The Coherent Causality Argument

[William]

For years, I've seen Christians argue for a supernatural creator - an entity outside nature, beyond scientific understanding, uncaused and eternal.

But if "supernatural" means beyond understanding and evidence, how does that explain anything rather than simply labeling the unknown as unknowable?

Here is an alternative argument that retains a first cause but removes the incoherence of supernaturalism. I welcome thoughtful engagement, particularly from theistic perspectives, on the following:

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Definitions (Oxford Languages):

Supernatural: (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

Supernaturalism: the belief in a supernatural agency that intervenes in the course of natural laws.

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The Coherent Causality Argument

P1: Everything that begins to exist within nature has a natural cause.

P2: It is generally accepted in modern cosmology that this universe (our spacetime reality) had a beginning.

C1: Therefore, this universe has a natural cause.

P3: A “natural cause” means a cause that operates within some framework of consistent laws, is potentially understandable in principle, and is part of a broader causal reality.

P4: A supernatural cause, by definition, is beyond natural laws, understanding, and evidence, thus it cannot function as a causal explanation.

C2: Therefore, the cause of the universe is not supernatural - it is part of a broader natural reality (a “source reality”).

P5: This source reality may be eternal, timeless, or uncreated relative to our universe, but it is still natural in the sense of being coherent, consistent, and conceptually describable.

C3: Since an infinite regress of contingent causes provides no ultimate explanation, the source reality must be eternal (or necessary).

Overall Conclusion:
The universe was caused by an eternal natural entity - not by a supernatural one. This avoids the explanatory dead-end of supernaturalism while still satisfying the demand for a causal origin.
(By “natural,” I mean “operating within some consistent framework of cause and effect, even if outside our observable universe.”)

Note on Consciousness:
If the natural source-entity is intelligent and consciously creative, this would provide a coherent origin for consciousness itself, potentially resolving the "hard problem" by grounding subjective experience in a fundamental, conscious cause. This is not required by my argument, but it is a logically consistent possibility if one accepts both an intelligent source and the principle that consciousness cannot emerge from purely non-conscious substrates.

A Clarification on Terms:

If “supernatural” simply means existing outside our universe but still operating by consistent, higher-level laws, and is not being used in its strong, classical philosophical sense here, then it becomes a subcategory of the natural - understood broadly as any reality operating within a coherent framework of cause and effect.

If, however, “supernatural” means wholly beyond understanding, outside any consistent laws, and intrinsically inexplicable, then it cannot meaningfully explain anything—including the origin of the universe.

This argument proceeds under the second definition, which is both standard in philosophical discourse and necessary for the term “supernatural” to retain any distinct meaning. If you hold the first definition, then your “supernatural” cause aligns with what I term the eternal natural source-entity—and we are largely in agreement on the nature of the first cause, differing only in terminology.

Q1: If a cause is supernatural - beyond understanding and evidence - does it actually explain anything, or does it merely relabel an unknown as unknowable?

Q2: Can a Christian (or any theist) coherently define God as both supernatural (in its strong, classical philosophical sense) and personally interactive without contradiction?

[Mithrae]

Mithrae, you have integrated your consciousness argument with Alexxs argument...and likely had this idea from before the time you brought it into the public debate setting on the other thread...
Specifically it denotes Deism by promoting that this Conscious Ground is a trillion times removed from human consciousness, thus squashing any ability for the ground consciousness to even know of the existence of human consciousness.

That's not what I'm arguing, that's what your argument entails: Even freely granting basically everything that you or other cosmological argument proponents have said, it tells us nothing more than that somewhere out there or back there, somewhere between zero and trillions (or more) of universe-iterations before ours, there 'must have been' a Coherent Cause of some kind. In other words, it tells us basically nothing.

Cosmological arguments by their nature try to infer something beyond our observable reality, but if we're trying to imagine something beyond our reality why should we stop just a single step beyond? By contrast I've argued almost the opposite, by examining what we might legitimately infer or most reasonably speculate about our reality itself.

[William]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #48]

The argument isn't that *a* cause is coherent, but that the ultimate explanatory terminus must be a necessary, coherent ground - not a brute fact or an incoherent cause.

Attempting to drag the debate back to the traditional, shallow dichotomy the CCA framework is designed to transcend, creates a strawman. The primary question is coherent vs. incoherent terminus, not immaterial vs material.

Objection about "scientific evidence" again relies on the narrow, physicalist definition of "natural" CCA rejects. Demanding empirical evidence for a metaphysical grounding principle = a category error.

