Problems of Metaphysics

Cosmological-Theological Problem

The Inadequacy of Atomistic Metaphysics: The Concept of Interaction

Let us reflect upon the starting point of these considerations. Three forms of the concept of the world, three cosmological hypotheses, present themselves as conceivable: anthropomorphic theism, atomism, and pantheism.

The preceding sections aimed to demonstrate that the first hypothesis is not only unproven as a theory but lacks the very form of a scientific theory. The understanding of natural and historical reality, culminating in the assumption of a rational architect who meticulously constructed the whole according to a comprehensible intention, has been supplanted at every point by a later evolutionary-historical understanding. It would be sheer self-deception to suppose that this viewpoint could persist devoid of its premises. However, the notion that the evolutionary-historical perspective will in turn vanish as a fleeting trend seems improbable; it may undergo some modifications, yet as long as the balance favors scientific interests, anthropomorphic theism has no domain left to encroach upon.

Now, the question arises: which of the remaining two views merits preference? Which is more consistent with the facts—atomism or pantheistic monism?

In extensive realms, there currently prevails the view that materialistic atomism is the worldview compelled upon us by science, and that Darwin has resolved the only difficulty previously associated with it; that the construction of the world from atoms now faces no substantial obstacle. Among both supporters and critics of Darwin, there exists a consensus that his hypothesis or ultimate conclusion entails the redundancy of divinity or any principle of unity, suggesting that reality can be explained through the naturally law-governed interactions of its parts.

I consider this to be a misconception: the doctrine of development does not presuppose atomistic metaphysics and does not favor it. It is, in fact, not as closely related to metaphysics as is commonly assumed; it can coexist with both idealistically pantheistic metaphysics and materialistically atomistic frameworks. The decision between these two forms of worldview relies on broader considerations, which, in my view, do not lend support to seeking the solution of the world's mystery in atoms; on the contrary, I perceive indications from multiple perspectives that suggest an alternative viewpoint. I will outline those considerations that are decisive for me, without demanding acknowledgment of their coercive evidential strength. In general, it is high time to move beyond the era of believing that logical demonstrations can yield the necessity of one worldview over another. Arguments in favor of the latter views essentially amount to showing how the facts lead to a certain conclusion in our attempts to construct them, or how they, so to speak, converge in the direction of these views.

I propose, in this case, the result of our ontological reasoning. It has led us to the conviction that the materialistic perspective is insufficient for understanding reality; conversely, we must accept that the physical is invariably accompanied by the mental. Let us, however, begin from the perspective of physical observation.

First, let us remind ourselves that atoms are not given facts or objects; they do not constitute the subject of actual, let alone possible, observation. What is given are bodies, or rather—a single corporeal world; this world is first decomposed by thought into distinct objects or bodies, which are perceived as uniformly moving or at rest. Bodies, in turn, break down into parts; a piece of chalk is shattered into fragments, ground into dust, never reaching a limit of divisibility; the quality of the parts remains consistent with that of the whole. However, the same chalk is further decomposed into heterogeneous parts, into chemical elements, lime, and carbon dioxide, which can again be broken down into carbon and oxygen. Yet, the atom, as an object that could be empirically demonstrated, cannot be approached even through this route. The concept of the atom is formed solely as an auxiliary notion for the construction of physical and chemical facts; it denotes the last point that the analytical observation of the chemist has thus far attained.

Metaphysical atomism, however, turns the matter around; it asserts that the final point of analysis is the end of things, or rather the first and absolute beginning of reality; the world is composed of atoms, which are absolutely indestructible and completely autonomous minute bodies.

This assertion is no more valid than if someone were to argue that letters are the first absolutely independent elements from which speech is constructed. Perhaps in the mind of a boy just beginning to study Latin grammar, this is how things appear: the Latin language, like any other, consists of words, words of syllables, syllables of letters, which therefore represent the actual last components, like atoms, from which language is made. A moment's reflection reveals the fallacy of this notion. In reality, there exists only living speech; words, syllables, and letters are abstractions that do not exist as such in actuality. A grammarian divides speech into individual words and sounds; description cannot present the whole at once, hence it disassembles it and gradually reconstructs the whole from the parts. Yet, in actuality, this is not how it happens: language did not begin with the utterance of individual sounds or letters a, b, c, which were then combined into syllables and words, and finally linked together in sentences. Rather, language has always existed in reality only in the context of living speech; in grammatical analysis, letters and words exist as something that is autonomous; in most cases, letters cannot even be pronounced in isolation. The same applies to the life of the mind. Here, too, there exists the notion that the mind is something composed of representations, sensations, and feelings as independent elements. Such a notion is absurd; in reality, there exists only a unified whole, which is only analyzed into distinct aspects and elements for the sake of psychology. One could even go further and assert that what is given, as an independent entity, is not the individual soul, but the collective common life, and within it the individual life as a part or member. In its contemplation, it can be isolated, yet it cannot be encountered in reality as an originally independent element, which can then be combined with many such elements to form a whole. This was the perspective of the old rationalism: a nation is a composition of individuals. Aristotle is correct here, too: the whole exists prior to the parts; the parts exist through the whole.

