Consider this initially plausible thesis:
- If x has a proper part, and all of x’s proper parts depend on y, then x depends on y.
Add:
An effect depends on its cause.
Nothing depends on itself.
We conclude:
- Nothing that has proper parts is a cause of all of them.
This has a nice theological application.
God is the cause of everything that is not God.
Therefore, if God has proper parts, he is the cause of all of them.
So, God has no proper parts.
However, I am dubious of premise 1. I think (1) depends on a story about parthood on which a whole is made of its parts. But if we don’t have that story, we could imagine a simple thing that then goes on to produce a proper part for itself. And so we lose the nice argument for divine simplicity. Which is too bad, but there are others.
A simple thing couldn't gain a part because to gain a part presupposes the thing has at least two parts: the unactualized potential to gain that part and the a part that actualizes that potential.
ReplyDeleteThe argument would still show that the First Cause/God has to be initially totally simple - it could only gain parts (if it could) if it itself chose to give itself a part or would get a part from one of its effects.
ReplyDeleteThis is not a meaningless conclusion. It would still be philosophically and theologically relevant - it's "initially totally simple"
Mikhail:
ReplyDeleteI don't know that having an unactualized potential is having a part. Moreover, the cause of the actualization of the potential need not be a part of the thing--it could be a part of something else.
Mtwewy:
That's a good point.