Dismissing CCA as "trivial" because one cannot refute its logical superiority, achieves no ground.

Applying the CCA framework to the problem of free will is illustrative. It shows the practical payoff of moving beyond the physicalist/immaterialist stalemate.

The Free Will Argument via the CCA Framework
P1 (CCA Axiom): A coherent explanation is superior to an incoherent one (brute fact or lawless cause).

P2 (The Dilemma of Standard Free Will Debates):

Determinism: Reduces agency to prior physical causes, making "choice" an illusion. (Explanatory model: coherent but eliminates the explanandum - agency).

Random Indeterminism: Attributes choice to quantum noise or randomness, making it uncaused and irrational. (Explanatory model: incoherent, as it invokes randomness as a cause).

Supernatural Libertarianism: Posits a mind outside nature that intervenes. (Explanatory model: often incoherent/strongly supernatural, invoking lawless volition).

P3 (The CCA Resolution): If reality is fundamentally grounded in a coherent, necessary, and conscious source, then:

Agency is fundamental. The capacity for intentional, goal-directed causation is a primitive feature of reality, not an emergent illusion.

Agent causation is natural. An agent's choice is a coherent cause - it is explained by the agent's reasons, character, and conscious deliberation, operating within a consistent framework of agential causality.

It avoids both pitfalls: Choices are not determined by prior physical states (avoiding determinism), nor are they random (avoiding indeterminism). They are determined by the agent as a coherent causal entity.

C1: Therefore, within the CCA framework, libertarian free will is rehabilitated as a natural, coherent form of causation - the capacity of an agent to be the ground of its own decisions.

Conclusion & Response to "Scientific Evidence" Objection:
One can ask for "scientific evidence" for such free will, but this demand presupposes a physicalist definition of "natural" (i.e., "that which can be measured by physics"). The CCA framework rejects this as an arbitrary, parochial definition. Under the CCA, "natural" means causally coherent.

The "evidence" for this free will is first-person conscious experience of deliberation and choice - a datum that physicalism cannot explain (the Hard Problem).

The CCA provides the metaphysical groundwork that makes this experience possible and coherent, rather than illusory or impossible.

Thus, to demand "scientific evidence" in the narrow physicalist sense is to beg the question against the framework itself. The real demand is for metaphysical coherence, which the CCA provides and physicalist brute fact does not.

In short: The CCA doesn't just "relabel" free will as natural; it provides a coherent metaphysical foundation that makes libertarian agency rationally possible, dissolving the traditional dilemma. Objection fails because it insists on evaluating a metaphysical argument with empirical, physicalist criteria that the argument has already shown to be inadequate for first principles.

[William]

[Replying to Mithrae in post #51]

Does your Conscious Ground function as the necessary ontological foundation for all contingent reality (including any 'layers'), or is it merely the first contingent cause in Alexx's infinite chain? If it's necessary, it cannot be 'distant' - it is the immediate ground of being. If it's contingent, then it cannot solve the Hard Problem for our consciousness, as it would be just another brute fact in the stack. Which is it?

[William]

[Replying to Mithrae in post #50]

Mithrae requires a fundamental, explanatory consciousness, while Alexx’s model renders any such ground infinitely remote and explanatorily inert. The CCA framework resolves this by providing the principled grounds to reject an infinite regress and to establish an ontologically immediate necessary ground.

The Conflict:

Mithrae's Need: To solve the Hard Problem, consciousness must be fundamental and explanatorily immediate - the very ground of our experience.

Alexx's Model: An infinite chain of contingent layers makes any "ground" causally and explanatorily remote, severing it from our reality.

The CCA Resolution:

It Demands a Terminus. The CCA’s core axiom - that a coherent explanation is superior to a brute fact or an infinite regress - rejects Alexx’s infinite stack as explanatorily vacuous. An endless chain of contingent layers never answers why there is anything at all.

It Grounds Consciousness Necessarily. The CCA concludes that the only coherent terminus is a necessary, coherent ground. If consciousness is fundamental (per Mithrae), this ground must be necessarily conscious. Crucially, this ground is not "distant" in a temporal sense; it is the ontological foundation of all contingent reality (including any hypothetical "layers"), not a mere prior link in a causal chain.

