For years, champions of the Kalam cosmological argument like Craig have argued that the reason the cause of the universe is a mind is because it is either that or an abstract object: there just aren’t any other realistic candidates.

A lot of folks find this sort of reasoning…meh. I mean, maybe it’s right. But, it seems too close to an argument from ignorance. It’s not principled.

Now, I’m critical of the Kalam. I don’t think the universe is the sort of thing that could come into being. When something comes into being, the roster of things that exist changes: something new gets added to it. But, nothing changes at the first moment of time, because there is no “moment” before that one!

Be that as it may, I’d like to present a broadly Aristotelian-Thomistic argument for the mindedness of a cause of the universe. I am rusty on my A-T skills, but I recognize (sadly) that not everyone is a Platonist, and I think this could be of general interest to those who follow the Kalam discussion. Maybe this could even spark insights in greater minds and advance the dialogue.

The recipe only needs a few ingredients. Well, you know it all depends on how much information gets included in the premises. But, let’s start out by saying we need just two metaphysical laws from classical thought.

First, every agent must act for an end. Second, matter must obey the principle of reflectivity, but mind must not. Don’t worry long-time readers, you are not crazy, you have seen something like what you’re about to read. I flirted with the idea back in The Case for Polytheism (2015).

So, first up, what does it mean for an agent to act for an end? My favorite way of wording this comes from Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles:

“Were an agent not to act for a definite effect, all effects would be indifferent to it. Now that which is indifferent to many effects does not produce one rather than another. Therefore, from that which is indifferent to either of two effects, no effect results, unless it be determined by something to one of them. Hence it would be impossible for it to act. Therefore, every agent tends toward some definite effect, which is called its end,” (3.2).

The end is the so-called ‘final cause’ of an action or process. It is the effect or range of effects that a cause is directed toward bringing about. Now, obviously, if a cause is directed toward bringing an effect about logically prior to actually doing so, then the effect is in some sense present to the cause before it is actually brought about. Since the effect is not present to the cause at this point in its manifest form, it is present only in its unmanifested form.

What about the principle of reflectivity?

Well, matter comes in all different kinds of forms, doesn’t it? Solid, liquid, gaseous, etc.? Don’t worry, you don’t need to read anything crazy into this basic distinction: there is matter on the one hand and there are the forms that it comes in, on the other. I’m not trying to trap you in a hylemorphic net–though, whatever happens, happens.

Now, as a matter of principle, when matter comes in a form, it takes on that form. That is, matter reflects outwardly whatever form it is in. This is analytic. I think.

On the other hand, mind does not do this: forms are in it as ideas, intentions, or images. When matter comes in the form of liquid, for example, that is its physically structuring principle. But when that form is in a mind, it is mentally structuring instead. Otherwise, you would take on whatever form the mind took in–so think about something nice, I guess, or you’ll turn into a tree, or whatever you’re thinking about. (Why is it always trees?)

Okay, with these principles in place… we can now begin to apply them:

So, suppose that every agent acts for an end. Then, inasmuch as it has already been shown that an agent caused the universe, per the Kalam, we can deduce that it acted for an end. That is, it acted to bring about the universe. This end is present to the agent in its formal aspects logically prior to the agent manifesting those aspects in matter. The question is, then, does this agent reflect this form or not?

If it does, then it is material. So, you might think that it could not, since when we talk about ‘the universe’ we are trying to include all material things already. But, more to the point, if the end were reflected in the agent, then the universe would materially exist logically prior to materially existing, which is absurd.

See, in other cases, the same form could be manifested in the cause as in the effect because the form would not be all-encompassing, and so could have multiple material manifestations within a larger space. Hence, human parents can cause human children: ‘humanity’ can have multiple material manifestations as constituents of a larger world. But in the case of the universe, it is all-encompassing and so could not be ‘contained’ by anything bigger for it to have multiple instantiations in.

So, we can reason that the agent does not reflect this form. It follows, then, that it is a mind, since it has taken in a form without taking it on. Its end, in other words, is present to it as an idea, intention, or image–which just is the mode of being that takes in without taking on.

Hence, if an agent did cause the universe, it must be a mind.

Is there something to this? After all the clarifications have been made, and the objections have sharpened the premises?

You tell me.