-Edward Feser
A quotes blog of various writers (mostly Christian, and specifically Catholic, in nature)
Friday, June 30, 2017
Note that on
the classical theist view of ultimate explanation, there are no inexplicable “brute
facts.” Things that require causes
require them because they have potentials that need to be actualized and parts
that need to be combined. To say of a
thing that it has parts and yet lacks any cause which accounts for their
combination, or has potentiality yet lacks any cause which actualized that
potentiality, would be to make of it
a “brute fact.” But that is precisely
what the classical theist does not say about the ultimate cause of things. It says instead that, since it is purely
actual (and thus devoid of potentials that could be actualized) and absolutely
simple (and thus devoid of parts that could be combined), it not only need not have a cause but could not in principle have had
one. It, and it alone, has its source of
intelligibility in itself rather than in some external cause.
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Edward Feser
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