It Unifies Their Insights. The CCA preserves Mithrae’s critical insight (consciousness as fundamental) while correcting Alexx’s explanatory error (infinite regress). The result is a single, coherent model: a necessary, coherent, conscious ground that is:

Immediate (the ground of being, directly enabling our consciousness and solving the Hard Problem),

Terminal (ending the regress),

Coherent (satisfying the rational demand for a non-arbitrary foundation).

In short, the CCA shows that Mithrae's consciousness argument requires a necessary ground to succeed, while Alexx's infinite layers are an explanatory dead-end. The CCA doesn't just rectify their difference; it demonstrates that the logically consistent position is to abandon the "layers" model and embrace a necessary conscious ground - which is precisely what my CCA + Mithras conscious ground accomplishes.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to William in post #52]

The argument isn't that *a* cause is coherent, but that the ultimate explanatory terminus must be a necessary, coherent ground - not a brute fact or an incoherent cause.

I don’t think you need an argument for that, it’s just trivially true to me. We have always thought our answers must be coherent and not just assumed as a brute fact with no support. It looks to me like you are just stating that with different language.

You seem to be doing this because you think there is something to the claim that a supernatural cause (including a will) is incoherent. Is that accurate? If so, why do you think it is incoherent?

[William]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #55]

You state that demanding a coherent, non-brute terminus is "trivially true."

If you intend this as a dismissive tactic - suggesting the principle is so obvious my argument based on it is trivial - then we diverge fundamentally. The triviality of the principle does not make its application trivial; it makes violations of it irrational. The entire history of metaphysics is littered with such violations (brute facts, lawless volitions, infinite regresses). The CAA's value is in rigorously enforcing this "trivial" standard to clear that litter.

If, however, you genuinely hold the principle as foundational, then the critical question is: Why do so many proposed terminal explanations violate it?

This enforcement leads directly to the trilemma. A terminus must be:
(A) A Brute Fact – Violates the principle (inexplicable).
(B) An Incoherent Cause – Violates the principle (lawless).
(C) A Coherent, Necessary Ground – Satisfies it.

You ask why a supernatural cause is incoherent. Under the strong definition in the CCA - a cause operating outside any framework of consistent causality - it is incoherent by definition (Option B). It is a violation of the very principle you call trivial.

If you mean something else by "supernatural will," please specify: is it a lawless volition (B) or a coherent, necessary ground (C)?

I argue for (C). Your move: defend (A), defend (B), or join me in (C). What is your choice?

[Mithrae]

The CCA framework resolves this by providing the principled grounds to reject an infinite regress and to establish an ontologically immediate necessary ground.

Nothing in your OP or as far as I've seen any of your other posts in this thread provide any basis to infer an "ontologically immediate" necessary ground. The OP argument can be used for "Everything that begins to exist in nature"; but the causes of the advertising spam on a webpage I visit are algorithms and cookies and code, themselves caused by marketing agencies and circuitry and electricity, themselves caused by an economic model and factories and generators, themselves caused by human desires and millennia of social and technological development, themselves caused by millions of years of primate evolution...

There is no "ontologically immediate necessary ground" for the advertising spam on a webpage; at most, we might infer from this thing that began to exist in nature that a 'necessary ground' of some kind might exist somewhere back there before the cookies and the agencies and the factories and the farms and the apes. Same goes for the universe; we don't know what came immediately before or was the immediate cause of the Big Bang, and your argument cannot tell us any more than it tells us for spam.

As I noted, cosmological arguments by their nature try to infer something beyond our observable reality, but if we're trying to imagine something beyond our reality why should we stop just a single step beyond?

[alexxcJRO]

For me is just another part of the same God of the Gaps phenomenon that seems to have plagued the Homo Sapiens Sapiens since its inception.

Homo Sapiens Sapiens individual in the Paleolithic era: OMG Hard Problem of Tress, Wind, Sun ergo God of Tress, Wind, Sun to explain away "the problem".
Homo Sapiens Sapiens individual Homo Sapiens Sapiens individual in the Neolithic-Ancient Egypt era: OMG Hard Problem of apparent movement of the Sun across the sky ergo God of the Sun-RA to explain away "the problem".
Homo Sapiens Sapiens individual in the Medieval times: OMG Hard Problem of Earth seeming to be in the center of the Universe. We are special. Ergo God made Earth in the center of universe because we are special creations to explain away "the problem".
Homo Sapiens Sapiens in early 20th century: OMG Hard Problem The universe seeming to be finite in the past. Ergo God created the universe to explain away "the problem".
Homo Sapiens Sapiens now: OMG Hard Problem of consciousness. Ergo God to explain away "the problem".
The supposed "Hard Problem of Consciousness" if it is a real problem is most likely just a gap in our knowledge just like the rest of "problems" were during our history on Earth.