The same applies to the physical world: an atom is something abstract, akin to a letter; like the latter, it does not exist in reality as an isolated entity; it is neither a self-existing nor an existing object, just as a mute consonant is not. Yet, try to imagine it as such. What form will it take? Is it extended, like a body? If we affirm this question along with ancient atomism, it immediately follows that it is divisible. What is extended has parts that are outside of each other; this is inherent in the very concept, irrespective of whether we can perform the division or not. In such a case, metaphysically, it is not the ultimate singular being but rather a composite, just as is the body. If we strip the atom of its extension and equate it to a point, as physics does for its purposes, then for the materialistic metaphysician, who wishes to make the atom the absolute beginning of the world, a perplexing question arises: what, then, is its essence? What is an existing point? If one says: a system of forces, then, aside from other difficulties, its autonomy is forfeited. A force is only actual insofar as it acts; action presupposes something else that is acted upon. Without this other, the atom-force cannot therefore exist or be understood. And what constitutes the empty space between atoms? If one attempts to provide an answer to these questions, it may turn out that Kant's remedy, the hypothesis of continuity (according to which space is filled continuously, albeit with varying intensity), is at least suitable for resolving a range of very vexing questions. In any case, however, one must conclude that, however simple the matter may initially appear, atoms are far from easy to deal with. They are quite useful as auxiliary means in constructing physics and chemistry, and these disciplines can define this concept as suits their purposes. But to speak of atoms as given ultimate independent elements of reality can only be done by someone who, without pondering the matter, succumbs to the seductive visual analogy: just as a wall consists of bricks, so a brick consists, in turn, of smaller bricks, and so forth, until we finally arrive at the last bricks, which are so small that pondering their nature is hardly worthwhile.

Let me remind you of a view common in the metaphysics of the Father: reality belongs to the singular only within the totality of things, to which it acts and by which it is affected. The ordinary conception assumes that a singular thing can exist by itself, independent of its actions. This is a fallacy: a thing that does not act does not exist; it has its reality only as a member of a whole; for it, reality means standing in relations of action and suffering.

The second perspective, leading to the same conclusion, arises from the very concepts of action and suffering. The ordinary human mind employs these notions daily, finding no particular difficulties within them. It envisions the matter roughly as follows: for action and suffering, two things are required, each possessing its reality by itself. Yet, it turns out that a thing, despite its autonomy, undergoes a change in its state, not grounded within itself; we say it experiences an influence emanating from without, from other things. Likewise, it, in turn, exerts influence upon another thing.

Such has been the fate of philosophy through the ages: to find a stumbling block in what is simple and clear to the world, to seek a nodum in scirpo. Thus, here, it inquires: what does it truly mean to exert influence? It is said: the Moon exerts influence on the Earth; it attracts, for example, the water of the ocean, and thereby causes the phenomenon of tides. What transpires here? Does something detach from the Moon, descend through empty space to the Earth, attach itself to parts of the sea, and lift them towards the Moon? Or does something emanate from the Moon that spreads uniformly in all directions, filling and, as it were, probing the space, and when it encounters some body, large or small, immediately attaches itself to it, pulling it towards the Moon or repelling it? Or must we conceive of the process of influence in some other way? Is the Moon connected to the Earth, each particle of one mass to every particle of the other, by some invisible cord or thread, by which one attracts the other? Yet, on all these matters, physics knows nothing definitively. What it truly tells us when it refers to the tidal wave as an action of the Moon's attractive force is this: the movement of water masses, which we call the tide and ebb, correctly occurs in conjunction with specific changes in the position of the Moon relative to the Earth; in form and magnitude, it corresponds to movements of falling objects on the Earth. Likewise, the statement that all particles of mass are attracted to one another conveys nothing more than this: if at any time and place two masses are in a specific spatial relation to one another, then on both sides occurs a movement toward the common center of gravity, dependent on the magnitude of the masses and the distance between them. Finally, the position that A and B are in interaction means: when A enters state a, then B enters state b, and vice versa. The correct and spontaneous coordination of changes at various points of reality is all we know about interaction.

