or contingent beings.Criticisms regarding Aquinas’ second way, the nature of efficient causation, also result in various objections to the argument. First of all, it seems like Aquinas decides, arbitrarily, that the first efficient cause is called “God” by everyone. One may argue that given there is some First Cause, it does not follow that there is God. It does not follow either that there is just one such cause, or that this being has the other attributes ordinarily ascribed to God. The defense against this criticism could be to analyze what is involved in having full spontaneity, free from any conditions or prompting. That is, the First Cause has all the independence, capabilities, and richness involved in absolute spontaneity and freedom from conditions. In other words, if these lofty claims did not apply to God, what then? Would that prospect involve “dragging down” God from the exalted status and character involved in being the First Cause? If so, then that very fact is proof enough that these traditional ideas of God are true after all. Also, one may argue that in this argument, even though each being in the infinite series has a cause, the infinite series itself has no causal explanation. For example, people imagine that, by making the chain of causes reach back to infinity, they can somehow evade the force of this argument. For instance, if the series went back forever, the need for something to start it is irrelevant. However, and in defense against this criticism, Aquinas had argued that the world in principle could have existed forever. In fact, the world began to exist, but that need not have been so. If the world had existed forever, it would still be completely dependant on God to exist. It would still not have existed of itself. The world would still be created as being made to exist by God. Indeed, since God is not subject to time, and so is not “in” time, one might well say t...
