Formal Cause

Conception is Prior to Being

DNA Molecule

Looking at a DNA molecule, it is hard to ignore the presence of its conceptual substance. Even held as a fixed object, the molecule is conceptual in its formal extension. Yet, when we see D- and RNA in action, the function of the form, its telos, is undeniable. For these are not just energetic structures, like a salt crystal, beautiful and wonderful as it is in the dynamic stasis of its being, but these DNA and partner RNA molecules conform to a metaphysical structure that, without metaphor, must be called Language.

As is witnessed by the ignorant, disjointed arguments of online atheists, you cannot deny the harmonious singing presence of prior metaphysical intention in the world without doing violence to the liberty granted your intellect in pursuing Truth. Try to make an atheist face metaphysics and they generally say these are dumb and unnecessary, “an outmoded philosophy to match your Medieval God”; whatever the ontosⁱ of metaphysical substances, such as language, maths, and certain material conceptions such as DNA and the Periodic Table, the Atheist must hold that energetic matter precedes its own metaphysical conditions. For, if metaphysics are affectual, then ideas can be causal, and these enacted thoughts require a Thinker and Doer.

So the atheist is constantly reclaims a state of ignorance as to Cause, and this must be the case for those who hold the prior commitment that only matter and energy have real existence. For the hard materialist, and with these I include the new energeticists (for energy is an event in Spacetime, and thus of the creaturely order) for these ‘Logical Positivists’ energetic matter must be the cause of its own being, its own apparent linguistic structures are at times even said to only exist in the mind of human concievers, that their patterns are only made such by pattern recognition entities, such as human beings. But this is truly a silly notion. Water is not composed of two hydrogen and one oxygen atom only when this concept is held as a thought. If true, atomic theory is so whether anyone understands this state of things or not.

There is a tendency then to seek an answer to the metaphysical problem by treating energy as the cause of matter, and thus to treat energy as the physical stand-in for the old metaphysical Cause. This is a very sensible intuition, as the material world seems indeed to be constructed of a plenum of energy bundles, which all share in a common, yet varied atomic structure, which structure permits them to repel or attract other elements and thus to be and transform continually.

However, at the resolution of human interaction, these atomic structures are invisible, and the material forms they present do not obviously give the details of atomic structure. Wonderfully though, they give clues as to their underlying structure; such as through the crystalline forms of minerals, each presenting the collective form of its molecular structure, square, pentagonal, or what-have-you, at their human resolution. For example consider the molecular structure of a quartz crystal depicted below, followed by the image of a quartz crystal at human resolution.

Quartz Molecular Structure

IRL Quartz Crystal

As will be demonstrated, these logical structures, the Periodic Table, DNA, RNA, are necessarily prior to material manifestation. The contemporary agnostic or atheist wants energy to be the cause of its own organization, or for this organization to simply be the natural state of things. By ‘natural’ is assumed ‘occurring for its own sake’, or ‘by obvious and unavoidable cause’. A clear definition is not often given, and referring to a nature as simply given, is to simply avoid the problem of how Nature came to be thus. And this is precisely the question we are trying to answer as to the causal relationship between matter, energy and form. And, the idea that matter, as in extended energetic bodies of sense, can be the cause of its own metaphysical effects, is a hard ontology to hold with any seriousness. The very concept is clumsy, confused, and admits of not seeking an answer, but only avoiding the question.

The atheist apologist will generally avoid admitting he is responsible for answering the causal question even only insofar as it relates to Matter and Energy. And yet he most certainly must answer the question, or at least engage the controversy. Instead of only hoping to hide some of the mystery of Being in the energies, often invisible in themselves, and thus naturally mysterious. In these patterned energetic forms, a third, numinous, cause is implied, which cannot be equated with the energetic intent of the objects themselves. Rather it is more reasonable to say the objects conform to these numinous intentions, such as in the atomic energetic conception seen across the elements of the Periodic Table. For as much as the intuition that matter subsists in energy is valid, so is the intuition that the formal atomic concept is prior to any particular energetic pattern manifesting the conceptual form into a material body.

Periodic Table of Elements

Even the hard-line Positivist Atheist must give an account of the origin of these metaphysical forms in material things. These forms are the Information in the systems of material being, both at the elemental level, being under the energetic structures of the elements, and at the level of living material organisms, they are the underlying polylingual genetic information system that builds and maintains cell life.

The real sting, that atheists spend a great deal of time avoiding a face to face meeting with, is this necessary precondition of the formal>energetic>material information systems. Even in the a-theistic universe, at the first accidental becoming of an energetic structure producing even a single gold atom, the whole of the atomic conceptual metaphysics of the Periodic Table is necessarily implied. For as soon as the formation of a second gold atom occurs, they both share in a type, a numinous type, independent of each particular state of ‘being gold’.

