus did when he wrote, ‘[The world] has been built for us by the Best and Most Orderly Workman of all.’ Or as Galileo wrote, ‘God is known … by Nature in His works and by doctrine in His revealed word.’ Or as Pasteur confessed, ‘The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator.’ Or Isaac Newton: ‘When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.’”

Newton, interestingly, is universally regarded as one of the most important scientists in history, and his 1687 book, “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy,” is considered perhaps the most influential science book of all time, laying out the basis for classical mechanics.

But Newton also wrote another book many people have never heard about: “Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John.” In fact, a devout Christian, Newton spent a significant amount of his time researching and studying the Bible.

With views like that, which by today’s academic standards might be regarded as “unscientific,” it is questionable whether Sir Isaac Newton, history’s most famous scientist, could have landed a professorship at a modern secular university.

The most famous of all arguments for the existence of God are by Saint Thomas Aquinas.

His four versions of the First Cause argument:

• First, he argues that the chain of movers must have a first mover because nothing can move itself. (Moving here refers to any kind of change, not just change of place.) If the whole chain of moving things had no first mover, it could not now be moving, as it is. If there were an infinite regress of movers with no first mover, no motion could ever begin, and if it never began, it could not go on and exist now. But it does go on, it does exist now. Therefore it began, and therefore there is a first mover.
• Second, he expands the proof from proving a cause of motion to proving a cause of existence, or efficient cause. He argues that if there were no first efficient cause, or cause of the universe's coming into being, then there could be no second causes because second causes (i.e., caused causes) are dependent on (i.e., caused by) a first cause (i.e., an uncaused cause). But there are second causes all around us. Therefore there must be a first cause.
• Third, he argues that if there were no eternal, necessary, and immortal being, if everything had a possibility of not being, of ceasing to be, then eventually this possibility of ceasing to be would be realized for everything. In other words, if everything could die, then, given infinite time, everything would eventually die. But in that case nothing could start up again. We would have universal death, for a being that has ceased to exist cannot cause itself or anything else to begin to exist again. And if there is no God, then there must have been infinite time, the universe must have been here always, with no beginning, no first cause. But this universal death has not happened; things do exist! Therefore there must be a necessary being that cannot not be, cannot possibly cease to be. That is a description of God.
• Fourth, there must also be a first cause of perfection or goodness or value. We rank things as more or less perfect or good or valuable. Unless this ranking is false and meaningless, unless souls don't really have any more perfection than slugs, there must be a real standard of perfection to make such a hierarchy possible, for a thing is ranked higher on the hierarchy of perfection only insofar as it is closer to the standard, the ideal, the most perfect. Unless there is a most-perfect being to be that real standard of perfection, all our value judgments are meaningless and impossible. Such a most-perfect being, or real ideal standard of perfection, is another description of God.

There is a single common logical structure to all four proofs. Instead of proving God directly, they prove him indirectly, by refuting atheism. Either there is a first cause or not. The proofs look at "not" and refute it, leaving the only other possibility, that God is.

Here are a few other images that scientists of past eras, had they been privileged to view them, would certainly have regarded as the handiwork of a divine Creator. Enjoy!

(photo credit NASA)