RAMOSS said:
IN that case, where did the first efficient cause come from? According to the axioms, nothing os an efficient cause of itself. The so called 'first cause' did not have an efficient cause. But to exist at all.. it would need a cause. So, either it is an uncausd cause, or it is eternal.
Yes, that is correct. Most cosmological arguments are actually reductio arguments; the basic structure of cosmological arguments is this:
1. Start with two premises which are apparently true of everything in the universe.
2. Show that if both are true they create a contradiction.
3. Appeal to an intuition that it would be better to suppose God exists than to abandon either premise.
In this case (i.e. with Aquinas' second way), the two premises are:
Nothing exists prior to itself.
Things have efficient causes (efficient causes are defined such that if a thing doesn't have one, it doesn't exist).
From these two premises (which are 1, 2, and 4 in the argument), Aquinas reasons to 7, which is stated in a specific way: it is necessary to
admit a first cause.
So, unless there is a flaw in the reasoning, we have four options:
1. Abandon the law of non-contradiction.
2. Abandon the proposition that nothing exists prior to itself.
3. Abandon the proposition that things have efficient causes as defined.
4. Admit there must be at least one thing that is an exception--that is, one thing for which at least one of the two premises is untrue, and which has the power to cause everything else.
Of course, there could be a flaw in the reasoning. I don't think there is. I think the flaw comes after the argument is done, when Aquinas and others try to evaluate the import of the conclusion, which just doesn't seem to be quite what is usually supposed.
RAMOSS said:
If there is one uncaused cause, why can't there be many uncaused causes?
Of course there could be. This is one reason among many I say the import isn't what is commonly supposed. That is to say that while I think cosmological arguments succeed, they don't succeed in what their authors suppose they do.
Interesting bit of trivia: this may have been one of the reasons William of Ockham proposed his razor: once you know there needs to be an exception, don't multiply them unecessarily.
RAMOSS said:
If there is one thing that is eternal, why can't there be multiple thing that are eternal?
Again, of course there could be. Even things that seem to be temporary might be eternal.