Perhaps a physicist would object: let us assume that in the examples chosen above the matter stands precisely thus; we can, at least for now, only describe and mathematically formulate gravitational phenomena but not explain them; nonetheless, a time may come when explanation of phenomena from causes becomes possible.

Very well, let us assume that this time has come; let us suppose that it has been possible to reduce the seemingly direct action at a distance in gravitation to some known form of action in proximity, for instance, to push and pressure (taking the latter as the ultimate goal of scientific explanation); would we then know what occurs between the bodies involved in the action, beyond the coordinating movement?

Would the very notion of action at a distance, so despised by many physicists, have been eliminated? A moving billiard ball strikes another that is at rest, and it transmits, as we say, its own motion to it. Do we see here how influence transfers, how movement jumps from one to another? Perhaps every atom of the moving ball touches every atom of the other and transmits its motion to it? Yet the balls only contact each other at a very small part of their surfaces. Or perhaps motion detaches from each atom and, continually transferring from one atom to the nearest adjacent one, travels toward the contact point of both balls through the first body, then similarly spreads through the second, until each element of motion finally finds another atom to carry along with its inherent direction and speed? I think there is no need to elaborate on the monstrous confusions in which such a conception finds itself.

Now let us simplify the scenario further: suppose instead of two balls there are two atoms, one of which moves and imparts motion to the other, at rest, through a push, and then comes to a stop. Do we see here how influence transfers from A to B? Did motion detach, like a skin, from the first atom and attach itself to the second, pulling it along? Yet motion is not a physical thing, not a substantial entity that could detach and exist by itself. What then, consequently, transpires between the two atoms? I believe that in every respect the most fitting admission would be to confess: we know nothing; the only fact we know is that during the first moment, A was in motion, that at a certain point in time, at the moment of contact, it ceased, and that simultaneously, an equal motion in B commenced; finally, that in such a case, similar occurrences always happen. As for the further nature of this process, we know here as little as we do about the transmission of motion between two colliding balls or about celestial bodies attracting one another and mutually determining their paths. Interaction is a term that holds no other meaning than the following: appropriately corresponding change. The only advantage that mechanical transmission of motion holds over other forms of interaction is that it is the most ordinary and familiar form of action to us; we ourselves move and shape bodies through push and pressure. In itself, it is no clearer, in its intrinsic possibility and necessity, or in its process, than any other form of interaction.

The incongruity of that erroneous conception of causal relation, in which the cause seems to push before itself and compel the action, becomes even clearer in the mental realm. We apply the concept of causality to phenomena of inner life. I see the landscape of my homeland; it evokes in my consciousness memories from my youth; feelings of sadness and longing awaken; a desire to see that world again arises and quickly transforms into a resolution. The entire world agrees that we have a causal connection here—regardless of whether we can decompose it into first and irreducible elemental connections or not. It is true that we do not observe anything akin to coercion and necessity here, where each element drives the next before it and seemingly thrusts it into reality or consciousness; rather, one element entirely spontaneously joins another. It is also true that we are unable to comprehend this relationship as mentally necessary; we see only the fact: when a certain specific content of perception is given in consciousness, then certain specific groups of ideas and feelings attach to it. As for how perception can evoke an idea or how a feeling is stirred through an idea, we can say absolutely nothing more; physiologists learn nothing about it, no matter how much they rack their brains. All we know is the fact that when one element occurs, another also occurs—or strives to occur.

David Hume was the first to develop this view on the essence of causality, which grants his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding a prominent position in the history of philosophy. Regarding cause and action, as he shows, even the most penetrating analysis finds absolutely no necessity: neither the necessity of thought, such that, for example, from the concept of cause, action logically follows, nor coercion, by which the acting element would compel the suffering element to change; no connection can be shown between cause and action at all, no internal linkage that would make their relationship necessary for thought. All we know is the appropriate coexistence of phenomena in time. Kant shares Hume's view: the content expressed by the notion that a causal relationship exists between two phenomena is merely their correct coexistence in time; he firmly denies, as does Hume, that thought can derive action from the concept of cause or reduce the law of causality to the law of contradiction.

