Written by R.C. Sproul |
Wednesday, January 3, 2024
The humanist exalts the virtues of honesty, justice, and compassion, but he must crucify his mind to do it. For the humanist is caught in the vicious contradiction of ascribing dignity to creatures who live their lives between the poles of meaninglessness. He lives on borrowed capital, deriving his values from the Judeo-Christian faith, while at the same time repudiating the very foundation upon which these values rest.

Charles Dickens began A Tale of Two Cities with the immortal lines: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” These words sound like a contradiction, dissonant to the ear, harsh to the brain. How could the times be both best and worst?
Before Charles Dickens ever picked up a pen, the French mathematician, philosopher, and writer Blaise Pascal had made use of the paradox. For Pascal, man himself is the crowning paradox of all creation. He said that we are at the same time the creatures of highest grandeur and lowest misery. The paradox is that we can think, an ability which is a two-edged sword. That we can contemplate ourselves is our grandeur. The misery comes when we contemplate a better life than we now enjoy and realize we are unable to make it happen. We have just enough knowledge to escape the bliss of ignorance. Translated into daily realities, this means that a person with enormous wealth can conceive of yet more wealth, power, prestige, health, fame—all things can be increased or improved. But consider that person who commands such a vast amount of money, yet who suffers from ill health or grieves over the death of a loved one. Ultimately, human dignity is built on the conviction that someone is up there who made us. Behind human dignity is theology.
I was addressing the top executives of a Fortune 500 corporation. It was a small group composed of regional vice presidents and the president and chairman of the board. The surroundings exuded an ambiance of power and prestige. The patrician audience was a bit nervous about my mixing “religion” and business as I spoke. When the seminar was near completion, the chairman of the board became excited as his eyes lit up in understanding. “Let me see if I can connect what you’re saying. What I hear is that our business life is affected by how we treat people. How we treat people is a matter of ethics. Ethics are determined by our philosophy. Our philosophy reflects our theology—so respecting people is really a theological matter.” In simple terms, the chairman was expressing what Dostoevsky meant when he said, “If there is no God, all things are permissible,” or Sartre was driving at when he said, “Man is a useless passion.”
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Deuteronomy 8 verses 2, 11, 14, 18, 19 have an antiphonal chorus that works between the seriousness of the command to remember and the devastation wrought by the tragedy of forgetting. Should his temporal blessings make them flatter themselves with a sense of independence, they are warned not to “forget the Lord your God” (11) and ignore his commandments. “Remember” challenges the mind to grasp the covenantal mercy of God with such conscientious commitment that nothing can drive a wedge of temporal delusion between the moral and spiritual mind of a person and the infinite power and mercy of divine provision. When Jesus established the symbol of the final, ultimate, perfect redemptive act, he commanded his followers, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19).

The theme of the 2024 Founders Conference surrounds Paul’s admonition, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, out of the seed of David, according to my gospel.” God willing, and according to his enlightenment and strength, I want to discuss this sobering theme in a series of posts focusing on the biblical developments of “remember.” The word points to events that are both pivotal and central. Not only do they give a swift alteration of direction for humanity, but they rise to a culmination and a subsequent response in thought and deed.  The flow of the entire biblical text presses forward to this command, “Remember Jesus Christ.” It summarizes every other call to remember. I intend also to describe historical manifestations of the loss (forgetting) and recovery (remembering) of this culminating event in the history of redemption.
“Remember” calls to mind central admonitions in the history of God’s revelation of redemptive power to his people. The command is not for a mere mental recall of an event or a casual reminder of a person’s name or status. It is a critical summons to put an event or person or commitment so at the center of your concern that the weight of its importance transforms your thinking. When the thief said to Jesus, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom,” (Luke 23:42) he wanted to be taken personally by Jesus into that status of perfect, sinless, beneficent rulership. Jesus responded with an answer commensurate with the purpose of the request, “Truly I say to you, this day with me you will be in paradise” (Luke 23:44). “As surely as my work of atonement will bring me into the glory of heaven in the presence of the Father, so it will do for you.” The request of the crucified thief was for Jesus’ personal investment in the eternal well-being of his mind, body, and soul—”Remember.”
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8), involves more than simple mental recall, but an investment of life in the rhythm of divine labor. As God worked for six days in creation, so should these redeemed people labor for six days at life-sustaining tasks that deserved their energy. As God had finished creation and then rested, so were the people rescued from relentless labor in Egypt to embrace a sabbath as instituted and practiced by God on the seventh day. All the animals, each member of the family, all the nation would so esteem the glory of the Creator/Redeemer/Covenant God that their lives individually and corporately would be defined by it. “Remember Jesus Christ” has that same claim on the lives of his redeemed ones but with an even greater intensity in light of an even more powerful delivery.