If we're taking a big-picture view like that, I trust you understand that we haven't yet found let alone validated a comprehensive alternative answer for any of those things? We've situated more specific events or phenomena within broader observed patterns of how our reality behaves, but calling those patterns "laws" of universal gravitation and the like obviously doesn't mean that the case is closed until we discover, if ever, why those patterns occur. Our ancestors knew that much of their behaviour was caused by their conscious choices, so they not-unreasonably inferred that the behaviour of animals and streams and planets and so on must be caused by the conscious choices of other beings; to drastically over-simplify, over time parsimony refined animism into polytheism into monotheism or pantheism, but the core idea remains the same and in some format remains the most viable model. Choice is the only causal process which we experience and engage in directly, without mediation by our senses; every other causal process is merely inferred by observing correlation between ostensible cause and effect and... what is it that they say about correlation again?

'God of the gaps' is a problematic style of thinking not because it's been proven wrong again and again, or because it in a general sense has been proven wrong ever for that matter (specific iterations and anthropomorphisms aside), but simply because it creates a tendency to shut down rather than pursuing further enquiry. What you are doing here seems to be very much the same kind of problematic, a materialist faith-based 'science of the gaps'; science will most assuredly explain it within your framework of materialism, so alternative models should simply be shut down as misguided and irrelevant.

All without attempting to address the actual argument or provide any kind of evidence to substantiate an alternative view. The problem of consciousness is not even the focus of my argument, it's just the nail in the coffin. The fact is that we have no legitimate grounds at all to posit the existence of nonconscious stuff to begin with, whereas the existence of conscious stuff is the most certain thing we can possibly know.

Nonsense.
I am not a materialist. I am not a theist or any other term u wanna coin.
I just go where is the evidence points. I have no problem with considering god as a hypothesis. I am not a hard atheist.

I have simply pointing to a pattern of falsely attributing gods as causes for certain phenomena that seemed unknown at some point.
We know there is no gods behind the function of trees or winds or storms or the sun.
We know the sun does not revolve around the Earth but the Earth revolves around its axis and revolves around the Sun.
We know we are not in the center of the Universe. We are just in a random solar system around a medium star in a random Galaxy: the Milky Way which is just one among trillions of galaxies in the Observable Universe.

Sir even if God exists he is part of the material omniverse. If he exist it will be scientists who find evidence of his existence not theists playing with words.

[Difflugia]

The quantum events you mention are processes within the universe, governed by the universe's pre-existing laws (quantum field theory in spacetime). They are not explanations for why those laws, spacetime, and the quantum fields themselves exist.

No. Copenhagen-type interpretations of quantum mechanics do not require underlying fields. There are certainly interpretations that treat the quantum fields as real things with their own properties and out of which quantum events manifest, but Copenhagen interpretations don't. The fields are treated as mathematical constructs. They describe the probabilistic relationships between quantum events, but the quantum events themselves are fundamental and primitive.

The 'contingency' I refer to is not about every event within the chain, but about the totality of physical reality—its existence and its specific, life-permitting fundamental parameters. A 'quantum fluctuation' model still requires a pre-existing quantum vacuum or manifold with specific laws to fluctuate from. The question is: what grounds that?

If the universe itself began with such a quantum event, that event is foundational and uncaused. Quantum events are the lowest level events for which we have evidence, full stop. If you want to posit something else lying underneath, you're free to do so, but there's neither evidence nor a specific logical reason that your something else exists.

My premise asserts that the specific, fine-tuned, low-entropy nature of our cosmic beginning is best explained by the totality being contingent - i.e., not self-explaining. You assert it could be a brute fact. This is our fundamental disagreement. Let's table this for now as Point of Divergence A: The validity of applying the PSR to the cosmos-as-a-whole.

OK.

On the 'Conscious Ground' & Explanatory Power:
This is a serious objection, but I think it conflates two very different kinds of 'I don't know.'

The 'Emergent' Claim: Saying consciousness 'emerges' from non-conscious elements is to posit a causal or generative mechanism that is, by your own admission, completely mysterious and for which there is no model. It's an 'I don't know how.'

Yes.

The 'Fundamental' Claim: Saying consciousness is fundamental is to posit it as a basic category of existence. It is not a claim about a mechanism but about the furniture of reality. The 'I don't know' here is of a different kind: 'I don't know why reality includes this fundamental property,' but crucially, it does not invent an inexplicable generative jump.

