We live on a tiny speck of dust, called planet Earth, which dizzily circles an average dwarf type star called the Sun. On this tiny planet, the forces and laws of nature have somehow conspired to bring about a stable and nourishing form of matter that has proceeded to transform itself into life and to consummate that life with consciousness. And here we stand, the shining end product of this remarkable transmutation - the most organized form of matter and the highest form of life on earth, very possibly in the whole universe. Indeed, we may be the only living things in the universe. Carl Sagan and his extrapolations notwithstanding, there is as yet not the slightest shred of evidence of life anywhere else. Other life forms may exist or we may be entirely alone in the universe. It remains an open question. In any event, we see ourselves as the crowning achievement of four billion years of evolution on earth.

We mustn't let any of this go to our heads however. The whole incredible big bang story with its climactic human ending is merely the result of physical and chemical processes that are completely random, accidental, and meaningless. We may think we're pretty good and important, but there is absolutely nothing in the blind, meaningless events to suggest the slightest purpose, value, or significance in our existence. If we should be so foolish as to annihilate ourselves in an atomic holocaust or through the strangling pollution of the earth, it will make not the least difference in the scheme of things. The planets, stars, and galaxies will continue on their cosmic schedules, completely oblivious to our passing. So much for human significance.

There are a number of things in the above that we should be made aware of. Note that Roger Jones uses the expression "laws of nature", which in his words "have conspired to bring about..." This is incompatible with his statement that the physical and chemical events that have brought about this entire universe are blind, accidental, random, and meaningless. For this is precisely the opposite of what it means to act according to a "law of nature". When things behave according to a law, the result is that their behaviour is meaningful, intelligible, predictable, regular, and determinate.

Moreover, he maintains that matter has transformed itself into life and consummated that life with consciousness, and he proceeds to refer to this as "the most organized form of matter and the highest form of life on earth." But organized is the very opposite of disorganized. If events are organized and under a law, then the events are not blind, accidental, meaningless, purposeless and valueless. For these terms express "disorganization".

Note also his expression "higher form of life" and the term "consummate". Yet he says: "If we should be so foolish as to annihilate ourselves..." after telling us that "there is absolutely nothing in the blind, meaningless, events to suggest the slightest purpose, value, or significance in our existence." If there is no real "value", then he cannot legitimately use terms such as "highest" and "consummate" which express value and purpose and degrees of perfection. And much less can he argue that self-annihilation is foolish. For foolishness means "lacking in wisdom". For he is suggesting that we ought not to annihilate ourselves. But this suggests value, in particular, that human life is valuable and that we ought to respect its value, preserve it; for it is good.

And so the above text is in fact replete with of inconsistencies. But not only are his words inconsistent, they are also unsound. He draws philosophical conclusions without the prior philosophical premises. Let me explain. He says: "The whole incredible big bang story with its climactic human ending is merely the result of physical and chemical processes that are completely random, accidental, and meaningless...there is absolutely nothing in the blind, meaningless events to suggest the slightest purpose (emphasis mine), value, or significance to our existence."

Now, since finality means purpose or aim, Jones is maintaining that our universe is the result of aimless processes. In short, he is denying finality or teleology (from the Greek word telos, for end). The principle of finality, as Aristotle says, runs: "Every agent acts for an end."[1] Every agent tends to a goal. A substance (an existing nature) has intentions. Now motion is "the fulfillment of what exists potentially, insofar as it exists potentially. So when we use the term motion, we do not mean to limit this term to locomotion. Locomotion is a specific kind of motion. Rather, we refer to all types of movement from potency to actuality.

Now, when moving (acting), an existing nature (i.e., a sodium atom, a Maple tree, a bear, etc.) intends "these results" rather than "those results". Things act for definite ends (the end: "that for the sake of which a moving thing moves"). If a moving thing had no definite end, and if it did not tend to "this effect" rather than "that effect", there would be no sufficient reason why one effect should be produced from its action or efforts rather than another effect. This would render the search for causes impossible; and since science is a search for causes, science would be impossible. For it is of the nature of water to boil at 100 degrees centigrade under ordinary conditions. If it did not tend to do so, why does it always boil at this point? There would be no answer if finality does not exist, because there would be no sufficient reason for water to do so. If things did not tend to one determined end rather than another, in other words, if things do not act for an end or purpose, then things would be indeterminate. And what is indeterminate is unknowable.[2] In other words, a thing acts according to its nature; for we know what a thing is (its nature) by its actions (motions). But if a thing does not act for a determinate end, then we can never know what the thing is. If the thing's actions are entirely indeterminate (without purpose), then what the thing is remains indeterminate (we cannot acquire a determinate idea of what the thing is). The thing would be neutral and inert, and thus entirely passive, and not only unable to act for a determinate end, but unable to act at all (for a thing that has no "whatness" is not anything at all, just as a thing that is totally inert and purely indeterminate would not be anything at all). Denying the principle of finality (which is what Roger Jones does in the above text) amounts to denying actual existence.