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Some may not be used to thinking of God as an unmoved mover.  Yet is not the first cause of all things God?  If God is anything He is that.  But many more attributes may be derived from the unmoved mover being pure act, which will show that we are dealing with God. This is not accidental.  Just as the attributes of a thing derive from its kind of existence, so if God’s existence or being may be established and that it is of itself, or from itself (aseity), its absoluteness, indpendence and primacy being herein established, many of its attributes may be drawn out from this. 

Can God be Proven?
Can God be proven to exist?¹  The Bible says God is “upholding all things by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3) and “in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)  If this be true, as Christians believe, then it should be for all created things that their existence and continuance has no adequate or sufficient explanation or grounding in the things themselves, that is, in their own nature, but only because God wills them to exist.
¹ Francis Turretin (d. 1687), a pillar of Reformed Orthodoxy said, speaking for the Reformed: “Can the existence of God be irrefutably demonstrated against atheists?  We affirm.” Institutes, vol. 1, 3rd topic, question 1, p. 169.
If this be the case: (1) this should be able to be seen from examining the nature of things themselves and how they are caused, that is, by the light of nature (without Scripture), and, (2) from the characteristics of nature or its laws, God must be the only sufficient explanation, both in the orders of knowing and being,† for the existence and continuance at every moment for all created things.
† That is with respect to epistemology and ontology (or metaphysics).
This must be qualified just a little.  One would not expect from only certain properties of nature to be able to derive everything about God.  However, if such necessary derivations can be made, that which will be known of God will be distinctive to Him, showing that it is God one is considering.  This is what Rom. 1:20 says: “the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.”  It is also what the Westminster Confession (1646) teaches.¹
¹ WCF ch. 21.1, “The light of nature showeth that there is a God, who hath lordship and sovereignty over all; is good, and doeth good unto all;”ch. 1.1, “the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence, do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable…”
About this Proof
No originality is claimed for the substance of this proof.  The general tenor of it derives from Aristotle, through Aquinas and most lately through Edward Feser.²  I have adapted it in my own style.  The Dutch reformed theolgian Peter van Mastricht (d. 1706) used a very similar proof.³
² Feser (b. 1968) is a professor of philosophy and an analytical Thomist.  Feser, Five Proofs of the Existence of God  Pre  (Ignatius Press, 2017), ch. 1, ‘The Aristotelian Proof’, pp. 17-68³ Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology (RHB, 2019), vol. 2, bk. 2, ch. 2,sect. 2, pp. 45-46.
You can call it “The Aristotelian Proof from Change,” though, it does not hang on Aristotle, Aquinas, Mastricht, Feser or myself.  It derives from nature itself, necessarily, and is able to be understood by any rational creature in any place at any time.  It is a universal testimony to God’s existence. (Ps. 19:1-4)
The proof proceeds by the way of causality, one of the three ways the Christian tradition has taught God may be generally known by.º  It does not start with things more fundamental and absolute in their being than God, and then derive from these God, who must be consequently lesser.  Rather, it starts with things less absolute and fundamental than God and works backwards, so to speak, by their necessary connection to Him, to show that an absolute God must be.  That is, the way of knowing need not always follow the priority or ultimacy of being.
º See ‘On the Three General Ways God is Known: Way of Causality, Negation & Eminence’.
It ought not to be thought this proof is the only way God’s existence may be demonstrated, as other aspects of being and creation, by their distinctive traits, may be expected to show further things about the character of our God.
First, 1. Preliminaries to the proof will be given, then 2. the proof will be proven, then 3. it will be shown that many more attributes of God may be derived from what has been proved, showing that it is God we are dealing with.  4. Two objections will be resolved, and lastly, 5. we will close.
1. Preliminaries to the Proof
1.1 Change
Change occurs.  Besides that we acknowledge and assume this in our daily actions (such as in reading this proof), and couldn’t live without doing so, to rationally deny change occurs, one would have to think of a reason for this, possibly another, and conclude that change does not occur.  This involves change.  That change occurs is undeniable; therefore it is true.
Change necessarily involves the actualization of a potential, that something has a potential for something, and that potential thing comes into being or is made actual.  That is, change cannot be sufficiently explained or justified apart from potentiality and actuality.  Potentiality and actuality must lie beneath all change, though they are metaphysical concepts which cannot of themselves be seen.
Change occurs, therefore potentiality and actuality exist, functioning in relation to each other.
1.2 Train Cars
A flatbed train car has much potential.  Given its axes and wheels it can roll down the railway.  It can also hold many heavy things on it off the ground.  Yet there are many things a train car has no potential for.  If you see bunny rabbits hopping around the car and hear violin music, you would look around for their cause because you know train cars can’t, by their nature, turn into bunnies or produce bunnies or violin music.  A metal train car doesn’t have those potentials, due to its unique nature in being a train car.