I really don't see why you think they fall into different categories. The main difference I see is that assuming (without knowing) that consciousness is emergent doesn't require more that what we already have. If you're not positing a mechanism, then your assertion is no more than, "maybe it's not." That's fine, but it doesn't buy you anything and the playing field still level.

To say they offer the same explanation is like saying 'This tower is made of bricks' (fundamental) has the same explanatory value as 'This tower emerges from the surrounding air' (emergent). One states a basic composition; the other posits a magical transformation.

If that's meant to be analogous to our disagreement, then I think you're on the side without the bricks. As far as we can tell, consciousness exists if and only if a physical brain exists. That's the collection of bricks. You're trying to argue that there's some propterty of "towerness" that is independent of or transcends the structure made of bricks. It's the concept of the platonic ideal.

However, you have highlighted a weakness in stating it baldly. This is precisely why Mithrae's separate argument is crucial. His argument provides the reason for preferring the 'conscious fundamental' category. It's not a mere label because:

Evidence: Consciousness is our only indubitable datum.

OK.

Parsimony: It is more parsimonious to take this datum as a clue to reality's nature than to invent an unobserved, non-conscious substrate that then mysteriously generates it.

You seem to be arguing against your own position. We have a physical brain as a substrate, which your own bit of evidence is certainly consistent with. It is indubitable to any individual only because the substrate within which it apparently lies provides the mechanism through which we experience the consciousness. We can't experience the consciousness of someone else. That is completely parsimonious with consciousness being a function of the brain in such a way that it can't extend beyond that brain.

Explanatory Value: A conscious ground doesn't just 'stop' the inquiry; it provides a coherent foundation for the intelligibility of the universe (logic/rationality as aspects of mind) and for the existence of subjective experience (continuity of kind between ground and manifestation).

You're claiming foundation and saying it's coherent, but how does it cohere? How does this "continuity of kind" express itself? Is there a distinction between thought, memory, and consciousness? How do those things interact? You're saying that consciousness feels distinct from those things, but what are your criteria? Nobody shares my emotions, because my emotions are products of my physical limbic system. Nobody shares my thoughts, because my thoughts are a product of my physical brain. Nobody shares my memories, because my memories are a product of that same physical brain. It's not a stretch to think that nobody shares my consciousness because it's also a product of my physical being. I'm sure you have an explanation that suits you, but that explanation has to include why consciousness is tied to each of our physical forms despite being, as you assert, a fundamental property of the universe. Considering its similarity and proximity to other things arising from our physical forms, you'll have to be very careful that your explanation avoids too much special pleading.

The 'conscious ground' is not a placeholder if it is inferred as the best explanation for the specific evidence we have (a structured cosmos + subjective experience). A 'non-conscious ground' is the placeholder, as it must hold a place for a future, inexplicable emergence.

If you can convincingly make the argument for "best explanation," then I might agree with you.

Our second Point of Divergence B is therefore: Does identifying a fundamental property (consciousness) based on parsimony and evidence constitute an explanation, or is it a mere label?

If you were to do so, I think it would, but I don't think you have. That's why I addressed your conclusion of parsimony that is apparently based on your one datum.

I propose we focus on Divergence A first, as it is the core of the CCA. If we can't agree the universe is contingent, the rest is moot. If we agree it's contingent but you maintain the 'conscious ground' is an empty label, we can then debate the comparative explanatory power of fundamental vs. emergent models.

Since I think both prongs of your argument fail and are effectively independent, I'm happy talking about either one.

[William]

[Replying to Mithrae in post #57]

Mithrae requires a fundamental, explanatory consciousness, while Alexx’s model renders any such ground infinitely remote and explanatorily inert. The CCA framework resolves this by providing the principled grounds to reject an infinite regress and to establish an ontologically immediate necessary ground.

Nothing in your OP or as far as I've seen any of your other posts in this thread provide any basis to infer an "ontologically immediate" necessary ground.

We will get to this if it becomes something that requires further debate.

But first, this:

Does your Conscious Ground function as the necessary ontological foundation for all contingent reality (including any 'layers'), or is it merely the first contingent cause in Alexx's infinite chain? If it's necessary, it cannot be 'distant' - it is the immediate ground of being. If it's contingent, then it cannot solve the Hard Problem for our consciousness, as it would be just another brute fact in the stack. Which is it?

Which is it Mithrae?