This thought is not alien to the older, metaphysical direction in modern philosophy. First and foremost, Leibniz, in substituting interaction among the elements of reality with pre-established harmony, is essentially referring to the same idea. The transition of influences from one entity to the essence of another is, for him, an absurd conception; monads are not extended beings with windows and doors through which "influences" might enter. What truly occurs is a concomitance accompanying the corresponding change: if an alteration takes place at any specific point in reality, then corresponding changes occur at other points as well. This notion was prepared by occasionalism; it could not find "internal connection" primarily at one point, specifically concerning the relationship between body and soul. Leibniz, following in the footsteps of Spinoza, generalizes this perspective; he rejects intluxus physicus not only in this instance but everywhere: all things spontaneously harmonize in their changes. In other words, the connection that exists between cause and effect is not a random or particular relation, but a universal and essential one, uniting all elements of reality; these latter are neither foreign nor external to one another, but rather members of a singular being: God is that connection which, in essence, unites all things; He is the being in which they all exist as one.

In our time, these thoughts were again adopted by Lotze, who made them the starting point of his metaphysics. Together with Hume (though he does not seek his support in Hume's empiricism), he insists on the contingency of every causal relationship for our thinking, on the impossibility of demonstrating the connection between cause and effect. Along with Leibniz, whom he appreciates and readily acknowledges as his guide, he derives from this perspective far-reaching consequences. He finds that under the assumption of atomism, the fact of interaction is simply incomprehensible and inaccessible to construction. If reality indeed consisted, as this theory suggests, of a multitude of absolutely independent substances, then the fact of the coordination of its changes would be utterly incomprehensible. If each atom, each element of reality were a thing unto itself, entirely independent in its being and essence, how could it then happen that in its activity it aligns itself with others? One would expect that each would follow its own path, indifferent to the rest.

Or perhaps natural laws compel it to do so? But these latter are neither outside nor above things; they are within them; they merely represent an expression of the actual mode of operation of the latter. Indeed, nothing compels them to be and act differently from what lies within their own nature. It is not the force of the Earth’s gravity nor the law of gravitation that keeps the Moon in its orbit around the Earth, but, so to speak, its own good will; if it were to deviate from this path and head in a tangential direction, there would be nothing from the Earth or the law of gravitation that would oppose it. If it maintains its course along a curved line with a constant deviation from a straight path toward the Earth, it follows this solely from its own nature or inclination. The same holds true everywhere; natural laws do not compel things, but serve as an expression of their spontaneous mode of action. They do not explain why things act in a certain way, but only articulate, in a general formula, how they do act. They do not resolve the mystery, but are themselves the mystery.

Indeed, atomism should, along with Lotze, someday pose the question: whence, then, arises such uniformity in the modes of action of many substances that the latter can be distilled into common formulas? Why does each of them not act differently, since it possesses a being and essence independent of the others? This uniformity might lead him to another conception. If in some mountain valley a great number of stone fragments were found, all displaying completely identical qualities, we would presume that these were fragments of what was once a whole. Should not something similar hold true in our case? Should not the seemingly independent parts of the world be, indeed—not fragments of a former whole, but living members of a singular entity?

Lotze draws this conclusion. Interaction and natural regularity indicate that the elements of the world process are not so foreign and distant from each other as atomism suggests. The universal concordance of all things with one another becomes understandable only if we concede that they are all members of a single being, one substance. In an organic body, there are no isolated changes; every change at any particular point evokes corresponding changes in all other parts. Thus, the world constitutes a single system, allowing no isolated phenomena; every phenomenon is related to all others, representing a partial change caused at a given point within the context of the general change of the whole. If we, along with Spinoza, call this whole the One, or God, then every interaction would occur within God: the motion at each point of His being would harmonize with the motion at all others in a unified collective movement.

Therefore, the fact of universal interaction, if one follows its implications and develops the concepts to their conclusion, leads to the idea of the unity of reality: there exists but one single being, with one singular activity harmonizing within itself; individual things comprise mere moments of its essence; their activities, determined by interaction, are, in reality, excerpts from the unified self-motion of the substance. Or, to use Kant's expression: universal interaction in the mundus sensibilis is the unitas phaenomenon, which corresponds in the mundus intelligibilis to unitas noumenon.

Now, by linking this reasoning with the outcome of our ontological analysis (according to which all phenomena in the corporeal world are indications of internal phenomena), can we not view the unity of cosmic movements through interaction as a reflection of the internal concord of the singular inner life of the spiritual One? We would then possess a perspective designated by the name of pantheism; it might also be termed monotheism in the strict sense of the word: there exists one God; all that exists does so through God and in God.

Before attempting to answer this question, I shall make a few observations on the relationship between causality and teleology.