Also, if there are no substances that act for definite ends, then the processes of nature are indeterminate, as was said. But what is absolutely indeterminate is absolutely unknowable and unpredictable. And yet empiriological physicists avow that their theories are nothing but tools that facilitate prediction. And so physics is impossible without finality.

Also, the very word "universe" (tending towards unity) bespeaks finality. The universe is a cosmos, not a chaos. A chaos is unintelligible. A universe without finality could not even be known to be chaotic, since what is chaotic is only so against the background of what is not chaotic, but purposeful. Again, if there is absolutely no finality to the processes of the universe, then it follows that the universe is unintelligible. Hence, there could not possibly be a "science of the universe". Moreover, one cannot argue that the result of the accidental and random chemical processes are ordered and purposeful; for one cannot get purpose from what is purposeless, order from what is chaotic, form from what is formless, anymore than you can get act from potency, or being from non-being.

So a nature is defined by its tendencies. We know a thing by its motions. A substance is original and primary; to be original is to have definite tendencies. A substance (a nature existing) is an original cause and source (a principle of its motions). It is the origin of its actions or motions, and it is fulfilled or perfected by its tendencies actualized (the flower is perfected by its tendencies actualized; for it tends to the fullness of its own being under ordinary conditions). By being moved (from potency to act), the thing grows to a greater fullness of being. For natures always act in a way that is fitting. They do what is good for them under the circumstances (which is why Jones uses terms and expressions such as "climactic human ending", "consummate", "highest form of life"). As Smith writes: "A nature's penchant toward a fixed end under a given set of conditions is called a law of nature. Laws are natural appetites, natural inclinations, goalward tendencies that natures own and that are broken only at the price of destroying the natures themselves."[3] To follow the laws of sodium is simply to be sodium. To follow the laws of iron is simply to be iron. Again, if we did not know iron's laws or its tendencies, we could not predict its behaviour, and so it could not be used for specific purposes, such as building automobiles. That is why to speak of "laws of nature" and then deny that there is purpose and meaning in the processes of nature is contradictory, to say the least.

Finally, it is not possible for the entire physical and chemical processes of the universe to be governed by chance (which is not to be governed at all). A chance event is an event that happens beyond the intentions of the agent. A chance happening lacks a final cause. Chance results when two or more natures, moving according to their natural tendencies, cross one another's paths. It is an intersection of two or more causal series. Smith puts it well: "Two causal chains, each aiming at a certain end through the natural tendencies of the agents and patients that are involved, cut across one another and, though not intending the chance event, produce it accidentally. The event so produced is an accident of nature. It is a disorder, and lacking in unity, interiority, and order of determination which are found in a genuine nature, a chance event lacks being to the extent that it is chance."[4]

Now, in order to predict chance events, we need more than a knowledge of laws. The prediction of chance involves a knowledge of fact, a knowledge not simply of what a nature must do, but also what the natures outside of it are in fact doing. And so it follows that if all the physical and chemical processes are chance events, science, not to mention physics, would be impossible. Moreover, it would be impossible to know that all is chance; for we can only know "chance" against the background of things tending to determinate ends, that is, acting according to their natures. If everything happens by chance, then nothing happens by chance, because a chance event is such only in relation to two or more events (causal series) that in themselves are "not chance". These events alone enable us to discern that their intersection is a chance event.

And again, if all events are "governed by chance", all events would lack interiority, unity, intelligibility and determination. Science would be a pure fiction, as Friedrich Nietzsche argued.[5]

Notes

¹Aristotle, Ph., II, 1, 192b10-193b20. "So we affirm: potency is referred to act. Fundamentally it is the very notion of potency which is thus explained. For of its notion potency, and this is its intelligibility itself, all the intelligibility it possesses, is reference to a particular act. We can conceive potency only in reference to act. Pure indeterminacy is unthinkable. Therefore potency and reference to an act are synonymous." Jacques Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1948), 106. See also V. E. Smith, Philosophical Physics, 93-96, 97-99.

²The indeterminate cannot be known. Consider the answer to the question: What is it? It is indefinite, indeterminate. Hence, we cannot definitely say or determine what it is; for it is indeterminate.

³Smith, Philosophical Physics, 98.

⁴Ibid., 107. "...chance cannot possibly be the origin of things. For it presupposes an encounter of causal series, and further that each of these series exists only because the causes it contains are determined to a particular end. Chance, that is to say, necessarily implies preordination. To hold that the universe can be explained by a primordial chance is self-contradictory." Jacques Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, 148.

⁵See Friedrick Nietzsche, The Will to Power, transs. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage, 1968) Book 3, sections 515-19, 534-35, 552. "Parmenides said, 'one cannot think of what is not'; --we are at the other extreme, and say "what can be thought of must certainly be a fiction." Section 539. "The biggest fable of all is the fable of knowledge." Section 555.

Copyright © 1998 by Douglas P. McManaman
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