Atomic Structure of a Gold Atom

Gold Nugget

Of course the atheist will protest that he believes no such nonsense about numinous forms, yet, what else can be the case? Can we be made honestly to believe that as the primordial stuff after the Big Bang spread and organized itself, and always according to the same energetic language forms as documented in the Periodic Table, that this was only an accidental conformity repeated countless times? In a randomly coalescing cosmos shouldn’t we expect a variety of such conceptual structures if they are defined only by properties of proto-material stuff, and not by prior metaphysical intentions, and that these would not necessarily excluded cohabitation in common Spacetime for material objects which have different conceptual structures. That is they could interact with each other as extended mass bodies, but be chemically distinct, and thus inert to each other. There is no reason from the ontos of the spontaneous genesis cosmology to exclude a variety of such energetic structures for material objects. If one pattern could manifest without reason or will, then what is to keep the number of such structures to just one. That we do not see such variety of independent objects, or sets of objects in our world is indicative Unity, the First Formal Cause of the cosmos.

Yet, if we want to insist the energetic patterns of DNA and the Periodic Table, that these are only the natural forms ‘here’ in our world, and other universes may exist under other conceptual forms, we are only necessarily admitting these language forms exist prior to any energetic material manifestation in Spacetime. To repeat, the very natural order, that the same sorting and coalescence events can happen in multiple locations and at different times indicates the Formal Language is prior to any particular energetic or material manifestation.

If the formal intentions are not prior to particular being then we must suppose that as each element has organized itself by conceptionless accident, and by this act it makes possible repetition of the act of ‘cooling into a lump of gold’ in other locations. But this is a very queer state of being: that energy writes metaphysics into being when manifesting an initial material form, and that this formal being now governs the becoming of other like elements. Who or what is the keeper of patents in such a world?

It is obvious that the concepts of the energetic structures of the Periodic Table are metaphysical and prior to particular material being. As even if all that ever popped into existence was a single water molecule, it can only come into existence within the full conceptual system of atomic variety: each element implies the others, as it implies the whole system; a single element constructed atomically is an absurdity. Yet, so is the possibility that two different elements should coalesce, without direction, but according to a thematic conception which allows them to combine and form secondary elements, such as is the case with hydrogen and oxygen forming the water molecule. The case is the same, even greater, for the genetic codes and the DNA RNA molecular structures which their energetic language holds in being. Long before the first cell was supposedly brought together under the right conditions of heat and chemicals, the language of life would have already been written. For again, in the first instance of life, in the first proto-cell was written a fragment of the entire language of life.

For Accident to write a fragment in the particular instance of a single cell organism and in this single accidental event imply metaphysically the entire language of living organism is an absurd assertion. For, it would be impossible for cells to evolve unless they were evolving into a structural possibility, and such possibility must be prior to particular mutation. That is even Evolution must be a process of discovery of what was preordained, not an ad hoc invention.

Neither matter nor energy in themselves can author the metaphysical concepts of the elements, or living bodies. Though Energy, seems to be the cause of Matter, both energy and matter are effects of their metaphysical conceptual substance. This Affect is and must always be acknowledged as Rational Creative Will. For all three of these attributes form a necessary triune Cause for material being. We have seen the Rational nature in the atom and the genetic codes. We see the Creative aspect in the superabundance of material and living forms; the very energetic languages are prolific in creative modulation because they are perfect in logic. Will is implied in the very energetic Being of things. This lack of sustaining Will is the perennial problem for the atheist cosmologist; he must find energy as the memory of the Big Bang in everything.
There is a too common intrusion of the general atheistic beliefs argued against here found among Catholic clergy and thinkers. Through the Scientific Revolution the Material and Numinous realms have been separated. The quarantine was initially a desperate attempt to protect faith from the seemingly endless victories of material science over the material claims of the Faith. But this division is quite happily embraced now by Modernists, for whom Faith is an interior sentimental experience, not an external revealed Truth.

Though just an introduction, the arguments in this post defend the position of the Fathers, that there is no absolute separation between the material world and the spiritual world. Not to say that God is not separate, and exists independent of the material world. But rather to say that God’s authorship of the material world is obvious through a careful contemplation of its elements and their formal causes. We needn’t bow before ‘Science’ when dealing with material reality and then taking what is left to our subjective ‘faith space’. This division naturally informs at least a passive Gnosticism, but one where the material world is more real than the numinous world. From the above logical demonstrations, the spiritual realm is more real, in that the material world depends on the metaphysical intentions for its formal causes.

i Below is a Brave definition for Ontos. I use the term to denote true being, the total of the causes of a particular entities being. What is the plenary truth of the being of some particular thing, including the historical motions and transformations of its constituent elements.

The Greek word ὄντως (ontos) is an adverb meaning “truly,” “really,” “indeed,” or “in fact”. It is derived from the participle of the verb “to be” (eimi), emphasizing reality or genuine existence. In the New Testament, it is used to underscore the authenticity and certainty of a statement, such as affirming the resurrection of Jesus (”The Lord has indeed risen” ), the righteousness of Christ (”Certainly this man was righteous” ), or the genuine nature of a widow’s need (”widows that are widows indeed” ). The term functions to distinguish what is genuinely true from what is merely pretended or superficial.