One may think perhaps: the train car could be melted down and turned into a metalic violin with metalic strings and produce violin music.  Perhaps it may, but then it wouldn’t be a train car (and you wouldn’t be seeing a flatbed and hear violin music at the same time).  If something is a train car, it can’t produce things beyond what its nature has the potential for.
If the car sits on a flat railway, how long will it sit there till it moves down the railroad?  Of course not until something else comes and pulls it along.  The flatbed has no ability or potential to move itself or to activate its own potentials.  Something else has to do that.
1.3 The Law of Causality
Say two train cars sit on the railroad next to each other.  Both have the potential to move.  Yet the potential of the one never moves the other.  Why?  Because the one flatbed’s potential to move is not actual; it is not actually moving, and that is what it would take to move the second flatbed, to activate its potential to move.
That one thing must be moved by another is not only a common observation all around us, it must be true for everything that has potential, precisely because something not actual cannot do anything.  A possibility does not exist as anything but a possibility.  These thngs must be true by the distinct natures of what potentiality and actuality must be.  The principle is called the Law of Causality:
Something potential can only be made actual by something actual.
This is not only universally true by empirical experience, but it must be true by definition from the laws that constitute nature, given change.  If change occurs, it must be done by something actual.  Something must bump into or pull the train car before it will move, because it has no nature or potential to move itself.
1.4 Ordered Series of Dependent Causes
In a train of many cars going down the railroad there is an ordered series of dependent causes: each car’s potential is being activated to move by the actual car in front of it in a series where one car is dependent on all those in front of it.  The train engine at the front is pulling all the cars after it; it is doing all the work in one respect, through the nature of those cars and their causal relations.
Of course we are not actually interested in train cars.  Each car stands for something that changes, namely any and everything we see around us.  Ordered series of various causes surround us, and we are part of them.
The issue we are getting to is not dependent on time, nor concerns change through time.  Take the series of train cars in a moment of time.  Each one still depends by way of causation and dependence on those in front.
Take a case where there is no movement or change through time: You may be sitting on a chair, which is keeping you off the floor.  The chair is being held up by the floor, the floor by the building supports, which are resting on the foundation, which is being held up by the ground.  The ground has more ground underneath it, and further factors are causing that ground to be the way it is, such as gravity and various forces science is concerned with.  Go as far along in that series as you can.  Here is a hierarchical series of ordered causes, always existing in our universe.
2. The Proof
2.1 The Problem
You see a clearing in the trees with flatbed train cars rushing through.  Seeing as a flatbed has no ability by its nature to move itself, what is moving each one?  You might say, “Well, the train car in front of it is pulling it.”  Well that is true, but that flatbed also has no power to move itself; what is pulling that one?
You look a little more around the edge of the trees and see several more train cars ahead in the line.  What is pulling those?  Each further car activating the potential of the one behind it still needs its own potential activated by another.¹
¹ If you don’t agree, try denying the Law of Causality above and see how that works out in daily life.  See Feser defend the principle in Five Proofs, ch. 1, ‘Common Misunderstandings’, pp. 38-68.
Clearly no finite number of flatbeds in the series is going to resolve the issue.  If there are 100 flatbeds, you will then need 101, then 102, 103, 104, etc.  You may think, “If no finite number of flatbeds will help, there must be an infinite number in this series, each further flatbed pulling the other.”  Yet if no flatbed by its nature has inbuilt power to move itself, neither does an infinite number or series of flatbeds.
Some may claim this commits the fallacy of composition, that the qualities of parts are not necessarily those of the combined whole: if each lego piece weighs one ounce, a wall of them does not weigh the same.  Yet not every composition of qualities functions the same.  If each lego is red, the whole wall of them is red.  What’s the only color of an infinite wall of red legos?
What kind quality and composition then are we concerned with?  If each flatbed has potential and therefore can’t move itself, and an infinite line of them is moving and changing, and thus has potential, it can’t move itself either.
Well, perhaps the infinite series of train cars is going in a circle.  That’s not going to work, for the same reasons.  The conglomerate of an infinite number of things that cannot move themselves still does not have a nature to be able to move itself, even in a circle.  So the flatbeds’ moving is left unexplained, as their natures, even strung together infinitely in whatever shape you desire, cannot account for it.º
º Turretin in addressing that a thing cannot be the cause for its own existence, which we will get to: “such a circle is impossible; for suppose it were true, it would follow that the same thing was made by itself and was the cause (mediately at least) of itself.” Institutes 1:170
But perhaps it’s a whirlpool, like the whirpool of secondary causes all around us.  What moves the infinite, whirpool of dependent causes (grant its existence for the sake of argument), if the whirlpool has nothing in it able to move itself and, as the whirlpool’s potential (which it must have, as it changes) must be activated by something outside itself?  Adding another whirpool, universe, dimension, finding of science, etc. is not going to help.
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